See you next weekend at five between the two twisty trees.
Forever and ever and ever,
-Maggie May Riley
I hated Maggie May.
I wished there were a bigger word to describe my feelings for the annoying, loud-mouthed girl who had been following me around lately, but hate seemed to be the only thing that came to mind whenever she stood near me. I should’ve never given her that nightlight all those years ago. I should’ve just pretended she didn’t exist.
“Why is she coming?” I groaned, packing fishing line, floats, sinkers, and hooks into my tackle box. For the past two years I’d been on fishing trips with my dad, my older brother, Jamie, Calvin, and his new dad, Eric—or Mr. Riley as I called him. We’d go up to Harper Creek, ’bout a fifteen-minute walk away, and sit on Mr. Riley’s boat, laughing and joking with one another. The lake was so huge that if you looked across it, you could hardly see the other side where the town’s shops were located. Calvin and I often tried to point out the buildings, like the library, the grocery store, and the mall. Then, we’d try our best to catch some fish. It was a dudes’ day where we ate too much junk food and didn’t care if our guts were close to bursting. It was our tradition, and it was currently being ruined by a stupid ten-year-old who always sang and never stopped dancing in circles. Maggie May was the definition of annoying. That was the truth, too. I looked up her name in the dictionary once and the meaning was: ‘Calvin’s annoying stepsister.’
I might’ve added the definition myself and gotten yelled at by my mom for writing in a book, but still, it was true.
“My parents said she had to come,” Calvin explained, lifting his rod. “Mom is taking Cheryl to the doctor, so there ain’t nobody to watch her for the next few hours.”
“Can’t she just be locked in the house? Your parents could leave her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a juice box or something.”
Calvin smirked. “I wish. It’s so stupid.”
“She’s so stupid!” I exclaimed. “She has this idea that she’s gonna marry me in the woods. She’s crazy.”
Jamie snickered. “You’re just sayin’ that because you secretly love her.”
“I do not!” I shouted. “That’s disgusting. Maggie May makes me sick. The thought of her gives me nightmares.”
“You say that because you love her,” Jamie mocked.
“You better shut your mouth before I shut it for you, jerk. She said you were the one who spread the rumor about me liking her! You’re the reason she thinks we’re getting married.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I know.”
“Why would you do that?”
Jamie slugged me in the shoulder. “’Cause I’m your big brother, and big brothers are supposed to make their younger brothers’ lives terrible. It’s in the sibling contract.”
“I never signed a contract.”
“You were underage, so Mom signed it for you, duh.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. All I know is Maggie is going to ruin today. She has a way of ruining everything. Besides, she doesn’t even know how to fish!”
“I do, too!” Maggie yapped, barging out of their house wearing a dress, yellow sandals, and holding a Barbie fishing rod.
Ugh! Who goes fishing in a dress, and with a Barbie fishing rod?
She combed her fingers through her stringy blond hair and flared her gigantic nose. “I bet I catch more fish than both Calvin and Brooks could ever catch! Not you, Jamie. I bet you’re good at fishing.” She gave him a smile that made me gag. She had the ugliest smile.
Jamie grinned back. “I bet you ain’t so bad, either, Maggie.”
Insert eye roll here. Jamie always did that—made super nice with Maggie because he knew it annoyed me. I knew there was no way he liked her at all, because she was so unlikeable.
“Are you boys gonna sit here all day, or are we going to get walking down to the creek?” Mr. Riley asked, coming out of the house carrying his tackle box and fishing rod. “Let’s get a move on.”
We all started walking down the road—well, the guys walked. Maggie skipped, and twirled, and sang more pop songs than anyone should’ve had to hear. I swear, if I had to watch her do the Macarena one more time, I’d go crazy. Once we reached the woods, I imagined us dudes climbing onto Mr. Riley’s boat, and Maggie somehow getting left behind.
What a perfect daydream.
“We’re gonna need some bait,” Mr. Riley said, pulling out a small digging shovel and his metal pail. “Whose turn is it?”
“Brooks,” Calvin said, pointing toward me. Each time we went fishing, one person was in charge of going digging through the dirt in the woods to collect some worms. I grabbed the shovel and pail and didn’t complain. Truth was, digging for the worms was one of my favorite parts of fishing.
“I think Maggie should go with him.” Jamie smirked, winking at Maggie. Her face lit up with hope, and I was seconds away from knocking my brother over the head.
“No. I’m good. I can do it myself.”
“I can go, though.” Maggie grinned ear to ear.
Such an ugly smile!
“Daddy, can I go with Brooks?”
My eyes darted to Mr. Riley, and I knew I was doomed, because Mr. Riley suffered heavily from DS—daughter syndrome. I’d never once seen him say no to Maggie, and I doubted he had any plans to start that afternoon.
“Sure, darling. You two have fun.” He smiled. “We’re gonna get the boat set up, and once you’re both back, we’ll get out on the water.”
Before we headed out into the woods, I made sure to give Jamie a hard slug in the arm. He slugged me harder, making Maggie laugh. As she and I headed into the woods, I put in the earbuds attached to my MP3 player and hurried my pace, hoping to lose her, but her skips and twirls were surprisingly fast.
“So, have you found a tie yet?” she asked.
I rolled my eyes. Even with my music playing, I could still hear her loud mouth. “I’m not marrying you.”
She giggled. “We’re getting married in two days, Brooks. Don’t be silly. I’m guessing Calvin is your best man, or will it be Jamie? Cheryl is going to be my maid of honor. Hey, you think I can listen to some of your music? Calvin said you have some of the best music ever, and I think I should know what kind of music you listen to if we’re getting married.”
“We aren’t, and you’re never gonna touch my MP3 player.”
She giggled as if I had told a funny joke.
I started digging around in the dirt, and she swung on tree branches. “Are you going to help me dig or what?”
“I’m not touching a worm.”
“Then why did you even come out here?”
“So we could finish planning together, duh. Plus, I was hoping we could go look at the cabin not far from here. It could be our house, if you wanted it to. We could fix it up for us, Skippy, and Jam. Ain’t nobody living there, anyway. It’s big enough for our family.”
This girl was a lunatic.
As I kept digging, she kept talking. The quicker I dug, the faster she spoke about girly crap I didn’t care about—shoes, makeup, first dances, wedding cakes, decorations. She even talked about how the abandoned cabin could be used to put the food inside for a reception. The list went on and on. I considered ditching the shovel and pail and running for my life—it was pretty clear that Maggie was out to kill me. When she mentioned the naming of our first child, I knew things had gone too far.
“Listen!” I shouted, knocking over the pail with the few worms I had found. They wiggled around, trying to find their way back into the dirt, and I didn’t even care. I puffed out my chest and shuffled my feet in her direction. My fists thrust in the air, and I screamed straight into her face. “We are not getting married! Not today, not tomorrow, not ever! You disgust me, and I was only nice to you in the last letter because Jamie said if I wrote you any meaner letters, he’d tell my parents and I’d get in trouble. Okay? So just shut up already with all this wedding talk.”
 
; Our faces were inches apart. Her fingers were clasped behind her back, and I saw the small tremble in her bottom lip. Maggie narrowed her eyes, studying me, as if trying to decipher the clear-as-day words I had just delivered to her. For a second she frowned, but then she found that ugly smile again. Before I could roll my eyes, she leaned in toward me, grabbed my cheeks with both of her hands, and pulled me closer to her.
“What are you doing?” I asked with smooshed cheeks.
“I’m going to kiss you, Brooks, because we have to work on our first kiss before doing it in front of our family and friends.”
“You definitely aren’t going to kiss—” I paused and my heart thudded. Maggie placed her lips against mine and pulled me in closer to her. Without hesitation, I yanked away from her. I wanted to say something, but speaking seemed hard, so I stared, awkwardly and uncomfortably.
“We should try again,” she said, nodding to herself.
“No! Do not kiss—” Again, she kissed me. I felt my whole body heating up, with…anger? Or maybe confusion? No. Anger. Definitely anger. Or maybe…
“Will you stop that?” I hollered, ripping myself away again and stepping backward. “You can’t go around kissin’ people who don’t want to be kissed!”
Her eyes grew heavy and her cheeks reddened. “You don’t want to kiss me?”
“No! I don’t. I don’t want nothin’ to do with you, Maggie May Riley! I don’t want to be your neighbor anymore. I don’t want to be your friend. I don’t want to marry you, and I most certainly don’t want to kiss—” I was cut off again, but this time by myself. Somehow, during my rant, I had stepped closer and closer to her, and my lips stole her next breath. I placed my hands against her cheeks and smooshed them together, kissing her hard for a whole ten seconds. I counted each second, too. When we pulled away, we both stood still.
“You kissed me,” she whispered.
“It was a mistake,” I replied.
“A good mistake?”
“A bad mistake.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Brooks?”
“Maggie?”
“Can we have one more bad mistake kiss?”
I kicked my shoe around in the grass and rubbed the back of my neck. “It won’t mean I’m going to marry you.”
“Okay.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “I mean it. It will just be ten seconds and that’s it. We’ll never kiss again. Ever.”
“Okay,” she replied, nodding.
I stepped in closer, and we both smooshed each other’s faces. When we kissed, I closed my eyes, and I counted to ten.
I counted slowly, as slow as the worms moved.
1…
1.3…
1.5…
2…
“Brooks?” was muttered into my mouth, and my eyes opened to find Maggie staring my way.
“Yes?” I asked, our hands still smashed against each other’s cheeks.
“We can stop kissing now. I’d already counted to ten five times.”
I stepped back, embarrassed. “Whatever. We need to get back to the boat, anyway.” I hurried to try to recollect the worms, failing terribly, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Maggie swaying in her dress, humming away.
“Hey, Brooks. I know I said you could wear the mud-colored tie for the wedding, but I think you’d look better in a green one. Bring the tie for our rehearsal tomorrow. Meet me right here at seven.” Her lips curved up, and I couldn’t help but wonder what had changed about her in that moment.
Her smile didn’t look completely ugly anymore.
As she started off, I stood quickly, knocking over the worms again. “Hey, Maggie?”
She swung away on her heels. “Yes?”
“Can we maybe try the kissing thing one more time?”
She blushed and smiled, and it was beautiful. “For how long?”
“I don’t know…” I stuffed my hands into my pockets and shrugged, looking down at the grass as a worm wiggled across my shoestring. “Maybe just for ten more seconds.”
I loved Brooks Tyler.
I wished there were a bigger word to describe my feelings for the handsome, rude boy who had been kissing me lately, but love seemed to be the only thing that came to mind whenever he stood near me.
As I lay on my bed, thinking and thinking about our last ten-second kiss, I heard a loud, “You have to be kidding me!” from Cheryl.
I wasn’t certain what was howling more, the wind outside or Cheryl. “I don’t know how to be a maid of honor!” Cheryl whined as she plopped down next to me. Her curly red hair bobbed up and down as she bounced on my mattress. Cheryl had been my best friend since I’d moved in with her family, on top of being my stepsister. Therefore, she had to be my maid of honor.
“You don’t have to do anything, really, except everything I don’t want to do, and when I’m stressed over wedding planning, you’re the girl I get to yell at nonstop. Oh, and you have to hold the back of my dress while I walk down the aisle.”
“Why do I have to hold your dress?’
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but my aunt’s maid of honor held hers, so I think that’s just part of getting married.” In the middle of my bedroom floor I’d set up the whole layout of the wedding ceremony with my Barbie dolls, stuffed animals, and My Little Pony toys. Ken was standing in for Brooks in the position of groom, and Barbie was standing in for me.
“How’d you even get a boyfriend, anyway?” Cheryl asked, still bouncing.
“Fiancé,” I corrected. “And it’s pretty easy really. I’m sure you could get one. You just twirl your hair and write a letter telling him he’s going to marry you.”
“Really?” Cheryl’s voice heightened. “That’s all it takes?”
I nodded. “That’s it.”
“Wow.” She sighed, sounding a bit amazed. I didn’t know why, though. Boys were pretty easy to get. Mama said it was the gettin’ rid of them that was the trouble. “How do you know all of this?”
“Mama told me.”
She pouted. “Why didn’t she tell me? I’m her daughter, too. Plus, she was my mom first.”
“You’re probably just too young. She’ll probably tell you next year or something.”
“I don’t want to wait a year.” Cheryl stopped her bouncing and started twirling her hair. “I need a pen and paper. Or, well…are you sure Brooks wouldn’t want to marry me, too?”
My hands slammed against my hips, and I cocked an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She kept twirling. “I’m just saying. I’ve seen him smile at me a lot.”
Oh. My. Gosh.
My sister was a tramp. Mama said I wasn’t allowed to say that word, but I had heard her call her sister it once for going after a married man, and Aunt Mary hadn’t been happy about it. Cheryl was pretty much trying to do the same thing.
“He’s friendly. He smiles at everyone. I saw him smile at a squirrel once.”
“You’re comparing the smiles he gives me to the smiles he gives squirrels?” she asked, her voice heightened. I hesitated for a moment, thinking on it. Cheryl and squirrels had a few things in common. For example, squirrels liked nuts, and Cheryl was completely nuts if she thought for a second Brooks would like her before me.
Cheryl stood up and huffed, still twirling her hair. “You took too long to answer! Wait until I tell Ma what you said! I could get any boyfriend I wanted, Maggie May, and you ain’t gonna tell me no different!”
“I don’t care. You just can’t have my fiancé.”
“I could!”
“Couldn’t!”
“Could!”
“Shut up and stop twirling your stupid hair!” I screamed.
She gasped, teared up, and whined, storming off. “I’m not coming to your wedding!”
“You aren’t even invited!” I hollered back her way.
It only took a few minutes before Mama walked into my room with narrowed eyes. “You girls had another fight, huh?”
/> I shrugged. “She was just being dramatic again.”
“For two best friends, you sure get annoyed with one another quite often.”
“Yeah, well, that’s kind of what girls do.”
She smiled and agreed completely. “Well, just remember, she’s younger than you, Maggie, and Cheryl doesn’t have it as easy as you do. She’s a bit of a loner and an oddball, and doesn’t quite fit in. You’re her only true friend and her sister. She’s family, and what does family do?”
“Look out for each other?”
Mama nodded and kissed my forehead. “That’s right. We look out for each other, even on the tough days.” Whenever Cheryl and I got into fights, Mama always said that to me. Family looks out for each other. Especially on the tough days when it was hard to even look at each other.
I remembered the first time she had said it, too. She and Daddy had sat Calvin, Cheryl, and me down in the living room and told us all it was okay to call them Mama and Dad if we wanted to. It was the night of their wedding, and we were officially a family. As we sat there, Mama and Daddy had us pile our hands on top of one another and make a promise to always look out for each other. Because that’s what families do.
“I’ll apologize,” I whispered to myself, talking about Cheryl. She was, after all, my best friend.
I spent the rest of the afternoon planning the wedding. I’d been dreaming of my wedding since I was seven years old, so a super long time. I wondered what kind of music Brooks liked. Since he wouldn’t let me listen, I had to guess on my own. He and Calvin had been messing around with Daddy’s guitars a bit each night and said they were going to be famous musicians someday. I didn’t much believe them at first, but the more they practiced each night, the better they got. Maybe they could play at the wedding. Also, maybe I’d pick his favorite song to walk down the aisle to. Then again, he and my brother had been singing “Sexy Back” by Justin Timberlake for the past week, and that didn’t seem wedding-y enough for me.
Maybe for our first dance, though.
Each night after Mama and Daddy put us all to bed, I’d hear music playing downstairs in the living room. It was the same song every single time: Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me”—their first dance song. Tiptoeing out of my room, I went to the top of the staircase and looked downstairs. The lights were dimmed, Daddy took Mama’s hand and asked her a question. “Dance with me?” he asked her every night before they started to dance. Daddy was spinning Mama around in circles, both of them giggling like they were kids. Mama had a glass of wine in her hand, and as Daddy swayed her, the wine flew from the glass and onto the white carpet. They giggled even more at the mess and pulled each other closer. Mama’s head rested against Daddy’s chest as he whispered into her ear, and they danced so slow.