I folded the wrapper back up and tucked it into my bra.
Damon’s room reminded me of his handwriting: measured and square, though not exactly perfect. His desk had desk stuff on it, and while his closet door hung open, everything inside seemed organized and in place, including the half-filled white laundry basket on the floor. Books stuffed his shelves, propped in place by trophies that threatened to fall off the edges. He had a phone, and a couple of pictures on the wall, as well as the one I’d drawn for him. He’d framed it, and that made me feel kind of warm inside.
Beside it hung a picture of his mom. He hadn’t exaggerated. She could’ve been a movie star. I shivered in my underwear and stared at her for a long time. If she hadn’t died, they’d all still be in Africa. I would never have met Damon. But he’d still have a whole family.
I sat down on Damon’s bed to put on the sweatpants. Way too big and long. I cinched the drawstring around my waist and rolled the bottoms three or four times. Then I pulled the gray and white college hoodie over my head and rolled up the sleeves.
A hairbrush lay on the nightstand, so I grabbed it and bent forward to tug it through my hair. The last few chunks of ice dropped onto the floor, and I worked out several rat’s nests. Then I combed it all away from my face and put his brush back.
I ran my hand over his green plaid comforter, then leaned over and smelled his pillow. Wind again, and something else. His shampoo, maybe.
A hard knock came at the door and the knob rattled. I jumped up. “Just a second.”
“Spooky? That you?”
“Adam?”
He whistled. “Damon, my boy!” he called and pounded on the door. “Wouldn’t have thought it of you!”
Damon called from downstairs. “She’s changing. Leave her alone.”
“Then what are you doing down there?” Adam yelled back.
“Knock it off, Adam,” their dad barked.
I opened the door and scowled.
Adam looked me over. “Looking good.”
“My clothes were wet.”
“Had a little roll in the snow?” He winked at me.
“A snowball fight.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s how it starts.”
“How what starts?”
He shook his head and laughed with a French accent. “If you don’t know yet, maybe I need to have a little talk with my little bro.”
“Your dad’s right,” I said, through yet another blush. “Knock it off.”
I grabbed my clothes and followed Adam downstairs. Damon grinned when he saw me.
“Way too big,” I said. I hung my wet jeans and sweater over the fireplace doors.
“Nah,” Damon disagreed. “Cute.”
“Hey, loverboy,” Adam said and clamped his forearm around Damon’s neck. “You done with the snowmobile?”
“I’ve got to take her home sometime.”
“I can take her right now,” Adam offered.
I shook my head. “Not riding with you again.”
Their dad looked up from his magazine. “Again?”
“What did he do?” Damon asked.
I just looked at Adam.
“Popped a wheelie. Freaked her out.”
Damon elbowed him hard in the ribs.
Adam doubled over and started a swear word, but cut it short. “Do that again, I will pound you into Purina.”
“How long can you stay?” Damon asked me.
Good question. Mom usually had a special dinner for birthdays. “I don’t know, really.”
Mr. Sheppard raised his eyebrows. “No plans with your family?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You want to call home and ask?”
I didn’t want to, but I didn’t want to make a bad impression on Damon’s dad, so I went to the kitchen and dialed. I drew Santa Claus in the wetness on the window as the phone rang.
Mark picked up. “You at the Sheppards’ again?”
“Yes, I am. Is Mom or Dad there?”
“Yeah, they’re home.”
“Anyone else?”
“Who else would be?”
My fingernail etched age lines around Santa’s eyes. “Ask them what time I need to be back, okay?”
“What do you care?”
Santa’s hat tipped to the side and I filled in his beard with curlicues. “Why are you being such a jerk?”
I heard a scuffling sound, then Mom got on. “Where are you, Juliet?”
“Guess.”
She almost whispered into the phone. “You don’t need to talk to me like that.”
“When do I need to be home?”
“How about now? The snow is just getting deeper. Roads are closing and driving is only going to get more dangerous.”
“Not by snowmobile.”
She sighed. “And I need to talk to you.” She dropped her voice even lower. “About this morning.”
“Are there any plans for today? Anything I should come home for?”
“Plans?”
Something dropped out of my heart and thudded into my stomach. “Um, dinner?”
“Ha. Since when do you worry about dinner?”
“I don’t know. On my birthday,” I whispered.
A pause and a gasp.
Unbelievable.
“Oh, well.” She huffed a couple of times. “That was going to be a surprise.”
“Whatever,” I said. “I’ll be home when I get home.”
She said my name as I put the phone in its cradle.
Then the lights went out.
* * * * *
“Had a feeling that might happen,” Mr. Sheppard said. He came into the kitchen and picked up the phone. He put it to his ear, then back in the cradle. “Phone’s out, too.”
“I’m taking the snowmobile,” Adam called just before the door to the garage closed.
“You’re stuck with us,” Damon said.
I could think of so many worse places to be stuck.
“Don’t go too far!” Mr. Sheppard yelled at Adam. “Do you want Damon to take you home first?” He reached up to the cabinet above the fridge and pulled out a flashlight. “Speak now, before Adam’s gone.”
No. Absolutely not. Never, ever, no way. “Only if it’s more convenient.”
“That’s what I thought.” He headed into the other room. “Close up the house,” he called back.
Damon took my hand. “Come on. We’ll keep a fire going in the living room till the power comes back.” He closed the kitchen door behind us, then shut all the other doors and sealed off the living room. “You cold?”
“Only a little. My hair’s still wet.”
He took me over to the hearth and pulled a couple of throw pillows and a blanket off the couch for us to lean back on. “What do you want to do?”
Make out with you. “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
He thought for a second. “Play a game?”
“Sure.”
“What game?” he asked.
Spin the Bottle? Seven Minutes in the Closet? “Monopoly?”
He shook his head. “Half the money’s missing from that. Scrabble?”
“Sure.”
He got it from upstairs and we put it on the coffee table.
His dad came back in. “I’m going to check on Mrs. Frantz.” He looked at Damon. “I will be right back.”
“Okay, Dad.”
Mr. Sheppard leaned into the room a little further and pointed at Damon. “Right back.”
I smiled and lined up my letter tiles.
When his dad closed the garage door, Damon huffed. “Geez. What does he think, I’m going to attack you or something?”
I’d be so totally okay with that.
“What?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“What was that look?”
“I’ve got a B. Unless you have an A, I’ll go first.”
He checked his tiles. “Nope. No A.”
Across the star at the center of the
board I laid the word broken.
“Nice.”
While I replaced my tiles Damon put his word across mine.
“Smooch?” I asked.
He grinned really big. “It’s all I had.”
“You could’ve done mooches across my E,” I pointed out.
“Nope. Only one O. Had to use one of yours.”
I moved my letters around on the rack. Then I found a really good word. A perfect one, in fact. I looked over at Damon, and put my word down one tile at a time across the S in smooch. “Longings.”
If he got it, he didn’t let on. “All seven. That’s 50 bonus points.”
“Plus the double-word score. I’m good at this.”
“I see that.”
By the time his dad got back, we’d filled the board and each had only three tiles left in our racks. Mr. Sheppard hung his coat in the closet, put another log on the fire and sat down in the armchair. “Cold out there.”
“Nice and warm in here,” I said.
“Who’s winning?”
“She is,” Damon said and turned the score card for his dad to see.
“370 to 225?”
“She keeps getting better tiles.”
“Uh-huh.” Mr. Sheppard looked at the board. “Who got protectorate?”
“Damon did protect, then I added the rest.” I found a place to connect jays and every with my last three tiles and put them in. “There. Savvy.”
“You killed me.”
For lunch we roasted hot dogs over the fire and wrapped them in slices of bread. Damon dug around in the cabinet and found some marshmallows and graham crackers, but no chocolate bars. They had a bottle of chocolate syrup, though, so we made drippy smores in bowls and ate them with spoons.
“Sorry no cake or candles,” Damon said. “Not much of a birthday, huh?”
“Are you kidding? This is a great birthday.” The best ever, actually. If his dad hadn’t been right there, I’d have said so.
We cleaned up, and Damon brought out a chess board. I’d never played, so he taught me over the next hour or so. His dad stretched out on the couch with another magazine, and pretty soon we heard snoring.
“Okay, I think I’m ready to try an actual game,” I said, and put the pieces back in their starting places.
“First, um, hang on.” Damon looked over at his dad, then stood up. “Wait here.”
“Where am I going to go?”
“You’re kind of a smart aleck sometimes.”
He went upstairs and came down with a small box, wrapped in white paper with a colorful ribbon and bow. He sat down and handed it to me. “Happy Birthday.”
“How did you do this? You didn’t even know about it till yesterday, right?”
“It’s nothing big. And it’s mostly yours already, anyway.”
I took the gift and saw that he made the bow with several rubber bands in different colors. They wrapped around the box and he tied them on top in a big, floppy knot. “That’s very cool.”
“We didn’t have any wrapping paper and stuff. It’s just typewriter paper.”
“I’m impressed.”
I slid the rubber bands off the side, then slipped them over my hand onto my wrist. I held up my arm to show him. “Corsage.”
He grimaced. “That looks ridiculous.”
“It does not. I’m keeping it forever.”
One piece of tape on the bottom of the box held the paper in place. I slit it with my fingernail and peeled the paper off, then turned the box over. “Razor cartridges.” I looked up at him. “Aw. I love it.”
“Just open it.”
I lifted the top of the box and found several layers of tissue. I unfolded them one at a time till I got to the center.
A necklace?
“Take it out.”
When I pulled it from the box the chain snapped open into a wide, stiff circle. Two pendants zipped down and hung from the center. “My heart! I wondered if I was ever getting it back.” I held the pendants against my palm. “Isn’t this your bike lock key? Don’t you need it?”
He shrugged. “I got a new lock. I liked the way you had it on your necklace. And I felt bad about your chain going in the lake.”
The heart inside my chest did that fluttery thing again. “This is a cool chain.”
He grinned. “It’s a guitar string.”
“You play the guitar?”
He shook his head. “A little. Adam’s way better than me.” He reached over to touch the chain. “This one broke when he was playing, so I took it and put a clasp on it.”
“Where’d you get the clasp?”
He scratched his chest and looked away. “Links off an old bike chain.”
“I love it.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I thought his face looked a little pink, but it might have been the firelight.
“It’s kind of symbolic.” He touched the pendants where they lay in my hand. “The circle, and the key. You know, ‘guard your heart’.”
“Why would I need to guard my heart?”
Damon looked up from my palm, right into my eyes. He looked at me and I looked at him and I don’t think it mattered to either one of us that his dad snored just inches away.
He reached for the necklace. “Let me put it on you.”
I turned around and lifted my hair off my neck. Shivers sizzled up and down my spine as his fingers touched my skin. When he closed the clasp his knuckles rested on the two tendons that stretched between my head and shoulders.
I couldn’t move, but I ached to lean back against him and feel his arms close around me.
Mr. Sheppard snorted several times and we jumped away from each other. Then he grunted, rubbed his eyes and coughed. “What time is it?”
Of course. Of course he’d wake up at that very moment.
If Damon Sheppard doesn’t kiss me soon, I swear I am going to die.
* * * * *
Damon beat me at chess and I beat him at Scrabble so many times that we finally just got out a deck of cards and played rummy to a thousand points. The snow stopped sometime in the early afternoon, and by five o’clock snowplows dug their way over the roads. As night fell we lit candles all around the living room and Damon and his dad went to the garage several times to replenish the pile of firewood next to the hearth. The power came on around dinner time, and Mr. Sheppard made grilled cheese sandwiches topped with fried eggs. By nine o’clock neither Adam nor the phones had come back.
“Help me get the snow chains on the tires and we’ll take Julie home.”
They went out, and the truck’s engine echoed off the garage walls as it backed into the snow. I watched through the window as Damon spread ladder-like stretches of chain on the ground behind each of the tires. Then my breath fogged up the glass and I wiped open a heart around Damon’s head. When he looked over at me I rubbed it out with my forearm and waved.
Most of the main streets had been cleared, but the plows hadn’t gotten to Busco Road. Even with the chains on the tires Damon’s dad got stuck several times in the fresh drifts and had to rock back and forth to get free. It took forever just to cover the half mile road to my addition.
When we finally got to my house Damon walked me to the door. Mom opened it before we even got onto the porch, but she just stood there and looked at us, in some kind of mute shock.
I liked it.
“Hi, Mrs. Brynn,” Damon said, and reached out his hand.
She took it, but dropped it just as fast. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, then looked at me. “Sheri. Call me Sheri.”
“I don’t think I can do that, ma’am.”
Mom turned back to glare at Damon. “Well, you’ll have to.”
I fought the urge to kiss him then. But I decided not to do stupid stuff. And I didn’t want to waste our first kiss on her. “I’ll be right in.”
“It’s cold,” she said.
“So close the door.”
She wrapped her arms aroun
d herself. “I’ll wait.”
“Suit yourself.” I turned to Damon, who looked like he wished he’d stayed in the truck. “Thanks for a great birthday.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’ll give your clothes back tomorrow.”
Mom sucked in her breath.
“I won’t be at school tomorrow. Remember?”
Right. He’s suspended.
“Anyway, no hurry,” he said. “They’re kind of small on me.”
“Well, they’re kind of huge on me.” The longer we talked the longer Mom had to stand there in the cold. “Tell your dad thanks for me again, too.”
Damon nodded. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
He backed down the steps. “Good-night, ma’am,” he said to my mom.
I felt her hand on my arm, but I shrugged it off.
Damon got in the truck with his dad and they drove away inside their own tire tracks.
I turned around slowly, went in and shut the door.
Mom locked it. “Where have you been all day?”
“Seriously?”
“It’s your birthday, and you weren’t even here.”
I folded my arms and leaned back against the door. “You didn’t even remember till I told you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Whatever.”
She pulled her arm back and for a second I thought she was going to slap me. But she just messed with her hair.
“I’m going up to bed,” I said.
“It’s not even ten o’clock.”
I started up the stairs. “I’m tired. Had a big day. Huge.”
“Juliet.”
On the landing I stopped and looked back down. “You know, I don’t really like that. I prefer Julie.”
“I’m not calling you Julie. That’s not your name.”
“I’m thinking of changing it.”
She pointed her finger up at me. “When you’re eighteen you can do whatever you want. Till then, you’re Juliet.”
Porcupine quills rose up on my back.
“I do not know what has gotten into you, young lady.”
I stomped down a couple of steps and pointed back at her. “What’s gotten into you?”
Her eyes grew big as a couple of golf balls. “Don’t take that tone with me.”
“Is Jack here?” I asked, louder than I needed to.
“Hush!” she hissed, then looked aside, as though if she looked at me she’d do something she might regret. “That is none of your business.”
“Why?” I asked. “Because you’re over eighteen and can do whatever you want?”
Her mouth twisted into a sideways smirk. Blue creases of day-old eye shadow filled in every wrinkle between her eyelids and eyebrows. She looked back up. “Exactly.”
“What a crock.”