Signed, Skye Harper

  32

  Home

  Swimming and me.

  In a stolen pool, Simmons or high school.

  In the ocean.

  In Crystal Lake—minus the water moccasins.

  Let me swim, I thought, and I worked my way back and forth over that water, going as fast or as slow as I wanted.

  Lost track of time.

  Of Nanny.

  Of Momma’s worrisome note.

  This was the life. A pool right here. The ocean a few steps beyond.

  After a bit I rolled onto my back.

  The sun had moved a good deal, but I didn’t let that stop me from me from doing what came as natural to me as walking or running did.

  Instead I planned. I’d go inside quick, take care of the plants upstairs, catch a glimpse or two of Steve’s room, then jog back to Nanny, who I bet had chewed her fingernails to the quick by now, worrying.

  I blew a spout of water into the air.

  Sure. I’d do that soon.{ 47 }

  33

  Executing the Plan, Plus Surprise 3

  It was a mess.

  When I pushed the door open and saw his bedroom, I couldn’t believe it looked this way. Nanny would have my hide if I left things piled all over the floor, dishes on the dresser, the bed unmade.

  Now I took a step, over a tangle of blue jeans, a skateboard, and underwear turned inside out. Nerves thumped through my veins and I swallowed. There was a mirror I could sort of see myself in, covered by more posters and pictures of girls from school. I recognized Angel and a girl named Whitney and the twins Samantha and Sabrina. Why were they hugging like that?

  Posters of Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and Alice Cooper covered one wall. There were several lava lamps, all going, blobs of lava (what was that stuff? I wasn’t sure but I wanted one) floated to the top of the bulb-thing then settled back down.

  Steve Simmons the First couldn’t have been further from McCall’s than I was with my one Mark Spitz poster.

  “I could live like this,” I whispered. “I could get used to it. Marry him. Have his babies.” I cleared my throat. “After { 48 }

  the Olympics of course.” For a moment I imagined myself picking up after Steve.

  Maybe no to the babies.

  Another step.

  There on the floor was a stack of Playboys. One was open and . . . I looked away from the topless girl. Were . . . were these magazines Steve’s? They couldn’t be. They must be his father’s, and his father came in this room to read them—or look at them—or whatever you did with a Playboy, so his wife wouldn’t know.

  What would Nanny think of this?

  And couldn’t those lava lamps plugged in and going for three months straight, couldn’t that cause a fire or something?{ 49 }

  34

  Surprise 4

  “What are you doing in here?”

  My hand shook so hard that water from the watering can slopped over the sides and landed on Steve’s underwear. I opened and closed my mouth three times, like an old catfish on a line. I felt as trapped. I wanted to run. To dive from his balcony and into the pool. I wanted to turn and stare into his face, but I couldn’t quite move.

  Steve Simmons was here. Now. In this room. Here.

  Now.

  Not in Europe at all.

  Here.

  I almost dropped the watering can. I found my tongue, hidden in the back corner of my mouth. “What am I doing in here? What are you doing in here? That’s the real question.”

  Steve cocked his head at me, birdlike. “I live here.”

  “Uh.”

  He was right about that.

  “You’re supposed to be in France or something.”

  Steve pushed past me and into his the-bomb-just-went-off room. “Didn’t go,” he said.{ 50 }

  That was obvious.

  He turned and eyed me. “Watched you swimming,” he said.

  Something inside my gut burst into flames.

  “You saw—saw me?” I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

  Steve pulled his shirt off and threw it on one of the piles in front of a walk-in closet that was bigger than our living room. He didn’t say anything.

  “You spied,” I said. My face felt steamy. Maybe through this smoky haze he couldn’t see. Wait. Why was it smoky in here? “I think that’s against the law. Spying.”

  Maybe he couldn’t see the wet imprints of my breasts or the water slipping down my legs. I should have used a real towel to dry off on, not that fancy thing I found in the kitchen sink.

  “Winston Churchill,” Steve said, his voice smoky as the room. “You were in my pool. How’s that for breaking the law?”

  I looked away. Breaking and entering into a private pool. Wouldn’t look good on my record.

  Thank goodness I hadn’t made that bologna sandwich.

  “Fine,” I said, and turned away.

  “Why’re you in here, anyway?”

  I raised the watering can, which wasn’t easy seeing my own arms had a tight grip on my body. “Watering. I’m { 51 }

  watering. Plants.” The words came out like a bit of wind. I saw my mouth move in the section of uncovered mirror. Steve is so tall I couldn’t see his face in the glass. Ozzy Osbourne’s head was where Steve’s chest should be instead.

  He moved past me (not Ozzy, Steve) toward a drawer, where he pulled out another T-shirt, brushing my elbow. It felt like a bee might have stung where we touched. He put on the shirt, then took a sort of leap and landed on his back on the bed. Water sloshed this way and that. Blood rushed to my head and for a moment I felt dizzy. I looked back at Ozzy.

  “There are no plants in here,” he said, “unless you count this.” He opened his bedside table drawer and took out a rolled cigarette. Nanny’s brother, Uncle Buddy, coulda taught Steve a thing or two about rolling something to smoke. “Just a little weed.”

  “Weed?” I gripped the handle of the can so hard my knuckles felt like they might snap like chicken bones.

  Steve laughed. “Want to smoke with me?”

  Wait a minute.

  That’s why there was all this smoke.

  And wait another minute.

  I knew . . . I knew what he was talking about. Drugs. Without an answer, I turned and left, left the whole house. Down the long staircase, through that massive foyer, and out the front door.{ 52 }

  Past the garages, past a brand-new motor home that looked bigger than our place, up that driveway that seemed to grow longer and longer like something from Alice in Wonderland.

  What in the world were the Simmonses doing leaving a pretty boy like Steve here, alone? It was obvious he needed help cleaning his room. And that he had a severe, severe problem with illegal drugs.{ 53 }

  35

  Surprise 5

  “Where you going, Churchill?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  Steve beat me to the end of the driveway. Well, he knew the house better than I did. So? So? Sew buttons on your underwear.

  Were there buttons on his underwear?

  I couldn’t bear to think about it in the broad light of day. I’d have to save underwear-button thinking for later on tonight when no one would see my face color in the late afternoon air.

  I marched back toward Leon’s, with a half-ish mile to go; my ponytail jumped in the breeze. Thank goodness we were so close to the ocean. The smell cleared my head. I wanted to march harder, move faster, but I could only go so quick because of my freed bosoms. It’s hard to book it when you have your arms folded across your chest.

  Wait! Wait!

  No!

  Steve cut in front of me and walked backward.

  “I said, where you off to?”

  I didn’t look at him. My mouth took off on its own. { 54 }

  “No you didn’t,” I said, staring straight ahead. “You said, where you going.”

  “Churchill,” he said.

  “What?” I pretended to look at him by glancing at a palmetto tree off behind Steve’s shoulde
r across the street.

  My bra. Oh, my bra. Nanny warned me about putting it in the freezer, but I never listen.

  Now I couldn’t think.

  “I said your name, too,” he said, and his voice was so sweet I had to look him in the eyes. Eyes blue as the ocean. He almost smiled. We both stopped walking.

  “That’s not my name. It’s Winston.”

  “I know that,” Steve said. “Winston Churchill.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Why’re you carrying that watering can?”

  What? That too? “Uh.”

  “Here. I can take care of it.”

  “No,” I said, but he wrestled it from my hand.

  It was only half-full of water. Somehow I had slopped the rest down my leg. I noticed, for the first time, my flip-flop was wet.

  “I can take that back,” I whispered.

  “Naw,” Steve said, then threw the can high over a coquina-rock wall and into another rich person’s yard. He took a step closer to me, and I tightened my arms over my bosoms. He was so pretty I couldn’t stand it. We stood there { 55 }

  close enough that if I had crept forward even a bit more, we would have been touching.

  A Volkswagen roared past, stopped short, and snaked back to where Steve and I gazed at each other. The car went up on the sidewalk, and Benjy Aufhammer stuck his head out the window.

  Ick.

  More football players. Too many crammed in a Volkswagen. If I hadn’t been so horrified to be caught out on the street in dirty clothes, with gravy in my hair (or had the pool water washed it out?), my bra in a stranger’s freezer, and with the boy I was in love with, I would have smiled at Steve and at Benjy, but my lips were as frozen as some of my apparel was.

  “Simmons, let’s go,” Benjy Aufhammer said. “We done stopped at your place and you weren’t there.”

  Smart, I wanted to say, but I kept quiet.

  Someone let out a whistle from the backseat, and someone else said, “Dammit, Creed. There’s too many of us in here for you to be doing that. Now I’m deaf.”

  Benjy revved the motor.

  And just like that Steve Simmons, the boy of my dreams, kissed me full on the lips.{ 56 }

  36

  Taming

  The biggest, longest, most taming kiss ever.{ 57 }

  37

  Boys

  Somebody laughed as I let my hands flop like two eels at my side. I touched a bit of fabric from his shirt.

  Steve pulled away and looked me so hard in the face when the smooch was over I thought I might end up a puddle of melted butter on the sidewalk.

  “See ya,” he said. His voice was low. So soft I might have made up even hearing it. Steve ran around the car, looked at me over the top of the Bug, then slid in through the passenger window.

  Benjy drove off, leaving black tread marks on the concrete, Steve’s legs dangling out the window from the knees on down.

  I wiped at my lips, a weak protest on my tongue.

  I blinked.

  That was the sweetest kiss I’d ever gotten. The only kiss, yes. But the sweetest, too. Did the weed make Steve taste like that? Like milk chocolate? Or was this his natural taste? Did all boys taste so sweet?

  What had I tasted like? Gravy? Scallops? The bit of orange lip gloss I had applied this morning?

  Did he care?{ 58 }

  Would he kiss me again?

  I stood there on the sidewalk, watching that car till it wasn’t the size of a postage stamp, then I walked all the way back to work, my stomach flopping over itself till I felt sick.{ 59 }

  38

  Stuck

  No watering can, no key, no bra.

  A frozen solid bra, truth be told, but not with me.

  Now what?{ 60 }

  39

  New Plans Needed

  I wasn’t even sure how I made it back to Leon’s.

  But when I walked in the restaurant, Nanny said, “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing,” I said. I felt my whole body turning red from the forehead down. Was my chest blotchy? My bosoms obvious? I knew my hair was pool-straggles even pulled back in the ponytail.

  There was only one table of customers. I touched my lips.

  I thought Nanny would jump over the bar, where she counted glasses for this evening’s shift. “I said what happened?”

  Raul looked out through the kitchen door.

  The restaurant grew as quiet as a church.

  “Nothing,” I said, and headed to the freezer, where I rubbed crushed ice all over my face till I cooled off.{ 61 }

  40

  Found Out, Sort Of

  “Who kissed you?” Nanny said, first thing, when we climbed into the Blue Goose. “And did you leave your bra in the freezer again?”

  My stomach fell into my lap. She didn’t need details.

  “Yes,” I said. “To the bra part.” I stared out the window, knowing she would read the lie in my eyes if I looked at her straight in the face. “Why would anyone kiss me, Nanny?” I said. “People don’t even talk to me during the summer. Patty Bailey is gone, you know.”

  Nanny’s voice went low.

  “I know that look,” she said. “I seen it on your momma’s face and I saw it plenty on my own. You cannot fool me.”

  I turned to my grandmother, pulling in all the fresh ocean air that I could. I looked at her, staring her in the eyes. “I swear to you, Nanny, I haven’t kissed anyone at all.” That was the truth. I hadn’t laid my lips on Steve. He had caught me.

  I coulda kept talking. I coulda said, And I don’t ever plan to kiss anyone, not the whole of my life. But the truth was all that had changed, and I knew, just knew, if Steve Simmons the First was involved, I would be a kissing fool all the rest of my life.

  With or without my frozen bra.{ 62 }

  41

  Surprise 6

  Thelma waited for us at the front door, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Girl,” I whispered, kneeling close and hugging her neck. She had that perfect doggie smell if I avoided her breath. “I got so much to tell you.”

  Nanny looked at me from across the front porch, where she dug the mail out of the box then sorted it. She paused.

  “What?” I said.

  “Another letter,” Nanny said. Nanny waved it to me, like she wasn’t sure if she was happy or sad.

  Not a postcard.

  A letter.

  A letter.{ 63 }

  42

  How a Life Turns from Sort of Uncomplicated to Very Messed Up

  That night, Thelma in the doorway because there was no storm, I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Momma’s second letter nestled under my pillow, folded perfect, lying right next to the first one.

  There was no reason to read it again.

  I knew what it said.

  Mommy, baby Winston,

  Come git me,

  Please.

  Signed,

  Skye Harper{ 64 }

  43

  One Problem Solved

  I decided, if anyone asked, that it wasn’t my bra hiding out in a rich man’s house. No one could prove it. And like that, I fell asleep.{ 65 }

  44

  More Dreams

  There was Momma again.

  She looked like me, only she was clean and could dance. “I paid for my own tap-dance lessons,” she said. She tapped the whole time she talked. And she never got winded, even though she held watering cans in both hands.{ 66 }

  45

  Surprise 7

  “Hey. Hey. Wake up,” Momma said, all deeplike. Tap tap tappity tap.

  I awoke with a start, sitting straight up in bed, my stomach clogging the back of my throat.

  The dream had been so real I could hear her voice. I could see Momma’s hair, long and blond, like my own. She had dream-danced faster than Shirley Temple and Ann Miller, both Nanny’s favorites.

  I settled back onto my pillow, covering a yawn. The night light in the hall spilled a bit of cream into my room. Thelma
was a black blob.

  “Churchill.”

  Looking toward the window, I saw her. Wait. Here! How? The Lemon was gone. Sold. Momma said so in her first letter. And her voice. Her voice was deep. Like a guy’s. What had happened? I squinched my eyes tight, then opened them wide.

  “You awake, Churchill? I’m holding on by my fingernails. Come to the window. I got something for you.”

  That wasn’t Momma.

  “Steve?” I almost swallowed my tongue. “What in the { 67 }

  world?” I pulled the sheet up to my chin. A bit of Steve’s head showed through the screen. The fan took up the rest of the space. “What are you doing here?”

  “Visiting,” he said.

  “What for?”

  Light, thin and watery as early morning can be, pushed in around him. Thelma edged into my room some. I could see her eyes were open. Why didn’t she bark? Alert me? Protect me? Why, I could be fighting for my virtue right now.

  Steve let out a laugh, not too loud, and I was surprised at how deep it sounded.

  “To talk. Let me in.”

  He was crazy. Nanny would jerk a knot in his tail.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Come on,” he said, his voice urgent. “I’ve been thinking about that kiss all night.”

  Now I hesitated. I had been thinking about that kiss too.