I haven’t thought about that for years, but as he says it, I remember. I can see myself, my little-kid fingers putting everything into that bag, saving it for later.
“Popsicle sticks and those pipe-cleaner things . . . I mean, it was junk, but you’d put it in your bag with glitter and suddenly it would look special. It used to drive me crazy.”
He grins, and even though my heart is lodged permanently in my throat, I smile back.
“I mean crazy in a good way,” he adds. He stands up. “Okay, I’m really going now. See you tomorrow.”
Once I hear him descend the stairs and shut the front door, I get up and look in my closet for my third-grade yearbook. It only takes a minute to find. I stick it in my backpack.
“I’ll be outside,” I yell, so my parents won’t panic if they can’t find me later.
In the garage, I find my dad’s huge flashlight that he uses on his search-and-rescue trips. I turn it on and head down the hill, out to my oak tree. So far, I’ve built a ladder ten feet up and secured six spokes to the trunk, one for each wall of the treehouse. I balance the flashlight on a branch above my head, stuff some bolts in my pocket, grab my hammer, and haul up a plank of wood. Once I’m up, I straddle a branch and prop one end of the plank onto a step, and attach the other end to the end of a spoke so that they form a forty-five-degree angle. This new plank will be the first brace, and I need to attach six of them to support the six spokes. I keep my mind clear, focus on the sound of my hammer and the weight of the planks.
Once I’ve secured half of them, my arms feel weak. I’m determined to get all six up tonight, though, so I’ll just give myself a short break.
I ease my way to the ladder and climb down. I take the yearbook out of my backpack. The flashlight casts a glow all around me—on the tree trunk, the grass, the leaves on the ground, the twigs and the pebbles. If I could, I would collect everything about right now. It’s not that I’m happy. I’m embarrassed and confused and so mad at myself about Dylan. But there’s something about right now that feels good despite everything. Each time a breeze starts, I feel the air all the way through me.
I flip through the yearbook pages until I find Mrs. Capelli’s class. There, in the lower right corner, is Taylor’s picture—small, black-and-white, grainy, but still incredibly charming. He’s smiling this bright, open smile. Even then he looked like a kid from a movie, the kind who only has a couple lines and can’t even remotely act, but no one cares because he’s so cute. I find my own picture. I’m smiling shyly with my hair in barrettes, my face slightly tilted to one side. This was me before I knew about anything hard, when my whole life was packed lunches and art projects and spelling quizzes. When my biggest responsibility was the one weekend of the year when it was my turn to bring the class hamster to my house and make sure it had food and water.
I move the flashlight closer, and study my eight-year-old face again. I change my mind. I was such a quiet kid, so shy and calm and in my own head. Of course I knew about being sad. Maybe that’s the reason I saved all the things I thought were pretty.
After I’ve put up two more braces, I realize I’m stuck. There’s no way for me to attach the sixth brace to the sixth beam; the branches around it are either all too high or too low. It’s more than I can do tonight. Soon I’ll climb farther up and secure a rope to a high branch. I’ll make a swing so I can reach the places I can’t reach yet.
11
I know I should eat something, but my stomach is still messed up over what happened with Taylor last night. I fill a spoon with cereal, then lower it back into the bowl. My parents are reading the paper at the table in the kitchen, and when my dad gets up to get his briefcase from the other room, my mom clears her throat and turns to me.
“Caitlin,” she says in her school-principal voice, “I’m glad to see that you’re spending some time with new people. It’s important for you to make new friends. I do want to ask, though—and this isn’t a big deal, it’s just something your dad and I decided—that I’d like you to keep your door open when you have Taylor over. Or any boy. It doesn’t have to be wide open, just open a little.”
I stare at my cranberry-almond crunch getting soggy in the milk.
“Why?”
My mom’s newspaper rustles. “It’s just the appropriate thing to do. We trust you, we just also know what it’s like to be your age. It’s fine for you and Taylor to enjoy each other’s company.” She pauses. “It’s even fine to kiss, or make out, or whatever you want to call it. Just as long as you keep the door open to keep you from getting carried away.”
I feel this pinch in my gut and, for a brief moment, I want to tell my mom what I did, but the feeling leaves immediately.
Instead I say, “My friend Dylan’s a lesbian, so do I have to leave the door open when she’s over, too?” It comes out all snappy, and I feel kind of bad, because my mom’s obviously trying to be nice about this.
She sighs. “Well, honey, are you a lesbian?”
“No.”
“Well, then I think you can leave the door closed.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to sound kinder. “Sounds fair.”
12
I can’t go to precalc. I’ve tried all morning to gather the courage, but there is no possible way I can face Taylor right now.
When second period ends I go up to my locker. A few minutes pass and then the bell for third period rings and everyone disappears from the hallways. I swing my locker door back and forth. I stare at Ingrid’s picture and wonder if I could find that hill again. I head down to the bathroom.