“I’m Paul,” he said. “You looked amazing out there.” He held out his hand to May, and I saw the dirt under his nails.
May’s cheeks flushed, and the sadness that had been coming off of her was replaced by a smolder. “Thanks,” she said with a slow smile.
Paul flicked his cigarette out and asked her for the next dance. May let him take her hand, and I stood there, watching the two of them together. As he spun her across the dirt stage, May giggled.
When it was over, he asked for her number. She said, “You’ll have to give me yours. I don’t have a cell yet, and you can’t call me at either of my parents’.” So he gave it to her, and he kissed her hand and made her promise not to lose it.
After that night, May started coming into my room when she got home from sneaking out and telling me things about Paul, who she had started seeing in secret. I remember once she lay down on my bed and whispered excitedly, “You wouldn’t believe the stuff he says to me, Laurel.”
“What does he say?”
She grinned and said, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
“Do you kiss him?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“What’s it like?”
“Like being above the earth.” She smiled like the secrets she had were enough to live off of. “He got me this.” She pulled a thin gold chain out from underneath her shirt. It had a charm that said May in cursive writing. A heart dangled beneath the Y. I thought that it was funny that Paul with his rugged boots and his calloused hands had picked out a necklace like that.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about her kissing Paul. I always imagined that May would have a boyfriend who looked like River Phoenix, but Paul didn’t look anything like that. It scared me a little bit to think of them together, but I’d been there when they met, and the secret of him tied May and me together. She was opening the door to her new world, just a crack, and I wanted to be in it with her. So when she started to take me with her soon after that, to the movie nights where she’d meet him, it didn’t matter if deep down there was something wrong. I would have followed her anywhere.
This year I went to Fallfest with Sky and my friends. I kept seeing May dancing alone in the middle of the floor, and then giggling with Paul, and for a while I couldn’t shake the anxious sinking feeling I had. But then, when the country swing music was over, the band that covers you came on, last in the night. When they started playing “Light My Fire,” it made me feel like the world wasn’t tired. Like it was just starting to spin, faster and faster. Like there was a new beginning. We all danced like we were trying to get our feet to float off the earth. Tristan bounced up and down and shouted with the lyrics, and Kristen shook her long hair. Natalie and Hannah held hands and spun until they fell down on top of each other laughing. When I turned to Sky and kissed him in the middle of the music, I felt like I was holding a match. And I could strike it. Strike it on the trees holding on to their shining brown leaves. Strike it on a star.
After Fallfest, Sky drove me home. As we were sitting in his truck outside, I remembered Dad telling me he wanted to meet Sky. I thought maybe I could get it out of the way, so I asked Sky if he wanted to come in. “Sure,” he said, and followed me up to the front door. My heart started beating fast. It would be the first time that he’d been in my house. It would be the first time that anyone had been in our house in a while, except for me and Dad and once in a while Aunt Amy.
I opened the front door, and we stood there, in the half-dark living room. I realized it was pretty late. Almost ten o’clock. Maybe Dad was already asleep. “Well, this is it,” I said, and flipped on a light. “My house.” Sky standing there made me notice everything again. The dried wildflowers in the ceramic vase. Mom’s painting of the sunset over the mesa that Dad had never taken down. The family picture on the out-of-tune piano. I wondered how it all looked through Sky’s eyes. I wondered if he noticed May in the photo. Even though we’ve been together for a month now, I still don’t know where he went to school before West Mesa, or what happened there, or how he knew my sister. I guess I’m scared to ask.
Just then, Dad came out of his room in his red bathrobe. “Hi, Daddy,” I said. “This is Sky.”
Sky shook his hand and said, “Hello, sir.”
Dad looked at Sky suspiciously and nodded. “How was Fallfest?” he asked.
“It was good,” I said. “We danced.”
Dad smiled a small smile. “That’s nice,” he said.
It seemed too much suddenly, standing there in the quiet house. So I said, “Dad, we’re going to go on a walk.”
Dad frowned, but he nodded. “Get your coat.” Then he kissed my head good night.
When we went out, I was happy to be with Sky in the night air. It was cold in the clean way, in the making-stars-clear way. It smelled like burning leaves. There were pumpkins that never got carved sitting quietly under people’s porch lights. Sky took my fingers and blew hot breath on them, and then wrapped them up in his hands. He said, “Your dad seems nice.”
“Yeah, but I think he’s really sad. He and my mom split up a couple years ago. And then after, you know, May … my mom left for a ranch in California.” I paused. “I guess I’m kind of mad at her, you know? It’s like, it’s not truly fair. Why should she be the only one to get to go away? As if taking care of horses could change anything. It’s supposed to be clearing her head. But I wish she would come home.”
I missed her a lot right then. For some reason, I thought of her in her teddy bear pajamas, making Eggos for May and me in the morning. How she put a drop of syrup in each square. It felt funny to say it out loud—I’m mad at Mom. But I am.
Sky nodded. “My dad left us, too, a few years ago. Just walked out. I was so mad at him, I didn’t know what to do. It’s like he left me alone to take care of my mom. And after he went, she got worse. Things were always a little bit hard for her. But now, sometimes it’s like she’s not living in the same reality as everyone else. It’s not her fault she’s like that … I just wish I could make it better. But I can’t.”
It was a big deal that Sky was talking to me about this. I wanted to think of something to help. “Have you … Has she seen a doctor or anything? Maybe there’s medicine that could help?” I suggested.