A Summer Nowhere

At the edge of the electric fence that kept the cows from getting into Granny's yard, there was a gigantic line of hay bales. One row pushed up against another one, and then another row on top that nestled between the two below, like a pyramid. Sam and I liked to climb to the top, lay down, and look up at the sky sometimes. The hay was always cool, even if it was crazy hot outside.

But that day the weather was perfect. It was July 4th weekend and the sky was just cloudy enough that you didn't have to squint against the sun when you went outside. It was warm, but not too warm, and there was a nice breeze going. Those kinds of summer days were my favorite. Things were comfortable and quiet and I just kind of felt peaceful and calm.

Until Sam started talking up a storm.

She was trying to figure out if I was in love with Gary or not. She said it was important to know because if I didn't think I was, or that I might never be, it was best to let him know. I told her that I was pretty sure I would know if I was or not, because I was the one in my own body, and that as soon as I knew, she would too.

“How many hours do you think you spend kissing him?” she asked, adding “In a week.”

“I don't know.” I shrugged. “I don't keep a stopwatch on me.”

“But wait.” she said. “When you're kissing him, do you ever feel like you'd rather be doing something else?”

“Like what?” I asked. “Like watching television or doing laundry? Or like jumping his bones?”

“Television.” she said. “Do you get bored with it?”

“No.” I admitted.

“That's a good sign.” she nodded.

“It's not any kind of sign.” I rolled my eyes at her. “People make out because they're bored. They don't get bored because they're making out.”

“You make out with him just because you're bored?” Sam asked, looking real shocked.

“No. That's not what I meant.” I groaned, sitting up. “It's fine. We're fine.”

We were all supposed to head out to Lake Malone that night to watch the fireworks. Gary was packing a couple of tents, coolers, and air mattresses into his truck and Jenny had roped Alan into helping him get loaded up. We were gonna' have to take two vehicles, because Brad and Heather insisted on coming along, and I guessed that ever since Heather realized there was no way Gary was ever gonna' give her the time of day, she started spending every second of her free time with Mike. He was coming along, too.

Gary wasn't happy about any of that, but as long as he wasn't taking it out on me and being all cranky and stuff, I was okay with ignoring it. He and Brad had run into one another a few times since the fair, and neither of them were backing down. Brad was even more of a nightmare to live with. Suddenly, he must have decided, I was just about the worst person on earth that ever lived.

He was almost always nearby, and if I ended up looking at him, he'd look like he was trying to burn holes into my face. He refused to speak to me, which was even worse than him never shutting up, and whenever Mama asked me what was wrong with the two of us, I'd say nothing and she'd say she didn't believe me because that boy could never keep his mouth shut for longer than ten minutes.

I told Heather that her, Mike, and Brad would have to ride with Jenny and Alan because I didn't want to be in an enclosed vehicle with her psychotic little brother.

“How is he?” Sam asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Huh?” I looked at her, lost.

“Gary.” she said. “Is he a good kisser?”

“Definitely.” I smiled and laid back down.

“Aww!” she cooed at me like I was a baby. “I love that for you. I'm so glad you're finally with somebody who treats you well. You deserve the world, Jobie. And I know he wants to give it to you. I'm pretty sure he'd give you a kidney if you needed one. I know I would.”

I hated when she got so dramatic, but I couldn't help but be flattered. Sam could be annoying and selfish and wild as a buck deer, but she loved me like crazy and I didn't think I'd ever have another friend that loved me even a half as much as she did.

“I'll let one of you know if I go into renal failure.” I joked.

We laid there for a couple more hours, just enjoying the peace and quiet until it was ruined by everybody else. It was bad enough that people were already lighting their fireworks. I never understood why people did that in the middle of the day. What was the point of having them if you couldn't see them? Gary and I had talked about that the night before. That's why we didn't want to light any of our own. When they did them at the lake, they waited until it was pitch black and you could see them all over the sky. I couldn't wait.

The sound of crunching gravel pulled us out of our daydreams and we both sat up to see Mama peeling into the driveway. Heather and Mike hopped out of the backseat and Brad sauntered out of the front.

“Y'all have a good time!” Mama hollered, rolling down the passenger side window to wave at me. “But not too good a time.”

Sam laughed and I waved her off. Mike helped Heather onto the hay pile and then climbed up after her. She didn't seem to be mad at me anymore and sat right next to me.

“Mike got us weed.” she smiled, “Wasn't that sweet of him?”

“We already have weed.” Sam said, her face blank, refusing to acknowledge that Mike might be anything other than a total asshole.

“I got vodka, too.” Mike challenged, lifting the full, unopened bottle of Smirnoff from his backpack.

Sam must've found that harder to argue with, because she just shrugged her shoulders and said “Good for you.”

Brad was still standing in the driveway, glaring over at me like I'd bombed his house or something.

“Why don't you take a picture?” Sam yelled. “It'll last longer.”

“Fuck you!” he called back, spitting on the ground for emphasis.

“I'm gonna' end up killing him.” Sam promised, nodding her head up and down like she was already planning his murder.

“He's still mad.” Heather said, still sounding a little defensive, but not nearly as much as she'd been at first. I guessed she was sick of it, too. “He's not used to not getting what he wants.”

“I'm the same way.” Mike piped up. “I think I might just be a little spoiled.”

This coming from the son of two doctors, high school basketball star, all around Adonis. I wanted to punch myself in the face for ever even liking him.

“Well, you've both got a rude awakening coming.” I rolled my eyes.

Heather shot me a look that said she wanted me to shut up, so because I was lazy and didn't have anything else to say, I did. A few minutes later, Gary pulled his truck into the driveway and I slid down as gracefully as I could to get in. It took nearly half an hour to get to Chris' house, since he lived all the way out in Olmstead, and then another forty to get to the lake. By the time we finally got there, Alan and Jenny had already set up their tent and were trying to help Heather and Mike set up another.

“Thank God!” Jenny groaned as soon as Gary got out of the truck. “They've been at this forever.”

“That's because he's an idiot.” Gary said, yanking the pole out of Mike's hand.

Mike looked wounded for a minute, and a little bit embarrassed, but he brushed it off pretty quick when he realized he wouldn't have to do anything.

Without anybody else to interfere, Gary and Alan quickly set up the rest of the tents. Lightning bugs were blinking on and off everywhere and all of the boats had apparently come back in to dock. The peace and quiet probably meant that the show was about to start. I grabbed a blanket and spread it out on the ground in the middle of our little campsite. Before Gary sat down next to me, I had a cold Jack and Coke ready for him and a little squeak bubbled up in Jenny's throat.

“What?” Gary asked her, holding the cup in front of his mouth, looking like he was worried she was choking to death or something.

“Y'all are just so cute!” she whined, bouncing up and down in her seat. “You guys should get married.”

“Shut up.” Sam ordered. “Why do you always throw a wet blanket on everything?”

“What does that even mean?” Jenny asked, throwing her hands in the air.

“It means you're a mood killer.” Sam hissed at her, whispering.

“Oh!” Jenny whispered back, then looked at me and pretended to zip up her lips.

I ignored her, but I didn't look back at Gary because I didn't want to see the expression on his face. I didn't want to look up and see him giving me those dreamy brown eyes of his, like he was picturing me walking down the aisle. Getting married didn't even seem like that good of an idea even further down the line. I definitely didn't want to think about it at seventeen.

We could just barely see some movement from the barge that was anchored out in the middle of the lake and a few minutes later; red, white, and blue sparks burst into the sky. I started feeling anxious, but instead of wringing Jenny's neck for making me think about something so serious, I just started drinking. I let Mike fill a cup with vodka and I kept mixing it with soda until it was gone. Halfway through the cup, I was feeling no pain. Two thirds of the way through, I was feeling great. But by the time I was done, I felt like the world was spinning and I excused myself to go lay down.

Gary laughed as he struggled to get me down low enough to go under the flap in the tent. Then he made sure I was all settled in before he started to leave. He pulled my hair back and gathered it in a ponytail holder, made sure the little battery powered fan we'd brought was blowing on my face, and then he kissed me real softly on the forehead.

“Wait.” I mumbled. “Where are you going?”

“Outside.” he smiled, like he was in pain or something.

“You don't have to go.” I assured him, trying to roll over onto my side and instead just making myself dizzy.

“I'm not gonna' take advantage of you.” Gary shook his head. “But if I stay, I'm gonna' want to.”

I blinked at him a few times, not really knowing what to say to that. So I just let him leave and ended up falling asleep in about ten seconds. Gary and I hadn't done anything more than kiss. A lot. He was such a gentleman that sometimes I wondered if he actually wanted me that much at all. But I knew he did because of the way he looked at me. And then I wondered if he'd been looking at me like that all along, and if I just hadn't noticed. I felt like I would've noticed, though. Because the way he looked at me was like he was starving to death at eight o'clock in the morning and I was an unlimited breakfast buffet.

We talked about the future a lot, but he tried not to say things like “we” or “us”. I think he didn't want to scare me off, but he still wanted me to know that he had plans, and I guess I was supposed to feel included in them. He wanted to expand his family's farm and start raising horses instead of just buying them and selling them, or just taking care of them while somebody else owned them and took all the credit for their winning streaks. Gary wanted to give the place a better name than Dulworth Farm, something snazzier. He said he'd like to have a horse race in the Kentucky Derby one day, and I thought that if anybody could do it, it'd be him.

The more he talked about it, though, the more I realized that I had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I had one more year of high school left and I didn't know whether I wanted to go to college or not. I didn't even know if I could. My grades were pretty good, but I didn't have any skills. I didn't have any interests that you could study and get a job doing. But I tried to picture myself in the life that Gary talked about, and I had to admit: it didn't look half bad. There was something cute about the idea of being a housewife. Keeping the house tidied up and making dinner for your man. It wasn't that I wanted to live in the fifties, but I thought there were worse ways to live.

I woke up to the air mattress shifting and a warm body laying next to me. I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but I was glad Gary had come back to be with me. His hand grazed my side and I instinctively grabbed his face and pulled him in. His lips were full and soft and his cheeks were smooth. As he rolled his body on top of mine, I giggled, wondering when he had shaved and why I hadn't noticed it before. Then it hit me. His weight felt different; it was lighter. And his mouth tasted like vodka and citrus. But when his hand slid down over the crotch of my shorts, I knew that there was no way it was Gary.

I opened my eyes wide and sucked in some air so I could scream as loud as I could, but Brad's hand came down over my mouth and squashed any sound that would've come out of it. His fingernails dug into my cheek so deep that I could hear them breaking the skin and I kicked at him, missing every time. At some point while I was sleeping, I must've rolled onto my right arm, so I used my left to punch at his chest until his hand shifted just enough for me to bite the crap out of him.

“Ow!” He yelped, then slapped me across the face so hard I saw stars.

He pressed the heel of his hand over my mouth this time, so hard that it felt like he was trying to knock my teeth out. I groaned against his hand and continued to kick at him, but I was too drunk and he was too strong. His fingers moved wildly, tugging at the crotch of my panties until he had better access. I tried to scream and scolded myself for letting tears fall out of my eyes. There was something about not being able to get a person off of you that scared you half to death. All my efforts didn't stop him. It was obvious that he had no idea what he was doing, and I wanted to tell him that. But for one, I couldn't talk, and for two, even if I could, it would probably just piss him off even more.

I settled down a little bit to see if that would get him to uncover my mouth, and when he did, I screamed bloody murder. Everything happened so fast that I couldn't tell what was going on. Gary came through the front of the tent just as Brad went out the back and then they were both gone and I heard gravel crunching and men yelling. Sam sunk into the tent next to me and helped me sit up.

“What the hell happened to your face?” she asked, grabbing me by the chin and turning my head from side to side. “What happened?”

I touched my own face, like I was trying to make sure it was still there. There was a little bit of blood on my fingers from where they'd touched my left cheek. It ached and felt numb at the same time. The left one burned like hell and the right one felt tingly and hot. Apparently I hadn't said anything yet, because Sam took me by the shoulders and shook me.

“Stop!” I yelled, startled out of my wits.

My head was already swimming, but I was pretty sure she was gonna' drown it to death.

Jenny crawled into the tent with a flashlight and shined it right on my face. I squinted and smacked at her.

“Are y'all trying to kill me?” I wondered out loud.

“Tell me what happened.” Sam insisted, her voice a little calmer than before.

“I don't know.” I swallowed, taking deep breaths until my stomach stopped doing somersaults. “Brad snuck into my tent.”

“We know that.” Jenny said. “Gary chased him out.”

Sam gave me a knowing look and didn't ask me any more questions. She helped me straighten my clothes and went and grabbed a paper towel and a bottle of water to wipe my face. We stayed in the tent for what felt like hours, but could've just been a few minutes. Then Gary poked his head in.

“Everybody get out.” he barked, softening when I tried to stand. “Not you, Jobie.”

Once he was sitting across from me on the air mattress, he zipped both flaps closed and took my face in his hands, like it was a big egg. He turned it from side to side, his jaw tightening and relaxing over and over again. I didn't think I'd ever seen him angrier, and I wanted to ask him a million questions. What did he do? What was he gonna' do next? What the hell had taken him so long? The moonlight didn't shine bright enough inside the tent, but I could see the outline of his face and I felt him wince when I touched his the knuckles on his left hand.

“Did he touch you?” Gary asked, his voice so low I almost thought I had imagined it in my head.

“Not with anything important.” I shrugged.

I didn't know what that was supposed to mean, and I didn't know what he wanted to hear.

“But he would have if you hadn't gotten here.” I mumbled, the best thanks I could muster for that minute.

“I'm taking you home.” He said. “We're telling your Mama about this and if she doesn't kick that motherfucker out of the house, then you're not going back.”

He sounded so serious, that weird little defense mechanism where you laugh at inappropriate times kicked in.

“I'm serious, Jobie.” Gary told me, holding my face a little bit tighter, but not tight enough to hurt me.

“I believe you.” I nodded. “But I don't want to go home.”

“We can't stay here.” He said, shaking his head. “If I stay here, I'll end up killing him and throwing his body in the lake.”

I chuckled again, even though I wouldn't put it past him.

“There's too many witnesses.” He kept on, because he knew it made me laugh. “If I went to prison, I'd only get to see you on weekends.”

I let him help me into the passenger seat of his truck and Sam and Chris got into the back while we waited for Gary to take our tents down. Even with the engine running, the radio on, and the windows closed, I could hear them talking.

“I don't give a damn.” Gary was saying to somebody. “You can leave him here for all I care.”

“Can I get a ride back?” Mike asked.

I didn't hear Gary say anything, but I knew the answer was no.

“You were just gonna' leave me here?” Heather snapped.

“I mean, he's your brother.” Mike was saying.

“Where is he?” I asked, looking into the back seat.

“He said he was walking home.” Chris snorted quietly. “I don't know how far he's gonna' get, though. I'm pretty sure his eyes are swelled shut by now.”

Maybe it was awful, but that made me smile. And then I didn't feel so bad for smiling, because I realized that it made my face hurt. Clicking on the interior light, I flipped down the visor mirror and gasped at my reflection. On my left cheek, there were four crescent moon shaped wounds from Brad's nails. They weren't bleeding anymore, but they hurt like hell. My right cheek was bruised from my jawline to just under my eye. I looked as bad as I felt and I felt like a hot mess.

We drove mostly in silence back to Russellville. Even though the county ordinance didn't allow for fireworks after eleven at night, it was well past one in the morning when we got back to Sam's house to drop them off, and there had been a light show to entertain us the whole way. Before she went into the house, Sam made me promise to call her or come over the next day about a dozen times. I guess I finally convinced her that I would.

“Jobie.” Gary said softly. “We've got to tell your mom.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath and whined. “But can't we do it tomorrow? She's not expecting me to be home until then anyway.”

He looked at me for a minute and then nodded his head. “Alright.”

I was so tired, I could barely hold my eyes open, but I walked with Gary all the way back to the cabin and moved the little crates we used as tables out of the way so he could blow up the air mattress. Then, all of a sudden, I wasn't that tired anymore. When I laid down, I got my face real close to his and we brushed our noses together. He wrapped his arms around me real tight and patted my back like he was trying to burp a baby. I couldn't help but laugh.

“What?” he asked, not letting go of me.

“You're so sweet to me.” I told him.

One of his hands moved to my hair and he pulled me in closer.

“It's because I love you so much.” he said.

Well, I thought, now I had a report for Sam. I put a little note in my head to remind me to tell her all about it.

Gary's heart was beating fast and I waited for it to slow down a little bit before I told him I loved him, too. Then it sped back up and I smiled. Somehow, I managed to loosen his grip and slide up a little so I could wrap my arms around his neck. I loved the way his lips felt on mine, like they were scrubbing off the taste of Brad's. I hooked my leg over his hip and ran my hands through his hair. It was thick and soft and the tips scratched my fingers gently.

“What are you doing?” he asked, looking at me like I was about to stab him in the chest.

“You said you'd do anything for me.” I reminded him.

“I would.” he nodded. “But I'm not...”

“You're not what?” I pressed after a few seconds when he didn't finish.

“I don't want to hurt you.” he said.

“Don't worry.” I whispered. “I've done this before.”

“I haven't.” Gary admitted, just blurting it out.

I sat up and looked down at him, trying to figure out if he was serious. That wasn't something I'd ever thought about before, but it did make sense. He'd been following me around like a puppy since he'd met me, and he'd never had any girlfriends that I knew of. But girls fawned all over him. I figured that maybe, at some point, he'd given it up to somebody. Apparently, he'd been waiting for me.

“Do you want to?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah.” Gary nodded his head.

I took a deep breath and started taking my clothes off. I'd never done that with James because I was too scared for him to look at my body. I was scared for Gary to see it, too; but even though it was dark, I could tell he was looking at me like I was the mostly beautiful girl on earth. I was glad he couldn't see me blushing like crazy—or that all my curves were soft where they were supposed to be firm and firm where they were supposed to be soft.

I'd always felt like I was built backwards, but Gary acted like I was perfect. And even though he claimed to be a virgin, he knew exactly what he was doing. He put his hands in all the right places, but was gentle, like he thought I'd break. I knew he wanted to be careful because he thought I was traumatized, but I didn't feel that way when he was with me. I just felt soft and pretty and safe. Sometimes I felt soft and I usually felt safe, but I'd never felt pretty in my whole entire life.

I was pretty sure it was the greatest feeling ever. You know how when you do something that just makes you feel real good and can't wait to do it again? Like going down a water slide or doing a cartwheel for the first time? It felt kind of like that and I never wanted it to go away. By the time I was finished with him, he was too tired to put his clothes back on, so I just stared at him while I got dressed. It was too hot to sleep so close together, but I'd never been so happy to be such a sweaty hot mess.