A Summer Nowhere

Sam's Granny's house was on about forty acres, and three or four of those acres was just the yard. It was only two left turns away from my house and not even a mile away. The property was nothing but cow pastures on three sides. The front yard was ginormous and so was the back. But the best part of the whole getup was that you could walk through the back pasture and get to the woods. If you walked a little bit to the east and kept going, somewhere along the way you weren't on Sam's Granny's property anymore; you were on Gary's parents' property.

Gary was Sam's next door neighbor, except he lived way up the road. His daddy's horses shared a field with Sam's Papaw's cows and I liked to sit up on top of a hay bale and watch them run all over the place. I guess if I'd ever thought about it when I'd been a little kid, I probably would've wanted to be a horse. They're big and beautiful and graceful and I've never met anybody who thought horses weren't just about the best thing ever.

Gary was a grade ahead of us. He and Sam had been in the same grade, but she got held back freshman year because she got mono and also never did any of her homework. I liked it better that way, though. This way we went to the same school and some of the same classes. When I first met Sam, I had to get off the bus at the junior high in the morning and it was like being alone all day. Anyway, now Gary was gonna' be a senior and we were gonna' be juniors and we all lived in the same little area, so we were bound to be friends with each other. Sam had it in her head that Gary was in love with me, but I didn't know how that was possible.

He worked on his parents' farm, so he was all muscle from throwing hay and lifting foals and whatever else he did around there. He was always in the sun, so his skin was the color of hot tea with milk and his hair and eyes were real dark. He looked like the Marlboro man or something. But I guess he wasn't ugly. All the girls at school fawned all over him like he was Johnny Depp, but to me he was just Gary. The cabin in his part of the woods was probably my favorite place to be.

Even though it started to get hot in May, the ground was still cool in the shade. I liked to sit behind the cabin with my back against the wood because there were trees so thick that I could barely make out all the branches and it was so green and dark and quiet that I could hear every thought in my head like they were being said out loud. I heard in science class once that when it snows, all the flakes get stacked on top of each other and absorb the sound waves and that's why it's so quiet. I figured maybe that was why the woods were so quiet, too. All the trees hogged all the sound so nobody could hear it. I really liked the quiet.

The cabin wasn't anything fancy. It was just an old shack that Gary's grandparents had pulled onto the property and lived in while their house was being built. It was one little room with a wood stove and a bathroom to the side that had an old corrugated metal bathtub, a toilet, and a pedestal sink. The door didn't even have a lock on it because nobody had any reason to go near it except for us. We liked to go out there and smoke pot, hang out, and just relax. Sometimes it was the three of us, sometimes it was just me and Sam, and sometimes it was just one of us. That day it was just me.
My house had been nothing but chaos ever since Dennis' kids had gotten there. Brad got his own room, but I had to share with Heather and it was miserable. Her stuff was all over the place, mixing with my stuff. Instead of listening to her stupid music with headphones, she insisted on using my boom box. She walked around in a bikini, covered in baby oil, and I knew she did it just to annoy me. If she was gonna lay out, I didn't know why she couldn't just stay outside; all of the excuses she used to come back inside were getting ridiculous.

But it wasn't just her. Brad was annoying as all get-out. He was a little bit older than I was, but he acted like a thirteen year old. Mama said that was because girls matured faster than boys, but I'd never seen anybody so immature in my life. He was constantly on my last nerve—walking in on me in the bathroom, going through my underwear drawer, poking at me all the time. Brad liked to pull pranks on his sister, and now that we were sharing a room, I had to deal with it, too. They'd only been there a few days and he'd already tripped her on the sidewalk about ten times. It was like they were little kids on the playground. I overheard Mama talking to Dennis about how she didn't know how dumb Heather had to be to not see it coming after the first few times.

I had left Heather tanning in the front yard and walked up to Sam's place. When I called to tell her I was coming, Granny told me that Lynn had dragged the girls down to Wal-Mart but to come on over. There was a stone wall that stretched between the two ends of the circle driveway and Papaw's truck was parked just behind it, like he'd backed it up to the cherry tree for some reason. Since he was home, I decided to sneak through Gary's field and head back to the cabin by myself. Either Sam would come find me or I'd just come back to the house later.

It didn't take long for me to hear footsteps approaching, but when I peeked around the cabin, it was Jenny, Lynn's middle kid. She was fifteen and built kind of like a corgi dog: her legs were short and she was kind of stocky, but she looked real muscular because she ran around so much. Sometimes we called her the Energizer Bunny. Jenny's hair was naturally light brown, but she'd bleached it a while ago and it really suited her. She was wearing an old Schoolhouse Rock t-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. I thought it was kind of funny that somehow she managed to look like an adult and a child at the same time.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, just curious.

Jenny didn't hang out in the woods with us too often because she was usually busy with her boyfriend Alan. They were all mushy together and if they were apart, then they were either on the phone or she was whining about missing him. He wasn't even any fun to look at. He was working on cars all the time, so his hands were never clean. In fact, he just looked dirty all over. Even his hair was dirty blonde. And his teeth looked like a piano had been dropped out of a window and landed in a mud puddle. He was tall and lanky, but still looked a little bit chubby in the face. I didn't know what she saw in him, but it must've been something good.

“Granny told us you called but never came by.” Jenny said, plopping down next to me and crossing her legs Indian style. “I figured you'd be out here. I saw Gary.”

“You always see Gary. He lives right there.” I rolled my eyes, pointing back toward where his house was.

“I know, but you should'a seen him just now.” Jenny's eyes lit up and she turned all the way around to look at me. “He's got a wife beater on and he just looks so... delicious.”

That made me laugh. “He's not a sandwich.”

“No, he's more like a big piece of cake.” Jenny giggled like a little girl and wiggled her eyebrows. “Beefcake.”

“What do you think Alan would say if he heard you callin' another guy delicious?” I asked, thinking of how obsessed the two were with each other.

“He knows I'm not goin' anywhere.” Jenny shrugged, still grinning from ear to ear.

Sam came up from behind and grumbled to her sister, “Go home.”

“Make me.” Jenny snapped back.

Those two knew how to fight like nobody's business. They were always at each other's throats for one thing or another; usually it was just because Jenny was sick to death of Sam or Sam was sick to death of Jenny. Every once in a blue moon, we could all hang out together without them getting into a knock-down drag-out, but that was usually only when Alan was around. I think that was because all Jenny's attention got diverted to him, so she couldn't annoy her sister that much. He kept her out of Sam's hair.

“You don't want me to have to make you.” Sam warned, balling up her fists at her sides.

It was almost eighty-five degrees outside and Sam had on a pair of cut off shorts, ripped up black nylons, a black tank top, a black and white flannel shirt, and the black Doc Marten boots her father had sent her from California. I didn't know how she could wear all that without sweating to death. Her eyeliner was running, probably from sweat, but she could've been crying. I never knew what to expect from Sam. She shooed Jenny off and sat down in her place.

“I swear to God, I hate my fucking mother.” she said, letting out so much air that her chest looked like it might cave in.

“What now?” I asked, plucking a blade of grass from the ground beside me and twisting it around between my pointer finger and my thumb.

“She doesn't understand how it feels to be separated from the love of your life!” Sam whined, tossing her head to the side to look at me. She could never just turn her head. She had to throw it around, like that was gonna' get her point across better.

“I haven't seen Chris in two and a half days.” Sam pouted, pulling at a stray thread on her shorts. “It's killing me.”

The thing about Sam was that she was just about the most dramatic person I'd ever met in my entire life. She made everything out to be twenty times worse than it was. If anything didn't go the way she wanted it to, it was the absolute worst experience of her life. I loved her to death, but it was annoying as hell.

“You think you're dying?” I changed the subject. “My house has been taken over by two idiots. I can't stand them anymore.”

“They're not that bad.” Sam shook her head. “Brad's kinda cute.”

I looked at her like she was nuts.

“I mean, he looks a little bit like a skinhead.” she continued. “But in a hot way. And I'm pretty sure he likes you.”

Now I knew she'd lost it.

Brad had always kinda reminded me of that chicken hawk thing from Looney Tunes. He always walked around like he was looking for trouble—probably because he always was. But he had more confidence than just about any idiot I'd ever known. Mama said that there was a difference between being confident and being shameless, and Brad was the latter. He acted like he didn't have any home training and he didn't care much about what anybody thought of him. But I'd never ever thought about the way he looked. I was always so focused on how obnoxious he was.

“You think everybody likes me.” I said. “And nobody actually likes me. They just like you so they're nice to me.”

“But he's not nice to you. He's an asshole.” Sam said truthfully. “Remember when you were a little kid and the boy who pushed you on the playground or pulled on your pigtails turned out to have a crush on you?”

“That never once happened to me.” I rolled my eyes. “That only happens in movies. And you know what? I don't think I ever once wore pigtails in my life.”

“It probably happened and you just didn't notice.” Sam said.

“But what about you and Chris?” I asked, “He's not mean to you. He treats you like you're the Queen of fucking Sheba.”

“That's because he loves me.” Now it was Sam's turn to roll her eyes. “But back before we were in love, before we started dating, he was a dick. And that's how I knew he was the one.”

“I love you.” I said, looking her in the eye. “But you're an idiot.”

“You'll see.” Sam laughed, shaking her head at me. “One day, you're gonna' find a boy who's worthy.”

Sam had a way of making me feel like maybe I wasn't the most hideous creature on the planet. She was like my Mama in the way that she almost constantly told me how pretty I was. If I disagreed, which I always did, she got annoyed and told me to shut up.

“There's one boy.” I told her, feeling like I was gonna' bust if I didn't tell her right then.

Before I could say anything, Sam scrunched her nose up and rolled her eyes at me.

“Not Mike Stevenson!” she wailed, like he was on the FBI's Most Wanted list or something. “Jobie, he's scum. He's lower than scum. He's bacteria.”

“He's on the basketball team.” I argued.

“So?” Sam groaned. “You don't even like basketball.”

“He kissed me!” I blurted. “The other night out on the glider swing. It was more than a kiss, though. It was... several.”

“Oh, gross.” she shuddered, like a cold chill was creeping up her neck. “No. We'll find you someone better. He's fucked half of the cheerleaders at Logan County. You're gonna' get an STD.”

Before I could decide whether or not that'd be worth it, Sam decided it was too hot and we went inside so she could lay out her plan for the weekend. Sam planned almost everything we did, but in my defense, there wasn't a lot to do in Logan County for me to get excited about planning anything. That weekend, we were gonna' go ride around the circle between the Bethel Dipper and the Video Vault. Sam didn't have a license yet and I hadn't even begun driving lessons, but the girl we got our weed from was twenty-one, so she bought us liquor and drove us around whenever we wanted because I guess she just didn't have anything else to do. Her name was Sandy and she had one of those big Jeeps with plastic windows. You could fit about ten people in there if we all huddled up together, but usually it was just me and Sam. Sam sat up front more often than not because, according to her, being in the back made her car sick. I guessed this time I'd have to bring Heather along.

And I was right. As soon as I got home and told her the plan, Mama got straight to letting me know.

“You're not goin' anywhere without your step-sister.” It was right then when Brad demanded on coming too, even though he hadn't even been in the kitchen when I said where we were going, so Mama threw in a “Take your step-brother, too.”

Instead of arguing with her that they weren't my step-anything, they were just her stupid boyfriend's kids, I stomped off to my room and had a little dramatic moment where I threw myself face first onto my bed.

Heather was gabbing away on the phone to one of her friends in Bowling Green and I really wished she would have ignored me and carried on with her conversation, but instead she said she had to go because she wanted to talk to her step-sister. There that word was again. I didn't like it. I didn't know who started using it, but whoever they were, I didn't like them either.

“What's wrong with you?” Heather asked, stretching out across her bed so that her head was a few feet away from mine. “You should've stayed home and laid out with me. You need a tan.”

“I don't need a tan and I don't want one.” I grumbled. Now I was just being ornery. The truth was, I could probably use a tan. But my skin just burned and freckled.

“Fine!” she whined, looking like I'd slapped her in the face. “What's your problem?”
“I don't have one.” I lied instead of telling her she was my problem. “We're going out tomorrow night. You wanna' come?”

“I don't know. Where are you going out to?” she asked, rolling over onto her back and putting her legs up in the air to look at the new color on them.

I'd never known anybody who liked look at themselves more than Heather. It made me mad just looking at her.

“Just around.” I shrugged, admitting. “Mama says I've gotta' take you with me.”

“Well, then.” she rolled her eyes. “If Mama says.”

Until we got called into the kitchen for dinner, I laid in bed and quietly thought of ways I could push Heather out of a moving vehicle.