A Summer Nowhere

I could never figure out why, but my body temperature always seemed to fall down in a well whenever I got sad, angry, or nervous and being around boys I wasn't already damn near sick of made me feel like a shaking and shivering nervous wreck. The plus side was that I never had nervous sweats, but I also looked ridiculous hanging outside of the cabin in 85 degree weather wearing a gigantic sweatshirt over my tank top and shorts. I was shivering like a leaf and had to walk back and forth to stop from shaking. Gary even walked back to his house to get me one of his hoodies.

When James showed up at the cabin, he said he'd parked his car behind the garage because Sam's boyfriend Chris had told him that our little get together was supposed to be a secret from Lynn and her parents. He had on a blue and white plaid shirt, open to show a clean, white v-neck tee and a pair of dark blue jeans that fit him real well. On his feet was a pair of simple, lace up blue Vans. His dark hair was combed forward so that a little bit of fringe hung over his forehead. Sam roped me into showing him around. I wasn't sure what to show him. There were trees to the left, trees to the right, and then of course there were trees as far as the eyes could see in front of us.

I figured it was best to start with the cabin. Sam and I had talked Gary into helping us clean the place up that week so that it was fit for hanging out. We hung out there all the time, as is, but she wanted to make a better impression, I guess. It took a lot of elbow grease. We were gonna' shove all of the boxes of old papers into the cabinets under the west window, but Gary said since they were all so old, he'd just bring them up to the house and have his daddy go through them to see what he wanted to keep. That left more room for putting things away. There were a ton of old books that had just been sitting around on the counters, along with a bunch of other junk.

I cleaned up the bathroom until it sparkled and Sam dusted so much that we were both sneezing our heads off. Finally, I swept the floor until splinters just about started coming out of the wood planks and Sam brought a bunch of Granny's old rugs to lay out everywhere. We found a bunch of those old corrugated metal peanut buckets and turned them upside down on the coffee table and the counter tops and balanced scented candles on them. The room smelled like cupcakes and flowers, which wasn't the best combination, but it was better than what the cabin usually smelled like, which was mostly just dust and stale air. We figured it was worth showing off now.

James and I ended up sitting in there on a little sofa in a corner and talking for a long time. His parents, Mister and Mrs. Merchant, owned a handful of Merchant's Pharmacies not only in town, but also in Franklin, Scottsville, and Bowling Green. Mister Merchant was a pharmacist by trade, but he didn't work very much since he didn't really need to. James said he spent most of his days golfing at the country club and then every once in a while, he'd go around to the pharmacies and check on things. Mrs. Merchant was a member of the Logan County Garden Club and she arranged for all the tours of famous historic homes and their gardens. I didn't even know we had any famous historic homes, except for maybe The Bibb House, but I didn't even know what that house was famous for. Probably something to do with a war.

James' older brother Joseph was off at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, studying architectural engineering. Apparently, from the time Joseph was a kid, he had this plan where he wanted to build up the city and make it beautiful. James said that his brother was their parents' favorite. He was two years older and he always did whatever they wanted him to. He never talked back or missed school or came home late. Now that he was away, he called every other day and he came home every other weekend or so. James felt like he needed to rebel just to stand out in their house, but he was never as rowdy as Chris or some of their other friends were.

He lived in a big, gray Victorian over by his high school. It had three stories with a balcony off of his parents bedroom on the second floor. His mother grew flowers all over the front and back yard. There was a climbing rose bush on the left of the house that crept up the walls and there was a row of lilacs on the right that made the whole house smell nice when they opened the windows. She had little window boxes in the kitchen with fresh herbs that she'd snip here and there while she was cooking. It sounded like something you'd see on the Home and Garden channel.

James said that he'd gotten a job at the Piggly Wiggly was because, one, he liked having money in his pocket that he didn't have to ask for. And two, the general manager was friends with his dad, so he didn't have to do an interview or anything. But I thought he probably would've gotten the job even if he had to jump through all the regular hoops. He was handsome and charming and he had a way of talking to you that made you really interested in what he had to say.

The neighborhood he lived in was nothing but big, fancy houses that had been around since the seventeen or eighteen hundreds. It was funny, because if you drove through his fancy neighborhood and past the high school, you'd pass a trailer park that was nearly falling apart. Then there was what they called the industrial district with a handful of factories and old stores. Finally, if you kept going, you were downtown where everything got fancy again. It was like two different worlds in one quick drive. That's what I liked about living in the country. Everything looked the same, so you couldn't tell who had a ton of money and who had none. James said he liked that, too. He hung out with Chris a lot, but it was always out around town or at one of their houses. He'd never come out to our neck of the woods and he said he also liked it because it was peaceful.

We made it over to a couple of lawn chairs in front of the bonfire Gary had built. Sam and Chris were snuggled up together on a blanket. Brad had gotten drunk way too early and was passed out on a sleeping bag. Jenny and Alan had gone to his house. Gary had long since gone home. James was the only person there I really had to talk to. He did most of the talking and I did most of the listening, but if I did have anything to say, he acted like he was interested, which was nice.

Heather and Mike were making out like crazy. Sam's idea for me to invite Mike hadn't really worked out in my favor. He'd come to the glider swing a few nights before and Heather snatched up all his attention. When I did get a word in edgewise to ask him to come, he acted like he was only gonna' go if Heather did. He was acting like he didn't even know who I was. Now he was doing the same thing. He hadn't said a word to me all night and I thought maybe he'd notice when I started hanging out with James. After all, before Mike got there, Heather was all over Gary. I was pretty sure she was hanging all over Mike to make Gary jealous, but he could care less. And Mike could care less about me.

“I told you.” Sam would say every time she saw me looking at the two of them getting cozy.

I was beginning to wonder if that was why she told me to invite him in the first place. It pissed me off at first, but I got over it.

Once James had told me his whole life story, I told him mine because it just seemed like the thing to do. I told him about how my dad died and how we moved to Kentucky from Alabama and I'd met Sam on the school bus and we'd been best friends ever since. I told him how much I hated my mom's boyfriend and, since I knew they couldn't hear me, I told them how much I hated that Heather and Brad were living in my house for the summer. I even told him about Mike and I kissing underneath my gazebo and how now he didn't even noticed I was alive. He said he'd had similar experiences with a few girls, but I found that hard to believe. I couldn't imagine girls ignoring him for any reason at all.

We ended up walking around in the woods because he had a flashlight on his key chain. I showed him some old stone ruins that were way back in the trees and we talked about what kind of structure it might have been. He guessed it was a schoolhouse and I guessed it had just been somebody's home. Then we wondered why anybody would want to live in the middle of a forest and figured that the trees probably grew up around it. James said it made him wonder about how the whole area had been developed and how much he loved history. He thought about going to school for it, he said, and maybe being a college history professor.

I took a picture of him in my mind and replaced his plaid flannel with a brown wool cardigan that had patches on the elbows, grew his hair out a little bit so he could part it on the side and slick it back like Superman, and threw in a brown leather messenger bag and a pair of thick rimmed black glasses. He'd look like every handsome, young college professor you'd ever seen on television.

He asked me if I wasn't hot with all those layers on and I remembered that I had a tank top on underneath a sweatshirt underneath a hoodie. I never noticed warming up, but at some point, I guess my body temperature got back to normal and I didn't feel like crawling underneath a pile of electric blankets anymore. I wasn't sure what to do with all my layers, because it wasn't like I wanted to take them off and carry them around with me through the woods, so I just kept them on and explained that I'd been cold earlier. I didn't tell him why.

I reached into the pockets of Gary's hoodie and my right hand hit a wad of crinkly plastic. At first, I thought it was weed, but Gary didn't smoke often enough to have his own stash. I pulled it up to examine and found a clear cellophane bag of little red Swedish Fish candies. They were my favorites. You could buy them in little boxes at Wal-Mart, but those were the big ones that tasted mostly like sugar and wax. The ones I liked best were the small ones that tasted like fruit punch and the only place you could get them was at the candy store at Greenwood Mall in Bowling Green. They charged by the weight, so Gary must've spent at least ten bucks.

“What's that?” James asked, shining his flashlight on the bag in my hand.

“It's candy.” I laughed, untwisting the twist tie around the bag and offering him one.

James took one and examined it for a second before biting the fish's tail off and chewing.

“Nice.” he finally nodded.

“They're my favorite.” I said, mostly to myself. “I guess Gary stashed them away in here for me.”

“The big guy with the truck?” James asked, putting the rest of the candy in his mouth.

I nodded. “Yeah, he lives next door.”

“Are you two dating?” he asked.

“Oh god, no!” I laughed, a little too loud and a little too quickly. “We're just friends.”

“Mm-hmm.” James nodded. “I bet that's what he thinks, too.”

I couldn't see his face when he said that, because his flashlight was shining on the ground, but I didn't want him to think I was attached to anybody else.

“Why would he think anything different?” I asked. “He's not even my type.”

“What's your type?” he asked.

“I don't know.” I shrugged, not wanting to just come right out and say he was. “I like smart guys.”

“Smart guys.” he repeated, nodding his head.

“I mean, I'm not saying I'm a genius, but I'd kinda like to have a guy I can hold a conversation with.” I told him.

“And Gary can't hold a conversation?” James pressed.

“He can, I guess.” I shrugged. “I've just never thought about him that way.”

“Maybe you should.” he said.

I displayed my disapproval by scrunching up my nose and that made him laugh.

“I think you and Sam are a lot alike.” James told me.

I felt flattered by that, and at the same time, a little insulted. Not because I didn't love my best friend in the whole world to the moon and back, but because sometimes we were like night and day. So I couldn't figure how he could think that.

“You both have this habit of acting like you don't know how people look at you.” he laughed. “Like Sam pretends that she has no idea how pretty she is.”

“Sam knows exactly how pretty she is.” I accidentally gave a little scoff.

I knew she was gorgeous. Everybody knew so. Everyone told her and she acted like she resented it, but I knew it got to her and gave her a big head about it. If everybody I knew fawned all over me like I was Cindy Crawford or something, I'd probably be a little conceited, too. Sometimes I thought of how hard it must be to have everybody want you and love you and envy you, but I wouldn't know because I'd never been anything special.

“It's funny.” he continued. “I came here to see her.”

I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I'd swallowed a whole piece of ice and now it was melting and freezing my insides solid. I wrapped the hoodie tighter around me, my temperature dropping again.

“Chris said they hadn't talked in a few days, so I figured they were finally over.” James shrugged his shoulders and let out a big, loud sigh. “But I guess not.”

“Hmm.” I mumbled, turning my head just in case my eyes started tearing. I could feel the salt burning my lower lids.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

I nodded, clearing my throat. “Yeah. Do you know what time it is?”

He lifted his flashlight to his left wrist. “It's almost midnight.”

“Yeah.” I said. “I probably need to get home.”

“Oh.” James nodded his head, “I thought you were staying the night.”

“I was... I mean I'm not. I was gonna', but I'm not.” I stammered like an idiot. “I remembered I've got a ton of stuff to do tomorrow.”

“Do you need a ride?” he asked, shining his light in front of us so we didn't trip on any branches on our way back to the cabin.

“No.” I shook my head. “Thanks, though. I live right up the road.”

“You're gonna' walk down the highway at midnight?” he asked. “No way, Jobie. Sam would kill me if I let you do that.”

“No she wouldn't. We do it all the time.” I told him, speeding up so I didn't have to look at him anymore. “Thanks, though.”

I kept walking quicker and quicker until I couldn't hear him behind me. When I got past the cabin, Sam was laughing at something Chris was saying. They were standing by the fire, roasting marshmallows.

“Hey.” she called out to me. “Where have you been?”

“I've gotta' go home.” I told her, my arms wrapped tight across my chest.

She looked at me like she was trying to figure out what she'd done to piss me off.

“Why?” she asked. “Are you sick?”

“I think so.” I lied, nodding my head. “I just wanna' lay in my own bed.”

“Okay.” she reached forward and wrapped me up in a big, tight hug.

She didn't hug me like that very often and I had to wriggle out of it so I wouldn't cry. I was so mad at pretty blonde girls like her. They always got everything I wanted. And for that minute, I didn't care that she didn't want it or even know she was getting it, but she had it and I wanted it and I was so tired of it working out that way.

“Have James drive you home.” she insisted. “Where is he?”

“No.” I said, shaking my head. “I'll walk. It's fine.”

“Jobie!” she called after me. “Be careful!”

“I will!” I yelled back.

The road was clear and I didn't have to walk in the high grass to keep from getting hit by a car. Every once in a while, a truck would pass and I'd scoot over a little bit to make room. I didn't realize that I'd forgotten my house key until I was already walking up my driveway, so I walked around to the back and opened my bedroom window. It took a little more upper body strength than I was used to to get in, since my legs were so short. Once I was over the edge, I tumbled onto my bed and sort of bounced off and into the floor.

Instead of getting back in bed, I just rolled over and pulled the bag of candy out of my pocket. I nibbled on a few and sniffled like a little baby. Finally I got up, shut the window, and locked it. Then I pulled the blanket off of Heather's bed and spread it out over my own, crawling under both covers and the sheet. I felt like I was freezing to death, like when you've got the fever chills and no matter what you do, you can't get warm and you feel like you're never gonna warm up again.

But I figured it was pretty fitting to end the night the way it started.