summer (working title)

short story for my creative writing class. this is only a rough draft; i will edit it and post the new version soon. it's a memoir about last June.

              June is a month that every kid loves. It’s a month that sounds like cicadas, tastes like ice cream, and feels like sand between your toes. A month that prompted the stupidest question ever to pass by my lips: “Um, what’s your name again?”

            The twentieth, the night of graduation, was definitely a long one, even though I skipped out on the end of it. In hindsight, I guess it doesn’t matter that I skipped my best friend’s big night, although I doubt he’d want to know that. While everyone listened to the 300-plus names as they were called, slowly, carefully, I was being picked up in the parking lot by Stacey, the girl I work with. She smiled a hello at me as I got in her car.

            “You ready?” she asked, putting it in drive.

            “I need to go home first to change,” I replied, smirking, “I look too formal to hang with you and Justin.” She returned the smile and nodded, heading toward my house. When we were stopped at a red light, she looked at me and smiled again.

            “I have someone I want you to meet when we get to Justin’s.” Oh no, I thought to myself.

            “Who is it?” I asked.

            “You’ll see. He’s the reason we’re going down there tonight, instead of Justin coming up here.”

            “Oh, okay.” I smiled. “Can you tell me about him?”

“He’s tall, dark, handsome. Really smart. Perfect for you.”

“Really?”

“I dunno. Never met him.” We laughed.

She pulled up to my house, letting the car idle while I ran into the house to change. In a matter of seconds, I flew back down the stairs, armed with a story for my mother and a bag of clothes, yelling over my shoulder that I’d see her tomorrow before work and that I loved her lots. After my house, she took the parkway, heading south. Exits whirred past us as we got farther from our little town in the middle of nowhere.

            “Bridgette,” Stacey asked, glancing briefly toward me, “did you hear me?”

            “Sorry, I didn’t.”

            “Okay. Well, I wanted to ask you something. Is age important to you, male-wise?” I looked at her curiously.

            “Well, since I just finished my junior year of high school, I’d say it does a little. Why do you ask?” She said nothing as she hurried into the right lane, taking the exit ramp.

            “If he asks, don’t tell him your age. Pretend you didn’t hear him…or something.”

            “Why, Stacey?” She kept driving, pretending she didn’t hear me.

 

            When the family party, which was hideously awkward, was over we had our own. This was the point that I actually met Josh. He sat next to me on the couch, his celebratory glass of champagne in hand, smiling, while he told me his name. We were talking about whatever came to mind, unconsciously playing 20 questions. Through this I saw he wasn’t tall or dark or handsome, or that he was all that smart. He was an employee at a liquor store and had been for a while, since high school wasn’t for him. Super, I thought, he’s in the pre-alcoholic stages as we speak. Then he dropped the bomb that had been hanging over my head all night: this party was for his 21^st birthday, making him about 4 ½ years older than me.

            He smiled at me, taking a sip from his glass. He had no idea what he was getting his quasi-drunken self into.

            “Do you like champagne?” he asked, offering me a sip. I wanted to tell him that champagne tasted like feet or something else horrifying. But I didn’t.

            “Yeah, I guess,” I said, stealing his glass and finishing it for him.

 

The next morning came harshly. I sat up, slowly, still half asleep; sunlight streamed through the window’s half open, broken shade, hitting me in the face. Looking around, I took in my surroundings – a small room full of DVD’s and posters; empty beer cans that were by Justin and Stacey, who were dead asleep on the floor; half gone, unmarked liquor bottles, mingled with a few empty, uncapped ones; and one boy sleeping lightly on the bed I was leaning against. Did we seriously down all that liquor?

            “Stacey? Stacey, wake up,” I said, wiggling the few feet over to her and pulling on her leg. She stirred, snuggling closer to Justin, but didn’t get up. “Stacey. Come on, get up.” The boy on the bed stirred. Slowly, he sat up and looked around; he saw us on the floor and smiled.

            “Morning,” he whispered, yawning, “how’d you sleep?” Stacey shrugged. He looked at me.

            “How’d you sleep, baby?” I looked at him, puzzled: baby? How the hell did I earn that title? “Bridgette?” He swung his legs off the edge of his bed, facing us. Stacey nudged me; I turned to her. In her hand was an empty liquor bottle. In spite of everything, I shook my head and smiled; I kind of hated the month of June.

Author's Note

This is the final draft (unless I missed some ugly grammar mistakes) so if you've read the old one, please read this one. I've made some pretty big changes.

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[Steffi]

"and feels like sand between your toes."