The Leaving Season

by Cat Jordan

  “You’ll be fine,” I told him soothingly. “What about the training? Do you like the doctors?”

  “They’re amazing!” He went on to tell me about the group of doctors and relief workers who were part of his team, about the other volunteers from the US and Canada. I didn’t catch all of it as the connection between our phones started to drop out. While Nate talked, I slowly rose from the bed and walked to the window, hoping to get more bars on my phone.

  “. . . rainforest . . . ,” I heard. And then “. . . gangs . . .”

  Gangs? We had talked about some of the dangers. In Central America there was a lot of unrest. Was he seeing signs of it already—before they had even left base camp?

  “What? Nate, you’re breaking up.” His face pixilated on the screen and then righted itself when I leaned out the window and got more range. “Nate?”

  “I’m here,” he said, waving a hand at me. “Middie?”

  “I’m here too.” I waved back.

  “This is probably the best it’s gonna be for a while,” he admitted with a frown. “The service is only going to get worse when we leave for the village.”

  I felt my chest tighten. “What about texts?”

  He held his phone out farther from his face and I saw his shoulders shrug. I strained to see behind him, to get a picture of where he was and what he was doing. I couldn’t see much but a bulletin board with a map on it and the corner of a metal bunk bed.

  His image started to get funky again. No, no, no! I leaned farther out the window until my head and arms were free. I filled my lungs with clean late-summer air, as if I could suck it all in for Nate. There was so much I wanted to tell him: the SAT prep classes I was taking, his old-lady fans at the farm, the upcoming party. But it all paled in comparison to what Nate was doing and where he was doing it.

  “Middie? I should go. I’m really tired and I have to get up early.”

  “Oh, sure.” But I didn’t want him to leave—not yet. “Did you open the box?”

  “The box? No, was I supposed to?”

  “Get it! Open it! But just take one out, okay? One thing?” I waited while he rummaged in his backpack for the shade box I’d given him. When he came back to the phone, he held it up. “Reach your hand in and close your eyes,” I told him.

  He did as I instructed, closing his eyes to me. He looked like he was sleeping with a smile on his face. “Can I open my eyes?” He peeled open one eye at me and squeezed the other shut.

  “Yes! What do you have?” I watched with delight as he stared down below the screen at something I couldn’t see. He grinned in recognition. “What? Which is it?”

  He held the fortune cookie paper up to the camera. The love of your life has always been right in front of you. “Your fortune,” he said. “From our anniversary dinner last year at Kung Pao.”

  I laughed into my hands, blushing. “Yes! You remembered!”

  He rolled his eyes. “Middie, I rem . . . thing.” His image was breaking up again. His voice skipped and cracked apart.

  “Nate? Nate?”

  “. . . iddie?”

  “I miss you, Nate.”

  “. . . iss . . . oo . . .” Miss you too, I filled in the blanks.

  “I love you.” But it was too late. He was gone and I was staring at the words “Call Failed” across a black screen. Tomorrow, I told myself. We would talk again tomorrow night, and I would hear him tell me he loved me too.

  On the edge of the windowsill, hands holding tightly to the sides of the wooden frame, I leaned back and found a constellation of stars high in the sky dotting the velvet blackness as if they’d fallen from a giant’s kaleidoscope. The brightest of them seemed close enough to touch; I just knew that if I could climb upon a ladder, I could pluck it from among its twinkly friends and hold it in my arms.

  And wish upon it forever.

  CHAPTER three

  The barn at the old Dayton Feed wasn’t much more than a cavernous structure with rotting wood and only half a roof, but a group of seniors had cleverly turned it into a party scene: strings of lights were crisscrossed along the beams, fresh bales of hay were stacked for convenient make-out corners, and an old carriage housed the kegs. Haley and I arrived when the gathering was in full swing. We recognized just about every person there—every group on campus was represented. And not just the typical jocks, but also the nerds and musicians, the math whizzes, the crafty girls, and the drama geeks.

  Haley wrapped her arms around me from behind as we made our way through the crowd toward the carriage, where the kegs were. “Oh my god, Middie, this is it. This makes it officially senior year. Drink it all in.” She cast her gaze around the barn, allowing it to linger on several guys huddled in the center of the barn, quietly talking together. “Hmmm . . . I don’t remember Rick McKinnon being so tall.”

  I found Rick among the group. He wasn’t bad-looking; fortunately, the shadows cast by the bare bulbs of the strung lights hid his acne. “Maybe he grew over the summer.”

  Haley smiled wickedly. “You know what they say about tall guys with big hands.”

  I snorted a laugh and felt a blush creep into my cheeks. “Hale! Geez.”

  “What?” She was all innocence. “They wear big gloves.” She giggled as she drew two beers from the keg, handing me one. It was half foam, which didn’t truly bother me since I, the designated driver, wasn’t planning to drink it anyway. Nate and I weren’t big partiers. He didn’t even like the taste of beer.

  Haley turned to me. “So . . . opinion? You think Rick could be Senior Year Boyfriend?”

  “Do you want one?” That would be a new experience for her for sure.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Isn’t that a bucket-list kind of thing? ‘Have a steady guy in high school’?” She made air quotes with her fingers, still holding the plastic cup.

  I took a small sip from my beer. Gross. Maybe I would put “Drink an entire beer” on my bucket list.

  As we watched, two girls with matching French braids and gold hoop earrings approached Rick and his friends. The boys immediately made room in their circle for them.

  “Rats!” Haley said with a laugh. “Time to seek out another target.” She took a sip of beer and together we watched the room swell. More and more kids were arriving, filling every nook and cranny of the barn. Haley was buzzing with excitement, while I just wanted to shrink into the hay bales and wait for it to be over.

  Haley pulled out her phone. “Katrina and Debra should be here by now. I’ll text them to see where they’re at.”

  Katrina and Debra wouldn’t miss a party if it were held on the moon. They never seemed to have curfew, yet they also managed to deftly skirt trouble.

  “Stupid barn is giving me crappy reception,” Haley grumbled. “My text isn’t going through. Hang on. I’ll be back.” She slipped into the crowd with her phone held above her head, texting as she walked.

  I took a seat on a hay bale to wait. Everyone milled around laughing and yelling, but also looking. Glancing out of their periphery or nakedly staring—trying to find someone. A person to hook up with tonight or maybe a hookup that would lead to something more.

  I had found my guy, and I knew I was lucky. I didn’t want to be doing this: wandering the crowd, wondering who was around the corner.

  My mother didn’t understand why Nate and I were, quote, “so serious at your age.” But what was the alternative? This? Was this supposed to be better?

  Nate and I weren’t boring or predictable; we were solid. Comforting. And I wanted that for Haley too.

  “Oh great, you’re here?” I heard someone say. I looked up from my beer foam as Lee Ryan approached. He was Nate’s best friend, but we’d never gotten along much; he was kind of a slacker, known to smoke weed and skip school. He was so unlike Nate, which really tripped me up: How could someone as disciplined and responsible as my boyfriend hang out with a guy who wasn’t much more than a surfer dude—without the surf?

  Like Nate, Lee was tall but he slouched
in a way that made it seem like he wanted to look smaller. He wore a faded brown T-shirt and jeans that hung off his hips, Converse low-tops with dirty laces. His sandy hair was shaggy, the style overgrown, and his high cheekbones emphasized his scrawniness. He might have been cute—even Haley’s Senior Year Boyfriend material—if he tried a little harder. But in his appearance, as in all things, Lee just didn’t seem to care.

  He had a beer in each hand. I held up my own. “I already have one.”

  “Who said this was for you?” He chugged one cup until it was empty and let out a soft belch.

  “Nice.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Such a friendly greeting, Yoko, thanks,” he said.

  I felt my face grow warm. I hated being called Yoko, as if I’d somehow prevented Nate and Lee from being besties. As if I had broken up the band.

  But that wasn’t true. Nate designated time for each of us. They did their thing—whatever that was—and Nate and I did ours.

  “This is a party for seniors,” I pointed out, “and you already graduated.”

  He put one foot up on the hay bale beside me and bent forward. I smelled yeasty beer on his breath. He wagged a finger at me. “Did I, Meredith? Does anyone ever truly graduate from high school?”

  “Uh, yeah, you did. And you were so wasted you didn’t even stand up when they called your name at graduation.” Nate had had to shake him to get him to the podium to accept his diploma.

  “Wasted?” He cocked his head to one side and considered me. “I’m pretty sure I was just napping, but you may be right.” His smile was lopsided and lazy. “So, what’s new with our Nate?”

  Our Nate. I bristled. “He’s good. Talked to him last night.”

  Lee’s hazel eyes lit up. “So did I! He’s in Tegucigalpa.”

  That startled me. Which it shouldn’t have, I realized. After all, best friends talk.

  “We did FaceTime,” I told him.

  “So did we. I told him he needed to shave.”

  For some reason, this irritated me even more. Not that I had any proprietary hold on Nate, but neither did Lee. And I was the one who had to kiss that face.

  “It was crazy, huh? Not hearing from him for so long?” Lee asked.

  I felt my mouth tighten to a line. Lee held my gaze, and I saw a twinkle of delight crease the corners of his eyes. Was he trying to tease me—or bait me? I took a deliberate sip of my beer and made a face. I couldn’t help it. It was disgusting. Lee laughed.

  “Gotta love a cheap keg,” he said. He chugged some too and then flung the rest of the watery stuff on the ground, where it was soaked up by bits of straw. “You seniors really know how to party.”

  “Not up to your standards?”

  “Nope.” He pushed his foot off the bale just as Haley emerged from the crowd with Katrina and Debra, giggling and sloshing beer in their cups as they tried to drink and walk at the same time.

  “Whoo-hoo! Seniors!” Haley called out.

  Lee raised one sandy-blond eyebrow in their direction. “Wanna introduce me?”

  “Not really.”

  Lee’s eyes widened in surprise and so did mine. That came out a lot harsher than I had intended.

  He waved me away with his empty cup. “No worries. I’m not looking anyway.”

  As in I’ve got a girlfriend? Now that was surprising. I stopped myself before I could say anything rude. But it didn’t matter. Lee read the unspoken thought on my face and his gaze hardened.

  “See ya around, Yoko,” he spat before he left. I was relieved to see his lanky figure disappear into the crowd. He wasn’t supposed to be here anyway.

  “Too bad you’re not the one in Tegucigalpa,” I said to myself.

  Over the next couple of days, I called Nate a few times to wish him luck on his first day of work, but each time I received the CALL FAILED message. His mom had the same result when she tried contacting him, but as she reminded me, the village was remote and cell coverage spotty. We would certainly hear from him within a few days.

  Fortunately, it was delivery day at Roseburg Community Farms, and the farm’s manager, Abby, gave me plenty of work to keep my mind occupied. Long wooden tables were set up in the back of the office, where we filled orders for the local deliveries, ranging from small businesses like a senior group home to individuals and families around town.

  When I arrived, the produce was already on the tables and Abby was handing out the list of orders to be filled. A few older ladies and one man were seated in chairs around the tables. I couldn’t help but notice I was the only youth volunteer. I supposed without Nate, there wasn’t much incentive for other volunteers our age to come.

  The lone man glanced up at me, his hands filled with heads of romaine lettuce. “Nate not with you today?” He pushed a pair of black-rimmed glasses higher up his nose with the back of one hand and came away with a smudge of dirt on his chin.

  The woman beside him scowled and wiped the dirt off for him. “Nate’s away now. You knew that, Harry. We had a party, remember? The cake?”

  Harry nodded. “Oh yes, the cake. It was good cake.”

  After a few minutes of catch-up chatter, we settled into a quiet rhythm and the only sounds in the back office were the soft scraping of the cardboard boxes sliding along the table, the crinkle of paper bags as they were folded and stapled shut, the occasional punctuation of “Roseburg Farms!” as Abby answered the phone in the front.

  “. . . she’s in there,” I heard Abby say. Feet shuffled across the concrete floor and we all glanced up from our work at the interloper who was disturbing our meditative silence.

  “Hey, what’s up, old people?” Lee said. His eyes scanned the room, ignoring the scornful looks from the so-called old people he’d just insulted. I cringed when I saw how quickly he’d turned the room against him. “Middie! Hey, Middie, it’s me!” he shouted, waving.

  He was deliberately aggravating. The room was all of about four hundred square feet, but he was flapping his hands around like he was calling to me from across the Grand Canyon. I wanted to sink straight into the floor.

  Reaching for a handful of potatoes, I avoided meeting Lee’s gaze. “What are you doing here?”

  “You ask that same question every time I see you.” His gaze took in the room and he waved at each of the volunteers, who glared at him in return. I shoved the potatoes into a box. Why was he here? Just to annoy me? Or was he actually a new volunteer? My heart sank at the thought.

  He leaned over my shoulder and began rearranging the vegetables in the box.

  I pushed his hands away. “Don’t touch my potatoes.”

  Lee grinned exaggeratedly. “That’s not what the other girls say.”

  I felt my cheeks blush despite myself. “Seriously, Lee—”

  “Chill, it’s no big deal.”

  I continued to work but peeked sideways at him when he wasn’t looking. He was wearing a black T-shirt with the words Mötley Crew over a silk-screened image of a pirate playing a guitar. His blue jeans had holes in the knees and frayed hems, and his low-tops were decorated with green and blue Sharpie.

  “You’re staring at me,” he said coyly as he waved his fingers in front of my face.

  I felt the eyes of Harry and the others on me. “Please. If you’re going to stand there, make yourself useful.”

  “Whatever you want, Yoko.”

  I pressed my lips into a line. “Do not call me that.” Then I grabbed a pen and pad of paper with the words From our farm to your table—Roseburg Farms written in scarlet script at the top. “Write down what’s in each box very clearly and then tape it to the side.”

  His head lolled lazily toward me, and he jerked his chin at the box. “I can’t see inside. Tilt it. No, more this way. A little more.” He shrugged. “Still can’t see.”

  I sighed. He was exasperating. I scooted closer to him and showed him the contents of the box. He licked the tip of the pen and began writing.
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  “Dear Veggie Lover—”

  “Don’t write that!”

  “Dear Vegetable Lover?”

  “Just list the items in the box.” I held up a tomato. “One tomato.”

  “Is that with one e or two?” I grabbed the pen from his hand and he grabbed it back. “I’m helping!”

  “No, you’re not.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “You’re being a pain.”

  “In your ass?”

  I felt my lips start to twitch into a smile. Stop that, Middie! I turned my head so he couldn’t see me blush. “I think you should go.”

  There was a long pause. “Fine.” He stood up and waved to the group. “Bye, peeps! That means ‘people,’ in case you don’t know.” He turned in a circle. “How do I get out of here again?”

  Ugh. “Come on.” I led the way from the back room through the office and into the parking lot. Once we were out in the sun, Lee stopped and glanced around, shading his eyes.

  “Now, where did I park . . . ?”

  Oh my god. “There are five cars in this lot. One of them is—”

  Lee snapped his fingers. “Oh, that’s right, I don’t have a car. I have a motorcycle.” He pointed at the space between a Honda and a Toyota.

  “That’s not a motorcycle,” I told him when I saw where he was pointing. “That’s a scooter. It has a kickstand. And it’s about a hundred years old.”

  His ride was a slate-blue Vespa with a leather seat that could fit, at best, one and a half riders. It had a pair of round mirrors jutting out above the handlebars, attached by chrome rods, with a single headlight in the center. A chrome handle wound around the seat for that half person to hold on to.

  “Looks pretty motorcycle-y to me. It has a motor and two wheels . . . with which to cycle.”

  He swung his leg over the seat as if he were mounting a huge Harley. With one foot braced against the splashguard, he turned the key in the ignition and the engine gently putt-putted before catching.

  He revved the engine, which sounded less like a dangerous beast and more like a swarm of angry hornets. He flipped up the kickstand with his heel. “Well, take it easy.”

  That’s it? I grabbed the handlebars before he could turn the scooter around. “Why did you come here today, anyway?”