Freefall Summer

by Tracy Barrett

  “Oh, they were overreacting. There was plenty of room.” She scanned the lot for a space.

  “Why did you ask if everything was good with me and Theo?” I asked. “Did he say something?” I didn’t want to tell her that it felt like he’d been avoiding me. I looked out the window and tried to sound casual. “Was he dancing with someone else?”

  “Nobody more than once, except me when Justin got tired. But it was strange that we were out without you.” She pulled into a space barely ahead of a car that was waiting with its blinker on. The driver yelled something, but she ignored him.

  “I was at the DZ all day, and I was exhausted. You don’t know how hard it is to pack parachutes for twelve hours.” I sounded defensive and accusatory, maybe because I agreed that it was strange that Theo had gone dancing without me. “There’s no reason Theo can’t go out when I’m busy. It’s not like we’re married.”

  As we got out of the car, Julia looked at my hair. “Sure you don’t want a haircut?” she asked. “All I’m getting is a trim, so Bethany will probably have time to do you too. I can pay for you. My mom’s paying for mine, and I have tons of birthday money left.”

  I was tired of feeling like the poor relation. “Okay. If she has time, she can cut my hair too. But I’m paying.” I refused to think about the dent that this would make in my college fund.

  Bethany did have time. She was cute and funny, and she knew some of our friends through her younger brother Thomas, who was in our grade. A sign with prices for different services was posted on the wall. It was even more expensive than I’d guessed, so when I had been shampooed and was sitting in Bethany’s chair, I said firmly, “Just a cut, please.”

  She stood behind me, combing out my wet hair with her head tilted to one side. “Same thing? Or maybe try something new?”

  “Clancy has a hard time trying anything new,” Julia said.

  “Usually I do,” I agreed, “but maybe this time…” I studied my face as Bethany played with my hair, looping it up to see what it would be like shorter, pulling it off my face. “What about something that would make me look older?”

  “Like what?” Julia asked.

  I hesitated, and then, before I could lose my nerve, I said, “Whatever Bethany wants to do. As long as it’s just a cut, no color or anything.” I added the last part hastily, before the dye pots and other mysterious things came out and depleted my bank account even more.

  Bethany turned my back to the mirror so it would be a surprise and told Julia not to say anything. As she combed and cut, and she and Julia joked around, I regretted more and more that I had put myself at a stranger’s mercy. Hair grows, hair grows, I told myself over and over again while the scissors made that clean snipping sound.

  Bethany pulled out the blow-dryer and I said, “No, thanks.” I started to get up, but Bethany pushed me back. “Styling’s included when you allow the stylist to experiment. I need to see the final result so I know how I did.”

  She was probably just being nice, but I didn’t stop her. She blew my hair with hot air, brushing it out, and finally stopped and undid the plastic cape. “Ready?”

  I nodded. She turned me around so I could see myself.

  Julia said, “Finally! I thought I was going to burst! You look great, Clance!”

  Did I? I looked so different, I couldn’t tell whether it was good or bad. My hair was a lot shorter, barely long enough for a ponytail, and she had cut bangs that swooped down the sides of my face and made me look like I had cheekbones. The ends were wispier than the blunt cut I’d had before.

  “What do you think?” Bethany sounded anxious. “Do you think you look older?”

  I nodded. I really did. But I couldn’t speak, because I suddenly realized what people meant when they said I looked like my mom. She had long hair in the snapshots that Mad Jack had taken of her and my dad getting married, but she cut it off right after that—long hair gets all tangled in freefall, even with a helmet. In my memories of her, she always had short hair.

  “Think this will make your dad treat you like a big girl now?” Julia asked.

  “Oh, overprotective dad?” Bethany asked. “I feel your pain. Mine would still get me a babysitter if I let him. He lets Tommy do all sorts of things I could never do at his age.”

  I tipped Bethany more than I could afford. I glanced at the mirror once more before we went back out into the sunshine of the parking lot. The haircut was less of a shock this time since I knew what to expect, and it looked good. I hoped.

  “Look, there’s Theo.” Julia waved and Theo waved back from his car.

  Suddenly I was nervous about seeing him. “Come say hi,” I said to Julia, but she shook her head.

  “See you!” she called as she trotted to her car.

  I slid into Theo’s passenger seat. He leaned over and gave me a kiss, and I realized how ridiculous I was being. He hadn’t been ignoring my texts. He had just been busy, that was all.

  Right, a busy lifeguard. I told my little internal voice to shut up.

  I realized that Theo wasn’t moving. “What do you think?” I turned my head a little so he could get the full effect.

  He started the car and put it in gear. “It’s nice,” he said without enthusiasm.

  “It’s okay—you don’t have to like it.” I squeezed his knee. “I think it will take some getting used to.”

  “You know I’d think you were beautiful even if you shaved your head,” he said, and I said, “Wish I’d known that before! I could have shaved it myself for nothing.”

  He laughed, and then everything was normal. We went to Manuelito’s for a taco and then to the park next to the elementary school. Theo pulled some sodas out of a small backpack and passed me one.

  “What a Boy Scout,” I said. “Always prepared.”

  He flashed his killer smile. “You have no idea,” he said, but then refused to tell me what he meant. He opened the bottles, we drank the soda, and we swung on the swings. I snagged the one that was strung the highest and swung higher than he did because he had to keep his long legs stuck straight out in front of him. He gave up trying to beat me and hopped off at the top of his swing, landing like a cat. He stood in front of me, grinning. I slid off into his arms, which were waiting for me, steady and reliable, just like I knew they’d be. We sat on a bench and kissed for a long time.

  After a while Theo stood, drawing me up with him. He nuzzled my neck, then pulled away slightly.

  “Let’s go for a walk.” His voice was husky. He tilted his head toward the path that led to the passion pit that every high-school freshman class thought was their secret until they heard their parents talking about it nostalgically. It was just a dip in the ground, surrounded by scruffy trees. Empty beer cans were always strewn around it, but you’d have thought it was the most romantic spot in town, the way people talked. It was where Julia had lost her virginity to Justin, and I knew that they went back every once in a while, and not just for nostalgia’s sake. I had never been there with Theo, or with any other boy, for that matter.

  I held back. “Theo…”

  “Don’t worry. I only want some privacy.” He kissed me again. “You know I’d never hurt you.”

  That was kind of creepy. Until he said that, I wasn’t worried about being hurt. I was worried about being pressured. I had no plans to sleep with Theo. I’d figured out long ago that my mom was pregnant with me when she and my dad got married. I don’t know if she was planning to marry him anyway or if she wanted to go to college or do something else instead, but I wasn’t about to make the same mistake. Not that I’d stay a virgin forever, but being married and having a baby wasn’t on my to-do list for a while yet.

  Dr. Mike, a psychologist Angie had convinced my dad to take me to, told me that many children of people who died young were superstitious that they were fated to die young too, and that sometimes they even thought they were kind of a reincarnation of their dead parent, especially if they were the same gender. Sometimes I did feel like t
hat.

  I told myself I was being stupid, and the thought of getting out of the harsh sun and into the cool darkness was nice, so I allowed Theo to lead me through the trees. The unwritten but well-known laws of the passion pit said first come, first served and no spying. I didn’t know if I hoped or feared that someone else would be there ahead of us. But it was vacant.

  Theo opened his backpack. He pulled out a quilt and spread it on the ground. “Boy Scout!” I teased again. Something about my body chemistry made me irresistible to chiggers, and if there was even one in the grass, it would be sure to bite me someplace I couldn’t scratch in public. How sweet of Theo to remember that and bring the quilt.

  Theo reached for me. I said, “Wait a minute” and silenced my phone, and then I opened my arms and he scooped me up off my feet. He lowered us both down until we were stretched full length on the quilt.

  “Theo—” I began.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll stop as soon as you say. I promise.”

  So I made no objection when Theo’s hand went up my back and he undid my bra, and I even guided his hand around to my front, where he cupped my breast and then lowered his mouth to it. His tongue was so soft and his teeth so sharp that I felt an inward tug from where his mouth was all the way down to my belly, and I kissed the top of his head and slid my hand down, unzipping his jeans. I squeezed his butt, pulling him against me.

  He sat up and drew me onto his lap, facing him. I straddled his thighs and put my hands on his broad shoulders, looking into his dark eyes. He was so handsome. I kissed him, long and slowly, and put his hand back on my breast. “Don’t,” he groaned, but I kissed him harder until our teeth clicked, and he put his other hand down the back of my jeans.

  “Theo,” I whispered, involuntarily lifting my hips a little.

  This was where I usually pulled away, but this time Theo leaned back and thrust his free hand into his back pocket. He took something out that glinted metallically in the light coming through the leaves. Before I could say anything, his mouth was on mine, and he was kissing me again. Then he was licking my earlobe and his hand was at my waistband, unbuttoning my shorts. I felt butterflies, not just in my stomach, but everywhere from my lap to my throat, and I couldn’t get enough of him.

  He was doing something with whatever he had pulled out of his pocket. I blinked, focusing my eyes, and sure enough, it was a condom packet.

  Suddenly, the butterflies went away.

  “I love you, Clancy,” Theo whispered. “And you love me. You do, don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “Say it,” he said.

  “I love you, Theo,” I murmured. “I love you so much, but—”

  Abruptly he sat up. “But?”

  With that one tiny word I had ruined it. “But I’m just—just not ready, I guess.”

  He tried to smile. “Don’t you want your first time to be with someone who loves you? Someone who wants you to be happy?”

  I sat up too and put my arms around his neck. I stared at him, at his beautiful dark eyes, at his mouth, swollen from our kissing.

  “I do want my first time to be with you,” I whispered. “But not now. Not here.” I looked at the beer cans, the cigarette butts, the fast-food wrappers.

  He put his arm around me and drew me close to nestle against his chest. “It’s okay,” he whispered, but his voice was thick with disappointment.

  “Maybe we could kind of…” I felt relieved that he was being nice about it and didn’t seem too disappointed, but it was so awkward that I didn’t know what to say. “We could kind of work up to it. We have all summer.”

  I started to kiss him again, but he drew back.

  “I need to tell you something,” he said quietly.

  Uh-oh. No good conversation ever started with “I need to tell you something.”

  My mouth went dry and I tried to hide my worry. “Okay. What?” Was he breaking up with me? Was this my choice—have sex with him or be dumped?

  He took a deep breath. “Over the winter I applied for a job at a summer camp. I didn’t tell you because I never thought I’d get it, and I was right—I didn’t. But one of the counselors came down with mono, and no one else but me is available to fill in at short notice.”

  My relief that he wasn’t breaking up with me made this seem unimportant, but then I realized what he was saying. “So you got the job after all?” He nodded.

  “Is this a day camp?” I knew it wasn’t, or he wouldn’t be making such a big production out of telling me.

  He shook his head. “Sleepaway.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Idaho.”

  I sat up straighter. “Idaho?”

  He nodded again.

  I stared at him. “So…you figured that this was your last chance this summer to sleep with me?”

  “Oh, come on, Clancy! You know that’s not it. I wanted to give us something to remember when we’re far apart, something to make us feel close—”

  “You need something to make you feel close to me?”

  “Clancy.” He stopped and then said, without looking at me, “Why are you being like this? It’s like you’re mad at me all the time.”

  “All—”

  “Okay, not all the time. But a lot of the time. I just thought that this”—he waved his hand vaguely—“would bring us closer together.”

  I didn’t know what to say. What could I say? Oh, now that I know you’re going, well then, sure! Where’d that condom get to?

  “Wrong, huh?” He didn’t sound hurt or mad, just—rueful, I guess, and I scooted closer. He put his arm around me and I leaned into him, smelling the familiar Theo smell.

  “Maybe the timing was off.” It was the best I could do. Julia once said that guys use sex to get closer to someone, but girls need to be close to someone to have sex. I usually disagreed when she made such sweeping statements, but maybe this time she was right.

  He said into my hair, “I had to tell you today. I have to leave really soon.”

  I kissed his cheek. That must have encouraged him, because he went on eagerly, “It’s one of the best camps in the country. Outdoor adventures. It’s in a very remote place. They don’t have internet or cell service. The counselors have walkie-talkies in case of emergencies, but that’s all. They want me to teach rock climbing, and it’s not on an artificial wall, but on cliffs. There’s white-water kayaking and caving and—”

  I said carefully, trying to sound curious and not accusatory, “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “I just said. I knew they wouldn’t offer me the job. They give preference to people who went to camp there, and they told me that there probably weren’t going to be any openings for people who didn’t.”

  “But if you applied for it, you must have at least hoped that…” I couldn’t go on.

  “I don’t get it.” He really did sound confused. “What difference does it make? Are you saying that if you’d known, you’d have applied for a job there too so we could be together? You don’t have any outdoor skills—”

  “Is that all they do? Outdoor skills? Don’t they have regular camp stuff too? Remember when I helped Julia put on that play with her day-care kids? I could—”

  “No, just outdoor skills. Rock climbing, kayaking, caving, that kind of thing.”

  Of course I’d never done any of those things. My dad would have flipped.

  “And anyway, you’re always talking about that class you’re taking.” He sounded resentful.

  “It’s important to me, Theo. If I get just a few AP credits before I graduate,” I said for what felt like the hundredth time, “I can finish college in seven semesters. And if I take a heavy course load my first two years, I might be able to do it in three years. That would save me a lot of money.”

  “I’ve told you I don’t like it when you talk to me like I’m an idiot.” He was trying to make me feel like the bad one.

  “Sorry, sir,” I said with mock humility. “I will attempt to use
a tone that you find acceptable. Is this okay, sir?”

  “You know it isn’t,” he growled, and he stood up so suddenly that I flinched. He stomped off toward his car. I stared after him in disbelief and with a pang of guilt. I had to admit that I had been pretty obnoxious. Was I overreacting to his announcement? Lots of couples spent the summer apart, after all. It wasn’t that big a deal.

  But then lots of them broke up in the fall. The thought gave me a chill. Was I really to blame for this by taking a silly class?

  By not sleeping with him?

  I knew Theo would be waiting for me in his car. He would never leave me to walk the mile and a half to my house. So I cut over a block and headed for home that way. The sidewalk blurred through my tears.

  One Friday when I was in third or fourth grade, my dad didn’t get a memo about school being a half day, and he didn’t come to pick me up. I wasn’t allowed to ride the school bus ever since a kid had been hit by a car after getting off it. I didn’t want the teachers to see me all alone and make a big deal about it. They already fussed over me because I didn’t have a mother, and I hated it. I didn’t have a cell phone yet, and it didn’t occur to me to ask the office to call him. So I decided to walk home. It had always seemed such a short distance in a car, but walking took a lot longer than I’d expected. By the time I saw my dad driving toward me, his face all panicky, I was exhausted.

  I felt the same now—abandoned, and far from home.

  I hadn’t even made it two blocks when Theo pulled up next to me. “Get in, Clancy,” he said. “Please.”

  “I feel like walking.” I kept going.

  “Come on.”

  I ignored him. I heard him park and the car door slam. Then he was standing on the sidewalk, blocking my way. I stopped and looked up at his dark eyes, framed by thick lashes. Before I knew it, we were hugging in the middle of the sidewalk, and I let him lead me back to his car.

  “It’ll be fine,” he said. “It’s only eight weeks. I’ll be going to town for supplies once in a while, and I’ll call or text you then.”