My Life Next Door

by Huntley Fitzpatrick

  “Voldemort has escaped,” he announces.

  “Hell.” Jase sounds upset, which, considering that info about Harry Potter is old news, seems odd. “Did you take him out of his cage?” Jase is at the door of his room in two strides.

  “Just for a minute. To see if he was gonna shed his skin soon.”

  “Duff, you know better.” Jase is on his knees, peering under the bed and the bureau.

  “Voldemort is—?” I ask Duff.

  “Jase’s corn snake. I named him.”

  It takes all my self-control not to leap onto the bureau. Jase is rummaging in the closet now. “He likes shoes,” he explains over his shoulder.

  Voldemort the corn snake with the shoe fetish. Wonderful.

  “Should I get Mom?” Duff is poised in the doorway.

  “Nope. Got him.” Jase emerges from the closet with the orange, white, and black snake twined around his arm. I back up several paces.

  “He’s very shy, Samantha. Don’t worry. Completely harmless. Right, Duff?”

  “It’s true.” Duff regards me seriously. “Corn snakes are really underrated as pets. They’re actually very gentle and intelligent. They just have a bad reputation. Like rats and wolves.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I mutter, watching Jase uncoil the snake and slip it into its cage, where it lies curled like a big, deadly-looking bracelet.

  “I can print out something on it from the Internet, if you like,” Duff assures me. “The one thing you have to be careful with about corn snakes is that sometimes they defecate when they are stressed.”

  “Duff. Please. Go,” Jase says.

  Duff, face downcast, leaves. Then Joel stalks into the room, wearing a tight black T-shirt, tighter black jeans, and an irritated expression.

  “I thought you got it working. I have to pick up Giselle in ten minutes.”

  “It was working,” Jase says.

  “Not now, bro. Take a look.”

  Jase looks at me apologetically. “The motorcycle. Come with me while I check it.”

  Once again, it takes only a few minutes of Jase jiggling something and unscrewing and rescrewing something else for the motorcycle to purr to life. Joel hops on, says something that might be thanks but is impossible to hear over the motor, and speeds off.

  “How did you get so good at everything?” I ask Jase as he wipes his greasy hands on a rag from his tool kit.

  “At everything,” he repeats thoughtfully.

  “Fixing things—” I gesture at the motorcycle, then at my house, implying the vacuum cleaner.

  “My dad runs a hardware store. It gives me an unfair advantage.”

  “He’s Joel’s dad too,” I point out. “But you’re the one fixing the motorcycle. And taking care of all those pets.”

  Jase’s green eyes meet mine, then his lashes lower. “I guess I like things that take time and attention. More worthwhile that way.”

  I don’t know what it is about this that makes me blush, but something does.

  Just then Harry comes charging up, saying, “Now you’ll teach me to back dive, right, Sailor Supergirl? Right now. Right?”

  “Harry, Samantha doesn’t have to—”

  “I don’t mind,” I say quickly, happy to have something to do besides melt into a puddle on the driveway. “I’ll get my suit.”

  Harry’s an enthusiastic student, although his front dives are still at the making-a-steeple-of-his-hands-and-belly-flopping-into-the-water stage. He keeps insisting I show him and show him again and again how to back dive, while Mrs. Garrett splashes in the shallow end with George and Patsy. Jase swims a few laps, then treads water, watching us. Alice and her Brad have evidently gone elsewhere.

  “Did you know that killer whales don’t usually kill people?” George calls from the pool steps.

  “I’d heard that, yes.”

  “They don’t like the way we taste. And did you know that the deadliest sharks to people are great white, tiger, hammerheads, and bull sharks?”

  “I did, George,” I say, holding my hand in the small of Harry’s back to get him at the proper angle.

  “But there are none of those in this pool,” adds Jase.

  “Jase, do you think we should all go to the Clam Shack for dinner, just to check on Andy?” Mrs. Garrett asks.

  “She’d be completely humiliated, Mom.” Jase leans back against the side of the pool, elbows on the concrete surrounding it.

  “I know, but honestly, fourteen and dating! Even Alice was fifteen.”

  He shuts his eyes. “Mom. You said no more babysitting for me this week. And Samantha’s not on the clock either.”

  Mrs. Garrett wrinkles her forehead. “I know. But Andy’s just…very young for fourteen. I don’t know this Comstock boy at all.”

  Jase sighs, shooting a glance at me.

  “We could drop by the Clam Shack and check him out,” I offer. “Subtly. Would that work?”

  Mrs. Garrett beams at me.

  “An espionage date?” Jase asks doubtfully. “I guess that could work. Do you have a uniform for that one, Samantha?”

  I flick water at him, with a jolt of happiness that he’s calling it a date. Inside, I am no more suave than Andy.

  “No Lara Croft look, if that’s what you’re after.”

  “Too bad,” he says, and splashes back at me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kyle Comstock’s father, a tall handsome man with a long-suffering expression, pulls up in a black BMW soon after this. Kyle gets out and walks into the backyard, looking for Andy. He’s cute, with brownish-blond curly hair and an infectious smile, undiluted by the braces.

  Andy, in the red bathing suit with a navy terry cloth cover-up over it, hops into the car, after giving Jase and me a quick isn’t-he-something look.

  When we get to the Clam Shack an hour later, it is, as usual, completely packed. The shack is a small, shabby building on Stony Bay Beach, approximately the size of my mom’s walk-in closet, and all summer long there’s a line outside. It’s the only eatery on the beach and Stony Bay is the biggest and best public one, wide and sandy. When we finally get in, we see Andy and Kyle over at a corner table. He’s talking earnestly, and she’s toying with her French fries, blushing as red as her bathing suit. Jase closes his eyes at the sight.

  “Painful to watch when it’s your sister?” I ask.

  “I don’t worry about Alice. She’s like one of those spiders that bites the guy’s head off when she’s done with him. But Andy’s different. Teenage heartbreak waiting to happen.”

  He looks around to see if there are any available seats, then asks, “Samantha, do you know that guy?”

  I look over to find Michael sitting alone at the counter, glaring moodily at us. Both ex-boyfriends in one day. Lucky me.

  “He’s, um…we…um, went out for a little while.”

  “I guess.” Jase seems amused. “He looks like he’s going to come up and challenge me to a duel.”

  “No. But he will definitely write a hostile poem about you tonight,” I say.

  There’s no place to sit, so we end up carrying Jase’s hamburger and my chowder outside and over to the breakwater. The sun’s still high and hot in the sky, but there’s a cool breeze. I pull on my jacket.

  “So what happened with emo dude? Bad breakup?”

  “In a way. High drama. That was Michael. It’s not like he was madly in love with me. At all. That was the thing with Michael.” I chew an oyster cracker, staring out at the water, the waves blue-black. “I was just sort of the girl in the poem, not myself. First I was the unattainable object, and then I was some golden girl who was supposed to save him from sorrow forever, or the siren who was luring him into having sex when he didn’t want to—”

  Jase chokes on a French fry. “Um. Really?”

  I can feel myself flush. “Not like that. He was just very Catholic. So he’d make a move and suffer over it for days.”

  “Fun guy. We should hook him up with my ex Lindy.”r />
  “Lindy the shoplifter?” I reach for one of his French fries, then snatch my hand back. He hands me the container.

  “That’s the one. No conscience at all. Maybe they’d balance each other out.”

  “Did you actually get arrested?” I ask.

  “Escorted to the station in a police car, which was quite enough for me. I got a warning, but as it turned out, it was not Lindy’s first offense when we were caught, so she got a big fine, which she wanted me to pay half of, and community service.”

  “Did you pay half?” I gobble another of Jase’s fries. I’m trying not to look at him. In the honeyed evening light, the green eyes and tan skin and the amused curl of his smile are all just a little much.

  “I almost did because I felt like an ass. My dad talked me out of it, since I had no idea what Lindy was doing. She could sweep a dozen things into her purse without blinking an eye. She’d practically cleaned out the makeup counter when the security guard came over.” He shakes his head.

  “Michael wrote angry breakup poems, a few a day for three months, then mailed them to me, postage due.”

  “Let’s definitely set them up. They deserve each other.” He stands up, crumpling the waxed paper from the hamburger and stuffing it into his pocket. “Want to walk out to the lighthouse?”

  I’m chilly, but I want to go anyway. The breakwater that leads to the lighthouse is strange—the rocks are perfectly flat and even until about halfway, then get jagged and off-kilter, so walking all the way out involves a certain amount of climbing and clinging. By the time we reach the lighthouse, the evening light has turned from golden to pinkly golden with the sunset. Jase folds his arms on the black pipe-metal railing and looks out at the ocean, still studded in the distance with tiny triangles of white sailboats headed home. It’s so picturesque that I half expect orchestral chords to swell in the background.

  Tracy’s a pro at these things. She’d stumble and bump up against the boy, looking at him through her lashes. Or she’d shiver and press herself a little closer, as if unconsciously. She’d know exactly what to do to get someone to kiss her just when—and how—she wanted him to.

  But I don’t have those skills. So I just stand next to Jase, leaning on the rail, watching the sailboats, feeling the heat of his arm resting next to mine. After a few minutes, he turns to look at me. That look of his, unhurried, thoughtful, scanning my face slowly. Are his eyes lingering on my eyes, my lips? I’m not sure. I want them to. Then he says, “Let’s get home. We’ll take the Bug and go somewhere. Alice owes me.”

  As we clamber back over the rocks, I can’t stop wondering what just happened there. I could swear he was looking at me like he wanted to kiss me. What’s stopping him? Maybe he isn’t attracted to me at all. Maybe he just wants to be friends? I’m not sure I can pull off being just friends with someone whose clothes I want to rip off.

  Oh God. Did I actually just think that? I steal another look at Jase in his jeans. Yes. Yes, I did.

  We look in again at Andy and Kyle. Now she’s talking, and he’s taken one of her hands in his and is just looking at her. That seems promising.

  When we get to the Garretts’ house, their van’s gone. We walk into the living room to find Alice and her Brad sprawled on the brown sectional couch, Brad rubbing Alice’s feet. George is fast asleep, naked, facedown, on the floor. Patsy is wandering around in purple terry cloth footie pajamas, plaintively saying, “Boob.”

  “Alice, Patsy should be in bed.” Jase scoops her up, her little purple bottom so small in his broad hand. Alice seems surprised to find the baby still there, as though Patsy should have tucked herself in long ago. Jase goes to the kitchen to get a bottle, and Alice sits up, looking at me through narrowed eyes, as though trying to place me. Her hair is now dark red, with some sort of shiny gel making it stick up every which way.

  After eyeing me for several minutes she says, “You’re Tracy Reed’s sister, aren’t you? I know Tracy.” Her tone implies that, in this particular case, to know Tracy is not to love her.

  “Yup, from next door.”

  “You and Jase seeing each other?”

  “Friends.”

  “Don’t hurt him. He’s the nicest guy on the planet.”

  Jase comes back into the room in time to hear this, and rolls his eyes at me privately. Then he scoops the sleeping George easily into his arms, looking around the room.

  “Where’s Happy?”

  Alice, who’s settled back into Brad’s lap, shrugs.

  “Alice, if George wakes up and there’s no Happy, he’s gonna totally lose it.”

  “Is Happy the plastic dinosaur?” Brad asks. “’Cause that’s in the bathtub.”

  “No, Happy is the stuffed beagle.” Jase rummages around under the couch for a minute, emerging with Happy, who has evidently led a long and eventful life. “I’ll just be a sec.” He walks by me, letting one palm rest for a moment in the small of my back.

  “I mean it,” Alice says flatly once he’s gone. “You screw with him, you deal with me.”

  She sounds fully capable of hiring a hit man if I make a wrong move. Yikes.

  Opening the door to Alice’s car, an aged white VW Bug, Jase scoops up about fifty CDs from the passenger seat, then flips open the glove compartment to try to store them there. A lacy red bra falls out. “Jesus,” he says, shoving it hastily back in and burying it in CDs.

  “Not yours, I take it,” I say.

  “I really need to get my own car,” he says. “Want to go to the lake?”

  Just as we start to pull out of the driveway, Mr. and Mrs. Garrett peel in and park, kissing like teenagers, her arms looped around his neck, his hands in her hair. Jase shakes his head as though a little embarrassed, but I stare at them.

  “What’s it like?” I ask.

  He’s backing up, his arm resting along the back of my seat.

  “It?”

  “Having happy parents. Together parents. Two parents.”

  “You never had that?”

  “Nope. I’ve never met my dad. I’m not even sure where he lives anymore.”

  Jase frowns at me. “No child support?”

  “Nope. My mom has a trust fund. I think he tried to get some sort of settlement, but ditching her when she was pregnant counted against him.”

  “I’d hope,” Jase mutters. “I’m sorry, Samantha. Having together parents is all I know. It’s like home base. I can’t imagine not having that.”

  I shrug, wondering why I do this with Jase. I’ve never had a problem keeping stuff private. Something about Jase’s quiet watchfulness just makes me talk.

  It takes about fifteen minutes to get to the lake, which is on the far side of town. I haven’t been here often. I know it’s sort of a public school hangout—there’s some rite of passage where a lot of the seniors jump in fully clothed on the last day of school. I expect the lake to be crowded with parked cars with steamy windows, but no one else is in the lot when we pull in. Jase reaches into the back of the VW, pulls out a towel, then takes my hand and we walk through the trees to the shore. It’s much warmer than it was at the beach, no ocean breeze.

  “Race you to the float?” he says, pointing to a shape dimly visible in the gathering dark. I shake off my jacket and yank off my sundress, my bathing suit still underneath, then start to run for the water.

  The lake is cool and silky, the water softer than ocean water. The eel grass beneath my feet stops me for a moment, as I try not to think of trout and snapping turtles lurking below. Jase is already swimming fast and I hurry to catch up.

  He beats me anyway and is standing on the float to pull me up when I get there.

  I look around at the quiet water, the distant shore, and I shiver as his hand closes on mine.

  “What am I doing here with you?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “I hardly know you. You could be some serial killer, luring me out to a deserted lake.”

  Jase laughs and lies down on the dock on his back, folding
his arms behind his head. “Nah, I’m not. And you can tell.”

  “How can I tell?” I smile at him, lying down beside him, our hips nearly touching. “The whole happy-family-Mr.-Nice-Guy bit could be a cover.”

  “No, because of instinct. You can tell who to trust. People can, just like animals. We don’t listen as well as they do, always, but it’s still there. That prickling feeling when something’s not right. That calm feeling when it is.” His voice is low and husky in the darkness.

  “Jase?”

  “Mmm-hmm?” He lifts up on one elbow, his face barely visible in the twilight.

  “You have to kiss me,” I find myself saying.

  “Yeah.” He leans closer. “I do.”

  His lips, warm and soft, touch my forehead, then slide down my cheek, moving sideways to my mouth. His hand comes up to press the nape of my neck beneath my wet hair, just as mine slips to his back. His skin’s warm beneath the cool sheen of water, his muscles tight as he lies there, still balanced on one elbow. I curl in closer.

  I’m not new to kissing. Or I thought I wasn’t, but it’s never been anything like this. I can’t get close enough. When Jase gently deepens the kiss, it feels right, no moment of startled hesitation like I’ve had before.

  After a long time, we swim back to shore and stretch out for a while on our towels, kissing again. Jase’s lips smiling under mine as I kiss all over his face. My hands tightening on his shoulders as he nuzzles my neck and softly nibbles my collarbone. It is as if everything else in the world stops as we lie here in the summer night.

  “We should go home,” Jase whispers, his hands stroking my waist.

  “No. Not yet. Not yet,” I say back, sliding my lips along the willing curve of his.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Punctual to a fault, I’ve never understood the expression “I lost track of time.” I’ve never lost track of anything, not my cell phone, not my homework, not my work schedule, certainly not time. But this night, I do. When we climb into the car it’s five of eleven. I try to quell the panic in my tone as I remind Jase of my curfew. He speeds up a little, but stays within the limit, reaching out a calming hand to touch my knee.