clear, Kate, okay? Peter’s a nice boy but the family is trouble.”
----
That night, Kate lay on top of her quilt and waited for the minutes to pass. Natalie and Sara had been sharing a bedroom since Kate was born, her days and nights reversed. They’d stayed in those rooms ever since, and only that night did Kate wonder if it meant something, if it had been preordained, if she’d ended up with a room to herself only so she could sneak out so many years later to meet Peter at midnight.
Her father was working a four to twelve tour that night, but that meant he wouldn’t be home until at least one o’clock. When her sisters filed upstairs sometime around ten, she felt her nerves begin to electrify. At eleven the laugh track of her mother’s show abruptly stopped as the TV shut off and the house settled down into silence. Kate considered that less than fifty feet away Peter was doing the same thing: lying in the dark, waiting. If their bedroom walls fell away, they could have walked straight out of their rooms toward each other and been next to each other almost instantly. Kate’s childhood would end soon and that would be fine because that meant no one could tell her what she could and couldn’t do, and no one could tell Peter either. One day,she and Peter would sit in restaurants, they’d order dinner from a menu, they’d chat easily about what happened to them that day. Sometimes adulthood seemed far away, but that night, as the clock finally showed eleven fifty-eight and Kate pulled a cardigan over her pajamas, it felt very near. And she felt ready for it. That readiness coursed through her as she tiptoed down the stairs to the back door, as she put her hand to the knob and pushed. Once outside she jogged to the side yard, where Peter was already waiting.
“Let’s go,” he whispered, grabbing Kate’s hand. Side by side they ran north on Jefferson—Kate’s cardigan flapping, Peter’s laces untied—and turned onto Madison, where there was an empty house, a cockeyed For Sale sign in the front yard. They went around back to an old swing set. This had been the Teagues’ house, their kids older than Natalie. They’d moved somewhere south when their youngest went to college, and the house had been sitting empty ever since. There was a lofted section on the play set that they had to climb a rusty ladder to reach. Peter pushed aside empty soda cans. Kate felt her pulse beating in her injured tongue.
“I have to pee,” Kate said.
“You’re just nervous,” Peter said. Everything about him seemed male to Kate now: the breadth of his hands, the particular set of his mouth, even the shade of blue of his eyes. They’d been comparing bodies since they were little, and now it struck Kate how much harder his body must have worked to get so much bigger than hers, cells multiplying at twice the rate hers did, muscles growing longer, stronger. Standing, the top of Kate’s head came only to his chin.
“Aren’t you?” Kate asked. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. Where was she supposed to look? Peter inched closer, took her hand again, slid his hand to her wrist and circled it with his fingers, took the other wrist as well. He moved his hands up to her elbows, and Kate rested her forearms on top of his. Together, they looked braced to jump. Neither of them said anything, and then their silence stretched so long that they got past wanting to fill it. He was wearing the Mets T-shirthe’d worn at least twice a week for going on two years. It was getting too small for him—the material pulling a little across his shoulders.
“I guess,” he said.
Kate noticed that there was something different about talking with him now, aside from the circumstances, aside from him holding on to her as if he wanted to confirm that she was really there.
“Are you sure your parents were asleep?” she asked. “I’d better be back before twelve thirty.”
“Kate,” he said, and shifted a little so that now he
----
That night, Kate lay on top of her quilt and waited for the minutes to pass. Natalie and Sara had been sharing a bedroom since Kate was born, her days and nights reversed. They’d stayed in those rooms ever since, and only that night did Kate wonder if it meant something, if it had been preordained, if she’d ended up with a room to herself only so she could sneak out so many years later to meet Peter at midnight.
Her father was working a four to twelve tour that night, but that meant he wouldn’t be home until at least one o’clock. When her sisters filed upstairs sometime around ten, she felt her nerves begin to electrify. At eleven the laugh track of her mother’s show abruptly stopped as the TV shut off and the house settled down into silence. Kate considered that less than fifty feet away Peter was doing the same thing: lying in the dark, waiting. If their bedroom walls fell away, they could have walked straight out of their rooms toward each other and been next to each other almost instantly. Kate’s childhood would end soon and that would be fine because that meant no one could tell her what she could and couldn’t do, and no one could tell Peter either. One day,she and Peter would sit in restaurants, they’d order dinner from a menu, they’d chat easily about what happened to them that day. Sometimes adulthood seemed far away, but that night, as the clock finally showed eleven fifty-eight and Kate pulled a cardigan over her pajamas, it felt very near. And she felt ready for it. That readiness coursed through her as she tiptoed down the stairs to the back door, as she put her hand to the knob and pushed. Once outside she jogged to the side yard, where Peter was already waiting.
“Let’s go,” he whispered, grabbing Kate’s hand. Side by side they ran north on Jefferson—Kate’s cardigan flapping, Peter’s laces untied—and turned onto Madison, where there was an empty house, a cockeyed For Sale sign in the front yard. They went around back to an old swing set. This had been the Teagues’ house, their kids older than Natalie. They’d moved somewhere south when their youngest went to college, and the house had been sitting empty ever since. There was a lofted section on the play set that they had to climb a rusty ladder to reach. Peter pushed aside empty soda cans. Kate felt her pulse beating in her injured tongue.
“I have to pee,” Kate said.
“You’re just nervous,” Peter said. Everything about him seemed male to Kate now: the breadth of his hands, the particular set of his mouth, even the shade of blue of his eyes. They’d been comparing bodies since they were little, and now it struck Kate how much harder his body must have worked to get so much bigger than hers, cells multiplying at twice the rate hers did, muscles growing longer, stronger. Standing, the top of Kate’s head came only to his chin.
“Aren’t you?” Kate asked. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. Where was she supposed to look? Peter inched closer, took her hand again, slid his hand to her wrist and circled it with his fingers, took the other wrist as well. He moved his hands up to her elbows, and Kate rested her forearms on top of his. Together, they looked braced to jump. Neither of them said anything, and then their silence stretched so long that they got past wanting to fill it. He was wearing the Mets T-shirthe’d worn at least twice a week for going on two years. It was getting too small for him—the material pulling a little across his shoulders.
“I guess,” he said.
Kate noticed that there was something different about talking with him now, aside from the circumstances, aside from him holding on to her as if he wanted to confirm that she was really there.
“Are you sure your parents were asleep?” she asked. “I’d better be back before twelve thirty.”
“Kate,” he said, and shifted a little so that now he
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