Circle in the Sand by Lia Fairchild Page A

think.
    Ned looks at me as though he’s won the lottery. After agreeing to give up my nickname,
     he now has something new to tease me with. Through a wide smile, he asks, “He’s the
     best kiss of your life and you don’t remember his name?”
    “I remember,” I say defensively. “It was Harry…or Harlan…something with an H.”
    “How old were you?” Ned asks.
    Again, the story continues without me when Emily speaks up. “Remember when we all
     went to Mom’s company picnic our junior year? Sage, I don’t think you were able to
     go for some reason.”
    “Yeah, my dad probably didn’t want me exposed to the working middle class,” Sage says
     with a tiny laugh, but we all know that’s probably true.
    “I remember that,” Ned says. “It was boring and mom made me carry all those chairs
     to some guy’s truck after it was over.” His eyes travel back to me. “So when did this
     perfect kiss happen…and what was so great about it anyway?”
    “First of all, he was older, so maybe at the time I thought he was more experienced,”
     I say turning from his stare and trying to sound matter-of-fact. My emotional attachment
     to this memory always comes out, but I try to keep it reined it. “He had to be at
     least twenty-one because he was openly drinking a beer, dark hair, five o’clock shadow.”
     I get up and finally dump the plates I was holding in the trash. Then I drop down
     in a chair and rest my hands on my knees. “I was sitting on the steps watching the
     skateboarders dropping into the bowl, and he came and sat down next to me.”
    “What a lech,” Ned says, interrupting me. “He was probably stalking you and saw you
     wandered off alone.”
    “Let her finish,” Sage says smacking him in the arm. “This is where it gets good.”
    “Anyway, we were just talking. I don’t even remember about what. Then all of sudden
     he asks if I’ve ever been kissed.”
    “What an ass,” Ned says.
    “Stop!” Emily and Sage yell in unison.
    “So I say, ‘yeah, of course’ but as soon as I say it I realize my stupid mistake.
     So then I add, ‘but not properly’ and I look him right in the eye. His smile was the
     sexiest thing I’d ever seen. I could tell I’d surprised him. Then he said,”—now Sage
     and Emily jump in to say their favorite part of the story with me—“‘well, that’s a
     shame, Darlin’.’”
    “I can’t believe you fell for that,” Ned says. He shakes his head, then gets up to
     retrieve a beer from the mini-fridge.
    “Do you want to hear the rest of this or not?”
    He takes a long swallow. “I don’t know if I can take any more of this douche. But
     go ahead.”
    “Harlan—that’s what I’m calling him—tells me he’d like to help me out but there would
     be too many people watching. He said if I want to make things right to meet him at
     the big tree right after sundown. And then he walked away. So of course, I’m there
     at the tree waiting. When the sun was all the way down, I started to get pissed. I
     don’t know how much time passed, but after a while, I felt like an idiot. I remember
     looking through the darkness and seeing that people were getting ready to leave, and
     I figured it was time to give up.”
    Ned is finally captivated by my story and is now hanging on my every word. When I
     pause, he says, “Well, what happened? Don’t leave me hanging now.”
    “I leaned my back up against the tree and looked into the sky. I was searching for
     a sign. I told myself that if the star I was looking at sparkled within ten seconds,
     then it meant he wasn’t coming and I should leave. After five seconds, the star twinkled
     and I sighed, ready to walk away. But then, I heard him whisper my name from behind
     the tree. I was so happy he showed, I decided to forget about the star and the fact
     that he was late. I played along and whispered back. He asked if I was ready or if
     I’d changed my mind. I whispered that I was ready. He told