Old Bones: A Collection of Short Stories Read online

Then

  “I HAD MY first chance to kiss her when we were in seventh grade,” I said to Derek in the lunchroom at school almost a month ago, “Remember? It was three days before Halloween at my snooty cousin Lisa’s house, during a party for her fourteenth birthday.”

  Derek and I sat across from each other, avoided eye contact, and kept our voices low. I reminded him how my Aunt Debbie had invited the neighborhood boys and girls over for cake and ice cream. Aunt Debbie was always generous to us kids, so it wasn’t unusual to see twenty or thirty of us hanging around. And, she had a heated in-ground indoor swimming pool unlike the rest of us with above-ground outdoor pools, so it was possible to swim yearlong there. I loved to swim but couldn’t stand my cousin, so I wasn’t complaining too loudly when I was late for the party because my mom’s fix-or-repair-daily automobile blew a back tire.

  When we arrived, I tossed Lisa her present along with the card my mom bought and made me sign, gobbled down a big bowl of strawberry ice cream topped with chocolate syrup, and practically flew to the pool. There were almost twenty kids in there when I cannon-balled into their midst. I maneuvered around other kids and swam until I came to a circle of six girls playing Blind Man’s Bluff. They were classmates from school, and they surrounded another girl wearing a white bikini and a red neckerchief blindfold. She tried tagging one of the girls who crouched low, while the others snuck up and yelled “Boo.” I watched as the stunning “blind man” waded through waist-high water toward me.

  A beach ball bounced off the back of my head and I turned partway around to see Derek and some of my other friends laughing. Just then, the “blind man” stumbled into me, fell, and accidentally pulled down the back of my trunks. I squirmed around to haul them back up as the two of us went underwater. My legs tangled with hers and for a moment her body was on mine and had me pinned to the pool floor, her stomach pressed into mine. When we stopped struggling, she and I floated into a gentle embrace. Then she took off the blindfold. It was Julie Sommers. Our faces were inches apart and I wanted to kiss her. But she disappeared from view and a strong arm pulled me up. Uncle John and Cousin Paul brought us to our feet and asked if we were okay. Julie said “yes” and I mumbled an affirmative. Julie returned to her game and I sat on the sidelines and daydreamed about what-ifs.

  “You should have kissed her right then and there,” Derek told me that day in the lunchroom.

  He was right.