It’s the summer when I turn sixteen.
I haven’t been home since Christmas, and I haven’t seen very much of the boy since last summer’s tiff. We made up before I went back to school, he accepted my apology and the letter; we even went back to watching movies in the screening room, and to holding hands again, but there was a residue of awkwardness between us that we masked behind our usual routine.
Life at school is all-consuming. I haven’t had the space or energy to go home for more than a few days at a time in the past year.
The boy’s shadow has been looming large. I have also missed Miss Mary. I haven’t seen my parents in so long that she’s almost replaced them.
I start weeping with relief when I see her waiting at the airport.
Being back knocks me out of my airplane daze.
“How is the boy?” I ask her, hoping she’ll drive me to his place.
“Don’t you want to go home first and shower?” she asks.
“No,” I say. But now that she’s mentioned it, I do.
“I think it’s best,” she says. She smiles at me and squeezes my knee maternally.
“I do too. Thank you for your concern, Miss Mary.”
I crash like a jet that’s run out of fuel the minute I get home.
“I can’t…”
“I know,” she says, stroking my hair. “You sleep now, baby bird. You’ll be so much better tomorrow. I’ll let them know you’re coming round in the morning instead.”
***
The boy is sitting on a bench, chatting to a girl, when I jump out of the car and run toward him. I pause just before reaching them, suddenly shy. What if he’s changed more than I have?
At first, he seems dismissive when I greet him. He tells the girl I’m an old friend from middle school. She shakes my hand and then says goodbye to both of us before walking off.
I’ve heard from Mabel and others that he’s been seeing a girl at the apartment building, and that he’s gotten close with some of the boys there too, Buzz and Farley.
“A friend?” I raise an eyebrow and laugh. “That’s how you introduce me now?”
He says that’s what I am, since I’ve abandoned him for the high life up East.
“All the while I’ve been missing you all year,” I sing, then start dancing like a maniac.
He looks down. “So what?” he says. “Show, don’t tell.”
“I am showing you my love for you, with dance!” I declare.
I feel we are edging back to the way we were before. Distance has made the heart grow fonder; longing, forgetting the rift, healing it. Forgiveness.
I plop down beside him, grab his face, and kiss him all over while speaking in baby talk.
“Are we a bit sullen, my itty bitty bébé?” I ask.
At least I’ve managed to jolt him out of his mood. He laughs, his wonderful, guttural, silly laugh.
“I love you!” I blurt.
I stand up, startled by my own outburst.
I resume my idiot dance, singing, “I love you, I love you, I luuurve you!”
“Have you had sexual relations with anyone yet?” he asks abruptly.
I stop and stare at him. “Why would you even ask that?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “You just seem so… energetic.”
“Oh.” I blink, unsure where to look.
I remind myself I will soon be sixteen and regret my childishness. Maybe his new girl is more mature.
“You have!” he accuses.
“Jesus, no! I bloody well haven’t!”
“You promise?”
“Of course I do. I’m saving myself for you and all the kids we’re gonna make through sweet lovemaking when we’re old and married, just like your mamma wants.”
He laughs.
“Please, no. Don’t remind me.”
“Have you?” I ask.
“None of your goddamn business,” he says. Then, a beat later: “But no. Not really. I want to though. I got the hots for you, baby.”
“Eugh. That’s disgusting language,” I say, laughing shyly.
“But funny,” he grins.
“Yes,” I admit. “Funny.”
“You really love me?”
He glances over at me sideways as we walk back toward his parents’ apartment.
“Sure do, sucker.”
I put my arm around him. “Boy, have I brought presents for you,” I say, shaking the tote bag I’m carrying.
“You shouldn’t have.”
“Yeah, I should. I brought a few things for your mamma and daddy too.”
“Thank you,” he smiles, holding the door open as we start up the stairs.
“You’re so welcome.”
***
“Mamma, look who I found prowlin’ the streets like a tiger in heat,” he announces, gesturing toward me. I laugh because he is being funny.
“Miss Birdie!” His mother gets up from her chair and greets me with a warm hug.
“It’s good to see you again,” I say. “It’s wonderful to be home. You look lovely as ever.”
“Please, take a seat,” she offers. “Tell us everything. Did you do well on your exams? The boy hasn’t done so well since you went away to school. Can you talk to him?”
“I sure can,” I say, and start telling her how great Miss Porter’s is.
“Mamma, we’re goin’ out,” the boy says. “Can I go to Birdie’s and say hello to Miss Mary?” Then, turning to me: “Can I stay at yours?”
He winks. “In the spare room, I mean.”
“Of course you can. Miss Mary always keeps it ready for you.”
“Have you heard how much he’s over at your house visitin’ Miss Mary?” his mother asks.
“No, I haven’t,” I answer.
“Are you really?” I ask him as we walk back to my house.
He grins. “I’m there all the time,” he confesses.
“Why?” I ask.
“I just like it there,” he shrugs. “I like the scent of your room. I like to talk to Miss Mary, and I like her food. I like the home theatre and the popcorn machine. I like the garden and the pool. And I really like lyin’ in your bed talkin’ to you when I miss you.”
“But I’m not there,” I say, confused.
“You sort of are, in a way.”
“I am?”
“Yeah. Anyway, stop harassing me about it. I go to your house, okay? You said I could. So I do. And Miss Mary likes to see me too, she says so all the time.”
***
After a dip in the pool and iced tea in the shade, I tell him he can come sleep in my room tonight after Miss Mary has gone to bed.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I say. “Not in a lewd way, but once the old proprietor of innocence has turned in, she won’t know whether you’re in your room or mine. And I do so love to natter before falling asleep.”
“So just pop down the hall when she’s turned off the lights downstairs and you hear her head out to her quarters. Yes?”
“Fine by me.” He laughs.
“It’s real good to have you back home,” he says.
***
The boy has to work all summer, and this annoys me, because I want to spend all my waking hours with him. I want to offer to have Grandpa George just pay him the money, but I know that won’t do our relationship any good, so I accept it and do my thing without him when he is at work. I see Mabel and go to the club, and I spend time on my own recovering from the busy year I have put behind me.
The Mid-South heat is unbearable. I drink iced water all day, go to air-conditioned movie houses with Mabel and Bingham in the afternoons. We eat ice cream by the river when I pick the boy up from work. We look at that mighty river of ours as it moves past us, going places, and we plan our lives, our big lives outside of Memphis. We know we too will go places, somehow.
The boy loves it when I read to him from funny books, dramatically, using different voices, and we take turns entertaining each other, in between making out, and him asking when I’ll finally let him “have me,” which makes him laugh every time and makes me deeply annoyed.
“Your mother would be appalled if she knew what a little bimbo you are,” I tell him.
“I know,” he says. “But I feel like my hoochy-coochy ways are safe with you.”
I roll my eyes.
I swim, help the gardener, tan and swim some more. Then I go with Miss Mary to see her sister in Arkansas, before we head out to the country and visit Grandpa George, who wants to hear all about my American experience. He has moved out to the house that my mother always referred to as “the summer place.” It is green and lush and feels like paradise out here.
“One day,” he says, as we walk across a field, “if you want it, of course, this will all be yours.” He rests his hand on my shoulder as we look out to the horizon and all the unspoiled beauty ahead of us.
My novel GREAT ARE THE MYTHS will be serialised (one chapter each day) over the summer of 2026. If you would rather listen to the audiobook, the full story is available for free on all the usual platforms. Info and links HERE
My World of Interiors 