The Brains, the Athletes,
the Basket Cases, the Princesses,
and the Criminals
Back when I was a kid, I knew my classmates’ domiciles by description (“Meg lives in the big, white house”) or placement (“Katie’s house is third from the corner”). The address where I was about to meet Rob was one of several nondescript Georgians on the north side of Touhy, utterly forgettable to anyone else but me, since this house had served as the setting for one of my biggest and most formative mortifications.
Even though I was probably the only one who remembered the incident, just thinking about it sent shivers up and down my spine.
I supposed these little jolts of nostalgia, if you could call them that, came with the territory of dating Rob. Though maybe, if we stayed together long enough, we’d start to make new memories, and the recurring nightmare of me getting my period and, instead of helping me, Ellen Miller making sure the entire sleepover knew I had bled through my white Gap shorts would fade away.
Nope. I could be on my death bed at ninety and that one would still hurt.
I grabbed the tray of Tony’s macaroni salad from the passenger’s seat, made sure I had nothing stuck in my teeth, and left the safety of my vehicle.
My black-and-white sundress flapped around my legs in the warm wind, which carried sounds from several different Fourth of July parties on the block. “Everybody Dance Now” pumped from one backyard, the sounds of kids splashing in a pool emanated from another, and then I caught gusts of laughter coming from behind the Millers’ house.
I pushed open the back gate and headed into the yard, eyes sweeping the place, looking for Rob. He’d asked me to meet him at the party because he’d been here all night helping his friend smoke brisket or something like that. Apparently it was a task that required constant vigilance and about fifteen hours.
“Oh my god, Annie Kyle!”
My head swung to the right, and a woman who looked like a slightly aged-up version of herself from twenty-five years ago—same long, thick dirty blond hair in a ponytail, tank top, and cutoffs—dashed over and wrapped me in a hug.
“Hi…Ellen,” I said.
Ellen and I never would’ve hugged back in grade school. Or no, that wasn’t completely true. Back then, she would’ve hugged me while pretending to be my best friend for two days before dumping me like a bad habit after the weekend, which was something that had actually happened.
But that was more than twenty-five years ago. We were grown-ups now. Ellen had no doubt matured, just like I had.
“It’s so good to see you.” She held me at arm’s length for a moment. “God, you look great.” And then walked me up the steps to the deck, where several unfamiliar women were sitting around the patio table, drinking and eating foods in chip-and-dip form.
I felt like I was moving underwater, a little off balance, a little stressed about my breathing. I was used to my friends, to Yessi and Kelly. As a workaholic almost-forty-year-old, I didn’t get out much to socialize. But, no, that wasn’t true. In the past few weeks, I’d gone out on two successful dates with guys I barely knew, and I’d broken through (at least momentarily) the gruff exterior of my new roommate. I could do this.
“Everybody,” Ellen said, “this is Rob’s next-door neighbor, Annie.”
“Hi,” I said brightly, waving to the crowd of women. “Nice to meet you all.” I glanced around. “Have you seen Rob?”
One of the women, a blonde who’d obviously been working on her tan, pointed toward the back fence. “Garage.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed a beer from a nearby cooler—when in Rome—and walked down the steps and through the yard to the garage. The side door was closed, but I could hear a bunch of male voices wafting through the aluminum. I took a deep breath and opened it. All eyes snapped to me. “Hi, I’m…” I gave a timid wave. Shit. Rob and these guys were super close. I wondered how much he’d told them about our…situation.
We probably should’ve had this conversation beforehand.
“Hey, Annie!” Rob set his beer down and rushed over. He kissed me quick on the cheek, took my elbow, and hurried me over to say hi to his friends. “You probably know all these guys already,” he said, smiling. “This is T.J. Collins. He’s married to Ellen now, and the two of them bought this house from her parents. These jerks are Jim and Pete and Jack—they were my year in grade school. And of course you know Eric Mendoza.” He ushered me over to a bearded hulk of a man with a thatch of thick, black hair on top of his head. Kind brown eyes smiled at me.
“Ann Kyle,” Eric said jokingly, offering a fist to bump. I obliged him.
Eric and I had been in school together from kindergarten through eighth grade. We were always in competition academically and used to make fun of each other all the time, teasingly, benignly. I even let him call me “Ann,” because I knew it came from a place of mutual respect.
“You grew,” I acknowledged, smiling. “And you kept your hair. Didn’t see that one coming.”
He ran his fingers through the thick locks. “Yes, I did.”
“I mean,” I said, “assuming all that’s real.”
The other guys laughed. One of them—Jack, I think—grabbed me another beer. I straightened up. This wasn’t so bad at all. They were being nice to me. I’d been accepted into this group.
Rob stood near me, our arms touching, just barely. “How are things out there?” He nodded toward the door, smiling nervously.
“Good,” I said, grinning. “Everyone was very welcoming.”
“Glad to hear it. They can be a tough crowd.” He picked up his own beer from a nearby table and started walking toward the main garage door, leading out to the alley. “Come on out here a second.”
I nodded in deference to the other guys and followed Rob out of the garage. He led me over to one side, where they had set up the smoker. Tufts of gray smog contrasted the bright blue midday sky. I left the beer Jack had given me on the ground nearby. I knew someone in this crowd would grab it eventually.
“I’m sorry you had to come alone,” Rob said. “That wasn’t my plan, but T.J. needed my help.”
“No problem at all. How’s the brisket coming?”
Rob laughed. “It’s taking a hell of a lot longer than we thought it would. Should be ready by next Fourth of July, at this rate.”
I smiled. There was something sexy about a guy in an apron, poking at meat on a grill. “Do Ellen and T.J. have a nice pantry for you to use, Mr. Cook Guy?”
He laughed. “No!” He ran a hand through his blond hair, squinting in the sun. “I keep begging them to let me work on their house, but no dice.” He motioned for me to follow him. “Oh, but check this out.”
I followed him a few doors down, taking the opportunity to peek through fences and into the backyards. When I lived with my parents, I liked to walk down the alleys sometimes to get an entirely different perspective on the neighborhood. There were so many hidden treasures to spy—old cars, aboveground pools, the odd shrine—whether to Mary or to the Bears.
Rob stopped near a tall wooden fence. “This will be tough to see, but—shoot, no. We’re going in.”
“What?” I glanced back toward the Millers’ house.
“Trust me.” Rob looked around as if trying to figure out what to do. A moment later, a lightbulb went on in his head. “Stay there.” Then he jumped the chain-link fence behind the house next door. A few seconds later, he was letting me in the back gate of the house with the very tall fence.
“What are we doing?” I ducked my head and entered the yard, like I was heading into the Secret Garden or something. “This is breaking and entering.”
“We didn’t break anything.”
“Well, we entered.”
I followed him into the yard, down a cement walk, and past the garage. This house had a massive addition along the back, with floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Did you do this?” I asked.
“I did.” He waggled his eyebrows, then continued to skulk all the way up and onto the deck.
“People have guns in this neighborhood, Rob.”
He waved away my concern. “They know me.”
“Okay…” I hung back, ready to call 911 and perform CPR—whatever was necessary.
“No one’s home,” he said. “Come here.”
I tiptoed up to the window where Rob had pressed his face to the glass.
“Look in here. This kitchen is one of my masterpieces.”
I gazed around at the gleaming counters and cabinets. He’d even installed a mosaic on the backsplash behind the stove. Rob had real talent and passion for his work. I grinned, thinking of the slacker kid I knew back in the day, who never wanted to be anything except “good at video games.”
Yet another “pro” for Rob: having a guy around who could fix things in the house. Though I already knew about his business, it didn’t hurt to see actual evidence of his prowess in this area.
“See the door there?”
I squinted into the house. “Yeah.”
“It leads to a big-ass pantry,” he said with a gleam in his eye.
“That’s the dream,” I said.
“That is the dream.” He leaned in and touched his lips to mine, on the deck of some stranger’s house. His lips tasted pleasantly malty and sweet, but I could barely enjoy the kiss because I kept expecting some security personnel to show up and bust us for trespassing or Ellen to come zipping around the corner to make fun of me for kissing Rob Casey.
Old wounds persisted.
After a moment, Rob pulled away, patted me on the arm, and said, “I’d better get back to that brisket.”
In a fog, I followed him out of the yard and back to the Millers’ house.