“Really, I’m sorry I bailed.” We’re sitting on the warm stone wall overlooking the old badminton field. Below our feet, busy bees scurry in white clover.
“I get it,” Eve says, the midday sun glowing her profile a golden blaze.
“I mean it. And then I used my Oma to get you to heel it over here and now she’s asleep.” Eve laughs, looks at me with one eye closed to the light.
“She’s probably not even sick,” she says, shoving my shoulder, and my pulse jumps as I’m snagging her hand, my fingers curling into hers. My armpits and knees erupt in sweat.
“No, she is,” I manage to say.
“I know.”
I climb down the wall monkey-style, showing off, and we wander through the yard and scope a jumble of bright green three-speed Schwinn spins stashed away in Oma’s musty shed for what must be eons. Swooping handlebars, leather saddles, and red-rusted shifters that sit at a massive cricket angle on the top tube frame and I say let’s take a ride but Eve says these bad boys aren’t going anywhere. I move through Opa’s relic of a workshop like an old pro, show Eve the ancient tools, aged wood grooved in the shapes of his thick, strong hands. And then I get down to tinkering. She watches as I pump full a flat.
“It’s hit these ole tires are filling. I was for sure the inner tubes would be wasted.”
She crinkles up her nose. “Inner tubes?”
Next I fiddle with her spin’s chain that hangs like loose teeth and she’s standing, scoping from over my shoulder. The fabric of her flannel is brushing against my back.
“Those things are massive filthy.”
“It’s grease, Jack.”
“Grease?” And I smile.
I show her what’s an Allen wrench and how to squirt a can of WD-40 and tighten a bolt and realign the brakes.
“Beatbug?” she says, and I look up, a black smear running a line from her freckled nose to her ear. I drop my wrench to stand, wipe her face with the cuff of my sleeve.
“Yeah?”
“When did you know you were into betties?”
“Oh,” I say. “I … dunno. I guess I’ve always known. Ever since my first crush, way back when.”
“Way back when when?”
“Kindergarten, maybe. Does that count?” She nods, slides her fingertips into the front pocket of my jeans, and my skin is live wires, hot circuits. I play it cool. “But I’ve always been massive stiff scared to do anything about it. No matter how much I wanted to, I just never did. Never thought I could.”
“Hmm,” she hums, stepping back to snag a ball of twine, twirling one end round and round her finger. “You weren’t stiff scared with me.”
I laugh. “I was! Sure as shootin’ I was. I’m still sorta yeller. You ain’t?”
She shrugs. “Not with you. You don’t spook me, Beatstreet Butler. You’re sugary as peach ’n’ cream pie, ponies ’n’ pigtails galore.”
“Me?” I mock horror. “I’ll have you know I’m the most meanest, most durn tootin,’ most gun-totin’-est, most hard-knockin’-est flap-flippin’-Jack in these here parts. Heart a’ stone, thas Bull’s-Eye Butler.”
“Sure,” she says. “Whaver you say, Bull’s-Eye,” and I laugh, squat beside the spins to finish up.
“All right, Thumbs.” I stand, wiping my hands on an old, dirty rag. “Let’s roll.”
“Y’know, I forgot you’re so gosh-dang handy, what with all this tinkerin’. It’s pretty dang hot.” And I’m grinning flap-Jack big and massive wanna jump all up in her bones.
Twenty minutes later Eve and I are happyface riding our switch old spins on the rail-trail when Eve grins mischief, chug-chugging quick ahead.
“Go Children Slow,” I warn. “These ole beasts can’t shred gravel the way they used to.”
She cranes her neck and smiles back, pedaling faster still. Then her handlebars get wobbly, and bump bump she goes, over a tree root and a bolt in her seat snaps clean and she’s careening from the path, rodeo-style through the trees. Her spin’s chain catches fast on a stump and it shoots off the gears and she’s grinding to a gut-wrenching stop.
Her shoulders are shaking as I roll up, worrywart central.
“What’s broken?” I say, skidding out and dashing to her side.
And then I see she’s laughing riots, and when she scopes my flipped mug, she says, “Look at you, Bull’s-Eye Butler, hard-knockin’, flap-flippin’, heart-a’-stone-Jack.” She’s laughing so hard even I crack a small smile. “Rinse and repeat, Bug. I didn’t break. Not even close,” and she drops her cranked-up spin to the ground. The seat gives another groan and crack and she’s a flip-flop howling hyena again.
“Oh, word, Thumbs,” I say, kick at its tire. “Massive riot. But what Popsicle stick’s gonna tinker this in-n-out heap?”
She smiles. “You?”
“Nope. We.” And I poke her in the ribs and she wraps her arms around my neck and my legs turn to jelly but I don’t buckle or sway. I pull her hard into me under the soft rustle of woodsounds and birdsong and we stand there breathing into the other, my whole being electric with her touch. A mom pushing a stroller comes jogging by, so we quickly peel ourselves apart and heel it home to tinker the chain and seat together. Bug ’n’ Thumbs.
We’re just finishing up in the garage, the sun cresting high in the sky, when Dad, Mart, and Miles pull in with a truck full of grub. We help them lug it in and I roll my eyes as Dad grills Eve on her post–high school plans, on college, career, and the great beyond.
I tell him to lay off, but Eve, she’s radiant and eloquent and has it all figured out: the Master Plan. I cut in, asking if she’s set up a 401(k), or preregistered for any retirement communities in the Florida Keys. Dad just laughs, slaps a palm to his forehead, and announces he’s upgrading his Daughter Plan, thinks he can get a good trade-in rate at the store. Good ole Marta goes splitting a gut at this until she remembers she’s also his daughter and then she’s throwing a small fit. She stalks off into the living room and Dad gives me a funny look when I say I’m gonna drive Eve home, so probably won’t be back around until late.
“What?” I say, furrowing my brow.
“Nothing,” he says. “Nothing at all.”
But I don’t believe him.