Hey, Maddie,” Stewart says when he sees me getting out of the van. “Hey,” I say casually.
His older guy friend is heading inside, but Stewart hangs back. He waits for me. “I didn’t see you sitting back there.”
“Oh yeah,” I joke. “I’m a back-of-the-van sorta girl.”
He smiles at this. It warms me all over.
We walk along behind the other people. We buy our tickets. Stewart doesn’t say anything but he seems to want to stay near me.
It makes sense. We’re the only ones under thirty in the entire group.
“You want popcorn?” I ask Stewart in the lobby.
“Sure,” he says, and he comes with me. The same pimply local boy scoops us out two bags of popcorn. He smiles up at Stewart respectfully.
We go into the theater and sit with the other people. We’re on the end. We sit right next to each other.
The previews start. I find myself laughing at stuff that’s not even funny. Mostly because I’m so nervous.
The movie plays. It’s a supernatural horror thriller. I hadn’t realized this. Scary movies freak me out.
I get through it by closing my eyes and humming to myself during the worst parts. Stewart doesn’t seem to notice. At least, he doesn’t say anything.
When the lights come up, we all shuffle out. The group of us cross the street to the donut place. I’m trying to stick near Stewart but then his guy friend comes over and grabs him away. I get stuck walking with two women I don’t know.
Which pisses me off.
Inside the donut place, our group takes up two tables. I get stuck in the coffee line, and end up sitting far away from Stewart. There’s nothing I can do. I watch him from afar. He sits there: shy, silent, adorable. Everyone loves him. The older women especially. They want to hold him to their bosoms. It kills me to see this.
The men dominate the conversation. They tell their usual war stories: The time they got arrested. The time they crashed their car.
Whatever.
I try not to stare at Stewart. How can I not? He is beautiful and sad and perfect in some fascinating way. If only it was the two of us. If only we could talk.
The clock is against me. Only nine more minutes until the van comes. I stare into my coffee. He’s forgotten I’m here, so it doesn’t make any difference. I don’t know what I was thinking.
But then at 9:30, when we all gather outside, he comes over to me.
“Hey,” I say back.
I try to think of something else to say. “I saw you with the maintenance crew,” I manage.
“You did?”
“You were out in the lawn.”
“Oh yeah. Fixing the sprinklers.”
“What happened to the sprinklers?”
“They break sometimes in the winter.”
“Oh.”
The van comes. Everyone gets in. I sit in the back and slouch down like I do. Other people get in. Stewart gets in. He comes back and sits beside me.
“I guess I’m a back-of-the-van person too,” he says, smiling.
We drive. We’re sitting pretty far apart. But I look over at him and he kind of looks at me and then he laughs.
“What?” I say.
“I don’t know. It’s just funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“That we meet like this,” he says.
“What? In a van?”
“No, just…the whole thing.”
We’re talking quietly, so that the other people won’t hear. They’re all caught up in their own conversations anyway.
“I don’t see what’s so funny about it,” I say.
“Maybe it’s not funny.”
“I’m glad you’re sitting here,” I tell him, my heart pounding as I say it.
“Yeah?”
“I wish we coulda talked more tonight,” I say.
He stares straight ahead. “Yeah,” he says. “Me too.”
I look away. My heart is thudding in my chest. I watch out the window as a farmhouse drifts by.
I turn back to him. I summon every ounce of courage I possess. “Maybe we should meet up somewhere,” I say quietly.
He looks at me, surprised. “I thought boys weren’t supposed to…you know…fraternize with girls.”
“So we won’t. We’ll just hang out.”
He looks at me in the dark. “Where would we do that?”
“How about the Rite Aid, tomorrow at eight.”
He thinks about the Rite Aid. He thinks about it a long time.
“Or not,” I finally say. “If you don’t want to.”
“No,” he says. “That might be okay.”