Maddie came to get me the other day in her two-door Toyota, kicking up dust on the mountain and honking to get Puppy to move out of the way so he didn’t get run over. It was late June in the Juniest way, hot and bright, bees everywhere, sticky sugar spilling from the hummingbird feeder. It was Saturday and Maddie gave Harry and Bette and Davy high fives, all in a row, and waved to Mom where she was weeding in the garden and took me off the mountain.
We pulled up to her house, where Maddie’s relatives, or more like various versions of Maddie at different ages and with different hair, were sipping lemonade under a banner that said CONGRATULATIONS MADELINE. To be among people who weren’t my family, even strangers, I could have sung just like Davy, “People come from everywhere because I’m almost there.”
The free air. Nobody asked me questions. I just sat on the porch swing and ate chocolate chip cookies, and occasionally Maddie would swing by and we’d exchange a joke, or she’d tell me a story about how she’s been Facebook stalking her new roommate at Emory, a lizard enthusiast.
When she started in on what classes she was taking, I had to bite my tongue. College shit. I couldn’t handle college shit.
I nodded along for Maddie’s sake, but every mention of higher education was still like someone pinching me and twisting. Mariana Oliva’s words rose up behind me, a ghost: Study everything. It’s not like I still harbored dreams that I could do it. I couldn’t do it, I knew I couldn’t do it.
But damn. All the hope I had felt, flaunting itself like a peacock in the letters we received from the NYU registrar, every logo, every mention.
After her aunt so-and-so called Maddie away, I noticed Coop and that guy Maddie had punched all those years ago refilling their lemonade cups.
When Coop spotted me, I waved, and he came over and sat down on the swing. We didn’t say anything for a while. I remembered I had forgotten to make him brownies for giving me a ride.
“Qué pasa, Sammie?” He bumped his cup on mine. One of the last classes we had taken together was Spanish 1, our first year of high school. He used to greet me like that every class period.
“Nada, zanahoria.”
Coop turned to me, confused. “Did you just say, ‘nothing, carrot’?”
I laughed. “I couldn’t remember what asshole was.”
“Are you still mad at me for digging into that Stuart guy?”
“You can just call him Stuart.”
Coop rolled his eyes. “Are you still mad at me for digging into Stuart?”
“Well, maybe I was, but you were right.” I took a deep breath. “I told him.”
“And?” Coop raised his eyebrows, his voice bracing for another blow.
“Stuart’s sticking around.” I swallowed. “I mean, for the time being. He even comes over and helps out around the house. That’s why my parents haven’t asked your mom to check in for a while.”
“Wow.”
“I mean, not all the time,” I said. “He still has to write a lot. And he works at the Canoe Club.”
Coop nodded, shrugged, didn’t say anything for a second. “Good,” he finally said.
We smiled, but there was a little sadness to his—I’m not sure why.
Anyway, the fight was over, like rapid fire, because we knew it was over. It was just like letting him into the kitchen after all those years. We could have been fighting about who got to lick the cake-batter spoon.
Over in the yard, Maddie screamed with delight. Coop and I glanced in her direction.
Pat and Maddie’s aunt had just presented Maddie with one of her graduation presents: a navy blue hooded sweatshirt, embroidered with EMORY UNIVERSITY.
I tried not to be jealous, I tried to be happy, but I must have winced. I couldn’t help thinking, That could have been me, too.
“Qué pasa?” Coop asked again, studying my face.
I nodded toward Maddie, hoping he would get it.
He did.
“I’m about to head home,” Coop said. “Do you want a ride?”
“Oh, I think Maddie was going to drop me off later…”
Coop glanced at Maddie. “You really want to wait that out?”
Maddie was ripping the sleeves off the Emory sweatshirt, because she hates sleeves. When she was done, Maddie’s aunt took the sleeves and waved them around over her head. Maddie put on her hood and pretended to throw a few jabs at her aunt. Her aunt slapped her with a sleeve and they chased each other around the yard.
“Yeah, it looks like it’s going to be a long night.” I looked at Coop, and we laughed.
I put the present I had brought for Maddie on her dining room table—a set of brand-new Remington Virtually Indestructible hair clippers I found online—and we slipped out the back door.
Coop and I hopped in his Blazer.
“When are you supposed to be home?” he asked as he turned the ignition.
“Not for another couple hours,” I said. We still had about an hour of sunlight left, those shadowy hours where it was still warm in the light, cool in the dark. Just a couple more hours of freedom. I put on my seat belt.
Coop glanced at me as we pulled out onto the highway. “Want to go to the Potholes?”
I considered it. But going to the swimming hole with Coop probably meant going to the Potholes with everyone. Plus, he’d probably want to “relax,” and I wasn’t going to take any more risks with mentally compromised people operating vehicles. “Nah,” I said. “I can’t party anymore. Too many cookies.” Coop let out a laugh. “I’m wasted,” I added in a fake-drunk voice, which made him laugh more.
“Well, I meant just stop by. Chill. For old times’ sake.”
The air smelled so good, so clean, and almost wet. I wasn’t lying when I told Stuart it was my favorite part of living here.
“Okay,” I said, and Coop slowed down to turn the Blazer around. “Can I invite Stuart?”
Coop didn’t answer right away.
“You’d like him if you got to know him,” I said, flicking him in the shoulder.
“Sure,” Coop said, and smiled at me with his lips closed.
By the time we exited off Highway 89 and parked near the banks, Stuart had texted that he couldn’t come, he was working, but he’d call me later.
“Well, looks like it’s just you and me, Coop,” I told him.
I leaned on him as we climbed from rock to rock, until we were in the middle of the little falls, watching the streams split and meet again along the boulders. We talked about when we were kids before phones and social media, when we knew what boredom felt like. This was before either of our parents could afford summer camp, and basically used us as glorified babysitters. We got so bored, we did some weird shit. I mean, all kid stuff, but kind of messed up all the same.
We were cracking up, reminiscing about the time we told Bette she was actually a ghost, when Coop asked me, “When did we stop being friends?”
“Hm.” I took a deep breath. “Besides the day you got kicked off the baseball team?” I saw his eyes that day, what had sunk inside him.
“Oh, yeah,” Coop said quickly. “Yeah,” he repeated. “Thanks for…” He paused, clearing his throat. “Thanks for not telling anyone.”
I swallowed. Something told me, Not now. “I would never… yeah. I never told anyone at school,” I half lied.
“But I mean before that.” He was right. That was only the last straw on the camel’s back.
“I think it was a gradual thing, but I remember one time…” I said. Cooper turned to face me, his arms perched on his knees, listening. “Freshman year. Even before you got… you left the team. I remember you were supposed to come over and help me watch the kids, and you never showed. Then you never said sorry. You didn’t answer my calls for, like, a month. And I was, like, screw it.”
“Huh.” Coop looked down at his hands, picking at invisible dirt.
“And you had moved your seat in Spanish so you could sit next to Sara Gilmore. So it was weird to try to talk to you at school.”
Coop shrugged his shoulders, twisting his mouth a little, searching for what to say. I waited for the excuses I figured he would make, how he got busy, or how I was kind of a know-it-all (I was). But he could have at least said something.
“I was a little asshole,” Cooper said.
“You were.” I nodded, and found myself giggling a bit out of triumph. “Sorry, it’s just nice to hear you admit that.”
He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, and then closed it. He stood up and leapt to another rock. He put his hands on his hips, and then raised a fist to the sky.
“Do you remember this?” he called.
I did. When Coop made that gesture as a kid, he had automatically transformed into CAPTAIN STICKMAN! Captain Stickman was a friend to all humans and animals. His special power was, well, that he had a stick. But! The stick could be used as a sword, a walking stick, a flag to claim territory, or a wand that could turn anything into anything.
“CAPTAIN STICKMAN!” I yelled, laughing. “But you’re missing your stick!”
I reached over the rock and searched for a piece of driftwood in the water. All I could find was a beer can. I tossed it at Coop; it fell egregiously short.
Coop got on his belly and fished it out. “CAPTAIN STICKMAN!” he yelled, his voice echoing off the falls.
I joined in with a fake announcer voice, as I had done when we were kids. “A FRIEND TO ALL HUMANS AND ANIMALS!”
“A FRIEND TO ALL HUMANS AND ANIMALS, INCLUDING SAMMIE MCCOY!” he yelled.
I smiled at him. He smashed the beer can between his hands.
“IS THIS INDEED CORRECT?” he asked, pointing at me with the smashed can. “I AM SORRY FOR BEING AN ASSHOLE. ARE WE FRIENDS AGAIN?”
“Yes,” I said. “Of course.” I didn’t really know what that meant, especially now. Minus shooting the shit at the Potholes, I didn’t really know what Coop and I would do together. Still, he looked more like my friend than ever, out of breath, and hair all over his face, excited for no reason.
“YOU MUST YELL IT TO MAKE IT SO,” he said.
I cupped my hands around my mouth. “CAPTAIN STICKMAN IS A FRIEND TO ALL HUMANS AND ANIMALS, INCLUDING SAMMIE MCCOY.”
Captain Stickman once again raised his fist to the sky, and then leapt back to my rock, turning back into Coop.
We got into the Blazer. We talked about the time Captain Stickman had gotten too ambitious about his ability to land on his feet after jumping from a tree, and broke his leg. Then, because crutches were an ideal sticklike tool, Captain Stickman again overstepped his abilities and broke the other leg. We were cracking up by the time we pulled into my driveway.
“Hang on,” Coop said when I unbuckled. He kept his eyes on my house as he said, “There was a time for me, too.”
“For what?” I asked.
“That I thought we weren’t friends anymore. I mean, it was kind of my fault. But. Do you know what I’m talking about?” He looked at me, clutching the steering wheel.
I thought back. “That time I corrected you in Spanish in front of everyone?”
“No, before that.”
I thought of middle school. “When I didn’t believe you that you were allergic to bees?”
Coop laughed a little. “Nope.”
“Tell me.”
“When…” he started, and cleared his throat. “The summer after eighth grade, when I called you. And I asked you to go to Molly’s to eat dinner with me. On, like, a Friday night. And I told you I would pay for it with my allowance. And you said… Are you remembering this?”
“Oh!” I remembered. Kind of. I remember he was acting weird on the phone, and a couple of weeks after that he avoided me, but then the whole thing kind of blew over. “I thought you were just scheming something, like a prank or something. And I thought you were mad because I didn’t want to come.”
“I wasn’t mad, Sammie.” Coop looked back at my house. “But my feelings were hurt.” He cleared his throat again. “My widdle feewings. Eighth-grade feelings,” he added. “Ha-ha.”
“Oh!” I said again, and got out, leaning on the open door. I thought I knew what Coop was saying, but I wasn’t sure, so I said, “Well, damn, Coop. I’m sorry.”
He shook his head, laughing it off. “It’s fine. I was just remembering that. Trip down memory lane.”
Mom had opened our front door, waiting.
“See you soon?” I asked, because we were both uncomfortable.
“See you soon,” he answered.