In history, from across the room, he palms a quarter then motions for me to look in my shoe, and there it is. In calculus, he passes me a note folded like a rose. I unfold it, and instead of lying flat, it makes a heart. In the cafeteria, he guesses what Monday has in her lunch. （She is unimpressed, and in fairness, how many sandwiches besides egg salad and how many fruits besides bananas are yellow and easy to pack in a paper sack?）
After school, we hold hands and walk with lovely lazy slowness （if she weren’t annoyed at me, Petra would say “perambulate”） in the woods behind my house or around Bluebell Park. We hang out downtown and wander in and out of the few stores, feed each other bites of whatever’s hot at the Do Not Shop. We sit on the steps of the church and just talk. You wouldn’t think we would have anything in common, since he has been so many places and I have been so few, since his dad is rich and mine is dead, since what his family does for a living took living away from mine. But I might never run out of things to say to River. We sit and talk for three hours after school and then go home and call each other. We stay up late whispering into the phone, and I still have so much to tell him by first period that I have to write him a letter instead of taking notes in World History. It’s not because he’s new anymore since I’m getting used to him. It’s because everything about him makes me feel bright—luminous—and there is nothing to do with that feeling but put it into words.
It’s freezing in the mornings, chilly all afternoon, the sky clouding up right after lunch or staying gray all day, fall racing toward its end. It’s not like there’s much of anywhere for us to be together inside, though. We can’t hang out at his house where his angry, brooding mother is, or at mine with Monday and all her books and anxieties and yellow things. We can’t go to the coffee shop or the drive-in or the mall because we live in Bourne instead of on TV. So we bundle up and stick to our outdoor haunts. It’s a good excuse to hold hands, to stay close.
The steps of the church are cold through my jeans the day he is teaching me the disappearing-key trick. We are sitting there, freezing, giggling, wriggling the key free from our sleeves, when Pastor Jeff trudges up the wheelchair ramp pushing Pooh. I haven’t seen her in ages. Guilt grabs me by the ears and shakes my face. I stand to go over and give her a hug.
“Don’t you dare,” she says, and my heart drops.
“Oh Pooh—” I start but she interrupts.
“Don’t you apologize to me, Mab Mitchell.” Then her voice dips to a too-loud whisper. “This is what we trained for!”
“It is?”
“A secret boyfriend. An affair that just might kill your poor mother. Heavy petting and who knows what-all else.” I blush so hard it hurts. “So don’t you feel bad about not coming to read to a blind old lady. I can read to myself, thank you very much.”
While I am thinking about whether I can play this off to River later as the ramblings of what Petra would call senescence, it gets worse. “Still, I need to hear all the details. Obviously. I think you’ll agree I’ve earned them. Come for bulgogi and hamburgers soon as you can, and plan to tell me absolutely everything. I miss you. But don’t hurry. I’ll wait. I’m very patient.”
I nod mutely, but she’s not done.
“And Mab, honey? Try not to sin actually at the church. It’s bad for your karma.”
Pastor Jeff laughs. “I should do more with karma. That’s a good angle.” And they continue inside. We hear her say to him, “Romeo and Juliet, those two. I’m so happy for her!”
To cover my embarrassment, I take the key back from River and try the trick again, but my palms are sweaty and I have the same problem he did the first time he tried to do it for me. The key slips from my palm, up my sleeve, and when I try to wiggle it out, it goes the wrong way, down my shirt and into my jeans. Since I’m not going to take them off in front of him, I excuse myself, slip inside, use Pastor Jeff’s facilities—I think of Pooh’s advice not to sin at the church, but what can I do?—and bring the key back out to River.
“Speaking of taking your pants off,” he says, “I have a great idea.”
Which is how I find out there is something to do with that bright feeling besides put it into words. The place we can be alone, the place that isn’t my house and isn’t his house and isn’t the church steps or the park or the school, the only place really, is the plant. And after all, we have the key. I just retrieved it from my underwear.