I hesitate before getting on my bike wondering how far I’m pushing things with Stella by leaving the Club altogether but I don’t want to find out YET and I don’t want to get left behind so I climb on my bike and we zoom out of the Bike Lot with Colin in front and I ride my bike all the time of course, everyone does until they turn sixteen and start driving, but riding with this group is like taking off with a flock of birds heading for parts unknown although what could be unknown in Crandale New York? We ride through a section you might call “the other side of the tracks” which is grittier and more like a city and I don’t go there except for pizza with Dad when Brian and I are staying at his Apartment, and we fly across the railway tracks to the Muskaheegee River which has a new path that you aren’t supposed to ride bikes on but we do it anyway riding incredibly fast with Colin in front and the hot wind in our faces.
After a while Colin pulls over and we leave our bikes on their sides and walk under some trees onto a small pier in the Muskaheegee River that has so many chemicals you need shots to water-ski there. Chris explains that he and Colin like to smoke weed here because it’s isolated, and I’m like I don’t want to smoke weed, illegal things make me nervous with Dad being a lawyer and very focused on law-breaking, and my sister Hannah plans to be a lawyer too and told me last Christmas, “Mistakes still count, Molly, even if you’re young when you make them,” and Lulu is like I don’t want to smoke either which is no surprise since she is opposed to cigarettes and tattoos but I wouldn’t call her a Goody-Goody because she is fierce and proud in her Beliefs, and the boys are like Is it ok if we do?
The four of us take off our shoes and sit side by side on the pier with our bare feet dangling above the chocolate-milk-colored water, the two boys on the outside and Lulu and me in the middle with Lulu next to Colin and me next to Chris, and the boys pass the joint behind us so we don’t have to touch it and I’ve never been with people smoking weed before so this is a new Event in my life and maybe in Lulu’s. Further down the river the trees are leaning their branches into the water like another time in History when only Indigenous People lived here, and the boys get red eyes and start to sound kind of slow and I’m like Hey are your Moms friends? meaning Stephanie and Kathy who I overheard in the Ladies Locker Room earlier today although it feels like several weeks ago, and the boys are both like They’re doubles partners which is exactly what Stephanie said to Kathy, which makes me laugh kind of uncontrollably and the boys are like You must be getting a contact high and maybe I am!
Finally the boys lie back on the pier facing the sky and Lulu and I laugh together because they seem pretty out of it, and Colin is like No taking advantage of us, girls and Chris’s eyes are closed but he’s like I’m not sleeping, I’m watching a movie about a big red fireball expanding and contracting and Colin is like Dude I’ve seen that movie many a time and Lulu is like Tell us what happens and Colin is like It ends with me kissing you, Lulu and Lulu is like No, but I will lie down next to you and Colin is like Can I hold your hand at least? So Lulu lies down and she and Colin hold hands and now I’m the only one still sitting up and Chris Salazar’s eyes are closed so I can look at him closely, I see his beautiful collarbones and I wonder what would happen if I leaned over and kissed him but I don’t know how to kiss and I might be bad at it, so instead I lie back on the pier like the others and the warm breeze sweeps across us and I look up at the shaking trees and I’m so grateful that we left the Club because these Events of the past hour could not have happened there, all of this would be unthinkable in that Place, and I understand now why Lulu will never join a Country Club: because the Life she wants for herself can’t happen there. I take hold of Lulu’s hand and she squeezes my hand back and I whisper very softly close to her ear Lulu let’s be secret friends and no one will know except us and she whispers back very softly Friends Without Borders and we squeeze our hands hard and that is our promise. And I wonder if I might be in love with Lulu instead of Chris, or maybe I love them both which seems possible on a pier in the Muskaheegee River but nowhere else. I want to move closer to Lulu so our whole Selves are touching but I’m afraid to, so instead I inch toward Chris whose arms are stretched back over his head on the warm pier and my cheek touches his ribs through his T-shirt and I feel his chest moving as he breathes and I can hear the actual sound of his heart, a steady thumping like someone jogging and you think they’ll have to stop pretty soon and take a rest, but they just keep going.