Leland and Mallory ask Coop and Fray for rides, even though there’s nowhere to go. Downtown–Inner Harbor is a destination but the shopping is touristy and expensive, and Fells Point is one bar after another that they can’t get into. Still, they beg to be allowed to ride around in the back seat—anything to get them out of the house. They’re sick of watching movies in Leland’s basement rec room and listening to records. They both know there’s life out there somewhere and they’re ready for it.
“Sorry,” Coop says. “Riding around with my little sister and her best friend isn’t my idea of a good time. It’s babysitting.”
At the end of October, Coop starts dating a girl named Alana Bratton who goes to Bryn Mawr. Alana is beautiful, she’s a senior, and when she snaps her fingers, Coop does her bidding. The person who is left out is Fray; his buddy has ditched him for a girl.
At the beginning of November, Mallory gets the flu. Leland is under strict orders from her parents, Geri and Steve, as well as from the Blessings, to stay away from the Blessing house until the contagious period is over. Leland’s parents are leaving for the weekend on a leaf-peeping trip through the horse country of Virginia and Leland thinks how unfair it is that she will now have the house to herself but nobody to enjoy the freedom with.
It’s as she’s watching Coop pull out of the driveway from her bedroom window—he’s probably off to pick up Alana—that Leland gets the idea to call Fray.
“Mal is sick and my parents are away,” Leland says. “Want to come over and use the hot tub? My dad has a fridge full of beer in the garage.”
Fray says, “Won’t he notice if some is missing?”
“No,” Leland says. “I drink it all the time. We just have to be careful with the cans. I normally ditch them in the dumpster behind Eddie’s.” This is a complete lie. Leland has never drunk her father’s beer, she can’t stand the taste, and she has no idea if Steve Gladstone will notice cans missing, though there are at least two cases in the fridge, so she kind of doubts it.
“Cool,” Fray says. “I’ll be over in a little while.”
Leland races up to her room to pick an outfit and curl her hair. She puts the Police album Ghost in the Machine on her turntable and dances around. He’s coming! Fray is coming!
“A little while” ends up being two hours later, nine o’clock, late enough that Leland has already spiraled through self-doubt and convinced herself that Fray won’t show. She’s wearing her red bikini under her Jordache jeans and a velour top, she has cracked open one of her father’s beers—she pulled six out of the back; when you open the fridge, you don’t even notice any missing—and she has poured a bag of Utz chips into a bowl and opened a container of onion dip because her mother, Geri, says people always appreciate a snack. The hot tub is bubbling like a witch’s cauldron under the cover and it’s this that Leland suspects might get her in trouble—the oil bill, her father is energy-conscious—but why even have the hot tub if they can’t use it?
When the knock finally comes, Leland’s heart leaps. She has finished one beer and feels as light and floaty as a spirit in the material world.
“Hey,” she says when she opens the door. Fray looks so fine—he has on a gray hooded sweatshirt under his Calvert Hall lacrosse jersey and jeans and his high-top sneakers are, as ever, untied. He’s holding a pair of swim trunks.
“Hey, Lee,” he says. They lock eyes and Leland wonders why it has taken them so long to shed the Blessings and acknowledge what has been true for a while now: They are meant to be together.
When Leland looks back on that night, it seems almost painfully romantic in a nostalgic 1980s way. They each crack a beer, Fray changes into his trunks in the powder room, he helps Leland lift the top off the hot tub. They climb in, sitting on the same bench but not touching. Leland has the stereo in the rec room cranked to 98 Rock and the back sliding door is open so they can hear strains of “Radio Ga Ga” and “When Doves Cry.” They tap their cans of Natty Boh together and drink.
They start kissing during “We Belong,” by Pat Benatar. It happens naturally, like a magnet is drawing them together. It isn’t Leland’s first kiss or even her first tongue kiss—that was Jay Pitcock after the eighth grade dance back in May—but this is different. Fray is skilled with his tongue, he tastes like beer, he knows to put a hand on the back of her neck and pull her toward him.