Meet Me at Midnight - Jessica Pennington Page 0,63
go along with my weirdness. Because it doesn’t feel so weird anymore.
Asher leaves the wagon of potatoes in the trees alongside the driveway, where it’s dark with shadows, and both of us take a box in each hand. Now that I’m actually here, in Nadine’s yard, with all of the grass sprawling out around me, I’m not sure where to start. Yesterday we plotted over our pancakes and agreed that doing some sort of design was too much pressure. We’d just go to town on the yard with as many potatoes as humanly possible, and call it good.
On the opposite side of the yard, Asher is silently shaking potatoes over the grass, walking backward as he empties one box and then two. It feels like watching a movie on mute as he silently moves through the yard, nothing but a faint chuh, chuh, chuh as the powder is liberated from its box.
I walk around the yard, laying the potatoes down in lines across the grass. When something moves in the tree line, my attention snaps to the noise, and a cascade of potatoes rushes out of the box, making a white arc in the air. I swap my empty boxes for full, and with a box in each hand I twirl in the center of the yard, my arms outstretched. White powder spirals out into the air. I start moving around the yard in little circles, spraying the potatoes around me like a cyclone of white dust. It’s 3 a.m., I’m exhausted, and it’s possible I’ve totally lost it.
Five minutes in, we’ve each emptied ten boxes, and still the yard looks green. The grass is a little long, hiding our efforts. Which reminds me that Nadine has a sprinkler system keeping her yard so long and luscious. We don’t have to cross our fingers and hope that it rains—our potato masterpiece could be ready as early as this morning. The thought spurs me on, and I grab two more boxes.
A flash of movement in the corner of the yard closest to Lake House A catches my eye, and I hear the faintest squeak as Asher pushes himself forward on the little swing set there. It’s old and covered in weathered green paint with peeling white stripes. The sand that used to surround it has been almost completely overtaken by weeds.
When Asher waves me over, there’s an almost magnetic pull urging me to approach the old green monstrosity. Those swings hold a lot of memories for us. The first summer Asher was here, we spent time on them—late nights talking, swaying gently as we shared the kinds of things teenagers divulge with someone new—our favorite songs, the coolest things we’d done that year, everything that annoyed us about our best friends. But we never swung on them. Thirteen-year-old Sidney was way too cool for that. She didn’t know Asher well enough, hadn’t wanted to look like a dork in front of this cute boy she was still figuring out. If only I’d known then what a game-playing little nerd he would become. The thought makes me almost laugh out loud.
By the time I reach the swings, Asher is already in the air. I follow, pushing myself up, higher and higher. I can’t remember the last time I was on swings like this, and I wonder why, because it’s sort of awesome. And a little disorienting in the dark, when I’m drunk from no sleep. We’ve both ditched our green boxes, and are soaring higher and higher, the squeaking of the chains crescendoing through the night air.
Asher jumps, and in the silence it’s beautiful, the way he arcs soundlessly through the air, landing in a graceful crouch on the grass ten feet in front of me. Just as he stands, a door slams. It’s the familiar, clanging metal of Nadine’s side door. There’s a little yip and the faint scratch of paws on stones.
Asher’s head snaps to me, and he motions with his hand for me to jump. I let go, my hand holding on a second too long, and land much less gracefully than he did. As I topple to the side, sharp pain lances through my ankle. My gasp is muffled by the last squeaks of the swings we’ve abandoned.
“Are you okay?” Asher whispers so quietly, I’m almost not sure he actually said it. He reaches a hand down for me and I take it. My first two steps have me wincing, and we need to run, not walk. Maybe