me feel as if I were a key member of some secret club. “You’re really great, you know that?”
Of course, I hated it when he called me Pudge, but I knew he was just kidding. It was like our own private joke. He didn’t really think I was pudgy. He couldn’t, right? Because if he did, what was he doing hanging out with me all the time, taking me behind the Main for joints or down to the beach for long talks over Big Jon’s horrible apple wine? And then there was the time, about a month after he showed up, that he took the tangy glass pipe from my lips and pushed me down roughly in the sand. I was confused, thinking it was a mud ball move, but then Reggie looked at me really strangely and leaned over and put his tongue in my mouth.
It was sort of weird, honestly. Almost a little gross. I’d had no idea a tongue would taste like that—an alien invading my mouth. But it was Reggie, so after a minute of being wigged out, I figured this was cool. I was kissing someone! Yesss! Truly, it was a great day. Which meant a lot after so many crappy ones.
Of course, I wanted to tell everyone right away. Gossip at the RC moves pretty fast. I knew everything would instantly change. “Pudge?” Wendy would say when Big Jon told her. “With String Bean Reggie? No way!” But Reggie said I couldn’t tell anyone. At least, not at first.
“I’m still getting over the plane crash, Pudge,” he’d say. “I’ll get there. I promise. Just… not yet.”
It was hard for me, of course. But everyone deals with grief in different ways. I definitely knew that. Besides, it wasn’t like I wasn’t seeing enough of him. Once we started hooking up, I could count on meeting him at least a couple of nights a week.
“Dunes, Pudge?” he’d say when no one else was around. I knew it wasn’t straight up, but there was something exciting about it. And it wasn’t like we were doing everything. I never let him go all the way. I could have, but somehow I knew my mom wouldn’t have liked that. She’d always told me to wait for someone who loved me, and Reggie hadn’t said that yet. I was still waiting.
But wherever Reggie was going, that was where everyone wanted to be. He was definitely the coolest guy at the RC, and everyone knew it. And now he was my boyfriend. Me, Alex Lee, the bookwormy, doughy hippie kid with the knockout mom. Only I didn’t have my mom anymore. I had Reggie, and even though everything had fallen apart before, now it was okay. Great, even. When he’d give me a secret wink at the Main during meals, or slip me a note that said dunes at nine, my heart would slam so hard that I’d seriously think my chest was about to explode. Nothing—not even having no parents, not even the new, crampy, incredible grossness of getting my period—could get me down. I missed my mom, but now everything was finally okay.
Which is, of course, exactly when something had to come along and ruin it all.
My grandmother’s lawyer, Mr. Karr, came to Rain Catcher Farms on my sixteenth birthday. It was my first birthday with a boyfriend, and even though I missed my mom more than anything, Reggie made it pretty great. At breakfast, he gave me a big smile and even hugged me in front of everyone.
“Happy birthday, Pudge!” he yelled. “Kids, sing to her!”
Immediately, the whole place filled with a deafening serenade worthy of a drunken, tone-challenged glee club. Cook made my favorite tofu-sesame scramble, and Wendy gave me a dress she’d tie-dyed especially for me. I tried not to let them see that I was crying again, but I didn’t fool anyone.
I cheered up a couple of seconds later, though. I was thinking about Reggie, who’d said he planned a surprise for my birthday. I was stoked. Would we finally be public now? I wondered. Was he ready? Or was he going to say what Wendy called the “L-bomb”? Anyway, what I’m trying to say is I was pretty preoccupied. So when Big Jon came into the schoolroom wearing an expression I couldn’t read and said, “Alex, a lawyer’s here to see you,” I seriously thought it was a joke.
But it wasn’t. No, there was nothing funny about it. Because Mr. Karr, in his perfectly