by Roger Hart
They say their goodbyes in the Ohio rain after returning from a day long bike ride, marking the end of their two-week romance. They’re thirteen. She’s going to Virginia, a new home, five hundred miles away, with her parents the following morning. He will return to his bedroom across the street, grounded forever. Goodbye, goodbye. Long, strong hug. They part. The rain stops. The sun sets. End of story.
Maybe not.
His bedroom is directly across the street from her grandparents and her upstairs bedroom. Nothing about being grounded says you can’t stand at your window and wave, and nothing says she can’t stand at her bedroom window and wave back. He waves. She waves. This not letting go goes on and on. Eventually, she disappears and returns a few minutes later in her pajamas. He imagines her pj shorts and loose short sleeve top are soft although he can’t tell for sure, him being on one side of the street and her being on the other and their bedroom lights off. He steps away from the window, pulls off his shirt, shoes, socks, and jeans, and returns to the window wearing only his underwear, his version of pajamas. He thinks she can’t see him clearly, that he is safe standing there. His brother, with whom he shares the room, is off at church camp, and he thanks God for that. His parents and hers will soon go to bed—they think, they hope. Don’t want a parent barging in, telling you to get to bed, while you stand at the window, waving and watching.
A gibbous moon comes up, the trees and houses casting long shadows. Fireflies come out, blinking on and off. Thousands of them. Millions maybe. The boy and girl have never seen anything like it, so it must mean something. An omen, a sign. Would you look at that? he wants to say, but he doesn’t dare shout across the street, so he thinks it and imagines she’s thinking it, too. Wow. Look at them!
Who moves first is open for debate. Each will later swear that they were the bold one, the first to climb out on the porch roof, pulling a blanket behind them. Let’s say she was the first to step barefoot over the windowsill. Not to be outdone, he removes the screen from his window, carefully sets it on the bedroom floor. He broke being grounded this morning, so what is one more time, and who says he’ll get caught? And is sitting on the porch roof really breaking being grounded? It’s not like he’s left the house, not yet anyway. He pulls out his blanket, a frayed dark blue thing—forget the pillow—and sits quietly on the steep porch roof, the asphalt siding against his back, the rough roof shingles pressing through the thin blanket against his feet and butt. Here we are, he thinks. He waves again and she waves back. And look at those fireflies! Look at that moon!
Now they’re closer by a few feet but still on opposite sides of the street. They make hand signals, fingers pointing to the left and then the right, then touching their chests. (Maybe they don’t know what the hand signals mean, but does it matter?) A car goes down the street, pulls into a nearby drive, gravel popping beneath the tires as country music drifts from an open window. Headlights go out, the music stops, a car door slams, and quiet returns except for the chirping crickets and a distant dog barking.
They feel good being closer, being out here in the night in their pajamas and underwear. It’s sort of intimate, really. Late-night voices come from an open window down the street and then fade. She bets she could whisper, and the boy across the street would hear her, but her father has bionic hearing, and he might hear her, too. The boy is tempted to whisper her name, but he doesn’t know what he’d say next, and it’s a risk he can’t take, not with his father being in such a bad mood.
She pats the blanket next to her. An invitation or is she just smoothing out a wrinkle? He doesn’t move. She holds up her arm and motions for him to join her. This time the signal is clear, and he wants to sit next to her, but getting there is going to be a challenge. For sure, he can’t walk across the street, knock on the front door, invite himself in, and ask for direction to the upstairs bedroom, not in his underwear, not even in a three-piece suit, which he doesn’t have. He studies the situation, the angles, the geometry of the roof, her front porch. Maybe. He debates going back into his room and putting on his shoes, but she might think he’s giving up, going to bed.
Hoping he hasn’t misinterpreted her waving arm, her patting the blanket, he inches to the edge of the porch roof, skinning his butt and bare feet on the rough shingles. Turning onto his stomach, he swings his legs over the edge until his feet contact the porch railing. He pulls the blanket behind him and lets it fall to the ground. He balances for a moment, then steps back, jumps, lands on the grass next to the drive. He grabs the blanket and tiptoes across the street, the asphalt warm and puddled from the afternoon thunderstorm.
He surveys her porch and possible paths to the roof and wishes he had a ladder, but a ladder would be noisy, and there’s another way if he doesn’t fall, if no one inside watching the flickering television doesn’t look out and see him, if he is very quiet. He stays to the side of the porch to avoid being seen by anyone who might glance out the front window. Then he pulls himself up, swings his legs over the porch railing until he is standing on the porch floor. A board creaks and he freezes, wishes he was wearing camo underwear, which along with a three-piece suit, he doesn’t have. The blanket gets tangled in his feet, so he balls it up and throws it up to her. She covers her mouth to suppress giggles and grabs one end of the blanket while dropping the other end over the edge of the roof to him. He steps on the porch railing as quietly as possible. He hears voices inside—her parents and grandparents, he guesses—and rightly assumes he will be punished severely if he is caught, maybe beaten or shot or exiled to a desert island. Who knows what her parents might do? He hopes they aren’t armed.
He holds one end of the blanket, not to pull himself up but to steady himself as he balances on the porch railing. He stretches, leans back, lets go of the blanket, and grabs the porch roof with both hands. Because he’s skinny and strong, chin ups are not a problem. But the porch roof is angled so his left hand is higher than his right. A challenge. He swings back and forth and slowly hoists himself up and throws his shoulders and chest over the edge of the roof. She reaches out and tugs on his arms while his feet and legs pedal at the air until he is up and beside her.
She lifts a finger to her lips. He nods and they crawl toward the bedroom window, the shingles again scraping his knees. They sit on one blanket and cover themselves with the other, bare leg against bare leg, hip against hip, shoulder to shoulder, hand holding hand. Fireflies blink in the bushes in front of his parents’ front porch. Many, like the boy, come across the street, float in the air. One lands in her hair and another on his shoulder. They will later say they’d never seen so many fireflies. They will later say the fireflies were giving them their blessing, and they’ll believe it. They’ll say the fireflies were magic.
She squeezes his hand, and he squeezes hers and they know. She presses the bottom of her bare foot against the top of his. They are living in the present while secretly plotting when and how they’ll next get together. Separated by five hundred miles will create challenges, but they’ll figure out something. A grandfather clock inside chimes twelve times. It’s been a long day, a long bike ride. Minutes ago they were tired, but now they aren’t sure what to do with the adrenaline racing through their bodies.
In one universe of many, if you believe in that sort of thing as the boy and some scientists do, she whispers in his ear. “Be very quiet.” And then she glances at the open window, the dark bedroom behind her. Her breath tickles his ear, which arouses him.
“Okay,” he whispers back, aiming the words at her ear and hoping it gives her the same reaction.
She steps through the open window, the wood floor pops, and to his ears it sounds as loud as an M-80 firecracker. He waits for footsteps coming to her door, for someone to yell up to her, but there’s only an owl somewhere nearby hooting for its mate. He looks in the open window and even though the room is dark, his eyes have adjusted, and there’s enough moonlight to make out the bed. It’s small, like a bunk bed without the upper bunk, big enough for one person. She slips beneath the sheet and then motions for him to join her. Does he dare? They’ve been lucky so far, but how long can their luck hold? What if her father hears someone creeping across her bedroom floor? What will her father do? How will they punish her? Even as he considers the ways he might be punished if caught, he climbs through the window. The floor pops again, and she throws back the sheet next to her.
The bed groans under his weight, and he holds his breath and listens for approaching footsteps. There’s not enough room for both of them unless . . . She slides to the edge of the bed, and he presses against her, hip to hip, her arm locking with his so that neither of them fall on the floor. He can sense her grinning, and he’s grinning back.
He wonders if the bedroom door is locked. A locked door might give him an extra few seconds to escape if someone comes knocking, but he’s afraid to ask. He’s almost afraid to breathe. He tries to survey the room, but the moonlight coming through the window only illuminates a patch of floor. The window! He left his blanket on the porch roof.
“Leave it,” she whispers, reading his mind.
Some of those fireflies, maybe a dozen, maybe more, fly through the open window, land on a dresser, on a curtain, even the blanket, and blink on and off, their yellow lights meaning something. He thinks the fireflies—he calls them lightning bugs—might be from a spirit world, and he feels good thinking that. A spirit world. Yeah, a spirit world wouldn’t let you get in trouble. She thinks the fireflies are nature’s art, something that makes the night even more beautiful. They watch them and decide the blinking yellow lights mean proceed with caution.
She rolls on top of him. He wraps his arms around her and kisses her. She kisses him. This kissing goes on and on, mouth, ears, and necks despite them being very tired just minutes ago. His body reacts in ways he’s not sure it should, and he worries that she’ll be offended or roll away, but that’s not what happens. Of course not. Moans are muffled. The kissing and holding and pressing together goes on until she rolls aside. “Hold me,” she whispers.
He holds her.
“Next time,” she whispers.
“Next time?” he whispers back, and then, “Oh, yeah. Next time.”
In another universe, one in which those fireflies blink red or blue or green, there’s a knock on the bedroom door. “Cass?” her father says. “Cass? Open the door.” In that universe, Cass says, “Coming,” although she doesn’t move. Russ rushes across the floor, escapes through the open window, slides off the porch roof, and races home, loose gravel in the street killing his feet. But neither his parents or her father are any wiser. Well, maybe wiser, but where is the proof other than his skinned knees and sore feet?
In a third universe, where the fireflies blink red, maybe a warning, the bedroom door is not locked and they are caught, embarrassed, humiliated, scolded, and told they can never be trusted again. She holds the blanket to her chin. He is escorted across the street to his house where his father screams, threatens him, while his mother looks as if she is about to cry. “I’m so disappointed in you,” she says.
Despite the embarrassment, the warnings, the threats, the punishment, given a chance, they would do it again in a heartbeat.
Oh yeah, in a fourth universe, maybe this one, they remain on the porch roof as the moon crosses the sky. They could roll off the edge and land on the ground and break their necks! They could die! Unless! If they spoon just the right way, his left arm beneath her head, his right hand looking for a landing spot. (She moves his hand to her hip.) They eventually fall asleep after hours of whispering. As the sky begins to brighten, they wake to voices downstairs, the clanking of a pot or pan, the smell of bacon. “Until next time,” she says.
“Next time,” he answers. They kiss. Of course they do. He scrambles off the roof, tiptoes across the road. Mr. Carter, a neighbor walking to his pickup truck with a fishing pole and tackle box, waves, smiles, and then glances at the house across the street. The boy touches his finger to his lips. Mr. Carter nods. The boy, his secret safe for now, vows not to charge Mr. Carter the next time he mows his lawn. He then enters his house through the backdoor, tiptoes up to his room, and miracle of miracles, is unheard and undetected. He can’t believe they pulled it off, that they weren’t caught. He goes to the window to wave one more time and there, on the porch roof across the street, is his blue blanket.
He can’t risk going back. He wishes for a strong wind that will blow the blanket off the porch roof and into the bushes where it will go unnoticed until he can pick it up later. But there’s no strong wind, not even a gentle breeze. Then she appears at her window, reaches through, and pulls the blanket in, wraps it around herself, blows a kiss and is gone.
About the Author: Roger Hart’s stories and essays have been published in more than thirty journals and magazines. His first story collection, Erratics, won the George Garrett Fiction Prize and was published by the Texas Review Press. His second story collection, Mysteries of the Universe, was published by Kallisto Gaia Press. He’s a member of the Author’s Guild and the Upper Mississippi Writers Association. He lives in Montana where he writes under the supervision of his wife and two big dogs. He is the fiction editor of the Bear Paw Arts Journal.