Separate Schools Page 2

  Harrison chastised her, calling her name, “Tay-lor.”

  “I’m kidding,” she sighed, “No shirt, no service, anyway.”

  Now Harrison changed the subject, hating the anticipation and pressure of having to go into the general store and trying to buy alcohol. He said, “Get your brother to get you something, he’s coming up.”

  She nodded her head, looking away at the kids playing ball. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “I’ll text him.”

  “C’mon, let’s go, I have to grab a few things,” Kelsey Kay said, leaving Brady’s embrace to come and take Taylor’s hand. Together they mounted the two wooden steps and opened the heavy glass door plastered with cigarette logos, disappeared inside while a bell jingled above them.

  Kelsey Kay was short, petite, and kind of plump. She wore it well—actually, in a very sexy way—and she had confidence that sold her personality. She was no-nonsense, fun, but her beautiful eyes gave away a certain meanness. It had never been directed his way, he’d been friends with her since he was ten, but he’d seen her make other girls cry.

  Next to him, Brady was stretching again, both hands planted in the small of his back as he flapped his elbows rearward and watched the baseball game across the street. The baggy shirt he wore had the sleeves cut off, leaving the armholes wide enough that Harrison could see the sharp flexing lines of the small muscles at his side and around his ribs.

  Brady yawned then, looked around, sighed and crossed his muscular arms and put his back against the side rear of the sparkly royal rally blue Soob. It was a perfect day to be going to the lakeside home. Bright and sunny, seventy-two degrees with the promise of hitting the eighties, yet there was a light breeze that rustled the trees. While Brady was still looking around, Harrison asked him, “You ever been up here before?”

  Brady said, “Where? Walker City? No. I used to fuck this chick whose parents had a pad outside Traverse City. It was nice over there, but too fucking far.”

  Oh brother, this guy talking about his friend Kelsey Kay like she was just some other girl he was fucking.

  “Okay, well, I gotta go grab a few things, too,” he said, and left Brady leaning on the Forester.

  4

  Any chance she thought she might have to pass for twenty-one fizzled as they walked through the open doors of the WC. Dead ahead about eight feet off the floor, attached on galvanized wire wings and bolted to the ceiling was a big fisheye security mirror that showed what she and Kelsey Kay looked like walking in the store: a couple of underage girls. With their flannel shirts and their short-shorts they looked just like they did their last year in high school. They wouldn’t fool anybody.

  There wasn’t much alcohol selection in the WC, but her dad had always replenished his beer supply here when he’d gone through what he’d brought north from Saginaw. A bank of standup coolers on the back wall in the old building stored cardboard cases of six-packs and twenty-fours; on narrow shelves next to the fridges they stocked a slim selection of the harder stuff. It was right there, they could just walk right up and open the fridge, grab a six and take it to the counter acting like it was no big deal. But of course it was a big deal. Sitting behind the counter was the same old dude who’d been sitting there every year since she’d been coming up here. Nice enough, but he also looked like the kind of guy that might rat her out to her mom. Tell Trish when she came up here next time You know, Mrs. Brooks, I saw your daughter with some boys come in here and they wanted me to sell em alcohol. They tried, Mrs. Brooks—can I call you Trish?—but I sent em away without a thing and told em to smarten up. Shit, and Harrison had spoiled it, anyway. He did that thing where his voice got high and thin—it was like a dog whistle for her tension. Tightness spread across her shoulders already, just knowing how uptight Harrison got when he thought she might ask him to do something like buy her beer. But even Brady wasn’t going to, how would Harrison do it? Harrison might jitter himself to dust if he thought they were going to try.

  Past candies and magazines and two rows of groceries, but before the coolers of beer, there were three long tables with sweatshirts and clothes and rubber boots. In the center of the closest table, on the bottom of an overturned packing crate was a styrofoam toddler dressed in the cutest, tiny, little baby onesie she ever saw. She went right to it, taking one of the folded ones below the foam model, snapped it open. It was bright red and printed with silhouettes of moose and bears. Flipped over, she found the backside had a bum flap for a little baby bum to poop through.

  “Oh my God, Kelsey, check this out.” She turned it around to show Kay, swaying it, wiggling the little arms to make it look like a dancing baby. She said, “Can you believe how cute this is?”

  Kelsey’s eyes went wide and happy watching this joyous little cottony thing dance for her. She said, “Oh my God, I love it.” Now she took it from Taylor and held it up and Taylor thought that was strange because Kelsey wasn’t really into this sort of thing, wasn’t sentimental at all—then she turned around and held it a little higher for the man behind the counter to see. She said, “Do you have this in my size?”

  He looked over the top of his glasses at them, saw what she was holding. He shook his head. “No. Just what’s out there. I don’t got em for grown-ups.” He went back to reading his paper.

  “Hoo, we’re grown-ups,” Kelsey whispered to Taylor, then louder, to the man: “Okay.” She turned around and tossed the onesie back on the pile in a clump. “Shitty,” she sighed.

  “Aren’t they so cute?”

  “I would so wear one of those in my size. Imagine that?—with the butt-flap, you can go to the can in the middle of the night without having to take them off.”

  “Yeah, you’d look cute in it.”

  Kelsey caught her eyeing the coolers now and smirked at her. “There’s no way.”

  “I know,” she said.

  Kelsey’s eyes were down on the heaped onesie and she reached to it with a black-painted fingernail and traced the outline of the moose’s antlers. She asked her: “Did you tell Harrison yet?”

  She shook her head no.

  5

  The WC had a great selection of candy. Back when they would come up north and he wasn’t a teenager yet, he’d look forward to stopping here and getting Bottle Caps and Gobstoppers, and picking up a couple comic books to read at nighttime. Coming through the candy aisle, he passed by his old sugary favorites and found Kelsey Kay and Taylor near the checkout counter. It was a long L-shaped one and there was the same perennial old white-haired man with Malcolm X glasses reading the newspaper by the cash register on the far side. The girls were on the very end, standing by the beef jerky, the two of them together looking up at the racks where the batteries were. As he drew closer, he realized they weren’t looking at batteries. In little boxes on pegs was a small selection of condoms.

  He joined them without them hearing him approach and he put his arms around their shoulders, his head between their faces. They both jumped, and he laughed. He said, “I thought I raised you girls better.”

  “We’re just a couple of little sluts that can’t help ourselves,” Kelsey Kay said humorlessly, darting up her hand and flicking him hard on the point of his chin. It made him flinch and step back, laughing and holding his face.

  Taylor smiled at him over her shoulder and said, “Somebody’s boyfriend forgot to buy condoms.” She rolled her eyes in elaborate circles emphasizing the girl standing next to her.

  Without looking over her shoulder, Kelsey Kay said, “Yeah. Forgot.”

  “You can’t blame a guy for trying,” Taylor said.

  Taylor insisted on condoms. The two of them had never had sex together without using protection. She was a very paranoid girl about getting pregnant, and she had reservations about using a birth control pill for health reasons.

  “What’s your poison?” he asked Kelsey Kay, coming close between the two of them again like he would help them with their selection. “You a ribbed girl?”

  Now he surmis
ed the WC’s condom selection. There were four types. Lubricated, non-lubricated, ribbed, and Magnum XL. The sight of the gold foil packets made his stomach flinch. He had this awful feeling that Kelsey Kay would reach out and snag a box of extra-large condoms for her boyfriend. And then Taylor, who already acknowledged how hot Brady’s body was, would be pleased to find out this guy also had a really big dick.

  It was a great relief when Kelsey Kay’s many-ringed fingers plucked off a box of good old regular-size, run-of-the-mill, lubricated condoms. He exhaled with real relief, and his mood felt lifted.

  Taylor said, “Do we need anything else?”

  Kelsey Kay shook her head no, said, “Did you text your brother yet?”

  “No, I will. I’ll text him, or maybe one of my sister’s friends ...”

  Kelsey Kay looked to Harrison, and he said, “I brought my condoms. I come prepared.”

  Kelsey Kay said, “Real Boy Scout,” and Taylor giggled.

  Harrison said, “We don’t need anything else. We got all the snacks we need in the Soob. We packed them all last night, Taylor and me. Let’s just get going, please, I want to go and have fun.”

  “Speaking of fun,” Taylor said, and she linked an arm through his. Kelsey Kay stayed to hear what the fun would be, and Taylor shook her head no, and pursed her lips. She reached up and poked Kelsey Kay above the knee with a Birkenstock, indicating for her to get going.

  They watched as Kelsey went to the counter and boldly put down one box of condoms for the man to ring up.

  “What?” he asked Taylor.

  “You brought condoms?”

  There was something about the question that tickled him funny. Of course he brought condoms. Was he not supposed to? Was she going to tell him there would be no sex this weekend? This was their last time together before they both went away to school and wouldn’t see each other probably until Thanksgiving. “Yeah. Yeah, of course I did. I brought condoms. Why?” His voice sounded meek, and he cleared his throat.

  “Guess what?” she said. There was a brightness in her tone. Taylor liked to taunt him, and he could sense it now, hear the teasing in her voice.

  This was the second time this morning his mood was lifting. He said, “What is it?”

  “My mom wanted me to go on the pill before I went to college. I’ve been taking them for a month now. I just had my period last week. It was really light. Everything is good.”

  “You’re on the pill? What does that mean Everything is good?”

  “It means we don’t need condoms this weekend, stupid,” she said, then went on her toes and kissed his cheek. She watched his eyes and bit at her lower lip.

  “We don’t need condoms?”

  Still looking right in his eyes, she softly said, “Harrison, I want you to be my first all over again.”

  6

  They’d driven the Soob counterclockwise around the lake. It was debatable if it was quicker that way, but he hated to have to turn back—so on around the lake they continued from Walker City, and now as they were approaching the lake house’s driveway they could see a red Mustang convertible coming from the opposite direction. The top was down and there were two girls in the front. Roxie Rivera behind the steering wheel, and Shelby Glass in the passenger seat. There was a guy in the back, long hair blowing, and he knew it would be Mikey Lawrence hitching a ride. He was older—in college now, a friend of Riley’s—and Harrison was glad to see him show up because he was so easy-going (but he could do with less guitar strumming).

  “Punch it, Harrison, punch it,” Taylor urged suddenly, leaning forward in the seat and batting her hands at the dashboard.

  “Punch it? Why?” he asked.

  “Beat them, Harrison, come on, beat them …”

  “Beat them where?” he said, taking his hands off the steering wheel to shrug.

  The girls in the Mustang must’ve had the same idea as Taylor, because he could sense that they had picked up speed. Roxie had both hands gripping on the wheel, her face lowered like she was trying to reduce drag. Shelby, on the other hand, had both hands raised up in fists. Her hair tossed and tangled around her.

  For whatever reason, he got in on it now, pushing his foot down to the floor and revving up the Subaru’s six cylinders into a thin but throaty growl. Taylor hooted and bounced in her seat.

  The girls in the Mustang didn’t back down. As the two of them came very close to competing to make the turn, Harrison switched his foot from accelerator to brake pedal, easing it down and letting the girls zip past in front of them, fishtailing and setting up an arc of scattered stones.

  All three Mustang passengers were laughing and cheering, even Mikey Lawrence who Harrison thought wouldn’t want to get involved in such inanity when he was so laid back.

  Who cared who got to the driveway first? What if they ended up cracking bumpers? Or worse. One of those girls getting decapitated when they tipped over that convertible? And here’s the thing: this was his very own Subaru paid with his own money. His mother charged him bluebook value. Roxie’s daddy didn’t buy him a Mustang.

  “Awww,” Taylor lamented, slumping in her seat now.

  From behind, Brady said, “You could’ve made it, dude.”

  “Ladies first,” he said, hopefully ending this. It was hard to argue with chivalry.

  But Taylor was still amped. Now she leaned over in her seat, reached to the steering wheel and jabbed the horn between his arms, making long, loud blats. The girls in the Mustang extended their thin tanned arms and showed them some middle fingers.

  Taylor did down her window and gave them one back.

  7

  The Brooks’ property was four acres on a pie-shaped lot that fronted on the south side of Wolf Lake. The driveway was a long gravel stretch underneath a colonnade of tall, old maple trees.

  The driveway opened out now onto a concrete-paved square patch at the foot of the lakeside home. It was two floors at the front level, three angled boxes with interconnected peaked roofs in black slate. The siding was painted white, the trim white. There were no grounds to keep, everything wild and cottage-scrubby, and from the front of the house where they stopped, the land sloped low toward the lake. The back of the house was three stories looking out over the water. There was a boathouse and a long dock, and floating about twenty yards off was a square swimming dock sitting on old blue plastic butcher barrels.

  The booming music from the Mustang was shut down as Roxie turned her car off. Harrison pulled the Soob up behind, and Taylor was out before he had the car in park.

  In the backseat, Mikey Lawrence moved in typically slow fashion, head down while gathering his things. Roxie was out, running to greet Taylor with a jangling keyring in her hand. Roxie had her brown hair with blonde highlights pulled back in a long ponytail. She was thin with a great set of breasts, probably the best amongst Taylor and her bunch—Taylor often lamented to him hers weren’t as nice as Roxie’s and he’d have to defend Taylor’s, which were easily his favorite, anyway. For the ride, she’d chosen to wear cut-off jean shorts and a bikini top. There was probably a pileup from jackknifed tractor-trailers all along the highway, drivers taking a peep down into the passing Mustang and getting more than they bargained for.

  While he gathered his own things together, he watched his girlfriend and her best friend squeal and hug each other, their bodies rocking, long hair swinging.

  “Oh my God, I haven’t seen you almost all summer,” Roxie said, voice on the verge of crying.

  “I know, I know,” Taylor moaned, both of them still hugging and rocking side to side, stiff-legged. The rest of the Soob’s payload disembarked and joined them between the two cars, the first people to arrive.

  Roxie smiled and shook her head at him seeing him coming, said, “Too slow, Harrison, you should be ashamed.”

  Shelby hopped over, saying, “He doesn’t have that killer instinct.” She was tall, tan, and blonde-haired with impossibly long legs. She’d recently taken up karate and now kicked Kelsey Kay
in the arm playfully. “What’s up, bitch?”

  “Kick me again and I’ll choke you to death with your stupid yellow belt,” Kelsey Kay said menacingly.

  Shelby put on a face of fear and horror then embraced Kelsey Kay fully, clutching her shorter friend to her bosom and rocking her. “Baby, is it your period?—how are you going to go swimming, you don’t want to attract the sharks ...”

  Kelsey Kay’s hand slipped up Shelby’s short shorts and clutched her ass cheeks, sinking her nails in. “It’d be worth it to see you get chomped in two, you skinny bitch.”

  Shelby had to let her go, yelling, “Ow, ouch,” and high-stepping. She trotted out of Kelsey Kay’s grasp and soothed her ass cheeks, skipping around behind Roxie while Kelsey Kay laughed and raised up her flexing claws to show Shelby she was prepared to inflict more pain if she thought it necessary.

  Roxie hugged Kay now, saying, “Someone’s grouchy—Harrison’s station wagon not have AC?”

  Harrison said, “She’s always grouchy. And I have AC, thank you.”

  While Taylor and her friends got close together and Taylor related to them how Trish would not be attending (producing great wide-eyed excitement) Harrison’s eyes drifted from the four friends to catch Brady’s expression. He watched the four girls with hungry and bewildered eyes. Yes, Brady, all the girls attending this party would be hot.

  Harrison knew the feeling. Even when they were just kids—just at that age before the hormones started hitting—it was a big deal coming up here. There were many nights where he bunked with Mikey Lawrence and Steve Cisco where he lay in bed and dealt with his very first painful erections. Actually, this might’ve been the first place he ever masturbated outside of his bedroom. His first away game. Taylor didn’t know it, but there was a window in the hallway you could walk out onto the roof from. Well, you could walk out from any of the windows, but if you didn’t want to be seen you could use this one from the hall—and he didn’t want to be seen because he was up to no good. Sometimes he would step out there in the middle of the night, walk along the roof edge, hide himself under the eaves of the dormer window that looked into Taylor’s room. One night, he would never, ever forget, he saw her walking around in her bra. She even turned and watched herself in the mirror, unhooked the clasp with her hands folded up behind her back. Harrison was pretty sure he was gonna die. Like pass right out seeing his first real live titties, slide right down the roof and fall and break his neck on the decking thirty feet below. He’d watched Taylor with bated breath, but he didn’t see her reveal. She undid the bra but covered herself up even though she was alone. Still, even though he’d been with her in later years, lost his virginity with her, had done all sorts of dirty things with her—hand stuff, mouth stuff, even the ultimate deed—that night was like a sharp erotic spike in his mind.