Late Sunday afternoon found August and me on our very last “Gave You My Heartland” mission in a field tucked away behind school.
We spread a blanket out on the grass and lay down. Enough space stretched between us to satisfy my Sunday school teacher, though I don’t know how thrilled she’d be about the whole situation in general.
Then again, I went to school with her kids, and if rumors served, I knew they had done way saucier stuff than lying on blankets in an effort to re-create “Gave You My Heartland.”
I glanced over at August, and I couldn’t help but think of what he had said at Miller’s on Monday—Of course I listened. Do you think I’d go into this unprepared?
That meant that he must’ve known what was coming. He wasn’t entirely unaware of the final verse: Out in the field on the blanket, your lips on mine …
“So,” August said. “What now?”
“Well.” I spoke carefully. “We’re supposed to kiss. I guess. Technically.”
He looked over at me. “What do you think?”
“What do you mean, what do I think?”
“Should we?”
“Should we?” I repeated. Was he serious?
“For research,” he said. “Or authenticity, or whatever.”
“I …” I took a moment. Really looked at him. A hint of a smirk played around his lips, and amusement flashed in his eyes, which were very warm and very bright from this distance. If Flora were in my place, she’d probably write a poem about something like the kaleidoscope of colors in those eyes, and Brit would probably make fun of her for it.
There was something else in his eyes too, something I couldn’t describe any better than I could the kaleidoscope of colors. August seemed nothing if not self-assured, but he looked away after a pause, his Adam’s apple bobbing on a swallow, and maybe I doubted it for just a moment.
“Yeah, okay,” I said.
This was a bad idea, and I knew it. Like Brit trying to dip-dye my hair in seventh grade. But it was borne of wanting. I wanted pink hair. I wanted August.
He smiled and moved closer, but paused at the last moment, very close.
“Just for research, okay?” he murmured, voice uncharacteristically serious.
A bad idea for sure.
I nodded anyway.
twenty-one
I have no idea how long August and I made out. If you told me seasons had changed, a dozen Super Bowls had come and gone, society was now on the iPhone 54X—I’d believe it. Because it was impossible to mark time, to gauge it, to even care, with August’s mouth on mine, my hands in his hair.
This was not how I saw this going. But I wasn’t complaining.
Eventually, August’s phone rang.
I pulled away. “Should you get it?”
“No.” Kiss. Kiss. “Phones don’t exist here.”
“It could be something important.”
“Nope.”
The ringing stopped. We kept kissing, for another few minutes, or through the rise and fall of the digital age.
Then it rang again.
“August.”
He made a noise equivalent to SFDLKJDFSKHJ and sat up, pulling his phone from his back pocket. I could see HEATHER flashing across the screen.
“Hello?”
A pause. I touched my fingers to my lips.
“Yeah, okay … Yes … I don’t know, what time is it? … Okay. Yeah, soon …” His eyes widened suddenly. “No, no, no. Here, talk to Sophie—” He flung the phone at me.
I managed to grab it and sat up too. “Hello?”
“Sophie?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t know you guys were together.”
Something in my chest seized. “We’re not. We’re just friends.”
A pause. “I meant, like, hanging out right now.”
“Oh. Oh yeah.”
“Well, anyway, Cady wanted to talk to August but I guess he’s busy?”
August had gotten up from the blanket and walked away, stopping a few yards off with his back to me. The way his shirt hugged his shoulders was … not terrible.
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Okay, well, let him know she expects him for dinner. It’s pizza night. Last time he did this thing where he ordered in a funny voice? She thinks it’s, like, the absolute height of prank comedy.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“Hey, and while you’re here, can you do Tuesday at five instead of six?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“Awesome. Thanks, Soph!” She hung up.
I set the phone aside. August turned back, his face chagrined.
“What was that?” I said as he approached the blanket again. He flopped back down but facing me now, leaning back on his hands.
“I couldn’t talk to Cady! After we were just … when we were all … worked up.”
“Worked up? You were worked up?”
“Actually, no. Never mind. I felt nothing.”
I grinned.
He grinned back. “So. Did we do Megan Pleasant justice?”
My smile dimmed a little. It was over. We weren’t going to go back to making out. This exercise, this adventure, whatever it was, was finished.
I nodded. “Yeah. She’d be super proud.”
“Good.” He bobbed his head. “Good, yeah.”
“What do you think, having done the whole thing now?”
“I think I have a new appreciation for it?” He wrinkled his nose. “Or at least for Acadia.”
“So you love it now?”
“Maybe not full-on love. Maybe just like L-O.”
“You’re halfway there,” I said.
So was I.
twenty-two
Flora brought home food from work that night, and we sat outside at the patio table in her backyard to eat. She still had on her uniform, and smelled like french fry grease, but she chatted easily anyway, like she hadn’t just been standing for eight hours, like she wasn’t exhausted from dealing with free refills and mixed-up orders and the general public. Further validating Brit’s argument that Flora might just operate on an elevated plane of existence.
I knew she got cranky sometimes, like anyone else. She missed her dad when he was away. She’d get annoyed with Brit over little things. But she was one of those people, my mom would say, who have a light inside of them that you can’t help but be drawn to. The kind of person who makes other people feel warm. When Flora looked at you, you felt like she saw the best version of you. Or at least, she made you want to be that version.
Tonight, she said “firefly” whenever we saw one, which was pretty often on a summer evening. We had been talking a bit about something on TV last night (“I don’t think he’ll survive elimination, but if he did—firefly—I wouldn’t be mad”) until Flora said, “Let’s make-believe.”
I stared up at the sky. Make-believe was Flora’s favorite—it’s when we talked about Other Acadia, and our fabulous lives there.
“You’ve just gotten back from the mall,” I said. Other Acadia had a luxury mall, of course. “You bought a super expensive purse, and you picked up exactly what you wanted for dinner—”
“Chicken nuggets,” she supplied, mouth full.
“Perfect. You’ve picked up the chicken nuggets, you drive home in your fancy car, and eat dinner—”
“Outside, with you.”
“You know, Other Acadia isn’t that different from regular Acadia tonight.”
“We’re next to a pool, though.”
“Cool. Are we wearing caftans?”
“Oh yeah. Designer caftans,” she said, and licked some sauce off her fingers. “What have you been doing all day in Other Acadia?”
“Just hanging out.”
“With August?”
“Sure.” My voice stayed so even, I surprised myself: “Other Acadia August actually likes me back.”
I didn’t shift my gaze away from the treetops, but I didn’t need to. I could feel Flora’s eyes on me.
“Actual Acadia August likes you, though.”
I shook my head. “Not like that. Not like how I do.”
“He does.”
I paused. “How do you know that?”
It wasn’t unthinkable that someone had seen us out in the field today. Maybe Flora knew we kissed. Maybe she thought that was proof enough, but I knew the truth—Brit kissed enough people for me to know that you could do so without it meaning anything. Just because it’s fun, or you’re bored, or you felt like it.
Flora shrugged. “I just do.”
I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, even though I was the one who brought it up. Flora had a way of drawing stuff out of you, stuff you weren’t sure you were ready to confront yourself.
“Have you been doing your social media outreach?” I said instead.
Flora made a face. “Let’s just enjoy summer.”
“You sound like Brit.”
I thought she was going to say something more about it, but she threw her head back and looked at the sky.
“Firefly,” she said instead.
twenty-three
Band rehearsals started back up the next week in preparation for the Fourth of July parade. We would be marching with our program for the Rose Parade, as well as a few other standards—the fight song, some current pop hits.