Tonight the Streets Are Ours

“Are you kidding me?” Arden shrieked.

“You just described Arden’s most dearly held sexual fantasy,” Lindsey explained.

“Maybe they’re at Ellzey’s,” Kirsten suggested.

“Does anybody know where Ellzey lives?” asked Naomi.

Arden raised her hand. “I do.”

“Wait, how?” Naomi asked.

“Because she’s his stalker,” said Lindsey.

“Should we tie the balloon to Alex’s mailbox?” Arden asked before they left. “So they know that we were here?”

“Let’s not,” Naomi said quickly. She looked concerned.

Ellzey’s house was nearly a half-hour walk away, but it was a surprisingly warm night for March, and none of them was tired. When they entered his driveway, they noticed a light still on, on the second floor of the house, and three cars parked outside.

“That’s where they are,” Arden whispered.

They stared reverentially at the lit window. Arden imagined that she could hear Ellzey’s gentle tenor voice floating out and down to her. She felt momentarily like she was in Romeo and Juliet, the balcony scene. Only she would be Romeo, in this situation.

“Now what?” Kirsten asked.

“We have to get their attention,” Arden said.

“Are you sure you can’t just text Douglas?” Lindsey asked Naomi.

Even in the moonlight, it was clear that Naomi was blushing. “No way.”

So they tried throwing rocks at the window. This had no impact. Either because they had no aim and the majority of their rocks missed their mark, or because the boys were singing so loudly they were deaf to the thumping of rocks against their house. Maybe both.

“You’re an athlete,” Arden said to Lindsey as she hurled another pebble from Ellzey’s gravel driveway and it went flying off into the distance. “You’re supposed to be good at this stuff.”

“I’m on the track team,” Lindsey said, her next stone falling ten feet short of its mark. “There’s no throwing in track.”

“Think of this as cross-training,” Arden said.

When their arms grew tired, Lindsey suggested singing. “Like sirens in a Greek myth,” she explained.

“I can’t really carry a tune,” said Naomi. “That’s why I do stage crew.”

“Pull it together, Naomi,” snapped Lindsey.

Kirsten, of course, was already belting out her song from the fall production of Cabaret.

Together, the girls sang “And So It Goes,” with Arden trying her hand at Ellzey’s solo. It seemed like if anything would draw him to the window, that would work. But still, she saw no Ellzey.

The girls were about to admit defeat when the front door opened. The porch light turned on. This was it.

In the doorway stood a gray-haired woman in a bathrobe. She stared out at the four girls, who were frozen like startled deer in the sudden light. “Hello?” she said.

“Hello,” the girls chorused. Then, because it seemed like somebody needed to say something, Arden added, “We’re here to see Ellzey,”

“Well,” said the woman in the bathrobe, “I’m Mrs. Ellzey.”

She opened the door wider, and even though it seemed like the wise course of action would be to flee the scene, the girls followed her inside like a string of dutiful ducklings.

“Bart!” Mrs. Ellzey hollered upstairs.

“Yeah, Mom?”

“Come down here. Bring your friends, young man.”

So that was Ellzey’s first name. Bart. Arden wondered if he started going by Ellzey because he didn’t like that name. She wouldn’t blame him. It sounded an awful lot like fart.