Tonight the Streets Are Ours

“I don’t know what 4-H is,” Peter said.

“Exactly.” Arden started to climb.

When she got to the top of the ladder, she found herself on the roof, looking down over the line of partygoers still on the street. It was windy up there, and her hair blew into her eyes and mouth. Peter pulled himself onto the roof a moment later and put his hands on his hips, surveying the night sky. “Nice view, right?”

“Sort of.” There were too many lights from the city, and Arden couldn’t see a single star in the sky. She thought that her dad would have nothing to look at with his telescope here, and then she felt a quick pang of guilt for being so far from home, in this starless city, when she had told her father she’d be only on the other side of the woods. He’d already had his wife run off. He didn’t need for his daughter to do the same. He deserved better.

But that was different. Unlike her mom, Arden had her reasons. And unlike her mom, tomorrow she was going home.

“Did you get a glimpse of my underwear or what?” she asked Peter.

“I did not,” Peter said.

“Good.”

“But would it offend you if I told you that you have great legs?”

Arden stared at him. “Ha, ha.”

“Oh, come on, I’m sure people tell you that all the time.”

“Nobody’s ever told me that,” she said.

Although there were a number of other partygoers up on the roof, it was quieter than any of the rooms inside. No ten-piece band to contend with. Peter pulled his flask out of his pocket and took a long swig out of it, tilting his head back. When he was done, he offered it to Arden.

She held the flask in her hands but didn’t drink from it. It was heavy and sterling silver, engraved with the name LEONARD MATTHEW LAU. She looked up. “Is this Leo’s? Bianca’s Leo?”

He studied the engraving, as though he had forgotten what it said. “Yes.”

She giggled. “So you took his girl and his flask.”

Peter offered her a half smile. “Something like that.”

Of course, it occurred to Arden, he’d managed to keep only one of those.

Peter turned, walked over to a giant rocking chair, and climbed onto it. There were a number of them scattered around the roof deck. Rocking chairs that could seat three or four people. Bicycles on rocking chairs. Seesaws on rocking chairs. Arden wondered what the emergency plan was if an underage drunk kid fell off a rocking chair seesaw on the roof of Jigsaw Manor.

She went over to Peter and gave his chair a little push.

“Look, Arden,” Peter said, taking the flask back from her. “I just want you to understand. I’ve done some things I’m not proud of.”

“So have I,” Arden said. “So has everyone. I mean, Lindsey once stole a canoe, and she doesn’t even know how to paddle a boat. She was pretty not-proud of that. I don’t love her any less for it.”

“That’s sweet.” Peter took another long swallow from Leo’s flask. “I just want to be the person you thought I would be. The Peter you were promised.”

She reached up to touch his arm, but the rocking chair put him slightly out of reach. “You already are,” she told him.

“I worry about that, too,” he said, staring off into the urban sprawl. “I worry that I’m not the person I seem to be on Tonight the Streets Are Ours. And then I worry that I’m exactly the person I seem to be.”

“Just don’t worry,” said Arden. “Not about me.”

He took his gaze off the skyline and smiled down at her. “Okay, friend,” he said. “Climb on up here.”

The chair was pretty high off the ground, and she wasn’t sure how to get onto it.

“Just jump,” he said.

She did. She didn’t make it that high. She landed roughly on her waist and wriggled the rest of the way until she was finally sitting next to him. “That was like an Olympic sport,” she said once she was settled.

“Then you just got a silver medal in climbing onto rocking chairs,” he said.