The Night Sister

It had all been so surprising that he half-wondered if it had really happened. If he had really found Amy roller skating by herself at the bottom of the pool yesterday, and if she had invited him down.

“Come here,” she said, in a way that was really more of an order than an invitation. “You got any cigarettes?”

Jason shook his head.

“Of course not,” Amy said, disappointed, but not altogether surprised; she rolled away, her back to him.

“But I can get some,” Jason called after her.

She stopped short and spun neatly back to face him, grinning. “Really?”

“Sure,” he said. “No problem.”

She laughed, skating forward like a rocket, then skidding to a dead stop, her face inches away from his nose.

“When?” she asked.

“Umm…tomorrow? I can bring them tomorrow. If that’s okay, I mean.”

“That’s just perfect,” she said, smiling. She stared hard at him, cocking her head first to the left, then to the right, studying him from different angles. “Hey, did anyone ever tell you you’re kind of cross-eyed?”

“Um…no,” he stammered. He felt his face flush.

“No one has a perfect face,” she said. “Not even supermodels. Did you know no one’s face is symmetrical? The left half of our nose is totally different than the right. Like here,” she said, putting a finger on the left side of his mouth, “this side might be just a little bit bigger than the other, or turn down a little more. I guess we’re all kind of like messed-up jack-o-lanterns.”

Then she leaned in and kissed him, despite his crossed eyes and his face that didn’t match up.

And if it wasn’t for the swollen lip, he might be able to tell himself he’d imagined the whole thing after all. It had happened so quickly and was over too fast. She’d skated off, saying, “Toodle-oo, Jay Jay. Don’t forget the cigarettes next time.”

And he hadn’t forgotten the cigarettes. He’d gone home and nabbed a pack from his brother’s carton of Marlboros. As soon as his mom left for work this morning, he’d thrown on one of his brother’s Ramones T-shirts.

“I didn’t know you were into the Ramones,” Amy might say.

And he’d say something like “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.” Or maybe, “I’m full of surprises.”

No. That was too stupid, even for him.

He’d gone to the motel, seen only Margot at the pool, and headed down to the tower to look for Amy and give her the cigarettes. That’s when he’d seen them. And smushed the cigarettes when he involuntarily clenched his fist in shock.

Now, as he lay on the bed in the musty darkness, he pulled the crushed cigarette pack from his pocket and wondered what the girls were up to, what they’d found in that old crumbling tower. He took out a cigarette. Still smokable.

Maybe he could leave them for Amy somewhere. It would be a way to say, No hard feelings. That he wasn’t weirded out by what he’d seen in the tower.

But where should he leave them?

Somewhere he was sure she’d go.

The pool? No, her grandma sometimes went out there to sit in one of the old sagging chairs. She’d see the cigarettes, and then Amy might get in trouble.

The tower.

He’d leave them in the tower!

Would she know they were from him? Probably. Maybe he should leave a note, too.

He jumped up, went to the desk. Found a pencil stub and an old piece of Tower Motel stationery.

He thought and thought about what to write. Should he say anything about what he’d seen in the tower? Should he remind her of their kiss yesterday in the pool? Tell her that he thought about her all the time? That, whatever it was she’d found, she could tell him—she could trust him?

Maybe he should write her in code?

No. In the end, he decided simple was best.

She’d appreciate that more than anything stupid and sappy.

Finally, he wrote his note:

Cigarettes as promised.

Hope to see you soon.

—J