Secrets & Sighs

She turned and smiled back at me, climbing up her apple tree. I didn't know it at the time, but the scent that lingered after her would be one I'd later come to love. Memories connected with the sense of smell are very engaging. They go deeper than the average memory, I suppose because so much more is involved. Musk and apple pie.

She wanted to tell me a secret. Secrets, especially when you're twelve, are worth climbing a tree for. Especially when the girl looked like she did. Her blonde hair fell in careless wisps and danced lightly on her shoulders as she climbed. One pale thigh brushed the other under the red and white gingham skirt that hugged her plump bottom. She'd removed her sandals to make the climb easier. Her white knit blouse snagged a bit on the bark and she let out a small sigh as she freed it with a quick snatch of her delicate fingers.

The neighborhood was fresh and alive with the scents and visual pleasures of summer. Fresh cut grass and a lemonade stand a block down were the simple things that made June an adventure. Summers were always invigorating. Even though mom and I had just moved into this neighborhood less than a month before, summer had a way of making anywhere feel like home. 

Jill disappeared up over the edge of the platform that hung above, into a nest of branches that would become our secret haven. I scurried the rest of the way up, losing my footing on the tree in my haste, and flung myself onto the wooden planks. Some places have an unmistakable and familiar energy. This place had it. A warm breeze caught my cheek and the canopy of leaves and apples shuttered, as if welcoming me. Jill smirked slightly, then turned and reached into the tree. She turned over a shoebox she had wedged between two entwined branches. The tiny wooden platform accepted the fluttering contents, and creaked a bit in what sounded like approval. The crumpled pictures were ominous. My heart thumped.

"Now listen. You can't tell anyone. Not even Al." She gave my shoulder a forceful smack that meant she wasn't fooling. I shook my head up and down vigorously. She didn't move, her eyes were glued to mine. She parted her lips and let out a soft sigh. I'm sure I appeared overly anxious. "Call that promise?" she squeaked. "Boys never talk unless they have to." Our hands crossed momentarily. Then she snatched up the crumpled treasures that were still fresh and curious to me. She started, one by one, to put them back in the shoebox.

"Okay, okay," I said, as I stopped her hand with mine in mid-air, "I promise."

"Swear," she demanded.

"Swear," I echoed.

This was the beginning of one of the most thrilling and confusing summers of my life. I look back on it now with a mixture of humor and boyhood delight, but at the time it was altogether too exhausting and overwhelming to think about.

We swore our undying friendship as we descended the tree later that afternoon. Adults would call it something else entirely. But who was I to know any better? Whether or not what we had just done constituted a vow of friendship was beyond me at the time. What we really should have done was to agree not to tell anyone, period. I learned later that this was more difficult for girls. Talk was cheap at twelve, and got cheaper as you got older. Girls put different price on words. Perhaps Jill, who was almost three years older, viewed things a little differently than I did. I found it flattering that an older girl had taken such an interest in me. 

We didn't walk side by side on our way back home, as we had when we started out that afternoon. I trailed a bit behind her, feeling more like a tamed puppy ready for a nap than a boy who had just acquired a new friend. Maybe friend was the wrong word.

"Hurry up," she taunted as she whipped her head around to meet mine. "What's wrong? I thought you would be happy. Most boys would." Again she sighed, ever so sweetly.

"I am, I am," I said. "Just a little tired." I'm sure I sounded pathetic.

Without permission she snatched my hand. It was clammy and moist. Not wanting to pull away, from mixed fear and exhilaration, I walked the rest of the distance in silence. She muttered a few unmemorable phrases. Something about, "that's what friends do for friends," turned, "blah blah blah." Girls trail off sometimes, all on their own. Some can talk on forever. And what does one do? One listens. Something I'm sure she had picked up from her mother.

Just before we reached her front yard she released my greasy palm. Just when I was beginning to take pride in showing the neighborhood my new friend, she stepped square in front of me. "Now look here. You're cute and all. A little shy, but I think you'll do just fine. If you want to stay friends, keep quiet." And another sigh eased out.

Like a moron I stood petrified, partly due to the startling color of her eyes, but mostly due to the flood of images that invaded my head. Flashes of skin and red gingham clouded out any words.

"Did you hear me?" She stomped on my toe to snap me out of it.

"Uh... um, yeah." That was all I could manage to get out. I felt frazzled. Blood pumped in my ears and my pants lurched spastically. I crossed my wrists in front of me as her mother stepped out onto the sidewalk up ahead. I felt my stomach rock and my lower guts tighten. I half way best over, as if pulled by a magnet somewhere deep inside me.

"Jill, honey, come inside and eat. It's getting cold." Jill's lunch was getting cold and I was just now all warmed up, again. She was torture on my crotch. But I liked it, in a melodramatic and self absorbed way. "Hi Hayden!" Her mother attempted to be sincere, but her voice registered suspicion. She cocked her head to the side curiously.

"Not a word Hayden." Those words seemed to finalize everything so simply for her. There I was, buckled over looking like a convict in cuffs, and she simply glided away. Dizziness overcame me and I fell to my knees, head inches from the fresh cut grass and smell of summer soil. I head the screen door slam shut, much to my relief. I hated to think of Jill's mother standing there witnessing the pitiful sight laid out on her front lawn. I don't quite remember the walk home.

That's how my scandalous summer of twelve began. It ended much differently.