P.S. I Still Love You

“Yes! I mourned it a little when it went away. It was so sweet. So boyish. And do you remember how his hair was the color of pale butter? Like, the way I bet freshly churned butter looks.”
“I thought it was more like moonlit corn silk, but yeah. So how did he turn out?”
“I don’t know. . . . It’s strange because there’s the him I remember from middle school, and that’s just my memory of him, but then there’s the him now.”
“Did you guys ever go out back then?”
“Oh no! Never.”
“So that’s probably why you’re curious about him now.”
“I didn’t say I was curious.”
Lucas gives me a look. “You basically did. I don’t blame you. I’d be curious too.”
“It’s just fun to think about.”
“You’re lucky,” he says.
“Lucky how?”
“Lucky that you have . . . options. I mean, I’m not officially ‘out,’ but even if I was, there are, like, two gay guys at our school. Mark Weinberger, who’s a pizza face, and Leon Butler.” Lucas shudders.
“What’s wrong with Leon?”
“Don’t patronize me by asking. I just wish our school was bigger. There’s nobody for me here.” He stares off into space moodily. Sometimes I look at Lucas and for a second I forget he’s gay and I want to like him all over again.
I touch his hand. “One day soon you’ll be in the world, and you’ll have so many options you won’t know what to do with them. Everyone will fall in love with you, because you’re so beautiful and so charming, and you’ll look back on high school as such a tiny blip.”
Lucas smiles, and his moodiness lifts away. “I won’t forget you, though.”
 32 
“THE PEARCES FINALLY SOLD THEIR house,” Daddy says, heaping more spinach salad on Kitty’s plate. “We’ll have new backyard neighbors in a month.”
Kitty perks up. “Do they have kids?”
“Donnie says they’re retired.”
Kitty makes a gagging noise. “Old people. Boring! Do they have grandkids, at least?”
“He didn’t say, but I don’t think so. They’re probably going to take down that old tree house.”
I stop mid-chew. “They’re demolishing our tree house?”
Daddy nods. “I think they’re putting in a gazebo.”
“A gazebo!” I repeat. “We used to have so much fun up there. Genevieve and I would play Rapunzel for hours. She always got to be Rapunzel, though. I just got to stand underneath it and call up”—I pause to put on my best English accent—“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, miss.”
“What kind of accent is that supposed to be?” Kitty asks me.
“Cockney, I think. Why? Was it not good?”
“Not really.”
“Oh.” I turn to Daddy. “When are they tearing the tree house down?”
“I’m not sure. I’d imagine before they move in, but you never know.”
There was this one time I looked out the window and saw that John McClaren was up in the tree house alone. He was just sitting by himself, reading. So I went out there with a couple of Cokes and a book and we read up there all afternoon. Later in the day Peter and Trevor Pike showed up, and we put the books away and played cards. At the time I was deep in the throes of liking Peter, so it wasn’t romantic in the slightest, of that I’m sure. But I do remember feeling that our quiet afternoon had been disrupted, that I’d rather have just kept reading in companionable silence.
 
 
“We buried a time capsule under that tree house,” I tell Kitty as I squeeze toothpaste onto my toothbrush. “Genevieve, Peter, Chris, Allie, Trevor, me, and John Ambrose McClaren. We were going to dig it up after we graduated high school.”
“You should have a time capsule party before they demolish the tree house,” Kitty says from the toilet. She’s peeing and I’m brushing my teeth. “You can send invitations and it can be a fun little thing. An unveiling.”
I spit out toothpaste. “I mean, in theory. But Allie moved, and Genevieve is a—”
“Witch with a b,” she supplies.
I giggle. “Definitely a witch with a b.”
“She’s scary. One time when I was little, she locked me in the towel closet!” Kitty flushes the toilet and gets up. “You can still have a party, just don’t invite Genevieve. It doesn’t make sense for you to invite your boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend to a time capsule party anyway.”
As if there were some set etiquette for who to invite to a time capsule party! As if there were really such a thing as a time capsule party! “I got you out of the closet right away,” I remind her. I set my toothbrush back down. “Wash your hands.”
“I was going to.”
“And brush your teeth.” Before Kitty can open her mouth, I say, “Don’t say you were going to, because I know you weren’t.”
Kitty will do anything to get out of brushing her teeth.
 
 
We can’t just let this tree house go without a proper send-off. It wouldn’t be right. We always said we’d come back. I will have a party, and it will be themed. Genevieve would sneer at that, how babyish—but it’s not like I’m inviting her, so who cares what she thinks. It will just be Peter, Chris, Trevor, and . . . John. I’ll have to invite John. As friends, just friends.
 
 
What did we eat that summer? Cheez Doodles. Melty ice cream sandwiches—the chocolate wafer would stick to our fingers. Lukewarm Hawaiian Punch flowed freely. Capri Suns when we could get them. John always had a double-decker peanut butter and jelly sandwich with him in a ziplock bag that his mother packed. I’ll be sure to have all of those snacks for the party.
What else? Trevor had portable speakers he used to carry around. His dad was big into Southern rock, and that summer Trevor played “Sweet Home Alabama” so much that Peter threw his speakers out of the tree house and Trevor wouldn’t speak to him for days. Trevor Pike had brown hair that curled when it was wet, and he was chubby in the way that middle school boys are (in the cheeks, around the middle) right before they have a big growth spurt and everything sort of evens out. He was always hungry and hanging around other people’s cupboards. He’d have to go pee, and he’d come back with a Popsicle or a banana, or cheese crackers, whatever he could scam. Trevor was Peter’s number three. It went John and Peter and then Trevor. They don’t hang out so much anymore. Trevor’s more friends with the track guys. We don’t have any classes together; I’m in all honors and APs and Trevor was never that into school or grades. He was fun, though.
I remember the day Genevieve showed up at my house crying, saying she was moving. Not far, she’d still go to school with us, but she wouldn’t be able to ride her bike or walk over anymore. Peter was sad; he comforted her, put his arms around her. I remember thinking how grown-up they seemed in that moment, like real teenagers in love. And then Chris and Gen had a fight about something, a bigger fight than usual; I don’t even remember what it was about. I think something with their parents. Whenever their parents weren’t getting along, things trickled down to them like trash floating down a river.
Gen moved away, and we were still friends, and then, around the time of the eighth grade dance, she dropped me. I guess there was no place for me in her life anymore. I thought Genevieve was someone I would know forever. Those people in your life that you just always know, no matter what. But it’s not that way. Here we are, three years later, and we’re worse than strangers. I know she took that video; I know she sent it to Anonybitch. How could I forgive that?
 33 
JOSH HAS A NEW GIRLFRIEND: Liza Booker, a girl from his comic-book club. She has frizzy brown hair, nice eyes, big boobs, braces. She’s a senior like Josh, smart like Josh. I just can’t believe he’s with a girl who’s not Margot. Next to my sister, Liza Booker’s nice eyes and big boobs are nothing.