Instead he asked, “Do you remember this?” Sitting up again, he reached behind a pillow and pulled out a weathered wooden sign that had hung over the ladder years ago.
The letters we’d scratched with a pocketknife were still visible.
“Oh my God.” I laughed. “KEEP OUT JERKS. You remember that day?”
“Of course I remember,” he said. “Sean told us that we couldn’t play, and McGillicuddy and Cameron sided with him—”
“I hated when they ganged up on us,” I mused.
“—and usually we did what they said and hung around them like abused dogs. is time we said to hell with them and came here. We made this sign and nailed it to the tree.”
“And then we waited for them to notice we were gone and come looking for us,” I said. “ey would see that we were the cool ones and they were the ones excluded, and they would rue the day, I tell you!” I thought for a moment. “And we ate Double Stuf Oreos out of the bag and talked, and finally we went home. ey never did miss us and I doubt they rued the day, but it was a nice afternoon.” I thought again. “Do you have any Double Stuf Oreos?” He gave me a reproving look. I wished I hadn’t said this, because now it seemed like I didn’t appreciate everything else he’d brought.
I started, “I’m just jok—”
He reached beneath a pillow and dragged out a package of Double Stuf Oreos.
Frances had never bought Double Stuf Oreos for McGillicuddy and me. One stuff was enough, she said. All we got was single-stuff whole-wheat faux Oreos from the organic grocery store. I would not swear to it, but I’d bet the stuff was made of tofu. Mrs. Vader, in contrast, did not go to such pains for her family, or perhaps she was just tired. This would have made her home a very attractive place for me to hang out even if there had been no boys. With boys and Oreos, it was heaven.
I lifted the chocolate lid and dug into the icing. “Mmmmmm,” I said. It was even better than I remembered. Mmmmmm, I put the rest of it in my mouth and shamefully, I might have forgotten Adam was sitting there, until I looked up and noticed he was watching me. “Wha?” I asked around cookie.
“You look like you are really enjoying that Oreo.”
Embarrassed, I swallowed. “I beg your pardon. I have been living on an athletic training diet of microwave pizza and Frances’s muscadine chutney from five years ago.”
“Is chutney supposed to age? Yikes.” He munched his own cookie and scooted the bag closer to me. “Have another.” I dug into the bag and munched on a second cookie, happily looking around our dark, cozy nest in the flickering candlelight. “e tree house seems smaller,” I said. “You seem bigger.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“But the Double Stuf Oreos taste exactly the same.” My voice cracked from a crumb caught in my throat. I might need to bail out of the tree house and drink from the lake.
“I’m sure they have very good quality control.” en the boy who Never Planned Ahead dug under yet another pillow to produce two bottles of water. He always brought two, I’d noticed. Either he was afraid of my cooties, or he knew I was afraid of his cooties, ever since the time years ago when Sean spit in my Coke.
“ank you so much,” I croaked. As I sipped the cold water, I eyed him. Except for the beard, he looked relaxed and innocent, which was not like him at all. “So, what’s the occasion?”
“What do you mean?” he asked too quickly. “I wanted to see you. I’ve been dying to see you.”
“Right, but normally you would just spontaneously drag me into the woods. If you’ve engineered all this, something’s up.” He blinked innocently at me for a few more seconds, then gave in. “Okay. It’s about the plan.”
“Your plan for us to run away to Montgomery? Let me guess. You’ve decided we can stay in the tree house and live on Double Stuf Oreos instead.” I slid my hand onto his thigh. “That’s actually not a bad idea.”
He looked at my hand. “No, it’s about your plan to change your dad’s mind about me.” He picked up my hand. “I have something important I want to ask you.” He kissed my hand. “You know, when you were out with Parker and Cameron, I got angry.”
“You brought me here and wined and dined me”—I nodded toward the Oreos—“just to tell me this? Your temper is not news.” He put our hands under his chin and locked eyes with me. “Sean’s next, isn’t he?”
He seemed so earnest, I didn’t want to leave this question hanging in the air. I wanted to reassure him. But I didn’t want to lie to him, either. He would have seen through it, anyway. He already did. Sean was my last resort, if only I could figure out a way to use him.
“Don’t go out with Sean,” Adam said. “Stop the plan. Just give your dad some time to cool down, like my parents wanted. Maybe we won’t have the rest of the summer together. But in the fall, I’ll do my best on the football team. Everybody loves football players, right? We seem so all-American and wholesome.” I took back my hand. “College football players have been involved in a rash of shootings.”
“We’ll worry about that later. This is high school, and I can be the hometown darling if Coach lets me start as quarterback.”
“What are the chances of that?” I asked. “I mean, I have every confidence in you, but you have to get past that rising senior with a sixty percent completion rate in last year’s postseason.”
He just looked at me. Most boys seem taken aback when I spout sports statistics, as if girls aren’t allowed to keep up with that sort of thing. Not Adam. He was used to me. He was staring at me because he was honestly trying to convince me his own plan would work.
“I have every confidence in you,” I repeated.
He huffed out a breath through his nose like he didn’t believe me. “Plus, I swear I will not get put on academic probation this year. I will make the minimum GPA for eligibility. I might even stay a tenth of a point or two ahead.”
“A 2.2?” I asked. “Gosh, Adam, don’t put yourself out.”
“I’m serious, Lori. I will be a model citizen all semester long, and by Christmas surely your dad will let us be together, if you’ll just forget about your plan. And Sean.”
“And we wouldn’t see each other all that time?” I contemplated a whole summer and fall without him. We were supposed to spend the Fourth of July together. He would start as quarterback in the fall, like he said, and I was supposed to go with him to parties after games. And what about the homecoming dance?
He shook his head. “We would sacrifice the short-term for the long-term goal. We would be obedient.”
“Like dogs.” I hadn’t forgotten his woof at my dad.
“Something like that.”
“I think my plan would be better. A lot faster.”
“I’m not playing.” He took my hand again. “Tell me you’ll wait for me. Please.”
I probably would have tried to talk him out of it if I’d thought he was just jealous of Sean. I mean, honestly, higher than a rock-bottom C average? Adam? at would require him to make a B in something. But there was more to it than that. He lifted his chin when he talked about my dad being proud of him and our whole town worshipping the ground he walked on. He didn’t just want to get out of this awful sitch we were in. He wanted to earn his way out.
I swallowed and said, “Okay.”
“Okay?” He hunched down so his face was even with mine and looked straight into my eyes. “Really?”
“Really.” My stomach hurt when I said it.
He sighed. His whole body went limp with relief on the sleeping bag. “Thank you. You won’t be sorry. Now, there’s one more thing.”
“Oreos are poisonous? en I’m screwed.” I laughed. “Hey, then it really would be like Romeo and Juliet, if we both ate poisonous cookies and died here in your tree house together.”
He stared blankly at me.