You'll Just Know

Chapter 9

            Now, if I tell you that it was hot, you will never truly understand the nature of that particular sweltering afternoon. That day was dangerously hot. Like heat-stoke hot. Does that clear things up a bit?

            Wendy and I set out on foot, completely oblivious of the heat at first. Wendy was still wearing my Nike tee shirt and I had pulled on an old baseball cap. Wendy had also donned some sunglasses and they made her look... well... sort of cool. I got my first glimpse at what the “social” Wendy must look like. Hanging out with the cheerleaders and the “upper” crowd. A group that I had never fit into. I felt the tickle of a foreboding fear that Wendy might change when school began. But then, Wendy turned and smiled brightly, and all those fears were gone as quickly as they’d come. We’d become too good of friends over the last several weeks for anything to ever come between us. I was sure of it.

            Downtown Devon was dead. Even the Trolley, normally the epicenter of social life in Devon, was empty and quiet. I was reminded of those old Western movies. A gunfighter would shamble into town and the street would become suddenly deserted, leaving only a tumbleweed rolling in the hot wind. As if in answer to my thoughts, a piece of newspaper tumbled solemnly across the sidewalk in front of us, prodded by the lifeless hot air.

            Wendy made us cut through an alley so we wouldn’t walk past the front window of her father’s hardware store. She had told him that she was going to be at home all day. I didn’t really understand why we had to sneak around, but it seemed important to Wendy, so I went along with it.

            We took the street leading north out of the town square. It was a route I had never been. The houses on this street were smaller and closer together, but still in good shape. It was the stereotypical suburban street. Small lawns were separated by tall privacy fences. TV antennas clawed toward the sky. I realized that since most people had cable TV these days, that it had been a long time since I had seen a TV antenna. On this street, though, most houses seemed to have them.

            It was too hot to talk. Already I’d developed a thin coating of sweat. Wendy and I had fallen into a steady, even pace. Still, I was breathing hard and the heat made walking laborious. I resisted the urge to look up and see if vultures were circling overhead.

            “Wendy! Casey! Hi!” The voice came from our right, on the opposite side of the street. We both stopped and turned at the same time, but I couldn’t immediately find the owner of the voice.

            Then I saw. Sunbathing in a lounge chair set in the lawn directly across from us. Some hottie in a bikini. She was waving us over.

            “Who…?” I started to ask Wendy, but she was already making her way across the street. I followed.

            We walked into the front lawn of the small yellow house and I saw that it was Emily, the girl I’d met a while back in The Trolley. What I did not recall, however, was her amazing figure. She was lounging in a barely-there, well-filled bikini. Her tanned skin was oiled to a high sheen. (I realized that in this weather, even a Jersey boy like me could have gotten a tan.)

            She smiled at us as we approached. I saw that she was reading a book called The Sparrow and the Falcon with a windswept, scantily clad couple on the cover. She had on dark sunglasses that made it impossible to tell if she was looking at Wendy or me. I thought it best to keep my eyes from wandering, just in case... but it was extremely difficult. Her suit left very little to the imagination.

            “Where y’all headed?” she asked.

            Wendy shrugged. “Just walking. I thought I’d show Casey where the school was.”