When I told my parents about my longtime crush on my friend, Abby, I didn’t think it was that bad. It seemed a real possibility with all the girl dolls I had. Why wouldn’t they be interested in each other that way? They spent all that time together and enjoyed each other’s company. That is all I saw of my parents’ marriage and all it seemed to be.
I also wanted to make Abby a sandwich and make sure she had enough to drink. We also fought over the number of smooth stones we found in the creek the same way my parents fought over the green paper that deposited into their account. We even wrote numbers and dollar signs on them in black marker. She paid me when I was a cashier when we played store, and she bought plastic produce.
We fought once over why the bunch of purple grapes costs more than the grapefruit, “Well,” I said, “because there are more of them.”
Abby started to cry. She only held two stones in her hand and needed two more so she could make fruit salad for our picnic outside. I grabbed one of the fake receipts my mother had pulled from her purse for this game, and said, “Oh, look! I found this coupon on the floor. If you use it then you should be able to get both,” her face softened and smiled.
“Really?”
“Yes, really, hurry though it expires in ten seconds!”
Mom hadn’t been to the store for fruit yet, so we ended up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the blanket in the yard instead. Under the shade of the magnolia tree, I told Abby I loved her. She said she loved me too. My mother’s only response to this tale was, “That’s nice,” but then at church the following Sunday I saw two women holding each other crying in the lobby. They had taught my Sunday school class and moved around bible characters on the felt board. There didn’t seem to be anything illicit in that, but they were asked to leave. I stopped playing with my dolls after and stuck to more grown-up games.
Even though I’m fourteen now, I still love Abby. We are in youth group together now, and she has a boyfriend. He leads the worship team on Wednesday nights. Abby thinks I can’t see her eyeing his muscled arms as he strums those guitar strings, but I am often looking at her through my squinted eyes, her body softened in my sidegaze but still burned into my mind. Sometimes I raise my arms not because God told me to, but because I wanted to brush my hand against hers accidentally.
Later, after youth group when her boyfriend is packing up his guitar, I ask her what kind of lotion she uses, “Your hands are so soft,” I said, putting both her hands in mine.
“Oh, they just are,” she said pulling her hands away.
She told me how excited she was for True Love Standby next weekend and hoped that her purity ring didn’t clash with her nail polish. The lacquer was bright pink under the fluorescent gym lights. They clicked against the concrete blocks of the gym wall as we waited. She leaned into the wall the way I wish she would lean into me, holding her waist in knowing intimacy.
My parents weren’t incredibly interested in True Love Standby, but my mother was a flight attendant, so she did have some idea of what Standby meant, waiting at the front of the plane for the pilot to offer an update on their trajectory. Wondering what news she could share with the passengers in flip-flops and sweatpants as she chafed in her polyester uniform.
“Is Love flying the plane?” She would ask with a cheery laugh.
“And how does one let an abstraction in the door?” her father would wonder aloud. Careful, with a knowing look from my mother, not to use the word cockpit. All I really wanted to know is what I was supposed to feel. Or why my parents think I don’t know the word cockpit. I have flown in enough planes with my mother’s job perks.
We stayed in peoples’ homes according to our gender during True Love Standby. Our group of girls stayed at Amber’s house which was less fun for me, but Amber couldn’t imagine not sleeping in her bed. Her room was large so our sleeping bags flowered out around her bed.
When we filled them, it felt like the scene from Peter Pan, mermaids surrounding a large sunning rock where Amber, our spokesperson, perched in case any lost boys came by wanting to chat. This coupled with the fact that Amber had the largest bible any of us had ever seen given to her by her grandmother. Occasionally she would open a few leaves past the title page to a thicker paper where she would point and say, “One day I’ll get to write my husband’s name here.”
My sleeping bag was the closest to her bed that Friday night. After all the girls were asleep, Amber tickled the back of my neck. She beckoned me on to her bed with her finger where her Bible had been. She opened her pink comforter and sheets and let me inside.
“Leslie, I missed you,” she said, “It’s so weird having all these other girls here. I guess growing up is making room for other people,” she said hugging my shoulders. Her body was warm against mine.
“I won’t forget you,” I said. My face was facing hers.
I loved Amber’s tired eyes. I loved her. I thought about kissing her lips then. I thought I thought about it, but then I did it — her lips soft like the pillows beneath us. She was half-asleep and gave a soft sigh as she turned over on her side away from me. I laid there until I heard the faint sounds of her breathing. I slowly crept back to my sleeping bag hoping she would remember it only as a dream.
When we all woke up Amber’s mom made us breakfast: hot waffles and butter and maple syrup. We piled in her mom’s SUV back to the church. We got to meet in the theater seating of the main worship center for once. Many different churches were participating, so it wasn’t just ours. When we filed in, there was a loud Christian rock song playing. It was like walking into my hadron collider. The atoms in my body felt like they were coming unglued in the sound.
