Iwo weeks following the homeing dance, my life pretty much returo normal. My father was ba Washington, D.C., which made things a lot more fun around my house, primarily because I could sneak out the window again ao the graveyard for my late night forays. I dont know what it was about the graveyard that attracted us so. Maybe it had something to do with the tombstohemselves, because as far as tombstones went, they were actually fairly fortable to sit on.
We usually sat in a small plot where the Preston family had been buried about a hundred years ago. There were eight tombstohere, all arranged in a circle, making it easy to pass the boiled peanuts bad forth between us. Oime my friends and I decided to learn what we could about the Preston family, and we went to the library to find out if anything had been written about them. I mean, if yoing to sit on someoombstone, you might as well know something about them, right?
It turns out that there wasnt much about the family in the historical records, though we did find out oeresting tidbit of information. Henry Preston, the father, was a one-armed lumberjack, believe it or not. Supposedly he could cut down a tree as fast as any two-armed man. Now the vision of a one-armed lumberjack is pretty vivid right off the bat, so we talked about him a lot. We used to wonder what else he could do with only one arm, and wed spend long hours discussing how fast he could pitch a baseball or whether or not hed be able to swim across the Intracoastal Waterway. Our versatio exactly highbrow, I admit, but I ehem heless.
Well, Erid me were out there ourday night with a couple of other friends, eating boiled peanuts and talking about Henry Preston, when Eric asked me how my "date" went with Jamie Sullivan. He and I hadnt seen much of each other sihe homeing dance because the football season was already in the playoffs and Eric had been out of town the past few weekends with the team.
"It was okay," I said, shrugging, doing my best to play it cool.
Eric playfully elbowed me in the ribs, and I grunted. He outweighed me by at least thirty pounds.
"Did you kiss her good-night?"
"No."
He took a long drink from his of Budweiser as I answered. I dont know how he did it, but Eriever had trouble buying beer, which was strange, being that everyone in town knew how old he was.
He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, tossing me a sidelong glance.
"I would have thought that after she helped you the bathroom, you would have at least kissed her good night."
"Well, I didnt."
"Did you even try?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Shes not that kind of girl," I said, and even though we all k was true, it still sounded like I was defending her.
Eric latched on to that like a leech.
"I think you like her," he said.
"Youre full of crap," I answered, and he slapped my back, hard enough to force the breath right out of me. Hanging out with Eric usually meant that Id have a few bruises the following day.
"Yeah, I might be full of crap," he said, winking at me, "but youre the one whos smitten with Jamie Sullivan."
I kneere treading on dangerous ground.
"I was just usio impress Margaret," I said. "And with all the love notes shes been sendiely, I re it must have worked."
Eric laughed aloud, slapping me on the back again.
"You and Margaret-now thats funny. . . ."
I knew Id just dodged a major bullet