If You See Him, Let Me Know by Todd London

Author:Todd London
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Published: 2020-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

Jody Gold is drooling from the side of her mouth, burrowed in her pillow like she means to stay for winter. Philip has a hard time waking her. He taps her shoulder then shakes it. He whispers her name closer and closer to her ear. He tugs at her pillow; she tugs back. He’s about to give up when her eyes open, and she sits up.

She’s disoriented. The illuminated dial on the dresser reads 1:40, but it feels like five a.m., like she’s been popping reds and crashed. She hasn’t. She went to bed early and clean, nothing in her body but the day.

What’s Philip doing here, she wonders. Then she thinks, That can’t be Philip. Philip is her old boyfriend, was her old…oh, it’s too confusing. What summer is this? She’s dreaming a sweet dream reward for going to bed sober. She promised herself to be good, and now goodness itself has come to her bedside in the shape of Philip Rosen. She drops back onto the pillow.

Philip shakes her again. A light from Tobacco Road sets her adorable face aglow. He wants to kiss it.

“Jodyyyyy,” he calls from the spirit world.

She’s up again, on one elbow. She covers her dragon-breath mouth with her free hand. She flips her hair to loosen it. “Hi, Philly.”

“What are you doing here?” Philip prompts.

“What are you doing here?” Jody echoes.

“Right. What?”

Jody’s heart races. She wonders if he can hear it.

“Can you come out and play?” Philip asks.

“Are you drunk, Philly?”

“Hell, no,” he says, stage-slurring like a sloshed guy. He smiles, straight again. “Just a couple beers for courage.”

It’s quiet. Other girls might be listening. Lisa Climan rolls over in her bunk.

“Wait out the back,” she whispers. “Gimme a minute.”

He starts to go, stops. “You’re coming? For real?”

“Te adoro, Anton,” Jody says, in her demure, Maria voice. As Tony and Maria, they play a love scene in West Side Story. Their duet seems to have rekindled another scene they’ve played on and off over the past three summers, when one or the other of them decides it’s time to get together again, which they inevitably do, until it’s not time anymore or Jody remembers the reasons she’d rather be with a different, more experienced, less nice boy. Jody is, as her former-best-friend Katie Klein says, “The girl who cries for wolf.”

Philip exits backwards, not bothering to check the hall for counselors. His heart flies after him.

There’s a movie in his mind: Jody clutching her pillow, Melly crossing a field, Dorfman singing in the wind. “Stanislaw Superstar, where did you find such a fancy car?”

At night, the quietest spot at Friedkin may be the place where two fences meet below Philip’s cabin, Paint Your Wagon. Coved by trees, it’s protected from camp traffic and sheltered from the sky. Philip and Jody gravitate there, as Philip recaps the feud between Melly and Dorfman. He wants to talk to her, and he wants to touch her. He wants to kiss her, and he wants to ask her about something.

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