"Me and Kevin"

   Kevin and I had a secret club.  It was probably my idea.  We climbed to the ceiling of my dad’s garage and sat cross legged on a piece of plywood perched over the rafters.  We brought a candle up there and lit it.  We called it the “Sky.”  No one but us knew what we were talking about when we said, “Let’s go to the Sky.” When a cat died in the attic, my dad found the candle and someone was in big trouble.  It wasn’t me and Kevin though.  Our club was a secret.

   Now that we had a secret club, Kevin and I decided we should have a sleepover.  But our moms wouldn’t let us.  Why not?  We pestered them daily. Boys and girls don’t have sleepovers together they said.  Why not?   Finally they sighed and said ok.   Excited, we planned our sleepover.  We were going to camp out in a tent in Kevin’s backyard.    We made the tent by hanging blankets over the clothesline and staking it in the ground with clothespins.  We stayed up all night and made up chapters for a book we planned to write.  We would call it “Top Secret 28890.” I would do the writing. Kevin would do the illustrations.

   Kevin and I started our own lawn mowing service.  We were raking in the dough.  We started going to Pearl’s Creamery next to Duckworth’s, where we ordered Jimmy cones and told the soda jerk that we were twins.  Kevin and Kelly. We both had dishwater blond hair, green eyes, and freckles.  He believed us.

  Our mothers worked the evening shift at the hospital so on most nights Kevin and I hung out together and played superheroes.  We stayed up late making our heroes out of play dough.  I wanted to be Superman but Kevin said only he could be Superman. I had to be Superwoman.  I refused.  Eventually, after many arguments, I agreed to be Wonder Woman.  We pinned towels around our necks with safety pins and ran up and down the street flying our superheroes made of play dough in the air.  It was our favorite game besides Secret Agent Double Oh Seven.

   I told Kevin that I wanted to be a journalist. 

 What’s that? he asked.

  I’m not sure, I shrugged, but my mom says it’s better than an author.

  I pronounced it arthor.  Arthors, I informed Kevin, as my mother had me, don’t make any money.

 

   In sixth grade Kevin sat behind me in Mrs. Weidner’s class.  We got in trouble for talking and she separated us.  But then I just got in more trouble talking to David Beard. I was better off sitting next to Kevin.  

   It was in sixth grade that, bored, I begin to use the bathroom pass to go downstairs to the girl’s room.  I would hang on the bar above the toilet stall and try to do pull-ups. As I kicked my legs together hard trying to get my chin up over the bar, I discovered a tickle between my legs.  It felt good and I started getting bathroom passes daily.

   All the girls got boy crazy in sixth grade.  I took note of this, how their eyes glazed over. I thought of myself as above all that.  Rebecca Anders chased Chuck King until she fell on the ice and got a concussion trying to get him to kiss her. 

   One day we got off the bus to walk the usual route up Grant Hill and to our homes.  Mona Size, who I never liked much, started chanting, “Kelly loves Kevin, Kelly loves Kevin, Kelly loves Kevin.”

   I thought I would die.  Kevin was my best friend, not my boyfriend.  It was that boy girl thing our moms were so worried about again.  My face burned red and my stomach twisted into knots that made me feel horrid and mean.  

   Mona stepped it up.  “Kelly and Kevin up in a tree.  K-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love.  Then comes marriage. Then comes Kelly with a baby carriage!”

   It wasn’t just me.  Several other kids, as well as Kevin, were all within earshot, trailing around us.  Several of them begin to join Mona, teasing.

    “Kevin, the frog, you mean?  Why would I like Kevin?” I said as loudly as I could, turning to face them.

     Kevin looked as uncomfortable as I was, his head hanging down, his big eyes averted.

   “Kevin is a frog!” I blurted.  It just spewed out of me.  He did kind of look like a frog a little bit around the mouth, I rationalized to myself.    

   Kevin turned red and started walking ahead of us really fast.  He didn’t say a word but I didn’t let up. 

   “Frog! Frog! Kevin is a frog!” 

   The faster he walked, the louder I yelled. 

   Until he was running. 

   “Frog. Frog. Frog.”

    Even after he was way ahead of us, a spot at the top of the hill, I kept it up until my voice was raspy and I felt like I was going to choke. My eyes hurt but I couldn’t stop myself.  

    After that, I climbed up to the Sky all by myself, where I lit another smuggled candle and scribbled in a diary I kept hidden there.  Small buds on my chest had appeared out of nowhere and rubbed against my shirt and I felt an unfamiliar ache the bathroom chin-ups could no longer assuage.

     In my diary I wrote “Me and Kevin.”  Then I crossed it out.