“Nope. Already called in sick. Always thinking ahead.” She’s dragging a picnic bench to sit directly in front of the firepit. Close enough that stray flames will lick our shins. Max is already scavenging in the brush for additional pieces of wood.
We sit in a row, me in the middle, whiskey in Ginger’s hand.
The first few drops go into the fire. The flames flare bigger and brighter, a whoosh of intense white light. “To eighteen being as luminous and warm as this fire,” Ginger says, raising the bottle in the air. It looks like she’s toasting the silhouetted trees beyond the firepit.
“You go next,” she directs, handing it to me. I take a small sip, but it still burns hot the whole way down. Max takes a longer swig, and Ginger takes the longest of the three of us. She drops a small splash on the ground when she’s finished. “For Noah,” she says. “Though he only deserves a half swig.”
We’re quiet for a while, our eyes lost in the flames. Our minds lost on different thoughts. I mostly wonder about their thoughts. I’m actively trying not to have too many of my own.
“Why is it,” Ginger starts, threading us back together, “that sitting around a fire at night with whiskey makes you want to talk about deep, dark secrets?”
“I would guess that’s the whiskey magic at work.” I feel warmer, looser, but fully here.
“Feel free to share any secrets you might have, though,” Max says. “You and I still have some bonding to do. Nothing like embarrassing secrets to seal the friendship deal.”
I glance at Max from the corner of my eye. He looks calm, happy, far from the Max who sat around the fire with me last night. Divulging his own deep, dark secrets. Maybe Ginger is right, sitting around a fire at night does bring out something confessional in all of us. Even without whiskey.
“Sadly, neighbor boy, I haven’t lived enough yet to have anything that exciting or embarrassing to share. Unless you count the time I shit my pants on a haunted hayride. In eighth grade. That was a low point. Poor Calliope was a witness.” Ginger laughs, poking at the fire with a long, forked branch. She pauses for a minute before she says, “My secrets are mostly fears. I hate that I’m eighteen in a few weeks and I’ve never kissed anyone. Unless you count kissing myself in the mirror. Never gone on a date. Never been asked on one. I talk such a big game and carry myself like I’ve got more confidence than a wild cougar, but news flash: a lot of it’s an act. I guess I hope that if you make believe you’re a certain kind of person, that’s the kind of person you’ll end up being. So far, no positive results in testing that particular theory.”
I’ve never heard Ginger say that before, never heard her voice sound so slight and uncertain. I hate that she couldn’t tell me that, at least not without whiskey. Or flames. Or both. “You’ve never dated,” I say, “because Green Woods is a very tiny, very pathetic pool and no one is nearly good enough to deserve you.”
“Easy to say. I know that your dream boy appeared out of thin air next door to you like some fairy-tale prince, so your view is skewed. But maybe I’ll always be the odd one out. Maybe there’s no fairy-tale princess waiting for me.”
“Dream boy, huh?” Max asks, puffing out his chest. “Fairy-tale prince?”
Ginger leans around me to slap him on the wrist. “Don’t ruin my serious confessional. The spotlight was on me.”
“Ginger, please.” He grabs her hand, holds on. “Here’s what I already know about you: You’re going to have to majorly rest up this next year, because once college hits, you’ll be on a date with a different girl every night. You’ll have too many options. You won’t know what to do with yourself. Trust that.”
“He’s right.” I put my hand on top of his, a stack of three.
“Whatever you say, Mommy and Daddy.” I don’t need to look over to catch the eye roll. But her voice is lighter. More Ginger-like. “Okay. Done baring my soul. Who’s next?”
“Me,” Max says without missing a beat. I turn to him, wildly curious. Our hands all stay together. It feels like a key part of whatever is about to come next.
“My grandmother died in our house. Because of my grandfather.”
Just like that, he says it. No lead-in. No softening.
My jaw feels unhinged it drops so low. Ginger gasps next to me.
I don’t think either of us breathes as we wait for more.
Surely there will be more.
But then after an unbearable pause Max says, “That’s it. Sorry. I don’t really want to talk about it more. Not tonight. Not on your birthday.”
Max drops his hand, and Ginger and I pull ours back, too. A moment has ended.
Maybe it’s all true, what they say about the Jackson house. But it’s not some local horror story. It’s Max’s family. Flesh and blood. Real people, real lives.
“Okay, somebody besides me needs to say something.” Max reaches over, presses on my chin to close my mouth. “Calliope. Your turn. Even the birthday girl has to reveal something.”
There is no possible follow-up.
“I… err…” I try to think of words, any words.
What is my secret? Do I have any secrets from these two people?
There is one. My birthday wish.
I open my mouth, and this time words successfully come:
“I want to know who Frank really is.”
Chapter Eleven
I wait for Ginger to leave the next morning, after we’ve successfully nursed our mild hangovers with pancakes and eggs and coffee. Mama, too—she called in a sub for her first class. But breakfast heals her enough that she can take on her second class, thankfully.
When I’m alone in the house, I walk upstairs and slip into my moms’ bedroom. I crouch next to their bed and pull out the locked
