Page 43 of My Unscripted Life
“Aw, poor guy,” Milo says. He bends down and gives Rubix a double-handed scratch on his big, droopy cheeks.
“Yes, yes, very sad, now we have togo,” I say. I shoot Mom aHelp!look.
“Yes, say good night, Ron,” Mom says, winking at me and dragging my dad back down the hall.
“Call if you’re going to be later than eleven!” Dad shouts before disappearing into the kitchen.
“Dad, the showing starts at nine. They’ll just be starting the second movie at eleven!” I turn to Milo, who’s grinning, relaxed as ever, his hands deep in his pockets. “I’m sorry. There’s really no excuse for them.”
“They’re parents,” he says. He steps to the door and gestures for me to go out ahead of him. “That’s what the good ones are supposed to do.”
The Parkland Drive-In is one of my favorite places in Wilder, and not just because it has the most literal name on the planet. It’s been around since the fifties, though the tinny speakers on the poles have been replaced by a low-frequency radio station that you play through your car stereo. I think that’s the one and only update, though. The snack bar is still a tin-roof shack where they make sliders and chili dogs and giant vats of popcorn by hand. It’s only ten dollars a car for however many movies they happen to be showing that night, and with tonight’s triple feature, it’s a killer deal. And since the first movie doesn’t start until sundown, which comes at almost nine, it won’t end until almost four in the morning.
“Favorite spot?” Milo asks after he’s paid the attendant.
“Middle of the middle,” I reply, and he shifts the truck into drive and aims for a spot. He finds the last one in my preferred viewing location and backs the truck in, then hops out. I follow him around to the back, where he drops the tailgate and gives me a boost into the flatbed. There’s a thick blanket and a small cooler of glass-bottle Cokes.
“Sorry, I didn’t bring any pillows,” Milo says. He climbs in behind me, and the truck bounces and creaks under his weight. “I didn’t want your dad to think I was, well…”
“Not a problem,” I say. Milo settles into the truck, his back resting on the rear window, and I settle myself into the space between his knees, leaning back and using his chest as my pillow. He reaches into the cooler and pulls out two Cokes, twisting off the caps and handing me one.
“To summer,” he says.
“To summer,” I reply, and we clink the bottlenecks and take long swigs. It’s been only three weeks, but already I feel like a different girl from the one who sat outside the Coffee Cup worrying about how it was going to be the worst summer of her life. It’s been crazy and amazing and frustrating and interesting, but it hasn’t been the worst. Not by a long shot.
Up ahead, lightning bugs dance in front of the screen until the projector roars to life. Milo reaches back and slides the window of the truck open and leans in to crank the radio so we can hear the jingle that goes along with the dancing hot dog and popcorn telling us to visit the concession stand. Then everyone starts honking as the screen goes black, calling for the movie to begin.
The screen lights up, the symphony plays the booming theme over the Universal Pictures logo, and then there’s the camera panning over the sea of ticking clocks in Doc’s laboratory.
As Marty starts his race to get to school on time, I feel Milo’s breath on my ear, and then it’s lower, moving down to my neck. I lean back into him, breathing in and feeling myself melt. His lips start their journey from my collarbone, up my neck, on along the line of my jaw. His finger traces the path ahead of him until he’s slightly tugging, and I return his kiss with the deepest of sighs.
We make it all the way to Marty McFly falling out of the tree before we give up on watching the movie entirely. We sink down into the bed of the truck, our legs tangled as our lips meet. Milo’s hands go up to my hair, mine on his cheeks, and I feel like I want to devour him, he’s so delicious.
But each time he kisses me, I sense the tally of remaining kisses getting smaller, like someone is tearing the pages off one of those page-a-day calendars. I don’t know how many are left, but it doesn’t feel like enough. And each time his lips meet mine I want to ask him how many, give me a number, please, I just need to know. Is the number bigger than I thought? Infinite, even? But I don’t want him to stop kissing menow,so I don’t ask. I’m not ready for this to be our last kiss.
Or this one.
Or this one.
It seems greedy, but it really doesn’t feel like there will ever be enough. Of this. Of him. Of time. How can there ever be enough?
And so the first movie ends and the second one begins, and my lips ache from kissing him. I’m nestled deep into the nook of his shoulder, one leg thrown over him. It’s only midnight, but I’m exhausted from the day and the night, and exhausted from wondering. But still, I don’t ask.
The next morning, I walk into the kitchen to find Mom sitting at the table in the breakfast nook, a spiral notebook flipped open to a fresh blank page. It’s a sure sign that her book release is imminent, and she’s trying to distract herself from the hoopla by diving headfirst into a new project. Her pen is poised over the top line, but her gaze is out the big picture window into the backyard, where Rubix is working on a hole right in the middle of the yard. She taps her pen on the blank page as she stares out the window, the motion leaving a constellation of ink marks on the otherwise blank page. As I watch her, I’m struck by how much I see myself in her, and not just the crazy hair and the freckles.
Outside, Rubix lets out a bark, then drops face-first into the dirt and begins to roll around like he’s got ants in his pants.
“That damn dog,” Mom mutters, but I notice a small smile.
“Hey, he learned it from watching you,” I reply. Having finished with the front yard (which, I have to admit, looks pretty impressive), she’s started in on the backyard. Until recently it’s just been a big, fenced-in area of patchy grass (more dirt than anything else) that serves as Rubix’s play yard and doggie potty. When leaves would cover the ground each fall, Mom would simply tell us we were practicing “organic gardening” and letting everything compost. Dad would mutter something about how those words don’t exactly mean what she thinks they mean, but no one ever cared enough to correct her (or dig for the ancient rake in the back of the garage). But now, the existing grass patches have been mowed to a uniform height, and straw covers all the blank spots where Mom laid grass seed the other day. And as of yesterday, there are approximately ten giant holes that Mom dug along the fence line that are going to get filled with some kind of flowering bush she’s waiting on the local nursery to deliver.
“You’re looking happier this morning,” she says.
I pour myself a glass of orange juice and down it in two big gulps, then go for the refill. “Happier than?” I ask.
“I don’t know, than when the summer began?” When I don’t say anything, she tries again. “I’m guessing you had fun last night?” There’s a tone in her voice that tells me she’s asking more than she’s asking, but I’m not ready to give it up yet. This one I’ll keep for me a little longer.
“Yeah, I had a good time,” I reply, trying to keep my tone light while my smile stays coy.
