Boy by Blake Nelson

Chapter 12

The main focus of the Meeks family that summer was out- fitting my brother for his journey east to Cornell University. Deliveries showed up almost daily on the doorstep: sweaters, khakis, dress socks, boxer shorts . . . these arrived in boxes from Brooks Brothers, J.Crew, Banana Republic. Style-wise, my father seemed to think that to go back East to college was to travel back in time to the days of cardigans and penny loafers. Russell and I shared our last brotherly moments of rolling our eyes at our father. A few weeks after Russell left, I found a stash of all the more ridiculous clothes my dad made him buy, stuffed in a box in the back of an upstairs closet. At college, Russell would wear jeans and sweatshirts like everyone else.

Much to my surprise, about halfway through my first tennis-free summer, I began to miss it. And then Logan Hewitt called. He and Olivia wanted to play tennis and they wanted me to come. Olivia had a friend who would join us.

This was at the beginning of August. We were well past the two-week friend embargo by that point. But Logan was still maintaining a certain distance from me. So I was happy for any chance to normalize things between us. It helped that Claude was constantly on the road. Logan was as bored as I was.

I drove to the public courts and met Logan and Olivia in the parking lot. They didn't have real tennis clothes. The other girl—Rachel Lehman, from Hillside High School— was wearing cute cutoffs and a brightly striped T-shirt that said ASPEN COLORADO on it. Logan had on board shorts and Vans slip-ons. Olivia wore a tank top and a skirt.

We hit the ball back and forth. It felt good to hold a racquet again, to stroke the ball, to follow through. Logan was pretty good, and Rachel had played before, but Olivia could barely hit the ball back. That part was hard for me, hitting dink balls to no real purpose. We couldn't play an actual game. Every once in a while I'd whack one with some pace to Logan. That felt good.

Afterward, the four of us got sandwiches and juice drinks at the little market down the road. I tried to talk to Rachel a little. She was very cute. Even more so once you got close up. But I couldn't get her to say much. So we mostly listened to Olivia and Logan.

We walked back to our different cars in the parking lot. Rachel was driving her parents' Lexus, and I had my dad's new Mercedes Coupe, which my mom was letting me drive since he was out of town. Rachel smiled a certain way when I unlocked the Mercedes. She seemed to approve. I approved of her as well. I approved a lot.

It turned out the feeling was mutual. Logan called me the next day and said that Rachel told Olivia that she liked me and that I should ask her out.

So I did. I was much smoother this time, having learned my lesson with Grace. I called Rachel. I made a date. I made sure not to talk too much. The date was to go ice-skating at the Sherwood Town Center, since Olivia said Rachel was a big ice-skater.

We met on a Friday night. As promised, Rachel was very good at ice-skating. She was extremely cute in general. It was fun to watch her do anything, even just lace up her skates. So then I started to really like Rachel Lehman.

Unfortunately, when I called her a couple days later, she said she was leaving for the San Juan Islands on a sailboat with her parents. She hadn't mentioned this before. She would be gone the rest of the summer. That seemed like an odd thing to not tell someone. It pretty much put an end to our summer romance.

So back to the Garden Center I went. Hosing down the parking lot. Carrying the fertilizer. Hanging out at the pool with Logan and Olivia when they invited me, which was not very often. Eventually, I got a postcard from Antoinette. On the front was a painting of a guy from the 1800s, stand- ing on a mountain peak, looking down at the clouds. "Wan- derer in the Mist," it was called. It was a landscape painting.

On the back she'd written:

Frankfurt is hot and boring, but I went to Berlin last weekend with a friend. Never made it to the youth hostel. Met some wild Australians. Partied for three days straight, had to hitchhike back because we spent all our $$$. —Antoinette

I must have read that postcard ten times. Not in a romantic way, but because it was so interesting to imagine Antoinette running around some city in Germany. What a strange girl she was.

I put the postcard on my wall with a thumbtack. Every couple days I would turn it around so that some days it was the painting, "Wanderer in the Mist," and other days it was Antoinette's message of crazy adventures from across the ocean.