first, part 1

June 2083 - Charlie Roseland and Natalia Deppiesse are 13, Gabby Roseland is 4.

It's summer, finally. Charlie is just hanging out in front of his house, with his sister, doing what kids do on these long, sweaty days, which is waiting for something to happen. Nothing is happening here. He can't even score some free lemonade from his baby sister!

"That'll be a dollar ninety-five," Gabby says. "Just like everybody else."

His mother calls him inside, loud at first, and then as he enters the room, transforming into something mocking and lyrical, "Charlie, phone's for you... it's Natalia."

"Oh my God, Mom," he says, cringing. "Could you be any more lame?"

He waits until both parents are well out of range, so he can talk to Natty about how bored they are, in privacy.

"My parents are making us go to some stupid Lakeshore Days festival," he tells her. "For the new marina."

"I love boats," she says.

"You do?"

"Um, sure."

He feels suddenly nervous. He and Natty spent every day of their sixth and seventh grade year together, and some days after, so he doesn't know why it feels so weird to ask her, "Do you wanna, like, come out with us?"

She says, yes, of course. He knew she would. Even a stupid Lakeshore Days festival is better than being bored.

Charlie is beyond glad she called, because otherwise he'd be stuck here with his parents, and his baby sister, and the human-freaking-statue! They don't even have a boat, but his parents just wish they had one. So they'll stand down by the docks fawning over other people's boats, which is the point of this whole festival. His father often tells him, "The Lake County area has been sorely lacking in good marina space."

"Okay, Dad," Charlie would say. Charlie thinks his dad is a dork, not nearly as cool as Natty's dad.

He'd like to show off his rocket-arm, since Natty sits down to watch. But his sister is only four and he doesn't figure she can catch that well yet. His rocket-arm is not very rocket-like anyway, but he's working on that.

And when she's watching, he can't help but feel all stupid and smiley. She's contagious, with her big smile and perfect teeth.

He doesn't know what to do with these feelings, especially with his little sister around.

Gabby asks her, "Do you want to paint your face with me?"

"Um, okay," she says.

"Good, and you can go first," Gabby says.

Then she turns to her brother. "Charlie?"

"No," he says. "No way!"

Natalia goes first, to show Gabby that this is perfectly safe. Even if she isn't sure. This guy painting faces couldn't have had more face painting experience than a high school art class!

"See, you could do that," Charlie tells his sister as Natty's face goes up in a puff of pink powder.

It isn't quite what anyone expected.

But Natty tries to hold back her disappointment in front of Gabby.

"No worries," she says. "It's totally supposed to look like this!"

Gabby sits down next.

Charlie says to high school art guy, "Screw it up, and I'll smear your face in that paint."

Everyone is pleased, though Charlie wouldn't have minded having an excuse to smear that guy's face in some paint.

"Thanks for doing that," Charlie says, grinning at her. "But you know if you wash it off now, you'll hurt her feelings."

"It's not that funny," Natty says.

"It's pretty funny," he says.

The festival's opening night performance is slow. There's only one single guy rocking out an electric bass solo, and just a few people watching, only three if you don't count Charlie and his family.

Charlie's parents are talking about how the Governor only started the Marina project because she wants to be reelected, but then, of course she did, because Governors always try to pull out some fancy project near the end of their term so they can get reelected.

Charlie isn't much interested in politics, but the new marina isn't bad. In fact, he does wish his parents had a boat of their own to take out onto the lake.

Charlie picks a spot, not too near his family, and they sit down. His dad also told him the story of this house, and why it stood here unoccupied for so long. His dad knows a lot of stories, being a history teacher and all.

"It was built by some dude who wanted to impress his wife," Charlie says. "She was a snob."

"She probably wasn't," Natty says. "Why are you gonna take his side?"

"Dude, it's a story," Charlie says. "So he spent all the money he had on this house, and they lived in it while he was building it for her. He only got about half-way finished, and then she left him. And the house has been empty ever since."

Natty looks at him all starry-eyed. She sighs. "It's kind of romantic."

"Except that it's not, because she left him," he says.

"Well yeah," she says. "It would have been romantic if she hadn't left him."

It's been a couple weeks now that her dad has been gone. He has no idea what that must be like. "You can talk to my dad, if you want," he offers. "I know he's not as cool as your dad, but if you need to talk to a dad about something."

"About what?"

"I don't know, whatever you need to talk to a dad about?"

"Hey, you wanna go somewhere?"

"Where?"

"I don't know," he says. "Somewhere else."

Her hand is right there, just inches from his own fingers as he moves to get up. Their hands even knocked into each other, accidentally, once, while they were talking. But his parents are also right there, and his little sister, so he almost takes her hand, but he doesn't.

They think about exploring the house, but the rooms are mostly empty, and off limits anyway, except for the bathrooms and the tea room. There's no popcorn or cotton candy at this festival, and unfortunately no hot dogs. They'd both kill for a hot dog right now, the good festival kind, served in those paper boats, with a toasted bun, relish, and mustard. They're practically salivating for one!

But instead there's just the tea room, which is airy and formal. Why they call it the tea room is beyond either of their imaginations, because there's no tea served in it. Instead of hot dogs, they settle on salad, and the fancy kind of Jello, with fruit and cream mixed in.

"Do you wanna come over and swim this week?" Natty asks.

"You're not going to invite that Liza girl, are you? I hate her!"

"Why would I invite Liza?"

"I don't know, she's always hanging around Fiona. Is Fiona coming?"

"Do you want Fiona to come?"

"No," he says. "I don't care if Fiona comes."

They aren't very impressed by the festival, and especially aren't very impressed by this statue man. "He doesn't do anything," Natty says. "And we're supposed to tip him?"

"I'm not tipping him," Charlie says. They wait. They examine him a little closer.

And then he moves. Natty shrieks, throwing her hands up. She turns hard and runs.

Charlie chases after her, and she doesn't stop until they're half-way across the field.

"Didn't you know he moved?"

"I knew," she says. "But then I forgot."

They both laugh. He loves her laugh, her contagious and bright smile. He doesn't know what to do with these feelings. He knows what he wants to do, but he never gets it right.

She braces herself as he puts his arm around her, preparing for impact.

Noogied.

He never does it very hard, and he doesn't even mess up her hair anymore. It's more like an excuse to hold her, when what he really wants to do is hug her.

But he's starting to think she would like an actual hug more. "I'm sorry," he says. "I guess your face paint all came off."

"It's all on your shirt," she says.

"I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You didn't," she says, still a little edge in her voice.

He feels stupid, that wasn't what he meant to do at all.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"You already said that."

"It wasn't what I meant to do," he says.

She starts to smile. "Really?"

He reaches his hand behind her back, pulling her lightly toward him. She's still smiling, wide, cheesy, Natty-patty-smile. She doesn't look into his eyes, but that's okay because they both close their eyes then, as he leans in to kiss her, which he's been meaning to do for a very long time.

It lasts exactly eight seconds, which he figures is pretty good for a first kiss, because if it wasn't, she'd probably want to stop at like, two seconds, or something.

Only after they pull apart do they realize that the rain has started, misting down from the sky. His parents are at the car and calling them. So they go, and his hand brushes past hers, accidentally, like the first night they met, almost two years ago, when he spent the long ride back home from Bluewater willing himself to hold her hand. Like so many times in between.

This time, he holds it.

*******

notes: the night they met, in case you feel like being nostalgic ;)

I'm digging back and trying to remember what it's like to be almost fourteen, lol! Such a weird, in-between kind of age. It's probably far beyond my capacities to imagine what it's like to be a fourteen year-old boy, lol, but my husband tells stories.