jaylar
“How can we not let everyone know?” Julie asked as we sat at the dinner table.
“We can leave this city.” I replied, adding, “We always, and I’m including Marty, planned on leaving. Remember all the discussion of whether we should go to Southern California, or Orlando, or ….yeah, you remember. Well let’s do it! Let’s not sit around and wait and get depressed, lets jump without a parachute.”
“Marty used to say that…” she said, her eyes filling.
“I must have been ten, when he said that to me. We’d climbed this tree hanging over Mr. Peeple’s pool, and he said…that. And we did. Splash! Splash! And Mr. Peeple’s came flying out, shouting, and we jumped out, and began to run…laughing our heads off. Yeah, we knew our parents would kills us…but hey!”
And I forced the smile and the laugh, and soon it wasn’t forced.
I was inspired to talk about the past; about our childhood, all the parts Julie didn’t know about. The sitting in poison ivy, the sneaking out at night to see a meteor shower, all the bits that Marty and I had shared.
Then, after a five minute diatribe I stopped. “Oh, I’m sorry…”
“Don’t be sorry, I love hearing about the mischief you and…Marty got into…you were like brothers…”
“We were worse, we were clones. My mother said; ‘If Marty is allergic to peanuts, you are allergic to peanuts…”
After an hour of this, Julie decided that jumping without a parachute was the best idea. So we packed and took our cars, and began to drive to California.
