Not a Pleasant Nighttime Rendezvous

It’s a beautiful summer evening.

The horizon line is swathed by a dappling of dark oranges, a final offering from the just-settled sun. The light speckles through the shuffling leaves of the old cottonwood sprouting from a corner of Pearl's backyard. In the other corner is an old trampoline that you nearly broke your neck on that one time in tenth grade.

Above you, an airplane blinks red among the tiny whites of the first few stars of the night. Its dull, whistling roar coalesces with the subtle striations of crickets and the quiet settling of the neighbourhood.

You stand across from your best friend, who looks about ready to fully unleash herself upon you. And like she still can’t tell if it’ll be out of rage or lust.

“What the fuck, Chase?! I thought you were gonna text me when you got here!”

Rage, then. You’ve only seen Pearl truly angry a handful of times in your life, and you had counted yourself very lucky that none of those previous episodes were directed at you. Might as well start saying your prayers. Or try and finagle a way out of this with at least one of your heads still attached. Plan A: revert to typical chillaxed friend dynamic. Play off everything like it’s no big deal.

Wait, she’s still going.

“Why is it lately you feel entitled to just walk into my house like you own the place?!”

Her voice catches in her throat as another drop of panic hits an already seething cauldron.

“Do you own the place now? Did you claim my fucking house?”

Oh, right. You could do that, if you wanted to. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

“Psh, c’mon, why would I-”

Pearl lunges forward, and for the second time this hour, a Nowak daughter is gripping your shirt by the collar. This time, it’s a lot less playful and a lot more answer my fucking question if you want to see tomorrow. Plan A has failed to launch. Plan B is, um-

“DidyouclaimanythingfromMacy?”

…What?

“What?”

Plan B has exploded in the hangar. Last night you apparently turned Pearl off of Plan B anyway.

**** joke. Focus on the emotionally volatile friend currently manhandling you, imposing into your space in a way that makes you feel small despite your having a half-foot of height on her, seething in… contempt? Concern?

“Did you, claim anything, from my sister?” Her voice finally breaks on that last word.

Pearl is actually, genuinely panicked. Far more than you’ve ever seen her, if you’ve ever seen her. She doesn’t care about the house, she’s terrified about what you might do to her sibling.

And god, does that feel awful. As does seeing your best friend in this state. You may have no manual for what to do when faced with a Pearl you never thought you’d see, but your instinct to assuage kicks in automatically. You grip her bare shoulders and look her softly but sternly in the eye.

“I swear on my life, I did not claim anything from your sister.”

Her eyes soften back, and you can feel her frame relax a smidge under your touch. Her voice comes out quieter this time, but still wary.

“…Did you tell her anything about last night?”

“Nothing. We mostly just talked about college and grad. You didn’t even really come up.”

You massage her shoulders a little. That’s supposed to be calming, right? Not something you’d ever pictured doing to Pearl, but hey, you’re flying blind here.

Indeed, bit by bit, her panic recedes. Her breath slows. Pearl makes a token effort to re-erect her typical composed veneer, with debatable success. Her eyes narrow as her hold on your shirt loosens.

“…I don’t know if I should feel insulted or not,” she mutters. You offer back a quiet chuckle.

Conversation slows to an awkward halt as you both seem to realize you’ve no idea how to proceed in this new situation. That seems to be happening a lot to you two lately.

But as you maintain eye contact, your proximity to each other slowly dawns on the both of you. Her hands still balled in your shirt, her body still encased in your grip. All other sounds and stimuli fade away as your worlds shrink to just each other. It’s just the petite woman in front of you, the blue of her gaze locked on yours, boring into you, eliciting a spark in your heart and your groin. Goosebumps spread across her shoulderblades under your palms. Her breathing picks up again, less heavy but more heady. Her hands tighten once more.

Pearl’s eyes flick briefly down to your lips. Your hand trails down her side, coming to rest above her hip, snaking under her top, caressing her skin. A light noise like a **** mewl escapes her mouth. Your bodies move towards each other-

She flinches from the ding-dong as the doorbell chimes inside. And the world comes flooding back in.

Pearl pushes away from you, quick and uneasy, like she just now realized where she is. She stumbles a little at the sudden release, and also maybe from all the blood having rushed to certain parts of her body. As for you, you’re left blinking, trying to comprehend what just happened.

“I’m fucking hungry.”

You concur. Some food would be pretty good as you try and recover from the all emotional whiplash the last ten minutes have thrown at you. You motion to head inside for pizza.

“Wait.”

Pearl holds out a fist in front of your chest and speaks without looking at you.

“Promise me no claiming shit tonight. Not from Macy, not from anyone.”

She lowers her arm and wraps both around herself self-consciously.

“…The whole point of this hangout was to just have fun. Maybe figure some shit out.” She shuffles her feet against the ground. “Could we pretend things are at least semi-normal? Just for tonight?”

You assume that means no fun sex times either. Oh well, you’ll survive. Silently, you offer your pinky finger towards her. Pearl snorts, but entwines it with hers.

After a moment, you both drop your hands. You bump her shoulder with yours. “I would never hurt Macy. Or you.”

Pearl lets out an exhale.

“Yeah. I know. I’m sorry.” She seems hesitant to meet your gaze.

“I trust you.”

And with that, you head inside.

Upon return to the kitchen you are borne witness to two aromatic boxes of pizza and the clink of Macy pulling plates from the cupboard. You’re the kind of guy who believes that your own hand is plate enough, at least when it comes to pizza, but Klara Nowak is known to be a stickler when it comes to cleanliness and food manners and the like, and both her children seem to have inherited the trait, at least to some extent. You’ve long since learned to just follow along. Could be worse. You saw their mom eat pizza with a knife and fork once.

Macy greets you both with a pair of dishes and a questioning expression. She seems quite curious as to what compelled Pearl to drag you off so suddenly, but hesitant to ask anything. She gives Pearl some kind of ‘is everything ok’ look, to which Pearl responds with a ‘don’t worry about it’ look of her own. You stand awkwardly by as they perform some kind of sibling-to-sibling telepathy conversation that you’re too much of an only child to comprehend.

They reach some sort of tenuous agreement, to what end you could not say, and Pearl starts prying open the boxes. “Please tell me you got chipotle pineapple.”

Macy mumbles a monotone affirmative into her own salami-slathered slice, her judgey eyes making clear just what she thinks of her sister’s preferred toppings.

Pearl nudges you. “I’m gonna fix my makeup. Meet me in my room in five. Bring pizza.”

You recognize the olive branch for what it is and offer as placating a smile as you can in an attempt to reassure her that you pose no threat when left alone with Macy.

You didn’t really consider whether or not the reverse might be true, though. After Pearl disappears upstairs, Macy grabs a very real, very non-vegetable knife from the counter and directs it at you, significantly less joking this time.

“I hear yelling, and then I see my baby sister look like she’s been crying. Did you hurt her?”

Bro, you’re literally just here to play video games. Can you seriously not go six seconds without one girl accusing you of messing with the other? The protectiveness in this household could make a bomb shelter blush.

“Swear to god, I did not. She was just… concerned. About something. Not my place to tell.”

Macy stares into your eyes with an icy look like she’s analyzing the depths of your heart’s intentions. You take it back. Maybe this woman can be scary, after all.

Apparently finding you sincere, or at least complacent, she slowly lowers her blade, maintaining eye contact all the while. Then, like a switch has been flipped, she does a complete one-eighty, returning to her usual casual demeanor. Unnerving.

“Yeah, she said something like that to me earlier. Something about her future? I’unno. She’ll tell me when she’s ready.” Macy pushes the box of spicy pineapple towards you.

“Take this abomination and go finish it without me. She’s waiting for you. But seriously, if I find out you did anything to her…”

She mimes some kind of elaborate body mutilation. You can’t tell exactly what it is she’s saying she’d do to you, but it’s accompanied by a lot of cartoony mouth noises depicting broken bones and split flesh. She then proceeds to laugh it off like it’s no big deal.

O…kay then. Going upstairs might be a good idea right about now.