Tempting Fate

When Raquel confided she planned to run away from home, I felt confused since we weren’t exactly friends. She and her pals called themselves The Toughies, and I generally steered clear; not because they ever tormented me like they did some of the other nerds, but because—just like my Grammy and Grampy—I avoided tempting fate whenever possible. Raquel looked plenty menacing when she called back over her shoulder, “Hey, Samantha! Tell nobody. Understand?”

So I didn’t squawk, not even the next day at school when they labeled it a possible abduction. It wasn’t just Raquel; Greta was missing too. The adults were stressed, but I felt relief. There would be fewer opportunities for me to run afoul of the Toughies, since those two were the ringleaders.

The local constable asked our class if we knew anything, and I was real surprised when Alissa raised her hand. She’s was a Toughie wannabe who followed the other three around like a rescue dog and put up with all kinds of abuse just to be in their orbit. She said, “I heard them talking about hitchhiking to the city.” Then lo and behold, Megan, who was the third wheel of the Trio of Terror, piped up and said she’d heard that, too. Anyone who knew the Toughies should have been suspicious at that point, but since that was the constable’s only lead, he escorted the girls to the principal’s office for a private interview.

It wasn’t until that night I realized why Raquel had given me a preview of coming attractions. My chore was dishwashing, and through the kitchen window of our rambling farmhouse, I noticed a flickering light emanating from the old barn. Probably if Grammy had been in the room, I’d have mentioned it right off. But on second thought, I decided to investigate on my own, rather than tempt fate by having Grampy trundle down there on his walker. As soon as I heard the familiar whistle and wheeze of the Grampies’ snoring, I snuck down the path to the barn. A soft murmur of voices floated on the warm spring air. The windowpanes were all gunked up with a decade’s worth of dust, but through a broken pane I caught a glimpse of Raquel and Greta, sprawled on the old collapsed hay bales with a kerosene lantern at their feet. All it would take is a jostle and a tump onto that dry hay, and the whole place would go up in flames.

That thought gave me courage to act. I sidled in through the barn door that never quite closed and said, “Why this particular barn?”

Raquel regarded me a minute, not like she was startled, but like a chess player trying to figure out how best to use her rook. “Nobody’ll think to look here.”

“How’d you even know about it?”

Greta snorted loudly, like the deer do sometimes when they’re defending their turf. “We know all the hideaways.”

“What’d they say at school?” said Raquel.

“Alissa and Megan ratted you out,” I said. “Told them you were hitching to the city.”

“No, you just ratted them out,” said Raquel. “They were following orders.”

Greta snorted like a deer again.

“So what’s the plan?” I removed a cobweb from my hair to avoid eye contact, my boldness ebbing.

“We’re gonna need some food,” said Raquel.

Greta was suddenly at my side, snaking her arm around my waist. “Leftovers would do just fine.”

As I wriggled out of her grasp, something out of place up in the hayloft caught my eye. Looked like bedding, maybe sleeping bags. I got the uneasy feeling they weren’t just passing through.

When I returned with their dinner, an older boy had joined them. I’d seen him asleep in his car in the school parking lot, waiting for Greta to get out of detention. He was good looking, but notorious. The chance just increased tenfold the lantern would get kicked over, maybe even for fun. I was fond of the old barn, which would be mine one day since I was the heiress apparent, and I couldn’t let these scalawags destroy it. But I also didn’t want them taking revenge on me later. I needed to stay in their good graces.

“That’s not enough for three,” said Raquel.

“It’s all I got.”

“I already ate,” said the boy, Hollis. “Though I could use sump’m sweet.” He put his hand on Greta’s leg and she play-swatted him away.

There was a separate room within the barn, its walls hung with weathered bridles and saddles and old rusty farm implements. This must be where the girls had scavenged the lantern. Just as I located the battery-powered Coleman, Raquel was at my side.

“You won’t say nothing, right?”

“How long are you staying?”

She stretched and yawned. “Dunno. A while, maybe.”

The batteries were encrusted in green.

“See what happens when the copper is exposed to moisture?” I said—as if she would care.

“That’s so cool you know that stuff.”

I was being played, but it still felt good. “I’ve got new batteries in the house.”

When I returned, my path faintly lit by the electric lantern, Greta and Hollis were up in the hayloft. There was giggling punctuated by long silences.

“C’mon,” I said to Raquel. That got her up off the tree stump she was using as a seat. Outside, I said, “We should give them their privacy,” but really I just wanted to get her and her cigarette away from the dry hay. For local girls, they seemed pretty oblivious.

Raquel followed me down to a bench behind the barn that overlooked a creek. The silence was a force unto itself. Sometimes, the creek roared, but tonight it trickled by.

“Must be nice,” said Raquel.

“What?”

“All this quiet. Our place is smack on Route 10.”

The quiet was shattered minutes later when Greta called loudly for Raquel, who raced around to the front of the barn and angrily ordered her fellow Toughie to shut the hell up. I knew the Grampies couldn’t hear anything short of an explosion, but it was seriously tempting fate to holler like that.

“I’ve got hay in my crotch,” said Greta. “Let’s go to Hollis’s.”

I said a silent prayer that they were all moving on, but Raquel said, “You go ahead.”

We watched the truck taillights jump and shimmy down the dirt road, and we were in the dark again.

“Well, I’m gonna turn in,” I said, taking the kerosene lantern with me. “You okay out here?”

“You worry about you,” she said. “I can take care of me.”

After a night of tossing and turning, I finally drifted off and slept right through the alarm. Next thing, Grammy was shaking me, saying, “They’re holding the bus for you.”

I pulled on yesterday’s clothes and grabbed my satchel. There was no time to carry any kind of breakfast down to the barn.

Rumor was already spreading amongst the dozen kids on the bus that the cops had staked out Hollis’s trailer and caught one of the runaways. Greta was in juvenile detention and Hollis was in jail with some serious charges since he was 19, fooling around with a 14-year-old.

I dozed off in history class, but since I was a renowned goody-goody egghead, the teacher only gave me a warning, not study hall—he knew that was no punishment. My colleague, Marshall, was distressed I had to skip chess club that afternoon, but I appreciated the break. Lately, he’d always find a way to maneuver his knobby knee so it touched mine in the backseat when his mom gave me a ride home.

I fell asleep on the bus and woke to Ms. Hait whistling at me, like I was one of her hogs. A couple of the seniors snickered and made innuendos about a wild night, which was all the funnier to them since it seemed unlikely.

Grammy was in a tizzy, unloading everything from the fridge because she could have sworn she had a rotisserie chicken for tonight’s dinner, and Grampy shook his head and cast me a knowing glance like we both understood the old girl was losing her marbles.

After I’d finished the dishes, I went to the door of their bedroom and shouted goodnight at the decibels necessary to be heard over the roar of the nightly news. Grammy and Grampy glanced up and blew me a kiss. I started toward my room, but then hooked a left out the back door.

The chicken remains were in the barn, but Raquel wasn’t. I scouted around and heard a whistle from the direction of the pond. Her clothes were in a heap on the bank. I could barely make out the outline of her head and shoulders in the moonlight.

“Had to take a bath,” she said. “I was starting to reek.”

“What if they’d caught you raiding the refrigerator?”

The water she stirred up lapped gently at my feet.

“Come give me your report.”

“Report?”

“What happened at school today?”

The only dry place to sit was a big rock on the other side of the pond. I clambered up.

“Sam, my office is over here.”

No one had called me Sam before.

“Funny, I haven’t ever swum in this pond.”

“What’s the good of owning a beautiful place like this if you never use it?”

It’s true that with all my homework and extra-curricular activities, I hardly ever had time to just poke around.

“Course, if you're afraid...”

Under cover of darkness, I could be somebody else, somebody unafraid. It was more like I was two people: Sam stripped off her clothes, and Samantha folded them neatly and stacked them on the rock. The warm water was like silk against my skin. I treaded out to the middle of the pond. “Nice office.”

“So are they scouring the city for us?”

I wanted to say something super cool, to stay Sam forever, but I couldn’t think of anything snappy, so I started at the beginning, sounding very Samantha. “I overslept and had to rush for the bus.”

A frog chortled from his hiding place in the sedges.

“And?”

“Usually I’m an early riser, but my Grammy had to shake me awake.”

The constant motion of Raquel’s arms and legs projected ribbons of cool water that tickled.

“So why do you live with your grandparents?”

I tried her technique of not answering right away. Then as Sam, boldly: “You know why.”

“Your parents died in a car crash.”

Ribbons of cool water caressed my skin.

I ventured, “Why'd you run away?”

“Cause my mother. And her boyfriends. Just got tired of their crap, is all.”

I hoped she'd say more, but she didn't. I pretended to be fascinated by the stars.

The silence was just getting awkward when we heard tires on dirt; stealthy, stealthy. No lights, but the cherry top was silhouetted against the evening sky.

Hoarsely, I whispered what I should have said earlier, “They picked up Greta, and Hollis is in jail!”

“Sonuvabitch! He sold me out.”

She was out of that pond like a shot.

In full-on Samantha mode, I circled back to the house, whimpering, pulling on clothes, stepping on thorns, terrified, of all things, that my Grampies would find out I swam naked.

Raquel ran for the woods, but the cops had a dog and they captured her.

My hair was dry by the time they came knocking. I rubbed my eyes, feigning sleep, feigning ignorance.

I never saw her again, but I thought of her all the time.

The next day at school, I tempted fate and informed everyone that from now on, they should call me Sam. I still have my Samantha moments, but I hope I'll grow out of it.