E
velyn tilted her head back and took a long, lingering sniff of the warm summer air.
Hmmm,
cut grass, daffodils and perhaps a hint of barbecue? Evelyn smiled, enjoying the scents. She glanced to her right and caught Dwayne, as usual, staring at her. He quickly asked what she was smiling about.
Ugh!
He was such a puppy dog
.
Dwayne never knew when to just shut up and be cool. Well, at least his older brother had access to beer and was adorable. She stopped smiling and said, “When is everyone else getting here? I have to leave in two hours.”

Dwayne looked nervous and in his pretending-to-be-as-nonchalant-as-my-cool-older-brother-William voice said, “I’m not quite sure. You know, they had stuff to do first … picking up supplies.” He tried to look at her knowingly which appeared more like a leer and finished with another “you know.” Evelyn found herself giggling at how ridiculous he looked.

Dwayne seemed puzzled, “What are you laughing at?” Evelyn reluctantly started to feel bad. After all, Dwayne was nice, he had driven her all the way out to Loudoun County, Virginia, and he must know, deep down, that she only came with him because she wanted to hang out with his brother and his popular, older friends.

“Hey, do you want to explore some of these McMansions?” She threw this statement out without thought, as a gesture of conciliation.

Dwayne’s face brightened, and he eagerly responded. “Sure, let’s go to the finished one over there.” He pointed to the far side of the development, to the only completed house. “Not sure if it will be open, but that’s the one I want to see.”

Evelyn flashed him her best agreeable smile and said, “Let’s go!” Funny, she actually was slightly interested in exploring with Dwayne. When they were kids, they would often head down to the local creek where they spent hours poking around, making dams, and wading in the cool water when it got hot. Dwayne’s older brother, William, was never involved as he was three years older than Evelyn and two years older than Dwayne. William seldom to never acknowledged his geeky younger brother and his tag-along friend.

Two years ago, during the summer before eighth grade, some of Evelyn’s friends had come with her to the local community pool. They saw Dwayne diving off the high dive and started making fun of him. He already had some acne and was too tall for his weight. Although he was a great diver and swimmer, outside of the pool he walked awkwardly and seemed not to be able to look people in the eyes. Add to that his oversized glasses (Did his Mother not notice how bad they looked?) and he was a prime candidate for poolside sport. When he finished diving, Dwayne grabbed those horrible glasses from the side of the pool. He was practically blind without them, so he kept them close at all times. Evelyn recalled how her stomach turned over with terrified anticipation of Dwayne spotting her.
Please don’t see me, please don’t see me.

She felt a twinge of guilt as she remembered how Dwayne spotted her as he pushed those huge circular glasses up his too prominent nose with one finger, spread his lips in a goofy grin, and walked over to say hi. He was so skinny that a person’s eyes were just drawn to his hideously protruding pelvic bones.

“Oh my God girls, he’s headed this way!” squealed Lydia, one of the girls in Evelyn’s ‘group’ at school.

“Yeah,” said Evelyn. “I kind of know him from when we were kids.” She made it sound like a long time ago, although it was just last week that she had been over at Dwayne’s house playing scrabble while an afternoon thundershower rolled through. At the moment, among her friends, all she could think was
darn it, isn’t he supposed to be on vacation?

“Hey Eve!” Dwayne said, still smiling, “We got home a couple of days early. Dad had to get back, some kind of work thing. Mom was sooo mad.” His smile started to fade a bit as he noticed the giggling gaggle of girls beside and around Evelyn. Dwayne was pretty clueless socially, Evelyn knew, but not clueless enough to miss that the girls were openly laughing at him.

She flushed and looked down, “Hi Dwayne,” she said softly, mortified that this embarrassing figure was now officially associated with her. In that moment, she hated him for this humiliation. Oh God, would he say something about doing something later? She panicked and blurted out, “Well, see you around.” It sounded way too bright and cheery for the rudeness she was imparting. She peeked up at him and saw his uncertain smile droop and even turn down a bit. He mumbled something unintelligible and shuffled away as Evelyn’s friends collapsed into fits of laughter. Evelyn could see his ears turning red as he walked over to his lounge chair. He snatched up his towel and headed for the men’s locker room. A short time later she saw him outside the fence walking away from the pool with shoulders slumped.

“Evey, are you sure you’re not friends with the geek?” Lydia shrieked.

Evelyn felt her anger rise, “No, I’m not friends with him, Lydia. I told you, I barely know him.”

“Well, I think he likes you, Evey.” The other girls all laughed together. Evelyn wanted to hit Lydia, but she just kept quiet instead, desperately trying to figure out a way to change the subject. She tried a couple of different gossip items and finally got Lydia refocused.

After that day, Dwayne called a couple of times, but Evelyn avoided him. She felt uncomfortable and didn’t know how to make things right. Plus, she didn’t know if she wanted to make things better. Since they went to different schools—she to Catholic school and he to public school—it had been easy to drift apart. She had barely seen him last summer, and this summer she had only noticed him when she saw him driving around the neighborhood. Having access to a car was huge, such a freedom. This coming year, Evelyn and her friends would start driving, but until then, she had to make do, catching rides where she could.

Ugh. When did I get so mean?
It was just hard because she knew Dwayne liked her. Besides, he was the one who had approached her on their street this morning and started talking about his older brother and the party tonight. He knew she would be interested. Evelyn’s stomach turned over with remorse. Dwayne was a nice guy and he didn’t deserve to have her use him like this. She wondered what Dwayne really thought when she expressed interest in the party. Did he think she wanted to hang out with him?

Ah,
well, in the future she would be nice to him, truly. She smiled over at him as they walked towards the house that Dwayne wanted to explore and he smiled back.

“Do you remember that time we hiked all the way down the creek past the high school and found that shed?” asked Dwayne. “It was just like the one from
The Blair Witch Project.
We were so scared when we started hearing noises that we ran all the way home. It felt like a couple of miles that we ran.” He started to laugh and Evelyn joined in.

“Yeah, we told your brother and he made fun of us for forever!”

They both had smiles on their faces as they stepped on the front porch of the McMansion. McMansion was the local name given to the new houses that had been thrown up at what seemed like an ever increasing rate in Fairfax County, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC, and then out in the next county over, Loudoun County, during the housing boom. They were mini-mansions of huge proportions, were built on small lots, and they all looked alike. They were mostly bought by well-off, white collar, yuppie couples. Building had slowed in recent years but there were still some developments being finished.

Dwayne reached the door first and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. “Let’s try the garage.” Evelyn nodded, and they headed towards the side of the house. They rounded the corner and, sure enough, one of the garage doors appeared to have been left ajar by a workman.

“Do you think any of the lights work yet?” asked Evelyn.

“Nah, and even if they did, we should probably watch it,” Dwayne replied. You never know who might notice. Besides, with the moon out visibility should be pretty good inside.” They ducked under the door and headed for the back of the garage. The space was huge, big enough for three cars. Looking around, it was probably as big as the basement of either Dwayne’s or Evelyn’s house. While Fairfax County did have its share of McMansions, it also had a lot of older neighborhoods, like the one Dwayne and Evelyn lived in, with smaller homes.

At the back of the garage, the door into the kitchen was unlocked. They slipped in and began their tour of the house. There were so many windows that the rooms were actually well illuminated from the moon. When they finished looking at the main floor and the upstairs, they wandered back into the kitchen.

“Well,” grinned Dwayne, “only one place left to see!”

Evelyn rolled her eyes, “Dwayne, I’m not going into the basement.” It had occurred to Evelyn that a dark place might be perfect for Dwayne to make a move on her and she was not going to let that happen.

“Oh come on, Evelyn! You’re not nervous, are you? You used to love scary places.”

Evelyn felt herself giving in to Dwayne. His eagerness was kind of cute. “Okay, Dwayne. Down and back, but then we should go. Your brother is probably here already. You go first.”

Dwayne grinned at his victory and then moved towards the basement door, walking with exaggerated, slow steps. His long legs looked so silly spread out like that. Evelyn started to laugh but stifled it when Dwayne turned and gave her a mock frown.

“How are we going to sneak up on the Blair Witch with you laughing?”

Evelyn was still smiling as she followed him down the stairs. She thought her eyes were adjusted to the dark but the basement ahead of her was a black hole. She gripped the rail tightly and strained her eyes, squinting to see the back of Dwayne’s shirt a couple of steps down from her.
This was stupid
, she thought. They were too old to be fake scaring themselves like this. She tried to look down and see the next step but it did not seem to be there. She felt her stomach tighten. She quickly looked up to see Dwayne’s back but couldn’t find it anymore.

“Dwayne?” she whispered.
Why am I whispering?
He wasn’t responding and now, she admitted to herself, she was scared. “Dwayne, seriously, not funny. Where are you?”

“I’m at the bottom, Eve, come on. There’s a bit of light down here.”

Evelyn sighed and thought,
no more feelings of guilt towards Dwayne. I’m working off all my responsibility now
. She did feel a little better, though, hearing his voice. She moved more quickly down the stairs, rounded the corner at the bottom, and felt a huge rush of relief at the shaft of light spilling through the small window at the front corner of the basement. She could see Dwayne fairly clearly.

Evelyn jumped when she heard the loud bang. It was so close! She froze and realized what she heard was the door from the garage into the kitchen. She stepped back from the bottom of the stairs and sensed that Dwayne was right in back of her. At the next bang, she jumped back and felt him grab her arm so that they would not both topple over.

“Shhh, that’s the basement door closing,” he whispered, “it could be my brother but I’m not sure. I thought they were going to the other side of the development.”

She was quiet for a minute and then turned to him and said, “Well, where did you say you would meet him?” The look on Dwayne’s face quickly confirmed her suspicions; of course, William always ignored Dwayne, why would he make plans with him? Her face twisted with annoyance, “Dwayne, is your brother even coming out here?”

“He is, he is, he just doesn’t exactly know I’m going to be here. I heard him making plans for a party and decided to crash it. Sorry.”

She was about to yell at him but stopped when she heard voices and the sound of a heavy object sliding across the floor. She said, “That’s probably them with a keg. I’m sure we’re fine going up there.” Still, she did not move. Dwayne did move, however, slipping past her and proceeding slowly towards the stairs. Evelyn edged up behind him, moving right up to his back. Their clothes touched lightly when he paused at the bottom of the stairs.

They could not really make out the full conversation upstairs but they heard snippets.

“Yeah … there.”

“Against the door?”

“… motherf … liberation.”

The sound of shuffling feet came next.

“I can’t hear,” Dwayne said in a low, barely audible, whisper. “I’m going to get closer.”