“JC, come on. Don’t be so uptight.”
“I’m not being uptight, Julie,” I sighed to my girlfriend as I paced around my room. “I’m being realistic.”
“Uptight.”
“Just drop it.”
“At least ask.”
“Julz, my parents won’t let us go to the cabin, not by ourselves.”
“But…”
“You know my parents.” I sank down onto my bed with the phone still attached to my ear. “Besides, why do you want to go so badly?” I asked, looking over at a picture of us from the beginning of the summer on our two-month anniversary. It was hard to believe we were going on five months now. Julie was a great girl, don’t get me wrong. She was sweet and funny and cute, but I was having a hard time picturing her in the woods of Maine. If anything, she wasn’t an outdoors person.
“There are only two weeks until I leave for college. We’ve both been so busy this summer, you with that music camp, and me with…”
“First of all, it’s a workshop, not a camp. Secondly, you’ve been shopping all summer.”
“That’s beside the point. It would just be great to spend some time alone. It’ll be a change of pace.”
“Listen, I’ll ask. Okay?”
“Thank you.”
“But I’m warning you now, there is no way in hell that my parents are going to let two 18 year olds go up there by themselves.”
“They would if it were you and Emily,” she said bitterly.
“That’s so different. They know we wouldn’t do anything. For God’s sake, it’s Emily. She’s my best friend. It would be wrong to even consider…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’ve known her since second grade, etc., etc.”
“Exactly,” I smiled, moving my gaze to my desk at the picture of Em and me in the sandbox when we were eight. “I wish the two of you got along better.”
“JC…”
“Cause you guys are both really great.”
“Don’t start.”
“You’re my girlfriend; she’s my best friend.”
“Our personalities don’t really mesh.”
“We were practically raised at each other’s houses. She’s just like me. How is it that you don’t get along?”
“I’m not too keen with the whole idea that when you’re not with me, you spend all your time with another girl.”
“You’re not jealous are you?” I laughed.
“Of her?”
“You sound like a snob.”
“I am not a snob.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
“Joshua Scott Chasez, if I didn’t like you so much, oh, the things I would do.”
“What kind of things?”
“Shit!”
“Huh?”
“I just broke my nail.”
“Oh my God. I’ll call 911!”
“I just got them done today.”
“This is an emergency.”
“Shut up. I have to go fix this. You’ll ask, right?”
“There are no guarantees.”
“I know.”
“But I’ll ask.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Sounds good. Bye, Julz.”
“Bye, sweetie.”
“I hope your nail’s fine.”
“Shut up already,” she laughed.
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
I hung up the phone and looked over to the picture again. Julie’s brown hair hung lightly over her perfectly tanned shoulders, and her French manicured nails rested on my knee. I tried to picture her with a fishing pole in her hands and a worm wiggling on the hook. I burst out laughing as I climbed under my covers. “Ah man,” I said to myself. “This should be a trip.”
“Mom? Dad?” I called, putting my backpack onto the couch. A pile of sheet music slid from the opening and onto the floor. I stooped over to pick them up.
Julie had tried to convince me that I was too old for the music workshop I was attending, calling it a day camp, but I explained to her that music was my life, and it was. Ever since I was little, I was in love with music. My parents always had something playing, and I sucked it in. I was always singing or on the piano or guitar, not to mention all of my best friends loved music just as much as I did. Emily played the guitar, and as much as she wouldn’t admit it, she had a decent voice. Justin and Lance, the other two musketeers as my mother liked to call us, both had amazing voices, and Justin played the guitar, and Lance played piano. When the four of us got together we would sit in my basement for hours, just jamming. Somehow I got my parents to let me turn the basement into a mini-studio, meaning all my money went into that. After my bedroom was built down there I began to live, eat, and sleep music. Luckily my folks were pretty understanding.
“Mom! Dad! Are you home?”
“In here, Josh.” I ran to the double doors that opened into the den and found my parents watching an old western movie.
“This is a great one,” I said, dropping onto the armchair, unable to recall the name of it.
“A classic,” my mom smiled, sipping her lemonade.
“I’ve got a favor to ask you guys.”
My dad reached for the remote and pressed the mute button. “Shoot.”
“Um, okay.” I sat up straight, preparing to make my proposal. “I’m 18, ya know.”
“Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“Nothing good ever follows a sentence saying, ‘I’m this age now,’” my mom said as she looked at me.
“We’re not putting an addition on the house. We’re not letting you move to New York or LA or wherever. You’re not getting another guitar; you already have three. You and Julie are not getting married. Emily’s not moving in…”
“Okay, I was like 15 when I asked that.”
“You’re not dropping out of school. And we’re not putting a lock on the basement door. If Tyler or Heather went down there, we’ll talk to them…”
“Dad, Dad. Whoa!” He was letting his imagination get the best of him as usual. “As much as I want a lock on my door, that’s not what I wanted to ask.”
“Okay. What is it?”
“There’s only two weeks left until school, which I fully intend to go to. But, uh, I was talking with Julz last night, and the idea came up that, maybe, you know, we could go up to the cabin.”
“No,” he said, reaching for the remote again.
“Wait, no? You can say no that easily? You won’t even think about it?”
My parents turned and looked at each other for a moment. “No,” they both responded. I wasn’t surprised at their response in the least; after all, it was what I had predicted. I wasn’t going to give up that easily though.
“Why not?”
“Josh, please. The two of you up there by yourselves? Hours away from home?”
“Don’t you trust me?”
My mother smiled sweetly to me. “Of course we trust you…”
“It’s that girlfriend of yours we don’t trust.”
“Dad!”
“Roy!”
“Sorry, son. She’s nice and everything, but she’s a little, um, loose.”
“You think my girlfriend’s a slut?”
“Josh!”
“Sorry, Mom,” I said sheepishly.
“No, she’s not… that, but she dresses a little, well, a little less than she should.”
“What?”
“Now Justin and Lance, they have nice girlfriends,” my mother smiled. “Very polite.”
“So is Julie.”
“We like her, Josh. Don’t worry. It’s just that she’s always so dressed up. Short skirts or little tees or…”
“Mom…” I’ll admit that Julie was a bit dressy, and some of her clothing choices weren’t the best for hanging around the house, but how a person dressed was not the reason you dated them.
“About the cabin,” my dad said, putting the conversation back on track. “It’s big, and you’ll get bored.”
“When have I ever gotten bored there?”
“Julie’s never been up there, honey. How does she deal with spiders?”
“Horribly,” I laughed, recalling the time when there was the tiniest spider on my wall, and she completely freaked out. They brought up a good point.
“It’s a lot of responsibility. You’d have to cut the grass…”
“You guys always make me do that anyways.”
“…And the grocery shopping, the cleaning, turning on the pumps…”
“I know. I know.”
“It’s a big job.”
“But…”
“And I have a feeling Julie won’t be too eager to clean up the cobwebs,” my mom laughed.
“Plus there’s the whole thing about the two of you being alone in a big cabin…”
“…With a romantic fireplace…”
“… And six beds...”
“...Seven including the pull out in the couch in Tyler‘s room.”
“We’ve never done anything. I don’t intend to anytime soon either.”
“Does she?”
“No!” I said, uncomfortable with the topic of conversation.
“So it’s settled.” My dad once again reached for the remote.
“Wait!”
“What now?”
“There are seven beds?”
“Including the couch, yes.”
“What if it wasn’t just the two of us?” Thoughtful expressions crossed my parents’ faces.
“I don’t know,” my mom sighed.
“How many?” asked my dad.
I did a quick calculation in my head. “Seven.”
“Who?”
“Me, Julie, Justin, Erin, Lance, Shannon, and Emily.”
“Seven?”
“Please. You know you can trust all of us.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” I jumped up and gave my parents hugs. “Thank you, guys.”
“There are some definite rules.”
“I know.”
“And only for a week. Tops.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“I love you guys so much.” I couldn’t wait to tell Julie the good news.