Creed

Chapter Six The Best Birthday Ever

A sunny, summer by a lake in Kentucky, twenty-seven years earlier, Creed is twelve, Sylvie is seven. It’s her birthday…

I peddled my bike quick over the trail in the trees to get to the lake.

I didn’t want to miss him.

We didn’t get to do this a lot. It was hard to get away from Daddy but when he was at work, my stepmom was usually drinking that clear stuff straight from the bottle, so it wasn’t hard to get away from her. I just had to be careful and Tuck told me we couldn’t be greedy. Greedy was stupid. The more chances we took, the more chances we took on getting caught.

So we only did it special.

Like today.

My birthday.

This didn’t count the nights. Tuck said I could come anytime at night, I just had to be careful.

So I did.

Whenever the words came, me and Bootsie would sneak out of the house and go to Tuck’s. I’d knock on the window and, always, my knuckles would barely hit the glass before it flew up. Sometimes, he’d stick his head out and tell me he’d meet me in the woods. If his Mom was gone, he’d stick the whole top of his body out the window, grab me under my arms and pull me in. Then he’d go back out, hanging almost all the way out so every time he did it I was scared he’d fall but he never did, and he did this so he could grab Bootsie and bring her in with us.

In the woods or in his bedroom, we’d talk and even though he was a whole lot older than me, we always had tons of stuff to talk about. What we liked to eat. TV programs we liked to watch. Movies we’d seen. Folks in town. He’d talk about his Dad. I’d talk about my Mom and my visits with her when she’d come get me and take me to Lexington for her weekends with me.

If we spent time in the woods or in his bedroom, no matter what, he’d walk me home to the back gate of the fence around my backyard.

The lake came into view and I saw him, his tanned bare back to me, sitting on the end of the pier and just like always, seeing him made my belly feel funny. The kind of funny it felt right before you got on a ride at the carnival or amusement park. That kind of funny.

I stopped my bike by his, jumped off, grabbed the stuff in my basket and laid my bike on its side in the grass.

Then I raced down the path to the pier, jumped up on it and raced down the wood planks.

Tuck turned and watched me, his lips curled up.

I stopped at the end and my, “Hi!” sounded breathy.

“Hi,” Tuck replied.

I shoved the frozen Snickers bars at him. “Brought ‘em!” I cried and then flipped off my shoes and sat down beside him at the end of the pier.

His legs were dangling down, so long, his feet were covered in water up past his ankles. My legs were so short I had to point my toes for the water to skim the tips.

He took a Snickers bar and started to rip it open.

I ripped open mine and bit hard into the frozen caramel and nougat.

“I couldn’t make a picnic. She was in the kitchen,” I told him through Snickers bar.

“That’s okay, Sylvie,” he told me through a mouth full of his.

“But she’s, you know…” I didn’t tell him what he knew and kept talking. “So she’s out of it. We can swim and do it for a long time. Daddy’s away on business and she’ll probably be sleeping when I get home so we can spend all day here if we want.”

“Your Dad’s gone on your birthday?”

They way he said that made me turn my head and look up at him.

“Yeah.”

He stared at me then looked back at the water, lifted his Snickers bar to his mouth and bit off a huge chunk.

I felt bad since he didn’t have a Dad and I knew, with the way he talked about him, that what he would want most in the whole world was his Dad being there for his birthday. I didn’t really care if Daddy was at mine. In fact, he always made me wear dresses that were too fancy on my birthday so it felt mean, but I was kinda glad he wasn’t.

We sat together and sifted our feet through the water, staring at it and chewing on our Snickers bars and we did this until Tuck finished his. He shoved the wrapper in his cutoff jeans shorts pocket. Then he dug in his other one and I watched him come out with a little, white cardboard box.

He handed it to me.

“Happy birthday, Sylvie.”

I stared down at the box then I looked up at him. “Wow.”

He grinned at me.

I liked presents and I liked it more that he gave me one but that grin would have been enough for me.

“We don’t have wrapping paper and I used all my allowance on that so I couldn’t buy any,” he told me.

“That’s okay!” I chirped, threw off the top of the box and looked down at the gold necklace with the tiny twinkling green jewel hanging off the chain, this attached to a little sheet of plastic.

“They said that’s a peridot. Your birthstone,” Tuck’s voice came at me.

I tipped my head back to look at him. “I like it. Green’s my favorite color.”

He grinned at me again.

“I’m gonna wear it always, Tuck,” I whispered and was about to pull it out so I could put it on but his face went funny and he shook his head.

“It’s cheap, Sylvie,” he said quiet. “The girl I bought it from said you can’t get it wet. It’ll make your skin turn green.”

“I don’t care,” I told him.

“Your Dad will,” he told me.

He would.

Darn.

I looked back down at the necklace and said soft, “I’ll wear it all the other times when I’m not in the water.”

“Okay,” he replied.

I looked up at him and smiled.

Then I jumped up to my feet, ran back to my bike, put the necklace in the basket with my Snickers wrapper because Tuck said his Dad said that littering was bad and you should never do it. So we never did.

I ran back down the pier pulling off my t-shirt and stopping to tug off my shorts. I had my bathing suit underneath.

“Cannonball!” I yelled and dashed down the rest of the pier. I jumped straight off the end as high in the air as I could get. I curled my arms around my tucked legs and hit the warm water.

I barely surfaced before I heard and saw Tuck hit the water beside me.

I smiled.

He surfaced, took one stroke and made it to me then he ducked me.

I came up laughing.

We did cannonballs and dives and had ducking contests and floated and had swimming contests that Tuck let me win because it was my birthday and we did it for hours.

When I got home, my stepmom was asleep so I didn’t get caught being gone and spending the day with Tuck at the lake.

It was the best birthday ever.

Ever.