Chapter 1: Afternoon Lemonade

“Hi, Heather. What’s up?” asked Lauren Graham, looking through the split-rail fence separating her back yard from her neighbor’s. On the other side, a teenage girl looked at her with a mixture of curiosity and nervousness, as if she couldn’t make up her mind about something. Lauren put down her weed clippers and stood up, running the back of a work-gloved hand across her forehead. It was a late Sunday afternoon in the early summer. “Whatcha’ doing?” asked Lauren.

Heather Mackenzie inched closer to her neighbor, as if she were still making up her mind. “Uh, it’s nothing,” she replied.

Lauren shrugged her shoulders. “Excited about your birthday? Oooh baby, sweet sixteen and never been kissed, huh?” she said archly, winking lewdly and arching her eyebrows. Lauren knew that Heather’s sixteenth birthday was the next weekend.

To her surprise, Heather’s mouth opened in shock, and she blurted out, “How’d you know?”

Lauren looked across the fence in surprise. Thirty-two years old, Lauren Graham had known the teen since she had babysat for her ten years ago. Now the cycle had turned full circle; Heather now babysat for Lauren’s children. In many ways, Lauren was the older sister that Heather had never had, and Heather a younger sister for Lauren. “Know what? What’s up sweetie?”

“No, it’s not, well, I can’t...” stammered out the red-faced teen.

“Come on,” cajoled her friend. “You can tell a Super Secret Buddy anything, remember.” She balled up her right fist and extended her pinky finger, curled into a hook, and stuck it over the fence.

Heather giggled and stepped closer. Lauren had declared that they were ‘Super Secret Buddies’ back when she had started babysitting the five-year-old Heather, to open the child up and earn her trust, and had even developed the ‘Super Secret Buddy Handshake’ as if it was a secret club. Heather extended her balled-up fist and extended pinky and gripped Lauren’s. Next the two women reached across the fence to gently pinch each other’s nose, and while vigorously shaking pinkies and pinching noses, gave each other a raspberry.

Laughing, the pair separated. “Now, what is going on?” repeated Lauren.

Heather looked around, then turned back and lowered her voice. There was nobody else anywhere near to overhear them, but she was practically whispering. “Well, my dad says that when I’m sixteen I can start dating, you know, real dates, not just school dances with him driving us, and I don’t know about sex and stuff. Can you tell me?”

Lauren’s eyes opened wide at this. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk to your mom about this, honey?” she asked.

Heather looked panic-stricken at this. “Jeez, no! I can’t ask her about this! You know Mom!”

Lauren nodded in sad agreement with her young friend. The Mackenzie parents were supremely dysfunctional; it was a miracle that Heather was anything at all resembling normal. When Lauren and her late husband had moved to the neighborhood, Jim and Norma Mackenzie had been a normal couple, interested in their church and school and neighborhood. Over the last few years or so, however, Heather’s mother had become increasingly religious, to the point where it had become an obsession. Originally a devout Catholic, it had developed to the point where she spent vast hours working at the church, attending special masses, participating in every conceivable church-oriented protest and rally. Her car was festooned with religious bumper stickers, and religious paintings and artwork plastered the walls of the house.

In response, Jim, certainly the most boring individual Lauren had ever met, except at parties where he became a very social drinker, had begun to withdraw from his family, drinking even more than normal, staying out late and avoiding home life to avoid his wife. As best as possible, he attempted to shield Heather from her mother’s excesses, despite his own. Norma Mackenzie was actively attempting to turn her daughter into a live-in nun, banning any pretty clothing, makeup, or relationship with boys. It had taken a threat of divorce from her husband to force her to allow Heather to begin dating.

“Not getting any better?” asked Lauren sadly.

Heather leaned against the fence and shook her head in the negative. “I think he means it this time. I just want to get out of school and go away somewhere and leave them both. I think he’ll divorce her the minute I move out, and she’ll never allow that, and I just don’t know what she’ll do then.” She shrugged in resignation.

“You know that you can always come over here and stay, no matter what. It’s part of the Super Secret Buddy code.” That got a laugh from the teen, and Lauren stepped back. “Come on over. Watch the kids a moment and I’ll go in and get some lemonade.”

Heather grinned and slipped between the rails of the fence. The girl walked over to the sandbox where the Graham children were playing, scratching the head of Goldie, the golden retriever tied up near them as she passed. Goldie jumped up and slobbered over the teen as Jimmy, seven, and Holly, six, looked up at her. “Hi, guys,” she said cheerfully.

Holly jumped up and ran to her, to wrap her arms around the girl. Jimmy was more suspicious. “Is Mom going somewhere?” he asked. “Are you babysitting? I don’t need a babysitter.”