The Gang:
Summer of Val

Paige Mitchell

I am about to exit for the biggest summer of my life. At least, I hope it will be the biggest one of my life - if anything could top last summer, it must really be a whopper. Not that anything big, per say, happened last year except the move.
Moving itself hadn't been new to me. I grew up with two parents who moved quite a bit for their work - they had joint ownership of a software company. Now, don't let that make you think that my opinion really held any power. The dozen or so schools I would need to attend kindergarten through seventh grade wasn't a factor, either. It was whatever counted for their work.
I don't either want to make it sound like all of life was work and no play, or work and no family. I knew my parents loved me - I always had, I always would. But I do accept the truth without resentment: that I, their only child, sometimes took the backburner to life outside the home.
Toby was born when I was almost twelve years old, which I believe was the trigger that set the wheels in motion. My parents realized that family needed to be tended to, and began the plans almost a year in the making to pick a permanent residence. Much work and research went into their scouting for a new place, because permanent meant PERMANENT - they were in the market in a house to buy, for good, to raise their kids in, to be visited by future grandchildren in, to retire in and to be buried from. I didn't have a whole lot of say in this, except that I had always preferred living in warmer states.
Tooler, Georgia. A town of reasonable size within a couple hours of one of Mom and Dad's larger branches in Atlanta. Business was set up first, of course, and then the house hunt. Cosmic influence caused us to land on a street with two other kids my age, a boy and a girl. The boy was next door, Morgan Scott Chonce. A chocolate-eyed soft-spoken sweetheart, not antisocial but usually not one to draw attention to himself. The ultimate best friend. And the girl: across the street and one door down, Lee Anna Wolfe (LeeAnne). Tall, beautiful. Kind, attentive, wise, and a never ending supply of advice. Again, the perfect best friend. So along with those two, and a few others, I made my social life what it is today.
Speaking of the others: to leave them out would be a crime. I suppose easiest would be the order that I met them. After LeeAnne and Morgan came Sasha Elliot Blake. An amazing artist, peaceful and cosmic, with jet-black wavy hair that hung halfway down his face. Velvet dark long eyelashes surrounding pale, ice-blue eyes woven with fantastic patterns and depth. Garland Eastwood, the red-headed devil himself. There's a laugh and a half if you ever need one. Skateboarding maniac extraordinaire. If you need someone to personify what it means to be a walking hormone, Garland's your guy. Green eyes, body ready to perch the most outrageous clothes it can find. If Morgan is quiet and reserved, Garland's the antiMorgan. Constance Williams, we call her Connie. Self-conscious, almost over-kind, can be a little nervous in some situations but usually calms down to the real planet for us, her friends. She has curly, thick blonde hair, soft gray eyes, wears glasses and is a touch overweight. Probably that's where a lot of her self esteem problems branch from. We didn't meet Mariah until months later: Mariah Ann Stephens, athletic, beautiful face despite her willingness to pretend to be a tomboy. Very take-charge, almost defensive, but hilarious in her own way. The last of our group, Jacob Aaron McBride, known as Jake. Serious Texan accent. He moved here a couple months ago from his home-since- birth in Lubbock. He is very neat, almost feminine in his tastes, but very handsome. Jake radiates more of a mature, male vibe than he realizes, I think. Jake's very funny - saves the tongue most of the time, but when he talks it's usually something worth hearing. These guys are, all in all, the best friends anyone could have.
That's The Gang.
Me and my tangents. As I was trying to say, I am about to exit for the biggest summer of my life: the transition to real adulthood. High school. I would be a freshman next year, and this summer I needed to devote my every energy into preparation for that. I would do it with the assistance of my friends, the lot of whom would undoubtedly be trying to accomplish the same growing-up cram session.
"Everyone's coming to the meeting tonight, right?" asked Sasha, hitching his backpack onto his shoulders. The bell was moments away from releasing us into the universe.
"We're having another one?" Morgan popped some gum into his mouth. We'd just had a meeting of The Gang the night before.
"Yeah, blast off the summer," explained LeeAnne. "We're going to watch some movies and Sasha's mom is going to make us amazing Italian something or other." She turned back to Sasha, the faithful leader of The Gang. "I think everyone can come except maybe Garland. He was saying something about trying to get out of watching Sarah tonight."
I felt myself grinning at the thought of the red-head. Garland - parts of me were beginning to like him, and he'd made it known over the last month or so that he was sort of beginning to like me back. He's been after LeeAnne most of the year, but as he and I were growing closer and seeing how well our personalities seemed to mesh, I think he was kind of cooling down and re-aiming the engine. I guess the romantic situation in The Gang could kind of be classified as soap opera: here Garland and I were, sort of starting to like each other as he was coming down from liking LeeAnne. I myself had sort of held a romantic interest in Morgan for a good sum of the year (not that I told anyone), but he wasn't interested in anyone so I guess that was a wasted cause. Connie usually had a crush on someone somewhere, but I think lately she'd been kind of developing a crush on Garland herself, but she was pretty open about it and it was nothing serious. She had decided, I suppose, that there wasn't going to be any response in that attraction. LeeAnne had formed a silent though intensely strong attraction to Sasha, who (like Morgan) wasn't interested in anyone. If I had to peg any other interests, I would say that maybe Jake is becoming interested in Mariah, but I think they're just really good friends.
Sasha's look unfocused from us as he seemed to be pondering some things. "I bet I could get my sister Rachel to baby sit Garland's sister if I gave her a couple bucks. If it comes down to that. I really want everyone to come over. Maybe the guys could crash out on my floor or something."
The sound that children fantasize about nine months of the year shrieked through the air and cut our conversation in two like a knife. The bell that was father of all bells - the END OF SCHOOL YEAR bell!
"Bye, Paige!"
"Later, Paige!"
Sasha: "See you at the meeting later. Bring a movie with you, Paige!"
"Later, guys." I walked off in the opposite directions of my friends, who were opting for the bus. Usually I rode with them but today I was taking the scenic route - the walk was all of thirty minutes if I timed it right, but I was going to be reveling in my freedom this afternoon.
As I walked out of Tooler Junior High for what I hoped was the last time, I felt an arm sling around my shoulders. The familiar cocky voice: "Hey, baby, where you going?"
I giggled, looking up at him. "Hi, Garland."
"Hey there shorty. So seriously, where you heading? Aren't you supposed to be catching a bus?" His voice changed, and I was no longer in the presence of Garland. "You're gonna regret it if you don't get on that bus, schweethaaat. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrah - but someday."
I laughed at his terrible impressions. "I'm not going anywhere. Just felt like walking home today."
"You sure you don't want a ride? My mom's meeting me out front."
I nodded, squeezing an arm around Garland in a walking hug. "Yeah, I'm sure. It's beautiful out today."
His voice became very cutesy, almost obnoxiously so. "Not as beautiful as you are, you cutey wooty little boobypoopoo."
Poor Garland. The defense mechanism king. The day I see him say something serious I might just have to retire. I laughed though, rolling my eyes at him. "Yeah, okay. What're you wasting your time harassing me for anyway, Garland Eastwood? Shouldn't you be off destroying things or something?"
He snapped his fingers. "I knew I was forgetting something. Note to self: seek and destroy."
We had come to the front of the building by then, and soon heard a car honking for our attention. "Mommy!" wailed Garland. "See you later, Paige, I'm gonna get out of that babysitting and come to Sasha's no matter what I have to do to make it happen." He winked at me and ran off, oversized Rolling Stones t-shirt flapping in the wind. He hurled himself onto the hood of his mother's jeep and straightened, shaking out that fiery mane of his. I smiled over to Garland, waving goodbye.
And now to start my summer! I started down the sidewalk with just one thought on my mind: I WAS FREE!!!!

I knew that I was going to fall just before it actually happened. I saw my foot stumble and bang against the rock protruding from the sidewalk. I saw my arms thrust before me as my body lurched forward, and mentally commanded my body to prepare for oncoming impact. I hit the side walk within seconds, but the whole fall had been in slow motion. Maybe I should have taken it for the omen it would turn out to be.
I got back to my feet shakily. "Hey, girl! Uh..girl that fell!"
I turned to see a boy running towards me. I brushed the dirt from the front of my jeans and searched the ground momentarily for the magazine I'd had in hand before my fall. No such luck. I glanced back up at the boy who was now slowing, still coming towards me. He was taller than me (isn't everyone?), perhaps even taller than Garland. A Tooler High t-shirt stretched over naturally muscular arms. His soft brown hair (lighter than Morgan's) was matted to his head from running over to me.
"You okay?" he asked, panting from the run.
"Yeah," I replied uncomfortably, still glancing around the ground. "I lost a magazine."
The boy glanced around too, and retrieved a Seventeen from the grass just past him. He handed it back to me, with an eyebrow raised in question. "Seventeen?"
I rolled my eyes. "I know, the height. You probably have me pegged for about ten, right? I'm a freshman."
The brown-haired boy looked surprised. "Wow. Well, you are kinda on the short side, but your voice definitely has a maturity to it."
Oh, wow, a high school boy telling me I had maturity? You might as well have shot me to cloud nine for how goofy that comment made me. "Thanks," I replied simply. "Maybe I'll see you next year. Unless you're graduating.?"
He began laughing - the deep, rich kind of laughter you could fall in love with. "Thanks for the compliment and all, but no. I'll be around. I'm a sophomore. You said you're a freshman now?"
I nodded and smiled at him - one of those goofy, you-can't-help-but- smile grins that make a girl look positively stupid. I tried to find something to say, and finally settled for, (reluctantly,) "I guess I'll see you next year then. Bye."
I began to walk away, and the boy jumped back in my path, blue eyes all lit up anxiously. "Wait, wait! Why put it off until next year? We could hang out right now." He extended a hand to me. "My name's Jacob, Jacob Valentine. You are..?"
"Paige Mitchell." I smiled, stupefyingly pleased at the introduction and the way those blue eyes were lit.
Jacob wrinkled his nose. "Poor kid."
The smallest twinge of annoyance crept into my gut at this reaction. "I like my name! Anyway, Paige is the middle name. Marissa is my first name, and that, I really can't stand, so." I tried to think of something to say. While on the topic of names, I added, "One of my best friends' name is Jacob, we call him Jake though."
He nodded, and offered me his arm to take. "That's cool. I guess I could just call you Mitch. Want to grab some food or something, Mitch?"
Mitch? This might get ugly. "Sure, that would be fun."
The two of us headed out and had some food at the Dairy Queen around the corner. We exchanged numbers after an hour or so of eating fries and sundaes and headed off our separate ways. It would be another couple weeks or so before I saw him face to face again, but I definitely put that number to use. On that particular afternoon though, I simply walked home, my feet never once hitting the sidewalk. I was too busy wandering around in the clouds.
I walked through my door and sighed dreamily. Freedom, summer of fun, and Jacob Valentine.