I’D WORRIED IT WOULD BE too cold for us to stay in the tree house for long, but it’s unseasonably warm, so much so that Daddy starts on one of his rants about climate change, to the point where Kitty and I have to tune him out.
After his rant I get a shovel from the garage and set about digging under the tree. The ground is hard, and it takes me a while to get into a good groove digging, but I finally hit metal a couple of feet in. The time capsule’s the size of a small cooler; it looks like a futuristic coffee thermos. The metal has eroded from the rain and snow and dirt, but not as much as you’d think, considering it’s been nearly four years. I take it back to the house and wash it in the sink so it gleams again.
Close to noon, I load up a shopping bag with ice cream sandwiches, Hawaiian Punch, and Cheez Doodles and take it all out to the tree house. I’m crossing our backyard to the Pearces’, trying to juggle the bag and the portable speakers and my phone, when I see John Ambrose McClaren standing in front of the tree house, staring up at it with his arms crossed. I’d know the back of his blond head anywhere.
I freeze, suddenly nervous and unsure. I’d thought Peter or Chris would be here with me when he arrived, and that would smooth out any awkwardness. But no such luck.
I put down all my stuff and move forward to tap him on the shoulder, but he turns around before I can. I take a step back. “Hi! Hey!” I say.
“Hey!” He takes a long look at me. “Is it really you?”
“It’s me.”
“My pen pal the elusive Lara Jean Covey who shows up at Model UN and runs off without so much as a hello?”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “I’m pretty sure I at least said hello.”
Teasingly he says, “No, I’m pretty sure you didn’t.”
He’s right: I didn’t. I was too flustered. Kind of like right now. It must be that distance between knowing someone when you were a kid and seeing them now that you’re both more grown-up, but still not all the way grown-up, and there are all these years and letters in between you, and you don’t know how to act.
“Well—anyway. You look… taller.” He looks more than just taller. Now that I can take the time to really look at him, I notice more. With his fair hair and milky skin and rosy cheeks, he looks like he could be an English farmer’s son. But he’s slim, so maybe the sensitive farmer’s son who steals away to the barn to read. The thought makes me smile, and John gives me a curious look but doesn’t ask why.
With a nod, he says, “You look… exactly the same.”
Gulp. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? “I do?” I get up on my tiptoes. “I think I’ve grown at least an inch since eighth grade.” And my boobs are at least a little bigger. Not much. Not that I want John to notice—I’m just saying.
“No, you look… just like how I remembered you.” John Ambrose reaches out, and I think he’s trying to hug me but he’s only trying to take my bag from me, and there’s a brief but strange dance that mortifies me but he doesn’t seem to notice. “So thanks for inviting me.”
“Thanks for coming.”
“Do you want me to take this stuff up for you?”
“Sure,” I say.
John takes the bag from me and looks inside. “Oh, wow. All of our old snacks! Why don’t you climb up first and I’ll pass it to you.” So that’s what I do: I scramble up the ladder and he climbs up behind me. I’m crouched, arms outstretched, waiting for him to pass me the bag.
But when he gets halfway up the ladder, he stops and looks up at me and says, “You still wear your hair in fancy braids.”
I touch my side braid. Of all the things to remember about me. Back then, Margot was the one who braided my hair. “You think it looks fancy?”
“Yeah. Like… expensive bread.”
I burst out laughing. “Bread!”
“Yeah. Or… Rapunzel.”
I get down on my stomach, wriggle over to the edge, and pretend like I’m letting down my hair for him to climb. He climbs up to the top of the ladder and passes me the bag, which I take, and then he grins at me and gives my braid a tug. I’m still lying down but feel an electric charge like he’s zapped me. I’m suddenly feeling very anxious about the worlds that will be colliding, the past and the present, a pen pal and a boyfriend, all in this little tree house. Probably I should have thought this through a bit better. But I was so focused on the time capsule, and the snacks, and the idea of it—old friends coming back together to do what we said we’d do. And now here we are, in it.
“Everything okay?” John asks, offering me his hand as I rise to my feet.
I don’t take his hand; I don’t want another zap. “Everything’s great,” I say cheerily.
“Hey, you never sent back my letter,” he says. “You broke an unbreakable vow.”
I laugh awkwardly. I’d kind of been hoping he wouldn’t bring that up. “It was too embarrassing. The things I wrote. I couldn’t bear the thought of another person seeing it.”
“But I already saw it,” he reminds me.
Luckily, Chris and Trevor Pike show up and break up the conversation about the letter. They immediately tear into the snacks. Meanwhile Peter’s late. I text him a stern You better be on your way. And then: Don’t text back if you’re driving. That’s dangerous.
Just as I’m texting again, Peter’s head pops up in the door and he climbs inside. I’m about to give him a hug, but then right behind him is Genevieve. My whole body goes cold.
I look from him to her. She sails right past me and sweeps John into a hug. “Johnny!” she squeals, and he laughs. I feel the sharp twist of envy in my stomach. Must every boy be charmed by her?
While she’s hugging John, Peter’s looking at me with pleading eyes. He mouths, Don’t be mad, and he clasps his hands in prayer. I mouth back, What the hell, and he grimaces. I never explicitly said I wasn’t inviting her, but I would have thought it was pretty clear. And then I think, Wait a minute. They came here together. He was with her and he never said a word to me about it, and then he brought her here, here, to my house. Specifically to my neighbors’ tree house. This girl who has hurt me, hurt us both.
Then Peter and John are hugging and high-fiving and slapping each other on the back, like old war buddies, long-lost brothers in arms. “It’s been too fucking long, man,” Peter says.
Genevieve is already unzipping her puffy white bomber jacket and making herself comfortable. Whatever fleeting moment there was for me to kick her and Peter both out of my neighbors’ tree house is gone. “Hi, Chrissy,” she says, smiling as she settles on the ground. “Nice hair.”
Chris glares at her. “What are you even doing here?” I love that she says this—I love her.
“Peter and I were hanging out and he told me about what you guys were doing today.” Shrugging out of her jacket, Genevieve says to me, “I guess my invitation got lost in the mail.”
I don’t reply, because what can I say in front of all these people? I just hug my knees to my chest. Now that I’m sitting next to her, I realize how small this tree house has become. There’s hardly enough room for all the arms and legs, and the boys are so big now. Before, we were more or less the same size, boys and girls.
“God, was this place always so tiny?” Genevieve says to no one in particular. “Or did we all just get really big?” She laughs. “Except you, Lara Jean. You’re still itty-bitty pocket-sized.” She says it sweetly. Like sweetened condensed milk. Sweet and condescending. Poured on super thick.
I play along: I smile. I won’t let her get a rise out of me.
John rolls his eyes. “Same old Gen.” He says it dryly, with weary affection, and she smiles her cute wrinkly-nose smile at him like he’s paid her a compliment. But then he looks at me and raises one sardonic eyebrow, and I feel better about everything, just like that. In a strange way, maybe her presence here completes the circle. She can take whatever’s hers in that time capsule, and this history of ours can be done.
“Trev, throw me an ice cream sandwich,” Peter says, squeezing in between Genevieve and me. He stretches his legs out into the center of the circle, and everyone else adjusts to make room for his long legs.
I push his legs over so I can set the time capsule down in the center. “Here it is, everybody. All your greatest treasures from seventh grade.” I try to whip off the aluminum top with a flourish, but it’s really stuck. I’m struggling with it, using my nails. I look over at Peter and he’s digging into the ice cream bars, oblivious, so John gets up and helps me unscrew it. He smells like pine soap. I add this to the list of new things I’ve learned about him.
“So how are we gonna do this?” Peter asks me, his mouth full of ice cream. “Do we dump it all out?”
I’ve given this some thought. “I think we should take turns pulling something out. Let’s make it last, like opening presents on Christmas morning.”
Genevieve leans forward in anticipation. Without looking, I reach into the cylinder and pull out the first thing my fingers touch. It’s funny, I’d forgotten what I put inside, but I know what it is instantly; I don’t have to look down. It’s a friendship bracelet that Genevieve made for me when we were in our weaving phase in fifth grade. Pink, white, and light blue chevron. I made one for her too. Purple and yellow chevron. She probably doesn’t even remember it. I look over at her, and her face is blank. No recognition.
“What is it?” Trevor asks.
“It’s mine,” I say. “It’s… it’s a bracelet I used to wear.”
Peter touches his shoe to mine. “That piece of string was your most treasured thing?” he teases.
John is watching me. “You used to wear it all the time,” he says, and it’s sweet that he even remembers.
Once it goes on, it’s never supposed to come off, but I sacrificed it to the time capsule because I loved it so much. Maybe this is where Gen’s and my friendship went sour. The curse of the friendship bracelet. “You go next,” I say to him.
He reaches inside the box and pulls out a baseball.
“That’s mine,” Peter crows. “That’s from when I hit a home run at Claremont Park.” John throws the ball to him, and Peter catches it. Examining it, he says, “See, I signed and dated it!”
“I remember that day,” Genevieve says, tilting her head. “You came running off the field, and you kissed me in front of your mom. Remember?”
“Uh… not really,” Peter mumbles. He’s staring down at the baseball, turning it in his hand like he’s fascinated by it. I can’t believe him. I really can’t.
“Awk-ward,” Trevor says with a chortle.
In a soft voice, like no one else is here, she says to him, “Can I keep it?”
Peter’s ears are turning red. He looks at me, panicky. “Covey, do you want it?”
“Nope,” I say, keeping my head turned away from them. I grab the bag of Cheez Doodles and stuff a handful in my mouth. I’m so mad all I can do is eat Cheez Doodles or else I’ll scream at him.
“Okay, then I’m gonna keep it,” Peter says, putting the baseball in his coat pocket. “Owen might want it. Sorry, Gen.” He grabs the time capsule and starts rifling through it. He holds up a worn-out baseball cap. Orioles. Too loudly he says, “McClaren, look what I got here.”
A smile spreads across John’s face like a slow sunrise. He takes it from Peter and puts it on his head, adjusting the bill.
“That really was your most prized possession,” I say. He wore it deep into the fall, too. I asked my dad to buy me an Orioles T-shirt because I thought John McClaren would be impressed. I wore it twice but I don’t think he ever noticed. My smile fades when I notice Genevieve watching me. Our eyes meet; there is some knowing light in her gaze that makes me feel twitchy. She looks away; now she is the one smiling to herself.
“The Orioles suck,” Peter says, leaning against the wall. He reaches for the box of ice cream sandwiches and pulls one out.
“Pass me one of those,” Trevor says.
“Sorry, last one,” Peter says, biting into it.
John catches my eye and winks. “Same old Kavinsky,” he says, and I laugh. I know he’s thinking of our letters.
Peter grins at him. “Hey, no more stutter.”
I freeze. How could Peter bring that up so cavalierly? None of us ever talked about John’s stutter back in middle school. He was so shy about it. But now John just flashes a smile and shrugs and says, “I’ll pass that along to my eighth grade speech therapist, Elaine.” He’s so confident!
Peter blinks, and I can see that he is caught off guard. He does not know this John McClaren. It used to be that Peter was the shot caller, not John. He followed Peter’s lead. Peter might still be the same, but John has changed. Now Peter’s the one who is less sure-footed.
Chris goes next. She pulls out a ring with a tiny pearl in the center. Allie’s, a confirmation gift from her aunt. She loved that ring. I’ll have to send it to her. Trevor pulls out his own treasure—an autographed baseball card. Genevieve is the one to pull out Chris’s—an envelope with a twenty-dollar bill inside.
“Yes!” Chris screams. “I was such a little genius.” We high-five.
“What about yours, Gen?” Trevor asks.
She shrugs. “I guess I didn’t put anything in the capsule.”
“Yes you did,” I say, brushing orange Cheez dust off my fingers. “You were there that day.” I remember she went back and forth between putting in a picture of her and Peter or the rose he gave her for her birthday. I can’t remember what she decided on.
“Well, there’s nothing inside, so I guess I didn’t. Whatever.”
I look inside the time capsule just to be sure. It’s empty.
“Remember how we used to play Assassins?” Trevor says, squeezing the last bit of juice out of his Capri Sun.
Oh, how I loved that game! It was like tag: Everybody picked a name out of a hat, and you had to tag the person out. Once you got your person, you had to take out whoever they had. It involved a lot of sneaking around and hiding. A game could last for days.
“I was the Black Widow,” Genevieve says. She does a little shoulder shimmy at Peter. “I won more than anybody.”
“Please,” Peter scoffs. “I won plenty.”
“So did I,” Chris says.
Trevor points at me. “L’il J, you were the worst at it. I don’t think you won once.”
I make a face. L’il J. I’d forgotten he used to call me that. And he’s right: I never did win. Not even once. The one time I came close, Chris tagged me out at Kitty’s swim meet. I’d thought I was safe because it was late at night. I was so close to that win, I could almost taste it.
Chris’s eyes meet mine, and I know she’s remembering too. She winks at me, and I give her a sour look.
“Lara Jean just doesn’t have the killer instinct,” Genevieve says, looking at her nails.
I say, “We can’t all be black widows.”
“True,” she says, and my teeth clench.
John says to Peter, “Remember that one time I had you, and I was hiding behind your dad’s car before school, but it was your dad that came out, not you? And I scared him, and he and I both screamed?”
“Then we had to quit altogether when Trevor came to my mom’s store in his ski mask,” Peter guffaws.
Everyone laughs, except for me. I’m still smarting from Genevieve’s “killer instinct” dig.
Trevor’s laughing so hard he can barely speak. “She almost called the cops!” he manages to sputter.
Peter nudges my sneaker toe with his. “We should play again.”
He’s trying to get back in my good graces, but I’m not ready to let him, so I just shrug a chilly little shrug. I wish I weren’t mad at him, because I really do want to play again. I want to prove I’ve got the killer instinct too, that I’m not some Assassins loser.
“We should do it,” John says. “For old times’ sake.” He catches my eye. “One last shot, Lara Jean.”
I smile.
Chris raises an eyebrow. “What does the winner get?”
“Well… nothing,” I say. “It would just be for fun.” Trevor makes a face at this.
“There should be a prize,” Genevieve says. “Otherwise what’s the point?”
I think fast. What would be a good prize? “Movie tickets? A baked good of the winner’s choice?” I blurt out. No one says a word.
“We could all put in a twenty,” John offers. I throw him a grateful look and he smiles.
“Money’s boring,” Genevieve says, stretching like a cat.
I roll my eyes. Who asked for her two cents? I didn’t even ask for her to be here.
Trevor says, “Um, how about the winner gets breakfast in bed every day for a week? It could be pancakes on Monday, omelet on Tuesday, waffle on Wednesday, and so forth. There are six of us, so—”
Shuddering, Genevieve says, “I don’t eat breakfast.” Everyone groans.
“Why don’t you suggest something instead of shooting everybody down,” Peter says, and I hide my face behind my braid so no one sees me smile.
“Okay.” Genevieve thinks for a minute, and then a smile spreads across her face. It’s her Big Idea look, and it makes me nervous. Slowly, deliberately, she says, “The winner gets a wish.”
“From who?” Trevor asks. “Everybody?”
“From any one of us who are playing.”
“Wait a minute,” Peter interjects. “What are we signing on for here?”
Genevieve looks very pleased with herself. “One wish, and you have to grant it.” She looks like an evil queen.
Chris’s eyes gleam as she says, “Anything?”
“Within reason,” I quickly say. This isn’t at all what I had in mind, but at least people are willing to play.
“Reason is subjective,” John points out.
“Basically, Gen can’t force Peter to have sex with her one last time,” Chris says. “That’s what everyone’s thinking, right?”
I stiffen. That wasn’t what I was thinking, like at all. But now I am.
Trevor busts up laughing and Peter shoves him. Genevieve shakes her head. “You’re disgusting, Chrissy.”
“I only said what everyone was thinking!”
I’m barely even listening at this point. All I can think is, I want to play this game and I want to win. Just once I want to beat Genevieve at something.
I only have one pen and no paper, so John tears up the ice cream sandwich box and we take turns writing our names down on our cardboard scraps. Then everybody puts their names in the empty time capsule, and I shake it up. We pass it around and I go last. I pull out the piece of cardboard, hold it close to my chest, and open it.
JOHN.
Well, that complicates things. I sneak a peek at him. He’s carefully tucking his piece of cardboard in his jeans pocket. Sorry, (pen) pal, but you’re going down. I take a quick look around the room for clues to who might have my name, but everyone’s got their poker faces on.
