Free Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand Page A

Thurbers’ front lawn. He hadn’t waited for her and she hadn’t gotten out before him. She wondered if she had been imagining his erection, or if she had been flattering herself that the desire had been aimed at her. But if not her, then who? Not pathetic Wendy, and certainly not Nadine with her blocky shoulders and faint mustache. Meredith waved to the other girls and took off down Robinhood Road, trying to seem nonchalant. All this posturing! She wished Toby was behind her. Now it would look like she was chasing him.
    When they were three houses away from the Thurbers’ and four houses away from the O’Briens’, Toby turned around and pretended to be surprised to find Meredith behind him.
    “Hey,” he called out in a kind of whisper.
    She was at a loss for words. She waved. Her hair was damp and when she touched it, she could feel that it held comb marks. The streetlights were on, so there were pools of light followed by abysses of darkness. Across the street, a man walked a golden retriever. It was Frank diStefano, the roofer, a friend of Meredith’s father. Oh, boy. But he didn’t see her.
    Toby stopped in one of the dark spots to wait for her. Her heart was tripping over itself like two left feet. She was excited, scared, nearly breathless. Something was going to
happen
between her and Toby O’Brien. But no, that wasn’t possible. Toby was unfathomably cool, a good student and a great athlete, and he was as beautiful as Connie. He had dated the most alluring girl at Radnor—Divinity Michaels—and they had had an end-of-the-year breakup that was as spectacular as a Broadway show, where Divinity threatened to kill herself, and the school counselors and the state police were called in. (There had been simultaneous rumors circulating about Toby and the young French teacher, Mademoiselle Esme, which Connie called “completely idiotic, and yet not beyond Toby.”) Earlier that summer, Toby had started “hanging out” with an Indian girl named Ravi, who was a junior at Bryn Mawr. Compared to those girls, what did Meredith have to offer? She was his kid sister’s best friend, a completely known quantity, a giant yawn.
    And yet…?
    Meredith walked along the strip of lawn between the street and the sidewalk, and her feet were coated with grass clippings. She had her flip-flops in her hand and she stopped to put them on, partly as a stall tactic. She kept walking. Toby was leaning up against a tree that was in the front yard of a house where, clearly, no one was home.
    “Hey,” Toby said, as she approached. “Meredith, come here.”
    She went to him. He was the same person—sandy hair, green eyes, freckles—but he was new to her.
    He seemed nervous, too, but with all of his experience with women, this was impossible.
    He said, “Are you walking all the way home?”
    She nodded.
    He said, “Have you seen Connie?”
    “No,” Meredith said, gazing down the street. “She went somewhere with Matt.”
    “I don’t know why she doesn’t just tell my parents about him,” Toby said.
    “It’s because he’s…”
    “Jewish,” Toby said. “I know. But my parents won’t care.”
    “I told her that,” Meredith said. “She doesn’t listen.”
    Toby put both his hands on Meredith’s shoulders. “She doesn’t listen to you? Her best friend?”
    Meredith looked at Toby. This was, for sure, the first time she’d ever seen him. Everything had changed. She shook her head, pretending that she was caught up in the drama of Connie and Matt Klein, though she couldn’t have cared less. Just as she was wondering if she should take a step closer to Toby, he pulled her in, as if for a friendly hug.
    “Meredith,” he said into her hair. Then he said, “Sorry about the pool. About pulling on your suit, I mean.”
    She could feel his erection again. Again, she thought about health class, Judy Blume, what she had heard other girls say. She was sick with desire. “Oh,” she said. “That’s okay.”
    He fumbled