Chapter Seven Kami #2
“Yeah,” I replied, defiant.
“Don’t you use that tone with me.”
“Kamila was on her way out. She’s got a party to go to,” my father said, trying to stop us before we started fighting.
“And I guess you’re just going to say nothing, huh? You think it’s just hunky-dory for her to be going out with Taylor Di Bianco?”
Dad gave her an icy stare. “Unlike you, she hasn’t kept any secrets from me.” His coldness surprised even me.
Mom took a step back and then composed herself. “Do not be home later than two,” she said.
I looked at Dad, who contradicted her: “You can stay out till four, honey.” Turning to my mother, he continued, “It’s literally next door, Anne.”
Mom pursed her lips but didn’t respond, instead turning around and going to her room.
“Thanks, Dad.” I kissed him on the cheek, but there was a knot in my chest as I walked downstairs, and it felt hard to breathe.
As I went outside, even the bright lights in the Di Biancos’ yard didn’t cheer me up.
It was almost dark, and I figured we had an hour before people started showing up.
I checked my Instagram: Taylor had just posted his ninth or tenth story showing off his decorations, the food, the yard. Everyone would show up. I knew it.
I turned on my flashlight app and walked into the woods behind our houses.
I was scared, walking out there alone, but that was where we said we were meeting, and I didn’t want the brothers to think I was a coward.
When I reached the tree house, I couldn’t hear a thing, just the whistling of the wind and the scurrying of tiny animals.
I heard a branch snap behind me and I turned around, aiming the flashlight.
“Taylor?” I called. Another noise, and I turned in the other direction.
“Taylor, this isn’t funny.” My hair was standing on end.
I was so scared; I didn’t know if I’d be able to summon the strength to run if I had to.
Something or someone touched my shoulder, and I spun around, raising my fists the way Dad had taught me to do so long ago. There was Thiago, who quickly dodged my punch and laughed at my clumsiness.
“Are you stupid?” I shouted, punching his arm. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Did I now?”
I put my hand on my heart, which was pounding out of my chest.
“Your costume is hilarious,” he said. “Scary cheerleader…is that a thing?”
“It is now.” I scowled.
“What are you going to do, kill people with your pom-poms?”
“How about you fuck off?” I said, turning around and walking to where I thought we’d buried the time capsule.
“Wrong way, Kamila,” he said, taking me by the elbow and dragging me in the opposite direction.
“How do you know?”
“Because I do,” he said, letting me go and striding off.
“Wait!” I said, trying to catch up. Three of his steps were like five of mine. “Shouldn’t we wait for Taylor?”
“He knows how to get here.”
“But…”
“Listen, you can stay back there and wait for him if you want.” He gave me a wry smile, and I knew he was getting a kick out of seeing me so scared.
I didn’t stay and wait for Taylor, instead I stuck close to Thiago, trying to conceal the fact that I no longer found the plan so funny.
We walked deeper into the woods, and I saw him hesitate for an instant, then count on his fingers.
Had we really done all this just to bury a dumb time capsule?
At last, he stopped in front of a twisted old tree.
“How do you know it was here?” I asked.
“Because I was the one who decided where to bury it, remember?”
The truth was, no, I didn’t remember. “If it is, then right here I should be able to see…” I began, flashing my light on the tree.
“No, it’s over here,” Thiago said and walked around to the other side. And it was true. The spot was much lower than I remembered, but there they were, our initials. I smiled as I remembered carving them.
“Those are some good memories, huh?” I said.
“Yeah. Beautiful.” His tone was indifferent. So much for my emotional reverie. “We need to start digging before it gets too late.”
“What about Taylor?”
“He’ll be here soon.”
Thiago tossed me a shovel. We had been digging a minute or so when we heard footsteps.
As I aimed the flashlight to greet Taylor, I got the fright of my life.
I automatically dropped my shovel, hearing it land on the ground with a loud thump, and held up my hands to feign innocence. “We… We didn’t…”
Then the loudest cackle in all of history rang out, and I pointed the beam of light into the face of the person laughing at me. “Are you fucking serious?” I screamed. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“That was the idea, gorgeous!”
Thiago started laughing uncontrollably too. Taylor threw an arm around me and said to his brother, “I told you I had a killer costume.”
“A cop?” I said. “Whatever. It does look realistic, though.”
“Damn right it does. It’s real,” Taylor explained, picking up a shovel and sinking it into the dirt.
“Where’d you get it?” I asked, grabbing my own shovel in an attempt to help out.
“I’ve got my contacts,” he said with an impish grin. “I’m gonna have a great time pretending to bust my party tonight.”
I didn’t doubt that. There was nothing that would scare a teenager more than seeing a policeman at a party where at least four state laws were being broken.
We kept digging—or rather, they did, because I got tired after about five minutes, so I just went through the motions. Soon Thiago struck something hard.
“I think this is it,” he said, crouching down and pushing the dirt aside with his hands. He uncovered the metal box, and my nerves got the better of me. I knelt too, as did Tay, and we all struggled to pull it out.
“Damn, that’s heavy,” Taylor grunted, exhaling a lungful of air. We stared at it for a few seconds until he said, “We should open it, right?” He was now rubbing his hands together and breathing on them to warm them up. It must have dropped another ten degrees since we were setting up at his house.
“Yeah, unless you want to catch a case of pneumonia,” Thiago responded.
Taylor did the honors, wiping off the last bits of dirt and lifting the latch. “Thiago, look! Our Captain America comics!” he shouted, grabbing one and flipping through the pages.
“I totally forgot we had put those in there,” Thiago said.
I saw one of my old treasures. “Polly Pocket!” I called out, grabbing the little flower-shaped box and opening it to reveal the tiny house inside. I had spent hours playing with those as a kid. “And my Furby! Remember Furbies?”
“I hated those fucking things. I can still remember how it would wake me up in the middle of the night asking for food,” Taylor said, putting aside his comics.
There was all kinds of stuff inside: toys, drawings, coins.
“Oh, shit, fifty bucks!” Taylor announced. “Why would we have left money in here?”
“It was in case we were starving in the future,” Thiago remembered, and we all laughed.
“And there are our letters!” I said, grabbing the three envelopes with our names on them. Thiago looked weirdly serious as I asked, “Should we read them out loud? I can’t remember what I wrote.”
“Yeah,” Taylor agreed, “let’s do it!” He unwrapped a chocolate that was in there. I wasn’t sure that was the best idea, and I asked if he really intended to eat it.
“Of course! Chocolate from the past, awesome!”
I shook my head in disgust and told him, “It’s gonna make you sick. It must have expired years ago.” But he shoved four more in his mouth before finally admitting, “Yeah, they do taste kind of weird.”
“You really are a moron,” Thiago said.
“Kami, read your letter,” Taylor said, ignoring him.
I smiled nervously and began:
“Dear future Kami: I hope that now that you’re all grown up, you’ve learned to understand all the stuff that ten-year-old Kami still doesn’t get. Like where do babies come from—”
“I can explain all that to you,” Taylor interrupted me, and I told him to shut up.
“I hope you got into Yale. You know you want to be a veterinarian or a famous painter. You’ve got time to figure it out. Damn. I completely forgot I wanted to be a vet.”
“You don’t remember how you used to pick up little animals on the roadside and from the woods?” Thiago asked. “You even brought us a bat one time.” He and his brother looked at each other, reminiscing.
“It was a phase, all right? Now let me finish: Tell Thiago that you’re an adult now and you don’t need his help anymore.
And tell Taylor you’ll always be his best friend.
Tell him you love him like the big brother you never had and that you hope he’ll finally let you use his chemistry set. Yeah, can I use your chemistry set?”
“You can use whatever you like, babe,” Taylor said with a nudge. “Just leave out that shit about loving me like a brother. I’m not into incest.”
I knew I was blushing, and I was glad it was too dark out for either of them to see my face.
I went on: “Remember that no matter what happens, you and Tay and Thiago swore to be best friends forever. It’s true that Thiago acts like a dummy a lot of the time, but you know he cares about you by the way he waits by his window every night to say good night using the flashlight signals you made up together. ”
Taylor cut me off: “Excuse me, what’s this about the flashlights?”
“We had like a code, you know, because we could see each other through the window,” I said with a shrug. It got quiet, so I hurried to finish: “I hope you’re really happy. I love you. Love, Kami from the past. Well, that was interesting.” I folded up the letter and stuck it in my pocket.
“Absolutely,” Taylor said. “I’m up.” He laughed as soon as he opened the envelope: “Dear Taylor from the future. I hope you’re playing for the NBA. If not, then go to hell. Take it easy. Taylor from the past.”
“That’s it?” I asked, unable to believe it.
“I guess I was dead set on it.”
Thiago shook his head as Taylor and I looked at him. “Your turn, bro,” Taylor said.
But Thiago hesitated. “I don’t know if going into my past thoughts and feelings is the best idea.”
“Come on!” I said. “It’s fun!”
“Yeah, bro, do it!”
“No thanks,” Thiago declined, and reaching into the box he brought out a magnifying glass, and said, “What is this doing in there?”
“I figured since you were the oldest, you’d probably have trouble seeing,” Tay said with a laugh. “Now don’t change the subject. Read it,” Taylor exclaimed.
When Thiago insisted that he wouldn’t, his younger brother tore it out of his hand. Thiago looked uncomfortable. I glanced back and forth between them, wondering what the big deal was, as Taylor started to read:
“Dear future Thiago: I hope when you finally find this, you’ve stopped feeling the way you do.
I hope Dad’s stopped cheating on Mom and everything’s gone back to the way it was before.
” Taylor stopped and looked at his brother.
After a brief pause, he continued: “I hope Tay still doesn’t know about any of that, and I hope you’re in college now playing for the best basketball team you can find.
You’re good, now get out there and live my dream.
And another thing: I hope by the time you dig up this box, you’ve got the courage to tell Kam how you feel about her. ”
Fuck. I didn’t see that coming. Taylor paused for a second and gripped the letter more tightly. I looked at Thiago, my heart racing.
“Our kiss was even better than I’d thought it would be, and I’m sure she liked it too. She’s the girl of my dreams, treat her right and tell her every day how special she is. See you in ten years. Thiago.”
After he’d finished, Taylor asked, “You guys kissed?” He hadn’t taken his eyes off the letter.
Thiago stood. “That was ages ago, dude.”
Taylor stood up too. “Were you ever going to tell me?” he asked angrily.
I was speechless, and Thiago answered for me calmly. “Why would she? It was kiddie shit.”
“What else did y’all do?”
“Nothing, Taylor,” I said, but all I could think about was what had happened between us just a couple of weeks ago, or what had almost happened on the day Thiago came to talk to me about my brother.
“You were in love with her?” Taylor shouted.
I couldn’t believe how closed-minded he was being. “Taylor, he was twelve years old.”
“Who cares? I’ve been in love with you since I was nine.”
I felt lightheaded. That was news. I took a step toward him, he looked so upset I just wanted to give him a hug, but he held out a hand to stop me. “The party’s about to start. I’ll see you there. I need some time to myself right now.”
He turned around and walked off, and I watched him disappear into the trees.
“Did you know?” I asked Thiago.
“That he was nuts about you? Kam, who isn’t?”
I didn’t really know what that meant. Thiago crouched down and put everything back in the box, then turned on the flashlight on his phone and started walking back. “Come on,” he said. “Leave your shovel, I’ll come back and get them tomorrow.”
I didn’t say a word on the way back, and once we emerged from the woods into his yard, I could hear the music blasting from the Di Biancos’ house.
“Let the party begin.”