After talking it over a little, Jack and Vixen agreed that it was probably a better idea to see Vixen’s mother face to face about their change in plans than to just call her on the cell phone. After all, if they kept everything honest and above board, they stood a much better chance of the two of them hanging out together being routine a thing that wouldn’t be commented on, and that meant a good deal more freedom in the long run.

Jack could see that Mrs. Hvalchek was a little dubious about the idea of the two of them going to Camden and probably not being back till latish. But, after they’d explained what had happened the last hour, she could see that the two kids wanted to get their minds off what had happened. “That must have been something terrible for the two of you to see,” she exclaimed.

“It wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world, that’s for sure,” Jack told her. “About all I can say is that it had to have been worse for the deputy and the firemen who were there. I was just as glad that we stayed back at the Jeep.”

“Me, too,” Vixen agreed. “It could have been a whole lot worse, but neither of us felt much like doing any bird watching after finding him. That’s why a movie seemed like a good idea.”

“What movie are you going to see?” Mrs. Hvalchek asked, sure that the kids were heading for something that was filled with sex and gory violence.

“No idea what’s playing. I figured we’d just take a swing by the Multiplex and see what appeals to Vixen. The odds are that means some chick flick,” Jack replied.

“Well, I suppose,” Vixen’s mother replied. “Get her back before midnight, Jack.”

“I think it’ll be well before that,” he said. “I’m an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type. Of course if she wants to go birding with me in the morning she might well be leaving before you get up.”

“That’ll be the day, when she gets out of bed before ten in the morning on a weekend,” Mrs. Hvalchek snorted.

“I don’t know, Mom,” Vixen smiled, deciding that since this had gone so well so far she might as well see if she could push her mother’s limits a little further. “Actually, it sounds kind of like fun. If we get back early enough I might just set my alarm and join Jack. Would it be all right if I left you a note if I do? ”

“Even if he gets you back early, I can’t believe you would get up before dawn to go bird watching,” her mother shook her head with a smile. “But if it happens, leave a note.”

“OK, Mom, thanks,” Vixen smiled. “I guess we’ll be back early, then.”

“Are you leaving right now?”

“Pretty quick,” Jack replied. “I need to take a swing by my house and drop off Stas and some of the birding gear. Stas is pretty good about watching stuff in the Jeep for a few minutes, but I don’t want to have to depend on him to do it for a long time.”

“All right, I’ll see you later, if I’m still up when you get back,” Mrs. Hvalchek said. “By the way, are you sure it was Mr. Ordway that you saw?”

“Pretty sure,” Jack said. “I mean, it could have been his twin brother, but I think it was his car.”

“I think so too,” Vixen agreed. “I didn’t get a real good look either, and frankly I think I’m just as glad that I didn’t.”

It didn’t take long for Vixen to run up to her room and get a light jacket in case it got cool later. The two of them piled into the Jeep, where Stas was still waiting for them. “How much do you want to bet that she’s on the phone right now?” Jack grinned.

“Hell, no bet,” Vixen laughed. “I don’t want to say she’s gossip central, but that’s something that demands to get passed along.”

Jack started the Jeep. “After all you’ve said, I’m a little surprised that she gave in on the idea of going to Camden so easily.”

“Hell, you’re surprised?” Vixen snorted. “Think about me! I’m really, really surprised! I mean, like that’s never happened before! Well, not like there’s ever been any chance for it to happen before, but still! I honestly figured I’d have to be away from home in college before I’d get to go out on a real date.”

Jack thought about it for a second before replying. His mother had teased him about being on a date with Vixen earlier, and Jack had more or less thought it was hanging out, not a real date. On the other hand, there could be little doubt that going to Camden for a movie and probably a dinner would qualify as one. Mostly, he expected that he was going to take more teasing from his mother. “Well, either way,” he said tentatively, “I’m glad she didn’t put up much of a fuss.”

“Oh yeah. Really? Me go out on a date? I mean, as if! Jack, it looks like she’s going to ease up on me quite a bit as long as you’re involved. I, uh, I don’t want to hold you to anything or anything, but thanks, and I hope we can hang out a little.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Jack smiled. “I like hanging out with you and I was hoping that she wouldn’t be a roadblock. Just to be on the safe side, though, let’s not give her any cause to be suspicious until it gets to be an established thing.”

“Suspicious of what?”

“Of anything that she’d be suspicious about. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I guess I do. At least she didn’t give me the lecture right in front of you.”

“The lecture?”

“You know, the ones about being a good little girl, about boys only wanting one thing, and me not being a girl who will give it to them, not getting into a situation where I could get pregnant, that sort of thing.”

“Oh, that lecture,” Jack grinned. “Mom didn’t exactly give me one this morning, the male version, of course, but she reminded me that she could do it. I guess they really were kids once themselves.”

“It doesn’t seem like it, does it?” she smiled in reply.

It was only another couple minutes over to Jack’s house. Jack parked the Jeep in the driveway, grabbed an armload of birding gear, and headed inside, with Vixen following along. They found his mother in her living room chair, feet up and shoes off, reading a magazine. “Back so soon, Jack?” she asked. “I wasn’t expecting you much before supper.”

“Something unexpected happened,” Jack explained. “We found a body. You know Vixen, don’t you? I’ll let her tell you about it while I haul this stuff to my room.”

“A body?” his mother replied incredulously.

“Yeah, Mr. Ordway, we think,” Jack explained as he headed toward his room. He really wasn’t anxious to tell the story again, what there was of it. Enough had happened to him in the last day already; this was just one more thing on top of a pile of things.

Since this was now an official date, Jack decided that it wouldn’t hurt to clean up a bit – at least wash the dust off his face, comb his hair, and change into something other than dark birding clothes. Maybe Vixen could get through the story by the time he got back out to the living room. It took him a couple minutes before he was back out in the living room, and to his surprise his father Jim was there. “Well, this is a surprise, having you home in the middle of the afternoon, and bringing a lovely friend with you.”

“Mr. Erikson, that’s laying it on a little thick, don’t you think? ” Vixen replied, blushing a little. “With my complexion, I’m hardly anything anyone could call lovely.”

“I took that into consideration,” Jack’s father said. “Beauty lies in more than just the face.”

“All right,” Vixen laughed. “I see where Jack gets it from.”

“What? Being suave and sophisticated, and good with a line?”

“No,” she laughed again. “Just being an all around nice guy.”

“I’m glad it runs in the family,” he grinned and got down to business. “Jack, I hadn’t expected to find you home at this time of day.”

“We hadn’t planned on being here long,” Jack admitted. “Vixen and I were going to go down to catch a movie in Camden.”

“Well, I’m glad I caught you,” his father said. “Would you be willing to trade my truck and the Jeep this afternoon? Lars and I were talking it over this morning. We’d kind of like to run out to the hunting cabin, do a couple chores, and bring the generator back here and tear it down in hopes of getting it to keep running for more than ten minutes at a time. I don’t think the truck would make it through the mud hole, even though things have dried out quite a bit.”

“Sure, I’ve got no problem with it,” Jack said. “I’ve already been to Camden once today. I’m not all that crazy about getting blown around at highway speed again, especially with Vixen along. You know how to take the back seat out, don’t you?”

“I think I was the one who showed you,” his dad grinned. “I’ll even be nice and hose it off when we get back.”

“Good, it’ll be nice to have a clean Jeep to take Vixen birding with tomorrow morning,” Jack laughed.

“Good grief,” Jim shook his head. “Vixen, don’t tell me you’re one of those maniacs, too.”

“Not yet, Mr. Erikson,” Vixen smiled, “but pretty soon, I think, at least as long as Jack is involved.”

“Fine with me,” he replied. “Vixen, I’ll tell you and anyone who asks that there are a lot worse things that you could be involved in at your age. You ran into some of it last night from what Barb tells me.”

“Yes,” she sighed. “I’m just glad that Jack and Stas were there to get me out of there before it got any worse. I never dreamed just going to get a cone on a hot, boring evening would come out like it did.”

“Well, OK, you kids go have fun,” Mr. Erikson told them. “Have you got anything in the Jeep you’re going to want?”

“No, not that I can think of,” Jack told him. “You got anything in the truck?”

In a couple more minutes Jack and Vixen were headed out to the pickup, which was an older Chevy S-10 with the six-cylinder, automatic transmission and two-wheel drive. It was a small truck, really not an off-road vehicle, and the hunting cabin was well off of anything that could be called a road with several tough spots along the way, which is why Jack’s father had bought the Jeep in the first place. They got in and belted up; then Jack backed the truck out onto the street.

“I really like your dad,” Vixen smiled. “He may be a little full of it, but he seems pretty cool.”

“Yeah, he is,” Jack agreed. “He doesn’t care all that much for my birding and really wishes I was into school sports, but he doesn’t make a big deal about it.” He didn’t say anything to Vixen about it, but his dad had slipped him a twenty in the midst of the getting the vehicles switched around. Jack was grateful for it; after this morning his well was getting a little dry.

“You seem to get along with your mother pretty well, too.”

“Pretty good,” he agreed. “Of course everything isn’t sweetness and light. My little brother Howie is a pain in the ass. I’m not sure whether it’s because he’s a natural pain in the ass, or really whether he went out for football. He’s got that football-player attitude that, since I’m into birds and not ball, I’m some kind of wuss.”

“I knew everything couldn’t be perfect,” she smiled.

“Could be worse,” Jack shook his head. “He’s going to be a sophomore this year, so he’ll still be on junior varsity. That means he doesn’t get a full dose of the varsity bullshit until next year, when I’ll be out of here. Fortunately, we don’t cross paths much. I mean, thank God for little favors.”

Since the truck was clean and Jack more or less wanted to keep it that way, he decided to avoid the gravel short cut out of town and take the long way out on Central to the state road. Soon they were headed south, with Spearfish Lake rapidly falling behind them. After they were a couple miles away, out of the corner of his eye Jack noticed Vixen stirring around in the truck seat. He twisted his head around a little to see Vixen taking off her seat belt. Without comment, she slid over to the center of the truck and fastened the lap belt there, up close to him. “You know,” she said. “This is one thing that’s missing from the Jeep.”

Jack saw the move for what it was, an invitation to put his arm around her, which he did. She snuggled up a little closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder. “You’re right,” he agreed. “This is something you can’t do in the Jeep very well.”

As in the morning, the run down to Camden took close to an hour – perhaps a little longer, since the traffic was heavier. The Multiplex was close to the Mall where Jack had been in the morning, and at the late afternoon time the parking lot wasn’t busy. He knew they had a cut rate on late-afternoon shows, and that would stretch his money a little further.

Even though Jack’s arm was getting a little numb from being wrapped around Vixen’s shoulder most of the way from Spearfish Lake, it was a little hard to take it away and get out of the truck. As they walked toward the theater, Jack made a mental note to sit on Vixen’s other side during the movie to give that arm a break for the drive home.

There were actually ten theaters in the Multiplex, eight of which displayed movies that Jack hadn’t even heard of – movies weren’t exactly his thing. “Anything interest you?” Vixen asked.

“Not particularly,” Jack shook his head. “We’ll see what you want to see.”

Of course, she picked one he’d not heard of, and it proved to be a romantic comedy or chick flick, however you wanted to describe it. It featured some very sophisticated and beautiful women acting rather stupid to some very handsome and Jack thought most likely gay guys, and for the most part he tuned it out after the first ten minutes. What he didn’t tune out was Vixen, snuggled up next to his left side, his arm around her shoulder, hand hanging down on her arm. After a while, he felt her shift her body around a little, and realized that the shift put his hand right next to her breast. Almost instinctively, he moved his hand a little to rest right on it, and received for his efforts not a slap or a jerking away, but a little contented wiggle to get it in just the right place. If Vixen had been a cat, Jack could swear that she would have been purring.

It was something he never would have dreamed of at this time the day before, when he’d been hunched down in his impromptu blind out in the pine barrens, hoping that the Kirtland’s Warbler would visit its nest before the light got too bad. A lot had happened in the last day, both good and bad, but the breast he had his hand on and the girl it was attached to definitely led the good side of the list. This afternoon, it really seemed like he had a girlfriend, something that would have been unthinkable the day before.

While Jack’s primary interest had been his birds, a girlfriend was something that he’d dreamed of for several years, even more after he’d earned his driver’s license. But it had never seemed like it was something that could really happen, not to him, at least until college and was away from the small-town kids he’d known all his life. The few girls who had appealed to him up until yesterday had not been interested in him, and were unreachable and untouchable to a non-jock. He had never really even considered Vixen in all those years, and hadn’t even known her very well. Now, it seemed like he’d discovered someone who was something of a kindred spirit. It was anyone’s guess whether this would come to anything, whether she would learn to share his interest in birds, or what, but for the moment having his arm around this girl opened new doors to him. It might not last through college – hell, it might not last until school started again – but for the moment he was content with his new-found discovery.

Understandably, his mind wasn’t on the movie. As they reached what was obviously an intensely romantic part, where the leading lady and leading man were sharing some hot caresses and the music got really romantic, Jack felt Vixen’s hand on his occupied one – not taking it away, but squeezing on it, which of course made his hand squeeze on her breast. He could feel her bra through the thin fabric of the tank top, feel every seam in it, feel the softness of the breast below, and what was most likely a firm nipple beneath the fabric. It was magical; he’d never felt anything like it before, never dreamed of how good it felt. It seemed like a new door was open to him, one he’d been aware of but never dreamed of what it was like.

As the scene got hotter and the music even more intense, he could feel Vixen twisting a little more in the seat, turning her head toward him, and he didn’t have to wonder what that was about. Although the position was a little awkward, his lips met hers, and a long, languid kiss that was about a thousand times more passionate than the one the night before got under way. Jack had no idea how long it went on, only that he enjoyed it more than he could have believed possible. When the kiss finally broke and he again became a little aware of the movie, it was well past the hot romantic scene and he’d lost what little thread of the story that he’d been able to follow, not that he minded, no not at all.

Eventually the movie came to an end. As the lights came up Jack was just a little sorry that he had to take his hand away from Vixen’s breast, where it had stayed for perhaps the last hour or so, and he had the definite impression that she wasn’t happy to have it gone. They stood up and slid sideways out of the row of seats, but once in the aisle they joined hands and shared a quick little peck of a kiss. Jack still couldn’t have told anyone the name of the movie, but he’d enjoyed it more than he ever could have imagined.

“Well, what do you think?” he asked as they followed the crowd up the aisle. “We probably have time for another movie, but it’ll have to start right away. We’ll have to grab fast food if we want to be back at a reasonable hour. Or, we can take off now, find a real restaurant and have a real sit-down meal.”

“I think I’m leaning a little toward the sit-down meal,” she replied. “When we get out in the lobby we can look around and see if there’s anything else that starts soon that’s worth seeing, but I don’t think I want to see another movie just to say I saw it. I hope you enjoyed that one as much as I did.”

“I enjoyed myself,” Jack replied honestly. “I can’t say it was because of the movie, but I had a good time.”

“I did too,” she giggled, “and not because of the movie, either.” Jack didn’t have to be a genius or an expert in romance to tell where that thought was leading, and frankly he rather liked the idea.

It took a while to get out in the lobby. The only movie starting soon was an action- fantasy flick that had been advertised on TV a lot, with the intimation that it had a little sex and a lot of random violence. They looked at the crowd lined up to get in, and with little discussion decided that a nice dinner seemed like the better option before heading back to Spearfish Lake. “I can’t do real expensive,” Jack said, “but I can handle a Denny’s or something like that.”

“Sounds fine to me,” Vixen agreed. “Some place where we can sit and talk a little. If I learned anything from that movie, I learned that we’ve got to do a little talking about where we’re heading.”

“If you mean what I think you mean, I think I agree,” he nodded. “Things about not going too far overboard too soon.”

“Right, that’s what I’m talking about,” she smiled. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t go swimming once in a while.”

They were still holding hands as they headed toward the exit, enjoying each other’s company and looking forward to enjoying their time together a little more, when they heard a girl’s voice: “Vixen! Jack! Thank goodness you’re here! Can you help me?”

Both of them turned to see Summer Trevetheck, with tears streaming down her face.

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.