Nancy Titcomb was the student speaker. Behind the lectern, in straight rows of folding chairs, sat the faculty of the high school. She read her speech without once looking up, and the sun glinted so bright off the microphone it was hard to see her face. She spoke in her trademark sustained squeak, as if the whole world needed cheering up, and that’s just what she got up this morning to do. She finished by summarizing the major points of her talk: Team Spirit, Sacrifice, and the Pursuit of Happiness–“On your mark, get set, go!” The whole stadium welled up into clapping and whistling, and Allie rolled her eyes at Leo. When he smiled and nodded back, she leaned over and kissed him on the neck. They stayed and watched the seniors march one at a time up onto the platform to get their diplomas until the P’s, when Gerry Poitras clomped up the wood steps smiling out at the crowd like they had come just for him and, “Geez, how white of you all to come!”

On the way out of the stadium, Leo let go of Allie’s hand long enough to tell Ruth they’d be over in a while. He would’ve told Mr. Poitras himself, but GP’s old man was still taking pictures even though Gerry was somewhere back in the black mass of giddy seniors.

Out in the dirt parking lot, Allie wrapped her arms around Leo’s neck and kissed him soft on the mouth. “You know, Gerry’s sweet, Leo, but I don’t see you as the football type.”

“Neither is Gerry, he was second string.”

“But he’s a square. He probably ate up all that candied crap Nancy Titcomb was spewing out. Can you believe she didn’t mention the war or the riots once? Not once.”

“Yeah, I can.”

Without talking about it, they headed quietly up the road past the stadium into the woods of the National Park Service. They walked along a narrow paved path until there was nothing but spruce around them. A bed of brown pine needles covered the ground. The band was playing a marching tune and sounded closer than it was.

“You want to hike up to the top, see if we can see your place from there?”

“Nope.” Allie took his hand and stepped onto the pine needles. “I want to get lost.”

“We’ll miss Gerry’s party.”

“So? Probably a bunch of talky kids sitting around some clean garage, drinking Cokes, eating a frightening amount of potato chips while they groove to some bad forty-fives. What on earth are we going to miss?”

Leo followed a few feet, but then he pulled his hand free and walked faster so he was leading. Soon the ground dipped into a small flat crater with green brush growing up two sides. Allie sat down.