The storm raged outside, rain beating relentlessly against the house and wind howling past the windows. We were lucky. The hurricane came ashore a hundred miles south of us, saving us from the brunt of its power. Our mother and father, at a church function even further south, in Florida, were safe too, but all flights to our area were grounded. They wouldn't be back for at least another two days, so for the time being, I was stuck with my little sister, Hannah.
Hurricanes weren't unheard of in our area, and so every few years we had a family tradition of riding them out while watching movies and playing board games. "So?" Hannah asked, holding up two family classics: bland little cartoons with sappy morals and saccharine songs.
"Aren't we a little old for those?" Quick answer: yes. I had just finished my first year of college and Hannah was a year behind me.
"Mike," she said, grinning. "Did you have something else in mind?"
"I brought back a couple movies, yeah. But you can't tell dad." She made a zipping motion across her lips, and I turned on my heel and started toward my bedroom, where I'd hidden the movies.
While my nineteen-year-old self goes and retrieves the movies, I should tell you: don't get the wrong idea. These were movies-movies you and your friends probably watched years before, but they were R-rated features, and saying that my sister and I were sheltered would be a gross understatement. A bit of background. My mother and father were leaders in a church they'd helped found. It wasn't anything unseemly like you see on the news, just stifling. If it didn't involve God, it didn't belong in the house. The original plan was that I would follow my father into the ministry after high school, but despite all their efforts, I was never much of a believer, at least never to the level they wanted me to be. It took years, but I had finally convinced them to let me go to college and study economics, and after I was finished, I would come back and help out with the church's finances. I hated lying to them about that last part, but I needed an extra four years to figure out how to get free. I knew they kept tabs on me while I was in college, but I was used to this, and avoided the eyes and ears of the church long enough to date around. After a while, I had even found a girl with whom I could share this part of my life, and she understood that I could have no contact with her while I was home for the summer. She had even helped me pick out a handful of R-rated movies she had seen when she was Hannah's age.
Returning to the living room, I held up the choices and Hannah leapt from the floor, where she had been busy setting up a game of Monopoly, a game grudgingly allowed into the house to teach math. In an old church camp t-shirt, sweatpants, bathrobe and slippers, she was dressed for weathering a storm in comfort. Her straight red hair flowed around and down her shoulders, complementing the emerald green robe. As a kid, I used to tease her, telling her that she was adopted. We were all blonde and tan except Hannah, who was a redhead and so pale she could scarcely take a stroll outside without bursting into flame.
Her eyes darted from movie to movie. "How do I choose?" she asked, excited, but genuinely confused. How, indeed. If you've never been part of normal society, these kinds of choices seem alien. It had taken my girlfriend months to teach me how to figure this kind of thing out. How could I teach my little sister in twenty words or less?
"Gangsters, funny love story, scary monsters in space, and elves, dwarves and wizards," I said pointing to each in turn.
"Hmm."
"It was tough my first time, too," I said. I had been privately angry most of my teenage life, and when I had to make this decision for the first time, I had nearly flown into a rage from the unfairness of not being included in the rest of human existence. Hannah was taking this much better than I had.
"What's a gangster movie like?"
"Suspenseful, violent," I said. "Probably has a car chase. Dad would say that it glorifies sin and wickedness."
"Gangsters," she said. "Definitely gangsters."
I went and put the movie in the VCR and took my place at the Monopoly board. It was difficult to play with Hannah so distracted by the movie, but the look on her face was worth it. When one of the mobsters got "whacked," she covered her mouth and her eyes went wide.
"Do you want me to turn it off?" I asked.
"Don't you dare!" she said. "That was ... sad! I liked that guy! I bet Don Whats-his-name is gonna get some sweet revenge."
I laughed and handed her the dice. "Your turn."
"Where did you get these movies?" she asked.
"At the video store."
"Duh..." she said, rolling her eyes. "How did you find out about them?"
"Everyone knows about them."
"Everyone?"
"Mostly," I said. "I mean, there are people like us, who don't really get out much, but most people are at least aware of them."
"So how'd you find out?" I thought about what to say, but my delayed response caused her to lean in. "Mike, how did you find out?"
"Just by walking around," I said. "It's like everyone knows except us."
"But where did you find out about this one?"
"I... I can't tell you."
"Mike." She gestured toward the screen, where the characters were burying the whacked mobster in a shallow grave.
"Eh ... right. But you have to promise you won't tell anyone."
"Ok," she said, raising her hand in mock pledge. "I won't tell mom and dad."
"No. I mean anyone." This got her attention. The teenage insincerity drained out of her for the moment and she nodded soberly. "I've been seeing someone."
"Like-?"
"A girl." It felt good to say it. I hadn't told a soul about it, and I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
"Mike! Dad's going to kill you!"
"No he won't, because he's not going to find out."
"But he always finds out."
"Not this time," I said. "I got wise to his act in high school. I can keep it a secret. Can you?"
"Of course!"
Things got quiet between us for a while, and we watched the movie and moved our pieces around the board, buying up properties and jockeying for control. When Hannah got sent to Jail, she paused and looked at me with an expression I'd never seen from her before. Was it bashful or something else? Envy? "So what's it like?"
"It?"
"Being with a girl."
"She's really nice," I said, thinking of Carrie. "And she's funny! There was this one time, we were out-" Hannah's stare stopped me. "Eh?"
"I meant like ... you know," she said, her eyes focused on her fingers, which were nervously fidgeting with the fuzz of her slippers.
