A Summer Afternoon in the Treehouse

Write a story about a summer afternoon spent in a treehouse.

Summers in Texas are like no other … it starts with the overbearing heat, the bipolar weather – afternoon rainstorms that last maybe five to 10 minutes at a time, and then, there are the dust storms in some areas.

Yet, in Madisonville, Texas, on North Madison Street, in the backyard of a red brick home across from the Catholic church, the summer afternoon was quiet, and there was a breeze that seemed to stir up the leaves on the four pecan trees in the yard. In the middle of the yard was a large oak tree with a wooden ladder leading up to a platform treehouse. There were no closed in walls, but posts held up a roof.

Underneath the tree were a couple of lawn chairs and a table. Across the yard was a playset with swing, and a dog kennel with a fenced-in area.

It was obvious a yard belonging to a family.

A middle-aged woman with shoulder-length, auburn hair pulled back into a ponytail can be seen sitting in one of those chairs under the tree – dressed in a pair of black shorts and a tye-dye tank shirt, and a pair of flip flops. A book was in her hand, and sunglasses were covering her eyes, and her cell phone lay on the table beside a bottle of Dr. Pepper.

“Maggie! Maggie! You have got company.” Maggie looked toward the house where her mother stood at the top of the steps leading to the laundry room door. Next to her was a man – about her age, with his dark black hair cut in a military crew cut, his skin was olive-tone, and he wore a pair of blue jeans, and a gray t-shirt with the words Army screen printed across his chest, and a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

He grinned. Her mom was smiling behind him, fanning herself. Maggie smiled, and got up, “Company, Mom, that is no company, that is just Javier.” Maggie Cooper started walking toward the door. “Oh Mags, Javier … you are more than just Javier.” Mrs. Cooper said, and shut the door.

Javier Gonzales grinned, “It is just Javie? That is not what you said in London last fall." He started walking to her.

Maggie smiled. The two hugged, and he kissed her lightly on the lips. “I missed you,” Maggie said.

“Really? Me, or my body?” Javie hugged her tighter to him.

She laughed when he squeezed her butt, “Stop, Javie. You know Mom is watching out the window.” Maggie moved out of the hug.

Javie grinned, and walked to the tree. “How much do you weigh now? 145?” He looked up at the platform.

“139, thank you. Why?” Maggie asked taking her sunglasses off.

“Well, I am at 190 … all muscle, babe before you say a word. Think we can get up in the treehouse? I mean your dad and my dad did build it to hold at least 500 pounds with all of us kids.” Javier started climbing up the ladder.

Maggie grinned, “Really?”

“I have dreamed of hanging out with you in the treehouse again,” Javie said. “Are you chicken?”

Maggie made a face. “OK, OK.” She started climbing up the ladder.

Maggie’s mom laughed from her spot at the kitchen sink window. “Kenny … Come here.”

Kenneth Cooper walked from the counter where he was dipping ice cream into a cup. “What is it, Laura?”

“Look at those two.” Laura turned off the sink.

Kenneth looked through the curtains and laughed. “They think they are slick … like we don’t know they have been dating for months now?”

“Will it still hold them?” Laura asked, drying her hands.

Kenneth laughed, “When Carlos and I built it, we doubled it, and made sure it would last for a long time, and hold at least 500 pounds … I mean with all the kids in the neighborhood using it. They will be fine. Let’s give them some privacy.”

Laughter could be heard as Javie and Maggie crawled up on the platform. “I can’t believe we are doing this.” Maggie slid over to the middle, looking over the railing. Javie sat next to her, and laughed, “What? Being here? Or us?”

Maggie gave him a look. “We are in our mid-30s and we are in a treehouse.”

He laughed, and leaned over, and kissed her forehead. “Do you remember the first time we kissed was in this treehouse? We were what 10?”

“I was 8, you were 10. Look, our carvings are still there.” Maggie pointed to the tree where the names of Javier, Maggie, and their siblings were carved in the tree.

Maggie settled back and leaned against a rail, and Javie sat across from her, with their feet touching. Both were lost in their thoughts for a moment.

A rare cool breeze swept through the tree. “That feels good.” Maggie leaned her head back. It then that Javier saw her hearing aid. He smiled. Maggie lost her hearing, or most of it, in her right ear when she was out of high school due to an under-treated ear infection. She hated hearing aids, but in the last few years, the loss became more of a problem.

She looked up, and saw him looking at her, she raised her eyebrows, “What?”

“Nothing … Just noticing how much you have changed in the last several months … You just seem so much more at peace and happier.” He touched her foot with his shoe.

Maggie laughed. “I am not giving you any credit, bud.” Javier and Maggie had been best friends since Maggie’s folks moved in next door to his parents when she was three years of age. They had been through a lot together, and finally realized, they loved each other more than friends. Several months ago, while Maggie was living in London, England with her job, Javier flew over during a break. They spent a month getting to know each other as a couple.

And they realized it was a good thing.

Everyone they knew had been pushing for the match for years.

“Oh, I hope not. I think this, whatever this is with you, has much more to do with this renewal you made with the Lord after you left London,” Javier looked back toward the back yard.

Maggie grinned. She had given up her job as a news journalist for a major news company, and decided to follow God’s calling in her life – to do some traveling and ministry work, and write about it. When she did that, doors started opening, a job opened up, and the ministry started growing – and that was just a few months ago.

“Well, you might have a little to do with this, now that you will be home for good in a few months,” Maggie said thinking about Javier’s retirement from the military.

He grinned. Looking up at the top of the tree, “You know, this tree used to fascinate me when we were kids.”

“It fascinated all of us … it was so big.” Maggie said as she wiped a bug off of her shirt.

“That is the thing. It was so big. I mean, it is big now, but when we were kids, we thought this was like a giant, and climbing up here, it was like whoa, we are big deal. And now, look at us, two or three steps and we are here.” Javier leaned back against the rail and put his hands on the posts.

Maggie smiled. “Do you know what I remember most about this tree, and this treehouse?” Maggie stood up and pretended to do some ballet steps. She stopped at one of the limbs and put her hand on the roof’s edge.

Javier looked up at her, and said, “What?”

“This was like our safe haven … we could come up here by ourselves or a bunch of us together, and just hang out, talk, imagine, read, laugh, cry, tell secrets and dream.” She turned around and looked at him.

She held her hand toward him. He took it, and kissed the top of it, and stood up himself, still holding her hand. “You know, I have an idea. Stay here.” He walked over to the hole in the platform and started down the ladder.

“What are you doing?” Maggie asked, looking over the rail as Javier made it to the ground.

He grinned, “You will see. Hey, can you catch this?” He folded up a lawn chair, and stretched, reaching it as high as he could to the platform. Maggie leaned over and took it. “I got it. What am I doing with it?”

“Just put it up here. Here is the other one.” He handed her another chair.

Maggie took it. “OK.””

“I will be right back.” Javier grinned, and walked hurriedly to the fence that separated his parents’ home from Maggie’s.

Maggie dusted the chairs off and wondered why she did that. She set them up, and then sat down in one, and got her phone out of her pocket, and started browsing her social media accounts.

Javier reappeared. He had a bag with him. “Hey, do you have your phone?”

She looked down at him, “You know I do. You can see it.” She said.

“Hand it here,” Javier said.

Maggie got down on the floor of the platform, and reached by stretching, and he grabbed her phone. “What are you doing with my phone?”

He walked over to the patio, and put his phone and her phone on the table, and walked back to the ladder, and climbed up.

When his head appeared through the hole, Maggie, who was back in the chair, looked at him. “What did you do with our phones?”

“From now on, for an hour a day, we are not going to have those things near us. We are going offline.” He said as he pulled himself up.

Maggie was about to protest. He put his hand over her mouth and kissed the top of her head. “Trust me.”

She licked his hand.

“Eeww. Gross.” He wiped his hand on his shirt.

Sitting in the chair next to her, he opened the bag. He handed her a bottle of water and got one out for himself. Then he pulled out a sandwich bag of Oreo cookies. There as about six in the bag. “My love.”

Maggie was obsessed with the cookie – had been since she was a toddler. Everyone in her life knew it. It was the only sweet that she ate.

Maggie giggled, “Aw. Your mom always had a stash just for me.” She took the bag from him and looked into the tote. “What else you got there, bub?”

He pulled out a sandwich bag… “Is that a Twinkie?” She asked, merriment in her eyes. Javier loved Twinkies as a kid.

“My mom loves me. And there are two Twinkies, thank you. And I have … tada.” He pulled out his Amazon Fire, and pushed a button, “Alexa, play K-Love.” “Playing Your K-Love station on I-Heart radio.” Very softly then, the music – Christian Contemporary – started to play.

Javier put the fire in his lap as he pulled out two small, thin books. “Comic books? Where in the world? Richie Rich and Archie. Give me Archie.” She took one from him. “Mom was cleaning out our boxes the other day, and found these … still in good shape. There are about 300 of them in my room in my chest right now.”

“What are you going to do with them?” She asked flipping through the comic book.

Javier said, “I am keeping them for my kids.” He winked.

Maggie laughed, “I used to love sitting up here and reading those and we’d listen to music.”

He grinned, “That is not all.” Javier pulled out a box, and put it on the floor, and set the Amazon Fire in front of it. He opened the lid, and pulled out a bag. “For you.”

“Javie,” she said, and took the bag, and slowly opened it. When she saw what it was, Maggie gasped, and her eyes got misty. Javier smiled, and said, “Well?”

“My Grover.” She pulled out a plush toy – of about 20 inches – blue with a huge nose and big eyes. It was a character from Sesame Street – the children’s television show. It had been Maggie’s since she was four, and when she moved to college, she thought she lost it in moving. “Where in the world did you find it?” It was in great condition.

Javier, put his Twinkie down and bottled water, and took the doll from Maggie, and rubbed some imaginary dirt off of it. “After you guys pulled out that next morning, Dad and I had gone into the house to lock up for your folks. I walked upstairs to your room to check the lights or something, I don’t know, and it was laying on the floor. I picked it up, and it smelled of your perfume. I think that day was the day I realized I had fallen in love with you, or had been in love with you. I took it home with me, and well, um … when I enlisted and at boot camp and all these years, he has been with me in my trunk.”

Maggie’s eyes went wide. “You are lying.”

He shook his head. “Grover went with me to Iraq and to Germany and to Israel.” He handed the toy back to her.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me in London?” She asked, taking the doll back, and hugging it. “Oooh. Now it smells like you and Old Spice.”

The wind in the tree became almost melodic as the breeze swept through again. Javier licked his lips and looked away for a minute. “I didn’t know how you felt. I was not going to admit I stole your Grover and look like a stalker.”

Maggie laughed and leaned over to him, and they kissed again. “Thank you for keeping him safe.”

Javier laughed, and they both sat back, and spent the rest of the afternoon, reading comic books, talking, snacking, and just watching the world go by from the treehouse.