“I’m back.” Trixie’s arms were filled with treats, and she used her elbow to pull Honey’s bedroom door closed with a thud. “I forgot to ask what everyone wanted, so I brought as much as I could carry.”
“Good thinking,” Di answered, as Trixie strewed her findings over the floor. “Ooh! Chocolate fudge!”
The three fourteen-year-olds were having a sleepover, the last one of the summer before school resumed. The floor was already scattered with pillows and the remains of their previous snack. The rest of the household was asleep, but the three were not yet ready to call it a night.
“What are we going to do now?” Honey wondered, after taking a delicate sip of soda. “Do you want to watch a movie or something?”
Di shook her head. “I have an idea. Let’s make up a kind of story. Honey, do you have some paper I can cut up? And something to put the pieces in?”
“I’ll get them,” Honey answered, jumping up. “I guess, then, you want a pen and some scissors, too?”
She returned with all of the supplies and handed them to Di.
“How does this work?” Trixie asked, frowning in a mixture of confusion and curiosity.
Di set down her scissors and handed a few slips of paper to each of her friends, keeping some for herself. She took the container that Honey had found, a small gift box, and separated it from its lid, setting them side by side.
“First,” she explained, “we need to each write our own name on one of these. We can put them in the lid of the box. Maybe we could think of the names of a few other girls we know, too. Then, we’ll think of some boys we know and put them in the box. Oh! I think we need a third box for the things that might happen to us.”
Honey grabbed a small bowl that she used to keep her paper clips tidy and tipped them onto the desk. She also took two more pens, so that they had one each.
“Perfect,” Di pronounced. “Now, write your names.”
Each of them put her own name in the box lid and then exchanged glances.
“Which other girls will we put in?” Di asked.
“Hallie,” Honey suggested, “and Jane Morgan, and Ruthie Kettner.”
Those names were added to the box lid.
“Now, how about the boys?” Di grinned. “We’ll have all the Bob-Whites, of course, but who else?”
“Nick Roberts.” A slight blush tinted Honey’s face as she spoke.
Trixie frowned. “If we’re having Jane Morgan, we’d better have some boys that would go with her. How about Tad Webster?”
Di nodded and wrote both names. “I think I’ll add Ned Schultz, from Iowa.”
“Oh, let’s add the Hubble twins, too,” Honey suggested. She wrote the names and added one to each box.
“And what about the events?” Di asked, frowning. “Kiss. Marry. Have a baby. What else?”
“Some bad ones,” Trixie put in. “Like slap across the face.”
Di smiled and wrote a few more tags. “Okay, I think that will do. Honey, you draw some slips and I’ll write down what we get. Then, maybe, we can sort them into an order that makes sense.”
Honey gulped and drew out a slip from each container. “Let’s see… I have Trixie, who apparently is going to kiss… Ooh! I hope she does. It says Nick Roberts.”
“I am not!” Trixie protested, turning red.
“Trixie, it’s your turn to draw some names,” Di interrupted. “Honey, you’d better put those ones back and mix them around.”
Trixie pulled out the slips, frowning. “Honey. Have a baby. Dan.”
The other two girls squealed with laughter.
“I never thought I’d do that,” Honey giggled. “Di, you have a turn.”
“Oh, this is an interesting one. Jane Morgan will divorce Ned Schultz. And I didn’t think they’d ever met.”
Honey took her next turn. “Oh, no! It’s me again. When are you going to get drawn, Di?” She frowned. “What am I supposedly doing, now? Oh, no! I’m going to marry Brian, but is that before or after I have a baby with Dan?”
“Honey! I never would have thought it of you!” Trixie joked. “My brother will be so upset, no matter which way that turns out.” She grabbed some more slips before Honey could put hers back. “Oh, Di, here’s your turn. You’re going to divorce Nick Roberts.”
“Why do we even have a slip that says ‘divorce’?” Honey wondered, as Di snatched another three slips.
“I thought it would make it more interesting,” she explained, then chortled. “Oh, this is just classic. Barbara Hubbell seduces Dan.”
“And Hallie slaps Mart.” Trixie screwed up her nose. “I’m glad that one wasn’t more inappropriate. Just imagine if she or I got one of my brothers with kissing or something.”
“If that happens, we’d just put him back and try again,” Di decided. “Speaking of which, we’re running out of slips, so I think they’d all better go back in.”
Around and around they went until Di began to be unsure how to untangle the mess.
“I think we’d better stop,” she announced. “Now, give me a few minutes and I’ll tell you the story of our future lives.”
She took her pen and made some notes on the paper, laughing softly as she worked. While they waited, Trixie and Honey finished off the fudge, a bag of potato chips and their sodas.
“I think I’ve got it,” Di told them at last. “I can tell that we’re going to live interesting lives over the next couple of decades, if this is anything to go by. It all begins with Trixie, who has a whirlwind romance with Tad Webster, who sweeps her off her feet in true knight-in-shining-armour fashion, with flowers and candlelight and everything. But we don’t need to worry about the fate of a certain boy who is known to be… fond, shall we say? of Trixie. While she’s with Tad, Jim is keeping himself busy kissing me. But Trixie dumps poor Tad to kiss the handsome, but not totally happy, Nick Roberts. She’s not the only one, though. He’s also kissing both Ruthie Kettner and Honey – and quite likely half the female population of Sleepyside, if he has three girlfriends. At first, none of them seem to mind, but Honey is not satisfied with being one of many and she gives him a well-deserved slap.”
“I hope I don’t have quite so dramatic a life in real life,” Honey murmured.
Di giggled. “Due to his inability to commit to one girl at a time, Honey doesn’t stay with Nick, no matter how handsome he is and how much the tortured artist. In a move that shocks everyone, she has a baby with Dan. But even Dan doesn’t stay around. First, he’s seduced by the lovely Barbara Hubbell, and then he takes up kissing Jane Morgan.”
“I think we need to talk to Dan about his declining taste in girls,” Trixie quipped. “Jane Morgan! Ew!”
“Jane doesn’t stay with Dan, but her marriage to Ned Schultz doesn’t last and they end up divorcing. I think maybe she was kissing Dan while actually married to Ned. I kind of think Ned would be angry about that.” Di sighed. “Around this time, Mart gets to be too annoying and both Hallie and I slap him across the face. He doesn’t fare well after this, either, since no one kisses, seduces or marries him at all.”
“Well, that serves him right for being so annoying,” Trixie put in.
“What do you think he did?” Honey wondered.
Di smirked. “I think it might have been how slow he was at getting around to kissing anyone.”
Honey giggled. “It’s a good thing he’s not so slow in real life, then.”
“Ssh!” Di urged.
“Not listening,” Trixie muttered, her eyes closed and hands over her ears.
Honey laughed and pulled them away from the topic of Mart’s kisses. “Go on, Di. How does the story end?”
“Well, the next excitement happens when I seduce Ned, who had been so cruelly used by Jane. She was, I think, trying to get to Nick, but he is a tortured artist and not a raving lunatic, so he wasn’t interested.” She looked thoughtful. “I’m not really sure what went wrong between me and Ned – maybe he was too hurt by Jane to be able to truly love me – but I next have a short-lived marriage to Nick, which also ends in divorce. There is a happy ending, though. Honey marries Brian, in the ultimate fairy tale wedding, in spite of her love-child with Dan. I think Brian would be a good step-dad, don’t you?”
“Definitely,” Honey pronounced. “After I’ve lived that horrible, wild life, I’ll settle down with good, steady, dependable Brian and live happily ever after.”
Di gave a wide yawn. “But I think it might be time for bed.”
The other two agreed and, after a cursory room-cleaning, they settled down for the night.
Honey Belden twisted the wedding ring on her finger. She glanced out the window, to where her son was playing in the yard. His dark hair and eyes were like enough to her husband’s that most people never thought to question his parentage, but Honey knew that it was a sore point for Brian. To make matters worse, the ten-year-old was her only child, in spite of years of trying for a baby with her husband.
The door opened and Diana breezed in wearing a long dress and tall, pointed hat like a princess in a story book.
“Have you heard the news?” she asked, excitedly. “Ned Schultz is divorcing that nasty, cheating Jane. I think I’ll see if I can make him my second husband. Since things didn’t work out with Nick, I can’t see why I shouldn’t find someone else.”
Honey nodded, seeing that this made perfect sense. “Maybe you can find someone for Trixie, too. She’s had no one since Nick.”
“There’s no one for Trixie. Her name just doesn’t seem to come up.” Di nodded sagely at her own reasoning, which Honey accepted without thought. “Well, I’ll be off, now. Just see that you don’t take up with Nick again. You know what happened the last time.”
Honey nodded. “Nick does seem to get around a bit. He just doesn’t have staying power.”
“Not like Brian,” Di answered, on her way out the door. “Just look at the way he’s accepted Dan’s child.”
Honey looked out the window to the little boy, who had somehow reverted to being a toddler. Jim arrived at that moment, along with Tad Webster and Miss Trask. Tad was wearing the Sleepyside Junior-Senior High School football team uniform and holding a bunch of flowers. The scene had somehow shifted so that they were standing outside and Miss Trask held the leash of a large, unkempt dog of uncertain breed.
“I’ve come to see what you know about me kissing Di,” her brother asked, his expression intense and his tone urgent. “We need to find out why I did that before my algebra homework is due on Tuesday.”
“Oh, but that was a long time ago,” Honey explained. “It was after I had Dan’s baby, but before Di seduced Tad… or was it Nick? I can’t remember.”
“That doesn’t help with my algebra homework,” Jim grumbled, and the other two nodded agreement. The dog barked once and Honey just knew that it was disappointed in her.
“I’m so sorry, Jim,” she cried, while throwing her arms around the dog’s neck and getting its dirty fur right in her face. “I just find it so hard to remember what really happened and not what I thought was going to happen, but I remember remembering how it all worked, but now I can’t remember it at all. And did you know that I had a baby with one man and married another one? I think he might be a bit upset about that, to tell the truth, but I can’t remember if I told him, or if he just guessed.”
Jim grasped her arm and told her very sincerely, “When you know why I kissed Di, it will all make sense.”
Honey sat straight up in bed, her breath making her chest heave for a few moments before she started to calm down. She told herself, over and over, it was just a dream. There was no wedding ring on her finger. She was in her own room, squashed up in her own bed with her two best friends. There was definitely no large and unkempt dog. Everything looked just as it had when she went to sleep.
She looked over at the desk, where they had stashed the props from their game. She eased herself out of bed, moving slowly so as to not wake the others, and went over to them. The moon was shining in through the window, bright enough by which to read a word or two.
Honey dug into the box lid, pulling out a slip. For some reason, she was not surprised to find her name. She took one from the bowl: Marry. Her hand hovered over the box. She reached down and pulled out a slip. She held the small piece of paper between her fingers, hesitant to open it. Who would she really marry? She longed to know.
She crinkled the slip of paper once more, sliding it back and forth between her fingers. A moment later, it dropped back into the box, unread. Yes, she wanted to know, but this would not tell her. Honey allowed the future to remain a mystery and climbed back into bed, to sleep.