NEGOTIATIONS ARE ON FOOT

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

South Gorham, the hometown of Lynn Bonner, author of “My Parents Are Out of Town” is making arrangements to celebrate the sixteenth anniversary of her birth on April 9. The work, which was drafted in third period and passed in fourth, was intended for Bonner’s classmate Rose Pickett. The note’s title was coextensive with its contents. Pickett, who had the previous week been involved in the planning of a party that would include, in her own words, “boys, bottles, and bumping,” had decided, along with Bonner, that the event would be held at one of their houses at the end of the first weekend of the month, and that the exact location would depend upon the whereabouts of parents, specifically whether or not they were likely to be on site as monitors and dampeners. Bonner, the first to check on her parents’ plans, learned that they planned to be in Osborn visiting Bonner’s mother’s sister, and that they would likely spend the night before driving back in the morning. Pickett, upon receiving the note, scribbled a line and a circle one over the other, a crude approximation of an exclamation point intended to convey excitement. Among the other events Pickett is planning is an hour-long closed-door session for Bonner and a boy whose identity has not yet been settled upon but who will definitively not be Bonner’s on-again, off-again boyfriend Jared. Negotiations are on foot with a number of young men who have expressed an interest in attending the party. Among the names are Stuart, Nate, and Harlan.