by Sarah Dessen
“Strongly opposed,” I told her.
“Trinity, we’re taking the boat,” Bailey told her. “Not going to prom.”
“Well, never mind, they’re not here anyway.” She stood up, putting her hands on her lower back. “None of my good shoes are, now that I think of it. I left them all at the storage unit at the house when we were cleaning out for the renters. It wasn’t like I was going to be wearing them.”
“That’s got to be weird,” I said as, undeterred, she went back to picking through the piles of clothes on the bed. “Having to move house every summer.”
She picked up a red blouse, squinting at it. “With the two divorces, we’re used to moving around a lot. It’s not so bad.”
“I hate it,” Bailey told me. “People we don’t know living in our room, sleeping in my bed. It gives me the creeps.”
“Also makes Mom money,” Trinity pointed out.
“You can’t put a price on peace of mind.”
“I can. Eleven hundred a week.”
To this, her sister rolled her eyes, turning back to the small mirror that was propped up on a nearby bookshelf. “Well, you don’t even have to worry, since this is your last time doing it.”
“Really?” I asked Trinity, who was now holding the red shirt up against me.
“Yep,” she replied. “Once the Sergeant is back, he and the baby and I will have our own place over in Delaney, closer to the base. And start planning the wedding. I can’t wait.”
She sounded so happy, her voice a contrast to Bailey’s expression in the mirror, which was hesitant, worried. Change is hard, I thought, thinking of Nana saying this to me. When Bailey saw me watching her, though, she looked away.
Now, back on the boat, I watched my feet carefully as I stepped up from the seating area to the deck. Even so, I felt unstable, miles away from the easy grace that Bailey and all those other lake girls possessed doing the same thing. Clearly, it wasn’t a genetic trait.
“You can take off those shoes, if you want,” Bailey said as I joined her on the dock. “I won’t tell Trinity.”
I looked down at the red wedge sandals her sister had picked out. They were espadrilles, with cork soles, a twist of leather fastened by a tiny gold hoop between the big toe and the rest. I had to admit, they were unlike anything I’d ever worn. But once on, with my own cutoffs and the peasant blouse with the gold threads, they worked.
“I’m good,” I told her.
“Your feet, your funeral,” she said with a shrug. “Come on. The Pavilion’s over here.”
I followed her down the dock to where it made a T into a small boardwalk, about a block or so long, dotted with shops and restaurants. WELCOME TO LAKE NORTH! said a big painted sign on one end, a graphic of a little wave beside it. At the other, built out over the water, was a covered area crisscrossed with string lights. Beneath it, a band made up of older men in tropical print shirts and khaki shorts was playing beach music.
The ride from Mimi’s dock had taken ten minutes, maybe fifteen. But as we began walking toward the Pavilion, I felt more like we’d gone a million miles. It wasn’t just the boardwalk itself, which was lined with planters sprouting perfectly landscaped flowers, expensive cars parked along it. Or the stores we passed, with names like Sprinkles (an ice cream parlor with a madras theme), Rosewater Boutique (offering fancy, flowing resort wear of the type Nana had packed for her cruise), and Au Jus (a dim steakhouse with leather booths, antique blown-glass lights hanging over them). Compared to what I’d seen of North Lake, everything seemed new and, well, expensive. And that was even before I got to the Tides.
Calvander’s was a motel. This was a resort. Several stories high, it had been built to resemble a Spanish villa, with the walls a terra-cotta color, moss spreading across them. Now, it was lit up, illuminating the crowded open-air bar and restaurant below, as well as its own dock and private beach. No plastic floats or wheeling coolers dotted the sand, much less unattended children. Instead, there were rows of wooden beach chairs, each with a folded white towel on its seat.
“Crazy, right?” Bailey said, nodding at it. “I heard the rooms have whirlpool baths and a menu for pillows. Can you even imagine?”
I shook my head, remembering the rooms I’d cleaned earlier, with their cool cinder-block walls and those tiny, thin soaps. “Can’t be cheap to stay there.”
“Three hundred a night,” she replied. “And that’s just a basic room. Who has that kind of money?”
The answer: these people all around us. Women in flower-print tailored dresses and diamond stud earrings, wearing what my grandmother called a “statement” watch and carrying purses I knew cost more than that single room rate, easily. An army of men in golf shirts in all colors and dress pants paired with loafers. Even the kids looked polished and effortless, as they ran past us to the Pavilion, their shoes thumping across the decking. I looked down at the wedges I was wearing, which now seemed too red in this place where understated made the biggest statement of all.
“And there’s the yacht club,” Bailey said. “Which used to be the fanciest place on this side of the lake, before the Tides came along.”
She pointed at a long white building with columns, with a big deck and steps leading down to a large dock. Inside, it was brightly lit, and I could see people moving around, as well as seated at tables, each covered with a white cloth, on the outside patio. The beach below had two lifeguard stands, and rows of boats were moored at the dock and just beyond it out on the water.
“There they are,” Bailey said now. Up ahead at the Pavilion, two guys—the dark-haired one I recognized from the raft, as well as a redheaded friend who was taller and skinnier, both in shorts and T-shirts—waved from where they were standing against the rail, the water behind them. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I said, even as I felt a little zing in my stomach. The truth was, for all Bridget’s talk and enthusiasm, neither she, nor Ryan, nor I had actually gotten as far as dating someone yet, instead sticking to groups and packs when we went out. This was looking more like a double date, which I hadn’t exactly planned on. Not that I could bail out now. Could I?
“Hey there,” Colin, the guy from the raft, said with a wide smile as we came up to them. He had a red plastic cup in his hand. “Where’s everyone else?”
“They’ll be along eventually,” Bailey answered, so smoothly I kind of believed her, even as I knew this was a lie. “Probably meet us at your place.”
“Great,” he replied. He looked at me. “Hi. I’m Colin.”
I certainly didn’t feel like the same old Emma, not right then. “Saylor,” I said.
“My cousin,” Bailey explained. To me she said, “And this is Blake.”
The redhead had a shell necklace around his neck and a nice smile, as well as freckles that made him seem younger than he was. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
“How’s the music?” Bailey asked Colin.
“Terrible,” he replied. “Like it always is.”
“The yacht club runs this whole boardwalk,” she explained to me, “so the Pavilion bands are always selected for their demographic.”
“Which means three types of music,” Colin said. “Beach, beach, and swing.”
“Not always,” Blake pointed out. “Spinnerbait’s playing for the Fourth.”
“Seriously?” Colin asked.
“It’s probably as a favor to someone in the band’s grandmother,” Blake said. “Since I’ve never seen that kind of music here. And I’ve been coming my whole life.”
The song ended, and there was a smattering of applause. Bailey hopped up onto the rail beside Colin and he handed her his cup. She took a sip, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear with the other hand.
“You from around here?” Blake asked me.
I shook my head. “Just visiting. From Lakeview.”
“Oh. You at the U?”
Before I could answer, the band started up again. “Everyone, let’s SHAG!” the lead singer said in
to his mike. A few couples took to the floor, whooping as they twisted and turned to the music.
“I can’t take it,” Colin said to Bailey. “If everyone knows where the party is, let’s just go.”
She nodded, hopping down, then gestured for me to follow them as they cut through the crowd around the bandstand, then down the boardwalk until it ended. As we stepped onto the sand, Blake bent down, retrieving his own plastic cup from where he’d apparently left it hidden under the decking and taking a gulp.
“Gin and tonic,” he said to me, holding it out. “Want some?”
I shook my head. “Nah, I’m okay.”
He seemed hardly bothered by this, sipping again as we started toward a parking lot. LAKE NORTH YACHT CLUB said a large sign stuck in the grass. MEMBERS AND THEIR GUESTS ONLY.
“Saylor’s dad worked here when he was in college,” Bailey said to the guys.
“Yeah?” Colin asked. “What did he do?”
“Sailing lessons,” I said.
“Did he live on Campus?” Colin said.
I blinked. “What?”
“Campus,” Bailey repeated. “It’s what they call the apartments they rent to the employees for the summer.”
“I don’t know,” I said. My mom was the one who always talked about the lake. “If he did, he never mentioned it.”
“Then he probably didn’t,” Blake said as we stopped at the side of a road, waiting for a BMW to turn into the Club entrance. “You don’t forget Campus.”
Once across the street, we approached an L-shaped building made up of several units. It actually kind of reminded me of Calvander’s: plastic chairs outside the doors piled with swimsuits and towels, a full garbage can with a pizza box poking out of it. As Blake pushed open the door to the unit F1, though, I saw the inside was actually nicer than the rooms I’d cleaned all day, with more modern fixtures and a bigger kitchen area.
“Home sweet hovel,” Colin said, kicking aside a plastic garbage bag as he crossed the threshold. “Who wants a beer?”
“Me,” Bailey said, following him across to the kitchen area, where he bent down to open a small fridge. “Saylor?”
“I’m okay,” I called out as Blake flopped down on one of the unmade beds, grabbing a nearby remote. The flat-screen TV flashed and came on, showing a baseball game. “Thanks, though.”
Across the room, I heard Bailey laughing, and turned to see her leaning against the stovetop, now with Colin’s arms around her waist. She looked perfectly at ease, while I couldn’t figure out if I was supposed to join Blake on his bed or just stand there. I was still wondering when the door opened again.
“Is this the party?” a girl’s voice asked, and the next moment two were entering. One was a tall brunette with long legs and cheekbones to die for. Her friend was a cute Asian girl with red lipstick and a high ponytail. They both had on black shorts and yacht club shirts, white sneakers on their feet. “Because we need one. Badly.”
“Very badly,” the second girl added, heading for the kitchen. “The monsters were in top form today. And by top, I mean at their worst.”
“Hannah,” Blake said, nodding at the taller girl, “and Rachel’s got the ponytail.” Both girls looked at me and nodded. “They work at the kids’ camp.”
“I almost quit today,” Hannah said, pulling a beer from the fridge as Rachel plopped down on the other bed, leaning back onto her elbows. “Between the vomit and the lice scare, it was almost too much.”
“Did you say lice?” Blake asked, rearing back from her, even though she was across the room.
“False alarm,” she replied. “Although my head is still itching.”
“But the vomit was real?” Colin said, coming across the room with Bailey behind him.
“Sadly, yes.” She sighed. “The make-your-own-sundae bar seemed like a good idea, except Braden Johnson is a total glutton.”
“Put the whole container of gummy worms on his,” Rachel added, then shuddered. “The puke was blue and slimy.”
“See, this is why you guys need to be working at the docks,” Blake said as Rachel took a seat on the end of his bed, crossing her legs. “No puke and people tip.”
“And deal with the parents of these children?” Rachel asked, pulling out her phone. “No thanks. They’re even worse.”
Listening to this, I couldn’t help but think of Trinity and the similar sentiments she’d expressed as we cleaned that day. Not that she’d ever think of herself as having something in common with this group. I barely knew her, but this I was sure of.
“Where’s everyone else?” Hannah asked now, taking a sip of her beer.
Colin gave her a look. “Do you mean everyone, or just Roo?”
Roo? I thought. My Roo? But he wasn’t mine.
“Everyone,” Hannah replied, her pretty, angular face reddening a bit. “And Roo.”
Bailey, sitting with Colin on his bed close enough that their legs were touching, pulled out her phone. After glancing at the screen, she said, “They should be here soon. I think work ran late.”
“Then I have time to change,” Hannah said, getting to her feet. “Rachel, you coming?”
They both got up and started for the door. “Back in five,” Hannah said. “Don’t let anything fun happen without us.”
This didn’t seem likely, especially considering that the moment they left, Colin and Bailey turned to each other and began talking in low voices. Their conversation was obviously private even before he reached out, smoothing her hair back with his hand, and she closed her eyes. Meanwhile, I was left with Blake and the baseball game, which had cut to a commercial.
“So,” he said, jabbing the remote at the TV as he flipped channels. “So you said you go to the U?”
I shook my head. “No. Just live in Lakeview. I have one more year of high school.”
“High school,” he said. “Wow. That brings back memories.”
“You’re a freshman, right?”
“Going into sophomore year,” he corrected me. “Big difference from high school.”
“I bet,” I said, although privately, I wondered. “What’s your major?”
He sat up a bit. “Business. Although I don’t know if I’ll actually stay long enough to get my degree. I’m going to do this startup, sooner rather than later.”
“Like a company thing?”
“Yep,” he said, taking another sip of his beer. “Me and two of my friends, we’ve got this great idea for an app. We’ve got backing and everything.”
“Like an app for your phone?” I asked.
“You got it.” He sat up suddenly: it was clear this subject energized him. “Want to hear the idea? You can’t steal it to develop yourself. We’ve already applied for patenting.”
This would never have occurred to me, but I said, “Sure.”
He muted the TV, then held up both hands. “Okay. So you drive, right?”
Already, I wasn’t thrilled with the turn this conversation had taken. “Um, yeah.”
“And what’s the one thing everyone told you a million times when you got your license?”
I thought for a moment. “Wear a seat belt.”
“No,” he said. “The other thing.”
“Don’t drink and drive,” I said.
“No.” He sighed. “The other other thing.”
I was still clueless, which must have been obvious, because he pulled out his phone, holding it up.
“Don’t text and drive?” I said.
“Exactly!” he replied. “It’s, like, the most dangerous thing for any driver, but especially new ones. So imagine if there was a way to turn off that function anytime you were in a car. Not only should you not text: you couldn’t even if you wanted to. That’s the power of I’M DRIVING. Not only can your messages wait until you get from point A to point B: they will.”
He sat back, clearly pleased with himself. I said, “Wow.”
“Right? It’s great. I mean, just imagine the market for parents, what they’d pay f
or that peace of mind. You can’t even put a number on it, really.”
“No?”
“Well, we’re thinking four ninety-nine, actually,” he admitted. He really did look like a little kid with those freckles. “Again, though, we’re only in the early stages. It’s going to take a lot of development, since it has to work with different operating systems and stuff. Luckily, we’ve got a programmer on our team.”
“And you’re funded already?”
“We had a connection,” he explained. “Taz, my suitemate? He’s the real driving force behind all this.”
“So to speak,” I quipped. Blake looked confused. “Never mind.”
“Anyway,” he went on, “his dad runs Hermandos Foods, which invented the Zapwich.”
“Seriously?” Zapwiches, which were like frozen calzones, had been a staple of my childhood, when I’d been allowed them. “I love those things!”
“So does everyone. Which is why they are big money.” He held up two fingers, rubbing them together. “We came up with I’M DRIVING in a programming class we took fall semester, me and Taz and our other friend Lucas. The assignment was to create an app that made something safer.”
“Like driving,” I said, as if I was a person who did this, and worried about such things, instead of, you know, driving itself.
“Got an A, of course,” he continued. “But what we were really working toward was the pitch to Taz’s dad over winter break. He loved it: totally in. So now, it’s just a matter of development, getting it up and running. Our long-term plan, though, is to be bought out so that I’M DRIVING becomes standard on all phones.”
This was more than he’d said to me all night, so I took a second to catch up. “Wow,” I said again.
“I know.” He leaned back into the pillow behind him, picking up the remote again. “It’s kind of crazy, being nineteen and knowing you’ve probably already made your first million. Definitely makes college seem like less of a priority.”
I didn’t even know what to say to this. I mean, we were well-off, as was Nana Payne, from my grandfather, who, although not the inventor of an iconic frozen food item, had also been a successful businessman. Even so, though, we never talked about money this confidently, or at all, really. It made me uncomfortable, and not just because I’d spent the day cleaning motel rooms. Although that really made me aware of it.