by Sarah Dessen
But then, Roo did something different. He reached forward with one hand, sliding my fallen strap back up on my shoulder. It was a simple gesture, but like earlier, with the corsage, I felt my heart catch in my chest. Once the strap was fixed, he left his hand there, fingers spread cool over my skin. Like a take two, second chance. The kind you don’t get often.
Maybe this was why I stepped a little closer, lifting my chin as I looked up at him. His eyes widened a bit, but he stayed where he was.
“Hey!” someone yelled from the water. “What are you guys doing up there?”
We both jumped, him turning his head at the noise while I took a full step back, putting space between us again.
“One sec,” he called back. Turning back to me, he said, “Look, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine,” I said quickly. I could feel my heart beating in my chest, as well as the weight of his hand on my shoulder, even though it was now gone.
“Roo! Get in here!” Jack yelled.
He reached up, tugging his own shirt off and tossing it onto the grass with the others. Then, with a final look back at me, he jogged down the dock as everyone else whooped and clapped, and dove off.
“Shoulda done it.”
Again startled, I looked over to the couch, where Bailey was now curled up on one side. “What?”
“Kissed him,” she said, her voice muffled by her hair. Her eyes remained closed. “Had the perfect chance. Shoulda taken it.”
“I panicked,” I said, looking out at the water. Familiar story. “Why do I always do that?”
She didn’t answer, as her breathing had steadied: she was asleep again.
Back inside, the room was still hot, one of the light strands had fallen down, and a leftover corsage lay flattened on the floor. No one had touched the punch. When I realized the speaker was buzzing steadily, not connected to anything, I went over and turned it off. That was when I heard my phone.
It was in my bag, which I’d left in the kitchen on the counter. By the time I went over and pulled it out, it had gone silent as well, although a message remained on the screen. My dad.
Just got off the boat. Great time but EXHAUSTED. See you Friday! Can’t wait.
No way, I thought, rereading this a second time. But when I flipped over to my calendar, scanning the month of June into July, I saw it was true: my trip was almost over. Before long, I’d be going back to Lakeview to move into our new house and begin another life. But what about this one?
I started down the steps, and when I felt grass beneath my feet, my instinct was to stop, stay where I was. Instead, I started moving faster, enough to blow my hair back and feel a breeze on my skin. I knew I must look ridiculous, a girl in a formal dress, running alone down the grass. But at least I was doing it myself, each step a choice as I got closer to the water.
“Saylor?” April called out, spotting me, but I didn’t look for her, or anyone else, as I banged down the dock, gaining speed. I just had my eyes on the end, that leap to come, and in my mind I could see it as jumping past so many other things as well: the view behind the wheel, my neatly organized closet and room, Trinity’s judging face. Blake leaning in for that kiss, then Roo fixing my strap so carefully while I stood by, frozen. You can make your life, or life can make you. Was it really that simple of a choice?
As I hit the dock’s end and jumped, I wanted to see it, that change from passenger to driver, Emma to Saylor, watching to doing. So when I hit the cold lake and went under, I kept my eyes open.
Fourteen
Things move fast once you decide to get behind the wheel. Or maybe it just seems that way.
“Good. Now, wipe it with those newspapers. Rub in circles.”
Gordon did as she was told, her skinny arm moving across the mirror as Trinity, stretched out across the bed with her feet up, watched. “Like this?”
“Yes,” I said as I passed behind her with the bathroom trash can, then dumped it into the garbage bag by the unit’s door. “Be sure to take all the dust to the edge and off. That way you don’t leave any.”
“Listen to you,” Trinity said, turning a page in the magazine she was reading. “You sound like an expert.”
“I had a good teacher,” I said.
“Puh-leese,” Bailey groaned from the bathroom, where she was scrubbing the shower. “Don’t flatter her. She’s already acting enough like a princess.”
“I’m pregnant,” Trinity pointed out, unnecessarily. Her stomach was like a mountain when she was prone, blocking the view of her face from the end of the bed.
“And I’m working two jobs and we have Gordon on as child labor,” her sister replied. “So everyone’s suffering, not just you.”
It was true. Not so much about the suffering, but the extra hands on deck. The morning after the first official North Lake Prom, Trinity had woken up with some light spotting, which prompted a panicky trip to the ER. She wasn’t in labor, but they did put her on bed rest. That left only Mimi and me to clean rooms, so Bailey had been coming in afternoons after her shift at the Station as well as her days off, with Roo and Jack filling in as they could as well. When Gordon got strep throat and couldn’t go to camp, she’d been recruited as well. Somehow, we were getting both turnover and housekeeping done, although with two beginners and one super-reluctant veteran, I wasn’t exactly sure how.
The truth was, everything had been chaotic since that morning, and not just because of the bed rest and new workload. There was also the issue of my dad and Tracy’s return from Greece, scheduled for late that evening. The plan had been for them to return to Nana’s, who had just gotten home from her own trip, then come fetch me so we could all move over to the new house. But the “easy” remodel of Nana’s condo had hit a permitting snag. With our new house also still needing some work to pass inspection, I was now the only one with someplace to stay.
“I mean, we can do a hotel,” my dad had said the day before, calling from Athens, where he was about to board his plane. “But your grandmother . . .”
He didn’t finish this thought, not that he had to. Nana was used to a certain level of comfort. All she wanted to do was get back to her newly redone home, and now she couldn’t even do that.
I, however, felt like I’d been given a break by the universe. If the house wasn’t ready, I could just remain here for a while longer. When I floated this by my dad, though, he was not convinced.
“You’ve been there three weeks,” he told me. “We don’t want you to outstay your welcome.”
“I’m helping,” I pointed out. “They need me to clean rooms at the motel anyway.”
“You’re cleaning rooms at Calvander’s?”
Whoops. I bit my lip, realizing I shouldn’t have shared this. “Just because they’re short-staffed. With the baby coming and everything.”
“Baby?”
“Trinity. Celeste’s daughter? She’s having a baby really soon.”
“Who?”
I sighed, switching my phone to my other ear. Downstairs, I could hear Oxford in the kitchen, making coffee and rustling around with the paper. Even though it hadn’t been that long since I’d arrived, it was already hard to imagine a morning now that didn’t start this way. “The point is, I’m happy to stay here and I’m sure it’s okay with Mimi.”
“But what if I don’t want you to stay?” he replied.
“Why wouldn’t you?”
I heard some friction on the line. “Because,” he said, his voice quiet, “we’re starting a new life in a new house, as a new family. It seems only right we do it together.”
“But you just said the house wasn’t ready.”
“Well, it isn’t.”
“So how are we going to stay there?”
“Emma.” Before, he’d sounded tired. Now, irritation was creeping in. “Just let Mimi know you’ll be leaving by the end of the week.”
“But—”
“Let her know,” he repeated, as in the background, an announcement began. “That’s o
ur group. I’ll call as soon as we’re back in your time zone. Okay?”
“Okay,” I replied. “Fly safe.”
We hung up, and I flopped back against my pillow, looking at the ceiling above me. After sulking a bit, I went downstairs for toast and the obits, and when I saw Mimi, I told her nothing. My dad was in the air, over an ocean. I still had some time, and there were rooms to clean.
Now, I pulled out my spray bottle, pumping the handle until the small glass table I was standing over was covered with bleach solution. As I started to wipe it clean, Trinity said, “Who are you today, Saylor?”
I looked down at my bottle, where a name was written in pink Sharpie, surrounded by plump hearts. “Vicki,” I said.
“Oh, right,” she replied. “Big on pink, not so much on working. I think she lasted one season.”
“And a half,” Bailey said, banging against something in the bathroom. Thump. Thump. “She took off with that trucker, remember?”
Trinity thought for a second. “God, you’re right!”
“Of course I am,” Bailey said. “I remember everything. All details, every story. You know that.”
“Is this good?” Gordon, now at the edge of the mirror, her face red with exertion, asked.
“Missed a spot,” Trinity told her, pointing to the left side.
As Gordon started rubbing again, I asked, “Is that true, Bailey? Do you really remember everything?”
Another thump. Then, “Yeah. It’s like a gift. Or a curse.”
“It’s seriously creepy sometimes,” Trinity added. “She remembers the stuff she wasn’t even here for, because she’s heard Mom tell her stories.”
“Do you remember hearing about when I was here?” I asked Bailey as she threw a pile of towels out the bathroom door. “When we were four?”
“Yeah,” she said. Her voice carried out as she added, “Your mom and dad were going on a trip and they left you with Mimi.”
“Second honeymoon,” I said, adding the pillowcases to my own pile. “That’s what he said.”
“They didn’t seem like newlyweds,” Bailey said. I could hear her own spray bottle. “Pretty tense, as I recall hearing. Your mom hadn’t been here since Chris Price died, so there was that, too.”
“She never came back, all those years?”
“Nope.” More spritzing. “Mom said Mimi went to visit her, with Joe, when you were born and a couple of other times. But she was weird about this place. It was like there were—”
“Ghosts,” I finished for her.
“Yeah.” She came out, gathering the towels in her arms and crossing the room to add them to the pile of linens. “She just wasn’t herself, according to my mom. And then when Steph came over, she kind of lost it.”
“Steph?” I asked.
“Roo’s mom,” Bailey said. “It was the first time Waverly had seen her since the funeral. And she’d never met Roo.”
“That, I remember,” Trinity said, turning a page. “Waverly started crying, just standing there watching you and Roo together.”
I plumped the pillow I was holding, then replaced it. “I wish I could remember.”
“This was your mom, though, and she was really upset. Your mind is probably doing you a favor by forgetting.”
“I’d rather remember,” I said. “There are enough holes.”
“But lots of pictures,” Bailey said.
I looked over at her, now standing by the front door scraping what looked like gum off the carpet. “What did you say?”
“The pictures,” she replied, not looking up. “Because of Steph.”
I just looked at her.
“Because she was so into photography,” she continued. “She documented everything.”
“Are you saying there are more pictures of that visit than the one in Mimi’s office?”
“Which one is that?”
I told her about the snapshot I’d seen under the glass my first day, of all of us kids together on the steps. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “Steph definitely took that. She lined us all up, too, while your mom was off to the side watching.”
“Bribed us with candy,” Trinity added, sniffing a perfume insert.
Hearing this, I sat down on the bed, the pillow I’d been about to cover in my arms. I wasn’t sure what compelled me at that moment, but I heard myself say, “My dad wants me to come home.”
It was quiet for a second. Even Gordon, wiping the TV, stopped in mid circle. Trinity said, “You just got here, though.”
“It’s been almost a month,” I pointed out. “That was how long I was supposed to visit.”
“Yeah, but that was when you were just here because you needed a place to stay,” Bailey said, standing up and tossing a paper towel with the gum in it toward the trash bag.
“Isn’t that why I’m here now?”
“No.” She picked up her bottle from the windowsill, then looked at me. “You’re learning your history. Before it was just a visit, yes. But now it’s personal.”
“Sounds like news to her,” Trinity observed. “So maybe not so personal.”
“My history,” I repeated. “How do you figure?”
Bailey sighed, looking at the ceiling. “Hello, what were we just talking about? Filling in the holes in your memory. Getting the rest of the story about your mom. I mean, you didn’t even know about the accident!”
“Bay, where are you going with this?” Trinity asked.
“I’m making a point.” She looked at me again. “You were just saying how you don’t have any memories of the lake before this summer. But you do, because we’re helping you fill them in. Part of grieving is letting go of the past. But how can you let go if you never knew it in the first place?”
Outside, a man, a motel guest, walked by shirtless, his flip-flops thwacking. He glanced in at us, but only briefly, as he passed by.
“People should wear shirts if they’re not right on the beach,” Trinity said, once he was out of earshot. Gordon snickered.
“My mom’s been gone five years,” I said to Bailey, ignoring this. “I don’t think I can claim to be grieving anymore.”
“Of course you can!” She picked up the garbage bag, shaking it. “Look. Saylor. My mom still cries for yours at least once a week. No joke. It’s not like you just snap your fingers and move on.”
Now I felt even worse. I didn’t cry that much anymore. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time. Which, as I thought about it, made me feel close to tears myself. “I don’t want to leave yet,” I said, swallowing. “I’m not sure it’s for the reasons you’re saying or something else. All I know is that I wish some of these were my memories, not just everyone else’s. Like there’s more to the story, but I’m not there yet.”
“You should ask to see the pictures.”
Gordon spoke so softly, at first I wasn’t even sure it was her who had said this. When we all looked at her, though, she blushed a deep red. “What did you say?” I asked.
She cleared her throat. “The pictures. That Roo’s mom took. Bailey said there were tons of them. Maybe they’d help you remember.”
Trinity and Bailey exchanged a look. Then Bailey said, “That is a great idea, actually.”
Gordon, pleased, turned back to the TV and started dusting again.
“You think?” I asked Bailey as she headed back to the kitchen.
“It can’t hurt,” she said. “And neither can asking your dad again if you can have a little more time. For your mom, and her memory, if nothing else.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. My dad had always been selective about my mom’s legacy, what we remembered and what we didn’t. I truly believed he thought he was doing me a favor by keeping the bad stuff out.
“Just ask him,” Bailey said, spraying down the stovetop. “The worst he can do is say no.”
“No.”
The answer came so quickly—mere moments after I’d gotten up the nerve to ask—that I wasn’t even ready. “But you didn’t even think about it!”<
br />
“Emma—”
“You asked me to come here so you could go on your honeymoon. I did,” I said, pacing across the sand below Mimi’s house, where I’d come to make this call while everyone else got dinner together. “And I’m learning a lot about Mom, and myself, and just don’t understand why, if I have no place to stay, I can’t—”
“Because you do have a place to stay,” he finished over me. “And if you’d just let me talk for a second, I’ll tell you about it.”
I bit my lip, then sat down at the picnic table. Now that I’d pledged to try to take control of my life, the last thing I wanted was to hear more plans that had been made for me. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a choice.
“What I was going to say, before you started in about this—” he began.
“It’s my history,” I blurted out. “My memories. I’m already here, I should be allowed to finish what I’ve started.”
“Emma. Please just let me talk for a second.” He sounded tired. “As you know, we are currently between residences, as is your grandmother. After some discussion, she’s suggested a temporary solution that I think will work for all of us.”
Whatever it was, I was sure I wouldn’t like it. But I stayed quiet. For now.
“Nana has a friend with a resort in Lake North,” he continued. “He’s been offering her use of a suite of rooms for ages, and now seems like a good time to take him up on it.”
It took me a second to process what he was saying. Finally I said, “Wait. You’re coming here?”
“We,” he replied, “will be spending two weeks at Lake North, all of us. Then we’ll head home to our hopefully finished homes.”
“You’re coming to Lake North,” I said again. “Great. So I’ll just stay here. Everyone’s happy.”
“No. You’ve been with Mimi, and we’re very grateful. But it’s time to be together as a family now.”
“This is my family, too.”
“Emma.” He sighed. “I know you’re having fun. But I don’t think these people are at the same level as Tracy, Nana, and myself.”
“Why do there have to be levels?” I asked, getting to my feet again. “I went from a four-person unit to discovering all these cousins and aunts and uncles I never even knew I had. I don’t want to just forget them now.”