by Sarah Dessen
Somewhere near him at the Station, there was a burst of laughter, loud and sudden. When it died down, he said, “Okay, then. What’s your picture?”
“Of what?”
“The future,” he replied. “What’s the rest of your story?”
I thought for a second. What did I see, or want to see, ahead? “Something having to do with this place,” I said finally. “Proof that it’s not over, that I’ll come back. That’s what I want.”
He was quiet again. But this time I could hear him, just there on the other end of the line. “Well, for what it’s worth, nobody here’s forgetting you.”
I felt my face flush. It wasn’t nobody I was worried about. “I hope you’re right,” I said. “Now, tell me more about this picture and that terrible kiss.”
Just as he was about to launch into the story, though, I heard a knock on my door. I scooted aside so it could open and my dad stuck his head in. “Hey,” he said. “You busy?”
“Um,” I said, gesturing at the phone at my ear. “Kind of. What do you need?”
“Just thought we could take a walk,” he replied. “Five minutes?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
He gave me a thumbs-up, then shut the door again. Slightly stunned, I said, “My dad wants to take a walk.”
“So he’s talking to you now?”
“Apparently,” I said, still wary. “I wonder what he wants to discuss.”
“Talking is good either way,” he said. “But mark our place, okay? Up next is some good stuff, including but not limited to when your mom and my dad became obsessed with the California look and tried to lighten his hair.”
I couldn’t help it: I flipped ahead until I found a shot of Chris sitting in a chair, a towel around his neck and his head over the sink while my mom was shaking up a plastic bottle. I recognized a framed needlepoint by the sink that CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF: it was still in Mimi’s bathroom. “Was it bad?”
“Awful,” he told me. “You’ll love it. Bye, Saylor.”
“Bye,” I said. But even after he hung up, I kept my phone where it was for another second of connection between us. Then I put it down, turning back to the album.
I grabbed all the pages that were left, turning them all in one motion to the back cover opposite that final one. If there was more room, how would this story go on?
In that moment, I hoped to see my dad and me together, side by side, talking. Beyond that, who knew. I closed the book and went to find him.
At first, it was awkward. So we started walking.
“I’ve been meaning to explore around here a bit,” my dad said as we left the front entrance of the Tides and started toward the main road. “I bet a lot has changed in nineteen years.”
“It’s been that long?” I asked.
“Since I was on this side, yes,” he replied as a BMW with tinted windows drove past us, barely making a sound. “When we came back with you that summer, we only went to Mimi’s. And left quickly, as I remember.”
This seemed like an opening. “The second honeymoon didn’t take, right?”
“Nope,” he said, wiping his brow. Even though it was dark, it was still hot. “Truthfully, I think we both knew things weren’t salvageable at that point.”
“But you went to Vegas anyway?”
He shrugged. “Well, yeah. I mean, I loved your mom so much. I wanted it to work. It just . . . didn’t.”
“Roo’s been telling me some stories,” I said quietly, hoping it wasn’t too risky to mention his name. “About Mom and his dad, growing up here.”
“Hmm,” he said. I wasn’t sure what that meant. “They were very close.”
“You met him, right?” I asked. “Chris Price?”
“Oh, yeah,” he replied. We were across from the Tides now, heading toward Campus, which I could see up ahead. “We all met the same night, actually. At a party on the raft.”
“Our raft?” I said.
He looked at me, amused. “Well, we considered it ours, but yes. The very same.”
“You guys had parties out there?”
“Yep,” he said, nodding. “It was the gathering place back then too, especially in the evenings. Tons of boats, tied together, and everyone moving between them.”
I would have bet the rest of my grounding there was beer there, too. Not that I felt I could say this out loud.
“How did you guys meet?” I asked.
He gave me a sideways look. “We didn’t come here to talk about your mom and me.”
“I don’t know why we came here,” I replied. “You’re the one who invited me.”
“True,” he said mildly. We walked a little farther, until Campus, its low block buildings dotted with chairs heaped with towels, was right beside us. He stopped, looking at it, then said, “My unit was around back. Should we try to find it?”
I looked at the buildings, wondering who I might run into. Then again, it was better than being in the suite. “Sure.”
He stepped up onto the grass and I followed him, crossing over to the first building. The door to Blake and Colin’s place was closed, but Hannah and Rachel’s was ajar, and I could see someone’s feet up on the bed as we passed by. Then my dad turned down the short hall by the laundry and bulletin board where Blake had taken me all those nights ago.
“See, the back rooms were better,” he explained as we popped out on that side and started passing doors. “More shade, so they weren’t as hot.”
“There’s A/C now, though,” I said, pointing at one.
“Ha! These kids don’t know how good they have it,” he said. “We melted all summer, every summer. Let’s see . . . here it is. Fourteen.”
It was the last door of the building, no chair or towels marking it. Just a single-bulb light, bugs circling it, and the strong sound of peepers coming from the nearby woods. This close up, they were deafening.
“Guess a tour is out of the question,” my dad said, peering in the one, dark window. “But man, do you hear those frogs? Those first few nights, I couldn’t sleep it was so loud. By the end of the summer, though, I didn’t even notice them. It’s funny what you can get used to.”
“It is,” I agreed, just as I heard footsteps on the other end of the walkway. By the time I looked, though, a door was just shutting, whoever it was having slipped inside.
“There used to be a wall,” he said, glancing back down the way we’d come. “Everyone signed it, every summer. I wonder—”
“It’s over here,” I told him, walking around the corner.
“You know about the wall?” he asked.
Whoops. “Um, Bailey had to run over here one time for work. I rode along and she showed me.”
He followed me until he was facing the wall himself. “Wow,” he said, looking up at all the names. “Now it really doesn’t feel like nineteen years.”
There was a sudden hiss, followed by a popping sound, from somewhere in the neighborhood to our right. Fireworks. The Fourth wasn’t until the next day, but everyone always started early.
“Did you—” I began to ask, but already he’d stepped up closer to the cinder block, squinting at all the names there. After a moment, he moved his hand over to the right, and down a bit, holding his finger to one small spot.
“Right here.” He pushed his glasses up, squinting through them. “Your mom signed right below, even though she technically wasn’t supposed to.”
I moved closer as well, and he stepped aside, making room, his finger still holding the place. MATT PAYNE, SUMMER 1999, it said in black Sharpie in the same neat, block printing he still used for shopping lists and the notes he left for me. Underneath, smaller and scrawled: just WAVERLY, a chubby heart with an arrow through it right above. Both looked so clear in front of my eyes, but I knew I never would have found them alone.
“It must have been a lot of fun, working here,” I said.
“It was.” He dropped his hand, but kept looking at the spot. Then, suddenly, he said, “Emma, I’m not trying to ruin
your life, even if you think I am. You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
He turned, facing me. “Do you know how much you scared me the other night? When I was calling and couldn’t find you? It just brought so much back, all those nights with your mom when she disappeared. . . .”
“I didn’t know that! I wasn’t here in nineteen ninety-nine; I don’t know all these stories.”
“But you did know your mom, and are old enough to remember what she put us through when she was using.”
“I had a couple of beers!” I cried, frustrated. “It’s not the same.”
“It’s how it starts!” he shot back. Then, lowering his voice, he said, “Look, Emma. You have to be vigilant. We both do. There’s a history there.”
“I’m not going to do what she did, though.”
“You don’t know that!” he said. “You’re seventeen. We don’t know anything except what’s already happened. The only thing we can do is prevent it from happening again.”
“You make it sound like it’s inevitable,” I replied. “Maybe I’m different.”
“Oh, honey.” He looked so pained, stepping closer to me and taking hold of both my arms. “You are different. So different. But being here, especially on the other side, hanging out with those kids . . . we can’t tempt fate. It’s too dangerous.”
“Roo’s nice, Dad.”
“I’m sure he is.” He dropped his hands. “I just . . . I feel like you’ve been through so much. The divorce, then losing your mom. And you’re great, you’re perfect. I just want to be sure you stay that way.”
“I’m not perfect, though. Nobody is.” That would be true even if I’d never laid a foot in North Lake again. “And anyway, what about you? Were you perfect back then? Did you make all the right choices?”
“Me? God, no.” He sighed. “I was young and stupid. But I didn’t have a parent who was an addict. You do. It’s an added responsibility.”
“One I don’t want,” I grumbled. We were quiet for a second. Then I said, “So what did you do?”
“When?” he asked.
“When you were young and stupid.”
He looked at me as if I was kidding. When it was clear I wasn’t, he said, “We don’t really need to get into that, do we?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Stories help sometimes. That’s something I’ve learned this summer.”
“You want to hear my irresponsible stories,” he said.
“I want to know what you went through,” I said. “I know all about Mom. But not you.”
There was another pop. We both looked up to see a firework shooting up above the trees, then split into a shower of sparks. Somewhere, a dog started barking.
“Give me some time, okay?” he said finally. “I’ll work up to it. Or try to. Is that fair?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
Now, he smiled. Would this really happen? Time would tell. “We should probably get out of here,” he said. “Don’t want Later Gator to show up because someone reported a couple of prowlers.”
I looked at him, surprised. “You know they call him Later Gator?”
He gave me a grin. “I’ll explain another time.”
Back out at the road, it was fully dark now, the Tides all lit up as well as the Club beside it. I could hear another pop as we crossed the street, but this time I didn’t turn around to look. “Fourth is tomorrow,” he observed. “The Club’s having a cookout on the beach, followed by fireworks. You up for going?”
“Can I?”
“Tracy and I are,” he said. “I think Nana will probably watch from the room.”
“I’d love it,” I told him.
He looked at me then, seeming surprised. “Great. I’ll let the Club know. We’ll have a nice family evening.”
I nodded, just as we approached the main doors of the hotel. “Welcome to the Tides!” someone yelled as we came inside, the A/C feeling freezing after the humid night. Glimpsing the lake out the windows, I looked for the raft, trying to picture my mom and dad, just a little older than me, riding out on a similar night to meet cute on the water. I never had gotten the whole story out of him, but I knew how it ended. Us together, two instead of three, stepping into another elevator on a different night, this one.
Twenty-Two
“More toast?” Nana asked me, breaking the silence that we’d sat in together for the last half hour or so with our respective breakfasts and papers.
“I’m fine,” I told her. “But thanks.”
She dabbed her mouth with her napkin, moving her coffee cup to one side. “I heard you and your dad come in last night. It sounded like you were actually talking.”
I nodded. “Yeah. We went for a walk and worked some stuff out.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, giving me a smile. “In other news, the dinner is coming together nicely. I’ve got us a reservation at the Club for next Friday at six p.m. Large table, so we can invite whoever we like.”
“It’s really happening?” I asked, surprised.
“What’s happening?” I heard my dad say as he came down the hallway from his suite in his trunks, carrying his goggles. An all-state swimmer in college, he’d begun starting every day with a dive off the dock, followed by a quick mile, before breakfast.
I looked at Nana, who said, “Oh, well, Emma and I were just talking about this dinner I want to plan with the Calvanders.”
My dad, who had started to peel his banana, now stopped, looking at her. “The Calvanders? You mean Mimi and Joe?”
“Joe died,” I reminded him. “Oxford is her husband now.”
Nana said, “I was thinking Mimi and her husband, yes, and Celeste and hers, and then the kids. Maybe one or two of Emma’s other friends, too, if they were free.”
“Mother.” He was still holding the banana. “Emma is grounded.”
“And this is happening Friday, at which point I was thinking you may have revisited that issue.” She picked up a napkin, holding it out to him, even though from what I could tell, the banana was barely messy. Nice touch. “Of course, if you feel strongly, then I can cancel the reservation. I just thought that after they had Emma all that time, it would be a good gesture.”
“It is,” he agreed. “But I’m not sure a Club dinner is the best way to express our gratitude. It might make them . . . uncomfortable.”
“Not Bailey,” I said. I couldn’t help myself. “She’s already excited about the oyster forks.”
They both looked at me. Dad said, “Excuse me?”
“She’s always wanted to eat at the Club. It’s, like, her dream.”
“Well.” Nana smiled. “Now we’re making dreams come true. That’s nice!”
“Mother, maybe you and I should discuss this privately,” my dad said, putting the napkin back on the table. “We certainly don’t want to invite someone to something that will be stressful for them.”
“The girl is excited about the forks,” Nana pointed out.
“Maybe it would be better if I offered to do something at their place,” my dad said. “On the beach, say. I could find a caterer, and—”
“Or,” Nana said, “we could leave it all to the Club and just show up. That sounds easier, doesn’t it?”
My dad did not look convinced. But instead of saying so, he looked at me. “So. Think you’ll be leaving the suite today?”
I was confused. “I’m grounded.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to sit in your room all day long,” he said. “Tracy says there’s a band you might like playing at the Pavilion for the Fourth.”
More confusion. “I can go to the Pavilion?”
“Yes,” he said, and while it was all I could do not to get to my feet right that second, before he changed his mind, I resisted. “But there are ground rules. Number one, you will stay on Tides or Club property. And if at any point I can’t reach you, then you will be inside until we leave. Are we clear?”
“Crystal,” I sai
d. Across the table, Nana had her eyes on me. “Thanks, Dad.”
He nodded, and then I did get up, thanking Nana as well as I pushed in my chair, then headed back to my room. The last thing I saw before going inside was him sitting down, then speaking in a lowered voice to my grandmother, who said something quietly in return. Probably better I wasn’t there anyway. Nana worked best on her own.
In my room, I put on my bathing suit, then a sundress, before digging my flip-flops out from the closet. Through the window, I could see the Club attendants down on the sand, distributing towels to the chairs. It was only just after eight a.m., but I figured I should go while I had the chance, as there was no telling when my dad might change his mind.
Both he and Nana were gone when I came back through the living room, their plates being cleared by a woman in a Tides Golf shirt and a black skirt. “Happy Fourth of July,” she said as I slipped past to the door.
“To you, too,” I told her. Outside, a cleaning cart was parked by the elevators, and I looked it over, thinking of the rickety ones back at Calvander’s, which usually sported at least one loose, wobbling wheel. This one might as well have been a sports car, chrome and sleek. Linens were folded below, toiletries and room supplies above, everything separated into neat, labeled categories. The spray bottles had Tides logos, but no names.
Downstairs, out on the back patio, I slipped on my sunglasses, then looked around, getting my bearings, before starting out to the pool. I was scoping out the perfect chair when I heard someone call my name. I turned around to see Colin and Blake heading down to the Club dock via a walkway that was right behind me. Great.
“Heard you were staying here,” Colin said, clearly oblivious to the fact that I outright disliked him. Blake, behind him, remained silent, making me think he was still annoyed from the night of the party.
“Yep,” I said mildly. All I wanted was to get away from them.
“Well, Fourth of July means it’s going to be nuts. And that’s not even counting the fireworks tonight. You going to the cookout?” Colin asked.
I nodded. “I got sprung, finally. Been grounded in the room for the last few days.”
“Well, we’re having a door party at Campus after the fireworks, if you want to come. Kind of a tradition.”