Up All Night

by Laura Silverman

  “Wasn’t it amazing how easy it was to register you for school,” Mom said, adjusting her chair to face the sun. “If this was private, we’d have to shell out thousands and call in dozens of favors.”

  I didn’t glance up from my copy of Finding Martha’s Vineyard, stories about the African Americans who summered on the island. The longer we stayed, the more fascinated I’ve become with the history.

  “Well maybe not dozens. Maybe one or two.”

  Waves crashed against the shore, the sun burning off the morning fog. Mom laughed, pouring more champagne into a travel mug. It wasn’t even noon.

  “Life is just so much simpler here,” she said, taking a sip. “We can change, be new people. I think I’m . . . going to be a painter. Or maybe an art collector. Open up a gallery, perhaps?”

  This is the longest we’ve ever stayed on the island. Two solid months. Although I was happy, the fall was fast approaching and I worried about practical things, like where I would get my hair done or buy McDonald’s chicken nuggets. Martha’s Vineyard isn’t as standardized as the rest of the country. And in one week, I would begin my junior year at a new public high school, far different from any private school I’d ever attended. Everyone could use a fresh start, a change in pace, but something kept gnawing at my insides. Something that made me look out at the horizon, at the ferries floating to the dock, shuttling passengers to and from the mainland, and wonder if I should be on that boat, too.

  Mom focused on her crossword. Since we decided to move here, she’d taken up a variety of new hobbies. Without Dad, she was determined to be a new woman. This week, it’s puzzle magazines. Last week, it was knitting. I worried what would happen when we’d run out of things to do.

  “You feel like going out to dinner tonight? It’s getting chilly,” Mom said, brightening. “We can make a reservation at the Oyster Bar! Have some clam chowder.”

  “Not tonight,” I said, slipping a cover-up over my red two-piece bathing suit. “I have plans with Hunter, remember?”

  Mom made googly eyes while sipping her drink.

  Mom seemed fine when we’d first arrived at the house that summer. During the day, we soaked up sun on the beach, shopped in boutiques, admired the old, colorful gingerbread houses, and ate lobster rolls. But at night, she cried her way through bottles of red wine before passing out drunk on the sofa. By her first snore, I’d make my escape, walking the pitch-black roads into town, strolling down Circus Avenue in Oak Bluffs and ending the night with a hot donut. Better conditions, away from the tears and fog of pain that leaked through the vents into my room. I’d pass the closed ferry port to circle around the Flying Horse, a super old merry-go-round from the 1800s. So old the wooden horses’ faces were faded, frozen in agony from carrying thousands of children over the years. The lights always flickered and it sounded like a music box on its last leg.

  That’s where I first saw him. Or, ran into him. Captivated by the millions of stars in the sky, I bumped right into his chest as he attempted to lock up for the night.

  “Ooof, sorry, I—”

  The chain he had been holding fell to the ground like a wind chime and his eyes widened. I don’t believe in love at first sight. Or lust for that matter. But in that moment, I could almost hear fireworks explode overhead, stars bursting around us.

  Then there was silence.

  Followed by more silence.

  “Um, hi,” he’d said, with a raspy voice, his hand making an awkward waving gesture.

  My mouth parted, but nothing came out.

  “You lost?” he asked, chuckling.

  “I . . . uh, no. Just going to get a donut.”

  It sounded completely ridiculous and yet I couldn’t figure out what else to say.

  He nods. “Um, can I join you?”

  We stood in the long line at Backdoor Donuts, a popular afterhours spot that served fresh, hot donuts until one a.m. On any given night, the line is around the corner. But I didn’t notice the crowd. I only noticed him.

  He had gray-blue eyes and a crisp French crème complexion, with drops of vanilla extract on his nose. He even smelled sweet, like sugar cookies or a waffle ice cream cone. His hair was thick, a tight curly mop of dusty blond tangles. For a long while, we didn’t say anything, just taking pleasure in the electric moment.

  “You’re, like, the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” he said out of nowhere.

  My face engulfed in flames as I waited, and waited, and waited for a comment to follow. Because the last time a boy called me pretty, it ended with “for a Black girl” and I never wanted to feel like I was an exception again.

  But this boy said nothing, only offering a crooked grin.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, kicking a pebble with my sandal.

  “I’m Hunter.”

  “Candice.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  His thick New England accent made me smile.

  Just as Mom and I walked in the house, legs still covered in sand, my cell phone buzzed. Dad.

  “Hey Candy! How’s my beautiful, smart girl?”

  “I’m . . . fine,” I mumbled. Mom’s eyes locked on me. She knew it was him. Her back straightened as if preparing for an attack, but then she drifted to the wine closet, in search of a salve.

  I stepped out on the porch to regain my voice. As much as I tried not to hate him, I couldn’t stand these perfunctory calls.

  “What’s up, Dad?”

  “You,” he said, plainly. “And this decision your mother has made about moving up there.”

  “Dad, I’m not a baby,” I snapped. “It was my decision, too.”

  “You’re right. You’re not a baby,” he said. “You’re more mature than your mother in most ways. So here’s the deal, you are not going to school in MV. This is your junior year, your most important year. Colleges will be looking at everything, including your extracurricular activities. Juilliard-level piano and dance lessons, national winning debate club, museum internships, art fellowships . . . none of those things can be offered for you there. You still want to go to Yale, right?”

  My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. The word Yale sparking a flame snuffed out by his infidelity.

  “Of course you do,” he said. “And you also know you’re not a trust fund kid or an affirmative action charity case. You earned every merit, fair and square. You want to continue showing them that, right?”

  “Them,” meaning white people. If I inherited nothing else from Dad, I got his hunger to prove people wrong.

  “I’ve booked you a nine-thirty a.m. ferry back,” Dad said. “A car will be waiting for you at Woods Hole to bring you home.”

  What home? Not my home, our home. The new one he moved into. Will that woman move in with my new sibling, too? My heart flared at the idea of standing up to the one person I looked up to most.

  “Dad, I—”

  “School started last week but I talked to the dean. He’s aware of our recent family issues. Your mother can stay there if she chooses. But you . . . you’re bigger than that island. I know you see it too.”

  A silver pickup truck pulled up to the end of the driveway with two honks. Hunter turned off the ignition and climbed out.

  “Dad, I gotta go.” I didn’t wait for his response before stuffing the phone into my back pocket.

  “Hello gorgeous,” Hunter said, wrapping me in his warm arms, smelling like the sea. “Ready to roll?”

  Hunter was at least three inches taller than Dad and had exceptional southern-like manners. Not a hint of a wandering eye. How could I feel so safe in the arms of someone I’ve known only a few weeks, versus a man I’ve known my whole life?

  “Uh, yup, let me just grab . . . um, my bag.”

  I ran inside, up to my room. My bookbag was already prepped, but I triple checked to make sure I packed condoms. Hunter said he would bring them but I was too nervous to remind him. I stopped to glance at myself in the foyer mirror,
wondering if I’d look different once the evening was over. Will anyone see the change?

  Mom sat on the living room sofa, surrounded by family photos dating back generations, uncorking a fresh wine bottle, the first bottle already empty.

  “I see Hunter’s here,” she said. “Charming as ever.”

  There was a bite in her voice that made me shift to face her. “Going to a bonfire tonight so don’t wait up.”

  Mom nodded. “I know you like Hunter and I like him, too. But he doesn’t . . . I mean, you should . . . want to date someone that can really give you the world.”

  Like Dad, I almost shot back but stopped myself, catching a photo of him and Great-Grandmother by the fireplace. Great-Grandma must have bought this home for the same reasons other African Americans of her time did, to escape the Jim Crow South, to flee the racism, to be wholly free. And since it stayed in our family all these years, maybe it was meant to be our refuge, too. I didn’t want the world like Mom did, just the humble slice Hunter offered.

  But then I spotted another picture—Dad with his Yale diploma—and my stomach clenched.

  Outside, I hopped into Hunter’s truck, wild thoughts buzzing in my ear. Dad had a point; my dream was Yale. The dream kids at school said would be given to me to fill a minority quota. Nothing but a handout. A charity case. Not something I worked just as hard for.

  “What’s wrong?” Hunter asked, picking up on my silence.

  “Dad,” I sighed, slouching in my seat.

  He nodded and slid an arm around my shoulders, brushing a braid out of my eye.

  “We don’t have to do this tonight. We can just stay here, just like this, forever if you want.”

  That was all I wanted. To spend the rest of my life staring into the tender parts of his eyes and forget that I’m the strange lone Black girl in a white fancy school. The token in every extracurricular activity and on every dance stage. Here with Hunter, on Martha’s Vineyard, I could be free to really be . . . free.

  “No, I want to,” I insisted, buckling my seat belt. “Let’s go.”

  Still, my mind betrayed us as I checked the time on Hunter’s dashboard. Fifteen hours until the ferry.

  In the early days of that summer, Hunter made it his mission to pull me into the folds of New England life.

  “Lobster . . . ice cream?”

  “It’s delicious!” Hunter insisted as we walked hand in hand down Menemsha Beach, waiting for the sunset.

  “No way! No fishy ice cream for me.”

  “Lobstah’s a shellfish,” he laughed, stopping to pick up a rock smoothed over by ocean waves.

  I loved his thick New England accent that made all his words end on an upswing. I loved his beat-up truck that smelled like mulch, the holes in his mismatched socks, and the tan on his broad shoulders from fishing with his dad.

  I also loved his silence. He never asked intrusive questions. And he never showboated like the boys at school, talking about all the money they had or how famous their parents were. He was peace wrapped in warm skin.

  “Do they put butter on top of that ice cream or whipped cream?” I asked as I tripped over a rock with a yelp.

  Hunter caught my arm before I could faceplant into the sand and stood me upright. He smirked, tilting my chin up to his, arms wrapping around my waist.

  “You know what? Bet you by the end of the summer, I’ll make you fall in love.”

  I gulped. “With you?”

  “Yeah . . . and with lobstah ice cream.”

  He was right. I did both.

  Hunter had plans for us. We were going to go to college together in Boston. Have a Vineyard wedding. Buy a house in Oak Bluffs. He’d become a cop and I could write historical fiction, facing the very sea our people were taken across, maybe travel the world giving speeches. He had it all figured out.

  Then, Dad called and reminded me of a finish line no one thought I could reach. The one those boys thought would be handed to me. And how desperately I needed to prove them wrong.

  When the rumors first started to brew, they were easy for Dad to blow off. A woman here or there, no big deal. Folks just trying to trap a Black man, Dad had assured us. But when his assistant started to show at six months, Dad’s recycled paper-thin excuses didn’t hold up weight.

  On the day Dad’s scandal hit the Upper East Side grapevine, Mom had a craving for blueberry pancakes and suntan lotion. We packed our bags and by the next morning, we were sitting at Right Fork Diner in Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, watching the old aviator planes make smooth landings in the tall grass. The butter on my toast hadn’t even melted when the idea hit her.

  “You know what? Let’s move here! For good.”

  Mom presented the idea with the simplest of reasons: a chance for a fresh start in a familiar setting.

  Black people have been coming to Martha’s Vineyard, specifically Oak Bluffs, since running for freedom. It was a safe place to shelter, until it became a tourist destination for upper-class Black people. Dad inherited my great-grandmother’s Victorian home and we’ve spent no less than two weeks every summer here since the day I was born. With so many Black families owning property and working in tandem with white families without incident, it was considered the first place where Black people were thriving, not just surviving, and could have a reprieve from the racism in the rest of the country. Here, for a change, we could let our guard down.

  Hunter stopped at the entrance of Katama Beach.

  “I was just here,” I laughed. “I thought you said we were going to some special beach.”

  He gave me a sly grin. “We are. Hang tight.”

  He revved his engine and drove right over a sand bank.

  “Whoa!” I screamed.

  “Hold on!”

  I gripped the ceiling handle as he drove, up and over the first sand dune, then another dune, like a roller coaster. Hunter clicked gears as the wheels kicked sand behind us. For a moment, it looked as if we were in the middle of some desert, the moon lighting our way across the Middle East.

  “Reminds me of Dubai,” I shouted over the roaring engine.

  Hunter turned, perplexed. “What’s that?”

  I smiled and shook my head, remembering Hunter had never left the state, let alone the country, in his entire life.

  “Never mind.”

  Mom’s words echoed. You want someone who can give you the world. How could he give me something he knows nothing about?

  “I’m real excited about you meeting my friends,” Hunter said. “Been waiting all summer to do this.”

  It’s not that I didn’t want to meet his friends. I was sure his friends were just like him—gentle and tender thinkers who’d rather look up at the stars than down at their phones. But I just loved living in our own tight bubble and didn’t want to relinquish it yet.

  A few minutes later we came to a downward clearing, the beach nearly empty except for a small group of trucks, the beds facing the ocean, and kids gathered around a large bonfire.

  Hunter parked the car, grinning. “Ready? Let’s do it!”

  A group of white faces were waiting for us, five guys and three girls. I ignored the pinch of disappointment in my throat. I thought I would see more . . . color. Color that reflected all the people on the island.

  “Hey everybody,” Hunter shouted, opening the truck bed.

  “Hey Hunter!” the group cheered. “What up dawg!”

  I don’t know what they were playing before we arrived, but someone quickly switched the music to Jay-Z and I wanted to pretend I didn’t notice. Their heads bob, singing along the wrong lyrics. Hunter introduced me to everyone individually, his hand never leaving the small of my back, and even though I’m always a little uncomfortable around new people, I felt safe with him.

  “And this is my best friend Jake.”

  Jake yoked me into a tight hug. “What’s up boo? Good to finally meet you, after all this hiding.”

  The slang sou
nded as off-beat in his mouth as his rhythm.

  “Hi,” I croaked out, trying to relax, sliding out of Jake’s grip.

  “Dawg, she’s real pretty,” Jake said, as if I wasn’t standing there. “Prettiest Black girl I’ve ever seen! Told you you’d find someone of your kind soon.”

  The comment landed with a thud against my chest.

  I waited for Hunter to say something, but he just unloaded the beers in silence.

  Twelve hours until the ferry.

  “Wait? You’re BLACK?”

  Hunter wiped the sticky donut glaze off his mouth as we sat on wooden horses in the carousel, closed for the night.

  “Well, I prefer biracial.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “So, you’re Black?”

  He sighed, shaking his head. “It’s not a big deal.”

  Hunter’s father was a Black man from Georgia who met his mother working on the island one summer. They fell in love, then parted ways. A few months later, Hunter came into this world and his father gave up law school and moved back to the island to be with the ones he loved most.

  In awe, I took in his features, again. I thought the golden crisp of his skin was from being in the sun too long. He could pass as a white boy.

  “We’ve been seeing each other every day for the last three weeks and you’re just mentioning this now?”

  He shrugged, avoiding my stare. “Guess I wanted someone to like me for just being . . . me.”

  “These stupid fucking tourists are paying crazy money to Airbnb Old Man Johnny’s house,” Jake said, laughing, a gold beer can in his hand. “What a bunch of idiots!”

  Hunter’s friends talked about the tourists that swarm the island every summer, bringing their so-called ignorance, inflating prices on just about everything. They bragged about the rich girls’ virginity they took and the rich boys they convinced to throw parties at their parents’ rental houses. Their pandering was painfully familiar. Change the setting, and we could’ve been back in New York with the very people I wanted to run from. Is this what awaits me at school here?

  I glanced at my phone. Ten hours until the ferry.