Between Us and the Moon

by Rebecca Maizel

  We drive past the beach guard booth, where they charge the tourists twenty bucks to get on the sand, but we don’t stop in the parking lot. We drive to a lane at the far end of the parking lot, designated for the outer beach, a part of Nauset you can go to only if you have a car with four-wheel drive.

  “We’re going four wheeling?” I ask. I know Mom and Dad wouldn’t approve, but Scarlett definitely would.

  We pull up to the guard booth for the outer beach campsites. “Campsite twelve is open,” the guard says. Andrew pulls ahead. “Is that okay?” he asks with a hint of worry in his voice.

  The sand road lines the coast for miles. I must be making a funny face because Andrew pulls to the side of the lane. “I should have asked you, right? I’m so bad at this.”

  “Bad at what?”

  “You barely know me and I’m taking you to the outer beach. I could be a psycho.”

  I scoot over in my seat, grip the door handle, and press myself against the window. I pretend I am screaming and trying to escape. Andrew laughs. It’s true, I wouldn’t normally do something like this. But that’s the point.

  Besides, Scarlett vetted him.

  “I’ll take the risk,” I say. I can’t explain why I feel so comfortable already. I have my cell phone and Nancy always makes me put Mace in my purse just in case.

  “I’ll get you back by ten,” he says. His eyes seem so blue in this light.

  The wind whips through the pickup and blows my hair about my face. Andrew turns up the radio even louder so the song playing oozes through my hair, the seats, and the salt water misting my cheeks. The singer croons: Hello, I love you, won’t you tell me your name? I’ve never heard the song before, but I like it.

  As we drive toward the outer beach, the ocean flies by us. Well, scientifically that would be impossible, but it feels like that even though we’re only going around ten miles an hour. There are lots of other people down by the shore, grilling, swimming, and flying kites.

  Andrew holds the steering wheel with one lazy hand and the other rests on my seat back. He seems happy. Maybe he just likes the outer beach? After all, it is a beautiful night, though unseasonably humid for June.

  The roar of Andrew’s truck quiets to a growl as we approach an empty campsite. We pull into a small spot with a number 12 on a sign. We’re only a hundred feet or so away from some people at the camp next to us. The ocean stretches away as far as I can see.

  “Is this our spot?” I ask.

  “Yup, until I have to get you home for curfew,” he says, turning the music down.

  “Curfew, huh? You’ve mentioned that a couple times,” I say. “You know, repetition is the essence of all experimentation. I mean, to ensure that the scientific hypothesis is solid, observations must repeat themselves.” Andrew beams at me, but I literally want to throw my hands over my mouth. “But sometimes in social situations it can show you’re nervous,” I grumble quickly.

  “Wow, I’ll have to remember that,” he says.

  As I am about to get out, I hesitate. At my feet, resting on the mat, is a navy blue cloth arm sling.

  “Did you hurt yourself?”

  Andrew hesitates but keeps his fingers on the door handle.

  “It’s not mine,” he says. “A year ago, my friends Mike and Curtis were in a car accident.” He doesn’t tell me which friend wore the sling.

  He also doesn’t elaborate or make eye contact. Various embarrassing experiences have taught me that when people don’t want to talk about something or when I accidentally invade their personal space, they evade eye contact.

  “So why are you repeating yourself?” I ask, moving the conversation away from the car accident. “About getting me home by ten.”

  “Just haven’t had to worry about curfews in a while.”

  “My parents . . . ,” I say and open the door. “They’re kind of strict.”

  “But you’re eighteen. Can’t you do what you want?”

  “To an extent,” I say, hoping this is a sufficient response. I make sure to meet his eyes when I say, “I’m doing what I want right now.”

  “I can respect that,” he says.

  Couldn’t have said it any better myself.

  ELEVEN

  ANDREW UNEARTHS A GRILL FROM BENEATH SOME blankets in the back of his pickup. He folds down the back hatch of the truck so I can sit. I sneak a peek at my cell phone, praying that Mom and Dad haven’t called. Nope. It’s only eight fifteen.

  While Andrew lights the charcoals on a small grill, I survey the coastline. It changes every year with the storms. The Chatham break is a split in the beach where the bay and ocean meet. A small lagoon separates our beach, and in the distance, large swells crash against a sandbar.

  Andrew salts the scallops and grabs some butter from a small cooler.

  “So where is your sister going?” Andrew asks. “You said your parents are having a going-away party.”

  Think fast. “Um, she’s studying abroad for the fall, so my aunt, who we stay with during the summers, is throwing this huge party.”

  “You don’t sound happy about it.”

  “It’s not that,” I say, jumping to the ground and kneeling down in front of the smoking grill. It sizzles each time Andrew adds a scallop.

  “So if you’re happy about the going-away party, why the scowl?”

  “Am I scowling?”

  “A little.”

  “I don’t know why we have to make such a big deal about her leaving,” I say. “Good-bye parties in general confuse me. I mean, why make a big deal about saying good-bye?” I’m surprised it’s easy to say all of this to him.

  Andrew shrugs. “Sometimes just saying good-bye isn’t enough. Like if you make an event out of it, it’ll be easier.”

  I wish Andrew could be my date at the party. If Tucker did show, he would see me with Andrew and kick himself. He’d wonder how he could possibly give up a girl like me.

  Just thinking about Tucker makes me want to go home and recheck my coordinates. Andrew keeps cooking the scallops and I can’t help but compare his frame to Tucker’s. Andrew is so much more built. Tucker is scrawny compared to him.

  “Wanna try one?” Andrew asks.

  “What?” I jump. “I mean. Okay.”

  He laughs a little. “You were deep in thought.” He holds a succulent scallop out to me on a silver fork. I blow on it and take a bite; the butter slithers over my tongue.

  “Wow, good,” I say and swallow. He nods once to himself, like it’s an achievement.

  The waves crash on the shore. It’s headed toward low tide. It’s still light out and the smoke from Andrew’s grill makes the sky a lavender gray. The stars are just starting to pop through the sky, but we have some time yet.

  Maybe I should mention my projection for Comet Jolie? Or would that sound too much like Bean?

  I hand Andrew the fork and sit down on the sand a few feet away from the water. I lie down so my hair falls beneath me and the chill of the sand cools the back of my head. I try to seem elegant and relaxed.

  The smoke from the grill swirls up to the sky.

  “They’re almost done.” Andrew lies down next to me. The sides of our bodies barely touch and I am very aware of the hair on my arms prickling. “What do you see?” he asks quietly.

  “I can barely make out Cassiopeia. She’s on her side, watching us from her tipped-over throne.”

  “Is that right, Star Girl? Can you tell my future from those stars?”

  He shatters my Scarlett confidence with his glance. He draws me to him, like a lighthouse calling the ships home. My heart is pounding. Is this when people kiss for the first time?

  I kissed Tucker so many times, but it wasn’t like this, with him staring into my eyes, with the beach and the waves. It was in a bio lab or in my backyard. I want to kiss Andrew so much that my chest aches. I never wanted Tucker like this, with my whole body.

  There’s a quick sizzle from the grill behind us and Andrew jumps up before we can kiss and befor
e I can explain that numerology and star charts are complete hogwash.

  Andrew uses a plastic spoon to divvy up the scallops. We have some chips, and if I were being myself and not Scarlett, I would have licked the oil from my fingertips. Instead, I wipe them delicately on a paper napkin and take small buttery bites. I tell myself to eat slowly instead of gulping everything down like I usually do.

  After we eat, I enjoy the view. I expect Andrew to join me, but he stands at the open driver’s-side door of his truck. He crosses his arms at the wrist. His fingers grasp the bottom of his T-shirt and he slides it off. I have to do a double take.

  There’s something scrawled on the underside of his arm, but I can’t make it out because he moves too fast. Is it a tattoo?

  It’s almost fully sunset and the horizon burns an orange pink. I close my eyes, inhaling the salty air. I really do love Cape Cod. Andrew’s feet crunch quietly over the sand. There’s a click as he turns on the headlights. He stands in front of me at the shore, looking out at the ocean.

  Andrew glances back at me. Standing there, smiling like that, his swim trunks barely clinging to his waist, he’s a movie star. The captain of the swim team at home. He’s the quarterback. He is the antithesis of Tucker. He is someone I could never get by being Bean. I want to say something witty. I want to be fascinating.

  “Come on,” he says and extends a hand to me just like he did at the fish market.

  “We really should wait twenty minutes to avoid cramping,” I say. It slipped out. I cringe and have to look away.

  Andrew places his hand on his stomach and laughs so hard that his face turns red. He comes over and pulls me up so my eyes are at his chin. He searches my face.

  “You’re funny,” he says. He shakes his head. “How about I promise you I won’t let you get a cramp.” He laughs when he says this and his whole face reddens again. It’s a good thing he thinks I’m trying to be funny. I don’t know if I could be funny intentionally.

  “I didn’t bring my suit,” I say, gesturing to Scarlett’s short shorts.

  He takes a step back so his heels touch the water, he looks me up and down.

  “Afraid to get wet?”

  This question makes me shudder.

  “No . . . ,” I say, but my voice wobbles.

  I’m trembling and I have no idea why. Shudders run through me again and again like I’m freezing. Can I make this stop?

  When I think Andrew is going to take a step to join me on the sand, he pivots on his heel, runs into the water, and dives. The bottom of his feet slip into the sea.

  I can’t really be nervous about cramping, I have to ignore the statistical data. I’m pretty sure Andrew wants me to follow him into the water.

  “You coming!?” he calls.

  “Isn’t it freezing?” I call back.

  I stand and shift my weight from my right foot to my left and back. Andrew bobs out there in the shallow water, the mix of the rising moon and the falling sun makes the ocean a stormy blue. Scarlett would go. Scarlett would jump in.

  “It’s not bathwater. But the lagoon here is a lot warmer than beyond the sandbar. Come on in, Star Girl!”

  These short shorts are kind of like a bathing suit but I take them off anyway. I slip off my sweater and it pools onto the sand. I kick my shoes off next. Soon, I’m standing in my bra and underwear. I can’t believe I chose tonight of all nights to wear my pink polka-dot underwear. Never in a million years did I think someone might see them. The people down the beach can’t tell I’m not wearing a bathing suit.

  Guess it’s now or never. I hold my breath and take a step into the surf.

  Pinpricks of frigid cold water stab my feet.

  “Holy crap!” I cry out. “You think this is warm?”

  “It’s good once you get in!”

  Scarlett wouldn’t complain. Scarlett would be brave. Keep going. Be Scarlett.

  I slosh through the shallow water. Be Scarlett. Cold. Rippling over my thighs. Frozen. Be Scarlett.

  “Go under! It will help!”

  I take a deep breath and dive, arms in a point.

  Paralyzing. Freezing. The icy water presses over my cheeks and my hair. I shoot up and gasp for air. Andrew’s lean arms cut through the water toward me.

  I scream a little, I can’t help it. Andrew laughs again and we both smile at each other under that lavender sky.

  “Oh my God, Andrew,” I say. I stretch my legs out, but I’m still unable to touch the bottom. I start treading water. Andrew is tall enough that he’s standing solidly on the ground. “I think the people on the Titanic were this cold.”

  “You’re sick,” he says with a laugh, but his jaw quivers, his teeth chattering.

  He pulls me toward him and I wrap my legs around his waist. Andrew supports me by sliding his hands around my lower back. I hold on to his body and it’s surprising how well we fit. I didn’t even think about how I should maneuver my body. The sun’s last rays make the water lavender, just like the sky. A mix of sun and moon.

  “You’re crazy to make me do this,” I say through chattering teeth.

  “Certifiable.” He looks in my eyes and down at my probably blue lips. The tips of my fingers burn from the cold.

  “I want to kiss you,” he says quietly.

  Tucker could never have held me like this. Andrew is so strong, it’s effortless.

  “Can I?” he asks. “Kiss you?”

  “In a sec,” I say. My teeth chatter.

  I press a cold hand gently onto his chest.

  “What are you waiting for?” he whispers. “Hypothermia?”

  We laugh through chattering teeth. I want to hold on to this moment for as long as possible. Right now, we’re in the in-between. We’re hovering in the water, together, and I am in his arms, in someone’s arms, in this incredible way for the first time in my entire life.

  This isn’t simply an experiment. This is very different.

  “It’s just . . . ,” I say with a small shake of my head. “This moment right now, we can never get it back. If we kiss we’ll never be two people who haven’t kissed before. It will be . . . the after.”

  He has stubble on his chin. One of Andrew’s hands rests under my thigh and the other runs to the back of my head. “I never thought of it like that before,” he says. We hover there; he examines my mouth.

  “Screw it,” he says.

  Andrew hoists me to him and our lips meet.

  He opens his lips, and I open mine, too.

  Please let me be doing this right. With a turn of his head, Andrew kisses me deeper.

  Please let me do this right.

  His lips part from mine and Andrew’s eyes are kind, warm. He smiles at me but only by lifting one half of his mouth. Scarlett says she loves guys with crooked smiles—this must be what she means. My whole body shivers again, but I can’t tell if it’s the temperature of the water or Andrew.

  His hand rests on my hip and I can feel the rhythm of Andrew’s legs as he walks us toward the shore. The movement is one I’ve never experienced before. When we get a few feet from the sand, my legs slide down his, and I’m standing in knee-high water, looking up at him and the constellations just starting to shimmer in the sky.

  “Let’s go; you’re freezing,” he says. He grabs my hands and once we get back to the truck, I immediately slip back on my shorts and wrap my arms around my body, trying to keep in any body heat. I wring out some of the salt water from my hair, and lines of icy water drip down my back.

  “You know,” I say, squeezing the ends so drops make little divots in the dry sand below me. “Hypothermia is possible in water at a temperature less than eighty degrees.”

  “Hey, that’s one fact I know,” he says from the back of the truck and pulls out two huge beach towels. He shakes them free of sand and wraps one around me while I’m still wringing the water out of my hair. I was going to grab my sweater but this is better. He wraps the other towel around himself, and pulls the grill closer so some of the still smoking e
mbers warm us up. “Want to show me more constellations?” he asks, pulling me up next to him on the hood of the truck. We huddle together.

  Before I start explaining, I wonder about the car accident he mentioned earlier and if it had to do with that team jersey he wrapped around the tree trunk.

  “Can I ask you something?” I say.

  “You bet.”

  “What were you doing on the street the night we met?”

  Andrew turns on his side to me. I mimic his movement.

  He rests a hand on my hip. I try to act like someone has touched me on my hip before. I love his warmth.

  “My friend Mike died,” he admits.

  I wish I hadn’t asked. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly.

  “Curtis? The guy you met at the beach? He was driving Mike’s car and . . .” He hesitates, but I can see where this is going. “He was drunk. Curtis was all amped up. Mike didn’t have a seat belt on and—”

  “He hit the tree,” I say, barely above a whisper.

  “He hit the tree.”

  Andrew isn’t looking at me as he utters the words. I never thought sad eyes could sparkle, but his do. It’s not a happy shine, but it’s not tears, either. We’re quiet a moment but of course, I can’t help the logical part of my mind. Curtis was driving the Jeep.

  “How does Curtis drive?” I ask. “If you kill someone don’t they confiscate your license forever?”

  “He was in jail for nine months. When he got out he had court-ordered outpatient rehab. He literally got his license back four days ago. It’s considered a restricted license.”

  Curtis was in jail? Why is Scarlett hanging out with him?

  “It’s not only Curtis,” Andrew continues. “I should have been there that night. I could have stopped that accident from happening. I go over and over it in my head. Every night I have a new scenario. A new way I could have prevented that accident.”

  It’s not his fault. He didn’t make Curtis drink and drive.

  “It’s a logical fact,” I say and sit up straight.