“Everyone gets to see the famous Nancy house,” I say, just to get the conversation to the point.
“Trish went to visit Scarlett in New York.”
“Woop-de-doo.”
“You don’t sound excited,” Tucker says.
“I’m sorry. I guess I can’t have a normal conversation with you. Let’s just cut to the chase. You coming or not?”
“Would you want to go if you were me?”
I don’t answer this because I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. That no, I wouldn’t ever want to go to an Aunt Nancy party as long as I lived?
“My mom is kind of making me.”
He waits a few seconds before adding, “I know Ettie told you about Becky and me. We’re still together.”
“Good for you,” I say. “Really, that’s fantastic. Can’t wait to see you guys at school. Oh and p.s.? I have a boyfriend,” I blurt out and hit myself on the forehead. My stomach lurches and my headache radiates again.
“That’s cool,” Tucker replies, but his tone betrays him and I am victorious. Because I know it bothers him. VIC.TOR.IOUS. More silence.
“Who is it?” he asks.
“You’ll meet him on the sixth,” I say and hang up without saying good-bye.
In the silence that follows, the computer screen stares at me—it hates me. It mocks me with the question I’ve been avoiding for weeks. I am not going to pull off the party without getting caught.
My phone rings a couple more times during the day. Ettie, Mom, Nancy—never, not once, is it Andrew. By midafternoon his absence is all I can think about.
He lobsters Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and he’s at the juvenile detention center Mondays and Wednesdays. It’s Monday. Maybe he’s just too busy?
Maybe?
That night at dinner, I’m stabbing peas again. Andrew still hasn’t called.
In the living room the TV weatherman talks about the tropical storm.
“Even if it’s a tropical storm,” Dad says, taking a bite, “we could have wind speeds up to fifty miles an hour.”
“So you’re telling me I need to have a tent assembled and disassembled the same night?” Nancy asks and sips on her wine.
I purposefully left my phone upstairs once I started getting the marathon text messages from Ettie, who heard from Becky Winthrop’s little sister that I had a boyfriend. She was mortified that she hadn’t been briefed about Andrew and me making it official. I imagine how the story went down. Poor Bean has a boyfriend, some loser on the Cape. I’m the butt of some horrible joke and I realize—fork in the air, about to take a bite of Chilean sea bass—Tucker had to make that call to me this afternoon.
Becky made him. Becky wanted to make sure that she was in charge, in control. She wanted me to know that they were still together even though Tucker was going to Scarlett’s party where he couldn’t bring her as his date. Oh joy. School is going to be super fun this year.
“We’ll get Scarlett at ten next Friday morning,” Mom says to Nancy. I tune back into the conversation. “You should come along.”
“No thanks,” I say and sip from a glass of water.
“Oh,” Mom replies and lowers her fork. “Okay.”
“You should go with your mother if she asks you,” Nancy says.
“No,” I say, my head swiveling to Nancy. She’s dressed in her own grown-up version of the cupcake dress. “We’re talking about something that is happening a week from now. And it was an invitation not a command.”
I know I stepped over the line. I put my fork down.
“I’m going upstairs,” I say. Everyone is silent at the table, and Dad is watching the game in the other room.
“Beanie, you should finish your dinner,” Mom says, but I keep going up the stairs.
“Bean!” Nancy calls, but I don’t listen. I don’t need to.
I don’t want to be Scarlett’s welcoming committee. Scarlett, who belittles me. Scarlett, who scoffs when she even considers that I might sneak out of the house. How many times has she looked down her nose at me? Heat sweeps over my cheeks. She bought me that Egyptian Musk because she knows that I envy what she thinks is beautiful.
I am at the top of the stairs when I hear whispering from the kitchen table, probably about my behavior.
All that evening I wait for my phone to beep. Andrew usually calls or texts a few times during the day. I blew it. I was a lunatic at Fort Hill. They should just lock me in a cage and let people examine me. I’m like a wild animal.
I finally succumb to the assault of messages from Ettie and confess that I fooled around with Andrew. I don’t tell her the specifics, but I admit that we went further than I ever did with Tucker.
ETTIE: You traitor. I am stuck at band camp every day and you are hooking up.
ETTIE: Hello? I want specifics here.
I hesitate.
ME: There’s not much to say!
ETTIE: Tell me everything! Please!?
ME: Going to bed, will update in the morning.
I’m not really going to bed. I just want the beeping to stop, so the false hopes stop too. As I lie there, the walk at the Fort Hill trail floats into my mind, but it’s not about the fight with Andrew. The boardwalk snakes into the trees and the light filters through the full green leaves in thick beams. Mom and Dad walk side by side. Dad wipes his head with a handkerchief. My feet are clad in pink sandals and the plunk plunk sound of my feet echoes over that boardwalk.
That will never happen again.
My phone is silent on the bed. The silence is different in this house than at home. No TV chattering away all night, no whir of the computer, just the central air system cooling the house.
All I want in this whole freaking world is for that phone to beep. And I want it to be Andrew. I want it to be Andrew who says to me You are amazing. You are wonderful. Who lets me apologize. Who lets me be me.
Who doesn’t call.
AUGUST SCHEDULE
IMPORTANT DATES:
☐Princess Scarlett returns—Friday August 5th (finish cleaning Scarlett’s clothes!!!)
☐Party August 6th.
☐Organize for Waterman Scholarship: due date August 8th
LOOKING AHEAD:
☐Personal Essay.
☐Get junior year orientation packet.
☐Pi Nary meeting. Projector needed?
☐Call Bennett Pool to arrange for lifeguard lessons?
TWENTY-SEVEN
I DON’T WANT TO MAKE LISTS ANYMORE. I SCRIBBLE out the word “orientation” from my daily planner. I don’t need to write and rewrite things a hundred times. It’s not making me feel any better. Five days. It’s been five days since I talked to Andrew.
My fingers linger over the smooth metal of my cell phone.
Claudia agreed to meet me at the beach and then to go shopping. It’ll be good to have someone else to talk to. I can’t concentrate on my application anymore and I work well under pressure. Also, it stops me from staring at my phone.
An hour later, we’re sitting, my back sticky and hot against the plastic of a beach chair. The sand is well over one hundred degrees. Okay, so I was wrong. The rustling of potato chip bags and the mindless chatter doesn’t distract me from checking my phone endlessly.
“Oh my God, Sarah. Stop it.”
Claudia takes the phone and buries it deep in my NASA bag.
“Ugh. I know,” I say.
“People get in fights. It happens all the time,” she says.
“Yeah, but he hasn’t even responded to my text messages in five days. It’s over. I just have to accept it.”
She leans an elbow on the arm of her beach chair.
“Listen to me. Every time you think about calling or texting him, talk to me instead. If he’s too much of a jerk to accept your apology then screw him.”
It feels better to have a friend nearby.
“Should we head back home a day early?” one tourist asks behind me. All anyone else seems to be talking about is this stupid tropical s
torm. I wish Nancy would just cancel the party, but I know that’s not an option.
“Tropical storm just means there will be rain and some wind,” the other tourist says. “I don’t want to lose out on the hotel.”
A group of girls wearing string bikinis walk by the waterline. They are tourists, or I would probably recognize them. I’m wearing the American flag string bikini for perhaps the last time. I adjust the triangle top; Scarlett will never let me wear it when she comes home. I wear it because in the fantasy version of my life, Andrew is here on the beach. He recognizes the American flag, walks up to me on the beach, and kisses me. He will have some amazing reason for this silent treatment.
But in the reality version, my phone is silent.
“So I think I have to go home on Friday. My parents want to leave because of the storm too,” Claudia says later that afternoon at Viola’s. She holds a pink bandeau dress up to her frame. “Whatever, at least I’ll get to see the renovations at the theater before everyone else.”
“That sucks. Did you tell them you desperately wanted to stay for my sister’s insanely over-the-top going-away party?”
Claudia laughs. “Of course. But my mom is completely freaked out. When do you start school?”
“September third. I definitely want to see all your plays this year,” I add and pick out a black cocktail dress from the rack. It’s pretty short with spaghetti straps that crisscross and make complicated interlocking patterns across the whole back.
Claudia plops down in a chair by an oversized window that looks out on to the busy main street. “I’m going to miss you!” she says. “I wish we had started hanging out earlier this summer.”
“We’ll have tons of time this year and then all next summer,” I say. She nods and says, “But I wanted to see your aunt’s house. And your telescope.”
“Anytime you want. Come before you leave. Nancy will probably cater the event if I tell her I have a friend coming to the house. She might not let you leave. Ever.”
Claudia laughs and I step behind the familiar curtain of the dressing room. I change into the dress. It’s definitely form fitting. I step out and before the floor length mirror. Only this time, my friend breaks into a huge smile.
“Oh my gosh,” Claudia sits up. “You have to get that.”
Wow. It’s exactly what I’ve been wanting. It’s simple and elegant and makes my legs look long. This girl in the reflection is me—the way I feel inside.
This is who Andrew sees. I can see a glimmer of her here in this mirror.
Maybe when he sees me in this dress at the party, he’ll forgive me.
“I guess I’m not getting the blue geode necklace after all,” I say.
I get changed and pay.
We walk through town, and I pick up a few more items—some sandals, a couple tops—and when we’re done, I have about twenty dollars left from the Pizza Palace fund. I have always gone home with money every single summer. This time, I won’t, and I don’t feel bad about it at all.
I hug Claudia good-bye at Shore Road.
“If I don’t get a chance to come by first, I’ll see you when you get home,” she says. “And if you don’t tell me what happens with Andrew, I will come to East Greenwich and hunt you down.”
“Definitely,” I say with a laugh.
I watch Claudia walk as she heads back to her parents’ house half a mile away. It doesn’t feel like good-bye because I’ll probably text her in ten minutes. I already imagine her hanging out with Ettie and me at home.
It won’t be one of those summer friendships. I think this one might be for life.
That night, even all the way down here in Orleans, I swear I can hear the swells breaking in Truro twenty miles away. I toss and turn in my bed.
Beep. My cell phone chimes twice. I scramble for the cell, but it slips from the night table and I fall to the floor in a twist of blankets.
ANDREW: Surprise.
My heart thuds and I cannot type fast enough. My fingers fumble on the keys and I make twenty typos to write four words. Finally, I hit send.
ME: Where have you been?
The phone beeps again.
ANDREW: Come down to your beach.
I throw off the covers and hop out of bed. I’m wearing sleeping shorts and a Mathlete T-shirt. Ah, who cares? I tiptoe down the stairs. Toe, heel. Toe, heel. My heart is not pounding—it’s thundering. Even if someone is awake, it doesn’t matter. I can light a bomb off in the front yard, no one will care.
My feet squish on the wet grass.
The moon runs in and out of the clouds and it makes the whole backyard hazy. I tiptoe down the pathway between purple hydrangea bushes. I push aside long branches and lavender petals until I make it to the bay beach. The path opens up and there, standing on the end of the dock, is Andrew. His back is to me, but he turns and when he smiles, the whole moon backlights his head like a halo.
Andrew arcs gracefully and dives into the bay.
He comes up through the water, shakes his hair out of his eyes, and smiles. I hold my arms across my chest. He swims from the dock toward me on the shore.
“Good evening,” he says, stepping from the shallow water to the beach. He wraps his cold arms around me and I nuzzle into his chest even though now my Mathlete shirt is soaked.
“Nice night for a swim,” he says.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper. Andrew’s little motorboat sits at the end of the dock.
“I have a surprise for you.”
“For me? I don’t think I deserve much of anything right now.”
He’s close. The urge to hold him close overwhelms me. I can barely get the words out.
“I cannot believe the things I said to you,” I continue. “You had every right to be mad. Every right not to talk to me anymore.”
Andrew’s eyes drop to the sand. “I was mad, at first. But after a day or two, I realized that you were right. Everything you said at the trail.”
It takes me a second to focus on the actual meaning of the words coming out of his mouth. A line of bay water drips down his chest and I want nothing more than to run my finger along its path.
“I was?”
He nods but to the ground. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Your delivery sucked, but you told me the truth.”
Hardly.
“You told me what I didn’t want to hear. But I needed to.”
His eyes have that sparkle in them again, the glint of light I love.
“Don’t you want to know the surprise?” he asks.
“Definitely.”
“I registered for school today. I went to BC and signed back up.” He smiles huge and the moon backlights him. “We really can start together in the fall.”
I jump on him and into his arms. He can’t waste his passion or his talent. He just can’t. But as he puts me down, the truth dips through me and I want to curl in on myself. For one moment, I believed my own lies.
Andrew leads me to the water.
I know I don’t have the strength to tell him about Scarlett right now. The pain of his absence was too much.
“I don’t have my suit,” I say.
“We find ourselves in this position a lot,” he replies.
“I don’t know,” I say. “What if my parents . . .” But I stop. Mom and Dad would never expect me to be out of bed.
He takes a step closer to me.
“You’re a big girl . . .”
He lifts the T-shirt over my head, the air holds a flicker of a chill, and I’m not wearing a bra. Even though the air is salty and humid, a ripple of goose bumps rushes over me. With one tug of his right hand, my shorts are almost at my ankles. I lift one foot and then the other. I am only in my underwear. I throw my hair back over my shoulders.
No Scarlett clothes now.
“You are beautiful, Sarah.”
I stand on that secluded bay beach and I’m exposed, open.
“Absolutely beautiful,” he says. He leads me toward the bay. Once I am waist de
ep, Andrew lifts me by my hips, just like that day we jumped in the ocean, but this, this is different. The water in the bay is almost still. It’s warm and he is firm under his shorts. And for the first time, I want to take my underwear off. I’ve never wanted to be so close to anyone before. I want him so close to me that we share our bodies.
He pulls me closer, kissing my mouth and when he pulls my hips to his, I gasp. I run my palms over his chest up to his shoulders.
I can’t stay out here as much as I want to. It’s too risky with Nancy’s bedroom facing out here.
“I should go in,” I whisper. Andrew kisses me again, and all I can do is kiss him back because I don’t want the night to end.
I do something very, very stupid.
“Come upstairs with me,” I say.
A glint of mischief plays in his eyes. Right, I’m standing in the harbor with no clothes on, he thinks I want him to come in for sex. And he’s smiling.
“Not for that,” I say. “I mean, I do want to, but there’re way too many people inside.”
“Okay,” Andrew says, and his eyes squint a bit. He’s confused, but that mischief plays in the raised corner of his mouth.
“Will you come in? Just to be with me. To sleep next to me. I have the top floor to myself.”
“Definitely. But I gotta be out by five in the morning.”
Perfect. No one will see you.
We trudge out of the water, and when we step back onto the sand I pick up my wet T-shirt and shorts, holding them close to my naked body. We tiptoe together and Andrew stays close behind me. The branches and leaves on both sides of the path tickle my arms. Andrew’s breath is quick.
“I haven’t snuck into someone’s house since high school,” he says in a whispered laugh.
“Yeah, me neither,” I reply, coming out of the pathway onto the moonlit backyard.
We climb the stairs to the deck. In the reflection of the glass panoramic windows the moon shines down on the patio. My hair drips and sticks to the middle of my back. My pink underwear is nearly see through. Who cares. I turn the handle. The crunch of the sand beneath our feet sounds so loud, I’m convinced Mom and Dad can hear this all the way on their side of the house. Once we get to the third floor, we won’t have to whisper. For once, I’m grateful that the Seaside Stomachache is so big.
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