“Your studio?” he says. “Do you own this place?”
“Josh.”
“Because you know who owns this place,” he says.
“Yeah, not you.”
“My grandfather sent me here,” I say. “What do you want me to tell him about how this talk went?”
They stare at each other. I awkwardly pretend to keep dancing.
“Okay,” she says. “Tell Travis I have time at eight.”
He smiles. “Good girl.”
He leaves, and she screams and kicks her boombox. The music stops.
I come up behind her and wrap my arms around my waist. “Do you want me to beat the shit out of him?”
“Someone needs to. C'mon, I need to get out of this studio.”
“How long do you have?”
“Like twenty minutes. Let's take a walk.”
I have no idea if walk is a euphemism and it feels like I shouldn't ask. “Okay.”
Outside, here's some sort of cheery music playing for water aerobics. It smells like wet grass and barbeque.
We get about three steps out of the studio before she starts ranting. “Seriously, what the hell does he know about dancing?” he says. “I mean he even admitted that he can't dance. So he can come in here for his first summer and tell me what to do with the final performance that I've been running for four years, because his grandfather owns the place?”
“So why didn't you say no?” I say.
“Seriously? Because I don't want to lose my job over a dance partner. No offense.”
“He wouldn't have fired you,” I say.
“No, probably not outright, but Josh goes and tattles to his grandpa and he puts it in the Mara-file in his head and eventually it all adds up and I'm out of here.”
“I don't think Josh would even tell him. He'd be too embarrassed that he couldn't wrangle you and he'd make some excuse about Travis not wanting to do it or something.”
“Maybe,” Mara says. “But I can't take that chance.”
“I know,” I say.
“Some people can't go out and solve the world all the time,” she says. “We have to keep our jobs.”
“I said I get it,” I say. “And you know what, I'm getting really sick of this Sugar's an idealist crap when the only time I've ever tried to save the world that you know of was when I saved your ass.”
“You literally just asked me why I didn't say no to my boss's grandson,” she says. “And you think I'm pulling this idealist angle out of nowhere?”
“Okay. Yeah.”
“C'mere.” She gives me a hug. We're over by the clubhouse now, by the side entrance off the ballroom. And then who should come out those doors, for some reason, but Josh, and with him Bekah and my mother.
“Shit!” I grab Mara by the wrist and pull her behind the line of shrubs. We peek out over the top.
“Mom, Josh says I could really have a chance at an Ivy,” Bekah's saying.
“I think she'd be perfect for Cornell,” he says.
Mom puts one arm around Bekah's shoulders and one around Josh's. “She really has so much potential, I've always thought that.”
Bekah does this excited little bounce.
I breathe out as they head around the corner. “I think we're good,” I say.
Mara's staring at me.
“What?” I say.
“What the hell was that?”
“You know she doesn't know about us,” I say.
“Yeah, I knew she didn't know. I didn't know it was a matter of national security that she not find out.” She keeps walking.
I catch up to her. “Seriously? My mom's approval means that much to you?”
“Jesus, why do you have to make me sound like some pathetic asshole for being offended that you're hiding me?”
“I'm not...”
“That was a jerk move,” she says. “I'm not wrong for being offended.”
“Okay,” I say. I put my hand on her arm. “Okay.”
She stops. “Your mom had your arm around Josh,” she says. “She likes Josh.”
“This has nothing to do with you as a human versus Josh as a human,” I say. “It's...you didn't hear the stuff she said about me like, masquerading as a lesbian. She thinks I'm straight. It's about me, not you.”
“Oh, please,” she says.
“What?”
“You're telling me if you were dating some nice girl waitstaff member instead, you wouldn't be running to tell Mom about it?”
“Are you...are you joking? What is this? I absolutely would not be.”
“Josh isn't just a guy,” Mara says. “He's a Harvard rich guy. He's your kind of guy.”
I take a deep breath. “Look. I'm not trying to discount your experience or your identity or something, but I'm saying that in this one instance, it really is just the lesbian thing. It would not matter if you were Katherine freaking Heigl, if she were a lesbian dating me I would not want to introduce her to my mother.”
“Katherine Heigl?”
“My mom really loves Katherine Heigl. It's not important.”
“Nothing about me can just be about one part of me and throw out the other parts,” she says. “That's not how it works. You're always going on about how your mom would never vote Republican if there were a gun to her head and she'd be totally fine with Tristan but you can't tell her about us?”
“It's complicated.”
“I have a really hard time believing that if you were going around with some rich Jewish girl then—”
I point at her. “No. Nuh-uh.”
“What?”
“You do not get to lecture me about intersectionality and then use Jewish as an adjective for how rich I am when there are people at home painting swastikas on our Hebrew schools!”
“Get your finger out of my face.”
“I'm leaving in two fucking days, why do you give a shit if you get my mother's approval?”
“Because I never get anyone's fucking approval! I don't even get to do the final show my way, goddamn it!”
“Well, you don't get to just take Josh bossing you around and then scream at me about it! I'm not a representation of the forces against you. I'm one girl who's not ready to come out to her mom.”
“You keep telling me how she's your best friend,” she says. “Don't you want her to actually know you?”
“I do,” I say. “But that is my problem. Not your problem.”
“I don't want to hide behind hedges,” she says. “I've been out my whole life.”
“It's two days, Mara.”
“Stop saying that.”
“...Oh,” I say.
I feel like I need to stop and rewind the conversation to find where I missed that she was upset about that. Stop and rewind every single conversation we've ever had to try to figure out when she started, and at what point I became a complete idiot for thinking it was just me.
She won't look at me. “Don't make fun of me.”
“No, I've been...you're older than me and you're experienced and cool and I've been trying to keep it light because I thought you...”
“No,” she says. “You're right. We should. You're right.”
“Mara.”
“You should go...go swimming or something,” she says. “I'll talk to you later.” She walks away.
So I do. I go back to my room and put a swimsuit on and then go bob in the lake. Around me, little kids with water wings are splashing towards their grandparents A few teenage boys have a raft out. The lifeguard is Susie, from the entertainment staff, and she gives me a thumbs up either because of Mara or because of Tristan. Or maybe it's sarcastic. I don't know anymore.
I've been marinating in the water for some unspecified amount of time when Bekah shows up in her tiny bikini. She sits on the dock and hangs her legs in and lies back.
I swim up to her. “Hey.”
“Mmmhmm,” she says. She's all lipstick and sunglasses.
“Did you and Mom see me earlier?”
; “What, at breakfast?”
“No, obviously you saw me at...like an hour ago or something. You were leaving the clubhouse.”
“Nope.”
“Oh. Okay. Good.”
“Yep.”
I lean on the dock with my forearms and watch her.
“You're dripping on me,” she says eventually.
“Aren't you curious what I'm up to?”
“Not really.”
“The other night you were dying to know.”
“I was not dying to know,” she says. “And everything's more mysterious and interesting at night. Including you. Right now it's noon and you're boring.”
“I mean I know I've been really secretive so like...you've got to be curious.”
“My life does not revolve around you, Sugar.”
“I'm just saying, if you asked me, I would tell you. I'm in the mood to talk about it.”
“I'm not asking you.”
I groan and push off the dock. “Wouldn't it be nice if we talked?” I say. “We could be the kind of sisters who talk.”
“We talked last night more than we've talked in like seven years. It was exhausting.”
“It's like a workout routine. You have to make it a habit and then it gets easy.”
“You're leaving in like two months,” she says. “Seems a little late to get into sharing our feelings with each other.”
“See, how come you're allowed to use how I'm leaving for college but I'm not allowed to use how I'm leaving here? Not fair.”
“Don't care what that's about,” Bekah says. “Not asking.”
I splash her.
She sits up. “You know, you never ask me about my life. You just expect me to be super interested in yours.”
“Okay fine,” I say, treading water. “Tell me what's going on with your life.”
She makes a face behind her sunglasses.
“No, seriously,” I say. “Tell me why you're wasting your time with a piece of shit like Josh.”
“You want to know? Really, you want to know?”
“Yeah, I want to know.”
“Because that's what I do when guys are interested in you. I distract them. It's what I have literally always done for you.”
I stop and set my toes in the sand.
“Seriously?” I say.
She lies back down.
“But how do you know I'm not...”
“Oh my God, Sugar, seriously?”
I swim back over. “You know?”
“You didn't notice me intentionally using gender-neutral pronouns last night in the discussion of who you're sleeping with?”
“No. I noticed me doing it.”
“You are the most self-centered person in the history of the world,” she says.
“Huh.” Well, that would fit with me not noticing Mara had caught the feelings too. “And that's coming from you,” I say.
“Exactly.” She slips off her glasses and closes her eyes, basking in the sun. “Which brings me to why I don't particularly care who you're sleeping with. What are you even doing here? I never see you enjoying any of Sideling's exclusive attractions.”
“Do you think Mom knows?”
“I have no idea what Mom knows.”
“I mean, she's got to notice that I'm missing all the time. Has she said anything?”
“Mom isn't talking about you,” Bekah says. “She's not talking about you to the point of aggressiveness.”
“Yeah.”
“She's actually listening to me when I talk and expressing interest in my life,” Bekah says. “It's the biggest miracle since the Maccabees.”
The water feels colder. I guess I'd always assumed that Bekah couldn't tell I was clearly Mom's favorite. I'd definitely never thought about how it might make her feel.
I am probably the most self-centered person in the history of the world.
“I'll just say this,” Bekah says. “Whoever it is you're sleeping with, she better really be worth it. 'cause this thing with Mom you gave up is pretty great.”
I lift up out of the water and kiss her cheek. “Thanks for everything, Beks. I gotta go.”
“Ew.”
I pound on Tristan's door.
“Jeez, all right, hang on.” He opens it up. “Why are you out of breath?”
“Because I've been running all over this damn place looking for Mara. She's not in her room, she's not at the old clubhouse, she's not at the studio. Do you know where she is?”
“She cancelled one of her classes,” Tristan says, and he opens up the door wider and there she is behind him, sitting on his bed.
“Hey,” she says quietly.
“Come here,” I say.
She comes out onto the deck and looks out at the grounds. I wrap my arms around her from behind, and she leans her head back into my shoulder.
“Okay?” I say.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
She untangles herself from me when we hear Tristan's door close again. “Tristan, go back inside, we're having a moment."
“On my deck!” He plops down on the porch swing. “Come on, I'm bored, give me some of the Mara love drama.”
“Aw, poor Tristan.” I go and sit next to him and lace my fingers through his. “Poor bored Tristan.”
“Ha, look at that,” a voice says, and there's Josh standing on the ground next to the deck, looking at us between the slats of the railing.
“Why are you everywhere today?” Mara says.
“I live here too, y'know,” he says. “It's not just your little queer paradise on the corner of Sideling.”
“That's a reclaimed slur so your ass should not be saying it,” Mara says.
Josh says, “Sugar, you know what he is, right? I wouldn't have guessed you were into that freaky shit.”
I say, "God, you're an asshole."
Tristan says, “Josh, give it a rest. You're boring.”
“No, it's fine,” Josh says. “I mean, I'm fucking someone weird too. Have you seen the face on her sister?”
“You fucking watch your mouth,” I say.
Mara says, “Josh, go to hell.”
Tristan drops my hand and stands up.
“Getting fired, getting fired,” Mara mumbles at him.
He steps off the deck.
“Stitches, stitches,” she says.
Tristan walks around to where Josh is standing and punches him in the face.
I clap my hands over my mouth, but Mara just rolls her eyes and says, “If you ripped your stitches, I swear to God, I am not weeping over your prone body again.”
Tristan stretches his arm out. “Feels fine.”
Josh holds his nose. “What the hell?”
“That's her sister, you piece of shit,” Tristan says. “And I'm bored. Putting up with your shit is boring.”
“I hope you like being unemployed, asshole,” Josh says.
“Who's gonna believe you?” Tristan says.
“What the fuck? You don't think my grandfather's going to listen if I tell him you punched me?”
“But Sugar was right here and saw you walk into your door,” Tristan says.
I say, “It's true, I was.”
“And I bet she has lots of Ivy League contacts who are gonna want to know that one of Harvard's incoming is a transphobic jerk.”
“It's true, I do!”
“So,” Tristan says. “You really gonna tell your grandfather? He's gonna ask why. You really want him to know you got hit in the face by a...what was it you called me? You really want to be that guy?”
Josh huffs and walks away, and Tristan comes back up on the deck.
“You know I was just complaining to Sugar that you were boring,” Mara says. “And this is how you repay me?”
He grins.
“That was dumb,” she says.
“Come on, his nose didn't even bleed.”
“You really think that's gonna work, that he's not gonna tell Sol?”
“I don't know,” T
ristan says. “Probably.” He winks at me.
Mara and I go back to her room—after checking Tristan's stitches—and dance on her scratchy slatted floors.
“Do I get to use the word queer?” I ask.
“Of course.”
“Huh.”
She laughs and twirls me. “What?”
“It's a lot of responsibility!” I say.
“You're so weird.” She pulls me in by the waist and kisses me so hard I feel like I lose some of my bones.
“I just want to do a good job,” I say.
“You worry too much.”
“I worry too much? You won't even let your best friend punch a transphobe.”
“Yeah, I know, I'm no fun.” She tugs me onto the bed and wraps her arms around me. I watch her ceiling fan spin around.
“This is nice,” I whisper.
She plays with my hair. “Hey, Sugar?”
“Heyyyy, Mara?”
“Where's your school again?”
“Providence,” I say.
“Providence.”
“Rhode Island,” I say.
“I know where Providence is.”
“Well, you didn't know where Brown was, so...”
She yanks the sheet up and over my head. I laugh and claw my way out.
“You know they say the first person you're with never really leaves you,” I say.
“Is that right?”
“Uh huh.”
“Sucks to be you, then.”
I pinch her. “I used to be so scared of you,” I say.
“Seriously?”
“God, yeah. My first night here, when you danced with me? I was terrified.”
“Yeah, I knew you were then. I thought you got over it.”
“I'm over it now! Mostly. Kind of.”
She kisses my forehead.
“You don't act scared,” she says. “You've never really acted scared.”
“Acting's what I do,” I say.
She squirms herself down on the bed so we're eye level, our faces not quite touching but so, so close.
“How about now?” she says.
“No, not right now,” I whisper.
Chapter 12
Before dinner, I strap on my big girl boots—metaphorically, it's eight thousand degrees outside, there's no way I'm wearing shoes that don't breathe—and go to my mother's room to ask if I can borrow some earrings.
For a second I'm honestly expecting her to act like she can't hear me.
Sugar Summer Page 11