What I Thought Was True

by Huntley Fitzpatrick

“It’s not like we can snuggle up in the bedroom Nic shares with Grandpa Ben and Emory.” She looks down at the tossing gray-green water, worrying her bottom lip, waxy with cherry ChapStick. The only thing Nic ever complains about with Viv is her addiction to that and sticky, flavored lip gloss. “I was probably more stressed than Nic, anyway.”

  “Any reason why?” Without looking at her, I dip my finger in Em’s bucket, trace a circular shape on a wood slat, press my thumb down in a diamond shape, a subliminal suggestion.

  She takes a deep breath, opens her mouth as though she’s going to say something, then closes it again. “Nothing big,” she says finally. “Just . . . you know . . . Al . . . being all up in my face about forgetting to make sure everybody’s water glasses were full and so on.”

  That makes me think of Spence’s dickish “team tradition” comment. “Did Nic tell you—”

  “Nic always tells me to just blow him off,” Viv says. “And he’s right. So my stepfather is the poster child for Type A. Doesn’t mean I have to be the same. Even if I am taking over the biz when Al and Mom retire.”

  “Yeah, about that,” I say. “You’re not an indentured servant in medieval times. You don’t have to be the heir to the throne at Almeida’s.” Dipping my finger into the bucket again, I write my name in cursive. Emory watches me, then writes curves and loops himself, but they don’t spell anything.

  Viv shakes her head, her brow smoothing out again. “Aah, Gwenners, you know me. Not a brainiac like you. I couldn’t care less about college. Seems like a waste of time, considering the grades I get. It’s good to know where I’m going to be instead of flailing around looking for my place in the world. I’m lucky.” She sounds so cheerful at the prospect of spending the rest of her life putting together Dockside Delight picnic baskets and clam boils. That’s the thing about Viv—whenever Nic and I tip into glass half-empty, she can nudge us back to half-full—and the waiter will be along any minute to fill it to the brim. “Plus, I rock at management. Look at me with Nic.”

  “Yeah, you’ve totally whipped that guy into shape. At least ten percent of the time he’s on time. Sometimes even wearing a clean shirt.”

  “I like him without the shirt,” Viv says.

  “Keep your twisted perversions to yourself.”

  She laughs, sits up, and pulls the cooler closer, flipping open the lid. “Don’t try to pretend you don’t share that one, babe. I’ve watched you at meets, and whatever else you might say about Cassidy Somers, you can’t deny his assets there. That? The boy does well.”

  I flush. Viv’s instantly contrite. “Sorry. I know you don’t want to talk about him. Think about him. Or whatever.”

  “Just because you and my cousin have mated for life doesn’t mean I have to,” I say.

  Viv raises her eyebrows. “I was just talking about noticing when someone was cute. You’re the one going straight from shirtlessness to mating. Interesting.”

  “Stop it. Don’t go making me and Cass into you and Nic. Clearly, that’s not what’s going on here.”

  “And that would be . . . ?” she asks, burrowing into the cooler, then making a face. “Goat cheese? Not in the mood. Is there a mood for goat cheese?”

  I take the cooler from her, rustle around to find the foil-wrapped brownies, pass them to her. She puts her hand on her heart, mock sighing with relief.

  “Maybe I’m just not the kind of girl who—”

  Viv shakes her head at me. “Shit. Stop. I hate it when you do that. It’s not like you’re Spencer Channing with his five girls in the hot tub at once.”

  “Is that story even true? Because when you think about it, it sounds like a ton of work. You’d have to feed them and talk to them and find a way to entertain the girls who’re waiting while you’re busy with one or two—”

  “Right—so they don’t leave or . . . or molest the pool boy out of sheer boredom,” Vivie continues, smiling.

  “Yeah, you’re getting tired . . .” I add.

  “It’s more work than you expected,” she sighs, brushing chocolate off her fingers.

  “Makes a great rumor . . .” I say. “Not much fun in action.”

  She looks down at her hands, her face going serious. “Speaking of action . . . Gwen . . . do you think Nic really wants the Coast Guard? Or it’s just . . . an escape fantasy? Like touring around the state painting houses this summer, when he’s really better off working steady right here. Have you seen the things those Coasties do? They’re freaking Navy Seals. If he gets into the academy, that’ll be Nicky . . . all that stuff with helicopters and tow ropes. Why not just take a sensible job, like at Almeida’s?”

  I try to imagine Nic going into the flower-arranging and food service business, for real. It’s so much easier to picture him dangling fifty feet above the churning ocean during a hurricane.

  I’m distracted by something far out to sea. Moving. Bobbing. A seal?

  We don’t see them often around here. The water’s too choppy—cold and unpredictable even at the height of summer, and there aren’t enough rocks. Straightening up and squinting harder, I follow the motion. Whatever it is disappears under the water with a flick of surf. A cormorant? No, no long neck.

  I nudge Vivien, who has rested her cheek on her knees and closed her eyes. “What’s that?”

  “Oh God, not a shark!”

  Three summers ago, a great white was seen off the coast of Seashell and Vivie, traumatized by Shark Week on Discovery Channel when she was little, has lived in terror of becoming the star of the next episode of Mauled! ever since.

  Whatever it is bobs back up again.

  “No fin,” I report. “Besides, it’s moving up and down, not gliding menacingly forward, ready to leap onto the dock and have you for dinner.”

  “Don’t even joke about that.” Vivien shields her eyes with her fingers. “Not a shark. Just some crazy person who doesn’t mind being shark bait.”

  We watch in silence as the head rounds the breakwater, coming our way. Now I can see brown shoulders glisten in the sun, arms pumping rhythmically. A man. Or a boy.

  “Today’s Nic’s and my four-month anniversary,” Vivien says absently, still staring at the water.

  “Five months? Try twelve years. I was the one who married the two of you when you were five.”

  One glimpse of Vivien’s downcast eyes and the slight smile playing at her lips and I get it. Right. Five months since they’ve been doing it.

  “Nic’s taking me to the White House restaurant. What do you think I should wear?” Vivien answers herself: “My navy sundress. I know Nic likes it. He couldn’t keep his hands off me last time I wore it.”

  The swimmer has reached the dock and as I watch, he disappears while climbing the ladder, then, at the top, plants his hands flat on the slats, and swings his legs to the side, the way Olympic gymnasts vault over the horse. Then he stands up, shaking his hair out of his eyes.

  “Hey—yet again—Gwen. Hi, Vivien. What’s up, Emory?” Cass peers down at Em, then over at me.

  Emory smiles at him before returning his attention to his bucket of water, now mostly empty. He leans over toward the ocean and I snatch at his life jacket.

  Vivien straightens, hugging her knees to her chest, scanning Cass’s face, then mine.

  “Need a refill?” He reaches for the bucket but holds his hand away from it slightly, waiting for Emory to decide.

  Em tilts his head and then scrapes the bucket across the dock toward Cass. I gaze at the horizon, at a band of cormorants drying their wings on the breakwater. After ducking the bucket full again, Cass stands over me, little drops of water glinting in the sun across his chest, then dripping from his hair and the bottom of his suit onto me. He points to Emory’s life jacket. “He’s still learning to swim?”

  “He doesn’t know how. At all,” I say shortly.

  “Never had lessons?”

  “He had some water therapy when he was really little—at the Y—it freaked him out. Nic and I have both tried doing
it here but it never took. I—” I cut off before I can tell him Emory’s entire life story.

  “I bet I can do it. Teach him,” Cass says casually. “I worked at this camp, Lend a Hand, as an assistant counselor last year. That was my job, helping the”—he makes air quotes—“‘reluctant swimmers.’”

  I squint at his face. “Think you’ll have time for that? They keep the yard boy hopping around here. Old Mrs. Partridge alone is a full-time job.”

  Cass grins, dimples grooving deep. I suppress a strange urge to dip my fingers into them. “She called me over at the end of the day Friday to tell me I’d done her yard all wrong. Again. That I was supposed to do it ‘vertically.’ But you were there, right? That isn’t what she said.”

  “She’ll switch directions on you every time. That’s what Mrs. Partridge does with whoever’s the current Jose. You’ll get used to it.”

  “The current Jose.” Cass turns the phrase over. “I’m not sure I’m down with being ‘the current Jose.’ Sounds like the flavor of the month.” He flips his wet hair out of his eyes again, scattering drops on me, then lowers his voice. “I’ve only put in two days, still getting my rhythm going here, learning the ropes . . . you know. But this place has gotten . . . a little crazy, hasn’t it?”

  “It always was, Cass.” I shield my eyes and peek up at him through the fence of my fingers.

  “That’s not the way I remember it. I mean, sure, there were always people like Mrs. Partridge, I guess. Yelling at us to get off their lawn and not pop wheelies on the speed bumps.”

  “Not people like her. Her. She’s a Seashell trad—” I stop, swallow. “She’s been here forever.”

  “Really? I don’t remember her at all. She doesn’t seem to know me either.”

  Clear as day, I can see Cass, age eight, leaping off this same pier on so many summer afternoons with the sky dark like the one today—skinny shoulder blades, gangly legs, fluffy flyaway hair, skinned elbows, barnacle-scraped knees. Not exactly what’s standing here now. All that tan skin.

  “You’ve changed a bit.”

  Emory chooses this moment to dump more cold water down my swimsuit.

  Cass’s lips twitch, he ducks his head like he wants to say something but rules it out. “For real, though . . . Part of my job is to rake the beach. Every other day,” he continues. “Get the rocks and seaweed off during low tide. Nuts, since it all rolls back in with high tide.”

  “Oh, I know!” I say. “Crazy, right? I wonder what it’s like to be so rich you expect nature to cooperate with you. That you can just hire someone to fix it.”

  As soon as I say this I feel stupid. Remember who you’re talking to, Gwen. The crown prince of Somers Sails.

  “Look, why don’t we just try a starter lesson? See if it plays at all?”

  Emory dumps some water on Cass’s leg. It slides smoothly down the muscles of his calf. I close my eyes, open them to see Cass watching my face intently.

  “You mean in exchange for the tutoring?” I hurry to ask.

  “No,” he says. “That would be a whole separate deal.”

  “What tutoring?” Vivien intercedes, firing me a “you didn’t tell me this!” look. Which I return in spades. In my case, we’re talking a few summer evenings. In hers, a lifetime commitment.

  “Gwen agreed to help me get back on track in English.” He reaches for Em’s again-empty bucket, heading down the steps for a refill. Which means his voice is muffled as he adds, “You can’t put it off forever, Gwen. We need to figure out logistics.”

  He comes back up, hands the bucket to my brother, then stands there for a second, looking at me. “As in your place or mine?”

  A horn blasts from the parking lot. Vivien’s eyebrows shoot up.

  “Gotta go. Let me know where, okay?” He slides by me, pulls a red towel I hadn’t noticed before off the slats of the pier. He cracks the towel into the wind, wraps it around his waist, then tosses over his shoulder: “Decide about the swim lessons. I may be no genius in Lit 2, but that I can do.”

  Okay, I watch him go. The whole length of the pier and then into the beach parking lot, where Spence Channing’s convertible is idling like a big silver shark. How long has he been there?

  A long low whistle and Vivien is fanning her face, then mine. “Whew. Is it hot here or is it just me?”

  “There’s going to be a whole season of this.” I open the cooler, peer into it and finally fish out a granola bar for Emory, rather than . . . a can of sardines or a cantaloupe. “What the hell will I do?”

  “That Avoid Him At All Costs plan of yours? I’m not sure he signed off on it.” Vivien tilts her head, staring into the parking lot as the car backs up and surges forward, too fast, of course, because it’s Spence and rules don’t apply to him. “Maybe you should give him another chance?”

  “You were the one who told me to watch out!”

  “I know.” She hunches her shoulders, shivering a little as another chilly breeze comes off the water. “It’s just maybe . . . maybe you’re watching out for the wrong things.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Mom catches Nic and me before we head out the door Monday morning. “Did Mrs. E. talk about how often she’s going to pay, Gwen? It would help a lot if I knew if it was every week or every two. And what about you, Nico? Marco and Tony still pay by the job? And did Almeida’s give you some at the end of the night, or . . .”

  Nic and I look at each other. A barrage of money questions first thing in the morning can’t be a good thing.

  “Like always, Aunt Luce. They bill the houses and then the owners send the checks. But Almeida’s paid.” He heads back into his room, returning with a roll of bills neatly wrapped in an elastic band. “Yours is in here too, Gwenners.”

  I reach out my hand, but Mom’s faster. She takes the bills and begins leafing through them, her lips moving as she silently adds the denominations. Finally, she gives a satisfied nod, divides the money carefully in thirds, returning some to Nic, some to me, slipping the rest into her purse.

  “Anything wrong, Mom?”

  She blinks rapidly, which, if she were a poker player, would be her tell. “Nothing,” she says finally.

  “Sure, Aunt Luce?” Nic asks, tapping each of his shoulders in turn. “Broad shoulders. Ready to listen. Man of the house and all that.”

  Mom ruffles his hair. “No worries, Nico.”

  Once she leaves, Nic and I have only to exchange a glance. “Damn, what now?” he says.

  I shake my head. “If she starts taking in laundry, we’ll know something’s up.”

  Taking in extra is what happened last winter when the hot water heater melted down, the Bronco needed brake work, and Emory needed an orthotic lift in one of his shoes because one leg is slightly shorter than the other. Grandpa Ben also began spending a lot more time at bingo nights, honing his card shark skills.

  “Shit.” Nic rubs his forehead. “I don’t want to think about this. I just want to think about food and sex and swimming and sex and lifting and sex.”

  “You’re so well-rounded.” I whack him on the shoulder with a box of Cheerios.

  “I’m not supposed to be well-rounded,” he says, through a mouthful of last night’s leftover pasta. “Neither are you. And cuz . . . you can’t tell me you don’t think about it.”

  “I don’t think about it,” I answer resolutely, concentrating very hard on pouring milk into my cereal.

  Nic snorts.

  We look up as the screen door squeaks open to see Dad standing there. He looks pissed off and for a second I’m afraid he overheard our conversation. Not a story he needs to know.

  But then he drops his aged khaki laundry duffel inside the door, kicking it to the side wall with one foot. “Screen door’s still broken,” he mutters, scowling.

  Nic fixes Dad with a stare, then returns his attention to the steady movement of his fork.

  “Top step to the porch is rotting out too,” Dad says. “Fix it, Nicolas. Like I told you last time. Be
n could put a foot through that. Or Emory, the state it’s in. A man takes care of his family.”

  “Or he just bails on everyone,” Nic mumbles without looking up from texting on his cell. Grandpa Ben, coming in, fresh from the outdoor shower, sprig of lavender in hand to put under Vovó’s picture, gives Nic a warning glance, shakes his head. Dad is slightly deaf in one ear, but not immune to tone.

  “What was that?” he asks, plunging his index finger into his ear. “What did you just say to me?”

  “I said I’ll get to it, Uncle Mike.” Nic forks up the last of the pasta.

  “Told you about it last month, Nico.” Dad grabs his bag again, dumps his laundry out on the kitchen floor near the washing machine in the closet. “A man tends to his own.”

  My cousin scrapes back his chair, rolls his shoulders back, stretching, then clangs the plate into the sink. “Going to work. Then Vee’s. I’ll be back late.” He directs his eyes only to me and Grandpa.

  “Too hard on the boy, Mike,” Grandpa says in the silence that follows the clap of the screen door.

  “He’s not a boy anymore. He should be thinking first about pulling his weight, not lifting those.” Dad points to Nic’s dumbbells. “Where’s Luce?”

  “Where is she always?” Managing to look dignified despite the towel wrap, Grandpa heads for the refrigerator. He takes out a grapefruit, setting it on the cutting board. “Working.”

  Brows lowering, Dad looks at him sharply, but Ben’s face is innocent as the cherubs painted on the ceiling at St. Anthony’s.

  Dad says, “You get a hammer and some wood glue, I can fix that door right now.”

  “Why aren’t you after me to fix it, Dad? The ability to hammer a nail isn’t just for Y chromosomes.”

  “Like I said, it’s the job of the man of the house.”

  Grandpa draws himself up straighter, clears his throat.

  “The young man of the house. You’ve fixed your fair share of doors, Ben. No one’s taking that away from you.” Dad reaches for the hammer I’ve pulled from the tool kit in the kitchen closet.

  He gets the door fixed in about twenty seconds, all the better to slam it slightly when he leaves a few minutes later.