What I Thought Was True

by Huntley Fitzpatrick

  “And I’m more bummed about not getting the captain spot. Want to tell me what that means?”

  That what you’ve always had doesn’t mean that’s what you’ll always get. That what you’ve always wanted isn’t what you’ll always want.

  I don’t realize I’ve spoken out loud until Nic says. “Yeah. Exactly, cuz.”

  Mom’s just pulling on her sneakers as I get home, sitting on the steps. I hear the shrill of Disney coming from inside the house. Mulan. “I’ll make a maaann out of you,” Emory’s voice wobbles, sweet and high.

  “Nic okay?” Mom asks.

  I nod. “He’ll be fine.”

  She studies my face. “For sure,” she says finally, firmly. “But if he isn’t? For a little while? It’s not your problem to solve.” Mom picks up one of her Nikes, with an inextricable knot, tries to untangle it with the fingernails she has to keep short because of cleaning houses.

  “Here, let me,” I say, pulling at the shoe.

  “Gwen. I can solve this.” A pull and a jerk here and there and the shoelaces untangle. She slips it on her foot, reaches for her can of Diet Coke. Shuts her eyes as she drinks it, closing out the world, the way she does with the things that take her away, her books, her sodas, her stories.

  A rattle of gravel and a flash of silver. Mom and I both look up in time to see Spence’s Porsche flash by. His sunglasses pushed up into his hair, arm along the seat. He pulls into the Almeidas’ driveway, slanted, the way the car was that first summer day at Castle’s, taking up more space than it needs.

  Viv runs down the short steps, climbs into the car, long hair loose and blowing.

  “This is gonna take some getting used to,” Mom says. “That boy sure looks out of place.”

  The paradox of Seashell. He does and he doesn’t. Precisely the sort of car that belongs on the island, pulled into exactly the driveway where it doesn’t. Not Viv in the place she’s always been, all she ever wanted, or Nic in the place he was afraid would be all he had.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  I stand on the steps of the Field House for a few minutes, working up my courage, raise my hand to knock but, before I can, it flips inward, so that I basically fall into Cass, who’s opening it with a blue plastic recycling bin balanced on his shoulder.

  “Hey,” I say.

  He sets the bin down on the steps, straightens. He’s backlit from the indoor light, which picks out the bright of his hair, but leaves his expression in darkness.

  Silence. Not even his ingrained politeness is going to get me in the door unless I talk fast. Which I do, so swiftly the words tumble over one another. “I have to tell you some things and ask you some things and you need to let me in.”

  He takes a step backward and raises an eyebrow. “Is that an order? Am I Jose here?”

  “I’m asking. Not ordering. Can I . . . come in? Because . . . Cass, just let me in so we don’t have to have this conversation on your steps. Old Mrs. Partridge probably has supersonic hearing.”

  He opens the door wider but doesn’t move, so I have to brush past him going in, catching a faint whiff of chlorine, sun-warm skin.

  I sit down on the ugly green couch. He sinks into the stained armchair across from me. I tug my skirt lower. He clenches and unclenches his hand.

  “I need to ask you a question. No, three.”

  “Go for it,” he says briefly.

  “You knew about Spence and Viv, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  One quick word. I was expecting an explanation, an excuse. It takes me by surprise for a second. I press on. “For how long?”

  “Since the day after the boathouse. That night. At the B and T. I saw them,” Cass says.

  “Okay,” I say. “Next one.”

  “Why I didn’t tell you? I—”

  “Shh, not that. Did you have condoms that day in the boathouse? Along with the towels and the Dockside Delight? Truth.”

  He shuts his eyes. “Yeah. Just in case. I mean, not that that was the goal or all it was, but—you know how things are with us—I didn’t want to get caught off guard and not be smart. Again. And then, the next day, the next day, Gwen, I find out that there’s this whole thing I can’t tell you. That’ll hurt you. When I’ve already said I’ll be honest, when we’d finally gotten around the roadblocks and it was clear sailing.”

  “Mixed metaphor. But I know now. I got it.”

  A hint of a smile. “Okay, word girl, got what?”

  “Your superpower.”

  “Uh—my what?”

  “You can’t lie. You don’t lie. I just asked you about these awkward things that have gotten in our way before and you told the truth anyhow.”

  “I should have before. I just . . . didn’t want Spence and Vivien—or anything—between us. I just wanted . . .”

  “Me,” I finish.

  “Us,” he says.

  We haven’t said everything we need to, but I have to kiss him now. I straighten up, he does the same, take a few steps, just as he does. Loop my fingers around his neck as he pulls my waist close. As always, he smells like everything clean and clear. Soap. Sunshine. The kiss starts carefully, his lips warm against mine, gentle and firm, knowing and calm, but then deepens, turns wild, because that is us too. He sets his hands at the back of my neck and I pull his shoulders closer, my hands on his back, breathing in Cass, this moment, all of it, all of him. I can’t get enough, and, intoxicatingly, it seems as though he can’t either. Not just of kissing me. Of me.

  And we don’t talk for a while.

  Then . . . “How does this make you feel?” Cass asks, but before I can answer he groans, ducks his head. “I can’t believe I asked that.”

  “Was there something wrong with it?” I inquire. “Because I thought it was nice. That you did.”

  “Mom’s favorite phrase,” he says, rolling onto his back on the rug. “The therapist thing . . . ‘How does that make you fe-eel?’ She’s great, but I don’t want to think about her right now. Much less sound like her. God.”

  He sits up, a little flush on his cheeks over the sunburn. I slip my hand into his hair, ruffle it.

  “One last question, honest answer. How come you had never—um—you say you aren’t like Spence, and I get that. But what were you doing at those parties while he was collecting hot tub trophy girls? Recycling the empties?”

  Cass snorts. “Hardly. I’m no saint. I just didn’t go, um, the distance.”

  I start laughing. “The distance? A swim team metaphor?”

  “Could you not laugh? This is awkward enough,” he says, attempting a glare but half smiling.

  “Why awkward?” I ask.

  “Because . . . well, because . . . I’m thinking you’re asking this because I’m doing something wrong or don’t know what I’m doing or—” He winces, draws his hand quickly across his face, then says hurriedly, “I’m a fast learner, though. I mean, when I care. And I—”

  “Cass.” I rest my hand on his cheek. “If we’re going to talk about me having some experience, a little more, than you, can I tell you what I know . . . from experience?”

  He nods.

  “That I would so much rather be with someone who cared what he was doing than someone who knew what he was doing.”

  And then we’re kissing again.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  The crash of thunder startles us apart, for a moment. Then he pulls me back as the rain begins, droplets spattering against the Field House roof. We get up off the couch, walk around slamming windows shut. More rumbles of thunder, lightning. Another stormy summer.

  As I slam the front windows, the ones that look out toward the ocean, I catch sight of what I brought, set down in the bushes near the lawn mower before I climbed the steps. “Oh shit,” I say, hurrying to the door.

  Cass is behind me in an instant. “No running away.”

  “I’m not.” I laugh. “Really. I’ll be right back. Stay here. No, wait—go in the bathroom. Stay there until I tell you to
come out. Maybe . . . maybe take a shower. Or something. Just give me five minutes.”

  Cass studies me, then asks warily, “I need a shower? Do I—”

  “No, no, it’s not about that. You smell delicious. I mean. Oh, God.” I cover my eyes with a hand, lower it. “I mean—”

  The dimples make an appearance. “Maybe just go in and wait? You are planning to let me out, right?”

  The rain is coming down harder. “Yes, yes. Get in there.”

  And he does.

  Mom’s books, Grandpa’s movies—I know all about the things that spell romance. Candles, roses, soft romantic music, gentle golden light coming through a window. All of it so carefully staged.

  I can’t do anything about the light through the window, or the fact that I left what I brought outside in the rain. But this is in fact, carefully staged. And yet still nerve-wracking. Even though I’ve thought about it, planned it, know it’s right.

  In Cass’s room, I embellish his bureau with candles, set them on the nightstand, line them on the windowsill. Luckily, the yard boy hasn’t been wielding his hedge clippers on the Field House shrubbery; the canvas bag I hid beneath the bushes was protected. Not much got wet in the downpour . . . except, of course, the matches. Great. I hurry back inside to the kitchen, adjust the sagging Dockside Delight bag I’d set on the counter. Then I light one candle at a burner, use that to light the next, then the next, and the next until the darkened room glows gently. I’m suddenly glad it’s rainy out.

  His bed’s unmade, covers tossed around. Sheets . . . of course . . . pale pink.

  I flip the comforter straight, fluff the pillowcases, then feel a little weird and want to switch them back to the way they were. I hover over the bed, unsure, when Cass calls out, “Can I—?”

  “Not yet!”

  The dress isn’t even damp, thank God.

  “Okay, you can come out now.”

  He opens the door, letting out a cloud of steam. He actually showered. And changed his clothes. His eyes flick to mine and he drops the towel he’s rubbing through his hair to the ground.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Um,” I answer, as if that is an answer.

  He looks me over, my hair, my black halter top dress, my bare feet. I curl my toes, raise my chin, act like this is all easy for me.

  But he knows, Cass knows me.

  “Well,” he says. “Wow, Gwen.”

  “I think we need to get this over with,” I blurt out.

  He starts to laugh. “Just what every guy wants to hear. We all want to be the Band-Aid you rip off fast.”

  “You’re not. I want this. I mean . . . I . . . I . . . I brought candles,” I say.

  “And a Dockside Delight,” he adds. He walks over slowly, sets his hands on either side of where I’m standing by the kitchen counter. I lean back against it. He just looks. “You planned this.”

  “Yes. I did. I . . . did.”

  He raises his hand, cups my face. Bends to tip his forehead to mine. Says the words I know he’ll say. “Thank you.”

  “It’s not about a jumbo box of condoms,” I say.

  “Never was,” Cass says simply.

  He slants his hand against my jaw, tips his mouth to mine.

  EPILOGUE

  Set up on the wide square green between Low Road and Beach Road, where Seashell weddings are always held, is a castle.

  Well, the high-peaked tent looks like one, festive as something from my namesake’s Camelot, with blue and white streamers—Stony Bay High colors—flapping in the wind from the tops of the canvas turrets, twinkling white lights wrapped in the rafters and looped around the poles, and blue and white flowers everywhere.

  The “Congratulations!” banner droops crooked on one side, and Al Almeida is gesturing impatiently at someone to fix it. Not me, though. Not tonight. Or Hoop or Pam or Nic or Viv. Tonight we’re guests, no clamshell T-shirts or rented tuxes.

  It’s an informal Stony Bay High tradition for seniors to leave graduation and drive to the lake near town, and dive in fully clothed. We all did it, Hoop, Nic, Spence, Viv, Cass, and me, piling into the Porsche and the Bronco, Hoop’s truck, Cass’s battered BMW, joining the lineup of our classmates for the plunge, screaming as we each hurtled ourselves over the water, and then driving across the bridge to Seashell for our own celebration—jumping off the pier at Abenaki in those same soggy clothes.

  Hoop yelped that the water was freezing. Cass, already far toward the breakwater, called him a wimp. Spence paddled lazily, far from the fierce strokes that, combined with Nic’s backstroke and Cass’s flawless butterfly, made the SBH team state champions for the first time ever.

  And now we have a party—not a tradition but something that will only happen once, celebrating all we are leaving behind, public and private, in school and at home. Spence’s dad wanted to throw a big one at the B&T, but in the end, only Seashell seemed right.

  “How’d that happen?” I asked Viv when she told me.

  “I used my superior managerial skills,” she said.

  “You threatened to cry, didn’t you? Spence can’t handle that.”

  “No, I don’t do that. When it’s real love, no manipulation necessary.”

  “I still think you should get that job at Hallmark.”

  She shakes her head, “It would interfere with my college career.”

  Stony Bay Vocational has culinary courses, and Viv plans to take some this fall, picking up credits that, a year ago, she thought weren’t important. If things go well, she can transfer to Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island in the spring. Spence will be at Harvard. Whether they can survive the distance is a page they haven’t turned yet. They’ve already survived the school year, survived awkward family occasions at the B&T, where Viv was the girlfriend instead of the waitstaff, survived comments of Spence’s like, “Wow. I’ve never been faithful this long. Or at all.”

  My high heels, another female torture device, like eyelash curlers and endless articles about how to “get a beach body,” were killing me, so now I’m standing in the grass outside the tent, heels kicked off, absently rubbing one foot. Through the folded back tent flap, I can see Mom doing the same. She’s spent the last few weeks opening houses on Seashell, shaking the sheets off the furniture, sweeping away the cobwebs.

  Castle’s opened last week, Dad grumbling over the tourist buses, everyone wanting their breakfast sandwiches made a certain way. Frustrated that no one wants smoked bluefish breakfast burritos. Now he’s here, in a plaid sport coat I have never seen before, talking shop with Cass’s dad, jabbing his finger toward the distant ocean, where a Herreshoff, one of Dad’s dream boats, sails by, slow and majestic in the water as a king on procession.

  Nic tilts against a table, sipping a Coke, but not morose. He got into the Coast Guard Academy, will go there in the fall. He watches Viv for a minute, then his eyes drift out over the ocean in the distance, out to his own horizon.

  “You are not dancing, why?” Grandpa Ben demands, suddenly beside me with Emory in tow. He’s actually in a tux, with Emory dressed in a scarily identical miniature, both of them complete with jaunty black bow ties. Grandpa found them in some classified listing in the Stony Bay Bugle a few weeks ago, and brought them both home as if they were that treasure he’s been searching for with his metal detector. He insisted they both try them on immediately. “Fred Astaire, pah,” he’d said. “Look at us, coelho. He should eat his heart out.”

  “Scratchy” was Em’s response. “Want swimsuit. Now.” All winter, Grandpa—and sometimes Dad, freer once Castle’s closed down—took him to swim at the Y in White Bay. Em can dive now, clean and clear into the water, coming up with a smile. And Hideout smells like chorine.

  I edge out farther along the grass, looking back at the tent, the swath of lawn, the gray-shingled mansions and the low ranch houses. Seashell.

  All the things that stay the same . . . and everything that’s changed.

  It was an uneasy truce for a while, all of us adjusti
ng, our shifting alliances. But, in its way, it’s all happened before, and it’ll all happen again. Summer turning to fall, crisp breezes replacing warm salty ones. Corridors and classrooms and indoor pools replacing sandy paths to the ocean, replacing the boathouse, fried clams at Castle’s, the wide open sea. My grandfather, a young man, flexing his muscles as he mows the lawns, whipping up his special lobster sauce. My grandmother, the daring young woman who drove too fast into town, the distance between summer people and island people shorter than the causeway, only as long as it takes to step across the invisible line that only exists if you insist on it.

  “Hey,” Cass says, coming up next to me, jacket already off, sleeves already unbuttoned and rolled up. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  The B&T hired the jazz band (thank God not the barbershop quartet) and they’re smoothly playing the lush old-fashioned songs I know so well from Grandpa Ben, the mellow music drifting softly into the night, out over low tide.

  Cass is a better dancer than I am—not hard—but we know how, we know now, how to move together, so he dips and twirls me to the music, dance steps I never knew before.

  “You’re leading,” he breathes against my cheek.

  And I am. “Sorry,” I whisper.

  “S’okay,” he says. And it is.

  By chance, and maybe a little bit by design, we’re going to the same university, State College. He to study cartography, me, thanks to a Daughters of Portuguese Fishermen scholarship (granddaughter, really, but Grandpa Ben talked his way around the logistics), to study English lit.

  I love you, you know, I told him, that night at the Field House. Sort of fiercely, in this aggressive tone I immediately wished I could take back—a challenge more than an admission.

  But Cass gets it. He gets me.

  “I do,” he said simply. And I knew he did. That that was true.

  The old-fashioned music fades away, starts into something jangly and current. Cass pulls my hand and we head farther out into the grass, to the top of Beach Road where we can see everything—ocean, land, even a hint of the causeway far, far off. And I can glimpse it all, trace the path we’ve come along, like the lines on a map. Four kids lying on the sand, fireworks as bright as shooting stars. Two friends on the dock, looking out at the unknown. A little boy leaping for his life, an older one doing the same. A firefly glowing in the night, caught by a boy who shows it to a girl. This girl bending to that boy’s kiss. An old woman who hasn’t forgotten what it was like to be a young one, leaning back on her glider, rocking her feet against the floorboards, looks out over the water, the ocean that changes and never changes. Horizons that seem like endings but only bend farther into the sky, curving into something new, beginning all over again.