Unbreak My Heart

by Melissa Walker

  That makes Olive giggle.

  The inside of the Townsends’ boat is warm and cozy—all dark wood with lots of brass accents. I notice a red net hanging from the galley ceiling that’s full of bananas—James wasn’t kidding. None of them are browning, though. They must be today’s supply. And I don’t smell a hint of old-banana in here, which is incredible if you think about it.

  There’s a shelf full of navigation books above the portholes, and next to the ladder stairs up to the cockpit, I see a family portrait like the ones you get taken in a department-store photo studio. There are definitely three people in it, and the kid in the picture, who looks about five or six, has flaming red hair. I can’t make out much more from my seat on the other side of the cabin, but I resolve to get a closer peek at it later.

  I have another root beer when James offers, and I practically inhale the spaghetti marinara that Bill made. Olive does too. I think we’re a little tired of Mom’s canned wonder-meals, and the marinara is totally delicious—thick and oniony. I can see crushed tomato bits in the sink, so I know Bill from-scratched the sauce.

  “I made the garlic bread!” says James when Bill gets compliments from all of us on the meal.

  “You buttered the garlic bread,” says his dad, knocking his elbow with affection.

  The two of them are so at ease together, such a team. I look over at Olive watching them, and I know she’s still wondering about James’s mom, just like I am.

  I have to pee, but I hate using other people’s heads. You can hear the pee hitting the sides of the toilet—always—and half the time the flusher is too weak and toilet paper bubbles back up. Don’t even get me started on the issues of having to go number two. So I hold it.

  When James collects the dishes at the end of the meal, there’s not a single noodle left on my plate.

  “I had no idea I was so hungry,” I say. “I’m stuffed!”

  James laughs. “Don’t worry. We can stretch out and do a dock walk while Dad keeps your parents captive here with more authentic tales from the sea.”

  “Hey,” says Bill, “the Williamses are holding their own in the sailing stories department.”

  “Did I ever tell you about the time my father took us up to the Cape and we ran into some Kennedy cousins in a rowboat?” asks Mom.

  I can feel Olive roll her eyes. This one we’ve heard over a hundred times.

  “Is that our exit cue?” asks James.

  “Yes!” huffs Olive.

  The three of us finish clearing the table. Bill doesn’t get up, and I wonder if James does this every night, if one of his jobs as first mate is to clean. I’m guessing yes. I’ll have to mention that to Olive.

  “Going for a walk,” says James as we head above deck. He grabs a tote bag from the cockpit and slings it over his arm.

  Bill nods and my parents don’t even look our way—they’re caught up in the stories of the night.

  Outside it’s dark and the air is mercifully cooler than earlier in the day—it feels like it’s in the low seventies. We gently step off the boat and start to walk down the dock.

  “Man, my dad can just talk and talk,” says James.

  “Maybe you should be thankful for his banana habit,” I say. “It probably keeps his mouth occupied sometimes.”

  I hope that didn’t sound rude or weird, but when I glance up at James I see that he’s smiling. I like people who aren’t too sensitive.

  Then a tortoiseshell cat darts out in front of us.

  “Mrs. Ficklewhiskers!” I shout.

  “Mrs. whatnow?” asks Olive.

  “She belongs to Ruth and George,” I say. “I met them in Peoria on the dock. They’re—”

  “They’re trouble,” says James, jumping in.

  “Who’s trouble?” asks a raspy voice from behind us. I see Ruth coming up the dock with an open can of tuna in her hand.

  “You are, little lady,” says James, pointing at her. And I realize he must know them already.

  Ruth giggles and takes James’s arm. She looks at Olive and hands her the tuna.

  “Here, take this to Mrs. Ficklewhiskers over there, will you?” she asks.

  Olive runs over to the end of the dock and puts the can down for the cat, who sniffs it haughtily and then starts to take tiny bites.

  I turn back to Ruth.

  “Jimmy and I have been on this same route every summer since …” She stops. “Well, for four years or so, anyway. Right, Jimmy?”

  “That’s right,” James says, giving her arm a squeeze.

  It’s sweet when guys are nice to older people. I take out my phone and snap a photo of them.

  “Hey, I wasn’t ready, was I?” says Ruth.

  “I’m into candids,” I say.

  “She loooves candids,” says my sister, running back from cat duty. She stares up at Ruth. “I’m Olive.”

  “Olive and Clementine and Jimmy, enjoying a night stroll,” says Ruth, taking a deep breath. “Isn’t that lovely?”

  I hear George coming up the dock, and then he shouts, “Good for you, boy! That Clementine’s a pretty one!”

  “Oh, George, stop!” says Ruth. “The boy’ll turn as red as his hair.”

  I hope they don’t notice that my laugh sounds nervous and that I’m blushing too.

  “Come on, my love,” says George. “Our dreams await us.”

  He takes Ruth’s hand and leads her away from James. They walk by Mrs. Ficklewhiskers and pick up the tuna can. She follows them back to their boat.

  “You’re good with older women, Jimmy,” I say, teasing.

  “Yeah, well, spend summers on a boat and you’re pretty much rolling like the AARP set,” he says. “Old people rule, but you guys are a very welcome surprise this year.”

  He grins at Olive, who beams back at him, and we continue our walk.

  I fall silent, thinking about Ruth and George, how silly they seem, but also kind of wise or something. And how he called her “my love,” which sounded so tender and sweet.

  James and Olive banter back and forth about which boats are the nicest, and they argue about whether pontoon boats are a blast (Olive) or majorly cheesy (James). I listen to the chatter of their voices without really hearing their words. I’m still in my own world a little bit, finding it hard to stay in present moments.

  But then James puts his hand on my shoulder.

  “I have an idea,” he says. “Let’s go there.” He points off toward the end of Pier 3, where neither of our boats are docked.

  “We just walked Pier 3,” says Olive. “Don’t you remember? You said you love that giant yacht at the end, and I said my dad would say that’s not a real boater’s vessel, that’s a ship for fools!”

  I laugh. I didn’t hear Olive say that the first time, but that totally is what Dad would say. It’s a motorboat that must be almost sixty feet long. It’s got tinted windows and a double-level cockpit with a spiral staircase leading up to a flybridge that’s the perfect suntanning deck. I can’t even imagine what’s inside, but there are probably, like, five bedrooms.

  “You want to see that boat again?” asks Olive.

  “I want to go on that boat,” says James. “I’ve been watching it all day—the owner is definitely not around. They probably left it for the week and just use it on the weekends.”

  He’s looking at me with those blue eyes that match his blue shirt. His face is just a few inches from mine. And suddenly I don’t have a problem being in the present moment.

  “I don’t know … ,” says Olive.

  “Stop being a baby,” I say, holding James’s stare. It’s not like I’m a badass or like I’ve ever gone onto someone else’s boat before, but why not? “Let’s go.”

  We climb onto the side deck easily. There’s gorgeous teak that my dad would definitely appreciate if he let himself get close enough to this boat, but he wouldn’t, because it’s not a sailboat and Dad doesn’t do motorboats.

  “Let’s go up to the flybridge,” says James. We climb the s
piral stairs to the top level and I sit down, putting my legs up on one of the long seats, while Olive perches nervously at the helm next to the captain’s wheel. James sits across from me and stretches out on the other seat. We’re looking up at the dark sky, but it’s a cloudy night and I can only see a handful of stars.

  “I have never wanted to be an astronaut,” says James.

  I laugh.

  “The sky is completely overwhelming,” I say.

  “Exactly,” he says. “I mean, who in their right mind would want to leave our planet? For what? A closer look at the moon?”

  “No thanks,” I say.

  “I think it’d be fun,” says Olive.

  “You’re crazy, Olive,” says James. “Would you hate it if I called you that all summer, ‘Crazy Olive’?”

  Did he say all summer?

  I hear my little sister giggle. I sit up and look over at her; she’s relaxing a little, leaning back in the captain’s chair and staring up with us. I settle back down.

  “I like being Crazy Olive,” says my sister. “Better than being Boring Olive.”

  “Good point,” says James. “Boring is the worst. It’s better to be almost anything than bored.”

  “Even depressed, like Clem?” Olive says.

  My head snaps up. I know she was joking, going on with the crazy thing, but that’s not funny.

  “Shut it, Olive,” I say sharply.

  She looks over at me with wide eyes, realizing she hit a nerve that she didn’t mean to touch.

  “What in the world could Clem have to be depressed about?” asks James, still staring at the sky, still using a light and teasing tone. “She’s out here on a beautiful summer night, aboard this luxury vessel with Crazy Olive and Handsome James, whose blue shirt makes his red hair stand out.”

  I smile in spite of myself. He’s paying attention to every word I say.

  “And besides, I want you guys smiling for this next part,” he continues.

  “Next part?” I ask.

  He sits up and whips a sketchbook and a dark gray pencil out of the tote he’s been carrying.

  He glances over at Olive, who looks enchanted, and then at me.

  “Perfect,” he says. And he starts to draw.

  While he’s drawing, he asks us to stay quiet so he can capture our “still selves.” But he keeps talking, making us laugh. “Have you guys ever noticed that when you need ChapStick it’s like you’d pay any amount of money to have it right now? Like your lips are about to flake off your face and you need the sweet relief that only that tube of petroleum-based product can bring?”

  Listening to him is like being at the dentist in the chair with your mouth open and full of tools while the dentist asks you how school’s going. I try to indicate with my eyes that I know what he means about the ChapStick, because I do, but I’m not sure I’m good at ocular communication—especially in the almost dark.

  James keeps talking. “But then when you don’t need ChapStick and everything is fine with your lips’ moisture level, you’ll find like twenty half-used tubes at the bottom of your backpack from the times when you were completely desperate for the stuff.”

  He shakes his head.

  “So weird. This is what I think about while I draw.”

  His hands keep moving the whole time, faster than his mouth even, and I wonder how anything that moves so fast could be creating a drawing that’s even remotely good. But after about twenty minutes, James gets up suddenly and holds the sketch pad right in front of our faces, and what I see surprises me.

  Olive gasps.

  “That’s so us!” she says, delighted.

  It’s a cartoon us—not like one of those real-life portrait drawings, but still, she’s right. James got her face perfectly: the way her nose turns up a little at the end, her slightly mussy left eyebrow, the glint of light that bounces off her green-framed glasses, which are a tiny bit askew in real life and in the drawing.

  I notice that the background isn’t this setting, aboard this huge yacht. It’s earlier, at sunset. You can tell even in his gray pencil that the “lighting” is from a few hours ago. Olive and I are sipping from our root beer bottles. James put himself in the scene, too, just a little. His glass bottle is reaching in to touch ours for a “cheers.”

  And then I look at me. I mean, illustrated me. She’s prettier than I am. She has freckles on her nose and a smile playing on her lips, though she’s not letting it spread across her face. Her hair is pulled back in a bun, like mine, and the arch of her cheekbones is striking—like she has a face that’s meant to be drawn. Her eyes look bright and alive, but there’s no doubt they look sad too.

  I glance up at James and see him studying me. I wonder how much he can read in my face.

  “We should go,” I say.

  “Don’t you like it, Clem?” asks Olive.

  I bite my lip and look down at her. “It’s great,” I say, though I feel like I might start to cry.

  I walk to the spiral stairs and carefully but quickly ease myself down to the main deck. Then I step off the side of the boat and onto the dock. As the wake of a passing motorboat makes its way into the marina and rocks the dock with a few waves, I suddenly remember that I have to pee. Badly.

  “You guys, I’m going to The Possibility,” I shout. “James, can you take Olive back to your boat?”

  “Clem, wait!” says James. He’s down the steps in a flash. “Is there something wrong?”

  “No!” I say. “I just really have to pee.”

  And it’s only a half lie, because I do have to pee, and I have to pee right now. I’m almost glad for this slightly comical distraction, because I don’t want James to know that what’s actually wrong is that he saw it. He saw my sadness.

  I hustle toward The Possibility and look back once to be sure Olive is with James and they’re walking to his boat. Then I runwalk back to our boat, jump on board, and tear down the stairs into the head.

  Ahhhh. Does anything feel better than making it to a bathroom after you’ve been holding it for hours? Well, probably something, but I can’t think of what in this instance. Sweet relief.

  I sit in the main cabin of the boat for a minute. I could do the right thing and walk back over to Dreaming of Sylvia, say good night to James and his dad properly, thank them for a nice night.

  But I just stay on the couch and listen to the gentle waves lap against the side of The Possibility. Those eyes. My eyes. They were cartoons, but they were so real. I saw my own sadness in that drawing, like I was looking into a reflecting pool from a fantasy novel that showed me my soul or something. How could James see that?

  chapter thirteen

  Dear Amanda,

  It’s so hard to hide things from you. I know

  you sensed something was wrong …

  “I saw your feelings get hurt,” said Amanda. We’d just gotten home from the movies with Ethan and Renee and Henry, and she was sitting on my bed, staring into the mirror across the room.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Just that I could see it in your face when me and Ethan were holding hands,” she said.

  “Oh.” My heart pounded in my chest.

  Amanda’s mom is a therapist, and everyone in her family is way tuned in to their own emotions, and others’ feelings too—it’s actually kind of annoying how hard it is to hide anything from my best friend.

  Amanda took a deep breath.

  “What?” I asked.

  I watched her squeeze her eyes shut in the mirror.

  “I know it’s kind of awkward,” she said. Then she opened them. “But I think it’s normal that you’re jealous that I have a boyfriend who’s actually hanging out with us now.”

  “Oh, I’m not,” I said, surprised. “I like Ethan …” I was about to add “a lot,” but I decided to leave it at that.

  “Okay, okay.” She smiled at me, relieved. “I just had to say something, because it seems like you guys are friends, and then he and I are going out, so it’s like
you have these two friends dating and it can be weird because we spend time alone, too, and … I don’t know, am I rambling?”

  “No.” I kept my participation in this conversation very measured.

  “It’s cool that you guys get along,” she said, and I saw her eyes widen a little in the mirror. “You seem to always be talking or having, like, private jokes.”

  I wondered if she was fishing for something, if she could read me that well.

  “We have a class together,” I said.

  “I know,” she said, and then she threw her arms around me. “I’m sorry, Clem, I didn’t mean to say that you were jealous! It just seemed like something was bothering you tonight, is all.”

  I nodded and hugged her back. “It’s nothing,” I said. “Maybe I am a little jealous because he takes away my time with you.”

  That was an acceptable thing to be jealous about, so I went with it.

  “Let’s have a sleepover next weekend,” said Amanda. “Just you and me.”

  “Sounds good.” I pulled away from our hug and smiled brightly at her.

  “Ack, sorry I made things awkward!” she said. Then she waved her hands in front of my face, which I guess looked kind of grim. “Okay, forget all that. Want me to make you a smile?”

  And that was that. Amanda had noticed something wrong, and I had my warning—and I didn’t heed it. I had proof then that the weirdness wasn’t just in my head. I knew for sure that I needed to stop talking to Ethan so much.

  But I didn’t. It was like I couldn’t help it.

  Later that week, one snowy afternoon when I was stuck in the house, Ethan and I spent over three hours online, messaging different song lyrics to each other and trying to guess the song.

  Clem: I am so homesick for someplace I will never be

  Ethan: The Bravery, Time Won’t Let Me Go

  Ethan: When the wind is in your hair you laugh like a little girl

  Clem: Easy. Magnetic Fields, Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side

  Ethan: How very indie-aware of you