by Jen Doll
“Mom and Dad will go in with you,” she tells him. “We’re going to wander around and check stuff out.”
“Yeah, buddy, stick with us,” says Mr. Wachowski. He’s sat back down on his deck chair and is paging through what looks like a school catalog. “Help me figure out if I’m an Auburn or an Alabama fan. What’s better, orange and blue and tigers, or red and white and elephants?”
“I don’t know,” says Jack kind of dejectedly, and my heart breaks.
“Hey!” I say, kneeling next to him and whispering in his ear, “I’ll tell you a story about the wave pool later.”
“I like you, Doris,” he says, patting me on the shoulder.
I look up at Mr. Wachowski. “Go with Auburn if you love an underdog with a cult following; pick ’Bama if you want to be a part of mainstream Alabama’s storied football tradition. Don’t tell my father I said that. He’s a diehard ’Bama fan and would disown me for saying there’s even an option—Roll Tide! But if you go with Auburn, start saying ‘War Eagle!’ as much as possible.”
He grins at me. “Who do you like?”
“I’m a conscientious objector. I only watch synchronized swimming,” I say, smiling back.
“C’MON!” says Nell, pulling me up.
“Wait!” shouts her dad, digging into his beach bag and pulling out a twenty-dollar bill. “Ice cream on me,” he offers. Nell snags the money and tucks it into her pocket.
“Doris, you should come over for dinner soon!” adds Mrs. Wachowski, lifting her sunglasses to see me off. “Don’t be a stranger!”
“OK, OK, OK, guys,” Nell says, grabbing my hand. “Enough. She likes you! You like her! We will see you again. We are teenagers who must roam and be free!”
And we’re off.
“Ugh”—she’s talking a mile a minute—“I think I terrified my parents into thinking I was turning into an elective mute when we first got here, so they’re being embarrassingly supportive about any friendship efforts on my part.”
“They’re adorable,” I say. “And so is Jack. Maybe we should introduce him to Freddie.”
“Great idea,” she says. “He doesn’t really have anyone to play with yet. He just hangs with Dad, or me, because Mom’s so busy at work. Sometimes having a brother is a pain. You’re lucky you’re an only child.”
“I never really cared about having a brother or sister,” I say. “I always had Aunt Stella. She was my built-in person. Maybe that’s how Jack feels about you.”
She stops and looks at me, just for a second.
“You’re right,” she says. “I should do more stuff with him. But first, let’s explore!”
Then we’re off again, Nell cracking jokes as she drags me to get ice cream—chocolate for her, strawberry for me—which we order in waffle cones. We do our best to eat faster than the ice cream can melt as I tour her around the water park, pointing out important sites and key information about the people we see. She listens with an intent expression, like she doesn’t want to forget a single detail, so I go all in: how Tricklin Vendee peed himself in front of everyone at this very concession stand when we were in first grade (poor Tricklin, not least because he was named Tricklin); how Whitney Jefferson broke her wrist jumping off the high dive and then strutted around showing off her cast, which she claimed had been signed by Justin Bieber but turned out to be forged by her sister, for the entire first month of sixth grade; that behind the lifeguard lockers is where everyone goes to make out; and, oh yeah, that’s the waterslide where I was groped by Teddy Scruggs. OK, I don’t say that last part. But the ease with which it nearly floats off my tongue makes me wonder if I should go ahead and spill.
We’ve finished our ice cream and are sitting at one of the picnic tables that overlooks the pool the waterslides feed into. Kids are shooting into it from the end of the slides at regular intervals and hollering with glee.
“Remember when we were talking about boyfriends?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says, and waits.
“Well, something happened to me the last time I came to this water park. With a boy. He wasn’t my boyfriend, though,” I start, and the whole story comes out in a whoosh, like its own little waterslide.
Nell gets as mad as I’ve ever seen her. “Your aunt Stella was right,” she says. “That awful woman who blamed you should not be in any kind of authority role, Doris. That is sexist and wrong. Where is she now?”
As far as I know, Mrs. Stokes is still in charge of the youth group at the church. I never wanted to see her again, so I haven’t thought about how she might be shaming other girls, now. The thought makes me feel sick.
“She should be fired,” says Nell. “And then can we track down Teddy Scruggs and beat the crap out of him? Or at least scare him until he poops his pants? I’m very good at revenge. I have lots of ideas.”
I smile. Even though I guess I always knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, it feels so good to hear someone else say it, too.
So I tell her something else.
“Grant was there,” I say.
“What?” she asks, her eyes wide.
“He was friends with Teddy,” I explain. “He and his girlfriend, Chassie. They saw me with my top down. They laughed.”
Nell just breathes, quietly. “He’s your friend now. You should talk to him.”
“Is he my friend? I don’t know if that’s true. What if he was part of the whole thing? It was so humiliating. It made me feel like I was nothing, a joke. That’s partly why I stopped going to church.”
“So that’s why you’ve hated him for so long,” Nell says. “You’re not a joke, Doris. I promise.”
“Thanks,” I say.
She puts her arm around me just as my cell phone beeps.
“Oh my God,” I say, looking at it.
“What?” asks Nell.
“It’s Grant Collins. Texting me.”
“What is he saying? How? Why? Oh my God!” says Nell. She stands up, so excited she’s nearly running in place. “This is fate. Doris! You have to talk to him. What did he write?”
“He’s asking if I’m around,” I say. “Sit down, you’re making me nervous!”
“Tell him we’re here.” She looks at the waterslide, and then takes a seat next to me on the bench. “I mean, if you want to? Remember what you said: that whatever happened with Ashton, either way I’d know. Don’t you want to know with Grant, too? It’s your chance to find out the truth!”
Do I want to know? I get out a “hi,” before I delete it. “What do I even write?”
Nell grabs my phone. “I can do it for you,” she says, dictating to herself: “Hey, Grant, I’m at the water park with Nell! What’s up?”
I lean over her shoulder to watch the words come out. She throws in some emojis. I watch the bubbles that indicate that he’s writing back. I feel nervous, and pukey, and … totally curious to find out what’s next.
Mind if I come meet y’all? he writes, and Nell and I look at each other in semi-astonishment.
“Grant Collins wants to hang with us,” she says. “The question is, do we want to hang with him? Here? After what you told me?”
“I guess there’s only one way to find out,” I tell her, and she smiles.
“Thatta girl.”
Sure, she types, and gets a thumbs-up in reply.
Nell and I look at each other. She’s exuberant; I’m slightly panicked. That’s when a voice on the water park’s loudspeaker interrupts this surprising development.
“Attention!” announces a woman. “Attention, park-goers. May I have your attention! We have an urgent announcement. A seven-year-old boy is lost in the park.”
This happens a lot. Pretty much every summer weekend, a kid will go missing at the water park. Everyone freaks out looking for him or her, and that terrible rumor about getting squished by the wave pool mechanism rears its head once again, and most of the time, the kid’s off eating a Popsicle at the edge of the river. In the old days, I found several of them there.
&n
bsp; “Jack Wachowski, your parents are looking for you. Jack Wachowski, age seven, please meet your mom and dad at the ice cream stand immediately. If anyone has seen Jack Wachowski, please contact the nearest park employee immediately. Jack has brown hair and blue eyes and is about four feet tall. He’s wearing a neon yellow bathing suit.”
“Maybe he was following us. He used to do that sometimes.” Nell looks around, and I track her gaze, but there’s no sign of him.
“Let’s go back to the ice cream stand; by then I’m sure he’ll be there, too,” I suggest. She bites her lip. “Don’t worry,” I say.
My talent is about to come in handy.
20
Nell
Doris leads me through the crowds. In just a few minutes, we’re back at the ice cream place, and there are my parents. Mom has her face scrunched up in worry, and Dad is tapping his foot, looking around like he’s about to jump out of his skin. I run to them like I’m the one who’s missing and hug them while Doris watches.
“You better put on more sunscreen,” Mom tells me, touching my forehead. “You’re burning!”
“The sun is too hot here,” I say, which means nothing and everything all at once.
“What happened?” Doris asks my parents. “When did you last see him?”
“We were all in the wave pool together,” says my mom. “And then he started playing with some other kids. We were watching and watching, and all of a sudden we didn’t see him. There were so many waves, and so many kids. We told the lifeguard, and they got everyone out of the pool.”
“But there was no sign of him,” says my dad. “He wasn’t in or anywhere near the wave pool, and he wasn’t at the car, either. After that, we came straight here and reported him missing.”
“Where’s his stuff?” I ask. “Did he bring his mask with him?” This seems very important to me.
“That’s gone, too,” says Mom.
A tan, serious-looking lifeguard with a whistle around her neck arrives to give us an update. They’ve closed the wave pool temporarily and are searching the water. Nobody’s found anything, and that’s good news, but my mom goes pale. I can’t stop thinking about how much I’ve ignored Jack since we moved. I even talked about wanting to be an only child! If Doris and I had gone into the wave pool with him like he asked, this never would have happened.
Then I have another horrible thought: What if he’s been kidnapped or, oh my God, drowned?
Doris and my dad are talking quietly, and at some point, my dad puts his hand on my mom’s shoulder and she nods, an unspoken communication between the two of them. Doris and my dad leave to go look for Jack. I’m crying and even though I’m neither wet nor cold, my mom is holding a towel around me. The announcement for my brother to come to the ice cream stand has been repeated more times than I can count.
I’m sobbing, with snot pouring out of my nose, when Grant Collins shows up.
“Hey, I’ve been looking for y’all everywhere!” he says. My mom straightens up as he says in his boy-almost-man voice, “Nell! What’s going on? Are you OK? Where’s Doris?”
“She and my dad went to look for my brother. He’s missing,” I mumble, and my mom glances from me to Grant and offers him her hand.
“I’m Nell’s mom,” she says. “Diana Wachowski.” Grant takes her hand and shakes it gently. Suddenly I realize: He is flirting, or Mom-flirting, because he says in this voice that’s him but not really him, “I can see the resemblance, Mrs. Wachowski. Good looks don’t fall far from the tree.”
Normally, I would groan loudly at this, but even in this moment of worry, my mom has the funniest little blush on her face. None of us are completely immune to the charms of Grant Collins, I realize. My grandmother would probably swoon around Grant Collins.
“This happens, Mrs. Wachowski,” says Grant, and his Southern drawl picks up, so he sounds soothing as can be. “Every summer weekend since I’ve been coming here, which is basically forever, a kid will wander off, and management will check the pool and make announcements and look everywhere, and then they’ll find the kid asleep on a towel at the beach, or with a bunch of other kids in line at the waterslide. This place is crawling with lifeguards. One of them found me ages ago, too.” He shrugs like he’s embarrassed by this confession. “I was five and licking a mint-chocolate-chip ice cream cone, right where we’re standing now.”
“I hope you’re right,” she tells him, and looks at me. “Why don’t you two go search the park? I’ll stay here in case he shows up. It would make me feel better if we’re covering as much ground as possible.”
“OK, Mom.” I give her another quick hug before turning to Grant. “Do you want to help look?” I ask. I’ve finally stopped crying, but my voice comes out all quivery.
“Sure,” he says.
“He’s seven and has brown hair, and he’s wearing yellow swim trunks,” I tell Grant as we start walking. We’re all business, scanning the crowds as Grant leads me to the small section of sand at the water park’s edge that dips into the gray-brown Tennessee River, a portion of which is roped off for safe swimming.
“Hardly anyone comes over here,” he says when we arrive, standing in the warm sand and surveying the beach. “Just families with babies and old people, mostly.” I look out at the water, wishing for a glimpse of my brother’s hair, or the splash of color indicating his mask. As Grant said, there are only a few families with little kids sitting on towels around us, and some senior citizens—ladies in sun hats sitting in beach chairs, letting the water rush up to their toes and bantering like they don’t have a care in the world.
“Have you seen a little boy in yellow trunks?” I ask them, but they shake their heads apologetically. “Sorry, hon. We’ll keep an eye out. God bless!”
“Let’s go,” I tell Grant. “He’s not here.”
Grant, however, is gazing at the entrance to the beach, where two teenagers have just walked in. It’s a girl and boy. She’s wearing the smallest string bikini I’ve ever seen in my life, and her hair falls in waves down her back. She could pass for a swimsuit model, minus the sling on her arm. The boy is tall and handsome and carrying beach towels and an umbrella. Grant draws back for a second, almost like he’s been slapped.
The girl sees us and her eyes narrow. In an instant, she’s facing her boyfriend again, and they’re in an epic lip-lock. OK, then.
Grant is frowning.
“What?” I ask, and he shakes his head and lifts his shoulders again in the universal “it’s nothing” gesture that he’s so good at.
“Let’s keep looking,” I say, and we avert our eyes as we walk around the couple, who are still making out ostentatiously.
“Tell me about your brother,” Grant says. As we walk to the next section of the park, I let loose a torrent of Jack info, how he loves bagels with peanut butter and banana and hates sleeping in the total darkness and always wants a new made-up story before bed. How he’s obsessed with his dumb video games and does accents to make us laugh. How he’s one of the people I love the most in the world, even if I don’t always act like it.
“I feel so guilty about everything,” I say, and Grant nods.
“I get it,” he says. “I feel the same way about Mikey and Bobby. They got the shitty end of the stick having me for a big brother.”
“No way,” I say. “How is that possible? You’re Grant Collins. I’m new here, and even I know that’s something.”
“That’s kind of the problem,” he says in this harsh way that prevents me from asking more. “Look, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he finally adds with quiet intensity. “It’s not your fault. We’re going to find him.”
“I hope so,” I say. My throat feels clenched tight.
“Maybe we should head for the waterslide. That would be an easy place for him to go unnoticed; it’s thronged with kids. And you can’t hear announcements when you’re in the tunnel.”
“OK,” I say, glad to follow someone else’s suggestion.
“I can take a l
ook in the men’s locker room on the way,” Grant adds. “Maybe he went in there to pee.”
“Good idea,” I say. We’re traversing concrete to the next stop, surrounded by blissfully unaware park-goers with zinc swiped across their noses and towels under their arms, bags with the latest Us Weekly poking out of the top.
“So, um, this is weird,” says Grant. “But I feel like I should say something.”
“OK,” I say. I’m positive he’s going to tell me about Doris, and what happened at the water park that day, and how it haunts him. I will then advise him to talk to her about it, and she will forgive him—because who can stay angry at Grant Collins?—and we will all be friends forever and no one will ever ruin it by moving away. Maybe the two of them will even fall in love. That would be quite the romantic twist.
But I’m wrong.
“When we were at the beach … did you see that girl, the one with the long hair and the world’s tiniest swimsuit, with that guy?”
“How could I miss her?” I say.
“Yeah. Well, she’s my ex-girlfriend. Chassie. She broke up with me in the spring. Apparently, she’s found a replacement.” He laughs in a bitter kind of way. “Not that I blame her.”
“Oh no,” I say. “I’m sorry.” I would have guessed Grant Collins was the kind of guy who was immune to heartache, a boy who got whatever he wanted and didn’t worry about who he hurt.
He looks at me like he’s waiting for me to say more, so I come out with the lamest, most insensitive cliché of my life: “Well, there are other fish in the sea.”
Immediately I hate myself, because that’s what my mom said to me when she told me we were moving, when I told her that she was destroying my life irrevocably by separating me from Ashton.
I didn’t think Grant could feel the way I did.
He looks at me. “You had a boyfriend back at home, right? What’s his name again?”
“Ashton,” I say. “We’re still together. Long-distance, and he’s at camp now, but he’s coming to visit in August—”
“Well, how would you feel if you saw him with someone else? Would you be like, hey, that’s cool, plenty of other fish in the sea? Or would you feel like there had been a fishing crisis and salmon had dwindled to an endangered population and it’s pretty much all your fault because you’re the one who eats salmon?”