“It’s a crab.”
I furrow my brow.
“A horseshoe crab. Big whoop. People around here act like anything that washes up on the beach has fallen from Mars or something.”
I look closer at the guy talking to me, then at the crowd of people he’s referencing. And he’s right: at least a dozen people are huddled around a spot a few yards up the beach peering down at the sand. I’m headed toward the crowd (not because I care what they’re looking at but because I’m still trying to walk off my adrenaline overload), and the guy is headed toward me.
“A crab on the beach, huh?” I say. “Alert the media.”
He chuckles. “You’re headed in the wrong direction,” he says. “You’ll miss the sunset.”
I hesitate.
“You need to walk this way,” he persists, nodding his head west. “With me.”
His dark eyes sparkle as he smiles mischievously.
Whoa. Is he hitting on me?
He extends a hand and says, “I’m Scott.”
I eye him warily for a moment, then shake his hand loosely. “Forrest.”
His eyes widen. “Forrest?”
I nod. “Like the trees.”
“I like trees,” Scott says, then stoops slightly until his eyes are level with mine. “And I like sunsets even better. Join me?”
He’s less cocky this time—maybe even a little nervous?—so after deliberating for a second, I nod.
“I can’t go far,” I say. “I, um, promised my mom I’d be home in time to do the laundry.”
Okay, that sounded ridiculously lame. Why in the world did I feel the sudden need to create an impromptu escape hatch? You’re not a kid anymore, Forrest. Relax!
Scott and I start walking, and before long we’ve matched each other’s stride.
“Home, huh?” he says, the sea breeze tousling his sandy-blond hair. “You live here?”
“We have a beach house here,” I say, and I catch myself as I almost point at it. It’s embarrassing to tally how little experience I’ve had being flirted with, and god, he’s cute. I need to be careful.
“Lucky,” he says. “I’m staying at my aunt’s place.”
“Mmmmm.”
“First day?” he asks.
“At the beach? Yeah. How’d you know?”
He grins. “Think I wouldn’t have noticed you by now if you’d been here a while?”
I tug a lock of hair.
“You’re blushing,” Scott says.
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
I duck my head and smile. Geez. I guess I know how to flirt after all.
“So,” Scott says, clapping his hands together. “Have you had a good first day?”
I shrug. “My brother’s girlfriend is here. She’s driving me a little crazy.”
“The blonde?”
I look at him, startled.
“I saw the two of you on the beach earlier,” he says.
My stomach tightens, but I tell myself to chill. Flirting, meet Forrest. Forrest, meet Flirting.
“She looks pretty high-maintenance,” Scott says.
I laugh lightly. “Yeah. We’ve had in-depth discussions about her food preferences. So far, nothing is quite to her liking. Tragic, really. But I’m sure we’ll hit on something she likes eventually. Only ninety more meals to go, give or take a couple.”
Scott kicks the surf lazily with his heel. “So you’ll be here a month?”
A wave washes over my feet. “Right.”
“Yeah? Me too.” He winks at me. “Thirty more sunsets to go, give or take a couple. They’ll be a lot more beautiful if I have somebody to share them with. Besides my aunt, that is.”
I bite my lip. Is this another setup, like Jake Bennett chatting me up a couple of weeks ago just to suss out information about Olivia?
“I’m sure you have plenty of people to share sunsets with,” I venture cautiously.
“Maybe. But who do I want to share my sunsets with? That’s the question.”
Another trick question? I honestly don’t know. So I ask him. “Who?”
He stops in his tracks, loosely takes my hands, and looks into my eyes. “You.” His face inches closer. “I would give my right arm to share thirty sunsets with you.”
Heat emanates from the back of my neck. “You don’t even know me.”
He lets my right hand drop, then brushes my nose with his index finger. “We can solve that problem.” Pause. “I guess the question is … do you want to solve that problem?”
Smile, Forrest, smile.
I smile but squeeze my arms together, suddenly a little chilled.
“Oooohh,” Scott purrs. “That answers my question. You’ve got, like, the sexiest smile I’ve ever seen. Those are some serious dimples you’ve got going on. My dilemma is, do I gaze into that beautiful face? Or move on down south to your amazing body? You’re making me crazy, Forrest-like-the-trees. Too much beauty to take in all at once. Yup. Thirty sunsets. I’ll need at least that much time to worship your hotness.”
Move on down south? I shift my weight nervously. Kind of an odd thing to say, but I’m silly to pick his words apart … right? I mean, this is how guys talk to girls … right? At least the smooth guys, the experienced guys, the guys who aren’t immature morons like the ones at Peachfield High School … right? And, yeah, he’s coming on pretty strong, but that’s what guys do when they finally grow up enough to get their act together … right? It’s cool when guys are confident enough to say what they mean. No stupid game playing.
Olivia’s words from earlier in the day echo in my head: Why don’t you ever have any boyfriends?
I swallow hard, then relax my shoulders.
Maybe it’s time to start.
eleven
Shut. Keep them shut.
My strategy is to interact with Olivia as minimally as possible this month, and so, to set the tone on our first night together as roomies, I feign sleep when I hear her get out of her bottom bunk to make a bathroom run, even though I just came to bed a couple of minutes earlier.
It’s easy to keep my eyes shut. The better to relive Sunset Number One with Scott. Sunset Number One. What a sap I’ve turned into in just the past few hours.
Not that anything really happened. He and I just walked for half a mile or so, the peach and mango colors of Sunset Number One streaking horizontally in the sky. Seems like we talked forever … though come to think of it, I still know next to nothing about him, like how old he is or where he’s from. Oh well. We have twenty-nine more sunsets to cover all our bases.
Cover all our bases. I smile at the memory of Scott talking about “covering all the bases” with me, that silly adolescent guy talk, only he made it sound kinda … I dunno … adorable. And he didn’t try anything; he was a perfect gentleman. He reached down and held my hand for a while, but it was so casual that it was clear he was just living in the moment. And, yeah, at one point, his arm slipped around my waist and his fingers started getting a little—how do I describe it—adventuresome, but hey, this is what guys do, right?
And he’s so incredibly sweet that I know he would die if he thought he was making me uncomfortable, so all I’d have to do is give the word and his fingers would scurry away from my nether regions, and he’d probably be grinning that shy, amazing grin and telling me how sorry he was, that he didn’t even realize where his hand was heading, that he was just so comfortable around me it was hard not to totally relax and be himself, but thanks for pointing it out, and he’d be much more careful from now on …
Anyway, that’s about the time that I told him I needed to head back, and as soon as we turned around, I saw my parents in the distance, hand in hand farther up the beach. I told Scott I’d introduce him, but he said he just remembered he was scheduled to meet up with some friends and was pr
obably already keeping them waiting, so he had to take off. He kissed my cheek at the last minute and reminded me I owed him twenty-nine more sunsets, then started jogging away from the surf.
I hear Olivia barf in the bathroom.
Okay, this is ridiculous.
So much for feigning sleep. When she emerges from the bathroom, I’m leaning up on an elbow. Her face looks chalky in the moonlight. She catches my eye and sucks in her breath slightly.
“You asked me a personal question earlier today,” I say. “Now, can I ask you one?”
She swallows hard, then nods, tugging at her nightgown self-consciously.
“Are you bulimic?”
Olivia’s eyes widen. “What?”
I climb down from my bunk and sit on the edge of her bed, staring at her squarely. “Barfing after every meal? What else can I think?”
Olivia’s eyes narrow. “How about the truth? That I’m pregnant.”
Oh my god.
My jaw drops.
“Pregnant … ”
“I thought you knew,” Olivia says.
“You’re pregnant.” I’m saying it more to myself than to her.
She sighs and sits next to me on her bed. “I didn’t mean to shock you,” she says. “I really thought you knew.”
“Pregnant … ” I clutch my chest. “Does Brian know?”
Olivia laughs. “Uh, duh.”
I try to absorb the message, but my mind is already vaulting ahead. “My parents … ” I mumble.
“They’ve known for two weeks,” she says. “That’s why I thought you knew.”
Omigod. Omigod. Omigod.
Olivia puts a cool hand on my arm. “Breathe, Forrest. You look like you’re about to hyperventilate.”
“What … what … what are you gonna do?”
She smiles. “I’m gonna be a mom.”
Jesus Christ !
I face her, then grab her arms. “Olivia, you’ve got to think this through. You’re so young. Brian … he’s so young. He doesn’t even have a real job. He needs to go to college. He needs to … ”
Olivia’s eyes turn steely. “I know it’ll take a while to get used to this,” she says stiffly. “But Brian and I are going to be a family. Brian and our baby and I are going to be a family.”
Yeah, that’s a lovely sentiment, but since that’s not possible …
“What does my mom say about this?” I ask, and, I know, like, how desperate am I to invoke my mother’s authority?
Olivia holds her frosty gaze for a moment, but then her face shrivels. She drops her head into her hands and sobs quietly. Her shoulders heave.
“Olivia … I’m sorry … I didn’t mean … ”
I pat her clumsily.
“Olivia … it’s okay … really … ”
She weeps a while longer, then looks up at me with tear-stained eyes and a quivery chin. “I guess you all think I’m a slut.”
Yes.
“No. Nobody thinks that.”
“I’m not,” she says, her eyes crinkling again with a fresh set of tears. “I love Brian. I want to spend the rest of my life with him.”
“But … but … how can you make it happen? You’re so young … ”
“I’m eighteen,” Olivia protests. “My mother had me at eighteen.”
And we know how well that worked out.
I swallow hard. “So you’re getting married?”
She nods and a smile seeps through the tears. “Will you be my maid of honor?”
Me in taffeta.
This day just keeps getting weirder by the second.
Brian and I are bobbing in the surf, splashing each other playfully in waist-high water. We’re—I dunno—maybe seven and nine. In real life, Mom or Dad would definitely be hovering nearby at that stage in our lives, probably within arm’s length of us, but in my dream, no adult is in sight. That’s why I get a little nervous as I realize Bri keeps drifting deeper and deeper into the ocean.
At first, I keep my mouth shut—I pride myself on being a cool, unannoying little sister—but then it occurs to me that he doesn’t realize he’s drifting. He’s chest-deep soon, then shoulder-deep, and now his chin is in the water, the waves threatening to swamp him altogether.
“You’re too far out,” I call, trying to sound casual.
But he’s drifting even farther now. He’s still smiling at me, still carefree, oblivious to the danger even as the waves start to wash over his head. “Too far!” I shout, urgently this time.
He cups a hand over his ear, his head now barely visible between waves. “What?”
He’s so far from me now that I can hardly hear him. “Too far! Too far! Come back, Brian!”
But instead of swimming toward the shore, he gives me a thumbs-up. “I’m good!”
“No! You’re too deep! You’re too deep! I won’t be able to save you!”
Now he’s completely underwater, except for the thumb jauntily hoisted in midair.
“Too deep! Too deep!” I cry, now sobbing uncontrollably.
But he can’t even hear me. He’s drowning but still giving me a thumbs-up.
And there’s nothing I can do to help him.
I awake with a start, audibly gasping and feeling my heart pound against my chest.
God. What is it with these nightmares? If I keep this up, I’ll fling myself off the top bunk before long.
Then I hear the steady rhythm of Olivia’s breath as she sleeps in the bunk below. Moonlight seeps through the blinds, hazily illuminating the clock on the wall: 3:45 a.m. I hear waves sloshing lazily on the beach outside. My hands clench into fists as I realize that even though I’m wide awake now, I’m still stuck with the nightmare. Brian’s life really is ruined. I really can’t save him.
Too deep, Brian. Too deep …
“How ya doing this morning, Evergreen?” Dad asks when I walk into the kitchen the next morning.
“Not pregnant.”
Mom, Dad, and Brian cast furtive glances, their coffee mugs and orange juice glasses half empty on the kitchen table.
I pull up a chair and join them.
“So were you planning on telling me anytime within, say, the next nine months?”
Mom clears her throat. “We just found out ourselves,” she says.
“Two weeks ago,” I correct her. “God knows you’ve had time to nag me endlessly in the past two weeks. You couldn’t have thrown in a quick ‘Oh, by the way, Olivia is pregnant’?”
Brian shushes me and glances anxiously toward the family room.
“She’s still fast asleep,” I assure him. “Spending the whole night hurling tends to have that effect. And thanks for that, by the way. Another reason I’m nominating her for Roomie of the Year.”
Brian’s face darkens. “And you wonder why we didn’t tell you.”
I sigh. “I was kidding.”
“No, you weren’t,” he mutters, tapping his fork against his plate.
“Guys,” Dad says wearily. “We’ve got enough to deal with without the two of you going at it.”
Tears suddenly spring into my eyes. “I can’t do anything right with you anymore,” I tell Brian.
Anger flashes in his eyes. “Be nice to the girl I love. That’s it. That’s all I ask.”
I lean closer toward him. “She’s changing your whole life!”
He nods smartly. “Yeah. And considering I think that’s a good thing, isn’t it about time that you butt out?”
I rub my eyes roughly with the heels of my hand. This is crazy. The last time I cried to Brian, he practically did back flips to cheer me up. I’d submitted an essay for a newspaper contest, and when I didn’t win, my English teacher confided that one of the judges told him he thought it was “good … too good, if you know what I mean,” meaning I guess he thought it wa
s plagiarized, which my English teacher assured him was total shit. But whatever, I still didn’t win the contest, and when I cried like a baby that evening at the dinner table, Brian put an arm around me, pressing me against his side and fuming with indignation about the injustice of it all.
And now he’s just glaring at me.
“Guys!” Dad beseeches. “We’re a family. We pull together at times like these.”
Brian shakes his head and laughs wryly. “‘Times like these,’” he repeats, a bitter edge in his voice. “Exactly what kind of a time is it, Dad, other than the best time of my life?”
Mom squeezes her eyes together and slaps the table. “Will everyone please eat their breakfast !”
I glare at Brian. “Not hungry.”
I get up and walk back to my bedroom. Olivia’s still in bed, squeezing the sleep out of her eyes.
“Hi,” I say. “Hey, Olivia, can I ask you a favor?”
She props up on her elbows. “Sure.”
“Think I can borrow one of your bikinis today?”
twelve
I toss my book aside and look at Olivia, the waves just beginning to nip at our beach chairs as the tide comes in.
“Wanna walk?” I ask.
She smiles apologetically. “Maybe later? I’m still kinda queasy.”
“No problem.”
She adjusts her sunglasses and lays her magazine on her tanned stomach. “You look smokin’ hot in my bikini, by the way,” she tells me, and I blush.
“Thanks.” I get up and head toward the surf.
How stupid was I to think Scott would just magically materialize by my beach chair this morning? He doesn’t even know which house is mine, and come to think of it, I don’t know which one is his. Maybe he’d walked two miles before our paths crossed. Maybe I’ll never see him again.
And maybe it’s just as well. He was pretty pushy, after all; he obviously knows his way around girls. But is that a bad thing? I mean, I’m the freak who sits at home on Saturday nights reading Faulkner. Besides, he was pushy in kind of an adorable way. I like how he wouldn’t take no for an answer, that even though I was in my cutoffs and T-shirt, he was digging on me. Me! Of all the girls on the beach.
Thirty Sunsets Page 5