by Unknown
“What? I just. It wasn’t…” Zooey felt her face flushing red. But she had been madly in love with Russ. Still was. She couldn’t wait to see him this year. From afar, of course. Not like she would be so stupid as to try to talk to him or anything.
Pam rolled her eyes and smiled at Zooey. “Hey, Russ is a total babe. Zo isn’t the only one who thinks he’s cute. Every girl on this island wants him. Even the old ladies!” She laughed, reminding them of the fact that Russ was a favorite of the McIntyre sisters, two elderly women who lived in and owned the most run-down house on the island. It started when they hired him to replace their rusted cistern and build them a new outhouse. He barely charged them anything, couldn’t bring himself to considering their well-known poverty. In return for the favor, the women began baking cookies and treats for him almost every day. Even though the “treats” were inedible, make-do from what they had left in their pantry, Russ was always polite and praised their baking skills. Every time he was passing their house, they ran out onto the boardwalk, usually holding a platter of baked sweets for him and begging him to join them for coffee, twittering around him like birds. It had become an island joke that was both funny and sad.
“It’s still gross,” Amy said. “I don’t get this whole fascination with boys. I’ve got three of them at my house, and let me tell you, they stink! Well, Will isn’t so bad. But the other two are total worms.”
Pam reached over and patted Amy’s leg. “Don’t worry, you’ll like boys. You’re just a late bloomer.”
Amy elaborately stuck a finger down her throat and made a gagging sound.
Zooey’s blush, that had started to die down, rose again. Late bloomer! If Amy was a late bloomer, what was she? A never-bloomer? Amy just had her first period, but Zooey had been having hers for two years and still looked the same. What was wrong with her?
Keeley sat up straight and smiled at the other girls, looking happy for the first time since they first reunited. “I know. We should go and spy on Amy’s new neighbors. We can do a covert mission!” She rubbed her hands together and raised her eyebrows at the other girls.
“Yay, covert!” Pam pumped her fist in the air, their battle cry from last year when they had run “covert missions” all over the island, spying on people and taking notes in their Top Secret spiral notebook.
At first they were dead-serious, looking for something criminal or mysterious, but soon it became an exercise in hilarity, catching people doing all kinds of embarrassing things. It was amazing how many of their fellow islanders talked to themselves, picked their noses and examined what they found, danced around their houses in their underwear, and practiced poses and smiles in front of a mirror when no one was looking. The girls were having so much fun they weren’t prepared when they discovered the affair going on between Mrs. Kelly and Mr. Walsh.
It was like a thunderclap on a sunny day when they peered into the Kelly’s window one Sunday afternoon and saw Mrs. Kelly and Mr. O’Brien, who had just arrived for what appeared to be a typical islander visit, come together in a passionate embrace, their mouths open wide when they kissed as if they wanted to eat each other. Mr. Kelly had just left to go back to their home in Northport, the dust that his car had dug up in the island’s dirt and gravel parking lot probably still hanging in the air. After deliberating for weeks, the girls never decided what to do or who to tell. Zooey hoped that the affair had ended, taking away the pointing finger of guilt that had ruined their game at the end of last summer.
“Yay, covert!” Amy echoed and stood up. “Great idea, I bet they have all kinds of weird habits.”
Then they were off, heading down the boardwalk in the same pairs as always, Amy and Keeley in the lead with Pam and Zooey taking up the rear. Distracted by their mission and the hope that they might see something truly embarrassing, their early awkwardness and Keeley’s new appearance was forgotten. There was always a certain strange stiffness when they first reunited every summer, usually lasting a few minutes at most, but this time it had gone on for almost an hour.
Zooey caught herself staring covetously at Keeley’s rounded hips as they twitched in front of her and forced her gaze away. She loved Keeley. Funny, smart, kind Keeley. Keeley couldn’t help what had happened to her, or that it wasn’t happening to Zooey. She would not let herself be jealous. She would rise above it.
As with all of their covert missions, the girls stayed on the boardwalk until they were four houses away, and then jumped off and climbed through the thick tall grasses and shrubbery that grew between and behind the houses on the island. Finally, they were behind Amy’s neighbor’s house, a tall narrow gray-shingled house with a large back deck and a sandy clearing behind it that was usually cluttered with the Schneider’s children’s toys but was now swept clean for the renters. The girls hid in the tall grasses at the edge of the yard and spied on the house, scratching at bug bites and shushing each other, but Pam kept giggling uncontrollably.
“Shhhh!” Keeley put her finger to her lips, furrowing her brow. “Pam!”
“I can’t help it!” Pam said, her face red. Then she let out a loud squawking guffaw.
Amy balled up her fist, shook it at Pam, and whispered, “I’ll give you the worst noogie if you don’t stop.”
Pam covered her red face and her large form shook quietly.
“Better,” Amy said and turned back to peer at the house. “Damn! Nothing’s going on.”
Zooey spied some movement just inside the door that led to the porch. “Wait! There’s someone. Shhh!”
The screen door opened with a squeal and out stepped a tall boy carrying a plate with something brown on it and a can of soda. He walked over to the wooden picnic table in the center of the deck and sat down, facing the girls and the wall of tall grasses where they were hidden. He picked up what turned out to be a sandwich and bit down on it.
Zooey couldn’t believe it. It was the handsomest boy she’d ever seen. Ever. And tall! Like her! Every time she thought a boy was cute, he was too short. Well, except for Russ, but Russ was nineteen and out of her league. This boy was their age.
He ate his sandwich quickly, inhaled it really, and then sat sipping his soda and staring out at the grasses surrounding the yard. Could he see them? Zooey hoped not. She turned her head slowly to look at the other girls. Pam had finally stopped giggling and was staring open-mouthed at the boy. Amy was grinning and looking excited, probably waiting for him to pick a booger out of his nose and eat it for dessert. Keeley was also watching the boy, but her face was flushed. If Zooey didn’t know Keeley, she would think she was embarrassed, but that wasn’t on the menu of emotions her friend entertained. Why was Keeley looking like that?
The boy put the soda can to his lips and tipped his head back to get the last drops, and as he did, the screen door to the house opened. A woman, slim and muscular with a tan that was highlighted by her blue shorts and a white polo shirt, stood in the doorway. Had to be his mother. Plain horsey-looking face, though. His looks must have come from his father. “Michael? I need your help unloading the boat.”
He turned to look at her. “Okay, Mom. Coming.” His voice sounded nice, husky. She nodded and disappeared again into the darkness of the house, the door snapping shut after her.
He stood up, collected his plate and soda can, and walked over to the screen door. There, he balanced the can on the plate to grab the door handle and swiftly turned at the last minute to face the area of the tall grasses where the girls were hidden. He smiled, laughed a little, and gave a quick wave at them. Then he disappeared into the house.
“Oh!” Pam exclaimed.
“Damn! He saw us,” Amy said.
Keeley’s eyes were shining when she turned to look at the other girls. She grinned and said, “He did.” She didn’t look the least bit disappointed.
Zooey looked at Keeley and felt the ache begin, pulsing brightly in her throat and working down into her heart.
They met officially that night. The older kids were having a party
on Kevin Lynch’s family’s dock, the longest dock on the island. Kevin, at eighteen, was the ringleader of the teenage crowd and one of the surfers on the island who crossed the lead to go to Jones Beach at dawn every morning. He was cute in a freckled boy-next-door way with long raggedy blond hair that was always in his eyes, making him toss his head a lot. Kevin was also Rose’s boyfriend. Rose had managed somehow to keep the Barefooters from being invited to any of that gang’s gatherings last summer. Zooey wondered what Rose said to achieve this, especially as she caught some of the older kids casting odd wondering looks at her and the other girls when they crossed paths.
This time, though, a few of the older boys had been passing Amy’s neighbor’s house on the boardwalk and, seeing the catamaran pulled up on their beach, stopped to inspect it. Michael came out of the house then and they all fell into a conversation about the boat and what it was like to sail on a catamaran versus a single-hull sailboat. Before the boys left they invited Michael to come to the party that night at Kevin’s, and Michael shrugged and said okay.
The girls, who had been hanging out around Amy’s all day, their covert mission gone overt, were sitting on her front porch watching the whole scene, while trying to hang back and not look too interested. The result was that they stayed seated on the wicker chairs on the porch, but slowly moved closer and closer to the edge of their seats, their heads tilted as they listened to the boys’ conversation.
The older boys, continuing down the boardwalk, passed below the porch and saw the girls there. They waved and yelled, “Hey!”
The girls jumped up from their perches and went to lean on the railing. “Hi!”
The boys slowed their steps, their uncertainty making them shuffle. Their eyes grew wide when they saw Keeley.
Zooey couldn’t stand it. “What are you guys doing? Did you say something about a party?”
The three boys, who had shuffled to a complete stop, tore their eyes away from Keeley to look at Zooey. One of the boys said, “Uh…, yeah…… hey, you girls should come. It’s at Kevin’s, out on his dock.”
The short one with the red hair, Zooey always forgot his name, had refocused his attention on Keeley. He pointed at his chest and said, “I got the vodka. It was easy. Party’s going to be a blast. Are you gonna come?”
“Yeah, sure!” Pam said, bobbing her head with enthusiasm.
Zooey glanced at Pam. Dummy. Couldn’t she see that he was asking Keeley? If it wasn’t for Keeley, they wouldn’t be getting this invitation, the boys would have said something about it not really being a party, or made up some excuse, and then moved on down the dock with a wave.
“Yeah?” The short boy asked, still looking at Keeley.
Keeley nodded slightly and looked over at Pam. “Sure?”
Amy piped up. “I don’t know. We may have plans. I have to check with my mom.”
Pam’s head snapped around to look at Amy. “What?” She made a tsking sound. “No! Stop it.” She turned back to face the boys. “We’ll definitely come. Can’t wait. Thanks.”
All three of the boys were still staring at Keeley. “Cool,” the tall dark skinny one with the zits said. Zooey was pretty sure his name was John. The only name she was certain of was the name of the silent boy, Charlie Baxter, who was one of her crushes. Seeing Charlie staring at Keeley that way hurt the most.
The boys started slowly walking away. “See ya at Kevin’s tonight. The party starts at eight,” the short one said.
Zooey watched them go and then witnessed the argument between Pam and Amy about whether they should have accepted the invitation as if from far away, her thoughts consumed with how much things had changed already because of Keeley, and feeling a mixture of fear and an electric excitement about the evening to come.
Her fears, which she had hoped were due to an overactive imagination, turned out to be correct. That night they went to Kevin’s and everything was different. The boys swarmed around Keeley, monopolizing her to the point that the other three girls ended up shoved off to the side, standing in a cluster on the dock and sipping the harsh-tasting cocktails they had been handed upon arrival. The older girls stood in their own group at the end of the dock with Rose in their midst. Every once in a while, a raucous cackle of derisive laughter would rise up from them, the glances cast in the Barefooters’ direction making it clear who they were laughing at.
Zooey was getting ready to petition for their departure when Michael appeared, sauntering down the boardwalk in their direction, his hands in his pockets. God, he was handsome. And now, as he approached, she saw that he was a few inches taller than her, which was unheard of when it came to boys her age. He slowed his steps as he got closer, looking at the crowd of boys, none of whom noticed his arrival or greeted him. They were all still focused on Keeley, and apparently telling her jokes, as you could hear peals of her laughter coming from where she was encircled.
Just then, Rose broke away from her girl-gang and strode down the dock, passing the Barefooters without a glance and saying “excuse me” in a strident angry voice when the cluster of boys surrounding Keeley wouldn’t move to allow her through. With a twinge of conflicted satisfaction, Zooey noted that Rose’s boyfriend was among the boys under Keeley’s spell.
A few boys moved and Rose was able to push through and reach Michael’s side on the boardwalk, smiling as she welcomed him. While Rose looked good with Kevin – both of them being attractive kids - her regal bearing and aloof demeanor were at odds with Kevin’s casual slouch and his overall mellow air of amusement. Standing next to Michael though, Rose looked as if she’d been paired with her perfect match in both gorgeousness and posture. Well, Zooey considered, gorgeous unless you stood her next to the new Keeley, anyway.
Rose got Michael a drink, pouring out the last of the pitcher into his glass, and stood talking to him. Although Zooey knew Rose was beautiful, she had trouble seeing it most of the time due to the girl’s underhanded cruel nature, but watching her sparkle under Michael’s gaze, she could see it again and felt the familiar sinking. He would never notice her, tall scrawny flat-chested Zo. Not ever.
Suddenly the group of boys surrounding Keeley broke, and Keeley stepped out of the circle, craning her neck around and then spotting the Barefooters. She grinned and jogged over to them. “Isn’t this party great? The boys are so funny! Oh, my God, I nearly died laughing. This drink is pretty good, too.”
Amy, who had never wanted to come to the party and whose mood had grown darker and darker as the evening progressed, snapped. “What? This party is not great. And this drink sucks. It tastes like rubbing alcohol with juice. I want to go home.”
“No, you promised!” Pam whispered, lowering her head and glaring at Amy.
“Really?” Keeley’s smile faded.
Zooey knew she was being mean, but she didn’t want Michael to meet Keeley. Right now he was tied up with Rose. If they left immediately, they’d slip right by him without being noticed. The last thing she could stand tonight was seeing that look again on another boy’s face, especially on this new dream-come-true boy’s face.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Keeley, but this party really isn’t that great. The girls won’t talk to us at all; they’ve been standing over there giving us the evil eye all night. And they’ve already run out of vodka, I just saw someone take the last of what was in the pitcher. There’s not even any music. I can’t believe they didn’t bring a radio out here. We’d be having so much more fun right now eating Amy’s mom’s chocolate chip cookies and laughing our butts off with that book at our house,” Zooey said, referring to the bodice-ripper romance novel they’d found in a pile of discarded books at the island’s little dump last summer. They’d spent many of their evenings at their little clubhouse-shack before it grew dark reading sections of the book out loud, falling all over each other laughing at the story’s absurd characters and plot and getting bug-eyed at the steamy parts. Zooey wasn’t even sure that the other girls wanted to pick up where the left off, halfway th
rough the book, but it was the only thing she could think of at that moment.
“Yeah, let’s do that,” Amy said with a brisk nod.
All of the color and excitement had drained from Keeley’s face, replaced by a sad wondering look. It made Zooey feel even more sorry. But she had to do what she had to do. “Pam? Come on, we’re just standing around on a dock. It’s not like there’s dancing or games or anything.”
Pam, always the get-along-girl, shrugged. “Okay. Let’s go.”
“Keeley?”
“Fine, whatever you guys want to do.”
They filed past the crowd of guys and Zooey overheard enough bits and pieces in passing to know that they were discussing how to get more vodka. Perfect, they were distracted and might not notice Keeley leaving. Her plan felt like a string was being pulled at both ends, growing too taut, ready to break. Just hang in there, another minute or so and they’d be gone. And then Zooey could relax. Maybe then the old uncomplicated love for her friends, the feeling she’d taken for granted until this summer, would come flooding back.
Rose glanced at them quickly as they approached, and then moved so that her back was to them. Zooey would have been happy about Rose’s efforts to block Michael from seeing them except now Rose was also blocking the way they would have made their exit, cutting to the left past the pair where they stood at the junction of dock and boardwalk. Now, to get past, the girls would have to circle around them. Zooey’s lips tightened and she breathed hard out of her nose. Damn that Rose!
Amy who was leading the way, slowed down when she saw Rose block them, and as she did, a shout came from behind them.
“Keeley! Hey! You girls! Where are you going?”
It was the short redhead, leaning out of the huddle of boys. Some of the other boys turned to look. “Hey!”
The taut string snapped. Zooey clenched her teeth together. The other girls came to an abrupt halt, glancing over their shoulders.
It was at that moment that Keeley and Michael saw each other. Zooey knew because she was still facing that direction and saw Michael’s face over Rose’s head. That look. Eyes growing wider, expression becoming keen with interest, like a dog on a scent.