by Sarah Dessen
“So what I’m thinking,” my mom said now, doing a quick check in the rearview mirror of the twins, who were asleep, “is we’ll go to the house and get unloaded, and then maybe take a quick trip to the boardwalk. There’s a really good diner there, and we can grab dinner and then go look for a swimsuit for you. Sound good?”
“Sure.”
She smiled, reaching across to squeeze my knee. “I’m so, so glad you’re here, Mclean. Thank you for coming.”
I nodded, not saying anything as my phone buzzed in my pocket. I’d finally turned off the ringer after logging calls from my dad, Riley, and Deb in the first twenty minutes we’d been on the road. It was either ironic, hilarious, or both to be dodging other people’s calls in favor of talking to my mother. But nothing made sense anymore.
As we kept driving, the highway gave way to two-lane roads, the trees going from big oaks to scrubby coastal pines. I kept thinking of those old road trips we’d taken together, in Super Shitty, when it was newer and her car. She did the driving while I ran the radio and kept tabs on our drinks, making sure we had ample coffee or Diet Coke as needed. Sometimes we splurged on magazines, which I’d then read aloud, educating us on makeup and diet tips when the radio stations got fewer and farther between. Now, in Peter’s huge car/truck/ space station, we had a built-in cooler packed with refreshments and satellite radio with over three hundred stations to choose from and not a single gap in signal. Not to mention company, in the form of two toddlers. The landscape was about the only thing that hadn’t changed.
I’d been dreading the trip for any number of reasons, but especially due to the fact that I’d be stuck with my mom for four straight hours of driving with no escape from conversation. She surprised me, though, by being as content as I was with long periods of silence. I started to get self-conscious about it, after a while.
“I’m sorry I’m not talking much,” I told her when we were about an hour and a half away. “I think I’m just really tired.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” she said. “To be honest, I’m exhausted myself. And with these two, I don’t get a lot of quiet. This is . . .” She glanced over at me. “It’s nice.”
“Yeah,” I said as my phone buzzed again. I pulled it out, ignoring the screen, and turned it fully off before sliding it back into my pocket. “It is.”
It was just getting dark when we drove over the bridge to Colby, the sound spread out vast and dark beneath us. By then, the twins were up and crabby, and we’d had to put on Elmo doing covers of Beatles songs—a torture that was a first to me—in order to keep them from totally mutinying.
“Mclean,” my mom said, reaching behind her to pull up the diaper bag, which was huge and overflowing with wipes, Huggies, and various other supplies, “would you mind finding them a snack in here? We’ll be there in ten minutes or so, but food might hold off a full-on nuclear meltdown.”
“Sure,” I said, digging around until I found a bag packed with the familiar little fish-shaped crackers. I opened it up, then turned around in my seat to face the twins. “You guys hungry?”
“Fish!” Connor yelled, pointing at the bag.
“That’s right,” I said, taking out a few and handing them to him. Madison, who was sucking on a Sippy Cup, stuck out her hand, as well, and I gave her an equal portion. “Dinner of champions.”
My mom put on her turn signal, taking a left onto the road that stretched down the center of the town proper. I didn’t remember much about Colby itself, other than that the last time I’d been here it had seemed newer than North Reddemane, full of partially built houses, building permits everywhere. Now, years later, it looked much more established, with all the things you’d expect to find in a typical beach town: surf shops, clothing stores, hotels, and bike-rental places. As we drove past the boardwalk and kept going, the lots and houses got bigger, then bigger still, switching from duplexes and boxy weekend places to vast structures painted bright colors, swimming pools stretched out in front of them. The twins were whining in tandem, Elmo singing, “Baby, you can drive my car,” in full-on pip-squeak mode, when my mom turned into a driveway, pulled up to the wide front steps of a foamgreen house, and parked.
“Here we are!” she said, looking back at the twins. “See? It’s the beach house.”
I saw. In fact, I was pretty sure my mouth was hanging open. “Mom,” I said as she pulled out her keys from the ignition, pushing the door open. “Wow.”
“It’s not as big as it looks,” she said, getting out. Behind me, Madison let out a wail, competing with Elmo in pitch. “I swear.”
I just sat there, staring up at this huge, green mansion rising in front of me. There were columns, three stories, a lowerlevel garage, and, visible="3"“rough the high glass windows over the front door, a vast ocean view, stretching as far as you could see.
“Mama, I’m hungry,” Connor whined, as my mom unbuckled his car seat. “I want mac and cheese!”
“Mac and cheese! ” Madison seconded, waving her Sippy Cup.
“Okay, okay,” my mom told them. “Just let us get inside.”
She hitched Connor onto her hip, then came around to the other side of the car, taking out Maddie, as well, and planting her on the other side. After strapping on both the diaper bag and her purse, she started up the front steps, looking like a Sherpa scaling Everest.
“Mom,” I said, getting out of the car and catching up with her. “Please. Let me get something, at least.”
“Oh, honey, that would be great,” she said over one shoulder. I reached out to take the diaper bag and purse, only to find myself suddenly holding Maddie, who latched her arms around my neck, her chubby legs tightening at my waist. She smelled like wipes and baby sweat, and promptly dropped a damp goldfish down my shirt. “Now, let me just find my keys . . . here. Okay! We’re in.”
She bumped the door open wider with her hip, then went inside, reaching to hit a light switch as I followed her. Immediately, the entryway brightened, displaying deep yellow walls lined with beach-themed framed drawings.
“So this is the kitchen and living room,” my mom was saying as we headed up the nearby stairs, Connor hanging off her hip, Maddie clutching me with one hand, the other in her mouth. “The master suite is over there, and the rest of the bedrooms are on the second and third floors.”
“There are four floors?”
“Um,” she said, glancing back at me as she hit another switch, illuminating a wide, open kitchen. A stainless Sub-Zero fridge, bigger and much newer than the one at Luna Blu, sat at one end. “Well, actually, there are five. If you count the game-room level. But that was just unfinished attic space, really.”
There was a trilling noise, a melody I recognized but couldn’t place. My mom, Connor still in her arms, reached into her purse, pulling out her phone. I said, “Is that—”
“The Defriese fight song,” she finished for me. “Peter put it on there for me. I used to have ABBA, but he insisted.”
I didn’t say anything, just stared out the row of huge windows at the ocean. My mom put the phone to her ear, then leaned down, releasing Connor, who immediately ran over to the fridge, banging his hands on it. I tried to do the same with Maddie, but she held on tighter, if that was possible.
“Hello? Oh, hi, honey. Yes, we just got here. It was fine.” My mom looked at Connor, as if weighing whether to try to corral him. In seconds, it was a moot point, as he was taking off across the room at full speed. “We’re about to unpack a bit and go up to the Last Chance. Did you get dinner? Good.”
I walked over to the nearest window, Maddie twirling a piece of my hair, and looked out at the deck. Down below, I could see the pool, part of it exposed, the other tucked beneath an overhang.
“I’ll call you as soon as we’re back here,” my mom continued, digging around in her prse. “I know. Me, too. It’s not the same without you. Okay, love you. Goodbye.”
Connor ran back past us, bumping against my hip. “Beach!” he yelled, his small, high voice echoing a
round the vast room.
“Peter says hello,” my mom told me, dropping her phone back in her bag. “We don’t usually spend nights apart, if we can help it. I keep telling him that most couples travel separately all the time, but he still worries.”
“Worries? About what?”
“Oh, any- and everything,” she said. “He just likes it better when we’re all together. Let me just bring in a few things, and we’ll go. Would you mind watching the twins for just a second? It’s easier without an entourage.”
“Sure,” I said, as Connor ran back the other way, now spreading his palm prints across the row of glass doors that led outside. She smiled at me gratefully, then started back down to the car. A moment later, I heard a garage door cranking open, and the SUV disappeared beneath the house.
Which left me in this crazy huge living room with my half siblings, one of whom, like a one-man wave of destruction, had already smudged just about every glassy reflective surface in sight. “Connor,” I called out as he banged his baby fists against a window. “Hey.”
He turned, looking at me, and I realized I had no idea what I was supposed to say to him. Or do with him. Downstairs somewhere, a car door shut.
“Let’s go check out the water,” I said, trying to put Maddie down again. No luck. So it was with her still on my hip that I crossed the room, unlocked the back door, and put my hand out to Connor. He grabbed it, holding tight, and we went outside.
It was dark, the wind cold, but the beach was still beautiful. We had it all to ourselves, save for a couple of trucks parked way down at one end, headlights on, fishing poles stuck in the sand in front of them. As soon as we hit the sand, Connor pulled loose from me, running to a tide pool just a few feet away, and I scrambled to catch up with him. He bent down, tentatively reaching out to touch the still, shallow water there with one hand. “Cold,” he told me.
“I bet,” I said.
I looked up at the house, seeing my mom pass in front of that row of windows, carrying some reusable cloth grocery bags, lights on all around her. The houses on either side were dark, clearly unoccupied.
“Cold,” Maddie repeated, burrowing into my shoulder. “Go inside.”
“In one sec,” I replied, turning to look at the water again. Even at night, you could see the foam as the waves crashed, moving forward then pulling back again. I stood there beside Connor, who was still patting the tide pool, the wind ruffling his tufts of baby hair, then looked up at the sky overhead. My mom didn’t need that old telescope here, clearly. The stars seemed close enough to touch, and she’d never have to look very hard to find one. She’d never want for anything. And even though I knew that for her, and even Connor and Maddie, this was a good thing, it made me sad in a way I wasn’t sure I even understood.
“Mclean?” I heard my mom call. When I turned back, I saw her framed in the open double doors, one hand on her hip. “Are you out there?”
It was so strange, but for a moment, a part of me wanted to stay quiet, for her to have to come look for me. But just as quickly, this thought passed and I cupped my hand over my mouth to be heard over the waves.
“Yeah,” I yelled back. “We’ll be right in.”
After doing an eat-and-run at a local diner—the twins were weary of being contained and lasted about ten seconds in their high chairs—we walked down the boardwalk in the cold to the boutique my mom had mentioned earlier, only to find it closed.
“Winter hours,” she said, checking the sign. “They closed at five.”
“It’s no big deal,” I told her. “I probably won’t swim anyway.”
“We’ll get you a suit tomorrow, first thing,” she told me. “Promise.”
Back at the house, we unloaded the rest of the car, using the elevator (elevator!) to move the luggage up to the third floor. I was in a room with a coral pink bedspread, wicker furniture, and a block sign that read BEACH in big letters hanging over the mirror. It smelled like fresh paint and had a gorgeous view. “Are you sure?” I asked my mom as we stood inside, the twins scrambling up to jump on the bed. “I don’t need a bed that big.”
“They’re all that big,” she explained, looking embarrassed. “I mean, except for the twins’. I’ll put them at the other end of the house, so they won’t wake you up at the crack of dawn.”
“I get up pretty early,” I said.
“Five a.m?”
“What?” I just looked at her as she nodded. “Wow. No wonder you’re tired.”
“It is exhausting,” she agreed, this thought punctuated by Maddie and Connor, leaping with abandon across the bed in front of us. “But they’re only little once, and it goes so fast. It seems like you were just this age, I swear. Although when you were a baby I was so worried about work, and the restaurant . . . I feel like I missed a lot.”
“You were always around,” I told her. She looked at me, surprised. “It was Dad who was gone at Mariposa.”
“I suppose. Still, though. I’d do some things differently, given the chance.” She clapped her hands. “All right, Maddie and Connor! Bath time! Let’s go!”
She walked over to the bed, collecting the twins despite their protests, and hauled them off the bed, nudging them to the door. They were in the hall when Maddie looked back at me and said, “Clane corn?”
I looked at my mom. “What did she say?”
“Mclean come,” she translated, ruffling Maddie’s hair as Connor took off in the other direction. “Let’s let Mclean get settled, okay? We’ll see her before you go to bed.”
Maddie looked at me. “Do you need help, though?” I asked.
“I’m fine.” She smiled, and then they were gone, the sound of their footsteps padding on the carpet gradually getting more and more distant. How long was that hallway anyway? Honestly.
After checking out the view for a fewinutes, I went back downstairs, where I now had the main floor all to myself. I walked to the overstuffed red couch, sinking into it, then, after a few minutes of feeling moronic, figured out how to turn on their flat-screen TV that hung over the fireplace. I channel surfed for little bit, then flicked it off again and just sat there, listening to the ocean outside.
After a moment, I slid my phone out of my pocket, turning it on. I had three messages.
“Mclean, it’s your father. We need to talk. I’ll have my phone with me all night in the kitchen this evening. Call me.”
No question this time: it was a demand. I moved on to the next one.
“Mclean? It’s Deb. Look, I’m really sorry about that whole Ume.com thing today. I wasn’t trying to . . . I didn’t know, I guess is what I mean to say. I’ll be around if you want to talk tonight. Okay. Bye.”
I swallowed, then hit SAVE. A beep, and then Riley’s voice.
“Hey, Mclean. It’s Riley. Just checking in. . . . That was kind of intense earlier, huh? Deb’s a nervous wreck. She thinks you’re mad at her. So maybe call her or something, if you get a chance. Hope you’re doing okay.”
Kind of intense, I thought, hitting the END button and putting my phone down beside me. That was one way to put it. I had no idea how long they’d been looking at that page on Ume, if they’d really read any of my other profiles or just looked at the pictures. I could hardly remember what was on them, now that I actually thought about it. Wondering was enough to get me off the couch and down to the garage, so I could get my laptop and find out.
I flicked on the light by the door, then walked over to the SUV and grabbed my bag from the front seat. I was just shutting the door when I looked over, across the empty bay beside Peter’s car. There was another vehicle parked on the other end, next to a rack filled with hanging beach chairs and pool toys. It had a cover over it, but there was something familiar enough to make me come closer and lift its edge. Sure enough, it was Super Shitty.
Oh my God, I thought, pulling the cover off completely to reveal the dinged red hood, dusty windshield, and worn steering wheel. I’d thought for sure that my mom had sold it, or junked it entirely. But
here it was, amazingly, pretty much how I’d left it. I reached down to the driver’s-side handle, trying it, and with a creak, it swung right open. I slid behind the wheel, the familiar seat wheezing a bit beneath me, and looked up at the rearview mirror. A Gert—one of the rope and beaded bracelets we’d always bought at the surf shop in North Reddemane—was tied around it.
I reached up, touching the row of red beads dotted with shells. I couldn’t remember my last trip to North Reddemane, or how long it had been. I was trying to figure it out when, in the rearview, I saw the storage rack stretched against the garage wall behind me. It was lined with rubber bins, and from where I sat, I could see at least three of them were labeled MCLEAN.
I turned, dropping my hand, and looked again. My mom had mentioned they’d been storing stuff here, because of all the extra space, but I’d had no idea she’d meant anything of mine. I started to push myself out of the seat, then reached back up to pull the Gert loose and take it with me.
Upon closer inspection, the shel looked like Dave’s dad had been at it: bin after bin, clearly marked. I squatted down, pulling out the first MCLEAN I’d seen, and pried open the top. Inside, there were clothes: old jeans, T-shirts, a couple of coats. As I quickly picked through them, I realized they were a mix of everything I’d left stashed at my mom’s house when I was there for vacations and weekends, culled from all our various moves. Scuffed cheerleading shoes that belonged to Eliza Sweet, the pretty pink polo shirts Beth Sweet had favored. The farther down I dug, the older the things got, until I was down to my Mclean clothes, like layers of the earth being excavated.
The second box was heavier, and when I got it open I saw why: it was full of books. Novels from my bookshelf, notebooks scrawled with my doodlings and my signatures, some photo albums and a couple of yearbooks. I picked up the one on top, which had the words WESTCOTT HIGH SCHOOL embossed across the cover. I didn’t open it, or anything else, instead just putting the lid back and moving on.
The last box was so light that when I first yanked it out, I thought it must be empty. Inside, however, I found a quilt, recognizing it after a moment as the one my mom had given me the day my dad and I had left for Montford Falls. I knew I’d taken it then, and so must have dumped it off with the clothes and books at some other point and not realized it. Unlike the one on our couch, it still felt new, stiff, unused, the squares neatly stitched, not missing any threads. I put it back, pushing the box in with the others.