In fact, he might not see her. He hadn’t seen her in the past three years, except in passing now and then on the street. They’d make an effort more now, probably, but he knew how those things played out. They’d talk about seeing each other, and maybe they would sometime or sometimes, but it wouldn’t be the same as this. This was an era defined part by circumstance and part by each other.
Meeting halfway between their houses to have coffee in some busy Starbucks wouldn’t cut it. Neither would bringing her around at home. Not that he wouldn’t want to, he’d love that, actually … but it wouldn’t have that same … he didn’t know what. It would feel so pointed, like a date. He didn’t want that. Did he?
Shit, he thought.
He wanted to stay here. He wanted to stay the whole summer, soaking in this atmosphere with Kelsey. He wanted to kiss her on the boardwalk, if he could ever work up the nerve, and he wanted to share funnel cakes and fries and enjoy this time in their lives that he already knew was unlike any other time would ever be again.
That was how it had been for his parents when they met here all those years ago. Maybe it was a lucky house, or a lucky beach, or maybe it was just fate, but he just knew—without a doubt—that he was supposed to be here with Kelsey this summer.
And maybe other summers too.
“Jamie?” His mom had clearly been trying to get his attention for some time.
He was embarrassed to be caught in such slushy romantic thoughts. “Sorry, what?”
“Thanks for going to the dump. Tomorrow I guess we’ll have to start taking pictures of some of the good stuff here and posting it on Craigslist. Do you think you and Kelsey could do that? I’m just realizing how much is left. It’s like this is how we should have had it when we were here.”
But they were here. Right now. “Uh, yeah. Sure. We’re actually off tomorrow.”
“So that guy really put you on all the same shifts, just because you brought in a chick, huh?” Kristin leaned on the counter drinking a coffee he was willing to bet she wished had been made by Kelsey.
Man, he really could not get his mind off that girl.
“Yep. He was pretty desperate. That works for me. Us. I guess it makes the drive over there easy.”
“She’s been making such good money! It’s unbelievable.”
“It’s a good job. Easy. She barely works.” He added this last part as she ran in, half her face done and a mascara wand in hand, to get a bottle of Coke from the fridge.
“Shut up!” she yelled behind her as she ran back to the bathroom. “I know you’re talking about me. I totally work!”
He laughed and watched her go. When he turned to see both women looking at him, he left the room quickly, lest they should read his mind.
* * *
He was quiet on the way in, though Kelsey was too distracted singing along with her music to notice. She was on one of her rare diversions from their shared musical taste, and had on the soundtrack from—as she explained to him—“the original cast recording of Evita with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, literally so much better than the Madonna one, which was so bleh. But seriously, it’s good music even if you’re not a musicals person, which clearly you’re not into musicals, but anyway, just indulge me for the day while I listen to it.”
This soundtrack involved her doing a lot of different accents and voices, which was amusing even though he wasn’t really into the music itself. It was worth it to see her doing an uber-serious face, brow furrowed, hands gesticulating wildly, singing along in what she clearly thought was a convincing male voice.
Work was crazy. Everyone made so much that even he made a lot, and he spent the entire night running food all over the restaurant. It seemed like it was every server’s personal mission to mess up one thing on every table, which inevitably led to him having to apologize to the customer and find the manager and then go work on remedying the situation, since the servers were usually hanging out with their cool tables or visiting friends, or sneaking a cigarette outside while they thought their tables were handled.
Kelsey was the only one who took all her own food to her tables without an expo to help, or as much as she could. She also was the only one to remain cheerful even when she was exhausted. She would shake her head, smiling, amazed at how everything was going to shit, rather than getting pissy and treating anyone like crap.
At one point she grabbed him by the arm as they passed each other on the floor and said, “I need extra-crispy fries for table six on the fly because the ones I dropped off tasted too potatoey”—she took the time to draw this out—“and also can we go to the beach after work?”
“Pile of burnt sticks and twigs coming right up, table six, on the fly. And yes, sure.”
“Thank god. Though I didn’t bring a bathing suit.” Pause. “Hi! Yes?” A customer flagged her down with some menu clarification needed, and she clearly didn’t realize she was interrupting a possibly important private moment.
Mind whirling, Jamie went back to the kitchen and almost forgot to get the rush order of fries.
They ended up working an hour later than usual, the restaurant emptying out as fast as it had filled up. She did her checkout, and he did his side work and did hers too, just so they could leave sooner.
She came up around ten-thirty saying, “Oh, my god, I’m so sorry, my checkout took forever, I was missing the signed receipt for this huge check, but it turned out they room-charged it to the hotel next door, which is fine except they took the slip with them and then they ended up calling, so—it was just a whole thing.”
“No problem, don’t worry about it.”
“But I, thank you, but I still have two crates of roll-ups to do.” She cringed.
“Already did it.”
“What?”
“Already did it.”
“You did … my roll-ups?”
“Yeah.”
“What about your own side work?”
“Dude, you took, like, literally forever,” he said, imitating the voice she did when she spoke like a Valley girl.
She did the voice back. “Shut up! You did not!”
He nodded. “Yeah, it’s all done, so let’s blow this Popsicle stand.” What the hell was that from, and why was he saying it? The girl made him lose his mind.
She smiled at him and walked over to clock out. She turned back again to him and narrowed her eyes. “Hm.”
He smacked her with the rag he had been finishing the cleaning with and then threw it in the bin.
* * *
The night was incredibly hot and muggy. No wonder so many people had been driven in to the restaurant. There was no cool breeze to serve as relief. Usually, here on the shore, a breeze was a given. But the air was unmoving. Even the sand was still hot, its grains holding on tight to the rays of sunshine they’d been beaten with all day.
They parked down one of the residential streets, far from the boardwalk, though they could see it. They both left their shoes in the car and Jamie left his keys on the driver’s seat.
They went out with nothing but themselves.
The light from the surrounding hotels and motels stretched far enough to cast their shadows into the hungry waves. They walked into the surf.
“Yeah, the water is barely any colder than the air,” Kelsey said. “It’ll really only make a difference if we go in.”
“Thought you didn’t bring a bathing suit.”
“I didn’t.”
They looked at each other.
“Oh, come on,” she said, and he could see even in the dim light that she was blushing. He probably was too, though he didn’t know if he blushed. He hoped not. “Bikini, bra and underwear, it’s exactly the same thing.”
“Almost.”
“Boxers.” She gestured at him. “Almost the same.”
“I promise not to look.”
“Okay.” She made a swirl motion with her finger.
He turned around.
He stared out into the distance, gnawing on the i
nside of his cheek, waiting for her to say it was okay to turn back even while knowing she was undressing behind him.
“Okay, you promised not to look,” she said, and he saw her clothes fly through the air onto the sand to his left. Suddenly she was behind him as she said, “I don’t promise.”
She pushed him and then ran into the waves.
He pulled his polo over his head and tossed it onto her clothes. He kicked off his shorts and was glad he was wearing dark blue, slightly longer boxers than some of the ones he owned. Some of them had Peanuts characters on them or the day of the week. He even had one embarrassing pair that said,… BUTT WHY? on the ass.
Though he thought Kelsey might actually think that was funny.
He ran into the water after her, waves crashing at his ankles, knees, then thighs, until he could dive under and catch up with her. They were at a shallow portion of the beach; it dropped off for a few feet, but then there was a jetty that kept the height of the water at a little under five and a half feet. She was tall enough that she could keep her head above water while wading, and he could keep his neck and collarbone out. They knew to come here because this was where their parents had let them play safely when they were younger.
“Jamie?” said Kelsey once they were out there and had both survived their first small wave.
“Kelsey,” he said, leaning back and floating in the water.
“I don’t want your mom to sell the house.”
He rarely could rightly anticipate anything out of Kelsey’s mouth, but this really surprised him.
He hadn’t even really thought those words yet.
“You don’t think she should?”
“I don’t know what she should do. I don’t know if she needs the money, I don’t know if the place is … like, unsound, or not a good investment, or—I just hate that it’s going away. I hate that your dad died there, that’s so awful. I can’t believe he’s fucking gone. I really, really…” Her voice had been strong, but melted on, “can’t.”
“I can’t either.”
“But … but I also wish we could go back. Or re-create it. Life goes on and maybe it still can, there. I hate the idea that all those years we had there are just over, spent, done. Kaput.”
She drifted a little closer to him and he nodded.
“I just…” she went on. “I always thought one day we’d be grown-ups there too. Yeah, I pictured your dad there, I pictured Ben there. Of course, I never—but I at least thought we’d be there one day, maybe even come up ourselves, on our own.”
They caught eyes.
“With friends or whatever,” he said, giving her an out, when she looked embarrassed. Though she really shouldn’t be.
“Right. Right. It’s probably bratty, but I always considered it part mine in a way too. Like we all had some right to it and we’d all have our stories there.”
He nodded. It really was like she’d read his thoughts. “Me too.”
“And…” She put her hands up out of the water and splashed them back down. “I don’t want the summer to end whenever the house sells. Not just because I broke up with Jason or anything like that…”
Of course his name was Jason. All at once Jamie got a full-color picture in his mind of a preppy jock with a lot of money who never had to work in a restaurant one day in his life.
“I just feel at home here,” Kelsey went on. “It feels right, us all coming back here. I wish our dads were here—not that—I mean—”
“I know.” He smiled at her and nodded to let her know he understood. And he did. He wished their dads were there too. Sometimes he could swear he felt his there, but he knew that was just wishful thinking.
Strong wishful thinking.
“It just really makes me sad.”
He looked at her now, the distant lights from the boardwalk and the hotels and motels lighting up her face and her eyes enough that he could see tears glistening there.
They looked at each other for a long moment. He bit his lip.
“Since when are you such a girl?” he asked.
Her eyes widened, and then she cracked up, tears spilling over anyhow, and then splashed him hard. “You’re such a jerk.”
He splashed her back and then grabbed her underwater by the waist. She stopped squirming after a second and turned back to look at him. Their faces were the closest they’d ever been.
“Seriously,” he said, turning her and lifting her off her feet. “When did you become such a girl?”
He kissed her, hoping it was the right moment. Hoping the line worked. Hoping she’d kiss him back. Hoping it wouldn’t make things weird.
It was good. It was really good. She kissed him back. The waves crashed on them, pushing them toward shore and pulling them back again, his feet planted in the watery sand beneath them, keeping them upright. They were there forever. There was no getting enough of it, this new thing between them that seemed simultaneously bizarre and inevitable. It took the flashing of red and blue lights and a flashlight on the water to get them to stop.
“Oh, shit,” he said, while she said something similar, and they ran out of the water, laughing again, collecting their clothes, and running up to the cop standing next to his car.
Jamie got there first, glancing back to make sure she was on her way. She held up her shirt to indicate she’d gone back for it, and then gestured to go, go!
“This your vehicle, son?” asked one of the cops when he got to it.
“Yes, sir.”
“You don’t have a permit for this area.”
“Oh—sorry, do we need one?” Obviously they did, if he was saying they didn’t have one. “I didn’t know anything about that.”
“Yes, it’s a square sticker, goes right there in the bottom left of the windshield.”
“I’m sorry, we haven’t been back since we were thirteen.” Kelsey came up beside him. “Usually our parents parked; I didn’t realize they’d had a permit.”
“Thankfully, we don’t depend on adolescent wherewithal, we put a nice big sign, right here for you.” The cop tapped the air and pointed at an almost sarcastically big sign that read NO PARKING WITHOUT PERMIT.
“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious, now that you point it out,” said Jamie.
The cop looked from one of them to the other. “You been drinking tonight?”
“No, sir, absolutely not. We got off work at Pretty Mama’s and came over here to cool off. No drinking at all.”
He glanced at Kelsey, who was quiet for once. She was full-on pink, though she still hadn’t lost her grin.
This made him laugh, and he covered it up.
Not well enough.
“All right, look, I got a pretty good idea of the score here. Don’t park here again without a permit. You get it at the admin building.”
He let them go, said good night, and Jamie and Kelsey held in their laughter until they were in the car.
She blasted Incubus and shimmied back into her clothes, and then they drove to a Valero gas station, where she went in while he waited in the car. She wouldn’t take his money because “obviously one of us is worth considerably more at Pretty Mama’s and can afford it.”
He had given her his order for junk food—a Three Musketeers bar, Sprite, and Smartfood popcorn. He knew that for herself she would be getting a four-pound bag of the sourest candy she could find in there, or an assortment. They had big plans to watch as much Arrested Development as possible once they got home.
Home.
The second she was inside, he called his mom.
“Hey, everything okay?” his mom asked on the first ring. Her voice was tense.
“Yeah, yeah. Look.” He ran a hand through his hair, and sand fell out like magic dust. “I don’t think you should sell the house.”
There was a pause. “You—what?”
“I made it seem like I hated it and I guess I kind of did for a while, but I don’t hate it. I was afraid of it. I’m not anymore.”
“Jamie, what are you sa
ying?”
“Just that Dad died there, and that sucks, but he died there because … because it was so part of you guys. Of us. It makes sense almost. We should have more life there. We still have this house if we want it, right? I think we should keep it. If we can. I don’t know if we can. But, I just wanted to tell you that’s where I stand.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Willa
When Jamie called me in the night to say he wanted to keep the house, I had a lot of time to think. Nevertheless, it was hard to be objective, since my heart and my head were at odds. Letting go was hard, but was that because I was being sentimental or because I was right?
I’ve never understood how to follow my gut instincts because I could believe my gut was telling me just about anything.
But here’s the thing. Although I could make whatever decision I wanted by myself, there was another person to consider. Something had compelled Jamie to make that call to me and I wanted to know what was really on his mind. More than that, I wanted to know what was really in his heart.
So the next day, we went to the South End Deli, picked up our favorite sandwiches (these things never seemed to change for us), then went to the beach, just the two of us.
It was a crowded mess, filled with people and screaming kids and various balls and toys flying around in the air, but this was where I’d brought him as a child and this was where I wanted to be with him now. To find out what was really at the bottom of the well for him.
We ate in relative silence, then put our trash away.
“Want to go in the water?” I asked him.
“It hasn’t been half an hour since we ate,” he said, barely keeping his smile in check.
I laughed. “Did I ask if you wanted to swim laps or did I ask if you wanted to simply put a toe in the water?”
He splayed his arms and shrugged, just like his father used to do. Whatever you say, the gesture implied. It used to drive me crazy when Ben would do that, but on Jamie it just touched my heart. “Let’s do it,” he said, and stood up, holding out a hand to help me up.
For a moment, I wanted to hold on. To hold his hand all the way down to the shore like when he was little. To protect him from the big, scary waves.
Every Time You Go Away Page 23