“Intimate? Sharing food? People you love?” Amber raises an eyebrow. “Um, no offense, Stace, but it sounds like Gram was into food kink.”
“Hopeless,” Drea sighs.
I giggle my agreement.
We spend the next fifteen minutes or so taking turns dipping the bread, stirring the batter, and flipping the toast until we have a hefty helping of sheer deliciousness sitting high atop a plate. It’s just what I need, actually—being with them and talking about normal stuff, like Drea’s tan-line dilemma and tonight’s episode of The O.C.
When none of us can bear to cram another piece of French toast into our bellies, I place a fully charged, moon-bathed jar on the table in the center of us. “Here’s where the de-stressing part comes in,” I say.
“Let’s hear it for Miss Recycle,” Amber says, probably noticing that it’s an old Smuckers jar I spared from the trash.
I place a box of paperclips on the table, as well as a dried and bound bunch of sage. The sage leaves are twiglike, all brittle and gray. I’ve wound them with thread for a cleaner burn.
“What’s with the paperclips?” Amber asks.
“We’re going to use them to represent things in our lives that bind us up in a negative way. Labeling these negative binds will help free us from stress.”
“Maybe we should have stopped at Staples,” Amber says, frowning at the shallow box of clips. “With the day I’ve had, I’m thinking I could label a whole crateful.”
I unscrew the lid off the jar and set a box of wooden matches down beside it. I light the end of the sage and blow out the flame. It smokes up like incense; long and curly tendrils of smoke make their way toward the ceiling. I walk around the kitchen with the sage, smudging the room with its sweet and spicy scent. “The sage will help rid us of these negative binds.”
“Yeah, but will it help rid us of the kagillion calories we just ingested?” Drea pats her belly.
“I’ll start.” I set the sage down on a ceramic dish in the center of the table and take one of the paperclips. “This clip represents the stress I feel about helping Clara.” I drop the clip into the jar.
“I’ll second the Clara stress.” Amber takes a clip and drops it into the jar.
“Why is she stressing you out?” Drea asks.
“Because she’s getting all flirty with PJ and maybe he can’t afford to have his heart broken.”
“Who says she’s going to break it?”
“Oh, please,” Amber says. “I know her type—the kind who flirts with anything in pants with no intention of anything serious.”
“Oh, you mean girls like you?” Drea asks. “Is somebody jealous?”
“Hardly. Just don’t be surprised when Little Miss Hula Girl starts getting all friendly with Chad.” Amber drops another paperclip into the jar. “This is for Sully and how he doesn’t know what he’s missing.”
Drea takes a paperclip and tosses it in. “This is for Chad, for the argument we had earlier.”
“What was that about?” Amber asks.
Drea shrugs. “It was actually something about Stacey.”
“It was?” I grab another paperclip.
“It was nothing really. He was just remembering something about you, and it kind of bothered me.”
“What was it?”
“It’s stupid, really.” Drea rolls her eyes toward the ceiling, the way she always does when she doesn’t want anyone to see what she’s feeling. “I was telling him about this jealousy article I read in YM, and I guess it was the way I was describing it—my voice kind of squeaking on a couple of the words, or so he said. Personally, I don’t think my voice squeaks at all, but maybe I was super-into telling him or something. So anyway, he was staring at me really weird, and so I asked him what was up, and he said that my voice got all squeaky and that reminded him of you—you know, when you get nervous and your voice does that high-pitched thing? And then he just sort of sat there with this giant grin on his face, saying how cute it is—the squeaking, I mean. Your squeaking.”
“Oh,” I say. “But my voice doesn’t squeak.”
“Well, neither does mine.”
“Riveting,” Amber says, poking the point of a paperclip through one of the holes in her Swiss-cheese earrings. She plucks another clip from the box and drops it into the jar. “Keeping with the whole love-sucks-worse-than-leeches theme, this clip is for Casey and how he didn’t even look at me today.”
“I’ll tail that with the stress I’ve kind of been feeling with Jacob.” I drop a clip into the jar.
“You two?” Amber balks. “Puh-leeze, all you two need is a little Clara-less time to yourselves. Why not be super-romantic and get a room to yourselves on the frat-boy cruise everybody’s talking about?”
“Actually, I think you’re the only one who’s talking about it,” I say.
“No,” Drea says, straightening out one of the paper clips.
“Chad was telling me about it earlier. It might be kind of fun.”
“Well, you’ll have to let me know,” I say, “because I’m not going.”
“Then how do you plan to patch up your problems in paradise?” Amber asks.
“Maybe they just need a small patch.” I grimace. “Like lobster rolls and a walk on the beach.”
“Sounds thrilling.” Amber yawns.
We spend another twenty or so minutes adding in all the things that stress us, including bathing suits, tan lines, and sandy fried clams. Then I drop the sage into the jar and screw on the lid, the insides smoking up, painting the glass a grayish frosty color. “May these negative binds please leave our minds and be replaced by love and grace. O sage, I ask thee to oust our stress, and return to us all happiness. Blessed be.”
“Blessed be,” Drea says.
“Blessed be,” Amber repeats.
fifteen
Several minutes after our spell, Jacob walks in. “Hi,” he says, eyeing the smoke-filled jar.
“Hi.” I stand up.
Amber and Drea instinctively get up from the table to leave us alone. “Homework project,” Amber says, lamely trying to lighten the mood.
“Can I talk to you?” I ask him. Instead of waiting for his answer, I just go to him. I wrap my arms around his waist and snuggle my chin into the crook of his neck.
“I take it you’re not still mad at me,” he says.
“No,” I say, “I am.”
“Well, then, maybe I should screw up more often.”
“Very funny.” I say, noticing how he smells like citrus. “Let’s go out.”
“Out?”
I nod. “Like, on a date. Like normal.”
“I could go for some normal.” He squeezes me extra tight. “What did you have in mind?”
“Nothing fancy. How about a picnic on the beach? It shouldn’t be as crowded at this hour. People have probably gone home for dinner.”
“Sounds perfect.”
Even though I can’t even think about squeezing in another morsel, we fill a basket with crackers, cheese, and fresh fruit, and pick a spot close to the ocean. We talk for well over an hour, watching the sun as it pinkens and falls just above us. It feels good to be normal like this, to chatter on about stuff that makes us happy—how the theater downtown is having a Hitchcock marathon this weekend and maybe we should go, how relieved we are to be going to the same school in September, and how soothing it is to fall asleep to the sound of the ocean pulling at the sand.
I lay my head back against his chest and close my eyes, breathing in the lingering scent of coconut oil and relishing every moment. But, despite how good this feels, I still want to—need to—ask him about earlier. “Where did you go when Clara came over?”
“Just out for a walk.”
“I didn’t see you leave.”
“I went out the front. I didn’t want to interrupt you two.” He brings my fingers up to his mouth, brushing them against his lips. “How did it go with her?”
I shrug. “She says that someone went through her stuff. Bu
t I don’t know, I feel like there’s so much more than that.”
“Well, of course there’s more,” he says. “You sensed more when you shook her hand; you sensed more in your nightmares. It’s only a matter of time before something major happens.”
“Not if I have something to say about it.”
“So you’re feeling confident?”
“About Clara? I think so.”
“And about everything else?”
I pause, trying to think of a nonchalant way to bring it up, some way that doesn’t make me look like a big fat snoop. But since it’s so completely obvious that I was indeed snooping, I spare him the insult to his intelligence, peek up into his face, and just say it: “I saw your dream box.”
Jacob nods, his face all poker-playerish, like he isn’t surprised at all.
“I mean, I saw it out. On your bed,” I continue.
Jacob straightens up, forcing me to scooch up. “What were you doing in my room?”
“I was looking for you and there it was, just lying on your bed.”
“I was out for a walk,” he repeats.
“I know,” I say, hearing that stupid nervous squeak in my voice. “You mentioned that already.”
He nods, like he knows, too—like he’s purposely avoiding the question.
“So are you going to tell me, or do I have to beg for it?”
“I’m doing this for you, Stacey.”
“How is keeping stuff from me helping me?”
“You’re going to have to trust me on this.”
I clench my teeth, knowing that I do have to trust him, but also knowing that this isn’t exactly fair. “I was hoping that maybe you had the dream box out because you wanted to help me, maybe tap into my nightmares somehow, so we’d be dreaming about the same thing.”
“I would like that,” he says.
I feel my face crinkle up at his response, like it’s the first time the idea has occurred to him, when I was thinking all along that maybe that was the answer—that he had already started to dream about Clara, that he saw something in her fate that he didn’t think I could handle.
So now what?
I want to ask him about the journal as well, but I almost feel as though that would win me the “insecure girlfriend /snoop of the year” award—second only to Drea, of course. Plus, before I can even get the words out, he kisses my hand and then leans in and kisses my mouth, sending a million tiny tingles down the length of my spine. “I’m proud of you,” he whispers. “For being brave.”
The compliment completely takes me aback. I mean, I’ve just never thought of myself like that before. I smile and weave my fingers through his, still tasting him in my mouth—like maple syrup mixed in vanilla fudge on my tongue. “You mean that?”
He nods, his slate-blue eyes focused on mine, like he really means it. Like I am brave, despite any tension I’m feeling about him or Clara or anything else.
We kiss some more, continuing to feel each other’s hands—our palms when they touch and the heat of each other’s skin. The moment is hypnotic, so amazingly good that I almost feel as though I could get completely drunk on it—on him—losing any of the reservations I’ve been having about our relationship or about trust. I mean, he’s obviously doing what he feels is best.
Of course, that’s when PJ interrupts us, ripping a wide-open gash in our long-awaited time alone.
“Hey kids,” he sings.
Clara’s standing a few yards behind him, an overnight bag slung over her shoulder.
“Did we interrupt anything Polaroid-worthy?” PJ asks.
“Hey guys,” I say.
“Hay is for horses, my little mammal. We need to talk.”
“What’s wrong?” I sit up more.
“It happened again,” Clara says. She drops her bag to the sand and comes and joins us.
“What did?” Jacob asks.
Clara pauses to smile at him, but she doesn’t answer. “Well?” I ask, in an effort to stop her from openly gawking at my boyfriend.
“Are your roommates around?” she says, finally. “I think they should hear what I have to say as well.”
I shake my head, mentioning that Chad was out last I checked, wondering why she can’t just spill it about what’s going on—why she needs an audience. Still, I clean up the remainder of our picnic, and we go back inside the cottage to find Drea and Amber.
They’re in our room. Drea is applying some creamy orange stuff to Amber’s face—only Amber’s eyes, nostrils, and lips are visible.
“In less than ten tiny minutes,” Drea explains to me,
“Amber will have skin as soft as a baby’s butt. It’s all natural; you can practically eat the stuff.”
“I’ll pass,” I say.
“Your loss.” Drea looks up from the jar to eye my skin, probably noting the blotchiness—a blending of paleness and sunburn.
“Clara wants to talk to us,” I say, ignoring the thorough inspection.
“What for?” Amber scowls through the orange mask.
I shrug and wait for them to follow me out, Amber with her arms folded and her lips tightened into a frown. We all take a seat at the kitchen table.
“So what’s with all the drama?” Amber asks.
“You’re asking us about drama?” PJ says. “What’s with the ghoulish goo on your face?”
“It’s a mud mask,” she corrects.
“Are you sure you used mud and not pig snot?”
“You’re one to talk, with those white-ass lips. It looks like you were sucking face with Ronald McDonald,” Amber retorts.
“It’s called sunblock,” PJ explains. “SPF 65—”
“In case you haven’t noticed, the sun doesn’t exactly blaze past 5 PM.”
“I’m sorry to bother you guys,” Clara says, interrupting them. “It’s just—”
But she can’t continue. She takes a couple big breaths to calm herself, but she’s completely distraught—her eyes watering up, her hands doing that weird fluttering thing in front of her eyes.
“Allow me, my little damsel.” PJ kisses the crown of her head, a few strands of her hair sticking to his sunblocked lips. “Picture it,” he says. “Exterior—day. Sunny; beach setting; hoards of people, sunning and funning it up in the background. Two exceptionally good-looking beach babes, a boy and a girl, trot their way down a long beach strip seasoned with summer cottages.”
“Time out,” Amber says, waving a hand in the air. “Who are the exceptionally good-looking beach babes in this scenario?”
PJ’s mouth snarls open. “If you aren’t going to play nice, my thorny little bush, I think you should return to the dirty playground that you crawled from.”
“Okay,” I say in an effort to speed things up. “Obviously the good-looking people are Clara and PJ.”
“Well, at least we have one bright little match who drank her carrot juice today.” PJ shines me an approving smile, and I have to choke back my frustration. That or he’ll be telling this story until well after midnight.
Jacob glances at his watch. “So what happened?”
“Happened?” PJ starts up again. “We were walking down the strip, minding our own biz-wiz, when we see this completely outlandish tentacle-man who dares to ask Clara-bear here if she can pose for some photo thing tomorrow afternoon.”
“Wait,” Drea says. “Why are we calling him a tentacle-man?”
PJ rolls his eyes in frustration. “Um, because he had tentacles.”
“Seriously?” Drea glances at Jacob and holds back her laugh.
“Not tentacles,” Clara says. “Just an obnoxious mustache with rolled ends.”
“Wait,” I say, “is this that guy who lives next door, the one with the giant back porch?”
“Yeah,” she says. “You know him?”
“Well, I kind of met him,” I say. “Earlier, when I was looking for you.”
Clara seems somewhat surprised; she cocks her head for just a second before continuing: “The guy seems, lik
e, a total creepy creep. I’ve seen him on his back porch, taking pictures of girls on the beach—without them knowing. And I overheard some girl at the Clam Stripper saying how he’s supposedly some brilliant photographer who does all this big-time freelance work for magazines like Vogue and Esquire, but I don’t know. I mean, the guy is way weird. This isn’t the first time he’s asked to take my picture.”
I nod, wondering if I should pay another visit to his cottage when he isn’t home, cringing at the thought of that decrepit darkroom and the way he looked at me—how he wanted to take my picture. “So what did you say when he asked you to pose?”
“Well, of course I said no—yet again—but that still didn’t stop him from looking at me like the creepy-creepy that he is. After that, me and PJ went to my cottage.”
“The door wasn’t even locked,” PJ says, tisk-tisking Clara with his finger. “Anyone could have just slithered in there.”
“Why wasn’t it locked?” I ask.
Clara shrugs. “It’s a pain carrying around a key, especially with a bathing suit.”
I nod at her lack of common sense, noting how she’s also wearing a sweatshirt with two perfectly good pockets. That and another sarong—a red one with bright gold flowers. “Which cottage is yours, anyway?”
“Number 24. The one with the bamboo wind chimes. I’m sure you’ve heard them. They’re so obnoxious, but my dad really likes them.”
I nod, wondering if those are the wind chimes I heard in my nightmare.
“Can we please get through this story, like, today?” Amber groans. “My face feels like it’s fizzling.” She grabs a paper plate and uses it as a fan.
“So anyway,” Clara continues, “we went into my room and—” She’s welling up all over again. “Someone went through my drawers.”
“How do you know?” Jacob asks.
“Because they were open.”
“At least one of them was.” PJ snickers.
“Which one?” I lean in toward Clara and take one of her fluttering hands, the cold, biting sensation returning to my own hand, running up my arm and wrapping around the back of my neck.
03 - Silver Is For Secrets Page 8