by Lillie Vale
Ariel popped the rest of the lemon bar in her mouth and chewed. “Sorry, Babe. I just assumed. But it’s fine. Dating isn’t for everyone.” It wasn’t much of an apology.
For a girl in desperate need of allies, she has an awful lot of sass. I gritted my teeth.
But then the door opened again and in our distraction, Ariel pulled a Houdini.
I sighed. “What do you wanna bet we don’t see her again until after the lunch rush?”
“Try closing time,” said Lucy, filling up the orders with the practiced ease of a barista. “Hand me the caramel sauce, would you?”
* * *
As expected, Ariel didn’t reappear until the end of the day, just in time to show her face. Tom, who had come in for his usual game of chess with Ralph, asked once again if the deliveries had been checked against the invoice so he could pay the bill. Ariel swore up and down that she had done it, even though I was pretty sure she hadn’t.
When Levi came to pick me up, I’d never been so eager to leave.
“Hey, Levi,” chirped Lucy when he came through the door, looking like the quintessential summer boy in his blue plaid American Eagle button-down.
“Hey,” he greeted us as he approached. “Ready to go?” He gave Lucy a wave, and as I turned to do the same, she gave me a quick thumbs-up.
Butterflies were raging in my stomach like they were on freaking Molly. “I’d love to introduce you to Tom and Ralph,” I said. “Ralph was on the art center’s selection committee.”
Levi nodded eagerly. “I’d love that.”
Ariel hung around for a few minutes, clearly angling for an introduction, but Tom and Ralph monopolized the conversation with questions about the art residency. Levi had his sketchbook in a beat-up messenger bag and flipped it open to familiar scenes of Oar’s Rest: the post office’s window boxes, overflowing with flowers; vibrant shutters on whitewashed cottages; a huge wedge of pie from Kimble’s Diner, blueberry filling oozing onto the plate.
Appropriately impressed, Tom had sent us on our way, giving me his blessing with a hearty wink that I hoped Levi didn’t catch.
“They were nice,” Levi said once we were out the door.
“They are,” I said, smiling.
We were moving in the direction of the sun now. The warm rays were making me feel sticky with perspiration and I swiped at my forehead when I felt drops of sweat cling to my hairline.
“I can see your mom’s house from here,” said Levi. He raised his arm, pointing to the colorful row of houses lining the commercial pier.
Shading my eyes with the palm of my hand, I squinted into the sunburst glow of the horizon. The houses there were built by the first fishermen who inhabited Oar’s Rest and had been carefully renovated over the years by their descendants. In more recent years, the families had moved out, choosing to take their fishing fortunes and buy newer homes in the town itself. Most of the fishermen’s cottages were now rented out to tourists, many of them city slickers who wanted a taste of the humble, quiet life.
“I see it,” I said. The house was a mossy green, like the color of the algae infesting the submerged wooden beams in the pier. Mom’s favorite color.
We lapsed into silence. I kept waiting for him to duck into the shade of one of the restaurant awnings, but he continued walking at a leisurely pace. The sun glinted in his hair, each strand lit with a multidimensional golden shine.
“What?” He’d caught me staring.
“Uh, just…” I gestured to his hair. “You have Disney princess hair.” I could tell I’d surprised him from the slow smile that spread over his face. “Ugh, pretend I didn’t say that?”
“Why would I do a dumb thing like that? That’s pretty much the best compliment anyone’s ever given me.” A beat. “Plus, it means you were checking me out. Again.”
“That wasn’t—okay, it was.” I laughed. “You busted me. I have zero game. I’m an open book.”
We stopped walking. “Suits me,” he said. “When I told you I liked you, it was because I don’t want to spend the summer going back and forth on whether or not I should tell you. I don’t play games, and guessing games are the worst.”
I felt my rib cage shift in a fluttery plummet, all the way down to my stomach. “Then you’re the opposite of every guy I went to high school with.” A good thing, definitely.
“Good. I don’t do games. I do grown-up.” He flashed me the kind of smile that he probably threw around all the time like confetti. One part earnest, one part sweet. So deliciously genuine that my fingers itched to reach out and touch his face, make sure he was real. Because no one had smiled at me like that in a long time. Any wisecracks or flirtations withered in my throat. It felt wrong to tease after what he’d said.
“I like you, too,” I said. Honesty sort of demanded it. And I had left him hanging last week when he’d told me how he felt.
His smile turned shy. “I sort of figured. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
We kept walking, our arms grazing every time one of us veered a little too close. My body hummed in response, tingling with awareness. The first time it happened, I glanced at him, but he wasn’t looking at me. The second time, I wanted to let my fingers casually-on-purpose slide against his, but Levi simply murmured a “Sorry” to me and course-corrected himself.
I waved at some younger kids from high school who were lounging outside the Dairy Bar. Recognition lit up their faces and they eagerly returned my wave between licks of their ice cream cones. Their blueberry streusel ice cream was the best I’d ever tasted, and I made a mental note to bring Levi here.
The Dairy Bar was one of the many establishments along the wide expanse of beach. Mom’s house, Busy’s, and the ice cream shop were close to the wharf. The semicircle of sand allowed someone to stand at one end and see across the water to the other end, with the pier, wharf, rowboats, and fishing trawlers in between.
As we came to a halt in front of a cheerful yellow flower shop, he pointed ahead to a peeling-paint little eatery a few stores ahead of us. A whitewashed piece of driftwood was nailed above the door, with thin hangul brushstrokes spelling out the name of the restaurant.
Levi squinted up at it. “You up for some Korean food?”
The tacos they served would remind me too much of Penny and the last time we’d been there. I could still taste the kimchi on my tongue. Swallowing, I gestured to the beach. “I thought we could try something a little more local.”
“Seafood?”
I nodded, hopping off the cobbled path and onto soft sand. My feet were swallowed by the hungry cling of the beach, warm sand slipping into my flip-flops. Levi fared better in his sturdy sandals. I made a face and pulled off my flip-flops, letting them swing between my fingers.
He let silence descend before breaking it. “Have you lived here your whole life?”
I made my way through a cluster of sandcastles. “Yeah. Born and raised.”
“Must be nice. This place is like paradise.”
I glanced at him, watching his eyes flutter closed. “Close enough. It’s home.”
“Never wanted to leave?”
“Would you?”
“Fair enough,” Levi said, laughing.
I gave him a good-natured shoulder bump. “Come on, let’s get some grub.” I pointed to a little shanty about a hundred feet ahead of us. “I hope you’re hungry, because this place definitely does not skimp.”
Ahead of us, a small crowd had already gathered. There was a buzz of excited energy as everyone waited for their order to be ready. The smell of grilled fish and the smokiness of the firepit made both my eyes and mouth water.
I could sense Levi’s skepticism as we approached the little sea shack. “Lamer?” he said, looking up at the hanging wooden sign above the counter. A second later, I saw the realization dawn on his face.
“La Mer.” Lorcan, the owner, a curly-haired Poseidon with rippling arm and chest muscles, straightened himself behind the counter. “It means ‘the sea.’”
I tried not to giggle. “Levi, this is Lorcan. He’s Lucy’s boyfriend.”
Levi nodded. “Hey.”
Lorcan grinned at me. “Hey, man. Good to meet you. What can I get you two?” he asked, waving his hand at the gathering of people in front of us. Everyone made room for Levi and me to step through the gap.
“You can’t go wrong with anything at Lorcan’s place.” I grinned at the owner. “What do you recommend for a city boy who’s about to get his first real taste of Maine seafood?”
“Literally anything on my menu.” Lorcan folded his arms across his chest and smiled at me.
“The Fisherman’s Sampler,” Levi read out loud from the chalkboard sign behind Lorcan’s head. “Fish, shrimp, scallops, clam strips, calamari, crab cakes, and two sides.”
“Sides are corn on the cob, roasted on the pit or boiled and buttered, and French fries.” Lorcan sized us up. “That’s more than enough for two people on a date.”
Levi shot me a quick glance. He took a breath. “What do you think, Babe? Do you want the sampler?”
The total cost of the meal would be forty dollars, more if we added drinks. That was a bit more than I wanted Levi to spend on our date tonight. “Could we just go with a basket of shrimp?” I looked at Levi for approval before saying, “And nix the appendages, please, Lorcan.”
Lorcan gave me an openly amused smile. “Anything for you, Babe.” He winked. “Go take a seat. I’ll give you a shout when your order’s ready.”
“What do you want to drink? Soda, water?” Levi asked, skimming the menu.
“Make that two Moxies,” I said, figuring he’d never had one before. “It’s sort of like root beer.”
At his quizzical smile, I knew I was right.
“Nah,” said Lorcan. “I’d say it tastes way more like a Dr Pepper.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” I grinned at Levi. “You’ll love it.”
As Levi paid, I scanned the beach for a good spot to sit and eat. Some of the other diners had brought their own picnic blankets and were sprawled out nearby. The soft drone of their chatter was accompanied by the lulling sounds of foamy swash rolling onto the sand.
Those people were definitely on a date, I thought, stomach tightening. Unbidden, a memory started to take shape. Chad, Penny, and me eating on the smooth, flat rocks by the wharf, watching the fishermen bring in the evening’s catch.
“Babe?” Levi appeared at my side, stuffing his wallet into his back pocket, two bottles of Moxie nestled in the crook of his arm. “Where should we sit?”
“There are some picnic tables over there,” I said, pointing to a grassy knoll straight ahead of Lorcan’s crab shack. Separating the beach and the rest of the town was a wide stretch of grass where a few picnic tables were scattered in between children’s playground equipment and an ice cream vendor. “When I was a little kid, my mom and grandma used to bring me here. There was this crabber’s shanty near where Lorcan’s place is now.” I smiled at the memory. “This old gruff guy with a beard and eyebrows so thick you could barely see his eyes. He sold the best steamed crabs I’ve ever eaten. Gran showed me how to crack open the crabs. She gave me a little wooden hammer and I just whaled away on the little suckers.”
Levi glanced down the beach like he could actually picture the shanty still standing there. “I don’t remember doing anything like that with my parents. Dad mostly just stuck me in front of the TV or sent me out to play with the neighborhood kids. We didn’t do things together like that.”
“What about art? Didn’t your mom color with you or anything like that?”
He shook his head. “Not since I was really little. Like elementary school.”
We stood in silence, until Levi shifted his stance. “Until I got good at something—drawing—they didn’t have a lot of interest in what I was interested in. Dad loved travel shows and those luxury vacation magazines. We didn’t have the money, but it was pretty much the main thing we ever talked about.” He shrugged. “He didn’t care about sports or movies or cars, nothing like that. But if I needed help on a world history paper or something…”
“What about your mom?”
“She works for a museum, but she’s not really artistic.” A faint smile flickered over his face. “She was excited when my art teacher told her I had talent. She’d just read all these articles about teen entrepreneurs, and she wanted me to have my shot. So I started posting online. Doodles at first, then more serious stuff. Anywhere that would get me exposure. And then I got on Instagram, just posting my art up there and racking up a following. Then commissions came along. Some people reached out to me, but it wasn’t until some huge influencers started talking about me and tagging me that things really kicked off.”
“And then your parents got you an agent,” I said.
“It was pretty surreal. I have no idea if this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I just graduated from high school; I don’t have to have it all figured out.” He exhaled through his nose. “They keep telling me I have potential, but they act like it’s something that goes bad or spoils if you leave it alone too long. Like one day I’ll wake up and have to pour it down the drain like sour milk.”
I lightly touched his shoulder. “Hey. If it helps, I don’t think your talent is something that’ll fade or go away if you don’t squeeze every drop out right now. You’re right. It’s hard to figure out if you want something to be a career. Like when people find out I’m not going to college, they get all awkward. They think staying at Busy’s and being a barista is … a stepping-stone job. And for most people, it is.” I shrugged. “But I’ve never wanted to do anything else in my entire life. Making people happy with food is something special. So is your art.”
The wind teased his hair, lifting it up with an adorable little flip. “Yeah?” Levi smiled, then ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it all up. “I hope you’re right. I talked to my high school art teacher in the winter about how my parents were trying to strong-arm me. She knows someone at the RISD admissions office who can help, even though I missed the application deadline by a few days. No promises or anything, but I’m on the priority waitlist.” He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t even know how I’ll tell my parents if it works out.”
Almost everyone pronounced the Rhode Island School of Design as ris-dee, but I remembered the first time Elodie told me about her dream school, she’d mispronounced it as rised the first time. Thinking about my girlfriend—ex-girlfriend—cast a shadow over me, so I swept the memory aside, focusing on the here and now instead.
“Wow. That’s a good school,” I said.
He shrugged, grinning. “I probably won’t even get in. But whatever. It’s taking the chance that counts, right? Anyway, it’d be nice to get out of the city, go someplace smaller.” He glanced around us, eyes soft. “Like this.”
I smiled. “You know, it used to be that everyone in my senior year wanted to get out of a place this small.” I stretched both my arms behind my back, lacing my fingers together until the ache in my lower back went away. “Not me. I think it’s nice to be in a place where everybody knows your name.”
“Like Cheers?”
“What?”
“It’s an old television show. It’s about this bar where all the main characters hang out. They’re like a family.” He gave me a crooked grin. “Look it up on Netflix sometime.”
“Okay.” I rubbed an itch on my nose. “I’m surprised. Most New Yorkers who come here say that they could never imagine leaving the city.”
His brow furrowed, like he was really thinking about it. “People always talk about getting out of New York, but…” He glanced at me. “I think my dad would love it here. So would Mom. They just never get around to leaving. Sometimes I think they’re so scared of change that it paralyzes them into doing nothing, because nothing is better than making the wrong decision.”
“How do you mean?�
�� I found myself stepping closer to him, drawn like a honeybee to the secret parts of him.
“It’s one of those vague ‘in the future’ things they think they want to do—or they want to want to do. But when it comes down to it, they can’t imagine living anywhere else.” Levi rolled his eyes. “And as much as they complain about it, it’s home.”
“I don’t know if I’d ever find home somewhere other than here. There’s memories in every inch of Oar’s Rest. The beach, the lighthouse. Busy’s. Everywhere.” Dangling my legs off the pier, watching hermit crabs hunt for shells during molting season, burying my fingers in the hot white-gold sand … a lifetime of memories coursed through my mind. I clung to them like old friends, taking solace in how solid they felt.
“You’d make new memories,” he said.
I would. But the same memories that made Oar’s Rest painful at times were also the ones that contained worlds. First kisses and dripping ice cream cones. Fumbled sex and really good weed. Sleepovers at Penny’s and racing hermit crabs with Chad. Learning how to make soup dumplings and sandcastles. The awning Elodie had been standing under when I’d first realized I had feelings for her.
Summer boys were made for outgrowing places like this, but I wasn’t. Every time I was with him, it was so easy to think of him as just a boy, but he wasn’t, was he? He was just another memory waiting to happen.
I switched the subject. “What do you miss about New York?” I wanted to gauge his reaction, see how homesick he was. Or … if he wasn’t.
He shot me a half smile. “There’s always a twenty-four-hour place open if you’re hungry. And when you look out your window at night, it’s like you have the whole galaxy of stars looking back at you. Grabbing the subway with your friends, getting really good food whenever you want it … yeah, I guess I miss that.” He looked at me almost shyly. “But I’d take a few real stars over thousands of sparkling lights any day.”
My heart expanded. The way he was looking at me was all too real, all too tender. No one had ever looked at me like that before. Not Elodie, not any of the guys who tried to hit on me when I was behind the counter.