Second Star

by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

  Pete shrugs. “It’s hard to explain. It’s not like I don’t know about those things, not like I don’t think about them, but—I don’t know. They just can’t keep me out of the ocean. I respect the waves, the rocks, the sharks. Did you know sharks have been on this planet longer than trees?”

  The fact sounds impossible. “Really?”

  “Yeah. And the ocean, the rocks—they’re even older.”

  “Doesn’t that make you feel small? Surrounded by all those ancient dangers?”

  Pete shakes his head. “No,” he says, “it makes me feel…” He pauses, as if searching for the words. “Some of us have only ever found home when we’re on the water. Some of us are always waiting to take the next wave.”

  I roll over so that Pete curls around my back, places his arm beneath my neck. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so comfortable. I close my eyes and let the surf fill my ears like a lullaby. My eyes are still closed when Pete’s lips find mine once more.

  Later, when Pete leads the way back up to the house on the cliffs, I look up at the sky and make a wish on the second star I see.

  18

  Pete slides the back door open without dropping my hand. As we step inside, he pulls me close for another kiss, and he doesn’t let go as he backs us toward the stairs. My torso is flat against his; I stand up on my tiptoes to press my mouth against his. I don’t think I’ve ever stood this close to another person before.

  Suddenly, Belle’s voice fills the room. “You kids sure stayed out late.” She’s sitting on the couch in the center of the room, her eyes glassy in the moonlight.

  I nearly fall down, but Pete holds me steady. I’m completely still when I see something on her lap—and realize it’s my notebook.

  “What are you doing with that?” I ask, peeling myself away from Pete to grab the book from her. But Belle bounces up from the couch and dances out of my reach.

  “Oh, boys!” she shouts, her voice echoing off the empty walls and bare floors. “I need to tell you something.”

  “Belle, what are you doing?” Pete says softly, but Belle ignores him and keeps shouting for the boys to come downstairs.

  Hughie, Matt, and the rest of Pete’s crew pad sleepily down the stairs.

  “What gives, Belle?” Hughie says. “I was dead asleep.”

  “I thought you’d want to know what your girl Wendy is really doing here.”

  “Belle,” Pete says sharply. His hazel eyes flash green with anger. I look from Pete to Belle desperately.

  “Belle, please don’t,” I plead, hating my voice for sounding so weak.

  Belle holds my notebook above her head like it’s some kind of trophy. “She wasn’t here because she had problems back home and was trying to learn to surf. She’s looking for her brothers. They ran away months ago.”

  I shake my head desperately, a lump rising in my throat.

  “She’s been taking notes on all of us,” Belle says, opening the notebook to the page where I listed each of their names and guessed their ages. She begins reading the list aloud, spitting out one name after the other.

  Hughie looks at me. “Is it true?”

  Slowly, my head feeling like it weighs a thousand pounds, I nod. “I did come here to find my brothers. John and Michael Darling.”

  The look on Hughie’s face drops in an instant; I recognize it immediately. It’s the way that he looked at Jas when he saw him on the beach that morning; like he was looking at an enemy.

  “Sadly, Wendy,” Belle continues, tossing my notebook to the ground, “the joke’s on you. John and Michael left months ago.”

  My heart stops. “You knew them?”

  Belle shrugs, as though it’s no big deal. “Of course I did. We all did. Pete kicked them out once they started using, though. So there’s no reason for you to hang around Kensie anymore, Wendy Darling. You can go back home to Newport, to your soft fluffy bed with your soft fluffy pillows and resume your soft fluffy life.”

  I shake my head, struggling to understand. My brothers were dusters? Was it my brothers Matt was talking about the other night, the two kids Pete kicked out in January, the boys who refused to give it up?

  Even as I’m berating myself for missing the clues, I know why I didn’t see it. My brothers were athletes, surfers. I would never have guessed they’d be interested in drugs. They needed to be strong enough to take the next wave at all times. What were they thinking, putting something like that into their bodies?

  My mind swims with the words I’ll yell at them when I find them: crazy, foolish, stupid, careless. I think about our poor parents, back at home, mourning my brothers as surely as if they’re dead. What will they say when they learn that their sons ran away not just to surf, but to get high? It was somehow easier when I believed they left us behind to search for the next big wave, to live somewhere no one would yell at them to put their boards down and head to school, study for their finals, sit still at their sister’s high school graduation. But leaving us for drugs? I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry at them. Not when I was nine years old and they decided to give me a haircut while I slept. Not when I was fifteen and they crashed my computer, destroying the history paper I’d been working on for months, the one that was due the very next day. Not even when they refused to teach me how to surf.

  But suddenly, my anger shifts, directing itself at someone else.

  “Pete?” I turn slowly. I can still feel the warmth of his touch on my skin.

  “I didn’t lie,” he says, sinking onto the couch. Even though we’re still surrounded by Belle and the boys, it feels as though we’re the only two people in the room. “Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly? Just like you didn’t exactly lie about having a girlfriend? Just like you didn’t exactly lie about what you steal?”

  “I said that I couldn’t tell you where they were. And that’s the truth. They left months ago, and I haven’t seen or heard from them since, I swear.”

  Even though it’s cool in here, my skin is coated with a hot slick of sweat. I didn’t know I was even capable of being this angry.

  “I almost told you, tonight, on the cliffs—”

  “You almost told me but then you figured there was less of a chance I’d let you stick your tongue down my throat once I found out that you’d lied to me about my brothers, so why take that chance, right?”

  Belle and the boys snicker at that, but I ignore them. Suddenly, all the places on my body that Pete touched just a few minutes ago feel filthy. My mouth tastes sour.

  “I told you that you were a good person. A good friend,” I say bitterly. “You’re not.”

  I stomp up the stairs to grab my bag, digging inside for my car keys. Before I walk out the front door, I grab my notebook off the floor, where Belle dropped it after it was no longer of use to her.

  I pause, looking desperately at Belle and the boys. “None of you know where they were headed when they left?” I ask. “If they said anything to any of you, please, please tell me. I’m sorry I lied to you, but all I want is to bring my brothers home.” I may be angry at John and Michael, but I still want to bring them home. I’ll never stop wanting to bring them home. No matter what they did or why they left. “They have a family who loves them,” I beg. “Please.”

  Hughie won’t even look at me. Matt just shakes his head and starts toward the stairs. I stare at Belle. The daggers in her eyes are no match for the daggers in mine.

  “They were headed to Witch Tree,” she says finally, dropping her gaze.

  “What’s Witch Tree?”

  When she looks up at me, she doesn’t look angry anymore. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she looked sorry for me.

  “It’s a wave up the coast,” she says softly. I think she’s about to say something more, but instead she turns on her heel and runs up the stairs, her long blond hair covering her face.

  I resist the urge to call out a thank-you before I hear her slamming her bedroom door. After all, she’s the only one who actually said
a single thing that might help.

  “Wendy!” Pete shouts, following me as I leave the house and open my car door. “Please just wait. Give me some time to explain.”

  “What explanation could you possibly have, Pete?”

  I throw my bag into the passenger seat and climb into my car. Michael’s surfboard is still inside; I hate that I’m leaving John’s board behind, but I’m not about to go back into that house.

  “I panicked, Wendy,” Pete says. “I just wanted you to stay. And I thought if you knew the truth, that I’d kicked them out, that I was the reason they weren’t here—I thought you’d hate me.”

  “So that’s why you lied to me, Pete? Because you wanted me to like you?” I fiddle with my keys, squeezing them so tight that it hurts. “I think that might be the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard.”

  I shake my head, finally putting the pieces together. “That day on the beach, the day I came back here to look for my brothers. I called you a liar, and you freaked out. You thought I’d figured out that you were lying to me about my brothers, didn’t you? Not about Belle.”

  Pete’s silence answers my question. The skin on his neck looks bright red, as though he’s breaking out into a rash, allergic to his own lies.

  My hands are shaking so hard that it takes me three tries to fit the keys into the ignition.

  “You were right about them, Wendy,” Pete says. “They were special. From the instant they showed up on the beach—”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me about them,” I say, pressing my foot on the gas. I spin my car around the huge circular driveway. Out the window I shout, “Don’t you dare talk to me about anything ever again.”

  I pull away, careful not to look in my rearview mirror. I don’t want to see the look on Pete’s face. And I don’t want him to see the look on my own. I don’t want him to see that I’m crying, not just because he’s a liar but because even now, angry as I am, there’s still a part of me—a part that I hate, a part that I don’t understand—that wants to stop the car, jump out, and run back into his arms.

  19

  I blink away tears as I drive down the reed-covered road that will lead me out of Kensington. The plants fold under my car as though I didn’t just crush them a few hours ago when I was driving in the other direction.

  I should have known from the instant Belle told me they were a couple that he was not to be trusted. I should have been able to see through his lies. I’m a straight-A student, a good daughter; I’ve never cut a single class, not even on senior cut day. I’ve never lost track of a goal before in my life. I wanted to pass my driver’s test, I did. I wanted to be the editor of the school yearbook, I was. I wanted to get into Stanford, I did. I wanted to find my brothers—and I failed.

  What kind of name for a wave is Witch Tree? Who knew that waves even had names? Maybe you’re supposed to capitalize it, like a proper name. In my mind’s eye, I see a bare white tree rising from the crest of a wave, its branches grabbing at surfers like greedy hands, pulling them under. Wherever the hell Witch Tree is, it’s where I should be headed now, too.

  But just as the road turns from dirt to concrete, I slam on the brakes. Jas’s house is right in front of me; this close, the music is so loud, I can barely hear myself think. My brothers lived with Pete, but they were dusters. Are they still surfing, or has the drug taken over their lives completely? I try to picture them skinny, the muscles they built up after years of surfing atrophied to nothing, their skin pale from spending all their time indoors.

  There’s only one place in Kensington where you can get dust.

  Only one person who can answer my questions.

  Instead of making the right turn that will lead me out of Kensington, I shift my foot from the brake to the gas and pull straight into Jas’s driveway, almost hitting one of the cars that’s already there.

  “And just where do you think you’re going, little lady?”

  I raise my eyebrows at the punkish kid standing at Jas’s door. “Don’t you think you’re a little young to be using terms like ‘little lady’?” I ask, emboldened by my anger.

  He smiles slowly, like he has all the time in the world. “Age ain’t nothing but a number, sister,” he says, and I bristle at the word sister.

  “I need to talk to Jas,” I say finally. “I only need a few minutes,” I add when he begins to shake his head.

  “You can take all the time you need,” he says, and I reach for the doorknob, but he blocks my way. “You just have to pay the fee first.”

  “Listen,” I say, “I just need to talk to Jas. I’m not here to party.”

  “Everyone’s here to party,” the kid answers, and like a magician he pulls a tiny white pill from thin air and holds it in his palm right beneath my chin. “Either you party or you don’t get inside.”

  “What is that?” I say, even though I know the answer.

  “If you don’t know what it is, little girl, then you’re at the wrong place.”

  “No,” I say shaking my head. “I need to see Jas.”

  “Well then, you know what you need to do,” he says, grinning. I look down at the ground, noticing that his feet are bare. I wonder if he was a surfer before he fell into Jas’s world; wonder if his feet are rough with calluses from running barefoot over hot sand.

  I eye the pill in his hand. It doesn’t look like much of anything at all. It could be anything—ibuprofen, a decongestant. There’s nothing to it that makes it look any more dangerous than anything in the medicine cabinets back at home.

  It’s just one little pill, just for one night. I’ve never heard of a drug that you can get addicted to off of just one hit. Not that I’ve ever heard much about drugs at all. Sure, I’ve been at a party or two where someone was lighting up, and I learned to recognize the smell by Fiona’s giggles and the stupid jokes Dax made about the skunky scent in the air. I’ve never even been drunk, not really. I’ve sipped the beers that boys have handed me over the years, but I just didn’t like the taste enough to drink much. I always thought that I’d get around to it later.

  I never meant to become such a Goody Two-shoes. I’m not sure exactly when it happened. Right now, that seems beside the point. Because this little pill is the price of entry, and I’ve got to get inside. I’m not leaving Kensington without talking to Jas, that much I know for sure.

  “Fine,” I say, swiping the pill from his hand, which I can’t help noticing is hot and clammy.

  “All right,” the boy says, grinning. He actually seems proud that he’s done his job. “Let’s get you hooked up.”

  “Do you have some water?” I ask, lifting the pill to my mouth.

  “Nah,” he says. “Kicks in faster if you chew it up anyway.”

  I bite into it and almost gag. “Tastes like shit,” I say as a bitter flavor fills my mouth, the pill chalky and dense, sticking between my teeth. Maybe this is why they call it dust; it literally coats your mouth.

  “Remember that taste for next time. It’s how you know you’re getting the real thing.”

  I shake my head. “There won’t be a next time.”

  The kid laughs. “I’ve heard that before,” he says, his voice fading into a singsong as he finally opens the door for me. “Just remember,” he adds as I step inside the house, “only the first one’s free.”

  Even though Jas’s house is a mirror image of Pete’s, this place doesn’t look like anywhere I’ve ever been before. To begin with, there’s the smell. It’s like a physical assault: salt water and sand, smoke and liquor, sweat and skin, all lingering together into something else entirely, something hot and dark and overwhelming. Trying to take deep breaths only makes it worse.

  The sliding doors that lead to the backyard are wide open; the yard is lit up like it’s on fire. Floodlights, I realize. There’s a DJ spinning records behind the pool; he has strobe lights and steam machines. He must be using a generator; Jas must have this whole place running on generators, like we’re survivors of some natural disaster.<
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  From here I can see the pool, filled with cerulean water, brighter and bluer than the water crashing onto the beach below. People are floating through the pool fully dressed, in bathing suits; someone is even naked. They’re dancing, making out, laughing.

  The smell, the blinking lights, the pulsing music—they fill me up so that all I want to do is run away, back to the cliffs, back to Pete, where I was only aware of the ocean and our breath.

  This place is a madhouse. No wonder drugs are the price of entry. Anything to quiet the sounds, to get some peace from the beat that’s as steady and unrelenting as a pulse.

  I try to imagine my brothers walking into one of these parties. Maybe, like me, they didn’t come here looking to get high. Maybe, like me, they were willing to take a pill just to get inside. Maybe, like me, they never intended to take dust a second time. Maybe they just wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

  I walk through the crowd to the very edge of the backyard, squeezing my way between hot bodies and cold sweat, stepping on cigarettes that are still burning on the dry grass—fires waiting to happen—skirting puddles of sticky alcohol from cups that have been dropped, forgotten, on the ground.

  Maybe I can get out of here before the drug even kicks in. I’ll keep to the edges, making an enormous circle around the party until I spot him. Methodical, like this is an assignment from a teacher. Find Jas and get an A. And I always get As.

  I stick my hands into my pockets. I’ve never been good at parties. Never wanted to head for the dance floor or take shots of whatever cheap vodka had been snuck inside. Once, at a party on the beach last fall, I poured beer from my can when my date wasn’t looking, just so that I’d be able to ask him to get me another can, and then another, and then another. By the end of the night, he thought I’d had more to drink than he had, and he couldn’t stop talking about how high my tolerance must be. When I told Fiona, she thought it was hilarious. Dax thought it was a shame to waste all that beer.