The blaring music from the interior goes silent when he turns off the ignition. I linger. They linger. Good gravity, this is awkward. I’ve almost convinced myself to go inside when the doors open. They’re midsentence.
“—sounds good. Later,” Joss says. Then she turns around and sees me. A smile curls onto her lips. “Hey.”
“How’s it going?” I ask.
She nods. “Rad.”
“Cool.”
Teddy doesn’t look at either one of us.
“I have to run,” she says in her raspy voice.
“Yeah, me too, only not run because duh, my house is only, like, ten feet away," I say as the cat food bag slips out of my arms like a slippery dolphin.
“See ya,” she says with the confident ease of someone who knows exactly who she is. She gets in a granny-car parked at the end of the block. Sorry Joss, Grady has you beat in the auto department. As for kissing, that remains on the table. That kiss. I sigh.
Teddy lingers, standing next to his car, leaning forward on the open door as if it’s a shield between us.
“Hey,” he says, cavalier, as if I wasn’t just replaced, he wasn’t kissing Gretel last night, and now skipping school. “Went to RISD today.” He doesn't meet my eyes.
“Oh.”
He swallows. “Had to be sure.”
Frustration rushes at me like a tidal wave and there's no stopping it as words build behind my teeth. “You know what I’m not sure of, Teddy,” I say, emphasizing his name, “about you, about us.”
He stammers.
“You took Joss?” I want to add instead of me, but he cuts across.
“She didn’t mind skipping. She knew the way.”
“If you’d asked, I would have done that for you and believe it or not after living here for seventeen years I can get us into Providence, with or without GPS,” I say, calling him out on the unit affixed to his windshield.
“I wanted her to meet Jerusha.”
Suddenly, the garage door opens remotely and from down the street Mr. Westing returns home from the office driving his sleek Lexus.
“Come on,” Teddy says, rushing off in the opposite direction.
I leave the bag of cat food on the stoop and follow him even though a dramatic throw down fight in the driveway would be much more satisfying.
When we turn a corner I ask, “So, last night.”
He stumbles over the uneven sidewalk. “I drank a little bit too much.”
“Since when did you start drinking too much?” I say.
“When did you?” he asks.
“Touché.”
“You put on a show. I didn’t know you still had all those tricks in you.”
“Muscle memory,” I answer and stop on the sidewalk, throwing my arms across my chest. We’re underneath a colossal maple with newborn leaves. “And I wasn’t the only one who put on a show.” Before he protests, I add, “Were you kissing Gretel, just to be sure?”
Teddy runs his hand down his face. “Yeah, about that.” The space beneath his eyes is the color of exhaustion.
“Did you want to be positive you didn’t like girls before you and Jerusha hooked up? Did you test out your theory on Joss?” I’m just a foot stamp away from a tantrum, but I can’t stop myself. “Is Joss your new best friend? Does she understand you? Is she your girlfriend?” I hate the words that are coming out of my mouth, but they pour forth and I can't make them crawl back in or disappear in the air between my lips and his ears.
“Listen, Willa. Jerusha and Joss are just friends of mine. Nothing more. I’m sorry I haven’t—I don’t know how else to say this.” Then he leans in and before I utter another word, his lips are on mine. The kiss solidifies before I pull away.
“No,” I say and take a step back.
“Willa, wait. I’ll explain,” he pleads, probably afraid he’s spooked me. He has.
I picture myself running off and then flopping onto my bed, but Teddy’s near-constant presence, his proximity as my neighbor, and his heretofore best friend status keep me rooted. The wilting sunlight filters through the leaves and a dog barks nearby.
“Can we talk?” he asks.
“I thought that’s what we were doing until you went all gummy on me,” I say.
He blushes.
“I’ll admit it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. You tasted like grapes, like your car. But that was the ultimate in confusing, and I never want it to happen again. You’re like a brother to me. A best friend. I thought so anyway.”
His eyes say crestfallen, but he squares his shoulders. “No, of course not. I just thought I should try. All this time, you and me, talking every day, sharing the same bed, hanging out all the time, being so close. I always thought it was because you’re kind of a tomboy or whatever, but a little while ago I realized—”
I don’t want him to go on. “You just kissed me to be sure your contingency plan wasn’t faulty?”
A vacuum goes on in someone’s house. The dog barks again. I’m not sure either of us has taken a breath.
Finally, Teddy speaks. “All I’m sure of is that I’m not gay.”
“Whoa.” I actually stagger. “What do the last ten years mean?”
“They mean I was confused. That I thought I knew who I was. But Jerusha and I…well, it wasn’t the same as with Gretel. And she’s not even a great kisser, not that I’ve had much experience. Jerusha is most certainly gay, and he’s a good friend. He’s been really helpful as I try to navigate this fucked up situation with my parents and my sexuality.” His phone bleeps and he glances at it. I catch part of the message, not that I’m being nosy, but we’re standing close. It says Theo, talked to the head of… It was from Jerusha. He calls Teddy Theo. I feel hollow, lost like I'm missing an important piece of the Teddy and me picture puzzle since he didn't turn to me and ask hey, have you seen that edge piece?
Tears pierce the edges of my eyes. “Teddy, Theo, I…I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
He slides his phone into his pocket. “I don’t really either and maybe I won’t until, I dunno, I’m away from here.” He thumbs in the direction of his house.
Away from me.
“Do you mean to say that acting as if you were gay all this time was just a rebellion against them, your parents?”
His expression changes, torn between what looks like his affection for me and our decade's long friendship, and anger.
“Willa,” he takes a deep breath. Warmth drains from his voice. “I was not acting like I was gay. What does that even mean? I’m genuinely shocked and disappointed. I thought you, of all people, wouldn’t think something like that.”
I stutter even before I speak. “That’s not what I meant. You know what I meant.”
“Do I?”
Geese honk overhead. My heart sinks.
Apparently, Teddy continues to exist even as I expire. “To answer your question, I was just being me. I may have come across as someone who liked guys, but I never said as much. Never. I mean, I thought I might, but I didn’t know for sure, either way. For your information, I was just being me and no, it wasn’t rebellion or being gay." He spits my words back at me. "I have flair. I like clothes. I do my hair. I love drama and musicals and Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. I’m just me. Gay or straight. Or,” he looks at me sharply, “somewhere in between.”
I exhale. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I just thought I knew you, I thought—”
“A good place to start, before you assume you know other people, is to figure yourself out.” He turns and storms off as the last light of day slips away.
I wander home, feeling like I’m made of granite and guilt. There’s a note on the fridge. Salad inside for you. Doing inventory. Don’t call us up from the basement unless there’s a tsunami warning. XO
They must be doing inventory on the overflow from the warehouse, which is really just a vacant shop in a strip mall inland. They have their eye on a decrepit lighthouse attached to a small building to convert into a real brewery, not that
this town needs another bar. Their vision is more pub and gathering place: food, live music, and of course, beer. I pick at my salad when my phone beeps. It's Grady. He wrote Hey. Party on the beach tonight. Can I pick you up?
I’m all set, thanks. The party from the night before still lingers in my blood, suggesting I might need a transfusion.
I pick all the sweetened walnuts from the salad. I pick apart the conversation with Teddy and how I blew it. How I royally screwed up. I pick at the idea that Grady could be a good distraction and if nothing else the salt air might flush out the wound from the argument with Teddy.
I reply Sure.
Unbelievably, he texts back a smiley face. Maybe I'm not the only one who's a dork. I flip through my mental memory book: his hot cocoa eyes, lingering long enough to say he’s taken note of me, his messy hair, and his boyness. I go soft, like a marshmallow.
Twenty-minutes later, the Mustang rumbles into the driveway. I had a disconnect between Grady picking me up and getting to the party. I wipe away the shame of the words I spewed at Teddy. I didn't mean to hurt him. For the record, I don't believe he was faking, but I'm more confused than ever. I owe him an apology and a hug. Also, what he suggested about my confusion irked me. I correct myself; this is an immersion. I'm unwilling to take on any implied or imagined guilt over what's going on with me: not having the traditional college plan, kissing Joss, hanging out with Grady tonight—I'm hopeful that we'll have a moment. Then I'll know. Like Teddy did. There's nothing dishonorable about that.
Grady knocks on the door. I hustle downstairs, wearing just one shoe and with my fingers crossed that my parents don’t come up from the basement.
“Hey,” I say, hopping on one foot as I tie the lace of the other one. Then I wrinkle my nose. “You said beach party didn’t you?” Derp.
He nods, glancing around my house. I kick my sneakers off and grab a pair of flip-flops.
“You might want a sweatshirt too,” he suggests.
“Good idea.”
“And BYOB.”
“Oh.” My stomach sinks at the thought of more beer. I shake my head, indicating that I'm all set.
He twirls his keys around his finger.
“We could walk,” I say.
“The guys wanted to see my car—”
The ride isn’t long enough for us to say more than,
“So, last night…”
“Yeah and today.”
“Craziness.”
“Wild.”
We pull up to the short break wall and a bonfire already blazes on the beach beyond. An assortment of people gathers in pairs and threes or sits on woven blankets close to the fire. Grady lifts his chin in greeting in the direction of the brothers and sisters Clearwater.
“Wow. I haven’t seen them since sophomore year.” At last count, there were a total of nine in the Clearwater family. Zoey and Ziggy, twins, were in our class. Tanya graduated two years ago and if I remember correctly the two oldest just finished college.
“Even though their parents made them switch to homeschool, they still wanted to come and celebrate the end with us. And they may have helped with the car early this morning,” Grady says with a wink.
“Have you slept?” I ask, alarmed.
“During third period and this afternoon. Burning the candle at both ends.”
“You only live once.”
“And you can sleep when you’re dead,” Augie says, clapping us both on the shoulders in greeting. He raises his beer to us. “Cheers to the mischief-makers.” He wears a smirk.
I take a deep ocean breath. Salt. Seaweed. Fish. Fire.
Just then, Zoey, with her dreaded hair wrapped around her head like a crown, appears and squishes me in a hug. “Willa, I haven’t seen you in forever. I’ve missed you,” she says, whisper soft. “They call me Dolphina now.” Her twin appears, looking equally happy to see me. Their parents run a farm and had veered toward hippie-dom, but it looks like during the last couple of years they fully completed the conversion.
“Groovy,” her brother says, his afro bigger than ever.
“We call him Poseidon now.” They both break into synchronous laughter.
“Kidding, I can’t go completely in for that hippie-dippy shit. I’m still Ziggy,” he says, giving me a hug.
Dolphina laughs. “That’s because you already had your spirit name.”
He shakes his head and asks me, “How ya been? Where’s Teddy?”
“I’m…” I summon another deep breath. “I’m fine. Teddy’s…home.”
I prepare myself for twenty-questions, but a few others arrive and the Clearwaters whisk off to say hi.
Grady appears at my side. “Hungry?” he asks as Augie appears with a cooler and plops it in the sand.
I peer inside. Lobsters writhe.
Augie picks one up and thrusts it at me. Squealing, I jump back right into Grady’s arms. He’s soft yet firm. I melt. Augie runs off, chasing a girl with the lobster. Grady, his cheek practically pressing against mine, says, “We like our dinner dangerous.”
He takes me by the hand and pulls me toward the shore. He folds his pants up and I do the same before we wade in. I wish the ocean would wash away my jumbled feelings.
“Ever swim at night?” he asks.
“No. You?”
“I hang out with the Parkers. If it's risky, forbidden, or frowned upon, consider it done." He chuckles. "Want to go for a dip?"
"Now?" I say, sure my tone mimics the distressed expression on my face.
"Kidding. No, we'd need to be up for twenty-four hours, drunk, and stuffed with pancakes from IHOP in order to get in right now."
My look turns sideways.
"Long story." His laughter at a memory puts me at ease. "I always had this vision of you, like the girl version of the kid from Where the Wild Things Are. That was one of my favorite books when I was little. You've always been your own person. Not at all like the other girls, eager to—I dunno hook up and get totally serious or whatever.”
I imagine he’s thinking of Nina. No, I’m nothing like other girls. At least not like the ones at Puckett. To underscore my point, a low rumble like thunder sounds in the distance. The sky is clear, the stars forming a lacy net against the deep, blue black of the night sky.
“You’re smart, cool, and thrash on the skateboard. You’re perf—” He’s facing me now and I interrupt.
“Brontide.”
“Huh?” he asks, brushing my hair behind my shoulder. The moon casts a sparkling trail along the water, leading right to where we stand.
“Did you hear that?”
“What?” Grady asks, tilting his head curiously.
“Listen.”
All I hear is the lapping of the waves and the pounding of my heart. I exhale. “Brontide is a low, muffled sound. Like distant thunder. They say tremors in the earth cause it. I thought I heard it.” Or maybe it was my interior plates shifting and colliding—a Willa Wohlbreuk fault line right along the seams of my heart.
“Oh.” He leans in.
Now there's definitely movement or maybe it's just the sand shifting beneath my feet. I brace myself. His lips pooch and I swell. I look up to his eyes, but they’re closed. The words to be sure flash through my mind. Then a rogue wave splashes us with frigid water and like the brontide, the moment is lost.
Augie shouts for Grady.
“Duty calls. Let’s warm up by the fire,” he says, taking my hand, stoking the flame burning between us.
I catch up with Dolphina and Ziggy as they tell the story about how their entire family, all eleven of them: a set of twins and a set of triplets, some singletons, plus their mom and dad, piled into an RV and drove around the country all year.
“We just got back a week ago,” Dolphina says as if the momentum of the journey just caught up with her.
“And not a moment too soon. We wouldn’t miss this, not for the world,” Ziggy says as he strums a guitar. His voice is melodious and his words merge into a folk song about how ev
erything is going to be alright.
I cast my gaze to the bonfire and then to the surrounding horseshoe of people gathered. They're like an all-American clothing advertisement, airy and free, ruggedly handsome, and effortlessly beautiful. I wonder how I fit in, but know that somehow, despite sobriety, the pull between girls and boys, gay and straight, the rift in my identity, and uncertainty about my future, that at least for another night, I do.
I don’t want to just look back with fondness at days gone by, peppered with friendships on the line, a car on the roof, slipping down the hallways in a bikini, and my hand in a girl's. I want to experience every tender, blissful, painful, heart-filling moment as it happens, not just for a collection of photos or stories to tell later, but also for this juicy second, this minute, and hour.
Right now is all I know for sure.
Chapter Twelve
☼
Saturday
It’s Saturday, but still dark by the time I start home. Thankfully, I insist on taking Grady’s keys and he puppy dogs behind me. I happily lost hours talking, then singing, and then dancing around the fire.
“Next time, fireworks,” Grady says. “For you. A million firelights in the sky. I’ll have them spell your name. Or G plus W.” He slings his arm around my shoulders. “I’ve liked you for a long time, Willa Wohlbreuk.” He mispronounces my last name, but that might be because his beer slur stretches out his letters in some places and smooshes them together in others.
“You probably won’t remember this in the morning, but I’ve liked you longer, Grady O’Rourke.”
This would be the moment we'd kiss if he weren't sloppy drunk.
“Do you think you can score some brews?” he asks after we turn onto Druery Lane.
“Not tonight,” I answer. There’s a sudden, slinking fear that my easy access to plentiful amounts of beer is the reason he’s interested. Then again, it’s been a known fact for four years that ales and lagers run like water in my house, not that my parents are alcoholics, but brewing is their hobby and job. No one’s tried to get in my pants so they could get into our buckets of homebrew. Until now, I hadn’t even thought of it as an asset or a liability.
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