Eve and Austin scrambled up the wide staircase to claim guest rooms as Calla and Lark flitted around the first floor, drawing back white curtains and exposing floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the deck and the expanse of ocean and sky beyond.
Olivia stood frozen in the foyer, taking it all in. With every mile they had driven out of the city, Olivia had felt her eyes growing wider and wider. Suburban sprawl had given way to lush open spaces, taking them in and out of massive redwood groves as they made their way over the hills toward the ocean. Olivia couldn’t believe all this had been just on the other side of the bridge the whole time she’d been in San Francisco, and she’d had no idea.
Her vision had just been starting to adjust, and now this.
The first floor of Lark’s beach house was one giant room, all light wood beams and bamboo floors. The kitchen took up one far wall, separated from the rest of the space by a massive butcher-block-topped island, with shiny metallic appliances tucked against the built-in pantry. In the middle of the space was a semicircular cluster of pale blue and white striped love seats, surrounding a stone fireplace and chimney, all sandwiched by sliding glass doors leading out to the deck.
“Earth to Olivia,” Lark called out from the downstairs bathroom, where she was standing on the edge of the tub and pushing open a long narrow skylight. “Open the doors to the patio, okay?”
Olivia left her suitcase—black and bulky with rolling wheels, it was the only thing she’d been able to find, and she didn’t want to think about how ridiculous it looked next to the pile of gym bags and canvas totes—by the stairs and walked over to the sliding doors, pulling them open and welcoming the muted early-evening breeze.
The deck was split into two levels, the first a round stone patio with a grill in one corner, and down a few steps, a wooden dock that ended right at the water, so that you could sit and dangle your feet over the edge.
Olivia stood at the open door, breathing the salty sea air and closing her eyes. Aside from a few cliff-top views of the bay, it was the first time she’d been at the ocean since the Vineyard the summer before. The water was so much bigger and wilder here, and seemed to never end.
“Who wants red and who wants white?” Lark was crouching in front of a windowed liquor cabinet, taking out unopened bottles of wine. Olivia pulled the screen door shut and went to join the girls, now gathered around the kitchen island, unpacking a bag of groceries Lark’s mom had sent up for the house.
“Put some white in the fridge,” Austin suggested, twirling a hoop earring at the top of one ear. “And let’s break out the hard stuff. Have you guys ever had a Greyhound?” Austin eyed a bottle of Grey Goose vodka in the cabinet and gestured to the plastic container of organic grapefruit juice Eve was lifting out of a wrinkled paper bag.
“Vodka and grapefruit?” Calla seconded. “My sister and I lived on those when I visited her in LA. Be careful, though. They go down easy.”
Lark stood on her toes to reach a row of fancy margarita glasses on the top shelf of a built-in cabinet. “Be very careful. My parents are coming early in the morning,” she warned. “No puking, no passing out in weird places, and no redecorating.”
Eve giggled, twisting open the bottle of juice. “Oh, my God,” she gasped, her tiny features squishing together as she struggled with the stubborn cap. “I forgot about that. The look on your mother’s face when she saw all of the furniture upside down in the front yard…”
“Yeah, well, you got to go home the next day,” Lark said dryly, opening a hidden door and revealing a state-of-the-art stereo system. She flipped through a pile of CDs and popped one in, something mellow, vaguely bluegrassy, and probably belonging to her parents. Olivia breathed a tiny sigh of relief, secretly happy for a break from the too-cool hipster bands she was always struggling to keep straight.
Calla metered out healthy slugs of clear vodka, and Eve topped them off with the pulpy pink juice. Austin slid a glass down the island toward Olivia, who was stationed on one of the high-backed stools at the opposite end.
“Cheers,” Calla sang, lifting her glass. Olivia circled the thick stem with her fingers, clinking glasses one at a time with each of the girls around her. It all felt so grown-up, but not in a way that felt forced or fake. It was easy, and Olivia felt herself starting to relax.
“Shall we take these outside?” Lark asked dramatically, sauntering over past the couches and running her hand over a panel of light switches, illuminating the wraparound deck.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!” Eve shrieked, pointing through the window at a dark silhouette rounding the corner. The girls all ran to the glass as the shadow stepped into the light, lugging a case of Sierra Nevada and dropping it heavily on the round glass patio table.
“What the hell?” Lark screamed, pulling open the sliding door and stalking outside. “Logan! What are you doing? I told you I was using the house tonight.”
Olivia followed Eve and Austin to the windows, watching as Lark seethed with her hands planted squarely on her hips.
Logan stood his ground while Lark threw her hands up and stormed back inside. Logan followed, keeping a careful distance behind. “Good evening, ladies,” he said in his extra-low voice from the door. “Sorry about the interruption. We’ll stay out of your way, I promise.”
Lark froze behind a striped ottoman and slowly swiveled back to face her brother. “We?” she repeated. “What ‘we’?”
Logan glanced across the open room toward the front door, behind which a muffled chorus of rowdy voices could be heard. The knob turned and the door flung open, revealing Graham, a six-pack of beer wedged under one arm, an acoustic guitar nestled inside the other.
“Surprise!” Graham shouted, careening across the room like a lunatic, plopping the six-pack down on the counter and lifting Eve up by her waist.
Eve squealed, unable to hide her delight, and Olivia took a few steps back so as not to be awkwardly hovering over their embrace. A couple of other guys Olivia recognized from school filtered in, including Austin’s dread-headed boyfriend and some of Logan’s sophomore friends. The sudden chaos was so overwhelming that Olivia didn’t look back to the door until she heard Eve whispering beside her.
“What an asshole,” she said. “He knew she’d be here. Why would he even come?”
Olivia’s stomach lurched, and she felt herself frantically grasping for little strands of hope. Maybe Eve was talking about somebody else? Maybe Lark had a belligerent ex-boyfriend whom nobody liked?
But all it took was a quick glance to the door and Olivia knew her instincts had been right. She never should have come. She should have stayed home, with Violet, far from Calla, from the beach, and far from Lark’s front door, where Soren was now standing.
31
“Hey, Lark.” Olivia stood with her back to the refrigerator, her nearly empty glass sweating condensation into the palms of her hands. “Can I ask you something?”
Lark was taking a break from championship rounds of beer pong on the deck, and Olivia had found her by the massive stainless freezer, refilling her glass with chips of machine-made ice. It had taken two Greyhounds and about half of the new Band of Horses album (after Graham hijacked the stereo and hooked up his own iPod to the speakers), but Lark had ultimately forgiven Logan for crashing Girls’ Night In. In fact, the siblings had partnered up and were in the middle of a threegame winning streak, tossing Ping-Pong balls into plastic cups of foamy beer from across the table on the porch.
“Sure,” Lark said, refilling her glass with grapefruit juice and a splash of vodka from the quickly diminishing supply on the counter. “What’s up?”
Olivia sipped lightly at her drink and leaned her back against the kitchen’s center island. “Is Calla okay with Soren being here?” she asked, gesturing to where Calla had just closed herself into the downstairs bathroom. She and Soren had said gracious hellos, and Calla had been busily helping Graham and Eve design a playlist for the evening, but Olivia accidentally kept catching her staring sadl
y off into space when she thought nobody was looking. “I mean, do you think things are going to get weird?”
Lark closed the refrigerator door and made small circles with the drink in her hand, the ice sloshing against the glass and swirling peachy pink.
“I have a feeling,” Lark said, taking a long swig and cracking an ice chip between her back molars, “that things are about to get a lot better.”
All of a sudden Eve appeared at Olivia’s side, hopping up and down at her elbow.
“Lark!” she squealed. “Isn’t that your cousin?”
Lark feigned surprise and scanned the room. “Farley?” she asked, sugar-sweet innocence coating her voice. “What would he be doing here?”
Olivia turned to see the front door closing behind a lanky, dark-haired guy, who had just taken off his black peacoat and was searching for a place to hang it up.
“I called him,” Lark admitted. “I figured Calla could use a little distraction.”
Eve beamed at Lark and squeezed her waist. “You’re so bad,” she giggled as they all turned to watch the scene unfold. Farley, Lark’s cousin, was indisputably attractive, but in that brooding, intellectual, undercover-vampire kind of way.
“Hey, Cal,” Lark called. The bathroom door opened and Calla stepped into the hall, her hair freshly mussed and her full lips glossy pink. “Surprise!”
Calla looked up just as Farley was starting to cross the room, his coat now draped over one arm. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “What is he doing here?”
Lark and Eve laughed, pushing Calla from behind, and Olivia watched as they noticed each other from opposite sides of the fireplace. Calla took a single step forward, before twisting on her heels and snatching Lark’s drink out of her hands. “I’ll take that,” she said with a smile, before knocking back roughly half of what was left.
Calla sauntered across the room, her hips swinging in tight black jeans, a pair of layered pastel racer-back tanks scrunching up around her waist, revealing a narrow strip of smooth, tanned skin. She put one hand lightly in the center of Farley’s chest and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, gesturing back toward the kitchen with her glass raised.
Eve held up her refilled glass in return as Lark smiled. “See?” Lark said through a glowing smile. “Problem solved.”
As much as she liked grapefruit juice, Olivia was having trouble getting her second drink down. Partially because of the vodka (she’d never caught on to hard liquor—usually the smell of anything stronger than champagne was enough to make her gag), but mostly because her stomach was doing that thing again. That thing where it flopped inside out like she was stuck on a high-rise elevator every time Soren so much as laughed or entered the room.
Olivia opened the sliding glass door and elbowed her way through a small crowd gathered on the porch. Graham was straddling a lounge chair, playing his guitar and singing softly as Eve cuddled up behind him. There was a small fire going in a fire pit in the middle of the deck, and behind it Olivia could make out the flickering shadows of Calla sitting Indian style between Farley’s knees on the ground.
Olivia was searching for a place to settle when she spotted Soren in the corner, crouching over an open cooler of beer. Calla seemed distracted with Farley, and everybody else was swaying to the sing-along. It might have been the single drink going straight to her head, but Olivia decided it wouldn’t hurt to at least say hi.
She crossed the wide wooden slats to the far corner of the deck and stood over the cooler and Soren’s crouching frame. “Hey,” she said, her voice shaky and loud. “Pass me one of those?”
Soren looked up and smiled. He was wearing a black-and-orange Giants hat, and his shaggy hair was sticking out in a perfect curl against his neck. “Sure,” he said, handing her a frosty can and keeping one for himself.
Olivia leaned back against the side of the house, her hips settling against the angled ledge of a wide bay window. She glanced around at the party, the glowing profiles of smiling faces by the fire.
“I didn’t know if it was okay to talk to you,” Soren said quietly, shuffling his sneakers against the dock. “Are you having a good time?”
“Yeah.” Olivia smiled. “I am.” She didn’t realize how true the words were until she’d spoken them out loud. She didn’t have that old uncomfortable feeling of not knowing where to stand, or what to do. There was enough going on to keep everyone entertained, and as far as Olivia could tell, not a single fight had broken out; not a single girl was crying. “Are you?”
Soren shrugged and tapped the top of his beer, pulling it open with a pop. “It’s okay,” he said, then turned to her with a shy smile. “It’s a lot better now.”
Olivia blushed and looked away. The waves were crashing loudly against the high sea wall. She was imagining going for a walk on the beach with Soren, or maybe a midnight swim, when a flash of movement caught her eye on the other side of the fire. Calla had untangled herself from Farley’s lap and was pointing toward the cooler, taking orders from the crowd for beers.
“I should go back inside,” Olivia said quickly, and Soren glanced up. Confusion scrambled his features until he followed Olivia’s worried gaze to Calla, slowly making her way across the porch.
“Okay,” he said. “I guess I’ll see you.”
Olivia waved a subtle good-bye before ducking behind a row of rosebushes and crossing back over the deck, passing Farley in his chair on her way to the kitchen. It seemed silly that she and Soren had to sneak around while Calla was so obviously moving on. But it would have to do.
Bedtime sort of snuck up on people a little after one in the morning. Lark had already excused herself to her bedroom at the end of the hall; Austin and Dread Boy had snuck up to one of the guest rooms; and Graham had carried Eve thresholdstyle up the stairs, making a beeline for the other.
Soren was still outside somewhere, and Olivia was lingering at the bottom of the steps, hoping he’d pass through and give her a good-night wave before she went upstairs to the trundle bed she’d been assigned in Lark’s room. The living room was spooky and quiet, a graveyard of half-empty bottles and sleeping bodies. Logan and his friends were sprawled out on the floor, slumped on couches with their legs flopped over the armrests, and Farley was tucked into a sleeping bag next to the fireplace.
Olivia was about to give up when a shadowy figure outside caught her eye. At first she thought it might be Soren, climbing down the steps to the lower deck. Was he waiting for her?
She took a few steps toward the sliding doors and saw a long mane of dark hair flickering in the last reaching flames of the fire.
Calla.
If Farley hadn’t been snoring at her feet, Olivia might have assumed she was sneaking off somewhere with him. But he was.
Olivia pulled the glass door open, silently crossing the deck in the dark. She climbed carefully down the dark and crooked stairs, the wooden planks creaking under her bare feet. At the water’s edge, Calla quickly turned around, and Olivia could see by the orange glare of the nearby fire that her face was stained with tears.
“Oh,” Calla said quietly, a relieved smile crossing her face. “It’s you.”
Olivia settled herself down onto the dock beside her. Calla’s feet were swinging in the black water, making perfect round ripples around her slender ankles. “Are you okay?”
Calla sniffed and shrugged, lifting her chin to stare out at the dark horizon. The moon was full and the sky around it was shocked with pale gray. It was exactly the kind of quiet Olivia missed on the Vineyard. It even smelled the same.
“It looked like you were having a good time with Farley,” Olivia offered.
“I wasn’t,” Calla said, shaking her head with a sad smile. “I tried to. He’s such a nice guy. But…” She trailed off.
Olivia curled her hands around the edge of the dock, gripping the wooden planks as if she might fall off. “But what?” she gently prompted, as Calla wiped her damp cheeks with the back of one hand. Even crying, Calla looked beautiful, and f
or some reason Olivia thought of her dad. She’d seen him cry only once in her life, at the funeral, and had been amazed at how calm and graceful he’d looked while doing it. Some people got all splotchy or did weird things with their mouth, trying to hold their emotions back, but not her dad. He looked exactly the same as he always did, strong and handsome, with small, silent tears gently falling down his face.
It was the same with Calla.
“It’s not fair to Farley,” Calla was saying now, pushing her feet through the chilly water. “I know I shouldn’t, but I just keep comparing everything he does to Soren.”
Olivia’s stomach tightened, and she realized how hard she’d been hoping Calla was going to say something else. She took a deep breath and turned to the water.
“And it’s not like Soren was perfect,” Calla said with a little laugh. “He was just…there. And now he’s not. It’s hard to get used to.”
Olivia nodded, feeling a hard lump growing in the back of her throat. “I know,” she said quietly. “It must have been hard to see him tonight.”
Calla shrugged again and sniffled, wrapping her arms around her waist.
“Yeah,” she said. “We spent a lot of time together here. We kind of officially started going out at this same party last year, and over the summer we were up here basically every weekend.”
Olivia closed her eyes, trying not to imagine Calla and Soren together on this very deck, walking hand in hand on the beach, swimming at night under a different full moon…
“There were a few really bad weeks in August, when my parents were always fighting,” Calla said, tilting her face to the sky and squinting to remember. “My dad hadn’t been home for almost a month. He’s always traveling for work, but this was different, I could tell. And Soren would just sit with me out here, listening to me talk and talk and talk—not giving advice or anything, which I loved, you know? Just letting me cry. It was exactly what I needed.”
Wish Page 19