Nantucket Red (Nantucket Blue)

by Leila Howland

  “Working at Leo’s,” I said. Leo’s was a sandwich shop between the Brown and RISD campuses, famous for its barrel of pickles. My first shift was in three days. For the first time, I didn’t mind staying in Providence for the summer while all my classmates went off on some exotic adventure or to a second home in an elite location. I just wanted to start college.

  “You’re stuck in Providence?” Jay asked. “That sucks.”

  “I’m fine with it.”

  “Cool,” Jay said. “I have an internship at my dad’s bank in London.”

  “Wow,” I said, as we made our way to the bar. “London.” I felt a dagger of panic. Should I be going someplace like London this summer?

  “And Jules, as you probably know, is—”

  “Heading to Nantucket on Friday,” Jules said, interrupting him.

  I smiled and turned to greet the Alden Three. “Hey, Chloe; hey, Jessie; what’s up, Gemma?” Gemma waved. Jessie nodded. Chloe mumbled hello.

  “So here’s the plan,” Jay said, sitting next to Jules and squeezing her knee. “There’s this secret old bowling alley in one of the old buildings at Brown.”

  “For real?” asked Gemma, whose heavy eyelids indicated she was already drunk.

  “Yeah,” Jay said. “It’s from, like, the forties, and Dirt’s brother knows how to break in.” Rich Green, a.k.a. “Dirt,” looked up through a haze of pot smoke and nodded. “So we’re going bowling tonight, kids.”

  “It’s fucking awesome,” Dirt said. “They have pins and everything. And you have to go through these underground tunnels to get there.” Then, noticing me for the first time, he smiled and meowed. I scooted a little farther down the couch, away from him.

  “In your dreams, Dirt,” Jay said. Dirt shrugged and spat.

  “Dude,” Jay said.

  “That’s brilliant,” Jules said. “We have to make teams!”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Don’t worry,” Jay said. “We’re going to be quiet and cool, and no one’s around. The campus is, like, dead.”

  A second wave of Alden kids arrived, busting through the door to the roof. “LO-GAN,” Lucas Saunders shouted, pumping a fist in the air; his other arm was weighted down with a six-pack.

  “I might have to sit this one out,” I said.

  “Oh, come on,” Jules said. With the sunset behind her, she was outlined in gold. “You have to come.”

  “Think of it this way,” Jay said, heading behind the bar and scooping ice into a plastic cup. “This is our last night of high school. Our whole life is about to change. What can I get you?”

  “Just a Coke,” I said.

  He poured Coke into the cup, fastened a sliced lime to the rim, and handed it to me. “You only live once, right?”

  “That’s what they say, but I can’t do it,” I said.

  Someone with squeaky brakes was parking on the street below. Jules tensed, stood, and peered over the edge of the rooftop, then turned around with a furrowed brow. “Ugh,” she said, sinking back into her seat. “Ugh, I told them not to come.”

  I stood and saw the land yacht below. I held my breath as Zack stepped out of the car and judged his parking job. My heart hammered as my mind circled the pronoun them.

  I watched as a girl climbed out of the passenger seat and combed her fingers through her dark, shiny hair. She was a little unsteady in her sky-high heels on the uneven sidewalk and Zack reached out a hand to her. As they joined hands and walked toward the front door, it sank in that Zack had a real, live girlfriend. She wasn’t just a mysterious presence on the other end of a phone at Starbucks, but an actual person with fantastic hair. As I leaned farther over the railing to watch them walk, I realized I knew her. The air left my lungs as her familiar laugh drifted up from the street like a tendril of smoke.

  His girlfriend was Parker Carmichael.

  Nine

  I FLEW BACK DOWN THE THREE FLIGHTS of increasingly majestic stairs and out the oversize front door flanked by ceramic footmen. I just had to hope that Zack and Parker were taking the elevator. He wasn’t going to have another chance to offer me a high five, not with Parker looking on. I knew they went to the same boarding school, but I never imagined they were together. I was in mid-driveway, almost clear of the bus-size Suburban, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Jules.

  “Cricket, don’t go. It’s our graduation night.”

  “What’s up with Zack and your friends? First me, now Parker?” She laughed, but I wasn’t joking. “Why is he with her?”

  “She goes to Hanover, too,” she said.

  “She does? But Parker is so mean. She’s the meanest girl I’ve ever met.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Jules held up her hands like the scales of justice. “It’s not that she’s mean. You don’t really know her. You, like, can’t be objective. She can be great when she wants to be, and she’s been through a lot.” Laughter spilled from the rooftop. “Come on, don’t you want fun memories of tonight?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about Parker?”

  “I don’t know. You guys were broken up.”

  “And what happened to his glasses?”

  “He got LASIK.”

  For some reason, this felt like a betrayal. “I have to go. Thank you for the picture.”

  “I thought we could have a night like old times, but never mind. Do you want a ride?” She looked like she’d rather conjugate French verbs. In a prison cell. In Siberia.

  “No thanks, I’ll walk.”

  But as soon as I was out of sight, I ran. Instead of going home, I went to the track at Alden where my feet tried to keep pace with my heart. Had that been Parker on the phone at Christmas? That meant they’d been together for six months, at least. Six months was serious. I felt like I’d been punched. I kicked off my flats and ran on the grass. I hit my stride. What did they talk about? Did he go to her house in Connecticut on the weekends? Had they been back to Nantucket together? Had they had sex? Ugh. That was a stupid question. Of course they had. It wasn’t just that he’d forgotten who I was, he’d forgotten who he was. Richa Singh had said that when you look at the stars, you’re seeing what no longer exists. Was Zack like those stars, I wondered? Was he even there at all?

  I’d completely sweated through my tank top when I decided to head home. I hadn’t counted the laps, but I was sure I’d run at least four miles tonight. Maybe five. My flouncy skirt was clinging to my tingling quads, and though I couldn’t see in the dark, I knew my feet were filthy with ground-in dirt and grass. I have lots of parties ahead of me next year, I told myself as I used the light on my cell phone to search the grass for my discarded shoes. Parties full of people who don’t give a shit about Nantucket.

  When I first stepped into Mom’s house, I thought the TV was on. I heard kissing and moaning and wondered what channel Mom had been watching. Those Lifetime movies are getting pretty raunchy, I thought. It wasn’t until I took a few extra steps toward the kitchen that I realized that these were live, real-time sex sounds coming from the living room sofa. It was almost like I was suffering a moment of complete disbelief so intense that it took me a regrettable extra minute to put it together. I held my breath and flung my hands over my ears.

  “Cricket?” Mom asked.

  I didn’t answer. It would be better for her to think it was a burglar. I tiptoed back out the door, wincing as it slammed shut behind me, and sat on the porch steps with my head between my knees.

  “Cricket?” Mom asked, appearing in the doorway moments later, her bathrobe wrapped tightly around her. She sat next to me, radiating a warmth I didn’t want to think about. I put my head in my hands. She ran a light hand over my back. “Honey, why are you sweating?”

  “I went for a run,” I said, and pulled away.

  “At night?”

  “Yes.”

  “T
hat’s odd.”

  “What can I say? It’s been an odd night.”

  “Hmm. I think we should talk about this.”

  “No, we shouldn’t,” I said, shaking my head. “No need. I promise.”

  “Well, okay, if you say so,” she said, but didn’t move.

  “I need to be alone right now.”

  She sighed and stood up, pausing in front of the door. “I almost forgot. You got a message.”

  “I did?” Zack, I thought in a flash of hope, calling to explain.

  “It was Rosemary. She and Jim want to talk to you before they head back up to Boston tomorrow. She asked for you to meet them at Starbucks at nine.”

  “That’s strange,” I said.

  “I’m going to go back inside now and Brad and I are going to, um, retire to my bedroom. So you can feel perfectly comfortable coming back inside and—”

  “Got it,” I said. “I’m going to hang out here for a minute.”

  “You know, as roommates, we’re going to have to learn to, well, communicate about these things.”

  “Good night, Mom,” I said. I shut my eyes and held my breath until I heard the door shut behind her.

  Ten

  I’D ALREADY DOWNED HALF MY LATTE when Rosemary and Jim spotted me, waved, and joined me at the one free table, which was really much too small for the three of us. I hadn’t slept well. I’d been so afraid of overhearing more from Mom and Brad that it was like my ears were rebelling and I’d become extra sensitive. I’d spent the night listening to the walls breathe.

  “We’ve been talking,” Rosemary said.

  “We’re looking for a number,” Jim said, rapping the table with his knuckles.

  “A number?”

  “Honey, how much do you need to live in the dorms, eat in the cafeteria, buy your books, and have some spending money?” Rosemary asked.

  “Oh. Well, I’m not sure.” I gripped my latte. Were they offering what I thought they were? Did they have any idea how much money it would be? My parents and I had been over it a hundred times, and it was a lot more than any of us would’ve imagined. “It’s a lot.”

  “This is no time to be shy,” Jim said. He took a heavy gold pen from his shirt pocket and offered it to me along with a Starbucks napkin.

  “Okay.” I smoothed out the napkin. “The dorms are eight thousand.” I drew an eight. “The meal plan is four.” I added a four. “And anticipated student fees are two.” I totaled it, writing fourteen thousand and turned the number to face them. “It’s so much, it’s really insane. I don’t know how—”

  “Let’s add some spending money,” Rosemary said. She crossed out my fourteen thousand and wrote sixteen thousand. She smiled. “A girl can’t live on bread and lacrosse alone.”

  Jim peered down his nose through his glasses and studied the number. He rapped the table again. “Your father is a wonderful man. And he’s done a world of good for Polly and the boy.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Now, I’m a businessman, a self-made businessman.”

  “His mother worked in the Necco Wafer factory,” Rosemary said, patting his arm. “And his father drank her wages.”

  Jim raised a hand to stop her. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t get some help along the way. I did. And now I’d like to offer you some help and teach you a little about self-reliance.”

  “Okay.” I was as ready to hear a plan as I’d ever been.

  “If you make eight thousand dollars this summer, I’ll match it,” Jim said.

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s so generous. Thank you.”

  “What do you think?” Rosemary asked. “Can you do it?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Absolutely.”

  “It has to be at least eight,” Jim said.

  “Got it,” I said. “Eight.”

  “Then we’ve got a deal,” Jim said. He stood up and shook my hand.

  “You can use those sheets after all,” Rosemary said as she kissed my cheek.

  I watched in a stupor as they climbed into their Volvo and drove off, as if they went around changing lives on a daily basis. The amazement shifted to panic as I walked home. How was I going to do this? Eight thousand dollars in two months? Okay, two and almost a half, but still, it wasn’t going to happen at Leo’s for nine bucks an hour. Providence was hardly a summer destination. The restaurants were dead when the students were away. I mean, unless I aced an audition for the Legs & Eggs shift at the Foxy Lady. For a second I thought I could do it in secret and write a blog about it, but a second later I knew that was ridiculous. So, where was I going to get all that money?

  When I got back home and saw Nina’s picture propped up on my dresser, the answer came to me in a vision, the same way I imagine it does for religious people when they say they see the face of the Virgin Mary in a vegetable or a taco or whatever. Only it wasn’t a holy figure that appeared before me, but a crescent-shaped island thirty miles out to sea. A place where money rolled in as thick as fog, where bills slipped through fingers like sand, where people’s pockets were as deep and open as the ocean itself.

  Nantucket.

  Shit.

  Eleven

  THOUGH STARTING TOTALLY FRESH in a new place might’ve been a good thing if I had had more time, with just a little over nine weeks I needed to go where I knew the lay of the land and had a few local references. This seemed especially true once Liz, my British friend, with whom I’d been a chambermaid at the Cranberry Inn last year, offered to let me stay with her for a little bit. She was running the place now because our old boss, Gavin, was off in Bali doing yoga. She said I could crash in the manager’s apartment with her, but only for a week. After that, her boyfriend Shane was moving in. “Waitressing is where the money is,” she’d told me. “Mark my words.”

  Over the next few days, I applied for ten waitressing jobs through The Inquirer and Mirror Web site, picking the ones that came with housing. I’d even had a phone interview at a restaurant called Breezes, but I had failed the wine test. It was the first thing I had ever failed in my entire life. My lowest grade to date had been a seventy-eight. Clearly, if I was going to get a waitressing job, I needed to expand my wine knowledge beyond Mom’s chardonnay with the kangaroo on the label, so I bought a book called Wine Made Simple and studied it every day with the same dedication I had once applied to SAT vocabulary words.

  At the end of the week, Mom drove me to the Steamship Authority in Hyannis where I’d catch the ferry to Nantucket.

  “You got everything?” Mom asked. People were sporting their brightest clothes and monogrammed canvas bags as they filed aboard The Eagle with their luggage, bikes, kids, and dogs. A man directed a line of Range Rovers, Jeeps, and Volvos onto the boat. It was chilly, windy, and spitting rain.

  “I guess,” I said, my mouth dry with anxiety.

  “Here you go,” Mom said and lifted my carry-on roller bag from the trunk. It was stuffed to the gills, mostly with shorts and T-shirts, but also with my running shoes and a comfortable pair of sneakers called Easy Spirits. They were the ugliest shoes I’d ever seen, but Mom insisted that there was no way to be a good waitress without comfortable shoes. She should know. She’d waitressed all through college and teacher school. I extended the handle and tilted it on its wheels. I slid my purse over my shoulder and tucked it safely under my arm. My picture of Nina was in there, and I didn’t want anything to happen to it.

  “Don’t forget this,” Mom said, handing me the lacrosse stick I’d almost left in the backseat.

  “Oh, yeah, thanks. I’m going to need that.” I had to practice my stick work. Stacy, the Brown lacrosse coach, was going to be posting weekly videos with practice drills, and we were supposed to be running an average of five miles a day. I stuck my lacrosse stick through a loop in my backpack.

  “Well, I have one more thing for you,” Mom s
aid. “I figured since you found mine so interesting last year, you might as well write your own.”

  She handed me a package. I unwrapped it. It was a journal. It was dark purple with gold along the edges of the paper. It smelled like real leather. It felt solid, substantial. I put it in my purse with the picture. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Oh, and I almost forgot. Paul said to call him if you need anything. He’s out there pretty much full-time through August.” She handed me the business card of Paul Morgan, the lawyer I met last summer on the island and tried to fix her up with before I realized he was gay. They were now Facebook buddies who always liked each other’s posts. “Stick it in your wallet so you won’t lose it. You’re doing the right thing,” Mom said, taking my face in her hands, “but it doesn’t mean I can’t be a little sad for myself. I was looking forward to us being roommates.”

  “Oh, Mom. You and Brad are good together. You don’t want me around.”

  “What if I do? What if I need you?”

  “You’re going to be fine.” I hugged her, grabbed my own wrist behind her back, and squeezed her tight.

  “Hey, you’re going to be fine, too. Aren’t you and Jules friends again?”

  “Kind of,” I said. I hadn’t even told Jules I was going back to Nantucket. I kept making myself promise I was going to tell her by the end of the hour, the end of the morning, the end of the day, but here I was, about to get on the ferry, and she still didn’t know.

  “And what about Zack?”

  “I can’t think about that.” I felt a wave of seasickness even though I was still on land.

  “Remember, there’s nothing more attractive than self-confidence.”

  “But Mom, I’m trying not to think of him at all.”

  “Oh, well, in that case.” She fished around in her purse and pulled out a Sharpie. As a teacher, Mom had a Sharpie and a dry-erase marker on her at all times. I was about to ask her how she knew about Parker when she uncapped the Sharpie and drew a big blue number eight on my palm.

  “There. So you keep your eyes on the prize. Eight thousand dollars.” She glanced at her watch as I studied the inky evidence of her most un–mom-like move to date. “Honey, you have to go. Your ferry is going to leave any minute and you still need a ticket.”