Nantucket Red (Nantucket Blue)

by Leila Howland

  “Sounds good,” I said, though that seemed like a lot if I was going to be sharing a bed with someone who hated me.

  “Cricket,” Amy called. I turned. It was the first time she’d said my name even though we’d been tethered by an invisible rope for several hours. She draped a proprietary arm around Ben and pointed to my apron. “Are you taking that home for a souvenir?”

  “Oh, whoops,” I said. As I unknotted the coffee-stained apron and headed to the locker room I heard her say to Ben, “What kind of a name is Cricket, anyway?”

  I practically crawled out of the restaurant. Several hours of waitressing had tired me out more than a whole lacrosse tournament. My blistered feet hurt even as I walked on the outside of the folded-in heels of my flats. My neck felt like it’d been stepped on, and I knew that I smelled like onion rings. I paused on Main Street, about to head into the pharmacy for an ice-cream sandwich, when I decided to go to Mitchell’s Book Corner instead. Seeing my name in George Gust’s book never failed to give me a little boost, and it was even better if I saw it in the actual store rather than in my own personal copy. I had one foot in the store when I spotted Zack straight ahead. Zack!

  Don’t care, I commanded myself as I silently stepped back to the sidewalk and slinked behind a tree. I steadied myself, tilted my head, breathed bark. There was the boy I knew in a baseball cap, bent over a book, turning the pages with care. He shifted his weight and turned ninety degrees, revealing the cover of the book. It was the reissued edition of her collected works, the one with the bright blue cover that my English teacher constantly praised. Emily Dickinson was what I had been reading on the beach last summer when we spent our first day alone together. Emily Dickinson was the book that held open the window he climbed into to find me. “Emily Dickinson was an American genius,” I’d told him once, and we’d both burst into laughter because I’d sounded so serious. Emily Dickinson!

  It was a sign. He was thinking about me. This Parker relationship was some kind of misguided illusion, some terrible strain of boarding school amnesia. I couldn’t see him now, not in my Talbots khakis, not when I smelled like garlic and onions, with coffee grounds under my fingernails. I stepped out of my shoes and ran back to the inn barefoot, this new information filling me with lightness and speed.

  When I got back to the manager’s apartment, I took a long shower. The food smell lifted from my hair and skin after the third scrubbing. I slathered myself with lotion, put on my Brown lacrosse T-shirt, and climbed into my makeshift bed on the sofa. I heard mumbles from Liz’s room. She was probably on the phone with Shane, who was out on the Cape for at least another few days.

  From the window, sounds of kids laughing drifted up with the scent of honeysuckle and freshly mowed grass. I pulled out the Musée de Rodin book and looked at The Kiss. I closed my eyes and let myself slip, remembering the first time Zack and I had spent the whole night together. I gave myself the dream like a gift, like a stolen bar of chocolate.

  Sixteen

  “DO YOU SUPPOSE THAT’S YOUR LITTLE, um, corner?” Liz asked and pointed to a bare twin-size mattress with a tiny pillow on it on the floor. Liz said it was the kind that you got on an airplane for international flights. The mattress was one of five in a room meant for two, three of which were on actual bed frames and two of which lay on the stained carpet. The one without the sheets on it was definitely meant for me. I just knew it. “At least you won’t be sharing a bed with Amy,” Liz said.

  It was four days later and even though I’d been prepared, I had yet to run into Zack or Jules. I certainly wasn’t going to run into them out here. Liz and I were at the staff house out on Surfside Road. It was a tiny one-bedroom, one-bathroom shack that I was going to be sharing with six girls, one of whom was snoring in a thong and T-shirt, facedown on the futon in the living room in front of a TV tuned to a daytime talk show, advising as to how to “shop your own closet.” The box of wine on the coffee table indicated she’d spent the previous night like this, too. I didn’t recognize her, at least not from this angle, so she must have been one of the girls from the Wamp.

  Inside the bedroom, only one of the beds was made. It was probably the one belonging to Nicky, the career waitress. The other beds, littered with magazines, with sheets and clothes strewn everywhere, made it look as if zombies had attacked without warning.

  “And at least you’re near the window?” Liz said.

  “Yeah.” I stepped over an empty beer bottle and an open bag of hot Cheetos and looked out the window. It was open a crack, but needed to be up all the way all the time. It smelled like a mixture of old cheese and socks in there. There was a tang to the odor that was more taste than smell. People think girls are neat and clean and boys are the messy ones, but this house was living proof that that wasn’t true. I opened the screenless window and stuck my head out. Amy was in the yard reading the New York Times. No lipstick.

  In the last few days she’d learned to tolerate having me follow her around, as long as I didn’t talk too much, and I’d learned to pick up whatever I could through observation alone, since she was not about to provide instruction. If I had any questions, Nicky was the one who’d give answers. I’d also learned not to talk to Ben in front of Amy; whatever they had going on was complicated and semisecret, and she did her best to limit my time at the bar. If there were drinks to pick up, she sent me to fold napkins, wipe up the dessert station, or check on appetizers in the kitchen.

  “It’s not so terrible,” Liz said, peering out the window to the patch of dry grass behind the house where Amy was now lighting a cigarette. “Look, there’s a backyard for lacrosse practice.”

  “Yeah,” I said, imagining practicing shots on goal over a smoking, sunbathing Amy. So far, I’d kept up with my running, but I hadn’t done my stick drills at all. Amy turned around and squinted at the sound of our voices.

  “Hi,” I smiled too big and waved too cheerfully.

  “Oh,” she muttered, turned back to her newspaper, and crossed her legs. Amy had the toned legs of a dancer. She really was beautiful.

  “Twat,” Liz said too loudly. She pulled back from the window, and took another look around. “I’m just going to use the loo, and then I’ll leave you to get settled.”

  I pursed my lips and nodded. I wanted to throw myself at her feet, cling to her, and beg her not to leave me there. I sat on the lumpy mattress and tried not to cry. A line of ants crawled up the wall and toward the window. If Zack and I did get back together, there was no way I wanted him climbing through this window.

  I took a deep breath and searched for some empty space in a closet, but the one in the bedroom was claimed. The bar was bending under the weight of crowded, overloaded hangers. On the floor were a jumble of shoes, and two full hampers. This was one closet I did not want to shop. I shut the door as if the organisms living in the teeming piles of dirty laundry might attack.

  Maybe there was another closet in the living room? Doing my best not to disturb Thonged Snoring Girl, I grasped at the first doorknob I found, but it was on the door to the bathroom. Liz was standing in front of the sink washing her hands with a vigor I’d never seen.

  “It’s awful,” I said.

  “A hovel!” Liz said. “Look.” She gestured at the toilet with its nasty, rust-colored ring. Pinching together her thumb and forefinger, she opened the flimsy, ripped shower curtain to reveal a plastic stall with blackish mold blossoming in all the corners. Liz washed her hands again and then looked around for something to dry them on. She paused centimeters shy of the mildewed towels that were piled on top of one another on a single hook. Holding her breath, she dried her hands on her jeans.

  “I’ll scrub it myself,” I said. “I’ll just get some rubber gloves and some Ajax and roll up my sleeves and do it.”

  “Have you seen the kitchen yet?”

  I shook my head.

  Liz swallowed. “You can stay with me for one m
ore night, two maximum, but you have to make yourself very scarce. It’s the first night Shane is back from the Cape, and I do not want to be disturbed.”

  “I’ll hang out in the kitchen until you text me that the coast is clear.”

  “It might not be until very, very late. We’re sexually adventurous.”

  “I know. I don’t care. I’ll sleep outdoors in the hammock if you want.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said. “Quick, before we contract athlete’s foot.” She pointed to a stagnant puddle in the shower where a mosquito hovered lasciviously. “Or dengue fever.”

  We grabbed my stuff.

  “Who are you?” Thonged Snoring Girl asked, groggy, wiping her crusty eyes with clumsy hands.

  “Figments of your imagination,” Liz said as we flew out the door. “Mere shadows.”

  “Hey, can you drop these on table nine?” Ben asked that night as I passed by the bar on my way to see how the customers at table sixteen were doing with their appetizers. It was my last night of training and I was pretty much a free girl. I’d managed five tables on my own, from the Lillet aperitifs to the beach plum sorbet. It killed me that Amy was going to get all the tips. Ben was chilling martini glasses, lining up highballs, and tearing off tickets all at the same time, but with such laid-back summer style, he didn’t even look like he was working. “Amy’s in the weeds.”

  “Sure,” I said, noticing the appealing line of his side as he reached for a wineglass. He opened a fresh bottle of Pouilly-Fumé, ran a blade below the lower ridge to remove the wrapper, twisted the corkscrew with a confident wrist, and poured two cool, pale, straw-colored glasses with the kind of relaxed competence that made watching him so easy. “And I know exactly where table nine is.”

  “I’m starting to see why you got into Brown,” he said, and, without breaking eye contact, placed the drinks on a tray. “You should come by the brewery tomorrow, I’m playing some new songs. I’ve been meaning to ask you for a few days, but it’s hard to get you alone.”

  “Oh,” I said. Was he asking me out?

  “Everyone’s invited,” he said.

  “Fuck,” Amy said under her breath as she punched an order into a nearby computer and messed up. “Fuck me.” She canceled the order, blinked her long, luxurious lashes, and started again. “Hey, are you moving into the Surfside house, or what?”

  “Tomorrow,” I said.

  “Just so you know, I get the first shower in the morning.”

  “Okay,” I said, too cheerful, as always. I was probably always going to be too cheerful for grumpy alternative girls. I sighed. She marched off.

  Ben waited until Amy was in the kitchen, and then he leaned a little closer. He smelled like a man. Herbs and spices. Gin and lime. Summer and salt. “Before the show I’m going surfing. Want to come?”

  “I don’t surf,” I said. Not only was I certain that Amy would suffocate me with my own pillow in my sleep if I went surfing with Ben, I was so focused on seeing Zack I didn’t think I’d be able to concentrate on another activity. It had been almost a week since I’d seen him at Mitchell’s Book Corner, and even though I’d been hanging out in town on my mornings off, always ready, always in cute outfits, I had yet to run into him again.

  “I can teach you,” he said.

  “I think I have plans,” I said.

  “Okay,” Ben said, biting his lip. “You sure about that?”

  I nodded, turning away. Again with the blushing! I was going to have to start wearing ski masks to work so I could hide, even as my cheeks betrayed me. It was like my face had its own relationship with him.

  “Okay, no pressure.” He seemed to mean it, like he wasn’t disappointed at all, and I was considering changing my mind as he handed me the tray of drinks. It was heavier than I’d expected. “If you look at them, you’ll spill. Don’t look.”

  “I got it,” I said. I steadied my gaze on my destination: table nine. I knew Ben was watching, and I was determined to deliver the drinks without spilling a drop. But when I stepped out on the porch and their faces came into view, I almost lost the drinks, my footing, my breath, and my mind.

  It was the Claytons.

  Seventeen

  “CRICKET!” JULES SAID AS I ARRIVED at the table shaking so hard that I had to put the tray down in front of her. It was Jules, Mr. Clayton, Zack, and one empty chair. Mom had been right about the Easy Spirits. Work had been a lot more comfortable once I’d surrendered, but seeing Zack in nursing home shoes made me want to crawl under the table, out of the restaurant, and down the beach, and swim home to Providence. I swallowed, not sure I had enough saliva to speak. I’d wanted to see him. I’d dreamed about it, but not like this.

  “Surprise,” I said and laughed weakly. “Again?”

  “Hi.” Zack said. He held me with his eyes. For a second, it was just us. This was no high five. For a moment, I thought he was going to stand up and kiss me in front of Amy and Ben and Jules and everyone.

  “Hi,” I said. His cheeks patched with red.

  “Cricket Elizabeth Thompson,” Jules said. “Sérieusement? What are you doing here? What happened to Leo’s?”

  “It’s kind of a long story.” I handed a Coke to Jules. “And I’ve been meaning to call you, but I just kept, I don’t know, not doing it.” I was about to give Zack his Coke, but my hand was trembling so much that I had to put the glass down.

  “I got it,” Zack said, leaning over and taking it. His pinkie brushed the back of my hand. I willed my blood to slow its pace.

  “Hi, Mr. Clayton,” I said.

  “It’s great to see you,” Mr. Clayton said. “I’m glad you’re working here. This means we’ll be seeing a lot of you this summer.”

  “We joined the Wamp!” Jules said. “We finally got in off the waiting list!”

  “After fifteen years,” Mr. Clayton said, laughing and pushing his Prada glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  “Yes,” Jules said, making pointed eye contact with Mr. Clayton. “Because of Mom. It’s what Mom wanted.”

  “Jules, can we just enjoy the night?” Mr. Clayton asked. Zack stared into his Coke and stirred it with the cocktail straw.

  “Well, I think it’s great. Here’s your wine.” I handed Mr. Clayton his Pouilly-Fumé, which left me with one more glass. I looked at the empty seat. Who was it for? Oh, god, I thought, did seventeen-year-old Parker have the gall to order wine? I watched Jules frown as a pretty woman in a hot-pink minidress sat in the remaining seat. I placed the wine in front of her.

  “This is my friend, Jennifer,” Mr. Clayton said. I heard the quotation marks snap into place around the word friend. “Jennifer, this is Cricket.”

  “Cricket, what a cute name!” Jennifer said. “I’m so very pleased to meet you.”

  “You, too,” I said. I felt a hand on my back. A strong, tiny hand. It was Amy. She cleared her throat and gestured for me to step aside.

  “I’m Amy, and I’ll be your server tonight. Any questions about the menu?”

  “We need a few minutes, right, guys?” Mr. Clayton said.

  “Are the moules-frites good?” Zack asked.

  “The best. Our chef brought the recipe back from Paris,” Amy said.

  “That’s what I’m having,” Zack said and shut his menu.

  “Aw, because of Parker?” Jennifer mewled. “How cute is that, y’all? His girl is in Paris, so he’s ordering French food!”

  His girl?

  “Is that right?” asked Amy in her fake waitress voice. “That is romantic.”

  Paris? The Paris I’d been reading about in my Musée de Rodin book?

  “Not really,” Zack said. “My girlfriend is in Paris, but I just feel like mussels.”

  Girlfriend. The way he tossed off the word felt like a rock through my window.

  “What’s she doing there?” I asked,
too loud, too serious.

  Amy glared at me from under her mascaraed eyelashes. “Uh, don’t mind Cricket, she’s training. We’re not sure she’s going to last.”

  “We know her.” Jules eyed Amy, ready to throw a punch.

  “She’s like family,” Mr. Clayton added. I wanted to send him a thank-you note.

  “Parker’s studying in Paris,” Zack said to me.

  “Right!” Jules rolled her eyes. “She’s ‘studying.’ Puh-leez.”

  “Jules,” Zack began, but I couldn’t hang around for another word.

  I backed away from the table and wove through the restaurant to the ladies’ room, still carrying that stupid tray. I looked in the mirror and splashed cold water on my face. Don’t cry, I told my reflection. Don’t you dare cry! I patted my face dry with one of the cloth-quality paper towels and opened the door, where I found myself inches from Zack, who was headed to the men’s room.

  “I don’t understand,” I blurted out before I could stop myself, knowing even as the words were leaving my mouth that I would regret them later. “Why are you with her?”

  “I called you,” he said, looking almost scared. “Remember? And you told me it was over.”

  “What?” Anger, quick as lightning, flashed through me. “THAT’s how you interpreted that phone call?” I uncurled my fists, took a deep breath. “I didn’t think…Zack, I had no friends at school. I was trying to get my life back. I told you to wait! If you interpreted it like that it’s because you wanted to!”

  “I needed you. And you weren’t there.”

  “What? No.” I reached out to take his hand.

  He squeezed it quickly and let go. “Yes, Cricket.”

  It was like the high five, part two. “But Parker? Parker? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Hey,” he said, giving me a stop-sign hand. “Hey.”

  “You’re going to stay with her?” I asked. I was on a roll.