“You don’t know her or—”
“Oh, I know enough,” I said. Amy was walking toward me, looking super pissed off, but I couldn’t deal with her right now. “What I don’t know is why you read Emily Dickinson in your spare time.”
“What are you talking about?” He flushed, bright as one of the buoys bobbing in the harbor.
Amy grabbed me by the apron and pulled me into the hot kitchen. I’d learned on the lacrosse field that some of those tiny girls sure are strong.
“What the hell was that? If I get a shitty tip, I swear, you are going down.”
“This isn’t about your tip, Amy,” I said as I retied my apron. One of the cooks licked his lips as he watched us. I turned my back to the kitchen and lowered my voice. “And it’s not like you’ve been giving me any actual training.”
“You want training? Okay. You spent way too long at that table, even if you do know them. Table six doesn’t even have menus yet. Your shirt is untucked in the back. Two days ago you ate a pastry within sight of the floor. That’s enough for some of these dickheads to refuse to pay their bill. And you should never, never put a tray on the table like you just did. If Karla sees you do that, she’ll fire you like this.” She snapped her fingers.
“Thanks for the help,” I said, not sure myself if I was being serious or sarcastic. Then I kicked open the door and walked straight to the bar.
Ben took one look at me, poured me a Coke, and pushed it toward me. It was sweet and soothing. Maybe I was done with high school boys. Maybe all this blushing in front of Ben was because my nervous system knew what was up. “How do you get to the brewery?”
“It’s on the way to Cisco,” he said, grinning. “Why, you’re gonna come?”
I wrote my number on a napkin. “Text me the address.”
“What about surfing?” he asked.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“Oh, you’re going to come surfing with me,” he said as he entered my number into his phone. “And you’re going to love it.”
“Hey, Cricket,” Amy snapped as she walked by. “Table six?”
Eighteen
I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER, I told myself as I headed home that night. I was like a lobster that had willingly jumped into the pot. What was I thinking? After the high five, it had been clear that Zack and I were through. How could he have misunderstood me on the phone before Thanksgiving? I’d told him I loved him. But that’s what happened when people did long distance, right? Love got lost in translation, scrambled at the cell-phone towers, twisted in the wireless wind. I’d tried so hard to avoid it, but it’d happened anyway.
Who knows why he was reading Emily Dickinson? Maybe it was for school. Maybe it was pure, unemotional, intellectual curiosity. Maybe I had dreamed up the moment, because I wanted it to exist. A Jeep full of college dudes blasted by, blaring ghetto rap and emitting such high levels of testosterone it was a wonder I didn’t sprout a pair of balls from proximity. As Amy would say, they were FAAs (pronounced fahs), Future Assholes of America. Amy probably thought Zack was a FAA, which of course, he wasn’t.
Or was he? I mean, he was dating Parker. Parker. I shook my head. It didn’t make sense. I walked past the Nantucket Yacht Club, where sounds of a wedding band playing “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” blew in on a harbor breeze. I wished someone would tell me through the grapevine what he saw in her. Though it made me snarl, I tried to list her good qualities just so I could understand.
Okay, so Parker had awesome hair. That much could not be denied. She was bold, in her way. She had a number of horse-related achievements. She was a senator’s daughter, rich, exposed to music and art, well traveled, well dressed. I stood still for a moment, wondering if this made her better than me in Zack’s eyes. Did all those first-class tickets to the wonders of the world, all those two-hundred-dollar jeans and skillful descents of double black diamond trails distinguish her from me in a way I couldn’t even see?
I turned up Main Street. My pace quickened. Was she, like, really elegant or something and I didn’t even realize it? Impossible, I thought. No one was more elegant than Nina, and Parker was nothing like Nina. But was I like Nina? It’s not like I could do the things on Nina’s life list the way Parker could. I couldn’t go to Paris, not until it was time for my junior year abroad, anyway. As I climbed the stairs to the manager’s apartment, I felt that dagger of panic. How was I supposed to do everything, be everything? I’d done the best I could in high school, run myself ragged, but suddenly that wasn’t enough. The rules had changed and I didn’t even know what they were.
That was when I noticed that the shades weren’t drawn in the manager’s apartment. Liz was supposed to be having her wild sex marathon with Shane, and I was under strict instructions to insert cotton balls in my ears and head straight to the sofa. But all the lights were on. I could see directly into the bedroom. It was empty. Liz was in the kitchen, pacing with a bottle of wine. Not a glass, a bottle.
“Liz, are you okay?” I asked, barging in. She burst into tears.
“What happened?” I’d never seen Liz cry. I’d never even imagined it, but she was shaking and sobbing. I put my arms around her.
“He dumped me,” she said, gasping for breath. “He was seeing someone else this whole time!”
“Oh, Liz,” I said, guiding her to the sofa and handing her a box of tissues. “Are you sure?”
“Am I sure?” she slurred. She flung an arm in what I guessed was the general direction of Shane. “I saw the bastard with my own eyes.”
“How? Where?” I ran to the sink and poured her a glass of water, but she reached for the wine again.
“He called to cancel our date, said he needed one more day on the Cape.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” I handed her the water again.
“I just had this weird feeling that he wasn’t actually on the Cape. Like, it was weird. Paranormal. A sixth sense. I drove by his house.”
“Uh-oh.”
“He was out on the porch, kissing another girl.” Her face screwed up. “Svetlana. Skinny, horrible Svetlana. Svetlana the cow!”
“No!”
“Normally, I’m like, stiff upper lip, but, Cricket?” She waved her hand as another rush of tears came on. “I thought we were going to get married. I didn’t go to university.” She gripped my shoulders, eyes round with fear. “I didn’t go to university.”
“You still can.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know, but you can.”
“I’ve got to start my applications.” She tripped as she reached toward her laptop. “University!”
“Why don’t we tackle that tomorrow?” I guided her toward the bedroom and turned down her perfectly made bed, which was scattered with rose petals and surrounded by unlit candles. I swept my arm across the coverlet, sending the rose petals to the floor. “What do you say we get you to bed?”
“I can’t,” Liz said as she crawled under the covers. She looked like a little kid, the sheets pulled up to her nose, her curls fanned out on the pillow. “Then I’ll have to get up. And if I get up, it will all be real.”
“You just sleep. I’ll set up tomorrow,” I said, as I sat on the edge of the bed.
“The muffins and everything?”
“The muffins and everything.” I got up and backed away and turned off the light.
“Don’t go,” Liz said. “Don’t leave me alone tonight.”
“Okay,” I lay down next to her. I spotted a tube of some kind of sex oil and gingerly knocked it under the bed and out of sight.
“Tell me a story,” she said, flipping the pillow over.
“Once upon a time, there was a frog.”
“Was he actually a prince?” she asked.
“Nope, just a frog,” I said, making it up as I went along. “A girl frog. And she had many, many ad
ventures.”
The frog had moved to a lovely new pond, gained employment with an alligator, learned to play the banjo, and entertained a flock of fairies before Liz finally started snoring.
Nineteen
“YOU JUST LET ME HANDLE getting us the drinks,” Liz said the next afternoon. We were at the brewery, which was in the middle of the island, near Bartlett’s Farm. It was made up of a cluster of small buildings, each one with a little bar inside it. One served beer, one served wine, and the third served vodka drinks. In the middle was a courtyard with picnic tables, crowded with people in sundresses and flip-flops. Someone was grilling hamburgers in the parking lot and selling them for a mere five bucks, which was way below the going Nantucket rate of eighteen.
“I’m not drinking, because I have to practice, remember?” I said, even though I knew Liz wouldn’t listen. She hadn’t surfaced until almost noon. I’d made the coffee and muffins at five a.m., handled the checkouts, and canceled my date with Ben in order to greet any early new arrivals. I’d been planning on working out that afternoon, but I made the mistake of telling Liz that Ben, the bartender I’d met on the ferry, was playing at the brewery, and she’d said the only cure for her horribly broken heart was cranberry vodka, a good crowd, and the company of a loyal friend. “Please,” she’d said, her curls tossed and messy. “Please come with me.” So there I was, putting off my lacrosse practice yet again.
“Besides,” I added, scoping out the small stage where Ben would soon be playing, “we don’t have ID.”
“I know everyone who works here,” Liz said. “Get us a couple of hamburgers and find us a seat up front.”
I had just paid for the burgers and found a picnic bench in the shade when I saw Karla. It was pretty much impossible to miss her blue hair. She had her arm around a petite woman with coffee-colored skin and dangly earrings. She waved just as Liz returned with two cranberry drinks.
“It’s Karla,” I said, watching my boss approach, a cold, alcoholic drink in my hand. “She knows I’m not twenty-one.”
“When are you going to realize that you don’t have to be such a very good girl?” Liz said. I thought this was a little harsh after I’d improvised a thirty-minute frog story for her the night before.
“Hi, Karla,” I said, hiding the drink behind my back as she introduced me to her girlfriend, Marie.
“Heard about Shane,” Karla said to Liz. “What a jerk. Did he really think he could get away with it on this island?”
“I’d rather not discuss it,” Liz said and gulped her drink, shaking the ice at the bottom.
“Marie, this is Cricket, my newest waitress,” Karla said, introducing me to her girlfriend. “Amy trained her all week and she’s ready to bust out on her own.”
“Hey, there,” Marie said, and then laughed a little. “How did your niece feel about training a cute blond?”
“Your niece?” I asked.
“Oh, Karla, look, it’s Lisa. I’ve got to talk to her about the garden tour before Annabelle Burke does,” Marie said.
“Gotta run,” Karla said. “And hey, when are you moving into the Surfside house?”
“She’s not,” Liz said before I could answer. “She’s living with me.”
“Okay, see ya,” Karla said. She pointed to my cup and added, “Don’t get caught with that drink.”
“Liz, are you sure?” I asked, handing the rest of my drink to her. She handed it back.
“’Course I’m sure. I’m not one of those girls who likes to be alone.”
“Thank you!” I said. “That’s so awesome of you. Seriously.”
“Is that your bartender?” Liz asked, not letting me fuss. I turned to see Ben step onstage with his guitar. “This better not be a love song. I’m not drunk enough.”
Ben began to strum. It was a love song. His voice was low and kind of country. It was a little rough, so that even though he was singing quietly about the moon, it had grit. I was just starting to melt into his voice when I saw Amy swaying to the music, front and center, gazing at him like he was a rock star.
“I can’t tell if they’re dating,” I said to Liz, motioning to Amy. “But she’s definitely—”
“Fucking him,” Liz said with a full mouth.
“I was going to say ‘in love.’ Check out the way she’s looking at him.” Amy’s head was tilted. Her eyes were focused and soft with emotion. For the first time, she looked sweet.
“She may be looking at him,” Liz said, “but he can’t take his eyes off of you.”
Twenty
I WAS IN THE WALK-IN FRIDGE at Breezes, standing on my tiptoes and reaching for a fresh container of nonfat milk so I could stock the coffee station (nonfat milk is a lot easier to foam than whole), when I felt a sharp, searing pain in my neck. I gasped and clutched the place where my shoulder met my neck on the right side and which was now tight and throbbing. Ouch. My whole body contracted and curled. I was bent over, eyes squeezed shut, seeing yellow spots, when I felt a sure, calm hand on my back.
“Breathe.”
It was Ben.
“My neck,” I said, sucking refrigerator air in through my teeth.
“It’s probably just a muscle spasm,” Ben said, guiding me to a milk crate.
“It really hurts,” I said, sitting down on the crate.
“It’s tension. You need to relax.”
It was true. I was exhausted from seven consecutive days of waitressing, early mornings covering for Liz, and squeezing in lacrosse practice whenever I could, which had only been twice. My plan was working. I’d only been waitressing for a week, and I’d already made a thousand dollars—but as another flash of pain struck, I knew it was time for a break.
“I got ya,” Ben said, pulling up another milk crate and sitting behind me. “Let go of your shoulder.”
“I can’t.” I was afraid if I let go, the pain would spread.
“Breathe with me.”
I took a deep breath in and he rested his callused guitar hands on my shoulders, pressing his thumbs into my neck. We breathed together a few times.
“Oh,” I said. “Oh.” The pain changed color, broke apart. I risked turning my head. “Ouch!”
“Just focus on what’s right in front of you.”
“Mayonnaise,” I said, looking up at a wall of industrial-size jars of condiments. Ben laughed, and I could feel it in his hands as he continued to knead my shoulders.
“How’s it now?”
“Still pretty bad,” I said. Even though the pain had dissipated, I didn’t want him to stop.
“I know what you need. You need some time on the ocean. You want to go surfing tomorrow?”
“Yes,” I said, glad he couldn’t see me smiling. Neither of us had talked about our surfing date since the morning I’d canceled. I kept waiting for him to bring it up, but he hadn’t. Maybe he was waiting for me to bring it up. We were in some kind of standoff, and my interest in the date had risen an additional ten percent every day it went unmentioned. I had reserved tomorrow afternoon for running and going over lacrosse drills, but surfing was a form of exercise, wasn’t it?
“You’re so tense you’re like a shrinky dink,” he said just as the door was flung open.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Karla asked.
Ben lifted his hands. I instantly missed them. They were experts, those hands.
“I had a muscle spasm,” I said. “Ben was helping me.”
“I’m sure he was,” Karla said. Her glare scared me. Authority figures rarely looked at me with anything other than affection or relief. Her eyes were full of accusation. “You guys know my policy about staff relationships, right? You get into one, you’re outta here.”
“Um, I actually didn’t know that policy,” I said, standing up, no problem. My neck was miraculously healed.
“Karla,” Ben said
, cool as a gimlet. He pulled a carton of milk from the high shelf and handed it to me. “I walked in here and she was doubled over in pain.”
“Well, just don’t make me call you into my office, okay? Ben, you of all people should know better, and that bar’s not going to prep itself. Cricket, you have a visitor.”
“I do?” I took my milk and headed to the floor. My heart pirouetted. For a second, I thought it might be Zack.
It was Jules, in her black bikini and paisley cover-up, all long legs, highlights, and freckles. I felt a kick of disappointment. Would I ever learn? She helped herself to a couple of olives from the bar and asked, “What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?” I nodded toward a table where a stack of napkins awaited folding.
“You’re all flushed and flustered and shit.”
I shook my head and waved my hand, like, Oh, nothing, but I must’ve glanced at Ben without realizing it, because Jules took him in, his magic hands full of lemons, and cocked an eyebrow. I shrugged. She grinned.
“Well,” she said, folding her slender hands on the table as we sat down. “I’m here for a few reasons. There’s something about Parker—”
“Jules, I can’t even…” I trailed off as Jules knocked some sand off her foot onto the floor. Karla had warned us that club members acted like they owned this place. And that’s good, she’d said. That’s how they’re supposed to feel. Still, I had to bite my cheek to stop myself from making a face. I’d swept that floor twenty minutes ago. I peeled a napkin from the stack and started folding. “I don’t want to hear about them.”
“It’s just that, well, it’s complicated,” Jules said.
“Yeah, you’ve both told me.”
“And, like, so stereotypical.”
“I don’t want to know,” I said. The last thing I wanted was a whiff of hope. I’d volunteered to take the indoor section every night, the one nearest the entrance. It was the least desirable. The big spenders all wanted to sit on the porch or the patio, but I was willing to take the less lucrative section if it meant I didn’t have to risk seeing Zack and Parker frolicking on the beach.
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