by Alexis Bass
“If I tell you, it won’t come true.”
“Those are the rules for birthday wishes.”
“Those are the rules for all wishes,” he says. “Besides, why would I tell you when your answer is such bullshit? Wishing for more wishes.”
“So what would you do with your one boring wish, since you’re against cheating the rules of wishing? You’d probably wish for something practical. Like to be better at poker.”
It’s nice, joking and talking about nothing. I feel lighter with all this laughter, and it seems like he might, too, like we had all this bottled in us as something else, something heavy, and now we’re freeing whatever was trapped. Our eyes meet; our smiles match. Screw the sunsets and the fireworks and the sun and beaches. Screw these stars, even. Look at him. Look at him. Look at what I can do to his face, and, oh god, I wonder what he’s doing to mine. I am probably wearing a smile so big its wattage can be seen from outer space.
“Fine. Let’s say we really only get one wish. What would yours be?” I dare to ask, dare to believe I’ll get a real response.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.”
I listen to him inhale, and I think he is about to tell me his one wish. We see it at the same time—the bright burst, the streak across the sky. I reach out for him at the same time that he reaches out for me. And we are gasping and laughing; we can’t believe it.
“Did you make a wish?” he says.
I nod. We are closer now, my shoulder against his elbow, my head angled toward him, the same way he’s angled toward me. So I know he felt my head bobbing up and down, answering him yes.
“Did you?” I say. He nods, too.
We’re both smiling again, laughter sneaking out occasionally. And I know that I am not going to tell him my wish, and he is not going to tell me his. Mine was for more nights like this, with him. He makes me feel every second, like no time has been wasted. To Trevor, living for the moment meant taking that extra shot, snorting that extra line of cocaine, but sometimes it meant the same thing as it did to me, and we ended up breaking into a hotel after hours to use their pool, using my mom’s credit card to buy those tickets to the concert we couldn’t bear to miss, driving out to Prescott National Forest to camp even though I had school in the morning and he had work. I wonder what it means for Finn. Betting all his money for some exciting game? Trying to get out of the payment, seeing if he could really do it? Taking a chance on a stranger who stumbled onto his secrets, who saved him?
He sits up on his elbows. His eyes slant down to look at me. My cheeks are burning up. Early stage crushing, but this is intense. With Trevor I knew exactly what to expect. He acted exactly how I suspected he would, and that made it easier at least. This. Whatever it is. Is all so new and surprising, and this, this, is what’s going to make my summer the best it’s ever been.
“You’ll be here the whole summer?” I ask. He is holding my gaze, and it’s equal parts exciting and terrifying, him being this close. I can see the way his bottom lip slightly sticks to his top lip when he opens his mouth to answer and the small shadow his lashes make across his cheeks every time he blinks.
“Yes,” he says. “Will you?”
“We rented the house until August.” Which is I guess when George’s saved and stockpiled and rolled-over vacation time runs out.
He still hasn’t looked away from me.
“I can trust you, right?” he says. “You won’t say anything about what you saw on the island, not to anyone?”
“I am very good at keeping secrets.” I have limited time with him, always too soon echoing in my head, pounding now that he’s staring back at me looking so sincere. “And I promise I’ll keep yours.”
When the champagne is gone, we replace the tarp and lock the door to the house. It feels too soon to go and, at the same time, as though we’ve been allotted limited time together and can’t use it all up at once.
I cross my arms to the night’s chill, wondering what to do with myself as we walk down to the street.
“We could meet tomorrow,” I say—too bold, but I don’t care. We’re almost out of time.
He gives the usual pause I’m accustomed to before he answers. “I can’t.”
“What about the next day?” I have given up modesty, dignity, all of it.
He smiles this full-voltage smile at me. Like maybe he’s going to throw his self-respect out the window, too, for me. “The next day,” he repeats. “You’ll see me again, Maris.” He looks away, shy, as he continues. “I can promise you.”
Oh, I do like him, and he keeps getting better. I like that he’s promised me. He trusts me to keep his secret and I can trust him to find me again. He’s going to make this summer better—best. He’s what I’ll have to look forward to every night.
I’m about to say, “Good night, Finn,” but what comes out is, “Be careful.” He looks surprised, as if no one has said this to him and meant it in his whole life, maybe. He’s about to say something back. He takes a step toward me, mouth opening slightly. There’s only a foot between us now, and I close it, so I’m right in front of him. I put my hand on his shoulder, and he doesn’t back away. I lift up and press my lips to his.
It’s not a long kiss, but I feel him kiss me back, his hands lightly on my shoulders before moving down to my waist. I turn around as soon as it’s over, hearing his voice say goodbye quietly. He sounds like he’s smiling, but I don’t want to see his reaction, and I don’t want to explain why I did that, in case he decides to ask. I want to be left with nothing but the feel of his lips on mine, his hands on me.
Tonight, I was so happy. I listen to the weight of his steps, getting farther away, and feel the pull of the distance. There’s a chance he’s lying and this is the last time I’ll ever see him. There’s always that chance. But for now, stars aligned and gave me this gift. Tonight, they didn’t disappoint.
Chapter 11
Once when I was chatting with the fortune-teller while she counted her earnings from the morning and relit the incense, her next client came early and she rushed me into the bathroom and told me not to come out until the client was gone. I stayed in there for several clients though. She forgot about me, I guess, because she didn’t realize I was still there until one of her clients opened the door to use the bathroom.
The first client had wanted to know about love. She was already deeply in love, so much that it made her cry, big bursting sobs. She said her love was so innate that when her lover was sad or heartbroken, she could feel the ache in her own chest. She sounded like there was a fist in her throat, like she’d scream if she could. She wanted the fortune-teller to say that she wouldn’t ever lose it, this great love she had finally found, that she had been looking for her whole life. She was afraid that something so good was sure to be taken away from her. The fortune-teller told her that this was the love she’d been waiting for and that because she knew it was precious, she wouldn’t let it go easily and that was why she wouldn’t lose it ever. The woman was laughing when she left. She sounded happy, but also frenzied—overtaken by relief, lost in this passion she’d found. I was so jealous. I wanted to feel something that wholly, that intensely—I wanted to love someone like that and for someone to love me like that back. I wanted someone to fight for, someone I wouldn’t let go easily, no matter what.
The next day, the air is still full of ocean salt, and I’m standing with the New Browns outside a bike rental stand on the main downtown strip, and I think I see Finn standing on the curb next to the mail drop.
But it’s not really him.
We are tourists in this land of summer homes, beachfront properties, posh boutiques, gourmet restaurants, boat trips to the island.
Today, that means we ride bikes with matching helmets all in a row on our way to the lighthouse.
“This way,” Chelsea calls. We follow her, and she follows the signs.
We reach the lighthouse quicker than I anticipated, and as we stand o
n the lighthouse deck and stare out over the gray-blue water, I think, now, this second, would be a good time to run into Finn.
A wave crashes against the deck and sprays us lightly with a mist. There’s a rush of wind, and the next wave hits us harder. A thousand droplets of water come down on us. Phoebe laughs and claps like this is the greatest thing ever. The next splash is even bigger. Everyone moves away except for me. I close my eyes as the water falls back on me.
I feel a hand on my arm. I open my eyes expecting to see Finn.
Chelsea is smiling, shaking her head. “Are you serious?”
There’s another splash, and Chelsea tugs on my arm. But I don’t move, and neither does she. She squeals as the water rains over us. The water is jarring in its coolness, but being in wet clothes feels good against the sun beating down on us on the ride back.
The afternoon ticks on, and I walk along Main Street with Chelsea, window-shopping, grateful that George has abandoned us to accompany Trisha back to the beach house for Phoebe’s nap. Now would be a good time for Finn to appear, too.
These shops are fancy and pricey, but according to Chelsea, people like her boyfriend’s family, the Duvals, don’t ever have to look at the price tag before they make a purchase. They see something and they can have it. No second thoughts.
And here, I think of Finn—again—and the trouble he’s in over money.
Chelsea and I play a game. We guess how much things cost. I always guess too low, and Chelsea always guesses too high.
“Is it wrong that I no longer think this is beautiful?” Chelsea says about a metallic sling bag in the imported leathers store when she learns the bag is $790 instead of her guess of $1,500. “This is what my mother means when she tells me to manage my expectations.”
She has a sense of humor about herself that is lacking in many other people, this kind of honesty and awareness that isn’t at all self-deprecating. For that moment, I’m not thinking about Finn.
We continue to guess prices, and Chelsea goes on and on about her future plans. Studying psychology, graduating in four years, getting her doctorate wherever Edison decides he’d like to work. Spending her summers here, her winters in Switzerland. Paris in spring, of course, naturally. All her plans involve Edison and his money.
She is nice enough to ask about my plans for next year but also nice enough to push the conversation forward when I don’t have an answer.
We stop for ice cream, spoiling dinner. Chelsea laughs at this crime and orders two scoops for herself.
We get back, and George and Trisha have set up the umbrellas and lawn chairs and are all set for another relaxing evening at the beach. The New Brown Family’s idea of vacation involves standing waist deep in the ocean tossing a Frisbee or flipping through recipes on their phones with their feet in the sand, planning what they’d like for dinner.
Their idea of vacation is not mine. It’s times like these when I feel like a stranger, only there by default.
I decide to go for a run, burn off the extra energy that’s been trapped inside me since we got back from the bike ride, even though it’s the time of day when the sun is low and it gets in my eyes. I am still searching for Finn.
Chapter 12
At night, the clouds roll in. The humidity in the air suggests that a storm is imminent. The New Brown Family stays up late playing cards. I tell them I am too tired from my run, and they don’t protest. I’m carried to bed by the memory of George sighing his way through Trouble and Chutes and Ladders, and fighting with my mom about the rules of Rummy 500. I listen to the wind pick up, drowning out the sound of the New Brown Family’s laughter. I fall asleep imagining a hurricane lifting our house and carrying us away.
But storm be damned because Chelsea is louder than the thunder and gets up before everyone, even Phoebe, and in turn wakes me, as I hear her flouncing around her room, traipsing in and out of our shared bathroom, banging around.
“What are you doing?” I finally ask, standing half-awake in the doorway on my side of the bathroom.
She’s in her pajamas with two hangers around her neck, holding dresses, three giant rollers lined up on the top of her head, like the spikes of a stegosaurus.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.” She rushes toward me. “Edison gets here today! I don’t know what I’m going to wear. Do you like the blue one?” She points at the dresses hanging from her neck. Neither of them are blue.
“Chelsea … it’s four in the morning.”
“I’m too excited to sleep! I haven’t seen him since August.” She starts shaking her head. “I’m sorry, you probably think I’ve lost it, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen him. We’ve been together for almost a year, but he left for school three months after I met him, and I just … I want to make our reunion special.”
“That’s barely any time together; how do you know you even still like him?” I am too tired to contemplate if that might’ve offended her.
“Oh, I know,” she says, nodding furiously. “We talk every day,” she continues, leaning forward to splash water on her face. “But to be in the same room with him physically, after all this time, I think I might explode.”
“I believe you.”
She dabs her face with a towel. “Oh, shoot. Oh no.” She flicks her nails. The fresh paint on them has smeared across her fingers and on the towel. “Oh no, oh no. Fuck!” I attribute this minor meltdown to the fact that she’s barely slept and is overly anxious. She even stomps her foot.
“It’s okay,” I say, placing a hand on her shoulder to steady her. “I can do your nails.” Maybe if I fix her nails, she will settle down and let me sleep.
“You will?”
“You have to promise to sit still long enough to let them dry.”
Her face melts into a warm smile. “Thank you; you are a lifesaver.” She has no idea.
We move into her room, stepping over the debris of Hurricane Chelsea, clothes and shoes and hair accessories flung everywhere. Chelsea takes the dresses from around her neck and leans them against her desk. She clears the bed, letting a pile of clothes fall to the floor, and we sit on top of her comforter. I hold her slightly wobbly hand as I apply the light pink polish she’s chosen.
“You’re shaking,” I tell her.
“It’s just—he hasn’t seen me in so long. I want to look perfect. Because he’s perfect, Maris, he’s—” She looks away, biting her lip. “He’s as good as it gets. And his family—you’ll see when you meet them.”
Them. The Duvals. There is always awe in her voice and a sparkle in her eyes when she talks about them.
“They will surely be impressed with your nails,” I tease, winking as I finish up her right hand. She smiles at me again, and I can see in the way she’s starting to calm that she’s grateful for someone to share in this excitement, even if I’m the person she’s stuck with.
“It’s been perfect so far.” Her smile falters. “I want us to always be perfect.”
“You’ve said perfect like eighty times since you woke me up.”
“There’s no other word to describe him.”
“No one’s perfect,” I say. Even the flawless New Brown Family has me as the skeleton in their closet.
“You’ll see when you meet him.”
She’s stubborn about this, so I ask, “Well, then, what are you going to wear?”
“That is the ultimate question.”
She’s got a few dresses hanging over her closet door. She explains to me her top choices, but they all carry concerns. The dresses Edison sent her from Paris—too short, all of them. The dress Edison told her once brought out her eyes—but maybe it’s too green. The white dress—too innocent. The pink one—too demure.
“How about that one?” I point to the black dress hanging off the back of her desk chair. “You can never go wrong with a little black dress, right?”
Chelsea shakes her head. “I wore that to Edison’s mom’s funeral.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“She woul
d have liked the white dress.” Her shoulders drop in another defeat of indecision.
“At least all these dresses go with your necklace. Did Edison get you that, too?” I try for a way to cheer her up, and the shimmery diamond hanging off a platinum chain hanging from her neck seems like exactly the way to do that. I finish painting her left hand and start blowing on the tips of her fingers.
“It’s from Dad,” she says as she bites her lower lip again. “A birthday present.”
“Oh. Wow,” I say. A huge lump has formed in my throat. When George was only my father, he didn’t even buy me gifts, because how would he have known what to get me? Sometimes he wasn’t even home for my birthday. He got a promotion when I was twelve, and it sent him out on the road a lot. Sometimes he was gone for months at a time. I wonder if Chelsea truly believes George was the kind of father to me as he is for her, if she thinks it’s my fault that there is a wedge between George and me.
“He’s getting one for you, too, when you turn eighteen next month.” She smiles and shrugs. “I’m so bad at secrets,” she adds. But I wonder if she told me this because she could sense I have my doubts about George and she said this to quiet them.
“What did you do to celebrate?” I steer the conversation back to her, before she can ask me the last time George got me a present, before she can realize that for my seventeenth birthday, all I got from George was a phone call. She tells me about the fancy steak house they went to for dinner where she had lobster for the first time. Unsurprisingly, her story finds its way back to Edison.
“On Edison’s eighteenth birthday he bought cigarettes. Because he could.” She rolls her eyes, but her face is beaming, like she is thrilled to have license to talk about him in a what am I going to do with him sort of way, because he is hers. “He smoked so many that he couldn’t speak. The Duvals threw him a huge party. He snuck off to the horse stables with a bottle of whiskey and tried to ride bareback through the ranch. He ended up losing the horse. I wasn’t there, but I heard.”