by Kieran Scott
“Sure. Good plan,” Annie said, facetiously.
She dropped the tray atop the can with a clatter and turned, her plaid skirt flouncing behind her.
“I like David’s plan,” I said. “It lacks confrontation. And I, personally, am anticonfrontation.”
“Speaking of confrontation . . . ,” David said under his breath.
We all spotted her at the same moment. Faith Kirkpatrick. Her blond hair was back in a tight ponytail, and she wore a floral minidress that left zero to the imagination with a trendy little vest tossed over it. Her wedge sandals were so tall it was a miracle she hadn’t bumped her head on the banner advertising the Books-A-Million summer reading sale. Dangling from one hand were her car keys, on a Coach leather key chain, even though she had a purse and all those shopping bags. As soon as she saw us, she stopped and almost tripped. Where the hell were Chloe and Shannen? I’d hardly ever seen Faith without them all year. They were like her permanent accessories.
“Hey, Ally,” she said. Then she squinted briefly at my friends. “Guys.”
For a moment I felt off balance. Like I’d slipped through a wormhole into an alternate reality. It was the first time she’d greeted me without an insult since I’d been back.
“Excuse me. I see that book I wanted to read,” Annie said, grabbing David and Marshall’s wrists. “You know, the one about the rich bitch who drops her best friend for no apparent reason and becomes a vapid airhead overnight? Let’s go.”
Faith shot Annie a sarcastic smile as she dragged the guys away. Annie and Faith had a bit of a history. As in, they used to be best friends until Faith decided it was more important to impress Chloe and Shannen and she dumped Annie like last year’s It bag. And because of that three-year-old injustice, I was now without an entourage.
But Faith hadn’t word-slain Annie, either. Which was also odd.
“So. What’s up?” Faith asked casually. Like we were just two friends bumping into each other at the mall.
“Seriously?” I said, raising my eyebrows. I glanced past her at the crowd of hungry kids and harried moms, wishing she’d move on before her friends caught up with her. I didn’t know whether I’d have to deal with Chloe or Shannen or both, but “none of the above” was the option that appealed. “You’ve been a bitch to me all year and you’re leading with ‘what’s up?’”
“Ally, you know I had nothing to do with what Shannen did, right?” she said, sounding almost fed up. Like she was already over me accusing her, even though I’d yet to actually accuse her—of that anyway. “I mean, I was there when the thing was taped, but she never told me what she was going to do with it.”
“But you knew it was nothing good,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Well. It’s Shannen,” she replied under her breath, looking warily around as if the potted plant next to us had ears.
Translation: When Shannen decided to do something awful, there was no talking her out of it. Which wasn’t the greatest excuse, but it was one we’d all used at some point in our lives.
Silence reigned. Faith twisted her ankle down and up, down and up, laying the side of her wedge sandal flat on the floor, then righting it again, over and over. She twisted her mouth into a sideways pucker. Her keys jangled as she scratched an itch above her eye.
“I’m really sorry, okay?” she said finally. “I know I’ve been a bitch to you. I know. I just . . . I was so mad at you. When you left it was like there goes my best friend! And then you never even called. And Chloe and Shannen basically ignored me for, like, ever. I was a complete outcast for, like, weeks. Which, by the way, is not fun. And then everything happened with my parents and I just . . . I hated you for not being here.”
She tilted her head and gnawed on her bottom lip.
“None of that is my fault,” I said. Except the not calling part. Which I used to feel guilty for. Until she sank her fangs into my neck my first night back in Orchard Hill last summer.
“I know! I know, okay?” she pleaded. “When I saw your face the night of Shannen’s party. When she . . . you know . . . showed the thing?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Yeah . . . ?”
“Well, when I saw your face I realized . . . this whole thing sucks for you, too.”
I bit back a sarcastic laugh. The girl was a genius!
“It’s just, I never really thought about it that way before.”
I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised. Empathy had never been Faith’s strongest quality. She felt all her emotions to the ten-millionth degree, but rarely seemed to grasp the fact that other people had feelings too.
Suddenly I felt very, very tired. I found the nearest empty table and sat down. Faith followed me.
“So, do you hate me still?” she asked.
I looked up at her. Her blond hair was perfectly backlit by a spotlight to form a halo. Hilarious.
“I guess ‘hate’ is a strong word,” I said.
The thing was, Faith always had been kind of a follower, and I knew in my heart of hearts that most of the torture I’d been put through the past year had been Shannen’s plotting—that Faith had just been along for the ride. Plus, at the moment, there was something weirdly vulnerable about her and it took the wind right out of my indignation.
“Thanks.” She didn’t sit, but hovered alongside the table. Like she sensed she shouldn’t push it.
“Don’t mention it.”
She gave me a genuine, if tentative, smile, and I couldn’t help remembering the way Faith was before I’d left. Fun, imaginative, but most of all, needy. That was why I’d been so surprised when she was the first to bite my head off last year. Faith with a backbone had been a shock.
“So you’re staying at the Nathansons’ this summer?” she asked.
My stomach swooped with dread. “My mother is. I’m undecided.”
Faith’s already Bambi-esque eyes widened. She finally sat across from me, dropping her bags and leaning forward. Her keys clanged against the table. “Oh, no! You have to come.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because . . . it’s totally gonna suck this year,” Faith said. “Shannen and Chloe aren’t talking. Chloe and Hammond aren’t talking. Jake’s not even coming. Who am I supposed to hang out with?”
Okay, I wasn’t even going to get into the hypocrisy of that question. Like I wanted to hang out with her? Like I was really going to swoop in and save her from a socially bereft summer? Maybe I didn’t hate her, but I wasn’t about to become her BFF. Really there was only one part of that ramble I was interested in addressing. The part that had made my breath catch.
“Jake’s not going down?” I asked.
“No,” she said with a pout. “His mother went all strict on him and grounded him for the entire summer. He’s staying in Orchard Hill.”
Every inch of my skin tingled, and not from the overzealous air-conditioning vent behind my head. Jake was going to be here all summer. And the Cresties were not.
Suddenly the idea of staying with my dad was a lot more appealing.
As I walked into the condo that night, mentally rehearsing my arguments for staying in Orchard Hill, I started to wonder if I was emotionally deficient in some way. Was I really going to let the fact that Jake Graydon was staying here make my decision for me? He’d basically lied to me for months. He’d let me babble on about how much I missed my dad and ramble pathetically about how I had no idea where he was, and the whole time Jake had known. He’d known exactly where I could find my father, and he hadn’t told me. When I thought about the number of times he could have just said something, the number of times I’d made a fool out of myself in front of him, it made me want to break something.
I slammed the door behind me so hard the old fashioned knocker on the outside of it—the one the designers had added to give the newly built condos that old-school Orchard Hill charm—swung and banged back against it. I took a breath and thought about Jake. Really thought about him. I thought about that thing he’d said
on the night of Shannen’s party, before the birthday girl had sent my world crumbling down around me.
“Yours,” he’d said. “From now on.”
My knees, right there in the tiny hallway of my overly warm condo, went weak. It was like I could feel his breath on my neck. The perfect words still prickling in my ear. So, I guess there it was. That was why I wanted to stay. I wanted to see if what he’d said that night actually meant anything to him. I wanted to find out if I could get past those months of secrecy. I wanted to know if he was worth forgiving.
“Ally?”
“Hey, Mom.”
My mother walked over from the living room and stood at the end of the hall, between me and the kitchen. I moved past her and dropped my bag on the table. She was wearing a white polo-shirt-style dress and no shoes. The second school ended every year, my mom sported nothing but sundresses until September rolled around again.
“Did you eat at the mall?” she asked, opening the refrigerator. “I was just going to make some dinner.”
Before I could answer, the phone rang. My mother froze for a moment, staring into the fridge. I saw her knuckles turn white as she gripped the handle tighter. Then she took out a plate of raw chicken cutlets and placed it carefully, almost deliberately, on the counter. As if it took all the power within her not to hurl it at the wall.
“Are you gonna get that?” I asked, sensing that I shouldn’t go near the phone.
“Nope.”
“Aren’t you even going to check the caller ID?”
“I know who it is,” she said, removing the cling wrap from the dish and balling it up.
On the third ring, I walked to the phone. It was my dad.
“He’s called every two hours all day,” my mother said as she tossed the cling wrap into the garbage and let the lid slam. “And I swear, Ally, if you ask me why I’m not picking up for him, I might scream, so please just let it go.”
My face stung at being admonished for something I hadn’t done. But I had been about to do it, so I said nothing.
My mom blew out a breath, leaned back against the counter, and smiled at me tightly. “So. Food?”
“I’m not really hungry now, but if you make extra I’ll eat it later.” I swallowed my ten thousand dad-related questions and glanced into the deserted living room. There was a packed suitcase on the floor. Just seeing it made me feel hollow inside. She was really going. The question was, was she going to make me go with her? “No Gray? No Quinn?”
She took out the grill pan and placed it on the stove. “I thought it should be just us tonight. Since I’m leaving tomorrow.”
I froze. Did she just say “I’m leaving?”
“Wait . . . I thought you said you hadn’t talked to Dad.”
She rested her hands on the counter for a moment, then turned to face me, running her thumb along the back of one of the chairs. “I wanted to make sure this is what you really want first.”
My throat tightened. What I really wanted was for her to stay home with me. For her to pick up the phone the next time my father called. For him to explain everything away, and for it all to go back to the way it used to be. For us to be a family.
“I know you don’t want to be around your old crowd this summer, Ally,” she said. “But you won’t necessarily have to see them.”
“Yeah, right,” I scoffed. “Come on, Mom. You have to remember what it’s like down there.”
What it was like when all the Cresties were on LBI was one giant, two-month-long slumber party. All the families had houses on the same stretch of private beach in Harvey Cedars. Every night there were cocktail parties and barbecues and swimming in the ocean and boating in the bay. Every night people crashed at random houses, or passed out on someone’s boat. On weekends, one or two of the dads showed up at whatever house had claimed the most people from the night before, toting bags of bagels and elephant ears and steaming cups of coffee. You couldn’t not hang out with everyone. They were in your face every minute of every hour of every day.
Which used to be really fun. But now it sounded like the worst form of torture. Every year, it all culminated with the Kirkpatricks’ end-of-summer brouhaha—an elaborately themed event that often raged on for three days. Yeah. I couldn’t wait for that.
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
She looked disappointed. Hurt.
“Why don’t we both stay home?” I suggested hopefully. “We could get a membership at the town pool, see movies, go shopping. . . .”
The word hung in the air. Shopping hadn’t been much of a pastime for us the last couple of years. And the pool membership was probably expensive. But maybe I could help pay for it. And then Gray would be three hours away, and my dad—and Jake—would be just five minutes up the street.
“That is not an option,” my mother said, turning back to the stove.
“But, Mom—”
“Ally, Gray invited us to the shore, and I’ve already accepted,” she said, twisting the knob to turn the gas on under the grill pan. “I’ve prepared him for the fact that you might not come, which was difficult enough for him to hear, but—”
“Why?” I asked. “Why does he care whether or not I’m there?”
“Because he cares about you,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Well, I don’t give a crap about him, I thought, but didn’t say. As boyfriends went, if my mother had to have one, Gray was all right. But now my dad was back and all I wanted was for Gray Nathanson to go away.
“He’s very disappointed that you might not come, but he understands,” my mother continued, dropping slices of chicken into the pan, where they sizzled and spat.
“Understands what?” I asked, irked. What did I care whether or not Gray understood me? Why did she care whether or not he did?
“That you haven’t seen your father in two years. That you want to reconnect with him.”
“What about you? Don’t you want to reconnect with him?” I demanded.
My mother half groaned, half sighed as she turned on the water in the sink to wash her hands. “We’re not talking about that right now, Ally.”
“Why not? I thought we could talk about anything,” I said, sounding both pathetic and annoyed.
She turned the water off with a bang and grabbed a towel. “Not this.”
I got up from the table, my sudden anger so fierce it wouldn’t let me sit still. How could she keep shutting me down like this? Didn’t she understand that I wanted to talk about my dad? That I had to? Why was she being so selfish? I turned toward my room, envisioning a good door slamming and some quality time with my iPod, but my mom stopped me in my tracks.
“Wait.”
I didn’t turn around. I needed to hear what she had to say first.
“Fine. If it means that much to you, you can stay with him,” she said quietly. “I mean, if that’s what you really want to do.”
I hesitated. For a moment I scarcely believed that she’d actually agreed. But then it sank in, and nervous flutters filled my chest. Staying meant being near Jake. It meant giving him a chance. And my dad a chance too.
But there was something else. An odd shiver of nervousness crept over my shoulders. As I turned to look at my mother, I suddenly realized it also meant being away from her after two and a half years straight of being there for each other every day, through everything. I was seventeen years old, and the idea of being without her scared me.
But going down the shore with her and Gray and Quinn like one big happy family, and being thrown together with Chloe, Shannen, Faith, and Hammond every single day . . . that idea horrified me.
“Yeah,” I said, somehow managing to look her in the eye. “That’s what I want to do.”
Daily Field Journal of Annie Johnston Wednesday, June 30
Location: Jump, Java, and Wail!
Cover: Eating a chocolate chip muffin. Actually, that’s not a cover. I just love them so.
Observations:
9:3
5 a.m.: Subject Jake Graydon peeks through the front window. Keeps walking. Uniform: light blue, short-sleeved button-down; pressed dark khaki shorts; mandals. (Query: What’s he doing up this early on a summer day? According to records, the earliest Jake-spotting last summer before he left for the shore was 11:55 a.m.)
9:37 a.m.: Subject Jake Graydon walks by again.
9:38 a.m.: Subject Jake is back. He takes a breath as if for courage, and yanks open the door. The bell ring seems to startle him, even though he must have heard it fourteen million times before.
9:39 a.m.: Subject Jake approaches counter. BCC’s favorite alt-rocker wannabe, Chase Delia, awaits. Talk about polar opposites. This should be fun.
“Hey, man. What can I get ya?”
The scruffy dude behind the register at Jump, Java, and Wail! stopped rubbing the counter with his grimy cloth. His red hair stuck out around his head like a lion’s mane. His eyes were rimmed with purple eyeliner. He pressed both fists into the countertop and leaned toward me. There were letters tattooed across his fingers, but they were upside down and I couldn’t read them. His brown apron had a white smear across it. The pimple on his chin looked set to pop. He smelled like Southern Comfort and coffee.
What the hell was I doing here?
“Um . . . you hiring?” I mumbled.
The guy pulled back. Like he was surprised. He ran the gross cloth through his hands a couple of times while backing away from me. Almost like he thought I was gonna jump him or something.
“Hang on a sec,” he said.
I spent the entire fifteen seconds he was gone holding onto the counter’s edge with both hands. Otherwise, I was gonna bolt. When he came back out, the world kind of tilted in front of me. Because he came back out with Ally Ryan’s dad.
“Hello! What can I do for you?” he asked cheerily.
He didn’t recognize me. Which meant I could breathe again. He was wearing a brown and gold JUMP IF YOU LOVE COFFEE! T-shirt and a big-ass smile. Like he was the greeter at Great Adventure and not stuck in some crappy local coffee place.