by Kieran Scott
Daily Field Journal of Annie Johnston Saturday, July 3
Position: Newsstand at Garden State Parkway rest stop, exit 100.
Cover: Pretending to read OK! magazine. (Note: And wondering . . . who reads this crap? News flash: Salma Hayek has cellulite! Do I need to pay $3.99 for a picture of it?)
Observations:
12:43 p.m.: Subject Connor Shale and Subject Josh Schwartz hit the Burger King counter, along with a throng of tank-top-clad humanity. Subject Josh takes two bacon cheeseburgers from the warmer, plus fries and onion rings, but Subject Connor orders something special from the lady behind the counter. (Note: It’s a parkway Burger King. What do you think you’re getting? Filet mignon, grilled to order? Fresh seasonal prawns in garlic sauce? Grab a Whopper and be on your way, loser.)
12:50 p.m.: Subject Josh Schwartz merrily eating burger at table. Subject Connor Shale still waiting for something at counter. (Note: He’s banging his hands against the metal top of the warmer. Assessment One: He’s getting antsy. Assessment Two: He has no rhythm.)
12:55 p.m.: Subject Josh Schwartz has finished his food and rejoined Subject Connor Shale on line and is sucking on a chocolate shake. (Assessment Three: Josh has a stomach of steel; that took less than five minutes.) The two of them start to argue. (Assessment Four: Josh wants to get back on the road. Connor is not about to give up on his coq au vin special.)
1:01 p.m.: Subject Josh shoves his sunglasses on and storms out. Subject Connor shouts “Fuck this place” and flings a stack of trays over, which causes a toddler in SpongeBob swim shorts to burst into tears. As he follows Subject Josh, Subject Connor grabs a package of cookies off the counter next to me, throws a tenner on the counter, and walks out. (Note: He, of course, does not see me.)
1:02 p.m.: I tell the startled counter girl Connor was with me, pay for the cookies with his ten, and take the change. I just made a cool seven dollars and one cent. (Assessment: Cresties are good for the economy. Mine, anyway.)
“So who lives here?”
Cooper gestured at the huge shingled mansion a few houses up the beach from Gray’s. It was Saturday morning, and he’d stopped by to keep me company while I waited for Annie to show up. As soon as he’d arrived, I’d dragged him out to the beach just to get away from my mom and Gray. When I’d come downstairs from my room and grabbed a bagel earlier, they’d both said good morning to me, and that was it. They were probably waiting for me to apologize. As if that was going to happen. I wasn’t the one walking into people’s rooms and ambushing them out of nowhere.
“That’s Chloe’s place,” I said. “They’re not coming down this summer.”
The Appleby house had a wraparound deck overlooking the ocean and a winding staircase leading up to a widow’s walk. The turret in the center of the widow’s walk was kind of an open loft space where Chloe, Shannen, Faith, and I used to gather on rainy days to paint one another’s nails, play snap, and talk about the boys. I could practically see us up there now in our short shorts and halter tops, lying on our stomachs, sucking on those jawbreakers they sold down at Bay Village.
Suddenly I felt very, very sad.
“No?” Cooper said, eyebrows raised. He flung one of the shells at the house. It bounced off a pylon and hit the sand.
I shook my head.
“Why? Not big enough for ’em?” he joked. But his eyes weren’t laughing. He flung another shell and it clanged against a tin seagull sculpture on the Applebys’ deck.
“Ha-ha,” I said flatly, turning around to head back toward Gray’s. We were already a few houses away and I didn’t want to go too far, in case Annie arrived. As Cooper whipped another shell at Chloe’s, I quickened my steps. “You really hate summer people, huh?”
Cooper smirked at me. “Not all of them.”
I smiled and looked down at my feet. Then he turned to launch one final missile.
“So how’d things work out with your mom yesterday?” He flung a shell toward the water this time, so hard it looked like he almost threw his shoulder out.
“Not good. That wasn’t about you, you know,” I said as another shell hit the surf. “I mean . . . I don’t want you to think she’s, like, mad at you or something.”
He paused and looked at me, confused. “What? Oh, this?” He held up the shells. “This isn’t about your mother.” He pulled back and threw the whole handful of them at the water. I saw a dozen tiny drops pop up where the shells fell. “This is about mine.”
I paused, holding my hair back from my face as the wind shifted direction. “What’s wrong with your mother?”
He scoffed, staring out at the water. “Interesting way to put it.”
I blushed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“No, no. It’s okay. I just meant . . . the better question is, what isn’t wrong with my mother?” he said wryly. But it was clear by the set of his jaw that he wasn’t amused.
“Oh,” I said, an uncomfortable twist in my gut.
He shook his head, moving his lower jaw around. “I don’t know what you guys were fighting about, but I can tell you it’s all fucking pointless,” he said. “They never listen, and they don’t care about anyone but themselves. I swear my mom just sees me and Jen as burdens keeping her from doing what she really wants to do.” He paused and looked sidelong at me. “And from who she really wants to be with.” I swallowed hard. Was that how my mother saw me right now? As a burden trying to keep her away from Gray? I had tried to convince her to ditch him and stay home with me. And I did want her to get back together with my dad. Was she up there in that big, sterile house right now resenting me for wishing my family could fix itself?
I hated how unsure I felt. I put my hand on Cooper’s arm. “I’m really sorry. I—”
Cooper flinched. He looked at me and laughed. A sarcastic, almost condescending laugh. “Whatever. I’m just venting.”
Then he casually strolled away from me up the beach. It took me a second to catch my breath. I felt like I’d overstepped my bounds somehow, and wasn’t sure what to do about it. In front of Hammond’s house, Cooper paused and tipped his head back, letting the breeze tug his hair off his face. I caught up to him and hugged my own arms, feeling conspicuous.
“I’m sorry.” He tipped his head forward and squinted at me. “I’m an asshole.”
“No, it’s—”
“It’s not.” He dropped down onto the sand and looked up at me. “I didn’t mean to . . . whatever. It’s not your problem. Let’s talk about something else.”
I sat down next to him. Close, but not too close. “It’s okay.
It’s cool. I understand.” And I did. Kind of. I’d had a couple of emotional freak-outs of my own lately.
“Thanks.”
He looked sad, and somehow young, sitting, hugging his shins in the sand. My fingers itched to push his hair back from his face, but that seemed too intimate, so I didn’t. He lifted his hands and his arm brushed mine. I got goose bumps everywhere. He rested his wrists on his knees, so his arms were straight, then placed his chin on his upper arm as he faced me. Suddenly I was very aware of how half-naked we both were—him in just a bathing suit, me in a tank top and shorts. I could smell the tangy scent of his sport sunscreen. There was a tiny grain of sand on his lower lip.
“I’m glad I bumped into you the other night,” he said.
“Yeah?”
His face was so close I could see the bleached ends of his eyebrow hairs.
“Yeah.”
He was going to kiss me. Did I want him to kiss me? If my pounding heart was any indication, I did. Jake’s face flitted through my mind as my eyes fluttered closed. And then a whistle split the air. I looked over at Gray’s house. Annie was waving both hands over her head on the deck, her backpack dropped on the floor next to her.
“Annie!” I jumped up, flinging sand all over Cooper’s legs. My skin buzzed, and my lips hummed from the aborted kiss, but I didn’t look back.
“Hey!” she shouted, racing down the stairs.
We ran to each other across the beach, and she flung her arms out to hug me, making a big kissy face like we were long-lost lovers. She wore a black T-shirt that hung off one shoulder, cutoff denim shorts, and hot pink leggings over black Converse. Her short, dark hair was pushed back with black-and-white checkered sunglasses.
“Okay, you weren’t kidding. That place is, like, a museum,” she said.
“I know, right?”
Then she looked past me at Cooper. He was just rising up from the sand, dusting off his torso, and the sun bounced off his tan, making him look like something out of a surfing movie. Damn. I could’ve just kissed that.
“Is that the hottie?” Annie whispered.
“Um . . . yeah,” I said.
She grinned proudly. “Hey!” she shouted to him. “I’m Annie. Ally’s better half.”
Cooper loped over. “Not possible for her to have a better half.”
Now Annie was really impressed. “You got any brothers?” she joked.
“Nope. But I have a single dad who’s kind of cool when you can actually find him,” he replied.
My heart sank as Annie and I exchanged a look.
“God. Sorry. I’ve got some kind of disease today that only affects my speech.” He rubbed his hands together and looked Annie up and down. “I do have a sister, though.”
Annie smirked. “Normally I don’t swing that way, but if she looks anything like you . . .”
“Annie!”
Cooper laughed. “Well, I guess I should let you guys . . . girl-bond or whatever. I’ll see you two around later?”
“Most definitely,” Annie replied.
Cooper lifted a hand as he walked up the beach toward the house and the driveway beyond, where he’d parked the truck he shared with his sister. Annie and I both watched until he was out of sight.
“All right, he is way hotter than—”
I lifted a hand. “Don’t say it. Don’t say his name. We are living in a him-free zone right now,” I said.
“That’s very Zen of you,” Annie said, sliding her sunglasses down over her eyes.
“It’s a whole new Ally Ryan,” I replied.
“Does the new Ally Ryan eat? Cuz I’m starved and from the look of that house, I’m guessing there’s nothing fried, processed, or chocolate anywhere in it.”
“You got that right,” I said, walking backward up the beach. “Come on. I’ll take you to Pinky’s.”
“And tell me all about Cooper?” she asked.
“And tell you all about Cooper,” I promised.
As we walked around to the driveway where the car she’d borrowed from her mom for the weekend was parked, Annie told me about the goings-on at home. How David had gotten a job with a landscaper and was making buckets of cash. How Marshall had started going out with Celia Linklater and now thought he was a player. How she’d seen both Shannen and Chloe lurking around town, shopping alone, never together. I wondered if that was the gossip she’d been texting about the other day, and thought it couldn’t possibly be. She’d said she had big gossip, and solo shopping was not big. So did she have something big about Jake? Something she was just not telling me because I’d told her not to mention him?
“Okay. How do we get to this Pinky’s?” Annie asked as she pulled out of the driveway.
“Just hit the Boulevard and make a left. We’ll get there eventually.”
“I like it. Very chill. Maybe I could get used to the vibe down here,” she said.
I spent the entire drive obsessing about Jake, opening my mouth to ask her about him, then clamming up again and forcing myself to stay quiet. Yeah. That was my vibe all right. Very chill.
Daily Field Journal of Annie Johnston Sunday, July 4
Location: Take a Dip ice cream, under the awning out back.
Cover: None. I came here to say hi to Ally and get some rum raisin, but what I just saw, I had to write down.
Observations:
4:55 p.m.: Subject Hammond Ross talking to Ally Ryan behind the counter at Take a Dip ice cream. Uniform: light blue Take a Dip T-shirt, baggy shorts, sneakers. Subject Hammond is talking. She’s cracking up laughing. The phone rings. Ally goes to get it. Subject Hammond checks his hair in the reflective side of a napkin dispenser while her back is turned. She hangs up. Subject Hammond puts the napkin dispenser down and wipes his palms on the back of his shorts. He puts his smile back on. They turn to look at the door and I duck out of view, my back to the wall.
5:02 p.m.: I feel safe to look again. Ally is at the sink washing something. Subject Hammond LEANS IN TO SMELL HER!
(Assessment: Holy crap. Hammond is in love with Ally.)
“So then Todd is hanging . . . upside down, from the edge of the high dive and he’s just screaming . . . ‘I didn’t want to go in head first! I didn’t want to go in head first!’ And I’m like”—Hammond cupped his hands around his mouth—“‘You shoulda thought of that before you flipped over, dude!’”
I held my stomach as I laughed, practically doubled over behind the counter at Take a Dip. It was the Fourth of July, and it was pouring outside. Fat raindrops battered the plate-glass windows and every car that zipped by sprayed a wall of water on the roadside sign advertising two-for-one single cones. The fluorescent lights inside the shop made everything look dingy, from the unpolished chrome on the milk shake blenders to the film over the top of the dipping chocolate. We’d had one customer in the last hour, and our shift manager, Deb, had long since retired to the back room with her cell phone. When she’d gone, I had silently cursed her for leaving me alone with Hammond. But now . . . I was actually having fun.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“He fell,” Hammond said matter-of-factly, toying with one of the ice-cream scoops in its bucket. “And he so didn’t want to fall on his head, he flipped over and landed on his stomach. It was the belly flop heard round the world.”
“Oh God. That must’ve hurt,” I said, biting my bottom lip.
“His stomach was red for hours. We took a picture of it,” Hammond confirmed with a nod. “I’m sure someone has it somewhere.”
I smiled, feeling all fuzzy and nostalgic. It was kind of nice to hear the stories of things that had happened while I was off living with my grandmother in Baltimore. Nice, but also odd. I’d always known that life had gone on without me, but it was weird to hear how easily and normally it had gone on without me.
Hammond crossed his arms over his chest, his feet planted wide in that self-assured stance of his. He was so much better looking when he wasn’t being a jerk. Already he’d gotten a tan, which made his blond hair look lighter, and he’d wisely chosen a light blue T-shirt that brought out the blue in his eyes. His had forty colorful scoops of ice cream on it, the flavor’s name beneath each scoop, and read TRY ’EM ALL! across the top. We looked at each other for a long moment, as the refrigerator sputtered and roared into another cooling cycle behind him. Suddenly I had this vivid memory of him clutching the front of my T-shirt around my stomach right before we kissed that night a million years ago, because he didn’t know what to do with his hands. I quickly turned away and leaned against the counter, blowing out a loud, theatrical sigh.
God I hoped he couldn’t tell what I was thinking. I almost never thought about that night. So why was it coming up now?
“So are you gonna do Backslappers again in the fall? Because if you are, maybe you could be mine this time,” Hammond said. He leaned down next to me, our elbows almost touching.
“I don’t know.” I’d only joined last year because I’d still been nursing that childish dream of getting back with my friends. But now everything was different. I’d had enough Crestie drama, and the soccer team and Backslappers were just littered with it.
“Well, Chloe is not an option, and I don’t know what’s up with Shannen,” Hammond said. “Maybe we could—”
His elbow nudged mine. I stood up straight and backed away, hands in the back pockets of my jeans.
“I don’t
know,” I said quickly. “I might try out for the play instead.”
His face screwed up as he turned to face me. “The play?”
“Yeah. I used to be into that stuff, remember?” I said. “In Baltimore I actually had a good role one year. I just—”
At that moment, the door to the shop opened, and my phone rang. It was like the powers that be were giving me a double save. A middle-aged guy shook the hood off his head as he ushered two little kids in colorful rain jackets through the door. I pulled my phone out and my heart skipped a nervous, excited beat.
“It’s my dad.”
Time to put the plan in motion.
Deb emerged from the back room. “Hi-eeee!” she said to the dad and his kids. She was one of those people who found any way possible to make most one-syllable words into two. “What can we get for you?”
My phone rang again.
“It’s okay,” Hammond said to me. “We got this.”
“If you’re going to take a call, please take it in ba-ack!” Deb sang, her blond curls bouncing around her head as she tilted it toward the door.
“Thanks, guys.”
I ducked through the door into the dim stillness of the back room, which was so tiny I had to slide sideways to get between the stacked boxes of plastic bowls and the ripped vinyl back of the desk chair. I stood beneath the open window, leaned into the side of the ancient water fountain, and hit talk. I felt hot all over from the weirdness with Hammond, so I took a breath and told myself it was nothing. Just old feelings stirred up by boredom and the proximity of Hammond’s body to mine.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Hey, kiddo! How’s it going? Is it raining as hard there as it is here?”
I looked up at the window and all I saw was gray. “Yeah. It’s pretty bad. So . . . you got my message?”
“Sure did,” he said. “Sorry I couldn’t pick up. I had class last night.”
“That’s okay,” I replied. I traced an arc on the concrete floor with the toe of my sneaker, thinking about Gray’s parting comment the other night. “So . . . what’s up? I mean, is there a plan or . . . ?”