by Kieran Scott
“Yes! Yes,” he said. “There is a plan. And there is something you can do.”
I stood at attention. “Really? What?”
“Do you think you could get your mother to drive you into the city next Saturday afternoon?”
My brow knit. How the hell was I supposed to do that? “Um . . .”
“I was thinking you could tell her you want to meet up with friends or something,” he said.
Was he not acquainted with my mother? She would never let me wander around New York City alone with friends for the day. Then an idea hit me and I blinked. Unless . . .
“Actually, I signed up for the humanities elective next year and they did strongly suggest we visit some museums this summer,” I told him.
“Perfect!” he crowed. “Tell her you need to go to the MoMA. That’s right in the neighborhood I need you to be.”
“Why? What are you gonna do?” I asked, feeling breathless. I turned toward the back door, away from the shop, as if Hammond and Deb could possibly hear me through the steel door over the whir of the freezers and the banging of the rain.
“I’m going to re-create our first date,” he said. “She’s going to love it. There’s no way she’s going to be able to ignore me after this.”
I grinned. Their first date. It was exactly the kind of romantic gesture my mother lived for. I felt proud of my dad for thinking of it. And kind of ridiculously happy. He did still know her. He did still love her. And he was willing to go the extra mile to show her.
“Okay. I’ll tell her about the museum and let you know what she says,” I told him.
“Thanks, bud. What would I do without you?”
My heart constricted and I bit my tongue to keep from blurting the first thing that came to mind. Namely, You seemed to manage it just fine for the past couple of years. Now was not the time to get all obnoxious on him. He had a plan. He was executing the plan. That was all that mattered.
I heard some muffled laughter through the door, and checked the grainy security screen on the desk. Cooper, Dex, Jenny, and another guy I recognized from the beach—nicknamed Stoner—had just come in. Dex was tearing through the T-shirt cabinet, unfolding all the shirts, holding them up against his chest and wagging his shoulders around as he modeled them. I rolled my eyes.
“Dad. I’m at work and I gotta go.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to you later. And Ally? Thanks for offering to help. It means a lot.”
Weirdly, my heart sort of welled. “No problem, Dad.”
I ended the call, pressed my hand into the cold metal door, and took in a breath. God I was emotional lately. And I hated it. It just wasn’t me. I cleared my throat and shoved my way back into the shop. The rain-slicked father and his kids were gathered around one of the two café tables near the front.
“Hey! There she is!” Jenny shouted. She jumped up and landed butt-down on the counter, throwing her arms out to hug me. Deb shot me an irritated, but somehow still smiling, look so I quickly hugged Jenny back just to get her down again. She slid off and leaned her elbows on the counter. “So can we get, like, free ice cream for knowing you?”
Cooper laughed. “Jenny. Uncool.” He shoved her aside with the full girth of his shoulders and she groused, but moved. “Hey,” he said to me, pressing his hands into the counter so that his feet came off the ground. “I like the outfit. Minimum wage works on you.”
I blushed and tucked my hair back under my Take a Dip baseball cap.
“You gonna order something?” Hammond asked gruffly.
Cooper’s eyes grazed Hammond and his feet hit the ground. “Can I get a vanilla with a side of ham?”
Dex and the other two cackled. Deb did not look pleased.
“Creative,” Hammond said. “You sure are pretty for a smart guy.”
“And you sure are ugly for a rich guy,” Cooper shot back.
“Okay, okay, we get it. You two don’t like each other,” I said, holding up my hands. Jenny and the boys laughed their assent, loudly. “Deb, can I take my fifteen?”
“Sure.” She gave me a wide-eyed, clenched-lipped look that I took to mean, You can take your fifteen if you get these assholes out of he-ere!
“I’ll be in the back if you need me,” she said to Hammond. “If you all aren’t gonna order something, I’d appreciate you making way for other customers,” she said to the rest of them.
“What other customers?” Dex asked, holding a balled up T-shirt in each hand as he gestured around the shop.
Deb rolled her eyes and shoved through to the back room.
“Come on,” I said, walking around the counter. “Let’s go outside.”
“Are you kidding? It’s like Armageddon out there,” Cooper said.
I sighed, glancing past him at the pile of T-shirts Dex, Jenny, and Stoner had made on the vinyl bench that ran the length of the window. “You guys are gonna get me in trouble.”
“All right, fine,” Cooper said. “We just stopped by to tell you there’s a party at Chum and Howie’s tonight. They throw it every Fourth and its always a good time. You in?”
He reached out and tugged once on my belt loop. My heart tugged with it. A party with the locals. How very not-Crestie. I glanced at Hammond behind the counter. He was wiping a rag in a circular motion about two feet away, clearly listening in.
“Yeah. I’m in,” I said. “But who are Chum and Howie?”
“Only the most awesomest dudes on the island,” Stoner put in. He’d walked up behind Cooper with a green Take a Dip tee slung over one shoulder. His eyes were typically half-mast and his goatee was made up of straggly brown curls and nonspecific crumbs.
“Dude. Put. The shirt. Back,” Cooper said. Like he was directing his very own toddler.
Stoner groaned and tipped his head back, but did as he was told.
“These guys have a cottage down by the lighthouse,” Cooper explained. “They’re cool. You’ll like ’em.”
“Okay. But is it cool if Annie comes?” I asked.
“Of course,” Cooper said.
“Who’s this Annie person? She sounds hot,” Dex said.
Cooper flicked his forehead and Dex moped away, rubbing the wound.
“What about our party?” Hammond blurted, no longer able to keep quiet.
I rolled my eyes at him. Like I had any plans of attending the Cresties’ Fourth of July extravaganza. Had he not yet gotten the memo?
“What?” he asked, palms up.
Cooper smirked. “I’ll come by to get you guys. Like, nine o’clock?”
“Sounds good,” I told him. “I’ll . . . see you then.”
He reached out and gave my hand this sort of awkward squeeze. I couldn’t help thinking that if I’d let him kiss me on the beach yesterday, he’d probably kiss me now. But he didn’t. Instead he helped his friends shove all the T-shirts back in the cabinet, then gave me a nod as he ushered them out. But my lips were actually tingling as I watched him go.
I had thought, since it was raining like a mother-bitch, that no one would come out for coffee. But I was wrong. Everyone came out for coffee. Some people came with their dogs, even. And then, they all stayed inside the shop to drink their drinks. And to make annoying demands about Splenda and nutmeg and extra muffins because their stupid dog ate theirs when they weren’t looking.
I hated this fucking job.
And then, Shannen came in. And I hated it more.
She was fourth or fifth on line. I couldn’t tell because the lady with the cell phone kept pacing as she shouted into it. Behind her were a couple of guys from the soccer team. I wasn’t sure if they were all together, but I could tell the guys had noticed me and were whispering about me. Losers.
I was still trying to figure out how not to be the one to take Shannen’s order, when the office door slammed. Mr. Ryan came walking out, stepped in the big puddle of coffee that’d been there for the last hour, and slipped. His arms flung out and his eyes widened. He would’ve gone splat if I hadn’t lunged for him and
caught his arm.
“Are you okay?” I asked. I hoisted him to his feet. His Jump baseball cap was sideways and half off his head. His face was all red.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded.
I knew he was really pissed because he never cursed. Not even damn or hell.
“Oh, um . . . she . . .” I turned and started to point to this woman Keisha, who’d spilled the coffee, but she tensed at her register. She was an even bigger bitch than Leena, so I stopped myself. “I mean we . . . spilled a coffee,” I said stupidly.
“Well, when you spill coffee, Jake, you mop it up,” he blurted.
Half the people in the store stopped talking. Which was a noticeable difference in the loudness. He turned and grabbed the mop from the corner, shoving it at me. Which was so unfair, because I hadn’t even spilled the damn coffee. And now the soccer dudes and Shannen were all laughing at me.
“Fuck this,” I muttered under my breath. I mopped up the mess—did a pretty messy job of it—and tossed the mop into the bucket. “Fuck this stupid place.”
Then Keisha was standing there, her hips taking up almost the whole aisle behind the counter.
“Take your half hour,” she said.
My shoulders drooped in relief. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re not scheduled for another fifteen minutes, but I’ll cover you.”
I looked at her. She was thanking me for not ratting her out. Okay. So maybe she wasn’t a bigger bitch than Leena.
“Thanks.”
I tugged the plastic gloves off my hands, shoved them in the trash, and went out the back door. Not only did I not have to wait on Shannen and her friends, but I didn’t even have to pass by them on my way out. The second the rain hit my face, I knew. I knew that I wasn’t going back there. My shift wasn’t over for another four hours, but there was no way I was spending the rest of July Fourth measuring out sugar for snotty customers and taking a beating from my boss.
I made it to my Jeep, yanked open the door, and started the engine before I even got it closed. It was only five fifteen. I could be at Hammond’s house down the shore by eight. Seven thirty if I floored it. In less than three hours, I could be with Ally.
I peeled out of my space, and never looked back.
My heart pounded as I approached Gray’s bedroom that night. He’d gone out to the deck a few minutes earlier and I knew my mom was still inside getting ready. Now was the best shot I had for putting my dad’s plan into action. The door was open and my mom was at the vanity table, brushing out her hair, wearing her white cotton robe. I held my breath and knocked on the outer wall. She turned around.
“Hi!”
“Hey,” I said, stepping inside. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. It was all I could do to keep from rolling my eyes. Like it was so out of the ordinary for me to come talk to her?
“Sure.”
I’d only been inside Gray’s room once since we’d been here, when he’d given us the grand tour on our first evening, showing us everything from the dusty attic to the garage where he kept an old BMW for use in “emergencies.” He’d even shown me where the keys were hidden—in a drawer nearby—which I thought was pretty cool of him. Especially considering the only “emergency” I could imagine was me having to make an early-morning escape from him and his hospital corners. The walls of his bedroom were a super light gray-blue and framed black-and-white shore scenes had been hung here and there to set the mood. The bed was huge—it had to be even bigger than a king—and took up half the room. I tried not to look at it as I approached my mother.
“I was just wondering . . . could you drive me into the city next Saturday to meet Annie?” I asked.
My mother blinked and sort of scoffed. Clearly this was not what she was expecting. “To do what?”
“To go to the MoMA?” I asked, swallowing hard. “Mr. Hanson sent out an e-mail saying that anyone who brought in a receipt from a museum this summer would get extra credit in the fall. I still have the e-mail if you want to see it.”
I pulled out my phone, but my hand was shaking. My mother stared at it.
“How much extra credit exactly?” she asked, leaning one hand into the bench at her side.
“I don’t know. He just said extra credit,” I said. “It won’t take that long. We’ll just check out a few of the galleries and then come home.”
My mother looked up at me, her eyes narrowed, and I swear the seagulls outside could hear my pulse racing. She couldn’t possibly know this was a plot. Could she?
“Okay, fine. I suppose it would be nice to go into the city for the day,” she said. “But I get to pick our lunch spot.”
“Done!” I said. I was so excited I threw my arms around her. She hugged me back tightly and I suddenly felt tears well up in my eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d hugged my mom.
But whatever. That hardly mattered right now. What mattered was I’d done it. I’d fooled her. And next Saturday, my dad was going to get the shot he needed to woo her back.
“So . . . is that what you’re wearing to the party?” she asked as I pulled away.
I looked down at my white shorts, gray lace-trimmed T-shirt, and dark blue hoodie. “Yeah. Why?”
“I don’t know. I thought everyone usually got a little more dressed up,” she said, lifting one shoulder.
My stomach sank as she turned back toward the mirror and began fastening a diamond into one ear. I’d never seen those earrings before in my life. Guess Gray was out a few thousand this month.
“I’m not going to the Rosses’,” I told her. “Cooper invited me and Annie to this party down by the lighthouse.” I turned and started for the door, preferring to put an end to it there.
“Ally—”
Apparently she had other ideas.
“Mom, I’ve told you, like, a million times, I don’t want to hang out with Hammond and those guys,” I said, whirling to face her. “It’s like you don’t believe me.”
She sighed and got up, sliding a clutch purse from the edge of the table. Shaking her head slowly, she dumped a lipstick and compact inside, then snapped it shut.
“I guess I just thought when we got down here . . . I don’t know . . . that you’d relax that rule a little,” she said with a small, hopeful smile.
“So when you said I wouldn’t have to see them if we came down here, you were, what, lying? Manipulating me?” I said. “Real nice, Mom.”
I strode out the door, fuming. My mother came after me as I jogged down the stairs to the second floor. Quinn stood outside the door of her room, her arms crossed over her chest, staring at me. Great. Just what I needed. An audience.
“Ally—”
I stopped on the landing and forced myself to breathe. You just got her to say yes to the MoMA, I reminded myself. Don’t mess this up.
“Mom,” I said as calmly as I could. “Annie hates those people. She drove all the way down here to see me, and I’m not gonna make her go to a party with a bunch of people she can’t stand. She’s already waiting for me in her car.”
This was both true and a lie. Annie did hate the Cresties, but she would have killed to go to their party. Annie was working on some kind of exposé about our town’s tonier half, and she jumped on any excuse to observe them in their natural habitat. She’d almost strangled me when I said we weren’t going, and only backed down when I told her how much I wanted to hang out with Cooper.
My mother looked at the floor and nodded. “I get that. I do. But can’t you split your time or something? Go to Hammond’s first for an hour and then to this other party?”
No. I could not spend an hour at Hammond’s. Because spending an hour at Hammond’s meant spending an hour with Faith and her annoying clinginess. It meant spending an hour with Hammond and that freaky sexual tension from this afternoon possibly returning. If I could help it, I would not be standing within a three-foot radius of Hammond Ross again for the rest of my life.
; At that moment, a horn honked in the driveway. Saved by Cooper.
“That’s him, Mom. We’re going to follow him to the thing. I gotta go.”
For good measure I stood on my toes and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“Fine! Have fun! But just so you know, Ally Ryan, you will be spending some time with your family this summer!”
I raced across the living room and out the door, gulping back a surge of bile at her insinuation that Gray and Quinn were my family. Little did she know that I would be spending some time with my family this summer. My real family. Starting next Saturday afternoon.
“So are you, like, in love with my brother?” Jenny shouted into my ear.
“What? No!” I replied.
I sucked half the punch from my cup. If there was alcohol in it, I couldn’t taste it, so I had decided to pretend that there wasn’t any. After the last few days and that “family time” comment from my mom, I deserved to let loose a little. Suddenly, a cheer went up from across the yard. Someone had built an elaborate catapult worthy of a physics fair blue ribbon, and half the party’s attendees had spent most of the evening flinging various items at the wall of the abandoned house next door. From the looks of things, this catapult had been in use for months—the dilapidated structure on the other side of the fence was peppered with holes, cracks, and stains of various hues and sizes—and as Jenny and I looked on, Cooper and Dex were helping some other guys load it up with a huge, dimpled watermelon.
“Really?” Jenny was incredulous as she smacked my arm with the back of her hand, spilling half her beer over the rim of her cup and not noticing. Both of us wore hoodies with the hoods up to ward off the misty drizzle, and she pushed hers back slightly, as if to better see me. Her blue eyes were wide. “Everyone’s in love with him.”
I glanced over at Cooper, who was stepping back to yank the release on the catapult. There were quite a few girls eyeing him over their drinks. I wondered if he knew they were all in love with him.
Probably.