SSDTU 2 - He’s So not Worth It

by Kieran Scott

  Observations:

  1:15 p.m.: Subject Mrs. Appleby walks in. She passes by all the fancy displays, stops at the counter, and nods at the woman behind it. The woman hands over a bag. Subject Mrs. Appleby walks out. No words are exchanged. No money is exchanged either. (Query: Do the wealthy just get free stuff around here? Is that why they’re so frickin’ wealthy?)

  1:27 p.m.: Subject Mrs. Shale walks in. Her skin looks like leather. She walks to the counter and is given an even bigger bag than the one Subject Mrs. Appleby got. Again, no words or money exchanged. (Assessment: Maybe the Apothecary is actually a front for a prescription drug ring!)

  “Hey, Mr. Ryan.”

  I went over to the computer to clock out. He’d just come in the back door and was putting his stuff down on the desk.

  “Jake. Off so soon?” he said. He sounded tired. He hadn’t sounded like that once since I’d known him.

  I hesitated. “My shift’s over.”

  “Right. Of course,” he said, waving a hand. “I apologize. I’m just out of it.”

  I hit the enter button and stood up straight. “Everything okay?”

  He looked over at me, then down at some paperwork on the desk. “No, actually, since you asked. Turns out I’m getting a divorce.”

  My stomach kind of fell out of my body. “Oh.”

  Ally must have been freaking out. Shit. She must have been so upset.

  “I’m . . . sorry?” I said, cracking a knuckle.

  “It’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay. But it’s going to be okay.” He shrugged hugely and pressed his fingertips into the desktop. “I screwed up. Apparently there’s no going back.”

  I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry. All I could think about was Ally. Ally crying, Ally curled up in a ball on her bed. My heart actually hurt.

  “Anyway, I just figured I’d tell you because I know Ally’s been having a hard time of it this summer,” he said, turning to look at me. He folded his arms across his chest. “She could probably use a friend.”

  My heart skipped a beat. Was that his way of giving me his blessing or something? Did he not know that Ally and I hadn’t even spoken since July Fourth?

  “So what do you say, Jake? You gonna be there for my daughter?” he asked.

  Suddenly, I saw Chloe’s neck tilted to the side as my lips moved to meet her skin. Her light brown hair tangled around my fingers. That stretch of thigh that went on forever. I felt a prickle on my neck, and started to sweat.

  “Yeah, I don’t know if she really wants me to be there for her,” I said, chewing on my lip.

  “If you’re worried about that kid she was seeing down the shore, don’t be. They broke up.”

  “They did?” I said.

  “Yeah. And I happen to know that she’s grounded, so if you were to drive down there, say . . . this Friday night when you happen to be off, you’d probably find her home.”

  My brow knit. “Mr. Ryan, why are you telling me all this?”

  He took a couple of steps toward me. “Because you’re a good kid, Jake. And I know from what her mother has told me that Ally really likes you. I just think it’d be nice if something worked out for her. I couldn’t give her her family back. Maybe I can . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “Give her me?” I said.

  He laughed. “Something like that. Just think about it.”

  He turned and walked out onto the floor, leaving me alone in the office. I sat down on his rickety desk chair and blew out a sigh. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Ally had broken up with that surf loser? When? How? Why hadn’t I heard about it from Hammond or Faith? I wondered if this was before or after Chloe and I . . . Before or after we . . .

  I felt like I very much needed to curl into a ball and die.

  I hadn’t talked to Chloe since that night. She’d blown me off for class both Monday and today, and I hadn’t tried to call her, either. Every time I thought of her, I felt guilty and embarrassed. I shouldn’t have gone over there. I shouldn’t have done what I’d done. But what was I supposed to do with her standing there all half-naked and grabbing me and kissing me like that? I didn’t know a single guy who could walk away.

  “Okay, don’t think about that,” I whispered to myself. “Think about Ally. What are you gonna do about Ally?”

  I imagined myself going down there. Knocking on her door. Her opening it and seeing me. And then . . . what? I beg her to take me back again? Could I really be that guy? And what if she said no? I had a feeling another rejection from her might kill me.

  But I guess . . . I guess I could just do what her dad said. Not beg her to take me back, but just be there for her. Give her a shoulder to cry on or to hit or to yell at or whatever she needed to do. Because I knew her heart had to be broken and the thought made me sick. I wanted to help her fix it. Even if she didn’t take me back.

  Daily Field Journal of Annie Johnston Tuesday, August 3

  Position: Cream of the Crop denim boutique, Orchard Avenue.

  Cover: None. They sucked me in with their designer discounts, okay?

  Observations:

  1:01 p.m.: Subject Jake Graydon walks in. Uniform: cargo shorts, gray T-shirt, Nikes w/o socks. Subject Mrs. Graydon is with him. Uniform: pristine white linen suit. Subject Jake immediately crosses to a rack of men’s jeans that look like they just barely survived the beach at Normandy. Subject Mrs. Graydon drags him away to a rack of jeans that look as if they’ve been pressed to within an inch of their existence. (Assessment: This should be good.)

  1:08 p.m.: After arguing through their teeth for a few minutes, and consulting the salesgirl, who looks like she just stepped out of one of the raunchier Miley Cyrus videos, Subject Mrs. Graydon shoves Subject Jake toward a dressing cube with two pairs of pressed jeans, two pairs of destroyed.

  1:09 p.m.: Subject Chloe Appleby walks in. Uniform: khaki shorts, eyelet top, espadrilles. She spots Subject Mrs. Graydon and freezes. Her eyes dart to Subject Jake as he yanks the curtain closed over the dressing cube. Subject Chloe turns green and walks out, sprinting out of sight. (Assessment: Yeah. Something DEFINITELY went down between those two.)

  The Kirkpatricks’ party might have had a smaller guest list than usual, but no one would have known they’d cheaped out on anything. This year’s theme was a luau, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn I was in Hawaii. Real palm trees decorated their sprawling deck, and a roasted pig turned on a spit outside. The waitresses wore colorful sarongs and leis made of real flowers, and the food was unbelievable. Plus, they had no problem handing over the piña coladas and strawberry daiquiris to anybody who asked.

  Maybe these Crestie parties were good for something.

  Although, as I stood at the tiki bar in the living room, my mother was partaking in a one-on-two hula dancing lesson with Mrs. Moore across the room and, from the looks of it, having the time of her life. It made me sick, really. I mean, how could she be having so much fun? She was getting divorced. Officially. She and my dad had told me last Saturday, after I’d gotten back from Orchard Hill. Apparently my mother had decided over a year ago that she wanted her marriage to be over—she just hadn’t been able to track my father down to sign the papers. But now, here he was. And he was done fighting. I guess they had a long talk while I was gone, and she convinced him. Over twenty years together, if you count the few they’d dated, and it was just done. And she was acting like she’d never been happier.

  She and Mrs. Moore tried a frantic hip-shaking move, then dissolved all over each other, giggling. I groaned and rolled my eyes. Didn’t they see how ridiculous they looked? But at least my mom hadn’t been on me all night long. Thanks to Faith, she was under the impression that the waitresses were only serving virgin drinks to the minors.

  So maybe Faith was good for something too.

  “Okay! I just saw one of the Idiot Twins hooking up with that Lindsey girl in the bathroom, but I don’t know if it was Todd or Trevor,” Annie said, looking frazzled as she joined me. “Hammo
nd is nowhere to be found and neither is that sophomore chick with the punk hair. Not his type, I know, but they could be somewhere together and I’m missing it. And Faith totally just took off her bikini top in the hot tub even though her parents are, like, right upstairs. This party is either going to kill me or make my book a bestseller.”

  I downed the dregs of my third piña colada and grabbed another from a passing waiter. “I vote for the bestseller thing.”

  Annie narrowed her eyes at me, as if she’d just actually seen me. “How many of those have you had?”

  “Not enough. Yet, anyway,” I said, sucking on the straw.

  “I thought you didn’t drink,” Annie said, looking suddenly concerned.

  “I didn’t. Then the shore happened,” I said.

  “Damn. These Cresties really know how to corrupt,” Annie said.

  I lifted my glass to her. “You know it.”

  Annie shook her head and looked across the living room full of laughing guests with their perfect teeth and their island gear and their twinkling diamonds.

  “Gotta say, I never thought I’d see the day,” she mused.

  “The day that what?” I asked, taking a sip of my drink.

  “The day Ally Ryan became a cliché.”

  My throat tightened and I almost dropped my drink on the hardwood floor. “Um, ouch.”

  Annie shrugged. She was about to say something else when the other half of the room got suspiciously quiet. Then I heard a happy shriek and a round of applause. A crowd had formed in the general area of the hula dancing. I stood on my toes to see what was going on, just in time to see Gray slip a humongous diamond ring onto my mother’s trembling finger.

  No. This was not— No.

  My vision swam. For a second everything went fuzzy—all the colors and sounds and smells. Annie grabbed for my hand, but I shook it off. My mother threw her arms around Gray’s neck and he twirled her around. Then Quinn was there, giggling and checking out the ring, and she didn’t even look surprised.

  She knew. She’d known all along. She probably even knew that day on the beach when I tried to grill her about whether my parents were breaking up. Oh my God, I was going to wring that girl’s skinny little—

  And then . . . then . . . then . . . everyone at the party was turning around slowly—turning around to look at me. Waiting for me to jump up and down and smile and kiss my new father. Expecting me to play the part of the perfect Crestie daughter.

  Gray had proposed to my mother. My mother had said yes. My mother was getting married to someone who was not my father.

  Don’t be a cliché, Ally. All you’ve done all summer is storm out, avoid, turn your back. Don’t be the cliché Annie expects you to be.

  From across the room, my mother’s eyes implored me even as her smile widened.

  “Ally?” Gray said with a grin. He opened an arm out to me as if he wanted me to take his hand.

  That was all I needed. I turned around, dropped my glass, and ran.

  The flowers might not have been the best idea. For the past two hours they’d been sitting there on the passenger seat of my Jeep next to Faith’s stupid coconut invite, taunting me. A few times I’d decided to toss them out the window, or give them to some tired-looking mom at a parkway rest stop and make her year. I mean, I’d decided it didn’t matter whether Ally took me back. What mattered was being there for her. So wouldn’t the flowers confuse things?

  But no. Everyone liked to get flowers, right? At least, all girls. It was the kind of thing Chloe would know the answer to. If nothing had happened that night, if we had just gone on being friends and study partners, I could have called her and asked her. A couple of months ago, she wanted me and Ally to get together. She was, like, the only one who did.

  And now . . . what would she think if she knew I was half an hour away from LBI? If she knew where I was going and why? Would she be mad? Jealous? Happy for me?

  Did I even care?

  I looked at the flowers again as I zoomed through the last tollbooth before exit sixty-three.

  Screw it. I was going to give them to her. I loved the girl. Simple as that. It was time to stop fucking around.

  Jenny picked up the phone on the first ring.

  “Ally! Hey!”

  “Where are you guys?” I blurted, wiping the back of my hand across my nose. Tears streamed down my face and my nostrils were so clogged I had to breathe through my mouth, but I did the best I could to sound like I was not crying.

  “Actually, we’re right up the beach from your place. Is someone having a party? Because it smells awesome.”

  I had been headed for the driveway—God knows why, since I didn’t have a car—but instantly turned the corner and started up the plank walkway for the beach.

  “Who’s that?” I heard Cooper say in the background. My heart did a little pitter-patter, fluttery thing that made my stomach turn.

  “It’s Ally,” she whispered.

  He said something, but I couldn’t make it out. I just hoped he wasn’t telling her to tell me to kiss off.

  “Where are you exactly?” I said as the wind off the water blew my hair back.

  “We’re up by that house I like,” she said as a round of laughter erupted in the background. “The Applebottoms?”

  The Applebys. “I’ll be right there.”

  I shoved my phone in my pocket and turned left, headed up the beach. The wind seemed impossibly cold and I hugged my bare arms as hard as I could, wishing I was wearing anything other than the tank top and long, gauzy skirt I’d snagged on sale at B&B. I guess I wasn’t as drunk as Annie had implied. If I was, I’d probably feel a lot warmer than I did right now.

  “Ally! Wait up!”

  The sound of Annie’s voice only made me walk faster. I squinted, trying to make out the figures up the beach. Why was there no fire? Cooper and Dex always had a fire. I was just trudging past Gray’s house when Annie caught up.

  “Ally! Come on! Stop for a sec!” her hand fell on my arm, and I turned to face her.

  “Why are you following me?” I snapped. “I thought I was some huge cliché unworthy of your friendship.”

  “I’m sorry, okay? I was just talking,” she replied, lifting the hood of her sweatshirt over her hair. “I didn’t know that—”

  “My mother was about to get engaged?” I replied, wiping my eyes. “Yeah. Me neither.”

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  I laughed into the wind and looked out at the ocean. “No. Not even a little bit.”

  “Come on.” She hooked her arm around mine and tugged. “We’ll go get something to eat and you can vent all over me.”

  I suddenly saw myself ensconced in a booth at Chicken or the Egg, the twenty-four-hour diner at the other end of the island, plowing through a plate of pancakes and telling her everything I hadn’t had a chance to tell her all summer. It actually sounded kind of nice.

  But then I heard Cooper’s voice in my mind, mocking me for being a whiner. Telling me everyone’s life sucked and I was basically a big, fat baby. Suddenly I didn’t want to give Annie the satisfaction of watching me blubber over carbs. She’d basically insulted the crap out of me ten seconds ago and now she wanted to hear my sob story? Why? So she could put it all in her book?

  “Thanks anyway,” I said. “I think I’m done whining.”

  Then I turned around and kept walking. Much to my chagrin, Annie fell into step with me.

  “Then where are we going?” she asked.

  “To meet Cooper,” I said. We were passing by Hammond’s house now, where his mom’s old-school weather vane creaked in the wind, spinning around like a top.

  “I thought you guys broke up.”

  “Not officially,” I told her.

  Right now all I wanted to do was find Cooper and prove to him that I was not a whiner. That I was not self-centered and a downer. I wanted to be the girl he’d thought I was. The fun, carefree bennie. I wanted this summer to have never happened.

&nbs
p; Finally, a few dark, nebulous shapes came into view up the beach, past the Shale’s modern, gray monstrosity of a mansion. They were standing in the sand right in front of Chloe’s house. Jenny let out a whoop and came running toward me.

  “Alleeeeee!”

  She threw herself into my arms. I gave her a quick hug, but kept moving.

  “Hi, Annie,” she said.

  “Hey.” Annie sounded wary for some reason. Why did she have to come? The last thing I needed right now was a judgmental witness.

  I kept walking toward the guys. Cooper, Dex, and Stoner were all there. Thankfully, Jessie was not. Cooper took a sip of beer and eyed me as I approached.

  “Hey, guys,” I said, lifting a hand.

  I really hoped that it was dark enough to keep them from telling I’d been crying.

  “What’s up, Al?” Dex said.

  “Hi, Cooper,” I said tentatively.

  “Hey.” He looked away briefly. “Been a while.”

  Yeah, well, you kind of ripped me to shreds the last time I saw you, I thought but didn’t say.

  “So what are you doing here?” he asked.

  I took a deep breath and walked up to him, so close our toes touched in the sand. My skin tingled with warmth, just being close to him again. “I wanted to tell you I’m over the drama. My family, the Cresties, all that crap. You were right. At the beginning of the summer I did just want to have fun. And I still do.”

  To prove it, I took the beer out of his hand and took a long swig. I felt both seriously cool and completely gross at the same time, but it had the desired affect. Cooper slowly smiled and my whole body tingled.

  “Yeah?” he said, reaching one arm around me.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He leaned down and planted a kiss on my lips. When he pulled back again, there was a spark of something dangerous in his eyes and my heart thumped nervously.

  “So prove it.”

  I smiled and took a step back. “How?”