by Sarah Ockler
“Please, Anna. Don’t,” she says, wiping her eyes with her free hand. And just as quickly as it arose, the fight in me is gone.
“How can you say it was all a lie?” I ask, just above a whisper. “Matt was my best friend. I loved him that way always. ‘We have to look out for her.’ That was the last thing he said to me alone. And then he died. What was I supposed to do, Frank? Tell me?”
She crosses her arms over her chest and looks down the shore. The waves have reached our feet, icy and blue. It hurts my toes, but it’s real and here and now and I need to feel it.
“You don’t need to protect me, Anna. I’m fine.” She steps back to clear her toes from the waves, shivering in her pink-and-white HP T-shirt, her knees touching to block the cold, her messy hair blowing into her eyes.
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “Your life is totally out of control, Frankie. You haven’t told the truth about a single thing since Matt died.”
Frankie nods slowly, refusing to look at me. She folds herself into the sand, wrapping her arms around her knees and rubbing her bracelet like she did in the hospital when Matt died.
I sit next to her and dig my feet into the sand, blowing into my hands to warm my fingers.
“Truth,” Frankie says, nodding.
“Truth.”
“When Johan and I got out to the field, he told me all about Maria and how heartbroken he was. At the end of it, I tried to kiss him. I thought that’s what he wanted, but he just pushed me away. He said he was sorry, but he was still in love with her. I was so embarrassed that I didn’t even want to go back to the dance. When we got inside, everyone was making comments and jokes and just assumed that we did it — even you. It was easier to go along with it than to tell the truth — that I wasn’t good enough for him. I was going to tell you, but the stories just went on and on and I couldn’t deal with it.
“With Jake, we messed around a lot at first, on the nights we snuck out. We almost slept together a few times, and I figured we would sooner or later anyway. So that one night when you asked me about it, it was kind of easier for me to say yes. I’m supposed to be the experienced one, right?”
I shrug, digging sand tunnels with my toes. “I guess.”
“Then, he wanted to do it at the party, but I was drunk, and I didn’t want to. I told him we could the next night. But when I got out there, I still didn’t want to. I don’t know why, I mean, we were alone on the beach and he’s really hot and everything. I just — something stopped me. Maybe it’s like you said — things were getting out of control, you and I were fighting, and I couldn’t really think about anything else. But that was basically it. He didn’t want to see me after that.”
She’s crying again, and my heart breaks for her. Everything is so screwed up — I don’t know how to make things better anymore.
“Frankie, I’m truly sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Matt and I just —”
“No, Anna. You don’t have to say anything.” She shakes her head. “I read the journal. You don’t have to tell me. It doesn’t matter anymore. Matt’s just — he’s dead.”
“There isn’t a second that goes by that I don’t know that. I’m just trying to tell you that I —”
“I can’t,” she whispers, squeezing my hand. “Please, Anna. Don’t.”
I don’t want to keep hurting her, so I do what I do best.
I just swallow hard.
Nod and smile.
One foot in front of the other.
I’m fine, thanks for not asking.
We stand up and dust the damp sand off our legs, tenuously agreeing to try. To accept. To move on. To not talk about it.
“We should go in,” she says. “They’re going to wake up, and we haven’t even started packing.”
I nod, following her back to the stairs and into the house.
After packing our bags, cleaning our room, and eating a light breakfast with Uncle Red and Aunt Jayne, I take a final walk out to the ocean — my sad blue secret keeper. She’s witnessed everything on this trip — albatross cast off, secrets unleashed, history destroyed, love and friendships found and broken — yet she remains the same. Reassuring. Undying.
Shhhhhhhhh. “Goodbye,” I whisper to many things at once. The water kisses my toes as the ghosts of our memories fade from the house like wet footprints, the curtains of Matt’s attic room above the beach closed tight against the sun.
thirty-two
The trip back home is like watching a highlights reel of our arrival in quick reverse. From the car, we turn to watch the fiery orange windows of the house vanish behind the palm trees until only the tip of the wooden iceberg roof remains. The road winds farther down and the house is all but erased, back to the photographs and fairy tales from which it sprang.
We don’t stop on Moonlight Boulevard to say goodbye to Breeze or Sweet Caroline’s or the postcard stand or the tourists in their lime green spandex, but Red slows down for Jayne to snap a picture of the sign posted on the far end of town.
You Are Leaving Zanzibar Bay
Thanks for stopping by!
Along the highway, Red pulls over at the lookout where we first saw the harbor seals on our arrival, insisting that we take another official family vacation photo for comparison’s sake.
The seals are right where we left them, barking and playing on the shore.
The guardrail and the informational sign and the worn picnic table are right where they’ve always been.
The dolomite boulders still protect the cliff from collapsing into the sea like they’ve done for tens of thousands of years.
My entire life has changed in the span of three weeks, but as the seals howl against the Pacific, everything around me remains exactly the same.
“You guys okay?” Uncle Red asks us when we’re buckled back into the car. “I’m surprised you’re not documenting this.”
“Just tired,” Frankie says, ignoring the camera in her backpack. “I don’t want to leave, either,” Aunt Jayne says. “But I bet we’ll take another trip next year.”
We nod like robots and look out our separate windows from the backseat.
At the airport, we return the rental car, check in, and rush through security amid the same flux of reunions and breakups we witnessed on the way here. Same people. Same hellos and goodbyes. Same beginnings and endings. Same befores and afters.
We get to the gate with time for a Jack’s Java run, but Frankie and I order separately. We don’t do any mock interviews. We don’t make up stories about the other waiting passengers. We drink our expensive coffee milk shakes and try to stay awake long enough to board the plane without falling down dead.
Soon we’re in our seats, listening to crewmember instructions and following along with the passenger safety information card conveniently located in our seatback pockets.
Frankie lets me have the window seat again and promptly passes out against my shoulder, listening to the new HP playlist she made on her iPod after the concert. As I watch the white dots of sailboats disappear into the vast blue ocean, the Golden Gate bridge becomes a series of suspended red matchsticks, and I think about Mom and Dad, wondering whether they’ll notice how much I’ve aged in these three short weeks. Will I look or talk or walk different? Will they know?
Yes, Anna was such a sweet girl, but that was before the incident. We’d rather not talk about it.
We get home after midnight East Coast time and it takes all my remaining energy to say goodbye to the Perinos, hug Mom and Dad hello, and drag myself up to my room. Save for a set of clean sheets on the bed, my room is exactly as I left it — familiar, comfortable, and expected. I know which boards in the floor will creak under my steps. I know which drawer holds my socks. I know which monsters live in the closet and which under the bed, and when I crawl between my sheets and lay my head against my old, lumpy pillow, I pull my sheets up to my chin, close my eyes, and allow myself to think that maybe I never left this safe, boring place with its old predictable ghosts.
Morning comes too soon, Mom buzzing around my room to wake me out of a deep sleep so we can have breakfast together and talk about the trip. I sit up and take in the familiar walls, remembering that I’m no longer two thousand miles across the country in a beach rental house.
The clock says eleven a.m. Ten hours isn’t nearly enough to repay the sleep deficit I’ve built up these past few weeks, but Mom is too excited about making up for lost quality time.
Downstairs, Dad’s at the table with the newspaper, surrounded by covered dishes. In honor of such a triumphant return from such a wholesome family vacation in which I did not experiment with alcohol, boys, curfew breaking, or walking outside without ample applications of sunscreen, Mom prepared a breakfast fit for kings and angel daughters alike.
I pull up my usual chair, load up a plate, and tell them all about the trip. Rather, the PG version, focusing on activities coordinated by Red and Jayne and a few strategically placed mentions of Jackie and Samantha (whose parents were of course very strict). I talk about the seafood we ate and that night when the waiter dumped the pitcher of water on Frankie’s sunburn. I even tell them about the sand angels we made with Aunt Jayne. I describe the ocean and the house and Moonlight Boulevard with its eclectic mix of tourists and locals, finding it extremely challenging to reminisce without mentioning Sam and the Va-Va-Vineapple smoothie I plan to recreate in the blender later.
“It sounds beautiful, Anna,” Mom says, pouring herself more coffee.
“So, anything new around here?” I ask, hoping I don’t accidentally mention Sam.
“Dad has some news.” Mom smiles at Dad across the table. “Remember right before you left I won the Hoover House listing — that old mansion out on Route Five?” Dad asks. “Well, I sold it. One week flat, and we had a huge bidding war, just like I predicted.”
“Dad, that’s great! Congratulations.”
“I’m taking us all out to celebrate tonight. The Perinos, too. Sound fun?”
I catch myself shrugging and quickly turn it into a happy nod. “Where is Frankie, anyway?” Dad asks. “It’s almost noon. I’m surprised you two can stand the separation.”
I take a deep breath and gulp down some orange juice.
Well, Dad, first Frankie lied to me about losing her virginity to the foreign exchange student on the soccer field, and how your first time can’t be special and all that. Then we decided to have this twenty boy contest but we only met, like, half, and she lied again about sleeping
with one of them when really they just kind of fooled around naked and broke up. Meanwhile, when I was casting off my virginity with boy number five (or was he six?), Frankie read my journal and found out that I was in love with Matt for a million years and by the way, right after you took that picture of us with all the cake and frosting, he kissed me and started this whole long thing that we weren’t allowed to tell her about. Frankie was so mad that she threw my journal into the bottom of the ocean, where it is banished for all eternity with a lovesick mermaid who cries out pieces of sea glass. Are you going to eat that bacon?
Dad prepares his toast, careful not to get crumbs in the butter, politely awaiting my response.
“I’ll probably see her later,” I say. “Good. We already told Red and Jayne about dinner. You know, Anna, you look different.” He watches me a moment longer than usual.
“What do you mean?” I hope my voice doesn’t betray any guilt about the aforementioned “incident,” which will completely evade his Dad-sensors, but Mom will be all over it.
“Hmm. Tan. And relaxed.”
Mom nods. “We should have sent you away a long time ago.”
“Ha-ha.” Sometimes I think I’m an alien that accidentally fell off the mother ship, destined to wander among clueless earthling parents for all eternity.
After the breakfast play-by-play, it’s time for the daunting task of unpacking three weeks’ worth of dirty secrets. I mean clothes. Dirty clothes.
I start by dumping the entire contents of my suitcase — including about five gallons of sand — on my bed.
I separate out all of the nonclothes — a random assortment of beach glass, shells, and sand dollars; the striped beach stone Frankie gave me on our first day; iPod; cell phone; postcards I never mailed; a San Francisco magnet for my locker next year; the book of ocean poems from City Lights; and the takeout menu from Smoothie Shack with Sam’s e-mail address scribbled in the bottom corner.
I start a new jar for my beach glass and stick the menu in the bottom of the sock drawer where Mom won’t see it. Everything else finds a place in my room as if it had been here all along — even Sam’s sweatshirt folds effortlessly into my drawer among the others like they are old friends reuniting after a long separation.
It still smells like him. I leave it near the top so I can wear it tonight after Mom and Dad are safely tucked away in their blissfully clueless bedroom.
I open my window and slide up the screen, hoping I can shake the sand out of some of my clothes without the breeze blowing it back into my face. I spot Frankie lying out in her backyard, perpetuating her gorgeous tan. She flips through an issue of Celeb Style and drops it on the stack in the adjacent lounge chair formerly known as mine.
The magazine causes an avalanche, sliding off the chair and into the grass, taking three or four others with it. She leans over to grab them but can’t reach without getting out of her chair, opting instead to knock the rest of the pile into the grass and roll over on her side.
There is no expertly posed flat stomach, glistening parted lips, slightly bent legs, or heaving bosom.
There is no sparkling sand.
No roaring ocean.
No drooling, whistling boys.
Just Frankie and my empty lounge chair.
It hurts to watch, and I feel guilty for lingering in the shadows of my room like a stalker.
“Frank!” I yell down to her. “I’m coming over.”
Frankie meets me in her kitchen, grabbing two Diet Cokes on our way upstairs.
It seems like years since I’ve been here, and the maroons and purples of her Moroccan room are a comfortable homecoming.
I sit on the bed, pulling my legs under me. Her video camera is connected to the computer on her desk, transferring the evidence of our Absolute Best Summer Ever to her hard drive.
“We can watch it later if you want,” she says, nodding at the camera as she pulls a pair of boxers over her swimsuit and sits in front of the vanity. Last time I was here, I watched her get glammed up for trip planning night in front of the big mirror behind her.
I shrug. We look at each other, then away. At each other. Then away. We open our Diet Cokes and take a few sips. Neither speaks. Then both at the same time.
“Frankie, I” and “Anna, I,” awkward and strained. We’ve never been in this place before. We don’t know how to navigate.
It’s her room, so I let her go first. “I’m glad you came over, Anna. I know we already talked about this some, but it still feels weird. There’s more I have to say.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“Okay, so…” She takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, a faint “Matt” wafting off the end of her sigh like steam.
“I understand why he didn’t want to tell me right away,” she says. “He was always worrying about me — even when we were kids. If I scraped my knee or fell off my bike, he was the first one to help me up and make sure Mom got a Band-Aid.”
“I remember.” I smile. “He was the quintessential big brother.”
“He was. But that’s just it — he’s not here to protect me anymore, Anna. And you don’t have to be, either. I know I let stuff get crazy. I didn’t mean to be like that — it just kind of happened. You couldn’t have changed that. I — it was something I had to go through myself.”
My throat tightens. “I felt like I let him down,” I say. “All that stuff with smoking and Johan and Jake — I didn’t take care of you. I couldn’t even keep t
hat one simple promise.”
“Anna, my brother died. There’s no way you could protect me from that. It’s up to me, now. I let him down. I let me down.”
She reaches into her top desk drawer for the stale pack of cigarettes.
“I know I can do better,” she says, crushing them in her hand and dropping them into the trash can. I haven’t seen her so convinced about anything since she picked out our bikinis at Bling and invented the summer of twenty boys.
“Frankie —”
“There’s more, Anna. When we first got to California,” she says, “you asked me if I remembered your birthday party.”
I nod, picking at a thread on her comforter. “I did remember. Matt was acting like such a space cadet that night after we got home — like he was floating. I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out, but of all the things that he could have been thinking about, you were the last — I mean, my mind just didn’t even go there. You were like our sister.”
“But I —”
“Wait — let me get this out.” She looks at me hard, her broken wing eyebrow trembling to keep the tears back. “After I brushed my teeth, I walked into his room. He was sitting on his bed, playing with that blue glass necklace he always wore, a big smile on his face. Remember the necklace?”
The necklace. “Of course.”
“I asked him what was so funny. He jumped a little, not knowing I’d been watching him smile there like a goofy little kid. He said it was nothing — just that he had fun at the party. And I believed him, all the way up until the day I read your journal. That’s when it all made sense. All the times he’d ask me about who you liked at school, or who wanted to take you to whatever dance.”
She’s quiet as I digest her story, putting the pieces together to form a complete whole from the missing half that’s haunted me since that night — how did he really feel about me? Was it just one stupid moment, perpetuated a little too long, only to be forgotten as quickly as it came? As soon as he went away to school?