Saltwater Secrets

by Cindy Callaghan

  Josie asked, “We were?”

  No one seemed to notice her question.

  TJ said, “We got some stuff planned. I think the first bon—”

  “Hold up,” Josie said. “Before we get to the summer schedule, what’s with this place?” I suspected Josie’s “hold up” interrupted what was going to be an invitation to a bonfire. That was an invitation I wanted, and I was frustrated that she might’ve just made us lose it.

  “Uh…” I tried to stop her from “holding up” so TJ could finish, but Josie was steamed about the Smoothie Factory, and she wanted the guys to know it.

  “I can’t believe you’re eating that.” She glanced at their cups—Timmy’s and TJ’s—with a snarl. “Or drinking? Is it a food or a drink?” She poked at Timmy’s long spoon. “If you have a spoon and a straw, I mean, I can’t even.” To the Three Ts she asked, “Where’s your loyalty to Water Ice World?”

  None of them answered right away. I think maybe they were afraid of saying the wrong thing, which they probably would have.

  TJ bravely gave it a try. “I’ll eat anywhere. I don’t discriminate.”

  Josie said, “I’m not discriminating. I’m protesting. There’s a difference.”

  I decided to lighten the mood. I asked TJ, “Is it good?”

  He held his cup out for me, and I took a sip.

  “Mmm.” I wiped a little green mustache off with my index finger, then tipped my sunglasses down to examine Timmy’s cup. “Crushed walnut?”

  “Extra protein,” he said. “We have some seriously tough fitness goals to meet for the program this summer.” Then he asked Josie, “You still running?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said.

  “Maybe we can run somewhere,” he said.

  She replied, “I jogged on the beach last night, before Stella got here. The sun was going down, and the sand had cooled off. You should try that.”

  I was pretty sure Timmy had meant “run together,” but Josie definitely missed that cue. I asked Tucker, “Why didn’t you get a smoothie?”

  Tucker said, “I have a policy to never touch green drinks. They gimme the heebie-jeebies. Drinks should be white, brown, or pink—vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry. Not green. As far as food goes, I prefer things that have been fried, flipped, scooped, dipped in chocolate, or put in a tortilla shell.” He shrugged. “I’m a picky eater, I guess.”

  “If you don’t start picking better things, you’re not gonna keep up with our training,” Timmy warned.

  “I’ve got these.” Tucker lifted an arm and said, “Bam!” when he flexed it, then “Bam!” when he flexed the other one. “I’m the only guard who can bench a whale, so, yeah, there’s that.”

  While I didn’t totally believe the whale part, I had to admit Tuck had really big arm muscles.

  TJ shook his head at Tucker and asked me, “You gonna get some?”

  “Yup,” I said.

  “No,” Josie snapped.

  Timmy licked smoothed banana off his spoon and said to Josie, “You’re missing out.” He held the cup out to her. “Sure you don’t want to try it?”

  She pressed her lips together and shook her head.

  “Suit yourself,” Timmy said. “Trust me, it’s good.”

  TJ tipped his cup back to get the last drops. “Totally,” he added.

  “Catch you later?” Timmy asked Josie, who was too busy scanning Smoothie Factory customers with disgust to hear.

  “Yeah,” I answered for her.

  The Three Ts started walking away: two Ts toward the guard shack and one T toward Sam’s Soft-Serve iScream.

  TJ turned back to me, and I thought he was going to drop the bonfire invite. Instead he held up his phone. “You still have the same number?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll text you,” he said.

  I nodded again. Now, that felt different and a lot more like I wanted to feel this summer.

  “I can’t even believe them,” Josie said, oblivious to Timmy wanting to catch her later, or TJ planning to text me, or nearly getting invited to a bonfire.

  Then we saw Dario heading toward us. “I can’t believe this!” His face was lit up like a kid realizing it was the last day of school before spring break. He held out a paper flyer.

  We gave him a quick hello hug, then read the flyer.

  And he was right; it was unbelievable.

  Seven Stella

  Police Station

  June 25 (Continued)

  “Now we also have these three boys.…” Santoro flips a page in his spiral notebook and goes to write down their names, like he’s trying to keep track of all the players here.

  He writes T, then T, then T, and pauses. Then I say, “One of them, Timmy, liked Josie; I could tell right away. And I got a vibe from TJ that he was interested in me. You know what I mean?”

  He doesn’t write anything down, because he doesn’t know what I mean.

  “Interested,” I repeat. “Like liked me.”

  That does it. He turns the page. I have to hold back a laugh, because it seems Santoro can question hardened criminals, throw the book at them, and probably rough them up, even set Dad up on a blind date, but he can’t hear about my crush, which is just what I hoped for, because I don’t want to talk to him about anything else involving the Three Ts.

  “Tell me about Dario,” Santoro says.

  I have no problem telling him all about Dario, because I don’t have to keep him out of trouble. “He’s our shore friend. We’ve hung out with him every year since we were kids. I can’t even remember how we first met. Josie probably would; she remembers everything.”

  I continue, “Dario lives at the shore all year, so he knows all about what happens in the off-season, and he gives us the scoop. He works at the Nifty Gifty. It’s one of the few jobs that’s year-round, and his parents know the owners, so they let him help out, even though he’s thirteen, like us. Most places want you to be fifteen or sixteen. He said he could get us jobs there next summer, but I don’t think I’d like it. I’d rather work at the surf shop. Josie wants to get her lifeguard certification at home this winter and guard next year. I wish I could do that, but I’m not a strong enough swimmer. It would be great for us socially if Josie was a guard, because then we’d always know what was going on, although I would probably gather a lot of that info at the surf shop. Who knows, really? The jury is still out on that, but you know all about juries.”

  I think Santoro stopped listening to me around “lifeguard certification.” He pushes his shoulders back to get a good stretch. I wonder if he was in some altercation with a criminal that left his neck and back achy.

  When I stop talking about jobs, he raises his brows as if signaling me to say more.

  “Dario doesn’t like working at Nifty. He wants to be a newscaster. In fact, one day he wants Murielle duPluie’s job. Do you know her?”

  He writes something down, maybe Dario’s name, but I can’t decipher his terrible handwriting. Or maybe it’s code that only detectives understand. Then he looks at me. “No,” he says like I’ve irritated him by asking a question. I guess when you’re being interviewed by a detective, they’re the only ones allowed to ask questions.

  The room is quiet for a hot sec. That’s when my stomach chooses to growl. It must be past dinnertime by now.

  He brings me back to the story. “So, the flyer. What was so unbelievable?”

  Eight Stella

  Boardwalk

  June 18 (Continued)

  I looked at the flyer advertising a concert. Not any concert. The Flying Fish were coming to Whalehead and would play on Murphy’s Pier.

  Josie, Dario, and I, and pretty much everyone else on the planet, loved the Flying Fish. The lead singer, Meredith Maxwell, was the best. She was a great singer, and not much older than us, which was cool.

  “She’s so pretty,” Josie said.

  “What do you think they’ll play first?” Dario asked. “I’m betting on ‘Wrap Me in Tentacles.’ Wanna bet
? Let’s make a bet.”

  Josie said, “I think it’ll be ‘World Is Your Oyster.’ But I don’t wanna bet.”

  “Chicken,” Dario taunted, then added, “I’d like to have tentacles for a day or a week to see what it’s like.” He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and made himself a voice memo. “Future news segment: What’s the deal with tentacles? Reporter spends a day swapping arms and legs for tentacles.”

  Josie asked, “Why stop there? What about fins and gills?”

  “Good ideas, Jo.”

  This banter lasted until we made it to the Smoothie Factory’s self-serve counter. I flicked the spigots of the tubes carrying mango, kiwi, and pineapple. Each fruit was its own magnificent color with thin ribbons of purple twirling through it.

  “What’s the purple?” Josie asked.

  Dario said, “That’s the stuff that makes these überhealthy. Their secret sauce. Murielle duPluie did a story. The nutritional value is off the charts.”

  I sprinkled coconut on top, stirred it with a long orange spoon, and finally tested it. “Like a tropical wonder. Wanna try?” I held it out for them.

  “No thanks,” Josie said. “I can’t even look at it.”

  Dario took a sip while Josie led us back outside to the boardwalk and returned to our previous topic as we strolled down the boards.

  Josie said, “The Flying Fish will be the event of the summer. People will come from all over. This pier will be packed.”

  That’s when we saw Rodney leaning on the boardwalk railing across from the Smoothie Factory entrance, waxing his surfboard. He said, “It’ll be a disaster.”

  Rodney was a slightly eccentric shore fixture, with a long scraggly beard and a dark tan that seeped deep into his wrinkles and blurred his aging tattoos. He lived to surf, and surfing was his life. When he wasn’t in the water, he was researching any variety of conspiracies ranging from little green men, to the secret society controlling the world, to the faked moon landing. We didn’t buy into them, but they were entertaining conversation on rainy days, and he was always nice to us.

  “G’day, Mr. Rodney.” Josie looked at the lime-green cup set by his feet. “Not you, too?”

  “I had to sample it.” He shrugged. “It ain’t half-bad. And I’m not getting any younger, so I can use the vitamins. You know your run-of-the-mill produce can’t yield these kinds of nutrition numbers, so it makes you wonder what’s really in it.”

  “More like it makes you wonder,” I said. “The rest of us just like drinking it.”

  “Not all of us,” Josie clarified.

  “I get your drift, Jo. I truly do, mate.” Rodney always called Josie “mate.” Not only that, but he nailed the accent. Australians say long a’s as a long i. They also add a little “oy” wherever they can. So whenever Josie said “mate,” it came out, “mite.” And that was how Rodney said it.

  “Girls, mark my words on this one.…” Rodney was always marking his words, so that when the truth eventually came out about something, like, for example, that Zac Efron was actually an alien, we’d remember that he’d predicted it. “If something can pack this much nutrition into this much cup”—he held up the cup—“we need to ask how.”

  “How?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer right away while he stared out at the ocean with a combination of love, respect, and awe that resembled the way an old man might look back on his life. “She holds many tales,” he said.

  I guessed he’d forgotten that we were talking about smoothie nutrition facts and had moved on to ocean awe. “Sure does,” I said.

  “Lots of tales,” Dario agreed.

  “What are we talking about? Buried treasure? Pirates?” Josie asked. “Or marine species? Because that’s my specialty.”

  Rodney didn’t address Josie’s questions. Instead he pointed to the flyer and asked, “So, Meredith Maxwell’s coming here of all places. Why Whalehead, New Jersey?”

  At the mention of Meredith Maxwell, we catapulted questions:

  “Can you even believe it?”

  “What do you think she’ll open with?”

  “Think we can get into the front row?”

  Again, Rodney’s mind had already shifted to the next thing. He used his chin to indicate Murphy’s Pier, home of the fabulous Minotaur Coaster. “I love that thing.” Then he did something bizarre, even by Rodney standards: He took a ziplock bag out of a duffel that sat at his feet. He poured the last drops of the smoothie into it, sealed it shut with a pinch, and put it back into the duffel. Then he tossed his empty green cup into the trash can. Next, he swung the duffel over his shoulder, grabbed his surfboard, and lifted it over his head. He said to us, “The ocean is calling, mates. And I must answer.”

  He walked down the ramp to the sand, dropped the bag, and switched to a jog. Once he hit the water, he belly flopped on top of the board and arm-paddled over the white-capped waves.

  “I think that guy gets too much sun,” I said. “Messes with his brain cells.”

  While we were talking, Josie’s alarm on her phone went off. Time to check in with Dad. She sent a super-quick text and flashed me the screen so I could see what she’d done.

  It also gave me a chance to glance at my own phone to see if TJ had texted. He hadn’t.

  Without missing a beat, Josie asked Dario, “What’s his story?” Dario has the backstory on everyone, like a future news reporter should.

  “He was a scientist in a former life. He invented something that helps with something and made a ton of money. He retired to live the life of his dreams, as a surf bum.”

  “He’s rich?” I confirmed.

  “Filthy. Most people don’t know that. They also don’t realize that he’s way smarter than he may seem.”

  Nine Stella

  Police Station

  June 25 (Continued)

  There’s a knock on the door.

  “Excuse me,” Santoro says. The chair makes a terrible screech when he pushes it back. He straightens himself up slowly, and the grimace on his face says he hurts. I wonder if maybe he got shot in the back or something.

  He peeks his head out the door but doesn’t actually leave.

  I’m pleasantly surprised when chips and soda appear. I guess I assumed he’d engage in hushed detective whispers about me or some other case, but he was getting us a snack.

  He puts a soda down, pops the top with one big hand, and slides it to me. Then he does the same with the other one for himself. He takes a gulp that probably sucks in half the can.

  He drops a bag of chips in front of me, eases back into his chair, crosses his legs, and rips his bag open. He’s all settled in to hear the rest of my story. He asks, “You knew Rodney before this day on the boardwalk?”

  I sip the Coke. It’s warm. “Oh yeah. We’ve known him for years, but we really still don’t know him that well. He’s someone that we could talk about for hours.”

  Santoro sets a chip in his mouth, a whole chip at once, not a bite of a chip. “Why?”

  “He’s unusual.”

  “Unusual how?”

  “Maybe a better word is ‘interesting,’ ” I clarify. “I like him. We have fun listening to him, but we never really took him seriously.”

  “But this time you did,” Santoro says.

  “At this point we had no idea what he was talking about, which was typical, and we really didn’t give it a second thought.” I add, “It was Rodney gibberish: vitamins, sea tales, and loving the pier. It seemed like nonsense. We didn’t fit it together until later.”

  “What about the part about Meredith Maxwell? Had he mentioned her to you before?” He takes another gulp, finishing the can. He crushes it in his fist and tosses it into the trash can that seriously needs to be emptied.

  “No. That was the first time. But it didn’t seem strange, because it was a really big deal that she was coming to Whalehead, so it didn’t seem odd that he would mention it. Most people are fans, so why wouldn’t he be?”

  Santoro just si
ts there staring at me, not saying anything. The silence is painful. It makes me want to blurt out anything to fill it. This is probably how he gets criminals to confess. I have to fill the silence. “At that point, we assumed he was a fan. We didn’t know why he was interested in her until later.”

  “Yeah?”

  I’m not sure if that’s a question exactly, but I treat it like one. “Yeah. Not until days later. Do you want me to jump ahead to that?”

  Santoro drops another chip into his mouth. “Let’s stick to the timeline.”

  Ten Stella

  Murphy’s Pier

  June 19

  The music blared through overhead speakers on Murphy’s Pier. The station was WLEO, of course. There was a break between songs:

  “Murielle duPluie from WLEO here with the Whalehead news from the Jersey Shore. Hold on to your hats, beachgoers, because a bounty of bouncy bungee is coming to Murphy’s Pier. You can jump, flip, and fly to your heart’s content, all with the safety of a harness and blow-up mat to break your fall. Look for this bad boy to rock Whalehead this week.”

  That next night on the pier was chilly. I wore a cute, lightweight cotton Free People pullover. Josie wanted to wear a crew-neck sweatshirt with the name of her middle school track team, but I talked her into an on-trend crochet sweater I’d brought. We were on our way to high school, and if I was going to have an on-the-way-to-high-school summer, we had to look like it, right?

  On the short walk from the house to the pier, we each called our moms.

  Gregory answered my mom’s phone. “Hey, girl. We miss you.”

  There was nothing wrong with him saying that, but all I could think was ugh. That’s always the first thought that comes to mind. “Me too. I mean, I miss you guys too. Can I talk to my mom?”

  “Sure. Talk to you again soon, Stell,” Gregory said. He never had a hint of “ugh” in his voice when he talked to me. And then I caught up with Mom.