That Weekend

by Kara Thomas

  We’ve had our plans in place for weeks. Unlike the rest of our classmates who will be vomiting Smirnoff slushies into toilets in beach houses in the Hamptons or on Fire Island, Kat, Jesse, Ben, and I were going to spend the weekend upstate, at Kat’s grandma’s lake house in Sunfish Creek, just the four of us.

  I was going to pretend to like all that outdoor shit—hiking, canoeing—so Ben would think I’m cool like Kat, who has skied the Dolomites in Italy and hiked the fjords in Norway. Epcot is the closest I’ve ever been to leaving the country.

  “Ben was supposed to drive me up there,” I say.

  Kat chews the inside of her lower lip. She and Jesse aren’t going to prom; that’s how this all started. They said they didn’t want to, but it’s obvious the real reason is because Jesse can’t afford it. The tickets alone were a hundred bucks each this year. I thought about saying screw it too and blowing off the dance to be with Kat and Jesse, but I could tell Ben cared about getting the cheesy pictures and drinking watered-down Diet Cokes and fist-pumping to “Mr. Brightside.” So, the two of us were going to go to the dance and then drive up to meet Kat and Jesse after.

  “I mean, you could obviously just drive up with Jesse and me tomorrow afternoon,” Kat says. “Unless you’re still planning to go to prom?”

  I stare at Kat. “Alone? That would be even more awkward than being your third wheel.”

  Kat’s face falls. “Claire. You’re still coming.”

  I don’t say anything. I have no defense that will betray the real reason I don’t want to be alone with Kat and Jesse.

  “Please,” Kat says. “I want you there.”

  I nod, a bobblehead, powerless around her as always. It’s impossible to win against Kat. The summer before sophomore year, she made a PowerPoint presentation to argue to her mother why our local high school was just as good as the Catholic school she’d gone to for ninth grade.

  The world bends the way Kat Marcotte wants it to, and it’s not just because she’s beautiful.

  The fact that she’s beautiful is almost an afterthought, a genetic bonus. She has a volleyball spike that makes girls in the next county nervous. Kat makes even the most burned-out, jaded teachers write amazing job on her work. She’s seen more places in seventeen years than I probably will for the rest of my life. She’s been everywhere, while I live only in my head.

  So why was I still surprised that Jesse fell in love with her?

  ONE DAY EARLIER

  FRIDAY

  My mom read an adolescent development book when I was ten about letting kids make their own decisions, even shitty ones. It has been the gospel in my house ever since. The only rules are don’t drink too much, don’t get into a car with anyone who has been drinking, and don’t lie about where I’m going.

  The third rule presents a problem for this weekend, because if I’d told my parents about the lake house, they’d want to clear it with the Marcottes, who absolutely do not know we’re going to Sunfish Creek. Kat’s parents are a thousand times stricter than mine; her mom didn’t even want to let her spend the weekend at Anna Markey’s beach house on Fire Island.

  Anyway, that’s why my parents, Kat’s parents, and Jesse’s aunt and uncle all think we’re going to Fire Island.

  My parents didn’t seem to care when I told them I was skipping the dance. My mom seemed quietly ecstatic I’d finally dumped Ben Filipoff, and when I mentioned returning my prom dress, my dad said something like, “Think of all the books you can buy with that hundred and fifty dollars,” because he’s a dork.

  Kat arrives at my house at 4:00 p.m. in her new Infiniti SUV, an early graduation gift from her grandmother. We swing by Dolce Vita Bakery to pick up Jesse as he’s finishing his shift.

  By the time we get to the expressway, Jesse is propped against the backseat window, the Yankees cap he’d tilted to shield his eyes from the setting sun sliding down and covering most of his face.

  “Would you rather have tiny sloth claws for hands,” Kat says, “or goat hooves for feet?”

  It’s a game we’ve played since we were kids; my mom taught it to us on the car ride home from Montauk one summer, Kat and I sunburned and turning crabby as traffic slowed to a stop on Sunrise Highway.

  “Hooves,” Jesse murmurs, stirring in the backseat.

  Kat lifts her eyes to the rear mirror. “Why?”

  “I couldn’t play the guitar with sloth hands.”

  “And you already basically have hooves for feet,” I say.

  Kat snorts and Jesse kicks the back of my seat, and in this moment my universe is realigned. It feels like it used to—the three of us. Not the two of them plus me.

  “She’s right,” Kat says. “I’ve never seen arches like yours, babe.”

  And there it is, as fast as an elastic snapping against my skin. The reminder that it can never really be the three of us again.

  I humor Kat’s insistence on What Would You Rather until we reach the bridges that will take us off Long Island. Jesse hasn’t responded to my latest: Would you rather have every hair on your body plucked out with a tweezer, or eat an entire block of moldy cheese?

  I glance in the side mirror; behind me, Jesse is slumped against the window, eyes closed, lips parted slightly.

  “Claire,” Kat says quietly. “We’re cool, right?”

  I suspect it has nothing to do with what might have happened after I blacked out in her lap the other night, and everything to do with the person in the backseat and the Boston College T-shirt under her hoodie.

  “Yeah.” I tilt my head to the window, cheek nested in the crook of my seat-belt strap.

  “I’m happy you came,” she says.

  For some reason, I say, “You wanted me here.”

  I stare at my reflection in the side mirror. Trace a finger over my bottom lip, imagine letting the words slip out. Sometimes it’s hard watching you get everything you want.

  * * *

  —

  I awake to Kat shaking my arm. I blink the sleep out of my eyes until the time on the dash comes into focus. Eight-forty-five.

  “Where are we?” I yawn.

  “Technically, we’re lost.” Kat’s voice is sharp with annoyance. “The GPS signal crapped out. Can you get internet on your phone?”

  I fish my phone out of my hoodie pocket, swipe a finger across the screen. One bar of cell service, and no internet connection. “No.”

  “Well, shit,” Kat says, pulling over onto the shoulder, the SUV struggling over the rocky, uneven terrain. She throws the car into park, flips on the hazard lights, and covers her face. These are the only times I don’t envy being Kat: when something goes wrong. Every event that occurs outside of her control is a mini-crisis.

  It’s got to be exhausting.

  “It’s fine,” I say lightly. “Let’s just stop somewhere and ask for directions.”

  “There’s nowhere to stop.” Kat inhales, pinches the area between her eyes. “Even if we find somewhere that’s open, the house is on a private drive. I doubt anyone has heard of it.”

  “Okay,” I say, my patience beginning to expire. I glance at Jesse, still out cold in the backseat. Wake up and help me manage her, please? “Let’s just stay on this road—maybe there’s a store or something with Wi-Fi and we can look directions up.”

  I half expect her to argue it’s a shitty idea, but Kat puts the car into drive, eases back onto the main road. After five minutes, a gas station appears on the right. She slows and pulls in alongside one of the two pumps. The mini-mart attached to it is dark—the light is coming from the adjacent building, a squat brown box with a sign outside reading the merry mackerel.

  “There,” I say.

  “Claire, that place is totally sketchy.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “but unless there’s a convent full of friendly nuns nearby, we don’t have a cho
ice.”

  Kat eyes the Merry Mackerel, then her useless cell phone, nestled in the cupholder.

  “I’m just asking for directions,” I say. “Not looking for a dude to bring home.”

  Kat sighs. She rolls closer to the building and brakes so I can get out. “Still. Be careful.”

  I hop out of the car, rubbing my arms at the chill in the mountain air.

  The door of the Merry Mackerel is propped open with a rock and I step into a dimly lit, carpeted bar housing a pool table and a single arcade game. My heartbeat picks up as the man and woman playing pool lower their cues and glance at me.

  I avoid their eyes and pull out my phone, searching for a Wi-Fi network to join. There’s one, password protected and named not4customers.

  What a charming little establishment. I stuff my phone back in my jeans pocket, step down into the bar area. The woman behind the bar is busy counting singles out of the cash register. I hover at the edge until she notices me and gives me a look: Well?

  “I’m looking for Quarry View Drive,” I say. “My GPS lost signal.”

  The woman pushes a heavy sigh through her lips. “Give me a minute, okay?”

  I move to take out my phone, ready to text Kat that I might be a couple minutes and not to send in the federal guard. The man at the pool table—red chinstrap beard and thinning hair to match—raises his beer bottle to his lips, his eyes raking over me. He’s wearing a shirt with a Confederate flag on the front and a faded pair of jeans that sink low on his bony hips.

  I look away, my cheeks hot, before his female companion can catch me staring. She looks like she would crush me like a grape if she thought I were checking her man out.

  The bartender returns and hands me a napkin with directions scribbled on it.

  “Thank you so much,” I say.

  “Mm-hmm.” Her back is already to me. I don’t turn around again, but I can feel the redhead’s gaze on me all the way out the door.

  In the parking lot, I open the passenger door and fold myself into the Infiniti as Kat asks, “Any luck?”

  I pass her the napkin wordlessly, my eyes on the side mirror. Jesse is awake now, his face illuminated by the glow of his phone screen.

  Kat holds up the napkin with two fingers. “This probably has hepatitis crawling on it.”

  I push away the image of the creepy redhead by the pool table, the bartender’s withering you’re-not-from-here stare. Maybe it’s the lingering effects of my hangover or the toll of the emotional whiplash of the last forty-eight hours, but suddenly, I’m sick of being around Kat.

  “They were actually really nice in there,” I say.

  It’s a lie, and a pointless one, but it feels good, having power over her for a moment.

  Kat clamps her mouth shut and keeps her eyes straight ahead as she starts the engine.

  * * *

  —

  The bartender’s directions are solid; we find Quarry View Drive within five minutes of leaving the Merry Mackerel.

  Quarry View is a private road, so narrow that only one car can travel it at a time. The houses are all behind iron gates. Even when I was a kid, I found it hard to reconcile the wealth on Quarry View with the shabbiness of the town of Sunfish Creek.

  Kat rolls up to the gate and punches in a key code. The doors open; the SUV creeps up the driveway, a motion light springing on.

  A cluster of moths hover around the light that springs on over the front door. I sling my backpack over my shoulder and follow Kat and Jesse up the steps.

  The first floor is a sprawling open concept living room and kitchen, a full bathroom, and a spare bedroom.

  “You guys can go unpack,” Kat says, shrugging her duffel bag off her shoulder. “I’m gonna turn the water and AC on.”

  Kat laid out the sleeping arrangements in the car; I swatted away her offer to take the master suite, jacuzzi tub included, as some sort of consolation prize for getting dumped. I opted for the second bedroom upstairs, which has a queen bed, instead of the one downstairs with two twins where Kat and I used to sleep as kids.

  Jesse and I stop at the foot of the stairs; he sweeps his arms in an awkward after-you gesture and I hightail it up the steps like something is chasing me.

  I slip into the bedroom next to the master. Fumble for the light switch and toss my backpack onto the bed. I flop onto my back, on top of the comforter, and shut my eyes, press my fingertips to my lids.

  We leave Sunday morning. That’s less than forty-eight hours of trying to dodge being left in a room alone with Jesse. Tomorrow, when we go hiking and camping on Bobcat Mountain, I won’t have to worry about Kat slipping away and leaving me alone with him, even if it means going off to pee in the woods at the same time as her.

  I open my eyes at the same moment a peal of laughter sounds from the other side of the wall. I picture her flopping onto the bed next to him, him reaching out to pull her body closer to his—

  My skin is itchy, and it’s too hot. There’s no way I can sleep up here.

  I knock on the half-open door to the master suite and call inside: “Hey, I’m gonna take the room downstairs.”

  I hurry down the staircase, the carpet on the steps absorbing the pounding of my feet. I shut myself in the spare room and deposit my backpack on one of the twin beds, sit down beside it. Cup my hands over my nose and mouth.

  Why did I think I could handle being here, with them, without Ben as a distraction? Do I hate myself that much, or had I really deluded myself into thinking I was over Jesse?

  I had my chance to tell him. I had several chances. All those late-night chats on Messenger, long before Kat moved home from Italy, before Jesse’s mom died and some invisible gate seemed to shut between him and me.

  I thought about doing it for real last spring—before Kat started working at Dolce Vita for the summer, before they showed up holding hands at the Fourth of July fireworks show at the marina, both of them smiling sheepishly as if to say, What did you expect?

  Footsteps in the hall, some cabinet door–banging in the kitchen adjacent my room. I draw my hands away from my face. No way through it but through it, as my mother likes to say. No way out of this except to endure the next forty-eight hours, and with a smile on my face, because if there’s one thing that will set Kat off, it’s the fear I’m not having fun.

  In the kitchen, Kat’s back is to me as she empties groceries from a canvas Whole Foods tote. I sidle up to her, root through the bag for something I can stuff my face with while Kat sticks a sleeve of hot dogs in the fridge.

  “For tomorrow,” she says, resting a bag of buns on the counter.

  “How much do I owe you for all this?” I pass over a bottle of Moscato in favor of a block of sharp cheddar.

  Kat stretches on the balls of her feet, roots around in the cabinet next to the microwave, and emerges with a cutting board. “Just get dinner tonight.”

  I know not to press further, even though I don’t like feeling like I owe anyone anything. But Kat gets awkward whenever the topic turns to money. Even if Kat’s family lives in a small house in the village and Kat shops at American Eagle like the rest of us, she’ll never have to worry about money. Her grandmother is paying for her to go to Boston College; Jesse’s uncle stole the cash from Jesse’s first paycheck in order to pay the cable bill.

  “Are we talking about dinner?” Jesse is in the kitchen archway, hair plastered to his forehead. He’s in mesh basketball shorts and a white T-shirt.

  Kat leans back against the counter, hooks one ankle over her opposite foot. “What do you guys want to order?”

  “Anything,” Jesse says. “I’m starving.”

  My own stomach is about to riot; in a bid to prevent Kat from launching into a dissertation about our options, I tug down the Domino’s menu stuck to the side of the fridge. “Pizza. Cinnasticks. Done.”

  �
��They don’t deliver out here,” Kat says, and I’m too hungry to engage in further debate. I select a paring knife from the butcher block on the counter and stab open the package of cheddar cheese.

  “I’ll go pick it up,” Jesse says. He looks between Kat and me; I shrug and slice a piece of cheese, popping it into my mouth.

  “Are you sure?” Kat says. “I don’t mind going.”

  “Nope. Gives you more girl time.” Jesse bends and kisses Kat on the shoulder, grabs Kat’s keys from the kitchen island. Twirls the enamel pineapple key chain over a tanned hand. “I’ll be back soon.”

  My cheeks fill with heat, even though Kat’s shoulders are covered, and the kiss was chaste. The way she and Jesse are with each other is the opposite of the hormone-soaked couples making out in the art wing hallways.

  It’s the most intimate thing I’ve ever seen.

  “There’s crackers in here somewhere.” Kat bows her head over the tote bag, an attempt to hide the flush in her cheeks.

  I keep my eyes on the chef’s knife sliding through the cheese block, on the blade that slips dangerously close to my fingers.

  * * *

  —

  Domino’s is called in, the cheddar is sliced and arranged on crackers, and our provisions for tomorrow’s hiking and camping trip stored in the fridge. I tuck myself into the corner of the enormous leather sectional in the living room, picking at the plate of cheese while I text my parents that I’m alive and well and about to take a moonlit stroll on the beach with Kat and Jesse.

  Kat wanders into the living room, carrying two stemless glasses of Moscato. I groan as she moves to set a glass on the coffee table for me.

  “Do not make me drink alone, Claire.”

  “Dude, I threw up in the shower yesterday,” I say. “And we’re hiking tomorrow.”

  “It’s Moscato. Practically apple juice.” Kat pries my hand open, attempting to wrap it around the glass until I relent.

  Some hemming and hawing about how to pass the time until Jesse is back with the pizza; we don’t want to start a movie without him, and there’s no cable for mindless background noise. The silence swells between us until Kat drains her wine glass and announces, “People have probably posted prom pics by now. Let’s hate on their outfits.”