Sixteenth Summer

by Michelle Dalton

  “The Movie on the Beach?” Will asked. “I think it’s Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

  “Oh, that,” I said. “That’s a shoob—”

  I caught myself, then said diplomatically, “That’s the first movie of the summer. They happen every other week.”

  “Pretty cool,” Will said, ignoring my squirming. “Where do they put the screen?”

  “It’s kind of funny,” I said, leaning against the ice cream case. “The guy who does it is a movie nut. He’s the dad of someone I go to school with. And every year he tries a different screen placement. Once he put it on the pier, but the sound of the waves on the wood drowned out the movie. Then he put the screen on these poles literally in the water. But the wind kept blowing it down, you know, like a sail? So he had to cut these little semicircles all over the screen to let the air through. Ever since, the people in the movies looked like they had terrible skin or black things hanging out of their noses, or …”

  I stopped myself. Once again I was putting my foot in my mouth, making fun of something that Will obviously thought was cool. He had no idea that my friends and I only went to Movies on the Beach when there was absolutely nothing better to do.

  And when we went, we laughed at the holey screen, or drifted into loud, jokey conversation halfway through the movie, ignoring the glares and shushes of the summer people who found the whole scene so enchanting.

  I could tell Will could see the lame alert on my face.

  “So I guess you have something else going on tonight, then?” he broached.

  I caught my breath. Had he just been about to ask me to the movie? And had I just completely blown it by being snarky?

  Once again I became painfully aware of my father, who’d finished cleaning the milk-shake blender. Now he was loading a fresh tub of Jittery Joe into the ice cream case just to the left of me. He was so close I could feel a gust of cold air from the freezer. The blond down on my arm popped up in instant goose bumps, which only added to the shivery way I was feeling as I talked to Will.

  “Um, well, my friends are kind of having a thing …,” I said weakly.

  “Yeah, that’s cool …,” Will said, stuffing his hands back in his pockets. “I heard about a party going on tonight, too, actually. It’d be funny if it was the same one.”

  I was incredulous. And hopeful.

  “At The Swamp?” I asked—at the exact moment that Will said, “At the Beach Club pool.”

  “Oh,” I said, deflating a bit.

  Of course, Will hadn’t heard of The Swamp. The dark little bar and grill, surrounded by an alligator moat, was hidden in a mosquitoey thicket off Highway 80. It had no sign, just a break in the kudzu and a gravel driveway. The only shoobees who ever found it were Lonely Planet types who tromped in with giant backpacks and paid for their boiled peanuts and hush puppies with fistfuls of crumpled dollar bills.

  And the only locals who went to the Beach Club were the retirees who lived on the South Shore year-round. Mostly the Beach Club was filled with summer people from Atlanta who wanted to hang out with their country club friends—in a different country club.

  Suddenly, it became clear that almost everything about The Moment was going badly. I was a muscle twitch away from just hustling Will out the door with a chipper, Have fun tonight. Maybe I’ll see you the next time you want some Pineapple Ginger Ale. Unless, of course, you hated it and you think I’m drippier than your ice cream cone! Ta!

  But before I had a chance, Will stepped closer to the ice cream case. He rested a hand on top of it in a way that was probably supposed to look casual. The only problem with that was Will’s hand was knotted into a white-knuckled fist.

  I felt a prickly wave of heat wash over my face. He was about to say something. Something that mattered. I would have sworn on it.

  “Why don’t you come with me to the party?” Will blurted.

  “Or to the movie, if you want,” he added quickly. “But at a movie, you can’t really talk. And it’d be kind of … nice. To talk. I mean, if you want to … and you don’t mind ditching the, um, swamp?”

  Then I was hanging onto the ice cream case for dear life, too. I felt another head-rushy wave, but it didn’t feel at all bad.

  Even so, I wasn’t sure at first what I should say. As cheesy went, Movie on the Beach was a stack of American slices—so bad it was kind of good. But a party at the Beach Club pool was more like stinky French cheese—you could swallow it, but only if you held your nose. I definitely would have preferred pockmarked Harrison Ford to the fusty air-conditioning, horrid wallpaper, and uniformed “staff” of the Beach Club.

  But Will wanted to talk.

  Fuzzy though my mind was at that moment, my gut told me this was a good thing.

  It was such a good thing that I sort of wanted to start the conversation right there. That very minute. But one sideways glance reminded me that my dad was still there, fumbling around the cash register and so obviously eavesdropping on me as a boy asked me out for the very first time.

  And then there was Will’s brother, Owen. He was still stationed at the bulletin board but had his head cocked in such a way that it was just as obvious that he was listening in too.

  And then, the wind chime on the screen door tinkled as a quartet of locals—most of whom I knew of course—came in for their sugar fix.

  I had to make a decision and I had to make it immediately.

  So I said yes to the Beach Club pool party. To a night of eating bad hors d’ouevres among an army of shoobees … and to a date with Will.

  “Meet you there at eight?” I proposed.

  Will grinned and nodded. Then grinned some more and nodded again until finally Owen came over and grabbed his arm, muttering, “I’m gonna save you from yourself, here, mm-kay? Let’s go.”

  They left so fast, I barely had time to squeak out a “See you later.” I was too floored to form complete sentences anyway.

  After that, I nodded my way through four ice cream orders before I realized I hadn’t heard a word the customers had said. After I asked them to repeat themselves, I got half the orders wrong anyway. But I didn’t really care. How could I when all my hopes and dreams (at least, all my hopes and dreams of the past four days) had come true?

  Will and I had had our Moment. Our weird, awkward, yet somehow amazing, Moment. It hadn’t been destiny, but it had made me excited about going to the Beach Club of all places. So maybe it actually had been magic.

  Time, I thought, looking anxiously at the clock over the screen door, would tell.

  I had an hour and a half left in my shift. If I’d been keeping a log, here’s how it would have read:

  5:05: Went to the walk-in cooler and called Caroline to tell her I had a date. But hung up when I got her voice mail. Leaving this information on a message seemed jinxy somehow. A recorded declaration of swooning would only come back to bite me later, right?

  5:07: Began a catalog (on a paper napkin) of all the date-worthy outfits I owned.

  5:08: Despaired at lack of date-worthy outfits in closet. Began a catalog (on several paper napkins) of Sophie’s dateworthy outfits.

  5:14: Plotted sister bribery for that pale blue halter dress.

  5:16: Decided the blue halter dress was trying too hard and I should just wear jeans.

  5:18: Called Caroline to confirm. Hung up on voice mail again.

  5:19: Okay, I would compromise with a skirt and top.

  5:20: Realized I’d been in the cooler for fifteen minutes and was freezing. Returned to work. Dad was scooping away and messing up all the orders. I took over and Dad reminded me that he preferred to be the backstage operator at The Scoop, before slinking into the kitchen to make a batch of Strawberry Rhubarb.

  5:44: Scooped for a group of shoobees who looked less like individuals than just a tangle of sunburned limbs and expensive sunglasses. Occurred to me that Will might not have been asking me out for a date per se. Maybe he’d just meant for it to be a group thing. A join-the-crowd kind of thing. T
hat’s what a party really was, wasn’t it?

  5:53: Called Caroline to confirm suspicion. Voice mail again. She was probably too busy making out with Sam (ew) to answer. Hung up. Again.

  6:03: Certain now that I was delusional. Of course Will wasn’t asking me out! It was just a “Maybe I’ll see you at the Beach Club party” invitation. Right? What were his exact words? Obviously, goose bumps had impaired my hearing.

  6:06: Considered asking my dad for his impression. Questioned own sanity. Ate extra-large scoop of Maple Bacon Crunch to calm nerves.

  6:10: Worried about having bacon breath at party.

  6:11: He was definitely not asking me out on a date. Wondered if I should even go.

  6:15: Okay, I would go, but I wasn’t dressing up.

  6:17: Wait a minute, Dune Island was my turf. Decided I should just call Will and tell him I was going to The Swamp. “And maybe I’ll see you there.”

  6:18: Realized I didn’t have Will’s number. Despaired.

  6:19: Went back into the cooler. Breathed in stale fridge smell and tried to get zen. But goose bumps on arms reminded me of conversation with Will, so went back to work.

  6:23: Epiphany! Called Caroline. Actually left a message.

  6:29: Shift (almost) over! Tore my dad away from his backstage maneuvering and hightailed it out of there.

  * * *

  Just as I was getting home, my phone rang.

  “Is this The Scoop?” Caroline rasped in my ear. “I’d like one Nutty Buddy, please. Oh, wait, I’ve already got one.”

  “Oh my God,” I said. “We don’t have time for your corny jokes. I’ve got an emergency.”

  “So I heard after about eighteen hang-ups,” Caroline said. “It was the other part of your message that must have gotten mangled in my voice mail. You didn’t actually say you want me and Sam to come to a party at the Beach Club pool, did you?”

  “He invited me,” I whispered as ran up the stairs and into the screened porch. Kat was on the porch swing eating a bowl of bright orange macaroni and cheese.

  “Ugh!” I said, looking away. I was already queasy, and watching Kat eat fake food as she swung in long, lazy swoops gave me motion sickness.

  Kat pointed a bright orange fork at me and said, “That was rude!”

  I gave her an apologetic shrug, then headed up the stairs. Hoping not to run into (and possibly offend) any other family members, I darted down the wide second-floor hallway, then ducked into the steep, narrow staircase that led to my room.

  Meanwhile, Caroline was chattering in my ear.

  “What ‘he’?” she said. “That he? The he from the bonfire?”

  “Yes!” I said as I flopped into my unmade bed. I stared through my skylight at a wispy, strung-out cloud. My parents had finished the attic for me and Sophie three years ago. Well, it was their version of finished, which meant floorboards painted with pink and orange polka dots to hide their unevenness, curtains made out of vintage bedsheets, and in the bathroom, a claw-foot bathtub that my parents had gotten cheap because someone had painted the entire thing lime green.

  Sophie and I had been granted one wish each for our room. She’d wished for a walk-in closet, of course. I’d asked for a skylight over my double bed, so I could watch the stars blink at me as I fell asleep. I’d somehow forgotten about the flip side of stargazing—blinding laser beams of light waking me up every morning. But it was worth it. I loved looking through the glass dome just over my pillow. It made me feel like I was outside, even when I was in; like I could just float away, weightless and free, at any moment.

  As I pulled the rubber band out of my hair, letting it fan over the cool pillowcase, the view of the sky calmed me. For a brief moment I forgot about my armoire full of non-datey clothes and about the fusty Beach Club.

  I only thought about him.

  “The he from the bonfire is named Will,” I told Caroline. It came out as a sigh—the kind of simpering, love-struck sigh I usually mocked on TV.

  But hearing the sigh in my own voice felt, strangely, kind of good.

  It also brought all my nervousness rushing back.

  “He asked you to the Beach Club pool party?” Caroline said. I knew she was curling her thin upper lip.

  “Yeah, but I don’t think he knows what it’s like there,” I said defensively. “I bet he just heard about the party from people on the beach.”

  “From the other shoobees he’s been hanging around with,” Caroline insisted. “Is that who you want to be with tonight?”

  I thought about all the summer people who’d ever called me a “townie.” Most of them didn’t even know there was anything obnoxious about that word. They weren’t malicious so much as clueless, which was somehow even harder to swallow.

  If this date (or whatever it was) with Will was a bust, the presence of all those shoobees would only make me feel worse. That was why I needed backup.

  “Look,” I pleaded with Caroline. “I’ve basically been your third wheel ever since you and Sam got together. Now it’s your turn. You guys have to go with me tonight. Just in case.”

  “In case of what?” Caroline said.

  In case my heart gets broken, I thought.

  Then I shook my head in disbelief. A broken heart? I’d never used that phrase in my life. I didn’t believe in broken hearts. Or guardian angels, destined soul mates, or any of the other things that my sister and her friends giggled about when they rented romantic comedies.

  I knew that the tide wasn’t mystical; it was just the rotation of the Earth relative to the positions of the sun and moon. I knew that ice cream wasn’t magic; it was an emulsion of fat, milk solids, and sugar. And I knew that girls like me became chic New Yorkers only in the movies.

  I also knew another thing from Sophie’s favorite flicks. The “townie” who got swept off her feet by a big-city boy usually found out she’d been played.

  That was why I needed Sam and Caroline to come with me. Because if I’d misunderstood Will and this was a group thing, they were my group.

  And if my heart did get shattered, they’d be my shoulders to cry on.

  I pictured myself standing on the sand in front of the Beach Club with my head literally on Caroline’s shoulder (because Sam’s shoulder is impossible for me to reach).

  The image made me smile through my nervousness.

  But then I imagined Sam in this scenario. He’d be standing on Caroline’s other side, holding her hand.

  And that made me sigh wearily.

  I slithered off my rumpled bed and went over to my dresser. The first thing I saw in the top drawer was the slightly crumpled camisole I’d worn to the bonfire.

  The top was silky with thin, delicate straps. When I’d tried it on while I was getting ready, it had looked soft and romantic, like something a ballerina would wear with a long tulle skirt. It had made me feel pretty, almost too pretty for the Dune Island High bonfire. But if I’d stashed the camisole away for a special occasion, I might have found myself waiting forever to wear it. So I’d gone ahead and kept it on.

  Little had I known, I’d been going somewhere special after all.

  And maybe tonight I’d be surprised again.

  “Can you meet me at the club at eight?” I asked Caroline.

  Maybe she heard a change in my voice. I was no longer the girl who’d shrugged Will off over a plate of curly fries that afternoon.

  Now I actually had something to lose.

  And though it filled me with a sort of hopeful dread, I had to see this night through; see who this boy was who’d (most likely) lied about liking my ice cream and who’d asked me out in front of my dad.

  He wasn’t afraid to look foolish. So the least I could do was show up.

  Even if it ended up breaking my heart.

  I hadn’t been to the Beach Club since The Scoop catered an ice cream social there two years earlier. As I walked in that night with Sam and Caroline, the entry hall smelled exactly as I remembered it—of slightly fishy ice and Sterno.<
br />
  I knew the odor emanated from the ice sculptures and chafing dishes in the large main room. But I always imagined the smell came from the club’s hideous wallpaper. The pattern, a burgundy and gold paisley with forest green borders, made me imagine horrible things usually seen only under microscopes. Just looking at it made my queasiness return. Or maybe I was just nauseous over the prospect of this nebulous perhaps-date with Will.

  Sam wasn’t exactly making me feel better.

  “Anna, if you tell anybody I ditched the Braves versus the Padres to go to this,” he threatened, “I’ll seriously have to kill you.”

  “I’m sure there are plenty of guys out there who can tell you the score,” I said, pointing at the wall of windows and French doors on the other side of the ballroom. Through them we could see the pool deck, packed with men in wheat-colored blazers and women in pastel shifts; boys in long shorts and golf shirts, and girls in tube tops and A-line skirts. It was like they’d all gotten an e-mail instructing them to wear a uniform. They skimmed back and forth on the other side of the glass like a bunch of extremely white fish in an aquarium.

  “Yeah, right, I’ll ask them the score,” Sam muttered. He looked even more gangly than usual in the low-ceilinged foyer.

  “You are going to keep it together, right?” Caroline asked Sam. “Please don’t get in another fight.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sam said. “Fight?”

  “You know what I’m talking about!” Caroline said. She’d been jokey at first, but now her voice had a bit of an edge to it.

  “Anderson Lowell’s party,” Caroline and I said together.

  “Last August?” Sam squawked. “Well, that was totally provoked!”

  “What, a shoobee simply showing up at one of our parties forced you to punch him in the head?” Caroline said.

  “What was that, anyway?” I asked, with one eye on the French doors. I still didn’t see Will. “I always meant to ask you. I thought you Neanderthal boys always went for the nose or the chin. But you hit him on the head.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Sam said, a semiproud smile tugging up one corner of his mouth. “The guy was so short, I couldn’t reach his face.”