I laughed, feeling a little bit better.
I mean, other than the black hole of rejection that was eating up my insides.
Perhaps to fill that hole, I reached into the candy bag for one more mouthful of sugar therapy before we headed into the water. Since the gummy straws were all gone, I popped three sticky Swedish fish into my mouth.
When I straightened up, I almost choked on them. Because walking toward me, with a bright red rental bike kickstanded in the parking lot way behind him, was Will. He was still far away, waving as if we were in a crowd on Fifth Avenue and not all by ourselves on this empty stretch of sand.
I grabbed Caroline’s arm with one hand and waved weakly at Will with the other. Then I began chewing like my life depended on it. It pretty much did. If Will walked over to find me—encrusted with sand, red-eyed from my salty swim—and with a mouth glued together with candy, I might have literally died.
Luckily, Caroline was my lifeguard. As Will approached, she spoke in my place.
“Well, hello, Will!” she called with a little too much joviality.
Then she crossed her arms over her chest, and my sigh of relief got caught in my throat. Because Caroline’s stance was the same one she takes before a varsity volleyball game or a debate over fossil fuels with her dad—or before putting annoying shoobees in their place.
The annoying shoobee of the moment was clearly Will.
I started chewing much faster, hoping I didn’t look like a rabbit.
“Hey!” Will said. He was trying to be polite and look at Caroline, but he kept peeking at me. I tried to chew between glances, promising myself that if I was ever able to swallow these ridiculous gummy fish, I’d never eat candy again.
Well … not in front of boys at least.
“That bike looks familiar,” Caroline said, pointing at Will’s shiny red beach cruiser. She wasn’t smiling.
“Yeah!” Will said. It looked like the blue laser beams Caroline was shooting him with her eyes were making him a little sweaty. “I went to rent it and there was Sam!”
“And he told you where we hung out,” Caroline provided for him.
“Uh-huh,” Will said. He turned to check out our almost-empty beach (while I finally swallowed). There was nothing there but Angelo’s and its cracked parking lot, a spindly looking fishing pier, and a big, sloping dune that hid all of it from Highway 80. “This is amazing. So this is why I don’t ever see you at the south beach.”
Caroline shrugged.
“Sam and I sometimes hang down there,” she said, “but Anna’s a loner.”
“No, I’m not!” I protested. “I’m a … reader.”
I pointed wanly at my novel, which was tossed into the sand next to my wrap.
“Beloved?” Will said. “Kind of heavy for the beginning of the summer, isn’t it?”
“Have you read it?” I asked. “I love it. When it’s not, you know, tearing out my soul and stomping on it.”
“I had to read it for school,” Will said. “I go to this kind of intense private school because my mom teaches there. They’re always making us read books that feel like they’re in a foreign language, even though they’re in English. But Beloved was one of the ones I actually really dug by the time I finished it. Writing a term paper on it? Not so much.”
I felt a pang. So Will dug impossible books like Beloved? Even if he’d read it reluctantly, that was definitely another checkmark on his growing list of pros.
Caroline rolled her eyes at my lit-geekery and stepped in again.
“I’m just curious,” she said to Will, “what brought you to the bike shop?”
Will shrugged.
“Just wanted to do some exploring, I guess,” Will said. “I still have a lot of the island to see. I didn’t even know about this peninsula. It’s awesome.”
“I know somebody who could have given you a tour,” Caroline said. Her folded arms tightened. She was practically a pretzel. “But you’d have to have, you know, called her.”
“Caroline,” I whisper-shrieked.
“Oh yeah?” Will said. “Dune Island does seem to have a lot of, like, really passionate volunteer types. Especially those people who camp out to protect the sea turtle nests? I met one the other night. She was a little scary, I’ve got to admit …”
“Not as scary as some people I could name,” I said, glaring at Caroline.
“You know what’s scary?” Caroline said, glaring back at me, then shifting her laser beams to Will. “Being caught in a new place without a phone. I mean, you’re practically paralyzed if you lose your cell phone. That ever happen to you, Will?”
“Um, no …” Will was looking at Caroline in confusion. Then suddenly his eyes went wide. He’d realized what she was really talking about.
He looked at me in alarm.
“Wait a minute,” he blurted. “My brother told me not to call you for thirty-six hours.”
“Thirty-six hours?” I said. Now I was confused. “Is that like not swimming for a half hour after you eat? Because you know that’s a myth, right?”
My voice was as flat as my feelings. I wondered if Will’s thirty-six-hour spiel was going to be more or less lame than a couldn’t-find-your-number one.
“It just seemed like … what you’re supposed to do,” Will said.
“Why?” I blurted. Just as I had with Sophie.
“Because …” Will shook his head as if he had a sudden case of fuzzbrain. “You know, it seemed like a good idea at the time. But now …”
Will looked at me. And his expression was something I’d never quite seen before. Call it a meeting of delight and nausea.
Which was pretty much exactly how I’d been feeling ever since our date.
Could that be what smitten looked like?
I glanced at Caroline. Her blue laser beams had softened and her mouth was slowly widening into a big grin of recognition.
The next thing I knew, she was scooping up her wrap. She whipped it around her waist so fast that she covered both me and Will with a spray of sand.
“I just remembered,” she said, “I told Sam I’d meet him for coffee on his break.”
Sam didn’t drink coffee. I was about to point this out when I stopped myself—and smiled slyly.
Caroline, of course, knew that Sam didn’t drink coffee. She was speaking in code, which seemed almost as silly as Owen’s thirty-six-hour rule. It also felt, somehow, very sophisticated. If the language of love was French, the language of dating seemed to be some sort of spy code. Like being in the CIA, boy-girl relations were all about intrigue and subterfuge and wearing cute outfits.
“Well, tell Sam thanks,” Will said as Caroline began to walk away. “I never would have found this beach if he hadn’t pointed me in the right direction.”
“You should really call that tour guide,” Caroline said, grinning at Will. She gave the knotted waist of her wrap one more tug, then strode over to her bike, which was propped next to mine in front of Angelo’s.
After Caroline left, Will and I stood in uncomfortable silence for a moment. And suddenly I became painfully aware of what I was wearing.
A bathing suit.
A bikini, to be specific. And nothing else, unless you counted a whole lot of sand. When Will had arrived, I’d been so focused on my mouthful of candy that I hadn’t even thought to consider the rest of my body and every curve, freckle, and scar on it—all just laid out there for Will to size up.
Now it was my turn to whip my wrap off the ground. I quickly sausaged myself within it while simultaneously dusting sand off my arms and legs.
“My brother …,” Will began.
“Oh, say no more,” I said, holding up my hand.
Which was sort of a mistake, because he did say no more. At least for a minute.
But when Will finally found his voice again, what he said made my jaw drop.
“Nobody’s ever made me a picnic before,” he said.
He paused to look even more queasy/delighted—and I g
aped at him. He hadn’t really just said that, had he?
It sounded much less cheesy than it had in my daydream. It was just straightforward and sweet. I was starting to think that Will would make a terrible spy.
I pointed at his bike.
“So are you renting that by the hour?”
“Sam actually gave me a deal on it for the summer,” Will said. “Even if I knew how to drive, we don’t have a car here, so …”
“You don’t know how to drive?” I said.
“I know, it’s embarrassing,” Will said. “But, listen, it’s impressive that I can even ride a bike! A lot of people I grew up with can’t even do that because their parents never lugged them over to Central Park to teach them.”
“I can’t even remember not being able to ride a bike,” I said. “I don’t know what I’d do without Allison.”
I pointed over in the direction of Angelo’s.
“Oh, is that who taught you to ride?” Will asked, following my gaze.
“Um, no, that’s my bike, Allison Porchnik,” I stammered, suddenly realizing how dumb that sounded. “You know, from Annie Hall, the Woody Allen movie?”
I’d always named my bikes, from my first trike (Lulu) to my old green Schwinn (Kermit) to my current gold cruiser with the white seat and the super-wide handlebars. The bike was so seventies fabulous that I’d had to give her a name from that era. After watching every movie in my parents’ Woody Allen collection one rainy weekend, I’d come up with a perfect one: Allison Porchnik, one of Woody’s dry-witted, golden-haired ex-wives.
Will was giving me a funny look.
And suddenly I realized something else.
“Oh my God,” I said, covering my mouth with my hand. “My mouth is bright blue, isn’t it? Caroline got us these horrible gummy straws and—”
“No, no.” Will waved me off. “It’s just … Woody Allen. The guy from New York?”
“Um, he’s kind of more than ‘the guy from New York’!” I said. “He’s like the best filmmaker ever. Or he was, anyway …”
“Yeah, decades ago.” Will shrugged.
“Yeah, that’s when he was at his best!” I insisted. “You know, ‘especially the early, funny ones’?”
Will looked at me blankly, and I smiled and rolled my eyes. So much for us having an instant private joke.
“That was a line from Stardust Memories,” I told Will. “You have to rent it sometime.”
“Well, if I have to,” Will said, teasing me. Then he glanced over his shoulder at his bike.
“So,” he added casually, “do you and Allison Porchnik want to go for a ride?”
I looked down at my toes so he wouldn’t see how hard I was beaming. Who cared about private jokes? I was about to go on my second date with Will Cooper.
It had been a long time since I’d ridden the entire nine miles of Highway 80. I usually was too busy getting from point A to point B to just tool around for the pleasure of it.
But it was fun listening to Will’s amazed exclamations as we skimmed down the endless stretch of asphalt. On our right was a prairie of swamp grass, emerald green and practically vibrating with cicadas, frogs, and dragonflies. On our left was the ocean, shooting flashes of gold at us every time the sun hit a wave.
With Will beside me, I slowed down, and not just because his red bike was a heavy clunker. The traffic was sleepy and we rode side by side, with me playing tour guide.
“We could go to the lighthouse at the south end of the island,” I said. “That’s what the chamber of commerce would have us do.”
“Ah yes, the lighthouse from all the T-shirts and mugs and mouse pads?” Will said. “I’ve been there already with my mom and her Let’s Go book.”
“Dune Island’s got a travel book?” I gasped.
“Um, no,” Will said with a laugh. “It’s more like three pages in a travel book. But they’re a really packed three pages!”
I laughed.
“Well, does the travel book mention our water tower on the west side?” I asked. “Because I think it’s a much better view than the lighthouse. If you ask me, the swamp is a little more interesting from that high up. Every time you go up there, the tidal pools are in different places. They make a picture.”
“Of what?” Will asked, lazily looping his bike back and forth across the highway.
“I usually see Van Gogh,” I said. “You know, all those swirls and swoops like in Starry Night? Most people just see Jesus.”
“Seriously? Like the people who see him in cinnamon buns and water stains on the wall?”
“Will,” I said gently, “Remember, you’re in the South now. There’s a lot of Jesus down here.”
“Believe me,” Will said. “I can tell just by talking to you.”
“What?!” I sputtered. “I don’t have a Southern accent. My family is from up North.”
“Um, I hate to break it you …”
Will lifted one hand off his handlebars to give me a helpless shrug.
“Okay!” I admitted. “So I say ‘y’all.’ I suppose that sounds pretty Southern. But come on. ‘You guys’?! That just sounds so … wrong.”
“Yeah,” Will agreed, “if you have a Southern accent.”
I coasted for a moment, staring at the glinty ocean.
“Well, that’s kind of a big bummer.” I sighed.
“Why?” Will asked.
“Because everyone thinks that people with Southern accents are dumb,” I complained. “Even presidents are totally mocked for their Southern accents.”
“Well, you’re not dumb,” Will said. “Anybody who talked to you for more than two minutes would know that.”
It took my breath away, it really did. Will said these things to me so matter-of-factly, as if he wasn’t giving me the most lovely compliment but simply stating the obvious that anybody could see.
He didn’t know that, up until then, nobody else had.
“And besides,” Will added, “I like your accent.”
See what I mean?
“My second favorite view,” I said, pedaling harder so I could get a bit of breeze on my now flaming face, “is from the biggest dune on the island. It’s way south, past the boardwalk. But you can’t go there at this time of year. The panic grass is just sprouting, so it’s too delicate to even look at.”
“Maybe I’m dumb because I didn’t understand a word you just said,” Will said. “You call that dune grass ‘panic grass’? Why?”
“That’s just what it’s called,” I said. “I don’t even know why, actually. All I know is, as soon as you learn to walk on this island, all you hear from your parents is, ‘Watch out for the sea oats! Mind the panic grass!’ Maybe that’s why. They sound so panicky about it. I mean, if you thought the turtle nest sitters were scary, wait until you meet a dune grass guard. They’re very, very passionate about erosion.”
“Well, after Toni Morrison books, erosion is my favorite subject,” Will cracked, with that half smile that was already starting to feel sweetly familiar. “I mean, I could go on and on and on.”
I threw back my head and laughed.
And then we did talk on and on and on. Not about erosion, of course. Mostly Will asked me questions about Dune Island. Like why the gas station at the south end of the island is called Psycho Sisters. (It’s a long story involving the Robinson twins, a sweet sixteen party, and a way-too-red red velvet cake.)
“Okay, and why, when I went to the library,” Will asked, “was there an entire shelf with nothing but copies of Love Story on it? There were fifteen! I had to count them. I mean, that many Love Storys in a one-room library is pretty weird.”
“Oh, yeah, the Love Storys.” I sighed. “There’s an island-wide book club, and someone had the fabulous idea of having that be the selection a couple of summers ago. Everywhere you went, women were reading this cheesy book and just crying.”
Will had started laughing halfway through my explanation and I had to laugh too. It was kind of fun recounting these random litt
le Dune Island details that I’d always just known and never thought twice about.
Before I knew it, we were at the southern tip of the island, which was as different from the North Peninsula as could be. The north juts out into the Atlantic with absolutely nothing to shelter it. It’s craggy and lunar and feels as deserted as, well, a desert if you turn your back to the beachmart and the pier.
But the southern end of the island hugs the coast of Georgia like a baby curling against its mother. There’s a sandy path there that leads into a giant tangle that my friends and I have always called the jungle. It’s lush with out-of-control ivy, dinosaur-size shrubs, and big, gnarled magnolias, palms, and live oaks. The sun shoots through breaks in the greenery like spotlights, and the sounds of bugs and frogs and lizards spin a constant drone. In the middle of the jungle is a clearing, and in the middle of that are some half-decayed tree trunks arranged into a sort of lounge.
Without even discussing it, Will and I got off our bikes and walked down the path toward it.
For the first time in a while, Will didn’t ask me any questions. I was quiet too. This cranny of the island suddenly felt special. Not just someplace to go with my friends to break the monotony of our beach/Swamp/Angelo’s loop, but like something out of a fairy tale—my very own Secret Garden.
I hadn’t done anything to make all this teeming life happen, of course. Still, showing the jungle to Will, like the rest of the island, made it somehow feel like mine. So instead of rustling quickly over the path, just trying to jet to the clearing, I found myself lingering over things. I stroked feathery ferns with my finger, enjoyed the dry, green scent of an elephant ear plant brushing my cheek, and pulled a dangling swatch of palm bark free from the trunk that was still clinging to it.
It was all very romantic, until Will started cursing under his breath and slapping at his calves.
“Oh, the mosquitoes,” I said. “I can help with that. Come on.”
We hiked back to the head of the path, and because we were hurrying against the drone of the bugs, we got there in only a few minutes. I pulled a little plastic box out from beneath my bike seat. In it I had an emergency stash of sunscreen, bug spray, and sno-cone money.
I held out the spray bottle, but instead of taking it, Will cocked his leg in my direction.
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