Sixteenth Summer

by Michelle Dalton

  Kat and Benjie were in charge of picking the blueberries, but Will and I helped them with the tall branches. We worked side by side, munching a piece of toast or a Belgian waffle with one hand while we gathered fistfuls of fruit with the other. We tossed the warm berries into a basket that rested on the ground between us, and somehow our picking rhythm always had us reaching down at the same time, our fingers grazing one another and our eyes meeting through the leafy branches.

  By the time we finished picking, even though it was barely nine ‘o clock, we’d be sweaty and spent. We’d stumble onto the screened porch, turn the ceiling fans to turboblast, and flop onto the hammock.

  Or we’d coast our bikes to the beach and swim under the pier. Our laughter and chatter echoed in the dank cave of wooden planks and logs. When we couldn’t take any more slimy seaweed twining around our ankles, we braced ourselves and swam back into the relentless sunshine.

  We couldn’t get enough shaved ice.

  During all our lazy hours together, I memorized every detail of Will’s face. The little crescent that appeared at the right corner of his mouth when he smiled, for instance, was deeper than the one on the left. Fanning from his eyes were white needles of untanned skin that had been sheltered from the sun by his squint. (Will didn’t wear sunglasses either.) And he had just a hint of love handles around his muscled waist.

  Someone else might call these flaws, but I liked these little detours on Will’s body even more than the perfect parts of him. Maybe because they felt like my secrets, so obscure that nobody except Will’s girlfriend could possibly notice them.

  Will usually spent the afternoons with his mom and Owen while I worked, but just about every night, he came to The Scoop in time to flip the OPEN sign to CLOSED, then help me wash ice cream scoops, stuff napkin dispensers, and maybe even whip up a batch of custard to be churned the next day.

  We often worked silently, side by side, intent on finishing as quickly as possible so we could get to the boardwalk or the beach; so we could just be together and talk—or not talk.

  Sometimes it felt like our breathing slowed to match the waves.

  The length and the sameness of the days were comforting to me. Each day felt endless, as if one just blended into the next. I couldn’t have counted all the kisses, the embraces, the times we dozed off together on the hammock with iced tea glasses leaving sweaty rings on the floorboards beneath us.

  I tried to lose track of the days of the week. I denied the fact that the sun was setting a few minutes earlier each day. I ignored anything that would mark time.

  But there was one Dune Island milestone I had to show Will, even if it forced me to face the fact that July was coming to an end. And that was the hatching of the sea turtle eggs.

  On the thirty-first, the Dune Island LISTSERV went crazy. That night, we were all assured, was going to be the night—birthday for hundreds of tiny loggerhead turtles.

  When I told Will about this during that morning’s meandering swim, he grinned.

  “You mean the POTATOhead reign of terror is actually going to end?”

  POTATO was the really bad acronym for the group called Protectors of Turtles and Their Offspring. In June the sea turtles had dug their nests in the dunes. Ever since, the turtles’ protectors (or POTATOheads, as Will called them) had been camping out next to every nest.

  The POTATOheads huddled in front of their little pup tents until around midnight, making sure no people stepped on the nests and no animals made off with the eggs. Then they grumpily went to sleep with their tent flaps open and their ears cocked for intruders.

  They took their POTATO duties very seriously, and Will mocked them every chance he got.

  “Will,” I scolded him after the reign of terror crack. “You know loggerhead turtles are extremely endangered.”

  “I know, I know,” Will said, lifting his shoulders from the water in a shrug. “I mean, it’s great what these folks are doing. But do they have to be so grim about it? This one lady took my flashlight the other night and literally slammed it against a rock until it broke.”

  “Well, lights can confuse the baby turtles,” I said. “If they’re blinded by our cameras or flashlights, they can’t find the horizon and crawl their way to the ocean.”

  “I’m just saying,” Will said, “she could have just asked me to turn it off.”

  “Maybe the POTATOheads are just looking for a little excitement,” I said. I dribbled a fistful of salt water on top of my head, which felt like it was sizzling in the sun. “In case you haven’t noticed, Dune Island gets a little boring around this time of year.”

  Will dove under the surface, then came up with his arms around me. Water streamed down his face, but his eyes were wide open and smiling.

  “No, I hadn’t noticed,” he said, before kissing me deeply. Which made me seriously consider just bagging the whole turtle-watching thing in favor of spending the evening making out.

  But Will loved Dune Island rituals, and this one was the Dune-iest of them all.

  When I was a kid, my family and I had tried to watch the turtles hatch many times. Every year the effort had been a bust. We’d stay until midnight, see not even a single hatchling, and then my parents would drag their sleepy kids home. It seemed the baby turtles always emerged right after we left. Or the very next night. But never for us.

  To tell the truth, I expected that to happen again this year. But I decided not to tell Will and squelch his anticipation.

  That night after sunset, Will and I joined a few dozen turtle-watchers at a rarely used beach entrance off Highway 80. A narrow, creaky bridge vaulted us over the dune grass into the turtles’ protected area. Waiting at the end of the gangplank (at least, that’s what it felt like) was a POTATOhead.

  And not just any POTATOhead. It was Ms. Humphreys, who’d been my seventh-grade science teacher. Ms. Humphreys could make any middle-school kid’s insides shrivel up with a single glare. She was terrifyingly tall with a long, fuzzy steel-gray braid and a hawkish nose. She was the only teacher who’d ever given me detention.

  Will grabbed my hand and squeezed.

  “That’s the one who broke my flashlight,” he said. “The brute strength on that woman. It’s formidable!”

  I tried not to snort.

  I gave her a shy glance and suddenly realized that her hooked nose was less birdlike than it was turtleish. Her eyes had a reptilian coldness about them as well.

  Well, now I know where the passion comes from, I thought, then immediately bit my lip and squeezed Will’s hand to keep from laughing.

  Ms. Humphreys glared at us, her small, dark eyes glittering in the moonlight.

  “No talking,” she ordered our group in a loud, hissing whisper. “You could scare the offspring. No cameras, flash or no flash. No flashlights. No trash. No food. You may drink beverages, but no alcohol. Note the orange flags marking the placement of the nests.”

  Ms. Humphreys pointed with a knobby finger at dull orange flags attached to thin metal rods. They demarcated a wide swath of sand.

  “Stay outside those flags!” Ms. Humphreys threatened. “Lastly, be patient, people. It’s likely that the offspring have already hatched and are, as we stand here, digging their way out of their nests. They may emerge tonight, but they may not. It’s their business, not ours.”

  Ms. Humphreys stepped aside.

  But we were all too intimidated to do anything but gape at her. The only sound was the distant roar of the waves and the nervous rustling of everyone’s Windbreakers. Until Ms. Humphreys finally growled, “I said no talking, yet now you are making me use my voice to tell you to move it, people?”

  We all jumped, then hurried down the steps, fanning out on both sides of the large, flag-marked area. In the dunes behind us, several nests were surrounded by bright orange posts and lots of threatening signage.

  Everybody went to stake out a spot along the line of flags. Some people paced the sand excitedly. Others sank gingerly onto blankets, sitting ramrod st
raight. Will and I hadn’t brought a blanket so we simply plunked down in the sand and cuddled up together.

  Then we all stared at the nests, willing the little hatchlings to come out and start creeping toward the sea. The waiting sand almost seemed to glow in the moonlight.

  But of course, nothing happened.

  “I think we might be here for a loooong time,” I breathed into Will’s ear.

  “With absolutely nothing to do,” Will said. “Except …”

  Well, I thought as Will leaned in to kiss me, I guess we’re going to spend the evening making out after all.

  The almost-full moon was a good notch higher when Will and I came up for air. Shyly, I glanced at the silhouettes around us, wondering if anyone had noticed what Will and I had been up to.

  But most people seemed absorbed in their own little worlds. The individuals stared needily at the turtle nests. The couples whispered or maybe did a little making out themselves. I was relieved to realize that it was hard to tell what anybody looked like or what they were doing.

  It was a strange feeling, being here to experience this profound moment with, but not with, all these people. The anonymity of them somehow made me feel closer to Will, the one I could see. And touch. And taste …

  With that thought I was ready to resume the kissing, but Will was distracted. He was staring at the moon over the ocean. In its glow he looked a little nervous, his lips pressed together, his jaw tight.

  “Will?” I whispered. I touched his shoulder and felt a lurch of nerves myself.

  Don’t, I pleaded in my head. Don’t say anything to mess this up.

  I’d been doing a pretty good job of living in the lazy, luxurious present with Will. Basically I was in big, fat denial—and loving it the way I loved an endless morning in the ocean or a giant bowl of ice cream.

  But I knew my ability to maintain this willful state of delight was precarious. So I’d been trying to keep things between me and Will breezy and blissful. No heavy conversations. No allusions to our future (or lack thereof). I just wanted to be. With him.

  But now I was sure Will was working up the courage to say something. And it didn’t seem like it was going to be breezy.

  Will got to his feet and searched for something in his pocket. Whatever it was seemed to be caught. After a brief struggle he finally extricated it, turning his pocket inside out as he did.

  I stood up too as Will quickly stuffed his pocket back inside his pants. He was wearing, I realized, the same roughed-up khakis that he’d had on the first night I’d seen him at the bonfire. I found myself staring down at his pant legs. For some reason I didn’t want to lift my eyes and look at him.

  But finally he whispered, “Anna,” and I had to.

  He still looked nervous, but also happy. And a little sheepish.

  “I got you something,” he whispered, thrusting the thing that he’d pulled from his pocket at me.

  “Like, a present?” I whispered back. I don’t know what I’d expected, but it hadn’t been a present. The idea of Will and me giving each other gifts had never occurred to me. Maybe because I knew we’d never have a Christmas together. And Will’s birthday was in May, while mine was in October.

  “Yeah, like a present,” Will said.

  I could barely see what Will was holding out toward me. Only when I took it could I tell that it was a square velvet sack, about the size of my palm, with something round inside.

  I stared at Will.

  “It’s no big deal,” Will started to say, forgetting to whisper. A chorus of shushes pelted us from all sides and Will ducked his head.

  “It’s just something I saw in one of those little boutiques on the boardwalk,” he whispered very, very quietly, “and it made me think of you.”

  I continued to stare at him like a turtle in a flashlight beam.

  Will’s gaze dropped to his feet and he shook his head, muttering to himself. I had a feeling this moment was not going at all how he’d wanted it to.

  I opened the cinched top of the little velvet bag and pulled out a bracelet—a silver bangle that was somehow both chunky and delicate. It was shaped like a flat ribbon with three half twists in it. It immediately made me think of a high diver gracefully turning through the air before skimming into the water.

  “It’s a Möbius strip,” Will explained, still whispering. “It’s kind of an optical illusion.”

  Will put my fingertip on one thin edge of the silver ribbon, then guided it around the twisty circle. The metal felt slick and cool. As my finger traveled along the edge of the bangle, Will kept turning it and turning it.

  “See, it only has one side and one edge,” Will whispered. “You can follow along it forever and it never ends. Cool, huh?”

  “I … love it,” I whispered. I slipped the bangle onto my wrist, enjoying the weight of it. Then I put a hand on each of Will’s shoulders, stood on my tiptoes so that we were almost eye to eye, and repeated myself. “I love it.”

  Will kissed me softly. When we sat back in the sand, we didn’t talk or kiss. We just gazed toward the loggerhead nests. I think Will was a bit drained. Maybe he’d been nervous all night about giving me the gift.

  As for me, I was stunned.

  Suddenly everything felt different. Solid. As solid as this pretty band of silver.

  I wrapped my hand around the bracelet. It was a memento of Will, one that I could keep in my vanity drawer forever if I didn’t intend to wear it every day. But I very much did intend to wear it every day. It immediately felt like a part of me.

  Like Will was a part of me.

  And that was heavy indeed. It made me feel ecstatic and shaky all at once.

  But before I could even begin to process it, I heard a gasp.

  Somebody on the other side of the orange flags stood up. She began bouncing on her toes and pointing urgently toward the dunes.

  We all scrambled to our feet and stared into the dune grass, which seemed to be jostling and rustling. Collectively, we held our breath. Literally. I could feel the people around me inhale and then stop. Frozen. Waiting.

  And then—there they were. At first I just saw one or two little black discs creep out of the grass. They were tinier than I’d expected, maybe the size of my thumb.

  As these first hatchlings started inching their way forward, a sudden flood of them followed. They almost looked like a wave of ants spilling out of a mound but, of course, a lot cuter. There were hundreds of them. The turtles’ legs moved stiffly and rhythmically. They began to parade with surprising swiftness toward the water.

  I clapped my hand over my mouth (and clocked my chin with my new bangle) to smother a cheer.

  I could tell other people were having trouble containing their excitement too. Will perhaps most of all. He threw his arm around my shoulders and jumped up and down.

  “This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” he hissed, trying to be quiet.

  A few of the hatchlings seemed to be confused and headed toward the orange flags instead of the sea. A turtle watcher leaned over the barrier and gently nudged them in the right direction with his fingertips.

  But most of the little turtles knew exactly where to go. Their flat, winglike legs churned so hard they almost hopped down the sand.

  Tears sprang to my eyes. I wanted to cheer for the little turtles, but since I couldn’t, I just clasped my hands beneath my chin and grinned as I watched them.

  I think every person on that beach—maybe even Ms. Humphreys, too—was feeling one simple emotion at that moment: joy.

  The turtles started to reach the water. The breakers crashed into them, sending them tumbling backward and skidding sideways. Most of them immediately regained their bearings and kept on creeping.

  And then the waves began to sweep them out to sea.

  “They’re making it!” I said to Will, pointing at the disappearing turtles.

  Will was grinning back at me when I heard the first squawk.

  Seagulls.

  The sou
nd was familiar. I heard gulls every day at the beach. Or rather, I didn’t hear them. They were just white noise, like the waves and the soft whoosh of the breeze. I never gave them a thought.

  But these gulls hovering over the beach—their wings arched out to the sides and their bills aimed downward—weren’t wallflowers anymore. They were predators. Greedy, mean sea rats, getting ready to strike.

  “Oh no,” I muttered. Then the first seagull made its dive.

  It must have been the easiest hunt of their lives. Each gull swooped down, plucked up a turtle, then flapped away, squawking in triumph.

  People started making noise.

  Men took off their T-shirts and flapped them in the air, trying to slap the birds away, but the gulls just dodged them and flew to the middle of the turtle pack. The only way to get at them would be to hop the orange flags and risk crushing the turtles under our feet.

  I wanted to scream as I watched one gull snatch up a hatchling by its leg. The rest of its body dangled, limp, from the gull’s hooked beak.

  I found myself looking back at Ms. Humphreys, who still stood at the foot of the bridge. Her back was straight. She seemed stoic. In fact it looked like she was gazing at the surf, not at the diving seabirds. She was focusing on the hatchlings that got away, rather than the ones that died.

  Maybe this was why Ms. Humphreys was so harsh. Every summer she guarded those little eggs with all the viciousness of a mama bear (since mama turtles obviously weren’t the most protective types) only to see scads of them gobbled up before they’d even had a chance to begin their journeys.

  And as anybody who’s gone to school on Dune Island knows, the carnage doesn’t end on the beach. Big, toothy fish, crabs, and countless other predators nab more of the hatchlings once they hit the water. Only a tiny fraction of the turtles survive.

  Those who do could live for decades. Still, as I watched the gulls feast, the odds against the sea turtles seemed devastating.

  I started shaking.

  The bangle bracelet suddenly felt intrusive and unfamiliar around my left wrist. I wrapped my right hand around it, squeezing it until it pressed into my skin, probably leaving a mark.