Sixteenth Summer

by Michelle Dalton

  I could have made a to-do list as long as this one on my mom’s tattered legal pad.

  But I also wanted to do nothing with Will. I wanted our last days together to be luxurious, lazy, and most of all, long. I wished I could spend an entire day just drinking in his face, his salty, shampooey scent, the way he looked in those khakis, the way he looked at me. I wanted to memorize all of it, somehow store it away.

  The morning after he’d shown up at my house in the rain, I had an idea for a memory to give Will—a part of the island I knew he hadn’t seen yet. I wanted him to see it now—with me. And I wasn’t going to let the chance slip by, even if it meant waking up at six a.m.

  Out of politeness, I waited until six fifteen to call him.

  “Hello?” he rasped, his voice cutely sleep clogged.

  “Hi,” I said. “It’s me.”

  How I loved being able to say nothing more than that and know that it had probably made Will smile, even if he wasn’t a morning person. (And he definitely wasn’t.)

  “You know not all of us have skylights above our beds waking us at dawn, right?” Will joked.

  He was definitely smiling.

  “Oh, I’ve been awake since before dawn,” I said. “Look out your window.”

  From where I was standing—which happened to be on the deck of Will’s cottage—I saw the slats of his window blinds wink open and shut.

  Two minutes later, he burst through the door in a frayed green T-shirt, gray cotton shorts, and bare feet. His eyes were still puffy with sleep and his rained-on hair was going every which way, but he was grinning.

  When he closed the door behind him and took me in—I was wearing a faded blue sundress dappled with white flowers, my also-rained-on hair ringleting down my back—his smile faded to something more reverent. He all but ran across the deck and wrapped his arms around me. Without a word, he kissed me—a long, hungry, amazing kiss.

  A minty one.

  “You stopped to brush your teeth before you came out,” I noted, a hint of teasing in my voice. “Confident, aren’t you?”

  “I had a feeling I might get a kiss,” Will admitted, his smile sly.

  “Just one?” I asked.

  It was an invitation and he took it. I have no idea how long we stood there kissing and holding each other tightly. I think both of us were still trying to get our brains around this new reality—that we got to be together again. We could kiss and touch and hold each other to our hearts’ content.

  At least for another few weeks.

  When we finally broke apart, I handed Will the coffee I’d brought for him, lots of milk, no sugar. Then I picked up the canvas bag I’d brought and started down the bridge that led over the dune grass to the beach.

  “I want to show you something,” I told Will.

  “Am I going to need shoes?”

  I pointed at my flip-flops, which I’d kicked off the moment I’d arrived. “Do you have to ask?”

  Will gave a little laugh, took a big slurp of coffee, then caught up to me so he could grab my hand.

  When we reached the beach, I turned right.

  “Wait a minute,” Will said. “We’re going south? Where you might actually be forced to commingle with shoobees?”

  “Shut up,” I said, veering into him. “I happen to have a new-found respect for shoobees. And besides, nobody’s going to be there this early.”

  “Why are we going to be there this early?” Will broached.

  “You’ll see,” I said.

  We walked down to the lip of the shore where the sand was slanty but nicely packed for a long walk. I pulled a sports bottle of sweet tea out of my bag, and Will and I walked for a few minutes, silent other than our occasional slurps of caffeine. I watched Will’s bare feet make shimmery dents in the wet sand. I drank in his presence, his warm, dry hand in mine, his matted hair breezing off his forehead, his beautiful shoulder just at my eye level.

  I pulled him to a stop. I couldn’t help it. I had to kiss him again before we walked on.

  The next time we stopped, it was Will’s fault.

  “You’re so pretty,” he said, sounding a bit awestruck. “Can I just look at you for a minute?”

  Suffice it to say, it took us a while to get to the spot I’d been aiming for. But finally we were there, a round patch of sand that jutted out into the ocean. Everyone called it the Knee, because as soon as you passed it, the island curved west, making it look a little like a bent leg.

  I led Will out to cusp of the Knee and stopped. I pulled my wrap out of my bag and spread it on the sand for us to sit on.

  “Wow, this thing has seen better days,” Will said as we settled onto the faded orange fabric. He skimmed his fingers over a frayed, unraveling edge and poked his thumb through a sizable hole.

  “Yeah, it was a good wrap,” I said. “I’ll be chucking it soon.”

  I ran my hand along the rough, wrinkled wrap until it landed on Will’s hand.

  “Actually, maybe this one I’ll save,” I said. “I can pull it out one day and remember …”

  I didn’t need to finish my sentence; list all the things I wanted to remember. There were too many anyway.

  Will leaned over to kiss me, and we kept on kissing until his stomach growled loudly.

  I pulled away, laughing, and reached for my bag.

  “How are you hungry when you’re usually asleep this time of day?” I wondered. I took out a container of biscuits with honey butter and another of sliced peaches, watermelon chunks, plums, berries … summer fruits that would be good for only a short while longer.

  I couldn’t help thinking that everything was on a countdown now, from the fruit to my wrap to Will. I was no longer letting this fact defeat me, but it still made me feel a tiny bit tragic—and glad that I’d started this, the first of our last days together, early.

  I leaned my head on Will’s shoulder while he munched the breakfast I’d brought. Both of us gazed out at the water until Will suddenly straightened up, pointing toward the horizon.

  “Is that …?” he said. “Anna, look.”

  Even before I spotted them, I knew what Will was seeing. Dolphins. Perhaps fifty of them in a tightly packed school. They leaped out of the water in rhythmic, silvery arcs, racing back and forth in a pattern that clearly made perfect sense to them, even if it was a mystery to me.

  “This is fantastic,” Will gasped. “I knew there were dolphins here. Owen said he saw them one day when I wasn’t around. I always kind of kept an eye out for them, but never saw them myself.”

  “Well, the Knee at seven a.m. is kind of a sure thing,” I said. “They’re almost always here, having breakfast. They leap to corral the fish. Something about the water pattern out there brings ’em in droves, I guess.”

  Will shook his head in amazement and gave me a quick kiss.

  “Thanks for the wake-up call,” he whispered, before returning his gaze to the school of dolphins.

  I watched with him. Dolphins had factored into my childhood fantasies almost as much as mermaids. Those leaps through the air looked so joyful. I didn’t want to believe my parents when they told me dolphins leaped for practical reasons, to spot the fish or perhaps shake off barnacles.

  Instead I told myself that they were reveling in their freedom, their strength, their ability to swim forever and never stop.

  Now it occurred to me, though, that the dolphins never strayed very far. They came back to the Knee every morning, like clockwork. Who knew, maybe they liked their glimpses of people pointing at them excitedly.

  Or maybe the dolphins just liked Dune Island itself. At the moment—and not only because it was full of wonders to show Will—I was in love with it, too.

  * * *

  Acouple of nights later, I introduced Will to the Crash Pad behind Caroline’s house. Sam was there too. The four of us sprawled on the enormous trampoline and counted stars through the halo of bushy crape myrtle branches.

  In Savannah, I’d noticed, the crape myrtles were tri
mmed into orderly little shrubs—tasteful gateways to elegant mansions. Apparently, that was how those trees were supposed to look.

  But Caroline lived in a lemon-yellow house as sprawling and janky as my own. The patio furniture was kelly green, there were planters filled with bright, plastic flowers, and the crape myrtles were wild and leggy. The trees were garish and overgrown, just like so much on this crazy, lush island. Being here with Will made me see it all with new eyes, as had happened so many times that summer.

  Sam and Caroline seemed shiny and new too, or at least more comfortable with the blurry line between friendship and more-than-friendship. They teased each other, but bookended their jibes with kisses. They spoke in shorthand and private jokes.

  From what each of them had told me, they were still adjusting to being SamAndCaroline. Maybe they always would be. (I was starting to get the sense that shifts and adjustments were a constant of couplehood.) But instead of freaking them out, their blips almost seemed to bring them closer together.

  “I think I’m getting the hang of it,” Caroline told me on the trampoline while the boys were in the house making us all smoothies. “I just kind of fold the maddening parts of being with Sam in with all the good stuff. You know, for better, for worse.”

  “Wait a minute,” I blurted. I’d been lying on my back, but now I sat up. “That’s what you say at a wedding, Caroline. Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “God, no!” Caroline said with a laugh. But to tell the truth, she didn’t sound that freaked out by the W-word. “I’m just saying, when you commit, you commit to the whole package, that’s all. Even if it’s not necessarily forever, you know?”

  Sam and Will emerged from the house, each carrying two frosty glasses filled with something orange and delicious-looking. They’d even fished around Caroline’s kitchen and found some paper umbrellas, no doubt a relic from one of the family’s famous luaus.

  Will saw me look over at him and grinned. He clinked his two glasses together and lifted one of them in my direction, as if sending me a toast.

  I grinned and gave him a little wave, jangling the silver Möbius bracelet on my wrist.

  I always thought romance novels were being ridiculous when they used phrases like “Her heart swelled.” But being there with my best friends and Will, all of us so full-up with love that it was a wonder we could even think about food, I think I definitely felt some extra thump-thumps going on inside me.

  With a bit of difficulty I tore my eyes from Will and looked at Caroline.

  “Yeah,” I replied. I could hear the gratitude and happiness in my own voice. “Yeah, I know.”

  The smoothies cooled us off a bit, but they also somehow made us more hungry. Lately, I’d been of two minds about food. I was either completely uninterested—why eat when you can kiss? Or I was ravenous and everything I ate tasted way more delicious than usual.

  Tonight, I was in the latter camp. I wanted to get a shrimp po’ boy and lick the remoulade from my fingers. I wanted a slaw dog with extra mustard. I wanted curly fries.

  I didn’t have to ask anyone twice. We all headed to Crabby’s Crab Shack and emerged as they were closing up shop, clutching our overfull stomachs and smelling like deep-fried fish.

  Caroline tested the air like she was feeling a piece of fabric, rubbing it between her fingertips.

  “Is it possible that it’s hotter now than when we went in that place?” she asked.

  “Sno-cone?” Will proposed, pointing at the crowd milling in front of The Scoop a block down the boardwalk.

  “You know I never go there on my night off,” I said, shaking my head firmly. “Especially during the rush. They’ll rope me in so fast …”

  “I’d help,” Will said, slipping his arm around my waist.

  I knew he would, too. He’d gone back to coming to The Scoop each night at closing time, grinning at me as he flipped the OPEN sign. He’d wipe tables while I squeegeed the windows. Or we’d stand side by side at the sink in the back, Will rinsing dishes and me loading them into the industrial washer. I’d nudge him with my hip or let my hand linger on his while he passed me scoops and sundae glasses. Then we almost always had to pause for kissing. One night, we just blew off the chores and raided the ice cream case, fixing ourselves a towering sundae for two and kissing between bites.

  I’d always thought these post-closing chores were dowdy and domestic, especially when I saw my parents doing them together. But with Will, they were kind of sexy.

  Of course, not when we were surrounded by my family and a bunch of customers, so I put my foot down.

  “Y’all say hi to my folks,” I said to Will, Sam, and Caroline, waving them toward The Scoop. “I’ll wait for you out here.”

  Then I whispered loudly to Caroline, “Just don’t let Will scoop any ice cream. The guy makes the most lopsided cones I’ve ever seen.”

  “Oh, nice,” Will said, stalking toward me slowly with mock menace on his face.

  “Uh-oh!” I giggled at Sam and Caroline. “I made it mad.”

  Will stiffened his fingers into claws and lunged at me.

  “Aaaah!” I shrieked. I darted to one of the short staircases leading from the boardwalk to the beach, skipped down it, and started running.

  Will laughed as he chased me toward the water. He didn’t catch me until I’d hit the surf and turned to run along it, away from the boardwalk. He grabbed me around the waist and spun me around until I cried out, “Stop! I just ate!”

  Will put me down and we clutched each other for a moment to keep from falling down in a dizzy, sweaty sprawl. I could feel the muscles in his chest move beneath the soft cotton of his shirt. His arms circled around the small of my back.

  And since we were holding each other anyway …

  Only after we’d been kissing for a good two or three minutes did I suddenly gasp, “Oh, no! I forgot about Sam and Caroline.”

  Completely mortified, I peeked over Will’s shoulder to see if they were watching us from the boardwalk, and possibly sticking their fingers down their throats.

  It would serve them right, I thought with a sly smile. They nauseated me all spring with their kissy-kissy ways.

  As I searched the boardwalk for Caroline’s pale ponytail and Sam’s slouchy lope, my cell phone rang. I dug it out of my purse.

  “Put it on speaker,” Caroline said when I answered it. “Where are you?” I yelled at the phone after I hit the speaker button.

  “We’re watching your dad shave ice,” Caroline said. “You put the bug in our ears.”

  I covered the mouthpiece and whispered to Will, “I don’t think they saw the PDA.”

  “And don’t worry,” Caroline added with a cackle. “I won’t tell your dad about the hanky panky I just saw on the beach.”

  “Guess they did,” Will said with a shrug.

  When you’re from New York City, I think you’re much less mortified by people seeing your business. Nobody stays home in their tiny apartments, Will had told me, so people do all kinds of things right out in the open. Or at least in the backs of taxis.

  Speaking of, Will was … peeling off his shirt? Then he hopped around on one leg while he pulled off one of his shoes.

  “Uh, what are you doing?” I asked.

  “Oh-kay, on that note,” Caroline said, “good ni-ight.”

  “No, Caroline!” I screeched. “It’s not what it sounds like—” Click.

  Will grinned, took off his other shoe, then unbuckled his belt.

  “Okay, really,” I said, getting a little nervous. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure nobody else was watching us from the boardwalk. “What are you doing?”

  “Don’t worry,” Will said, tossing his belt on the sand next to his shoes. “This is as far as I go.”

  Holding up his khakis with one hand, he started to walk into the water.

  “Will.” I laughed. “No! I love those khakis.”

  “A little water’s not going to hurt ’em,” Will called over his should
er. “Now, are you coming in or not?”

  Had we been on the North Peninsula, I wouldn’t have thought twice about following Will into the water in my cutoffs and tank top. But we were a shell’s throw from the boardwalk, which was teeming with post-dinner people—both tourists I didn’t know and school friends that I did.

  I bit my lip. Letting other people see me cavort in the waves with my boyfriend felt kind of like going out in public with my underwear on outside my clothes. On the other hand, skulking around with Will felt even more wrong. If our breakup had taught me anything, it was to embrace the scary. You missed out on too much otherwise.

  So with only one more furtive glance to see if we were surrounded (we weren’t, but we certainly weren’t alone either), I kicked off my flip-flops, carefully slipped my silver bangle inside one of Will’s sneakers, and splashed into the water.

  As I waded toward Will, he ducked underneath the surface. When he came up, he flicked his hair off his forehead and whooped.

  “Oh, that feels good!” he said. “What am I gonna do when I don’t have an ocean outside my door every day?”

  “I can’t tell you,” I said as I swam toward him, skimming easily over the lazy nighttime waves. “I’ve never had that experience.”

  “Man, I can’t imagine this being my everyday world,” Will said. He shifted onto his back and blinked up at the stars. “It doesn’t seem real.”

  “Right back at ya,” I said. “New York is my idea of a vacation. A frantic, crazy, sensory-overloaded version of it, anyway. I mean, you ride in elevators and shoot through underground tunnels every day. Do you know how weird that is?”

  Will went upright and looked over at me.

  “Sometimes it feels like we’re from two different countries.” His voice wobbled a bit as he said it.

  I swam closer still, until my hands were on his bare chest.

  “At least we don’t speak two different languages,” I said softly.

  “Oh, no,” Will said, one side of his mouth rising a bit, “y’all don’t think so?”