You and Me and Us

by Alison Hammer

  I know she’s scared, that she’s sad and angry. I know because I’m feeling all of those things, too. I wish I could tell her that, but I’m supposed to be the grown-up. I’m supposed to comfort her, to reassure her. But I have no idea how I can do that for her when I need someone to do the same exact things for me.

  In different circumstances, I would have talked to Tommy about it. But I can’t tell him how I’m really feeling—how my heart practically stopped when he started coughing like that. I was so scared that we waited too long, that I screwed it up by not saying yes sooner. He couldn’t die before we even got to Destin, before he got to do any of the things he wants to do this summer. His last.

  “The exit, I missed it,” I say.

  “Whatever,” CeCe says from the backseat. “We’re almost there, anyway.”

  Tommy clears his throat and my eyes dart over to him. “I’m okay,” he says.

  I wish I could believe him. I know he hates seeing what this is doing to us, and I’m trying to keep things as normal as possible. I was actually happy that CeCe was being a monster earlier. If she had been sweet and agreeable, it wouldn’t have been real.

  “There’s another exit in a few miles,” I say.

  Tommy nods and turns the music back up. I didn’t realize I had turned it down. One of my goals for this summer is to work on being more present and in the moment, especially since our moments are running out.

  “Tell me the story about our first kiss,” Tommy says.

  “You were there,” I remind him. “And you’ve heard me tell that story a hundred times.”

  “I wouldn’t mind hearing it a hundred more.” He puts his hand on my leg, letting it slide down to my knee.

  My eyes drift up to the rearview mirror to see if CeCe is listening, but she’s got her headphones back on and is staring at her phone again.

  “You were quiet and shy,” I say.

  “And you were beautiful.”

  I laugh. Only through the eyes of love could I be considered beautiful at that awkward twelve-year-old stage. My hair was frizzy, I was at least twenty pounds too heavy, and the style of the clothes we all wore in the eighties was anything but flattering.

  “We were standing in the closet on a dare,” I tell him. “You were on one side, I was on the other.”

  “I made the first move,” he says proudly.

  “But you missed and rammed my nose with your chin.”

  “It was my first kiss,” he says, moving his hand up and down my thigh. I don’t remind him it wasn’t my first. Now, I wish it had been.

  “You were embarrassed and went back to your side of the closet. Then our time was up, they opened the door, and I walked out.”

  “But you came back.”

  “I came back.” I smile. For years, my memory of the night stopped when I walked out of the closet. It wasn’t until years later when I finally came back to Destin that Tommy reminded me what happened next.

  I remember now, looking back toward the closet where Tommy hadn’t moved. His chubby cheeks were flushed in embarrassment, and he looked sad. Even back then, I never wanted to disappoint him. So I walked back to the closet, leaned forward, and let my lips briefly brush against his. It had been a flutter of a kiss, but it made him smile again.

  “I didn’t wash my lips for the rest of that summer.” Tommy leans over and gives me a quick kiss. He looks in the backseat before giving me one more. “We’ve lived a good life.”

  “We’re still living it,” I insist.

  “We are,” he agrees. “I know it’s not ideal to spend the whole summer down here—”

  “CeCe didn’t mean what she said.”

  “I meant for you.”

  Ouch. I’ve tried to keep a smile on my face about Destin ever since our conversation about Monica, but of course he can see right through it. “There are worse places we could be,” I tell him.

  “Like a hospital,” he says.

  I nod, even though if we were at a hospital, there might be a fighting chance we’d have more summers to spend together. “Or the DMV,” I say, in an attempt to change the subject.

  It works, according to the smile on Tommy’s face. “Or at the mall with a dozen teenage girls.”

  “In the middle seat of an airplane,” I say. “Next to someone gassy.”

  “In a principal’s office,” Tommy says with a sly smile.

  “You have never seen the inside of a principal’s office,” I remind him. “You were always a perfect student.”

  “That’s what you think,” he says. I steal a glance in his direction and find him looking at me with a smug look on his face. “You don’t know all my secrets.”

  “I know about the time you opened your Christmas presents and rewrapped them all so your mom wouldn’t know.”

  “That, I did.”

  “And I know you cheated on your driver’s test.”

  “That was you, my love.”

  Damn, he’s right. “Sometimes it’s like you know me better than I know myself.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Tommy reaches for my hand and gives it a sweet kiss, letting his lips linger long enough that it would garner a comment from CeCe if she were paying attention.

  I glance up to the rearview mirror again, where our daughter is curled up, completely unaware that we’re heading toward the only skeleton in her dad’s closet.

  “Eleven-eleven,” Tommy says, nodding toward the dashboard clock.

  My eyes find CeCe again. While most of my wishes these days are for more time with Tommy, this wish is that Tommy’s past stays in the past. And that CeCe never has to find out about Monica. But there’s a sinking feeling in my stomach that Tommy’s not the only one I have to worry about losing this summer.

  Chapter Sixteen

  CeCe

  Crossing over the Mid-Bay Bridge toward Destin, I feel like I’m entering the second act of a play. Except this play is my life, and like all tragedies, the end is inevitable.

  “It’s even prettier than I remember,” Dad says, as if it’s been years since we’ve been down here instead of the few months since spring break.

  But he’s right—it is beautiful. Water as far as I can see to the left and water as far as I can see to the right. The view usually feels like a reward for making it through the long drive, a promise of things to come.

  Except this time I know what’s coming and I don’t want anything to do with it.

  Dad seems to have forgotten why we’re here, because he’s acting like it’s just another summer. He lowers his windows all the way and the car fills with a rush of salty air. The wind is so loud that I can’t hear what he’s saying, but I know him well enough to know he’s making a joke about the wind running through his nonexistent hair.

  Unbuckling my seatbelt, I lower my window and pull the rubber band out of my hair. Before Mom can tell me to stop, I tilt my head outside.

  The wind is strong, but I’m stronger. I close my eyes and turn my face up to the sun. I resist the pressure, letting my head move back and forth like I’m dancing with the wind. My hair whips around, stinging as stray strands slap my face, but I don’t care. This is what being alive feels like.

  The pressure fades and I slip back inside as Mom slows the car down for the tollbooth.

  I lift the armrest back up and slide to the other side so I can get a good look at the painted whales. When I was little, I thought they were real, jumping out of the water to welcome me back to Destin, wondering why I’d stayed away so long.

  Of course, I know better now. It’s just a mural painted on the side of the building where they store the boats at Legendary Marina. If you look closely, you can see places where the paint is starting to chip away. Still, there’s some small part of me that feels like it’s just my old friends saying hello.

  “It’ll feel good to stretch our legs,” Mom says.

  I don’t bother answering—she always says the most obvious things that don’t need to be said
. It’s like she’s just talking to fill space. Dad’s more like me; he knows that sometimes there’s no need to ruin the quiet with words.

  My toes start tapping as we get closer to Highway 98. I’ve been coming down to Destin since before I was born, so it’s like my body has a natural response to this place. Like it’s in my genes or something.

  As Mom turns onto 98, I look for Bruster’s, making sure my favorite ice cream place is still there. But before my eyes reach the red benches where Dad and I used to sit, eating our ice cream in a race against the sun, a billboard catches my eyes.

  “Holy shit,” I say before I can stop myself.

  “Language,” Dad says.

  I usually try not to curse around him even though Mom does it all the time. But holy shit! I blink a few times quickly, but sure enough, the billboard still says what it did the first time I read it. DESTIN WELCOMES THE CAST AND CREW OF THE SEASIDERS. I read they were shooting the new Netflix series on a beach in a small Florida town, but I didn’t realize it was my small Florida town.

  We stop at a red light directly in front of the billboard, so I snap a picture out the open window. Maybe this summer isn’t going to be so bad after all.

  My smile fades when I realize Mom is watching me in the rearview mirror. I can see her eyes growing wide as she looks between me and the billboard. It’s like she knows I’m imagining the day I’ll casually run into one of the show’s casting agents on the beach.

  I can picture it—he’ll say he’s got an eye for natural talent, and when I introduce myself as Cecelia Whistler, he’ll ask if I’m related to Monica. I’ll tell him that no, unfortunately there’s no relation between myself and one of the show’s stars. My dad’s an only child, so I don’t have any aunts or cousins or anything. But still, it would be great to play Monica’s daughter or something on the show. I mean, who am I kidding, I’d settle for a walk-on role!

  “Babe,” Dad says, as cars behind us start honking.

  Mom takes her eyes off me and back to the road, where the light has already changed. It’s pathetic how obvious she is. I really wish she would focus on her own life instead of trying to ruin mine. If she didn’t want me to fall in love with acting, then she shouldn’t have cast me in one of her stupid commercials when I was a kid. And if she really believes in my talent like she said after the play, then she shouldn’t worry about how hard rejection might be because I won’t get rejected.

  Once I start talking to her again, I’ll tell her that’s how she can make it up to me—getting me an audition. She could call her commercial casting people in L.A. to see if they know the casting people down here. It’s worth a shot, and it’s the least she can do after making me spend the whole summer down here.

  I post my photo of the billboard to Instagram with a caption: I’m ready for my audition #ComeFindMe #AStarIsBorn #ActingIsMyJam #TwoWhistlersAreBetterThanOne.

  I text the picture to Liam. I’ve wanted to text him a million times over the past two weeks, but I didn’t want to seem desperate. Now at least I have something interesting to share.

  I look back up just as we turn onto Crystal Beach Drive. The familiar two-story houses stand tall in a row, lined up like a box of pastel crayons: pinks and blues and yellows and greens. The palm trees in the front yards make me think of Hollywood. Maybe when I’m a famous actress living there, the palm trees will remind me of Destin, the place where I was first discovered.

  Mom turns left on Luke, past Stingray Street, past Cobia—which reminds me I want Dad to take me down to the fish market—and then right before Pompano, there’s our beach house with the front porch swing, identical to the one we have back home. It’s one of my favorite places to sit when Mom’s not hogging it.

  “We’re here,” she says, stating the obvious again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Alexis

  My heart swells at the sight of my grandmother’s house. My house now, since she left it to me. But I still think of the two-story yellow beach house as hers.

  After all these years, I still miss her so much it hurts. But even if she won’t be walking outside to greet me with a hug and an ice-cold glass of her famous Arnold Palmers, I can feel her down here, where we shared so many summers together, just the two of us. I hope it will be like that with Tommy, that I’ll be able to feel him with me. But I’m not ready to think about that. Not now. Not yet.

  CeCe has the door open before the car comes to a full and complete stop. I watch as she takes the porch steps in one giant leap, finding the spare key where it’s always been hidden, underneath the ceramic bullfrog Gran bought at the dollar store back when it was a five-and-dime.

  If Tommy had his way, we’d have moved down here full-time. He says that his home is wherever I am, but his heart is always happier here, where the ocean is blocks, not hundreds of miles, away.

  Every year, we say we’re going to try to come down more often, but life keeps getting in the way. My work, mostly. But I thought we had plenty of time; this was going to be our retirement home. Tommy would take up golf, I’d try my hand at pickle ball, and we’d spend our sunset years holding hands and walking the beach, reminiscing about the good old days. We had a plan. We’re supposed to have more time.

  I push the ignition button to turn the engine off, but I don’t open the door. As ready as I am to get out of the car, I’m not ready to start this farewell tour. While it might seem like any of the hundreds of times we’ve made this same drive before, it’s not. And I can’t ignore the fact that while three of us are arriving, only two of us will be going home.

  Tommy gives my leg a squeeze. “Ready?”

  “Or not,” I say, putting my hand on top of his. “Here goes nothing.”

  I get out of the car and pop the trunk, ignoring the oxygen he thankfully hasn’t had to start using yet—a big tank for the house and a portable oxygen concentrator that looks like a cross between a briefcase and a purse. His doctor back home put us in touch with a specialist here to help with his “comfort care.” Tommy told me to stop before I even suggested that maybe he should try to get a third opinion from this doctor.

  As much as I’m trying not to get my hopes up, I do hope being down here will remind Tommy how good life can be, that he’ll realize we’re worth fighting for before it’s too late.

  “I’ve got it,” Tommy says, bringing me back to the moment. He reaches for my oversize suitcase, weighed down with anything and everything I might need over the next few months.

  I watch as he lifts it out of the trunk before grabbing his suitcase, which is just as big and probably just as heavy. With a suitcase in each hand, he heads for the house, trying so hard to maintain the picture of strength.

  He doesn’t know I’ve noticed that his appetite is barely there these days. That his face has already hollowed out, that his shirts are starting to hang on his frame and he’s wearing his belt a few notches tighter.

  We don’t talk about those things.

  There’s a cardboard box in the trunk I don’t remember seeing when we packed everything, but I leave it for now, grabbing CeCe’s suitcase in one hand and the oxygen tank in the other. I shut the trunk without bothering to lock the doors because this is Destin, and bad things don’t happen here. At least, they didn’t before this summer.

  INSIDE, I HALF expect to find things the way they used to be, with Gran’s furniture from her house in Atlanta that always felt a little out of place here. I walk into the only room that escaped our redecorating—the “piano room” with Gran’s beloved Steinway holding court in the corner. I used to love listening to her sing as she played everything from Broadway hits to Billie Holiday and the Andrews Sisters while I sat at the card table, drawing or playing Solitaire.

  Back when Tommy and CeCe spent whole summers down here, they’d use the table to work on a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. Every time I came down to spend a long weekend, it was a little more complete. Somehow, the timing always worked out so the last piece was in place just before it was time to pack up
and head home.

  “Babe,” Tommy calls from the kitchen.

  I walk down the hall toward him, stopping to straighten a framed photo that Jill’s daughter, Abigail, snapped of the three of us last summer on the beach.

  “Looks like Jill was here,” Tommy says, holding up a pitcher of Arnold Palmers—the half iced tea and half lemonade drink she knows my grandmother always kept in the fridge. My eyes well up with tears of gratitude, but I blink them away.

  “Did she leave anything else?” I ask, hoping there’s a sweet treat from her bakery café to go along with the drink.

  “Just a note for you to come by The Broken Crown after we get settled.”

  I nod, wishing I could leave the unpacking and adulting for later. But rules are rules, and I know if I put it off, I’ll end up using my suitcase as a drawer for the rest of the summer.

  “Go ahead,” Tommy says. “I’ll get everything put away.”

  “I’ll go later,” I tell him. “We have to go to the grocery store.”

  Tommy smiles. “I can handle that, too. I do it at home, don’t I?”

  He’s not wrong. “Are you sure?”

  Tommy grabs my waist and pulls me closer, answering with a kiss. “Just bring me back something from Jill’s?”

  “Deal.”

  I give him one more kiss before walking down the street to get the hug my heart’s been aching for since this nightmare began.

  Chapter Eighteen

  CeCe

  I hear the front door close and look out the window just in time to see Mom walking down the street. We barely got here and she’s already leaving. It’s like she’d rather be anywhere than where we are.

  “Dad?” I call as I head down the stairs.

  “In here,” he yells from the kitchen. “Want an Arnold Palmer?”

  “Sure.” I walk straight for the cabinet where we keep the glasses. “You want one, too?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he teases.