Emmy & Oliver

by Robin Benway

  “You had dinner after?”

  “We ate food together!”

  “And did that food consist of dinner-like items?”

  “Okay, fine, yes. And I know, Caro says it’s a date if you eat food together, but if that’s true, then I’ve dated half the population at our school and do not make a snarky comment right now.”

  Drew widened his eyes and looked innocent, the way I had tried to do the night before with my parents.

  “Cut it out, you look like a Kewpie doll.”

  “Look,” Drew said, going back to his normal face and tugging me closer, “you can tell your old friend Drew anything. You know that, right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And you can tell me nothing,” he continued. “I don’t really care. As long as my best friend is happy, then I’m happy.”

  “Oh my God, stop talking! Oliver thinks that you and Caro hate him!”

  That stopped Drew in his tracks. It was rare that he was serious, but when he was, it changed his whole face, made him look older. “Hate him?” he repeated. “How could I hate him? I barely know him!”

  “Yeah, I know, but that whole ‘giving him space’ thing made Oliver feel like he was Patient Zero. So we’ve got to hang out with him more, okay? Go surfing or whatever.”

  “Or whatever.” Drew wiggled his eyebrows at me.

  “Stop that! And I said we!” I added. “Let’s invite him to the party, okay? We were friends once, we can be friends again.”

  “Emmy, you are a saint among saints,” Drew said, then hugged me to his side as we walked down the hall. “Let the healing bonds of friendship ease all of our wounds!”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “That’s not very saintly language,” he pointed out, then kissed the top of my head and then released me with a shove. “Now get off me before Kevin thinks I’m straight.”

  “He’s homeschooled. He doesn’t even go to school here.”

  “Rumors, Emmy. They respect no boundaries.” Drew raised an eyebrow at me, then ducked into his history class.

  I didn’t see Oliver until lunchtime that day, and even then, I didn’t see him until he was standing right in front of me in the library. I was making flash cards for French verbs and he stood over me just as I was writing je ferais on my lined card. (I can’t have unlined note cards. It’s just not natural.)

  “Hey,” Oliver said, his hair (still) in his eyes. “Let’s go surfing again.”

  “Right now?” I whispered back, glancing around me.

  He pulled out the chair next to me, sitting down and heaving his backpack onto the table with a loud thwop! that made the librarian look up and frown. Former kidnap victim or not, everyone had to be quiet in the library.

  “Not now,” he said. “I mean after school. Today. It’s supposed to be a good swell.”

  I tried to hide a smile, failing miserably. “It’s a one- to two-foot swell,” I said. “But it’s sweet that you think those are good waves. Adorable, really.”

  “Those are good waves for me,” he clarified. “And I had fun last time. I want to go again.”

  I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest. “So you’re not worried about sharks anymore?”

  “Only slightly. I just want to do something!” he said, drawing another look from the librarian. He raised his hand in apology before leaning closer to me. He smelled like the same baby shampoo the twins used. It was an odd dichotomy.

  “I’m tired of sitting in my house,” he said. “I feel like everyone’s always watching me in there. And the twins actually are watching me. I can see their little noses under the door.”

  “That’s sort of cute,” I admitted.

  “My dad has this saying,” he continued, not noticing how I startled when he said the word dad, how it seemed like such a normal word in his mouth, like dad wasn’t the thing that had brought such catastrophe into our lives.

  “He says, ‘nervous like a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.’ That’s Maur—my mom right now. I feel like if I blink too many times in a row, she’ll worry about me.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Your dad said that? My dad says that.” It sounded strange that our dads would have anything in common—even a dumb saying. His dad was a criminal; my dad’s biggest crime was putting the empty milk container back in the refrigerator.

  Oliver laughed. “Are you serious? Huh. Maybe they got it from each other.”

  “Well, your mother kind of spent the last ten years worrying about you, wondering if you were even alive,” I pointed out. “It’s a hard habit to break. Just ask my parents. They worry about me all the time and I never disappeared.”

  “But I’m fine,” he insisted, crossing his arms over his backpack and resting on top of it. “I just want to go surfing.”

  “So go surfing,” I said more dismissively than I meant.

  He paused a moment, staring down at the wood grain of the table. “I want to go surfing with you.”

  Je ferais was still balanced between my fingers. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Wow. I feel really appreciated right now.”

  “Okay, fine. I want to go surfing with you because we had fun last time,” he said, then added, “And I like talking to you. You listen.”

  I could feel my cheeks turning a little pink and I tried to will the color away. “Sometimes, I think, I just don’t know what to say.” We were both whispering now, and probably would have been even without the librarian’s eyes on us. “I don’t want to say the wrong thing, so I don’t say anything at all. That’s not the same as being a good listener.”

  “That’s actually exactly what it means,” he replied. “So will you go?”

  “Fine,” I finally agreed. “I’ll go, on one condition.”

  “Sold. Done. What?”

  “You figure out my cover story for my parents.”

  “Where are we going?” Caro came strolling over, either blithely unaware of or not caring about the librarian’s sotto voce rule. (I was leaning toward Option B.)

  “Oliver wants to go surfing this afternoon,” I told her. “I told him he has to come up with an excuse for me so that my parents won’t wonder where I am.”

  “Tell them you’re spending the night at my place.” Caro shrugged, then her eyes glinted, full of mischief. “Oh, that’s perfect! Then you can go to Drew’s party tonight, too!”

  “I was going to go, anyway,” I started to say, but Caro let out a guffaw that raised everyone’s attention, not just the librarian’s.

  “Uh, yeah, sure,” she said, then turned to Oliver. “Do you know what her curfew is?”

  I could tell that Drew had gotten to Caro and told her about how Oliver was worried about them. She had an easy smile, though, and she patted Oliver’s arm as she talked to him, like their friendship didn’t have a ten-year-long gap in it.

  “I’m sitting right here,” was all I said, though.

  Caro just ignored me. “Nine o’clock. In the evening. Including weekends.” Caro shook her head like she had just announced a casualty list. “Drew’s parents will probably still be backing out of the driveway at nine o’clock. She isn’t going to any party without me as an alibi.” She turned back to me, leaning up against the back of my chair. “Just tell your parents you’re coming to my place after school and then sleeping over.” She returned her gaze to Oliver. “They love me.”

  “Oh, now you’re talking to me?” I asked. “I wasn’t sure. I thought I might have been invisible.”

  Oliver smiled at me, then Caro. “Well, that was easy. Thanks, Caroline.”

  “Caro,” she corrected him. “Nobody’s called me Caroline since the second grade. So you’re coming, right?”

  “Where?”

  “Drew’s party. Just show up, this isn’t a formal invite thing. BYO-whatever.”

  “And by ‘whatever,’ she means ‘alcohol,’” I explained.

  “You speak Caro-ese better than you do French,�
�� she said.

  “What about you?” Oliver asked her. “What’s your story for your parents?”

  Caro blinked. “I’m the youngest of six. My parents stopped raising us after Kid Number Four. They don’t care where I go.”

  “They care,” I interrupted her. “It’s not like you’re Eloise living in the Plaza.”

  “On my island,” she sighed dreamily. “Anyway, text your parents. Tell them now.”

  The bell suddenly rang, startling everyone in the room, and Oliver stood up. “I’ll ask Drew about borrowing his wet suit again,” he said. “Do you think he’ll mind?”

  “Nope!” Caro said, grinning so wide that I could see her back molars. “Drew is totally fine with you and Emmy hanging out.” Then she winked. Actually winked.

  “Caro,” I groaned, covering my eyes with my hands. “Stop. Please. I’m begging you.”

  “See you tonight!” Caro said as Oliver hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders.

  “Meet you in the parking lot?” Oliver asked me, and I nodded, my face still buried in my hands.

  “You are so embarrassing,” I told Caro as soon as Oliver was safely out of earshot. “You are the worst.”

  “I am the best, and here’s why.” Caro plunked herself in Oliver’s empty seat. “I just got you date number two with your childhood sweetheart–slash–tragic love story—”

  “My what?” I uncovered my face to look at her.

  “—and you get to go to the party afterward and hang out with both of your cool friends and Oliver.”

  “Don’t call him that.”

  She frowned. “That’s sort of his name.”

  “No, my ‘childhood tragic love whatever’ thing you just said. Don’t say that. It’s not funny, Caro.” I hadn’t meant my words to sound that vehement, and judging from her expression, neither did Caro.

  “Fine, sorry. But you know what I mean.”

  I did and I didn’t. I didn’t know what any of it meant, or even if I wanted to.

  “Um, Emmy?” she said, then glanced down at my now-shredded note card, pieces of je ferais still between my fingers. “What did the French language ever do to you?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  After school, Drew’s wet suit and surfboard slung into the back of my car next to mine, my parents texted about my change in plans (“have fun!! Thank u for telling me and BE SAFE!” my mom wrote back), and Oliver in the passenger seat next to me, I peeled out of the school parking lot and headed west.

  “So what’d you tell your mom?” I asked him. The windows were down and the wind made it hard to hear, so I just yelled louder instead of rolling them up. The fresh air smelled good, like clean laundry and salt, a reminder that we were only a few minutes away from the ocean.

  “I just said I was hanging out with you,” Oliver said. His elbow was resting on the car door, and his hand was cupped against the wind, forcing his fingers apart.

  “No, you did not!” I gasped.

  “What?”

  “Oliver!” I screeched. “My mom talks to your mom, like, every five minutes! If she—”

  Oliver grinned wickedly at me. “Kidding.”

  I tried to stop a smile as I punched him in the arm. “You have a real violent streak, you know that?” He laughed, trying to block my fist as I socked him again. “Ow! Okay, uncle, I’m sorry.”

  “You’re a weenie,” I told him.

  “Weenie? Wow, my delicate ears. Ow, okay! Sorry again! Eyes on the road, by the way. You’re operating heavy machinery with me in it. And I asked Rick, not my mom. I just said that Drew and some guys and I were going to the movies.”

  I glanced at him. “Is Rick, you know, cool about that?”

  “I guess. I don’t know, he’s cooler than my mom sometimes. He doesn’t act like the roof is going to cave in every five minutes.”

  I sat back in my seat, putting both hands on the wheel once again. “Do you know what would happen if my mom found out I was at a party?” I asked him.

  “Is that rhetorical?”

  “Yes. But just so you know, they would lock me in the basement forever.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Oliver scoffed, sticking his arm out the window once again. “That’s not even possible.”

  “Oh, trust me, it would happen. And then you would feel bad for me.”

  “It wouldn’t happen,” Oliver insisted. “You don’t even have a basement.”

  “Fine. The attic, then. They would lock me in a cold, dark place and feed me nothing but gruel. Like a mash-up of Jane Eyre and Oliver Twist. My mom was an English major, she could make it happen.”

  Oliver looked at me, tucking his hair behind his ears.

  “What?” I asked, glancing at him before checking my mirrors and turning right.

  “You’re just a weirdo,” he said. “That’s all.” But his voice was soft, probably muted by the wind. He looked at me for a few more seconds before sticking his head out the window like a dog, smiling into the air when I laughed at him.

  “Now who’s the weirdo?” I yelled, but either he didn’t hear me or he just agreed, because he smiled again and didn’t say anything more.

  Oliver and I had both been right about the swells: they were just baby waves that day, the hot weather and dry wind making the horizon look both still and shimmery at the same time. They were perfect for Oliver.

  Unfortunately, he was still a far from perfect surfer.

  “Paddle, paddle, paddle, PADDLE!” I screamed, sitting astride my board as I watched him try to get ahead of a wave. His arms moved fast like propellers, but as soon as the wave caught up to him, he planted his feet on the board . . . and immediately fell over.

  “Have you considered a different sport?” I asked him, once he had gathered up his board and swum back out to where I was waiting. “Badminton, maybe? You would be great at shuffleboard.”

  He grinned and splashed water in my direction. “We can’t all be superhero badass surfers,” he said as I splashed him right back. “Think of it this way: I make you look even better.”

  “I don’t need you to make me look good!” I protested, sending a huge amount of water his way. “I looked good before you showed up.”

  The double entendre hung between us and I was grateful that the sun was in Oliver’s eyes so that he couldn’t see me blush. “I mean—you know what I mean. Right?”

  Before he could answer, though, a round of catcalls started up from the beach. Three guys were walking toward a spot farther down, but all of their heads were turned in our direction. “You don’t need that wet suit, baby!” one of them yelled, sending his friends into a round of hysterics.

  I raised my middle finger at them, making them laugh even harder, and if I had been blushing before, now my face was ablaze. “Assholes,” I muttered.

  Oliver’s spine was straight, his head turned resolutely toward the shore. “Who are they?” he asked, his voice sharper and harder than before. “Do you know them?”

  “No, they’re just tourists.” I waved my hand in their direction as if to sweep them away. “Dudes. Jerks. Whatever. Most guys around here aren’t like that, don’t worry.”

  Oliver was still staring at them, though. With his damp hair and Drew’s wet suit just a little too tight on his body, he reminded me of a panther in an old storybook I used to have, poised in the trees and ready to pounce. “Oliver, seriously,” I said. “Ignore them. Please don’t do something stupid like avenge my honor or whatever.”

  He finally looked away. “I’m not,” he said. “You can probably avenge yourself much better than I could, anyway.”

  I smiled despite myself. “Well, yeah, duh. Your upper body strength is terrible.”

  “Does that happen a lot, though?” Oliver said.

  “Not really. I mean, once in a while, yeah. But not really.” I ran my fingers back and forth in the water, watching the sand particles and seaweed strands dance between them. “Like, if you’re wearing a wet suit instead of a bikini, they say shit. If yo
u wear a bikini instead of a wet suit, they say shit. But it doesn’t matter. They just do it to make up for the fact that they suck and I’m better than them.”

  “How do you know they suck?” Oliver asked.

  I gestured to the empty water around us. “Do you see anyone else out here besides us today? These waves are baby waves, everyone good is probably up at Newport.”

  Oliver had ducked under the water to smooth back his hair, but came up sputtering, mock-indignant. “Wait, are you saying I suck?” he said. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No!” I cried. “Wait, don’t—!” But it was too late. He pulled me off my board and straight into the water, me laughing so hard when I went under that I came up coughing, eyes and nose stinging with salt water.

  “Is that any way to speak to your teacher?” I gasped, trying to wipe my nose in the most discreet way possible. “Disrespectful!”

  Oliver laughed at me trying to push my wet hair out of my face. “You look like you got attacked by seaweed,” he said, then reached over and tried to help me. “Here, sorry. But you had it coming.”

  I let him move a lock of wet hair out of my eyes, his thumb just brushing my forehead as he swept it back. I had a comeback on the tip of my tongue, but when he looked at me and smiled again, it melted away in my mouth, leaving nothing but a smile behind.

  “I don’t think I’m gonna go to Drew’s party,” he said.

  “Wait, what?” The conversation had suddenly taken a drastic turn. “Why? What just happened here?”

  “I don’t know.” Oliver shrugged and looked over his shoulder toward, I realized, the same guys who had harassed me a few minutes earlier. “I just . . . I’m not really good at parties. With, you know, other people.”

  Realization dawned. “Oliver, how many parties have you been to?”

  “Um.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I replied. Of course, Oliver hadn’t been going to ragers while his dad kept him hidden from the world. For years, even though he was living in the biggest city in the world, it was probably Oliver and his dad—only Oliver and his dad.