What I Thought Was True

  I shut my eyes. Not a big deal. It’s nothing. Forget it. God knows I ought to be used to Seashell. When I helped Mom clean Old Mrs. Partridge’s house a few summers ago, Mrs. P. took me aside. “Maria, just so you know, I will be checking the level of all of the liquor bottles.” But Henry should know better. Mom’s so honest that when she finds change scattered on a desk or a bureau she has to dust, she writes a note saying she picked it up and dusted underneath it, then replaced it, then lists the exact amount. Even if it’s four pennies.

  It’s just a job. Know your place, take the paycheck, and shut up. Other people’s stories—issues, whatever—are their own.

  But no matter how I try to tamp them down, hot embarrassment and anger scorch my chest. I want to tell him where he can shove his lobster pick. But then I hear the slow beat of Mrs. E.’s cane moving around the kitchen. The halting thump-slide of it and her injured foot. The little rattle of her pulling out china, still determinedly independent. I lick my suddenly dry lips. “I understand.”

  Henry gives me a slightly sheepish smile. “I’m glad you’ve got that straight. We’re all grateful for your help.” He reaches out a hand and, after a hesitation, I shake it. Giving me a card with phone numbers on it, he tells me the first is his office line and to let his secretary know it’s “in regard to Mother” if there is any sort of problem. “My private cell number is the second one. Use that only in the case of dire emergencies.”

  I promise I won’t call him for idle chatter (not exactly in those words). He brushes off his hands as though he, not Cass, had been doing manual labor, gives one last glance out at the water. “It is beautiful here,” he says softly. “Sometimes I think the only way I can bring myself ever to leave is by forgetting that.”

  The minute the screen door slams behind him, I sink onto the glider, look out at the dive-bombing seagulls, close my eyes and breathe in, trying to let the familiar rolling roar of the waves calm and focus me.

  “What the hell was that? Jesus Christ, Gwen!” Cass is leaning a palm against one of the porch columns, jaw muscles tight.

  I sit up, shifting gears from one embarrassing moment to the next, my cheeks going hot. Does this boy have to be present at every humiliation? Worse, does he have to be part of them? He listened. Just like he eavesdropped about Alex . . . and knew all about what went down with Spence. Not to mention what happened with Cass himself. I swallow. “I need the job.” I’m saying it to myself as much as to him. My voice wavers. Cass’s dark eyebrows pull together.

  “He treated you like a servant. A dishonest servant. No one needs a job that much.”

  Though he’s been working hard, sweat dampening his hair, grass sticking to his knees, a smudge of dirt across his forehead, where he must have brushed his hair away, he still looks so good. All the anger I couldn’t show Henry floods in with a boiling rush.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Cass. I do. I do and so does pretty much everyone who works on Seashell. Including whatever island guy lost out on the yard boy job because your daddy bought it for you to teach you some Life Lesson.”

  He glares at me. “Let’s leave my dad out of this. This is you. I can’t believe you just sat there and took that crap from him.”

  “You haven’t been on the island very long. Don’t quite know your place yet. Taking crap is what we do here, Jose.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Lots of entitlement. Got it. But it’s not what you do. I can’t claim to know you”—he pauses, has the grace to turn red, then forges on—“but I know you don’t put up with crap. That made me sick.”

  “Maybe you should take your break now and lie down. I’m sure it’ll pass.”

  “Dammit, Gwen!” Cass starts, but then Mrs. Ellington is at the screen door, making her slow way onto the porch with her cane, tap, slow tap, tap. Her eyebrows are raised.

  “Is there a problem, dear boy? You look overheated.”

  Cass shoves his hair back again—leaving a bigger smudge of dirt, sighs. “It’s nothing.” Pause. “Ma’am.”

  Mrs. E. studies us, the faintest of smiles on her face. But in the end, all she says is, “Henry really did mean it when he said he could only stay for a few minutes. He’s already rushed off. Poor dear. I would love some iced tea, Gwen. Why don’t you get some for—” She pauses.

  “Jose,” I say, just as Cass reminds her of his actual name.

  “Maybe Jose should carry around his own water bottle,” I add, “like the rest of the maintenance crew. Then he wouldn’t need waiting on.”

  “Jose dumped his water bottle on his head about two hours ago—it’s ninety-five today, no sea breeze, in case you hadn’t noticed, Maria.”

  Mrs. E. has settled herself on the glider where Henry had been only a few minutes ago, regarding us, head cocked, the smile broader now. Her eyes are bright with interest. My nerves are still buzzing. At Henry—even though he’s just looking out for his mother. At Mrs. E., watching us like characters in a soap opera. At Cass, with his pink shirt and his attitude. At some random guy who zooms by on a Jet Ski, its buzz-saw sound cutting through the lap of the water. While I’m at it, at Nic, who ate the last of the Cap’n Crunch last night, which resulted in an early morning Emory meltdown, which could be soothed only by Dora the Explorer, definitely the most irritating cartoon character on the planet.

  “All men need to be waited on,” Mrs. Ellington cuts into my thoughts. “Helpless creatures, the lot of them.”

  “Nah, we have our uses,” Cass says. All the heat evaporates from his voice when he speaks with her. “Killing spiders, opening stuck jar lids—”

  Caught between wanting to punch him and just laughing, I roll my eyes to heaven. I hate the way he flips the charm on—that he knows, damn well, just how effective it is.

  “—starting unnecessary wars, that sort of thing.”

  She gives her deep belly laugh. “Warming our bed at night. I do miss that. The captain was like a blast furnace.”

  Cass’s eyes widen a little, but he says only, “I can get the iced tea myself. If that’s okay with you, ma’am.”

  “Certainly not—Gwen, please get him some tea, and some for the two of us, of course.”

  I stomp into the kitchen and throw ice cubes into glasses as if tossing grenades. Which reminds me of Dad rattling pans at Castle’s when he’s pissed off. A thought that makes me even more angry because I seem to be headed steadily down that highway of rage with no exit ramps.

  “She said I should come help you slice the lemons.”

  Cass is standing in the doorway, one elbow braced against the jamb. Considering how ticked he was only a few minutes ago, he looks entirely too calm and sure of himself.

  “Oh? That another useful man-skill? Opening jars, slaying lobsters, slicing lemons. Well, thank God for the Y chromosome then, because we helpless womenfolk would surely perish without you.”

  The corner of Cass’s mouth quirks up. “Technically, yeah, you would. That’s connected to the whole bed-warming thing, I believe.”

  The last thing I want in my thoughts or my memories or my mind in any way at this moment is any association whatsoever with Cass’s bed. Of course, that means it’s right there, like a photograph. His bed, broad, dark wood dolphins carved into the four corners—those old-fashioned dolphins that look less like Flipper and more like gargoyles, riding smiling on the waves that curve to make up the top and the sides of the bed.

  The heat of anger seems to be slipping into another feeling altogether. I’m flushing and trying to will that away. I look out the window over the kitchen sink, up at the faint water stain that looks like a beagle above the refrigerator, anywhere but at him. The deep blue eyes that are locked on my face. His faint smell of warm dirt and grass and salt and his sticky T-shirt.

  “Why pink?”

  “Huh?” He blinks.

  “Your shirt. Why is it pink? Is that some ‘I’m comfortable with my masculinity’ announcement? Because it’s the sort of thing that could get an island kid beat
up.”

  “No statement. Unless my statement is that washing a red towel with your white shirts and your boxers and bleach is a dumbass move.” Cass’s eyes drop to my lips, and then take their own tour of Anywhere Else in the Room—down at the floor, out the side window as Marco speeds by, clanking garbage cans in the back of the truck, at the laminated sheet of hurricane prep instructions stuck to the side of the refrigerator.

  Then back to my lips.

  Now I’m just looking back at him, and the air in the kitchen is still and close. Ninety-five and no breeze. And the humidity has to be high today, because I can feel a trickle of sweat edge down between my shoulder blades down the line of my spine and I wonder if a hurricane might actually be coming, because the air has that kind of flat charged feel and what am I, a meteorologist?

  My fingers twitch to reach over and brush the dirt and a lone blade of grass off his forehead. I can practically feel the heat and the dampness of his skin. I can’t read his face or his eyes, but I’m searching them. Cass takes a deep breath, wipes his upper lip with the back of his hand, his gaze steady on me.

  “I’m positively parched!” Mrs. Ellington calls. “If I don’t have my tea soon, you shall return to find nothing but my desiccated bones lying out here.”

  “That would certainly piss off Henry Ellington.” I hurry over to the fridge, pulling out a lemon and practically lob it at Cass, who catches it without even looking at it, still studying me. Unreadable but intent.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I’m lying on my bed, staring at the slow beat of the ceiling fan, which makes loud whooshing and clattering sounds but never seems to do anything for the temperature. Mom and I call it “placebo fan.”

  My thoughts flick around.

  Do I really want this job? Between Henry and the bathing suit and The Sultan?

  Don’t think about that. You need this job.

  And Cass. That look.

  I roll over, trying to find a cool spot in my narrow bed.

  Spence. Alex. Swim team tradition.

  Mom counting out the money and Grandpa being a little more stooped and Emory . . .

  Whatever’s going on between Dad and Nic.

  Viv and Nic.

  I’m itchy and jangly, so tired of watching the numbers on the clock shift that, no matter how late it is, I can’t just lie there anymore.

  “Hungry, Gwen?” Mom asks when I head out to the living room. She’s curled up on Myrtle, reading a book whose cover features an unnaturally buff man wearing a kilt, an eager expression, and nothing else. “I can heat something up,” she offers.

  “Just insomnia,” I say. “Carry on.”

  “It is getting to the good part. Lachlan McGregor and his sworn enemy, the McTavish, have just realized Lachlan’s stable boy is a her who’s been binding her breasts . . .” Mom’s already picked up the book again, vanishing into it as I watch.

  “And now they’re aaaaall in therapy,” I say. Fabio rouses himself from his dead dog imitation by the wood stove, staggers over to the couch, and attempts to fling himself onto Mom’s stomach. He falls down, looks around with an “I meant to do that” face and then slinks under the couch.

  To my surprise, Nic, who I thought was off with Vivien and the plovers, is lying down on the porch, staring at the sky. He’s got one arm folded behind his head, the way he always used to when we would lie out at night, little kids, Fourth of July, watching the fireworks from town bursting over Seashell. Then I notice the cigarette glowing between the folded fingers of his other hand.

  I snatch it away—“What the hell, Nic?”—and throw it onto the gravel, where it glows bright as a firefly for a few seconds. Viv’s real dad died of lung cancer at thirty-six.

  He sighs. “C’mon! You know I don’t smoke. I just bummed one off Hoop because he said cigarettes help him focus.”

  “Hoop’s an idiot. You know this.” I sit down next to him, wrapping my arms around my legs.

  He stands abruptly. “Let’s go jumping. I had a beer and I’m tired as hell and I don’t want to think. You look pretty wired too. Bridge or pier?”

  A little rush snakes through my blood.

  Replaced by a quick guilt.

  “Where’s Viv?” I ask. Nic and I hide from her how often we do stuff like this. It mystifies her. “What, life isn’t scary and dangerous enough?” she says. And to be honest, I wonder what it is in us that needs the rush. But I don’t court the danger, like Vivie thinks. I just hook up with it from time to time.

  “She’s making a truckload of cupcakes for some baby shower. Strawberry on strawberry. Waaaay too pink for me.” He shudders. “Get your suit, cuz.”

  “Uncle Mike stay for breakfast?” Nic asks as we drive to the bridge in Mom’s Bronco. “Or did he just come by to drop off his laundry for his ex-wife to do, and make his only nephew feel like shit.”

  “Nic . . .” I sigh.

  He shakes his head. “Why’s he got to get on my ass so much?”

  I massage my forehead with the palm of my hand, that itchy tense feeling multiplying. Nic reaches out, pulls my head toward his chest with the crook of an elbow, ruffling my hair with his knuckles. “Forget it. Not your problem. I told you I didn’t want to talk about anything heavy and there I go. Let’s just jump.”

  But a few minutes later:

  “I heard from my mom today,” he says as we clamber up the wide wooden rails, worn and silvery with age. We’ve done this so often, we know which loose ones to skip over, which strong ones to rely on, planting hand over leg on the copper-nail-studded boards.

  “Anything new?”

  I know there won’t be. My aunt Gulia is caught in an endless loop of bad boyfriends and bad jobs and bad choices. Her whole life is like my last March.

  He shrugs, takes a deep breath, gives a yell, and flings himself out into the air above the rushing water. I wait for his head to bob back up.

  “You’re stalling!” Nic calls up. “Going soft?”

  It is a rush, that moment when you’re suspended in the air, and then rocket deep into the cold water. When I splash back to the surface, the adrenaline is tingling through me, more of a cool thrill than the water. I’m laughing as I come to the surface, and so’s Nic.

  “Aunt Gulia and Dad being a grouch in one day. No wonder you’re tense.”

  “Hey, at least she didn’t ask for money this time. Grouch? I’d say Uncle Mike was more of a dick. But then, so was I.” He shoots me a wicked grin. “At least Vee knows how to take care of that.”

  I put my hands over my ears. “La-la-la!”

  “It’s funny how you’re such a prude about that when you—” Nic stops, his voice cutting off like Cass’s mower earlier today.

  The water suddenly seems colder. “When I what?”

  “Gwen . . .” he starts, then trails off, ducking his head under the water as if trying to clear it. When he resurfaces, I’m ready.

  “Just say it, Nic.”

  “Spence Channing? For real? What were you thinking? I thought he was just . . . blowing smoke. Like that rumor about him doing five girls in a hot tub. I mean, come on, who does that? Entitled prick. But I never thought—” He shakes wet hair off his forehead. “That Alex guy, okay, typical douche giving you a snow job. But Channing?”

  “Don’t get all self-righteous on me, Nico.”

  “Gwen . . . I didn’t mean it like that. You know I don’t judge.”

  “You had a little slip there.”

  He sighs. “I know. It’s just . . . Let’s get out.”

  We swim for shore, climb back up to the Bronco, pull towels out of the trunk. Then Nic turns to me, pinching his thumb and index finger together. “We’re this close to screwing up and getting stuck, Gwen. You know? I worry about it with me. That I’ll be pissed off and not thinking and do something that ruins everything. I don’t want to worry about it with you too. You’re . . . you’re too smart for that. But one little slip, and there you are . . . stuck in this place with some baby or some STD or
some crummy reputation. I don’t want—”

  “I already have the crummy reputation, Nic.” And you’re the one looking at engagement rings at age eighteen and not telling me. But the accusation tangles into a lump in my throat. I can’t ask. Not after he’s had to deal with both his mom and my dad today.

  “Not really. ’Cause I never heard a thing until Hoop was going on about it. He thought I already knew.”

  “Yeah, I pretty much thought everyone knew.” My voice catches on everyone.

  Nic looks at me. I look away.

  “Well, not me,” he says. “Probably not a lot of people. And it’s not like I’m going to pass it on. I just don’t really get where your head was. I told you not to go to that party.”

  “I’m the swim team mascot, remember? I like to party.”

  He swears under his breath, hunches his shoulders, twitches them like he’s shaking something off. Nic shutting down.

  I dive out into the water, shut my eyes, swim away from him, off to Seal Rock. It’s firm and familiar under my hands. Still faintly warm from the sun. I climb up, rest my cheek on my folded knees, and look out, far out, to the edge of the ocean.

  Nic’s right. I should never have gone to Spence’s party. When your host is famous for hot tub orgies, you sort of know what to expect. But I wasn’t going to hide after what happened with Cass. I wasn’t going to let those Hill guys, those swim team guys, think I was good enough to record their times in the pool, good enough for a one-night stand, but not good enough to socialize with. Nic and Viv were at the White House Inn. The only hotel on Seashell—which Nic had to have saved for ages to afford. I’d spent the afternoon lingerie shopping at Victoria’s Secret with Viv, after helping Nic call in an order for the flowers and the gift basket to be left in their suite. I teetered along the cobblestone path in my unaccustomed heels next to Hoop, who was cracking his knuckles as though expecting a wrestling match at the door. As we paused on the walkway, Emma Christianson brushed by us—tall, blond, angular, high-cheekboned, the image of money and poise, and I lost my nerve.