Between Us and the Moon

  “Oh,” I say with a hard swallow and switch the flashlight on and off.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” he says.

  I sit up with my legs stretched out in front of me. “I want to. I just haven’t had the chance. School. Classes. And the whole right guy thing.”

  Tucker and I kissed and he felt my breasts over my shirt. Our relationship was so cerebral. I could anticipate what he would say. I knew everything about him. I thought I felt it with my body, but I didn’t, not really. Not like this.

  Andrew rises onto his elbow. “I know it’s been like two weeks or something so this might be too much. What I’m about to say.”

  “Say anything.”

  “When I’m with you it’s bearable. For the first time since Mike died, I’m really happy.” He puts his hand on my knee.

  “Wow,” I say. The highlight of his knuckles glows under the soft light of the moon. “I don’t know what to say to that. It feels . . . important.”

  “I want to make you feel good,” he says. “As good as you make me feel.”

  “You do,” I say, and his hand moves farther up my knee to my thigh. “You’re one of the most sincere people I’ve ever met.”

  “No, Sarah. That’s not what I mean . . .”

  With his other hand, he presses on my stomach and I lie back on the sand. He kisses my kneecap. He replaces his palm with his mouth. I shiver.

  “What are you—” I ask, but it catches as his lips trail over my skin. “Doing?”

  The moon and the darkness make shadows on Andrew’s face. All I can see are the curve of his lips and the slight stubble on his chin. How is this boy mine?

  “Is this okay?” he asks and rests his cheek against my kneecap. His face moves slowly toward the middle of my thigh. “I don’t want to do anything if it’s not okay,” he whispers, and his breath on my skin makes me jump.

  I like it. And it is okay. The shivers running up and down my spine are making me shudder again. The sound of the waves, the soft graze of his lips on my knee, my thigh. His hands press against both my thighs, opening them up, his nose and mouth graze my inner thigh . . . what was I supposed to be doing? I take in a sharp breath. I’ve never felt that before.

  Breathe. Breathe. Try to catch your breath, Bean. Look at the stars. Can’t see the stars; his hands grip my thighs. Cassiopeia, soft, up, down. Comets. Comets, comets, comets,

  shooting

  stars.

  EIGHTEEN

  “BEAN!”

  Let’s swim to the moon . . .

  “Bean!”

  I blink and Mom’s blue eyes stare down at me. Her right eyebrow cricks up. I rip out my earphones. I fell asleep with “Moonlight Drive” on repeat.

  “I’ve been calling you. Your father needs your help at work today.” She pulls back to look at me more clearly. “You fell asleep in your dress?” Mom says and glances from me to the Stargazer wrapped tightly in its case. “Is that Scarlett’s dress?”

  “She gave it to me. I was up late last night because of the comet.”

  I’m amazed Mom noticed I’m in Scarlett’s dress. Or maybe it’s more that she noticed I’m not in my pajamas.

  “I want to hear about it at breakfast,” Mom says. “So come on. Dad says you offered to help with some cataloging.”

  “But it’s Saturday and a holiday.”

  “Did that ever stop your father?”

  “Good point.” After my birthday dinner, I think I was apt to say anything so I could get out of there and to Andrew at the party.

  Mom walks away but pops her head back in the room.

  “And don’t forget, we’re hosting Nancy’s Daughters of the American Revolution Fourth of July barbecue tonight.”

  I’m supposed to see Claudia and then go with Andrew to a bonfire. Mom leaves the room before I can tell her I have plans, but this involves . . . telling her I have plans. I could say I’m going with Claudia to Main Street, which is partially true.

  Once Mom is gone, I lie back on the bed. I run a hand over my stomach, fearful to touch anywhere below the belt. I’d heard of oral sex, sure, but no one ever told me. No one ever explains that you can barely breathe, that it feels, that it feels . . . I sigh, I can’t imagine what sex must be like. Oh my God, I’ll have to do it to him. I’ll have to give him a blow job. I throw my face in my hands.

  I kind of want to, but I have no idea how to do anything like that. I can’t ask Ettie, she’s only been on one date. I really can’t ask Scarlett, even though she would totally know what to do. I could ask Claudia if we got to know each other better.

  I could ask Gran. What the hell am I talking about? There is probably no worse question in the world for me to ask Gran. I can barely keep these lies together at this point, and once I get Gran on the phone, it will be like I took a truth serum. She has that effect on me.

  “Beanie!” Dad calls from downstairs. I don’t want to take off this dress. I don’t want to forget last night, the phosphorescence in the sand, my name glowing in the dark, and the feel of his lips. Everything down there is—different. Alive.

  “Beanie! I have to be at work early today!” Dad calls.

  I jump into my routine, wash my face, brush my teeth, and wear the dress to help Dad at work.

  “Well?” Dad says when we get in the car. “Coordinates?”

  “Perfect. One hundred percent accurate.”

  “Conditions?”

  “Low light pollution. Seeing conditions could not have been better.”

  “Was there anyone else on the beach?”

  “Oh. Um. You know, kids. People fishing or whatever.”

  “I mean astronomers.”

  “No. No. Me. Just me. You know, me.”

  Am I all right? Does having oral sex make you babble? Is that a side effect? I try to ground myself in facts. The square root of pi is 1.7721, approximately. One of the brightest constellations you can see in the sky during the winter in Rhode Island is Orion.

  “You okay?” Dad asks.

  “I’m tired,” I reply. “I didn’t get all packed up until midnight.”

  I recite the Comet Jolie’s right ascension and declination.

  Andrew’s warm touch. His fingers push up the hem of my dress. His strong grip on my hips. Is this what people mean when they say they’re falling in love? When they feel it with their body and their heart? I realize the heart is an organ, but this has got to be what they mean.

  I cannot think of oral sex while sitting in the car next to my father. Think of Jim. Jim Morrison facts. First song, “Moonlight Drive.” Zodiac sign? Sagittarius.

  “So are you ready?” Dad asks, and my head whips to him.

  “For what?”

  “Waterman Scholarship? Think you have a shot at defeating Tucker?”

  “Definitely,” I say, and the moment I see Tucker in my mind, I am sure. “Oh yeah. I have a shot.”

  My stomach drops.

  I should have been prepared. I knew this would happen. But it still sucks.

  I come to a complete stop in the maintenance shop doorway. The Alvin. My Alvin has been completely disassembled. Strewn into hundreds of specific piles, the Alvin is categorized throughout the room in black and white lettering. Dozens of marine biologists in white lab coats walk through the maintenance shop talking to one another and making notations on their clipboards. So much for a holiday.

  A side panel lies on the floor; it’s a piece of the Alvin, which makes up the body of the machine. In my mind, Andrew runs his fingers along the titanium.

  Rodger seemingly comes out of nowhere and joins me at my side.

  “It’ll take all summer,” we say almost in perfect unison.

  I want to walk around the room, pick up all the metal parts, and hold the Alvin’s guts to me. The top of my toes almost touch the pile of viewports, the twelve-inch portals the scientists look through into the underwater world. I squat down and as my fingers graze the acrylic plastic, Dad says my name.

  We head toward his lab
on the second floor and I wave good-bye to Rodger before disappearing behind the double doors.

  “You know you don’t absolutely have to help me catalog today. You could celebrate. Go to town. I think I saw some people your age hanging around in the café.”

  “I don’t know them, though. And I don’t think they’d want to hang out with me,” I say as I follow behind Dad up the stairs to his office.

  “Why would you automatically assume that they don’t want to hang out with you? That you have done something wrong?”

  I don’t assume that.

  Do I? Do I assume people don’t want to spend time with me before actually checking to see if they do? I’ve never actually sat with Becky Winthrop or any of her friends. With Andrew I have been pretending to be like Scarlett because I assumed he wouldn’t want to hang out with me. It’s true. He liked me at least initially because of the Scarlett Experiment. People purposefully spend their time with my sister. I have one best friend and one former boyfriend. That’s it.

  “I don’t assume that people don’t like me,” I say under my breath.

  I follow Dad into the air-conditioned office. I sit down at the desk and Dad plops a binder before me. I was surprised Claudia wanted to talk to me. Maybe other people have invited me to do things and I’ve said no before giving it a chance. Maybe all of this is my fault, just not in the way I thought.

  You watch the world, Bean.

  Tucker’s right. I do watch the world. I do assume.

  I do all of those things—alone.

  NINETEEN

  ME: Happy Fourth of July!

  During our Fourth of July barbecue, I send a text to Claudia. It’s weird, I’ve never been nervous to send a message to a girl who could become one of my friends. Girls like Claudia, the ones who always know what to wear and what to say to guys, don’t usually want to talk to a science girl like me.

  My phone chimes.

  CLAUDIA: We’re in town already. Text me when you get here.

  I text below the table so Nancy can’t see. She’s been making small comments lately whenever my phone beeps or chimes.

  “I love this barbecue sauce,” Mom says and licks the tips of her fingers. She hums a little as she eats, stopping only to pop another piece of chicken in her mouth. The wind breezes through Nancy’s small barbecue party. We’re outside in the backyard. I’m in a short skirt and black tank top. The skirt is mine, which means it’s fifty thousand years old and too short. The tank top is Scarlett’s. Nothing I own has spaghetti straps.

  We sit at the edge of the property at a table that Nancy imported from some company in Maine. Apparently, they used to make picnic tables for the Kennedys. There are four picnic tables, each lined with white candles and linen tablecloths. Waiters walk about offering more drinks or napkins. I recognize some of the crew from the catering company Nancy hires every year.

  The backyard is lit up special just for us and I wonder where Nancy finds the people to do all her bidding. At some of the tables next to ours, Nancy’s Daughters of the American Revolution pals discuss the lobster forks and Nancy’s choice in salted butter. Even though they are each in a different dress they seem the same to me.

  “What are you doing tonight?” Nancy asks, drawing my eyes to hers. Her summer dress is too big. The straps keep falling off her shoulders and the hem lies along the grass like a long tongue.

  “I’m going to meet some girls in town,” I say. I don’t mention that I’m only meeting them briefly before meeting up with Andrew. I wipe my mouth with a linen napkin. Nancy raises her eyebrows high and resumes a conversation with one of her friends, most likely about me.

  We finish up dessert and I head out to Main Street. I text Andrew to pick me up, not at the house but in front of the Bird’s Nest Diner instead.

  When I approach the line of shops, restaurants, and busy foot traffic, I text Claudia.

  ME: Here!

  CLAUDIA: We’re at Plymouth Rocks, penny candy.

  Nice. That place happens to be one of my favorite stores on Main Street. When I was a kid, I loved their dollar notebooks. I finally get within sight of the store. Claudia is there but with only one of her blonde friends. They sit on a bench waiting for me. Two guys come out of Plymouth Rocks and join them at the bench. They look like they’re our age, but I can’t be sure. They have on the typical outfit that all the guys at Summerhill wear—preppy shorts, flip-flops, messy hair.

  When Claudia sees me, she tips her chin up and waves.

  Be Scarlett. These girls don’t know about my past or my life in the bio lab. Be Scarlett the first night you watched her on Main Street.

  “Hey,” I say and keep my hands in my skirt pockets. I’ve seen Scarlett do this about a million times. I shake my head so my hair falls down my back. Chelsea, Claudia’s blonde friend, sits down in one of the boy’s laps. Gabe is his name, from New Jersey. He leaves Saturday like most tourists do: Saturday to Saturday.

  “I love that top,” Claudia says to me.

  “Thanks,” I say with a shrug. “It’s old,” I add, remembering one of my Scarlett rules. Stay uninterested, then they will be more interested in you.

  Claudia introduces the other guy as Will and kisses his cheek. Okay, so they’ve clearly coupled up already. Claudia and Chelsea stand up and we start walking toward the gazebo. I still keep my hands in my pockets.

  We head to the legit sweet shop on Main Street, the Candy Manor. We want to grab bags of fudge and candy before the band starts. I’ve never been to the Candy Manor without Scarlett or Mom. It’s pathetic. I know this as Claudia and Chelsea trade candies.

  As I pick out a red lollipop shaped like a lobster, Claudia peers in my bag.

  “Oooh!” she says. “Sarah has a ring pop.”

  “It’s the last one!” Chelsea cries.

  I slip the ring out of the bag and dangle it on my index finger. We’re standing in the middle of the crowded shop. “It is mine but I am willing to part with it on a negotiation basis only. . . .” I make my voice singsong like Scarlett does with her friends and hold the ring pop high above my head.

  Both Gabe and Will ready on their toes to grab it.

  “I’m a gymnast. I can jump,” Chelsea says, and her tongue sticks out the side of her mouth a bit. The eyes of these four people are on me. I would have just given the ring to Claudia, no questions asked, but this is what Scarlett does. She makes a spectacle.

  A rush flows through me and I drop the ring pop.

  After Gabe and Will both nearly slip out of their flip-flops from wrestling in the middle of the store, a Candy Manor employee pushes through the crowd.

  “Pay and go. It’s too crowded in here tonight for that business!” The woman has a finger pointed directly at me.

  Claudia throws her arm over my shoulder and laughs so the woman can’t see and we escape back out to the street. Hundreds of beach chairs litter the green. Red balloons hover and sway from the pillars of the gazebo and it smells like cotton candy and popcorn. Little carts are scattered about the field and the same lady who has sold the neon, glow-in-the-dark bracelets for years is still here, selling them for fifty cents.

  People have been saving their seats since breakfast, so we walk through a maze of beach chairs and picnic blankets. We head back toward Main Street where we finally find a vacant bit of grass by the stone wall. The wall separates the field from the main road. I sit closest to the wall but lean back on my hands. Claudia and Chelsea sit across from me in the boys’ laps.

  “What’s Rhode Island like?” Gabe asks. “Never been, only drive through every year.”

  “It’s exactly like Connecticut,” Claudia says before I can answer. “I’m from Old Lyme,” she adds.

  “That’s, like, ten minutes from me,” I say. We share a smile and I immediately hope we can hang out in the fall.

  “Do you come every summer?” Will asks me.

  I’m not sure what to say exactly, I don’t want it to seem like I don’t have friends here. I want them to thin
k I have tons of options for tonight. But at the same time I want them to hang out with me.

  “Yeah, it’s fun,” I say, “but there are no parties so I’m bored a lot.” As I am talking, I feel ridiculous. This isn’t me, but they are captivated. I throw my hair back again and it’s so long it touches the grass.

  “God. I couldn’t care less about parties,” Claudia says.

  “At home it’s just the basketball players barfing in the field near the 7-11,” Chelsea adds. “Claud and I don’t even go.”

  She doesn’t go?

  Claudia tells us about her theater company in Old Lyme and her role as both Dorothy last winter in The Wizard of Oz and the lead in Cabaret in the spring. We move from the grass up to the stone wall because we can’t see the band and a woman nearby changes her baby’s diaper. The whole field is swarming with people.

  My cell reads eight thirty. I glance down Main Street toward the Goosehead Tavern. No red pickup.

  “So I guess I’ll audition for Our Town this year, but I really love musical theater,” Claudia explains. I’m still surprised that she’s not a Becky Winthrop type, a cheerleader or party girl.

  I would never have approached these girls, never would have believed we could have had a thing in common.

  Dad is totally right. I do assume. I thought I had Claudia figured out but I never gave her a chance.

  I make a point to listen.

  “What about you? Where’s your boyfriend?” Claudia asks. “You were pretty dressed up the other night to see him at that party.”

  “Oh, him. What do I need a boyfriend for?” I say and shrug. “Guys take up too much of my time.”

  Claudia and Chelsea laugh. Chelsea nudges Will in the ribs. “She’s smart. I should lose you.”

  “I make them think I like them,” I say. “I’m sort of seeing this guy and I guess we’re ‘seeing where it goes.’” I make air quotes. “I’m not into the blond hair, blue eyes look,” I say, remembering the talk with Scarlett. “But I do love his body. So, he’ll do for right now, I guess.” I add a shrug.

  The group snickers and holds their hands over their mouths. Claudia and Chelsea focus on something behind me and Gabe gestures for me to turn around.