And then, Clyde was walking away, to his truck. Theo, still clearly on a high, basically bounced, Benji-like, back to my car. I was following him when I heard Clyde say, “Emaline.”
I turned around. “Yes?”
“You be careful out here, okay?” he said. “It’s late.”
I nodded. Even though it was only just after ten, I was pretty sure I knew what he meant. It was not all that different from Theo’s concern when we’d seen him. And yet totally not the same thing.
I started back to my car, where, at this distance, Theo, Daisy, and Morris were just outlines, not distinguishable from one another. You can never be sure of anyone until you’re close enough to see them clearly. Now I did the best I could, squinting into the oncoming headlights of someone else as they, too, made their way down this long, dark road.
15
JUST ANOTHER DAY in the sandbox. But at least this time I had company.
“Name, please?” I asked the woman driving the long car beside me. She was in a bathing suit and cover up, her shoulders that first-day-of-vacation pink, indicating they’d arrived early to hit the beach before check-in.
“Hopper,” she replied. Her husband, beside her, was chomping on an unlit cigar.
“Hopper,” I repeated, then reached behind me. A beat later, the envelope and welcome packet were in my hand. “Here you go. Can I offer you a cold drink for the ride?”
“Got a beer in there?” the husband asked, around his cigar.
“No, sorry,” I said cheerfully. “Just water, cola, or juice.”
“I’ll take a water,” the woman said.
One appeared by my elbow, and I gave it to her. “And you, sir?”
“Cola sounds good.”
Boom, and the bottle was in my hands. I delivered it, then smiled. “Any questions or concerns, our number is in bold on the front of the envelope. Enjoy your vacation!”
“Thank you,” the woman said, rolling up her window, and then they pulled away. Another happy customer.
I looked down at Benji, sitting on the stool behind me. “I think you’re improving on your time with every car.”
He smiled, pleased, then gestured to the cooler and milk crate full of envelopes in front of him, both within easy and quick reach. “It was just a matter of creating a more efficient system.”
“Or any system,” I pointed out. “I didn’t exactly have one.”
“We’re a good team,” he said.
“That we are,” I agreed, as the next car, a black Cadillac SUV, pulled up.
In the end, it had taken me only a couple of days to find my father a sitter for Benji. One of Rebecca’s friends, busy studying for the LSAT, was looking for something flexible. In truth, though, I kind of liked having him around, so I’d taken to picking him up myself a couple of days a week and giving him odd jobs around the office. Sure, he was ten, and couldn’t be trusted with any of the heavy lifting, figuratively or literally. But when it came to an extra set of hands and a fast response time, there was no one better.
“Name?” I asked the man in the SUV now.
“Perkins. Is it always this hot here?”
“Not always,” I replied, as Benji handed me the envelope and the bag. “But July can be pretty toasty. Can I offer you a cold drink for the ride to your property?”
The man, who was heavyset and had the A/C blasting hard enough that I could feel it from where I was standing, wiped a hand across his face. “Water,” he said, like someone who had just crawled across the desert. Benji handed me one, which I delivered, and the guy cracked it and took a big gulp. “Man! That’s cold. Really hits the spot. Thanks.”
I nodded, then looked down at Benji, who gave me a thumbs-up. It had been his idea to partially freeze the waters on these superhot days before we came out. “Enjoy your vacation.”
The SUV pulled away, and I wiped a hand across my own forehead. It was hot, even for mid-July. Which I honestly couldn’t believe was already here. The summer was always too short, but this year it felt really fast. Especially if I did it by the numbers.
Days since Luke and I had broken up: twenty-nine. Days Theo and I had been together: Also twenty-nine. (I wasn’t proud of this, but the numbers didn’t lie. I couldn’t really count the demarcation, as nice as it was.) Days until the Beach Bash: twenty-eight. Days until I left for school: well, that one I wasn’t exactly counting. Even though I probably should have been.
When I did make myself think about it, my heart raced in that familiar way I remembered from the height of my application stress. But this wasn’t about what my future might be, like back then; it was about what it actually was. On some day in mid-August (I really needed to write it down) I’d be packing up my car with all my stuff and heading to East U, with this summer, like all the others of my life, behind me. I couldn’t even begin to picture that. So I wasn’t. Obviously.
I was not totally kidding myself, though. Despite the fact that I’d never before had a summer romance, I knew how the majority of them ended. Most of the girls I knew, other than Daisy, had fallen for a tourist boy at least once, with a few believing it was actually forever. Quickly—usually by October at the latest—they learned otherwise. Then, all they could do was hang out at Jump Java on the boardwalk, where everyone who’d been dumped long-distance convened in the fall, like some big, tremulous support group. Even if I had been planning to be in Colby, I did not intend to count myself among them.
Theo was going back to New York. I was leaving for East U. Done and done. If I wanted—and I didn’t—I could chart exactly how it would go if we tried to stay together. Lots of phone calls/Hi There! chats at first. Plans made for trips to visit each other, one of which might actually occur, although probably right before the Very End. Which would come after a marked trailing off of communication by one person—usually the tourist, although not always—followed by an awkward confrontation you could only hope would not be on video chat. Nobody looks good sobbing in screen resolution size. Just ask the girls at the table with the tissue box at Jump Java.
I was not up for this. Which was why the way things were with Theo and me now was just perfect for me. The summer would end, we’d go our separate ways, and that was that. If I was sad, I’d have all of our Best Memories Ever, painstakingly created, to flip through whenever I wanted. Until then, though, I chose to think about it as little as possible.
Still, I couldn’t ignore the fact that it was only a matter of time before our events went from the Best Fill-in-the-Blank Ever to the Last One. Which made me even more conscious of the other things I needed to be doing, like spending enough time with my mom so she didn’t sigh as dramatically or loudly whenever I left the house, seeing Daisy and Morris both together and separately, working extra hours at the office to make money for school, and hanging out with Benji. At least now, I could do these last two at once.
“Emaline,” I heard him say now. I looked down, and he nodded behind me. “Car.”
“Right.” I shook my head, getting back on track as a black convertible pulled up beside us. “Name, please?”
“You already forgot? Man. That’s harsh, Emaline.”
It was Luke. That he was even in the check-in line, in a car I didn’t recognize, was only one of the things that immediately threw me off. Add in the fact that he was dressed in a shirt and tie and the girl driving was a very pretty redhead, and I was unsettled.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just didn’t expect—”
“Luke!” Benji hollered, popping up beside me.
Luke jumped, surprised, and despite myself, I laughed. The fact that he was easily scared was legendary. Leaping out at him from behind things just to hear him shriek like a little girl—we called it Gotcha!, a game he’d learned from his cousins Wes and Bert—had been one of my favorite pastimes. “Whoa,” he said, flushing, then laughed as well. “You scared me, dude!”
“Sorry,” Benji told him. He was literally jumping up and down, like a dog, to get a glimpse of him. “Guess what
? I’m working with Emaline now!”
“Really?” Luke said. Beside him, the girl—who was wearing a short flowered dress and cowboy boots and did, actually, look sort of familiar—smiled. “Hope she’s paying you the big bucks.”
“Kinda.” Benji looked at me. “Did you ask their name yet?”
“Um …” I said.
“Best,” the girl said. “I think the property’s called Emerald Belle or something?”
Quick as a flash, Benji handed her the envelope. “Do you want a cold drink, too? We have water, juice, and soda. But no beer.”
Luke looked at me, raising his eyebrows. I said, “I know. He’s good. With him here, they won’t even notice when I leave next month.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” he replied. Which was nice enough to distract me from wondering how serious this relationship had gotten, considering he was actually wearing a tie for her. For about two seconds. “So. How you doing, Emaline?”
“I’m good,” I said. “You?”
“Can’t complain,” he said with a shrug. “Actually, I can. I’m in a tie here.”
“I noticed,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “What’s the occasion?”
I was not being nosy, just making conversation. Okay, maybe being a little nosy. But he’d brought it up first. God, this was weird. He said, “Brooke’s bachelorette weekend. We’re heading up the transportation team, getting the rental settled, and doing airport runs.”
“In a tie,” I said.
“My mother’s idea.”
“I’m so surprised.”
“Aren’t you, though?”
I laughed again. It was so odd that after a month apart—and an awkward split, to boot—Luke and I could be right back like this within moments. Maybe it was just part of growing up with someone. Once you have a rhythm and stay with it long enough, it’s not hard to find again.
I gestured for Benji to hand me a water, then handed it to the girl. “You should have a great week. Although kind of a hot one.”
“Emaline, this is Jacqueline,” Luke said. “Jacqueline, Emaline.”
We smiled and nodded at each other. I said to Benji, “You have a Mountain Dew in there?”
“Yup!”
He handed me one, and I passed it across to Luke. “Your favorite breakfast.”
“And lunch and dinner,” he agreed, setting it in the holder. “We better head on. If I don’t get out of this tie soon I’m going to choke.”
“Just keep your shirt on,” I told him. He made a face, Jacqueline waved, and then they were pulling away, ending our first true run-in since the breakup. He seemed to be doing just fine. Which was what I wanted. Because I was fine, too. Right?
We had two cars in a row behind them, one with a million questions about vegetarian options on the island, the other a minivan that cleared out our remaining drink supply. Forget wiping my forehead; by the time we had another break, I was outright sweating.
“This is brutal,” I said to Benji. “I feel like we’re being punished or something.”
“Cold towel?” he asked me.
“What?”
He opened up the cooler and rummaged around before pulling a rolled-up washcloth from the ice. “Try this.”
I did, putting it to my face, and almost moaned it felt so good. “Wow. That’s amazing. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He shut the cooler, then sat down on it, propping his head in his hands. “Do you miss Luke?”
I always forgot, when I was with Benji, that at ten he had not quite mastered the art of the smooth conversational segue. I took the towel off my face. “Yeah. I do. Not as much as I did when we first broke up, but … we were together a long time.”
“He kissed another girl,” he told me.
I looked at him. “Who told you that?”
“Morris.” Also, apparently, not a whole lot of vagueness or dodging. If you knew it, you said it. “Were you mad?”
This one was easy to answer. “Yes. Very. And sad, too.”
Benji looked in the direction where the car had gone. “But you’re happy now, with Theo. Right?”
“Yep.”
All these answers, I realized, made the whole thing seem very cut-and-dry, when really it was anything but. Yes, I had kissed Theo the same day Luke and I split, and yes, I was happy with him. But even with that in play, I still had moments and even days when I was really sad about Luke. Who would have thought that grieving an old relationship and enjoying a new one could happen simultaneously, in parallel? Yet another thing you only find out once it’s happening to you.
We sat there for another moment, both of us silent. It was so steamy that across the parking lot, the cars looked wavery, the heat changing the very air.
“Emaline?”
“Yeah?” I said, wiping my face again.
“I don’t want go home.”
I glanced at my watch, then the road in front of the office. “Well, that’s good, because we have at least another hour out here. If we don’t die of heatstroke first.”
“No, I mean home. Connecticut,” he said, studying his hands. “I don’t want to go back.”
I looked at him, feeling a pang in my chest. “Now, I bet that’s not totally true.”
“It is,” he said glumly.
“You must miss your mom. And your friends. Right?”
He shrugged. “I don’t have a lot of friends. And my mom’s really sad right now, which makes me sad. So no.”
I hesitated, not sure what to say to this. Despite what Morris had told me about Benji knowing about it, I didn’t want to bring up the separation. I took a breath, then said, “I know how you feel. I don’t really want the summer to end, either.”
He looked up. “You don’t?”
I shook my head. “Because when it does, I have to go off to college, which is kind of scary. And I won’t get to see Theo anymore. At least not for a while.”
“He’s in New York.”
“Yup.” I pulled out the water I’d claimed earlier and took a sip. It was lukewarm by now. “That he is.”
“You could come visit him,” he said. He thought for a second. “Hey, you could stay with me! It’s a really short train ride to the city. We do it all the time.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded.
“That would be great. I’d love that.”
This seemed to cheer him up, at least temporarily. For a moment, we didn’t talk, and I just watched him pick at the chipping paint on the cooler, sending tiny flakes flying.
“My parents are getting a divorce,” he said finally, as matter-of-factly as he’d reported Luke’s indiscretion.
I blinked, then took another sip of my water. “Are they?”
He glanced up at me. “You didn’t know?”
“I knew that, um …” I looked over at the office, wondering when, exactly, my father and Margo would be returning from their latest trip to North Reddemane, this time to meet with painters before the house was listed. “I knew they were having problems.”
He nodded. “They fight a lot. And yell.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. She says his expectations are unrealistic. He says she nitpicks instead of focusing on the big picture.”
No question: these were direct quotes. “That’s no fun.”
“Do your mom and dad fight, too?”
I thought of my parents, their easy compatibility. Arguing was not something that happened much, if ever. My mom was so stubborn, my dad had learned to choose his battles, which were few and far between. “Sometimes. Not too much, though.”
“You’re lucky,” he said, picking again. “With mine, it was all the time. At least until we came here. Now they just do it on the phone, when they think I’m asleep.”
“Is that better?” I asked him.
“It’s still yelling,” he replied. “Just one voice, not two.”
I nodded, fighting the urge to reach out and brush back the hair that had fallen into his face, just to be able
to do something in that moment. Instead, I said, “You know what? I think you and I need to make a pact.”
This got his attention, and interest, immediately. “A pact?”
I thought for a second. “Yeah. Let’s agree, that as of right now”—I looked at my watch—“July fourteenth at four-oh-five p.m., we won’t talk about the summer ending, at least with each other, for a full month. Unless we absolutely have to before then.”
“And if we do?” he asked.
“Then we have to pay a dollar into …” I glanced around, spotting my almost-empty water bottle. I took off the top, dumped it, then wiped the mouth on my shorts. “This bottle. Then, on August fourteenth, we’ll take all the money we’ve collected and put it towards something awesome.”
“Like shrimp burgers?”
I wagged a finger at him. “Can’t tell you for a month. My secret. Do we have a deal?”
“Deal.”
He stuck out his hand, I stuck out mine, and we shook. Then, to seal it, I pulled a wrinkled bill from my pocket and stuffed it in the bottle. “Hopefully, that will be the only dollar in there. Right? Because we are not talking about that thing that we aren’t talking about.”
“Nope,” he said. “We are not.”
Another car was pulling up now, the radio blasting. I pushed my hair back from my face and turned towards them as Benji took his position by the cooler. This would be good, I told myself. There was plenty of time still left for both of us.
“Hello,” I said, as the window rolled down in front of me. “Welcome to Colby. Name, please?”
* * *
“I knew it.”
Daisy turned, startled at the sound of my voice. When she saw it was me in her bedroom doorway, her shoulders sank. “Okay, fine,” she said, waving a hand at the dressmaker dummy in front of her. “I lied. But I did it for a good reason.”
Of course the dress was beautiful. Gone were the ruffles and cascading layers. All that remained of the original was the powder blue color. It had been reshaped into cocktail length with a slightly flared skirt. The neckline was trimmed with beads the color and shape of peppermint candies. The pink version, cut but not yet sewn, was spread out on the bed.