Sea Change

  “You should go, my love,” Mom said, wiping perspiration off her forehead, “but I’m afraid I may have to conveniently come down with a headache.”

  However, after two hours of cleaning and mowing the lawn, Mom was ready to get out a little bit. So was I. As we left The Mariner, freshly showered and dressed—Mom in a linen shift and Grecian sandals, me in my red drawstring skirt and black tank top—I felt a jumpiness, an excitement in my stomach. The afternoon smelled of fresh-cut grass and flowers, and possibility hovered in the air along with the seagulls.

  Mom led me through the town, which was comprised of a gourmet food market, a swimwear shop, a store dedicated entirely to hats, and a beauty parlor. Everything was clustered around a lush green square with a fountain at its center. As Mom and I walked through the square, we passed two women in long, colorful skirts, weaving grass baskets before a small crowd. When we turned onto the boardwalk that ran along the beach, I felt I’d been more or less oriented to the island’s layout.

  The boardwalk offered an ice-cream stand and a store called Selkie Sandbar that had bobblehead pirate dolls and shark-shaped surfboards in its window—exactly the kind of touristy shop I’d envisioned on the ferry. There was also a clam shack called A Fish Tale, and a restaurant called The Crabby Hook, complete with an inflatable red crab on its roof. The restaurant was our destination, but before we walked inside, Mom squeezed my hand, something I couldn’t recall her ever doing before.

  A mass of bodies filled the large, airy space, everyone chattering and cheek-kissing. Silver streamers and blue balloons tickled the tops of our heads, and from the open kitchen came the sizzling sound and delicious scent of frying food. Along one wall was a buffet table laden with fried chicken, lobster tails, and plantains, and against the opposite wall was a bar. Those armed with drinks and plates of food were making their way out onto the sunny back deck, where a 1940s-style swing band was playing.

  Mom and I had taken maybe two steps toward the buffet when I heard someone say, “She’s here!” and we were swarmed. Leading the charge was Delilah, on the arm of a pudgy, mustachioed man who bore an eerie resemblance to a walrus—Mr. Cooper, I assumed. An emotional woman in a diamond necklace embraced Mom, almost spilling her glass of golden-brown liquid on me, and an elderly man in a panama hat tried to pinch Mom’s cheek. On the fringe of the throng stood the man with the salt-and-pepper hair from the ferry, looking dapper in slacks and a jacket. He was watching Mom with a wistfulness that made me uneasy.

  I was about to subtly point him out to Mom when someone tapped my shoulder.

  “Miranda?” the someone inquired excitedly.

  I turned around and faced a petite, pretty girl in a white dotted swiss sundress and wedge espadrilles. Her long red tresses, big blue eyes, and sprinkling of freckles across her nose instantly gave her away as Delilah’s daughter. I stiffened.

  “CeeCee?” I ventured.

  “Oh, my gosh, Mama told me all about you!” CeeCee cried, clapping her hands together. The charm bracelet on her wrist jangled. “You don’t understand! I feel like we’re sisters or something!” And with that, she swept me into a hug of surprising force.

  Trying not to choke on CeeCee’s voluminous hair or the scent of her flowery perfume, I wondered if Mom was witnessing this encounter. CeeCee was right; I didn’t understand. The fact that our mothers had been friends in another lifetime—something my own mother now appeared to regret—did not remotely make us relatives.

  “I’ve always wanted a sister,” CeeCee sighed, finally releasing me. “Are you an only child, too?”

  “I have an older brother, but he’s in California for the summer,” I managed to reply, smoothing my ponytail. I was rattled, but I had to admit there was something refreshing about CeeCee’s warmth.

  “Ooh, is he cute?” CeeCee squealed, her eyes shining. “I bet he’s real cute.”

  “He’s all right,” I replied, thinking that Wade—reckless, witty, and a lothario at Yale; in other words, Dad 2.0—would have probably appealed to a girl like CeeCee. My brother and I couldn’t have been more different. While Wade was constantly getting grounded in high school, I always toed the line. I never even thought about crossing it.

  “It’s so cool that you’re from New York,” CeeCee bubbled. She pronounced York in a songlike way, breaking the o into two syllables. “I’ve only been there once, and I could not stop shopping! Daddy practically had to drag me and Mama out of Henri Bendel’s before we bought more handbags. How do you do anything else?” she asked me. But her slightly critical gaze, as it traveled down my outfit, seemed to answer her own question.

  “Somehow, I find a way,” I replied dryly. When I did go shopping, it was mostly in vintage stores, where Linda and I were pros at finding cheap jeans and cardigans. And while Linda and I shopped, we talked—long, winding talks about gender and birth order and astronomy. Linda was undeniably brilliant, with a thirsty mind. CeeCee’s mind, on the other hand, seemed to have been thoroughly watered by the fountains of Fendi and the streams of Sephora. The thought of her as my sole companion on Selkie filled me with a kind of emptiness.

  If CeeCee picked up on my reticence, she didn’t show it; instead, she brightly asked for my cell phone number, and then announced she wanted to meet Mom, who was still surrounded by a circle of admirers. As CeeCee flung her arms around my mother, I shook hands with Mr. Cooper, the walrus (CeeCee had certainly dodged that genetic bullet), and Delilah kept winking at CeeCee and me, as if she’d set us up on a successful blind date. Then CeeCee suggested that the two of us head out onto the back deck so I could meet her friends.

  I was torn; though it would be a relief to escape the close, sweaty crowd, I suspected CeeCee’s friends were replicas of the girls on Princess of the Deep—cool confections of female perfection. Plus, I didn’t want to abandon Mom, who at the moment was listening to a coiffed elderly woman ramble on about the price of oysters. But when I glanced questioningly at my mother, she leaned close, whispered, “We’ll be out of here in ten minutes,” and waved me off.

  Stopping to get sodas from the bar, CeeCee and I maneuvered our way out onto the deck, which smelled of suntan lotion and beer and faced the beach. I gazed at the striped umbrellas, the creamy sand, the figures bobbing in the surf like sleek seals, and felt a prickle of envy. Maybe I could go swimming later.

  CeeCee steered me past the band and the swing-dancing couples over to two girls who were sipping sodas, charm bracelets dangling from their wrists. One was a curvy blonde wearing a halter dress printed with small cherries, and the other was model-tall, with skin the color of dark chocolate, and she wore a short yellow dress cinched with a belt. Like CeeCee, they both appeared to have been cut out of a Teen Vogue spread.

  They don’t know the properties of helium, I told myself. They don’t know what Newtonian mechanics are, or who discovered penicillin. They will not make you feel insecure. Still, I tugged discreetly on the hem of my skirt, hoping the hole wasn’t visible.

  Oblivious to my discomfort, CeeCee made introductions—the blonde was Virginia, the brunette Jacqueline—and Jacqueline smiled, linking her arm through mine.

  “Delilah was raving about you earlier,” she said, her voice soft.

  “Jackie’s my best friend from Atlanta,” CeeCee explained, taking my free arm. “She’s been coming out and staying with us for the past three summers.”

  As I stood sandwiched between CeeCee and Jacqueline, I was surprised to feel a warm rush of belonging. I’d forgotten how comforting it was, the casual intimacy that could exist between girls.

  “And Virginia’s from Charleston,” CeeCee added, nodding toward Virginia, “but she’s been my best Selkie Island friend since we were babies. Right, Gin?”

  “Uh-huh,” Virginia replied. Her cunning hazel eyes were trained elsewhere—on a group of attractive guys standing a few feet away.

  “Have you seen the fountain in the town square yet?” CeeCee asked me. When I nodded, she went on, her tone proud. “It was
built one summer by Virginia’s great-granddaddy, Colonel Cunningham.”

  “That’s…nice,” I answered hesitantly. It was funny how, on Selkie, every family’s history seemed connected to the island in some way. Llewellyn Thorpe’s book came to mind, but I brushed the thought away.

  “Well, he didn’t actually build it himself,” Jacqueline pointed out with a knowing grin. “I’m sure he had someone else do that for him.”

  “Blah-blah-blah,” CeeCee said, and Jacqueline stuck her tongue out in response.

  “Girls, stop bickering!” Virginia commanded. Her drawl was even thicker than CeeCee’s. “Can we focus, please? We need to figure out our summer picks.”

  “Picks?” I echoed. Feeling naïve, I followed Virginia’s gaze to the boys, who were laughing and bantering, seemingly unaware of the attention she was paying them. A blush started around my collarbone. Oh.

  “It’s a tradition we started two summers ago,” CeeCee told me as the crowd around us broke into applause for the band, “when we realized that the boys who’d been summering here forever were suddenly becoming…hot.”

  “It must be something in the water,” Virginia remarked, grinning wickedly and twining a blonde curl around one finger.

  “Maybe,” I said. In truth, everyone mingling and laughing on the deck bore the beauty and grace that came from generations of careful breeding.

  “I think I’m going after Macon,” Jacqueline murmured, nodding toward a stocky, ruddy-faced boy with a buzz cut. “Remember how much he was flirting with me last summer, right before he went back to Chapel Hill for school?”

  “Not as much as Rick was flirting with me,” Virginia countered, motioning with her drink to a guy with close-cropped dark curls who was wearing a vest over a button-down blue shirt. He glanced in her direction, and she smiled, lowering her lashes.

  “I’m deciding between Lyndon and Bobby.” CeeCee sighed dramatically, as if this were a heart-wrenching choice. She gestured to two boys who were practically indistinguishable: Both had longish white-blond hair and sported neckties. “I guess I’ll have to make out with both of them to see which one I prefer!” At this, she, Jacqueline, and Virginia broke into gales of laughter.

  I was stunned speechless. Was this how some girls were about boys? Selecting them as if they were no more than fish to be shot in barrels? I was especially surprised by Jacqueline, whom I’d figured for a shy kindred spirit. I wished I had the confidence to assume such control over my romantic destiny. Not that there’d been anything romantic in my life of late.

  “Wait!” CeeCee said breathlessly, sounding truly alarmed. “I forgot!”

  Virginia snorted, and she and Jacqueline exchanged a glance. “CeeCee, you’d forget your own firm little behind if it wasn’t attached,” Virginia sneered.

  “Oh, shut up,” CeeCee giggled. “I forgot about Miranda!” She faced me, her enormous eyes sparkling. “We have to snag you a boy, too!”

  The blush crept northward to my neck. This insanity had to be nipped in the bud. “Look, CeeCee,” I said firmly, in a tone similar to the one I had used with Sailor Hat on the ferry. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t need a summer pick. I promise.”

  “Why not? Do you have a beau back home?” CeeCee asked. I could feel her, Jacqueline, and Virginia holding their respective breaths, watching me in disbelief. Miranda? Has a boyfriend?

  “Um, no,” I sputtered. “I mean, I did, but—” I bit my lip, commanding myself not to think, or speak, of Greg. The last thing I wanted to do was tread into such personal waters with CeeCee and her cohorts. “No,” I finished lamely.

  “Then how about Archer Oglethorpe?” Jacqueline suggested, shrugging her slender shoulders. “He’s cute, and single—”

  “Taken!” Virginia cut in before I could say that the boy’s name alone was a deterrent for me. “He and Kay McAndrews were all over each other on the ferry two days ago, which is so tacky, by the way.”

  “But it wasn’t tacky when you stuck your tongue down T.J.’s throat at the fireworks last summer?” Jacqueline teased. Virginia promptly gave Jacqueline the finger, the sun glinting prettily off her dark pink nail polish. It unsettled me how deftly these girls could seesaw between kindness and cruelty; it had never been that way between me and Linda, at least not until—

  “Wait, that’s it!” CeeCee exclaimed. “T. J. Illingworth.” She lowered her voice and spoke directly into my ear. “He’s standing next to Macon. In the striped shirt? See?”

  I saw. And realized that T. J. Illingworth was the dark-haired boy from the ferry. The son of the salt-and-pepper guy who had been staring at Mom back in the restaurant. At the thought of Mom, I looked around the deck to see if she’d come out to get me, but I couldn’t find her amid the dancing and drinking mob.

  “Isn’t he dreamy?” CeeCee said, and I turned back to study T.J. “His family’s filthy rich,” she whispered conspiratorially. “The Illingworths funded most of what’s on this boardwalk.”

  “Yeah, like that new marine science center T.J.’s father kept bragging about at dinner last night,” Virginia chimed in with a groan.

  My ears perked up. “What science center?” I asked, more interested in this development than I was in finding a summer pick. “Where is it, exactly?”

  But nobody was listening, and CeeCee had continued with her praise of T.J. “He’s completely sweet,” she was saying, “and he’s, like, a golf champion. Oh, and he’s starting Duke in the fall. He’s perfect.”

  “Hang on,” I said, suspicious, as I disentangled myself from her and Jacqueline. “If he’s so wonderful, why isn’t he your summer pick, CeeCee? Or yours?” I added, looking at Virginia and Jacqueline.

  “Simple,” Jacqueline replied, using her pinkie to smooth the gloss on her bottom lip. “The three of us made a pact: no boy sharing. It’s too incestuous.”

  “I dated T.J. last summer,” Virginia explained, rolling her eyes. She said last summer as I might say grade school. “But don’t worry, Miranda. You have my full blessing. I lose interest in boys the minute I have sex with them. It’s like magic! We do it, and poof! They become boring to me.” She smiled placidly.

  “I’m so jealous of that,” Jacqueline sighed. “I get totally attached.”

  “Same,” CeeCee said.

  I cleared my throat, the blush now settling in my face. I had nothing to contribute to this particular discussion. I looked down at my black flats.

  “So what are we waiting for?” Virginia was saying. “Shall we head over?”

  Oh, God. Where was Mom? Hadn’t it been ten minutes by now?

  “Hang on,” CeeCee said, reaching out to tug lightly on my ponytail. “Miranda, do you want to take your hair down first?”

  I shook my head vehemently. “It’s too humid,” I replied. My hair is naturally curly but I always brushed it back and tied it up so it wouldn’t frizz out. Besides, I knew it was a slippery slope; if I gave in to CeeCee on this point, in seconds she’d be all over me with mascara wands and foundation.

  “All right,” CeeCee pouted. She must have sensed that I was prepared to bolt, because she took my arm again.

  Walking four abreast, CeeCee, Virginia, Jacqueline, and I crossed the uncharted gulf that had separated us from the boys. My palms grew clammier with each step. I hadn’t been social for a month; what if I no longer remembered how to carry on a conversation?

  The young lords of Selkie Island stood framed against the beach, their hands in their pockets and their smiles easy. When we reached them, Macon grinned and jabbed Rick in the arm, and Lyndon and Bobby smirked, but T.J. nodded solemnly at us. With his neat dark hair slicked back, wearing khakis and a navy blazer that accentuated his broad shoulders, he looked even more classically handsome than he had on the ferry. Was CeeCee insane? In what parallel universe was this boy in my league?

  “Ladies,” he said, in a low, mature-sounding drawl. “Lovely afternoon, isn’t it?”

  Seriously? I swallowed down a laugh. I didn’t know any
guys my age who spoke like that.

  But CeeCee and Co. seemed enchanted by T.J.’s words, smiling up at him, cocking their hips, and tossing their hair. I bit my bottom lip and wished I could be someplace, anyplace, where I’d feel more at ease.

  “Who’s the newbie?” Rick demanded, jerking his chin toward me as Virginia drifted ever so casually to his side. Jacqueline, meanwhile, made her way over to Macon, who gave her a hug that lifted her feet off the boardwalk.

  “This is Miranda,” CeeCee pronounced, giving me a poke in the back that sent me stumbling forward. “She’s visiting from New York, but her roots are in Savannah. Hey, just like yours, T.J.!” she bubbled in mock surprise.

  CeeCee’s glee in playing matchmaker sort of made me want to kick her. Wasn’t she supposed to be busy choosing between Lyndon and Bobby?

  “Fascinating,” T.J. said, focusing his big brown eyes on me, which made my blush deepen. Having fair skin is a curse. “What’s your family’s name?”

  “Merchant,” I said automatically, before realizing that T.J. would in no way know or care about my dad’s side of the family, who hailed from ever-glamorous Brooklyn. “Hawkins,” I corrected myself as CeeCee went over to talk to either Lyndon or Bobby.

  An impressed smile split T.J.’s chiseled face. “Of course,” he replied. “I grew up hearing about the Hawkins family! My mother would practically genuflect if she met you—she says that every Southern lady should aspire to be like Isadora Hawkins.”

  “Trust me, I’m not worth any sort of curtsying,” I laughed, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I was talking to this boy. Though my face was still warm, my heart wasn’t racing; T.J.’s impeccable manners were definitely keeping me calm. Suddenly, I felt a small thrill at standing in the thick of this group, the crackle of flirtation passing between the girls and boys and back again. Could it be that I really fit in here?

  “I beg to differ,” T.J. replied smoothly, and my stomach jumped. I couldn’t tell if his apparent interest in me was only because of our Savannah connection or if CeeCee’s Cupid act was actually, shockingly, paying off. “In any case,” he continued, “my mother’s not here. She summers on Tybee Island with my sister now that she and my father are…divorced.” He dropped his voice on this last word, as if it were dirty.