Nantucket Blue (13 page)

HURRICANE KAYLA HAD A DATE
with Nantucket on Friday. Everyone awaited her arrival like she was a gorgeous, petulant diva. Whether I was serving coffee at the inn, buying sunscreen at the pharmacy, or picking up a ham-and-cheese croissant for George at the Even Keel Café, Kayla’s name was uttered again and again under the gray restless sky.

The shops on the harbor boarded up their windows in preparation for the destructive winds. Surfers, who I could pick out by their wet-suit tans and
I’m not a preppy or tour
ist
snarls, looked more purposeful and had a gleeful spark in their eyes. Many guests canceled their trips or went home early, hurrying to get tickets on the last ferries and planes, leaving the inn less than half full in the height of the season. Those who stayed played the board games that’d been around for decades and read books by the fire in the library. They ate slices of Gavin’s blueberry and peach pie and sipped tea or red wine, feet curled under them, peeking out the windows, analyzing clouds, reveling in coziness and anticipation. They wanted a hurricane story. I did too.

But Kayla stood us up, swirled her windy skirts, moved out to sea, and cooled her temper over the deep impartial ocean, leaving us with three days of rain. Fat, ceaseless drops filled the sidewalk cracks, overflowed puddles, and sent little streams twisting down Main Street. The grass in the backyard was rain drunk, so green it was practically humming.

The deluge gave George new drive and power. He was like the water wheel in the Industrial Revolution–era mill we’d toured for social studies in the seventh grade, cranking out chapters ahead of schedule, appearing in the kitchen for pie and dances of glee, and then disappearing back into the annex for another round of Coke Zero–fueled productivity.

With so few guests and such a light cleaning schedule, Liz and I finished early and went to the one movie theater on Nantucket. It doesn’t look like a theater from the outside. It’s just a regular-sized gray-shingled Nantucket building that’s also a restaurant and bar. I’m not sure if it’s because people were in a hurricane mindset where normal rules didn’t apply, but the ticket taker didn’t card us and he let us bring drinks into the theater.

We drank Irish coffees with whipped cream as we watched a romantic comedy. It was about this girl who works in a New York City flower shop and falls in love with a corporate lawyer who wants to build a megamall next door. It was dumb, but I still loved it, because in the dark, in the glow of someone else’s story, I was free to think about Zack—how he tasted like mint and salt, how his hands left little swirls of energy where he’d touched me.

It had been over a week, and Zack and I hadn’t texted, talked, or seen each other. My guilt had started to subside, heading out to sea with Kayla. I watched the lawyer kiss the florist girl, the city sparkling behind them. As a spare, sweet folk song filled the theater and the girl on screen gave in to the lawyer’s lips, loosened his tie, and staggered to pull off her funky cowboy boots, my cell vibrated with a text. It was Zack:

I’m breaking our rule. Join me?


THAT NIGHT,
I picked up Mom’s diary again, skipping over her make-out sessions with “Lover Boy,” which she described in way too much detail for me to handle. There are certain words one just doesn’t ever want to associate with one’s mom and her activities. Words like “hard-on.” It was especially gross now that I had a picture of Paul Morgan, Esquire, in my head. Instead, I started looking for romantic clues, places, and things I could mention that might dust off some shiny magnetic piece of her and pull her back out to this island. Once she was here, I’d arrange a meeting with Paul in one of their favorite places, and their old love would bring Mom fully back to life. I’d have to be subtle. I’d have to make it seem like it was her idea. I found an entry that looked relatively innocent and, pencil in hand, searched for key words.

Dear Emily D.,

Lover Boy and I dared to meet in public today. It was hard to get away. Aunt Betty took me to the yacht club for tennis (Aunt Betty’s athletic, for a seventy-three-year-old biddy) and she insisted on us having lunch with her friends afterward. But finally (after Aunt Betty’s second martini), I was able to sneak off. I met Lover Boy at Cisco and we spent the whole afternoon kissing in the surf like the cover of the Against All Odds album. Then we went back to his place, where we ate lobsters and drank beer and made out some more. Aunt Betty would kill me if she knew, but this is what being seventeen is all about. What is life, if not for living?

Cisco Beach
, I wrote in my notebook.
Lobsters and beer
.

I know I write a lot about how hot he gets me, but the truth is that I could spend all day with him every day. He’s a cocky bastard, but he makes me laugh. There’s this weird part of me that’s like,
Be careful
. I can practically see the red flag warnings each time I close my eyes and we kiss. But I honestly don’t give a shit. He’s like a drug! And I’m addicted! Sometimes, I feel like we’re that Air Supply song, and that we’re making love out of nothing at all.

I had to laugh. Oh my god! That song is so cheesy!

There was a tap on my window, and I sat up quickly, my body contracting in a flash of tension. But I smiled when I saw it was Zack. He laughed at my scared reaction, and my heart raced for a different reason. I opened the window. It had finally stopped raining, but the air was misty, full of secrets.

“I couldn’t wait anymore,” he said.

“Shh,” I said, putting the book and notebook on the dresser and gesturing for him to come inside. Zack crawled in the window. He looked around.

“Nice room.” He reached up and touched the slanted ceiling. “I like these old places.”

“This one is haunted,” I said, gathering the sheet around me. I was only wearing a T-shirt and underwear. “By a sea captain.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. Oh, hey. Fitzy saw that ghost again. The seventies girl.”

“How does he know she’s from the seventies?” I asked.

“Her clothes.”

“Is she wearing bell-bottoms?”

“I don’t know. But ghosts wear clothes. I mean, when people see ghosts they’re always dressed, which is really weird when you think about it. Whatever you die in is the outfit you’re stuck with for eternity.”

“I guess it’d be creepy if they were all naked,” I said.

“Good point. You love poetry, huh?” Zack asked.

“Not really,” I said.

“I saw you. Your eyes were glued to that book.” He sat on the edge of the bed.

“You were watching me?”

“For like a second.” He reached for the book on my dresser.

“Don’t touch that!”

“Whoa,” he said, searching my eyes. “What’s in that book?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“I want to see,” he said, picking it up.

“It’s private.” I leaped up, letting the sheet fall in order to grab the book from him. He smiled, staring at me, as I shoved it under the bed.

“Underwear is just like a bathing suit,” I said as I climbed back under the sheet, blushing like a fever.

“No,” he said. “It’s different. We’ve been through this before. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, recalling the conversation we’d had at the Claytons’ house when he’d seen Jules in her bra.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said. I was thinking about that night. It was the night Nina died, but Zack hadn’t put it together, and I didn’t want to remind him.

“Jules misses you, you know. I saw her looking at one of those books you guys make, with all the letters and magazine clippings. What do you guys do with those things anyway? Are they like scrapbooks?”

“No. They’re collage books. Jules brought one of our books with her?” Zack nodded. Jules and I bought hardcover sketch pads from the RISD art store and made collages in them. We saved all the notes we passed to each other in class and used rubber cement to glue them into the book. Then we made collages based on the notes. The collages and notes could be on any subject, from Jay Logan, to a book, to a certain style of jeans, to the way a movie made us feel. The fact that she even brought one to Nantucket was a good sign. We traded it back and forth every week, each of us adding a new entry. That was
our
book,
our
thing. She couldn’t just add to it without thinking of me. “Maybe I should call her.”

“I don’t know,” Zack said as he leaned against the wall. We held each other’s gaze. Part of the reason he was climbing in my window was because Jules and I weren’t talking. “It’s like there’s this wall around her right now. And no one is allowed in. No one.”

“Parker is,” I said.

“Parker can’t even see the wall. That’s the whole point.”

“Oooh,” I said. I hadn’t thought about it like that before. It made me feel stupid and better at the same time. Zack put his hand on my sheet-covered foot and started to massage it.

I inhaled sharply. “Zack, we promised. No touching.”

“It’s just a foot,” he said. “A foot under a sheet.”

“Have you done this before?” His hands were strong, seemed to know what they were doing.

“Rubbed a girl’s feet? No,” he said. He looked older than sixteen. It was something about the way his jaw flexed. “This is pure instinct.”

“You might have a future in it.” I wiggled my other foot out from under the sheet. He covered it with his hands, went to work, barely touching my toes.

“Stop,” I said, laughing. But he was grazing my toes even more lightly now, and I tried to kick my feet free. “Stop.” I twisted free, sat up, and grabbed his hands. “Stop.” Our eyes locked, and we sat there staring at each other. He slid the sheet up to my knees, drew little circles on my kneecaps, maintaining eye contact. I watched him register the smile I was fighting. He leaned in and kissed me.

“Zack,” I said, trying to be calm. “We can’t do this. We promised.”

“Just one more time,” he said, smiling. “We won’t tell anyone.”

“But this is it,” I said.

“This is it,” he said, his hand sliding up my thigh.

“And no one can know. Ever.”

“Would you be embarrassed to go out with me?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Of course not.” But I knew a part of me was lying. I was going to be a senior, and Zack was only going to be a sophomore. “It’s just Jules. She’d be mad.”

“Okay, no one will know,” he said, lying back on the bed.

“We’ll be secret lovers,” I said. I wasn’t thinking.

He grinned. “I didn’t know we were going that far.”

I shook my head, realizing that lovers meant sex. “We’re not. That’s not what I meant.”

“Are you sure?” he asked as he pulled me down next to him.

“I’m sure,” I said as he took off his glasses and his lips found mine. I closed my eyes and saw flecks of red.

Were they the little warning flags Mom had written about?

“BEEP-BEEP,”
I called out the window of George’s rented Jeep. I didn’t think Gavin or the old lady in the muu-muu who was snoozing in the hammock would appreciate it if I leaned on the car horn. Today was the big interview with Robert Carmichael. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, which was hot from the sun. “Beep-beep,” I said again. George told me that we needed to be ready at three o’clock, and it was already 3:10. What was he doing, curling his hair? He waved from his window, giving me the one-minute signal.

I tilted the rearview mirror in my direction. Even though George had assured me I wouldn’t have to hang out at the house, that this was purely a drop-off/pick-up situation, I was still nervous about running into Parker. I wanted to look good. Composed. Liz trimmed my bangs last night, and I had on just a teeny bit of lip gloss and blush. I was already sweating a little through my white blouse with the tiny blue flowers on it. I fiddled with the air conditioner and smoothed my linen skirt over my knees.

I wondered if part of my desire to look so wholesome and put together was to cover up for what I was doing at night. Zack had been sneaking into my room for make-out sessions that were becoming more and more intense. I had two rules: One, underwear stayed on. This prevented sex and other irrevocable acts. Two, no sleeping over. If he didn’t spend the night at home, Jules or Mr. Clayton would definitely start to notice. Each night we said was “the last time,” but the phrase had become a joke. Night after night he appeared at my window with a big grin, even though I’d told him the front door worked just fine.

“I like the window,” he’d said. “I mean, since we’re
‘secret
lovers,’
” he added in a breathy voice.

“Shut up,” I’d said, and helped him tumble inside.

Last night had felt a little dangerous. We’d fallen asleep for a few hours, our limbs entangled. Luckily, I’d awakened before the sun came up, and he’d climbed on top of me, stealing one more hip-to-hip kiss before he slipped back out the window, into the dark pre-dawn air. I heated up like an August afternoon at the thought of it, and dabbed some cool foundation under my eyes. At least I knew he wouldn’t be there. He works on Tuesdays.

“George?” I called out the window.

“Give me five minutes,” he called back.

I opened the diary. Maybe I could find a clue as to how Mom and Paul broke up.

Dear Emily,

This girl from Miss Driscoll’s, that boarding school where I spent one miserable semester, was at Cisco today.

Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten that Mom had spent a semester at a boarding school. She told me that she hated it. She described living in a dorm called Tittsworth Hall, where at least half the girls were anorexic. At night, they would ball up slices of Wonder Bread and eat “bread balls” and red-hot candies and play truth or truth because no one wanted to dare. It sounded creepy.

She always acted so much cooler and better than me. Her dad is some kind of megamillionaire. She started talking to us and she was ALL OVER Lover Boy, batting her eyelashes and smooshing her boobs together. She invited me to some party, but I could tell it was just to get to Lover Boy. In front of my face! Gag me with a spoon. Get your own boyfriend. After she left, Lover Boy called her pig nose. Ha, ha, ha.

Anyway, his parents are visiting this weekend. I wanted to meet them. I know they would like me if they met me, but he says he wants to wait. He says they won’t understand him dating a girl who’s in high school.

I wrote in my notebook:
Possible reason for breakup = age
difference.
This made me feel better. They were so old now. No one cared if a forty-nine-year-old and a forty-four-year-old got together.

Anyway, last night we did it in the dunes under a full moon.

Dunes
, I wrote in my notebook and underlined it, and did my best to block out the “doing it” part.

And after, he told me that he loved me! I guess I knew this all along, but to hear him actually say it, Emily, I swear there’s nothing better in this whole world. If you only knew, you wouldn’t have stayed inside your house in Amherst. Although, I have to say…some of these poems make me think maybe you had a lover. “Wild Nights” isn’t about the weather!

I flipped to the index, found the poem, and read it. Mom was right. This poem was definitely about sex. I earmarked the page, certain it was going to be one of the ones Mrs. Hart would focus on. I learned from our ninth-grade discussions of
The Canterbury Tales
that Mrs. Hart might be ancient but she was also raunchy. It was no wonder she and Mrs. Levander were such good friends. They probably got together on the weekends for wine and Bonnie Raitt and sex talk.

“Let’s blow this pop stand,” George said, startling me as he shoved his crutches in the backseat and hopped into the Jeep. I shut the diary and my notebook and buried them in my bag. George was all cleaned up for the interview. He’d shaved, showered, and was wearing clothes that were either brand new or that had actually been ironed. Somehow, it seemed more likely to me he’d bought them. He had a leather satchel in one hand and a Coke Zero in the other.

“I see you have your man-soda,” I said.

“You know it,” he said as I started the engine and backed out of the inn’s driveway. Sometimes I wondered if George had Coke Zero pulsing through his veins instead of blood. “And I see you’re wearing your business casuals. Very nice.” Noticing my confusion, he added, “You’re dressed for work in an office. It’s a good thing. Very appropriate, very professional.”

“Well, I’m going to a future senator’s house. So, how long are interviews?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “that’s kind of like asking how long a conversation is. It all depends.”

“How long should I hang around ’Sconset?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t be more than an hour. I’ll text you when I need to be picked up. Just don’t go too far. I don’t want to be hanging around on their front lawn, waiting to get picked up. That could get awkward.”

“Got it.”

He glanced at the Emily Dickinson book in my bag. “I see you brought a little light reading.”

“For school,” I said, slowing as I passed a helmeted family on bikes. “So how do you get these people to tell you anything good?”

“Here’s the thing. Everyone has a story to tell.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw George fan out his fingers, the way he does when he’s explaining something he’s passionate about. “Everyone’s life has love and death and drama and hope and fear. And if you make them comfortable, if they feel they can trust you, they’ll tell you. They actually
want
to tell someone.” I always know when George is done making a point because he folds his hands together and rests them on his big belly.

“What are you looking for from Boaty’s brother?” I asked. “What do you want him to tell you?”

“Family stories. The humanizing details. Anecdotes that reveal character. Boaty wasn’t born into this world. He scrambled to get to where he was. I want stories that show that incredible determination, drive, and intelligence. I also wonder when he started stepping on people. Who was that first rung on his ladder to the top? People think his career started at the state house, but I think it also started when he figured out how to charm the right people into leaning over so he could step on their backs.”

“You think his brother’s going to tell you
that
?”

“He might tell me without telling me, if you know what I mean.”

George shifted in his seat. I slowed down to take a look at the cross that Zack had pointed out to me, the one where the ghost likes to hang out. As I looked out the window, I noticed that George shuddered. I screamed, which made George scream and grab at his chest.

“You just got the chills! You just got the chills!” I said, slapping the steering wheel and accidentally slamming the horn.

“You scared the living shit out of me!”

“Holy, holy shit, you just got the chills.”

“Eyes on the road, Thompson,” George said, putting his hand on the wheel and steering us more solidly to the right side of the road. “Eyes. On. The. Road. Jesus, how long have you been driving?”

“Almost two years, but holy, holy shit.” I shook my head and pointed at him. “I can’t believe it, you got the chills.”

“Yes, I’ve been coming down with something since, like, May.”

“The ghost,” I said. “There’s a ghost girl at that cross back there. And they say that’s why people get chills when they pass it. And that’s why I was watching you, and oh my god. Oooh, should we drive by and see if it happens again?” I couldn’t wait to tell Zack. How come it never happened to me? Was I not spiritual enough for ghosts to contact?

“No, no, no. Let’s just focus on getting there alive.”

“All the kids are talking about it,” I said, knowing George liked to know what “the kids were talking about.” As a journalist, he felt it was his duty, but he was too focused today and he didn’t bite.

“Oh, okay, slow down. It’s up here.” I braked, looking for the correct address. “And turn left,” George said as we turned into a wide driveway. “Secret service,” he said to me, and rolled down the window to talk to two guys in dark suits wearing wires. I felt bad for them. They looked so hot. One guy said something into a walkie-talkie-type thing and waved us in so that I could drop off George by the front door.

“You okay?” George asked as he reached for his crutches in the back. “You look like you just saw that ghost.”

“Yeah.” The house was huge; it looked like it could hold at least four of my mom’s house. But that’s not what was making me sweat through my white blouse. Next to a Mercedes, a silver Porsche Cayenne, and a red Volvo with a Hotchkiss sticker (Parker’s boarding school) was the Claytons’ land yacht. Jules was here. My heart pounded.

“Hey, this is just money,” George said. “Don’t let it intimidate you, okay?” Then he opened the door and stepped out, balancing as he gathered his satchel and notebook. I could hear kids’ voices coming from the backyard. There was obviously a pool, because I heard cannonball splashes and girls laughing. It sounded like fun, like what I’d had in mind for myself when I came here. Shit, shit, shit.

George closed the car door with the butt of his crutch and headed up the front steps. He had just reached the front door and was about to knock when I noticed his phone on the seat.

“George, wait,” I said, hopping out of the car and jogging to him with the phone.

“You’re the best,” he said as I pressed it into his hand.

“I’ll be waiting for your text,” I said, and walked quickly back to the car I’d left running.

I heard Jules’s unmistakable laugh: the confident, contagious one that always made me feel we were at the center of the world. I felt sad in a bottomless way—like a plane dropping in turbulence, an elevator plummeting to the basement. I hurried into the car and drove away, my palms sticky and my breath sharp and shallow.