Nantucket Blue (9 page)

“SHE LISTENS TO THE JESUS STATION
so loudly that you might find yourself converted by the end of the day,” Liz said. We were standing at the window, watching Bernadette walk around the inn to the kitchen door. Bernadette was the chambermaid who worked when Liz or I had the day off. She wore a little radio fastened around her waist. It had old-fashioned headphones that covered her ears entirely, lobes included. Today was Liz’s day off, and my first time working without her. I already missed her.

I didn’t know where Bernadette lived, but she arrived at the inn via an old van with tinted windows. It dropped her off, then rattled away. “She thinks we’re lazy, and she’s not afraid to tell us.”

“I’m not lazy,” I said. I had straight A’s, excluding math but including physics.

“Well, she thinks so. Oh, and there’s one more thing.” Liz poured herself coffee in one of the to-go cups we gave to guests who were headed to the ferry. “She doesn’t take a lunch break and she’ll yell at you if you do. So eat up while you can.”

“She can’t yell at us for taking a lunch break,” I said. “That’s like, illegal, I think. Does Gavin know about that?”

“He loves her.” She laughed. “It’s a love that springs from fear, but he says Bernadette is the only one who gets this place truly clean.”

“So why doesn’t she work here full-time if he loves her so much?” I asked.

“She refuses to work anywhere more than twice a week. Considers herself freelance. That way she maintains her autonomy.” She patted my hand. “Just remember, it’s better to work straight through to the end or eat something quick when she’s on her cigarette break.”

“No lunch break for us, but she takes a cigarette break?” I said with a full mouth of muffin.

“Look on the bright side. You’ll be done early. Ta-ta,” Liz said, and flounced out the door, twirling her bikini around her finger. I took another slug of coffee as Bernadette walked through the door, took me in, sighed disappointedly, and headed for the laundry room. We had a big day ahead; almost all the rooms were turnovers. I stuck the rest of the scone in the pocket of my apron.

Bernadette emerged from the laundry room with an armload of clean rags. “Put down your coffee. It’s time to work, girl.”

I took one last gulp and chucked the rest down the sink.

Okay, fine, I’m lazy, I thought, three hours later, shaking with hunger, covered in a fine mélange of sweat, filth, and Lysol, and on the verge of tears. Bernadette cleaned so hard it was like she saw the devil’s face in the toilet bowl and his asshole in the shower drains. She could snap sheets onto beds with one jerk of her long arms—her quick, cracked hands folding hospital corners too fast for me to understand how she did it.

She appeared to be ignoring me, but at the same time I felt like I was being watched by the FBI. I’d leave a room, thinking I was done, and she’d go back in and check over my work. Inevitably, she’d come out of what I thought was a perfectly clean room shaking her head and sucking air through her teeth. I’d missed some scum in the caulking around the tub, grime in the corner of bathroom floors, perhaps a bit of dust along the baseboard.

“You girls are so lazy,” she said, checking under a bed I’d just made. “Look under there.” I got on my hands and knees to peer under the dust ruffle. A man-eating dust bunny stared back at me. The worst part was that I
had
actually swept under there. “Go on, get it.”

“With what?” I asked. I had stopped trying to be nice. “Broom won’t work at this angle.”

“With the hands the Good Lord gave you.”

As I crept on my elbows like an alligator in a swamp, my head brushing the bottom of the box spring, I wondered what the hell I was doing on Nantucket. This job sucked. My best friend and the guy I liked both hated me. I reached for the dust ball, and feeling my own soft arm against my cheek, lay my head on it for a moment. This small, protected part of me still smelled sweet, still felt pretty. I held my breath to keep from crying. I missed Jules, who I wasn’t going to be able to tell this story to. Without a best friend to tell stories to, it almost didn’t matter if they even happened.

“Get your head out of the clouds,” Bernadette said to me, grabbed my ankle, and yanked on it. My elbows burned on the wooden floor. I pursed my lips and twisted my head to keep from literally mopping the floor with my lips. I pushed myself all the way out.

“I’m taking a cigarette break. Here.” I handed her the dust monster. I stormed down the stairs, not making eye contact with a sunburned couple, back early from the beach, their eyes full of concern as I stomped past them.

I sat in the shade of the bike shed, on a stone that faced away from the backyard to the hedges, wanting to quit so badly. I shut my eyes. I could do it. But if I did, I’d just be back at home, back with Mom and her white wine, her phone that didn’t ring, her furrowed brow, and eight-thirty bedtimes. I’d be back to Dad’s new life, to his new house, where the floors were made of eggshells, and Alexi’s temper bombs ticked in every corner. In his new family I had to be polite all the time, like he was someone else’s dad, which he was now.

It was better to stay here. It was better to try to make things work. I just needed to turn things around. I remembered Jenna Garbetti, the shy, big-boobed senior from a few years ago who had turned around her bad reputation by disappearing from the social scene, getting a new look, and focusing on her studies. If there was ever a time to use the Jenna Garbetti method, it was now.

Lie low, look good, and learn, I said to myself. I was already lying low, I thought. I lifted the twig in the air, pretending to smoke it like a cigarette in case Bernadette was watching. I couldn’t lie much lower than this. I just needed to figure out how to achieve the other two. I stood up and moved around the shed so that I could stand in the sun. I saw George coming around the corner on his crutches, a bag from Something Natural in his hand. I dropped the twig.

“Just the person I was looking for,” he said. “Your sandwich.”

“Mmm, lunch,” I said, and took the bag. “I really needed this today.”

“Well, good. There’s a cookie in there, too.” He smiled in a way that made me feel like my old confident self again. “I don’t know how you feel about chocolate chip. Bought it on spec.”

“Yum. Um, hey listen, so I was thinking”—this took some courage—“that I could be your intern. I have straight A’s, except in math, and English is my best subject.”

He smiled. “Don’t you already have a job?”

“I get off at three o’clock. You said last night that you’re not even functional until one.”

“That’s true. But I can’t exactly pay you,” he said, his forehead crinkling.

“I just want my name somewhere in the book. Like the thank-you section?”

“That wouldn’t be a problem at all.”

“We could try it out and see if it works.” I shrugged.

“This is called marketing,” he said. “You’ve just sold me.” We shook hands.

“I have to go; my cigarette break is almost over.”

“You smoke?” he asked.

“No, but don’t tell.” George looked confused. “Long story.”

“Got it. We’ll talk later today, then? Iron out the details?”

I nodded.
Lie low, look good, and learn.
I was two-thirds of the way there.

After I finished with Bernadette, who wouldn’t even look at me, I went back to Needle and Thread. I peeked in the window of the tiny shop to make sure that Jules wasn’t there, and then I bought the dress. It was a whole paycheck, but if I was going to make the Jenna Garbetti method work, I had to go all the way. I carried the bag back to the inn, peeking into the tissue paper a few times to make sure it hadn’t disappeared on me. It was twilight, the crickets were chirping, and the air smelled like flowers. Thank you, Jenna Garbetti, I thought. I hoped she’d grown her hair long again, that she was in love with a guy who loved her back, and that her life at Yale was nothing less than beautiful.

THE NEXT DAY WAS MY DAY OFF
—my turn to walk out the door in my bikini, with a big Saturday smile on my lips on a Tuesday morning. George, having probably finally crashed when the sun rose, was going to be asleep until at least noon, so I had the whole morning to myself. It’s better to have the morning to yourself than the evening. You don’t have to feel lonely when you’re alone in the morning.

I wanted to go to the beach. I’d already been on Nantucket for ten days and still hadn’t gone in the actual ocean. On a run the other night, I’d found myself back on the street where I’d had my brush with the Navigator. I hadn’t meant to, but I’d somehow just wound up there. That’s when I discovered the path to Steps Beach. I noticed a few people with beach chairs emerging from what looked like someone’s backyard. I jogged over. “Welcome to Steps Beach” was engraved on a rock. I followed a leafy path where a few people had left their bikes leaning unlocked against an old twisty-wood fence, and others had shed their flip-flops mid-walk, one in front of the other, staggered like footprints. There was a set of steep stairs that went down to the sand. Then there was one little dune to climb, a mound of low green bushes, tangled roses, sun-bleached, hay-colored grass, and red berries. The path split in two around it and opened up to a field of warm sand and a calm slice of ocean.

Today there were about fifteen people there, all spread out: a few pretty moms playing with their naked babies, a group of old ladies under the shade of umbrellas in their skirted suits, a fully dressed couple, pants rolled up, lying on their stomachs, sifting sand between their fingers. A few people walked in the distance. I lifted my beach towel to the breeze and spread it on the perfect spot, off to the side but not too close to the little fence, and about halfway to the water. I watched a single sailboat glide on the horizon’s rim.

That’s when I noticed the color of the water. It was a million different shades at once, changing with the few clouds that floated above, darkening with depth, reflecting the deep canyons and sandbar stripes below the surface; but in the distance, in a wide, sparkling, uniform band, was a color peeled from the hot summer sky and chilled by the sea. It was cool and bright, brand new, and yet so familiar. It was the exact color of Jules’s bedroom. Nantucket blue.

Would I ever get to sit in her bedroom again? I didn’t know. But if I did, it would never be the same, not after our fight, not without Nina.

I sat on my towel, let the sun drip into my bones, and combed the sand with my toes. This was my day off, I reminded myself, my Saturday on a Tuesday. I leafed though the
Us Weekly
I’d bought at the Hub on my way over here, but then decided that I might as well take a crack at Emily Dickinson. Since fifth grade, we’d had to read at least one poem of hers a year. I’d never really understood what made her so famous. What did she really have to write about, hiding alone in her Amherst attic all the time? I unfolded the paper with the list of poems we were supposed to read and opened the book.

It was filled with my mother’s familiar loopy handwriting in what appeared to be letters to Emily Dickinson. Mrs. Hart had wanted us to get this special edition because there was only one poem per page, leaving lots of white space for our “thoughts, reflections, and in-depth analysis of this American genius.” At first I thought that Mom had just had a lot to say about Emily Dickinson, that she was not only a secret fan of the poet, but some kind of Emily fanatic. But when I looked closer, I saw dates, dashes,
fucks
,
shits
, exclamation points, Aerosmith lyrics—this wasn’t poetry analysis. This was her diary. I flipped on my stomach and turned to the title page.

6.30.84

Dear Emily D.,

Since Aunt Betty reads my diary, since she basically admitted it over her third gin and tonic on the porch last night, I’ve decided to write here, in your book, where Aunt Betty will never look. She told me she always hated your work. Don’t take it personally—she’s sexist! So, all my secrets will go right here. This will be like putting my pearls in the freezer to hide them from thieves. I feel better already! I need to write down my thoughts because I’m completely busting at the seams, bursting with the best news. After years of loneliness and desperation, I am here to report that I, Kate Campbell, am in the process of falling in LOVE. I can’t write his name in case this document is discovered, but I met him today, so I will call him Lover Boy. He is THE ONE. I can feel it. I need to record this, as this is, without a doubt, going to be the best summer of my life. He’s not a preppy guy. He’s actually kind of a guido. But you know what? I like it! Aunt Betty, if you are reading this, put it down or risk being totally scandalized! Hee, hee, hee.

I closed the book. Took a breath. Opened it again randomly.

I ran into him at the A&P. We smiled at each other and pretended to be chatting casually, but he was totally undressing me with his eyes again. I took off those jean shorts of his with my baby blues. I’ll take them off for real soon!

OMG. I flipped again. And this time the book opened to a photo of a guy sleeping on his stomach naked. I put a hand over my mouth. My mother was a slut! And kind of a funny one.

“Hey, what are you reading?” I flinched and looked up to see Zack, dripping wet, a beach towel slung low around his hips.

“Poetry,” I said, and slammed the book shut. If Zack was here, then maybe Jules was, too. I squinted and looked across the beach. Was she on her way down? My chest contracted, pulled tight as if by an invisible corset.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, shoving the book into my bag and grabbing a bottle of water. It took a couple of tries for my nervous fingers to unscrew the cap. “Who are you with?”

“No one,” he said, smiling at me with bemusement.

“You’re alone?”

“Yup,” he said. I exhaled and guzzled some water. “That must have been some poetry.” He ran his hand over his face, flicked away some water. “You were pretty into it. And now you’re…kind of a mess.”

“Well, Emily Dickinson is an American genius,” I said.

“Guess so,” he said, and laughed. I laughed, too. Partially out of relief that Jules wasn’t here, and partially because I knew I’d sounded so serious about Emily Dickinson.

“I’m going to have to see if they have another copy at the library,” he said. Then he took off his towel and wiped down the rest of his body, which I had to admit, was really nice. Soccer player nice. “Are you looking at my nipples?”

“What? Zack. No. So, what are you doing here?”

He opened his arms in a gesture like,
What does it look
like I’m doing?

“I just felt like going for a dip. I like this beach. It’s quiet and I know I won’t run into anyone.”

“Except me,” I said.

“I don’t mind that,” he said, and smiled. “That’s a good thing.” I jammed my heels in the sand, biting my smile. “What are you doing on Saturday?”

“What’s Saturday?”

“Fourth of July?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. Shit. I kept trying to forget about it. It loomed. A national holiday I was going to have to spend alone. I’d overheard Liz saying something about a party. Maybe I could tag along. “I might be going to a party on a beach. Nober…Nobersomething.”

“Nobadeer?” His eyebrows rose. I nodded. “Careful. Those things can be kind of crazy. And the police are going to be everywhere this year.”

“Police? Well, I’m not sure yet.” I buried my feet, patted the sand over them. “What are you doing?”

“Did you meet Fitzy?” he asked. I nodded, shading my eyes with my hand as I looked up at him. “He’s having a little party on his dad’s boat. That’s where Jules and Parker and everyone is going.”

“That’s cool,” I said, trying to sound neutral. I wondered what Jules had told him about the fight, but didn’t want to ask. It would’ve been almost worse if she hadn’t said anything at all. It occurred to me that Jules had erased me from her life, that she wasn’t thinking of me, that she had so much going on with Parker that she hadn’t noticed my absence. That she hadn’t actually been affected by it.

“Seems boring to me. I don’t know if it’s my scene.” He looked out at the ocean. “Are you going to go in?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and stood up. I dusted some sand off my butt, then lifted my arms out to the side, feeling the air. “I’m not quite hot enough.”

“Oh, you’re hot enough.” It took a second for it to sink in. He was smiling in this goofy, adorable way. I opened my mouth, but he spoke first. “I’ll race you to that rock out there.” I followed his gaze to the top of a rock not too far out.

“Okay.” Zack drew a line in the sand with his toe and we struck runner’s poses. “On your mark, get set, go!”

We were both grinning like idiots as we took off, though it was clear by the time we hit the water that Zack was going to win. Bikinis aren’t exactly made for racing.