Nantucket Red (Nantucket Blue) (3 page)

Six

I SAT ON THE GRADUATION STAGE
in my past-the-knee white cotton dress, my hair swept up in a chignon, sweating under the hot June sun. I could hardly believe high school was over. The microphone squeaked as our commencement speaker, Richa Singh, class of 1991 and professor emeritus of astronomy at MIT, adjusted her sari, leaned in, and said, “Today I’m going to embrace the lesson Mrs. Hart taught me many years ago: above all, be succinct.” It was eleven a.m. and nearly one hundred degrees.

The crowd, perspiring in a range that stretched from light dew to full-drenched soak, laughed. A hot breeze rustled the leaves of the huge copper beech tree behind the wooden platform where my graduating class sat in two neat rows. My mom caught my eye and waved from the audience. Brad, her boyfriend of four months, was next to her, wiping sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. Dad, Polly, and Alexi sat two rows back. Alexi’s head was bent in rapt concentration as he played with his iPad. Dad pointed his fancy camera in my direction. I could see his huge smile under the long lens.

“When you see stars, you are looking into the past,” Richa Singh began. “You see a celestial body, such as a star or a comet, as it was when the light coming from that body began its journey to your eye. It’s possible when you look into the night sky you are seeing stars that no longer exist.” It was too hot to wrap my mind around this, so I tuned out and scanned the crowd. I spotted Mr. Clayton sitting alone between two empty seats. It was as if he’d saved a seat for Nina, I thought, and I felt a bright wire of pain. It surprised me how it could still hurt this much, how pain that you think has dulled can come back so sharp, so fast, just to let you know it’s still there. Where was Zack? How could he miss his sister’s graduation?
How could he miss mine?

“So, I know you’ve all heard about Larsen’s Comet,” Richa continued. “It’s making its rounds for the first time since 1939. It will be particularly bright in the northeastern sky for the month of August, with a tail of a hundred degrees, which is big—trust me.” She turned to address my classmates and me. “You literally have a bright future, a cosmic event as spectacular as you can hope to witness in your lifetimes. But here’s the trick. You must be awake to the moment. You must get out from behind your screens and handheld devices, get away from city light pollution, and take in the sky. There’s no picture, no text, no YouTube video that can compare to seeing it with your own eyes. The world offers us brilliance and beauty, but it is up to us to show up. So, go get ’em, grads! Reach for the stars!”

Everyone clapped, and Edwina MacIntosh approached the podium in her powder-blue suit. I took a deep breath, preparing for my big moment. “And now, as is tradition, the student council president will read a poem. This year’s president is one of the girls I can proudly say has been at Rosewood since kindergarten. I’d like to think we take partial credit for what a remarkable young woman she has turned out to be. She’s headed to Brown University in the fall, and last week, here on this very lawn, she was awarded the Sarah Congdon Award for student athlete demonstrating exceptional citizenship. Cricket Thompson, will you please come and read
‘A Psalm of Life’
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow?”

I slid past my classmates, stood in front of the podium, and made eye contact with the crowd.
“Tell me not—”
I began.

That’s when I saw Zack take the empty seat next to his dad. He was taller, bigger, further along the road from boy to man. What had been the beginning of a transformation at Christmas was now complete. He was no longer a dorky-but-hot-to-me sophomore. In his Nantucket Reds and a white button-down, with the sleeves rolled up, he was flat-out gorgeous. My mouth went dry. I had to start again.
“Tell me not, in mournful numbers, ‘Life is but an empty dream!’ For the soul is dead that slumbers,”
I continued, clutching my index card.
“And things are not what they seem.”

I think something happens after you’ve been in love with someone, and especially if you’ve had sex, because I had a GPS on Zack as my parents asked me to pose for various pictures near the beech tree. Even when I was facing away, smiling at the camera, I was aware of his presence. He was over by the lemonade. He was texting. He was laughing at something Jules said. Where were his glasses, I wondered? Did he get contacts?

“Okay girls,” Mom said, gesturing to Jules. “Let’s get the two of you.”

Jules and I put our arms around each other, though not as tight as we once would have. We tilted our heads toward each other. I could feel that we were both holding our breath as my mom and Mr. Clayton snapped pictures. Then Mr. Clayton stepped forward and handed Jules a package wrapped in white tissue paper and a single blue ribbon.

“This is for you,” Jules said, handing the package to me.

“Oh,” I said, taking the gift. “Thank you.”

“It’s from all of us,” Mr. Clayton added, smiling, throwing an arm around Zack.

I unwrapped the tissue paper and gasped. It was a picture, in a simple, wooden frame, of Nina on her graduation day from Brown. I’d seen the picture many times. It had sat on Nina’s dresser for as long as I could remember. Nina was in her graduation gown. Her cap was off and her hair was long and flowing. She was looking right at the camera, daring me to do something great. I held the picture to my chest. “Thank you.”

“Let me see,” Mom said, taking it. “Aw,” she cooed, as if it were a picture of a cute puppy. I snatched it back.

“Are you sure I can have this?” I asked. It was such a part of their home I felt like I was walking away with their chimney or the stained glass window in the dining room.

“She loved you, Cricket,” Mr. Clayton said. For the first time I noticed how much he’d aged this year. “And she loved Brown. She would’ve been so happy you were going there.”

I looked at Jules. A shade of hesitation passed over her face before she smiled and said, “Hey, it’s not like I was going to get in.”

“Thank you,” I said, hugging Jules with all of my might. I took a step toward Zack, about to hug him, too, when he held up his hand.

“Hey, Cricket. Give me five.”

Honestly, it would have been better if he’d told me to fuck off.

I held up a hand, not sure if I was going to give him five or slap him. Jules took my hand and spun me around, a residual friend instinct kicking in. “There’s a party tonight at Jay’s house,” she said as she dipped me. “Pick you up at eight.”

Seven

“
WOULD YOU LIKE SOME DISGUSTING CAKE
, my lady?” Alexi asked, his cowlick pointed north and his lip curled in repulsion. Polly had given Alexi the job of waiter to keep him busy at my graduation barbecue.

“Alexi, that’s not very nice,” Polly said. “Kate made that cake for Cricket.”

“Sorry, Kate,” Alexi said, aware he’d socially misfired, something he was working very hard not to do.

“It’s okay,” Mom said, tousling his hair. She stage-whispered, “Carrot cake is Cricket’s favorite, but I don’t really like it either. Who wants vegetables in their cake?” She made a face, and Alexi laughed like this was the funniest thing he’d heard all year.

This was a huge improvement from how this evening had
started. I didn’t think I was going to make it to eight p.m., when Jules had promised to pick me up. At one point, Dad asked Mom’s permission to use the “restroom,” even though it had been his
bathroom
in his house for fifteen years. He not only knew where it was, he knew what kind of soap would be by the sink and where the towel hanging on the rack had been bought.

And then, later, when Polly’s parents gave me a set of some top-of-the-line monogrammed sheets as a graduation present, Mom whistled and said, “Wow. Those are nicer than the ones we got for our wedding, right, Jack?” Dad coughed, Rosemary pursed her lips, and I felt like I had to apologize. And then, after that, Brad tried to teach Polly the correct stance for fly-fishing when she clearly didn’t want to learn, at least not in heels in my mom’s backyard. She had to firmly tell him no for him to get the picture, and he’d flushed with such embarrassment he looked like a little boy.

But now it was seven fifty p.m., the barbecue was wrapping up, and everyone had consumed enough alcohol to at least be able to simulate a normal social gathering. Except for Alexi and me. Alexi was allowed only water to keep his sugar intake down, and I was sticking to lemonade for now, though I could’ve used something to help me forget about Zack’s high five, which was hovering in the air over my head. It was like he’d forgotten who I was.

I wasn’t the girl he high-fived. I was the one he whispered secrets to in the predawn hours, the one who could make him laugh with a single raised eyebrow. The one who understood what he had lost when he lost his mother. I was the girl he loved, or at least that’s what I thought. When someone stops loving you, I wondered, does that mean they never really even started?

As this thought crept across my mind, Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Rob put their arms around me and started to tell me again what it was like to go to college in Northampton, Massachusetts, in the 1980s. Lots of plaid shirts, combat boots, and crazy parties that they were hinting involved group sex. Someone needed to cut them off before they got any more concrete with their details.

Just then Mom stepped up on the big, flat rock in her garden, tapped her wineglass with a plastic fork and announced, a bit tipsily, “I’d like to toast Cricket. I have no doubt she’s going to take over the world. I am so, so proud of you, baby!”

Everyone lifted glasses in my direction. Dad whistled. Alexi whooped. I took a little bow.

“That said,” she continued, “I’m glad she’s staying at home. Not just in Providence, but right here in this house.”

Brown had offered me a great financial package, but it didn’t cover everything. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, and I didn’t want to graduate with student loans, so we’d decided I’d live with Mom. Living in the dorms and eating in the cafeteria would have cost almost twelve thousand dollars a year. That didn’t include student fees or books for classes. At the end of four years, I’d have been lucky to be only fifty thousand dollars in debt, which Dad explained would keep growing over time. Both my parents were still paying off their student loans. It seemed stupid to go into debt when we lived so close to the Brown campus that I could walk to all my classes, watch the marching band pass our porch every Saturday morning, and hear the soccer referee’s whistle from my bedroom window.

“I can’t deny that I feel so good knowing my daughter is right downstairs if I need her, like I did today when she helped me pick out this outfit.” She curtsied, and Brad whistled. “And if she needs me for girls’ chats or love advice, I’ll be waiting. Who knows, we might even end up going on some double dates. We’ll be double trouble, right, honey?”

“That’s right,” I said, downing my lemonade to mask my panic.

“I have something to say here,” Dad said. I’d only heard Dad make one toast. It was at his wedding to Polly, and he hadn’t mentioned me. He took a sip of his beer, staring at it for a second before beginning. “A lot of folks send their kids to public school and save for college. That was our plan, but Cricket peed her pants every day of her first three months at William McKinley Elementary.”

Alexi pointed at me and cackled, checking to see who else had caught this comic gem. Polly pulled him close to her and he giggled into her skirt.

“Well, it’s true,” Dad said. “We hated the idea that Cricket didn’t like school. So we visited Rosewood, Kate’s alma mater, even though we knew we couldn’t afford it.” Mom smiled, nodded, and drained her glass. “And Cricket cried when it was time to come home. She said, ‘I can’t go home, Daddy. School’s not over yet.
’
So, Kate and I made a decision. That weekend we sold our brand-new minivan so that she could finish kindergarten at Rosewood.”

I remembered the day we sold the van. I think I was so excited that we were going to start taking the bus that it never occurred to me we were broke.

Dad continued, “We kept saying just for elementary school, just to get her on the right track. But Cricket was doing so beautifully. ‘Daddy,’ she’d say when I picked her up from school, ‘guess what I learned today?’ As teachers, it made our hearts sing.

“So then we thought, let’s take out an extra mortgage and get her through those horrible middle-school years. You know, cliques and first bras and all that.” I instinctively crossed my arms in front of my chest. More cackles from Alexi. The rest were quiet, listening. “And when high school came around, well, I think we all saw today how much a part of that school she was.” He turned to me. “We couldn’t take you out, no matter the cost. I don’t think they would’ve let us. You were practically running the place.” He shrugged, grinning, acting out his helplessness in the face of my success. “We took out another loan.”

“Sorry,” I said. I don’t know how I had thought two teachers were paying for my expensive private-school education, but I guess I hadn’t wanted to think about it, and they’d never asked me to.

“I’m not saying this to make you feel bad. Let me finish. We just hoped, year after year, that it would all pay off. We crossed our fingers with each tuition check that we were making the right decision. We bet on you, Cricket.” Here he drew a shaky breath, held it, looked at me, and glowed. “And man, did we hit the jackpot. Honey, I couldn’t be prouder of you. Brown University. Member of the lacrosse team. The Ivy League! This is my daughter,” Dad said, wiping his eyes, raising his voice and pointing to me like I’d just won an Oscar. “My brilliant, beautiful daughter!”

“Thank you,” I said as I handed my lemonade to Aunt Phyllis and threw my arms around Dad as everyone clapped. I buried my head in his chambray-covered shoulder and smelled his Old Spice. Alexi tried to come between us, but my dad told him this was a father-daughter moment.

“We didn’t realize you weren’t living in the dorms,” Rosemary said a few minutes later. “That’s why we got you the monogrammed sheets. So you wouldn’t lose them in the school laundry. They’re for an extra-long twin bed.”

“I love them. And I think that’s what I have, anyway.” It wasn’t true, but I knew monogrammed things couldn’t be exchanged.

“But the dorms are such a big part of the college experience,” Jim added. Dad had told me that Jim came from a very poor family in Boston, and that he had worked in a hardware store to put himself through law school at night. “It was an experience I made sure Polly had, since I didn’t get to.”

“And I’m grateful, Dad,” Polly said, patting her dad’s back. “Poor Dad. He paid so much, and I was, let’s say, very social.”

“And it wasn’t exactly Brown,” Jim said.

“I know Hamilton isn’t Ivy League,” Polly said, putting a hand on her hip. “But it’s still a good school.”

“I think we’d have to ask someone who actually attended class,” Jim said.

“Ouch, Dad,” Polly said.

“Polly, do me a favor and get me another piece of cake, hmm?” Rosemary said, then leaned in and whispered, “Gotta break these two up sometimes.”

That’s when Jules pulled up, but it took a minute to recognize her. She wasn’t in the Audi or the land yacht. She was in a brand-new Jeep with a bright red ribbon on its hood.