Rites of Spring (30 page)

Midafternoon, our club was engrossed in rehearsals for the evening’s skit, Darren had returned to the Gehrys’ house, Salt had reported back from his patrol that there was no sign of any trespassers having infiltrated Cavador Key that morning, and the Myers’ boat pulled into the slip with a rather impressive catch of shellfish. We were all surprised when Kadie approached us on the lawn. She walked right up to Demetria.

“Hi,” she said with perky purpose. “I wanted to apologize for my behavior yesterday. It was pretty inexcusable. Also, we caught a couple of snappers and as many lobsters as our license will allow, and we thought maybe we could all have them for dinner?”

Demetria looked incredibly amused, but before she had gathered her wits enough to cop an attitude, Clarissa accepted on the club’s behalf. After all: lobster.

“Look at it this way,” George said when Demetria protested later. “She’s apologizing. Extending the olive branch. Isn’t that a step forward?” He turned to Jenny. “Explain the whole forgiveness thing to her, will you?”

“To forgive is divine,” Jenny said. “Especially when it involves drawn butter.”

“Yeah,” Harun agreed. “Not that I eat shellfish. But it’s true. She’s not saying, ‘Accept my bigoted principles and join me at the table.’ She’s saying, ‘I was a homophobic bitch and I’m sorry. Lobster anyone?’ There’s a big difference.”

“And now that we’ve endured this very special episode of
On Cavador Key,
” Odile said, “can we get back to rehearsals?”

Sighing, I climbed back under the rank tail end of the sea monster, inwardly grumbling about being hidden from sight when Poe and Malcolm came by. Soon after, George staged a mutiny, and the whole party adjourned to the beach to relax for the rest of the afternoon. I gave in and joined them (with the stipulation that I’d stay way back on land). Ben and Harun went to coax a cooler full of drinks out of Cook, and we all took off for the nearest stretch of sand, toting reading material, sunscreen, board games, beach blankets, and a few weathered boogie boards.

I donned sunglasses and lay on my blanket, flipping idly through a back issue of
The New Yorker
and watching my fellow knights play in the surf. From this distance, it even looked like fun, all that splashing and awkward balancing on the board. The water was almost turquoise in the sunlight, like the inside of a swimming pool, and looked just cool and inviting enough to counteract the afternoon heat. Maybe if I just dipped my feet in…

“Yo.” Malcolm plopped down beside me. “You keeping dry, Amy?”

“You know it,” I said. “How was the boat?”

“Awesome.” He stretched out beside me, and from behind the safety of my sunglasses, I saw Poe standing above us, shaking out another beach blanket to my left. “Frank taught me how to use a speargun.”

Poe chuckled. “
Tried
to teach you, you mean.” He opened a book onto his lap, but I wasn’t quick enough to catch the title. It might have been in French. “We very narrowly missed making a slight detour to the local hospital, the way Mal here shoots.”

“Hey,” Malcolm said, sitting up. “I figured it out. Eventually.” He looked at my back, bare except for the strings of my bikini top, and pressed his thumb against my skin. “Amy, are you wearing sunscreen? You’re going to burn.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the mark Malcolm’s fingertip had left. “Oh, I forgot.”

“I have some,” Poe said quietly.

I looked at him over the rim of my glasses. “Do you want to get my back?”

He never got a chance to answer, as Clarissa returned, dripping wet and on a mission. “Did you see where Jenny went?”

We all looked up at her. “No,” I said. “She’s not down at the water with the rest of you all?”

“No,” Clarissa said. “She’s gone.”

Oh my God. Undertow. I shot into a kneeling position and scanned the shore for signs of her dark head. “Oh, no! Is she a decent swimmer?”

Clarissa rolled her eyes. “I don’t think she drowned, loser. Harun’s disappeared, too.”

Oh. How foolish of me.

“I mean, who does she think she’s kidding?”

I sighed. “Clarissa, why is this such a big deal for you? Let them have their fun.”

“Yeah,” Malcolm agreed. “Are you jealous of them or something?”

Clarissa huffed.

“I think you are,” Malcolm went on, a smile tugging at his lips. “If you had a little Spring Break luvah of your own, you wouldn’t be half so uptight right now.”

“I care about the reputation of this club, is all,” Clarissa said. “Jenny already threatened it once last semester. I don’t want her risking things again.”

Malcolm stood and swung his arm around Clarissa’s shoulders. “You know what we’re going to do right now?” He started leading her up the path to the house. “We’re going to break into the kitchen and I’m going to show you how to make a patented Cabot Cuba Libre using a recipe that, I kid you not, my grandfather got from Fidel Castro himself.”

“Wouldn’t that make it a patented Castro Cuba Libre?” Poe asked. Malcolm shot him a look and led Clarissa away.

“So what do you think is really her problem?” Poe asked me when they were out of earshot and we were, once again, alone.

I shook my head. “No idea.” But she’d always been a tad on the pissy side. Maybe she was just angry that we were harping so hard on Kadie Myer. After all, they had been friends since Kadie was a senior.
^*11

“Do you still want me to get your back?”

I glanced up at him. “What do you think?” I sat up, slid back until I was facing away from him, and pulled my ponytail out of the way. Seconds later, his hands were on my shoulder blades, spreading the cool lotion over my sand-flecked skin. I scooped up some sand and let it fall between my fingers. “So, I was thinking,” I began. “I don’t really know much about you.”

“Yeah you do.”

“I mean, I know about your parents and stuff…but you have that whole file on me. It’s hardly fair.”

“And it should be fair?” He slipped his fingers under the tie at my back, spread a thin film of lotion there, then moved on.

“Fairer than that,” I said.

“What do you want to know?” His hands were now tracing circles on my lower back, and I was pretty sure that this was the most thorough suntan lotion application ever. “This tattoo of yours…”

“I know, I know…
discretion.
” I circled my fingers in the sand to mirror Poe’s hands on my skin. I sneaked a peek at him over my shoulder and found his eyes glued to the ink. “Don’t tell me, that kind of devotion to the society gets you all hot and bothered.”

He lifted his gaze to mine and smiled in affirmation. The moment had
kiss
written all over it. But the rest of the club was only a few yards away.

“Let’s go have that lesson now,” he whispered, and I shivered, despite the warm Florida sun.

“And put up with the same grief as Jenny and Harun?” I asked.

“I’ll go one way, you go another, and we’ll meet up,” Poe said.

I ratified the plan and watched as he packed up and headed back to the compound. For appearances’ sake, I took the slightly longer route past the girls’ cabin. As long as I was planning a rendezvous, I might as well pause for a quick application of lip gloss. But when I reached the cabin, I found Darren Gehry standing at the door.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He ducked his head, ashamed to have been caught. “I just wanted to—”

“What?” I strode up to him. “You wanted to what? Break in?” Hadn’t we had enough of that already?

“No!” he said, looking hurt. “God, no. I just wanted to see what had happened. Everyone’s been talking about the damage. I just wanted to see it. Jesus.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked past me.

“Oh, well.” I frowned. “Come on, let me show you.” I leaned past him and undid the brand-new combination lock Salt had installed on our door. Thankfully, the code was something other than 312. Salt’s devotion to all things Rose & Grave clearly couldn’t overcome the fact that Master Locks come pre-programmed.

Darren followed me inside and took in the dingy surroundings. “Wow, you guys must have cleaned a lot of this up.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, don’t kill me for saying so, but it’s not nearly as bad as what I’d been hearing.” He traced a line of paint on the wall. “You washed off the swear words, at least.”

Swear words. How cute.

“Which one is Odile’s?” he asked.

I smiled. Someone here had a cru-ush. “The one where the blankets aren’t covered in paint,” I said, gesturing to the freshly made-up bunk.

He looked at her luggage, her pillow (I resisted pointing out that she’d never actually slept on it) and the traveling clothes she’d tossed on the bed.

“Were you expecting something special?” I couldn’t help but ask. “Something other than a Samsonite roll-aboard?”

He shrugged. “Am I being a big dork?”

“No,” I said. “Just normal. I bet I’d be a mess if I met some of the politicians who come to your family’s Christmas parties.”

“That’s different.”

Yeah. Condoleezza Rice hadn’t yet appeared in lingerie in
Maxim
.

Clarissa materialized at the door, and clutched a hand to her chest. “Oh, Amy! It’s you. You surprised me.” She glanced over at Darren. “Hi.”

He waved back. “Thanks for showing me around,” he said to me, and brushed past her and out into the sunlight.

Clarissa came inside. “That poor kid,” she said. “I mean, I’ll never forgive him for ruining my top, but I suppose in the scheme of things…” she waved halfheartedly at her destroyed bag, “it could have been worse.” She took in the sight of me applying lip gloss and still scented heavily with lotion. “Are you done with the beach?”

“I was thinking of—”

“Can I talk to you?”

I looked at her. For the first time in I don’t know how long, I really examined Clarissa. Her hair had split ends. Her manicure was chipped. She’d actually put on a couple of pounds (though I thought it looked fabulous on her). Clearly, Clarissa’s Spring Break had been no more relaxing than mine, and she seemed to need a vacation even more than I did. I recalled her short temper since we’d arrived. “Sure,” I said. I’d deal with Poe when he showed up.

We sat on the porch and Clarissa clasped her hands in her lap. “I haven’t told anyone,” she said. “Felicity…I couldn’t. I mean, we’re friends and all, but it’s like we’re rivals, too. Always trying to one-up each other. With grades, with toys, with men…” She glanced at me. “Until Brandon of course. I think she really does love him.”

“I know she does,” I said flatly.
Ixnay on the Andonbray, huh?

“I’m sorry.”

I waved her off. “It’s fine. I don’t want to talk about it. What’s going on with
you
?”

She was silent for several long moments. “I don’t know what I’m going to do next year.”

My brow furrowed. “I thought you were going to work for McKinsey?”

“I lied.” She buried her face in her hands. “I couldn’t really tell anyone. But I didn’t get offers from any of the places I applied.”

“Oh, honey,” I said, and threw an arm around her. “It’s only March.” And heck, I didn’t know what I was doing, either. Who was I to comfort her?

“No,” she said. “I’m not going to get a job. It’s like college applications all over again.” I felt her shake underneath my arm. “Except this time, I don’t have my
daddy
to bail me out.” She expelled a pent-up breath. “God, I’m such a spoiled brat. I’ve been sailing by all these years, convinced that I’d proven myself. But it’s starting all over again. And I don’t even know if I
want
to be a consultant. But that’s what you
do,
you know?”

No, I didn’t know. “I’m not going to—”

“Amy, what am I going to do? I need to find a job.” She looked up, her eyes red. “I can’t spend the rest of my life living off my family. Just looking at Malcolm earlier—I envy him so much. He gave his family the finger, went off, did his own thing. And he made it work.”

“He’s working on a fishing boat,” I pointed out. I could hardly envision Clarissa with a chum bucket.

“He’s going to grad school!” she cried.

“You could go to grad school,” I said.

“And do what?” she said. “I can’t let it be an excuse, like everyone else does. A reason to put off the future for a few more years.”

I dropped my hand to my side. Was that what my applications were all about? Putting off the future? After all, it wasn’t like I saw myself in academia on a permanent basis. I wasn’t interested in becoming a professor.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that.” She swallowed. “I shouldn’t have said a lot of the things I’ve been going on about. It’s just—you were right. I’m jealous. Jenny was such a mess last semester, and now she’s got it all together. Happy, and starting her little company, and in love—no, I don’t care what anyone else says, there is something going on with them. And you know what? I don’t really care. It’s just that I think about the things my dad said about us, about how we’d turn into a singles club or a soap opera, and I wonder…maybe he was right? And if he was right, then why did we bother fighting the patriarchs? If we hadn’t fought, maybe I wouldn’t be…” She trailed off, looked out into the woods.

I followed her gaze and saw Poe standing there, watching us. I waved at him and he waved back, then melted into the trees.

“And everyone keeps slamming Kadie,” she went on. “Like she’s this total worthless witch, and Demetria keeps acting like I’m just like her—”

“That’s not true!” I said. “You’re not like Kadie in any of the bad ways. Demetria’s just a little brash when she gets upset.”

“And I think, is that all I’m cut out for? Like Kadie? Just be a vicious, backstabbing, little society wife, and forget that I’ve got an Eli diploma in my closet? Like maybe that’s my unavoidable fate? Or just easy enough that there’s no point fighting it?”

And much as I hated to admit it, some of that rang true. This is the problem with being both really smart and a little screwed up. You’re able to concoct the most believable self-defeating positions.