Swept Away (25 page)

We lean against the rail and sip on our straws. I release mine as a small giggle escapes my lips.

“What?”

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “Nothing.” I don't want to tell him that we're acting out the second fantasy image from my romantic montage. Sharing a lemonade with two straws. I lean into him and kiss the side of his neck, where he tastes salty, then the side of his face, then his lips.

“My next project,” he whispers.

I pull my head back so I can look at his face. “What?”

He clears his throat. “The stuff in the bag. It's for my next project. This bribe is working better than the lemonade.”

I laugh. “I see. So what
is
your next project?”

“I'm going to make another scale replica. But no rowing is involved this time.”

“Small enough to take home?”

“Maybe. Or give to the historical society. Your mom seemed so happy to get Candy Cane Jr. The keeper's house I made for the boat, it wasn't all that detailed. So I'm going to pick a specific keeper, and make an accurate replica of the keeper's house when he or she lived there. I thought I'd show it at the craft fair.”

“Which craft fair?” I ask. There are agricultural contests at the state fair, but I can't remember if they have an arts-and-crafts thing too.

Oliver looks surprised. “The Good-bye to Summer Festival.”

The lemonade cup slips right out of my hand and splashes into the water. “Ohmigosh! I'm so sorry!”

“That's okay,” Oliver says, peering down at the waves. “I was done anyway.”

Good-bye to Summer is the town event held just before Labor Day weekend. I must have blocked it out this year. Because this year I won't only be saying good-bye to summer.

I'll be saying good-bye to Oliver, too.

August

D
on't dwell,” I tell myself.

The realization that Oliver's departure is a fact, and not some tragic twist in one of my more dramatic stories, sits like a lump in my stomach.

“But how can I stop?” I ask my reflection in the mirror. I know we made a deal and that I was the one who insisted we stay focused on the micro. On the todays we have. Not the tomorrows we won't.

But my brain keeps flipping to the next page on the calendar, where it says September. When Oliver and his mom will be back in sunny California, and I'll still be here in Rocky Point, getting ready for another deep freeze.

“Today,” I murmur. “Stay focused on today. And only today. No looking ahead.”

I cross to my desk and glare at the
actual
calendar. My eyes widen. “Yes!” I cheer. I've been so busy with Oliver that I completely lost track of the days. The big purple circle filled with exclamation points—Cynthia's coming home!

C
ynthia phoned when she got in last night. We couldn't stay on long; I could hear chaos in the background and Mrs. Crowley
calling for Cynthia to come help unpack. We made plans for a sleepover and then hung up. We'll catch up tonight—I'm already planning on zero sleep!

To add to my good mood, a Lighthouses of Maine tour group arrives just after I open. That's twenty tickets sold, and I'm willing to bet they'll buy souvenirs and maybe even eat in the café. They swarm through the lighthouse, upstairs and down.

After an hour or so, I'm writing in the ledger the number of magnets (four) and postcards (fifteen) sold. With most of the tour group in the café, it's quiet enough that I hear the conversation wafting in from the exhibit room behind me.

“Not much to look at in this one,” a man says.

“Sure, it's pretty with those stripes and all, but . . .”

“Why is it even on this tour?” a woman complains as the trio enters the lobby. “It's not exactly significant.”

I slam down my pen. “Not significant?” I stand and cross to the portraits of Martha Kingston and Abner Rose. “It was significant to
them
. She was the keeper's seventeen-year-old daughter. Her widowed father had gone inland for supplies when a terrible squall kicked up. Martha kept the lantern lit and nearly froze to death because she wouldn't leave the tower. She slept fitfully beside the lantern to make sure she didn't fail in her duty.

“Despite her efforts, a small fishing boat crashed on the rocks below, the sea churning so fiercely that despite seeing the light, the few men on board lost control. She left her post to help them out of the freezing waters. One man—Abner—caught sick and stayed behind at the tower to be nursed back to health after the others traveled by land to parts unknown. You may have guessed
their ending—they married and became the next generation of keepers—but you may not know that Martha was one of the first suffragettes in Maine. Abner supported her in this, convinced by his experience that women are just as capable as men.”

I'm on a roll now, reading aloud the framed letter thanking the then-keeper for the aid and assistance provided back in 1894 and another from the 1920s from a little kid who lived in Cranston who said that after his daddy died, he could go to sleep at night because the light from the giant candy cane made him still feel safe. I finish up and turn to face the stunned trio. “That all seems pretty significant to me.”

I hear applause form the entryway. I spin around. “Cynthia!” I shriek.

“Mandy!” she squeals, and we fling ourselves at each other.

Out of the corner of my eye I notice my captive audience dispersing. I see that they have been suitably chastened as they ­shuffle out the door. “More souvenirs to choose from in the ­Keeper's Café,” I call after them.

“Those were cool stories,” Cynthia says.

“They weren't stories,” I say. “They're facts. History.”

“Really? I guess your mom made you memorize stuff for the tourists.”

“Actually, no. Not Mom. Oliver and I—”

“That's right! The boy!”

She hops up onto my desk, scattering the research I'm doing for Oliver's new project. I bend down to gather the papers, avoiding Cynthia's swinging feet. Weirdly, I don't really feel like talking about Oliver. Not yet.

“Is he as freaky as Freaky?”

I stand and look around for a safe place to stash the clippings. I give up and shove them into my backpack. I straighten up again. “Freaky's not all that freaky.”

Cynthia feigns a look of horror. “Uh-oh. Did he convert you to his cult?”

That had been one of my better Freaky stories, one I'm a little ashamed of now.

She hops off the desk and grabs my arms and waggles them. “Oh no! The aliens have replaced Mandy with a pod person! What have you done with my best friend?”

I giggle and shake her off. I hold my arms straight out in front of me and stomp around the lobby. “Not pod person,” I intone in a gravelly voice. “Zombie. Must. Eat. Brains.” I stalk Cynthia, moaning, “Brains. Braaaaains!”

We collapse in a heap on the steps to the tower. She slings an arm across my shoulder. “Missed you!”

“Missed you back!”

“Did you really?” She knocks her shoulder into me a few times with a big smile on her face. “Or were you so busy flirting that you forgot all about li'l ol' me?”

I realize she doesn't know how serious Oliver and I are—she still thinks we've just been playing some kind of flirting game. “Actually . . . ,” I begin.

She stands and wanders the lobby, picking things up, putting things down, riffling brochures. “Any of the Regulars turn out to be interesting? Or was Oliver the only crush-worthy boy this summer?”

I stand and straighten the things she's mussed. “Patti's been seeing Kyle.”

“Who?”

“He was ahead of Justin at school. Blond curls. Works for his dad. Lobster dudes.”

“Oh, right! Him. So she found her summer fling after all.”

“I guess. . . .”

“Is she going to break his heart when she goes? Leaving him behind and all.”

“Hard to say.”

“Or maybe he'll break hers. . . .” She turns to look at me, smirking. “Hope she's still in that fling-only/nothing-serious zone the way she was when I left.”

“Why?”

She looks at me as if I asked a dumb question, and speaks to me as if I'm a child—and a not very bright one. “Because in three weeks it's over.”

I swallow and turn away, fiddling with the pages of the ledger. Luckily, a kid comes in to ask if we have a bathroom. I send him to the café, and the interruption lets me change the subject.

“How was camp?” I ask. “Were you the lead in, like,
everything
?”

An odd expression crosses her face, a mix of embarrassment and something I can't quite identify.

The door to the café opens, and one of the trio I had regaled with Candy Cane lore comes in with two tour members in tow. “Tell them the stories you told us.” She turns to her friends. “She has a real knack. Makes the experience so much richer. The history comes alive.”

“Uh, I . . . okay.” I glance at Cynthia, and she tips her head toward the door, indicating she's going into the café. I nod, then launch back into my impromptu lecture.

Finally, the tour group leaves and Cynthia returns. “Man, the food's as bad as ever there.” She wanders the lobby. “You must have been so bored.”

I shrug. “Sometimes.”

“Seriously? What do you do when no one's here. Play games on your phone? Does it even work here?”

“I manage. . . .”

She glances at me with a questioning look, then smiles. “I'm going to lay out and catch some rays till you're done.”

“I thought we weren't meeting till after dinner?”

“How could I pass up spending quality time with my girl before Mom gets into her back-to-school frenzy?”

Before I can tell her that Oliver's going to pick me up, she's out the door. Well, I wanted them to meet. No time like the present.

I
love Cynthia to pieces. She's the sister I always wish I had. I've been envious of her in the past, but today I'm outright jealous. Does she have to be so effortlessly gorgeous and allergy free?

I glance at the clock, ticktocking till my worlds collide. ­Cynthia disappeared somewhere, but she knows I finish up at four, which is exactly the same time Oliver will arrive.

“Please like each other,” I murmur as a mantra. “Only not too much,” I add just as the big hand reaches twelve and the little sticks to four.

Cynthia sails into the lobby. She must have gone home, because now she's wearing a bright blue sundress that perfectly complements her skin, hair, and eyes, not to mention her showstopping figure. “Freedom, Free-ee-dom!” she belts out. (It's from the musical
1776
, which she performed at a previous July Fourth festival.) “Ready to go?”

“Uh, not quite.”

I peek out the window. Yup, there he is. I grab my bag. “Okay. Listen, since we were going to meet after dinner . . .”

“I know, I know. You can't even be in the house while Mom makes her fish stew.”

“Well, because of that,” I explain as we leave the lighthouse, “Oliver's here.” I pull the door shut and lock it.

“You have plans?”

“Not exactly. He just comes to meet me after work. Sometimes we go to—”

“Every day?” Cynthia asks.

“Pretty much.” We turn and start walking.

“Which Rocky Point today?” Oliver calls. Then he realizes Cynthia isn't a Candy Cane visitor and that she and I are together. “Oh, hi,” he says.

“Well, if it isn't the flea market find,” Cynthia teases.

“What?”

She laughs. “That's where we first saw you. At the Lupine Festival flea market.”

“That's right.” He smiles. “I hope I'm not one of Mandy's forlorn unbuyables.” I told him about my “pity purchases.” He kisses the side of my head.

I squirm. Cynthia squirms. Oliver looks back and forth between us and takes a step away from me. I can tell he's wondering what's wrong. I'm wondering the same thing.

“Mandy said you're just back from camp,” Oliver says.

“It wasn't
camp
,” Cynthia corrects him. “Not like canoeing and making lanyards. It was professional performing-arts training.”

“Right, Mandy said.”

We stand there awkwardly. “Want to . . . ,” I start.

“Should we . . . ?” Oliver says at the same time

“How about . . . ,” Cynthia also says.

We all give nervous laughs. “Someone go first,” Oliver says. He takes my hand.

“What did you mean before?” Cynthia asks. “Asking ‘which Rocky Point'?”

“Oh, it's an idea of Mandy's. That there are multiple Rocky Points.”

“Are they each equally dull?”

“We don't think so,” Oliver says, and squeezes my hand.

Cynthia raises an eyebrow at me. “My my my. I guess someone's been doing a good PR campaign for sad little Rock Bottom.”

“Aw, that's just mean,” Oliver says with a grin. “This place is cool.”

Cynthia's still looking at me. “Yeah?”

“Well, it's not so bad. But you have to admit,” I say to Oliver, “there's not a whole lot to do.”

“Are we going to just stand here looking at the oh-so-not-­exciting view, or are we going someplace?” Cynthia says.

“I thought we could do some more research at the historical
society,” Oliver tells me. His eyes flick to Cynthia. “Unless there's something else . . .”

“What kind of research?” Cynthia asks.

“Info about the keeper's house,” Oliver says.

“He's building a replica,” I say.

“Didn't you already make one?” Cynthia asks. “I saw those photos you posted.”

“This one will be more detailed,” Oliver explains. “I'm double-­checking the floor plans so that the scale works and that it's completely accurate.”

I wish that didn't sound so nerdy. I know Oliver's more fun and interesting than he's sounding.

Cynthia pokes me. “I can't believe you did the boat parade. So dorky!”

“Yeah, well . . . it turned out to be fun,” I say, glancing at ­Oliver. “Lexi worked on it; did I tell you?”

“And that girl . . .” Oliver snaps his fingers a few times, trying to remember the name. “Vicki Jensen. She said she wished Mandy had asked her to be part of the crew.”

“She did?” Cynthia says, crossing her arms.

This is getting tense. “Hey, you probably don't want to hang at the historical society—”

“You
do
?” Cynthia is looking at me more and more like I'm someone she doesn't know. I don't like how it feels.

“It makes Mom super happy. She hasn't been on my back since I started poking around up there.” I don't want to get into the whole Candy Cane closing problem right now. The situation is already awkward.

Cynthia nods slowly. “Ahhh. Smart girl.”

Now Oliver is looking at me quizzically. What is with me? I'm making it sound as if the only reason I'm going through the files is to suck up to my mom.

“I'm helping Oliver with the research.” Now I sound like I only do it to make him happy.

Cynthia smirks at him. “He really did indoctrinate you.”

“What does that mean?” Oliver says, just short of snapping at her.

“Hey, don't be offended,” Cynthia says. “Be flattered.”

I need to end this before it turns into an actual fight. “You want me to bring anything over for tonight?” I ask Cynthia.

“Nope,” Cynthia says. “I've got plenty of movies to catch up on. And maybe we can do a little makeover.” She flips the end of my braid up and down. “Someone hasn't been using conditioner.”