Girlfriend Material (16 page)

Halfway through lunch at a bistro overlooking the water,

Adam’s cell rang.

“Hey, Lawrence,” he said, picking it up.

While he talked, I looked around the restaurant so it wouldn’t seem as if I were eavesdropping on his conversation. After what Adam had told me, it was pretty obvious that there were a lot of gay men in Provincetown. Sitting at a restaurant where at least half of the tables were populated by all male groups or couples made me feel kind of cool. I felt like going up to them and saying,
You know, this is my first meal in a gay restaurant in a gay town. I’m from Salt Lake City
. Obviously I didn’t, but being in a place that was so casual about gay people just added to the excitement of being with Adam. It was like he hadn’t just taken me to a new town, he’d taken me to a new planet.

“Sure, man, I understand. Don’t worry about it … . You know, if I can swap some days off with one of the other interns, I can do it … . So coming back Wednesday or … Yeah, let me just ask around … . No, I’m in P-town, I’m working later … . Yeah, I’ll call you when I know … . Okay, sure … . Great.”

Was it weird that he hadn’t said he was in P-town with me? Or would it have been weird if he
had
said he was here with me? Between my not knowing what to call Adam and forgetting to introduce him to my mom and being worried that he didn’t tell Lawrence he was having lunch with me, I was starting to feel in need of a Web site called firsttimedaters.com. Or maybe instead of writing a novel, I could write something like, “Your First Relationship: When it Starts, What it’s Called, How to Deal.”

If other girls out there were even half as clueless as I was, the book was sure to be a best seller. “So,” said Adam, flipping his phone shut. “What do you want first, the good news or the bad news?”

“Um, the bad news.”

“Okay, Lawrence has a family reunion thing the weekend we were supposed to go fishing, so we’re going to try and go tomorrow. Which means we can’t go whale watching with you guys.”

Was that all? I was a little sad not to get to go whale watching with Adam, but I’d been afraid he was going to say something like,
Lawrence needs a heart transplant, so I’m going from lunch directly to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for the rest of the summer. But it was nice knowing you.

I could live with a three-day fishing trip.

“Bummer,” I said.

He smiled at my mellow response. “You
are
cool,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said.
Cool. Awesome.
If those weren’t Lady Brett Ashley adjectives, I didn’t know what were. “Now, what’s the good news?”

He reached across the table and took my hand. “The good news,” he said, “is that we’re less than a hundred yards from the best ice cream on God’s green earth, and I’m about to buy you a cone.”

I leaned toward him. “That
is
good news,” I said.

And, like I’d known he would, he met me halfway with a kiss.

The ice cream was pretty amazing, but it wasn’t as amazing as the used bookstore, where we ended the afternoon. There must have been ten thousand books piled everywhere, the system of organization vague enough that Adam assured me I shouldn’t even try to find something specific. “Just let yourself get lost,” he said, which is exactly what I did. I was sitting on a pile of books, reading a novel about a crazy apartment building in San Francisco where all of the people know each other and the landlady is more or less the tenants’ mom, when Adam tapped me on the shoulder. He was holding a book in his hand, but I couldn’t read the title.

“I’m just going to pay for this,” he said. “I’ll meet you outside.”

“Sure,” I said, starting to stand up.

“Take your time,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll be on the porch.”

Even though he’d said he didn’t mind, I felt weird sitting and reading while Adam waited for me, so I just finished the page I was on and decided I’d buy the book, which cost only a dollar. As I was walking up to the cash register, I passed a slightly shabby paperback copy of
The Wizard of Oz
. Without letting myself stop and think about it, I took it off the shelf. Then I paid for both and went outside. Adam looked up at the tinkling bell of the screen door.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said. I held the book out for him. “I figured since you didn’t know her last name, maybe you’d never read the book.”

“Oh, this is great,” he said, taking it from me. “I’ve seen the movie, but you’re right, I never read it.” He was smiling, and I could tell he really was glad about my getting him the book. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

Then he reached into the paper bag he’d had on his lap and pulled out an equally tattered paperback. “This is for you. You said you like
The Sun Also Rises
. This is supposed to be Hemingway’s nonfiction account of the time he spent in Paris.”

The book was called
A Moveable Feast
, and the cover had a line drawing of a window looking out over the Parisian skyline. “Oh, wow,” I said. “Thank you so much. I’ve never even heard of this book.”

“Kind of like the rainbows,” he said.

I hit him in the head with my gift. “Watch yourself, Carpenter,” I said. “I like you and all, but really.”

“So,” he said, raising one eyebrow at me, “you like me, do you?”

For a second everything got really still. “Maybe I do,” I said.

“Hunh,” he said. “Well, maybe I like you too.” We stood there looking at each other, letting what we’d said sink in a little. Then he took my hand and we walked down the street and headed to the car.

“THE GUYS BAILED,
” said Jenna around a mouthful of toast. “But we don’t care.” She gestured to the plate of toast in front of her. “Have one.”

It was a little before nine on Saturday, and I’d come up to the main house to find Jenna and Sarah eating breakfast on the deck. In the kitchen my mom and Tina and Henry and Jamie were talking about what they kept referring to as “the political scene” in New York. I could understand Tina and Henry and Jamie caring about it, since it had become extremely clear to me that New Yorkers never tired of talking, thinking, or hearing about New York, but my mom’s interest in the subject escaped me. Usually all my mom wanted to talk about was whether or not it was time to redecorate the downstairs bathroom.

“Yeah,” said Sarah. “The siren song of male bonding was just too powerful to resist, so Adam and Lawrence left on their fishing trip this morning.”

I wasn’t sure what to say.
I know
? Then they’d want to know how I knew, and I’d have to say,
Well, Adam and I are kind of … what? Kind of going out
? Could you
be
kind of going out, or was going out something you were or you weren’t? And no one had said anything about going out. It wasn’t like Adam had said,
Will you go out with me?
But did people even say that anymore? Was that an anachronism along the lines of going to the soda shop for a pop and having a boy carry your books home from school and getting pinned?

But you
know
if you’re going out with someone. Like, Laura was clearly going out with Brad. As far as I knew, she still had his sweatshirt. I, on the other hand, had felt obligated to return Adam’s sweater yesterday. Question: Were he my boyfriend, would I have kept the sweater?

“Would you?”

I realized that Jenna and Sarah were both looking at me and that there had been silence for a second or two. Since they weren’t mind readers, they must have asked about something other than Adam’s sweater.

“Sorry,” I said. “What?”

“Would you describe yourself as someone who gets seasick?” asked Jenna.

“Not that I know of,” I said. Though, considering I’d never actually been on the sea, I probably didn’t
not
get seasick so much as I’d never had the opportunity to
get
seasick.

“Oh, you’re lucky. I get soo sick. It’s the worst.”

“But you’re the one who wanted to go on the whale watch,” I pointed out.

Jenna wrinkled her nose. “I know,” she said. “But I’m planning on being a marine biologist, so I’ve got to get used to it.”

I had to put Adam out of my mind or I was going to drive myself insane. He liked me. He’d
said
he liked me. And then when we’d kissed good-bye, he’d given me a really tight squeeze and said,
I’ll be fishing with Lawrence, but I’ll be thinking about you.

If that wasn’t practically as good as asking someone out, I didn’t know what was. It was time to focus on something else.

“I don’t know anything about marine biology,” I said. I took a piece of toast from the pile and sliced a piece of cheddar cheese to put on it.

“Oh, you will,” said Sarah, spreading cream cheese on her own piece of toast. “When you’re on the water with Jenna, you learn a lot about marine biology.”

I was glad to see that even with Jenna in the car, Sarah blasted music—apparently it wasn’t simply her desire to avoid conversation with me that had her playing her favorite artists at top volume. We didn’t talk much on the way to Provincetown, but at one point, when we’d been driving for about fifteen minutes, Sarah reached over and lowered the volume.

“You know, if you say the word humpback enough, it doesn’t even sound dirty,” she said. “Try it.”

“Humpback,” said Jenna, and she immediately cracked up.

“Humpback,” I said. It was impossible to say the word without laughing.

Sarah was smiling. “Hmm,” she said, reaching for the volume knob again. “Guess I was wrong.”

The
Queequeg
was a much smaller boat than I’d anticipated—I’d been picturing something along the lines of a Princess Cruises ship, a kind of floating condominium that couldn’t possibly capsize no matter how enormous the sea life it encountered might prove to be. The tickets were way more expensive than I’d been anticipating, too. Between whales and lobsters, I’d run through Mr. Davis’s money and started digging into my own.

Jenna brought us upstairs to the open-air deck even though she said we wouldn’t be seeing any whales for a while. As we pulled away from the dock, I could see why she’d wanted to stay outside—it was an incredible feeling, the spray on my face, the slight
bump bump bump
as the boat skimmed over the water on its way out to sea. I felt a tingle of anxiety in the pit of my stomach even though I didn’t think I was especially nervous about seeing whales or even about the boat tipping over. Still, with the speed and the air and the sunlight on the water, it felt like something exciting or unexpected or even dangerous was about to happen.

When the coastline was nothing but a dark smudge in the distance, I turned to Jenna. “It’s like a movie,” I said. “Or a music video.” We were flying along now, and leaning against the rail with the wind blowing my hair and the sun in my face, I felt very glamorous.

“You look like Jackie O,” said Jenna.

“Totally,” said Sarah.

For no reason I felt like laughing. Between my day with Adam and feeling like Sarah and Jenna were really my friends … It was all so amazing I didn’t even care if we saw any whales.

“If you’ll look over to the port, or left, side of the boat,” said a voice over the loudspeaker, “you’ll see—”

“Look!” yelled Jenna, pointing out toward the horizon. “Whales!”

I followed her finger. Maybe two hundred yards away was a group of what I guess were whales. One was much larger than the others, which were small enough that they looked like nothing more than small lumps.

I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed. They were just … bumps in the ocean. People around us
Ooh
ed and
Aah
ed as they directed their cameras toward the sight, but I couldn’t see what was so special. I didn’t want to be a bad sport, though, so I opened my eyes wide, hoping I looked like someone who was amazed by what she was seeing.

As we watched, the largest bump disappeared and immediately pushed high up out of the water. I gasped as water sprayed off its gigantic body; it seemed to hover in the air for an impossibly long time before it dipped below the water, its tail still waving against the horizon.

“Oh my God,” I said, barely aware of having said it. I wasn’t faking my look of amazement anymore.

Jenna was standing next to me, and she bumped my shoulder with hers. “I know,” she said quietly. “Isn’t it incredible?”

I’d honestly never seen anything like it in my life. No sooner did the whale disappear than it shot up again. I caught my breath.

“Wow,” whispered Sarah. “I don’t believe in, you know, God or anything, but still.”

“Totally,” I said, knowing exactly what she meant. It’s how I feel sometimes when I’m up in the mountains and it’s really quiet and the light is falling in a certain way on the peaks across the canyon from you, and you feel—I don’t even know what the right word is—whole, maybe. Like everything makes sense somehow.

After its third leap, the big whale headed away from us, and the little whales followed. I was afraid the boat would go after them—the thought of chasing and possibly scaring such amazing animals was awful—but we just continued in the same direction we’d been going. Sarah turned around and leaned her back against the railing. “Okay,” she said, “that was amazing.”