September Girls (2 page)

If I wanted, I could have left Jeff and Dad to fend for themselves. It would have been exactly what they deserved. Just step out of the car and wander an undeviating line until I found a different version of myself waiting for me, bright and open, with an all-new life.

I came so close to doing it. But just as I was about to unlatch the door, my eyes drifted over to my father, whose infuriating mask of cheerfulness had melted into one of collapsed resignation. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Jeff in the back, scratching his belly under his T-shirt, his eyes sleep-damp and oblivious, and I took pity on them. Because God fucking knows how they would ever have survived on their own. They needed me.

Eventually the traffic cleared up, and soon we were crossing the causeway; then we hit the beach road and finally it was evening and we were crawling our way through strings of vacation developments full of stilted pastel “cottages” that looked large enough to house armies, or at least—judging by the Lexus SUVs in the driveways—shitloads of rich shitheads and their horrible shithead children. Every now and then we’d notice long-legged blondes in bikinis and short shorts ambling along the shoulder of the road, hauling beach chairs and canvas bags, hair still salty and purple in the twilight, and Dad would elbow me and say, “Didn’t I tell you this place was gonna be great?” and I would ignore him, although not without taking notice myself.

As the numbers on the mileposts rose, the houses shrank and their electric paint jobs faded to silvery gray. It was getting dark out. Finally, we pulled into a cul-de-sac marked by a sign that read
SEASHELL SHOALS
.

This end of the beach had seen better days. The house Dad pulled up to was modest—small and dune-brown and worn—and the sand here looked somehow dirtier than usual, although I know that’s a stupid thing to say about sand, which is of course basically just dirt to start with.

“Here we are,” Dad said. “Our little piece of heaven!” It was always unclear when he was being sarcastic, or it would have been if I hadn’t known he had no capacity for sarcasm. At any rate, crappy as our house was, it seemed to be the jewel of the cul-de-sac, as the stilted houses on either side of it appeared unoccupied and near to collapse. We had arrived.

We got out of the car without unpacking the trunk and climbed the rickety wooden steps to the front door, which opened into a dingy but serviceable family room. I wasn’t any more impressed by the inside than I had been by the outside.

The place was all wicker furniture that seemed like it might fall apart if you sat on it, and everything (I mean everything) was plastered with seashells that I could only assume were fake. There was a lamp made out of seashells and another one made out of red wicker. The wood paneling on the walls was (upon inspection) cardboard, and the wall-to-wall carpet that covered every inch of floor was crunchy with sand. The whole place smelled like Lysol mixed with something both mildewy and fishy. It was basically a dump.

Dad plopped onto the couch in the family room, and as soon as I’d dropped my backpack next to a tacky watercolor of a seagull by the kitchen island, he was snoring loudly, his knees pulled to his chest like a little kid, his sunglasses smushed against his forehead. Jeff looked over at me and raised his eyebrows. “Poor guy,” he said. I just snorted.

“Give the guy a break,” Jeff said. “He’s had a rough time. You know that.”

“Yeah, well,” I said. “You haven’t had to live with him.”

Jeff unzipped his bag and pulled out a plastic jug of cheapo-looking vodka, which he wiggled at me, grinning. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go look at the ocean. Might as well, right?”

“Man, I just want to go to bed,” I said. I was exhausted. I wanted to jerk off and fall asleep. (Although I obviously didn’t say that.)

“Come on,” Jeff said. “Don’t be such a little bitch.”

How could I refuse an invitation like that?

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

HOME

None of us remember our home anymore except to know that it’s very far away—and to know that when we were home, we were happy. This is not our home. This could never be our home. We have been here as long as we can remember.

We remember our mother, but only a little. We remember that she was beautiful and patient. We remember that we loved her. We have been told that she was a whore, although we can’t remember who told us that, and we often find ourselves arguing over the true definition of
whore
.

Sometimes language confuses us. We search for words and find only shells and sea glass. We search for
comb
and find
fork
.

We’re all afraid of the water. There is an endlessness about it that frightens us, and we know what’s down there. (We have a hard time remembering, but we know.) From time to time—afraid or not—we meet late at night on a dark and moonlit beach and strip our clothes off and lounge naked in the tide in orderly rows, not speaking to each other, feeling the freezing cold water lapping at our hip bones and breasts. We stare at stars and pretend they’re jellyfish. We don’t remember the word for jellyfish.

We’re too frightened to swim. None of us know how to swim, and we know that if any one of us ventured into the water past her thighs she would drown. It happened to Donna, although only one or two of us remember Donna. Sometimes the rest of us wonder if she was ever even real. But it happened to her. We are sure of it.

In the warmth of the sun we are often too frightened to even look at the ocean’s horizon. When we venture onto the sand in daylight, we try to keep our eyes on the dunes.

We work as waitresses, checkout girls, hotel maids. We’ve grown accustomed to the burn of ammonia in the back of our throats. We have grown accustomed to sleeping two to a bunk and stepping over one another on our way to the refrigerator in the mornings. None of us like each other very much anymore. There’s too much at stake for friendship. Sisterhood is dangerous.

We are sisters anyway. Yes, we dislike one another, but at least we are comfortable together. We protect one another. We feel uneasy amid the Others: women who speak to us with suspicious contempt and men whose eyes sting like chlorine. We like the boys, but they’re few and far between, and they always bring trouble with them—often in the form of older brothers. We hate the girls most of all.

We come and go. Every summer there are more of us; every summer some of us are gone. We barely remember the ones who disappear. Donna becomes Kelly—or was it Brenda?

After a while we stop bothering to keep one another straight. There is really no point. We are not happy here. We are filled with emptiness.

But sometimes, on rare days in the sticky fog of summer, one of us will step off the boardwalk and onto the sand and turn her back to the sea and find herself sinking to her knees in astonishment at the generosity of this place: at the cool wind twisting in her yellow-green hair and the sun on her brow and the bead of sweat that forms at her widow’s peak and inches down to her lips where she licks it away and is grateful for the salt. This place that has lent us what little it has of itself with such forgiving aplomb.

She might look down only to find a piece of sea stone, smooth and perfect, robin’s egg, and pick it up and roll it between her fingers and think: I could stay here. She might think: I could be happy here.

That’s when she knows it’s time to go home.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

TWO

JEFF AND I walked to the ocean in the dark, barefoot, passing the jug of vodka back and forth between us. I wasn’t used to the taste of straight booze and with every sip had to brace myself to keep from wincing.

The ocean was a block and a half away, across the beach road and a rotting path of wooden planks that cut through the dunes. Jeff and I made small talk as we walked, him talking about his classes (he had been planning on majoring in econ but was tormented by statistics, as if I gave the slightest shit) and about some crazy-sounding girl he was trying to lose. “You sleep with some girl once, and before you know it you’re like trapped in her crazy pussy-web,” he said, nodding sagely to himself.

I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about. “So I hear,” I said, doing my best to humor him.

“How about you?” he asked. “You getting any action these days?”

“Nah,” I said. “I’ve got other things on my mind,
these days.
”

“I doubt it,” Jeff said. “You seem pretty hard up.”

“Fuck you,” I said.

“Dude,” he said. “This summer we’re gonna get you laid, bro. It’ll do you some good.”

“I don’t see what
we
has to do with it,” I said. “Isn’t getting laid like something you generally do on your own?”

“There’s your first mistake,” Jeff said. “You don’t even have the basic mechanics right.”

I snorted.

“Whatever,” he went on. “You should see yourself, dude. You’ve been working this like constant bitchface ever since I got back from school.” When I still didn’t respond, he punched me in the arm and laughed loudly. “Turn the motherfucking frown upside down already. What’s the point?”

The gravel on the road was digging into my feet, and I was glad when we made it to the beach access, a boardwalk half-sunk into the sand. Jeff pulled a flashlight from the pocket of his cargo shorts and snapped it on, shining it under his chin, lighting his face up like a jack-o’-lantern. “Oooohooooohooooh!” he yodeled, trying to be spooky. “Very scary!”

I looked at him like he was insane. Maybe he was; I once read this book about some lady who caught a case of syphilis and was certifiably nuts for years without anyone noticing.

“Man,” he sighed. “I’m working my ass off here. You gotta give me something. I mean, anything.”

Then we stepped off the boardwalk, past the blind of the dunes, and the ocean revealed itself to us: just unfurled as a dark and infinite ribbon curling and waving in every direction. Black sand, black water, black sky, all of it variegated in barely discernible bands, the beam of Jeff’s flashlight cutting through it all as a bright and pointless wedge. Ghostly, glowing sand crabs scurried in every direction. Jeff said nothing and neither did I, but my muscles tensed and then relaxed in surprise, and I could feel Jeff reacting similarly at my side.

We walked down the sand together and stood in the surf, him bouncing his small light off the crests of the crashing waves. The water was freezing, but it felt okay on my ankles. I wondered if I waded in farther if it might snap me back to life. I chose not to take a step.

“I know I’ve been a shitty brother lately,” Jeff said after a few minutes like that. He took a swig from the vodka and handed it to me. I was already feeling unsteady on my feet, but I chugged anyway. It was starting to taste kind of good.

“Nah,” I said. “I mean, it’s okay.” It wasn’t okay, not really, but I was happy that he was finally coming clean.

“Dude, you’re gonna be fine,” Jeff said. “It’s all gonna be fine. You know that, right? It’ll be over before you know it. You’ll be out of there so soon; you’ll put all of this year behind you and never even think about it again. It’s Dad that I worry about. I mean, that’s his life. I mean, fuck. I can’t believe her. What a bitch.”

“She’s not a bitch,” I said. “Everyone’s got their reasons, right?”

“It’s gonna be fine,” he said.

“I know,” I said.

“Step one, you gotta get yourself laid,” Jeff said. “Seventeen years old and still a virgin. No wonder you’re in such a bad mood all the time.”

“What makes you think I’m a virgin?” I asked.

Jeff hooted. “Look at yourself, bro.”

Before I could ask what he meant by that a wave crashed and swirled around us. As the water receded, I started to realize exactly how drunk I was. I wobbled a little in the undertow and then was on my ass with a splash. “Fuck,” I said.

Jeff didn’t answer. “Holy shit,” he said.

“Dude,” I said, looking up at him. “Whatever.” But his attention was elsewhere. He had been swinging his flashlight around the water the whole time we’d been talking, but now he had stopped the fidgeting and was pointing it down the coastline. “What the fuck?” he said, practically whispering. I crawled onto my knees in the tide and turned myself around, following the beam of light down the line of the beach.

“What?” I asked. Then I saw what he was talking about. A hundred paces off, in the shallows, was a body. A girl. She was naked. And she was lying in the tide on her back, her arms thrown at weird doll angles, her bare and smallish breasts quivering and beaded with salt water. It was as if she had just been spit out by the ocean.

“What the fuck?” I said.

“Hey!” Jeff shouted. The girl jerked her face toward us. So she was alive. It was hard to make out her expression, but she looked disoriented, maybe drunk. Then again, we were drunk too. I climbed to my feet, and was knocked down again as another wave hit me in the back of the knees. When I’d finally managed to stand, the girl was gone.

Jeff shoved the flashlight into my hands and began racing toward where we’d seen her. I followed him, but it was hard running in the water. I thought I felt hands grasping at my calves, but that must have been my imagination.

“Hey?” Jeff shouted. As a question this time. There was no answer. The girl was gone. And then I turned the flashlight up onto the shore and saw her again, hastily stumbling up the sand. She was floundering, completely naked, unsteady on her feet and tripping onto her knees every few steps, wet hair longer than I’d ever seen tumbling down her back in wild, seaweedy clumps. Despite her clumsiness, she was moving fast. I mean, really fast.