Shining Sea (15 page)

SNARL

The hike back up to the truck is arduous. I can’t tell how long it takes—time is something foreign. Even though the rain’s stopped, the woods are dark as night.

Bo doesn’t look at me once.

Finally we reach the top of the trail where I parked the truck. Bo insists on driving, and I don’t object. I feel drained. I ask him where his car is. In return, he says something about the weather. I don’t pursue the issue.

The woods blur by as we cut across the peninsula, the dirt road mostly mud now. Bo shifts the gears roughly. My stomach writhes. The silence between us is deafening.

I keep fiddling with the seat-belt strap where it crosses my chest. It feels too tight, then too loose. Not realizing at first that I’m even doing it, I begin to sing softly, trying to soothe myself.

There’s a barely perceptible shift in Bo’s attention from the road, to me. I sense it. I look over at him and on his lips—the lips I know now I can never kiss—is the ghost of a smile.

And that frightens me.

Because there’s nothing funny about what happened this afternoon.

As we pull down the pebbled drive to the lighthouse, steel-colored clouds scud across the sky, revealing robin’s egg blue beneath. The wind has changed direction.

Bo. As afraid of him as I am, the idea of not seeing him again scares me more.
How can I want to get away from him so much in one minute and want so badly to be near him in the next?

What is this, is also that.
Words from the Bhagavad Gita, paraphrased. I came across the concept in the yoga book that Bo had seemed so strangely fascinated with at the library. But can I accept his duality? Bo saved my life, but . . . where does he get the life-sustaining breath he needs?

The question isn’t where—it’s
who
. Who does he get it from, and
how
does he get it?

Not that he’s giving me a choice. I should be glad this is the end of our friendship. I’m not. Bo, on the other hand, looks serene in the late-afternoon light as he parks the truck.

Now he opens the door and gets out. I do the same. The vehicle looms like a blockade between us.

Then Bo says, “Come here.”

“What is it?” I walk around and meet him by the back of the truck.

“It’s this.” He brings his lips to my cheek, keeping them there for such a long second—I have time to hear his unsteady breathing before he draws back. “Goodbye, Arion.” He turns away. His hands are clenched, two fists.

Finality hangs in the salt air. But even as my heart sinks to the bottom of the sea, his kiss burns on my cheek, claiming something in me the same way the rising tides are claiming the edges of the land everywhere. That he did this, connected us even as he left, is slightly sick on his part, I think.

So why does it make me smile?

I watch his receding figure. And then he’s gone. A minute ticks by, maybe more. Either way, Bo’s out of sight when I hear a car coming up the drive. In an odd sensory illusion—the kind of thing you experience when, say, there’s a warm humid day in the fall, and just for the briefest moment you think it’s spring going into summer, instead of autumn going into winter—I think it’s Bo coming back. But of course it isn’t; he was on foot. And yet I’m still hoping it’s him somehow, even as the white pickup truck rolls to a stop, and Logan gets out.

“That smile’s not for me, is it?”

“What’s up?” I ask, purposely ignoring his comment.

“Nothing really. Just wondering what you’ve been up to all weekend. Looks like you’ve made a miraculous recovery. Since Friday, I mean.”

“I was fine on Friday; you were here Friday night. Remember?” I tilt my head to one side, blinking rapidly, implying that he doesn’t have a brain. He rewards my acting efforts with a laugh, then unexpectedly, he hugs me.

It’s not a careful hug, not the kind of hug two friends might exchange. It’s a hug that brings the fronts of our bodies together.

“Um—”

“Let’s go for a walk,” he murmurs in my ear just before he releases me.

“I—I can’t. I have to eat something.” My stomach growls as if to back me up.

“Okay, so let’s go out to dinner.”

“I really can’t. I’ve been out all day, and I need to talk to my dad.” Not that I want to.

“Doesn’t look like he’s home.” Logan gestures to the empty driveway. Then he says, “Oh yeah—got something for you.”

He reaches into his truck—and comes up with my backpack.

“Hey, thanks.” I shoulder the pack. “How’d you get it?”

“Ran into your friend.”

“
My
friend? You mean Alyssa?”

“Mm hmm. I mentioned that I was going to head over here today, check up on you. She told me she had your backpack.”

“I’m so glad you got it. Thanks again.”

“Yeah, well, you
should
thank me.”

“Why, because you actually had to talk to her?”

“That, and, you know. She wanted—Ah. Whatever.” Logan looks away.

“Yeah, I bet she wanted whatever.” Picturing Alyssa with her waterfall of gleaming black hair and big blue eyes I say, “I hope you didn’t give it to her.”

But I should know by now that teasing Logan is an unwinnable game.

“Why?” He lifts his chin a little. “You want it?” His tone implies that I’ve not so cleverly worked my way into a corner he’s intimately familiar with.

“Anyway,” I say lightly. “I need to go.”

“You do, huh?” Logan smirks. Then he scowls a little. “Need to go see Summers? That is who I saw walking out on Smith Street, isn’t it? Walking from here?”

With a pang of guilt I remember how I told Logan I’d call him this weekend.

“Come on,” I say. “I can take a short beach walk.”

He makes some comment about not wanting to twist my arm. We head down the stairs.

Flinching, I step onto the sand, but my beach boycott really is over. Will my fear of the water continue to haunt me? I’m not sure, but soon Logan has me laughing like the gulls, and I’m not thinking about anything but his “close encounters,” as he puts it, with the teachers and administrators at school. His stories are hilarious. He has to be exaggerating.

But then, as the sun slips down the sky and the air grows cooler, Logan abruptly changes the subject.

“So what’s with you and Summers anyway?”

Hearing him say Bo’s last name makes my stomach twist. “Nothing,” I say flatly.

“Something.” The evening light sets off Logan’s startling eyes, and his skin seems even darker against the background of white sand dunes that stretch away behind him, reaching toward the bluffs. “Thought you were going to get in touch over the weekend.”

“I was—I would have, but . . .” I tell him how I’d somehow spent hours at the museum, and for a split second, consider telling him how someone had tried to run me off the road. But remembering his reaction on Friday, when he thought I was in danger, I cut the story short.

“Hours, huh? How come you didn’t ask me to keep you company?”

“No reason, really.” I look down at my feet, white skin on white sand.

“Okay. I get it.”

“Hey. Don’t be like that. Sorry we didn’t connect, but things got a little crazy—”

“Does Summers have anything to do with the ‘craziness’? As in, he’s crazy about you? ’Cause I gotta tell you, I don’t think that’s a good thing. Nick—” Logan kicks at the sand.

“Believe me, Bo Summers is not crazy about me. What were you going to say? About Nick?”

But Logan just shakes his head.

Fine with me. I don’t want to talk to him about Bo, though I would like to know what Logan has
against
him. Does he really believe Bo had something to do with Nick’s death?

The memory of Bo’s words whispers insidiously in my ear:
“Sirens need the breath of living creatures.”
No. No way. Anxiety gnaws at my stomach—which is empty.

“How about I take you up on that offer? To go to dinner.”

Blink; flash.
Logan’s smile against the darkening sky is a beam from the lighthouse.

“Brilliant idea, Airyhead.” He slings his arm over my shoulders and turns me around. He’s handsome in the twilight, mysterious, even. Sarah said that Nick’s girlfriend had been in love with Logan. I’m not the only one withholding part of a story.

Luckily, Dad still isn’t home, which means he hasn’t read my note yet, which means I’m not grounded. Yet. So I can go to dinner with Logan. Logic.

“Wait a sec.” Grabbing my backpack from where I left it sitting on the pebbles, I trot down to the keeper’s cottage and set it inside the door. Dashing into the bathroom I splash water on my face and hurriedly smooth on some lip balm. Then I write Dad yet another note. On the way out the door I spot a brown paper package from Mom. I rip it open—
Yes, sweaters.
A heavy teal-green wool turtleneck, and a lighter, loosely knit pale-pink mohair cloud of a thing with a ballerina neckline. Yanking off my hoodie, I tug the sea-green sweater over my head. And remember the letter, up in my room.

For a second, I wonder why I haven’t opened it. But really, I know why. Know the letter will be like the others, like journal pages. Like a ship’s log, but more personal: a daily account of what she sees, what she thinks. She’s sent a couple of letters since I left, and now I imagine them bound in a book, a slim volume:
Observations of an Artist’s Journey
. It would be a beautiful book. Powerful, like her paintings. But not nearly as warm as the sweaters.
Mom, I miss you.

Reaching the top of the stairs, I find Logan leaning against his truck. He says, “Want to try the new restaurant in town?”

“Sure, what kind of food is it?” But I don’t really care what kind of food it is. I’m still thinking of my mom, and of Lilah now.

Then Logan jostles me, says, “Raw, baby.” And I feel my mood lighten.

“Do I even want to know what that means?”

“I don’t know, Rush, do you?”

SUSHI

The drive to town is a blink—probably because we’ve been talking about music. Here by the harbor, the speed limit drops, and Logan slows, looking past me to the long wooden docks stretching away into the water, their ends floating far out—where the sea and sky merge to become a single dark entity.

“Beat matching, scratching—” With what appears to be some effort, he brings his attention back to the conversation. He’s been ranting without heat about DJing. “Nothing but smoke and mirrors. It’s the track selection. That’s what draws the crowds.”

“The crowds. As in, the girls at school.”

He laughs.

I laugh. “Logan, the radio station at school doesn’t even have—”

“Cutting, spinbacks—don’t need it. A good playlist, some nice fades—”

“That station consists of one CD player and a couple of iPods! You can’t even do the things you’re talking about there.”

“Well, not technically. No.”

“Not technically? You mean, not at all.”

“Like I said. It’s the songs—” But I’m laughing again and he breaks off. “What is it? What’s so funny?” He’s grinning, though. He got me riled, and he knows it. I know it.

He parks the truck, and then we’re heading across the road toward the restaurant, both of us laughing now about his “mad DJ skills”—

Suddenly I stop in the middle of the street, staring at the name etched in ornate calligraphy on a piece of driftwood above the door.

S
IGN OF THE
M
ERMAID

“What,” he says. “Did you drop your lipstick?” But he looks both ways down the street, and takes my hand.

“Were you a Boy Scout, or something?” I joke back. But I grip his fingers.

Dinner hour, Sunday night, yet the restaurant is empty except for a small group over in the far corner. As we wait to be seated I read a notice near the hostess station. Sign of the Mermaid is closing next week for the season. We sit down at a table for two.

“Does this whole place just shut down at the end of September, or what?”

“Yeah, you moved to a real ghost town.” Logan cups his hands around his mouth and blows. “That’s the sound of the wicked Maine winter wind, in case you didn’t get it. But don’t worry, there’ll still be some places open. Two, I think. You might want to reserve me now for Saturday nights, though; I get double-booked on winter weekends.”

“Let me grab my calendar.” I reach for the menu.

The hostess has seated us close to the group at the corner table, probably to make the waitress’s job easier. I wish she hadn’t. There are three people at the round table, two who are facing each other across the table, and one more person who’s staring straight ahead—
at
me
. More like, glaring. I drop my gaze to the menu.

“So what are you going to have? How about some
uni
?” Logan wiggles his fingers at me.

“Give me another minute,” I say, reading the word
“uramaki”
over and over.

Peeking over the top of the menu, I watch a girl about my age whose profile is toward me skillfully lift a piece of sashimi with her chopsticks and place it in her mouth. She has perfect skin and chin-length pale-blond hair cut at a sharp angle. Tilting her head back, she lets the piece of fish slide down her white throat without chewing. Then she smirks at something the boy across the table says. He’s cute, with blue eyes, freckles, and blond hair streaked by the sun. His eyes flash with light as he laughs—and I go still. He’s a younger version of Bo. Maybe with a better sense of humor, I decide, continuing to watch him.

Not one to be politically correct, Logan reads the menu to me in a poorly executed Japanese accent. Intent on the group at the round table, I have no idea what I order. When the food comes, Logan sorts it out. To his credit he more than holds up his end of the conversation. Nodding and smiling, I silently promise to make it up to him. He seems fairly happy.

But the guy at the corner table—the one who hasn’t taken his eyes off me—is obviously
unhappy
. His fierce scowl says as much. His hair is longer than the younger boy’s, wilder and darker, but with the same bleached-out streaks that make him look as if he spends his life outdoors. He’s ruggedly handsome. Now the girl says his name.

Jordan. Bo’s older brother.

Carefully mixing wasabi and soy sauce in a tiny bowl decorated with a painted dragonfly, I let my hair hang forward and peer through it at the older boy. He’s still staring straight at me. His dark-blue eyes, close in color to the night sky, are filled with outrage.

I decide not to look up again—to spend the rest of the meal chatting with Logan and appreciating the sushi. But as snatches of conversation drift over from the neighboring table, I find myself listening to the words as if they’re background music, until—

Jordan’s voice—it just . . . grabs me. That’s the only way to describe what’s happening. His voice sounds like Bo’s, but deeper, grittier. If it were a color, it would be the very blackest blue, the color of the sky at that tipping time, when dusk bleeds into something darker. His voice becomes the center of my attention now. Even weirder: I feel like he knows that it has.

He starts talking about oceanography and atmospheric sciences, and my palms turn as clammy as one of the small rectangles of sashimi. The exact meaning of what he’s saying is beyond my understanding, but the words themselves—sound like poetry.

“Stellar interiors . . . subharmonic instability . . . inertia latitude . . .” His voice is almost hypnotic, and again, I think of Bo, of the way his words spiraled into strange, seductive sounds, the way they became
more
than words, the way they became music. I remember, too, how I’d been unable to control my thoughts, my—self. But now, listening to Jordan . . . that doesn’t bother me. In retrospect, the afternoon with Bo seems . . . fine. I relax about it now . . .

“Attraction zones, empty . . . must propagate . . .”

And a kind of dreaminess settles over me. A dreamy . . . desire, almost, for . . . for . . .

“Why are you joining a punk band? You want a guy with a safety pin through his—”

My attention jerks back to Logan. “Huh? Wait.
What
did you just say?”

“Kidding. Where were you just now?”

“Sorry, I—I would like to be in a band. But not a punk band.”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” he says. “You and Mary . . . I can see it.”

But suddenly it’s me who’s seeing—something in Logan’s face. His familiarity—
he reminds me of someone
. But then Logan’s expression changes—to one of concern, I think—and all I see is, well, him.

“Want to get going?” he asks.

I say yes—but then it hits me.

San Francisco. The docks. The boy in the baseball cap—Logan looks like him.

But then Logan drinks the last of the tea, scrunching up his nose and commenting on the flavor—“This tastes like perfume, don’t you think, Rush? The way perfume smells?”—and I realize that I’m wrong—of course I’m wrong. He doesn’t look like that guy at all. I never even really saw that boy’s face.

I tell Logan the tea’s jasmine. We stand up—

At the same moment the group from the corner table passes by, heading toward the door.

Jordan shoots me a savage smile, a keen-edged curve that has nothing to do with being friendly, and a vivid memory of Bo holding me in his arms hits me so hard, I bring a hand to my chest. Despite the racing nighttime waves in Jordan’s eyes, I almost blurt,
Where’s your brother?

Logan angles a sharp look down at me. “You okay?”

“Yes.” But I’m not okay. I feel dizzy. Ill.

The waitress, who we haven’t seen since she delivered our food, finally makes her way over with the bill, and Logan gets out his wallet. My intention had been to go Dutch, but it feels like I’m recovering from some kind of bizarre occurrence, and instead of offering to split the check, I just stand there. I can’t take my eyes off Jordan, and now I watch as he holds the door for his brother and sister. After he lets it fall closed behind him, an eerie stillness remains.

I don’t think they even paid.

“Ready?” Logan asks quietly.

When we get to the truck, he opens the door for me. The air inside is cold. The seat is colder. He slides in and starts the engine. I turn the heater on full blast. The sound of the fan fills the cab. Logan turns, reaching across the space between us, his fingers brushing my neck as he gives the teal turtleneck a little tug.

“You’re kind of early, but you’ve got the right idea. The entire state of Maine freezes solid in the winter.” He keeps his hold on the sweater, and I wait for the joke, maybe an offer to keep me warm. But he only looks at me, his clear gray eyes full of questions.

The words that had floated over from the corner table during dinner move through my mind like shifting sand.
“They collapse into each other, in an attraction orbit.”

“Thanks for dinner,” I stammer. And this time, it’s me who initiates the hug.

Logan’s warm, the muscles of his back are hard, his chest solid, comforting.

The feel of him is almost enough to make me forget about Jordan Summers, about the way he’d stared at me all though dinner.

But not quite.

Still, it isn’t until Logan’s breath stirs my hair that I realize I’ve held on to him just a little too long, and a little too tight, for the hug to be only a thank-you.