Sixteenth Summer (19 page)

And during the brief windows between storms? The sun would come out baring fangs. The heat was wet and claustrophobic. Just breathing became a chore. You couldn’t see all the spores and mold and motes floating through the air, but you knew they were there, and they made everyone feel cranky.

Steam rose off Highway 80.

The boardwalk developed a disgusting sliminess that never had a chance to dry out.

My bedsheets became so damp and sticky, I seriously considered sleeping in the bathtub. Figgy Pudding’s decorations, of course, were ruined, and we pretty much had to forget about making waffle cones at The Scoop. They were too floppy to hold anything. My dad came up with the idea of passing out waffle cone rain checks and got a write-up in the
Dune Island Intelligencer
for it. Sophie was so embarrassed, she went into hiding for an entire day.

Me? I was sort of grateful for the diversion, even if it was an incredibly silly one. Because the rain had also seriously dampened my opportunities to be with Will.

We couldn’t go anywhere outside because my parents wouldn’t let me drive their car during the storms. And
I
wouldn’t let either of us ride our bikes to see each other.

“Anna, you spend half your life in the ocean,” Will said on the phone one dark, thunderous morning. He was trying to coax me into meeting him for coffee on the boardwalk. “You’re not willing to get a little wet for me?”

“Please, you think it’s the water I’m worried about?” I said. “It’s the lightning.”

“Oh, come on, nobody really gets struck by lightning, do they?”

“Are you near a computer right now?” I asked. Cradling my phone between my ear and shoulder, I headed to the kitchen and grabbed my dad’s laptop. Within a few seconds I’d sent Will a link to an article about the hundreds of coastal Georgians sizzled by strikes every year.

“Oh my God!” Will said as he scanned the article on his end.

“Yup,” I said. “Lightning strikes and tractor accidents—
very
common cause of death and disfigurement around here.”

“Talk about Southern gothic,” Will said.

I closed the laptop. It was too wet and noisy to go out to the screened porch, so I wandered into the living room. Kat and Benjie were sitting on the floor with bowls of Cheerios in their laps and a board game between them. My mom was curled up on the couch with some knitting. It felt like one of those boring national holidays where there’s nothing to celebrate and nothing to do.

“Speaking of gothic,” I said, settling into the lumpy chair near the window, “did you hear about the new horror movie that’s out? Sounds amazing. I heard it turned a reviewer’s hair white. Needless to say, he gave it a thumbs-down.”

“Why am I not surprised that you’re not the romantic-comedy type?” Will snorted.

“A movie!”

That was my mom. I glanced over at her. She’d dropped her knitting into her lap and she was grinning at me.

“That’s the perfect thing to do today,” she said. “We could go to the first matinee. Your dad doesn’t need me at The Scoop until four.”

“Movie, movie!” Kat and Benjie shrieked, which of course, summoned a
thump thump thump
to the staircase. Sophie poked her head over the banister.

“Are we going to the movies?” she asked. “Can I ask Emily?”

“Sure,” Mom said, getting to her feet and smoothing her hair. “That’s why we got the minivan. Anna, tell Will we can be at his house in twenty minutes. I’ll go get the movie section.”

“Um,” I squeaked, “but I didn’t … um, Mom?”

Over the phone I heard Owen’s voice saying, “Wait a minute, are you going to a movie?”

And then a female voice called, “Take your brother. He’s driving me crazy.”

Before we knew it, Will and I were going on a date to a Cineplex in Savannah—with almost everyone in our families. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

But Will laughed—so I did too. In fact, Will seemed goofily charmed by the whole thing—scrunching into my mother’s van, running through the rain to the theater, waiting in line at the concession stand while Kat and Benjie debated popcorn versus candy.

Then we all split up to go to different theaters. Will and I went to the horror flick, my mom and the kids picked something G-rated, and Sophie and Emily chose a chick flick. Owen was on the fence, but at the last minute, he said to the girls, “Ah, what the heck. I’ll go with you.”

“Seriously, Owen?” I squawked while Sophie and Emily dissolved into delighted giggles.

I looked at Will in surprise.

“Does your brother really like chick flicks?”

“Let me ask you something,” Will said as Owen sauntered
toward the theater with the girls. “Who among us has the most snacks?”

Sophie and Emily had a giant tub of popcorn to share and a box of candy each, plus Cokes. I pointed at them.

“Not for long,” Will said.

“Your brother is literally going to take candy from children?” I said.

“Shamelessly,” Will said. “He’s the best food-filcher you’ve ever seen.”

I laughed as Will and I walked into our own theater. When the doors closed behind us, Will looked around with exaggerated paranoia.

“Are they all gone?” he asked. “Are we alone?”

“At last!” I said with mock drama.

He grabbed my hand. We hurried down the aisle, sank low into a couple of seats, and finally,
finally
kissed each other hello.

“This is so much better than coffee,” Will murmured as the lights went dark and the previews started.

“Yeah, because there’s candy.” I cackled, rattling the box of overpriced gummy bears that I’d bought at the concession stand.

“Yeah,” Will said sarcastically, before he started kissing me again. “That’s exactly why. The candy.”

I laughed. Then I forgot about all the family members in the building and snuggled up with Will. With the air-conditioning blasting, I actually felt chilly for the first time in ages, and Will’s warm arm against mine felt good. Over the sinister music of the movie trailers, you could just barely hear the soft patter of the rain on the roof. It was the coziest sound.

Instead of clasping my hand, Will rested his arm on mine and traced the inside of my wrist with his thumb. For some reason, this made my upper lip tingle. And not in a bad way.

I was just resting my head on Will’s shoulder and getting up the nerve to breathe something romantic into his ear when I heard someone tumble into the seat right behind us.

Will and I peered over our shoulders.

“Owen?!” Will said through gritted teeth.

“Dude, I couldn’t take the chick flick,” Owen said. “There was a shopping montage in the very first scene! Hey, did you guys get any popcorn?”

Will’s thumb left my wrist.

My head left his shoulder.

And let’s just say, after that, I didn’t miss one minute of the movie. (But at least it
was
horrifically good.)

For the rest of the Monsoon—as Will and I came to call that rain-ruined week—we saw each other only during damp, snatched moments at The Scoop.

So at night, we talked on the phone. And talked and talked and talked.

“You were in my dream last night,” Will said during one of our epic conversations. I was on the screened porch during a lull in the rain. I lay on the hammock at an angle with one big toe on the sandy floorboards, pushing the swing back and forth.

“Will, that is the cheesiest line,” I said with a laugh.

“No, it’s true,” he said. “And believe me, it wasn’t that romantic. We were in a supermarket; this
endless
grocery store.
We kept going up and down the aisles like we were searching for the exit, but there never was one. It was actually kind of boring.”

“Okay, that doesn’t seem good,” I said with a frown.

“Well, I know I was happy to be with
you
,” Will said. “I was just ready to get out of that stupid store.”

“Hmm,” I said. “What was in our cart? No melons or whoopie pies, I hope. Because that would just be too ridiculously Freudian.”

“Or, from what you’ve told me, Woody Allenian,” Will said, laughing.

Another late night, I lay on my bed with the phone between my ear and the pillow. I watched the raindrops spatter my skylight. They made me think of these little water balloons Caroline and I made one night when we were eight. She was sleeping over while our parents went out for dinner together, leaving us with a sitter. We filled about a hundred balloons and nested them in a box, like a giant, jiggly litter of baby animals. Then we waited on the balcony. We waited for
four hours
. Finally my parents came home and we pelted them with every balloon in our box, after which Caroline wasn’t allowed to sleep over for a long, long time.

I told Will this story because I knew it would make him laugh.

And because that was what we did during these meandering conversations. We told each other our silly stories and ancient memories and random thoughts. They were our ways of revealing ourselves to each other, even if we didn’t always realize it. Sometimes these talks felt more intense, more intimate, than kissing.

“So you were always scary stubborn,” Will said about the four-hour wait with the balloons.

“Just like
you’ve
always had issues with crustaceans,” I retorted. One of Will’s silly stories had been about him crying when his parents boiled a batch of lobsters during a long-ago vacation in Maine.

“Yeah, I was scarred by the murder of my little friends,” Will admitted. “I don’t know what I was thinking asking you to go ghost-crabbing that night.”

“Oh,
I
know what you were thinking!” I burst out with a laugh.

Will laughed too.

“Yeah, I guess I was,” he said, speaking in a shorthand that we both understood. “I guess I was.”

And then we got quiet for a moment. I listened to the distant creaking of Will’s front-porch rocker. He could probably hear the soft
slap-slap-slap
of the rain on my skylight. And both of our minds swooped back to that night with the ghost crabs, the night of our first kiss.

“I wish I could see you right now,” Will said, his voice low and a little husky.

I wanted to see him too. Desperately.

It was the desperation that made a small part of me
not
want to see Will too.

Mostly, being Will’s girlfriend made me feel the same way I did after acing a test in school: a little light-headed, a little proud, and somehow utterly relaxed while also buzzing with excitement.

But given that Will was a boy, and not an English midterm, my emotions were more complicated than that.

The more I was with Will, even on the phone, the more I
wanted
to be with him. I was starting to feel like I could never get enough of him.

I’d be reading a novel, washing my face, or making Benjie a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and suddenly I’d remember a certain kiss. Or a moment when Will’s fingertips had grazed the side of my neck. Or the feeling of his warm hand resting for a moment on top of my head before skimming down my hair. I’d literally relive the sensation, my eyes fluttering shut, my body giving a little shudder. My mind was like a luxurious landmine. At any unpredictable moment, I might be overwhelmed by a memory, by a feeling, by Will.

I loved being so consumed by Will. Adored it. But I kind of hated it too, because I felt like a huge part of myself had been wrested from my control. I mean, sometimes you just want to make a peanut butter sandwich without being overcome by your own passion, you know?

The fact of August 29 only made it all worse. That’s what turned my desire for Will into desperation. I hated to hang up the phone each night, even after we’d talked so much we were dry-mouthed and half asleep.

I’d watch the weather radar online to try to pinpoint the one lightning-free hour when I could safely dash to Will’s house for a fifteen-minute make-out session, then dash back without being electrocuted.

My ice cream–making skills were off. One batch was bitter
with too much vanilla. Another ice cream emerged from the churn as a masterpiece, one of the most subtly delicious flavors I’d ever invented. Only then did I realize that I’d forgotten to write down any of the ingredients I’d used and had no idea how to re-create it.

Every time I even glanced at a calendar, I had to fight off tears.

Basically, I felt completely out of control. And as Will had already figured out, I didn’t like being out of control. Since
he
was both the cause and the cure for this feeling, however, I was flummoxed as to what to do about it.

When the rain sputtered out for the last time on Saturday afternoon and Sam hatched the idea for a double date, it seemed like the perfect way to reunite with Will. I could be with him all night, but with my friends there to diffuse the intensity, the
need
, I was feeling.

Maybe I’ll get used to being with Will again and I’ll get a grip
, I’d told myself as I got ready. I carefully chose my favorite pair of holey jeans and a fluttery, cream-colored off-the-shoulder top. I dusted my face with shimmery powder and swept my hair into a loose topknot with a couple of chopsticks. I looked cool, breezy, and probably a little too wholesome for our destination—The Swamp.

“S
o this is the famous Swamp,” Will said when we arrived. “If possible, it’s even … swampier than I expected.”

“The name don’t lie, my friend,” Sam said, clapping Will on the shoulder.

“Oh, please, the whole island’s a swamp after all that rain,” Caroline complained, grabbing a tea-stained cardboard menu off the bar and fanning herself with it. “You know it’s bad when
my
hair is frizzing.”

I would have laughed, but I was too high-strung. I felt about as vulnerable as an oyster in high season.

We picked a round table near the wall of screens that divided the dining room from the deck. Like the rest of The Swamp, the table looked like it was one hard wallop away from splintering into little pieces. It was fork gouged and wobbly, and its putty-colored paint was peeling. On the table was a roll of paper towels (no holder), a sticky jar of jalapeño vinegar, and about eight different kinds of hot sauce.