Sixteenth Summer (28 page)

We got quiet as we heaped our wet sand into a passable Flatiron shape, then got busy with forks, knives, toothpicks, and our ever-present spray bottle. Before long, we’d started carving all the building’s beautiful details out of our giant, skinny triangle.

“I still can’t imagine,” I said as we worked, “growing up with a building like this right down the road. Hundreds of ’em.”

Will chuckled.

“‘Down the road,’” he said. “That’s something you don’t hear too many New Yorkers say.”

“Oh, God,” I groaned. “I’m a bumpkin.”

“Bumpkins don’t make ice cream flavors like Greek Holiday,” Will said, making me hide my face with my hat brim so I could blush proudly. “Anyway, I like it. ‘Down the road.’”

“Okay, enough of that,” I admonished, returning my focus to the tricky columns at the curved point of the building.

“You’re right, though,” Will said. “Living in New York is amazing. I take it for granted sometimes, but then something always happens to make me remember that there’s no other place like it.”

“I want to go back some day,” I said. “I always have.”

It went without saying that now I had even more reason to want to go back to New York. But I
didn’t
say it.

Just like we didn’t talk about whether Will and his family might come back to Dune Island the following summer.

We’d silently agreed not to make our last days together all about clinging to fantasies about the future. We didn’t propose
spending school vacations together or applying to all the same colleges. Because those things might never materialize and we knew it.

It felt better just to be honest. Just to
be
.

Even if now we were being seriously bad sand castlers.

I did allow myself to ask Will one question as I started shaping window frames with a popsicle stick.

“Do you think you’ll go to college in New York like Owen?”

“I used to be sure I would,” Will said. “But after being away from the city this summer—I mean
really
away—and loving it so much, I wonder if I wouldn’t want to do the same thing for college. Maybe go somewhere that’s completely different.”

“That’s exactly what I want to do,” I said. “I’m definitely leaving Dune Island, probably the South, too.”

Usually when I talked about graduating from high school and leaving (and I’ve been known to talk about that a
lot
) I felt restless and itchy, defiant and even a tiny bit bitter. Those emotions were so familiar, they’d worn a groove into my life; a permanent sound track that I’d considered unalterable.

But as I told Will my plan, those familiar emotions weren’t there.

Which wasn’t to say I’d suddenly become a born-again Dune Islander. But now when I pictured myself leaving, I imagined myself as an adventurer, rather than a rebel.

Small towns, as everyone knows, don’t like to lose their young people, so I’d always thought of it as a triumph/scandal when someone graduated from Dune Island High, then seemed to disappear forever to the nebulous Up North.

I used to wonder if I’d be one of those disappearing acts, except for brief visits home for holidays and special occasions. But after this summer, I was starting to think that that wasn’t how it was going to go for me. Now I pictured my future self—the one who might or might not dart down subway steps with a chic handbag under her arm—coming home often. I saw my sweet, chaotic house as a haven in the world, instead of a shelter that was holding me back from it.

Maybe, like Will’s mom, I’d bring my own family back to Dune Island someday and spend a summer exploring all my old haunts.

I didn’t know if Will would be a part of that future, but I
did
know that he was partly responsible for my new vision of it. Just like Will, I’d taken my home for granted. And
he’d
been the something that had made me remember there was no other place like it. He’d made me realize that having the ocean outside my door was a gift, not a given.

He’d made me want to leave Dune Island—but not flee it.

After four hours of packing and carving, our Flatiron Building wasn’t great. It wasn’t even good. But it was finished.

“All that work!” Will huffed as he gave our castle a final spritz of water to make sure everything set. “And it’s just going to be washed away by the tide tonight.”

“You do know that those other folks probably put twice as much time into their castles, don’t you?” I said. I’d just used a trowel to smooth Fifth Avenue out in front of our building.

“Yeah, but it only looks like they put in thrice as much time,”
Will scoffed. It took me a moment to process what he’d just said and then I laughed—wearily, but still.

I tossed my floppy hat and sunglasses into the toolbox along with all our other makeshift tools. Then we stashed the box behind our castle and I took a deep breath.

“Well,” I said to Will with a wry smile, “let’s go congratulate the winners.”

“Now where’s the optimistic Anna that I know and love?” Will asked, wrapping his arm around my sweaty, sandy waist and giving me a squeeze.

I turned to him with wide eyes.

“Do you even
know
me?” I blurted.

“Um, Anna,” Will said, “I was being sarcastic.”

“Oh,” I said. We stumbled down the beach gaping at one unspeakably brilliant sand castle after another, including Sophie’s opera house, which was huge and elegant.

I shook my head to clear it.

“I think all the manual labor—not to mention our impending disgrace—has left me a little impaired,” I said.

“I’ve got something for that,” Will said, pointing to the carnival.

“Oh yeah, the carnival,” I said sleepily. “I’d almost forgotten.”

“I think you forgot something else,” Will said. “It’s not
us
who are going to come in last place in the competition. It’s Allison Porchnik and Zelig!”

I
had
forgotten that. I grinned at Will.

“Our poor bicycles,” I said. “They must be horrified that we roped them into this
crazy
scheme.”

“You’re right!” Will cried. “I was a fool, Allison. It won’t happen again.”

I stopped clowning then.

Of
course
it wouldn’t happen again.

Every time Will or I inadvertently said something like that, it shut us up quick. Then we had to glance away from each other and swallow hard until the moment passed.

“I’ll make it up to you with cotton candy,” Will whispered in my ear before planting a sweet kiss on my cheek.

“You better,” I said. “
And
frozen lemonade.”

With that, we forgot about sand castles entirely and went to the carnival.

We found Caroline and Sam quickly after we arrived and dragged them to all the rides—the bumper cars, the small roller coaster, and the spinning teacups.

My favorite ride was the giant wheel of swings that simply spun us around in long, lazy loops. We weren’t whipped about or turned upside down. We just made swoop after swoop around a giant ring with flashing lights and chimey organ music. The swings made me feel windblown and free after my very grounded morning of castle building.

When our feet touched the ground after the swings came slowly to a stop, I clapped my hands like a little kid and cried, “Let’s go again!”

So we did.

We ended up skipping the cotton candy in favor of corn dogs and blooming onions, which we ate while we played the silly carnival games.

Will and I both failed to lob Ping-Pong balls into a row of glass milk jugs, so we moved on to the contraption where you tried to ring a bell by pounding a pedestal with a giant hammer. A roly-poly guy was manning the game in front of a table piled with stuffed animals and plastic prizes. Among them, I recognized the hot pink boa constrictor that had been twined around Figgy Pudding on the Fourth of July.

I touched the garish plush lightly and pointed it out to Will.

“Do you remember that?” I asked.

“I’ll never forget that,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ll never forget a bit of that night.”

I leaned into him. Who knew if that was true. Who knew if that was even possible. But I wanted to believe, as much as Will did, that all these days and nights together
would
stay with us, etched like a tattoo into our memories.

Sam broke into our bubble by offering the heavy hammer to Will.

“Naw, you go first,” Will said. “I’ll watch your technique.”

“Watch and learn, buddy,” Sam said with a grin. He planted his feet and swung the hammer. It hit the end of the pedestal, which seesawed to send a little metal disc zinging up a cord toward the bell. The disc hovered for a moment
just
below the bell, then plummeted back down.

“Awww,” Sam groaned.

Then it was Will’s turn. He flexed his muscles at me, waggling his eyebrows.

“Sah-woon!” I joked in a high-pitched girly voice. Of course,
I
was
actually admiring the way Will’s arms looked as he hoisted the hammer—all sinew and muscle and smooth, tan skin.

Will pretended to spit on his palms, then swung. Once again the metal disc seemed to slow down just before it hit the bell. But it
did
hit it.

Or rather, it just barely tapped it, making the weakest ding in the history of bells.

“Sorry!” the carnie yelled. “Try again!”

“Aw, that counted!” Sam yelled with a grin. “C’mon, dude. Throw the guy a bone. Or at least these giant sunglasses.”

Sam plucked a pair of preposterous lime-green glasses off the table and put them on.

“Nope!” the carnie said, pulling the prize off Sam’s face and shooing us away. “Move it along, kids.”

“I was robbed,” Will complained. “I guess you think me less of a man now, Anna?”

Caroline hooked her arm through mine and whispered in my ear, “Can you imagine being here with boys who actually
cared
about winning these things?”

“Yes, I can,” I said with a shudder.

I grabbed Will’s hand with my free one and squeezed it hard. I loved how different he was from so many competitive-about-everything guys.

I loved how much fun he was having at this dinky carnival and how much fun
I
was having because I was here with him.

I supposed I was just giddily in love. It was as simple as that.

Or so it felt right then, when Will was still so solidly here.

How many times had I wished I could freeze a moment with Will and just live in it, luxuriate in it, forever? It was a silly wish, but I couldn’t help making it over and over. I wrapped my arm around Will’s waist as we left the midway, feeling grateful for the wish, even if I couldn’t have the actual phenomenon.

Very soon after that, the moment really did have to end because I had to go to work. The Scoop was always slammed on the day of the sand castle competition.

“I’ll come by later,” Will promised me. “After I have dinner with my mom and Owen and, of course, go to the sand castle judging.”

“You’re going?!” I laughed. “What, the big hammer thing didn’t bruise your ego enough?”

“That thing was rigged,” Will said, flexing his biceps at me again.

I laughed and because of all the people milling around us, gave him a quick kiss on the lips. But I wished it could have been much, much longer.

L
ater that night, Will marched into The Scoop, dodged around the swarm of people peering into the ice cream cases, and slapped a muddy brown ribbon onto the counter.

“Our prize!” he announced proudly.

I stared at the rosette-free ribbon. In small gold letters it said
PARTICIPANT
.

“Participant!” I sputtered. “Not even honorable mention?”

“Would you rather it say ‘last place’?” Will asked.

“Good point,” I said with a laugh. I started to take the ribbon but Will snatched it away.

“I’m keeping this for posterity,” he said. “It’s much cooler than my childhood baseball trophies.”

I thought of the little keepsake drawer in my bathroom and wondered if Will had one of his own.

Then suddenly my mind zipped into a distant future in which I was poking around in my vanity drawer for a walk down memory lane. I pictured myself pulling out the toothpick I’d saved from my first date with Will. I wondered if it would make me get dreamy and smiley, or if I’d be all tragic soul-searching.

Where will I be then?
I wondered. Who
will I be?

Not that I had time to get philosophical. I had a long queue of hot, sandy customers clamoring for something cold. So I shook myself out of my daydream and smiled at Will. Adopting my best aren’t-you-a-pathetic-little-puppy voice, I said, “It’s a
great
ribbon, honey. Now what I can I get you? The Greek Holiday’s going quick.”

“Mmm,” Will said. “How about Pineapple Ginger Ale.”

Oh, great. That only made more memories wash over me. I looked away from Will. If he added anything else to this bittersweet brew of mine, I was going to have to retreat to the cooler, where I could become a puddle in private.

Instead, I was jolted out of my brooding by the high-pitched whoops of a gaggle of girls coming into The Scoop. When I turned, I saw that one of them was my sister, waving a
red ribbon over her head. Her friends surrounded her, pumping their French-manicured fists in the air and shimmying their hips.

“Se-cond place!” they chanted. “Se-cond place!”

“Sweetie!” cried my mom, who was working the cash register. She waved at Sophie. “That’s wonderful!”

As a fellow castle builder, I finally understood
just
how wonderful second place was. A simple thumbs-up wouldn’t do. I handed my ice cream scoop to my mom and scooted around the counter. Then I gave my sister a big hug.

“Congratulations!” I exclaimed. “We saw your opera house. It really was amazing.”

From behind me, Will added, “It was awesome, Sophie.”

“Thanks!” Sophie said. She glanced down at my arms, which were still wrapped around her, and gave me a look that meant,
You’re weird
.

But she quickly followed it up with a sweet smile.

“I saw your castle too,” she said. “It was … well, it was nice? Um, what was it?”