Sixteenth Summer (6 page)

“Yes!” I said as I flopped into my unmade bed. I stared through my skylight at a wispy, strung-out cloud. My parents had finished the attic for me and Sophie three years ago. Well,
it was
their
version of finished, which meant floorboards painted with pink and orange polka dots to hide their unevenness, curtains made out of vintage bedsheets, and in the bathroom, a claw-foot bathtub that my parents had gotten cheap because someone had painted the entire thing lime green.

Sophie and I had been granted one wish each for our room. She’d wished for a walk-in closet, of course. I’d asked for a skylight over my double bed, so I could watch the stars blink at me as I fell asleep. I’d somehow forgotten about the flip side of stargazing—blinding laser beams of light waking me up every morning. But it was worth it. I loved looking through the glass dome just over my pillow. It made me feel like I was outside, even when I was in; like I could just float away, weightless and free, at any moment.

As I pulled the rubber band out of my hair, letting it fan over the cool pillowcase, the view of the sky calmed me. For a brief moment I forgot about my armoire full of non-datey clothes and about the fusty Beach Club.

I only thought about him.

“The he from the bonfire is named Will,” I told Caroline. It came out as a sigh—the kind of simpering, love-struck sigh I usually mocked on TV.

But hearing the sigh in my own voice felt, strangely, kind of good.

It also brought all my nervousness rushing back.

“He asked you to the
Beach Club pool party
?” Caroline said. I knew she was curling her thin upper lip.

“Yeah, but I don’t think he knows what it’s like there,” I said defensively. “I bet he just heard about the party from people on the beach.”

“From the other shoobees he’s been hanging around with,” Caroline insisted. “Is that who
you
want to be with tonight?”

I thought about all the summer people who’d ever called me a “townie.” Most of them didn’t even know there was anything obnoxious about that word. They weren’t malicious so much as clueless, which was somehow even harder to swallow.

If this date (or whatever it was) with Will was a bust, the presence of all those shoobees would only make me feel worse. That was why I needed backup.

“Look,” I pleaded with Caroline. “I’ve basically been your third wheel ever since you and Sam got together. Now it’s your turn. You guys
have
to go with me tonight. Just in case.”

“In case of what?” Caroline said.

In case my heart gets broken
, I thought.

Then I shook my head in disbelief. A broken heart? I’d never used that phrase in my life. I didn’t believe in broken hearts. Or guardian angels, destined soul mates, or any of the other things that my sister and her friends giggled about when they rented romantic comedies.

I knew that the tide wasn’t mystical; it was just the rotation of the Earth relative to the positions of the sun and moon. I knew that ice cream wasn’t magic; it was an emulsion of fat, milk solids, and sugar. And I knew that girls like me became chic New Yorkers only in the movies.

I also knew another thing from Sophie’s favorite flicks. The “townie” who got swept off her feet by a big-city boy usually found out she’d been played.

That was why I needed Sam and Caroline to come with me. Because if I’d misunderstood Will and this
was
a group thing,
they
were my group.

And if my heart did get shattered, they’d be my shoulders to cry on.

I pictured myself standing on the sand in front of the Beach Club with my head literally on Caroline’s shoulder (because Sam’s shoulder is impossible for me to reach).

The image made me smile through my nervousness.

But then I imagined Sam in this scenario. He’d be standing on Caroline’s other side, holding her hand.

And that made me sigh wearily.

I slithered off my rumpled bed and went over to my dresser. The first thing I saw in the top drawer was the slightly crumpled camisole I’d worn to the bonfire.

The top was silky with thin, delicate straps. When I’d tried it on while I was getting ready, it had looked soft and romantic, like something a ballerina would wear with a long tulle skirt. It had made me feel pretty, almost
too
pretty for the Dune Island High bonfire. But if I’d stashed the camisole away for a special occasion, I might have found myself waiting forever to wear it. So I’d gone ahead and kept it on.

Little had I known, I’d been going somewhere special after all.

And maybe tonight I’d be surprised again.

“Can you meet me at the club at eight?” I asked Caroline.

Maybe she heard a change in my voice. I was no longer the girl who’d shrugged Will off over a plate of curly fries that afternoon.

Now I actually had something to lose.

And though it filled me with a sort of hopeful dread, I had to see this night through; see who this boy was who’d (most likely) lied about liking my ice cream and who’d asked me out in front of my dad.

He wasn’t afraid to look foolish. So the least I could do was show up.

Even if it ended up breaking my heart.

I
hadn’t been to the Beach Club since The Scoop catered an ice cream social there two years earlier. As I walked in that night with Sam and Caroline, the entry hall smelled exactly as I remembered it—of slightly fishy ice and Sterno.

I knew the odor emanated from the ice sculptures and chafing dishes in the large main room. But I always imagined the smell came from the club’s hideous wallpaper. The pattern, a burgundy and gold paisley with forest green borders, made me imagine horrible things usually seen only under microscopes. Just looking at it made my queasiness return. Or maybe I was just nauseous over the prospect of this nebulous perhaps-date with Will.

Sam wasn’t exactly making me feel better.

“Anna, if you tell anybody I ditched the Braves versus the Padres to go to
this
,” he threatened, “I’ll seriously have to kill you.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of guys out there who can tell you the score,” I said, pointing at the wall of windows and French doors on the other side of the ballroom. Through them we could see the pool deck, packed with men in wheat-colored blazers and women in pastel shifts; boys in long shorts and golf shirts, and girls in tube tops and A-line skirts. It was like they’d all gotten an e-mail instructing them to wear a uniform. They skimmed back and forth on the other side of the glass like a bunch of extremely white fish in an aquarium.

“Yeah, right, I’ll ask
them
the score,” Sam muttered. He looked even more gangly than usual in the low-ceilinged foyer.

“You are going to keep it together, right?” Caroline asked Sam. “
Please
don’t get in another fight.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam said. “Fight?”

“You know what I’m talking about!” Caroline said. She’d been jokey at first, but now her voice had a bit of an edge to it.

“Anderson Lowell’s party,” Caroline and I said together.

“Last August?” Sam squawked. “Well, that was totally provoked!”

“What, a shoobee simply
showing up
at one of our parties forced you to punch him in the head?” Caroline said.

“What
was
that, anyway?” I asked, with one eye on the French doors. I still didn’t see Will. “I always meant to ask you. I thought you Neanderthal boys always went for the nose or the chin. But you hit him on the
head
.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Sam said, a semiproud smile tugging up one corner of his mouth. “The guy was so short, I couldn’t reach his face.”

“Oh my God,” Caroline said, rolling her eyes. “I can’t believe I allow myself to be seen with you in public.”

She was joking, of course. But I could hear a thin shard of impatience in her voice.

And in Sam’s there was a touch of wheedling as he said, “You know that’s not me, Caroline. The guy was a complete jerkwad, throwing his weight around. It was just … a bad moment, I guess.”

“Well, remind
me
never to make you have a bad moment,” Caroline said.

“You could never …,” Sam began, but Caroline had already waved him off. She was peering out at partygoers.

“Looks like skirts were indeed the way to go, Anna,” she said.

She and I were both wearing skirts, if not the A-line uniform of the shoobee girls. Caroline’s was short and sporty. Mine was more flowy, tickling my ankles when the hem fluttered.

Even though we’d ditched our cutoffs for the evening, I knew Caroline and I didn’t look like those girls. And it wasn’t just because they had bleached teeth and manicures and we didn’t. There was a shininess to the shoobees. And a chilly breeziness. In my mind, these qualities created a sort of force field around them that deflected funky odors and ugliness. Not to mention insecurities about vague date requests from strange boys.

I was the one who lived here year-round, yet in this “club,” it felt like they owned the whole island.

“Oh!” Caroline rasped. She grabbed my arm and pointed through the windows to the left side of the pool deck. Thinking she’d spotted Will, I felt my stomach swoop.

“Daiquiris!” Caroline exclaimed. She was pointing, it turned out, at a bar where people were ordering frozen fruity drinks in voluptuous glasses. “I forgot this place serves the best virgin daiquiris.”

“Caroline,” Sam said. “There’s nothing less cool than a virgin daiquiri.”

“Of course there is,” Caroline said, motioning to the entire pool deck.

Sam and Caroline both dissolved into snorts of laughter.

I wanted to swat them on the backs of their heads Three Stooges–style, but then I thought of the alternative: Caroline curling her lip at the shoobee girls, Sam swaggering by the shoobee guys, then everyone jumping down to the beach for a good old-fashioned fistfight.

A little derisive laughter, I decided, was definitely preferable.

“Listen, can you get me a drink too?” I asked Caroline. At that moment I had as little interest in a virgin daiquiri as I did in geometry. But I was pulling out the trick my mom always used on Kat and Benjie when they were acting insufferable—she distracted them with a task.

“I’ll see you out there, okay?” I said, pointing vaguely toward the right side of the pool deck.

Then I headed across the ballroom to the French doors. Just before I reached them, I had an impulse to run to the ladies room, where I could check my teeth for food particles, blot my shiny face, and fruitlessly attempt to pee.

But at that point I was annoying
myself
with all the nervousness,
so I just gritted my teeth and plunged through the double doors. They automatically swung shut behind me, actually making a little squelching sound as they closed. They reminded me of spaceship movies where people get sucked out of the airlock.

What am I
doing
here?
flashed across my mind.

Then I was scanning the crowd dizzily. The people really did all look alike to me. But none of them looked like—

Will
.

There he was, leaning against the pool deck railing. He wore a pumpkin-colored T-shirt and faded jeans. With the sand and darkening ocean behind him, he almost seemed to glow. In just four days on the island, he had gotten very tan. Somehow I hadn’t noticed in the fluorescent lighting of The Scoop.

His brown hair had also gotten cutely frazzled by all the salty breezes.

But did Will have one of those shiny force fields around him? That I couldn’t tell yet.

When he saw me, though, he lurched off the railing so hard that an ice cube flew out of the Coke he was holding.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

He laughed too as he hurried around the pool to come meet me. I relaxed a little as I wondered if he was as scared, and exhilarated, by this moment as I was.

If he
was
really different from the other shoobees.

And if this was going to be a night that I’d always remember.

*   *   *

“
H
i,” Will said as he sort of skidded to a stop in front of me. “Hi,” I said.

Then we both tried, and failed, to stop grinning unrelentingly.

Will smoothed down his flyaway hair with his palm and straightened his slightly wrinkled T-shirt. I marveled at how pleasurable it was just to look at him.

Then we started talking—and things spiraled downward from there.

“So,” Will said as we found a couple of deck chairs to perch on, “it’s pretty cool that this isn’t a members-only club. Anybody can go, right? It’s so different in New York. You can’t even get into most apartment buildings without a birth certificate.”

“Yeah …,” I said. I glanced at the Beach Clubbers as my voice trailed off. My smile went plastic. How could I tell Will—without sounding like I had a big, fat attitude—that the Beach Club
felt
like the most exclusive place in town? It was about the only place on the island where I didn’t feel absolutely comfortable.

“So … how’d you find out about this party?” I asked. It was a lame conversation starter, but it appeared to be all I had.

“Oh, my brother, Owen,” Will said with a laugh. “He found out about it from someone he met on the beach. Of course. The guy can’t ride the subway without becoming best friends with everybody within five feet of him.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s not normal?”

In Georgia, when you pass someone on the street, you not only say hello, you ask after her mama and find something—
anything
—about her outfit to compliment.

“No way,” Will said with a laugh that made me feel like a yokel. “You don’t talk to anybody on the subway. Unless you’re Owen.”

Or
, I thought,
me
.

“So … Owen’s here with you?” I asked.

Yes, my wit was positively sparkling.

“Well, he wanted to come,” Will said. “But I kind of didn’t want him to.”

He gave me a shy smile and I … had no idea how to respond. What did he mean? Had Will ditched his brother because he’d wanted to be alone with me? Or was it just because he and Owen didn’t get along? Was Will trying to tell me that he sometimes felt overshadowed by Owen the Extrovert? I could totally bond with him about that! But how to broach this subject without potentially dissing his brother? What if they were actually
really
close and I offended him and …