Sixteenth Summer (9 page)

Now most of the nooks were taken up with Sophie’s makeup and perfumes, but I’d staked out one drawer all for myself. In it I put keepsakes that only I could decipher.

I’d saved a piece of sea glass, for instance, that I’d picked up during my last beach walk with my grandfather before he died.

I had my childhood hair comb, the one with the mermaid on the handle, which I’d never been able to pass on to Kat.

There were pebbles, shells, and notes passed in class that I could sift through when I wanted to recall certain perfect afternoons, moments of hilarity, or even waves of sadness.

Now I pulled from my skirt pocket a green plastic toothpick.
It was shaped like a pirate’s sword, with a D-shaped handle and a flattened, pointed blade. It was ridiculously cheesy and pure Dune Island Beach Club. I stashed it in my little drawer, tucking it under the torn-off bits of paper and the smooth, flat sea glass.

Then I reached across to the sink, soaked a soft washcloth, and dabbed it on my face. I felt too luxuriously dreamy to stand in front of the sink and be all efficient with my washing up. I stretched out my legs, gazed out the window, and enjoyed the feel of the cool, damp terrycloth on my hot forehead and cheeks.

As I swabbed off my neck, I glanced at myself in the vanity’s cloudy round mirror. My skin was both summer gold and flushed from my bike ride. My hair was wind tousled. There was a speck of pale green artichoke dip on the scoop neck of my T-shirt.

I didn’t look exactly ravishing but I
felt
sort of extraordinary. Not polished like one of the shoobee girls from the club or effortlessly buoyant like my sister or casually confident like Caroline. I suppose I felt like myself, only slightly shinier. Lighter. Happier.

And that was the girl who fell into a blissfully zonked, dreamless sleep that night. I didn’t completely understand why Will and I had clicked so well. In truth, I couldn’t fathom what exactly he saw in me.

But I was confident I would find out the very next day—as soon as Will called.

T
here was one problem with that little scenario.

Will
didn’t
call the next day.

Which was perfectly fine at first. Good, even. That way I
could spend the morning floating around inside my own fuzzy head, replaying the entire date like it was my favorite movie. I could pause on Will’s face when I handed him that silly champagne flute. I could fast-forward through the early, awkward bits. And I could scene-scan my way through all our conversations.

I also imagined what our phone call would be like.

In detail.

It went something like this …

Will:
Nobody ever made me a picnic before.

Me:
Oh, it’s no big deal.

Will:
True, the food
was
pretty bad …

Me:
Hey,
I’m
not the one who chose the Beach Club and their antique artichoke dip.

Will:
Well, at least I chose the right girl. You gotta give me credit for that, right?

Me:
Oh …

Will:
Anna? You didn’t really think I cared about the food, did you?

Me:
Oh …

Will:
Tell me you’ll have dinner with me again. A
real
dinner this time. Tonight.

I’d go on with my fantasy banter, but you’re probably throwing up a little in your mouth right now.

Believe me, I was just as mocking of myself. I just
wasn’t
a romantic. One time I found a yellowed bodice ripper in my parents’ bookshelf and reading it had made me feel like I was eating corn syrup. Yet here I was spinning so much schmaltz
you’d think my brain had been replaced by a cotton candy machine.

It wasn’t that I wanted Will to be Prince Charming. I didn’t, believe me. I guess this crazy dialogue was just my brain adjusting to life on the other side. On the other side of a fabulous first date.

On the other side of falling in like for the first time.

On the other side of Will.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Dune Island? Will continued to Not Call.

He didn’t call while I was at the beach dishing with Caroline. He didn’t call during my shift at The Scoop. He didn’t call while I was in the shower or during
any
of the inconvenient moments when, Murphy’s Law, he was
supposed
to call.

By that evening I resolved to call
him
. He’d given me his number, too, after all.

But first I needed sustenance.

Since my parents were both at The Scoop with Kat and Benjie, it was a fend-for-yourself night dinner-wise. I shuffled down to the kitchen and tried to decide if I wanted sweet (ice cream of course) or savory.

I decided spicy was better for my pre-call state of mind. It would wake me up, whereas ice cream always lulled me into a happy stupor.

As I was sizzling up some bacon for a sandwich, Sophie strutted in from the porch. She had her hot-pink wrap knotted around her waist and her sparkly pink cell phone clamped to her ear.

“Okay, so you’re signing us up?” she was asking.

I heard a high-pitched voice on the other end of the phone. It reminded me of a mosquito’s whine.

“I thought we decided the team name,” Sophie said. “Summer Lovin’, right? I know—love it! Okay, buh-bye, babe.”

Strangely enough, I could completely translate that cryptic conversation.

“So that’s the name of your team?” I said. “For the sand castle competition?”

The Dune Island tourist bureau staged the competition every August, just when things started to get impossibly sleepy around here. My sister and a gaggle of her friends entered every summer. Castle building was one of Sophie’s random obsessions, along with gymnastics and a crocheted bracelet business she’d started with yet more of her friends. Sophie pretty much had people buzzing around her at all times. It made me claustrophobic just thinking about it, but she was one of those people who hated being alone.

I suppose that’s why she hung around in the kitchen while I poked at the bacon strips on the griddle.

“Yeah, we’re calling the team Summer Lovin’,” Sophie said. “It’s that song from
Grease
. Sung by
Sandy
? Get it?”

“Got it,” I said dryly. “It’s definitely better than Days of our Lives, from last year. Though I still think you’re flirting with copyright infringement there.”

“Um,
what
?” Sophie said, slouching into a chair at the kitchen table.

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “Do you want a sandwich? PBJ?”

“What am I, eight?” Sophie balked.

“Not
that
PBJ,” I retorted. “It’s peanut butter, bacon, and jalapeño. Very gourmet!”

“Ugh!” Sophie said. She flounced off her chair and headed to the walk-in pantry to forage for something else to eat. “Your diet is so weird. I don’t know why you don’t weigh a hundred and fifty pounds.”

“The one perk of our genes, I guess,” I said. Like me, Sophie was short and bird boned. Unlike me, she preferred her food bland, predictable, and in tiny portions.

“Come on, try my sandwich,” I cajoled her. “It’s like Mom’s bacon ice cream. You think it’s going to be awful, but it ends up being awesome. And don’t worry, the jalapeños are pickled. They barely even burn.”

“Guh-ross!” Sophie squealed.

I smeared some peanut butter on a butter knife, topped it with a crispy crumb of bacon, and thrust it toward her.

“So-phiiiiieee,” I singsonged like a ghost out of one of our Caleb’s stories. “Eeeeat me! Eeeeat meeee, So-phiiiiieee.”

“Oh my God,” Sophie said, dodging my sticky butter knife. “Why are you always trying to be so weird?”

I laughed, shrugged, and turned back to the counter. After I’d assembled my sandwich, I sat at the table with Sophie, who’d decided on a (boring) bowl of granola.

“You know, I don’t
try
to be weird,” I said after I’d taken my first (delicious, I might add) bite of my dinner. “Everyone
is
weird.
You’re
the one who’s trying to hide.”

“Hide what?” Sophie demanded.

“You’re trying to hide your inherent weirdness,” I said. “It’s futile, you know. Nobody’s
really
normal.”

“See?!” Sophie screeched, slapping her cereal with her spoon and sloshing milk on the table. “That’s such an abnormal thing to say! That’s what makes you weird!”

“Fine, Soph.” I sighed. “Whatever you think.”

I glanced at my cell phone, which was perched not inconspicuously on the corner of the kitchen table. If Sophie hadn’t been there, I would have checked it to make sure the ringer was set on loud. But she was, and besides, I’d already checked the ringtone status. Twice.

“Are you waiting for him to call?” Sophie blurted. “That guy you went out with last night?”

Clearly, I hadn’t been surreptitious enough for my sister.

“No,” I said. “I mean, I’m not
not
wanting him to call. I’m just … well, I’ll probably just call him. Just to say hey. No big deal, right?”

“Yes big deal!” Sophie cried. Suddenly, she sat up straight in her chair. “You can’t call him.”

“Um, yes, I can, Sophie,” I said. “This isn’t the movies and it’s not 1950. You can call a boy after you’ve had a great time together.”

“So it was good, then!” Sophie said. She raised her eyebrows.

“
Yes
, it was good,” I said defensively. “Don’t be so surprised.”

Sophie waved off my bruised ego. She was too intent on issuing orders.

“First of all, you
think
the date went well,” she said. “But you can never be sure. He could have a different story altogether. That’s why you have to wait for him to call. If he does,
you
know
. But if you call
him
, you never will. Plus you’ll look desperate.”

“Why doesn’t it make him look desperate if
he
calls?” I sputtered.

That one stopped Sophie. She frowned, looked confused for a moment, and then got irritated (because she clearly didn’t have an answer).

“This is just the way it is!” she declared. “I can’t believe you don’t know that.”

Part of me was
glad
I didn’t know that. I’d always zoned out a little when Sophie or Caroline dissected the latest social dramas at our school. I knew just enough of the “rules” to get through school without humiliating myself, but not enough to play all the little games. Because I’d always hated games. I read my way through whatever school sporting events Caroline and Sam dragged me to. And I could never get through more than a few minutes of Monopoly with my family.

Sophie, of course, adored Monopoly—and she always won. Which was why it was hard for me to completely ignore what she’d just said.

So I didn’t call Will.

I didn’t sleep much that night either.

And when I left for the beach the next morning, my wrap pulled around my shoulders like a dowdy shawl, I was officially depressed.

By the time I got to the North Peninsula, though, I was officially
mad
. I mean,
what
kind of boy asks for your number, then doesn’t call? A boy who wants to mess with your head, that’s who!

That must have been why
my
head felt hot and buzzy and the hair sticking to my temples was as maddening as a swarm of mosquitoes.

I tossed my wrap onto the sand, then ran into the surf. I dove head-first into a seething whitecap, then swam a few frantic laps back and forth along the shoreline. The hissing and churning of the water felt like a perfect match for what was going on inside me.

Only when I could dive beneath the surface and actually feel a hint of the peace I usually got in the water did I allow myself to stop swimming and just drift.

I dove down and skimmed my hands across the sand. My fingers felt floaty. The wet sand sifted through them, weightless and velvety. As I often did while swimming, I gave in to the illusion that I was part of the island, as elemental as the sea oats or the sandbars that emerged every day at low tide.

Still sifting, I uncovered a sand dollar. I zinged it from one hand to the other before flipping it back to the ocean floor. Then I swam by pressing my legs together and undulating them like a tail. My sister and I had taught ourselves to do that when we were little, imagining that we could go faster if we swam like mermaids. I’m not sure if it worked, but the habit had stuck with me.

Swimming like that now made me remember when mastering a mermaid kick (or a cartwheel or double Dutch) had seemed to matter so much and had been so
hard
.

They seemed easy now compared with all the mental gymnastics it took to just sit on my butt and wait for one boy to call me.

The thought of my silent cell phone got me simmering again,
and I pushed out of the water with a big splash and gasp. After blinking the ocean out of my eyes, I spotted Caroline on the beach, waving her pale blue wrap at me.

I trudged up to join her.

“Where’s Sam?” I asked her as I collapsed onto the sand. I didn’t even bother to spread my wrap out beneath me, but just let my soaked arms and legs get breaded like a fish fillet.

“Where’s Will?” Caroline retorted.

The fish fillet gave Caroline the fish eye.

“He hasn’t called?” Caroline asked with a little gulp that she quickly tried to cover up with a cough.

“So that’s bad, right?” I said. I flipped out the straw on my sports bottle and took a big gulp of sugary, minty iced tea.

Caroline started to stay something, then reconsidered and clamped her mouth shut. Then she inhaled again, but cocked her head and clammed up a second time.

“What?!” I sputtered, breaking into the debate Caroline was having with herself. “Just say it! Will is blowing me off, isn’t he?”

“That’s the thing,” she said with a helpless shrug. “I don’t know
what
to say. I don’t know if Will not calling is tragic or totally fine. I might have a boyfriend, but I haven’t figured any of this stuff out yet. I mean, Sam and I didn’t go through the mating dance when we got together because we already knew each other so well.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s different,” I said. I’d been propped up on my elbows but now I flopped flat on my back, not even caring that I’d have to scrub sand out of my hair later. “Why couldn’t I have given my number to someone
I’ve
known forever?”