The Moon and More (32 page)

“You’re welcome.” He shut the cooler, then sat down on it, propping his head in his hands. “Do you miss Luke?”

I always forgot, when I was with Benji, that at ten he had not quite mastered the art of the smooth conversational segue. I took the towel off my face. “Yeah. I do. Not as much as I did when we first broke up, but … we were together a long time.”

“He kissed another girl,” he told me.

I looked at him. “Who told you that?”

“Morris.” Also, apparently, not a whole lot of vagueness or dodging. If you knew it, you said it. “Were you mad?”

This one was easy to answer. “Yes. Very. And sad, too.”

Benji looked in the direction where the car had gone. “But you’re happy now, with Theo. Right?”

“Yep.”

All these answers, I realized, made the whole thing seem very cut-and-dry, when really it was anything but. Yes, I had kissed Theo the same day Luke and I split, and yes, I was happy with him. But even with that in play, I still had moments and even days when I was really sad about Luke. Who would have thought that grieving an old relationship and enjoying a new one could happen simultaneously, in parallel? Yet another thing you only find out once it’s happening to you.

We sat there for another moment, both of us silent. It was so steamy that across the parking lot, the cars looked wavery, the heat changing the very air.

“Emaline?”

“Yeah?” I said, wiping my face again.

“I don’t want go home.”

I glanced at my watch, then the road in front of the office. “Well, that’s good, because we have at least another hour out here. If we don’t die of heatstroke first.”

“No, I mean
home
. Connecticut,” he said, studying his hands. “I don’t want to go back.”

I looked at him, feeling a pang in my chest. “Now, I bet that’s not totally true.”

“It is,” he said glumly.

“You must miss your mom. And your friends. Right?”

He shrugged. “I don’t have a lot of friends. And my mom’s really sad right now, which makes me sad. So no.”

I hesitated, not sure what to say to this. Despite what Morris had told me about Benji knowing about it, I didn’t want to
bring up the separation. I took a breath, then said, “I know how you feel. I don’t really want the summer to end, either.”

He looked up. “You don’t?”

I shook my head. “Because when it does, I have to go off to college, which is kind of scary. And I won’t get to see Theo anymore. At least not for a while.”

“He’s in New York.”

“Yup.” I pulled out the water I’d claimed earlier and took a sip. It was lukewarm by now. “That he is.”

“You could come visit him,” he said. He thought for a second. “Hey, you could stay with me! It’s a really short train ride to the city. We do it all the time.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded.

“That would be great. I’d love that.”

This seemed to cheer him up, at least temporarily. For a moment, we didn’t talk, and I just watched him pick at the chipping paint on the cooler, sending tiny flakes flying.

“My parents are getting a divorce,” he said finally, as matter-of-factly as he’d reported Luke’s indiscretion.

I blinked, then took another sip of my water. “Are they?”

He glanced up at me. “You didn’t know?”

“I knew that, um …” I looked over at the office, wondering when, exactly, my father and Margo would be returning from their latest trip to North Reddemane, this time to meet with painters before the house was listed. “I knew they were having problems.”

He nodded. “They fight a lot. And yell.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She says his expectations are unrealistic. He says she nitpicks instead of focusing on the big picture.”

No question: these were direct quotes. “That’s no fun.”

“Do your mom and dad fight, too?”

I thought of my parents, their easy compatibility. Arguing was not something that happened much, if ever. My mom was so stubborn, my dad had learned to choose his battles, which were few and far between. “Sometimes. Not too much, though.”

“You’re lucky,” he said, picking again. “With mine, it was all the time. At least until we came here. Now they just do it on the phone, when they think I’m asleep.”

“Is that better?” I asked him.

“It’s still yelling,” he replied. “Just one voice, not two.”

I nodded, fighting the urge to reach out and brush back the hair that had fallen into his face, just to be able to do
something
in that moment. Instead, I said, “You know what? I think you and I need to make a pact.”

This got his attention, and interest, immediately. “A pact?”

I thought for a second. “Yeah. Let’s agree, that as of right now”—I looked at my watch—“July fourteenth at four-oh-five p.m., we won’t talk about the summer ending, at least with each other, for a full month. Unless we absolutely
have
to before then.”

“And if we do?” he asked.

“Then we have to pay a dollar into …” I glanced around, spotting my almost-empty water bottle. I took off the top,
dumped it, then wiped the mouth on my shorts. “This bottle. Then, on August fourteenth, we’ll take all the money we’ve collected and put it towards something awesome.”

“Like shrimp burgers?”

I wagged a finger at him. “Can’t tell you for a month. My secret. Do we have a deal?”

“Deal.”

He stuck out his hand, I stuck out mine, and we shook. Then, to seal it, I pulled a wrinkled bill from my pocket and stuffed it in the bottle. “Hopefully, that will be the only dollar in there. Right? Because we are not talking about that thing that we aren’t talking about.”

“Nope,” he said. “We are not.”

Another car was pulling up now, the radio blasting. I pushed my hair back from my face and turned towards them as Benji took his position by the cooler. This would be good, I told myself. There was plenty of time still left for both of us.

“Hello,” I said, as the window rolled down in front of me. “Welcome to Colby. Name, please?”

“I
knew
it.”

Daisy turned, startled at the sound of my voice. When she saw it was me in her bedroom doorway, her shoulders sank. “Okay, fine,” she said, waving a hand at the dressmaker dummy in front of her. “I lied. But I did it for a good reason.”

Of course the dress was beautiful. Gone were the ruffles and cascading layers. All that remained of the original was
the powder blue color. It had been reshaped into cocktail length with a slightly flared skirt. The neckline was trimmed with beads the color and shape of peppermint candies. The pink version, cut but not yet sewn, was spread out on the bed.

“Daze,” I said quietly, walking over to it. “This is beautiful.”

“It’s nice, right?” She reached out to the bottom hem, adjusting it, then stepped back, narrowing her eyes. “I’m still working out how far to take the candy theme. I don’t want it to be totally crazy, but I think I need something sort of fun for the trim. Maybe some silver, to look like Kisses or something.”

“You’re making two,” I observed, as she removed a pin, then replaced it. “Does this mean I still get to wear one?”

She looked at me. “Emaline. You’re entitled to have your own plans and your own dress. I swear, it’s not a big deal.”

“Big enough for you to tell a lie,” I pointed out. “And you
never
lie.”

It was true. Daisy was unfailingly honest, which could be both wonderful and awful. On the one hand, she would always tell you when an outfit didn’t look good or you were making a bad choice. On the other, she would always tell you when an outfit didn’t look good … or you were making a bad choice. How you felt about it might vary. But she never did.

“You were so happy that night when Theo asked you to the Beach Bash,” she said now. “And it’s just a dress.”

“A gorgeous dress,” I added. She smiled, pleased. “I’d love to have the chance to wear it.
If
you’ll allow me to.”

“Of course!” she said. “Who else is going to wear it? Morris?”

I looked at the dress again. “Blue’s not his color. Also, the sleeves would look bad with hairy arms.”

“Agreed. But I am getting him to wear long pants this year, if it kills me.”

She bent down over her sewing box, taking out something, and I took my normal place in the chair by the window, out of her creative space but still close enough to talk. I’d seen her through a lot of projects: we had our rituals.

“You want Morris to wear long pants,” I said, “and I’m just hoping I can convince Theo not to get a tux. Want to trade?”

“Nope,” she said. Immediately, she looked at me, worried. “I didn’t mean how that sounded. I just—”

“I understand,” I said, nodding. “Theo’s … well, he’s not for everyone.”

Wisely, she didn’t comment on this, instead bending down to pin something on the hem. From where I was sitting, all I could see was that it was sparkly, catching the bit of light slanting through her window. Finally she said, “He’s really nice. Just …”

I waited, but she didn’t continue. “Not from here,” I finished for her.

She looked over her shoulder at me. “It’s just a big switch from Luke, is all. I think I need a little bit longer to get used to it.”

“Don’t take too long,” I told her. “We’re only going to be together for another few weeks, at most.”

“Emaline!” She looked dismayed. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true.”

“You don’t know that.” She turned back to the dress, sliding a pin into the hem.

“I think I do,” I said. “I don’t really see us in a long-distance relationship.”

“Why not?”

“Because they never work?” I asked.

“Some do.”

“Who? My mom and father? Or just about anyone else we know who’s had one?”

“Still, they don’t all fail,” she said, her back still to me.

“The odds aren’t good.”

To this, she said nothing. So it was in total, awkward silence that I finally became aware of how fully and completely I had just stuck my foot in my own big, stupid mouth. Whoops.

“Daisy,” I said. “I was talking about me and Theo, not—”

“It’s fine,” she replied, but the stiffness in her voice erased any doubt I’d struck a nerve.

I got up and walked over to her to stand next to the
other
dummy. “It’s not. I’m sorry. Look, Theo and I have been together, like, four weeks. You and Morris are long-term.”

She bit her lip, focusing on folding back a piece of the neckline. “No, you’re right. Nobody ever stays together long-distance. And having a boyfriend when you go off to school … it’s a terrible idea.”

“Everyone’s different,” I offered. Lamely.

“I’m going to school over seven hours away,” she pointed out. “He’s staying here and taking classes at Coastal Tech. And that’s if he can get his act together. Which is a big if. I love
Morris, but I can’t fix him. Especially from Georgia.”

This was the first time, ever, I’d heard her use the L Word. I had a flash of Morris, walking down the side of the main road, lumbering along. Who was going to take care of him when we were both gone?

“Anyway, my point is that I need to take a lesson from you. Just enjoy things while they last, then be done with it.”

“It’s a bit easier to do when you’ve only been dating twenty-nine days,” I said. “Also, I’m dealing with someone Not From Here. Who wants to wear a tuxedo to the Beach Bash.”

This made her smile, thank God. “It is kind of ridiculous.”

“I know.”

She moved around to the other side of the dress and bent down to the hem again. I looked at the pink version, stretched out across the bed, then around the room itself. I had spent so many hours in this same place, watching her sew while the sound of the Weather Channel (always on, her mom and dad were obsessed with it) wafted in from the living room. It felt like I’d taken everything for granted up until just right now, when suddenly my entire world and all in it became precious and fleeting. I should have paid more attention, soaked it in more. Which you always realize once it’s getting too late to do just that.

“So,” she said, in the voice that made it clear she was ready to switch topics, “what are you doing here, anyway? Don’t you have big plans tonight, or something?”

I did. As big a plan as I got these days, which was hanging out at the Washroom or one of Clyde’s other haunts, waiting
for Theo to be done with work. After Benji left the office with my dad, I’d been en route to do just that when I passed the entrance to Daisy’s neighborhood and stopped in, on impulse. I was glad I had.

“Not really,” I said, taking my seat by the window again. “You?”

“You’re looking at it.” She turned back to me. “Can you hand me those scissors? The small pair, not the big.”

I bent over her sewing box, finding the ones she wanted, then handed them off to her. She thanked me, then went to her work. In no time, she’d get into that place where she’d forget I was there, but no matter. I knew we were together, at least for now. And right then, while I still could, it was exactly where I wanted to be.

“SO THE PLAN,” my father said, gesturing to the living room, “is to keep only the basic furnishings here until mid-August, when we go back home. Of course, if we’re very lucky, we might get an offer by—”

“Dollar!” Benji called out, interrupting him. “You owe me a dollar!”

My father looked at him. “Benji. I’m talking.”

“You mentioned the end of the summer, so you have to pay the tax. It’s the rule! Right, Emaline?”

Now, everyone looked at me. “Um, I think that just applies to us two only. Not everyone else.”

Benji made a face. “Fine. But
I
don’t want to hear about it. I’m going outside.”

And with that, he left, letting the front screen door fall shut with a bang behind him. We all watched him stomp down the front walk, wildly swatting at the no-see-’ems that hung around the bushes out front as they descended upon him.

My father cleared his throat. “Obviously, he’s not taking the separation well.”

“It’s hard on kids,” Margo murmured, in her Realtor voice.

“Anyway, as I was saying …” he continued, starting to walk again. She fell in behind him, scribbling on her ever-present notepad, but I hung back, looking out at Benji. He was now sitting on the steps by the mailbox, looking down the empty street as if waiting on something that should be showing up soon, any minute now. The no-see-’ems had returned to the bushes, swirling around each other in a big, buzzing cloud.