What I Thought Was True (32 page)

Beach bonfire tonight.

As Cass drives us down the hill, I can see sparks crackling

upward, flicking and fading into the darkening summer sky.

Dom D’Ofrio is always overenthusiastic with the lighter fluid.

The tower of flames shoots nearly ten feet high.

“That looks like something you’d use to sacrifice to the Dru-

ids, not toast marshmallows,” Cass says as we near the beach,

the sun sliding purple-orange against the deep green sea.

To my surprise, when Cass picked me up, Spence was

slumped in the backseat of the old BMW, scowling.

“He had a bad day. Thought this might cheer him up. You

mind?” Cass whispered.

“Yo Castle,” Spence says now, a listless version of his usual

cocky self. “Sundance stormed you yet?”

“Don’t be a dick,” Cass returns evenly.

“S’what I do best,” Spence returns, then sticks his head out

the window, taking in the scene.

This bonfire is a lot more crowded than the first of the sum-

mer. The summer people’s kids have discovered it and are mill-

ing around, mostly in clumps, but sometimes venturing over

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to other clots of people, sitting down, feeling out the possibil-

ities. Pam and Shaunee have parked themselves next to Sophie

Tucker, old Mrs. P.’s great-granddaughter. Manny’s flicking his

lighter for Audrey Partridge, a pretty blond cousin from the

house the Robinsons rented. Somebody’s dragged out a grill,

and now Dom is enthusiastically pouring lighter fluid onto

those charcoal briquettes too.

Cass backs the car into a spot with relatively low sand. We

all get out.

Viv is standing near the water, arms hugging her chest,

ponytail flipping in the wind, looking out at the distant islands.

The sky’s clear enough tonight that it seems as though you

could reach out and touch them. Viv doesn’t turn and see me.

Manny comes up beside her, bumps her shoulder with his

elbow, and hands her one of those generic “get smashed fast”

red plastic cups. He walks back up the beach, catches sight of

us, cocks his head a bit at the arm Cass has draped over my

shoulder. “Nice shirt,” he mutters as he passes me.

It’s one of Cass’s oxfords, loose and knotted at my waist, a

flash of stomach over my rolled-up jeans. Not a look I would

have tried before.

If I remember right, Manny was the one who welcomed

Cass to the island because of his yard boy status. Now the

causeway can’t go both ways?

I head over to the cooler, pick up a beer I don’t care about.

No sign of Nic or Hoop.

“Who’s the short fat dude, Sundance?”

“Manny. Good guy. Relax, Spence.” Cass grabs my hand,

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an aside to me. “Don’t let him get to you. He’s in douchebag

mood today.”

“You two are sweet together,” Spence offers unexpectedly,

sounding oddly sincere. “Nauseating as that is.”

I mouth, “Is he drunk?”

Cass shakes his head. “It’s not that.”

“Feelin’ sorry for myself, Castle. Just do it, Sundance. Cut

me loose. Go back to Hodges.”

“I’m not that guy,” Cass says so firmly—convincing Spence?

Or himself? “Forget it for tonight. Let’s just relax.”

For a while, relaxing works pretty well. Pam has the music

cranking, good mix of old and new. It’s a warm night and the

sky is filled with a gold that rims the corners of the clouds, and shafts of pinkish light that slant down to the water. The charcoal heats up, the sweet burnt smell singeing our noses.

Cass and I are adding ketchup and mustard to our hot dogs

when I see Nic, standing on the pathway that runs from the park-

ing lot to the beach, staring at us, hands balled in his pockets.

Hoop stands behind him, a small, badly dressed, angry shadow.

Nic’s white-faced and stormy-looking, all his features fro-

zen, angry, as though he’s watching a nightmare come true.

“Yo, trouble at high noon,” Spence tells Cass, scrolling

mustard over his own hot dog so vigorously that the Gulden’s

squirts all over the sand.

“Don’t make it worse,” Cass says, shoving a napkin at Spence.

But immediately, it’s worse.

It starts with Nic doing that slow clap-clap thing, guaran-

teed to annoy anyone. “Nice job, guys. Snagging both captain

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and cocaptain. What do they call that? A coup? Nice coup.”

Cass doesn’t say anything, focused on his hot dog. Spence is

quiet too.

Nic walks over, chin raised. “Nice coup,” he says again.

“You don’t get it, man,” is all Cass says.

“No?” Nic asks.

“No. This is no preferential thing,” Cass starts. Vivie walks up

then. Cass glances at her, back at Nic. “These last months . . .

this whole last year . . . swim drills were all about you, Nicolas Cruz. Nothing about teamwork. You don’t seem to know what

that means. If you deserved to be captain or cocaptain, you’d

be lining up behind us. Not acting like this.”

“That’s bullshit,” Nic says. “We all know there’s a fucking
I

in
team
. You’re not swimming to make
me
look good. We’re all after
I
. So I’m just gonna say it.
I
need this, Somers. You don’t.

Channing? Forget it.”

“You want us to feel sorry for you now?
I
do. Sundance

does,” Spence offers. “Because this
West Side Story,
us-against-them crap and your shitty attitude is what keeps you stuck,

Cruz. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“
You’re
lecturing
me
?” Nic shouts. “You’re telling me to be fucking satisfied with what I’ve got? That’s rich. You’re the one

who has to take
everything
.”

Viv has her hand over her mouth. Spence steps forward,

shoulders square. Cass grabs his arm.

Dom, Pam, Shaunee, Manny are moving away from the fire

toward us now, attention snagged. Hooper assumes roughly

the same stance behind Nic as Cass has behind Spence, but

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without the restraining hand. His is raised, placating. Or just

unsure what’s going on.

“Be honest with yourself. At least. I haven’t taken a thing

from you that you deserved to have,” Spence says calmly. Cass

yanks him back a little, jerking him to the side.

“Stop talking, Spence,” he says.

Instead, Spence takes another step forward, pulling out of

Cass’s grip. “You don’t deserve any of it,” he repeats to Nic.

“Nothing, anything. And not her.”

Nic’s fist shoots out so fast it’s a blur and Spence’s head

snaps to the left. He staggers back for a second. We watch him

stumble—a surreal, slow-mo movie. Nic charges forward, eyes

blazing. Ready to hit him again. Cass moves in between them,

fending Nic off with a forearm to his chest and grabbing Spen-

ce’s arm tightly, yanking it back.

Vivien brushes past me. I try to clutch at her—don’t want

her to get in the way of Nic. He doesn’t seem to be seeing

straight. But instead of hurrying to him, she’s wiping at the

blood gushing from Spence’s nose with one hand, the other

cupped around the back of his head.

Nic stares at them, blinking as though he’s just woken up,

then shakes off Cass’s arm, backing toward the parking lot.

“I’m good, don’t worry about me,” Spence assures Vivien.

Spence
is assuring
Vivien?

“You’re hurt,” she says, her voice cracking.

“Flesh wound,” Spence tells her. And he smiles at her in a

way I’ve never seen Spence smile at anyone. “Don’t. God, Viv.

Don’t cry. Please. You know that kills me.”

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Hooper and I are gaping at them, as is pretty much every else.

“Yeah,” Nic says. “This is just . . . Just . . . well . . . fuck this.”

He turns around, scrubs his eyes with the heels of his hands,

starts to walk away.

“Holy shit,” Hoop says.

“Go after him, Gwen,” calls Vivien, still wiping away blood.

She’s crying. For Nic? For Spence? Not knowing which makes

me flash white-hot furious.

“Me? What about you? And you, Spence? What
was
that?

It’s not enough to take his captain shot, you had to go for his

girlfriend too?”

“This isn’t like that, Gwen,” Cass says. Spence just stares at

the ground.

“This? There’s a
this
? And you knew? When were you going to tell me? Ever? What happened to ‘I’m not going to lie to

you, Gwen’?”

He’s scrubbing his hand through his hair with that same

expression he had the night after the Bronco.

Guilt.

Viv’s still crying. Spence is wiping away the blood still running

from his nose with the back of his hand. Hoop’s muttering, “I

haven’t had enough beer to deal with this.” Pam and Manny and

the other island kids are standing around helplessly, murmuring.

And I can’t stop my mouth. “So what did you two do to get

this?” I ask.

“What did we
do
?” Cass asks, low and furious. “We swam. I

deserve this. Spence does. This has nothing to do with money.

It’s about teamwork. And you know it. Maybe Nic used to be

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able to do that. But he can’t anymore. I don’t know why, but

you
know
it’s true. He’s a cheater.”

“Nice, Cass. You’ve taken this away from him. And now you

take his integrity too? Classy.”

“I didn’t take anything, Gwen.”

I back up, move away from all this, everything, everyone.

“I didn’t take anything,” he repeats, turning away.

I scramble up to the parking lot. But there is no longer any

sign of Nic.

“
Come fly, come fly come fly with me,
” sings Frank Sinatra loudly, in his seductively snappy alto. Emory is swaying to the beat,

doing his version of finger snapping, which involves flick-

ing his pointer fingers against his thumbs. He’s got the happy

head-bobbing down, though. Grandpa Ben is cooking dinner,

waggling his skinny old-man hips in time to the beat. I reach

over to turn Frank’s exuberance down a few notches, but still

have to bellow when I ask if he’s seen Nic.

Grandpa Ben shrugs.

“He didn’t come back here? Where the hell did he go?

Where’s Mom?”

Ben clucks his tongue. “Language, Guinevere. He was not

here when I got back from the farmer’s market. Your mother,

she is on a date.”

A
what
?

Nic’s pulled a disappearing act. Viv’s consoling Spence. Cass

knew. And I blew him off, even when I . . . I . . . And Mom’s on

a date.
Whose life is this???

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Grandpa shrugs again, points to the note scrawled on the

dry-erase board on the fridge. “
Papi. On a walk around the

island with a friend. If you see Nic, talk to him.
”

“If you see him, keep him here,” I say. “I’m going to look for him.”

I grab Mom’s car keys, clatter down the stairs, and am throw-

ing the Bronco into reverse before it occurs to me to wonder

how Grandpa Ben managed to translate a “walk on the island

with a friend” into a date.

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They’re walking side by side. Not holding hands or anything.

But side by side is startling enough. Mom with anyone but a

man on the cover of a book is a jolt. I jerk the truck to a halt.

“Mom. Coach? Where’s Nic? Have you seen him?”

Mom’s frowning, worried. Coach’s face looks, if possible,

even ruddier than usual. He’s out of his element, no whistle,

wearing a baggy yellow windbreaker that somehow looks sad-

der, so much less official than his SBH jacket.

“We were hoping with you. He was headed to that bonfire,”

Mom says. “Wouldn’t talk to me. He was wicked upset.”

Wicked
. Dad’s word.

“I’ll say,” I snap, trying not to glare at Coach. Who’s just

doing his job and not actually responsible for this whole mess.

“Look, Gwen,” Coach says, weary but resolute. “
Inches
from

winning state this year. We need captains with nothing to

prove. Gotta have that. Nic’s a solid kid . . . but these days, he’s no team player.”

“I should have insisted he talk to me,” Mom says. “I tried

calling after he left, but I just got that damn voicemail. He

never recharges his phone.” She pulls out her own, punches

in a number, shakes her head. “Stupid voicemail again.” The

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creases in her forehead deepen. “Get Vivien,” she tells me.

“She’ll know where he is.”

He’s not at Abenaki. I strain my eyes, looking way out beyond

the pier, but there’s nothing in the water but a flock of seagulls, and a lone kayaker way far out. The bridge by the Green Woods

is still and deserted. Standing there, I feel a pang. What used to be Nic’s and my place, years of memories, feels as if it belongs

to me and Cass now. That thought leaves me feeling strangely

disloyal. How did I not know about Viv? I’m so off balance, the

way you are when you step off a rocking boat onto land, not

sure how to find your footing.

I drive back to Sandy Claw, but the logs from the bonfire are

just embers now, and no one’s still hanging around. Nobody at

Plover Point, not even the plovers, who have raised their eggs

and moved on. I pull into Hoop’s driveway to find him sitting

on the steps smoking.

“Not here?”

“Nope.” Hoop drops the cigarette, grinds it out with the

heel of his flip-flop. “I was hoping you were him when I saw

the Bronc. Not answering texts either. Dunno where he is, but

he’s on foot, since we hit the beach in my truck. Wanna beer?”

I shake my head, tell him to text me if Nic shows. He nods,

lighting another cigarette, popping open another beer. As I

drive away, I see him in the rearview, rumpled shirt, shoulders

slumped. Will he still be sitting on those same steps, doing

those same things, twenty years from now?

I find myself driving to Castle’s.

It’s ten thirty, a slow night, and it’s shutting down. All the

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other workers have long since gone home. There’s only Dad,

tossing water on the grill, scraping off the last particles of

grease and onions. Pulling out Saran Wrap to cover the tubs of

ice cream in the freezer so they won’t get freezer burn before

he jams the lips on. Chopping onions and peppers for tomor-

row’s hash browns, knife flashing so fast it’s a blur. Those jobs

are so familiar. I’ve done them all. Dad’s concentrating, never

looks up to see me watching him.

This is the last place Nic would ever go.

I’m not even sure why I came. That “fix it, Dad” feeling? I

can practically hear Cass saying, “
You get pissed off when I rescue
you.
” I swallow the lump in my throat.

We were doing so well there for a second.

I drive back toward Seashell, hitting the gates just as Cass’s

BMW roars up the other direction on Ocean Road, a little too

fast over the speed bumps.

We both slow to a stop, our headlights picking out individ-

ual blades of grass on well-mown, carefully tended lawns on

either side of the street, their brilliance turning the green into gray and white.

The passenger-side door of Cass’s car opens, and Viv climbs

out, crossing over to me.

“You gonna hear me out?” she asks.

“You gonna help me find Nic?” I return.

She walks around the front of the Bronco, opens the

passenger-side door and slides in.

I expect Cass to zoom away immediately, but he doesn’t,

idling the BMW by the side of the road, waiting . . . for what?

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Me to get out and talk to him? What am I supposed to say?

I stay where I am, and after a few seconds, he pulls forward

and leaves us in the quiet of the night.

“I didn’t mean to,” Viv says, quickly, like she’s accidently

broken a plate or something.

I slow to Seashell’s only stop sign. Shift into park, because

no one’s behind us. No one’s in any hurry this time of night.

Ever, really, on Seashell. That’s one of the promises that should

be on the sign separating us from the causeway.
All the time in
the world.

Except that that’s a promise no one can really make.

Forever.

“You got together with Spence by accident?” I ask, then hate

the harshness in my voice. If anyone can understand that, it

should be me. But Viv isn’t supposed to have “crumble lines.”

Or not this kind. And if she did . . . why didn’t she tell me?

She leans her head back against the headrest, eyes shut.

“What do I say to you, Gwen? I hate that you know this. I’m

glad you know this. I want to make excuses . . . I want to say

they’re enough. But they’re not. I hurt Nic. You. If I didn’t lie

to you, I sure didn’t tell you the truth, even when we said no

secrets. Joke’s on me. Because, let’s face it, in my head I was

all judgey about you and some of your choices. Alex, freaking

Jim freshman year. Ugh. Cass, the first time around. Spence . . .

I pretended not to be, but I was . . . smug. Like I couldn’t

get what you were thinking, so you must have been wrong. I

guess you knew that. You had to have felt it. I guess that’s why

we couldn’t really talk this summer. ’Cause I suddenly got it.

And . . . and I didn’t want to get it! I wanted Nic. Only. Ever.

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Until . . . Until I didn’t anymore. And I didn’t know what to

do with that.”

Did I know, deep down? Maybe. This weird feeling I’ve had

this summer . . . I thought it was because things were differ-

ent—me the third wheel, not a threesome anymore. But maybe

I somehow knew that we really were,
really,
not a threesome anymore.

I lean my forehead on the steering wheel. “But Spence, Viv?

Why him—of
all
people?” I turn so I can see her, flipping my hair away from my face. “Did you do it to . . . to hurt Nic? Is

that what this—Spence—is about?” As I ask, I feel an unwanted

pang of sympathy for Spence, the handy weapon in someone

else’s war. Again.

“No. Not at all.” She flushes. “But hell, Gwen . . . I thought

Nic and I were . . . in this together. And then he’s all . . .

‘well . . . eight years from now, we’ll’ . . . Eight years! What am I supposed to do, while he’s off having adventures, meeting

girls who . . . I don’t know. Dangle from tow ropes with their

teeth? He’s supposed to stay impressed with the girl who keeps

everyone’s water glasses filled? Screw that. I . . . can’t compete.

And I . . . don’t want to. What’s wrong with wanting to be

here? If what I want is a little less big, less noble, than what he wants . . . does that make me a loser? That’s the thing. I don’t

feel like a loser with Spence. He . . . I . . . Al got that contract to work with the Bath and Tennis Club late this spring . . . and

it seemed like everything he did there, we’d run into Spence,

because even though his dad owns it, his dad is kind of . . . out

of it. At first I started talking to him just because of business.

But then . . . he’s not who I thought he was. At all.”

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I’m starting to wonder who is. But to be fair, I have to weigh

the six or whatever girls in the hot tub against Cass’s unflinch-

ing loyalty and those flashes of perceptiveness I’ve seen myself.

“I started feeling . . . really liking him . . . that’s why I wanted the ring. I thought it would make me stop thinking

about Spence and focus on Nicky.”

“You do know that’s incredibly messed up, right?”

She raises her hands in defense. “You don’t get to be the

only one who can be stupid and blind, Gwen.”

“Yeah, welcome to my world.” I’m laughing despite myself.

But then I sit up and look at her, my lifelong friend, with the

cartilage piercings at the top of her ear that Nic hated, but

never told her because she wanted them, and I hurt so much

for my cousin—what he had, what he lost—that I have to fold

my arms against my stomach to keep the pain contained. “Viv?

Did you ever really love Nic?” I ask it, and then wish I hadn’t.

I’m not sure I want to hear the answer.

“I’ll always love him.” She responds so quickly that I know

it’s true. “He was my first . . . everything. I never thought—I

never planned—he’d be anything but my
only
everything. But these few months, and especially the last few weeks—it’s not

the same. He’s . . . not the same.”

“Maybe it’s just that he’s really tense,” I say, “maybe . . .”

Then I stop. Viv puts her hand on mine, clenched tight on the

steering wheel, squeezes. Maybe I stop talking because I don’t

know what to say. Or maybe I stop because I finally get that

sometimes we hold on to something—a person, a resentment,

a regret, an idea of who we are—because we don’t know what

to reach for next. That what we’ve done before is what we have

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to do again. That there are only re-dos and no do-overs. And

maybe . . . maybe I know better than that.

We can’t find Nic anywhere. We try the same old places in

another loop, but no luck. We text and call him. Nothing. Viv’s

eyelids begin to droop, and as I’m driving over the causeway

yet again, she falls asleep, cheek pressed against the passenger

door, so I carefully maneuver the car to the Almeidas’ house,

shake her awake and urge her into the house. Luckily, Al and

her mom are out, so I just have to get her to her room, take off

her shoes, and cover her up with the puffy green blanket she’s

had since we were little.

He has to be at the creek. He must have been walking through

the woods before and now he’s there. Of course that’s where

he’d go. Dangerous, but familiar. I pull the Bronco up, get out

so fast I don’t even shut the door, run to the bridge, looking

out at the dark rushing water. But it’s a cloudy night and there’s not enough moon to see anything, so I pull the Bronco closer,

snap on the headlights and run back.

The lights cast stark shadows. It’s high tide. I stand at the

place we always jump from, scanning the water, but there’s

nothing but the dark outline of Seal Rock and the gradual wid-

ening of the creek shore as it empties into the ocean.

When Nic and I were little, people who didn’t know

us would ask if we were twins, even though I was tanner

skinned and darker haired than him. Now I wish like any-

thing we were and had that twin bond you hear about.

I wish I could reach out with my mind and know—just

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feel—where he is. But when I think . . . all I feel is scared.

Mom and Grandpa Ben both jump up from Myrtle when I

come in, looking over my shoulder, faces falling when they see

I’m alone. Emory’s awake, cuddling Hideout, staring big-eyed

at the television, which isn’t even on.

“No panicking,” Grandpa says sharply to Mom, despite the

fact that he’s reaching into the cabinet in the kitchen where he

keeps his pipe, pulling it out and packing it with rapid, jerky

movements completely unlike himself.

“I shouldn’t have gone out with Patrick.” Mom’s twisting

her hands nervously. “All we did was talk about Nico, but still, I knew better. You should have seen Nic’s face when he told him.

Like his last dream had died.”

Sometimes the melodramatic phrases she picks up from her

books are so not helpful. “Well, it didn’t,” I snap. “He’s eigh-

teen. He’s got plenty of time to dream. He’s still got the Coast

Guard Academy.”

But not Viv
.

Which Mom and Grandpa probably don’t even know. I’m not

going to tell them because the rush of worry in my head is dark

and loud as the creek water. They don’t need to be there too,

staring into the shadows, afraid to see what they’re searching for.

I sit on our steps, looking up and down the road, waiting for