Local Girls : An Island Summer Novel (9781416564171) (14 page)

Henry had asked me to go out for ice cream. It wasn't a date, I knew that. Dates were what I went on with Robbie, awkward at first, always checking your reflection in the passenger-side window to see if you had something in your teeth, something clinging to the edge of your nose. A date was two people figuring out what they thought of each other, or at least that was the kind of date I was used to. Even after months with Robbie, I was still trying to figure out what I thought of him. This was different. I already knew what I thought of Henry. But walking down Main Street together, laughing and talking, our arms brushing against each other, I was sure everyone around us thought we were on a date. And the idea didn't exactly bother me. And the fact that it didn't bother me freaked me out.

I discovered, after waiting in line for fifteen minutes
behind six of the most indecisive ten-year-old kids I'd ever seen, that Henry was a mint chocolate chip guy. He learned I was a classic chocolate girl. With rainbow sprinkles.

“Thanks for the ice cream,” I told him, carefully licking the sides of my cone so the sprinkles wouldn't slip down the sides and fall onto the sidewalk.

“No problem. I figure it was the least I could do, considering you got up so early just to keep me company.” Henry pointed to a crowd of people forming in the courtyard beside the bookstore. While the adults glanced at their watches, waiting for the ghost tour to begin, little kids chased each other or licked their melting ice cream cones. “Have you ever done that?”

“Nope. Have you?”

He shook his head. “But tonight that changes.”

Henry reached for my hand and pulled me toward the crowd. And even though ghost stories have always made me a little nervous, and I was sure my hand was sticky from my chocolate ice cream, I wrapped my fingers between his and let him pull me along into the waiting group of tourists.

Our hands were barely touching for a minute, but when he let go I ran my thumb against my fingertips, feeling the slight dampness left behind in the evening humidity, the residue of Henry. I don't think we'd ever held hands before, not even in elementary school during the square-dancing lesson in gym class. Our hands never even brushed each other as he passed the ketchup across the dinner table to me during one of Poppy's infamous summer cookouts. Or maybe we had. We had to have, right? In all these years I'd known Mona, Henry and I must have touched somewhere along the way. So why did this time feel different, and why was I still thinking
about Henry's hand, his fingers, and the way he'd reached for me as if it was the most natural thing in the world?

It was nothing, I knew that, he just wanted to get a good spot so we'd be able to hear the stories of haunted houses and otherworldly, unexplained island happenings. I tried not to think about how close he stood next to me as the crowd grew and people gravitated toward the center of the courtyard, and instead I concentrated on my ice cream cone.

Just as the sky tinted a cobalt blue and eight deep tones rang out from the church bells in the distance, the ghost lady arrived, kerosene lantern in hand. A hush fell over the crowd, parents shushing their little kids until the only sound was a couple laughing as they passed by on the sidewalk. And that's when the ghost lady introduced herself to us.

“Welcome to the tour,” she began, holding the lantern up so that the yellow glow illuminated her face and cast a long shadow behind her. Although I'd expected her to be dressed for the occasion, maybe in all black with a cape or something, she was wearing a short-sleeved blouse and a peasant skirt that gathered around her ankles. Not exactly the menacing figure I was expecting.

“Tonight we'll be visiting some of Edgartown's longest residents, those who refused to leave the island long after their death.”

A nervous giggle rippled through the group and a few kids clutched their parents' legs.

Henry slipped a finger through the belt loop on my jeans and pulled me next to him. “Don't worry,” he whispered in my ear. “I'll protect you.”

“You have experience with poltergeists?” I asked, waiting for his finger to let go. But it stayed there, hooked onto my
waistband so lightly that I was afraid if I took one step away it would fall loose.

“Not exactly, but I can run pretty fast, so you better keep up.” Henry's hand finally left my waist when he reached into his pocket for money.

“I've got this,” I told him, ready to part with some of the tips from my first week working tables of my own. So far I'd saved one hundred dollars in my Stanford envelope and kept fifty for spending money.

“My treat,” Henry insisted. “You kept me company at five in the morning, I think you've earned it.”

The ghost lady collected everyone's money, stuffing the bills into a drawstring bag she carried over her shoulder, and then led the group down Summer Street toward the Charlotte Inn. Henry and I followed behind like obedient schoolchildren.

Off Main Street, under the cover of trees that obscured what little light the setting sun offered, our group gathered around the white picket fence running along the front of the Charlotte Inn.

Henry and I listened intently as our guide described the recurring visions of a little girl who haunts the main staircase at night, moving up and down the steps, her feet never touching the floor as she floats in midair.

“A few brave people have tried to talk to her and ask questions, but she just continues on her way up the staircase, leaving more questions than answers,” the ghost lady explained, her voice fading away so the image could sink in and adequately freak us all out.

“Have you ever seen anything like that at the Willow?” Henry whispered, the crowd pondering this story for a minute before moving on up the street.

“If I saw anything floating down the stairs, you can bet I wouldn't hang around long enough to ask any questions.”

The sun had gone down, the sky now a velvety navy blue with just a hint of gold clinging along the most western edge. The flickering flame of the lantern continued down Summer Street and Henry and I fell into line behind a father carrying a very sleepy little boy on his shoulders. While anxious little kids ran ahead, eager to hear the next story, Henry and I hung back.

“Sometimes I feel like Mona's doing that,” Henry said into the darkness, his hand tapping the tops of the white fence slats as we walked along.

“Doing what?”

“Chasing a ghost, waiting for answers.”

I didn't have to ask Henry what he meant. Because while I couldn't wait to graduate, head off to college, and leave stifling island life behind for good, Mona had never wanted to leave. She was waiting for the day someone who didn't even know she existed would come back to the island to find her.

When we were twelve, Mona convinced me that we should ride our bikes to the ferry in Oak Bluffs. She even made a game out of it, wearing her Hello Kitty watch and timing how long it took us. But once we were there, Mona didn't care if we made it faster than we thought. She just wanted to sit on the bench beside the dock and watch the ferries coming in. It wasn't until two ferries had come and gone that I realized Mona wasn't just tired from pedaling. She was waiting. And watching. And I knew who she was waiting and watching for. Her father.

“Does she still think about finding him?” I asked.

Henry shook his head. “I don't know. She hasn't talked about it since Christmas, which is a good thing, right?”

“Right,” I agreed, but added, “I guess I can't believe she's finally given up on finding him.”

“I don't know that she's given up, she's just stopped talking about it. I don't even know if she's told any of her friends the whole story.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you ever think about him?”

Henry paused before answering. “It's probably different for Mona, you know? I had Poppy to play ball with, take me to hockey and stuff. I never thought about it like Mona does, like one day he'll magically appear and buy her a Barbie.”

“Mona did love her Barbies,” I joked, but Henry didn't laugh. “Do you ever wish Izzy had told him?”

“Well, she never knew his last name, so it's not like she even had the option.”

“But if she had, if she could have figured it out, do you wish he knew?”

“Look, for the most part I put myself in his place. Would I want some girl I hooked up with one summer calling me to tell me I have not one, but two kids? I don't care how great a guy someone is, I don't think that's a call anyone wants.”

“But she never even let him make the choice,” I reminded him, repeating the argument Mona had made to me over and over again. She at least wanted him to have the choice.

“Let's be honest here, Kendra. He probably wouldn't have even returned her call.”

I didn't want to believe Henry, not so much for myself but for Mona. It just sounded so bleak. I guess after all this time
I'd just thought, like Mona, that if her dad knew about her he would have cared. Henry obviously didn't believe this was true, and if Mona hadn't even told her new friends about Izzy and what happened that summer, she obviously didn't think they'd believe it was true either. But I did. I had to, if only so that Mona wouldn't be the only one.

We'd fallen way behind the tour now, and up ahead the group was gathering around the lantern, ready for the second ghostly sighting.

“I heard you and Robbie were going out this year,” Henry told me as we made our way to them.

“For a little while. It was nothing, really,” I said, explaining five months of my life away in one short sentence. “How did you know?”

Henry tapped the side of his head with his finger. “I know things.”

“Who told you?”

“Ryan, I went and saw him at work. He filled me in on all the gory details.”

I must have looked stricken because Henry laughed. “I'm just kidding, Kendra.”

It shouldn't have mattered, but still, I'm sure I looked relieved.

“What about you?” I asked him. “Any girlfriends in Boston?”

“There was enough going on this year without adding a girl into the mix.”

“What about now?” I asked, and Henry stopped to look at me. “I just meant, Mona told me some of her friends . . .” I didn't finish my sentence. We'd reached the group just in time to hear the tour guide telling the tale of two sisters who once
lived in the eighteenth-century house, and who now rattle china and shake the floor when they aren't wandering around arguing with each other.

“I'd like to think that after a few hundred years my sister and I would learn to get along,” I joked, and Henry laughed.

As the group followed the glow of the lantern, Henry placed his hand on my elbow and held me back.

“We're going to fall behind again,” I told him, but he didn't seem to be in any rush to leave.

“We can always catch up.” He leaned against the side of the haunted house, his body disappearing into nothing but a shadowy outline. “Look.” He pointed through the leaves overhead. “A full moon.”

“Where?” I thought I must have turned in the wrong direction, because Henry reached for me and placed his hands on my shoulders and moved me toward him. Only it wasn't a better view of the moon he was moving me toward, it was the side of the house, and before I could point out that I couldn't see anything in the shadows Henry leaned in and softly grazed my lips. He tasted minty and cool and instinctively I closed my eyes; everything else, the chatter from the tour group, the car parallel parking on the street, faded away as I focused on the feeling of Henry's lips against mine.

“Are you that scared?” Henry asked, pulling away. “You're shaking.”

I was. Only it wasn't the idea of being pressed up against a house occupied by two-century-old ghosts that had me shaking.

I wanted to lie. I wanted to tell him that I was cold, that the goose bumps on my arms and my trembling hands were nothing more than a physical reaction to the weather. But it
had to be eighty degrees out and I doubted Henry would buy it. So instead I told the truth.

“What would Mona say?” I practically whispered.

Even in the dark, I could see Henry's smile. “Do you really think we need to ask her?” he whispered back.

“You know what I mean.” I wiggled out from under the weight of his body and stepped back into the moonlight, which now seemed like a spotlight overhead. “It's not right.”

“It's not wrong,” Henry replied, but he didn't attempt to pull me into the shadows again. And given the way my body wanted to let him, that was a good thing.

I started toward the sidewalk and Henry followed. “Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that.”

“It's okay,” I assured him, but I didn't look back. I couldn't. Because if I did he would have been able to tell that it wasn't okay. It was anything but okay.

I thought hanging out with Henry would help me better understand Mona, bring me closer to her in some way. Only instead of acting like Mona's best friend, I was acting like the girls from Whittier. And I wasn't just checking her brother out on the beach, I was letting him kiss me. Worse, I liked it. Here I was acting like Devon and Emily and the other Whittier girls when I should have known better. Instead of proving that I was a better friend than those girls could ever be, I was proving that I was just like them.

“Come on, get up!” Lexi shook my leg, but instead of following her instructions, I rolled over and pulled the blankets over my head.

It was barely even light out, and after yesterday morning's early wake-up call, I just wanted to sleep in. Unfortunately, Lexi wasn't taking the hint.

“I said, get up,” she repeated. Then, just to get her point across, she tore the covers off my head and every other part of my body.

“Lexi, it can't even be six o'clock, let me sleep.”