Meet Me at the Boardwalk (11 page)

S
hould I have invited Sean Edwards to our library rendezvous? Probably not. But Nana’s words had been ringing through my head all night.
“Yenta. That means matchmaker.”
And every time I thought of that, I thought about kissing Sean Edwards. And then I thought about how right Megan and Miles were for each other—and how I’d never noticed the obvious.

As Turkey and I hurried down the boardwalk to the library, we passed the Jupiter Bounce. I stuck to the railing, just in case we happened to spot Sarah. It was Friday and I hadn’t been to work all week. Sarah hadn’t called. I took her silence to mean that she’d no longer require my services. I was used to getting fired. And that was all right, because I was entering a new profession:
Yenta.

Turkey rounded the corner and down the steps onto Main Street, hurrying toward the redbrick Victorian—turret, porch, and yes, even rocking chairs—that served as the Seashell Point Library. It may not have housed a lot of books, but at least it had a functioning air conditioner. And, as a handwritten sign taped to the front door boldly proclaimed:
INTERNET ACCESS FROM 10 A.M. TO 2 P.M.
!

“You know I’m starting to understand why you’ve been working at home all summer,” I mumbled to my sister, clambering up the porch stairs behind her.

She shoved open the big, creaky wooden door. Instantly, we were assaulted by the smell of mothballs.

Megan, Miles, and Sean were already there. Or I guess a more accurate description would be: They were the
only
ones there. Except for Ms. Fitzgerald, the bespectacled librarian. The three of them sat at the end of the big, long oak table in the center of the room, the one with the big, clunky, old desktop computer, circa 1998, that offered the library’s prized “Internet Access!” for four hours a day. Megan and Miles were, for some reason, avoiding looking at each other. And when I smiled at Megan, her eyes were like ice. At least, Sean seemed happy to see me.

“Hey, guys,” I said brightly. “You’re probably wondering why I asked you all here. Well—”

“Shh!”
Ms. Fitzgerald and Turquoise hissed at the same time.

Neither Megan nor Miles nor Sean replied. They were all stone-faced. Turquoise sat at the computer and logged in. So…my big plan for easing any possible tension might have been better prepared.

“Actually, I am,” whispered a voice from the stacks.

I whirled and spotted Lily-Ann Roth thumbing through some dictionary-size textbook in the row of reference shelves.

“You’re what?” I asked.
Tension factor = quadrupled.

“Wondering why you invited everybody here.” She snapped the book shut. “I mean I’m sorry I crashed, but Sean told me.”

“Sean told you?” I whirled at him. I tried to frown. I couldn’t. He shrugged, fiddling with his necklace. He was wearing some ridiculous band T-shirt, too. I hated that he looked cute.

“That you were having a little social activist powwow,” Lily-Ann murmured. She delicately slipped the book back on the shelf and stepped toward me. “I thought I might be of service.”

“How’s that?”

“To stop my father from destroying the boardwalk.”

“Go on,” I encouraged.

“What do you think
I
think about the boardwalk?” Lily-Ann asked me. Her tone lay somewhere between curious and accusing.

“How should I know?” I asked.

“All right,” Sean said. “I invited Lily-Ann here because I went over to her house this morning to…you know, apologize for what happened with Jade and me in the house”—he coughed, pretending to watch whatever Turquoise was doing on the computer—“but her dad wasn’t there. So I apologized to her, and we got into a talk, you know…about the town and the people in it and she said wanted to help.”

I tried to keep on my game face, but I broke into a smile. “That’s sweet!”

Sean looked confused. “It is?”

Both Miles and Megan leaned back from the table and frowned at me.

“What, you don’t believe him?” Lily-Ann asked.

“Shh!”
Turquoise and Ms. Fitzgerald hissed again.

I shot a sympathetic grin at Lily-Ann. Not only did I believe Sean (he was a little too uncomplicated to lie, God bless him), but I believed
her
, too. “Maybe I’m wrong,” I interjected. “Maybe Sean has a point here, guys. Maybe Mr. Roth’s daughter, Lily-Ann, wants to help out the friends she’s made this summer—”

“Ha!” Megan barked.

“What?”

“Jade, you are so full of crap.”

Either Megan had been replaced with an alien…or, I didn’t know. “I’m full of crap?” I asked, knowing she was right.

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” I muttered. “But I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time now—”

“About what? How you suddenly love Seashell Point and want to save the boardwalk? Or how you accidentally made out with Miles?”

My heart stopped.

“Well, yes.” My mind went into the self-defensive comic mode it usually does when stress reaches a critical mass and I want to crawl into a hole. “Both. Forgive me, for I have sinned.”

Megan’s and Miles’s faces might have been carved in stone:
THE MOUNT RUSHMORE OF PISSED-OFF SEASHELL POINT LOCALS
.

“Speaking of accidentally making out,” Sean said, “And this probably isn’t the best time to bring it up, but why did you guys decide to have that no-hooking-up party in the first place?”

I nodded toward Megan, who I was hoping was still my friend. “You’ll have to ask her. It was her idea—”

“Oh, my God, this is so beautiful!” Turquoise interrupted in a whisper, her fingers still feverishly clattering on the keyboard. “I think we can win this thing!”

“You do?” Miles asked under his breath.

“Yes! The town has an ordinance that forbids pollution of the beach ‘to protect the shellfish population.’ It’s right here.” She jabbed at the screen, beaming up at us.

I honestly don’t think I’d ever loved Turkey more than at that moment. (Then again, I’d barely even
liked
her until that moment. Not that the two really have much to do with each other—“like” and “love,” that is. After all, I loved Nana and I still wanted to strangle her every single time I heard her wheeze.) But our little conversation about the no-hooking-up pact party had reached its limits, and Turkey came through.

“What’s right there?” Megan asked. She leaned over and squinted at the screen, her face still about a zillion shades of red. I knew we’d have to have a real talk later.

“In 1966,” Turkey proclaimed, reading from whatever obscure article she’d conjured, “the incorporated town of Seashell Point voted to institute a ban on toxic waste in excess of one gallon per day within a quarter mile of its beaches to protect its swimmers and surfers.”

None of us said a word. I glanced at Sean. He looked as confused as I felt.

“Um…” I finally asked.

Turquoise laughed. “Can you imagine how much waste a floating casino dumps into the water every
hour
?” she replied. “I’m serious. Where I go to law school, these huge cruise ships always float by, and you can see this evil stuff just
pouring
out.”

“Okay, okay, we get the picture,” I muttered.

Megan chewed a fingernail. “So what are you saying, exactly?”

“I’m saying that the citizens of Seashell Point have already decided that they don’t want anything like a floating casino near their beach. And the best part: It’s law. It’s been voted on. So he can’t do this. The deal is illegal. It’s democracy.”

“An illegal deal—like the pact party?” Megan asked flatly.

Sean grinned. So did Miles.

“Well, you know what Winston Churchill said,” Turquoise remarked.

“Turkey, how the hell would any of us know what Winston Churchill said?” I asked.

“‘Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried,’” she quoted, a mischievous sparkle in her eye.

I pretended to stick my finger down my throat. Lily-Ann rubbed her hands together, her expression even more
wickedly delighted than my sister’s. “You guys should totally call my dad on this at Clam-Fest. You should bring it up there. He’s always talking about stupid crap like the law and democracy. This would be the biggest slap in the face, at a town celebration.”

Ah-mein,
I wanted to say.

“What’s so stupid about the law and democracy?” Sean asked.

“Lots,” Lily-Ann replied. “Anyway, when did you get so deep?”

“Yeah, when did you?” I marveled. The words just sort of popped out. Then I remembered myself. I blinked at Sean.

I can’t believe I just said that. I am the biggest jerk on the planet.

“Jade, quit while you’re ahead,” Turquoise advised.

“Quit while you’re behind,” Sean chimed in.

I scooted next to him and pinched his arm. I’m not sure why. I suppose I wasn’t thinking. But he did smile. So I guess I had that going for me. What I didn’t have going for me was that I’d failed miserably as a
yenta
.

J
ade and Sean decided to stay with Turquoise at the library to prepare a “cheat sheet.” Turquoise explained it as such: She’d pass around a bunch of leaflets before Clam-Fest. We’d all position ourselves in strategic locations to heckle Lily-Ann’s father with horrible facts about how his casino boat would poison the waters.

The world truly is turning upside down,
I kept thinking.
Jade and Turquoise are suddenly acting like sisters. Sean Edwards suddenly has a brain, like Scarecrow from
The Wizard of Oz.
Megan hates my guts. And Lily-Ann…is glancing at her watch, even though she claims she’s all for the heckling. Unsurprisingly, she splits to go shopping.

“See you tomorrow, guys!” Lily-Ann called, pumping a clenched fist in the air. “Give my father your very worst!”

Megan frowned. She hurried out the door with a cursory wave at the rest of us.

I hurried after Megan.

That left Megan and me alone, outside on the boardwalk once again…a mere twelve hours after we’d embarked on last night’s disastrous walk.

“So, um, can I get back my blazer?” I asked.

It was a weak question, but it broke the painful silence. I wrapped my arms against my body, even though it was seventy-five degrees and totally cloudless.

Megan smiled wistfully.

“Megan? My jacket? It’s my one nice coat. I sort of need it.”

“I think I like the sight of you hugging yourself. It reminds me…”

“Yeah, it reminds you?”

“That you like to hug yourself,” she finished.

“Who doesn’t?”

Megan laughed.

“Go on,” I prodded. I prayed that I’d cracked her armor.

“I’m talking about how you and Jade wrap yourselves up in these cloaks of—”

“Of what, Meg? You wrap yourself up in a cloak of silence! And Jade…I mean, neither of you are huggers! And neither am I. But it’s like, you’re always hugging. You two have an invisible hug on at all times. And that’s cool.”

“An invisible hug?” Megan quipped, in what might have been an attempt to sound like Jade. “Is that like a wig or a toupee?”

“Don’t,” I snapped. “I’m serious.”

Megan backed away. “Miles—”

“Don’t ‘Miles’ me. I’m sick of this crap. So give me a hug, Megan. Give me a hug right now. But hug me like you mean it. Hug me like you invisibly hug Jade. Hug me like you
mean
it.”

She stared into my eyes, her long black hair flapping in the morning wind. “What do you mean, how I mean it?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

Megan did hug me like she meant it. I felt her hug down the whole length of my body. I could smell her sweet skin. We clung to each other.

When I finally opened my eyes, Megan was gazing back at me.

“What?” I breathed huskily.

“You know…that time I made out with Sean Edwards in the haunted house?”

I withdrew from her embrace. “It’s not really a sight I enjoy remembering.”

“Well, you should,” Megan stated.

I should. I should…

“Jade was on a break from the Jupiter Bounce, and you were on a break from Sonny’s,” she went on. “And you two were off to the side, watching us and laughing and all cozy…I’d just hit that point—I’m going to pull a Jade here and say something really uncomfortable—I’d just hit the point where I’d stopped being the gangly, pale, tall geek and turned into something else. And Sean Edwards asked me to take the ride with him.”

“Megan—”

“No, no, just let me finish.” She stroked my hair with her fingers. “I did it because I was trying to make you jealous.”

I thought for a moment…and then I stopped thinking.

I put my hands on Megan’s waist and pulled her close to me, kissing her. I took every second to savor the way she felt pressed against me, the way her lips perfectly melted into mine. The kiss was warm and sweet. Hot. I was surprised, in the best possible way, when she touched her tongue to mine. Our breathing quickened. This was nearly a decade in
coming, but the wondrous magical moment had finally arrived—

And then my cell phone rang.

We stepped apart. It was Jade.

“Hey!” she said.

I gulped, staring at Megan as she rubbed her lips. “Uh…hey.”

“Hey, are you with Meg right now?” she asked.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Can you put her on?”

“Uh…sure.” I handed the phone to Megan.

“Yeah, Jade?” she said. At first, her face was a blank slate, but then she was laughing out loud. “Perfect! You have my blessing. Thanks for thinking to give the heads-up.” She hung up and handed the phone back to me.

“What was that?” I managed, my pulse still racing.

“Jade thought about putting a giant clam next to Mr. Roth in his bed, to get rid of him. You know…like they did in
The Godfather
? With the horse head?”

“Ha! That’s brilliant.”

“Actually, I have a better idea.” She stepped forward, put her hands on my cheeks, and kissed me again.

“That is a better idea.”

“No, there’s something I have to do,” Megan breathed into my ear. “I have to do it for me. I have to see if there’s another way around Turquoise’s heckling plan. I also have to see if Mr. Roth will forgive me—”

“Forget it.”

“Forget what?”

“I want you to stay here with me. This will sound as stupid as the old Sean Edwards,” I said. “But I really love you. I mean like…
love
, love you.”

Megan pressed her lips against mine again before I could make a further ass of myself. Then she turned and hurried off down the boardwalk. This time, her silence was exactly what I needed.