My Life Next Door (17 page)

“Cocaine at the campouts?” I ask.

“No, mostly just trying to start fires with magnifying glasses and stealing other people’s badges…a good enough guy, really, but it was as if he just
had
to get in trouble. So his sister’s your best friend? What’s she like?”

“The opposite. Compelled to be perfect.” Thinking of Nan, I look at the clock on the dash for the first time. It’s 10:46. My rational mind—which so recently deserted me—tells me there’s no way on earth my mother can blame me for breaking curfew under these circumstances. Still, I can feel my body tense up. Mom can find a way—I know she can—to make this all my fault. And, worse, Jase’s.

“I’m sorry I got you into this.”

“It’s nothing, Samantha. I’m glad you’re all okay. Nothing else is important.” He looks at me for a moment. “Not even curfew.” His voice is low, gentle, and I feel the tears gathering in my eyes again. What’s wrong with me?

For the rest of the drive, Jase keeps me distracted. He gives an exhaustive and totally incomprehensible list of the things he needs to do to get the Mustang working (“So I’ve got about three hundred hp with my trick flow aluminum heads and exhaust, and the clutch is slipping at about two-sixty horsepower in third gear, and I want the center-force aftermarket unit, but that’s a big five hundred bucks, but the way the Mustang slips every time I floor it in third gear is killing me”) and looking “how it’s meant to.” Then he tells me that he was working on it earlier this evening in the driveway while Kyle Comstock and Andy sat together on the front steps.

“I was trying not to listen, or look, but oh, man, it was so painful. He kept trying to do the smooth-guy move—that knee bump maneuver or the yawn-arm-stretch deal and he’d lose his nerve at the last minute. Or he’d reach out a hand and then pull it back. Andy licked her lips and tossed her hair until I thought her head was going to snap off. And the whole time they were having this conversation about how last year they had to dissect a fetal pig in biology lab.”

“Not exactly an aphrodisiac.”

“Nope. Biology lab
might
have promise, but dissection and a dead pig are definitely going down the wrong road.”

“So hard to find that right road.” I shake my head. “Especially when you’re fourteen.”

“Or even seventeen.” Jase flips the signal switch to ease off the interstate.

“Or even seventeen,” I concur. Not for the first time, I wonder how much experience Jase has had.

When we pull up outside the Masons’ house, Alice and Nan have evidently just pulled in themselves. They’re standing outside the Bug, debating. Most of the lights in the Masons’ house are dark, just a faint orange glow coming from the bowed living room windows, and two porch lights flickering.

“Can’t we please get him in without anyone seeing?” Nan’s begging, her thin fingers clutching Alice’s arm.

“The real question is whether we
should
get him in without anyone seeing. This is not the sort of thing your parents shouldn’t know about.” Alice’s tone is deliberately patient, as though she’s already been through this several times.

“Alice’s right,” Jase interjects. “If he doesn’t get caught, well, maybe if I hadn’t that time with Lindy, I’d have discovered a taste for shoplifting. This is more than just that…If nobody knows how bad it’s gotten, Tim could find himself in this situation again, with a different outcome. So could you. So could Samantha.”

Alice nods, looking at Nan but addressing her brother. “Remember River Fillipi, Jase? His parents let him get away with anything, turned a blind eye to everything. He ended up blindsiding three cars before he hit the median on 1-95.”

“But you don’t understand. Tim’s in so much trouble already. My parents want him to go away to some awful military camp. That’s the last thing that’s going to help. The very last thing. I
know he’s an idiot and sort of a loser, but he’s my brother—” Nan cuts off abruptly. Her voice is shaking, along with the rest of her. I go over and take her hand. I think of those awkward dinners I’ve had at their house, Mr. Mason’s unseeing gaze at the table, Mrs. Mason prattling on about how she stuffs her artichokes. I feel as though I’m on a seesaw swaying back and forth between what I know is right and true, and every past moment and reason I know has led to this. Jase and Alice are right, but Tim’s such a mess, and I keep remembering him saying, so lost,
I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with me.

“Can you sneak in and open the bulkhead door?” I ask Nan. “Maybe we could get Tim down to the basement and he can crash in the rec room. He’ll be in better shape to face it all in the morning anyway.”

Nan takes a deep breath. “I can do that.” We look at Alice and Jase.

Alice shrugs, frowning. “If that’s what you want, but it seems all wrong to me.”

“They know the situation better than we do,” Jase points out. “Okay, Nan. Go open the cellar door. We’ll get this guy in there.”

Naturally, as we’re carrying him in, Tim wakes up, disoriented, and throws up all over Alice. I pinch my nose. The smell’s enough to make anyone gag. Surprisingly, Alice doesn’t get angry, just rolls her eyes and, without any self-consciousness at all, whips off her ruined shirt. We sling Tim, who, despite being thin, is tall and not easily portable, onto the couch. Jase fetches a bucket from beside the washing machine and puts it next to him. Nan sets out a glass of water and some aspirin.
Tim lies on his back, looking pale, pale, pale. He opens reddened eyes, focuses hazily on Alice in her black lace bra, says, “Whoa.” Then passes out again.

I got in big trouble for being ten minutes late for curfew last time. But tonight, when I actually was involved in a life-threatening incident, one in which I definitely could have used better, swifter judgment
—why on earth didn’t I call 911 on my cell and report a drunk driver?
—on this night when the VW pulls into our driveway, the house lights are dark. Mom isn’t even home yet.

“Dodged more than one bullet tonight, Samantha.” Jase hops out to open my door.

I go around to the driver’s side. “Thanks,” I tell Alice. “You were great to do this. Sorry about your shirt.”

Alice fixes me with a stare. “No sweat. If the only thing that idiot comes out of this with is a horrible hangover and a dry-cleaning bill, he’s way luckier than he has any right to be. Jase deserves better than trauma over some girl who made dumb choices and wound up dead.”

“Yes, he does.” I look right back at her. “I know that.”

She turns to Jase. “I’ll go home now, J. You can say good night to your damsel in distress.”

That one stings. Blood rushes to my face. We get to the front door and I lean back against it. “Thank you,” I repeat.

“You’d have done the same for me.” Jase puts his thumb under my chin and tips it up. “It’s nothing.”

“Well, except that I can’t drive, and you never would have gotten yourself into that situation and—”

“Shhh.” He pulls on my lower lip gently with his teeth, then fits his mouth to mine. First so careful, and then so deep and deliberate, that I can’t think of anything at all but his smooth back under my hands. My fingers travel to the springy-soft texture of his hair, and I lose myself in the movement of his lips and his tongue. I’m so glad I’m still alive to feel all those things.

Chapter Twenty-two

When I get to the B&T—an hour early—the next day, I head straight for the pool. I breathe in the chlorine scent, then focus on the steady back and forth motion of my strokes. The routine is coming back.
Swim no rest, kick no rest, stroke drill, rest, breath to right, breath to left, breath every third stroke.
And so is the timing. Everything else falls away. Forty-five minutes later, I shake out my hair, cupping my hands to my ears to get out the water, then head into Buys by the Bay to find Nan.

Who hasn’t answered any of my texts. I’m imagining the worst. Her parents heard us, came down, and Tim’s already en route to some hard-core camp in the Midwest where he’s going to have to chip granite and eventually get shot by an angry counselor.

But then Nan wouldn’t be calmly sorting aprons in the corner of the store, would she? Maybe she would. Like my mother, my best friend sometimes puts order over the physical world first.

“What’s up with Tim?”

Nan turns around, leans her elbows back against the counter, and looks at me. “He’s fine. Let’s talk about what really matters. Which wasn’t important enough to tell me. Why?”

“What wasn’t important…?”

Nan pales under her freckles. Angry at
me
? Why? And then I get it. I duck my head and feel a flush creeping up my neck.

“You didn’t think to
mention
that you have a boyfriend? Or that he’s, like, incredibly hot? Samantha, I’m your best friend. You know everything about me and Daniel.
Everything
.”

My stomach twists. I haven’t said anything to Nan about Jase. Nothing.
Why not?
I shut my eyes and for a second feel his arms surround me. Such a good thing. Why wouldn’t I tell Nan? She scrunch-folds an apron that says
Life’s a beach and then you swim
and piles it carelessly on top of the others.

“You’re my best friend. You obviously didn’t meet this guy yesterday. What’s going on?”

“It hasn’t been that long. A month. Maybe even a little less.” Heat rises to my face. “I just…felt…didn’t want to…Mom’s always so down on the Garretts…I just got in the habit of keeping it a secret.”

“Your mom’s down on everyone. That never stopped you from telling me about Charley and Michael. Why is this any different? Wait…the Garretts? You mean the they-multiply-like-rabbits family next door?” When I nod, she says, “Wow. How’d you finally meet one of them?”

So I tell Nan the story. All about Jase, this summer, nearly getting grounded and him climbing up to my room. And all the stars.

“He climbs up to your window?” Nan puts her fingers over her mouth. “Your mother would have a cow over this! You do know that, don’t you? She’d have a herd of buffalo if she knew this was going on.” Now she sounds less angry, more admiring.

“She would,” I say as the bells over the door jangle, heralding the arrival of a woman in a fuchsia beach tunic with a very large straw hat and a determined expression.

“When I was here the other day,” she says in those slightly-too-loud tones some people use when speaking to salespeople, “there were some darling T-shirts. I’ve come back for them.”

Nan straightens, schooling her face to blankness. “We have many lovely T-shirts.”

“These had sayings,” the woman tells her challengingly.

“We have a lot of those,” Nan rejoins, straightening her shoulders.

“
Stony Bay…not just another sailing town
,” the woman quotes. “But in place of the ‘not’ there was a—”

“Drawing of a rope knot,” Nan interjects. “Those are over in the corner near the window seat.” She jerks her thumb in that direction and turns more toward me. The woman pauses, then makes her way to the stack of shirts.

“How big
is
this relationship I know nothing about, Samantha? He looks—I don’t know—older than us. Like he knows what he’s doing. Have you and he…?”

“No! No, I would have told you that,” I say.
Would I?

“Is there a discount if I buy one for each crew member on our cruiser?” calls the woman.

“No,” Nan says tersely. She leans in closer to me. “Daniel and I are talking about it. A lot lately.”

I have to admit this surprises me. Daniel’s so controlled, it’s hard to remember he’s also an eighteen-year-old boy. Of course he and Nan are discussing having sex after all this time. I get a flash of Daniel in his school uniform leading the debate
team at Hodges, calling out in his measured way, “Cons go first, then the pros will have an equal amount of time.”

“Tim thinks I’m an idiot.” Nan presses her index finger into the wax of a candle shaped like Stony Bay Lighthouse. “He says Daniel’s a putz and will suck in bed anyway.”

Tim! “What happened with him? Did your parents catch on?”

Nan shakes her head. “No. He got lucky. Or rather, he survived to mess up another day thanks to your surprise boyfriend and his scary sister. Mommy and Daddy didn’t hear a thing. I went down to the basement before I left and dumped the bucket o’ vomit out. I just told Mommy he’d stayed up late and was tired.”

“Nans, Alice may be right about not pretending about this now. Last night was—”

She nods, a quick inhale of breath, nibbling on her thumbnail. “I know. I know. A disaster. But packing him off to some boot camp? I don’t see how that’s going to help him.”

The woman has come up to the register, her arms full of shirts, all pink.

Nan turns to her with a bright, professional smile. “I can ring those up for you. Would you like to put them directly on your club tab, or pay separately?”

I hover nearby until the clock tells me I’ve got to report for duty. Nan doesn’t say anything else, though, until I’m getting ready to leave, when she pauses in changing the paper for the cash register to say, “Samantha. You have what every girl wants.”

“You have Daniel,” I say.

“Sure. But you have everything. How do you always do that?” Her voice is ever so slightly bitter. I think of the Nan who just
has
to do the optional extra credit work for every school project. Who has to point out to me whenever I have a minus next to my grade while she has a plus. Who has to comment that pants that fit me would be “way too big” for her. I’ve never wanted to compete with her, only be her friend, the one person she doesn’t have to best. But sometimes—like now—I wonder if, for Nan, there’s any such thing.

“I don’t do anything special, Nanny.” The bell jingles as another customer walks in.

“Maybe you don’t.” Her voice is weary. “Maybe you’re not even trying. But it all works out for you anyway, doesn’t it?” She turns away before I can offer an answer. Assuming I even had one.

Chapter Twenty-three

I pour myself a lemonade after work and am climbing out of my stupid crested bathing suit right in the kitchen when the doorbell rings. Even our doorbell chime has changed since summer began. Now we have this one that can chime the first few notes of about twenty different tunes, all the way from “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” to “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” In the last two weeks, Mom’s programmed it to chime the opening of “It’s a Grand Old Flag.” I kid you not.