Nantucket Blue (8 page)

LATER, I RODE THE BLUE BIKE
that by now had sort of become mine into town, where faces were downcast, heads were bowed, and hands were shoved into brightly colored pockets. All the children tucked closer into the sides of their parents. My mother’s dislike of Boaty Carmichael was a buffer against all the solemn, complimentary chatter, making me feel like less of a Nantucket person than ever. “A loss for the whole country.” “On his way to the White House.” “Nantucket’s son,
America’s
son.” I was afraid if anyone looked at me for a second too long they’d be able to tell that my mother hated the guy.

I saw a short dress in the window of a boutique. It was a slim, silk, one-shouldered number with a thin gold belt around the waist. It filled me with hope, and I decided to try it on to cheer myself up. I went into the store, which was empty except for the saleslady, who looked pale despite her tan. She held a tissue to her lips as she watched the TV, the same loop I’d seen earlier, reviewing the same news.

“Can I try this on?” I asked. She nodded vaguely in my direction, her eyes glued to the TV, then dabbed her reddened nose with the shredded tissue. I felt like a criminal for smiling.

Once in the dressing room with the canvas curtain closed, I slipped the dress over my head. The cool silk kissed my skin and skimmed my body. It hit my mid-thigh, flirting with being too short but staying, somehow, classy beyond a doubt. I peeled off my sweaty socks and slid my feet into a pair of strappy gold heels that were under the bench, waiting for me. The high waist made my legs look longer, and the deep emerald green brought out the blond streaks in my hair, which I took out of my ponytail and shook to my shoulders. The one bare shoulder was the secret, the reveal. I look like I could be on TV, I thought, turning to see the back. I look like I could be famous. If I wore this dress it would be impossible for anyone to make me feel bad. Powers would shift.

I checked out the price tag dangling beneath my armpit. Four hundred and ninety-five dollars! That was more than a week’s pay. I thought about how difficult my first week had been. My elbows were sore from scrubbing, my hands felt rougher from the various cleaning chemicals. My summer earnings were the only money I had all year for trips to the movies, clothes that weren’t uniforms, and my cell phone bill. But I wanted this so badly that my wanting began to grow a life of its own. I unzipped carefully, leaning forward and rounding my back to pull the dress over my head, trying not to touch the silk too much, afraid to matte its gloss. I sat on the bench to think.

The bell that hung over the front door rang faintly.

“Hi, doll,” said the saleslady. Her voice was surprisingly rough: a smoker, a drinker, or maybe a yeller.

“Hey, Nan.” That voice I knew. It was Jules. It was her
talking to a grown-up she didn’t like but had to be nice to
voice. I went pale, stuck my hands in my armpits, felt lightheaded. I lifted my bare feet from the ground onto the little bench, my toes as cold as frozen peas. As much as I wanted to run into her, as much as I wanted to force her to face me, as much as I wanted to ask her why she’d done what she’d done and said what she’d said; as much as I wanted to scream and cry and really have it out with her, I couldn’t seem to move from this shell shape. I felt stupid for being here all by myself and trying on a dress without an occasion. What would I say I was shopping for? Next year’s Spring Dance? I could smell my deodorant. I could smell Formula 409 in my fingernails.

“I just came in for my check,” Jules said. “Anyone come in today?”

Of course: this was where she worked! I glanced at the price tag on the dress where the name of the store was printed in pink: Needle and Thread. How had I not noticed? How had I not put it together?

“There’s someone in the dressing room, with the Chloé dress, I think.”

“Great dress,” Jules said, under her breath. They whispered something to each other that I couldn’t make out. Then Jules sighed, and I imagined one hand was on her hip, because that’s usually how she stands when she sighs like that. From the silence, it seemed like they were watching the TV.

“Can you believe this?” Nan asked, and blew her nose.

“It’s so sad. You know Parker Carmichael is my best friend.” My stomach twisted. I clutched my knees. Parker wasn’t her best friend! Parker didn’t know how worried she got about her skin, that she went to the dermatologist sometimes once a week for treatments to prevent a relapse of the acne that had plagued her for a semester our freshman year. Parker didn’t know that even though Jules had the quickest comebacks, trying to conjugate French verbs could make her cry with frustration. She didn’t know that she had a team of tutors and even then couldn’t get above a B in pretty much anything; that she had failed her driver’s-ed test three times. Parker didn’t know that she actually had hooked up with Jeremy Stein sophomore year at the Winter Ball, even though she denied it so much and so often that by now even she believed it hadn’t happened. No one knew that stuff but me.

“Oh, poor girl,” said Nan.

“Are you going to close the shop this week?” Jules asked. I could hear the hope in her voice. Jules liked having a job but hated the working part.

“In July? Are you kidding me?” Sadness vanished from the woman’s voice. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jules thanked her for the check, and I heard the bells jingle softly.

I waited a few minutes, soundlessly got dressed, left the dress on the hanger in the dressing room, and fled.

I hopped on my bike and cruised out of town, in the opposite direction of Jules’s house. It was hot—the air thick with future rain—and sweat prickled my upper lip. I followed one of those hand-painted-looking signs to Jetties Beach, where I thought maybe I’d find Liz. But when I got there, there was a group of kids my age, the girls with their arms slung around each other. Was Jules among them? I couldn’t risk it. I turned around and headed up a cobblestone hill bordered by a wall of golden moss.

It didn’t matter how good my grades were or that I’d made varsity as a freshman; it didn’t matter how carefully, how perfectly, I’d managed my popularity; it didn’t matter that I’d measured and doled out my flirtations like teaspoons of sugar—never too much to be a tease, always enough to be sweet. Jules was able to take my happiness away from me with one swift betrayal. My social life had slid from good to bad like a hockey puck across a rink. It wasn’t fair. I wanted to take her to friend court. I wanted to sue her. But I could see the faces of the jury when it was revealed that her mother had just died.
Died.

I coasted on a quiet little cul-de-sac, peering over hedges, looking at the huge estates, all of them with their flags at half mast. I was wishing I were that kind of rich, the kind where people have to respect you, because that’s what money does. It makes people shut up. It means you live in the big house, throw the cool birthday parties, belong to the country club that has its own jokes, its own dances; take awesome vacations, go skiing enough to get really good at it, own the best clothes, get the green dress.

I was thinking about how being rich was protection, armor, authority, a cushion, a parachute, something to fall back on when the rest of your life sucked. I was pedaling slowly and looking at the biggest house on the street, gazing upward into its turret, pretending I lived there with a three-hundred-and-sixty-five-degree ocean view, a telescope, and a Jacuzzi, when a huge black Navigator peeled out of nowhere, swerved to avoid me, and screeched to a halt an inch from my body. I froze, wincing, shutting my eyes against the spray of gravel and the heat from the car’s engine. A big mean man with fat baby cheeks and a white baseball hat leaned on his horn. The sound moved through my muscles, pulsing the marrow in my bones.

“Get out of the street,” he said, shaking a fist at me, his complexion ruddy with anger.

I got off my bike and jogged it to the sidewalk. I let the bike fall on the grass and sat, my head in my hands, waiting for the man to drive away. I wouldn’t look at him, but I could feel him looking at me, his anger like a scorching ray of sun.

“Fuckin’ idiot,” he said. My legs were shaking. My throat was dry. I was past crying. “You tryin’ to get yourself killed? Stay on the sidewalk.”

“You slow down, Mr. Big Shot!” shouted an old woman in tennis whites walking an even older-looking standard poodle, one hand cupped around her mouth like a megaphone. She had wobbly knees on legs so tanned they looked like they’d stepped on the tennis court in 1975 and never stepped off. “New Yorkers,” she said, eyes narrowed, catching his license plate as the car turned down the hill. Her mouth was pinched, like she’d just chewed a lemon. And I wasn’t sure if she was talking to the poodle or me. “Well, you’re okay,” she said. I nodded quickly. “He was completely out of order. You’re not
supposed
to ride your bicycle on the sidewalk.”

As she walked past me on her long, old, freckled legs, her proud standard poodle strutting beside her, I wondered how it was that on this tiny island off Massachusetts, with its candy-cane lighthouse, church bells on the hour, daffodils, and ice-cream cones, nowhere felt safe.

I COULDN’T SLEEP THAT NIGHT
. My nerves were jangling from almost being hit by that Navigator. There was a fluttery, unsettling lightness in my body that made me want to hug myself just to feel my own weight. The pillow was too squishy and the sheets were scratchy against my skin. I tried counting the roses on the wallpaper, but I couldn’t get past ten without my mind wandering back to Jules or Jay.

Earlier that day, I’d bought a chutney-and-cheddar sandwich from Something Natural, a place Gavin said was the best on the island. The thing was so huge it was like two sandwiches, and I’d only been able to eat a quarter of it, saving the rest for later. That sandwich seemed like the best thing in the world around 2 a.m., when my stomach remembered about lunch and dinner and was demanding both. I walked quietly into the dark kitchen and opened the refrigerator, which Gavin kept gleaming and clean. Where was my sandwich? My perfect, delicious sandwich, full of such odd flavors I almost couldn’t believe I liked it. I’d put it right here, I thought, touching the empty shelf as if the sandwich were only momentarily invisible. I opened the crisper and the meats-and-cheeses drawer, mystified in the cold breath of the refrigerator.

Behind me, the floor creaked, though softer than when Liz was marching around the kitchen—almost as if it were bending under the weight of cat or a child. It creaked again, even more softly, as if it weren’t really being stepped on but moved over. Oh my god. I heard breathing. I froze, my feet nailed to the floor. A cool, silvery sweat lined my body.
I
don’t believe in ghosts
, I told myself as I stared ahead. But the chords of my neck were as stiff as cables. My heart was thwacking. I let go of the fridge door and told my feet to
move
. My eyes shifted to the kitchen door, which had swung shut behind me on my way in, and I wondered if my lead arms would be able to push it open as I took my first giant step toward it.

“Hey, didn’t mean to scare you,” said a voice.

I flung my hand on the light switch, an act of bravery worthy of getting my picture in the paper. My other hand rested on my jumping heart. I turned to see a guy with messy brown hair, a crooked smile, and a wrinkled shirt sitting at the kitchen table. His back was to me, and he was twisted around in his seat, chewing. A pair of crutches leaned against the table.

“I’m George Gust,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. He looked too old for college but too young to be a dad. “Are you staying here, too?”

“I work here.” I leaned against the wall and took deep breaths. “Sorry, I thought you were a ghost.”

“Is this place haunted?” he asked, completely serious.

“Supposedly. I don’t believe it, though.”

He raised an eyebrow, like,
Sure you don’t.
“Well, I apologize again. I thought at first you were sleepwalking, and you know how they say you should never wake up a sleepwalker? Anyway, my bad.” He wiped his hand on his jeans and extended it. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“I’m Cricket Thompson,” I said, taking his hand and catching a full view of his plate. “And you’re eating my sandwich.”

“I HAVE A WHOLE MONTH
to make this up to you,” George Gust said as he swallowed the last bite, explaining that he was staying in the annex, a little studio cottage in the backyard, for all of July and probably August, too. We sat there talking for at least a half hour. He seemed to have a lot of talking in him, and I wasn’t exactly dying to get back to my rose-covered chamber. He was writing a biography of Senator William “Boaty” Carmichael. He’d sold his idea to a big publishing house over a year ago and had been taking his sweet time. But with the latest news, his editors were pushing for a draft by the end of August. He was staying at the inn to do research and to write his ass off.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do it,” he said, his forehead crimping. “Especially with a broken leg.”

“But you don’t write with your leg.” I grabbed one of Liz’s beloved key-lime-pie-flavored yogurts (or, as she said, “yah-gurts”) from the fridge. She loved this stuff. I thought it tasted like whipped soap, but it was pretty much my only option tonight. Luckily, it was her day off tomorrow and she was at Shane’s, so I’d have time to replace it before she noticed.

“But everything takes me twice as long,” the man said. “Buying a cup of coffee is like a half-hour adventure. And I need to interview people. I can’t drive. It sucks.” He shook his head. “Are you a night owl, too?” He crumpled the butcher paper the sandwich had been wrapped in into a ball.

“Not usually. Can’t sleep.”

George aimed the paper ball toward the garbage. It landed next to the dishwasher. “I’ve never been good at that,” he said. “I’ve never been the guy who makes the basket with my trash unless I’m right next to it.”

“And this bothers you?” I polished off the yogurt and washed the spoon.

“You know, it kinda does. I’d really like to be one of those guys. Everyone would say, ‘he shoots, he scores,’ and I’d feel like a big deal just for throwing something out.”

I took five steps backward, assumed a basketball pose, and tossed the empty yogurt container directly into the bin.

“You’re one of those guys,” he said.

“One of those girls.” I picked up his paper ball and handed it back to him. “You need a loose wrist.” He rolled his wrist around. “Now, you’ve got to look where you want it to land.” George narrowed his eyes at the trash can. “Just kind of put yourself in that place.”

“In the trash?”

I laughed. “Yup.”

“I’m there,” he said. “It’s not pretty, but I’m there.” He lifted his arm to throw.

“Okay, now keep your eyes on the can and trust. Trust that your arm knows when to release.” I was pretty much quoting Miss Kang directly. He reared back his arm, took a breath, and shot.

“He shoots, he scores,” I said as the butcher paper landed in the trash.

“Look at that.” He clapped once, smiling broadly. “Thanks!”

“You just needed a coach,” I said, and shrugged. He stood up, balancing on one leg as he grabbed his crutches.

“What I really need,” he said, as he hobbled toward the stairs and used the butt of his crutch to push the door, “is an intern.”