Principles of Love (27 page)

“Hello?” I whack my palm against the door.

“Go away!” Lila, drunk, says this from inside so it sounds more like
ger-ray
.

“I will not ger-ray!” I shout. “Let me in.” Okay, a total little pigs moment. Or, wait, am I the big bad wolf? “Come on!”

Hans-Franz opens the door a crack. With his unidentifiable accent he says, “Sorry to inconvenience you, Lovey, but we’re a tad busy at the moment.”

Cue the big giggles from Lila. I push past Euro-dude and burst in on semi-clad Lila.

“I’ll just grab my things,” I say, fuming.

Lila’s clueless. “See you later?” This isn’t so much a question, rather a
get out
disguised as friendly.

“I don’t think so,” I say.

“Oh my God — you are so overreacting.” Lila sighs and Hans tackles her — the least suave thing he’s done yet. I shove my sweater into my duffel, and do a quick scan to see what I’ve left behind. Only when I’m outside, walking to the train station, do I realize it’s the old Lila, my old friendship — that’s missing.

A mere eight hours later, I am sore, exhausted, twenty dollars out from my gasoline purchase on Route 495, and yet still relieved to be waiting at the Wood’s Hole ferry terminal for the first boat of the morning to Martha’s Vineyard. In forty-five minutes I’ll dock at Vineyard Haven, where Mable will be waiting — hopefully with an extra-large latte for me.

With time to contemplate the weird events of the day before, I lean on the railing, looking out at the ocean and the horizon line. I have one of those movie-camera moments where I’m that sullen girl on a boat, soundtrack cuing up in the background — but what’s my problem? I feel like I’m floating (yes, I know I am literally floating — that’s not what I mean) — between people (Jacob, Lila) and places (I wish there were one venue I felt totally connected to). I want a best friend — clearly Lila’s not it. And I want the relationship I thought I’d have with Jacob. That’s what I feel; all talk no reality.

My cell phone bleeps to announce a new message so I punch in my code and hope it’s Lila, explaining her actions. But it’s not. Instead, I hear in a wildly upper crust British accent:

“Um, yes, hello! This is Arabella Piece, the exchange student? I’m due to arrive this autumn? From London? Just ringing to check you’ve got my flights and that you’ll send a driver to collect me? Your dad was kind enough to give me this number just I case I needed to reach a Hadley contact? Well, looking forward to it. Bye!”

Her cheerful tone and upturned sentences are too much for me (why do so many girls need to make questions out of their normal phrases?). Plus, she is a cold reminder of the Euros I dealt with at Brown. I can already see Arabella Piece as a label-wearing jet-setting, posh girl who’s sheltered enough to assume she’ll be met by a driver at the airport.

Since there are no other messages for me, I gaze out at the steady horizon, wishing for coffee or company and it’s right when I’m thinking this that I feel a tap on my shoulder. “Sarah?” the voice attached to the finger-tapper asks me.

I turn around. “Nope — good guess though,” I say to the guy in front of me. I do a quick check — he’s older, maybe college (I am not destined for a career in forensics — he just has a tee-shirt with some insignia on the chest — a rather firm chest, I might ad).

But instead of following through with what I thought was his pick-up line, the guy says, “Oh, well then — I apologize. Go back to your thoughts.” He backs away. I watch him and smile. It’s so early in the morning we are the only two people on the ferry deck except for a young mother and her toddlers.

“Wait,” I say. “I’m Love.”

“I’m Henry,” he says. Yay — a normal name! Not that I have any problems with the Euro-nomenclature, just a relief that I can actually spell it. “I thought only fishermen and families with kids took this ferry.” He checks his watch as if to confirm that, yes, it’s really only 6.15am. He has that sleepy cute boy thing happening — slightly fuzzy around the edges. Maybe my summer Guyatus is ending (granted, it didn’t start by choice exactly, but with Jacob out of the picture — at least for now — and the hectic pace of life and losership in NYC, it kind of happened).

“Is this your way of telling me you’re a fisherman?” I ask. Hey, I can flirt even with no sleep! The breeze picks up as the ferry moves out into the open water from the Wood’s Hole area.

“Lobsterman, actually.”

“Trap much?” Jeez — I should sleep-deprive myself more often. I am way more relaxed than I usually am. Henry smiles at me and then raises one eyebrow. I can do that, too (my dad says he’s sure it’s some recessive gene or something — he can’t do it but only because he trained himself — ah, time well spent — but I was born knowing how — it’s great for sarcasm or random moments on boats with boys, but that’s about it). So I raise my eyebrow in some sort of weird facial toast and Henry nods.

We go inside to the shelter of the snack bar. Plastic blue seats and tables bolted to the floor make for an atmospheric breakfast. Henry buys a really sticky sticky bun — the kind in a pre-wrapped cellophane, and we share it. Somehow, the conversation drifts from baked goods to colleges and — somehow — and I don’t know how — when I say, “I just spent a horrific night at Brown,” Henry interprets this to mean that I am an actual attendee of that fine institution.

“Freshman year, huh?” he does the eyebrow thing again. “Don’t worry, it gets better.”

I lick my fingers and take pause. Probably I’ll never see the guy again. “Does it?” I ask. Not an outright lie, just a glossing over of the facts. I’m too exhausted to go into the Lila-Eurotrash fiasco anyway. Just thinking about her — and her Stepford Student change makes me nervous and nauseated. Or maybe that’s the sticky bun.

“To be honest,” Henry says and crumples up our trash. He arcs the wrapper-balls into the trash can, “I’m only guessing — I’ll be a sophomore.” I calculate on my fingers — give me a break — it’s not even seven o’clock in the morning — a three-plus year age difference? Not insurmountable, I think — aware of my interesting word choice.

The boat’s horn sounds. I stand up and through the windows I can see the island, the dips and curves of the shoreline and wooden houses that dot the bluffs and coves. Henry reaches out a hand to me.

“I have to go,” he says. He gestures with his head to a man standing by the doorway. “Dad’s here.” I look at his father, who gives me a salute.

“Oh,” I say. “Well, thanks for the sticky bun.” I feel cheesy now, but Henry shrugs.

“No problem. See you around, right? I’ll look you up if I’m ever at Brown.”

Sure thing, buddy. I’ll be the fake-freshman. We part ways — with Henry heading downstairs with his father to reclaim their vehicle (you have to book about a year in advance to get a spot for your car on Labor Day weekend — so I am hoofing it). I go back to my spot on the deck and get ready to search the crowds for Mable’s face. I’ve been to the island only a couple of times — my father has an enormous affinity for the place — but this is my first time on my own. Not that I’ll be alone, but I won’t be trailing after my father or having to ask if I can have a snack (basically, I haven’t been here since I was maybe ten years old). And if I ride the oldest carousel in North America, the one in Oak Bluffs, it will be with my very cool aunt in music video style.

When the ferry ties up to the dock and the metal bridge clanks onto the concrete, the few passengers traveling by foot make their way down to the land. My scuffed duffel over one shoulder, I take a minute to scan the line of cars for Henry, just in case he’s got the window rolled down and is looking for me. That’d be a
no.

Halfway down the gangplank, I try to spot Mable. She’s easy to pick out of a crowd — you just look for the giant pile of blonde and brown curlicues that bob up and down with her frenetic waving. But I don’t see her. In fact, even when I’m on land scanning the ferry terminal, the parking lot, the clam shack, I don’t see her. The cool morning air is enough to make me rummage in my bag for a sweatshirt, which I layer over my long-sleeved blue tee-shirt. It’s the kind of temperature that announces summer’s end; school will start next week — later than public, fashionably allowing for students still on vacation in exotic locales to return home, pack up, and drive or fly to boarding schools. Junior year (or, um, college freshman year?) looms in front of me, and I know I will break up the year according to the weird calendar of events that have nothing to do with the rest of life (Labor Day, Beginning of School, Columbus Day, Mid-term, Thanksgiving Break, The Netherland between Thanksgiving and Christmas break, and so on). Still no sign of Mable nor her hair.

Random families swarm around the Black Dog bakery, pawing muffins, the parents grateful for their coffees, kids clad in the eponymous t-shirts and sweats. Cars are already in line for the returning boat back to the mainland. I look behind me at the ferry — it seems huge. It is huge. I feel tiny. And alone. And then I finally see Mable — leaning up against the side of the clam shack.

At first, I don’t think she sees me — she’s really pretty hunched over (maybe tying a shoe? But no, even from a distance I can see the bright orange flip-flops we picked out last spring). Then she gives a small wave, and motions for me to come over. But not very enthusiastically. She’s been acting weird all summer — she never visited me in New York like she’d promised, never really explained why she broke off her engagement last spring to her sweet coffee bean distributor. I haven’t actually seen her in two months — the longest I’ve ever gone in my life, minus the time Mable vanished for four months, galavanting with some guy she met in line at the DMV and sent weekly postcards. This summer, I got only one letter and it basically just asked questions about my life (or lack thereof) in New York.

My bag is getting heavy. Even though it’s a duffle, I link the straps around my shoulders as if it’s a backpack and head over to Mable. As I get closer, I understand why I couldn’t see her hair; she’s got a Pucci scarf on her head. I remind myself to ask to borrow it later. Then, right in the middle of my superficial thoughts, I come to a stand still. Mable and I lock eyes. Mable reaches for her scarf — but I know what she’s going to reveal. My aunt has no hair.

Suddenly, it all makes sense. My dad talked endlessly about “big changes” this summer — I assumed he meant he and my bitchy math teach from last year would be moving in together or something, but they actually broke up. He did go on and on about the nature of life — he wrote me a letter that read like one of his headmaster pep-talks, “loss allows us to grow” and how we “learn from the challenges fate throws our way” — and I didn’t even think he believed in fate (usually he says that fate is an excuse for not making decisions).

Mable begins to walk towards me, one hand smoothing hair that isn’t there, the other gripping the scarf. She’s lost weight. I am flooded with fragments from last spring and this summer — how she complained of being so tired, how she had to cut back on her hours at Slave to the Grind. With Mable in front of me, her arms around me in the tightest hug, I burst into tears.

“It’s okay, Love,” Mable whispers.

But I know it isn’t — I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I am entirely sure that whatever it is will change my life forever.

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Piece, Love, and Happiness
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Emily Franklin is the author of
Liner Notes
and a story collection,
The Girls’ Almanac
. She is also the author or coauthor of over a dozen young adult books including
The Half-Life of Planets
(nominated for YALSA’s Best Book of the Year) and
Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom
(named to the 2013 Rainbow List). A former chef, she wrote the cookbook-memoir
Too Many Cooks: Kitchen Adventures with 1 Mom, 4 Kids, and 102 Recipes
to chronicle a year in the life of new foods, family meals, and heartache around the table. Her fiction and essays have appeared in the
Boston Globe
, Monkeybicycle, the
Mississippi Review
,
Post Road Magazine
, Carve Magazine, and Word Riot, as well as on National Public Radio, among others. Her recipes have been featured in numerous magazines and newspapers, and on many food websites. She lives with her husband, four kids, and one-hundred-sixty-pound dog outside of Boston.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Excerpt from
So Lyrical
copyright © 2005 by Patricia Cook

Excerpt from
Rock My World
copyright © 2005 by Erica Orloff

Copyright © 2005 by Emily Franklin

Cover design by Mimi Bark

978-1-4804-5223-7

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

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