Time Flies (24 page)

I burst out laughing. “Well, at least we have one of them now.”

B.J. stuck out her chest and wiggled her shoulders. “Speak for yourself.”

I shook my head. “Remember when we really thought those were the lyrics? Until my sister Marion made fun of us.”

“Marion,” B.J. said. She pushed the
SHUFFLE
button and we sang along with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young about loving the one you’re with and living with cinnamon girls and finding the cost of freedom.

“So gentle and pure,” I said. “It was a different time back then.”

“It sure was,” B.J. said. “We are lucky to be alive. Remember that time when we told our parents we were sleeping over at each other’s houses and we hitchhiked all the way up to that concert in Maine?”

“No,” I said. “I think we talked about it, but we chickened out.”

B.J. turned and looked over her sunglasses at me. “No offense, but you’re such a buzz crusher.”

We stopped at Satuit Saloon to pick up fish-and-chips. The second we got back out to the Mustang, we tore open the brown paper take-out bag. The scent of fried fish filled the car. We took turns reaching into the bag to sample french fries as we headed for the beach.

“Thank you for treating,” I said.

“What are friends for,” B.J. said. “When my husband cancels my credit cards on me, you can pay me back.”

We circled around and around and around the block, hoping one of the rare parking spaces that overlooked the beach would open up for us like a clamshell.

“There,” I yelled.

The car in front of us, which had driven just beyond the car that was pulling out, put on its blinker and started backing up.

“As if,” B.J. yelled. She put on her blinker and leaned forward like a racecar driver. The instant the space was mostly empty, she hit the gas.

The other car beeped, long and loud.

B.J. shook her head. “What an idiot. Everybody knows that once you’ve passed it, you can’t go back. Ohmigod, that sounds like a metaphor. Good thing I don’t believe in those, either.”

I laughed and reached for what was left of our fries.

Directly across from us was the seawall, topped with a simple barrier made of galvanized-steel posts and railings. It did the trick in terms of function, but if I were in charge of the beach I’d redesign the whole thing. It would have to stay as open as possible, of course, because the point was to be able to see through to the ocean. But why couldn’t the posts be bent to form fish standing on their fins, with the crosspieces curving up and down like waves breaking?

I’d search the architectural supply catalogs until I found the perfect materials—I was pretty sure eight-inch steel spirals would work for the waves, and dotting the fish scales with two-inch ball bearings would make them pop. The trick would be lots and lots of edge grinding so that the barrier would be safe for pedestrians. But it would be worth every bit of effort, and when it was finished it would be spectacular.

Beneath the seawall, a thirty-foot drop ended at the beach. People of all shapes and sizes and ages filled almost every available inch of sand as they crisscrossed between the water and a patchwork of beach blankets and towels and chairs and coolers and toys. There were so many things to look at it was like trying to navigate an old
Where’s Waldo?
picture book.

As I scanned the crowd, I had the oddest feeling that I was looking for myself. I found a mom and two sons who could almost be Trevor and Troy as toddlers if I squinted. A youngish couple shared a blanket, and the man was putting sunscreen on the woman’s back, the way Kurt had once done for me so long ago it felt like another lifetime.

I looked slowly across the entire expanse of beach. Who would I be next? That solitary woman in a big floppy hat and sunglasses and a long-sleeved cover-up huddled under an umbrella with a book? One half of the older couple sitting so far apart on the sand that their matching plaid beach chairs were the only clue they were together?

Another couple, Boomer-aged and both in rolled-up jeans, held hands as they walked along the water’s edge, laughing as they dodged the people they passed. When two little girls ran through the water in their direction, they lifted up their hands like a bridge and the girls ran right under. My eyes teared up.

“I lost my virginity on this beach,” B.J. said. She reached her hand into the take-out bag, then picked up the bag and looked inside. “Tell me you didn’t just eat the last french fry.”

“Please don’t make me listen to that story again,” I said. “And I’m pretty sure it was you who ate the last one.”

“I don’t think so. And what’s wrong with that story?”

“I think losing-your-virginity stories are only interesting if you were there.”

“Hmm, I never thought of it that way. Do you want another Tab?”

I shook my head. Minot’s Light, the locally famous light that blinked 1–4–3 to signify “I love you,” a number standing for the
number of letters in each word, was directly in front of us, way out in the ocean.

“I forgot all about Minot’s Light,” I said.

“Do you think it was a siren thing?” B.J. asked. “You know, blink I love you, and the sailors got all flustered and crashed into the rocks?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “At least that’s not the story the historical society puts out there.”

“Well,” B.J. said. “You know how those hysterical types are. I mean, historical.”

I sighed.

B.J. sighed.

I sighed again.

“Shit,” B.J. said. “I think we’ve passed it by. The last wild thing that’s ever going to happen to us was that disgusting trucker wiggling his pitiful butt at us. That’s it. That’s as good as it’s going to get. When we’re ninety-nine and a half, that’s the story we’re going to be telling each other as we sit in our wheelchairs in the solarium of the nursing home doing shots of prune juice.”

CHAPTER 25

A mint-green-and-white car was parked in Jan’s driveway.

“Wow,” I said. “What
is
that? The color is gorgeous.”

“Big deal,” B.J. said. “So it’s a vintage Jaguar. I completely forgot how competitive Jan is. And I’d much rather have Mustang Sally any day.”

“Maybe she rented it for the week,” I said. “Maybe her profile says she’s independently wealthy after a series of savvy investments and has a fourteen-car garage to house her collection of vintage cars. But the truth is she shops at Marshalls like the rest of us and still drives a mini van.”

“Thank you,” B.J. said. “You’re a good friend, Thelma.”

“Why aren’t there more cars here?” I asked. “Do you think the partying got so wild last night that everyone went home for a nap?”

B.J. tilted her head to get a better look. “Maybe. I hope the cops didn’t have to come and break things up. It would be a total bummer if we missed that, too.”

I unbuckled my seat belt and twisted around to take the pressure off my tattoo. It didn’t burn as much anymore, but my skin was starting to feel itchy and tight. “You don’t think they all took off and went to another party, do you? Maybe someone left their Jaguar here where it would be safe.”

B.J. untied her scarf and shook out her hair. “They’d better not have. I will kill Jan when I get my hands on her if she didn’t at least leave us a note telling us where they all went.”

I untied my scarf, too, and tossed my short hair like a salad. “Does my hair look okay?”

B.J. looked. “Of course it does. You look about twelve. Well, except for around the eyes. And the jawline.”

“So, are we going to go inside or are we just going to sit out here while you insult me?”

“Okay, let me find a safe place to park in case it turns into a mob scene. If any of our classmates so much as scratches my Sally, I will take them out.”

B.J. finished pulling Sally off the road and onto the edge of Jan’s lawn. Then she leaned her head back and drained her Tab.

I picked up my water bottle from the console and took a long gulp, as if I were hydrating before a marathon.

B.J. let out a soft Tab burp. “Okay, just promise me that if somebody obnoxious gets my ear, you’ll come rescue me.”

“Sure,” I said, “but how will I know if somebody I think is obnoxious isn’t somebody you’re crazy about?”

B.J. reached for her lip gloss. “That’s a really good point. Okay,
we need a signal. How about if I need you to rescue me, I’ll roll my eyes.”

I rolled my eyes. “Perfect. They’ll be so insulted you’re rolling your eyes at them that you won’t even need me to rescue you. And by the way, if we’re going to do it, this rescue thing needs to work both ways. I can’t spend my whole night saving you.”

“Okay, how about whoever needs to be rescued points their index finger at their tattoo and then taps it up and down on their shoulder three times?”

“Right, let’s just call attention to our scabbing broken hearts.”

“Okay, fine. You pick the signal.”

“How about I just give you a look like I’m going to kill you if you don’t rescue me?”

“Genius,” B.J. said. “Now let’s get in there while there’s still room. Should I bring a six-pack of Tab in with us now, or should we wait and make sure the party’s Tab-worthy?”

Jan opened the door on the first knock. “Come in! Come in!” She looked so different from the Jan I semi-remembered from high school that I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to pick her out in a police lineup. Her hair was platinum blond and her eyes were an odd emerald green, like a cat’s. I searched her face for a single wrinkle and came up empty.

“You two haven’t changed a bit,” she said.

“You haven’t changed a bit, either,” B.J. said. “You’ve changed completely.”

“You look great,” I said. It wasn’t quite true, but you could
look at it like the hostess gift we’d forgotten to bring. When I smiled at her, the corners of her mouth may have lifted in return. It was hard to be sure.

B.J. and I stepped into a foyer with high beadboard wainscoting and a perfectly refinished old hardwood floor with a compass rose inlaid in the center. I wanted the house, the floor, the compass rose. I wanted to move right in and stay.

“Sorry we’re a day late,” B.J. said. “We got a little bit sidetracked.”

Jan gave B.J. a hug. B.J. kept her tattooed shoulder angled back, just out of reach.

When it was my turn, I did the same thing. “Sorry to hear about you and Kurt,” Jan whispered. “You were always too good for him.”

I tried to give B.J. a dirty look for apparently informing the entire world about the breakup of my marriage, but she was too busy checking out the house. “Cool place,” she said.

“It’s my mother-in-law’s,” Jan said. “And I should probably tell you that she’s not supposed to be—”

A tiny woman with a cane walked into the foyer. She was wearing a pink Chanel suit and a matching pink pillbox hat. I couldn’t see from where I was standing but I just knew her stockings had seams running up the back. Her black orthopedic shoes were freshly polished and she had two little pink circles of rouge on her papery cheeks.

The rings on her gnarled fingers twinkled with jewels the size of small countries.

She lifted her cane high in the air and pointed it at B.J. and me.

“Whose thieving bastard children are you?” she roared.