Twenty Boy Summer (4 page)

Somewhere along the California seashore, a strange wind blows over the ocean, and twenty oblivious boys simultaneously look up from their surfboards.

six

As the days turn into the final hours before the trip, whenever I think about Frankie's twenty-boy contest, I can't ignore the prickly feeling in my stomach that accompanies Matt's face, fading and disappointed.

I never saw you in a bikini,
I imagine him saying.

You didn't live long enough,
I think.

But twenty, Anna? Does it have to be twenty? What about five? Or three? Or one?

What do you care? You're dead, remember?

I shake my head and pack the last few items on my list. Unless Dad has a last-minute change of heart, we leave tomorrow morning.

"Dead boys don't talk, Anna," I say out loud. "Remember?"

"What?" Mom does her signature knock-while-already-opening move on my bedroom door. "Did you say something, hon?"

"Um, no, just reviewing my packing list." I see Dad behind her and hope they haven't been standing there long. Then I see the serious look on their faces and swallow hard, hoping they're just here to remind me about sunscreen and lifeguards and generally being an all-around well-behaved girl for Uncle Red and Aunt Jayne.

"Can we talk for a minute?" Dad asks, making himself comfortable on my desk chair.

"Um, okay." I remove and refold a few things from my bag to create the illusion that I'm busy.

"So, Frankie's smoking again," he says.

I can't tell if it's a question or a statement, so I play dumb. "What do you mean?"

"I came home between open houses today and saw her," he says. Dad's in real estate, so his schedule can be unpredictable. Frankie should know -- her window faces our house. It's been a few months since the last time he busted her, when he grilled me about
my
nonexistent smoking habits and made me promise I'd get her to quit.

"She just -- she found -- it's just that -- I don't know, Dad." I give up. The only excuse I can think of is the truth -- she's broken. Until someone can figure out how to fix her, what else
can
she do?

Dad sighs. "Anna, do you think maybe the trip is something the Perinos need to do together, as a
family
?"

"They
are
going as a family," I remind him. His line of questioning makes me nervous. When the Perinos first invited me, it took some convincing to secure Dad's permission. Before Matt died, Dad already struggled with such "living on the edge" activities as me going outside with wet hair in the winter, taking off my sneakers without untying them, and going to bed without flossing. It only got worse after the car accident, and I really thought Dad would say no to a summer vacation across the country -- especially with his comments about me spending too much time with Frankie. But after presenting a convincing argument, citing my honor roll final grades, and committing to additional housework without being asked, I won him over. After that, whenever someone mentioned California, I changed the subject. Like I told Frankie -- he can still revoke permission until we're on the plane.

"I know they're going as a family," Dad says. "I meant -- without the neighbor kid getting underfoot."

He says "the neighbor kid" like I'm some barnacle that even industrial-strength chemicals can't remove from the hull of their family tragedy.

"Dad, she kind of needs me there, you know?" I force myself to keep my voice steady, thinking about Frankie's "positive envisionation."
I am on the beach. There are drooling boys and postcards and something about beautiful mermaids....

"I understand that, Anna. It's just that... do you ever think that part of the reason Frankie isn't moving on is -- is that you aren't
letting
her?"

I look to Mom for support, but her eyes are on me expectantly, as if at any minute I'll see their irrefutable logic and unpack my bags. I know Mom and Dad care about Frankie, but they weren't the ones hiding upstairs with her in the weeks after Matt's death while well-meaning relatives and friends stopped by, bearing an endless supply of cards and food in disposable foil pans and saying all the wrong things. "He's in a better place now." "God must have a plan for him." "At least he didn't suffer." "You're still young, Jayne. Maybe you can have another child." "You'd stop thinking about him if you took down his pictures." They didn't hold Frankie as she sobbed for hours at a time without talking. They didn't make sure she ate even when she wasn't hungry. They didn't do her homework when she couldn't concentrate, or explain to our teachers why she was late for every class.

"How do you know Frankie isn't moving on?" I ask.

"Anna," Dad says gently, "all I'm saying is that as long as you're around, Red and Jayne don't really have to worry about Frankie -- you're doing it for them. And two thousand miles away on a trip that will be extremely difficult for them -- that complicates things. We just want to make sure you're ready to deal with this."

Deal
with this? Not only does he reduce my best friend's emotional state to something akin to an annoying rash, he also plants a new seed in my already overcrowded brain.

Could I be the reason Frankie isn't moving on?

Since Matt's death, the earth has made more than one full trip around the sun -- plenty of time to be Over It, according to the official books and therapists and school counselors that tried to talk to me about my "caretaker" role in Frankie's life.

But Frankie isn't over it.

I'm not over it.

And I don't want to talk about it, because one day his name will brush against my lips in her presence, and through an involuntary blushing of the cheeks, a misting of the eyes, a breath drawn too tightly, or a single tear, the secret I'm supposed to keep locked up forever will be revealed.

"Sweetheart," Mom says. She looks at me softly with her You Can Talk to Me face, which is only slightly more tolerable than its close cousin, the I Was Young Once, Too, face. Unlike the IWYOT face, which usually means that she knows I'm up to something and I'd better not lie about it, the YCTTM face is equal parts guilt and empathy with a dash of "are we still friends?" and "your father isn't a bad guy" stirred in.

"Dad and I are just concerned about Frankie. We know she's under a lot of pressure, and you've been managing some really tough emotions that maybe Red and Jayne should be more involved with."

I think about Aunt Jayne's constant whirlwind of interior decorating and shopping sprees with Uncle Red's credit cards.

"Well, they
aren't
involved."

"We know, Anna," Dad says. "That's why Mom and I are concerned. California will be especially hard on them, and who knows how that will affect Frankie. You may have to be the strong one out there, okay?"

I stifle a laugh, remembering something Matt said to me in his final days. Frankie was babysitting down the street, and Matt and I were hanging out in his room sorting his books and music into "staying home" and "going to college" piles.

"I know I'm not going far," he said, shuffling through the staying-home CDs. "But I'm worried about Frankie. I don't want her to feel like we don't want her around, or like she's alone. I think it's going to be hard on her once she knows about us. You'll have to be the strong one, Anna."

"Excuse me?" I pretended to be put off by his inference that us girls would just fall apart in his overprotective absence. "It's not like you're going off to war. I think we can handle it."

"I didn't mean it like
that,
" he said, coming closer to me on the edge of the bed and taking my face into his hands.

I looked up at him with mock hurt. Then I tackled him, pinning him to the bed with another kiss.

"Who's the strong one now?" I asked him. "Okay, you win. You win." He laughed. I stayed on top of him, resting my head on his chest while he played with my hair until Frankie got home.

"Anna?" Dad asks. "You okay?"

I nod, blinking away the memory. "I
am
the strong one, Dad."

"I know, Anna. But --"

"Hard parts aside," Mom interrupts, "I do think the trip will be good for you, too. It might help you -- I don't know --
visit
with Matt again. Does that make sense?" She looks at me with such compassion that for one second I forget she's my mother and think she might actually
know,
like I wear my feelings in big words across my face and all she has to do is brush aside my hair to read them.

"Yes," I say, hoping they don't see my cheeks go hot. "All right." Dad rises from the desk chair. "Finish up and get to bed. You've got an early morning tomorrow."

Finally.

Pretrip fears allayed once again, I hug them both good night and recheck my bags against my list. Everything seems to be in order. There's just one problem.

I can't get him out of my mind.

I turn off the overhead light and flip on my reading light. Curled in my bed, I watch a fresh downpour stream along the window and make everything outside soft and blurry. I think about the ocean again and look across my room at the mason jars full of colored glass from Frankie and Matt.

Matt could have died any of a hundred ways, but whenever I look at the glass, I walk through the history of our friendship searching for things I could have done differently or said sooner to break the chain of events leading up to that day in the car, the day his heart stopped working.
Hi, Matt, I'm in love with you. Let's not go for ice cream today. Let's just find a place to hide.

Back when we were still "just friends," I used to write about him in my old diary, which I carried around everywhere. I'd write about hanging out with him and Frankie on the weekend, or him stopping by my locker between classes at school, or the books he gave me to read so we could talk about them later. Only sometimes did I admit my real feelings for him on paper -- I was always afraid that someone would find my diary and show him all of my secrets.

I wrote my first real letter to him in the journal he gave me -- though I still didn't want him to actually
read
it. It was after we kissed outside my house, when I was alone in my room with every cell in my body buzzing, still feeling him on my lips. I printed off the picture Dad had taken after the cake fight, taped it inside the journal's purple cover under his "Happy Birthday" inscription, and wrote.

The next few weeks were a blur of happiness, secret midnight meet-ups, talking about the rest of the summer, how he'd write every day from California, how Frankie and I would drive with their parents to take him to Cornell. Every second that I was awake, I wanted to be with him. To see and know him in the entirely new light of our unfolding relationship -- whatever it was meant to become -- in a way different from all our years as childhood best friends.

I didn't have time to think about what was happening, let alone write letters that he'd never read.

A few months after he died, I started writing to him again -- just once in a while. Not in a communing-with-the-dead kind of way, but it did help me feel close to him, especially after a hard night with Frankie or on nights when I couldn't stop thinking about him.

Like tonight, on the eve of our departure -- the too-soon family vacation that's only missing one thing.

Dear Matt,

In less than a day, I' ll be standing on the same sand you stood on so many times before. Well, not the same sand, with the tides and winds and erosion and all of that, but the same symbolic sand. I'm so excited and scared that I can' t sleep -- even though I have to wake up in five hours!

You know, I saved every one of your postcards. They're here in a box under my bed -- all the little stories you sent, like little pieces of California. Like the beach glass you guys always brought me. Sometimes I dump it out on my desk and press my ear to the pieces, trying to hear the ocean. Trying to hear you.

But you don' t say anything.

Remember how you' d come back from your vacation on the beach and tell me what it really felt like? What the ocean sounded like at dawn when the beach was deserted? What your hair and skin tasted like after swimming in saltwater all day? How the sand could burn your feet as you walked on it, but if you stuck your toes in, it was cold and wet underneath? How you spent three hours sitting on Ocean Beach just to watch the sun sink into the water a million miles away? If I closed my eyes as you were talking, it was like I was there, like your stories were my stories. In many ways, I feel as if I have memories of you there, too. Do you think that's crazy?

Matt, please don' t think badly about Frankie's contest. It's just a silly game. It's so Frankie, you know?

No, I guess you wouldn' t. You' d kill her if you did!

She just misses you. We all do. I' ll look out for her, though. I promise.

Please watch over us tomorrow, and for the next few weeks while we're away. You' ll be in my thoughts the whole time, like always.

I'm going to find some red sea glass for you.

I miss you more than you could ever know.

Love,

Anna

I trace my fingers over his name on the letter and close my eyes, imagining that when we get to California, he's there waiting for us, smiling with his apple hair and blue beach glass necklace.

seven

"See you in a few weeks." Mom hugs me goodbye in the Perinos' driveway. "Call us every few days and don't forget to send postcards."

"I will. And I won't."

"Remember what I said about sunblock and always swimming where the lifeguard can see and hear you," Dad says. "The ocean can be dangerous, especially during vacation season when the beaches are crowded."

"Dad, we covered this already. Besides, you hate vacations," I tease. "How do you know what the beaches are like?"

"We don't hate vacations," he says. "In fact, Mom and I were just talking about planning our
own
family vacation for next summer."

In my sixteen-year history as an Official Member of This Family, we've never taken a real vacation. In a perfect storm of stupid ailments, Dad's afraid of flying, Mom can't stomach long car rides, and both of them have issues with nonchlorinated water. Sure, we've covered the local circuit -- Amish country, the zoo, Oak Ridge State Park -- anything listed in the New York State guidebook and less than two hours' drive. But no exciting, life-altering experiences to write about in those school essays in the fall. No exotic destination from which I could send postcards.

Dear Frankie and Matt,

Here we are at... the zoo!

We didn' t even have to stand in " lion." The monkeys miss you.

Love, your world-traveling neighbor, Anna

"Sure, Dad," I say, smiling. "Sounds fun." I give him and Mom one more round of hugs before settling in next to Frankie in the backseat. After a few more words to Red and Jayne about taking care of the Perinos' plants, house, and mail while we're away, Mom and Dad finally let us leave.

I watch out the back window as my parents wave from the yard and get smaller and smaller as we zoom up the street. In less than half a day, I'll be getting off a plane two thousand miles farther than either of them will ever go. I consider their strange antitraveling afflictions for just a minute before realizing that I've never been on an airplane and could very well be cursed with the same fear of flying that keeps Dad's feet planted on the ground.

"Don't even worry," Frankie says when I confess my concerns. She's in full makeup, perfect hair, cute drawstring traveling pants, and a plain pink T-shirt. "It's safer than driving."

I look at her eyebrow and feel a twinge of pain in my wrist -- the phantoms of old injuries. She doesn't notice.

The sun is just peeking above the horizon as Red pulls onto the highway. He alternates between scanning the morning talk radio for news and weather and trying to engage Jayne in conversation. She's been kind of far away all morning -- nodding and smiling, polite but preoccupied. I follow Frankie's lead and continue our conversation as though we're any other normal family taking any other normal vacation.

Frankie tells me about the itinerary: how long the flight to San Francisco takes, what we do when we land, the drive to Zanzibar, where we eat lunch, what time we should get to the house.

It's barely six in the morning and I already feel like we've been traveling all day.

At the airport, we check in, drop off our luggage, and follow the signs to the security checkpoint.

"I can't believe I'm sixteen years old and I've never been past security at the airport," I say as I take off my shoes and set them on the conveyor belt next to Frankie's. "I'm so sheltered."

"First time through the X-ray machine, first time on a plane, first time in California... I'm sensing a theme here, Anna. You know,
first times
?" Frankie wiggles her eyebrows and steps through the machine. If Red and Jayne weren't already through the checkpoint waiting for us on the other side, I'd grab my shoe from the conveyor belt and maim her with it right here.

The security screener takes a few extra minutes to scan Frankie with the handheld wand before waving me through.

"Too bad," I say, grabbing my shoes and bag off the belt. "I think I packed the wrong bathing suit. You know, the
yellow
one. With the
flowers.
"

"You
better
not be serious." She looks aghast.

"I guess we'll find out when we get to the beach."

"Find out what?" Red asks as we reunite. "Nothing," Frankie says. "Where's Mom?"

"Restroom." Red nods toward the blue-and-white sign down the hall.

"Again?" Frankie asks. It's Jayne's fourth trip to the bathroom since we checked in. "Is she okay?"

"She's fine, girls. Just a few nerves before the trip, that's all." Uncle Red sticks his hands in his pockets and looks back toward the bathrooms. "Just a few nerves."

Frankie slings her backpack over one shoulder. "Can me and Anna go ahead to the food court? It's right up there."

"Sure, hon. We'll catch up in a minute."

Frankie and I find a Jack's Java and order frozen green tea smoothies and nonfat blueberry muffins, the least we can do to maintain our combined two-and-a-half-pound loss on the all-but-abandoned Ultra Quick-Skinny diet.

"I can't believe the airport has a dry cleaners and a Jack's Java," I say, slurping my smoothie. Though I've traveled to the airport with Mom and Dad to pick up and drop off relatives, I've never been this far inside. Above the sound of the overhead announcements and final boarding calls to exotic destinations, parents scold their kids, people shout into cell phones, and friends reminisce about their vacations before boarding the planes that will carry them home. It's like a secret underground world -- a constant flux of arrivals and departures, reunions and breakups, hellos and goodbyes, befores and afters.

"They have everything here -- even a spa," Frankie tells me. "You could totally live in the airport."

"Didn't they make a movie about that?"

"If they didn't, they should. Come to think of it,
we
should." Frankie digs her camera out of her bag and gets into her interviewer voice.

"A.B.S.E., day one. Departure. Anna Reiley, first-time visitor to the airport, sips her smoothie while awaiting her flight to California. The air is charged with excitement as Reiley snarfs down the last few crumbs of her nonfat muffin. Tell us, Miss Reiley, how does it feel to finally see the inner workings of the airport?"

"Well, Francesca, I am admittedly full of trepidation, never having been in the airport before, as you know. Yet I'd be remiss if I didn't tell the viewers how excited I am to travel with the renowned Francesca Perino and her adoring parents. I just can't thank them enough. And thank
you
, Francesca. And I'd like to thank my own parents for agreeing to send me to the airport, and the Academy for believing that I'd make it to the airport when no one else did. Thank you. Thank you all. Please, no more questions."

"No, thank
you
, Miss Reiley." Frankie turns the camera on herself. "This is Frankie P, live from the airport, signing off."

"You're a freak."

"I'd be all full of trepilation and reminisce if I didn't agree."

"Trepi
dation
and
remiss.
"

"Yeah, them, too."

Red and Jayne collect us in front of Jack's, order two large house blends to go, and lead us down to the gate. After a few sips of the strong coffee, Jayne seems a little better. She even laughs when Frankie and I show her our mock interview.

We still have an hour before boarding, so Frankie and I pass the time by writing stories in the back of my journal about the other waiting-area passengers. We get through Duane Durstein -- pervy, wife-cheating insurance salesman; Gloria Masterson of the Boston Mastersons (old money), who long ago snubbed her family when they refused to accept her love of show poodles; and Mickey, a six-year-old with gigantic floppy ears who refuses to listen to his frazzled mother. Actually, that part isn't made up -- the boy's mother calls him Mickey, too. Before we can move on to the woman in the crocheted American flag sweater, the counter attendant calls our row.

"That's us," says Red. "You girls ready?"

I smile. I am
so
ready.

Before I know it, I'm buckled tight next to Frankie in row fourteen, window seat, listening attentively to crewmember instructions and following along with the passenger safety information card conveniently located in my seatback pocket. Everything is new to me -- bathrooms at thirty thousand feet, free snacks, male flight attendants. I'm an utter child with wide eyes and matching dopey grin, just released from the jungle by the wolves that raised me.

I reach into my bag for my journal so I can write about everything I see on the plane and realize with a sudden panic that my bag isn't as crowded as it should be.

"Oh,
no
!" My pulse starts pounding in my veins.

"Anna, what's wrong?" Frankie asks. "Nervous?"

"I left my journal on the counter when I handed them my ticket!"

"Are you sure?" Frankie pokes around my bag to confirm.

"Yes! I remember setting it down to pull the ticket out of my purse!" I'm practically in tears.

"Don't worry, we're still at the gate." Frankie presses the call button. "They can probably get it for you."

"Frankie, I
can't
lose it!" Passengers in neighboring rows look on with mild interest as I start to hyperventilate.
I'm crawling out of my skin! How can everyone be so calm about this?

"Everything okay?" A perky flight attendant in a navy blue suit -- Darcy, according to her name tag -- appears at the end of our row.

"Did anyone turn in a purple notebook?" Frankie asks. "She left it on the counter when we boarded."

"Let me check on that for you," Darcy says, smile firmly in place.

"It's okay, Anna. Breathe." Frankie pats my hand.

After what feels like three days, perky Darcy returns to our row, notebook in hand.

"Is this it?" she asks. "One of the passengers gave it to Meg up front."

"Yes!" I reach over Frankie and the nameless passenger in the aisle seat, practically snatching the journal from Darcy's manicured hands. "Thank you so much," I say, flipping through the pages to make sure nothing has been torn, eaten, spilled upon, or otherwise damaged during our brief but painful separation.

"Better now?" Frankie asks. "Yes. You have no idea."

"I do. I'd freak out like that if I lost my movies." She smiles and plugs herself into her iPod for the Helicopter Pilot double-live we downloaded last night.

I turn to the window, keeping the journal on my lap. There's no way I'm letting it out of my sight now.

Midway through the flight, I peel my face from the window-pane and realize I haven't felt any of the fear-of-flight symptoms Dad warned me about -- nausea, clammy hands and feet, racing heart, white knuckles, generally making an ass of oneself (other than when I lost my journal, which was a freak accident and thankfully over quickly). I watch the whole country go by -- rivers, lakes, mountains that look like ripples in the ground, and the yellow-and-green patchwork quilts of Middle America.

"Look, Anna, there's the Golden Gate Bridge." Frankie leans over my lap to point out a huge orange bridge stretching on forever. Beyond that is the Pacific Ocean, dotted with strips of foamy white-caps and the soft, colored triangles of sailboats.

I love the flying and the sights so much that if we had to turn around and go home right now, it would still feel like a complete vacation.

It's almost one when we finally get off the plane, though it's only ten in California. After we find our bags, we pick up our rental car and head down the Pacific Coastal Highway. In less than two hours, we'll be in Zanzibar Bay -- gateway to the A.B.S.E.

Just like on the plane, Frankie lets me have the seat with the best view. I open the window and watch the ocean -- a never-ending streak of bright blue and green. The mood in the car is a juxtaposition of excitement and sadness, alternating in waves of smiles and laughter as Frankie's family points out various sites and jokes at my bewilderment at the foreignness of it all, followed by silence -- the unspoken melancholy pushing into the spaces Matt left behind.

Though I'd sat with them through sessions with the school counselor, through Frankie freak-outs in the living room, through awkward family meals and holidays where no one talked and all I could hear was the clinking of forks against plates, riding in the car with the Perinos as scenes sail along the highway triggering memory after memory after invisible, unsaid memory is the hardest thing I've done since Matt's funeral.