What I Thought Was True (6 page)

Nic and Vivien were in this weekend, checking out engagement

64

BOM2_9780803739093_WhatIThougtWasTrue_TX.indd 64

9/4/13 8:02 AM

rings.” Manny scratches the back of his neck, looks uncomfort-

able, like he just said more than he should have.

I peek over at Vivien and Nic. He’s smoothing her hair back

and giving her these nibbling kisses along her jawline.

It can’t be true. Vivien’s incapable of keeping anything to

herself about Nic (
way
more than I want to know about my

cousin). And Nic, while he doesn’t tell me everything . . . he’d

never keep a thing that big from me. Ever.

Manny’s pushing at the sand with his feet, avoiding my eyes,

and I realize I should have said something in return, but I can’t

even find words.

Getting married?

That’s
crazy
.

I mean, I imagine they probably will eventually.
Eventually.

Vivien is seventeen. Nic just turned eighteen last month. . . .

Mom and Dad were seventeen and eighteen when they got

married. But look how that turned out. And that was years ago.

A whole different time. Nic and Viv . . . now?

“Not
that
crazy. It happens,” Pam comments quietly. I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud. “Dom married Stace right out of

SBH.”

Yeah, and Stacy took their one-year-old and moved to Flor-

ida two years ago.

What about senior year? What about the Coast Guard?

Is Vivien pregnant?
No, impossible, she’s on the Pill and Nic is hyper-responsible.

I lie back on the blanket, rest my arm across my eyes, listen

to the general blur of conversation. It’s still warm, but the angle of the sun has that flat, end-of day slant. When I peer through

65

BOM2_9780803739093_WhatIThougtWasTrue_TX.indd 65

9/4/13 8:02 AM

the canopy of my arm, I can see that Vivien has temporarily

disentangled herself and is toasting a marshmallow, carefully

turning it to the perfect puff of brown on each side, just the

way Nic likes it. At cookouts this summer, I know he’ll nearly

burn her hot dog—Viv likes it charcoal-briquet style—and

load it down with ketchup, mustard, mayo, relish. After the

Fourth of July parade on Seashell, when everyone eats Hoodsie

Cups, she’ll snag two but eat the chocolate half of both, swap-

ping with Nic so he gets both vanillas.

Now he’s watching her lazily, sifting through the sand next

to him, probably in search of another flat skipping stone.

But . . . an engagement ring?

Hooper is attempting to get Ginny Rodriguez to give him

the time of day by asking her to bet on whether he can drink

five beers in ten minutes without barfing.

Manny scratches the back of his neck again, red-faced and

uncomfortable. The flush could be the beer, but he seems to

know he put his foot in it. “Gwenners,” he starts, then looks up

and jumps to his feet. “Dude. You came.”

I shield my eyes and peer over at the newcomer.

Great.

I mean come
on
. Three times in one day!

“Sure I did,” Cass says easily, lifting a hand to greet Pam. He

gives me a quick glance, then looks down, lashes shielding his

eyes. “I’m an island guy now, right?”

“You are not,” I practically growl, “an island guy.”

Manny straightens, startled. Pam’s eyebrows rise and she

looks back and forth between us.

“Course he is, Gwenners. He’s working for my dad. He’s

66

BOM2_9780803739093_WhatIThougtWasTrue_TX.indd 66

9/4/13 8:02 AM

an honorary Jose, aren’t you, dude? Nab something from the

cooler and take a load off. The first days are killers.”

“Ah, it’ll be okay,” Cass says, “once I figure out the whole

horizontal thing.”

That’s it. I feel suddenly exhausted. Cass. Nic, Viv, engage-

ment ring. The Robinsons. The lobsters. I clamber to my feet,

feeling as though I weigh about a thousand pounds—and,

let’s face it, probably looking like it in my baggy, so-attractive clothes. I walk over to Nic and Viv, nudge Nic sharply with my

toe, jerk my thumb toward the pier. “Let’s head out.”

Like Pam and Manny, Nic does a quick double take at my

tone, checking Vivien for translation. She glances over at Cass,

wrinkles her nose, then stands up, pulling Nic with her. We

walk to the edge of the pier, dangle our legs over. Well, Nic and

I do. Vivien slides her legs over Nic’s, entwines her hand in his.

I open my mouth to ask, then think:
If they haven’t told me, they
don’t want me to know,
and shut it again
.

“Check that out,” Vivien says in a hushed voice, pointing

out across the water. It’s low tide, shoals of rippling sand peek-

ing up out of the sea-glass-green water, ancient-looking gray-

brown rocks, the sun burning low and pale orange in the sky.

“This is the most beautiful place in the world, isn’t it? I never

want to leave. Everything I love is right here.” She rests her

head on Nic’s shoulder.

I look at our legs lined up together. Viv’s skinny and already

tan, Nic’s well-muscled and sturdy, and mine, long and strong.

Nic scrounges in his pocket for the skipping stones from

earlier, hands me one, nods at the ocean. I squint, slant the

stone to what seems the perfect angle, fling it out. One. Two.

67

BOM2_9780803739093_WhatIThougtWasTrue_TX.indd 67

9/4/13 8:02 AM

Three . . . sort of a sinking four. Nic edges Vivien off his lap,

cocks his head to the side and throws.

Six.

“Still the champion.” He hauls Vivien to her feet, swoops

her in for six kisses.

“It’s not as though Gwen is after what you are,” Vivien

points out, a little breathless after kiss number four.

No, it isn’t. But . . . God, I wish, for the millionth time, that I could be like her and Nic, so sure of what they have, what they

want. That I didn’t always feel jangly, restless, primed to jump

off a bridge and let the current carry me away. I glance over my

shoulder at the distant blond figure standing by the bonfire.

Especially tonight.

68

BOM2_9780803739093_WhatIThougtWasTrue_TX.indd 68

9/4/13 8:02 AM

Dark’s just starting to glow into light the next morning when I

bike down to the beach. I can barely make out the figure stand-

ing at the end of the pier, hands on hips, surveying the water.

Only that familiar stance tells me it’s Dad. As I get closer, I see his tackle box open, a big bag of frozen squid beside him. He

called last night, told me to meet him at Sandy Claw early.

I’d expected him to get on me for bailing on him at Castle’s

this summer. But when I’d said on the phone “Hey Dad, I’m

sorry that I—” he’d cut me off.

“You gotta do what you gotta do, Gwen. But, since you’re

not gonna be around every day, I want to do this. I’ve got some-

thing for you.” Now he looks up from the hook he’s baiting as

I scramble over the rocks. Noting the cooler I’m carrying, he

gives me the flicker of a smile.

“What’d you bring me, Guinevere?”

He takes the loaf of zucchini bread with a grunt of satisfac-

tion, motioning to me to pour coffee from the thermos. I stayed

up late last night, following the directions in Vovó’s stained old copy of
The Joy of Cooking
, and turning that engagement ring over and over in my head. When she’s worried, Vivien gives herself pedicures and facials. Nic lifts weights. I bake. So, Vivien ends 69

BOM2_9780803739093_WhatIThougtWasTrue_TX.indd 69

9/4/13 8:02 AM

up looking more glamorous. Nic gets fitter. And I just get fat.

“Damn good thing you can cook. Not like your mom. A

woman who can’t cook . . .” He trails off, clearly unable to

think of a terrible enough comparison.

“Is like a fish without a bicycle.” I was on debate team last

year and we used that quote from Gloria Steinem as a topic.

“What does that mean?” Dad asks absently, wiping his

lips with the back of his hand. I guess you could say he’s

handsome. Not stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks gorgeous, but

good-looking enough that I can squint and understand what

Mom was thinking. He’s still fit and muscular in his late thir-

ties, his hair thick. Nothing soft about Dad. He wears flan-

nel shirts, year-round, sleeves rolled up to reveal the ropy

muscles of his arms. He’s got high cheekbones and full lips,

which both Emory and I inherited. “Did you bring cream

cheese?” he asks.

“No, I did not, because cream cheese on zucchini bread is

disgusting.” I hand him a tub of butter and a plastic knife.

“Sorry I haven’t seen much of you lately, pal. I’ve been

doing the grunt work, gettin’ set up for the summer crowd.

Sysco trucks coming and going to restock—they
never
tell you what time, keep you hanging all damn day—and I’ve got the

new summer bunch for training—you know what that’s like.”

Even though it’s been twenty-five years since Dad moved here

from Massachusetts, his
er
’s are still
a
’s and his
ar
’s are
ah
’s. In fact, his accent gets stronger every year.

I refill the cup of coffee he’s already gulped down and pour

one for myself.

“Start cuttin’ up the bait,” he directs, mouth full, handing

70

BOM2_9780803739093_WhatIThougtWasTrue_TX.indd 70

9/4/13 8:02 AM

me a box cutter and jerking his chin at the bucket of squid.

It’s still early June and not all that warm in the mornings

yet. I feel as though my fingers are freezing to the slippery

squid as I try to slice them—harder to do on the jagged rock

than it would be on a flat surface. The tide is high, so the air’s not as briny yet, there’s a fresh breeze coming off the water,

and the waves slap gently against the rocks. The dark blue sky

overhead is fading fainter in the east.

“Good coffee.”

“Thanks.”

“Gwen.”

“Yes?”

“You’re making the pieces too big. The fish’ll just run off

with the hook like that.”

“Sorry, Dad.”

More silence as he polishes off half the zucchini loaf and I

deal with freezing cold slimy bait.

“Dad,” I finally say. “You were eighteen when you and Mom

got married, right?”

“Barely,” he says. “Here, let me bait your hook.”

“Would you say that was . . . too young?”

He gives me a sharp look from under his thick brows. “Wicked

young. We had no business getting hitched. But . . . well . . .” He clears his throat. “You were on the way and—why are you asking me this? You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you?”

“No! Of course not. Jeez. I’m on the Pill.”

He winces, and I realize I should have said I’d never even

held hands with a boy, not reassured him about my effective

birth control. Whoops.

71

BOM2_9780803739093_WhatIThougtWasTrue_TX.indd 71

9/4/13 8:02 AM

“It was a medical thing. For my complexion and because my

period was—”

Dad holds up a hand, hunching his shoulders in pain. “Stop!

As for me and Luce, we were kids. Had no freaking clue what

we were getting into.” He holds out his coffee cup. “Got more?”

I splash hot black liquid into his cup, the plastic top of the thermos, then ask something I’ve always wondered about. “Do you

regret it? Marrying Mom? Like, if you had a do-over, would you?”

Dad takes a sip of coffee, screws up his face as though it’s

burned his tongue, blows out a breath. “I’m no good at this

garbage”—the way he says it sounds like
gahbage
—“imagin-

ing things fell out some different way than they did. Waste of

time. That’s your ma’s territory, with all her foolish books. If

you mean, do I regret you, no.” He hands me my pole, reaches

into his back pocket, pulls out a wad of bills. “Your back pay.”

I take it from him, count it out, then hand him back half.

Our tradition. He’ll put it into his pocket, then take it to the

bank for my college fund when he deposits Castle’s income.

Dad’s big on the fact that it matters that I see the money before

half of it is gone. I’ll give most of the rest to Mom.

“You can have first cast, kiddo.”

I hoist the pole to my shoulder, fling it out, watching the

fragile transparent line shimmer in the air as the hook dips into

the waves.

“Decent,” Dad says. “Put a little more arm into it next time.”

He grins at me. For a moment, I feel this surge of affection

for him and I want, the way I wanted yesterday with Mom, to

tell him the whole story . . . the boys and Nic and Vivien and

the ring and . . .

72

BOM2_9780803739093_WhatIThougtWasTrue_TX.indd 72

9/4/13 8:02 AM

But we’ve never talked like that. So, instead, I reel my line

in, hopeful for an instant as it snags hard on something, until I

realize it’s just a clump of kelp.

“Pal, look.” Dad clears his throat, squinting as he stares out

at the far horizon. “I’m gonna give you something my folks

didn’t give me when I was your age.”

Not a car. Not a trust fund
. Dad’s parents were, as Mom puts it, “unfit to have pets, much less kids.”

“What is it, Dad?”

“You can bait that hook and hand me my pole. What I’m

going to give you, Gwen, is the truth.”

Here’s where, in one of Mom’s books, or the classic movies

Grandpa Ben likes, it would turn out that Dad was actually

royal but estranged from his family. That I was the next heir

to . . . My imagination gives out at this point from sheer futility.

Dad casts, a perfect arc, line shimmering, glimmering out

into the sea. “What’re you waiting for, Gwen? Get going!”

So I shove slimy squid onto another hook and cast out

myself. I know I do it well. Strange how you can be good at

something that doesn’t mean anything to you at all. But it’s

always mattered to Dad. The times we spend fishing are some

of our best, most peaceful. When he’s on the water, all Dad’s

rough edges smooth out, like he’s sea-glass.

“You got your mom’s brains, and her looks. Sweet Mother

of God, she was a beauty. Stopped your heart, seeing her.” He

rubs his chest, looks out at the water, and then goes on. “You

got those and my guts. You’re a hard worker and you don’t bel-

lyache about every little thing.” He pauses, wipes his fingers off on his faded shorts. “But the only chance you have of getting

73

BOM2_9780803739093_WhatIThougtWasTrue_TX.indd 73

9/4/13 8:02 AM

anywhere with any of that is to get the hell off this island.”

“I love Seashell,” I say, automatically. True and not true. I

tip my face up as the first fingers of the sun stretch across the

water. My feet in their worn flip-flops are cold, the chill of

the rocks seeping through the thin rubber soles.

“Yeah,
love,
” Dad says. “That’ll get you nowhere fast. Look.

I’m not going to sit here moaning about the mistakes I’ve

made. What’s done’s done. But you’ve still got time. Chances.

You can have . . .” He stops, his attention snagged by a distant

sailboat. Dad checks out sailboats—the big beautiful ones like

this Herreshoff gliding by, ivory sails bellying in the wind—

the way some of the guys at school check out cleavage.

“Can have what, Dad?”

He throws back a gulp of coffee, grimaces again. “
More
.”

I’m not sure where he’s going with all this. Dad’s not really

one for self-reflection. He concentrates on casting out his line,

jaw tense.

After a few minutes he continues. “Here on Seashell, it’s

always going to be us against them, and let’s face it—it’s gonna

be them in the end, because ‘them’ gets to choose what hap-

pens to ‘us.’ Get off island, Gwen. Find your place in the world.

You got a ticket in your hand already with the old lady losing

her marbles.”

My line sways, spider-webbing in the water. Dad catches me

by the elbow with one hand, and then carefully reels in my

line, calloused warm hand over mine. “She’s loaded and she’s

losin’ it. You’re gonna be there every day. Her family isn’t. Make the most of that.”

“What are you talking about?”

74

BOM2_9780803739093_WhatIThougtWasTrue_TX.indd 74

9/4/13 8:02 AM

“She’s redoing her will this summer. I heard her nurse, Joy,

talking about it on line at Castle’s. Her son wants to take over

power of attorney, so she’s tying up the legal stuff . . .”

“Dad, that has nothing to do with me.” Is he really suggest-

ing what I think he’s suggesting? I feel like throwing up, and

it’s not the combination of frozen squid and empty stomach. I

look at Dad’s ducked head, incredulous.

“For God’s sake, the damn fish took the bait right off the

line without me even feeling a tug. Bastard. Put some more on,

pal. What I’m saying is you’ve got the goods to go places. Do it

for me. Do it for your ma. Just be real smart, is all I’m telling

you. Pamper that old lady within an inch of her life. Her fami-

ly’s off in the city, she’s on her own. Better you wind up with a

nice little chunk a change than them, the way I see it.”

“Dad . . . are you saying . . .”

“I’m telling you to keep your eyes open for opportunity.

Mrs. E.’s not noticing stuff around her house the way she used

to—and she never was one of those ones that knew exactly

how many silver crab claw crackers she had, not like some of

the fruitcakes your mom cleans for.”

I close my eyes, picturing Mrs. Ellington’s porch, the engraved

silver of the tea service, the polished antiques, the leather-bound, gold-embossed books in the bookshelves. Her family legacy.

This is
my
legacy? Does Dad actually believe that the only way I’m likely to have anything is to grab somebody else’s?

What happened to all his lectures about hard work and the

people who got ahead were the ones who sucked it up and put

their nose to the grindstone, and . . .

“Dad?”

75

BOM2_9780803739093_WhatIThougtWasTrue_TX.indd 75

9/4/13 8:02 AM

I can’t seem to come up with anything more to say. He stares

out at the water, at the distant horizon, eyes somber. I keep

chopping bait, sliding it on the hook, bending and casting out.

I remember Mrs. Ellington watching that separation of sea and

sky during our interview, Nic, Viv, and I doing the same last

night, and for the first time I realize that none of us are seeing the same thing. That all our horizons end in different places.

“So, I need you to fill in for me at lunchtime today. This

won’t be a usual thing. But I just had to fire this kid—too much

of a moron and always showing up late and high. I’m short-

handed for this afternoon. We’re gonna get slammed. Can you

pinch hit? I’ll pay you overtime, even though it’s not a holiday.

C’mon, pal.”

“I have a rehearsal dinner with Vivien and Almeida’s tonight.

Plus watching Em all day. And Mrs. Ellington starts Monday.

I can’t work all the time.” Visions of any summer lazing are

quickly fading to black in my head.

“If you play it smart, like I said, you won’t have to.” He

brushes zucchini bread crumbs off his faded olive green shorts,

crumples the now-empty foil wrapper and sticks it back in the

cooler. “But today, I need you. The first few weeks I’m figuring

out who the bad apples are. And you’re my good egg.”

“Dad. About what you said. I mean, about Mrs. Ellington—”