Текст книги "What I Thought Was True"

Автор книги: Huntley Fitzpatrick

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-one

I am a huge cliché.

I am a teenage girl at the mall.

I am a teenage girl at the mall trying on bathing suits.

I am a teenage girl at the mall trying on bathing suits even though she has a perfectly good one from last year that fits fine.

Worst of all, I am a teenage girl at the mall trying on bathing suits even though she has a perfectly good one from last year that fits fine and hating how she looks in every single one.

It doesn’t help that I am also a teenage girl who baked two batches of sugar cookies and a pan of congo bars last night as a chaser for dinner with Dad. I’m trying not to think about how few leftovers there were this morning. Nic must have scarfed some when he got in late, right?

Aren’t these stores supposed to want to make us look good? Then what’s up with the cheapo overhead lighting that highlights every single flaw and creates a few extras for good measure?

Cliché #5: I am a teenage girl with body issues.

Which get worse in bathing suits. (#6)

And I’m doing this for a boy. (#7)

Well, not because he asked or anything. Not that he had time to do anything but blush after I blurted, “Were you wearing anything under there?” and then did a bat-out-of-hell from his apartment. But Spence must have passed on the reason for my epically awkward visit to the Field House, because this morning Grandpa Ben came in from his early morning walk.

“I met the young yard boy getting to work. He had trouble starting the mower, so I showed him the tricks. He said he would tutor Emory in the swimming today at three.”

Did he say anything else? Did he mention me? Did he . . . Yes, right, absolutely. He lined up the tutoring, then said, “By the way, Mr. Cruz, I think you should know that I have reason to suspect your granddaughter was picturing me naked.”

I’ve got a perfectly adequate bathing suit but it’s a one-piece and black and bears a distinct resemblance to Mrs. E.’s beachwear. I suspect dressing exactly like an octogenarian is a fashion don’t when you’re seventeen. On the beach. With a gorgeous boy.

Who’s simply giving swimming lessons to your brother.

Out of the goodness of his heart.

I wheedled the use of Dad’s truck out of him, saying I needed it to take Emory to speech. Though, really, it was more that I felt he owed me one after last night’s bleak lecture, stark as black-and-white headlines on a newspaper. Your brother = your future. No amount of sugar, butter, and flour can quite get the taste of that out of my mouth. Then Grandpa wanted to come along because there’s almost always a few yard sales happening on Saturdays in Maplecrest.

Which brings me to the non-clichéd part of all this.

“Guinevere! Your brother has lost his patience with this store and I am losing it with him. Have you gotten what you need?”

Yes, my grandfather is right outside the changing rooms. Also . . . my little brother.

“Not yet!” I call.

I can hear Grandpa move away, trying to dicker down the price of a cast-iron frying pan. “You cannot mean to charge so much for this. It’s brand-new. It hasn’t been seasoned yet. It will take years of cooking in it and wiping down with the olive oil to be worth the price you are asking.”

Then I hear him calling, alarmed, for Emory, who I know must be doing his I’m-bored-in-this-store routine, hiding in the center of those circular racks of clothes until Grandpa spots his feet.

I’ve tried on four tankinis. I think I read once in one of Vivien’s magazines that, like, ninety percent of the guys on the planet hate tankinis. Which can’t be right. I mean, I’m certain men herding goats in Shimanovsk don’t care one way or another. And if they include the men who want every part of a woman except her eyes covered, that’s unfairly skewing the percentages and—

I reexamine the pile. No, and no, and Jesus God, let me forget how that one looked.

“Almost done,” I call feebly.

Forget it. I’ll just wear the black one-piece. It’s not like it’s a date. I mean, he told me about it through my grandfather.

I wonder how long it took him to stop blushing. When I left, throwing some excuse about Fabio over my shoulder, I heard him come out from his bedroom and Spence ask, “What happened to your face?”

Outside there’s a commotion and a “You can’t come in here!” and Grandpa Ben saying “Acalme-se,” and thrusting this bikini in through the side of the curtain.

A bikini.

Vivien wears bikinis. Viv even wears string bikinis. She looks great in them because she has exactly that sort of body . . . all lanky and coltish and boyish-but-not. She says she doesn’t look good because she hasn’t got enough on top, but she has to know she pretty much does, or she would stick to What the Well-Dressed Senior Citizen Will Wear, like me.

“Apenas experimente, querida,” Grandpa calls. “Just try it.”

I don’t know if it’s because of the color, which is this mossy green, which sounds nasty, but spring moss, brighter than olive, but still deep and rich. Or because I can hear the saleswoman outside getting more and more agitated and I’m afraid she’s about to call security. Or because . . . well, I don’t know why, but I try it on.

It’s not a string bikini. It’s not an itsy-bitsy bikini. It’s sort of retro, but not in a really obvious way.

In it, I don’t look like Vivien in her bikinis. I don’t look like one of those swimsuit models posing knee deep in the Caribbean with this shocked expression like, “Hey, who put all this water here?” I don’t look “nice.” I look, in fact, like The Other Woman in one of Grandpa Ben’s movies. The one who saunters into the room to the low wail of an alto saxophone. I look like a Bad Girl.

For the first time, that seems like a Good Thing.

* * *

Of course, that was hours ago and I left my courage in the dressing room of T.J.Maxx.

I bought the bikini.

But here I am on the beach wearing a long T-shirt of Mom’s (Mom’s! At least I’ve bumped down a generation or two, but still!) while Cass gives Emory his first lesson.

And basically ignores me completely.

Which is fine. He’s here for Em.

He gave me this nod when we first got to the beach and I slid Emory off my back.

A nod.

A nod is sort of like acknowledging that there’s someone present with a pulse. It’s the next best thing to nothing at all. Boys do not nod at girls they have any feelings for.

Wait—

Do I even want Cass to have feelings for me? Please, come on. How can I possibly . . . after everything?

He’s here for Em.

I nod back. So there, Cass. I see your impersonal greeting and return it. Just don’t check my pulse.

Because . . . because even though I should be used to Cass on the island and Cass in the water, and his sooty eyelashes and curling smile and his dimples and his body . . .

Jesus God.

I close my eyes for a second. Take a deep breath.

Cass squats down next to my brother. “So, Emory. You like cars?”

Never good with direct questions, Em simply seems confused. He looks up at me for clarification. Cass bends and reaches into the backpack by his foot, pulls out a handful of Matchbox cars and extends his palm.

“Cars,” Em says happily, stroking the hood of one with a careful finger

Cass hands him one. “The rest are going to be diving into the water, since it’s such a warm day. So what I’m going to need you to do is come on in and find them.”

My brother’s forehead crinkles and his eyes flick to mine. I nod. Cass reaches for his hand. “Here, I’ll show you.” Em cheerfully lets go of my fingers and glides his hand into Cass’s.

“What are you doing?” I ask nervously. I have this vision of Cass throwing the cars off the pier and directing Emory to dive in after them.

“Just getting him used to me, and the water,” he says over his shoulder. “It’s okay. This is what I did at camp. I know this.” Em looks skinny and pale next to his wide shoulder, tanned skin.

I follow him, unsure. Am I supposed to hang back and let Cass do his thing, or look out for Emory? In the end, habit triumphs and I stick close.

There are only a few people on the beach, some of the Hoblitzell family, people I don’t know who must be renters. As usual, I can see a few eyes flick to Emory and then skip away with that something’s not right with him expression. It doesn’t happen often . . . he’s a little boy and people are mostly kind. But the saleslady at T.J.’s yesterday kept talking to me or Grandpa when Emory was touching stuff. “Get him to understand that he’s not allowed to do that.” I wanted to slap her.

At the tideline, Cass halts and Em echoes him, digging his toes into the wet sand. For about five minutes, Cass does nothing, just lets the waves wash over their feet. Then he reaches forward, placing one of the cars a little way out in the water. “Can you get down now on all fours and reach this?” All his attention is on the little boy, as though he’s forgotten I’m there. It reminds me of the way he is at swim meets, turned inward, concentrating completely on the task at hand.

Maybe that’s it. It’s not weird between us. He’s concentrating.

Which is what I want. It’s not as though I’d like Cass focused on me while Em sinks below the waves. Exactly the way I did with him.

For forty-five minutes the game continues. Each car is a little farther out in the water. Cass lies on his stomach. “Can you do like me?”

Emory obeys without question or hesitation. I’m worrying because the slight waves are slapping closer to his face and Em hates that—always yells when we scrub his face in the bathtub.

“Okay now. Last rescue. You do it one-handed. You hold your nose like this to keep the water out and reach far. If you get a little wet, just squeeze your nose tighter and keep reaching. But you have to close your eyes while I put out the last thing.”

Em’s eyelashes flutter shut, his fingers pinching his nose. Cass drops something into the water about ten inches out and smack, a wave slaps right across my brother’s lowered face. I jump up from where I’d been sitting, wait for the howl of outrage and terror. But all I see is a flash of red and blue clutched tightly in Emory’s hand, held aloft triumphantly, and the smile on his face.

“Way to go, buddy. You saved Superman.” Cass straightens up, then raises his hand for a high five. Em knows those from Nic, so he presses his hand against Cass’s, then scrambles over to me, waving his treasure.

It’s one of those plastic Superman action figures with a red cape and the blue tights, a little worn, some of the paint scraped off the manly square features. But Em doesn’t care. He carefully traces the S on the chest, his lips parted in awe, as though this is a miniaturized live version of his hero.

“How ’bout another try in a few days? Maybe we could do this twice a week. It’s better if the gap between lessons isn’t too big,” Cass tells me, putting an elbow behind his head and stretching, like he’s getting the kinks out.

Em has extended Superman’s arms and is flying him through the air, his face lit with joy.

“That’d be great! Fantastic.”

I sound way too enthusiastic. “I mean . . . Fine. It would be fine. Emory would like that.”

It’s all about Emory, after all.

Silence.

More silence.

Cass bends down and starts carefully restoring the Matchbox cars to his backpack, drying them first with the (yes, pinkish) towel around his neck

“Okay then,” I say. “I should get him home. He’s probably tired.”

Cass makes one of those noises like “Mmmph.”

“Thanks for the lesson, Cass.”

“No problem.”

“?”

“—”

“It’s really hot today.”

“Yep.” Sound of bag zipping.

“How was the water?”

“Ask Emory.”

“I’m asking you.”

“Subjective question,” Cass says, standing up, one-shouldering the backpack, and finally venturing beyond monosyllables. “Mom and Jake are like me. We can swim in anything, no matter how cold. Bill and my dad are wimps. They wait till, like, the beginning of June.” He says this last with complete disgust.

“No Polar Bear Plunges for them, huh?”

Ack, shouldn’t have mentioned that. But . . . jackpot. Eye contact. Completely untranslatable eye contact, but hey.

I do the elbow-behind-head stretch thing he did earlier. Two can play at the “I-just-need-to stretch-my-muscles” game. But Cass is not looking at me, plowing his foot through the sand.

Emory pulls on the bottom of my shirt. “Cookieth,” he suggests. “Cookie. Then Dora Explora. Then bath. Then story. More story. Pooh Song. Then bed.”

Guess I’ve got my itinerary laid out for me.

Nic’s hardly been home one single evening since school let out. Mom’s picked up an office building in town that she cleans two nights a week. Grandpa Ben has the bingo and Mass and the St. Anthony of Padua Social Club.

I take off my shirt.

Cass doesn’t fall over like Danny Zuko when Sandy appears in head-to-toe spandex at the end of Grease. Thank God, right, because I’ve always hated that scene. Great message: When all else fails, show some skin and reduce the boys to slobbering, quivering messes.

He doesn’t even seem to notice. Just stands there, very still, jaw clenched, looking out at the water.

Okay, I didn’t want it to be all about my body or even mostly about my body, but hello.

I shake my hair over my face. “Okay, Em, let’s hit the road.” I bend down to let him clamber onto my back and perform his trademark chokehold on my trachea. Which is handy because it means I don’t have to say an additional “good-bye and thank you” to Indifferent Boy. Or wonder why my throat hurts.

* * *

Emory’s mesmerized by Peter Pan. I’m wondering what’s up with Tinker Bell and her jealousy issues. It’s not like anything was ever going to work out between them. She’s three inches tall and he’s committed to never hitting puberty.

Speaking of never, why is there never anything to eat in our house except Nic’s Whey Protein Isolate Dietary Supplement powder (“Guaranteed to Bulk You Up”), Mom’s freezer-burned Stouffer’s lasagna, Grandpa’s fish, shellfish, linguica, and pile of farmer’s market vegetables, and Em’s favorite foods—ketchup, Cap’n Crunch, eggs, frozen French fries, bananas, pasta, more ketchup?

Why don’t I have any representation in the cabinets and refrigerator? There isn’t even any sugar or flour . . . and absolutely nothing left over from my baking spree.

Mostly, I acknowledge, because I really don’t care. I love food, but shopping for it is one chore that Mom and Grandpa and Nic do that I am happy to hand over to them.

But that means there’s nothing to drown my sorrows in. I mean, sure, I like vegetables, but who sits on the couch in their robe and eats half a dozen pickling cucumbers and a tomato?

Grandpa chuckles at the rapt expression on Emory’s face as Peter Pan duels with Captain Hook. He scrapes the bottom of his grapefruit clean and prepares to fill it with Raisin Bran.

“Girls talk too much,” Peter complains on screen.

“You think so, Peter? Maybe that’s because boys never explain,” I say back. “So we have to talk because they’re too busy being idiots who give us the silent treatment.”

Grandpa shoots me an amused look. Then he grins in that same “those young people and their silly antics” way Mrs. Ellington did.

* * *

I stomp into my room, throw myself face-first on my bed. Which really isn’t built for that particular cliché and shudders under me, letting out a squawk. Next thing you know I’ll be sliding down the wall of our shower, sobbing and singing depressing pop songs into my shampoo bottle.

I scrub my face with my hands. Maybe Spence Channing has the right idea. Maybe “just sex” is the safest way to go. Because these . . . feelings . . . hurt. I thought . . . I don’t know what I thought, but I felt like something had changed. That Cass and I had finally moved beyond . . . well, just beyond. Whether it was smart or not.

And it probably wasn’t smart.

No, it definitely wasn’t.

Not when I don’t even know which Cass is true.

* * *

My first mistake after the Polar Bear Plunge was coming in Mom’s Bronco. The Bronco is old—like only a year younger than me. The rear hatch is battered from where we got stuck in the deep sand once and had to be pushed out by a bulldozer. There’s something wonky about the underbody, so when you drive there’s this rattling sound as though major car parts are about to drop off. When I pulled into the Somerses’ driveway that night, it was filled with pretty little sporty cars—the Bronco loomed over them the way I tower over most of the girls at SBH.

Some of them were still getting out of the cute cars and sauntering delicately across the gravel of the driveway. Bringing me to my second mistake.

Clothes.

I didn’t think, I didn’t “plan my outfit.” I knew I should. Viv kept pulling clothes out of my closet and holding them up to me, frowning, saying things like, “Did you even try this one on before you bought it? Mall run!” But doing that seemed so deliberate, like we were preparing . . . staging for . . . I’m not sure what, but I couldn’t face it. So I was just in jeans and a black V-neck (okay, low V).

I also opened the door of the Bronco without shutting off the music, so, since I was distracted while driving over and didn’t turn off Emory’s CD, it blared “Baby Beluga in the deep blue seeeeeeea.” I hastily flipped the key in the ignition and shoved it in my pocket. From farther up the path, I heard muffled laughter, which probably had nothing to do with me, but I still wanted to turn and run.

I held my wrist up, looked at the neat blocky boy handwriting, the carefully drawn map. “Saturday. 8:00. Plover Point.”

And I headed in.

Unlike most parties I’d gone to, the music was not at top volume. There was some sort of hidden sound system, but it was muted, background music.

Everything was so clean, though. And white. Cream-colored couches, ivory walls, pale straw rugs . . . pristine. For Cass’s sake I hoped this wouldn’t turn into some drunken bacchanal, because those rugs would be almost impossible to get vomit out of, not to mention red wine if there was any and—

And I was thinking like the daughter of a cleaning woman.

Just for tonight I wanted to put that aside. I wished I’d shopped for an outfit. I wished Viv and Nic had come, instead of laughing not-so-mysteriously and saying they had “other plans.”

Then I saw Cass, who was standing at the kitchen island, taking people’s car keys and putting them in a wicker basket. He was wearing a buttery yellow oxford shirt untucked over his jeans. When he saw me, his face split into his most open, unpracticed smile, the one that grooved his dimples deep and crinkled the corners of those blue eyes. He leaned forward, elbows on the counter.

“You came. I didn’t think you would.”

I fanned out my hands, presenting myself, game show-hostess style, suddenly more at ease.

He took me in, head to toe, then said in a mild tone at odds with the intensity of his glance:

“You’re trustworthy, right? I don’t need to snag your keys?”

“Totally reliable,” I said, looking around. I knew most of the kids at the party—from the hallways and the cafeteria anyway. But in this elegant atmosphere they seemed alien creatures transported from some A-list universe. Boys I’d never seen in anything but jeans and T-shirts were wearing black or dark blue button-down shirts, and the girls were in all that was tight and clingy—and yet classy. A line I’d never managed to walk successfully.

I shivered, twisting my hair into a coil at the back of my neck.

“You okay, Gwen? Not still cold from your historic rescue, are you?”

“No. Completely recovered.” I tossed my hair over my shoulder, succeeding in whacking Tristan Ellis in the face with it.

“Hey, watch it,” he said, palms raised as though I’d chased him with a machete.

I gave myself a mental shake. “This is so . . . glamorous,” I murmured to Cass.

“Give it about twenty minutes to fall apart. Let me take your coat.”

I didn’t want to hand over my tired navy peacoat, which, I now noticed, had bristly golden fur all over it from Fabio. So I stepped away from his outstretched hand, clearing my throat. “To be honest, I didn’t know this was going to be so dressy. Maybe I should go.”

His voice, already deep, went huskier. “Gwen. Stay. You’re not intimidated by—” He glanced around the room, then pointed to some kid who was squirting shaving cream on the face of someone who had apparently already passed out. “That, are you?”

The shaving cream guy shouted “Boo!” and the other kid woke up with a jolt, his hands flying to his face. There was the quick zzzzt of a camera phone as someone took a picture.

“No. Of course not!” But I took another cautious step away.

He moved forward again, reaching for my sleeve, gesturing for me to unbutton the coat. I shook my head. He pulled again on the sleeve so that we were sort of playing peacoat tug-of-war.

“This coat seems very important to you. Is there something I should know? You are wearing a shirt under it, right?”

“I am,” I said, unbuttoning.

“Damn.”

I hated it when guys talked about me with my top off. Even guys like Dad’s age did it—and once one of Grandpa’s friends, who didn’t know I knew some Portuguese. Then Grandpa said some words to him I didn’t know and he apologized for about half an hour. But the thing is . . . I didn’t hate it when Cass joked about it. There was no ick factor. Just this buzz of warmth and cold skating over me. Then, something more recognizable. Panic.

“I’m not the one who’s always shirtless!”

Cass looked pointedly down at his shirt.

“I seem to be fine now. I don’t remember ever coming to SBH topless either. Is my memory going? Or are you talking about while swimming? Because, last time I looked, all the other guys on the team weren’t wearing shirts either. Why am I the one breaking the Gwen Castle dress code?”

Oh God. I might as well have borrowed his Sharpie and written “You’re the one I look at!” on my forehead. I needed a muzzle. Or a drink. No, that would have an anti-muzzle effect. Plus, I’m not good with that and I’d wake up with shaving cream all over my face.

I didn’t know why I’d felt so comfortable with him in the car and was such a basket case now. Because we weren’t alone? Shouldn’t I be more nervous about being alone? Shouldn’t I be wishing more people would crowd into the kitchen so that I wouldn’t grab him and push him up against the Sub-Zero and—

I spotted Pam D’Ofrio across the room, waved as though I hadn’t seen her in five hundred years rather than five hours, thrust my coat at Cass, and headed off.

He let me go, but every time I turned around, I met his eyes, as if he’d been waiting for me to look. After about twenty minutes, he came over, took my hand. “I’m going to show Gwen the house, Pam.”

He led me through, pointing out rooms, a long curving staircase, down a paneled hallway. “Jake’s old room. This was Bill’s, but he’s married now with a daughter, so he doesn’t come to stay very often. Mine’s down this way.”

I expected him to take me to his room. Of course I did. So I wasn’t surprised when he opened the door, flipped on the lights. The first thing I was struck by was how relatively clean it was. Bed unmade, maybe a half-dry towel or two tossed around, but no piles of smelly abandoned clothes. The next by how perfect it was—pale blue walls, darker blue sheets, a dark blue coverlet with dark green stripes, curtains to match. There was a big, well-stocked aquarium, blue lights flickering.

On the wall was a mirror that looked like the portal of a ship. The bed was big, made of oak, with old-fashioned dolphins carved into the sides, and the walls were covered with maps. Some were framed, and looked like something a little kid would draw, on construction paper, with x leading to pirate treasure. Some were just on big sheets of white thick paper. Almost all of them were hand-drawn.

Cass, who’d been silent while I studied my surroundings, finally spoke up. “Just so you know, I had almost nothing to do with this room. My mother hired some decorator while I was away at camp two years ago and he went all ‘carrying the nautical theme through the house’ . . . There was also a wooden marlin on the wall and a statue of some guy in a yellow raincoat with a pipe. I ditched those because it was like sleeping at Red Lobster. I kept expecting to wake up and have somebody ask me whether I wanted tartar sauce with that.” Cass was talking a little fast. He took a deep breath and glanced at me.

“So no crusty old Sailor Man watching over you in your sleep?”

“Buxom mermaid, maybe. Old sea salt, no way.”

I’d come up close to one of the maps now, close enough to see that it was the coastline nearby, the mouth of the river, the bridge to Seashell. In the corner, tiny, were the initials CRS.

“This is all your work? You drew this?’

“Most of them. I like maps.” Cass shrugged. He’d sat down on the bed now, elbows on knees, hands dropped between them. Casual pose, but he kept flexing and unflexing one hand.

I was waiting, at this moment, for The Pass. I wasn’t as experienced as everyone believed, but let’s face it. I was in his room. He was on the bed. But he was just sitting there, staring at his hand. Now we were both doing it. See Cass’s hand flex. See Cass’s hand unflex. Maybe I’d totally misread him. Maybe he was gay? But then I looked over and saw his eyes. Alert, intense, full of something that made my throat catch. Nope. Not gay. Besides, there was that kiss . . .

Another quick look in his eyes, and I had to turn away again, try to get back the thread of what we were talking about . . .

This was ludicrous. I spent most of my time around boys. The island guys. Dad, Nic, Emory, Grandpa. The swim team. The largely male staff at Castle’s during the summer. I wasn’t some convent-educated virgin who fainted at the sight of facial hair.

I cleared my throat, sat down on the bed next to him, tossed my hair back again, this time without endangering anyone. “So . . . what is it about maps? I mean—why do you like them?”

“Uh. Well, I’m not really good at putting this into words. I guess no one’s ever asked.” He paused, looked up at the ceiling as though the answer might be there. “I like the way you can represent the terrain of something curved or bumpy on a flat surface. I like the way you can chart all these different directions, so you can look at all the possibilities, from every angle. I like to just get in the car and pick an area, see if I can map it . . .” He shook his head, looked down. “It’s just kind of my weird thing, what I do when I need to think.”

I glanced down at the map on my hand. So did Cass.

“You didn’t wash it off,” he said, smiling.

“It’s been a day and a half. You used a Sharpie. I’m not going to never wash this hand again or anything. Like you were the Pope or something.”

“I’m definitely not the Pope,” Cass said. Now he rested farther back on the bed, on his elbows, and looked up at me through his long lashes, very still. I edged a little closer.

He smelled so good, like beach towels, a pool in the sun. Sharply clean.

I was smelling him now? Also, I had not tried very hard to get the Sharpie off my hand. What was happening to me?

Before I did something else creepy and random, the door opened abruptly and Trevor Sharpe stuck his head in. We both startled back. “Sundance, where’s the second keg? Please tell me there is one. We’re seriously low on ice. Tell me there’s more of that too. Channing says we really need to change up the lame music. It’s killing the vibe, man.”

Cass shook his head, sighed. “The keg’s in the garage. Ice too. Tell Spence to do whatever the hell he wants about the music.”

Trevor muttered something I didn’t hear that made Cass say “Shut up,” in a surprisingly angry voice.

When the door shut, he flopped back on the bed, laced his knuckles behind his head. “I didn’t really think this party through. I wasn’t too keen on multiple kegs, but . . . Do you want the rest of the tour or—do you want to tell me what weird thing you do? After all, I showed you mine.”

His breath caught, as though he hadn’t expected to say that. He disentangled one hand, pulled at his collar, then jiggled his foot back and forth.

“Well, um, for starters, I have an unnatural attachment to my peacoat. We’re very close.”

“Good to know. So it was a big deal that you allowed me to take it off you.”

“Huge. A milestone.”

“That so?” His voice dropped lower, so I leaned forward to hear him better. I mean, of course that was why I did it. “And besides that?”

A loud chorus of “What shall we do with a drunken sailor?” erupted from downstairs, then a hammering on the door. “Sundance! One down already! Mitchell threw up on the rug in that gray room.”

“Clean it up,” he called without looking away from me.

“No way, man. Your house.”

I almost offered to go clean it. Really.

Then Cass’s cell phone rang and he answered it, lowering his voice and turning slightly away from me. “Yeah. Yeah. I’ve got it handled. This is a bad time, but it’s all under control.”

If his buddies were going to use his cell to get his attention, it was only a matter of time until they barged in again. I stood up, twirled my hair into a knot, let it go loose.

“Any more?” Cass pressed. “The peacoat can’t be it.”

Abruptly I pictured the words on the girls’ bathroom wall after Connie Blythe caught her boyfriend pushing me up against the lockers to kiss me freshman year. But Cass wouldn’t have heard of that—this was his first year at SBH. “Oh, I have no secrets. Everyone knows about me.”

That came out in a way I didn’t intend, sadder, more ashamed, and Cass gave me a sharp glance, then stood up quickly. “Hey . . . d’you want to head out to the beach? Take a walk?”

The beach. Okay. That was good. The beach was my home, my safe place, evened the playing field. Which I desperately needed leveled, because as we walked through the house again, I kept, despite how pointless it was, cataloging all the differences between Cass Somers’s life and my own. At our house, we have stacked blue plastic milk crates to hold Mom’s love books and Nic’s training manuals and Em’s brightly colored children’s books and my . . . whatever. This house had glass-fronted cases with low lights and leather-bound editions. Our paint is dinged, and where we have wallpaper, it’s faded and peeling. They’d had an interior decorator and a “theme.”