Текст книги "What I Thought Was True"

Автор книги: Huntley Fitzpatrick

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-seven

“He’s robbing her blind,” Vivie says. She hangs a hard left in the Almeida’s van, throwing both Nic and me against the passenger doors. “He’s divorced, right? He cheated with the underage babysitter and now her family’s asking for hush money, his ex took him to the cleaners even though she was having it on with the doorman, he’s broke because he’s embezzling from his boss, and he’s counting on Mommy to bail him out. Without her knowing.”

“Wow. You got all that from what I just told you?”

“Drama Queen,” Nic says.

“I’m not.” Viv jerks the wheel, tires squealing, to turn onto Main Road. I land hard against the door.

“Why wouldn’t he just ask her for the money?” I say, righting myself, kicking upright the bag of quahogs at my feet—we’re doing a clam boil for St. John de Brito Church tonight.

“Those guys never talk to each other,” Nic says. “I swear, we were painting the dining room at the Beinekes’ today. Place was draped in sheets and stuff, and Hoop and I are doing the edging, but Mr. and Mrs. Beineke and their poor granddaughter are still eating in there. It’s all ‘Sophie, can you ask your grandmother to pass the butter’ and ‘Sophie, please tell your grandmother we are running low on salt,’ even though the table’s four feet by four feet and Grandma and Gramps can hear each other perfectly. They just let everything important stay unsaid.”

“The question is, do I say anything?” I ask. “Or should I—”

“Left up here!” Nic interrupts, pointing right.

Viv turns left.

“No—that way!” Nic points right again.

Viv swears under her breath, making a U-turn that tosses Nic and me against the doors again.

“Do you think this is a handicap, Vee?” Nic asks. “Do you think the academy won’t take me because I always have to make that little L thing with my hand?”

“Maybe you’ll get a special scholarship,” Vivien says, patting his shoulder, squinting at me in the rearview. “Gwenners, the thing is, you don’t really know anything. You’ve worked for them for a few weeks. They’ve had a lifetime to complicate and screw up their relationship. Don’t get involved.”

Don’t get involved. Don’t think about it. Nas histórias de outras pessoas.

Thinking those thoughts is starting to seem like the snooze button on an old alarm clock, one I’ve hit so often, it just doesn’t work anymore.

* * *

“Gracious, Gwen, where are you today?” Mrs. E. waves her hand in front of my face, calling me back to the here and now. On her porch, nearly at the end of the day. A day I’ve spent daydreaming about Cass and preoccupied about Henry, going through the motions with Mrs. E., who deserves better.

“Clarissa Cole tells me the yard boy, dear Cassidy, is teaching your brother to swim.”

The island grapevine is evidently faster than a speeding bullet. Mrs. E. rests a hand, light as a leaf, on my arm. “Oh, uh, yeah—yes. He’s got a lesson tomorrow.”

“Would it be too much to ask if an old Beach Bat could come along?”

“To swim?”

“Merely to observe. I spend too much time in the company of the elderly, or”—she lowers her voice, although Joy-less the nurse has not yet arrived, having called to say she’ll be late, and somehow making that sound like my fault—“the cranky. I’ve missed several days with the ladies on the beach—just feeling lazy, I’m afraid. It would be a pleasure to see how your dear boy handles this.”

“He’s not my dear boy, Mrs. E. We just go to school together.”

She looks down, turning the thin gold bracelet on her wrist, but not before I catch the flash of girlish amusement. “So you say. Well, I was a young woman a very long time ago. I cannot, however, pretend that I haven’t noticed that while the neighbors on either side have grass that is growing rather long and paths that are a bit overdue for weeding, my own yard has never been so assiduously tended.”

Have to admit, I’ve noticed that too. And when he called to figure out a time for Em’s next swim lesson, there was a certain amount of lingering on the phone.

Cass: “So I should go . . .” (Not hanging up) “Uh . . .”

Me: “Okay. I’ll let you go.” (Not hanging up) “Another family thing?”

Cass: (Sighing) “Yeah. Photo shoot.”

Me: (Incredulous) “Your family thing is a photo shoot?”

Cass: “Stop laughing. Yes. We do the annual photo for my dad’s company website, you know . . . It’s a tradition . . . sort of an embarrassing one, but . . .”

Then all at once, I remembered that. Mr. Somers and the three boys. I couldn’t see her, but Cass’s mom must have been there too. Standing on the deck of their big sailboat tied off the Abenaki pier, white shirts, khaki pants, tan faces. Cass bending his knees to try to rock the boat, his brothers laughing, me starting to climb down the ladder to clamber aboard. Dad catching me and saying, “No, pal, you aren’t family.”

“You still do that?”

“Every year,” he said. “I may be the black sheep, but apparently I photograph well.”

His tone was light, but I heard something darker in it.

Silence.

I could hear him breathing. He could probably hear me swallow.

Me: “Cass . . .”

Cass: “I’m here.”

Me: “Are you going to do it? What your family wants? Say it was all Spence, go back to Hodges?”

Cass: (Long sigh. I pictured him clenching his fist, unclenching.) “This should be easier than it is.” (Pause) “Black and white. He’s my best friend. But I’m . . . My brothers are . . . I mean . . .”

It’s not like him to stammer. I pressed the phone closer to my cheek. “Yeah?”

Cass: “I’m not Bill, the financial whiz kid. I’m not Jake, the scholar/athlete.”

Me: “Why should you be?”

Cass: “They want the best for me. My parents. My family.”

At that point, Mom came into the room, sighing loudly as she took off her sneakers, flipping on the noisy fan. I told Cass to wait, took the phone outside, to the backyard, lay down in the grass on my back, staring at the deep blue sky. We had never talked like that to each other. His voice was so close, it was as though he was whispering in my ear.

Me: “I’m back. And the best thing for you is?”

Cass: “The whole deal. An Ivy. A good job. All that. I may not be as smart as my brothers, but I know that it . . . looks better . . . to graduate from Hodges.”

Here’s where I should have said that it didn’t matter how it looked. But I couldn’t lie to him. I knew what he meant. Instead, I asked, “Is that what matters? Looks? To you.”

Another sigh. Then silence. Long silence.

I remember Cass’s brother talking to him outside Castle’s that day. Saying Spence would always land on his feet.

Me: “Wouldn’t Spence be able to bounce back? He’s pretty sturdy. And didn’t his dad get the expulsion off his record?”

Cass: “Well, yeah. But if I sold him out, that would be on my record. In his head. In mine. I mean, who the hell would that make me?”

My next thought was unavoidable. That you ask? That you worry? Not who I thought you were.

Finally, Cass: “Okay, I really do need to go.”

Me: “Yeah, me too. I’ll hang up now.”

(No hanging up)

Cass: “Maybe if we do it on the count of three.”

“One. Two. Three.”

I don’t hang up. Neither does Cass.

Cass: (Laughing) “See you tomorrow, Gwen.” (Pause) “Three.”

Me: (Also laughing) “Right. Three.”

Both phones: Click.

* * *

Mrs. E. insists that we drive her Cadillac to pick up Emory and then head to the beach for his lesson. Emory is clearly astonished being in a car that doesn’t make loud squealing noises, like Mom’s, and where the seats are overstuffed and comfortable, not torn up like Dad’s truck. “Riding. A bubble,” he says, mesmerized, stroking the smooth puffy white leather. “Like Glinda.” His eyes are wide.

This time Cass has yet more Superman figures for Emory to rescue, and a fist-sized blue-and-green marble. He places that one pretty far out in the deepening water, and tells Em he has to put his entire face under to get it. Em hesitates. Cass waits.

I squeeze Mrs. E.’s hand. I’ve set up a beach chair for her and am sitting in the sand beside it.

“My Henry was afraid of the water as a little boy,” she tells me quietly. “The captain was most impatient. He tried everything, saying he was a descendant of William Wallace and Wallaces were not afraid of anything—although I must say I doubt William Wallace could swim—and promising him treats and giving him spankings—that was an acceptable practice back then. But Henry would not go near the water.”

Cass is lying down on his stomach next to Em, tan muscled back alongside small, pale, bony one. I can’t see Emory’s expression. I have to grip on to the armrest of the beach chair to stop myself from going to the water, pulling Emory out, saying this was a bad idea. Mom’s words echo, that he’s my responsibility, that he can’t care for himself, that it will always be my job. I start to rise, but Mrs. E. presses down on my shoulder lightly. “No, dear heart. Give him a little time. I have faith. You must too.”

I sit back. “So, how did Henry ever learn to swim?”

“Well, one day the captain took him to the end of the dock and dropped him in.”

I’m completely horrified. “What did you do?”

“I wasn’t there. I heard about it later. You must understand that some people were much tougher with children in those days. I would never have allowed it, but this sort of thing happened.”

Cass has rolled over on his side in the water, propping himself on an elbow. He ducks his head sideways, completely under, then pops it back up, says something I can’t hear to Emory. I hear the husky sound of Emory laughing, but he still doesn’t lower his head.

“So what happened? Did he sink? Did someone dive in and save him?”

“No, he doggy-paddled his way to the pier. He was too terrified not to. But he didn’t speak to his father for two weeks.”

Can’t say that I blame him. The captain sounds like a jerk

Slowly, slowly, Em ducks his head. I catch my breath, as if I could hold it for him. His hand reaches out, out, out and then his head splashes up at the same time his hand does, triumphantly holding the marble.

“Way to go, Superboy. You saved the planet!” Cass calls, and Em’s grin stretches nearly from ear to ear.

“He’s not your young man?” Mrs. E. leans over to ask, her lavender perfume scenting the salty air.

“No. Not mine.” Cass is talking to Em, folding his fingers around the marble, pointing out to the end of the pier. Emory nods, seriously.

“Then I may ask him to be mine.”

* * *

“Gwen, wait up!” Cass calls as I’m pulling out of the parking lot at the beach, Mrs. E. and Emory equally worn out and drowsy.

He’s got his backpack slung over his shoulder and his hair is still dripping wet, scattering droplets onto his shirt. “I thought maybe I’d come by tonight.”

Grandpa informed me this morning that he was the bingo host tonight, so no way. If things were awkward with my family, they would be even worse with Grandpa’s friends raising and lowering their eyebrows and nudging one another over the fact that Ben Cruz’s granddaughter is finally being seen with um joven. Even if she’s just helping him with English.

“Not a good night for tutoring.” I look down at his feet, rather than at his face. Man, he even has nice feet. Big, neatly clipped toenails, high arch. I’m checking out his feet? Jesus. He edges the sandy gravel of the parking lot with his toe.

“Yeah, well, not tutoring,” Cass says. “I thought . . . maybe . . . I’d just come by.”

I don’t look over at Mrs. Ellington. Nor do I have to. Her I told you so is loud and clear.

“Like for another sail?” I squint dubiously at the sky, where thunderhead clouds are moving in.

“Or . . . a walk . . . or whatever?” Cass slides his hand to the back of his neck, pinching the muscles there, shakes his hair out of his eyes. “Maybe kayaking?”

I could point to the gathering clouds in their deepening shades of gray, or mention that the wind seems to be picking up. I could remember the poised, distant boy who climbed into the Porsche and say “no way.” Instead I say, “Around six?”

Chapter Twenty-eight

“Hi, Mrs. Castle!”

I’m changing in my room (for only the second time—progress!) when I hear Cass’s deep voice. Followed by Mom’s uncertain one.

“Oh. Cassidy. Another tutoring session? Gwen’s just showering. Come in! Do you want a snack? We have . . . leftover fish. I could heat it up. I’m sure Gwen will be out in just a minute. Here, come in, have a seat. How are your hands?”

I grimace. Obviously I come by my babbling genetically.

“Or are you here for Emory? How’d you say your hands were, honey?”

The smile in Cass’s voice reaches through my closed door like sun slanting through a window. “They’re fine. Better. No snack. Thanks. I’m not here for Emory. Or tutoring. I want to take Gwen out.”

“Our Gwen?”

Shutting my eyes, I lean back against the door. Nice, Mom.

“Oh! Well. She’s . . . in the . . . I’ll just call her. Guinevere!” She shouts the last as though we live in a mansion and I’m hundreds of rooms away instead of about six yards.

I emerge from the bedroom, mascara on. My hair is wet from the shower, dripping a damp circle on the back of my shirt. But he looks at me like . . . well, like none of that matters, and then, of course, it kinda doesn’t.

“You don’t want the fish?” Mom asks. “Because I could wrap it up. It wouldn’t be a big deal at all. Must be hard to be living on your own without a home-cooked meal. I mean, you’re a growing boy and I know all about teenage boys and their appetites.”

She did not just say that. Note to self: Strangle Mom later.

“What?” Cass says, his eyes never leaving me. “Sorry, Mrs. Castle. I’m, uh, distracted. Today was long. Ready, Gwen?”

Flustered and flushed, Mom says, “You sure you don’t want some cod?”

“No cod, Mom,” I say tightly.

“I’m sure it’s delicious, Mrs. Castle,” says the prince of good manners.

Finally, fortunately silent, Mom watches us leave.

Cod?

God.

“Sorry about that—she gets—um . . . well . . . I mean, she’s just not used to me going on a date. Not that that’s what this is. I mean . . . Should I go back and get my copy of Tess? We’ve only done it once. Tutoring, I mean.” I feel my face go hot. “How are your hands?”

He’s laughing again. “Gwen. Forget my hands. Forget Tess. Let’s just . . . go to the beach and . . . figure it out from there.”

All these questions crowd into my mind. Figure what out? Why am I doing this again? Or is it different now? But for once, for once since that no-thinking night at Cass’s party, I just push it all away. I focus on the pull of Cass’s hand. Let myself be pulled. And say, “Okay.”

* * *

As we head down the hill, the clouds that were gathering seem to have hesitated in the sky, moving no farther in. The breeze is sharp and fresh, only faintly salty. High tide.

Cass says, “I finished it. Last night. Tess. Still hate it. I mean . . . what was the point of all that? Everything was hopeless from the start. Everyone was trapped.”

As his “tutor,” I should argue and say that Tess’s choices, and Angel’s inability to forgive them, doomed them, that it wasn’t really a foregone conclusion, things could have gone another way. But the reason I hate the book is just that—that from the start, everyone is hopeless, even the family horse, who you just know is going to drop dead at the worst possible moment. “You know what I hated most about that book?” I offer. “The line that made me want to pitch it off the pier?”

“I can think of a lot,” Cass says.

“Tess moaning that ‘my life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances.’ I mean, I know she’s unlucky, but she feels so sorry for herself that you stop caring. Or I did at least.”

“The one that got me,” he says, his voice low, “the only one that did, and that wasn’t sort of overdramatic, dumbass drama, was that paragraph about how you can just miss your chance.”

“‘In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things,’” I quote, “‘the call seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving.’”

“Yeah.” He exhales. “That. Bad timing with what could’ve been a good thing.”

Well.

That statement hangs there in the air like it’s been written in smoke.

I clear my throat.

Cass kicks some gravel off the road. Then he laughs. “I can’t believe you have it memorized.” He glances at me, and I shrug, my cheeks blazing. “Actually, yeah,” he says. “I can.” He smiles down at the ground.

We’re quiet again.

“I thought maybe I was wrong, just not getting this book,” he adds finally. “Half the stuff I read doesn’t stay in my head. Maybe more than half. I can’t write a paper to save my life. The words—what I want to say—just get jumbled up when I try to put them down on paper.”

“You know exactly what to do with Em, though,” I point out, seizing on the change of topic like a life raft. We’re nearly to the beach, walking so close together that I keep feeling his rough knuckles brush against my arm.

“It’s no big deal, Gwen. Like I said, that’s my thing. I might have started working at Lend a Hand—that camp—because of my transcript—and because Dad got me the job, like he’s gotten me every other job—but I really got into it. Swimming’s always been big for me. Figuring out how to make it work with different issues—that I can do. And Emory . . . he’s easy. Not autistic, right?”

I shake my head. “We don’t know what he is, but that’s not it.”

“Yeah, I could see he was different with the water. When you teach kids with autism, a lot of times there’s this sensory stuff. You have to hold on to them really tight. And it’s easier to get all the way into the water right away with them instead of going slowly, like Emory.”

I slow, glance at him, fall in step again. “How do you know this?” A side of Cass I’ve never seen.

“When I’m interested, I get focused.” He kicks a rock away from the road, hands in pockets, not looking at me.

I’m trying to decode his mood, which seems to keep shifting like the wind coming off the water, both of which now have a sort of electricity. There’s a storm coming. I can feel it.

When we get to the beach, Cass reaches into his pocket and pulls out a loop of keys, unlocking the tiny boathouse, which smells both damp and warm, flecks of dust swirling in the air. The dark green kayak is buried under several others, so there’s a lot of shifting around and rearranging and not very much conversation for a bit.

He hands me a double-handed paddle after we drag the boat down the rocky sand. “Want to steer?”

“I’ve never even been in a kayak before,” I tell him.

“Bet you still want to steer,” Cass says, grinning slightly as he trails his paddle into the water and heads into the inlet near Sandy Claw.

We snake around turn after turn in the salt marsh. I keep sticking my paddle in too far, flipping it out too fast, so sprays of water flip up, soaking Cass. The first few times he pretends not to notice, but by the fourth, he turns around, eyebrow lifted.

“Accident,” I say hastily.

“Maybe we should just use one paddle. You’re potentially more dangerous with this than the hedge clippers. Let’s switch places.”

Holding on to the side, as the kayak rocks precariously in the shallow water, I wedge myself around him. He settles back, then lowers his hand, gesturing me to sit. I sink down. There’s water in the bottom of the boat and it seeps into my bikini bottom. Cass takes my paddle out and rests it on the kayak floor, lifts one of my hands, then another, situating my palms on the two-sided paddle, under his. “See, you can still have control. I know how you are about that.” His voice is so close to my ear that his breath lifts the stray strands of hair that curl there. “Dig deep on one side, let the other drift on this turn up here.”

I do as he tells me, and the kayak slowly turns, snagging briefly in the sea grass, then moving on.

We’re only a few bends in the inlet from the beach when the clouds finally break and fat raindrops begin scattering around us, plopping into the water, splattering onto my shoulder. At first just a few and then the sky opens up and it’s a deluge, as though someone is pouring a giant version of one of Emory’s buckets onto the kayak. We both start paddling like crazy, but I’m trying to pull the paddle back and Cass is moving it forward, which stalls us till he again shifts his hand on mine, tightening his grip, says, “Like this,” dipping the paddle in the right direction, so we’re in sync at last.

* * *

Finally, we reach the beach and get out. Cass hauls and I shove and soon the kayak is at the door. He shouts, but I can’t hear him above the rain. He hooks his toes under the kayak, flipping it upside down so it won’t fill with water, then kicks the door open and pulls me inside the boathouse, yanking the door shut.

“I could have planned this a little better!” he shouts, over the barrage of rain pounding on the roof like drumsticks.

I could have pointed out that I knew it was going to rain.

Which I totally knew.

And ignored.

We’re both drenched. His hair’s plastered to his forehead and cool rivulets of water are snaking down my back. There are no lights in the boathouse; only two tiny windows and a dirty fly-specked skylight. Outside, all you can see is a gray wall of torrential water and, suddenly, a flicker of lightning.

“God’s flicking the light switch,” I say.

Cass shoves his hair out of his eyes and squints, assessing my craziness level. Which of course means I keep talking. “Grandpa Ben used to say that, when Nic and I were little and scared of storms and you know, hurricanes and stuff. Lightning was God flipping the switch and thunder was God bowling and . . .”

He’s now cocking his head, smiling at me bemusedly, as though I really am speaking a foreign language.

I trail off.

“Um,” I say. “Anyway. What are you thinking?”

“That I’ve gotten you wet and cold again.” Cass lifts the bottom of his T-shirt, squeezing water out of the hem, then pulls it entirely off. Sort of like detonating a weapon in the tiny, warm, confined space.

I shiver, glancing around the boathouse for something to dry us.

There are a few old tarpaulins piled in one corner, but they look mildewy and rough and smell musty and are probably full of earwigs and brown recluse spiders. There’s another flicker of lightning with a loud crack to follow, like a giant is splitting a huge stick over his knee. The rain seems to pause for an instant as though gathering strength, then an angry grumble of thunder rolls out.

“What d’you know?” Cass says, bending down and pulling something out from behind the Hoblitzells’ dinghy, named Miss Behavin’. He tosses it toward me. A pink towel, which lands neatly at my feet.

I pick it up. “You can’t get warm if you put the dry clothes on over wet ones,” I quote, wondering if he’ll remember saying that.

He grins at me. “As a wise man once said.”

“Man?”

“You’re questioning man? I was betting you’d go for wise.”

“Which would be more insulting?”

He picks up another towel and sets his fingers and thumb at the back of my neck, urging my head down, then starts rubbing the towel through my hair to dry it.

He’s just drying my hair. With a towel. This should not feel so . . . amazing.

“Insulting each other, Gwen? Is that what we’re doing here?” His voice is low, so close to my ear.

I don’t know what we’re doing here.

Or maybe I do. He stops, dumps the towel to the ground, says gruffly, “I think you’re good.”

“Yes, totally.” I back up, pull my soaking T-shirt up over my bikini, drop it to the floor with a squelch. Cass freezes. The atmosphere inside the boathouse suddenly feels more electrically charged than the storm outside.

We’re only a few feet away from each other.

“You’ve got, um—” He makes this gesture with both thumbs under his eyes, which I can’t interpret.

Another flash of lightning. A really loud rumble of thunder. For a second, since he’s not moving, I wonder if I should act terrified of storms just for an excuse to throw myself at him, then I can’t believe what a lame thought that is.

He reaches out his thumb, very slowly, and brushes it under one of my eyes. I close them both, and the thumb smoothes under the other one. Both of us take a deep breath in, as though we’re about to speak, but words fail me. It’s Cass who talks.

“Mascara . . . uh . . . here.” Another graze of his thumb.

I step back, rub impatiently under both eyes with the pink towel. “Makeup. Ugh, I’m terrible with it. I mean, I can do it, but just the basics. Forget the eyelash curler, which is like some sort of medieval torture device anyway and . . . Maybe I should just give up completely on trying to be a girl.”

“That would be a shame. Here, you’re getting it all over. Let me.”

“I should at least have gotten . . . the . . . water . . . proof kind.” Now he has set his fingers on either side of my face, tangling in my wet hair, with the pads of his thumbs still pressing over my cheekbones.

“Water would help . . . clean this up,” he says, his voice as quiet as mine. He nods toward the boathouse door. “I could go out and—”

Another crack of lightning, followed almost instantly by thunder. The storm is nearly directly overhead.

“Get struck by lightning? Uh, no,” I say. I don’t know what to do with my hands. I know what I want to do with them, but . . .

It’s so dim now in the gray light coming in through the windows that I can feel more than I can see. I see the outline of Cass’s head dip lower, then the faint rasp of stubble as his cheek brushes against mine, the roughness of the calluses on his hand as it slides over my hip.

Then he is absolutely still, motionless.

Very, very slowly, I lift my own hand, slide it up to rest on top of his and squeeze. His breath catches, but he still doesn’t move. There’s another flash of lightning. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. The way to count out a storm. Another beat of silence, then I turn my face to the side and catch his mouth with mine. And I am finally, finally kissing Cass Somers again.

The hand I’m not touching slides down my back, gathering me closer, and he leans back so he’s against the wall and I’m flat against him. His mouth is warm and tastes like rainwater and salty ocean both. I take my other hand and slip it into his hair, wet and slick, twist my fingers around a curl. He edges his legs apart, so I’m closer still. Then his fingers edge slowly up my back to where my bikini ties behind my neck, tracing the outline of the straps, nudging at the knot, slipping away again, tracing the line around to my front, then the dip of the bikini top, down, back up to the other side.

Slow. Tantalizing. I hear myself make this little sound of impatience in the back of my throat.

He moves his lips away from mine for a second, takes a deep breath, then hesitates.

Don’t think, Cass.

I rest one hand on his jaw, reach the other hand back, yank at the bow at the back of my neck. I double-knotted it and it holds fast. I hear that impatient noise again, but this time it’s him, not me. His hand covers mine, untangles, unknots.

Those long fingers moving so expertly, like on the lines of the sailboat.

I move back for a second to let the top fall to my waist but, plastered by water, it stays in place. Cass pulls me close again, wraps his palms around my waist, instead of making the move I expect. Want.

We’ve hardly paused for air and I’m completely breathless. I pull back, gasping as though surfacing after diving to the ocean floor.

We stare at each other, but it’s too dark to see each other’s faces. One breath. Another. Then he makes a little sound, like a hum, and lowers his forehead to my shoulder, circling his thumb around the front of me, dipping it into my belly button.

At which point, my stomach rumbles.

“Is that thunder?” he asks as the lightning flashes to illuminate his smile. “It sounded so close.”

I cover my eyes. Then burst out laughing.

“Don’t worry. We can take care of that.” His thumb nudges teasingly into my stomach again. Then he steps back, moves over to the corner. I hear something fall over and clatter on the ground—an oar, probably, then the rustle of paper. But it’s too dark to see what’s going on, and, wait, why did he move away? We’re plastered against each another in a dark enclosed space, damp skin against damp skin, and he . . . steps back? Isn’t he supposed to be losing control? I yank at the ties of my bikini, retie them.

Cass is pulling his towel from the pile of life jackets he tossed it on. Flapping it out to lay it flat on the saw-dusty slats of the wood floor, as though we’re on the beach. He picks something up and sets it on the towel, just as lightning illuminates two familiar white bags, both embellished with the black drawn figure of a mermaid, extending a plate of stuffed quahogs. Cass sits down cross-legged, then reaches up for my hand, lacing his fingers through mine and pulling gently.

“C’mon. I’m hungry too.”

I drop down on my knees, sit back on my heels as he starts hauling things out of one of the bags. A long loaf of French bread, a big wedge of Brie cheese, strawberries, gourmet chocolate . . . I know the contents by heart. I’ve packed tons of these for delivery to day-trippers coming in off the boats.

“You brought a Dockside Delight?”

“It seemed like a better plan than the carton of raw eggs and the Gatorade, which were the only things I had in my fridge.” He breaks a piece of the bread off and hands me the rest.

But instead of the warm feeling that was chasing itself all over me a few minutes ago, I’m suddenly chilled.

He had a picnic waiting. In the boathouse. Ahead of time.

“You planned this—” I say.

“Well, yeah, sure, partly—” Then, more warily, “That’s bad? What did I do now?”

In flashes, like old photographs flicking from one moment to the next, I see the party.

The Bronco.

The boys and their knowing laughter.

The guilt in Cass’s eyes.

Jim Oberman, freshman year, dragging me against the locker to make his girlfriend jealous. Alex, just wanting to score an island girl. Spence. Just sex. Am I never going to be anything more than somebody’s strategy, a destination marked off on a road map and then passed through for someplace better?

“You planned this,” I repeat.

Cass sets down the bread, steeples his hands, and looks up at the skylight as though praying for patience. “Partly. Like I said. Not everything, because nothing ever goes quite the way you mean it to. Not for me, anyway. I wanted to take you out on the water. We both . . . relax there. By ourselves. So yeah, I planned that. I don’t have a kayak, so I had to borrow one, which also involved premeditation.”