“Sarah!” Andrew’s voice echoes behind me.
That uneasiness is back. That same uneasiness I felt before I left to meet Andrew. Like there is a hole in the center of my belly.
Andrew meets me at the edge of the parking lot. He steps in front of me and searches my eyes.
“Maggie’s crazy. She’s my ex. We dated last summer. And she wasn’t supposed to be here tonight.” He takes a step toward me and cups my face with his hands. The calluses on his palms rub at the apples of my cheeks.
“I thought this was a fancy party,” I say.
“It is.”
“I didn’t know I was overdressed. I thought, I thought . . .” I can’t finish.
“You could wear a prom dress to the fish market and I wouldn’t give a shit,” Andrew says.
The intensity in his eyes lifts my spirits a little.
“Really? A prom dress?”
He drops his hands. “Yes. And I’m sure you’ll tell me—”
“That would be highly impractical. The satin or the sequins could get caught on any number of shelves or—” He stops me with a kiss. Whenever he looks at me like that, I can’t be Scarlett. I slip up. How does he have this effect on me?
When Andrew pulls away he kisses my nose, too. “Let’s get out of here. Wanna go somewhere? How about the beach?”
“Okay,” I say. The embarrassment still churns my stomach even though it seems like my factual outburst was kind of . . . good?
Once we get back to his pickup, I lean my back against the truck.
“You certainly told her off,” he says and raises his eyebrows.
“I’ve never done that in my entire life.”
“You can hold your own. I like that.”
Andrew presses against me.
His touch just makes me want to do something crazy. Before meeting me, Andrew had never met a girl who tracked a comet. What about a girl who could show him the deepest parts of the ocean?
“No,” I say. “No beach tonight. I know what I want. I want to take you somewhere you’ve never been.”
Andrew raises an eyebrow. “Where is that?”
I want to show him something real.
The real me.
FIFTEEN
“WHERE WE’RE GOING IS A SURPRISE,” I SAY. “WE have to stop at my house. But no one can see us,” I say.
“A covert operation? Excellent!”
I laugh from the bottom of my gut. A real laugh. My laugh. “Let’s go,” I say.
We get into the truck and I slide the window down, I want the wind to whip through my hair. Maybe I want it to sting my cheeks. Andrew’s hand slides onto my kneecap.
“I should have told you about Maggie,” he says.
“It’s okay,” I say and mean it. “My ex is coming to my sister’s going-away party. No matter how badly I don’t want him to.”
Andrew squeezes my knee again.
“You should wear that dress all the time. Grocery shopping, taking out the garbage . . . ,” he says. “I mean it. We can go clamming. I’ll wear a tux and you wear that dress, it’ll be perfect.”
I laugh and playfully slap his arm. As we pull out of the parking lot, I say, “This is very serious. My family thinks I’m twelve. They want to keep me on the shortest leash they can. If they see you, there will be a lot of . . . questions.”
“Sounds fun,” Andrew says, and we turn down Shore Road. Once we get to Seaside Stomachache, I slide out of the car and Andrew kills the motor.
“You stay on the street,” I whisper. He salutes me.
To the left side of the house is a long driveway canopied by trees. Dad’s car is first in line. His WHOI security pass is in the inner console. Dad’s key is a sensory key—it’s electronic and when I get to a WHOI building, all I have to do is hold it up to the keypad and the door unlocks.
We’ll have access to the shop where the Alvin is being repaired.
My heels crunch over Nancy’s shelled driveway. My heart is thudding away. I tiptoe to Dad’s car and try to keep low until I get to the driver’s-side door.
This is kind of awesome. A shaft of light moves above and a shadow takes over the dashboard of the car.
I jump down and hide below the driver’s-side door. The kitchen window overlooks the driveway. I peek up. Dad is washing something in the kitchen sink. His big head takes up almost the whole window. He could look down at any moment. He wouldn’t see me in the dark, but he would see the inner light on in his car if he catches me with the door open.
I glance back at Andrew, but all I see is his darkened profile.
I need to do this by myself. I’m not at home, sitting on the curb outside the house, waiting for Tucker to show up. I’m not sitting around only thinking about science. I’m living my life. Nancy would be so proud.
I pull on the door handle, lay my belly flat on the seat, barely lift the middle console, and snatch the key. I close the door and I’m off.
I tip tap over the shells as fast as I can, and once I’m on the asphalt, I slide into the seat next to Andrew.
“Let’s go, let’s go!”
We use the side entrance to building 40.
“You realize this is trespassing,” Andrew says. “At Woods Hole.”
“Only kind of,” I reply with a giggle. “I sort of live here in the summer. Well, I usually do, but I haven’t been as much this year.”
We step into the darkened foyer. Only a couple floodlights illuminate the hallway toward the mechanic’s shop.
I take Andrew’s hand.
“I’ve never been here,” he says. “Even in the day.”
He stops and pulls me back.
“Wow,” he says. He looks through an enormous window and a soft blue light illuminates his face.
Through the window are four enormous tanks. Inside them are dozens of starfish: small, silver, black, big—all different kinds. They creep slowly through the water in that periwinkle light.
“Did you know?” I say. “Starfish have eyes on the ends of their arms. They’re microscopic. So if they lose an arm they lose an eye, too. Kind of sad.”
Andrew cups my cheek like he did in the parking lot and exhales.
“What?” I say.
His eyes glitter from the watery light filtering through the glass.
“Where have you been?” he asks with a shake of his head.
“What do you mean? I’ve been—”
“Where have you been?” he says and holds his hand behind my head. Only this time when he asks, it’s not a question.
“East Greenwich, Rhode Island?” I offer.
He laughs but keeps it quiet.
“Come on,” I say, and pull him down the hall toward the Alvin.
When we reach the shop, I listen but don’t hear anything beyond the door but the hum of the HVAC. We step into the room and the Alvin sits beneath one spotlight. There it is. The viewports are gone and the cameras, too. The personnel hatch where scientists enter the Alvin is open. I bet by this time next week, it’ll be completely disassembled.
It’s usually six feet long, but the Alvin seems smaller somehow, without all its parts.
“Okay, Star Girl. What is that?” Andrew asks.
“It’s a deep-sea submersible. It’s been to the Titanic. A couple times, actually.”
Andrew runs his fingers along the side of the titanium shell of the Alvin. It makes everything in me warm to see him caress the machine I love so much. I bend over. At first I’m not even sure why I’m compelled to do this, but I slip off my shoes. I do it slowly like I’ve seen girls do on TV.
“The day I knew that the stars would be my life, my dad took me to the planetarium in Boston,” I say.
“Never been,” Andrew says. He leans his hand against the Alvin. I catch him checking out my legs, and his eyes move up over the rest of my body until they reach my eyes.
“I sat in the darkness and my whole future changed. It was the first time I ever realized that space could potentially go on infinitely. Ca
n you imagine that? Stretching outward? Forever?”
Andrew takes a step closer to me and drops his hand from the submersible. I reach up to the clip holding my hair and let it go. My hair tumbles out and flutters onto my shoulders. I’d seen some of the girls do that in the hallways at school. I’d seen it in movies and TV, too, but never had the opportunity to try it myself. Never understood its impact—until now.
“From that night on, I studied all the constellations. I knew what I loved and who I had to be.”
“I respect that,” Andrew says quietly.
“But maybe it’s changing. Have you ever had a moment like that? When who you thought you were shifted?”
Andrew nods. “The day Curtis first took me to Brewster. He volunteered at the juvie camp before I did and got me into it.” He takes another step and stops inches from me. I love the hum of the body heat between us. “It meant a lot to me to help. Still does.”
“Why doesn’t Curtis work there anymore?”
“Once you’re charged with involuntary manslaughter, you can’t exactly volunteer at a juvenile detention center after that.”
“Did he love it as much as you do?”
“More, I think. I think that’s why he—” He pauses. “—is how he is these days.”
“So, why are you lobstering if you love Brewster so much? Can’t you work full-time at the camp?”
He backs away, putting distance between us, and leans on the Alvin again.
“Sometimes you have to do what’s right, even if it’s not what you love, for a bunch of different reasons. Mike’s entire family lobsters. His brothers run the whole line of boats now. They really needed someone to manage it, help finance, run the offices . . .”
“So you lobster to help them?”
“I have to.”
“But it’s not your fault that Mike died.”
“I know you don’t agree but, I have to,” he says and runs his fingers along the side of the Alvin again. “I do it for Mike.”
He keeps his eyes on the sub when he says, “Thanks for taking me here. This is amazing.” He has changed the subject again like he’s done nearly every time I mention the accident. Again, I let him. We didn’t come here tonight to work out our innermost problems. I want to kiss Andrew’s pain away. I want to comfort him. I lean in first and our lips meet.
He shows me the way. My mouth follows his movements and it’s better than when we were in the water. Because we’re here.
“Where have you been?” I whisper when we pull apart.
He runs a hand over my head and says, “Brewster, Mass.”
We share a laugh.
“So tell me. Why the deep-sea sub?” he asks and keeps us so close our chests touch. I want to keep him this close to me forever.
“Scientists believe that the deep ocean is what life would be like on other planets. Deep-sea life can survive without light and without oxygen. It’s completely plausible that life at the bottom of the sea would be similar to life billions of light-years away. The Alvin is the closest thing I’ve got to a spaceship.”
“You make everything I see . . . better. More interesting,” Andrew says.
First he kisses the nape of my neck and slowly comes back up to my lips. I want him to do more than kiss me. I am surprised by what I want. Andrew leans his back against the Alvin. He pulls me with him so we lean together against the sub. We keep kissing.
He runs his hands over my body again and again until my knees buckle.
“I’ve never broken into a government facility before,” Andrew says as we idle in front of Nancy’s house.
“I’ve taken up your whole week,” I say. “And you just met me.”
He cups my cheek in his warm hand.
“I like it,” he says.
A soft breeze blows through the window and against my skin. I’d almost forgotten the debacle with the dress until the wind cools my shoulders. I made a fool of myself and the memory cracks the polished veneer of the night and the Alvin.
Andrew has been watching me. He shakes his head.
“Trouble. You are going to be trouble.”
“How so?”
“I like you,” he says. “And that’s trouble for me.”
My shoulder and chest are cold when he moves away. I shiver, wanting to understand what he means but loving the mystery a little.
“I can show you the comet next Friday, if you want. It’s the one I’ve been tracking all summer. It finally reaches its perihelion.”
“Whatever it is you said sounds great. Perry-redion.”
“Perihelion.”
“Exactly,” Andrew replies.
He’s not running from me. He’s not scared of my science talk or the facts I know. He’s not even confused about a massive submersible that inches across the ocean floor. Sure, the Scarlett clothes are convincing and I wouldn’t have gotten very far without acting like my sister. I can share all of this with him—and it’s okay. At least it’s okay so far.
I want more from Andrew, more than the information he’s giving me about the accident, more about who he is on the inside. I want to spend so much more time in his arms, delving into all of the details. I’ve never felt like this. It makes my breath shudder.
“You sure you won’t be sick of me?” I ask and clear my throat. I unlatch the car door.
“You?” he says with a smile. “Never.”
SIXTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING, I WALK DOWNSTAIRS AND text Claudia back. She sent me a message when I was out with Andrew last night, inviting me out with her and her friends for July 4th. I tell her definitely.
I slip my phone in my pocket when I get to the living room. Scarlett’s three bags are piled in the foyer. The black dress is on a hanger in the closet and I’ll make sure to steam clean it this afternoon when no one is around.
I eat cereal on the lounger, which, usually, is expressly forbidden, but Aunt Nancy is at a Daughters of the American Revolution meeting. “Beanie, go get your sister. Tell her we have to go,” Mom says from the kitchen.
I place my bowl down and head upstairs.
“So,” I say, stepping in Scarlett’s doorway, “you’ll just have to achieve MTP in New York City.” MTP is Scarlett’s acronym for “maximum tanning potential.” Nancy finds it horrifying and drones on and on about SPFs and skin cancer.
I glance around her room, trying to see what clothes Scarlett’s chosen to leave behind. Scarlett can’t take everything to New York . . . can she? After all, she said she doesn’t see the point in bringing her swimsuits to the city. Some of her drawers are open behind her and she’s left dozens of T-shirts and shorts.
“What did you do to your face? You look like a raccoon,” she says. She scrunches her nose like something smells disgusting.
“What?”
My sister is seated at her vanity and dabs moisturizer on her forehead. I bend to see my reflection. Dark smears of mascara blacken under my eyes.
“I guess I didn’t wash my makeup off,” I say and use a tissue to wipe my skin.
“Wash that off every night. It’ll clog your pores,” she says and dabs a different cream on her chin.
My skin is a little raw from rubbing too hard.
I sit down on the end of the bed next to a red summer dress. It’s very short and would probably show the bottom of my butt cheeks if I ever wore it.
“That’s nice,” I say about the dress. “Kinda skimpy.”
“Yeah, well, Curtis seems to think I should be wearing nothing all the time. He basically had this off of me in fifteen minutes last night.”
“Curtis?” I say, playing dumb. Scarlett admires her reflection and pulls at her tanned skin.
“Yeah, he works down at the fish market.” She shrugs. “We’re seeing where it goes this summer. I’m not into the dark hair, dark eyes look. But I do love his body.”
“Ugh,” I say, thinking of Curtis looking me up and down at the fish market.
Scarlett rolls her eyes. “You know, Bean, someda
y you’re going to have sex and you’re going to like it.”
She doesn’t get it. It’s not Curtis’s body that I think is disgusting, it’s Curtis’s entire existence. I wonder if she knows about the accident and that he was in jail for nine months. He doesn’t strike me as the most forthcoming guy. But it also strikes me as something that all of his friends talk about and if Scarlett is here during the off-season—she has to know. Either way, I don’t mention how much I know.
“Do you think he’s a . . .” I choose my words while trying to seem normal. “. . . a good person?”
“What do you mean, ‘good’?”
Nope, she’s not going to give anything away.
“A good guy,” I repeat.
“Yeah, why not? I mean he has feelings and is courteous or whatever. People aren’t either just good or bad, Beanie. They’re complex. Layered.”
I circle back to her last comment about having sex and liking it. I can absolutely imagine taking my clothes off with Andrew. I’ve never considered having sex with anyone. Not until now. I’m not about to run off and do it tomorrow but Andrew is different—special.
“I’m not afraid of kissing or sex,” I say.
Scarlett whips around in her chair. Her jaw drops.
“Did you seriously just say that? Have you even kissed anyone besides Tucker?”
“He was my first boyfriend!” I say. She gets up and closes a drawer filled with bikinis. “Give me a break,” I add.
“Any new boys on the horizon?” she asks.
“Are you really asking me this?”
“Yeah, why not?” she says.
I narrow my eyes. “No,” I say. “No boys. But maybe you could bring one back for me from New York!”
She flips off the light but the rainy daylight blankets the room. We walk back downstairs. Scarlett doesn’t say anything else. I kind of wish we could keep talking but she joins Mom in the foyer. I don’t remember us ever talking about boys before.
She hikes her bag over her shoulder and readies her things for the bus ride from Hyannis to New York City. I finish my cereal on the couch.
Maybe she’ll come give me a hug. I check out my reflection in the window. Black eyeliner still burrows in the corners of my eyes. I wipe them again with my napkin.