“For a few minutes,” Lacey replied. She dashed, barefoot, down her walk and up Mel’s. “Can you believe it?” she asked, looking around at the boards for the windows and the hasty packing that was going on in the Bradermans’ house.
Mel shook her head.
“You know what I heard?” Lacey whispered. “This one radio station said that if Chester hit hard enough, Fire Island could end up under water.”
“You mean—flooded?” asked Mel, shivering.
“No, I mean gone. No more island.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope.”
“But Lacey, that’s horrible!” exclaimed Mel, tears coming to her eyes. “Can you imagine never being able to come back here? Never having another summer—”
“Mel, it’s not going to happen.”
“But you said—”
“That’s the worst the storm could do. Come on. Fire Island has been around forever. It’s survived plenty of hurricanes. It’ll be fine.”
“Then why are they evacuating us?”
“Well, would you want to be this near the ocean during a hurricane?”
“No, I guess not.”
Mel and Lacey looked at the leaden sky.
“I can’t believe the summer’s over,” Mel said after a moment. “And we got cheated out of our last day.”
The Bradermans ate a quick supper. Afterward, Mel couldn’t stand it any longer. The rain had not started falling again, so she slipped out of Moonrise and ran to the beach. She just had to have one last visit with Justin, and she knew they might not see each other the next day as they had planned.
When she reached his house, she walked toward it, across the sand. It looked closed up already. Closed up and dark.
Mel’s heart began to pound. Had Justin’s father decided to leave? Had he packed up Justin and Leila and their things and gone back to the safety of New York? Justin had said he would say good-bye. Still, what was the point if they weren’t going to see each other again?
Mel approached the house. She could hear nothing but the crashing of the angry waves behind her. Slowly she climbed the flight of steps until she stood above the dunes. Remembering her dream, she actually checked behind her for chattering teeth, then giggled nervously for being so silly.
She walked to Justin’s house and knocked softly on the side door.
Nothing.
She knocked a bit harder, but by then was sure that Justin, his father, and Leila were gone.
Tears smarting at her eyes, she turned away.
She was halfway down the walk when she heard the door open behind her. “Mel?”
It was Justin’s voice.
Mel whirled around. “Justin! I thought you were gone! I thought you’d heard about the hurricane, and your house is so dark, and—”
“Hey, it’s all right. We were having a candlelight supper…Are you crying?”
“No, of course not.”
“Let’s go sit on the beach. It won’t be very special tonight—no stars or moon—but the ocean sounds nice.”
“Okay.” Mel hastily wiped her eyes. Then, hand in hand, she and Justin walked back to the beach. The sand was wet from the day’s rain, so they sat on an overturned rowboat that belonged to the lifeguards. Mel was surprised that it was still on the beach. By the next morning, she knew, it would be gone—stored away with the other island things, to be brought out again after it had weathered Chester.
“Are you all packed?” Mel asked Justin.
He had made another hand sandwich and was playing absent-mindedly with her fingers. “Yup. It didn’t take long. We don’t have that much stuff out here.”
“Do you know how to board up the house?”
“Oh, we don’t have to do that—which is a good thing, since we don’t know how. The people who own the house are going to come over early tomorrow to batten down the hatches. It’s their responsibility.”
Mel nodded. “I wish we weren’t leaving tomorrow.”
“I know. But Dad found out he gets the equivalent of one day’s rent back, since we have to evacuate.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Mel with a smile. “Even if we had our last day, I wouldn’t want to leave. I never do. But it’s worse this year. I don’t want to leave you.”
Justin sighed. “I don’t want to leave you either, but…”
“I know. Just a summer romance. Why can’t we be friends, though? That way, we could both go out with other people—provided I meet guys who are actually interested in—”
“In a hazee?”
“Yeah. And we could see each other, too. As friends.”
“It wouldn’t work. Would you really want to get together with me, thinking that I’ve dated other girls? I know it would be hard for me, thinking you’ve been dating.”
“I guess.”
“It would be one thing if we could just continue our relationship, but we can’t. We won’t. We live in different towns, my mother’s moving to L.A., and Dad and I won’t be back here next summer.”
“Well, at least let’s exchange our addresses and phone numbers. Couldn’t I send you a Christmas card?”
“You want a Christmas card correspondence? Like old friends who’re never in touch except to send some dumb message. You know: ‘This happy card is sent your way, with love and hope and cheer, to brighten each and every day, throughout the coming year’?”
Mel giggled. “I’m serious. Maybe I’ll want to call you after my first day at Bronxville High to tell you whether I’ve been defaced.”
“Well, give me your address and phone number,” said Justin finally. “There’s no point in giving you mine. With Mom moving, Dad’s gotten the urge to move, too. He wants a bigger apartment in the city, and he’s been hunting around. He expects to move by the end of September. So I don’t know where I’ll be. I’ll have to send you the address when we get settled. I’ll send you Mom’s in L. A., too.”
Mel sat thoughtfully for several minutes. “Justin,” she said, “are you afraid of getting hurt or something? Are you afraid I’ll dump you, so you’re going to dump me first?”
“I’m not dumping you!” exclaimed Justin.
“Well,” said Mel, “I’ve never been dumped, but this is how I always imagined it would feel.”
“Really? You feel that bad?”
“No,” admitted Mel. “I guess I don’t really feel so bad. I’m just sorry we won’t be seeing each other anymore.”
“That makes two of us.” Justin drew Mel close to him and kissed her softly.
In front of them, the waves poured endlessly over the sand. Coming and going, thought Mel. The waves were a little like her and Justin. Justin had come into her life and was leaving. Maybe that was the way things were. Coming and going, arriving and leaving, greetings and farewells.
When Mel and Justin drew apart, they stood up, hands clasped for several moments. Then they separated, Justin crossing the sand toward his house, Mel heading down the beach to Moonrise.
They didn’t say good-bye.
The next morning passed in a blur. Mrs. Braderman woke the family up early. “Eat,” she commanded. “I don’t want any leftover food.”
They ate hurriedly. Then Mel, Dee, and Timmy began piling suitcases and cartons in the living room while their parents started to board up the windows. It wasn’t easy. The rain had started falling again, but by then it was no gentle rain. And by the time Mel, dressed in a long yellow slicker, joined her parents, the rain was lashing down, stinging her face.
“Chester may arrive sooner than they predicted!” Mr. Braderman shouted over the roar of the wind. “Mel, tell Dee and Timmy to load up the wagons. We’re almost done here, and I want to leave as soon as possible.”
The wagons were loaded in the living room, which was strangely dark and muffled with the windows boarded. Dee covered their belongings with tarps. When everyone was ready, they took a last look at the house, checking things here and there—the burners on the stove, the locks on
the windows—then headed for the dock, the rain streaming down their slickers. They paused at the end of the walk to Starfish House.
“Hey, you guys! Hey, Lacey!” Mel shouted. “Are you ready?” The Reeders’ house looked just as lonely and alien as the Bradermans’.
“We’re coming!” Lacey called, poking her head out the front door. In a moment, the Reeders, slicker-clad and loaded down, emerged from their house. The two families made their way to the ferry dock.
The line for the ferry was the longest Mel had ever seen, since every single person in Davis Park was leaving. But officials assured the people that two ferries were running and that they were going back and forth as fast as they could.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the Bradermans and the Reeders found themselves near the head of the line. They unpacked their wagons, and Mel and Timmy and Lacey and Jackie ran the wagons back to their houses and stored them under the decks.
A few minutes later, they were boarding the Kiki. As Mel reached the top of the little gangplank, she turned for one final look at the frightened, stormy island. Instead she saw Justin. He was near the end of the line, standing with his father and Leila, leaning against a pillar, watching Mel solemnly.
Mel looked back at him. Then she stepped inside the ferry.
Her Fire Island summer was over. Justin Hart would become a memory.
PART II
Bronxville
Chapter One
MELANIE BRADERMAN WALKED SLOWLY up the driveway to her house, a look of surprise on her face. She had survived the first day of her freshman year at Bronxville High.
She did not have a red F on her forehead.
Timmy flew across the front yard toward her. “Hey! Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“Your F. I thought for sure—”
“You thought wrong, squirt. Nobody even knew I was a freshman. But wait a few years and you’ll get an F.”
Fear flashed across Timmy’s face, then he recovered, stuck his tongue out at Mel, and ran down the sidewalk.
“Where are you going?” Mel called after him.
“Over to Matthew’s. Mom knows.”
“Okay.” Mel picked her way through the branches and leaves that littered the front yard of the Bradermans’ Tudor house. Chester had done his damage there late Monday afternoon. He had moved through several hours after Mel and her family arrived home. He rained and blew and knocked down some power lines so that the electricity went off until the next morning. But he did his worst damage to the east of Bronxville, sweeping directly over Fire Island with all the force gathered from his sea journey up the East Coast.
Fire Island was not, as Lacey had suggested, underwater, but considerable damage had been done. Homes had been destroyed, trees had been uprooted, and the shape of the beach had actually been altered slightly. Then Tuesday morning had dawned unexpectedly bright and clear. Mel thought that if it hadn’t been for the littered lawns and the taped-up windows, you wouldn’t have suspected it had rained the day before, let alone stormed.
Mrs. Braderman called an acquaintance in Patchogue who owned a house on the island, and asked her to take a look at Moonrise and Starfish when she ferried over to check the damage on her own home. The news, all in all, was not bad. Part of the walkway to Starfish would have to be replaced, Moonrise would need some new roofing, and both houses had lost sections of railing around the decks when heavy tree limbs fell on them, but that was all. The houses were still standing and intact, for the most part. Mel had called Lacey with the good news.
“Hi, Mom! I’m home!” Mel let herself in the front door and stood for a moment in the dark hall. The weather was hot, and Mel appreciated the cool of the quiet house.
“I’m out back, honey,” Mrs. Braderman replied. “Come tell me about school.”
Mel deposited her notebook on a bench and took her time getting to the back door. She wanted to prepare herself to face the heat again.
She stepped into the heavy, muggy air and found her mother working in one of the flower beds. Mrs. Braderman stood and removed her gardening gloves, peat moss falling from them.
“Well, how’s my high-schooler?” she asked with a smile.
“In one piece. And not defaced.”
“I guess it helps to have an older sister who knows the ropes.”
“Not to mention the boys,” Mel added.
“How did Diana fare?”
“Not quite as well. She’s coming over as soon as she gets the lipstick off.”
“Oh, poor Diana,” said Mrs. Braderman.
“She’s all right, Mom. You know Diana.”
Diana Lyle was Mel’s best Bronxville friend. Outgoing, friendly, eager, and sure of herself, she was as different from Lacey Reeder as hot dogs were different from pizza (in Mel’s mind). In fact, Diana and Mel were so much alike that they often clashed. Mel was sure that, over the years, they’d been best enemies more often than best friends. But neither one would have known what to do without the other. At the moment, they desperately needed to rehash their first day of high school.
“Are you hungry, honey?” Mrs. Braderman asked Mel. “There’s fruit salad and cheese in the fridge, and granola bars in the cookie jar.”
“Oh,” moaned Mel, “that’s all healthy stuff. Where are the Twinkies? The Yodels? Don’t we have any M&M’s?”
“Mel, we are back in civilization,” her mother reminded her firmly. “I should never have let you eat like that all summer. Your teeth are going to fall out, and your face—”
“Which hasn’t broken out yet—”
“—but is bound to any day if you keep eating so many sweets, is going to look like…like…”
“Like the surface of the moon?”
“Mel.”
“You started it, Mom.”
“Melanie Braderman—”
“Okay, okay, okay.”
“I don’t know where you get your junk-food mentality from. Certainly not your father or me,” said Mrs. Braderman.
“I knew it. I’m adopted after all,” said Mel.
Mrs. Braderman laughed. “All right. Go on inside and eat something—something healthy. I’ve got a summer’s worth of neglect to fix in this garden.”
Mel returned gratefully to the cool of the house. She carried her notebook into the kitchen with her, then poured herself a glass of orange juice and took a granola bar from the jar. Maybe eating healthy wouldn’t be as bad as she’d thought.
Mel leafed through her notebook. Already, she had homework—several algebra problems and a short essay for English class. She didn’t mind. She liked schoolwork.
The doorbell rang. Diana.
Mel ran to answer it.
“Hi,” she greeted the girl on the doorstep. She leaned forward, taking a close look at Diana’s face.
Diana skinned her short, mouse-brown hair back from her face. “Can you tell?” she asked.
“Not a bit. Well, actually there is a faint red smudge,” Mel admitted. “But it’s really faint. If I weren’t looking for a lipstick stain, I’d never notice anything.”
“Good,” said Diana.
Mel stepped back and Diana entered the hall. After years of friendship with Mel, Diana knew the Bradermans’ house as well as her own, yet her first words were, “It’s so strange to be in here again.”
“I know. It’s even strange for me to come back to it after two and a half months on Fire Island. For one thing, it feels like a palace. Moonrise House may be wonderful, but it sure isn’t big. Speaking of which, did you grow or something over the summer? I don’t remember almost looking you in the eye before.”
“Two inches,” replied Diana proudly. “At this rate, I won’t be the shortest kid in our grade anymore, and I’ll have to get a new wardrobe. Most of my clothes look like I stole them from dwarfs.”
Mel giggled. “Well, come into the kitchen, Stretch. You want a snack?”
“Sure. I figure if I keep eating, I’ll keep growing.”
“Let’s just hope you only grow in one direction. You wouldn’t want to turn into a balloon.”
“Never,” agreed Diana. “Maybe I’ll end up taller than you.”
In the kitchen, Mel and Diana sat across from each other at the table, the jar of granola bars within easy reach.
“So,” said Mel, “aside from getting tortured, what did you think of the high school?”
“It wasn’t bad,” Diana replied after a moment. “I like my classes, and most of my teachers seem okay. Except for one, Mr. Bogdanoff. Do you have him?”
Mel shook her head. “What does he teach?”
“Algebra.”
“Oh. I have Willis.”
“Well, I guess I can survive Bogdanoff, but my brother warned me about him. He said Bogdanoff’s tough, and I think he’s right. Bogdanoff talked to us for an entire forty-two-minute period and never once cracked a smile. And he uses scare tactics. He kept talking about what would happen if we didn’t do such and such.”
“I hate teachers who do that!” exclaimed Mel. “I thought we outgrew them in elementary school.”
“I guess not. What did you think of BHS? More important, what did you think of the boys?” Diana arched her right eyebrow suggestively.
“I think it’s too bad that the boys we’ll see the most of are the ones in our class. The freshman boys seem to be the same size as they were last year, but the freshman girls seem to have grown. A lot. However, I noticed that the sophomore boys seem to be taller, in general.”
Diana held an imaginary microphone to her mouth. “Another fascinating anthropological observation from high-schooler Melanie Braderman. Now back to you, Chet.”
“Well, anyway,” Mel went on, “I wish the guys and the girls would get on the same growth schedule. It would make life much easier.”
“Nobody ever said life was easy,” Diana replied solemnly.
“Oh, well. I guess it doesn’t really matter. I don’t plan to see much of the boys at school anyway.”
“You don’t?” said Diana suspiciously. “Why not?”
Immediately, Mel began to blush.
“Mel!” Diana cried. “You met someone, didn’t you?”
Mel nodded, smiling.