Chapter Thirty-Seven
Sarah
SHE STOOD AT the doorway at her parents’ house. She fiddled with a piece of lent hanging on her gold dress. She had walked outside early, because even though she and Joel had a comfortable relationship now, there was a bundle of nerves for this. She had dressed up nicely tonight for the end-of-the-summer bash her family was hosting, but tonight she was certain Joel and she would have a serious heart-to-heart conversation, and this terrified her.
She was so restless that she sat on a little bench at the edge of the manicured grass. A squirrel bounced beside her sandals, its little tail fluffier than previously imagined upon closer inspection.
A few moments later, Joel pulled up, parking his Jeep on the edge of the clean road. He appeared, dapper in a button-down and slacks. Even though Helena had called for casual clothing, Sarah and Joel were dressed up more than they normally would be, simply because they wanted to be nice for the other. In their limited remainder of time, a lot would be happening, and they only wanted their last few memories together for this summer to be the absolute best. For now, there would be no talk of Karli’s baby, or Manny’s absence, or Rob Fielder, or Sofia, or Ethan.
Joel was early too. He’d promised Sarah he would be, and Juliet and Chloe would arrive later. As he strode to her, Sarah gathered the collection of emotions gathering at the base of her throat. Instead of standing to greet him, she stayed where she sat, watching as he sat beside her and leaned in to kiss her lightly.
“Hi,” he said when he drew away. His brown eyes seemed to glow.
“Hi.” Oh, this was bad, she thought. She was not going to fall for him, not when she was leaving in less than two weeks. She couldn’t do that to herself, or to him.
“So, I was thinking, we could sneak out at the end of this party, and just take a yacht all the way to Bermuda. Like my idea?”
“As tempting as it sounds, you have school, and so do I.”
“School is for people who have no idea what they want to be.”
“False. I know what I want to be.”
“Of course you do. You always know what you want.” He acted like he would kiss her, but then he moved back, gently lifting his arm to drape over her svelte shoulders. She snuggled in closer to him.
“That’s not true.”
“Well, I know what I want.”
“Joel…”
“No. We’re not talking about your leaving. It’s not on our agenda for tonight. Tonight is about you and me, because we have a lot to catch up on. We’ve been a little distracted lately.”
“Just a little.”
“Sometimes that yacht idea is so beautiful, but running away from one’s problems isn’t the best idea, either.”
A car whipped into the driveway, and out popped Alison and her husband. They waved, but Joel felt the tension, and eventually, when they were gone, Sarah shivered. “She’s never going to give it up. She’s never going to accept me.”
“Sarah, remember our list? We’re not talking about her tonight. This is about you and me.”
She glanced up at him and felt heat sizzle her core. “Oh… That’s right.”
“You’re spazzing out on me.”
Over the next few minutes, they sat together, just watching the accumulating cloud cover and the tilt of the sun. As Joel said, “We should go say hi to your parents,” another car whizzed in the driveway. This time, though, both Sarah and Joel cocked their heads at the Porsche sitting in their driveway like a beacon of money.
Out popped Joey, a gift in his arms, a bowtie at his neck, and a suit-and-tie covering his lanky body. He hustled over to them, sitting between the two original persons. He wrapped his arm around Sarah’s shoulders as the Porsche backed out of the lot, heading back down the road to the Raspoli household.
“Hi, my love. It’s been a while.”
“You were chasing someone else.”
“I got bored and came back for the woman I really love.” He turned and assessed Joel, before dismissing him with a tan hand. “Who is this guy, Sarah? He has no chance.”
Joel rolled his eyes. “Joey Raspoli, sometimes I want to slap your white teeth out of your mouth, but then I remember how rich you are, and how much you’d sue me for.”
“Accurate depiction of my life.” Joey turned back to Sarah. “I got this for you.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“I have to hurry and tell sweet Helena that my mom will be over in a few minutes. Wait for me?”
“S—sure.”
As the kid ran off, Sarah hissed, “I accept your previous offer. Where’s the yacht?”
“Only a few jail cells away.”
“Come on, I can’t handle that kid right now, Joel.”
“Well, we could skip this place. Totally be rebels.”
“But…”
“But it would not be politically, ethically, morally, physically, or emotionally correct. Come on, let’s socialize for twenty milliseconds, and then we’ll sizzle into outer space.”
As they walked across the warm grass, Joel whispered into her ear, sending little supersonic messages up to her spine, allowing little fine hairs to stick up on her skin. “Pretend we’re missionaries ready to conquer the non-believers.”
“Or we could pretend we’re about to be harassed by a twelve-year-old who sleeps with gold-infused blankets.”
“Now you’re just being mean.”
The party on the patio was ready to amp up. Helena had invited nearly one hundred locals, including countless family members and random people who happened to be socially acceptable to invite. Sarah was happy as long as she and Joel had a few moments to themselves, but she still prayed their heart-to-heart conversation would not come. She felt rotten to the core, but she was afraid. She didn’t want to lose this.
Zach and Joey stood by the pool, laughing about something, as Helena appeared from the kitchen, ready to straighten out some of the Christmas lights she’d hung across the rafters of the patio. She saw Joel and smiled. “Well, look who’s here!” She walked over and kissed him on the cheek. “Is your mama here yet?”
“She’ll be here later. She’s coming right after her shift ends, and Chloe will come with her. Wow, Mrs. Towson, this place looks pretty neat.”
Helena straightened. “You know how I feel about your calling me that. I am Helena to you!” She hurried off to the kitchen, where the catered food sat in droves. Scott was working inside with her, along with Alison and her husband.
A few guests streamed in from the front door then, and Joel and Sarah went back outside, in the crosshairs of young Joey Raspoli, who held a water gun to his victims.
“What are you doing?” Sarah called out.
“Joey, you’re so stupid,” Zach barked.
“If I have to fight for you, I will,” Joey responded, pressing down on the trigger so that Joel’s shirt was drenched within seconds. Sarah, angry, forcefully strode to Joey and simply pushed him backwards into the pool. He fell in like a snow angel, his arms splayed out beside him. His face, on the other hand, was plastered by shock.
“Sarah!” Joel shouted.
Sarah crossed her arms as Joey bobbed to the top of the water. “How does it feel, Joey?”
“My lady Sarah!”
“I’m not your lady. Why do you keep stalking me, pretentious shrimp? I am nineteen, and you are twelve.”
“Twelve and a half,” Joey hissed.
“I really don’t care. And I would appreciate it if you stop harassing me, Joel, and everybody else. Got it?”
“No.” Joey reached out and twisted Sarah’s ankle, dragging her with him into the water. Joel reached out and clasped around her waist, pulling with all his might as her legs began to sink beneath the blue. Finally, Joel rescued her and whispered into her ear, “I think we’re about to be sued.”
Joey started pounding his fists against the water. “I fell for you, literally, and this is how you repay me?”
“I didn’t fall for you,
Joey,” Sarah said, blinking hard.
Zach was munching on a banana beside them. He dragged up a lounge chair and fell into it, cringing/laughing at the spectacle before him. His best friend had just tried to drag his sister into a pool. That was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and Zach had been in the first-row audience.
“Come on. Let’s go.” Joel pulled on Sarah’s hand.
But then she was in a flurry of hurtling insults at the young boy in the pool, before transforming her speech into Spanish words of wisdom, which probably included a colorful vocabulary of curse words. Sarah was losing it because she was stressed, was all Joel could think. Eventually, he forcefully pulled her away from the pool party and back to their bench of love.
Sarah was huffing and puffing as she sat.
“Sarah…”
“Need a moment.”
“Are you okay?”
Car doors slammed beyond. A few people walked over the grass to the front door, and Sarah wanted to hide in the forest behind her house. “I’m just stressed, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“I’m about to leave this all behind. Again.”
“This time you’re upset about leaving? You didn’t seem too mad last year. At graduation, during your valedictorian speech, you seemed so calm and ready to just fly away into the Gulf Stream.”
“The Gulf Stream is west to east.”
“I was trying to be poetic here, Miss Sensei. Anyway, you can always come back. You know that. You will come back.”
“How do you know that? What if I die over Arizona?”
“Sarah, I hate to ask you this, but are intoxicated?” She stabbed him in the side with her elbow. “Okay, I’m taking that as a no, or a drunken yes. You forget, sadly, I do have experience with that kind of stuff.”
“You’re not the only one.”
“Sarah!”
“What?”
“You…”
“Don’t overthink anything here. Should we go join the party? People are coming in now.”
“Honestly, I don’t want to.”
“Me neither.”
“Then how about we take a quick frolic into the woods?”
She cocked an eyebrow. “A quick frolic? What are you implying, church boy?”
“Nothing inappropriate, unless you would happen to comply to my deepest wishes.”
“Oh my gosh, Joel.” She turned pink with embarrassment.
He shrugged. “I’m trying my hardest to be on my best behavior, but I wasn’t always the good kid.”
“You’re absolutely crazy.”
“I know this.”
“Well, frolicking through the forest, where there are ticks and bees and bears, sounds like the stupidest place to… Well, you know what I’m saying.”
He crossed his arms as he elongated his legs. He glanced down at the crisp grass, noting that Sarah’s toenails were painted teal, like the summer waves of Florida’s Panhandle. “Any place with you sounds magical.”
“Stop being one who imagines anything but reality.”
“I think you would be perfect in a jungle. Studying humans and all anthropologists do. You, who hate nature, would suddenly love it. I don’t know, like if you went to Africa and studied the Bantu tribe.”
“And exactly what is your plan for the future?”
“Obviously, professional skydiver.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Exactly why you’re never going to get married.”
“To you, maybe.”
She turned and scowled at him. “Joel Sealet, I have to say, knowing you has been a privilege.”
“But you don’t know me in the biblical sense.”
This time she punched him hard on the bicep, which would definitely culminate in a brackish, blue bruise. She stood up and fiddled with her dress.
He stood up beside her and grabbed her arm. “Okay, I’m sorry for all the innuendo. Please forgive me. I am good, I promise. Don’t be stressed, Sarah, not with me.”
She nodded, following him into the depths of the partygoers heading to Helena Towson’s electric late summer bash, upon which Joey Raspoli was the heightened magician, playing card tricks on a pedestal near the pool. His clothes were already starting to dry, and when he looked at Sarah’s form gliding by, he seductively winked.
Some things were impossible to ignore. Like Joel’s arm wrapped around her waist.
Sarah realized their heart-to-heart had happened, as far as it would go between them, and this saddened her. She didn’t know if she expected a romancing soliloquy from Joel to the world about her, but she had hoped they would have dissected their relationship further.
Instead, as Helena and Scott toasted to the citizens of Breezewater, and Karli flirted around, and Alison smiled with a group of her friends, Sarah felt even more lost than she ever had been before.
A tear slicked her face wet.