“I’m so sorry, Taylor,” Henry said after a moment. I looked over at him, and saw in his face something I hadn’t seen from any of the people who knew—a recognition, maybe, of what I was going through. Or someone else who, at least, had gone though something that most other people were unable to really understand.
“I probably should have told you that first day,” I said. I ran my hand over the smooth planks of the dock and thought that it was fitting, maybe, that we were here, at the place where we’d first met again—that we had come full circle like this. “But I think I wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening.”
“I can understand that,” he said. We sat in silence for a moment, and the breeze kicked up again, blowing Henry’s hair over his forehead. “What you said earlier,” he said. “About being friends. I think we should do it.”
“Really?” I asked. Henry, his face serious, nodded. “But what about what you said—about all the stuff that’s happened in the last five years?”
Henry shrugged and gave me a smile. “So we’ll catch up,” he said. He pulled his feet out of the water and turned to face me. “Should we start now?”
I just stared at him in the moonlight for a second, not quite able to believe that this was being offered to me so readily. It made me ashamed for thinking so little of Henry—feeling like he wouldn’t be willing to forgive me, just because that’s how I would have acted. But in that moment, it was like I’d suddenly been given a second chance. It was one I knew I didn’t deserve, but it was one I was getting anyway. I pulled my feet out of the water as well, and turned toward him. “Yes,” I said, feeling myself begin to smile, just a little. “Now sounds perfect.”
chapter twenty-seven
THE DAY AFTER HENRY AND I MADE OUR PEACE ON THE DOCK, HIS brother showed up on our porch with a proposition.
Henry and I had stayed up talking until almost five a.m. We sat on the dock, occasionally dipping our feet in the lake, and swapped stories—but not in a rushed way, trying to cram everything in. Instead, we traded them back and forth easily, the way we’d once traded comic books (I’d been partial to Betty & Veronica, he’d had what even he now admitted was an unhealthy obsession with Batman). Henry didn’t really say any more about his mother leaving, and I didn’t want to talk about what was happening with my dad. And neither of us discussed any other romantic history we might have had in the intervening years. But every other subject, it seemed, was open.
Henry had told me about how he almost got a tattoo—and showed me the one mark from this experience, a dot on his tricep that looked like a freckle, and was going to be a tribal design until he’d felt the first needle go in and had realized he was making a mistake. “And they still charged me for a whole tattoo, can you believe it?” he’d asked me, as I peered at the tiny almost-tattoo in the moonlight.
I told him about my brief desire to be a marine biologist, until I realized that fish really grossed me out and that I tended to get seasick on the open ocean—things that it would have been helpful to know before starting a summer-long oceanography camp.
He told me about how he’d failed the driver’s test twice before barely passing the third time, and I told him about the speeding tickets I’d been able to talk myself out of. He told me about the first vacation he and Davy and his dad took after Mrs. Crosby left, and how he’d wanted it to be perfect. And they’d ended up camping in a snowstorm, everyone freezing and unhappy, until they all called it quits and spent the rest of the vacation watching TV and eating takeout in a motel room. I told him about last Christmas, when we’d gone to St. Maarten and it had rained every single day, and Warren had been so desperate to find out about his admissions letters that he tried to call our mail carrier, and my mother finally confiscated his phone. We talked about music (he got offended when I labeled his penchant for barefoot singer-songwriters “crunchy”; he mocked me for knowing the names of all three Bentley Boys, despite my protests that I only knew about them through Gelsey) and snack bar gossip—it seemed he’d been in on Elliot’s Lucy crush weeks ago, and had given up trying to get him to do something about it when Elliot assured him that he was actually was doing something about it, that he had a plan, complete with flowchart.
And as we talked, I remembered just why we’d been such good friends when we were kids. It was in the way he listened when you were talking, the way he wasn’t just waiting to jump in with his own story. It was the way he always weighed his words, meaning I always knew that when he responded, it had been carefully considered. It was in the way that every time he laughed—which wasn’t often—it seemed earned, and made me want to do everything I could to get him to laugh more. It was his enthusiasm for things, and how when he discussed what he was passionate about—like how much he loved being in the woods, how he felt things made sense there—I found myself getting swept up in it along with him.
As the hours passed, our pauses between stories grew longer, until we were just sitting in comfortable silence together and looking out at the water, and the first ribbon of daylight showed up on the horizon.
That’s when we parted and headed to our separate houses. As I’d crept into the kitchen, I’d been stunned to see that it was five a.m., and was sure, as I headed to my own room, that I’d have no problem getting to sleep now. But once I’d settled myself in, I realized that there was something missing. And I’d gone to my closet, and returned with the stuffed penguin, settling him next to me on the pillow.
I didn’t even mind it all that much (maybe because I hadn’t had a chance to really fall asleep) when my father tickled my feet at eight a.m., waking me up for our breakfast. Though it seemed to me that he was eating even less than usual—even Angela the waitress commented on it—we worked our way through the new placemat quiz. (It turned out that he was scared of roller coasters and was allergic to ginger.) After breakfast we’d collected my bike from where I’d left it outside the diner the night before, and I’d driven us home. Nobody in my family had said anything, but in the last few days, my father had stopped driving. He had walked around to the passenger side of the Land Cruiser without comment, leaving me to fumble with the keys and head over to the driver’s seat, trying to pretend that this was just totally normal.
When I pulled into the driveway, I saw, as expected, Murphy behind the door of the screened-in porch, jumping around excitedly at the sight of my father returning. But I was surprised to see Davy Crosby sitting on our front steps. He was wearing a variation on what he’d been wearing every time I’d seen him—a T-shirt, cargo shorts, and moccasins.
“Hello there,” my father said, as he got out of the car a little unsteadily. I noticed that he reached for the porch railing right away, and leaned on it heavily even as he smiled down at Davy.
“Hi,” Davy said, standing up and offering my father his hand, which my father shook. “I’m Davy Crosby. I live next door to you. I was wondering if we might speak.”
“By all means,” my father said. He looked down at Davy’s feet and smiled. “Nice moccasins, son.” He glanced back at the house. “Was there nobody here to let you in?” Davy shook his head and my father looked at me, a question on his face.
“Probably at the Rec Center,” I said, realizing that this was Gelsey’s ballet day, and she and my mother were probably occupied. And since when I left that morning, I’d noticed Warren laying out every article of clothing he owned, and muttering over them, I had a feeling that he might have gone along to try and convince them to take him on a last-minute, pre-date shopping trip.
“Ah,” my father said. “Well, shall we discuss this inside?”
“Sounds fine,” Davy said, and my dad pushed open the screen door, sending the dog into paroxysms of joy. He scooped up the dog and met my eye for just a second, and I could see that he was trying to conceal a smile, which he had successfully done when he sat in his normal seat and Davy settled in opposite him.
“So,” my father said, his voice serious as he scratched the dog’s ears. “Your proposition?
”
“Yes,” said Davy, sitting up straight. “I couldn’t help but notice that you have a dog.” My father nodded gravely, and I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing. “I would like to propose that I walk him for you.” Davy looked between my father and me. “I don’t expect payment,” he clarified. “It’s just that I like dogs. And Dad says we can’t have one,” he added, sounding like a kid for the first time that conversation.
“Well,” my father said after a pause, in which I noticed that the corners of his mouth were twitching violently. “I think that sounds fine. Come by anytime, and I’m sure that the dog will be happy to be walked.”
Davy’s face broke into a smile. “Really?” he asked. “Thank you so much!”
My father smiled back. “Want to start now?” he asked, since that was what Davy very clearly wanted. He started to push himself up from the chair, but immediately winced, and I sprang up from mine, heading toward the kitchen, pretending I hadn’t noticed this.
“I’ll get the leash!” I called. I grabbed it from the hook by the door, and when I came back out onto the porch, my father had put Murphy on the floor, and Davy was patting the dog’s head tentatively. “Here,” I said, handing the leash to Davy. He clipped it on carefully, and Murphy started straining toward the door, clearly eager to get on with it.
“Have fun,” my father said, settling back in his chair with a smile as Davy and the dog started out the door.
“Thanks,” Davy said. He paused in the doorway and turned back to my dad. “I heard you were sick,” he said. “I’m sorry about that.” I looked at my father and saw, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, some of the happiness drain right out of his face, like someone had hit a dimmer switch.
“Thank you,” I jumped in, when it didn’t look like my dad was going to be able to respond to this. Davy nodded and headed down the driveway, the dog running as far in front of him as the leash would allow. After a moment, I looked over at my dad. I knew it was my fault—the only reason that Davy knew was that I had told his brother—but I wasn’t sure if this was something I should apologize for, or something we were just going to pretend hadn’t happened.
“That’s Henry’s brother?” my dad asked, looking out to the driveway, where Davy and Murphy were just passing out of view, then back to me.
“Yes,” I said. “He’s Gelsey’s age.”
My father nodded, then looked over at me with a smile that I knew from experience meant trouble. “Henry’s a nice boy, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling my cheeks get hot, even though there was no reason for them to. “I mean, I guess so.”
“I’ve seen him at the bakery,” my father continued, opening his Pocono Record slowly, as if he actually had no idea that he was torturing me. “And he’s always been very polite.”
“Yeah,” I said, crossing and uncrossing my legs, wondering why it felt like my face was on fire. Henry and I were barely friends again, let alone… anything else my father, in his oh-so-knowledgeable voice, might have been implying. “Dad, want me to bring you your laptop?”
“Sure,” he said, turning to the crossword, and I let out a silent breath of relief that he was going to drop the subject. I stood to head into the house so my father could work on his mystery project. “You know,” he said, when I had my hand on the doorknob. I turned back to him, and saw that my father was still smiling. “The window in the hallway upstairs faces out toward the dock.”
I gripped the handle harder. “Does it?” I asked. I was trying to keep my voice light, even though, technically, I hadn’t done anything wrong. I didn’t think that it was that bad, after all, that I’d snuck out of the house at three a.m. if the only place I’d gone was the backyard.
“Mmm,” my father said, apparently still engrossed in the paper. After a moment, though, he looked up and smiled at me. “Like I said,” he said, “he seems like a nice boy.”
I felt my cheeks flame again. “Laptop,” I said, in my briskest voice, as I headed inside to the sound of my dad chuckling. But even after I’d retrieved his laptop from where it had been charging on the couch, I found that I couldn’t quite stop smiling.
chapter twenty-eight
“YOU’LL BE FINE,” LUCY SAID, REASSURINGLY. SHE TURNED TO Elliot, who was shuffling his ever-present deck of cards and, when he didn’t agree, whacked him hard on the arm. “Won’t she?”
“Ow!” Elliot yelped. “I mean… um, yeah. Totally. You’ll do great. Way better than last time. Which I’m not… supposed to mention,” he said, noticing that Lucy was giving him a death glare. He gave me a big smile and a thumbs-up, and I felt my stomach clench. Movies Under the Stars had arrived again, and neither of my coworkers were letting me out of doing the introduction. Lucy had just read the self-help book of a former reality TV star, and this woman was apparently big on “confronting your demons.” I’d seen some of this woman’s show, and it appeared that she was big on confronting everything, but this argument made no headway with Lucy. And once Lucy took a stand with something, I knew Elliot would never disagree with her. I had, however, gotten him to promise to rescue me if I crashed and burned again.
The days leading up to the movie had passed in a blur of what had become the normal routine—breakfast and questions with my father, work with Lucy and Elliot, nights eating dinner with my family on the screened-in porch. But now thrown into the mix was Henry. It turned out that we reported to our respective jobs at the same time, and the day after our dock talk, he’d caught up with me as I was attempting to simultaneously bike and drink coffee from my to-go mug. Though we hadn’t talked much on the ride (I was still getting into biking shape, and found that I needed my breath for other things, like getting to the top of Devil’s Dip) it had been nicely companionable. The next morning, I’d caught up with him, and we’d been biking into work together ever since. We hadn’t had any more long talks on the dock, though I found myself checking it several times before I went to bed every night—just to make sure nobody was out there. And even though I knew she’d be interested, I hadn’t told Lucy about it. For one thing, he had a girlfriend. And I didn’t want it getting back to him that I had any interest in him again. Which I wasn’t even positive that I did, so there was no point in pursuing it.
There was also the fact that every time I found myself staring into space at work, and starting to think about Henry, something inside my head would snap to attention and remind me of what really mattered. What was happening with my dad was what was really important, and I shouldn’t let myself forget that, even if my father had developed the annoying habit of asking me far too many pointed questions about Henry, always with a knowing smile. But none of that seemed as pressing at the moment as the fact that I was possibly about to humiliate myself in front of fifty people for the second time.
“You know,” Elliot said with fake nonchalance, “if we had gone with one of my movies, I’d have no trouble talking about it. We should think about that for the next one.”
“No,” Lucy and I said in unison. She turned to me as Elliot started his shuffle again, muttering about people with no cinematic taste. “You’ll be fine,” she said, giving me an encouraging smile. “And if you’re not, I’ll start doing cartwheels in front of you, okay?”
I couldn’t help laughing at that. “Luce, you’re wearing a skirt.”
She smiled wider. “All the more effective, then, right?”
The cards flew everywhere as Elliot lost control of the deck. Red-faced, he bent to pick them up as Lucy rolled her eyes. I took the opportunity to check out the crowd and possibly throw up or faint, if need be. The sun was huge and low in the sky, having begun the process of setting, reflecting its oranges and reds onto the lake. I looked at the clock and saw that it was getting close to eight thirty, the start time that Fred had scheduled for tonight’s show.
“Taylor!” I turned at the sound of this distraught voice to see my brother, wearing his usual uniform of khakis and a polo shirt, holding a bouquet o
f flowers with a death grip, and looking like he might be close to fainting himself.
“Hey,” I said. I scanned the towels and blankets—I hadn’t seen my family arrive. “Where are Mom and Dad?”
“There,” Warren pointed, and sure enough, I saw our blanket spread out on the sand. My father had his arm around my mother’s shoulders, and she was laughing. For some reason, there was a beach chair just to the side of our blanket, but it was sitting empty. Next to our blanket, I saw that the Gardner family had set up theirs, with Nora and Gelsey leaning over the space between them, talking. “But listen,” he said, and I turned back to my brother, who looked even more anxious than he had before taking the SATs for the third time, in pursuit of the elusive perfect score (he’d achieved it). “Do I look okay? Or do I look stupid? Gelsey said I looked fine. What is that supposed to mean?”
Somehow, in my own panic about public speaking, my brother and his romantic travails had slipped my mind. Which wasn’t good, because this was pretty much my doing, and if things went horribly wrong, I had a feeling I would be blamed in perpetuity. “You look great,” I assured him. “Just… um… breathe. And if you can help it, maybe don’t tell her how anything was invented. Just on the first date.”
“Right,” Warren said, nodding for much longer than people usually nodded. “Okay.” I looked up toward the entrance, where I saw Wendy, her hair out of her normal braids and hanging long over the white sundress she was wearing.