Shannon, Kristy, and Mary Anne amused themselves by taking walks in the rain, playing cards, and reading. Claudia and I didn’t join them in much of it, because it meant we’d have to be together.
For all those reasons, the beach house felt unbearably small that weekend. The only breaks I got were when I went to meet Robert. Even he seemed to be in a crummy mood, though. Maybe it was the aftereffects of being out on the rolling sea all day. Maybe it was the gloomy weather. But he definitely wasn’t himself.
Luckily, Monday morning, the sun was back. At least my friends would have one great beach day before they left on Tuesday. Seeing the sun really brightened my mood. I sprang out of bed and hurried into the hall. “Hey, everyone, beach weather!” I called, ready to make a fresh new start on the vacation. I’d decided not to meet Robert for work. I was going to spend all of this last day with my friends.
Mary Anne opened the door of the bedroom she was sharing with Shannon. She and Shannon were already dressed. I was surprised to see their suitcases open on the beds. “You’re leaving?” I asked.
“We thought it would be best to get going,” said Shannon, looking uncomfortable.
That sure put a dent in my make-everything-better plans. Though I shouldn’t have been completely surprised. Between the weather and the tension in the house, it couldn’t have been the greatest vacation they’d ever had.
Just then, the door to Claudia and Kristy’s room opened. Kristy came out with her suitcase. “Thanks for having us, Stacey,” she said. “It’s a long trip. We wanted to get a jump on it.”
“It’s such a nice day, though,” I said. Then my jaw dropped, as Claudia came out holding her suitcase. “You’re leaving, too?” I cried. “You were supposed to stay until next Saturday and then go home with Dad and me.”
Claudia shot me a Look. The look said: Are you stupid? Don’t you know why I’m leaving?
Honestly, I didn’t blame her. The vacation had been a dud for her, too.
They didn’t even stop for breakfast. I walked with them as they hurried down to the ferry. “ ’Bye, everyone,” I said as they headed up the gangplank.
“ ’Bye, Stacey,” said Shannon. “Enjoy the rest of your vacation.”
“Thanks.” I could see Robert now, looking down at us from the top deck. I hoped he’d come down. I needed a friendly face and a hug right then. He didn’t come down, though. He just waved, and he wasn’t smiling.
Unexpectedly, tears started to well in my eyes. How had everything turned into such a mess?
Mallory wrote that in the club notebook during the Monday meeting. Even though Kristy, Shannon, Mary Anne, and Claudia only arrived home from Fire Island at three-thirty that afternoon, Kristy insisted on holding a regular meeting. (I was the only one missing but I bet my name was mentioned a lot. They probably spent half the meeting discussing what a terrible time they’d had.)
On Tuesday, Mal and Jessi got a chance to try out their plan. By that time, the feud between Vanessa and Haley was over a week old. Something had to be done.
That afternoon, camp was held at a nearby park. The counselors had planned a field day, with lots of skits, fun food, games, and relay races. All the campers were divided into two huge teams, blue and red. Jessi and Mal made sure Haley and Vanessa were both on the blue team.
Not only that, they made sure that the girls were always together whenever a relay race called for partners. “You have got to be joking!” Vanessa cried when Mal informed her that she and Haley would have to run together in the three-legged race.
“No joke. You’re partners,” Jessi confirmed.
“I’m changing,” Haley declared. She looked around at the other kids. “Who wants to switch and be my partner?” No one said anything. “See?” said Haley, looking at Vanessa. “Everyone would rather die than be your partner.”
“Maybe everyone would rather be eaten by a shark than be your partner,” Vanessa replied.
“Both of you are big grouches,” said a small girl with curly red hair.
“Who asked you?” Vanessa snapped at her.
Mal and Jessi just rolled their eyes.
The plan was to get Vanessa and Haley to work together. If the three-legged race was any indication, the plan was doomed. Just getting Haley’s and Vanessa’s legs into the burlap bag together was a problem. “Don’t even let your leg touch me,” Haley commanded.
“Believe me, I don’t want the fleas from your leg jumping onto me,” Vanessa said.
When it was their turn to run, Haley ran the race on her own, dragging Vanessa along. “Get your legs moving together!” Jessi coached from the sideline.
It wasn’t long before Vanessa tumbled right on top of Haley. “Get off of me!” Haley screamed. They flailed around like a turtle on its back for a few minutes before righting themselves. By that time, most of the three-legged runners had made it to the finish line and were handing their bags off to the next set of teammates. Haley and Vanessa stumbled, anxious to catch up but still unable to work together. The blue team lost that event.
The next event was just as bad. Vanessa and Haley were paired again, in a race which required that both partners climb onto a blown-up float, and then cooperate to move it forward, with one paddling in front and one kicking in back. This was held in the park’s large outdoor pool. (By this time, neither girl was wearing a red-striped bathing suit. Both had found substitutes.)
“Move up,” Vanessa snarled at Haley as they tried to get into position on the float. “Your big behind is in my face.”
“I’m not the one with the big rear end,” Haley replied.
They squirmed and argued so much that they were well behind the other floats. In the middle of the pool Vanessa decided Haley was taking up too much of the float, so she tried to push her forward. Haley didn’t want to be moved. She swatted behind her. You can probably guess the rest — both girls tumbled off, and the float drifted away. By the time they retrieved it, they were dead last once again.
“Do we have to have them on our team?” asked one of the blue-team kids when the race was over.
“Yeah,” agreed the girl with the red curls. “Can we send them over to the reds?”
“Oh, be quiet!” Vanessa and Haley shouted together.
Startled to hear their voices saying the same thing at the same time, they actually looked at each other. “We have a problem here,” said Vanessa to Haley. “Everyone is going to be mad at us if we lose another race as badly as we lost the first two.”
Haley nodded. “We have to start working together.”
“Just for today, though,” Vanessa said cautiously. Mal told me later that when she heard Vanessa and Haley talking like this she felt the first glimmer of hope. She and Jessi looked at each other and crossed their fingers.
The next event was the back to back crabwalk. Kids had to sit back to back, link arms, and then crabwalk to the finish line together. “Ready?” Vanessa checked in with Haley as their turn came up.
“Ready,” Haley confirmed. No one could believe the change. Back to back, Haley and Vanessa scrambled to the finish line like they’d been crabwalking together all their lives. When they started, the blue team had been slightly behind. Vanessa and Haley caught them up, and won the relay by a narrow margin.
“Way to go!” Mallory cheered.
Forgetting themselves, Vanessa and Haley slapped their hands together in the air. Then, suddenly, they remembered their feud and frowned. It didn’t matter. Mallory knew that somehow, the line had been crossed. From then on in, they couldn’t go back to being enemies.
She was right, too. Vanessa and Haley aced every event. They went from being the worst to being the stars of the blue team. “Look out, reds,” the curly-haired girl cried during one event. “Here come our secret weapons, Vanessa and Haley!” What a turnaround!
In the end, the blue team won. It wasn’t entirely due to Vanessa and Haley, but they were the team heroes anyway.
As the kids prepared to put on a skit about ca
mp life, Jessi and Mallory complimented themselves on their brilliant plan. “We just found a quality both of them have in common,” said Jessi.
“I know,” Mal agreed. “They’re both super competitive — which is one of the reasons they got into the whole bathing suit feud in the first place. Each one wanted to be the first to have selected the suit. And they each wanted everyone else to know it, too.”
“But it’s also the reason they’re friends,” Jessi pointed out. “They have so much in common.”
Just then, Vanessa and Haley came by. Haley was holding a large cardboard tree, a prop for the skit. “Haley, you’ll hurt yourself,” said Vanessa. “Let me help you with that tree.”
“Oh, no,” Haley objected. “You worked hard enough at the relay races. It’s thanks to you that we did so well.”
“No way,” Vanessa insisted as she lifted the back of the tree for Haley. “You were the one who did most of the work.”
“Absolutely not. You were awesome in the water balloon toss,” said Haley, seeming to have forgotten that not long ago, she’d been the object of Vanessa’s water balloon throwing skills.
“But you filled the balloons so quickly,” Vanessa replied.
As Haley and Vanessa walked off with their cardboard tree, Jessi and Mallory broke up with laughter. “You realize that they’re doing it again, don’t you?” said Jessi.
“Doing what?” Mal asked.
“Being competitive,” Jessi pointed out. “They’re competing to see who can be more apologetic and polite.”
“You’re right,” Mallory agreed. “But it’s better than the feud. A lot better.”
My second week on Fire Island just kept getting worse and worse. My friends were gone. Dad made a few meals and always let me know where he would be, but things weren’t the same between us. We were still angry at each other. Then — to top it all off — Robert starting acting stranger and stranger toward me.
He’d tell me he had to stay on the boat and do some extra work when I came to meet him. He did that a few times in a row, and then he suggested that I not walk him to work in the mornings.
“There’s no reason for you to get up so early,” he said as we stood off to the side of the boat. I sensed there was more to it than his being concerned about my rest.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you mad at me?”
“No, not mad. Not exactly.”
“Then exactly what?”
Robert looked away. “I think maybe we’ve been spending too much time together. We’re kind of young, and maybe we should be seeing other people.”
Instantly I felt a burning sensation at the back of my eyes, like I wanted to cry but no tears were coming. “Why do you feel that way?” I asked. “After everything that’s happened to me on this vacation, how can you say that?”
“That’s why I’m saying it,” said Robert. “To tell you the truth, Stacey, the way you’ve treated everyone makes me uncomfortable.”
“The way I’ve treated everyone?”
“Well, yes. The lying and all. Seeing Claudia leaving on Tuesday with your other friends really started me thinking. It bothers me that you kept trying to do things behind everyone’s back. I mean, first you didn’t tell Claudia I would be here. It wasn’t a surprise for her, Stacey, it was a lie. And even after she knew, you kept on lying to her — you didn’t even tell her you were meeting me after your dinner that night. Why did that have to be a secret?”
“Because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”
“But you wound up hurting her feelings even worse.”
“I know,” I said. “Don’t you think I feel bad about that? I knew she wouldn’t understand about my seeing you.”
“You didn’t even give her a chance,” Robert insisted.
“What is the matter with you?” I asked angrily. “Why are you being so hard on me?”
“Here’s the thing, Stacey. If you would lie to your own father and your very best friend, how long before you lie to me?”
“Robert!” I cried, shocked. “I would never lie to you!”
Robert shook his head sadly. “Sorry, Stace, I just don’t believe you. The more I think about it, the more it bothers me. What if you decided I wouldn’t understand something, the way you decided with Claudia and your father. For me to be close with someone, I have to trust that person.”
“But, you can trust me, Robert,” I said.
“After what I’ve learned about you this week, I don’t think I can,” he said as he turned to walk away.
“You creep!” I cried to his back. “I only lied so I could spend time with you!”
He turned back and looked at me sadly. “I’m sorry, Stacey. I can’t change how I feel.”
A dozen different feelings swept through me at once. I was furious at him for turning on me like this. He was so ungrateful for what I’d gone through to be with him. Yet, I felt guilty, too, because what he’d said was true. I had lied. I was ashamed to have my lies laid out for me the way he’d just done. I’d seen myself as clever. I was proud that I’d figured out such a good plan. But in his eyes, I just seemed conniving and sneaky. It was mortifying.
But the worst emotion I felt was loneliness. It was a hollow, empty feeling I’d never truly experienced before. The feeling was so strong it was like a physical pain.
Now the burning sensation in my eyes melted into hot tears. I was utterly, completely miserable.
The Kiki’s horn blasted. I looked up in time to see Robert climbing the metal stairs to the upper deck. I suddenly understood why people use the expression heartbroken. There was a feeling inside me so painful it had to be my heart breaking.
I’d once liked an older guy named Wes who just thought of me as a kid. I thought I’d felt bad when I realized he’d never be in love with me. But this was different. It was so much worse. My feelings for Robert were much deeper than some silly crush. I couldn’t believe I’d lost him. It was too awful.
With my head down, I turned and walked toward the boardwalk. I wasn’t sure where I was going, I just had to walk. I walked along the bay and then turned on one of the side paths. The clear blue sky seemed all wrong. It didn’t fit my mood at all.
I wasn’t really paying attention to where I was going, so I was surprised when I found myself in front of the Beach Glass Gallery. It was really just a house, with a sign in front. But the front door was open and I was desperate for something to distract me from thinking about Robert, Claudia, and my dad. I walked up the wood steps and entered the gallery.
If I wanted to forget, I’d come to the wrong place. There, hanging on the walls, were Claudia’s sand castle photos! They’d been enlarged and matted, and they took up an entire wall. “Hello. Can I help you?” asked a short woman with frizzy salt-and-pepper hair.
“Where did those photos come from?” I asked, dazed.
“A lovely young artist, around your age, was here about a week ago. She’d come in several times to look at the artwork. One day, a pack of photos fell from her pocket. These are her photos. I was so struck with them that I offered to mount them for her and show them in my gallery. I have a price list if you’re interested.”
“Yes, sure,” I said. She handed me a paper with a list of titles: “Claudia’s Castle Dreams,” “That’s the Way the Castle Crumbles,” and so on. Claudia was asking twenty dollars a piece for her pictures.
“As a matter of fact,” the gallery owner continued. “The artist is on the front page of the paper today.”
“She is?” I asked, dazed. This was all so strange. It almost felt like a dream. I went to the counter and looked at the local Fire Island paper. Half the front page was devoted to the parade. There were three pictures, and one of them was of my friends and me looking on in horror as our castle slid away from us. The caption under it read: “Despite some bad weather and minor mishaps, everyone had a great time.” (I suppose that was a matter of opinion.)
The gallery owner looked at me. “Why, you’re in this picture
, too, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“Tell Claudia her photos are receiving a wonderful response,” said the gallery owner. “I haven’t seen her since I put them up on Monday.”
“She went home,” I said, my voice catching. “Excuse me, I have to go.” I didn’t want to start crying all over everything. The idea that Claudia would have something this exciting happen and not tell me about it was too much.
With tears in my eyes I stumbled out of the gallery. I was cut out of everyone’s life now. No one wanted me to be a part of what they did.
Not knowing where else to go, I headed for home. I didn’t expect Dad to be there, but he was. He was sitting at the kitchen table reading. He noticed my puffy eyes. “Stacey, what’s the matter?” he asked warmly, closing his book.
Those were the first words he’d spoken to me in days. The concern in his voice made me start crying all over again. “Robert broke up with me, Claudia hates me, you’re not speaking to me — everything is horrible,” I blurted.
“I think we’d better talk,” Dad said. “Have a seat.”
Using a dish towel to dry my eyes, I sat down. “I’ve been thinking,” Dad said. “And I owe you an apology.”
“You do?” I questioned.
“I think you owe me an apology, too,” he added. “But I’ve been just as bad. I should have told you about Samantha. I thought I was trying to protect you, but really I was trying to protect myself.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I really was planning on telling you about Samantha, but not until the weekend. You see, I wanted to have at least half the vacation in peace, in case you were upset about Samantha. I told myself I was doing it for your sake. There is never really any good excuse for lying to someone you love, though. Somehow it always winds up making matters worse.”
“Mom says you hate talking about difficult things,” I recalled.
A sad smile formed on his lips. “She’s right. It’s always been easier for me to avoid difficult issues than to discuss them. I guess this is an example of that problem.”