I take a sip of soda. It’s warm now, and leaves a bitter aftertaste in my mouth.
6
Mom tells me she’s going out a little later, that she needs to find someone who knows more about Heaven. “There’s a bar across the street from the town yacht club. I figure I’ll go there, meet the bartender and maybe, if he’s cute—well, if he is, he’d be a great source of information. And you, baby, should go to the beach. Not the public one. There’s a little one in Heaven, remember? Go and get some sun, meet a few people, and find out what you can.”
I nod, even though it’s the last thing I feel like doing. Mom must know that because she doesn’t leave till I’m in a cab and headed for the beach.
I’m not good with people like Mom is. She can start a conversation with anyone and—well, I can too, if I have to, but I don’t like it. Whenever I talk to someone it’s always the same; I’m nice, they talk, I remember anything important and then tell Mom. Jobs are the only time I talk to anyone besides her. If we live somewhere where we have neighbors, like in an apartment, we have to keep a low profile, be forgettable, and that means keeping to ourselves.
When I was younger I used to talk to kids I met in the library when I was doing research, but as I got older they were always there in groups and only talked to each other, discussing homework and complaining about curfews, things I knew nothing about.
When I get to the beach I decide I’ll go in, lie out in the sun for a few hours, and then leave. Chances are good I’ll hear something—people do love to talk—and that’ll be enough to keep Mom happy.
Getting in isn’t a problem. I’ve been to private beaches before and usually there’s a towel flunky or someone who’s on the lookout for people who don’t belong. Luckily, they’re almost always bribable, but there’s no one like that here. There’s just a beach and a bunch of people lying on the sand or splashing around in the water. No towel flunkies. Not even a lifeguard.
I pick a spot that’s far enough out so I can see everyone but still leave in a hurry if I need to, and spread out my towel. After a few minutes of pretending to look around to see if there’s anyone I know (really to see if there are any conversations going that I should wander by and listen to) I get up and head toward the water.
I’m not a big fan of the ocean. Everyone says it’s blue, but it’s not. It just looks like a lot of dirty dishwater. And this particular stretch of beach seems to be mostly rocks and large dead jellyfish. Fun. I wade into the surf a little, look around again. I can’t get over how easy it was to get in here. Mom would love it. She says rich people—the really rich—are so stupid it’s funny.
It is funny, I guess, but as I leave the water and lie back down on my towel, closing my eyes, I can’t help but wish I were somewhere a little different. Somewhere…I don’t know. Somewhere where I could just be at the beach and not have to be thinking about—
“Do I know you?” Guy’s voice.
“No,” I say flatly, without opening my eyes. The last thing I need is some rich jerk trying to pick me up. Even if he did make the (not very) big effort of walking all the way over here.
“Are you sure? Because you seem really familiar and—”
“Hey, did you move my sunscreen? I can’t find it anywhere.” Girl’s voice, sounding slightly upset.
“I didn’t move it. It’s right where you left it, Allison. And if you don’t mind, I’m trying to talk—”
I open my eyes. “Look,” I say, because I am so not interested in whatever drama is going to happen, but then I stop talking because looking down at me is…well. Someone who is so good-looking he can’t possibly be real. You know those ads where a shirtless guy stands around all brooding and mysterious, like some sort of angel come down to earth? That guy is here, and he’s looking at me.
I’m stunned for about three seconds, which is how long it takes me to realize that he knows exactly how good-looking he is. I can see it in his eyes. They look just like Mom’s.
“James, Janet’s right over there, you know,” Allison says. She looks a lot like James except her hair isn’t quite as blond and her eyes are a lot more friendly. “Like, watching us. And you promised—”
“Fine.” James smirks at me, then walks off. I watch him head back to a blanket near the water, sit down, and pull a long-haired girl into his arms.
“I’m sorry about that,” Allison says. “I didn’t mean to butt in. But see, Janet, the girl over there with him, is kind of my friend. Well, she’s visiting the people next door and we went to school together. Not that she ever talked to me or anything, but still, she’s just hooked up with my brother and, like, I—”
“It’s okay.” I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who talks so much.
“Are you sure?”
I nod.
“I’m Allison.”
“Sydney.”
“Do you…” She bites her lip. “Would it be okay if I sat here for a while? Seeing my brother make out with someone is, uh—”
“Weird.”
“Exactly,” she says, and sits down next to me.
Five minutes later we’re heading down to where her brother and Janet are sitting because she has to get her wallet before we get ice cream. I think that’s what we’re doing, anyway. I’m not totally sure. She really does talk a lot.
“I’ll just be a second,” she says as she’s digging through a huge bag. “I have all this stuff in here because I thought—”
“You thought you might see Brad,” James says, and there’s an edge of something unpleasant in his voice.
“Shut up.” She laughs. “Brad is this guy I know,” she tells me. “We met ages ago—his family and mine have been coming here forever. We’re—”
“Friends,” James says, with a grin in my direction. “Which is why you spent two hours getting ready to come to the beach this morning. Because it’s important to look good for your friends, right, Ally?”
“I’d like to see you try to find totally waterproof makeup and then put it on so it looks natural, you loser.” They tease each other for a couple of minutes—not in a mean way or anything, just teasing like—well, like I guess some families do—and I watch them, fascinated. I always wanted a brother or sister, someone to talk to about everything I can’t say to Mom. Janet isn’t interested at all, just yawns and glares at a girl who is looking at James.
“Okay, going,” Allison says, leaning down and poking James’s arm. “You want me to bring you back a soda or anything?”
James shakes his head and leans over, wraps one hand around my ankle. “Are you coming back with her?”
If I was younger or stupider—or both—I’d be a pile of mush right about now. But I know how much guys can be trusted, and that’s not at all. So I just say, “Are you ready to go?” to Allison and pull away from him. He acts like nothing has happened, turns back to Janet. If she was smart she’d smack him, but she doesn’t, just stares at him with her heart in her eyes. I almost feel sorry for her.
“Ready,” Allison says, standing up and holding a wallet that probably cost as much as our car. I sigh. I’ll get ice cream, I’ll get some information, and then I’m out of here.
I don’t get any information.
Well, I get some, but not the kind I’m supposed to. I learn that Allison can talk and eat ice cream at the same time. I learn she’s going to college in the fall and is really excited about it. When she asks where I go to school, she listens and then asks questions that I have to make up answers to on the spot. The few times before I’ve mentioned that yeah, I’m in college, no one has cared what it’s like. They just wanted to know where I was going.
I learn that Allison has a huge crush on Brad but that his family isn’t rich like hers. She doesn’t say it, but it becomes obvious as she talks about him.
“Mom hates that I keep inviting him over to the house every year because his dad, like, sells insurance, but oh, if you could see him. He’s so cute! And he’s not like the guys around here who are such losers
. It’s like, how many times can I listen to the same stupid stories about how everyone went to Amsterdam over winter break and got high? Whatever, you know?”
I nod and she keeps talking. Normally I’d write her off as a babbling idiot and make an excuse to leave, but she’s not an idiot. She’s nice. The only thing is, she keeps asking me about myself and then actually listens to the answers. I’m not used to that. In fact, most people just want to talk about themselves.
But Allison wants to know if I was nervous when I went away to college and what classes do I like best and do I need an extra napkin for my ice cream cone because she can just run right over and get me one.
I can’t figure out what kind of game she’s playing and then, as she’s pointing out the shoes some girl is wearing and asking what I think of them, I realize this is probably how normal people talk. How maybe people who could be friends talk. Weird. And kind of nice, too. But still weird.
“So where are you staying?” I ask, ready for the conversation to be one I’m familiar with. She tells me her family is in Heaven, in a house looking out over the ocean.
“Mom insists on calling it ‘the cottage,’ which is so stupid. I mean, are the words ‘beach house’ so bad? We’re at the beach, for heaven’s sake. Where are you staying?”
“What?” She wasn’t supposed to ask that. I was supposed to say “Wow, your house sounds great,” and then she was supposed to talk about it some more.
“Around here?”
I nod, hope she won’t ask for anything more specific.
“For the whole summer?”
“I think so. You?”
“Oh, of course. Every year for as long as I can remember. Here until my parents’ anniversary, which they celebrate by having a big party. Last year I wanted to invite Brad but James said it might be weird for him. This year I’m going to invite him, though. I mean, you don’t think it would be weird for him, right? It’s not like we all run around naked or anything. Although I wouldn’t mind…” She trails off and grins at me. “He’s just—you know how some guys are, right?”
“Sure.” I don’t, but it doesn’t matter. I should ask her about the party now.
I don’t. Instead I point out a horrible tie-dyed jumper some unsuspecting infant has been forced to wear and we agree that tie-dye, along with all jewelry made from shells, should be outlawed. We sit and eat our ice cream and by the time I’m done, I’ve promised to come back to the beach and see her tomorrow.
“Thank God,” she says. “It’ll be so nice to hang out with someone who doesn’t have their head up their ass.”
“Thanks. I think.”
She laughs. “Seriously, you’re the first cool person I’ve met here in ages. Plus”—she clears her throat—“I’m pretty sure James will be happy to see you again.”
I shrug. She gives me a look. “You don’t like him?”
“He seems really…nice.”
She’s silent for a minute and then she says, “Everyone’s crazy about him. You know how in some families there’s one person everyone wants you to be like? Like, they’re perfect and what you’re supposed to be?”
“I know exactly what you mean,” I tell her. And I do.
7
The next morning Mom says she has something for me to do. I rub my face with both hands and stare at her sleepily. She’s caught a cold or something, was up most of the night coughing.
“You should go see a doctor,” I tell her as I’m fixing her coffee and she’s looking at a map, marking off houses with little red Xs.
She nods, which I know means she isn’t even listening. I sigh, put her coffee in front of her, and then fix myself some cereal.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Baby, can’t you eat something with marshmallows or frosting on it like a normal kid?”
I sigh again. The map thing must not be going as well as she wants it to. “I had a donut yesterday.”
“Only old people eat those wheat biscuit things.”
“I like them.”
She finishes marking Xs on her map and drops her pen on the table. “Well, at least that’s finally done. Did you meet anyone at the beach?”
“Not really.”
She gives me a look and I take an extra big bite of cereal just to be obnoxious, crunching it loudly between my teeth.
“I didn’t send you there to work on your tan,” she says, but she’s grinning now. Teasing. Mostly.
“So do you finally feel like telling me what it is you want me to do?” I take another big bite of cereal.
“Smartass.” She grins. “I need you to see what you can dig up on the Donaldson house.” She points at an X on the map.
“What do you have?”
She tells me what she’s learned, which is that the house was built in the early twentieth century, that it’s survived a bunch of hurricanes, and that the family that owns it comes to stay every summer.
“Wow, I bet that doesn’t describe any other house in Heaven.”
She raises an eyebrow at me. “Danielle.”
“Sorry.” I wash out my bowl and put it away, refill her coffee. She’s looking at the map again, and I watch her trace her finger across streets, tracking ways to leave town.
“So what are you doing today?” I ask.
“Don’t know yet.”
Uh huh. Bartender again, I bet. “What’s his name?”
“Christ, you sound like someone’s whiny mother. Glenn, okay?”
“Glenn what?”
She smirks. “We haven’t got around to exchanging last names yet.”
I feel my face flush, and her smirk gets wider. She knows I don’t like it when she talks like this. “Well, tell him thanks a lot for giving you a cold, will you?”
“We need an in to the Donaldson place,” she says, looking back down at the map. “Quit standing around here all prune-faced because I like to have fun and go get some information we can use.”
“Mom,” I say, hurt, but she keeps looking at the map. I wait a moment, but she still doesn’t look at me, and so I head upstairs.
I was fifteen the first and only time I had sex. The guy’s name was Roger, he was twenty, and he and Mom had hooked up. He was a waiter at some resort she was checking out, and she fell for him as much as she ever does anyone, which isn’t much at all. They were together about three weeks.
He was hot and funny and I had a huge crush on him, which I thought I’d kept a secret. Looking back, I suppose I couldn’t have been more obvious. I would drop whatever I was doing when he came over and hang around until Mom took him back to her room. Sometimes when they were done he’d watch television with me till he had to leave.
And then one night he slept over and came into the kitchen when I was making breakfast the next morning. I can still remember hearing him come up behind me, how I held my breath and just waited. Hoped.
I suppose since he was so much older I should say he took advantage of me or something, but the truth is I wanted him so bad even my teeth hurt with it and the sex was amazing. I know first times aren’t supposed to be great, but Roger had plenty of practice.
What wasn’t amazing was waking up alone afterward and hearing him and Mom talking in the hall.
“Did you just do what I think you did?”
“Wait, you’re mad? The other day you said you could tell I thought she was hot.”
Mom laughed. “You’re a piece of work.”
“Hey, you said you wanted the best for her. What was I supposed to think?”
“You treat her right?”
“Absolutely. You know how I am.”
“Yeah, a jackass,” Mom said, but her voice was light, like it always was when she talked to guys, and I heard them kiss. He’d just fucked me and then gone and kissed her. He was okay with it. She was okay with it. The only one who wasn’t okay with it was me.
After he left, I told her I wanted to leave. I actually think I said that we had to leave. She stared at me for a long time but
finally said, “Okay.”
In the car, on our way out of town, she said, “You know, what happened earlier, it’s not something to worry about. I’m not upset. He’s a good-looking guy and it’s perfectly natural that you’d—”
“Stop,” I said, so angry I was shaking. “Don’t say…don’t say another word.” I’d never spoken to her like that before. I’ve never spoken to her like that since. But I did then, and she listened. She’s never mentioned it again.
I get dressed and, at the last second, throw my swimsuit in my bag. Just in case, I tell myself. I won’t need it, but it’s good to be prepared. When I go back downstairs Mom’s painting her toenails and looking perfectly happy, like she didn’t just dismiss me before. Like she doesn’t know why I’m so uncomfortable discussing her “love life.” I grab the car keys and head for the door feeling hurt and angry. Mostly hurt.
“Baby—”
“What?” I’m trying to sound furious but my voice comes out watery, faint.
She gets up and walks over to me, moving pigeon-toed so she won’t smudge her toenails. It makes me smile in spite of myself. She sees my grin and gives me one in return, wraps her arms around me.
“You know I can’t do this without you, right?” she whispers.
I nod, wondering if that’s true, but for now, just glad to hear her say it, and then rest my head on her shoulder. I’m taller than she is, but she’s always going to be a million times bigger than I’ll ever be.
When I get to the records office I can tell they’d definitely have something on the Donaldson house, but the man working behind the counter has the obsessive look of someone who remembers anyone who’s ever asked him a question. That won’t do at all and so I head back to the car.
What I’m doing now is what I like best about what we do. It’s actually the only thing. Mom loves sliding into someone’s house and making what they own hers, but I like finding out when a house was built or how much the real estate taxes were in 1922. I guess it’s because I never went to school. We’ve never stayed in one place for long, and the very few times anyone asked, Mom just said she taught me at home.