I pedaled through the dirt parking lot and set my bike against the side of the building, which was more like a one-room house than a hub of maritime sophistication. Thankfully, I wasn’t looking for someone to overhaul my engine or repair a sail. I just wanted a cold, refreshing drink.
“Hello?” I called out, stepping into the Edgewater Marina office. There wasn’t much to it—just a varnished wood counter displaying a few boxes of candy bars and bags of chips—but it had exactly what I was looking for in the corner. The refrigerator was stocked with bottled water and sodas, and the freezer lining the wall was labeled with a blue handwritten sign: ICE.
I opened the refrigerator’s glass door and grabbed a water, placing it against my forehead and letting the cold, moist bottle numb the spot between my eyes. I knew my mom would frown upon what I did next, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I twisted off the cap before even paying for my purchase and gulped the entire bottle. When the last wet drop slid down my throat, I just stood there, between the open front door and the open back door directly across from it, catching what little breeze was drifting through the shed. As small as it was, with two doors on opposite walls and a double window against another, the room was filled with sunlight.
The only solid wall was lined with rows of nails tacked into wood planks laid in horizontal rows. A single knotted rope was tied around each nail on the top two rows, every knot different from the one before it, the ropes alternating color—yellow, red, blue, white, and black. The remaining rows were left empty. It almost looked like a piece of artwork, but I figured it was probably something only a boater would understand, like navigating by the stars or charting the tides. I couldn’t do either, so instead I listened to the air ruffling the papers pinned to a bulletin board behind the counter and stared out at the water reflecting white slivers of sunlight.
Finally, between the cool water and circulating air, I actually felt like I could move without the skin on my knees sticking together.
“Hello!” I called out, hoping someone was nearby to hear me. I waited. Nothing. “Hello!” I tried again, poking my head out the back door. “Anybody here?”
I spotted a man toward the end of a short dock, his hands holding a fuel nozzle in the hull of a boat as he watched the numbers on a fuel tank tick away. His oil-stained jeans and gray, bushy beard pretty much fit every stereotype of a fisherman, so I figured he was probably the guy I was looking for.
“Excuse me, can I pay for this?” I asked loudly, holding up my empty water bottle for him to see. “Nobody is behind the register.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Just leave a dollar on the counter. We’re a little short-handed right now.”
I went back inside and laid my last dollar on the counter, placing a SNICKERS bar from the display on top of it at the last minute so it wouldn’t blow away. Then I went out the back door, walked to the end of a far dock, and sat down, dangling my brown, dust-coated feet over the edge to buy myself a few more minutes before heading home to Josie’s jobless.
I could see Martha’s Vineyard in the distance, the expanses of beach creating an outline of white rimming the island. It was too far to actually make out anything in particular, but I knew it was sand, and that somewhere over there, Luke was without me. Lucy and Josie were at home, probably finally awake and getting ready for the double shift they were going to work because of the holiday weekend. They were also most likely planning what they were going to do when they got off work tonight.
I sat there on the dock, my feet suspended above the water, and realized this wasn’t just what my summer would be like. This is was what every day would be like come September, minus the brown outlines forming a V on my feet where my flip-flops kept the dust from settling.
This summer was just a preview—just the beginning of being apart and saying good-bye.
• • •
“I’m screwed,” I told Josie and Lucy when I found them upstairs in our room getting dressed for work, both already sporting one of the standard-issue Scoop Shack T-shirts that each employee wore for the summer. “There’s nothing out there. Nada. Not one single store was hiring.”
Josie bit her lip. “You can’t be that surprised. It’s already July. I mean, you knew this could happen when you didn’t show up for work last night.”
“I didn’t think I’d get fired. I thought maybe I’d get some less than desirable task like cleaning the hot fudge machine or something, but I didn’t think I’d lose my job.”
Lucy gave me a sympathetic half smile. “I’m sorry, Em.”
I waited for Josie to tell me she felt bad for me, too. Instead she reached for her deodorant.
“My parents will kill me when they find out.” I went over to my bed and flopped down on my back. “I want to kill me.”
Josie flapped her arms a few times to help her armpits dry. “We better get going. Can’t be late.”
“Be down in a minute,” Lucy told her.
Josie blew into each armpit twice, grabbed her keys, and headed downstairs.
“You both think I brought this on myself, don’t you?” I asked Lucy once I heard Josie’s footsteps fade away.
She placed her Scoop Shack baseball hat on her head and pulled her braids into place behind her ears. “We don’t think that.”
“Honestly?” I prodded, looking at Lucy through my thumb and index finger, measuring barely an inch apart. “Not even just a teeny, tiny little bit?”
“Well, maybe just a teeny, tiny little bit.” Lucy laughed at me. “But I get it, the whole Sam thing.”
“What about Josie?” I wanted to know.
“What about her?” Lucy asked, her voice cautious.
I almost felt bad for even asking her the question. We didn’t do that, pit one of us against the other. Maybe it was because there were three of us. Lucy, Josie, and Emily, each one necessary to make our friendship work. We were like a tripod—remove one leg and it topples over, unable to function properly.
When I’d moved to Chicago after freshman year, I’d wondered if they’d replace me, fill the hole I left, to restore the balance of their friendship in my absence. But when I came back in January, it was as if they’d been holding my spot for me, and I easily slipped back into place.
“I’m not asking you to take sides, Luce. I’m just saying it’s pretty obvious Josie is pissed I stayed with Luke instead of going to work.”
“Look, Em, a lot’s happened between you two. I mean, I know we all had to deal with the whole Luke thing and the guide, but it was different for Josie. Luke breaking up with her was what gave us the idea for the guide, and then, well, you know the rest.”
“But they weren’t even together that long,” I reminded her, but she just frowned and shook her head at me, the way a disappointed parent looks at a child trying to get out of admitting they’d done something wrong.
“I’m not trying to make excuses or justify what I did. I just wish she didn’t make me feel like I’m an awful friend.”
“I don’t think she does that, Em.” Lucy came over to my side of the room and sat next to me on the bed. “I’m just saying that you need to stop feeling like Josie is watching everything you do to find a reason to be mad. Maybe you should just take it for what it is—she wishes you’d come home last night and gone to work so we could all be at the Shack together like we planned. That’s it. No conspiracy. Pretty simple, and not totally unreasonable, right?”
“Right,” I admitted.
“Okay, now I have to get out of here or I’ll be on the receiving end of Mr. Holden’s wrath, and that’s the last thing I want.”
Lucy stood up, pulled her Scoop Shack T-shirt down so the cherry on top of the sundae wasn’t directly over her nipple, and headed toward the door.
“Hey, Luce?” I called out.
She stopped, one of her braids smacking the doorframe with a small thud as she turned to face me. “Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
Lucy smiled at me. “Always.”
r /> And just like that, I was alone again on the Cape in a strange room that was supposed to feel like home, even though I barely knew where the light switch was located.
Lucy and I had helped decorate Josie’s old bedroom, the one she had before the Holdens built their new mega-house. We’d decided that, as seventh graders, it was time to purge Josie’s room of the ladybug-shaped rug dotting the middle of her floor, the pink ruffled curtains held over the windows by rods accented with bright yellow daisies, and the watchful brown eyes of Samantha Parkington, the kind and generous American Girl doll who was always ready to make new friends (according to the book that came with her). She sat on Josie’s bookshelf practically tsk tsking every time we said or did something that was neither kind nor generous.
Josie had convinced her mom that the three of us could paint the room and redecorate with the money she’d saved from feeding her neighbor’s fish. Mrs. Holden had reluctantly agreed, but after finding out Josie had saved all of thirty-two dollars, she’d kicked in another twenty to help our cause. Mrs. Holden drove us to the paint store and told us to pick out a color for Josie’s bedroom walls. We couldn’t decide between Breathtaking, Tantalizing Teal, or my favorite, a pale yellow called Icy Lemonade. Josie was really pushing for Breathtaking, and since it was her room, I resigned myself to the pale bluish-lavender, but Josie surprised us by handing all three color samples to the man at the counter and telling him we’d take a can of each. “I get two walls, you each get one.”
That’s how Josie’s room ended up looking a little like a colorful circus tent, which didn’t make her mom happy when she walked in and saw that we were each painting a wall with our chosen color. But it did make the three of us feel like we shared Josie’s bedroom, even if she was the only one to sleep there every night. I didn’t find out until our freshman year that Josie had started to wake up with headaches every day, and Mrs. Holden insisted it was the schizophrenic walls and it would be best to cover them with a more subdued and less anxiety-inducing hue. Josie refused.
Two years later, I was living in Chicago and the Holdens moved into their new house. I was sure the new owners of our Breathtaking, Tantalizing Teal, and Icy Lemonade bedroom made new paint a priority as soon as they signed the sales contract. As much as I liked to think those four walls would live on without us, there was also a part of me that knew that, even if the new owners were fans of our color choices, they would never appreciate what they meant to us.
Now the three of us were living in seafoam green for the summer, a color I actually really liked, even if we didn’t choose it.
I was picturing our summer bedroom with three different colored walls, and which colors I’d choose, when my phone vibrated. I looked down expecting to see Luke’s name, and instead saw a name I was dreading: My mom. Did you write Mrs. Preston and her friend a thank-you note? Have fun at work!
I replied with a smiling emoji.
Between getting home late last night and leaving early this morning, I hadn’t bothered to unpack anything except my toothbrush and the clothes I was wearing. Now I wondered if I should even bother.
I fished my hand toward the bottom of the monogrammed duffel bag my mom gave me for my sixteenth birthday (because canvas with your initials embroidered on it lasts way longer than a car) and felt the square edge of what I was looking for. Only what I thought was a box of stationary was actually another little gift my mom had decided to pack for me—the leather-bound journal. I stuffed the book back in my duffel bag and pulled out the box of stationary so I could convey my sincerest thanks to Mrs. Preston and Melanie for my visit. Then I placed one of the stamps my mom also provided on each envelope and set them on my bed.
At least I accomplished one thing today. Or, if you counted both Mrs. Preston and Melanie, two things. That sounded way more productive.
There was no way I could have 24/7 access to Luke like Sam did, and Mr. Holden had made sure I wouldn’t be working with Lucy and Josie, but the least I could do was make sure I didn’t have to go back home and spend my summer even farther away from them.
I knew what I had to do. It wasn’t my first choice, but after putting on my most employable face and visiting every business in town, there was only one option I could think of that might save our summer. It was a last resort, but I’d run out of options.
My bike was still in the driveway, where I’d left it leaning up against the side of the house. I forced myself up from the comfort of my bed, grabbed the envelopes to drop in a mailbox along the way, and went to pedal to my future.
Long-Distance Relationship Tip #17:
Being good with numbers is an asset in life.
But now is not the time to use your math skills
to calculate the miles between you,
the hours until you see him,
or the number of times you called and he didn’t answer.
There are two good things about working at seven o’clock in the morning. It was early enough that I didn’t have to worry about getting run down by overly eager Cape beach traffic, and the sun was still about six hours away from sweltering.
Since it was a holiday, I also figured I’d have time to ease into my first day on the job. But as I rode into the marina’s dirt parking lot, it was quickly evident that while the rest of Falmouth may have been sleeping in for July Fourth, people who owned boats weren’t like everyone else. There had to be at least ten people out on the docks, loading big, insulated coolers and fishing rods onto the decks of boats with idling engines.
I parked my bike beside the marina’s office and went inside to get my marching orders for the day.
George, the gray-bearded man in the oil-stained jeans who was now my new boss, wasn’t behind the counter, which didn’t really surprise me. With all the activity on the docks, I figured he’d be helping some of the boaters tie ropes or check GPS systems or whatever it was someone did when they owned a marina. Instead, I found a guy around my age stooped down in front of the refrigerator, refilling the dwindling rows of bottles and cans.
“Hi, is George here?” I asked him.
He didn’t even look up before answering. “Nope, not today.”
When the person who supposedly hired you isn’t there for your first day of work, it doesn’t feel like a great beginning. In fact, I started to wonder if maybe George wasn’t in charge at all. Maybe he was just some nice guy who felt sorry for me and decided to say yes when I begged him for a job. Maybe he was actually just a boat owner who happened to be standing on the dock when a sweaty, red-faced girl dropped her bike in the parking lot and swore she’d be the best employee the marina had ever seen.
Or maybe I just got the day wrong. Was I supposed to start on Monday?
“I talked to him yesterday,” I started to explain. “I thought he told me I could start work today.”
This time, the guy turned around and stood up, closing the refrigerator’s glass door with his foot as he folded the empty cardboard cases into small pieces.
“Are you Emily?” he asked, and I nodded. “I’m Nolan. George is my uncle.”
“Did I get the day wrong?”
“No, you got it right. George asked me to get you set up. He had to go over to the Vineyard and work on a customer’s boat. I’ll show you around.” He glanced up at the clock on the wall behind the counter. “But you’re four minutes late. He told me that if you weren’t here on time, I should fire you.”
Fired twice in less than two days? Seriously?
I must have looked panicked, because Nolan quickly laughed at me. “I’m kidding. Besides, that clock is five minutes fast, so you’re actually a minute early. Come on.” He nodded toward the back door. “Follow me out to the recycling bins, and I’ll give you the grand tour.”
I trailed him out of the shop, letting the screen door slam shut behind me.
“Things sure start early around here,” I observed as Nolan waved hello and called out good morning to people by name. He led me around the docks, and as we walked along
the salt water–stained boards, Nolan pointed out things I should take note of—the fire extinguishers and pedestals with power outlets, the wheelbarrow-like carts marina members could use to carry supplies to and from their boats, the hoses and nozzles used to wash away the salt at the end of a day out on the water. It wasn’t terribly daunting, and by the time we made our way back to the marina office, I was feeling like this might not be so bad after all.
“That’s the fuel pump,” Nolan told me, pointing to the dock where I’d first spotted George. “And the waste pump-out station is over there,” he concluded, indicating a wide black hose on another short dock about ten feet to the left of us.
He stood there watching me, like he was waiting for some sort of reaction.
“Great!” I smiled enthusiastically.
“You have no idea what a waste pump-out station is, do you?”
“A place where you pump out waste?” I guessed. I mean, it was pretty self-explanatory.
“Yeah. Waste. As in the waste from a boat’s head.”
This time, I knew what he was talking about. The head. A boat’s toilet. Which meant waste wasn’t the typical garbage I’d been thinking of.
All of ten minutes into my first day on the job was not the time to complain about my assigned tasks. Especially when I didn’t have any other options. “Okay. I get it. No problem.”
Nolan almost seemed impressed by my non-reaction, which may be why, instead of continuing to try to freak me out, he shrugged. “It’s really not that bad, more like the opposite of the fuel pump—instead of putting stuff in a tank, you suck it out.”
“Like a big vacuum,” I added.
“Yeah, sort of like that. Anyway, it’s mostly locals here—guys who like to fish, that sort of thing—so low maintenance,” he went on, ending our tour in front of the screen door to the office. “That means getting out on the water early, which is why someone has to be here at seven o’clock every day.”