I expected to find some artistic rendering of the red tomatoes clinging to a vine, or green speckled squash splayed out in a bed of leaves.
“It’s a slug?” I guessed, cradling the camera in my hand and amazed that Josie had handed it over so easily.
“I know it’s a slug, but when you shoot it up close like this, it looks like an entirely different thing, all shiny, and those points coming out of its head make it look like it’s wearing a crown.”
I wondered if she’d feel the same way about her photography subject if I told her the shine was created by mucous glands and the crown was actually tentacles. I really didn’t see anything cool about it. It just looked like a slug to me, but I didn’t have Josie’s eye for composition.
“What is it you like so much about photography?” I asked.
“There’s something cool about capturing a moment in time, something that will never be the same again.” Josie stared at the small digital screen as she tried to explain. “It’s always about the past. The moment a picture is taken, it’s behind us. Like this slug—it’ll never look exactly like this again. Even if it’s in the same spot and the same light, it’s different.”
I thought about the photo she’d taken of me and Luke on the wharf, my hair tossed around by the wind, our expressions both animated and frozen at the same time. I’d never seen us look like that before, and I wondered if it was possible to be like that again, or if Josie was right.
I handed the camera back to her. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”
“Sure, what’s up?” She turned a dial on the camera, pushed a few buttons, and squatted back down on the ground to get closer to her subject.
“I really appreciate what you did with your dad and all, I do, but I can’t quit my job at the marina.”
Josie looked up at me. “Why not?”
“Because they need me.”
Josie’s face changed, and now she was watching me with an expression I imagined looked a lot like mine when I first saw the image of the snail. “So it was okay to bail on your first night at the Shack, but you can’t stop working for some guy you just met?”
“I didn’t bail that night, Josie. I made a mistake. And I don’t want to make another one.”
“So what are you going to tell your mom?”
“I guess I have to tell her what happened. At least now she can’t make me go home. That’s the only reason I took the job at the marina in the first place. I wanted to stay here with you guys.”
Josie turned her attention back to the garden.
“I’m sorry, Josie. I’ll tell your dad if you want me to.”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll tell him.” Josie pointed the lens at a cucumber vine and focused back on the camera’s screen.
I knew my mom would never make a scene in front of the Holdens and Lucy’s mom, but I figured I’d give her the rest of the car ride to get it out of her system, just to be safe. “I better call my mom and warn her.”
“Are you sure that’s why you took the job at the marina? To stay here with us?” Josie asked, her finger pressing a button that released the rapid clicking of the shutter.
“Of course it is. Why else would I be getting up at six o’clock in the morning and riding a bike two miles?”
Josie didn’t answer.
“Seriously, Josie, why would I do that if I didn’t want to stay?”
She looked over her shoulder at me, the camera still poised in her hands. “I know you wanted to stay, Emily. I’m just not sure we were the reason.”
“Then why?” As soon as the words were out, I knew. “I didn’t stay because of Luke.”
“Are you sure? I’d really like to believe you’re here because we all wanted to spend our summer together, but sometimes it feels like we’re just your backup plan.”
“What’s that mean?”
Josie placed the camera on the grass and stood up to face me. “I mean when you can’t see Luke, it’s great to hang out with us. But if you had to choose? I don’t think we’d be the winners.”
“That’s not true.”
“And now Lucy’s leaving and you’ll be at the marina all day, and it sucks even more because at least before I knew that one of my best friends wanted to be with me.”
“That’s what you think? That I don’t really want to be here?”
Josie shrugged.
“I wanted to be here with you. I wanted to have the summer we talked about and planned. Besides, if staying was supposed to make everything great between Luke and me, it definitely hasn’t worked out that way.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” Josie suddenly looked concerned.
“Nothing. I don’t know. I just feel like something isn’t right.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“It’s nothing. Look, I want us to have fun, even with Lucy leaving. I just don’t want to screw over George. I’ve had enough plans fall apart this summer, the least I can do is stick this one out.”
I expected Josie to continue protesting, but instead she surprised me by backing down. “Okay.”
“Really?”
Josie opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, then thought better of it. “Really.”
“Thanks for understanding.” I squatted down on the lawn and bent over the garden to get a better view of Josie’s subject. “That really is a pretty cool slug.”
Josie frowned at me. “Now you’re just trying too hard.”
Maybe Lucy was right. Maybe it was something I had to work on.
Long-Distance Relationship Tip #32:
Jealous, who me?
If you’re asking the question, the answer is: Yes, you.
My mom wasn’t happy when I told her Mr. Holden fired me, but by the time she and Mrs. Denton arrived at the house, she’d decided a pleasant visit was more important than ripping her daughter a new one in front of everyone. It also meant she couldn’t make me stay when I had a job waiting to pay me time and a half for working overtime on my morning off. For the first time all summer, something worked out okay.
It wasn’t all fine, though, because Lucy was gone. According to her texts, she and her mom had just passed over the state line into Georgia and they’d be at her grandmother’s in a few hours. Just like that, from one place to another. Her timing couldn’t have been more perfect. For the first time in weeks, we woke up to rain splattering against our bedroom windows. Even Josie couldn’t sleep though the sound of gushing water overflowing from the gutters on the corner of the roof.
I kept hoping the rain would stop, but it continued to fall despite my attempts to bargain with Mother Nature. By quarter to seven, I had to accept the fact that I’d be riding my bike in the rain. I’d never been late for work before, but since I didn’t have a raincoat or any other jacket that would keep me dry, I’d probably arrive looking like a drowned rat. I hoped George would be sympathetic and give me a break.
I was on the verge of cutting armholes in a kitchen garbage bag for protection when Josie turned over and found me staring out our bedroom window at the puddles spreading across the driveway.
“You know what’s weird? You’d think people would avoid ice cream on a day like today, but after being locked inside playing board games for hours on end, it’s like families make a mad dash to the Shack before they all kill each other.”
Josie got out of bed and stood next to me. Together, we listened to the tin sound of raindrops on the gutters outside.
“Did you bring a raincoat?” she asked.
“Nope. I wasn’t exactly anticipating riding a bike in the rain when I packed.”
“I can give you a ride if you want,” Josie offered. “I can’t pick you up, because we’re all taking on extra hours with Lucy gone, but if you can find a way home, I’ll drop you off.”
“Deal,” I quickly agreed.
“She forgot these.” Josie picked up a white scalloped shell from the pile on the windowsill and traced the smooth, raised lines with her finger. “Should we brin
g them back for her?”
I removed a small, creamy yellow shell from the ledge and held it in my palm. “I’m sure if she wanted to take them, she would have.”
We both stood there holding our shells, and I wondered if Josie was thinking the same thing as me—that Lucy had left them for us as a reminder that, even if she wasn’t coming back, a part of her was still here.
“We should probably go,” Josie announced, placing her shell back on the windowsill with the others. “Let me change and I’ll meet you downstairs.”
• • •
“You want to come in and see the place?” I asked when we pulled into the marina.
Lucy and Josie had never visited me at the marina, although I’d been to the Scoop Shack a few times. I knew that the lines on the far ends of the barn typically moved the fastest, and that the tip cups were stuffed with a few dollar bills at the start of a shift to encourage customers to contribute more than the meager change left over from their orders. Each white Styrofoam cup was individually decorated by the server, the names of their colleges or reasons for working drawn on in colored marker. Lucy had drawn a soccer ball, her jersey number from Heywood, and Duke Blue Devils in blue on her tip cup. Josie’s had Skidmore College scrawled around the rim and random flowers in bright colors. They each came home with at least thirty dollars in tips after every shift. I didn’t earn tips, unless you counted how George taught me to remove the bait bags from the freezer without getting my hands covered in frozen fish blood.
“Wow, it really isn’t a yacht club.” Josie genuinely seemed surprised.
“I told you that a million times.”
“I thought you were exaggerating so we’d feel bad for you. It’s just a small wooden shed.”
“Small being the operative word.”
The parking lot was deserted, which meant we could avoid the muddy puddles running into one another from either end of the lot. It also meant we could park in the spot closest to the marina office. We both covered our heads with our hands and raced through the rain to the front door.
“This is it!” I announced, stomping my soggy flip-flops on the wood floor to squish out all the water.
“You weren’t kidding.” Josie ran her hands down her arms like squeegees, wiping away the raindrops. “It’s tiny.”
“But we call it home.” Nolan had moved the director’s chairs inside and was leaning his against the wall, his feet propped up on the freezer while he flipped through one of George’s fishing magazines.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“George called and asked if I could open. He seems to have lost all desire to work now that you’ve given him a taste of the good life. Did you come to keep us company today?” Nolan asked Josie. “This place is dead.”
“I’m going home and crawling into bed until I have to chain myself to the take-out window for a double shift before dealing with all the families who’ve been cooped up together inside all day.” Josie walked over to the wall and took a reef knot off a hook. She rolled it around in hand like she was trying to figure out which came first, the left-handed overhand knot or the right-handed overhand knot. “They typically reach their maximum board game threshold by three o’clock. Work will be crazy.”
“Better you than me,” Nolan said.
“At least I get a break in between shifts.” Josie gave up on the knot and set it back on its hook. “I plan on going home and passing out in the hammock for an hour before the insanity starts all over again.”
“Well, tell Alyssa I said hi, if she’s working,” Nolan told Josie. “And take this.”
He tossed the fishing magazine to Josie, who turned it over and read the cover. “It’s Tuna Time? Not exactly my first choice in reading material.”
“Don’t read it. Put it over your head so you don’t get wet.”
“Brilliant.” Josie opened the magazine and held it like a hat. “See you after quitting time, Em!”
Nolan and I watched as she splashed her way through puddles before ducking into her car.
“George won’t miss his magazine?” I asked.
“Have you seen the pile of magazines in his boat? He won’t even know it’s missing.”
“So what’s today’s knot?” I asked Nolan, settling into the director’s chair beside his. In the weeks since I’d started at the marina, he’d taught me more than fifteen different knots, which now hung on the wall along with the ones he’d completed before I arrived.
“I was thinking a Zeppelin bend.”
“That sounds quite advanced for a beginner like me.”
“It’s like the alpine butterfly bend we did last week,” he explained, handing me two red nylon braided lines. “Basically, we’re going to interlock overhand knots with the ends threaded through the middle.”
“This isn’t so bad,” I told him, following his instructions.
“It’s crazy strong—that’s why it’s called a Zeppelin bend. Supposedly, it could hold down an airship and keep it from flying away.” Nolan took another set of lines and started on his own knot. “Did you tell your mom how much more useful these skills are than pouring butterscotch on a sundae?”
“I didn’t get that far. It was weird, actually. I mean, obviously, on the one hand, she was pissed I didn’t tell her when it happened, but on the other hand, she almost seemed impressed.”
“Impressed?”
“Yeah, like I’d shown how resourceful I could be or something. Don’t get me wrong, the pissed definitely won out, but in the end, she didn’t threaten to take me home with her as punishment or anything, so I considered it a win.” After three attempts, I held up my knot for Nolan to see.
“Are you sure you haven’t been practicing? We’re running out of knots for me to teach you.”
“I thought you told me there were hundreds of knots.” There was still a row and a half of hooks left to fill, which would just about take us up to my last day at work. We’d already completed four rows, starting with my first basic bowline.
“There are, but even I don’t know how to make every one. I’m lucky you’re leaving soon, before you tap me out.”
“I don’t even want to think about leaving. It feels like I just got here.”
“George is already dreading your last day. He says it’s been the best summer he’s had in years.”
Years? George and I had our routine pretty nailed down by now, and he was always nice to me, but even I knew he could have done better. He finally got so sick of me asking which fish were biting he started writing it down for me and posting it on the bulletin board every day. “I never knew he enjoyed our mornings together that much.”
“Yes, of course that’s the reason. It has nothing to do with the fact that he likes fishing every day instead of working.” Nolan’s smile faded. “He’s even considering selling the place.”
“What? No way.”
“He already has a buyer who’s interested. They’re trying to see if the town will let them expand the slips and build a bigger office, maybe put in a restaurant.”
“They can’t do that! This place is perfect the way it is.”
“I hate to break it to you, Emily, but this is about as no-frills as it gets when it comes to marinas. George will be able to sell this place and never work again. He says it’s time to let someone else deal with the headaches.”
I couldn’t imagine the marina changing. The big, white freezer chest and the cardboard boxes displaying candy bars. The refrigerator that hummed all day. Even the faded canvas director’s chairs that we moved inside and out depending on the weather. It would all be gone, replaced by a real office that didn’t have uneven wood plank flooring or rows of hooks on the wall where colorful lines could be hung as part of a summer-long lesson in knot tying.
“Is it wrong to wish that everything would stay the same?” I asked Nolan.
He laughed at me. “No, it’s not wrong. It’s just not terribly realistic.”
“Not even a little?”
> “Not even a little,” he told me. “Besides, what fun would that be? If you’d taken a job at the Shack you wouldn’t know how to use a pump-out station while holding your nose.”
“True,” I conceded, unaware that Nolan had caught me pinching my nose with one hand while holding the pump-out hose with the other. I thought I’d hidden it pretty well by turning my back away from the office.
“When you started here, you could only tie your shoelaces, and now look at you.” He pointed to the wall. “After today, you’ll even be able to keep a blimp on the ground if you want to. Did you ever think you’d be able to do that?”
“I’m not sure I ever thought I’d need to, but it’s nice to know I have the skills in my back pocket.”
“You even tried a piece of Hell on Earth chocolate.”
A wave of thunder rolled overhead, its low growl muffling everything around us, even the humming of the refrigerator.
“It was horrible.” My throat almost closed up just remembering it.
“Is that why you threw them out?” Nolan put my Zeppelin bend on the empty hook beside the pile hitch I’d learned a few days ago. “I found it when I was emptying the garbage.”
All I had to do was tell Nolan I didn’t want to subject anyone to the vile aftertaste I’d had to live with for almost twenty-four hours. Instead, I told him the truth. “Luke didn’t know we went to Nobby Farm.”
“Would he have a problem with it?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. He wasn’t really thrilled that I told you about Sam.”
“It was no big deal, Emily. We went to a farm. You watched me cry, and I witnessed you permanently damaging your taste buds. All in a day’s work, right?” Nolan was making fun of our time together and I appreciated it. It made the situation seem so ordinary, even when there was nothing normal about eating a ghost pepper.
I started rearranging the candy bars into even rows. “I can’t say anything about it now, because then he’ll wonder why I didn’t tell him in the first place.”