She was getting used to the sand and salt. She liked what it did for her hair, which seemed so thick and glossy now that she’d stopped buzzing it. It had grown quickly, incredibly quickly, reaching just past her chin. Her skin was clean and dry. Not clogged up with the gunk that stuck inside your pores when you lived in the murky humidity of a swamp. Living here meant living in a constant state of exfoliation.
Cam pulled the Flamingo List out of her hoodie pocket. After Lily’s death, it seemed appropriate to take inventory of what she’d accomplished in her young, possibly very short, life.
She unfolded it and read her relaxed-at-summer-camp handwriting. The paper flapped lightly in the breeze.
* Lose my virginity at a keg party. Check.
* Have my heart broken by an asshole. Check.
* Wallow in misery, mope, pout, and sleep through Saturday. Check.
* Have an awkward moment with my best friend’s boyfriend. Check.
* Get fired from a summer job. Double check.
* Go cow-tipping. Close enough to donkey-napping.
* Kill my little sister’s dreams. Check.
* Dabble in some innocent stalking behavior. Check.
* Experiment with petty shoplifting. Check.
Cam almost laughed out loud. Without even trying, just as Lily’s book had said, she had accomplished every pathetic thing on the list.
She didn’t know whether to be amused or ashamed. If she had known her list was going to work, maybe she would have aimed a little higher. What would have happened if she had written Eliminate world hunger or Reverse climate change? She had achieved her goal of becoming a normal, miserable teenager, key word being miserable. She was glad Lily had never seen her list.
“Hey.”
Cam jumped. “Oh, my God, someone should put a bell on your collar.”
“I’m sorry. What are you doing?” Asher was wearing rolled-up khakis and a navy blue plaid shirt over a white T-shirt.
“Just sitting here.”
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the list.
“This is nothing. Just my life’s work.” Cam stuffed the list back into her pocket. She could feel her face begin to burn with embarrassment. She hadn’t yet had the chance to thank him for saving her life.
“About the other night—” he began.
“Yes. Thank you for that. Thank you so much,” Cam said, for once without sarcasm. A huge sailboat drifted across the bay in front of them. She stared at its white topsail stretched tight against the wind. She couldn’t quite look at him yet.
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “All in a day’s work.”
“For who, a superhero? You’re not officially one of those, are you? I mean, the daring rescues, the bat cave. I should have put it all together.” Cam looked down and started boring a channel into the sand with the heel of her foot.
“You scared me, Cam,” Asher said. A lobster boat had chugged across the bay, churning up a wake that reached the shore now. The taller waves fell and splashed loudly against the beach for a minute, and then it quieted down again.
“You didn’t actually have to, like, do . . .” Cam started. She really didn’t want to finish her sentence.
“Mouth-to-mouth?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Oh, thank God. That would have been gross.”
Asher smiled. He took a deep breath and asked, “You didn’t do it because . . .”
“Because of what?”
“Because of what you saw in the parking lot?”
Cam guffawed. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever actually guffawed before, but she did now. “No. I don’t care what you do in your spare time, Batman. Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Because that is just a weird situation. . . .”
“Really. I don’t want to know. Nothing you could ever do would make me drive off a cliff.”
“I’m not cliffworthy?” he teased as he picked up a smooth rock, but there was a seriousness in his eyes. He got it to skip five times across the surface of the water. Not up to his usual seven.
“My best friend died of the same disease I have,” Cam said soberly, watching the stone disappear below the water’s surface.
There was a pause as they both listened to the crashing waves. “I’m sorry, Cam,” he said, and she finally let herself look him in the eye.
“Still not cliffworthy,” she said.
“Nothing is,” Asher agreed.
“I’m so sorry you had to witness that,” she said, standing up and pulling her bucket seat out of the sand.
“Water under the bridge.”
“Speaking of water,” Cam said. “I need to bring some to Homer.”
She let him carry the bucket this time. He hiked up with the seawater, trying not to let too much of it slosh on to the grass. When they got to the tank, Homer tapped on the glass and clawed desperately upward, as if trying to escape.
“We should release him.”
“Yeah. We should,” Asher said distractedly. “He’s lonely here.”
They brought Homer to the beach in his big yellow pail and walked him out to the end of the jetty. The sun was hot, but the breeze was gentle and cool. The waves slamming into the jetty gave off a salty mist that began to soak through their shirts. Cam’s sneakers slipped on the wet rocks, but Asher reached out a hand to steady her.
When they made it to the end—the famous spot where James Madison had taken his unicornly plunge—they took Homer out of his pail and held him up in the air, letting him take in the view.
“We should tag him with your Freedom bracelet,” said Cam, her eyes landing on the plastic band at Asher’s wrist, “so that fishermen will always set him free.”
“Good idea.” Asher double looped the plastic bracelet around Homer’s joint. He held the lobster up so Cam could give him a little kiss before they threw him far out into the bay.
“Freedom!” they both screamed, and it reminded them of the movie Braveheart and Mel Gibson before he got so drunk and crazy. They watched Homer spiral through the air like a lobster Frisbee until he smacked onto the surface. Cam thought she saw him float there for a moment before he was swallowed up by the waves.
She couldn’t help noticing that, even though she’d caught her balance a while ago, Asher kept hold of her hand.
TWENTY-FIVE
THERE HAD BEEN A SHIFT.
Instead of going about his daily handyman routine or searching out Perry for a game of chess, Asher’s first order of business this morning was to yell up Cam’s stairs, asking her if she wanted to go for a ride.
“Where?” she asked.
“Just around,” he answered. “I don’t think you ever got the Promise grand tour.”
He couldn’t see her, so Cam did a little silent happy dance before calling downstairs, “I don’t know. I have a lot to do today.” She didn’t want to seem too eager.
“Okay. I’ll see you later then.” She heard some footsteps walking away.
“Wait!” Cam said, and she practically threw herself down the stairs. When she got halfway down, she could see that he hadn’t moved. He stood motionless, looking up at her with his arms crossed in front of his chest and his half smile curling up the left side of his face.
“I called your bluff,” he said.
“I see that,” she answered. “I’ll be down in five minutes.”
“Right on.”
Asher had seven locales he wanted to show Cam, including the magical Indian burial ground, the East Coast’s only living redwood tree, and Promise’s very own Stonehenge, where three enormous boulders balanced impossibly, precariously on top of one another. They combed through the comic books in the town’s old bookstore. At the junk shop/antique dealer, he bought her an old lobster trap, painted flamingo pink.
“So the woman in the car,” Cam finally had the courage to say when they were on their way to lunch.
“I thought you didn’t care about what I did in my free time,” Asher said.
He was behind the wheel of the Jeep, driving a twisting beach road through a saltwater bog that smelled like wild sage and oregano.
“That was yesterday. This is today.”
“It was nothing.”
“Oh,” said Cam. “It kind of seemed like something.”
“It’s over, Cam,” he said, swallowing hard and setting his eyes in a serious gaze.
“Good to know,” she said.
The road dead-ended at another rocky peninsula. A tiny clam shack and some picnic tables balanced on a piece of slate jutting out over the ocean. Cam ate fish ’n’ chips, and Asher ate raw clams. They sat opposite each other, both pretending that their feet were not touching underneath the table.
“You’ve never had clams before, have you, Ass Whisperer?”
“I’ve never been hungry enough to think that that was a good idea.”
“They’re good,” he said, squeezing a lemon on one before tilting his head back and sucking down the glistening, peach-colored mass.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Cam said.
“Come on,” coaxed Asher. “Just one.”
“Oh, God,” Cam said. “Fine. Just one.”
“I’ll pick out a small one for you,” he said, selecting the perfect one and then squeezing lemon juice onto it. “Here you go.”
She held the edge of the shell. It was genius, really. Food that came with its own plate. She closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and chewed what there was to chew. It was good. Cold. Wet. Briny. And a little sweet.
On the way home, he kept his right hand on top of hers. She felt it then—that chilling zing all the way up her arm, the one she’d felt when he tried to take her pulse the other night. The exact feeling that Lily had described, when you know that somebody loves you.
At home Cam wanted to put her lobster trap in the basement, so Asher followed her there. She found a perfect shelf for it next to Homer’s old lobster tank. When she turned around, Asher stood about an inch away from her.
“You’re in my personal space,” she joked.
“It’s intentional.” He put his hands on either side of her waist. The air around them got heavier somehow as he bent his head down toward hers. He kissed her forehead first, and then tilted her chin up so he could look into her eyes.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he said.
“Do you always announce it like that?”
“You just seemed like the type that might get spooked.”
“I’m cool,” Cam said lifting her finger and tracing it softly over his lips. “In fact, if you don’t do it right now, I’m going to kiss you first.”
He paused for a second with his lips just a centimeter from hers, teasing her as he breathed in her breath. Finally he let his lips graze hers lightly, then more insistently, before drawing her into a deeper kiss. Cam realized, as she was in the throes of it, that there was an art to it. A back-and-forth. A dance. She’d been practicing this all her life.
Asher backed her up, and she fell onto the ugly plaid basement couch. He fell on top of her, and she held his chest away from her at arm’s distance.
“I don’t know if I should get into a relationship right now,” Cam said. “I was just released from the psych ward.”
“Who said anything about a relationship?” Asher smirked, before bending down and kissing her on the neck.
“Oh it’s going to be like that, is it? Well you can’t make me any crazier than I already am. Like I said. Psych ward. Et cetera.”
“I like my women a little crazy,” he said. He lay down beside her, propped up on his elbow. Their legs were intertwined. “Just don’t do anything like that again.”
“I promise,” Cam said, brushing some hair out of his eyes.
They walked to town, rented Braveheart because Cam had been chanting “freedom” all day long, and snuck up into her cupola to watch it together, snuggled in her bed. When the movie was over and the sun had finally set, Cam looked out the window and started counting out loud.
“What are you doing?” Asher asked as he connected the dots of the freckles on her thigh.
“Counting my lucky stars,” said Cam. “This day almost never happened.”
And in spite of all the work her mother had done in the past to provide them for her, this was the world’s best day.
TWENTY-SIX
“NANA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? HOW DID YOU FIND THIS PLACE?”
Her grandmother stood at the front door of Avalon by the Sea with a rolly bag and a round yellow leather suitcase. She was wearing her straw sun visor, big green plastic sunglasses with the sides on them, and her red nylon running suit.
“It wasn’t easy,” Nana said, still shifting around. Her tracksuit made swishing noises every time she moved. “Let an old woman in to use the bathroom, would you?”
“Sure,” said Cam, moving aside.
“Nice place,” Nana said as she followed Cam to the bathroom. She talked through the door the entire time she was in there. “I heard about the shenanigans,” she said. “Campbell, you know I don’t tolerate shenanigans, and I know your mother is useless when it comes to shenanigans. So I’m here to set things straight. Plus, I missed you,” she said as she opened the door and gave Cam a big hug.
“I’m so glad you’re here!”
“Mom,” said Alicia as she entered the kitchen. “Aren’t you hot in that thing? You should wear some natural fibers. Something that breathes.”
“This breathes. They said it has ‘wicking properties.’ It wicks. My daughter. Two seconds in the house and she’s criticizing me.”
“Sorry, Mom. You look great!”
“Well.”
“Well.”
“Campbell. Stop trying to kill yourself. What are you thinking, trying to make your life even shorter? Are you insane?”
“It was just temporary insanity, Nana. I’m fine now.”
“She has a boyfriend,” whined Perry accusingly as she came in and gave her grandmother a big hug.
“Ah. Alicia, see? Didn’t I tell you that’s what she needed to begin with? Maybe a little schtupping and it would make the cancer go away. It works with pimples.”
“Nana!”
“What? What’s his name?”
“I’m Asher,” said Asher. He came in from the dining room, where he was fixing the door on the built-in cabinetry. He put his screwdriver in his tool belt and shook Nana’s hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. . . .”
“Oh, God, call me Nana.” Nana blushed.
“Get used to that, Nana. He has a way of appearing out of thin air.”
“Oh my. Asher. Hm. Hm. Hm. Turn around. He’s beautiful, Campbell. Are you schtupping my granddaughter?” she asked him.
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, I give you my permission.”
And just like that, Cam’s love life was ruined forever. If and when she ever “schtupped” Asher, she’d have to do everything she could not to think of her grandmother.
“I brought in your mail,” Nana said, and she handed Cam two more envelopes of mystery mail. How was this stuff finding its way to her?
“Nana, you go get settled, and I’m going to take a look at this,” said Cam, and she went upstairs to her room and tore open the envelope from Harvard.
For all the hype that Harvard gets, it was amazing how low-tech they seemed to be. According to some flimsy pink piece of paper, printed by a dot matrix printer, it was time for her to select her freshman seminar, which was strange. She shouldn’t be able to select anything, because she had never officially registered. Huh, Cam thought.
She knew she shouldn’t, but Cam let herself look at the list of possible classes. If she could take any of these—and she knew that she couldn’t—what would it be? She could breeze through Biology and Science of Cancer and Its Treatments. The Life and Work of George Balanchine appealed to the dancer in her. Why Do Animals Sing? culminated in a student performance of animal sounds at the natural history museum. Were they serious?
&
nbsp; She would take The Science of Sailing because she knew nothing about it, and wasn’t the point to learn something new? Plus, if she’d be hanging out with rich kids, it was probably good to know something about sailing. Or she’d take The Poems of Walt Whitman because they used the words prosody and bildungsroman in the course description.
The other envelope was from Make-A-Wish. She swallowed and ran her finger under the flap.
Congratulations, Campbell! The letter read. Make-A-Wish is sending you and up to ten friends to Disney World!
Cam laughed, and her eyes watered at the same time. Good one, Lily, she thought.
“Cam!” Asher yelled from downstairs. She scrambled to hide the mail underneath her bed.
“Just a minute.”
“I have to go check the traps.”
The traps? “What in God’s name do you mean, Daniel Boone? Is it 1765? Are you a fur trader all of a sudden?” she called down the stairs.
“Lobster traps. Do you want to come?”
“Me? Kill lobsters?”
“Only the big ones,” Asher called. “The small ones you throw back. You can think of it as saving baby lobsters.”
“Well, when you put it that way,” Cam joked.
The boat, named the Stevie because Smitty had a thing for Stevie Nicks, was docked behind the lobster pound. It rocked and bounced and squeaked against its bumpers as the waves knocked it around. Inside it was a tangled mess of ropes—“lines,” Cam learned to call them—mesh traps, buckets and hooks, and knives and pulleys. Everything looked sharp and dangerous. Like a floating lobster torture chamber.