I tried to get him to look at me. I tried to will my thoughts from my brain into his. But the set of his jaw told me loud and clear, it wasn’t happening.
“Whatever,” he said, holding out his palms. “I’m going back up to the others.”
A sudden realization made me dizzy. A realization so obvious that I felt like the biggest idiot in the world for not grasping it sooner.
“I said I’m heading back up,” Alphonse repeated with enough pout to suggest that I could still make him change his mind.
“Um, okay,” I said distracted. Now that I’d been hit with this new way of looking at things, I had to follow it to its bitter end.
I mean, God. I’d wanted Alphonse to magically read my mind? People couldn’t magically read other people’s minds. Maybe, possibly, some people could, if ESP existed. But I didn’t have ESP, and clearly Alphonse didn’t, either. And guess what? Lars didn’t either. If he did, he’d have done party tricks for me for sure, asking me to think of a number and then wowing me time and time again by saying, “Three!” Or, “Six hundred fifty-two and three-fourths, ha ha! Thought you got me, didn’t you?”
If he had ESP, he’d have given me that stupid cupcake I’d become so fixated on. He’d have given it to me on my birthday, easy-peasy-lemon-squeezie, and we’d have been la la la, look at us, aren’t we happy!
But he didn’t have ESP, and he wasn’t psychic, and even if he was, it wasn’t as if my thoughts and feelings were so crystal clear that he’d have been able to read them like an instruction manual.
Geez Louise, if even I didn’t know what I wanted, how could I expect Lars to?
Maybe being known by someone, really being known by someone, wasn’t a party trick like ESP. Maybe it was about opening your heart to that person, consciously and on purpose. And that meant the flip side was also true: to know someone in return required conscious effort, too. Ag. And, like, willingness to try ... even when it was hard.
“All right,” Alphonse said, startling me because I thought he’d already gone. “See ya.”
“Uh-huh, see ya.”
His Adam’s apple jerked, and I berated myself for being such a lousy human being. He was kind of a victim of my freakishness, when it came down to it.
“I’ll be up soon,” I said in a more even tone. Not flirty—no more flirty—but as one friend to another. Well, ish.
Alphonse’s posture loosened, as if I’d given him permission to reclaim his dignity. He smiled wryly and headed back up toward the blackened bonfire.
My thoughts returned to Lars. For the zillionth time, I replayed our phone conversation, and I burned with shame at the memory of how he’d laughed at me. I finally came clean about the stupid cupcake, and what did he do? He laughed.
But ... possibly ... ag. I hated being wrong, I really did. Even more, I hated being in the wrong. Lars thought you were going to break up with him, I admitted to myself. He laughed because he was relieved, you numbskull.
It might possibly have had to do with the, um, ridiculousness of holding onto a grudge for so long. Over a cupcake.
I might possibly have laughed, too, if I were him.
I faced the ocean, heaviness weighing me down like rocks. Like Virginia Woolf, the writer who loaded her pockets with stones and walked into the sea—that was how I felt. (Though I would never, ever, ever do something like that. Never.)
But I was seeing something with increasingly uncomfortable clarity ... and, it wasn’t pretty.
When it came to me and Lars, I’d been a big baby. There. And I’d probably known it for a long time, in the deepest, truest part of myself.
I hadn’t been a baby every single minute of every single day—and for sure Lars could have handled certain situations better, himself. But take the night of the penguin, for example. I’d been pissy that he wouldn’t dump Bryce for me, but was I willing to dump Cinnamon and Dinah for him? Uh, no.
Big whiner baby.
When he told me about going to Germany, I blew up at first, and then got sullen. And then—poof! big smile!—I pretended in the very next moment like all was hunky-dory. We both knew it wasn’t, but instead of talking about it, we went along tra-la-la as if it was. Only since we were both faking, it was a tainted, sloggy tra-la-la. More like a tra-lalump .
I gazed at the inky water, surrendering to the hypnotic swoosh of the waves. A path of moonlight stretched from the shore to the horizon. Somewhere, baby sea turtles were following that path, listening only to the message in their hearts: head toward the light, bitsy hatchlings. Head for the light!
Farther up the beach, I heard Cinnamon shriek.
“Yes!” she cried. “Omigod, we have to do it this very second. The sign is mine!”
She had to be talking about the “do not feed or molest the alligators” sign. It was destined to be hers; I’d known it from the beginning.
Cinnamon and the sign, Dinah’s first kiss ... God, I’d known so many things from the beginning. So why, when it came to my own life, was I so slow?
Voices drifted toward me: Dinah, trying to talk Cinnamon out of her plan; Ryan or Mark calling out for more Mountain Dew; Alphonse saying gruffly, “Yeah, she’s down there.”
The “she” he was referring to was me, and despite my gloom, I was glad someone cared. And now that person was coming to check on me. I could hear the squeak of footfalls on the sand. I was glad for that, too—even though the only person I really wanted to see was Lars. I wanted to make things right with him. I needed to make things right with him.
A terrible thought stopped my heart from beating: What if it was too late?
The footsteps grew louder, and if I hadn’t been struck immobile by the fear of losing Lars, I would have turned around to see who it was. But all I could do was stand there, frozen, until I was released by the warmth of an arm slipping around my waist, pulling me close.
My heart whammed back into action, crazy fast and trying impossibly to leap from my chest ... because I knew that arm! The smell of Mennen deodorant filled my nose, and I felt faint ... because I knew that smell! I loved that smell!
I twisted around and melted into Lars’s embrace. I hugged him so hard, my Lars, and sobs burbled up. They burbled and turned to laughter, and I craned my head to see his sweet, wonderful face. Somehow I managed to say, “Why are you here? How are you here?”
He grinned.
“My brother drove me,” he said. “He has a buddy in Myrtle Beach. He’s going to hang with him tonight.”
“And you’re going to hang ... with me?” My eyes were so wide that I could feel my eyebrows way up past my bangs. I was smiling so hard that my cheeks felt like cherries.
“Yep,” he said, loving every second of my reaction. “I called your parents, and they said Jake can drive you home tomorrow.”
“Really?”
“Really. Cinnamon and Dinah, too, since we’re already here.”
“Omigosh, I can’t believe this. I am so happy. I am so so so so happy!” I squeezed him tight, pressing my face into his shirt and breathing in deep. My lungs expanded to about three times their normal size.
But even though I was hugging him with everything I had, he was hugging me back with just his one arm.
“Why are you only hugging me with one arm?” I asked goofily. “I’m so not down with this one-arm hugging business! I want the full caboodle!”
I fumbled behind me for his other arm so that I could plant it in its proper position. I found his forearm, but what was ... ?
His hand had something in it. That’s why it wasn’t free for hugging. And the thing he was holding? A box. A small, cardboard bakery box, tied with a pink curlique ribbon. A sticker on the top said SUGAR SWEET SUNSHINE.
“Lars!” I exclaimed, filling that single word with the uncomplicated gratitude of a puppy dog with oversized manga puppy dog eyes. And my oversized puppy dog eyes would look wet, and have twinkle stars in them, and be super-duper adorable—but not as adorable as Lars, who brought me a cupcake. Because of
course that was what was in the box. I didn’t have to open it to know.
“I was such a jerk,” I confessed. “It’s like ... okay, I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”
“I have, too,” he said. “A Starbucks card—it was kind of lame.”
“Yeah, but how could you know that? You picked it out on purpose because you thought I’d like it, right? It wasn’t like you suddenly at the last minute said, ‘Oh, crap, I’ve gotta get Winnie a birthday present.’” I felt a brief stab of doubt. “Urn... did you?”
He shook his head. “I picked the one with the beach scene, because of how much you love the beach.”
“And I was totally rude.”
“But I could have done better.”
“But I could have let you know how I felt. And see, that’s what I realized. I thought that you should just magically know what I wanted, and if you didn’t, that meant you didn’t know me.”
“When actually”—he half-laughed—“I just didn’t know what you wanted.”
I half-laughed, too. I was embarrassed, but so so happy. “And I didn’t know how to tell you.”
He handed me the bakery box. I took it, but didn’t open it. I wasn’t ready to stop the hugging.
“It’s a cupcake,” he said.
“Cool.”
“It’s chocolate with chocolate frosting. And they put a candle in it for me.”
“Is the candle pink?”
“Pink and white striped. Does that work?”
I hugged him tight and told the universe thank you, thank you, thank you for letting me have this wonderful boy in my life. I could have ruined it, and I felt a brief, dark tremor at just how close I came.
Lars pulled back and looked down at me. I lifted my head, and our eyes locked. We stayed like that for a long time, just soaking each other in.
Then we kissed. We did that for a long time, too.
That night, we decided to sleep on the beach: me and Lars, Dinah and Milo, Cinnamon and James. It wasn’t all that comfortable, but the stars were amazing. God’s jewelry box, Virginia said. Distant bright glimmers in a sky as inky-dark as the ocean. Plus, speaking of the ocean, the swush of the waves was better by far than Dinah’s sound machine, which she used back in Atlanta.
I might have to buy a sound machine myself, though. The one Dinah had made a pretty good “waves” track. I’d kinda like to keep falling asleep to the sound of waves, even back home.
Home.
Lars took off his long-sleeved flannel shirt (he was wearing a T-shirt underneath it) and let me use it as a blanket. It smelled like him and, after the others had drifted off, I held it close and thought about tomorrow. I’d have to say good-bye to so many things: DeBordieu, the beach house, Virginia, all my new summer friends who’d probably slip quietly from my life, despite the promises I bet we’d make to keep in touch.
Or maybe they wouldn’t. Who knew? Dinah and Cinnamon had already invited Milo and James to come to Atlanta and go to Six Flags before school started, and they both said they would. I’d be up for an end-of-the-summer Six Flags blowout, as long as Lars was by my side. We could ride the Scream Machine. We could share a kiss on the tippy-top of the Great Gasp.
But tomorrow we’d drive back to Atlanta, and if Cinnamon had her way (and she almost always did), we’d stop at the halfway point for burritos from Taco Bell. And then she would get gas, and she would find herself hilarious, while the rest of us rolled down the windows and gagged.
When I got home, there would be hugging galore, and Mom and Dad would 000 and ahh over the pictures on my iPhone. I’d suggest that getting a beach house of our own would be a supergood idea, and Dad would say, “How about a new lawn mower instead?” I would say, “Ha ha ha,” and Mom would say, “joel.”
There would be Sandra-ish-ness, and maybe Bo would stop by to say hey. And of course Ty would have all sorts of stories about the inventions he’d designed and the “water feature” he’d constructed for our backyard, made entirely out of multicolored plastic straws, aluminum foil, and Mom’s baking bowls. (Mom had told me about the water feature already, last week when I called to check in. But I’d let Ty tell me fresh.)
As for teensy baby Maggie, sheesh, she was probably driving by now. She could take me for a spin!
Beside me, Lars microsnored: not loud and chainsaw-y, but just audible enough to be endearing. I yawned and snuggled up next to him, knowing that I needed to get some rest, too. Anyway, cute as snoring-Lars was, I was not Edward, and he was not Bella. (Thank God.)
I loved the guy, but I didn’t need to watch him sleep.
Peace Out
COMING BACK TO ATLANTA was like unraveling a sweet roll and plucking off bites and popping them one after the next into my mouth until my taste buds sang.
Teensy baby Maggie? Had a tooth!!!!! Her very first!!!!
“It broke through her gums, and so we immediately told all the grandparents and aunts and uncles,” Dad said.
“But not me?” I said indignantly.
Dad squeezed me. He was sitting beside me on the sofa, his arm around me as I held my baby sister. “Well, hold on, it gets complicated,” he said.
“Yeah,” Sandra said, leaning between us from behind. “Because before calling you, Dad had to tell all the neighbors.”
“It was smack in the middle of the day,” Dad protested. “I knew your schedule by then. I wanted to talk to you in person, not leave a voice mail.”
“So he filled the hours by also telling the dude at the grocery store,” Sandra said. “And the dude at the drugstore, and that creepy lady with the mustache who works at the dry cleaners.”
“Sandra, be nice,” Mom said. She had her legs tucked up under her on the purple armchair, and she looked way more well-rested than before I’d left. In addition to having grown a tooth, Maggie was now sleeping through the night. Go, baby Mags!
“Is ‘truthful’ not nice?” Sandra protested. “I think the ‘dry cleaning’ bit”—she made exaggerated air quotes—“is a front for a crime ring. That’s what I think.”
“A crime ring?” Ty said, his eyes lighting up. He was sitting on my other side and giving me a foot rub, that good boy. Though it was more like a foot pummel. “What kind of crime ring?”
“No crime ring,” Mom said.
“But all those chemicals,” Sandra said. “And that smell. She’s covering something up for sure—maybe a dead body.”
“No, Ty,” Mom said. “Do not go repeating that.” But her lips twitched, and Sandra (who would be leaving for college soon! ack!) grinned.
“Ahem,” Dad said. “The tooth?”
I’d been sitting quietly, just soaking my goofy family in, but I roused myself and said, “Yes, Dad. Pray continue.”
“The tooth emerged, like a great white whale,” he said. “We alerted the press.”
“All except me!” I said.
“And then the tooth went back under—”
“Also like a great white whale,” Sandra interjected.
Ty dove his hand down. “Whoosh. Back to the depths!”
“Huh?” I said. “Her tooth went back into her gums? That is just weird.”
“It finally came back again,” Sandra said. “Just not until Dad had to eat crow with Grandmom and Granddad and everyone who wanted proof of this alleged ‘tooth.’” She made more air quotes, and I giggled.
“So we waited this time,” Dad said, giving me a noogie. “We wanted you to see it for yourself.”
“Then let me see, baby,” I said to Mags. I turned her in my arms and wedged my finger into her mouth. She gurgled happily and chomped down.
“I can feel it!” I cried.
“That’s my girl,” Dad said proudly. I didn’t know if he meant me or Maggie, not that it mattered.
It was good to be home.
But there were sadnesses, too, since life wasn’t made up only of happy things. The last month of summer turned into the last week of summer, and one muggy Saturday morning, Dad helped Sandra load her
stuff into the trunk of his Honda. Freshmen at Middlebury weren’t allowed to have cars, so Dad was going to drive her to Vermont and get her settled.
Sandra was the second person out of her group of friends to leave for college, and her remaining best buds came to the house to tell her good-bye. I watched from the back door. And then, when they left, Bo pushed off the side of the house from where he’d been waiting. He held her tight and rubbed small circles on her back ... except what good was his comfort when he was the one she was going to miss most of all?
I shouldn’t have watched, but I couldn’t help myself, until Dad came in all sweaty and said, “Let’s give them some privacy, huh?”
“But—”
“Come on and sit down with me,” he said. “I could use a break.”
When I didn’t budge, he placed his hand on my shoulder and steered me, still resisting, to the kitchen table. A lump formed in my throat.
“I don’t want her to go,” I said.
“I know,” he said.
“I’m going to miss her!”
“I know.”
I looked into his eyes, which were teary just like my own. He pulled me into a hug and held me tighter than normal.
“We’re all going to miss her,” Dad said. “But that’s just the way it is. That’s the way it should be.”
He and Sandra left an hour later. They pulled away, and Mom and Ty and Maggie and I waved and waved, and afterward, it was awful to see her golf-ball-yellow Bimmer parked lifeless in the garage. At the same time, it was reassuring. It meant she’d be coming back.
Then the last week of summer turned into the last day of summer, and the last day of summer was also—freaky, freaky—the last day before high school.
Ahhhh!
I went from jumpy-stomach scared one second to excited the next, and my brain would not shut up.
Holy crap, I am so not ready for this, I thought, trying not to hyperventilate over grades and extracurriculars and permanent records, and the knowledge that how I did in high school would determine what college I went to. And after college came life, and, like, choosing a purpose for my entire existence, and holy crap, I was so not ready for that!