chapter thirty-two
Cam came over again, and he stayed till late. Around midnight I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk on the beach. So we did, and we held hands, too. The ocean looked silver and bottomless, like it was a million years old. Which I guessed it was.
“Truth or dare?” he asked me.
I wasn’t in the mood for real truths. An idea came to me, from out of nowhere. The idea was this: I wanted to go skinny-dipping. With Cam. That was what older kids did at the beach, just like hooking up at the drive-in. If we went skinny-dipping, it would be like proof. That I had grown up.
So I said, “Cam, let’s play Would You Rather. Would you rather go skinny-dipping right this second, or …” I was having trouble thinking of an “or.”
“The first one, the first one,” he said, grinning. “Or both, whatever the second one is.”
Suddenly I felt giddy, almost drunk. I ran away from him, toward the water, and threw my sweatshirt into the sand. I had on my bikini underneath my clothes. “Here are the rules,” I called out, unbuttoning my shorts. “No nakedness until we’re fully submerged! And no peeking!”
“Wait,” he said, running up to me, sand flying everywhere. “Are we really doing this?”
“Well, yeah. Don’t you want to?”
“Yeah, but what if your mom sees us?” Cam glanced back toward the house.
“She won’t. You can’t see anything from the house; it’s too dark.”
He glanced at me and then back at the house again. “Maybe later,” he said doubtfully.
I stared at him. Wasn’t he the one who was supposed to be convincing me? “Are you serious?” What I really wanted to say was, Are you gay?
“Yeah. It’s not late enough. What if people are still awake?” He picked up my sweatshirt and handed it to me. “Maybe we can come back later.”
I knew he didn’t mean it.
Part of me was mad, and part of me was relieved. It was like craving a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich and then realizing two bites in that you didn’t want it after all.
I snatched my sweatshirt from him and said, “Don’t do me any favors, Cam.” Then I walked away as fast as I could, and sand kicked up behind me. I thought he might follow me, but he didn’t. I didn’t look back to see what he was doing either. He was probably sitting in the sand writing one of his stupid poems by the light of the moon.
As soon as I got back inside, I stormed into the kitchen. There was one light on; Conrad was sitting at the table spooning into a watermelon. “Where’s Cam Cameron?” he asked wryly.
I had to think for a second about whether he was being nice or making fun of me. His expression looked normal and bland, so I took it as a little of both. If he was going to pretend our fight from before hadn’t happened, then so would I.
“Who knows,” I said, rummaging around the fridge and pulling out a yogurt. “Who cares?”
“Lover’s spat?”
The smug look on his face made me want to slap him. “Mind your own business,” I said, sitting down next to him with a spoon and a container of strawberry yogurt. It was Susannah’s fat-free stuff, and the top looked watery and solid. I closed the foil flap on the yogurt and pushed it away.
Conrad pushed the watermelon over to me. “You shouldn’t be so hard on people, Belly.” Then he stood up and said, “And put your shirt on.”
I scooped out a chunk of watermelon and stuck my tongue out at his retreating figure. Why did he make me feel like I was still thirteen? In my head I heard my mother’s voice—“Nobody can make you feel like anything, Belly. Not without your permission. Eleanor Roosevelt said that. I almost named you after her.” Blah, blah, blah. But she was kind of right. I wasn’t giving him permission to make me feel bad, not anymore. I just wished my hair had at least been wet, or I’d had sand in my clothes, so he could have thought we’d been up to something, even if we hadn’t been.
I sat at the table and ate watermelon. I ate it until I had scooped out half of the middle. I was waiting for Cam to come back inside, and when he didn’t, I only felt madder. Part of me was tempted to lock the door on him. He’d probably meet some random homeless guy and become best friends with him, and then he’d tell me the man’s life story the next day. Not that there were any homeless guys on our end of the beach. Not that I’d ever seen a homeless person in Cousins, for that matter. But if there was, Cam would find him.
Only, Cam didn’t come back to the house. He just left. I heard his car start, watched from the downstairs hallway as he backed down the driveway. I wanted to run after his car and yell at him. He was supposed to come back. What if I’d ruined things and he didn’t like me anymore? What if I never saw him again?
That night I lay in bed, thinking about how summer romances really do happen so fast, and then they’re over so fast.
But the next morning, when I went to the deck to eat my toast, I found an empty water bottle on the steps that led down to the beach. Poland Spring, the kind Cam was always drinking. There was a piece of paper inside, a note. A message in a bottle. The ink was a little smeared, but I could still read what it said. It said, “IOU one skinny-dip.”
chapter thirty-three
Jeremiah told me I could come hang by the pool while he lifeguarded. I’d never been inside the country club pool. It was huge and fancy, so I jumped at the chance. The country club seemed like a mysterious place. Conrad hadn’t let us come the summer before; he’d said it would be embarrassing.
Midafternoon, I rode my bike over. Everything there was lush and green; it was surrounded by a golf course. There was a girl at a table with a clipboard, and I went over and told her I was there to see Jeremiah, and she waved me in.
I spotted Jeremiah before he saw me. He was sitting in the lifeguard chair, talking to a dark-haired girl in a white bikini. He was laughing, and so was she. He looked so important in the chair. I’d never seen him at an actual job before.
Suddenly I felt shy. I walked over slowly, my flip-flops slapping along the pavement. “Hey,” I said when I was a few feet away.
Jeremiah looked down from his chair and grinned at me. “You came,” he said, squinting at me and shielding his eyes with his hands like a visor.
“Yup.” I swung my canvas bag back and forth, like a pendulum. The bag had my name on it in cursive. It was from L.L.Bean, a gift from Susannah.
“Belly, this is Yolie. She’s my co-lifeguard.”
Yolie reached over and shook my hand. It struck me as a businessy thing to do for someone in a bikini. She had a firm handshake, a nice grip, something my mother would have appreciated. “Hi, Belly,” she said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“You have?” I looked up at Jeremiah.
He smirked. “Yeah. I told her all about the way you snore so loud that I can hear you down the hall.”
I smacked his foot. “Shut up.” Turning to Yolie, I said, “It’s nice to meet you.”
She smiled at me. She had dimples in both cheeks and a crooked bottom tooth. “You too. Jere, do you want to take your break now?”
“In a little bit,” he said. “Belly, go work on your sun damage.”
I stuck my tongue out at him and spread out my towel on a lounge chair not too far away. The pool was a perfect turquoise, and there were two diving boards, one high and one low. There were a ton of kids splashing around inside, and I figured I’d swim too when I got too hot to stand it. I just lay there with my sunglasses on and my eyes closed, tanning and listening to my music.
Jeremiah came over after a while. He sat on the edge of my chair and drank from my thermos of Kool-Aid. “She’s pretty,” I said.
“Who? Yolie?” He shrugged. “She’s nice. One of my many admirers.”
“Ha!”
“So what about you? Cam Cameron, huh? Cam the vegetarian. Cam the straight edge.”
I tried not to smile. “So what? I like him.”
“He’s kind of a dork.”
“That’s what I like about him. He’s … different.”
He frowned slightly. “Different from who?”
“I don’t know.” But I did know. I knew exactly who he was different from.
“You mean he’s not a dick like Conrad?”
I laughed, and so did he. “Yeah, exactly. He’s nice.”
“Just nice, huh?”
“More than nice.”
“So you’re over him, then? For real?” We both knew the “him” he was talking about.
“Yes,” I told him.
“I don’t believe you,” Jeremiah said, watching me closely—just like when he was trying to figure out what kind of hand I had in Uno.
I took off my sunglasses and looked him in the eye. “It’s true. I’m over him.”
“We’ll see,” Jeremiah said, standing up. “My break’s over. Are you okay over here? Wait around and I’ll drive us home. I can put your bike in the back.”
I nodded, and watched him walk back to the lifeguard chair. Jeremiah was a good friend. He’d always been good to me, watched out for me.
chapter thirty-four
My mother and Susannah sat in beach chairs, and I lay on an old Ralph Lauren teddy bear towel. It was my favorite one because it was extra long, and soft from so many washings.
“What are you up to tonight, bean?” my mother asked me. I loved it when she called me bean. It reminded me of being six years old and falling asleep in her bed.
Proudly I told them, “Me and Cam are going to Putt Putt.”
We used to go all the time as kids. Mr. Fisher would take us, and he was always pitting the boys against one another. “Twenty dollars for the first one to get a hole in one.” “Twenty dollars for the winner.” Steven loved it. I think he wished Mr. Fisher was our dad. He actually could’ve been. Susannah told me my mother had dated him first, but my mother had handed him over to Susannah because she knew they’d be perfect together.
Mr. Fisher included me in the mini golf competitions, but he never expected me to win. Of course I never did. I hated mini golf anyway. I hated the little pencils and the fake turf. It was all so annoyingly perfect. Kind of like Mr. Fisher. Conrad wanted so badly to be like him, and I used to hope he never would. Be like him, I mean.
The last time I had been to Putt Putt was when I was thirteen and I’d gotten my period for the first time. I was wearing white cutoffs, and Steven had been scared. He’d thought I had cut myself or something—for a second, I’d thought so too. After that, after getting my period by the fourth hole, I never wanted to go back. Not even when the boys invited me. So going with Cam felt like I was reclaiming Putt Putt, taking it back for my twelve-year-old self. It had even been my idea to go.
My mother said, “Can you be home early? I want us to spend a little time together, maybe watch a movie.”
“How early? You guys go to bed at, like, nine.”
My mother took her sunglasses off and looked at me. She had two indentations on her nose where her glasses had been. “I wish you’d spend more time at the house.”
“I’m at the house right now,” I reminded her.
She acted like she didn’t hear me. “You’ve been spending so much time with this person—”
“You said you liked him!” I looked at Susannah for support, and she looked back at me sympathetically.
My mother sighed, and Susannah broke in then, saying, “We do like Cam. We just miss you, Belly. We completely accept the fact that you have an actual life.” She adjusted her floppy straw hat and winked at me. “We just want you to include us a little bit!”
I smiled in spite of myself. “Okay,” I said, lying back down on the towel. “I’ll come home early. We’ll watch a movie.”
“Done,” my mother said.
I closed my eyes and put my headphones on. Maybe she had a point. I had been spending all my time with Cam. Maybe she really did miss me. It was just, she couldn’t take for granted that I was going to spend every night at home like I had every other summer. I was almost sixteen, practically an adult. My mother had to accept that I couldn’t be her bean forever.
They thought I was asleep when they started talking. But I wasn’t. I could hear what they were saying, even over the music.
“Conrad’s been behaving like a little shit,” my mother said in a low voice. “He left all these beer bottles out on the deck this morning for me to clean up. It’s getting out of hand.”
Susannah sighed. “I think he knows something’s up. He’s been like this for months now. He’s so sensitive, I know it’s going to hit him harder.”
“Don’t you think it’s time you told the boys?” Whenever my mother said “Don’t you think,” all she really meant was, “I think. So you should too.”
“When the summer’s over. That’s soon enough.”
“Beck,” my mother began, “I think it might be time.”
“I’ll know when it’s time,” Susannah said. “Don’t push me, Laur.”
I knew there was nothing my mother could say that would change her mind. Susannah was soft, but she was resolute, stubborn as a mule when she wanted to be. She was pure steel underneath all her softness.
I wanted to tell them both, Conrad knows already and so does Jeremiah, but I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. It wasn’t my business to tell.
Susannah wanted it to be some kind of perfect summer, where the parents were still together and everything was the way it had always been. Those kinds of summers don’t exist anymore, I wanted to tell her.
chapter thirty-five
Around sunset, Cam came and picked me up for mini golf. I waited for him on the front porch, and when he pulled into the driveway, I ran up to his car. Instead of going to the passenger side, I walked right around to the driver’s side. “Can I drive?” I asked. I knew he’d say yes.
He shook his head at me and said, dryly, “How does anybody ever say no to you?”
I batted my eyelashes at him. “No one ever does,” I said, even though it wasn’t true, not even a little bit.
I opened the car door, and he scooted over.
Backing out of the driveway, I told him, “I have to be home early tonight.”
“No problem.” He cleared his throat. “And, um, can you slow down a little? The speed limit is thirty-five on this road.”
As I drove, he kept looking over at me and smiling. “What? Why are you smiling?” I asked. I felt like covering my face up with my T-shirt.
“Instead of a ski-slope nose, you have, like, a little bunny slope.” He reached over and tapped it. I slapped his hand away.
“I hate my nose,” I told him.
Cam looked perplexed. “Why? Your nose is cute. It’s the imperfections that make things beautiful.”
I wondered if that meant he thought I was beautiful. I wondered if that was why he liked me, my imperfections.
We ended up staying out later than I’d planned. The people in front of us took forever on each hole; they were a couple, and they kept stopping to kiss. It was annoying. I wanted to tell them, Mini golf is not where you go to hook up. That’s what the drive-in’s for. And then after, Cam was hungry, so we stopped for fried clams, and by that time it was after ten, and I knew my mother and Susannah would already be asleep.
He let me drive home. I didn’t even have to ask; he just handed me the keys. In the driveway when we got home, I turned off the ignition. All of the lights in the house were off except for Conrad’s. “I don’t want to go inside yet,” I told Cam.
“I thought you had to be home early.”
“I did. I do. I’m just not ready to go inside yet.” I turned on the radio, and we sat there for five minutes listening.
Then Cam cleared his throat and said, “Can I kiss you?”
I wished he hadn’t asked. I wished he’d just done it. Asking made everything feel awkward; it put me in a position where I had to say yes. I wanted to roll my eyes at him but instead I said, “Um, okay. But next time, please don’t ask. Asking someone if they want to kiss you is weird. You’re supposed to just do it.”
I regretted saying it right away, as soon as I saw the look on Cam’s face. “Never mind,” he said, red-faced. “Forget I asked.”
“Cam, I’m sorr—” Before I could finish, he leaned over and kissed me. His cheek was stubbly and it felt kind of rough but nice.
When it was over, he said, “Okay?”
I smiled and said, “Okay.” I unbuckled my seat belt. “Good night.”
Then I got out of the car, and he came around and took the driver’s seat. We hugged, and I found myself wishing that Conrad was watching. Even though it didn’t matter, even though I didn’t even like him anymore. I just wanted him to know I didn’t like him anymore, to really know it. To see it with his own two eyes.
I ran up to the front door, and I didn’t have to turn around to know that Cam would wait until I was inside before he drove away.
The next day my mother didn’t mention anything, but she didn’t have to. She could make me feel guilty without saying a word.
chapter thirty-six
My birthday always marked the beginning of the end of summer. It was my final thing to look forward to. And this summer I was turning sixteen. Sweet sixteen was supposed to be special, a really big deal—Taylor was renting out a reception hall for hers, and her cousin was DJ-ing and she was inviting the whole school. She’d had it planned for ages. My birthdays here were always the same: cake; gag gifts from the boys; and looking through all the old photo albums, with me sandwiched between Susannah and my mom on the couch. Every birthday I’ve ever had has been here, in this house. There are pictures of my mother sitting on the porch pregnant, with a glass of iced tea and a wide brimmed hat, and there’s me, inside her belly. There are pictures of the four of us, Conrad, Steven, Jeremiah, and me, running around on the beach—I was naked except for my birthday hat, chasing after them. My mother didn’t put me in a bathing suit until I was four years old. She just let me run around wild.
I didn’t expect this birthday to be any different. Which, was comforting and also kind of depressing. Except, Steven wouldn’t be there—my first birthday without him trying to elbow in and blow out my candles before I could.
I already knew what my parents were giving me: Steven’s old car; they were getting it detailed with a new paint job and everything. When I got back to school, I would take driver’s ed, and soon I wouldn’t have to ask for a ride ever again.
I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone back home remembered it was my birthday. Besides Taylor. She remembered; she always did. She called me at exactly 9:02 in the morning to sing happy birthday, every year. That was nice and all, but the trouble with having a summer birthday and being away was you couldn’t have a party with all your school friends. You didn’t get the balloons taped to your locker or any of it. I’d never really minded, but just then I did, a little.
My mother told me I could invite Cam over. But I didn’t. I didn’t even tell him it was my birthday. I didn’t want him to feel like he had to do something. But it was more than that. I figured that if this birthday was going to be like every other one, I might as well really have it be like every other one. It should just be us, my summer family.
When I woke up that morning, the house smelled like butter and sugar. Susannah had baked a birthday cake. It was three layers and it was pink with a white border. She wrote in loopy white frosting HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BELLS. She’d lit a few sparkler candles on top, and they sizzled and sparked like mad fireflies. She and my mother started to sing, and Susannah gestured for Conrad and Jeremiah to join in. They both did, off-key and obnoxious.
“Make a wish, Belly,” my mother said.
I was still in my pajamas, and I couldn’t stop smiling. The past four birthdays I had wished for the same thing. Not this year. This year I would wish for something else. I watched the sparklers die down, and then I closed my eyes and blew.
“Open my present first,” Susannah urged. She thrust a small box wrapped in pink paper into my hands.
My mother looked at her questioningly. “What did you do, Beck?”
She smiled a mysterious smile and squeezed my wrist. “Open it, honey.”
I ripped the paper off and opened the box. It was a pearl necklace, a whole strand of tiny creamy white pearls with a shiny gold clasp. It looked old, not like something you could buy today. It was like my father’s Swiss grandfather clock, beautifully crafted, right down to the clasp. It was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen.
“Oh my gosh,” I breathed, lifting it up.
I looked at Susannah, who was beaming, and then at my mother, who I thought would say it was much too extravagant, but she didn’t. She smiled and said, “Are those—”
“Yes.” Susannah turned to me and said, “My father gave me those for my sixteenth birthday. I want you to have them.”
“Really?” I looked back at my mother, to make sure it was okay. She nodded. “Wow, thank you, Susannah. They’re beautiful.”
She took them from me and fastened them around my neck. I’d never worn pearls before. I couldn’t stop touching them.
Susannah clapped her hands. She didn’t like to linger too much after she’d given a gift; she just enjoyed the giving of it. “Okay, what’s next? Jeremiah? Con?”
Conrad shifted uncomfortably. “I forgot. Sorry, Belly.”
I blinked. He’d never forgotten my birthday before. “That’s okay,” I said. I couldn’t even look at him.
“Open mine next,” Jeremiah said. “Although, after that, mine kind of sucks in comparison. Thanks a lot, Mom.” He handed me a small box and leaned back in his chair.
I shook the box. “Okay, what could it be? Plastic poop? A license plate key chain?”
He smiled. “You’ll see. Yolie helped me pick it out.”
“Who’s Yolie?” Susannah asked.
“A girl who’s in love with Jeremiah,” I said, opening the box.
Inside, nestled on a bed of cotton, was a small charm, a tiny silver key.
chapter thirty-seven
AGE 11
“Happy birthday, butthead,” Steven sang, dumping a pail full of sand into my lap. A sand crab wriggled out of the sand and crawled onto my thigh. I let out a shriek and jumped up. I chased Steven down the beach, white hot fury pumping through my veins. I wasn’t fast enough to catch him; I never was. He ran circles around me.
“Come and blow out your candles,” my mother called.
As soon as Steven turned around to head back to the towel, I leapt onto his back and with one arm around his neck, I pulled his hair as hard as I could.
“Ow!” he howled, stumbling. I clung to his back like a monkey, even with Jeremiah grabbing my foot and trying to pull me off. Conrad fell to his knees, laughing.
“Children,” Susannah called. “There’s cake!”
I hopped off of Steven’s back and scrambled over to the blanket.
“I’m gonna get you!” he yelled, chasing after me.
I hid behind my mother. “You can’t. It’s my birthday.” I stuck my tongue out at him. The boys fell onto the blanket, wet and sandy.
“Mom,” Steven complained. “She pulled out a hunk of my hair.”
“Steven, you have a whole head full. I wouldn’t worry about it.” My mother lit the candles on the cake she’d baked that morning. It was a lopsided Duncan Hines yellow cake with chocolate frosting. She had messy handwriting, so “Happy Birthday” looked like “Happy Bimday.”
I blew out the candles before Steven could try to “help” me. I didn’t want him stealing my wish. I wished for Conrad, of course.
“Open your presents, Smelly,” Steven said sullenly. I already knew what he’d gotten me. A stick of deodorant. He’d wrapped it in Kleenex; I could see right through the tissue.
I ignored him and reached for a small flat box wrapped in seashell paper. It was from Susannah, so I knew it would be good. I tore off the wrapping paper, and inside there was a silver charm bracelet, from the store Susannah loved, Rheingold’s, where they sold fancy china and crystal candy dishes. On the bracelet there were five charms: a conch shell, a bathing suit, a sand castle, a pair of sunglasses, and a horseshoe.
“For how lucky we are to have you in our lives,” Susannah said, touching the horseshoe.
I lifted it up, and the charms glinted and sparkled in the sunlight. “I love it.”
My mother was silent. I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking that Susannah had overdone it, that she’d spent too much money. I felt guilty for loving the bracelet so much. My mother had bought me sheet music and CDs. We didn’t have as much money as they did, and in that moment I finally understood what that meant.
chapter thirty-eight
“I love it,” I said.
I ran upstairs to my room and went straight for the music box on my dresser, where I kept my charm bracelet. I grabbed the bracelet and ran back downstairs.
“See?” I said, putting the key charm on and fastening it onto my wrist.
“It’s a key, because you’ll be driving soon. Get it?” Jeremiah said, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands behind his head.
I got it. I smiled to show him I did.
Conrad leaned in for a closer look. “Nice,” he said.
I held it in the palm of my other hand. I couldn’t stop looking at it. “I love it,” I said again. “But it’s from Rheingold’s. It must have been really expensive.”
“I saved up all summer to buy it,” he said solemnly.
I stared at him. “No, you didn’t!”
He broke into a smile. “Fooled ya. Gullible as ever, aren’t you?”
Punching him on the arm, I said, “I didn’t believe you anyway, jerk.” Even though I had, for a second.
Jeremiah rubbed his arm where I’d punched it. “It wasn’t that expensive. Anyway, I’m big-time now, remember? Don’t worry about me. I’m just glad you like it. Yolie said you would.”
I hugged him fiercely. “It’s perfect.”
“What a wonderful gift, Jere,” Susannah said. “It’s better than my old necklace, that’s for sure.”
He laughed. “Yeah, right,” he said, but I could tell he was pleased.
My mother got up and started cutting the cake. She wasn’t a very good cake cutter: The pieces were too big, and they fell apart on the sides. “Who wants cake?” she said, licking her finger.
“I’m not hungry,” Conrad said abruptly. He stood up, looking at his watch. “I’ve gotta get dressed for work. Happy birthday, Belly.”
He went upstairs, and nobody said anything for a minute. Then my mother said, loudly, “This cake is delicious. Have some, Beck.” She pushed a piece in front of her.
Smiling faintly, Susannah said, “I’m not hungry either. You know what they say about the cook not having a taste for her own cooking. But you guys eat.”
I took a big bite. “Mmm. Yellow cake, my favorite.”
“From scratch,” my mother said.
chapter thirty-nine
Conrad invited Nicole, Red Sox girl, over to the house. Our house. I couldn’t believe Red Sox girl was at our house. It was bizarre to have a girl there other than me.
It was midafternoon. I was out on the deck, sitting at the patio table, eating a Doritos sandwich when they drove up. She was wearing short shorts and a white T-shirt, and a pair of sunglasses on top of her head. The Red Sox hat was nowhere in sight. She looked chic. She looked like she belonged. Unlike me, in my old Cuz Beach shirt that doubled as a pajama dress. I thought he’d at least bring her inside the house, but they hung out on the other side of the deck, lying on the lounge chairs. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could hear her giggling like crazy.
After about five minutes I couldn’t take it anymore. I got on the phone and called Cam. He said he’d be over in half an hour, but it was more like fifteen minutes.
They walked back into the house when Cam and I were arguing over which movie to watch. “What are you guys gonna watch?” Conrad asked, sitting on the couch opposite us. Red Sox girl sat next to him. She was practically in his lap.
I didn’t look at him when I said, “We’re trying to decide.” Emphasis on the “we’re.”
“Can we watch too?” Conrad asked. “You guys know Nicole, right?”
So, suddenly Conrad felt like being social when he’d spent the whole summer locked up in his room?
“Hey,” she said in a bored tone.
“Hey,” I said, matching her tone as best I could.
“Hey, Nicole,” Cam said. I wanted to tell him not to be so friendly, but I knew he wouldn’t have listened anyway. “I want to watch Reservoir Dogs, but Belly wants to watch Titanic.”
“Seriously?” the girl said, and Conrad laughed.
“Belly loves Titanic,” he said mockingly.
“I loved it when I was, like, nine,” I said. “I want to watch right now so I can laugh at it, for your information.”
I was as cool as a cucumber. I wasn’t going to let him goad me in front of Cam again. And actually, I still loved Titanic. What wasn’t to love about a doomed romance on a doomed ship? I knew for a fact that Conrad had liked it too, even though he’d pretended not to.
“I vote for Reservoir Dogs,” Nicole said, examining her fingernails.
Did she even get a vote? What was she doing there anyway?
“Two votes for Reservoir Dogs,” Cam said. “What about you, Conrad?”
“I think I’ll vote for Titanic,” he said blandly. “Reservoir Dogs sucks even harder than Titanic. It’s overrated.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You know what? I think I’ll change my vote to Reservoir Dogs. So it looks like you’re outnumbered, Conrad,” I said.
Nicole looked up from her fingernails and said, “Well, then, I change my vote to Titanic.”
“Who are you?” I muttered under my breath. “Does she even get voting privileges here?”
“Does he?” Conrad jerked his elbow at Cam, who looked startled. “Just kidding, man.”
“Let’s just watch Titanic,” Cam said, taking the DVD out of its case.
We sat and watched stiffly. Everyone else busted up laughing at the part when Jack stands at the helm and says, “I’m the king of the world.” I was silent. About midway through, Nicole whispered something into Conrad’s ear, and the two of them stood up. “See you guys later,” Conrad said.
As soon as they were gone, I hissed, “They’re so disgusting. They probably went upstairs to go at it.”
“Go at it? Who says ‘go at it’?” Cam said, bemused.
“Shut up. Don’t you think she was gross?”
“Gross? No. I think she’s cute. A little too much bronzer, maybe.”
I laughed in spite of myself. “Bronzer? What do you know about bronzer?”
“I have an older sister, remember,” he said, smiling self-consciously. “She likes makeup. We share a bathroom.”
I didn’t remember Cam saying he had a sister.
“Well, anyway, she does wear too much bronzer. She’s bright orange! I wonder where her Red Sox hat is,” I mused.
Cam picked up the remote control and paused the movie. “Why are you so obsessed with her?”
“I’m not obsessed with her. Why would I be obsessed with her? She has no personality. She’s like one of those pod people. She looks at Conrad like he’s God.” I knew he was judging me for being so mean, but I couldn’t stop talking.
He looked at me like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. Instead he turned the movie back on.
We sat there on the couch and finished watching the movie in silence. Toward the end I heard Conrad’s voice on the stairs, and without even thinking I snuggled closer to Cam. I rested my head on his shoulder.
Conrad and Nicole came back downstairs, and Conrad looked at the two of us for a second before saying, “Tell my mom I took Nicole home.”
I barely looked up. “Okay.”
As soon as they were gone, Cam sat straight up, and I did too. He took a breath. “Did you invite me over here to make him jealous?”
“Who?” I said.
“You know who. Conrad.”
I could feel a flush rising up my chest and all the way to my cheeks. “No.” It seemed like everybody was wanting to know where things stood with Conrad and me.
“Do you still like him?”
“No.”
He let out a breath of air. “See, you hesitated.”
“No, I didn’t!”
Did I? Had I? I was sure I hadn’t. To Cam I said, “When I look at Conrad, all I feel is disgust.”
I could tell he didn’t believe it. I didn’t either. Because the truth was, when I looked at Conrad, all I felt was a yearning that never went away. It was the same as it had always been. Here I had this really great guy who actually liked me, and deep down inside I was still hung up on Conrad. There, that was the real truth. I had never really let go. I was just like Rose on that stupid makeshift raft.
Cam cleared his throat and said, “You’re leaving soon. Do you want to keep in touch?”
I hadn’t thought about that. He was right, the summer was almost over. Pretty soon I would be home again. “Um … do you?”
“Well, yeah. I do.”
He looked at me like he was expecting something, and I couldn’t figure out what it was for a few seconds. Then I said, “Me too. I do too.” But it came too late. Cam took his cell phone out of his pocket and said he’d better get going. I didn’t argue.
chapter forty
We finally had our movie night. My mother, Susannah, Jeremiah, and I watched Susannah’s favorite Alfred Hitchcock movies in the rec room with all the lights off. My mother made kettle corn in the big cast-iron pot, and she went out and bought Milk Duds and gummy bears and saltwater taffy. Susannah loved saltwater taffy. It was classic, like old times, only without Steven and Conrad, who was working a dinner shift.
Halfway through Notorious, her most favorite of all, Susannah fell asleep. My mother covered her with a blanket, and when the movie was over, she whispered, “Jeremiah, will you carry her upstairs?”
Jeremiah nodded quickly, and Susannah didn’t even wake up when he lifted her in his arms and carried her up the rec room stairs. He picked her up like she was weightless, a feather. I’d never seen him do that before. Even though we were almost the same age, in that moment he almost seemed grown-up.
My mother got up too, stretching. “I’m exhausted. Are you going to bed, too, Belly?”
“Not yet. I think I’ll clean up down here first,” I said.
“Good girl,” she said, winking at me, and then she headed upstairs.
I started picking up the taffy wrappers and a few kernels that had fallen onto the carpet.
Jeremiah came back down when I was putting the movie into its case. He sank into the couch cushions. “Let’s not go to sleep yet,” he said, looking up at me.
“Okay. Do you wanna watch another movie?”
“Nah. Let’s just watch TV.” He picked up the remote and started flipping through channels randomly. “Where’s Cam Cameron been lately?”
Sitting back down, I sighed a little. “I don’t know. He hasn’t called, and I haven’t called him. The summer’s almost over. I’ll probably never see him again.”
He didn’t look at me when he said, “Do you want to? See him again?”
“I don’t know. … I’m not sure. Maybe. Maybe not.”
Jeremiah put the TV on mute. He turned and looked at me then. “I don’t think he’s the guy for you.” His eyes looked somber. I’d never seen him look so somber.
Lightly I said, “Yeah, I doubt it too.”
“Belly …,” he began. He took a deep breath of air and puffed up his cheeks, and then he blew it out so hard the hair on his forehead fluttered. I could feel my heart start to pound—something was going to happen. He was going to say something I didn’t want to hear. He was going to go and change everything.
I opened my mouth to speak, to interrupt him before he said something he couldn’t take back, and he shook his head. “Just let me get this out.”
He took another deep breath. “You’ve always been my best friend. But now it’s more. I see you as more than that.” He continued, scooting closer to me. “You’re cooler than any other girl I’ve ever met, and you’re there for me. You’ve always been there for me. I … I can count on you. And you can count on me too. You know that.”
I nodded. I could hear him talking, see his lips moving, but my mind was working a million miles a minute. This was Jeremiah. My buddy, my best pal. Practically my brother. The hugeness of it all made it hard to breathe. I could barely look at him. Because I didn’t. I didn’t see him that way. There was only one person. For me that person was Conrad.
“And I know you’ve always liked Conrad, but you’re over him now, right?” His eyes looked so hopeful, it killed me, killed me to not answer him the way he wanted me to.
“I … I don’t know,” I whispered.
He sucked in his breath, the way he did when he was frustrated. “But why? He doesn’t see you that way. I do.”
I could feel my eyes starting to tear up, which wasn’t fair. I couldn’t cry. It was just that he was right. Conrad didn’t see me that way. I only wished I could see Jeremiah the way he saw me. “I know. I wish I didn’t. But I do. I still do.”
Jeremiah moved away from me. He wouldn’t look at me; his eyes looked everywhere but at mine. “He’ll only end up hurting you,” he said, and his voice cracked.
“I’m so, so sorry. Please don’t be mad at me. I couldn’t take it if you were mad at me.”
He sighed. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just—why does it always have to be Conrad?”
Then he got up, and left me sitting there.
chapter forty-one
AGE 12
Mr. Fisher had taken the boys on one of their overnight deep-sea fishing trips. Jeremiah couldn’t go; he’d been sick earlier that day so Susannah made him stay home. The two of us spent the night on the old plaid couch in the basement eating chips and dip and watching movies.
In between The Terminator and Terminator 2, Jeremiah said bitterly, “He likes Con better than me, you know.”
I had gotten up to change the DVDs, and I turned around and said, “Huh?”
“It’s true. I don’t really care anyway. I think he’s a dick,” Jeremiah said, picking at a thread on the flannel blanket in his lap.
I thought he was kind of a dick too, but I didn’t say so. You’re not supposed to join in when someone is bashing his father. I just put the DVD in and sat back down. Taking a corner of the blanket, I said, “He’s not so bad.”
Jeremiah gave me a look. “He is, and you know it. Con thinks he’s God or something. So does your brother.”
“It’s just that your dad is so different from our dad,” I said defensively. “Your dad takes you guys fishing and, like, plays football with you. Our dad doesn’t do that kind of stuff. He likes chess.”
He shrugged. “I like chess.”
I hadn’t known that about him. I liked it too. My dad had taught me to play when I was seven. I wasn’t bad either. I had never joined chess club, even though I’d kind of wanted to. Chess club was for the nose-pickers. That’s what Taylor called them.
“And Conrad likes chess too,” Jeremiah said. “He just tries to be what our dad wants. And the thing is, I don’t even think he likes football, not like I do. He’s just good at it like he is at everything.”
There was nothing I could say to that. Conrad was good at everything. I grabbed a handful of chips and stuffed them into my mouth so I wouldn’t have to say anything.
“One day I’m gonna be better than him,” Jeremiah said.
I didn’t see that happening. Conrad was too good.
“I know you like Conrad,” Jeremiah said suddenly.
I swallowed the chips. They tasted like rabbit feed all of a sudden. “No, I don’t,” I said. “I don’t like Conrad.”
“Yes, you do,” he said, and his eyes looked so knowing and wise. “Tell the truth. No secrets, remember?” No secrets was something Jeremiah and I had been saying for pretty much forever. It was a tradition, the same way Jeremiah’s drinking my sweet cereal milk was tradition—just one of those things we said to each other when it was just the two of us.
“No, I really don’t like him,” I insisted. “I like him like a friend. I don’t look at him like that.”
“Yes, you do. You look at him like you love him.”
I couldn’t take those knowing eyes looking at me for one more second. Hotly I said, “You just think that because you’re jealous of anything Conrad does.”
“I’m not jealous. I just wish I could be as good as him,” he said softly. Then he burped and turned the movie on.
The thing was, Jeremiah was right. I did love him. I knew the exact moment it became real too. Conrad got up early to make a special belated Father’s Day breakfast, only Mr. Fisher hadn’t been able to come down the night before. He wasn’t there the next morning the way he was supposed to be. Conrad cooked anyway, and he was thirteen and a terrible cook, but we all ate it. Watching him serving rubbery eggs and pretending not to be sad, I thought to myself, I will love this boy forever.