Between Us and the Moon (7 page)

“Dude . . . ,” Curtis says now, talking to Andrew. He motions with his arm toward the cars in the parking lot.

“Which one is your car? I’ll help you with your stuff,” Andrew offers.

He thinks I drove here.

Oh boy. Didn’t think about that.

“I walked again but
without
falling this time,” I say and gesture to the street running past the guard booth. “I live less than a mile away.”

“Let’s
go
. Waves in Truro,” Curtis says. He still has the cell phone next to his ear. He barely acknowledges I’m there other than a small, “What’s up?”

Andrew and Curtis head toward a beat-up red pickup, the same one from the side street next to the Bird’s Nest. When he is next to the car, he reaches to the driver’s-side tire and pulls out his keys. I point and say, “Your chances of vandalization and/or theft are much higher with that method of concealing your keys.” I immediately want to slap myself with the beach chair.
I am just blowing this opportunity with Andrew left and right.

Andrew bends over and laughs again. He asks for and takes my cell.

“I’ve never thought about possible vandalization or theft,” he says, but he’s beaming. “But I will now.”

He punches the keys on my phone. When he hands it back, the screen says
ANDREW
and below it: ten numbers with a 508 area code.

“You should call me, Star Girl,” he says with a wink. And just like that, he gets in the car, revs the engine, and pulls past me with a wave out the window. Just like that—he’s gone.

RESULTS DAY 1: THE SCARLETT EXPERIMENT

Subject was inconsistent with the variable of behavior. Though there were a couple of positive results, they were, at best, unreliable. Nothing is conclusive yet. Subject was a silly, impulsive twit who fell over in her beach chair. In order for the Scarlett Experiment to execute accurately and for the hypothesis to be proven, subject must employ behavioral tactics of Scarlett Levin.

It’s safer up here at my desk where I can shut the door and I don’t have to listen to Nancy go on and on about how unlike Scarlett I am. If only she knew that I was better at being like Scarlett than she realized.

Okay, so my first attempt at the Scarlett Experiment wasn’t a complete success, but I did employ some variables that yielded partial success!

1.    Andrew liked the bikini.

2.    He thought I was funny (potentially laughing at me when I flew backward in my beach chair)

I put my pen down and reread my notes. I just pretended that I was Scarlett and wore her clothes, and it worked. I had a few embarrassing moments when I let my guard down, but repetition is the key to success. Okay, so I lied about my age too, but I don’t need to see Andrew again. It’s not like we are going to date or anything. It’s just one dumb lie. He doesn’t even have my phone number.

I will need to find something else of Scarlett’s to wear to test out. I’ll also need an exact list of Scarlett’s behavior to choose from at any given moment. That would prevent anymore Bean moments from sneaking through when I meet someone else.

That evening, after I finish recording my experiment results, I make sure the American flag bikini is washed and deep in Scarlett’s bag again. My skin is warm from the day in the sun, and even though I won’t talk to him again, I can’t help but peek at my phone for that name:
ANDREW
in big letters.

Dark bulbous rain clouds pass over my skylights. No point in taking out the Stargazer. I can’t work on data collection in
inclement weather. Even though I could work on the essay. I don’t want to work on the application or the comet right now.

I think you should call me, Star Girl.

Dad says Scarlett has been downstairs practicing a solo all afternoon for a Juilliard showcase. I’m not surprised she would miss out on an opportunity to go to the beach on a day like today; Scarlett is as dedicated to dance as I am to my comet. I come down to the kitchen and check to see if anyone’s hanging around. I know how much Scarlett loves Nancy’s studio. She visits during school breaks just to dance. Nancy buys her whatever she wants so Scarlett can master her routines without “any of us around,” or so she says.

I stop at a collection of photographs that sit on a side table near the entrance to the basement. A few of these tables run against the wall next to the glass patio doors. The picture is of two women in bathing suits on the beach, their arms wrapped around each other. It’s the 1960s; I can tell from the bathing suits and bouffant hairstyles. I recognize Gran immediately. She’s on the left and her long blonde hair runs all the way down her back, like Scarlett’s. The woman on her right has straight brown hair that falls halfway down her back, too.

That woman must be Nancy.

Even though we’ve been coming here forever, I’ve never seen this photo before. Wow. I really look like Nancy when she was my age. That’s slightly horrifying.

I check behind me just as classical music echoes from the open door to the basement. I slide the photo out of the frame and rest it in my hand. Nancy seems almost normal. Gran can’t be
more than sixteen. I know Nancy is three years older than Gran.

I try to imagine that this image is of Scarlett and me in place of Gran and Nancy. I have no idea who would be who. Their whole lives were ahead of them. How could they know what their lives would be? Who knew Gran would move to California and meet Gracie? Who knew Nancy’s husband, Raymond, would die after twenty years of marriage? If they knew then what they know now, I wonder what would be different. I slide the photo into my back pocket and hide the empty frame behind some other pictures.

I squeeze through the crack in the door to the dark basement stairwell. The carpeted stairs cushion the sound of my footsteps. I sit and scoot down a couple of stairs like I did when I was a kid. First stair, second stair, third stair . . . from here I can sit in the shadows.

Through the air, Scarlett lifts her arms and leaps across the floor, one two three, one two three. She does this leap three times in a row, her signature move.
Grand jeté
with the cleanest lines in Rhode Island. That’s what everyone says when they come to her recitals. “You have to see Scarlett’s jumps.”

She stops just as the music finishes and her hands glide back to her sides. With her hair up in a tight bun, her posture is so elegant, like a doll. She brings her heels together in first position and uses a remote control to restart the music. Tchaikovsky begins again.

“Five, six, seven, eight,” Scarlett counts aloud and she lifts a leg toward the sky so it’s almost parallel to her body. She places it down and flies into another leap. She lands onto the floor
without making a sound. I can’t move like that, like my body is a ribbon curling and flying through the air. Up and down, Scarlett breezes over the wooden floor. Her body is thin under that pink leotard. “She’s so ladylike,” Nancy says of Scarlett. I just don’t know how to be graceful like that. After today’s debacle on the beach, it’s painfully obvious that grace is not my strong suit. I need to try even harder than most people to keep both feet planted on the ground.

Scarlett lifts her hand above her head and I try to mimic it in the dark of the stairwell. I curve my wrists like I, too, am pirouetting on my tiptoes. It’s not the same. I lower my hands and examine the calluses on the side of my middle finger from writing lab reports. Scarlett’s long blonde hair and bubble gum pink toenails seem so vibrant compared to my thick wavy hair and jagged toenails.

Scarlett spins and rises on the tips of her toes. She lifts her chin and appraises herself in the mirror. She comes back down on the flats of her feet and takes a sip of water.

That’s what makes her irresistible to guys. That she can lift her chin, throw her head back, and drink with the boys. She can be the best dancer in the whole state and the best person to be around too.

Except when she’s with me.

I would never have a picture like the one of Gran and Nancy because Scarlett would never take a picture like that with me.

She presses the music to start again. The routine is better now that she’s warmed up. Her jumps longer, her turns cleaner.

I exhale heavily through my nose and sit in the darkness of
the stairs. I never wanted to be a dancer, and I still don’t. I just want someone to sit here like I am right now. I want someone, for one moment, to see something special in me that has nothing to do with science. I press on the balls of my feet and inch back up the stairs, one by one until I am out the door again.

By dinner, the rain is lightening up to a patter on the patio outside Nancy’s panoramic windows. I spear a piece of garlic broccoli.

“Must we go to the same restaurant every year?” Nancy says.

“I made the reservation at Lobster Pot this afternoon,” Mom says, referring to my birthday celebrations. Friday is my actual birthday but we have to make accommodations for the princess; Scarlett has dinner plans on my actual birthday that she “absolutely can’t miss.” Nancy always comes to my birthday celebrations except that she never bothers with our annual mini-golf tournament. It’s “too tiring” after a big meal, or so she says.

Maybe she’ll give me some non-guilt-ridden cash instead of a “teen journal” with a pink pen attached by a glittered chain like she did last year, or a makeup kit like the year before that. In truth, I could use the makeup kit now for the Scarlett Experiment. Too bad I gave it to Ettie.

“Okay, Lobster Pot
again
if that’s what Beanie wants,” she says.

I do love the Lobster Pot and our mini-golf tournament, but it
might
be nice to go to a more upscale restaurant than the Lobster Pot. I don’t
have
to do the same things every year. I am
tempted to bring this up, but Nancy switches gears.

“So, as for the theme of Scarlett’s going-away party,” Nancy says, sipping a glass of water. She’s dressed in a blue suit and her hair curls on top of her head like a child’s doll. Her neck is so large that some of her skin folds over her collar. I can’t see the girl from that photo with Gran anywhere. “I was thinking something with a
Great Gatsby
elegance. Wouldn’t that be lovely? Maeve, I think that would be lovely,” Nancy says.

“Lovely,” Mom says, stealing a glance at Dad while taking a bite, and now we’re all talking like we’re dripping in caramel. “Scarlett, why don’t you call your friends and see what kind of theme they would like before we commit.”

“Maeve, you don’t want to take a teenager’s advice, do you?” Nancy asks. “It’s hard enough to get Scarlett to bring her friends over,” Nancy adds. She, too, takes a tiny bite. “Oh, very well, I guess you should ask your friends. If they exist,” Nancy says with a wink to Scarlett.

Scarlett never brings her friends to the house. She always meets them out. One time I heard her say to Trish that she didn’t want her Cape Cod friends to meet her “nerdy sister” and her “weird parents.” I never told Mom and Dad that.

Either way, Scarlett has to have the party and let Nancy go all out, she knows that.

“We told you, you don’t have to throw Scarlett a party,” Dad says after swallowing some chicken. He has some sauce on the corner of his mouth.

“Someone in this family needs to show Scarlett off. Juilliard! I just can’t stop telling everyone I meet!”

“We can’t afford—” Dad starts to say and wipes his mouth.

“I
know
you can’t afford it and if you would stop these research jobs, Gerard, and take my advice, you’ll bring in some consistent money. If you do your research on the side, or run a few labs, you might be able to pay some bills.”

There’s a pause and I hope this is a break from the money talk. We each fill our mouths with food so no one has to continue the conversation. “And now with Maeve losing . . .” Nancy stops herself and with a large exaggerated smile says, “Of course, you know I don’t have a problem paying for any of it.”

Scarlett returns the smile, but it’s fake. I hate her white teeth.

I wonder what she is
really
thinking. We all know, the universe knows, that Nancy loves reminding us how much she pays to keep our family afloat.

I need that scholarship.

“So, the party,” Nancy continues. “For a
Great Gatsby
theme we can have twenties music, champagne, silk everywhere. It’ll be lovely,” Nancy gushes.

“What’s
Great Gatsby
again?” Scarlett asks. “It sounds familiar.”

She just graduated from Summerhill Academy. Didn’t she read
Great Gatsby
sophomore year? Or at least see the movie?

“A novel,” I say.

Nancy’s eyes move down the table at me. Her pudgy face resembles a Persian cat. “Very good, Bean.”

Did she just dare to compliment me?

“But why would we have a good-bye party with that theme?”
I am brave enough to ask. “Almost everyone dies at the end of that book.”

“Well, not everyone is quite so literary, dear,” Nancy replies.

Damn, I have nothing left to shove in my mouth so I can avoid this conversation. All that is left on my plate are a couple of peas. As usual I ate too fast and am finished before everyone else. “What is your focus this summer?” Nancy asks me. “No slimy algae, I see.”

“Tracking a comet—” But I don’t get to finish explaining because she turns to Mom and Dad.

“She should spend more time with kids her age.”

“Most of the kids leave after a couple weeks, or they don’t come every summer like we do,” I say. This seems perfectly reasonable to me.

“She hasn’t a single friend here,” Nancy continues like I haven’t said anything. “She’s spending far too much time with telescopes and computers. I hate to say it, Gerard, but maybe she’s spending too much time with her dad in science laboratories.”

“I have a job, Nancy,” I say as nicely as possible. “And a best friend. And a boyfriend.” I know it’s not technically true anymore, but Nancy makes me so mad and it just slips out.

“She needs to find some interests outside of science. It’s limiting for a young girl.” Nancy sighs and continues, “It’s exactly why I planned this excursion for her tonight.”

“Excursion?” What the hell does that mean?

“Bean needs to be at dances with friends and participate in school clubs. Colleges care about socialization.” She glances around my head. “What time is it?” she asks. “It’s six forty-five.
Beanie, you need to get dressed for the teen dance.”

“I’m sorry—the what?” I say, leaning forward. My voice squeaks.

“Nancy thought it might be good for you to go to a teen thing,” Dad says gently. “At the pier.”

“You told her no, right? I can’t. Not—” I’m already nervous and out of breath. I can barely look at my sister. She must be loving this.