Juniors (21 page)

“Let's jump already,” Whitney says, and we all look at one another.

“I'll go,” Brooke says. She walks to the edge, looks down, then back at us. She pushes off, and I realize I'm holding my breath.

“Oh my God,” Mari says. I feel embarrassed for her.

“Go,” Whitney says to her.

“You!” Mari says, laughing to hide her self-consciousness. She darts her eyes around.

“Want to all jump together?” I say.

“Too crowded,” Whitney says.

We stand at the edge. “Oh my God, it's so far,” Mari says.

“It's deep,” Whitney says. “Don't psych yourself out. You can always go from the lower ledge.”

“'Kay, jump with me,” Mari says.

“I'm going with Lea,” Whitney says, and Mari blinks at me, then looks away.

“Should we go first, or do you want to?” I ask. Mari checks out the strangers on the rock, as if deciding between two dark fates. If we go, she'll be alone. “I'll just wait,” she says.

“Let's go,” Whitney says.

“I'm going to dive,” I say.

“Not!” Whitney says. Mari's fear and Whitney's alignment are fueling me.

We creep up to the edge.

“Ready?” I ask.

“Ready,” she says. “One . . . two . . . three!”

I dive from the rock. We don't have a picture, don't have proof, just the feeling to go on and trace back to. I feel the air swallow me, the chill on my skin, a pure and solid fright, and then the shock of hard water. It's breathtaking, disorienting, like I've been hit. Then things clear. I know where I am, and I'm safe. Underwater it's so quiet. I open my eyes, see Whitney's legs above me fluttering. I kick up, then break the surface with a grin and somehow feel the beauty around me, actually in me, tingling. And then I feel something else. “Oh my God.”

“I know, right?” Whitney says. “That was killer. Let's go again.”

We tread water, circling our legs like propellers.

“I can't,” I say. We move toward shore. I go underwater to look around, then come back up. “My bottoms came off,” I say, and feel close to tears.

At first she looks incredulous, then stunned, and then on the precipice of hysterics. I automatically mirror this progression.

I go back down, swim around, and see her too. Our hair floats above us, and we share an underwater break, looking around, then back at each other. We are wordless, weightless, and hopeless. We both emit a huge bubble of air, then rise to meet above.

“Holy shit,” she says.

“What do I do? How am I supposed to get out?”

“I could go buy you a suit,” she says.

We tread water, my heart races.

“And I just stay in the water?”

“Or no—easy,” she says. “We'll swim to shore. I'll get your shorts.”

“Oh yeah,” I say. “That works.”

We swim toward shore, and I wait for her past the small break, not wanting to get too close and be rolled onto the sand, naked. I feel the water on me, in me—it's funny how such a little amount of fabric completely changes the sensation. It's how guys must feel, the water brushing them, the swath of fabric not constantly pressed to them. I float on my back, keeping my pelvis down, my legs kicking, and after looking around to make sure no one's near me, I press my hips up, for the fun of it, the silliness of it, and to see myself fully, a small, naked thing floating in a big bay.

• • •

After getting my shorts on, after telling the story to the other girls, we jump over and over again, my lost bottoms somehow empowering us. Her friends look at me differently, it seems, like something happened to me that they wished had happened to them. It's a good story, and I'm sure they'll borrow it somehow, star themselves in it. Who knows—they could make me look dumb in their version, though it's hard to be cast that way when you continue to leap off the black, glimmering rock. The girls with the coolers look at me differently too, I think. I'm jumping with shorts on, a local, just like them.

WHEN WE GET BACK T
O THE MAIN HOUSE, IN
STEAD OF
dropping Whitney off and parting awkwardly, I go in. I'm grounded and can't go out at night, but technically, I haven't left the property. And I don't even want to drink or anything. I just want to hang out, to not be alone. I don't want to miss anything.

“What should we do?” Whitney says. We stand on the lanai. “Should I see what's going on?”

I shrug, and she mimics my indifference. I wonder if she's okay with being alone, or not doing whatever her friends are doing. I don't want her to text and make calls, make plans where we'll have to wait until ten, then scout the island for parties. The pressure to have fun, to have the best night, can be so tiring.

For her sake, I answer, “I'm grounded, but you can give your friends a call.”

She shrugs. “They're your friends too.”

“Not quite,” I say, not wanting to sound defensive, but wanting to keep things truthful. Actually, I want her to be truthful, not patronizing like her mother.

“They can be, I mean,” she says.

I nod. That's better.

“That is, if you even want them to be. Mari's such a pussy, right?”

I spurt out laughter, which makes her preen. “Yeah, she kind of is.”

“I mean, not just the rock thing, but everything. When I see her, I just want to shake her. All hunched and shit—always, always looking at Brooke after she says something, like she's waiting for knighthood or to get her head chopped off.”

“That's a good way to put it,” I say. Did she feel left out by her friends who showed up at Waimea without telling her, and then with that awful greeting—
What are you doing here?
—like a buffer?

“I like Brooke, though,” I say. “Who's your closest friend?” I hang on to the wooden post on the lanai and swing around it. Whitney stands on the edge of the lanai on one foot and moves the other so it looks like she's pushing herself on a scooter.

“I don't know. It used to be Mari—we were really close, but then Brooke came freshman year, and she was just, like, this big deal, you know? Like, she modeled in Japan and shit. So Mari went thataway.”

“That's lame,” I say.

“Yeah, but maybe we were so close because Mari made it that way, you know? Like how she is with Brooke—she was like that with me, but I didn't recognize it. Her agreeableness, or whatever . . . shape-shifter,” Whitney says. “That's what she is.”

“Sucks,” I say, then worry she might think that about me, too, because of Will.

The wind carries a faint spray of ocean.

“It wasn't an even friendship,” Whitney says. “I realize that
now. She did all the work, and part of me probably wanted it that way. So I was a crappy friend too.”

“Friends need to be on even turf,” I say.

“Right,” she says. “No one should be better, even if . . .”

She doesn't finish her sentence, and I'm not sure how she's finished it in her head, but in mine, I am thinking,
Even i
f one is actually be
tter.

Prettier, richer, more popular. Even if one has a hotel and guys pine for her and girls mimic her. Though she says none of this, I appreciate that what she has said has made me draw these conclusions for myself.

“I'm glad you guys are staying here,” she says.

“Totally,” I say. “Me too.”

“Like, we probably wouldn't have even known one another.”

“I know.”

I hop on and off the step for something to do, and she mimics me.

“I'd have no friends,” I say in a comically sad way.

“Oh, please,” she says. “You're pretty, and your body's banging. Girls like you always make friends.”

“Shaddup a hundred times,” I say and shake my head.

“You have no idea, either,” she says. “That's what's so cool about you. You look like you don't need anyone and don't care.”

I look down, proud and embarrassed. “Anyway, let's get off this topic right now. Because then I'll say how pretty you are, and you'll say ‘oh, stop'—”

“No, I won't,” she says. “I'm waiting. I want to hear.” We both laugh, then she jumps with a silly enthusiasm. “Want to make a big dinner and just grind and watch movies?”

“Totally,” I say, and I execute a ninja-like kick, and we both run toward the kitchen.

She thinks I look like I don't need anything, anyone. Meanwhile every cell of my body seems to be on hyperalert, always assessing, interpreting. I guess I'm communicating what I've strived for, but is it truly what I want? I feel that part of the reason I like Whitney is because she makes it seem okay to be myself. She turns the music up, and we gather our ingredients. I'm relieved that I don't have to sit in silence while she coordinates with friends. I don't have to watch headlights come and go from my perch in the cottage. This friendship is pure comfort.

• • •

We decide that we've eaten a shitload. We went to town in the kitchen, making burritos stuffed to the gills with the things that spoke to us—mushrooms, ground turkey, white beans, Andy's Salsa, avocado, lime tortilla chips, and Irish cheddar. It all worked, and so did our dessert burritos—peanut butter, bananas, maple syrup—baked, like ourselves. We didn't drink, but we did smoke just a bit of pot, taken from Eddie's drawer. It's something I never do at parties, only with close friends, so if I get weird or paranoid or have caveman rants, it's okay.

We go back outside with the hems of our shirts tucked into our bikini tops, which we still haven't changed out of. We are forcing ourselves to not lie around and watch TV just yet. It would be hard to get back up again.

Whitney looks down and tries to make her stomach ripple. “‘Roll your body and move your feet,'” she says, and I join in, recognizing the cheer.

“‘Stand up, everybody—get that buff and blue beat!'” We
repeat the song and then Whitney claps and kicks like the Punahou cheerleaders, teasing them, but maybe envying them as well, their lives of staggered splits, rolling pom-poms, and spirit hands. They seem so happy all the time. I can't imagine smiling that much.

“‘I need another hit, hurry, quick, hurry, quick,'” I rap.

“What is that?” she asks, giving in a bit by sitting down and leaning back on the coral-stamped pillows.

“Song with weed reference,” I say, thinking of Danny, my teacher in old-school rap. “But I think they're talking about crack. And crack is wack.” I laugh.

“‘My oven's on high when I roast the quail,'” she says. “‘Tell Bill Clinton to go and inhale.'”

I cover my mouth and laugh. “Whoa, excellent citation! Ho snap, Whitney from the block! How did you know that?”

She laughs crudely. “Summer camp.”

“That was off the charts,” I say, which makes her try to rap again—we both do—from “Rapper's Delight,” but can't remember enough of the words to make it really go. We settle back into the quiet, which isn't that quiet at all. There's the constant whoosh and crash of the ocean, the sound of the palms like cards being shuffled.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” she asks.

“God, I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out where I want to apply to college. I only know what I don't want to be.”

“And what is that?” she asks.

“I don't know. A clown . . . or a pilot.”

She laughs. “I don't know if I can even go to college, I'm so stupid.”

“You need to stop saying that,” I say. “Do you think you'll work for your dad one day?”

She looks at me and is about to say something, then stops herself. Her eyes water.

“Oh my gosh, what did I say?”

“Nothing,” she says. “Sorry.” She laughs away her emotion. “I have such an old dad,” she says. “I don't know what's happening to him.”

“That's so sad,” I say. “At least you have one,” I joke, but she looks at me like I just hurt myself or like I'm trying to hide the hurt. Not having him has probably defined who I am more than I care to admit.

“I want to write children's books,” she says.

“Really?” For some reason, I figured Whitney would do what her mom does—be someone's wife, which is lame of me to think. Why shouldn't she do what her brother will probably do? Run a company, be a boss. It's sad, but I know it's because she hasn't been raised to think she can.

“I'll show you sometime,” she says. “The stories are about girls who play dress-up, and the things they choose to wear transport them to that time. Sort of like Jack and Annie—I have little lessons about the era, but it's for younger kids. Picture books.”

“Yeah, real stupid,” I say. “Are you kidding me? You're going to be, like, a hotelier slash writer slash socialite ruler.”

“Oh, please,” she says. “You won't catch me in Hawaii Luxury.”

“They'll catch you,” I say.

I look out at our view, our ocean, thinking of the ways we are working and will work ourselves out. It's like we're here on the
brink of our lives, strategizing the best way to cross the channel. It's a good sensation, to feel youth, to be aware of it, electrified by it. We will become one day. We are becoming.

“I wonder what our moms wanted,” I say, imagining them on the lanai on a night like this. “What their conversations were like.”

The thought lifts me up, seeing us all in solidarity, but then it brings me down. I don't see Melanie being silly or joyful, weird or sullen. I don't see my mom as a bundle of nerve endings set off by a remark or a touch or the proximity of another body. They seem so old. We are almost like toddlers. We can have fun anywhere. We can always find something to play with. My mom and Melanie—women—they need an event, an elaborate premise, costumes and props. When did they become? What happens to you?

“Let's go swimming,” I say.

“Okay,” she says. Easy. Like a three-year-old. I want to take this with us, cross the channel armed with this easiness, this willingness. Me and Whit at fifty, night swimming, rapping, looking out at the ocean, still wondering how to cross.

• • •

The pool lights are a muted gold, the shadows in the water like grooves and knots in wood. We are treading and side-swimming and lying on our backs. This time I've got bottoms on. We rehash the event, laughing, adding on—it will become a highlight of spring break, and my embarrassment will be feigned, my insistence not to tell meaning
yes, do
tell,
something that will be understood in our reenactment for others. I know this already.

“It felt cool, though,” I say. “Skinny-dipping. Down there.”

“Yeah,” she says. “It feels sexy. So does lying in the sun sometimes.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Or walking out of the ocean.”

“Or now.”

She sinks a little, tilting her head up to the sky, then straightens back up and tosses her bottoms to the edge of the pool. I do the same with the bottoms I borrowed from her.

“Will better not come home,” I say, hoping for the opposite.

“He'd think we're lezzing out. God, Will would love that. I mean, not if I were here, but if I were someone else.”

“And I were someone else,” I say, testing.

“No, you'd be just fine,” she says. “Obviously.”

I touch the bottom of the pool and bounce from foot to foot, trying to read her expression.

“Will likes anything that moves,” she says. “Or doesn't move.”

She seems to be sending me a message, and it hurts me. She wants to make me feel bad, like I could have been anyone. I want to believe that it happened because it was me. I want Whitney to be okay with it. Maybe it's the pool water lapping at me, the mysterious, flattering light, the way I can look at us from above, the sensuality of us in this pool by the ocean, under a clear night sky. The tall palms seem bent toward us, listening. I want to talk about him more, but this just creates a weird vibe, and I hadn't been thinking about him in the first place. It's like I have to choose sides.

“It must feel different for you than it does for me.” I laugh.

“What does?” she asks, looking like she's clocked out. I want
to pull her back into her good mood. I bounce from foot to foot, then do a kind of twist.

“Your thing,” I say. “Your parts. Since you wax it all off.”

She tucks her chin. “Oh yeah,” she says. “You must have . . . tugging.”

We both laugh.

“I do have tugging! It's weird.”

“You should take it off. Get waxed.” She bounces closer to me.

“No way,” I say. “It would be . . . I don't know. Lonely.”

“Lonely? My vagina is not lonely.” She splashes some water at me.

I splash back. “It's cold! It wants its blanket back!”

We both crack up and go into variations, riffs on the absurd topic, until she says, “I'm cold,” and I say, “Told you so.”

• • •

We go to her room to change back into our clothes and watch TV from her bed. It's only nine thirty, but I feel like I could fall asleep after the beach day and the food and pot. Whitney yawns so big her jaw cracks, and we both say, “Ouch.”

We watch reruns of
Downton Abbey
, and when my eyes keep falling shut, I sit up to go, but then I hear footsteps from the pool side of the room. My heart beats as though we're doing something wrong.

“Did you hear that?” I ask.

We listen, and then there's a light tapping.

She doesn't seem concerned or afraid. “Go see,” she says. “It's locked.”

I go to her door and look through the blinds, and there stands Mike, using his hands as binoculars to look in.

“Mike?” she asks, without having seen him.

I turn, nod. Yes, Mike Matson is at the door.