Sixteenth Summer (5 page)

I shrugged and said, “Well, yeah. This time of year, that’s right before high tide.”

“High tide,” Will said with a shy smile. “I always thought that was just a saying.”

I was floored. Not only was Will (probably) choking his way through my ice cream just to be nice, but he’d admitted to flubbing something as basic as the tide.

Or, I supposed, as basic as the pronunciation of “knish.”

And even though it’s much cooler to be a big-city guy who’s ignorant about Dune Island than a backwater babe for whom Manhattan is practically Mars, I decided that we were even.

So now I didn’t even try to hide my smile from Will. I just laid one on him. A big, toothy smile.

Will returned the smile, and instantly, I was back at one end
of that wire-thin connection I’d sensed between us. I was feeling the glow of the bonfire all over again.

And I wasn’t just
wishing
I could hear Will’s voice or see his eyes up close. I was listening and seeing—and feeling so floaty, I was a little embarrassed.

Until Will’s brother broke the spell by grabbing Will’s waffle cone.

“You’re dripping,” he said, helping Will out by taking several large bites around the base of the scoop.

“Gross, Owen,” Will said, snatching the cone back.

Will’s brother looked bewildered for a moment, then glanced at me. His eyebrows shot up and he murmured, “Ohhhhh.”

Then he leaned over and whispered—good and loud—in Will’s ear, “So
that’s
the girl from the bonfire. I think the dad said her name is Anna.”

“Shut
up
,” Will hissed.

Owen just gave a little laugh, then strolled over to the bulletin board by the front door and peered at the rental flyers, lost cat photos, and join-my-band pleas.

Will avoided my eyes until his ice cream started dripping again and he had to scramble for a napkin from the box on top of the freezer case. I tried to make myself busy until he spoke again.

“That bonfire the other night,” he said, “was it fun?”

“Oh, yeah.” I shrugged. “I guess.”

“So those people were …”

“… pretty much everyone in my school,” I said. “It was an end-of-the-year thing.”

“Yeah …“Will said, trailing off. “And then where does everybody go? For the summer?”

I opened my arms and gestured to my right and left. Since The Scoop was smack-dab in the center of the boardwalk, there were cafés and candy shops, surf shops and beachmarts on either side of us. I probably knew a kid who worked in every one of the boardwalk’s stores.

“Oh, yeah, I should have known that,” Will said. “We usually stay home for the summer too. Other people go to the Hamptons or the Catskills or places like that, but we just stay in the city and sizzle. It’s actually kind of fun. New York just empties out every August.”

I didn’t tell Will that
I
had been in New York in August—and thought I’d never seen so many people smashed into one place.

“So …,” Will said after popping the soggy end of his cone into his mouth. “I guess you’re going to the thing tonight?”

“The … thing?” I was confused. Sam had said something about folks going to The Swamp to watch a Braves game later. But how did Will know about …

“The Movie on the Beach?” Will asked. “I think it’s
Raiders of the Lost Ark
.”

“Oh,
that
,” I said. “That’s a shoob—”

I caught myself, then said diplomatically, “That’s the first movie of the summer. They happen every other week.”

“Pretty cool,” Will said, ignoring my squirming. “Where do they put the screen?”

“It’s kind of funny,” I said, leaning against the ice cream case.
“The guy who does it is a movie nut. He’s the dad of someone I go to school with. And every year he tries a different screen placement. Once he put it on the pier, but the sound of the waves on the wood drowned out the movie. Then he put the screen on these poles literally in the water. But the wind kept blowing it down, you know, like a sail? So he had to cut these little semicircles all over the screen to let the air through. Ever since, the people in the movies looked like they had terrible skin or black things hanging out of their noses, or …”

I stopped myself. Once again I was putting my foot in my mouth, making fun of something that Will obviously thought was cool. He had no idea that my friends and I only went to Movies on the Beach when there was
absolutely
nothing better to do.

And when we went, we laughed at the holey screen, or drifted into loud, jokey conversation halfway through the movie, ignoring the glares and shushes of the summer people who found the whole scene so enchanting.

I could tell Will could see the lame alert on my face.

“So I guess you have something else going on tonight, then?” he broached.

I caught my breath. Had he just been about to ask me to the movie? And had I just completely blown it by being snarky?

Once again I became painfully aware of my father, who’d finished cleaning the milk-shake blender. Now he was loading a fresh tub of Jittery Joe into the ice cream case just to the left of me. He was so close I could feel a gust of cold air from the freezer. The blond down on my arm popped up in instant goose bumps, which only added to the shivery way I was feeling as I talked to Will.

“Um, well, my friends are kind of having a thing …,” I said weakly.

“Yeah, that’s cool …,” Will said, stuffing his hands back in his pockets. “I heard about a party going on tonight, too, actually. It’d be funny if it was the same one.”

I was incredulous. And hopeful.

“At The Swamp?” I asked—at the exact moment that Will said, “At the Beach Club pool.”

“Oh,” I said, deflating a bit.

Of
course
, Will hadn’t heard of The Swamp. The dark little bar and grill, surrounded by an alligator moat, was hidden in a mosquitoey thicket off Highway 80. It had no sign, just a break in the kudzu and a gravel driveway. The only shoobees who ever found it were Lonely Planet types who tromped in with giant backpacks and paid for their boiled peanuts and hush puppies with fistfuls of crumpled dollar bills.

And the only locals who went to the Beach Club were the retirees who lived on the South Shore year-round. Mostly the Beach Club was filled with summer people from Atlanta who wanted to hang out with their country club friends—in a different country club.

Suddenly, it became clear that almost everything about The Moment was going
badly
. I was a muscle twitch away from just hustling Will out the door with a chipper,
Have fun tonight. Maybe I’ll see you the next time you want some Pineapple Ginger Ale. Unless, of course, you hated it
and
you think I’m drippier than your ice cream cone! Ta!

But before I had a chance, Will stepped closer to the ice
cream case. He rested a hand on top of it in a way that was probably supposed to look casual. The only problem with that was Will’s hand was knotted into a white-knuckled fist.

I felt a prickly wave of heat wash over my face. He was about to say something. Something that mattered. I would have sworn on it.

“Why don’t you come with me to the party?” Will blurted.

“Or to the movie, if you want,” he added quickly. “But at a movie, you can’t really talk. And it’d be kind of … nice. To talk. I mean, if you want to … and you don’t mind ditching the, um, swamp?”

Then
I
was hanging onto the ice cream case for dear life, too. I felt another head-rushy wave, but it didn’t feel at all bad.

Even so, I wasn’t sure at first what I should say. As cheesy went, Movie on the Beach was a stack of American slices—so bad it was kind of good. But a party at the Beach Club pool was more like stinky French cheese—you could swallow it, but only if you held your nose. I definitely would have preferred pockmarked Harrison Ford to the fusty air-conditioning, horrid wallpaper, and uniformed “staff” of the Beach Club.

But Will wanted to
talk
.

Fuzzy though my mind was at that moment, my gut told me this was a good thing.

It was such a good thing that I sort of wanted to start the conversation right there. That very minute. But one sideways glance reminded me that my dad was still there, fumbling around the cash register and
so
obviously eavesdropping on me as a boy asked me out for the very first time.

And then there was Will’s brother, Owen. He was still
stationed at the bulletin board but had his head cocked in such a way that it was
just
as obvious that he was listening in too.

And
then
, the wind chime on the screen door tinkled as a quartet of locals—most of whom I knew of course—came in for their sugar fix.

I had to make a decision and I had to make it immediately.

So I said yes to the Beach Club pool party. To a night of eating bad hors d’ouevres among an army of shoobees … and to a date with Will.

“Meet you there at eight?” I proposed.

Will grinned and nodded. Then grinned some more and nodded again until finally Owen came over and grabbed his arm, muttering, “I’m gonna save you from yourself, here, mm-kay? Let’s go.”

They left so fast, I barely had time to squeak out a “See you later.” I was too floored to form complete sentences anyway.

After that, I nodded my way through four ice cream orders before I realized I hadn’t heard a word the customers had said. After I asked them to repeat themselves, I got half the orders wrong anyway. But I didn’t really care. How could I when all my hopes and dreams (at least, all my hopes and dreams of the past four days) had come true?

Will and I had had our Moment. Our weird, awkward, yet somehow amazing, Moment. It hadn’t been destiny, but it
had
made me excited about going to the Beach Club of all places. So maybe it actually
had
been magic.

Time, I thought, looking anxiously at the clock over the screen door, would tell.

I
had an hour and a half left in my shift. If I’d been keeping a log, here’s how it would have read:

5:05: Went to the walk-in cooler and called Caroline to tell her I had a date. But hung up when I got her voice mail. Leaving this information on a message seemed jinxy somehow. A recorded declaration of swooning would only come back to bite me later, right?

5:07: Began a catalog (on a paper napkin) of all the date-worthy outfits I owned.

5:08: Despaired at lack of date-worthy outfits in closet. Began a catalog (on several paper napkins) of Sophie’s dateworthy outfits.

5:14: Plotted sister bribery for that pale blue halter dress.

5:16: Decided the blue halter dress was trying too hard and I should just wear jeans.

5:18: Called Caroline to confirm. Hung up on voice mail again.

5:19: Okay, I would compromise with a skirt and top.

5:20: Realized I’d been in the cooler for fifteen minutes and was freezing. Returned to work. Dad was scooping away and messing up all the orders. I took over and Dad reminded me that
he
preferred to be the backstage operator at The Scoop, before slinking into the kitchen to make a batch of Strawberry Rhubarb.

5:44: Scooped for a group of shoobees who looked less like individuals than just a tangle of sunburned limbs and expensive sunglasses. Occurred to me that Will might not have been
asking me out for a
date
per se. Maybe he’d just meant for it to be a group thing. A join-the-crowd kind of thing. That’s what a party really
was
, wasn’t it?

5:53: Called Caroline to confirm suspicion. Voice mail
again
. She was probably too busy making out with Sam (ew) to answer. Hung up. Again.

6:03: Certain now that I was delusional. Of course Will wasn’t asking me out! It was just a “Maybe I’ll see you at the Beach Club party” invitation. Right? What
were
his exact words? Obviously, goose bumps had impaired my hearing.

6:06: Considered asking my dad for his impression. Questioned own sanity. Ate extra-large scoop of Maple Bacon Crunch to calm nerves.

6:10: Worried about having bacon breath at party.

6:11: He was definitely not asking me out on a date. Wondered if I should even go.

6:15: Okay, I would go, but I wasn’t dressing up.

6:17: Wait a minute, Dune Island was
my
turf. Decided I should just call Will and tell him I was going to The Swamp. “And maybe I’ll see
you
there.”

6:18: Realized I didn’t have Will’s number. Despaired.

6:19: Went back into the cooler. Breathed in stale fridge smell and tried to get zen. But goose bumps on arms reminded me of conversation with Will, so went back to work.

6:23: Epiphany! Called Caroline. Actually left a message.

6:29: Shift (almost) over! Tore my dad away from his backstage maneuvering and hightailed it out of there.

*   *   *

J
ust as I was getting home, my phone rang.

“Is this The Scoop?” Caroline rasped in my ear. “I’d like one Nutty Buddy, please. Oh, wait, I’ve already got one.”

“Oh my God,” I said. “We don’t have time for your corny jokes. I’ve got an emergency.”

“So I heard after about eighteen hang-ups,” Caroline said. “It was the other part of your message that must have gotten mangled in my voice mail. You didn’t
actually
say you want me and Sam to come to a party at the Beach Club pool, did you?”

“
He
invited me,” I whispered as ran up the stairs and into the screened porch. Kat was on the porch swing eating a bowl of bright orange macaroni and cheese.

“Ugh!” I said, looking away. I was already queasy, and watching Kat eat fake food as she swung in long, lazy swoops gave
me
motion sickness.

Kat pointed a bright orange fork at me and said, “That was rude!”

I gave her an apologetic shrug, then headed up the stairs. Hoping not to run into (and possibly offend) any other family members, I darted down the wide second-floor hallway, then ducked into the steep, narrow staircase that led to my room.

Meanwhile, Caroline was chattering in my ear.

“What ‘he’?” she said. “
That
he? The he from the bonfire?”