Smashed (2 page)

I propped myself up next to him, then lifted my chin to the clear blue sky. “There goes Cassie.”

Matt looked up. A tiny, silent airplane passed slowly overhead, leaving a thin white trail in its wake.

Cassie, the third member of our trio, who any other summer would have been sitting here beside us, had left that morning for London. There, she’d spend the summer with her aunt and cousins seeing and doing things I could barely imagine. I’d lived in Maine all my life. I’d been to Boston twice. By car. That was as far away as I’d ever been.

“Must be nice,” Matt said.

I kicked at the soft sand under my feet, sending smoky clouds through the water. “No kidding.”

We were stuck here like the rest of our friends, working two jobs, trying to save money for college.

“I’ll miss her,” I said.

“I’ll miss her
boat
.”

“
Matt
.”

He laughed. “She’s insane in that boat.”

I pictured Cassie—all five feet two of her—at the wheel of her parents’ motorboat, red hair lit up in the sunshine, grinning as she gunned the throttle and took off down the lake. We loved going fast in that thing, the wind tangling our hair, our loose T-shirts flapping in the breeze.

“Remember this?” Matt threw his arms dramatically across his chest in a big X and leaned back in the water, laughing.

I shoved some water at his head. He
knew
I remembered.

It had been June and Cassie had just moved here, so we were about thirteen. The three of us had ridden in Cassie’s boat up to the widest part of the lake and shut off the motor as far from any shore as we could get. I’d dared them to jump in with me, and we’d plunged into the dark blue water in shorts and T-shirts. Matt came up hollering. The water was still only about sixty-eight degrees on the surface, and when you jump off a big boat, you go down
deep
.

“It’s like the ocean!” Cassie yelled, pulling herself back on board.

Exhilarated by the cold, I went back under, then opened my eyes and swam until my breath ran out.

“You’re crazy!” Cassie said to me when I came up again. She
was hugging herself, shivering in the sunshine. “Are you really staying in there?”

“It doesn’t feel that cold,” I said.

“That’s because everything’s
numb
,” Matt said.

When I climbed back into the boat, my thin white T-shirt—under which I’d worn
nothing
—had turned transparent. I threw my arms across my chest in the big X.

“Don’t worry.” Matt turned around and grinned. “There’s nothing to hide.”

“
Men
,” Cassie said, rolling her eyes, and tossed me a life jacket. We
all
remembered what Cassie now referred to as “the wet T-shirt incident.”

*     *     *

“
Men
,” I said to Matt now, but Matt’s attention had shifted, his whole demeanor changed.

“Shhh,” he said, and touched my arm, signaling me to stay still.

I followed his eyes to a line of ducklings that had just emerged from some brush, swimming in the shallow water behind their mother. While the mama duck hovered protectively, the baby ducks dove for food.

We watched them, silently, until they finished, lined up once more, and swam away.

“Reminds me of your family,” I said.

“We’d need Dad and Grandma taking up the rear,” he said. “And Mom’s protective of the twins, not me.”

“That’s because you don’t need protecting.”

“Not anymore,” he said, and a shadow crossed his face. Sometimes I forgot how bad it had been in middle school, when Alec Osborne’s sidekick, Scott Richardson, had relentlessly bullied Matt. It was so many years ago—and Matt could hold his own in any situation now—but he’d never gotten over it.

“
Definitely
not anymore,” I added. “Let’s swim back.”

*     *     *

The beach was quiet, only a few stragglers left. The air had cooled and the mosquitoes were starting to swarm in the shade under the tall pine trees where Matt and I sat on a bench putting on sneakers and T-shirts.

“Damn things,” I said, and swatted another one. They could eat you alive in June. “Let’s get out of here.” I ran to grab my bike.

When I wheeled it around, Matt was standing still, skateboard tucked under one arm, his eyes fixed on the dirt parking lot across the road.

“What the hell is
he
doing here?” he said.

I followed Matt’s gaze to a blue and silver pickup truck, the handles of a lawn mower sticking up in the back. Alec Osborne sat behind the wheel. He lived in Deerfield, ten miles away, where there was a bigger lake and a nicer town beach.

“Who cares?” I said, and I meant it. I had no use for Alec.

“I do,” Matt said. “I can’t stand that guy.”

“No one can.”

“
That’s
not true,” Matt said, “and you know it.” He jumped on his board.

I climbed onto my bike and began to pedal slowly, watching Matt as he weaved down the lake road on his skateboard just ahead of me. His balance seemed effortless. With each turn, his long, slender body bent gracefully, a tall blade of grass in the wind. The breeze blew his bright blond hair back from his face.

Something made me hang back. I stopped pedaling, letting Matt get farther ahead. Then, I don’t know why I did it—curiosity, the strange sensation that someone was watching me, the pull of something I didn’t understand—but I looked back toward the beach as we rode away. And for an instant, my eyes locked with his: Alec Osborne had stepped out of his truck and was standing still on the pavement, staring up the road after me.

I dashed out the door at six forty-five the next morning, the screen door banging behind me. Across the street, Matt’s father’s logging rig was already gone; the two of them had left before dawn. They’d log until midafternoon, then head home in time for Matt to get to his night job, busing tables at the single fancy restaurant in Deerfield.

In our ancient barn, my bike leaned against a wall covered with cobwebs. I glanced at my watch; in fifteen minutes, I’d teach my first swimming class of the summer. I got on my bike and rode.

The cool air blew my dark hair back, whipping it in the wind. Ten minutes later, I flew past Cassie’s house; seconds later I was at the beach, my face damp from a thin mist that hovered in the morning air.

The Junior Lifesavers were first, my twelve-year-old brother, Will, among them, griping as they jumped into the cold water. With each class that followed, the kids got younger and the
sun rose higher. The mist rose off the lake and disappeared. By noon, I was finished and the afternoon was mine. Summer was officially here.

But the hours stretched out in front of me with nothing to do. I was already restless, bored. Matt had always worked long hours with his dad in the summer, but Cassie was usually around. We should be buzzing down the lake in her boat, I thought. I wondered what she was doing in England right now. Not sitting alone on a beach, I was sure of that.

“Hey, Katie.”

The voice startled me. Turning, I squinted into the sun. Alec Osborne stood against the chain-link fence that separated the beach from the lake road, smiling at me.

“Hey,” I said, surprised.

Weird. If we’d passed each other in the hall at school just two weeks before, we wouldn’t have said a word. But here, surrounded by mothers and little kids, we were the only two from our high school anywhere in sight, and he was standing three feet away from me. Here, it would be rude not to.

“What are you doing out here?” I asked. It was a perfectly normal question. There was nothing to do in Westland, nothing you couldn’t do in Deerfield, anyway, a town four or five times the size of ours.

Alec placed his hands on the fence and swung both legs over in a single, graceful leap. “I’ve got a job fixing up a stone wall that got mauled by a snowplow last winter.” He dropped a backpack onto the sand. “I’ve got a little business,” he said.
“Landscaping, light maintenance work. Whatever people want, really.”

He took a couple steps and sat down next to my towel, which surprised me even more than the fact that I was having a conversation with him.

“You get to make your own hours, then.”

“Yeah, that’s the best part,” he said. “Green feet are the only drawback.”

We both looked at his feet at the same time; then he caught my eye and we laughed.

“I’ve only had these sneakers for a couple weeks. You’d never know it.” He flipped off his shoes, peeled away sweaty socks covered in grass stains and dirt, and wiggled his toes.

“Want to go for a swim?” His smile was warm, disarming.

I couldn’t think of a single reason why not.

*     *     *

“Ladies first,” he said. I took the lead off the diving board and he followed, both of us coming up for air near the chain of buoys that encircled the swimming area.

“You’re a good diver,” he said.

“I practice. Matt coaches me—so he likes to think.” I laughed and treaded water. “He dives like a frog, so what does he know?”

Alec’s head bobbed, his eyes scanning the trees on the far side of the lake.

“You ever swim across?” he asked.

“Sure. All the time.”

“Let’s go,” he said, and started swimming before I could reply.

Sitting in the shallow water on the other side, Alec stretched his arms up toward the sky, then sat back. “Nice swim,” he said. “It’d be tough getting across the lake in Deerfield. It’s, like, three miles wide. This is like having your own private beach.” He gazed down the long lake, then turned back to me. “So, where do you live?”

“Not too far. Caton Road. It’s just past the store, a mile or so from here.”

Alec nodded, like he knew where I meant. “We built a new house a couple miles from school, in Deerfield. It’s a new development. My stepmother’s dream house, supposedly. She’s got her pool now, but who wants to swim in chlorine with all these lakes around? All she does in the summer is sit by that pool and tell me what to do.”

“You don’t sound like you like her very much.”

“She’s a bitch,” he said.

I looked away. It was a harsh word to describe your mother,
step
or not.

“Where does your real mother live?”

“She’s dead.”

Across the lake, little kids screeched and splashed each other, their voices carrying across the smooth surface of the water. What should I say? What
could
I say?

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago,” he said. “I was four.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said again. “Losing a parent—that’s . . . it’s awful.” My voice faded to a whisper. “It’s the worst.”

I should know, I thought, and a familiar feeling gripped me, a fist clenched tight in my gut. For a moment, the lake—everything around me—disappeared. I was free-falling into a gaping dark space where nothing lived, a hollow place that nothing could fill.

My father had pulled his truck out of our driveway five years before, after a fight with my mother, and vanished. There had been one card, on my brother’s birthday, then nothing. Nothing. I didn’t know if he was dead, but sometimes believing he was beat the alternative—that he hated us enough to leave and never look back.

“Ever go out to that island?” Alec asked.

“What?” I blinked and looked where Alec was pointing.

Off to our right the land opened and the water spread out a mile wide. In the middle, a small, tree-covered island rose up, an oasis of green in the deep blue water.

“Yeah,” I said. “Matt likes to shoot pictures out there.”

“Sounds nice.” Alec caught my eye and held it. My face flushed and I glanced down quickly. The memory of Alec looking up the lake road at me the day before zipped through my mind and disappeared.

“Your dad took off, didn’t he?” Alec said.

I nodded, then turned away, silent. You don’t have to open your mouth in a small town. Everybody knows everything about you, anyway.

When I turned back, he studied my face. “I thought I heard that,” he said. “That sucks.”

For moment, our eyes met.

“Let’s go back,” I said, and dove into the water.

*     *     *

Emerging from the lake, Alec not far behind, I spotted Matt through the trees. Leaning against his skateboard, he stood glaring at Alec.

“Matt!” I called.

“Hey, Matt,” Alec said, shaking water from his hair. “Nice board.”

Matt didn’t reply. For an instant no one spoke.

“You got back early,” I said. “Want to go swimming?”

Matt looked at Alec, then back at me. Silence.

“Want to go for a swim or
what
?” I asked him again.

“I’ve got a lawn to do,” Alec said. “I’ll see you later.” He walked toward the spot where his backpack sat next to mine on the beach.

“See you,” I said.

Alec had hopped the fence and reached his truck before Matt spoke. “What the hell was
that
?”

“Yeah, what the hell
was
that?” I said.

“
You
don’t like him either. Or, you didn’t last time I knew.”

“He just showed up here, Matt. He asked me to swim across. It was no big deal. There was nobody else around.”

“He’s an idiot,” Matt said.

“How do you know? Do you even know the guy?” My words surprised me, even as they spilled out of my mouth.

“What’s to know? The way he struts down the hall at school?
The way he uses girls? The way his buddy Scott Richardson tried to kill me in seventh grade by suffocating me in a snowbank?”

“That his mother died when he was four?” I said.

Matt looked at me like I had lost my mind. “And
that
means . . . ?”

“It means you might not know him as well as you think you do. Maybe
none
of us do.” I turned and walked across the beach toward my things, then headed for my bike. I was tired and hungry and irritable. I didn’t want to think about dead mothers or disappearing fathers or argue with Matt about who was—or wasn’t—a nice guy. When Matt had an opinion, he stuck with it. There was no use arguing, anyway. Especially over Alec Osborne.