The Sound (7 page)

‘We’re going to Dionis,’ Matt says. ‘It’s three miles in that direction.’ He points.

‘OK,’ I finally say. ‘Maybe I’ll see you there later.’

I watch them climb into their cars and wait until they are long gone before I swing my leg over the bike seat. I told them maybe I would go, not because I was playing it cool,
but because Matt said three miles. And three miles might as well be the distance to the moon for the likelihood of me making it there on two wheels in this lifetime. Still, I’ve come this
far. I’ve hired a bike from a psycho almost killer, I am going to try to ride the damn thing.

I put on my helmet and rest one foot on the pedal, wait for the road to clear of all traffic, and then I push off. I wobble for a few feet and then I am fine. Wow, I think to myself, it’s
true what they say – it’s just like riding a bike. This is easy. Then a car comes tearing towards me around the bend, honking like crazy, and I teeter, swerve wildly and go crashing
into a bush. I manage not to go flying over the handlebars but my arms are almost pulled out of their sockets from trying to keep hold of the bike and the inside of my leg is grazed from the
pedals.

‘Damn,’ I say, trying to pull the bike free of the tangly bush. My legs are wobbly and my palms are sweating.

‘You might want to try biking on the right side of the road.’

I turn. Jesse is standing leaning against the door jamb with his arms crossed over his chest. He’s staring at me in wry amusement. I glare back at him and he saunters towards me.

‘Are you OK?’ he asks as he reaches me, but his eyes are checking out the bike.

‘Yeah, I saved the bike,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry.’

He looks at me then, a flash of something crossing his face. ‘I asked if you were OK, not about the bike.’

‘Oh, yeah, I’m fine,’ I stammer. I rub my leg. ‘Just a scrape.’

He wheels the bike across the road and I follow. I am coming to know humiliation in all its constituent parts, so the shame of him having seen me crash while wearing this helmet almost
doesn’t impact anymore. I just shrug it off and bury it deep inside along with all the other humiliations of the last three weeks – Will’s dumping me via Facebook, baptism by baby
vomit . . .

Jesse is standing holding the bike. ‘OK, get on,’ he orders.

I hesitate and then I do. By this point I don’t believe humiliation can make any more indents. I’m already flattened by it.

‘The trick is the balance,’ he says.

‘And cycling on the right side of the road?’ I ask, shooting him a sideways glance.

It’s possible a smile might be about to crack but he fights it back and just nods at me instead. I notice that his eyes are a shade lighter than his brown hair but then look away quickly,
remembering what Sophie told me about him being a total nut job. I don’t want to provoke him and sometimes a look is all it takes. ‘Just concentrate, go slowly,’ he says,
‘keep your eyes on the road and remember to use your brakes.’

‘Got it,’ I say.

‘You sure?’ he asks. He’s looking more than a little concerned.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I’m just a bit rusty.’

He nods, frowning. ‘OK, if you have any problems at all just call me. The number’s on the receipt.’

I squint at him. He’s standing against the sun. ‘Thanks,’ I say.

I’m not sure what to think anymore. Ten minutes ago I was ready to agree with Sophie about the restraining order. This guy put someone in the hospital, he clearly has anger issues and
makes surliness into an art form. He definitely makes me nervous. I can’t hold his gaze that’s for sure, so I look away and study the little box attached to the handlebar and start
pressing it with my thumb.

‘Do you know how to use the gears?’ he asks me.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Of course.’

His eyebrows raise in a silent question. He reaches over and puts his hand over mine, squeezing his thumb over the little stick. ‘Press this one to go up a gear,’ he says, ‘the
other way to go down.’

The pressure of his hand is unexpected. I hold my breath and then pull my hand out from under his. He steps back and I notice his jaw tense and the quick flare of irritation in his eyes.

‘I have to go,’ I mutter.

He shrugs and backs away, holding his hands palms up in surrender. ‘Good luck,’ he says.

I grit my teeth,
You can do this, Ren
, I hiss to myself. And then I’m off – unsteady at first, but gaining in confidence after the first ten metres when I manage to keep my
balance and not fall off. The whole way down the road I am convinced I can feel him staring after me, but even if I wanted to I can’t check if I’m right because I’m too scared
that if I turn my head I’ll lose my balance and go flying.

I make it. I actually make it. I took one small tumble and grazed my knee when I hit the brakes instead of the gears and I’m fairly sweaty but I am alive! Also the tops
of my thighs are pink because I forgot to put sunscreen on. I take off my helmet and ruffle my hair. I don’t have a mirror but I have a pretty good idea of what helmet head looks like. My
hair is thick, dark and wavy and in climates like this it tends to frizz – and not in a good way but in an 80s perm type way. I untie it from its ponytail and run my fingers through it before
tying it back up. I take a long swig of water from the bottle that Carrie insisted I take with me and pour some over the graze on my knee. I wipe my face on the corner of a towel and then I scan
the parking lot.

I spot Sophie’s red Mercedes and Matt’s jeep. Straightaway the nerves that have been plaguing me ever since the bike incident start up. It feels like someone is strumming a wrong
chord on my insides. I feel uneasy. I take a long slow breath in and then out, hoping I don’t have to reach for my inhaler. I hate the way my lungs refuse to participate at moments like this.
What if I was ever really under pressure in a life or death situation? I’d be totally screwed.

I grab my bag and head for the beach. It’s the first time I’ve seen a Nantucket beach in daylight and it makes me smile instantly – the sand is golden and warm beneath my toes
and the sea is a colour I associate with pictures of the Caribbean. This is the Sound, I think to myself, staring at the water. I vowed not to step a toe in it but it does look pretty inviting,
albeit cold. A lot of the boogie-boarders are in wetsuits. A group of bikini-clad girls are lying in a row not far away – four guys are playing Frisbee by them. I spot Sophie amongst the
girls and then to my disappointment see Eliza lying next to her – wearing a white bikini which perfectly offsets her golden tan. Several new chords twang inside me.

Jeremy is one of the Frisbee four. Matt, Parker and Tyler are the others. For no apparent reason my feet slow and drag in the sand as I get closer to the line-up of girls.

‘Hey!’ It’s Sophie. She is sitting up and waving at me. I feel a rush of gratitude and smile as I drop to my knees in the sand beside her.

‘Hi,’ I say.

‘You made it!’

‘Yeah, I made it.’

‘Eliza said she saw you fall off your bike.’

Eliza sits up now. The other girls turn their heads in my direction as if they’re all attached to a single string which Eliza is pulling. She’s the puppet master, I think to myself,
the
evil
puppet master. ‘Yeah, that looked painful,’ she says, ‘did you hurt yourself?’

Is she being genuine? It’s hard to tell as she’s wearing sunglasses and I can’t see her eyes, but if I had to gamble, I would bet on disingenuous.

‘No it’s fine,’ I say carefully, ‘just a graze.’

She lies back down murmuring something. The girl on her other side giggles.

‘Everyone,’ Sophie announces, seemingly oblivious to the fact her friends are currently laughing at me. ‘This is Ren. She’s from England.’

I hold up my hand in greeting. ‘Hey.’

‘That’s Paige, Summer, and you know Eliza,’ Sophie says, pointing to each of them in turn. Summer is easy to remember because like Sophie she’s blonde and perky and
wearing a bikini the colour of the sky. Paige is pale – her skin so white against her dark hair that I wonder what she is even doing on the beach. She must have coated her entire body in
factor one hundred sunblock. She’s wearing a large brimmed hat and a black 50s style bikini. ‘Hi,’ she says, before standing up and announcing, ‘I’m going for a swim.
Anyone coming?’ Summer jumps straight to her feet and I watch them flip their hair and tug on their bikinis to make sure they’re covering all the right bits, or rather to make sure that
they’re not covering the right bits.

I pull my sweaty dress away from my body, suddenly unsure about taking off my clothes and revealing my pale (paler even than Paige’s), un-model-like English body. In my head, I hear Megan
shouting at me that I have a hot body and I shouldn’t give a shit what any bitchface girls say.

I’m a size ten to twelve with normal-sized boobs – not ginormous, but not flat either. I have an average body with curves that, according to Will, are sexy. Though, clearly, I remind
myself, not
that
sexy because Bex is as flat as a pancake and he’d rather go out with her. I glance at Sophie. She is short and not as skinny as the other three but her boobs are
quite enormous which I imagine makes her exceedingly popular with the boys.

Summer and Paige run laughing to the water as though they’re starring in an advert for suntan lotion, or a Justin Bieber music video, and I watch the four boys pause to stare after them
like lobotomised zombies. The Frisbee drops into the sand by Parker’s foot and he doesn’t even notice. While the boys are distracted by the girls and the girls are distracted by
distracting the boys, I take the opportunity to pull off my T-shirt and shimmy out of my shorts. Then I drop to the sand, lie on my back and rest on my elbows. I suck in my tummy and glance
sideways. As I guessed, Eliza is staring straight at me, though I can’t read her expression, but her mouth is puckered and it looks like she just downed a shot of tequila, worm and all, and
is now sucking on the lime.

I smile and she goes back to reading her magazine.

‘Do you want some sunscreen?’ Sophie asks me.

‘Thanks,’ I say, taking the tube from her hand and sitting up again. I start slathering it on my pink thighs and as I’m rubbing it in a shadow falls over me.

‘Hey.’

I glance up.

It’s Jeremy. He’s smiling down at me. ‘You came,’ he says. ‘You made it on the bike?’

I shoot Eliza a glance. Did she tell him I fell off?

‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine. It was just a scrape.’

‘No, I mean with Miller. He didn’t cause any trouble?’

‘No, I was only hiring a bike.’

He sits down beside me and I root inside my bag for my sunglasses, hyper self-conscious in my bikini. I put on my glasses – as if they can mask my cellulite as well as my eyes. Then I roll
over onto my stomach, leaning up on my arms. My arse is on full view but it’s about the only part of my body I’m currently happy with.

‘It’s just Jesse Miller has something of a reputation,’ Jeremy says, and I swear I see his eyes dip to my arse for just a second which is gleefully gratifying.

‘I heard,’ I say, glancing over my shoulder at Tyler.

‘Jesse Miller’s the kind of guy you want to stay well away from.’

I turn back to Jeremy. He’s scowling at the sand. ‘He has a pretty bad temper if you get on his bad side.’

‘I’m not planning on getting on his bad side.’ Though I can’t help wondering what he’ll do to me if I damage his bike. From the sounds of it nothing pleasant. Maybe
I’ll have Mike come with me when I do return it.

‘Sorry about ditching early last night,’ Jeremy says, interrupting my thoughts. ‘I had to do something.’

‘No problem,’ I say. Then, ‘Did it all work out, whatever it was you were doing?’ I know I sound like I am prying but that’s because I am.

Jeremy shakes his head, his foot kicking the sand. ‘Not really.’ But he doesn’t elaborate. ‘Do you want me to put some sunscreen on your back?’ he asks instead.

‘Um, OK,’ I say. I pull my hair to one side and he starts rubbing the cream between my shoulder blades. When his fingers slide under the strap of my bikini top I can’t help it
– my back arches. I am aware, even though my eyes are scrunched shut, that Sophie and Eliza are staring because Eliza’s death stare is hotter than the sun’s rays and no suncream
on earth could deflect it.

‘There, all done,’ Jeremy says, flipping onto his front and tossing the suncream into the sand. ‘So, did you manage to write that blog post?’

I stare at him, blinking a little in surprise. He remembered what I told him last night about having a blog . . . boys never remember that sort of thing (in my limited experience).

‘Because,’ he continues, with a half-cheeky smile that makes my stomach flip, ‘I checked, and you hadn’t posted anything new. And you know, I was up all night wondering
about the links between Lady Gaga and Madonna. You need to put me out of my misery.’

I smile back at him and shake my head. ‘No. I didn’t have time. I fell asleep last night and then Brodie woke me up this morning at five something.’

He winces. ‘By puking on you?’

‘No. But she did ask if I was a skanktron.’

‘What?’ Jeremy splutters.

‘Yeah, you heard right. She asked if I’d gone past first base with—’ I stop, blushing hard.

When I dart a glance in Jeremy’s direction he’s grinning. ‘With me?’

‘Er, yeah,’ I say, glaring at the sand, ‘and with Matt.’ I shrug. ‘She’s four. She has a colourful and slightly disturbed imagination.’

‘Who does?’

I look up, having to crane my neck. Someone’s blocking the sun.

I twist around and sit up, hugging my knees. ‘Oh, just the little girl I’m looking after.’

‘You must be Ren,’ he says. ‘I’m Tyler Reed.’ He holds out his hand.

I take it, holding up my other hand to shield my eyes.

He stays standing, backlit by the sun so I can’t get a really good look at him. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ he says.

I wonder straightaway, who from? Eliza or Jeremy? And what have they said about me? I’m about to open my mouth to say, ‘Likewise,’ but then I remember that what I’ve
heard involves him being beaten up so badly he ended up in the hospital and he probably doesn’t need to know that I know that or be reminded of it, so I just smile at him goofily like someone
of below average intelligence.