What I Thought Was True (5 page)

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suit. It’s fine. But do it fast. I’m f-freezing.” He shuddered.

His clothes were faded jeans, a black turtleneck, thick woven

gray wool socks. Sandy, but not dripping wet or icy cold. I

stumbled over the stick shift and into the backseat, unzipped

Mom’s parka, then halted, my eyes flicking to his in the rear-

view mirror. “No looking.”

“Damn. I was hoping you’d forget about the m-mirror. No

problem. I’ll just shut my eyes. I’m getting kind of warm and

drowsy, anyway. Must be the hypothermia c-coming on.”

I tried to move quickly. My drenched hoodie made a wet

slapping sound as I yanked it over my head and onto the back-

seat. My fingers were too stiff to undo the clasp of my bra, so

I just left it on. Though I’d forbidden Cass to do so, I couldn’t

avoid a glance in the rearview mirror. Fantastic. My hair stood

out in icy-dark Medusa curls, my nose was red, and my lips,

yes, blue with cold. I’d never looked more bedraggled in my

life. I shoved myself into Cass’s clothes and stumbled back over

the seat.

Cass did indeed have his eyes closed; his head slanted back

against the headrest, his black parka bundled around him. There

was a silver strip of duct tape on the shoulder, starkly bright

against the black. He looked pale. Had he really gone to sleep?

Into a hypothermic coma? I bent over to take a closer look.

He opened his eyes, smiling. I caught my breath. He moved

in infinitesimally closer, dark lashes fluttering closed, just as

Coach rapped hard on the window.

“C’mon, you two clowns. Get a move on. This isn’t a drive-in

movie.”

We were silent after that as I pulled out of the parking

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lot, through town, following Cass’s mumbled directions. He

reached out, flexing his fingers, then drumming them against

the dashboard.

I tried to drive resolutely but couldn’t resist a few stolen

glances.

Always when he was doing the exact same thing.

It was strange. Like a dance. One I’d never done.

“First left up here,” he said. I turned onto one of those

quiet, tree-lined streets with wide, paved sidewalks and gener-

ously spaced houses with their rolling lawns. So different from

the scrubby twisted pine bushes, crushed clamshell driveways,

and shoulder-to-shoulder ranch homes of my side of Seashell.

“You turn down this road.” He indicated a right onto a drive

with a sign that said “Shore Road.”

I couldn’t help but gasp when I saw the house. It was unlike

anything I’d ever seen . . . Modern, but somehow old-fashioned,

built along the long strong lines of a sailing ship, a schooner,

a clipper ship—something majestic poised to conquer the sea.

One whole side of the house was bowed out with a narrow

rail around the second story, high and proud, jutting like the

prow of a boat.

“Wow.”

Cass tilted his head at me. “My uncle designed it. That’s what

my parents were building—that summer.”

“It’s amazing. This was where you went? When you left us?”

Then I winced because . . . because the Somerses were on the

island for one season. It’s not like they abandoned us. Me. But

Cass didn’t blink.

“Yeah. My brothers still rag on me because I mostly got

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to grow up here and they were already off to college. Down

there”—he pointed down the low hill, grass turning to sea

grass, tumbling softly down to the ocean—“there’s a good

stretch of beach. Just ours. It’s beautiful. I’d like to show it to you. But not now. We’d both freeze.”

A mansion. No one could call this anything but that. Not a

house. An estate. It reminded me a bit of Mark Twain’s house,

where we went on a school field trip once. But that was built

to look like a riverboat, and this could only be a sailboat. The

yard had all these big trees, a wrought-iron bench under a

willow, a fountain even. It looked like something from
Perfect
Life
magazine.

A mansion and a private beach.

I did not belong here.

“I’m glad you didn’t drown,” I said, at the exact moment he

said, “Thanks for wading in after me.”

“It was nothing,” I added, just as he said, “Gwen—”

We both stopped. His eyes were the darkest, purest blue. The

ocean in winter.

“Look . . . My parents are going away tomorrow for a week.

I thought I’d live the high school cliché and have a party. Will

you come?” He’d somehow moved closer again, smelling like

the best of the coast: salt water, fresh air.

I leaned toward him without meaning to, without a clear

thought in my head, and he bent forward and kissed me. It

was such a good, sweet kiss—a simple press of the lips at first

until I opened, wanting more, and he was ready. No jamming

tongues or bumping teeth. Just one smooth delicious glide and

then a rhythm that made my insides jangle and had me tilting

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against him, gasping for breath, then diving back for more. We

kissed for a long time—a long, long time—and he let that be

it, only brushing his hands into my hair and gently grazing my

neck with his thumbs.

“Will you come?” he repeated.

I looked back at his house, that huge house. I’d never heard

of Cass having a party. Who would be there? Spence Channing.

The people Cass hung out with at school. Jimmy Pieretti, Trevor

Sharpe, Thorpe Minot. The Hill guys—the boys who lived on

Hayden Hill, the richest part of Stony Bay. No one I knew well.

A . . . a party.

And Cass.

I swallowed. “What time?”

He reached into the pocket of his parka and pulled out a

blue Sharpie. Uncapping it with his teeth, he took my hand, his

thumb dancing lightly over the inside of my wrist. He turned

my palm closer. “How far, again, is it from your house to your

dad’s restaurant?”

“Three miles,” I said faintly, feeling all the hairs on my arm

stand on end.

He made an
x
on the base of my wrist, traced up to the

line of my index finger, made another
x,
and then slid his hand down my palm, making three
x
’s below my thumb. “An

approximation,” he said. Then wrote “Gwen’s” by the first
x,

“Castle’s” by the next. And “Shore Road” by the three
x
’s. Then

“Eight o’clock Saturday ni—”

“Ha!” my cousin laughs. He grabs my wrist and pulls me

under, before hauling me above the water again.

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I splutter and wipe my hair out of my face. “Nic! What the

hell!”

“Thought I might find you here. What are you doing, crazy?

You were headed straight for Seal Rock. Head-first.”

I have inadvertently gulped in a mouthful of brackish water

and am coughing. “I—”

He thumps me hard on the back, dislodging another series

of coughs. I dive back under, come up, flicking back my hair,

then notice that he’s freckled with large spatters of white paint.

Jackson Pollack Nic.

“What?” he asks as I frown at him.

I twitch my finger from his bespattered face to his speck-

led shoulders. He looks down. “Oh. Yeah. We were doing old

man Gillespie’s garage ceiling. Then I went to check out the

island job. Didn’t have time to clean up.” He scrubs his hand

through his mop of sandy hair, much of which is also coated

with paint. “Maybe I should have?” he offers. “Is this not a

professional look for a job interview?”

I’m treading water, trying not to let myself be dragged away

by the rushing creek current.

“How’d that go?”

“Aw . . . you know.” Nic cups his hands in the water, splashes

it on his face, slapping his cheeks. “It was what’s-his-face,

the island president. In his shorts with the blue embroidered

whales and his effing pink shirt. He acted like it was all com-

petitive. But I know from Lucia that no one wants that painting

and repair job. Too much aggravation. Almost as bad as yard

boy. We’ve got it in the bag. Hoop’s pissed.”

“You’ve got a steady job all summer and Hooper’s mad?”

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Nic dunks under, bobs up. “He doesn’t want to work for

‘those summer snobs.’ Painting, we could’ve headed around

the state, maybe camped out on Block Island or something,

whatever—gotten the hell off island, for Chrissake. Hoop’ll

come around, though. Anything’s better than working for

Uncle Mike.”

Yeah. These past few years Nic has done anything and every-

thing to avoid working for Dad. Or, lately, even having dinner

with him.

My cousin whacks me on the shoulder and starts doing a

fast crawl to the rocky shore. I used to be able to beat Nic

every time, but since swim team, and especially since he’s been

training for the academy, no contest. He’s nearly drip-dried;

shaking the last drops off his shaggy hair, by the time I clamber

up next to him and throw myself down in the sand. He tosses

himself down next to me.

We lie there for a while, squinting at the evening sun fil-

tering through the trees, saying nothing. Finally he stands up,

reaches out a white-splotched hand to pull me to my feet. He

glances around the shore.

I know what he’s searching for. A skipping stone for Vivie.

I study the sand for a thin, flat rock, but Nic’s eyes are better

trained, longer attuned. He finds one—“Here’s a keeper”—

slips it into the pocket of his soggy shorts, jerks his head

toward the sandy roadside. “Hoop let me take the truck home.

Party on the beach tonight. We’re going to start this summer

off with a bang.”

Great, both Cass
and
a party on the first real day of summer.

Talk about Kryptonite.

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After we stop at the bridge for my clothes, we head down High

Road and pass the Field House, where the mowers are stored—

and where the yard boy’s summer apartment is, right over

the garage. But for sure Cass wouldn’t be staying there—he’d

be going home to that sailing ship of a house. Just in case, I

scrunch lower in my seat, the peeling vinyl scraping my thighs.

Nic shoots me a look, but says nothing. I sink farther down,

yawning for extra authenticity. Soon I’ll be skulking around my

own island in a wig and a trench coat.

“So the bonfire’s on Sandy Claw tonight,” Nic says. “Bo

Sanders. Manny and Pam and a few more. Hoop wants to hit

it, but he doesn’t wanna drive home, so Viv’s picking us up.”

“You can drop me off at the house.”

“No way, cuz. You’re coming. The recluse bit is getting old.

You know you love these things.”

And I do. I mean, I always have. Just . . .

“You’re coming,” Nic repeats firmly.

“Yes, sir, Master Chief Petty Officer, sir.” I salute him.

“You mean Admiral, Ensign,” he corrects, elbowing me in

the side. “Show some respect for the uniform I don’t have yet.”

I laugh at him.

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No one can say Nic is unambitious. Since career night fresh-

man year, he’s had One Big Dream. The Coast Guard Academy

in New London, Connecticut. He’s got pictures of it—their sail-

ing team, their wrestling team, on the wall of the bedroom he

shares with Grandpa Ben and Emory, the Coast Guard motto—

Who Lives here reveres honor, honors Duty—scrawled over his

bed in black Sharpie, he does the workout religiously, obsesses

about his grade point average . . . basically a 180 from the

laid-back Nic of old, the guy who could never find his home-

work binder and was always looking up with a startled “Huh?”

when called on in class. It’s the same raw focus he’s had with

Vivien since childhood. One can only hope that that discipline

someday extends to picking up and washing his own clothes.

“Seriously, Gwen. If I have to drag you. I can bench nearly

my body weight now.” He cracks his knuckles at me threaten-

ingly, then shoots me his sidelong, cocky grin.

I elbow him back. “For real? Does Coach know? How long

till you can bench
him
?”

“Only a matter of time,” Nic says smugly.

I burst out laughing. Coach is huge. “You really need to

work on your inferiority complex, Nico.”

“Just calling it like it is, cuz.” Nic’s smile broadens. It’s quiet for a second. Then his face sobers. “I want that captain spot so

bad I can taste it. It’s gotta go to me, Gwen.”

“Instead of Cass or Spence, who always get what they want?”

A note Nic hits a lot. He was by far the star swimmer before

they transferred in last September.

Nic shrugs.

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I bump his shoulder with my own. “You leave them both

behind every time, Admiral.”

We ditch Hoop’s truck in his pine-needle-covered drive-

way and reach our house on foot just as Vivien pulls up in her

mom’s Toyota Corolla. She beeps at us, waving Nic over. He

leans through the window, kisses her nose, then her lips, hands

slipping down to gather her closer. I look away, squeeze the

dampness out of the fraying hem of my shorts.

Viv. The first serious Nic Cruz Goal I can remember.

We were eleven and twelve. I decoded the scribbly cursive

in his i WiLL notebook, this goal journal he kept hidden under

his mattress—not a safe spot when your cousin is hunting for

Playboy
s
,
wanting to bribe the hell out of you. But the i WiLL

notebook proved more useful than even porn sometimes.

Kiss Vivien
.

I figured Hoop had dared him. Despite the wedding cere-

mony when we were five, I didn’t think of them as a couple. It

was thethreeofus. But there it was, spelled out in red pen right

in the middle of his other goals
: Be next Michael Phelps. Own

Porsche. Climb Everest. Find out about Roswell. Make a million dollars. Buy Beineke house for Aunt Luce. Kiss Vivien.

For some reason, that one I didn’t tease him about.

Then a few months later the three of us were sitting on the

pier at Abenaki, enjoying the post–Labor Day emptiness of

the beach. Nic reached into his pockets, pulled out a bunch

of flat rocks.

“Pick me a winner,” he’d said to Vivie. She’d cocked her

head at him, a little crinkle between her eyebrows, then made

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a big show of finding the perfect skipper, handing it to him

with a flourish.

“One kiss,” he’d said softly, “for every skip.”

The stone skated over the water five times, and my cousin

claimed his reward from my best friend while I sat there still and silent as the pile of rocks, thinking,
I guess Hoop didn’t dare him
.

“Gwen’s trying to bag out on us, Vee.” Nic’s voice breaks

into my thoughts.

Vivie shakes her head firmly. “Miss the first bonfire of the

season?” she calls through the open window. “Not an option!”

She reaches over, holds up a supermarket bag, shakes it at me.

“I got the gear for s’mores!”

Nic has already climbed into the front passenger seat. He ducks

forward, flipping it so I can climb in the back. “C’mon, cuz.”

I sigh and tell them to hold up while I change my soggy clothes.

When I get inside, Mom’s got the phone to her ear, frowning. She

holds a finger to her lips, jerking her head at the couch. Grandpa’s fast asleep, head tipped back, mouth open. Emory is curled like a

cashew nut, his head in his lap, snoring softly.

“Yes, I understand. Yuh-huh. Extensive cleaning. Yes. Top to

bottom. Of course. By four o’clock tomorrow? Oh, well, that
is
a Saturday and—uh-huh. Okay.” Mom sighs, rustling the pages

of the book on her lap. “Allrighty then.”

When I come back out in a baggy shirt and an even older

pair of shorts, Mom’s off the phone and buried in her lat-

est bodice buster. She carefully marks her spot with a finger.

“You’re going out?”

I shrug. “Beach with the guys. What was that? Someone

already giving you hell?”

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Mom sighs again. “It’s those Robinsons.”

I’d already turned toward the door, but stop in my tracks.

“They’re back?”

“Renting the Tucker house again for the next two weeks.

Some wedding in town—cousins of theirs. Want the house to

sparkle
. By tomorrow.” She rubs her thumbs over her temples.

“Here for only a few weeks every few summers, and I swear,

they’re more trouble than half the regulars put together.”

“Can you pull that off? By tomorrow?”

She shrugs. “No choice, really. I’ll manage.” Mom’s theme

song. Her glance drops to her book once again and she smiles

at me wickedly. “I’ll think about it later. I’m pretty sure this

Navy Seal is about to find out that the terrorist he’s been sent to capture is his ex-wife—and she’s pregnant with his triplets . . .

and
married to his brother.”

When I slide into the backseat of the car, there is the neces-

sary interval of waiting while Nic and Vivien make out. I hum

under my breath, trying to ignore the kissing noises and rustle

of clothes. After a couple of minutes, I lean forward, tap each

of their shoulders. “I’m right here,” I whisper.

Nic looks back, wiping Vivien’s shiny peach lip gloss off,

winks at me. Vivien just smiles in the rearview mirror, eyes

bright. Then she reads my face. “What’s wrong?”

“The Robinsons are coming back,” I say flatly, digging in

my pocket for the mascara I grabbed from the bathroom.

She blows out a breath, ruffling the little strands of hair

stealing out of her pigtails. “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

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“Shit,” Vivie says, turning the key in the ignition, squeal-

ing backward with a jolt. Nic and I brace ourselves, his hand

against the dashboard, me with my feet flattened against the

back of the driver’s seat. Viv jerks the car forward and revs

the motor like she’s in the Indy 500. She flunked her driving

test three times.

“Yeah,” I mutter.

Nic’s leaned back now, his elbow resting on the sill of the

open window. “Don’t worry about it,” he says.

I swallow, shrug, scratching at a mosquito bite on my thigh.

Vivien roars into the driveway of Hooper’s house, narrowly

missing the mailbox, and leans heavily on the horn, blasting so

loudly I expect it to blow leaves off the nearby trees. Without

looking, Nic reaches over, lifts her hand, and kisses it. “I think you’ve made your point.”

Hoop bounds down the steps, his hair sticking up in all

directions. As usual he looks like he dressed in the dark—plaid

shirt, ratty striped shorts. He whacks Nic on the back, then

slides in next to me, too close. “Yo Gwenners!” he says, nudg-

ing me with a pointy shoulder.

“Hey, Hoop, whoa, can I have some space?”

“Sure, sure.” He slides a fraction of an inch farther away,

then smiles at me goofily. We peel down the hill, headed for

the less ritzy of the Seashell beaches. The summer people stick

to Abenaki, which is shielded from the open sea, has gentler

waves and a less rocky beach. That’s where they moor their

boats. But Sandy Claw is where the local kids go, the place for

illegal fireworks and loud music from someone’s car speakers.

In fact, the sound of the music as we drive close is so loud

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Vivien has to shout to be heard. “This catering thing, tomor-

row? It’s got a black-and-white theme. The uniforms work fine

for us, Gwen, but Nico, you’ll need a dinner jacket.”

Nic groans. “Tell me no tux. Please, Vee. I lose half the cash I

make renting the damn thing.”

“If I have to wear a monkey suit, I’m out,” Hoop says. “Turns

off the ladies.”

Vivien’s eyes widen at me in the rearview mirror, comi-

cally large. Five-foot three-inch, clothing-challenged Hoop,

the chick magnet. Maybe if he’d stop calling them “the ladies.”

Sandy Claw’s already crowded when we get there, kids we’ve

grown up with milling around the bonfire and the shore.

Hoop springs out of the car and heads for the cooler, brush-

ing aside the cans of Coke and orange soda with single-minded

purpose, rummaging for the beer. Vivien hauls a plaid picnic

blanket from the back of the truck. She hands it to Nic, giving

him her glowing, mischievous smile. After laying out the blan-

ket, they immediately begin doing their thing. It’s a testament

to . . . something about Nic and Vivie that no one even bats an

eye at them macking all over each other. Nic calls to me as they

lie down, “Grab me a brew, cuz?”

“To drink or should I pour it on you?” I call back. He ignores

me, all wrapped up—literally—in Vivien.

Pam D’Ofrio walks over next to me, says only, “Really keep-

ing it PG tonight, aren’t they?” in her flat, deadpan voice.

We’re joined by Manny Morales, Marco’s—the head main-

tenance guy’s—son.

We talk for a few minutes about summer jobs—Manny’s

doing dishes at this place called Breakfast Ahoy, Pam’s work-

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ing at Esquidaro’s Eats, one of Castle’s rival restaurants.

“It beats babysitting,” Pam says. “Last year I sat for the Carter

twins. They were four and so crazy their mom insisted I put

them on those leash things when I took them out. My first day,

we were walking to the playground and they wrapped their

leashes around a telephone pole, tied me up like a spider with

a fly and ran off. Took me ten minutes to undo the knots. Little

SOBs.”

“Didja quit?” Manny asked.

Pam shakes her head. “No guarantee what I quit for wouldn’t

have been even worse.”

Manny asks, “You gonna rat me out to my dad if I snag a

beer?” He’s sixteen and Marco’s strict.

We shake our heads.

He comes back, settling down heavily next to us against the

waterlogged old tree trunk that’s been on the beach forever.

Nic and Vivien carry on like our own private floor show.

“Must be nice,” Pam says. “Being comfortable doing that. In

public.” She shakes her head. “Can’t imagine.” Pam has been

with Shaunee, her girlfriend, since eighth grade.

Manny drains half the bottle, wipes his lips with the back of

his hand. “At least they’re putting a ring on it,” he says, lifting his elbow at Nic and Vivien.

“
What?
” I ask.

“Getting hitched, right?”

I scoot back in the sand, staring at him. “What?” I say again.

Then laugh. “No way. Why would you think that?”

“My brother Angelo works at Starelli’s Jewelers, in the mall.