What I Thought Was True (9 page)

then want to clap my hand over my mouth. Cass may have men-

tioned Alex’s equipment, but I had to go rate his performance?

God
. This is not a subject that should be raised between us.

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“I know that kid.” Cass squints at Alex’s retreating back.

“We were at tennis camp together two years ago. His forehand

sucks. Which tells you something right there.”

I burst out laughing, then
do
clap a hand over my mouth.

“So . . . tutoring,” I say, trying to straighten out my face. “How many classes, exactly, did you screw up?”

Okay, that was a bit rude. I’m feeling off balance. Cass smells

like lemons—I think he’s wearing aftershave. I’ve never seen

him formally dressed. Now he’s wearing a tailored blue blazer,

sky-blue shirt that brings out his eyes, yellow tie.

I may have been brainwashed by Grandpa Ben’s old mov-

ies, set in eras when the clothes made the man. I’m so used to

Nic’s stinky rumpled wife-beaters, Dad’s aged plaid flannels,

Hooper’s dubious pattern combos. Dressed-up Cass is like a

creature from another planet. One I want to colonize.
Oh, God,
please stop.

Al Almeida walks by with a platter of lobsters, steam rising,

and I finally get a grip.

I shift my eyes back to Cass. “The shellfish here? Taken care

of,” I say, just to say something. “No need to ride to the rescue, Jose.”

“You’re welcome for that, by the way, Maria. I’m sure you

meant to thank me this afternoon.”

“Can I remind you that I didn’t
ask
for your help?”

Cass’s teasing smile fades. “I know. I’m . . . ah, I’m asking for

yours, though. That tutoring? It’s . . . it’s important. I know it’s probably the last thing you want . . .”

I shrug.

“I can pay. I mean, you know that. I flaked out this spring—

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just wasn’t . . . concentrating. So I basically about flunked out

of English lit . . . Spence can screw around and still pull in the grades. He said only a moron could flunk ELA.” Cass shuts his

mouth abruptly as if he’s said too much.

I could reassure him. I could tell him it’s no problem. Or

that he’s not a moron. Instead I say, “Why do you put up with

that guy?”

Cass’s jaw sets, a muscle jumping. “He can be a prick, but

he’s a good friend to me.” There’s a note of challenge in his

voice, a glove he’s throwing down that I am definitely not pick-

ing up. When I say nothing, he adds, “Right. So will you . . . ?”

He breaks off, raising his eyebrows.

And now here’s Nic bearing down on us, glaring. “Gwen-

ners, Al’s all over Vee because he says you’re slacking off—the

whole ‘how are you going to run the show if you can’t keep

your staff in line’ deal. You need to get back to work.”

It’s been a given for a long time that Almeida’s would go to

Vivien, since her stepdad has no kids of his own. Still, I hadn’t

exactly seen myself as “her staff.” I get a chilling image of what it would be like to still be wearing my quahog shirt at sixty, no

longer the equal, nowhere close, of my own best friend.

“My fault,” Cass puts in. “I was keeping her, figuring out a

summer schedule. For tutoring.”

“Yeah.” Nic’s tone is sub-zero, a direct contrast to the angry

heat that, for some reason, is burning off him. “Wouldn’t want

you to let that slide and end up off the team. Not when we’re so

close to state, right, Somers?” Then he turns to me, letting Cass

stew in the cloud of testosterone he’s emitting. “Vee needs you.”

Cass leans back a little, studies Nic’s face. “How about you?

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Getting much swim time? Hear you’re working for Seashell

Maintenance too. Gonna be able to get your hours in?”

“I’ll manage,” Nic says, still frosty. He’s standing up

straighter, as if to emphasize his two-inch height advantage.

“Got the ocean right at hand, twenty-four/seven, after all.”

Cass stares out at the distance, his eyes dreamy, as though he

can see the water from here. “I was thinking about that. How

we should probably do some training over the summer, espe-

cially now that they’re not running the swim camp at SB—get

some of the guys out, keep the team vibe going, get ourselves

some wind and water challenges.”

In the distance, I can see Al waving his hands in despair,

jerking his head toward the denuded raw bar.

“We’d better go,” I say, giving Cass a smile so quick it’s more

like a grimace.

“Wait.” He touches my shoulder as I turn to go. “Call me. Or

you could come to the Field House—to figure out the timing.

For tutoring, I mean.”

Nic now has me by the other elbow and is hauling me away.

“You are
not
going to the Field House apartment with that

guy,” he hisses, practically shaking me by the arm.

I yank myself free. “What’s with you?” I ask, suddenly wor-

ried Nic has been taking steroids or something. “You were the

one all hot to have me tutor him!”

“Yeah, well, while you two were in your little football hud-

dle over here, I was pouring water at his family’s table, and

some lady was asking Mr. Somers about Cass getting the cap-

tain spot on the team this year, saying he was a shoo-in.”

Nic’s face is stormy, almost threatening.

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“So what? You’ll get it, Nico. Cool down.”

“No, listen,” Nic continues, flexing his fingers. “Look . . . I feel weird telling you this, but . . . I get to the next table and it’s Spence Channing, buddy-buddy with Alex Robinson. Talking about you.

Alex says you were ‘a fun time.’ A
fun time
? That assclown. Spence just laughs and says you’re a
swim team tradition
. He’s on my fucking team and he’s disrespecting my cousin. I mean, I’m on the

bus, I hear how they talk about girls—all ‘I’d tap that’ and ‘she’s hot, but-her face’—but this is
you,
Gwen. Who the hell does he think he is? Who the hell does he think you are?”

I swallow. My face heats, freezes, then gets hot again. Spence

knows who I am. Better than I’d like.

“Then I have to refill his goddamn water glass, not punch his

face in . . .” Nic’s hand curls into a fist and he glares across the room, then looks back at me. “Aw, cuz. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t

have said anything. I wasn’t thinking, too pissed off, I—”

“No big deal, Nico. I have a ways to go before I become

a tradition. Plus, I’m going to have a hard time with Hank

Klein, unless he breaks up with Scott Varga. But, you know me,

I thrive on a challenge.”

“Don’t, Gwen,” Nic says quietly. “Not with me.”

I’m silent as we push through the half-plastic, half-cloth

curtain that shields the main tent from the makeshift kitchen/

prep area.

“About time, Guinevere!” Al says, thrusting another tray of

shrimp and cocktail sauce at me. I take it, pull back the curtain

and scan the tent, searching for the navy stripes of Alex’s seer-

sucker jacket.

It’s sort of like
Where’s Waldo
. . . there are a lot of blue-and-102

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white striped jackets. Finally I locate him, still sitting next to Spence. But now he’s talking to some redheaded chick on his

left and Spence has on his half-amused, half-bored face. Which

is his go-to expression, the world-weary aristocrat. He only

looks happy when he’s swimming, training, or hanging out

with Cass and the rest of his crew.

He perks up when I appear at his elbow. “Castle! Am I glad

to see you. A favor? The bartender’s a little elusive. Snag a bottle of champagne for us here?”

Brushing a piece of his shiny, very straight dark hair out of

his eyes, he gives me his practiced slow smile, the trademark

once-over. Spence is good-looking, no lie. But there’s some-

thing too sharp. Like you could paper-cut yourself on him

without him even noticing.

I take a deep breath, tightening my grip on the tray. “Not

my job, Channing. I just do the setup and pass the food. Plus,

you’re underage.”

“It’s a wedding rehearsal dinner. All rules are suspended.
All
of them. I just walked by my uncle Red in the backseat of his

car with one of the bridesmaids.” He lowers his voice to a loud

whisper. “Don’t tell Aunt Claire.”

Since I have no idea who Aunt Claire or Uncle Red are, this

is unlikely. But it throws me off for a second before I say, “I’m

not here to wait on you. I’m here to tell you you’ve got the

wrong word.”

An emotion—in this case, puzzlement—actually crosses his

face. “Come again?”

“If I were a swim team ‘tradition,’ Spencer, I would be

something that happened
repeatedly
.”

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Another emotion, a brief flash of embarrassment. “I didn’t

mean for you to hear about that.”

“Maybe next time you should pay more attention to who’s

pouring your ice water. Did you really think Nic wouldn’t pass

that one on? He may be your teammate, but he’s my cousin.

Blood trumps chlorine.”

Alex has picked up on my raised voice and peeks over, takes

in the situation, turns away, clearly distancing himself from any

potential “scene.” He hated scenes, probably why he broke up

with me by text.

“I think the word you were going for is
mascot
. You should work on your vocab, or your SATs are going to tank.”

I walk away to the sound of Spence’s startled laughter.

When Vivie and Nic drop me outside our house, I hold my hand

up in farewell, climb two steps, and plunk down wearily on the

porch. The back of one of my shoes is jabbing into my heel

like a blade saw.

The sky is hazy summer-night beautiful, with the moon

cutting sharp into the dark, but the stars are nothing but pin-

pricks. The night breeze is shifting, stirring through the woods,

over the water, bringing in the silty, sandy smell of low-tide.

I look down the High Road. The quartz embedded in the

tar glitters in the moonlight. Seashell has no streetlamps. This

late at night, barely any windows are still lit in the long line of houses along the road. The Field House is five down from ours.

I wonder if Cass stayed late at the party. I didn’t see him as we

packed up the van to leave. Partly because I tried really hard

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not to look. Will he spend the night in town in his sailing-ship

house, or here on Seashell? I rub my hands up and down my

arms, abruptly chilly in the night breeze, and wonder why I’m

suddenly thinking about Cass Somers so much. Gah. Part of the

whole point of this summer was to forget him.

I let myself in through the rattly porch door with the bro-

ken latch—the one Nic keeps saying he’ll fix—and the house

is quiet, peaceful, so different from all the sound and drama

in the tent.

Mom’s dozed off on the couch, her brow crinkled, still

clutching a brightly colored paperback. Leaning over, I pull it

out, dog-ear the page she’s on (which I can’t help but notice

begins with “Begorrah, ye she-witch, I’ve half a mind to put

ye over my knee”), then pull the quilt off the bottom and

cover her up. I should wake her, coax her to sleep in her own

bed, rather than in the dubious comfort of Myrtle’s exhausted

orange plaid arms. But tonight, I want a room with only me

and my thoughts.

I can hear the soft rumble of Grandpa Ben’s snores coming

from the room he shares with Nic and Emory. I wish I could

peel away the whole evening—last night too—like I do my

sticky clothes, erase it in the outdoor shower the way I scrub

off the smell of smoke and shrimp.

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“I was hoping it would just be us,” Viv mutters, after Grandpa

Ben has squeezed between the front seats for a second time to

adjust the radio to FBAC,
“Your Station for the Best in Nostalgia.”

Grandpa’s drumming his fingers on the window, singing

loudly to “The Way You Look Tonight,” with Emory gamely

echoing him, “The way your smile just BEAMS . . . The way you

haunt my DREAMS.” Both of them are beaming themselves,

identical big-toothed grins. I try to shake off guilty resentment

that they’re tagging along.

Yesterday was the longest day in history. I need girl-time

with Viv. So I baked brownies early this morning with that sole

purpose. My plan was to ply her with sweets at Abenaki Beach

and get to the bottom of the ring thing. Viv will spill—I just

need to get her alone.

But just as she was about to gun her mom’s car, Grandpa

bounded down the steps with Emory, a large cooler (which

I knew from bitter experience would hold a variety of highly

idiosyncratic Grandpa Ben items), and a new(ish) metal detec-

tor slung jauntily over his shoulder.

“I feel lucky!” he announces now as we rocket down the hill

to Abenaki, seemingly unperturbed by Vivien’s violent swerve

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to avoid an abandoned Razor scooter lying in the middle of the

road, as though it had been tossed there by the tide. “Today, we

make our fortune.” He brandishes the detector out the window.

Vivie and I sit on the short, silvery wooden pier, looking out

at the ocean. It’s scattered with sailboats, spinnakers billowing.

Grandpa Ben hunts for treasure on the wide sandy beach. Em

sits cross-legged, totally preoccupied with a bucket of water

and a shovel. I love this about him—that when he concentrates

on one thing, the rest of the world fades away.

He’s wearing, as always, a Coast Guard–approved life jacket.

Despite that, I keep clutching at the back of his T-shirt, or the

elastic of his shorts when he bends over too far or tries to peer

over the rim of the pier. I’ve had so many nightmares involving

the top of his head disappearing beneath the whirling waves.

Particularly ominous today, the sky is gun-metal gray and

the water correspondingly dark. Not the best for sunbathing,

which is why we’re on the warm wood of the pier rather

than the chilly sand. The occasional sun shooting out around

the clouds is heated, but there’s a breeze whipping straight

off the water and right into us.

Emory upends his shovel full of icy water onto my leg, mak-

ing me gasp. “Em, no!”

He smiles at me, scoops, pours out another chilly trickle.

Viv stretches drowsily, her skin already lightly golden against

the graying wood of the pier, her small spattering of freckles

looking as though someone flicked a paintbrush over her nose.

Nic calls it her “constellation” and is always pretending to dis-

cover new shapes in it, tracing them with a finger.

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“Nic was so tense after catering. I had to drive him out to

the bird sanctuary to . . . calm him down.” She points her toes,

stretching further, then scoops her fingers around her instep,

lengthening the stretch with a balletic grace.

“Uh-huh. My cousin, the ornithologist. I’m sure the binoc-

ulars got a
lot
of use.”

“Well . . . it
is
secluded there.” Her slightly wicked private smile overtakes the sweet and innocent one she uses in public.

“Just Nic, me, and that crime-scene tape they use to keep us

from disturbing the piping plovers’ mating season.”

“You, Nic, and the plovers doing the dance as old as time.” I

start giggling. She lets go of her foot and gives my hip a gentle

shove.

“It’s not like we can snuggle up in the bedroom Nic shares

with Grandpa Ben and Emory.” She looks down at the tossing

gray-green water, worrying her bottom lip, waxy with cherry

ChapStick. The only thing Nic ever complains about with Viv is

her addiction to that and sticky, flavored lip gloss. “I was prob-

ably more stressed than Nic, anyway.”

“Any reason why?” Without looking at her, I dip my finger

in Em’s bucket, trace a circular shape on a wood slat, press my

thumb down in a diamond shape, a subliminal suggestion.

She takes a deep breath, opens her mouth as though she’s

going to say something, then closes it again. “Nothing big,”

she says finally. “Just . . . you know . . . Al . . . being all up in my face about forgetting to make sure everybody’s water glasses

were full and so on.”

That makes me think of Spence’s dickish “team tradition”

comment. “Did Nic tell you—”

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“Nic always tells me to just blow him off,” Viv says. “And

he’s right. So my stepfather is the poster child for Type A.

Doesn’t mean I have to be the same. Even if I
am
taking over the biz when Al and Mom retire.”

“Yeah, about that,” I say. “You’re not an indentured servant

in medieval times. You don’t
have
to be the heir to the throne at Almeida’s.” Dipping my finger into the bucket again, I write

my name in cursive. Emory watches me, then writes curves

and loops himself, but they don’t spell anything.

Viv shakes her head, her brow smoothing out again. “Aah,

Gwenners, you know me. Not a brainiac like you. I couldn’t

care less about college. Seems like a waste of time, consid-

ering the grades I get. It’s good to know where I’m going

to be instead of flailing around looking for my place in the

world. I’m lucky.” She sounds so cheerful at the prospect

of spending the rest of her life putting together Dockside

Delight picnic baskets and clam boils. That’s the thing about

Viv—whenever Nic and I tip into glass half-empty, she can

nudge us back to half-full—and the waiter will be along any

minute to fill it to the brim. “Plus, I rock at management.

Look at me with Nic.”

“Yeah, you’ve totally whipped that guy into shape. At least

ten percent of the time he’s on time. Sometimes even wearing

a clean shirt.”

“I like him without the shirt,” Viv says.

“Keep your twisted perversions to yourself.”

She laughs, sits up, and pulls the cooler closer, flipping open

the lid. “Don’t try to pretend you don’t share that one, babe.

I’ve watched you at meets, and whatever else you might say

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about Cassidy Somers, you can’t deny his assets there. That? The

boy does well.”

I flush. Viv’s instantly contrite. “Sorry. I know you don’t

want to talk about him. Think about him. Or whatever.”

“Just because you and my cousin have mated for life doesn’t

mean I have to,” I say.

Viv raises her eyebrows. “I was just talking about noticing

when someone was cute. You’re the one going straight from

shirtlessness to mating. Interesting.”

“Stop it. Don’t go making me and Cass into you and Nic.

Clearly, that’s not what’s going on here.”

“And that would be . . . ?” she asks, burrowing into the

cooler, then making a face. “Goat cheese? Not in the mood.
Is
there a mood for goat cheese?”

I take the cooler from her, rustle around to find the foil-

wrapped brownies, pass them to her. She puts her hand on her

heart, mock sighing with relief.

“Maybe I’m just not the kind of girl who—”

Viv shakes her head at me. “Shit. Stop. I hate it when you do

that. It’s not like you’re Spencer Channing with his five girls in the hot tub at once.”

“Is that story even true? Because when you think about it,

it sounds like a ton of work. You’d have to feed them and talk

to them and find a way to entertain the girls who’re waiting

while you’re busy with one or two—”

“Right—so they don’t leave or . . . or molest the pool boy

out of sheer boredom,” Vivie continues, smiling.

“Yeah, you’re getting tired . . .” I add.

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“It’s more work than you expected,” she sighs, brushing

chocolate off her fingers.

“Makes a great rumor . . .” I say. “Not much fun in action.”

She looks down at her hands, her face going serious. “Speak-

ing of action . . . Gwen . . . do you think Nic really wants the

Coast Guard? Or it’s just . . . an escape fantasy? Like touring around the state painting houses this summer, when he’s really

better off working steady right here. Have you seen the things

those Coasties do? They’re freaking Navy Seals. If he gets into the academy, that’ll be Nicky . . . all that stuff with helicopters and tow ropes. Why not just take a sensible job, like at Almeida’s?”

I try to imagine Nic going into the flower-arranging and food

service business, for real. It’s so much easier to picture him dangling fifty feet above the churning ocean during a hurricane.

I’m distracted by something far out to sea. Moving. Bobbing.

A seal?

We don’t see them often around here. The water’s too

choppy—cold and unpredictable even at the height of summer,

and there aren’t enough rocks. Straightening up and squinting

harder, I follow the motion. Whatever it is disappears under

the water with a flick of surf. A cormorant? No, no long neck.

I nudge Vivien, who has rested her cheek on her knees and

closed her eyes. “What’s that?”

“Oh God, not a shark!”

Three summers ago, a great white was seen off the coast

of Seashell and Vivie, traumatized by Shark Week on Discovery

Channel when she was little, has lived in terror of becoming

the star of the next episode of
Mauled!
ever since.

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Whatever it is bobs back up again.

“No fin,” I report. “Besides, it’s moving up and down, not

gliding menacingly forward, ready to leap onto the dock and

have you for dinner.”

“Don’t even joke about that.” Vivien shields her eyes with

her fingers. “Not a shark. Just some crazy person who doesn’t

mind being shark
bait
.”

We watch in silence as the head rounds the breakwater,

coming our way. Now I can see brown shoulders glisten in the

sun, arms pumping rhythmically. A man. Or a boy.

“Today’s Nic’s and my five-month anniversary,” Vivien says

absently, still staring at the water.

“Five months? Try twelve years. I was the one who married

the two of you when you were five.”

One glimpse of Vivien’s downcast eyes and the slight smile

playing at her lips and I get it
. Right. Five months since they’ve
been doing it.

“Nic’s taking me to the White House restaurant. What do

you think I should wear?” Vivien answers herself: “My navy

sundress. I know Nic likes it. He couldn’t keep his hands off

me last time I wore it.”

The swimmer has reached the dock and as I watch, he dis-

appears while climbing the ladder, then, at the top, plants his

hands flat on the slats, and swings his legs to the side, the

way Olympic gymnasts vault over the horse. Then he stands up,

shaking his hair out of his eyes.

“Hey—yet again—Gwen. Hi, Vivien. What’s up, Emory?”

Cass peers down at Em, then over at me.

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Emory smiles at him before returning his attention to his

bucket of water, now mostly empty. He leans over toward the

ocean and I snatch at his life jacket.

Vivien straightens, hugging her knees to her chest, scanning

Cass’s face, then mine.

“Need a refill?” He reaches for the bucket but holds his

hand away from it slightly, waiting for Emory to decide.

Em tilts his head and then scrapes the bucket across the dock

toward Cass. I gaze at the horizon, at a band of cormorants

drying their wings on the breakwater. After ducking the bucket

full again, Cass stands over me, little drops of water glinting in the sun across his chest, then dripping from his hair and the

bottom of his suit onto me. He points to Emory’s life jacket.

“He’s still learning to swim?”

“He doesn’t know how. At all,” I say shortly.

“Never had lessons?”

“He had some water therapy when he was really little—at

the Y—it freaked him out. Nic and I have both tried doing it

here but it never took. I—” I cut off before I can tell him Emo-

ry’s entire life story.

“I bet I can do it. Teach him,” Cass says casually. “I worked at

this camp, Lend a Hand, as an assistant counselor last year. That

was my job, helping the”—he makes air quotes—“‘reluctant

swimmers.’”

I squint at his face. “Think you’ll have time for that? They

keep the yard boy hopping around here. Old Mrs. Partridge

alone is a full-time job.”

Cass grins, dimples grooving deep. I suppress a strange urge

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