Between Us and the Moon (16 page)

“Please don’t.”

I chuckle again and continue, “Probability is all about how likely something is to happen. If you frame every situation in your life in terms of a probability, think about this: how many times did Curtis drive drunk and how many times did Mike get into that car before even though he knew Curtis was drunk?”

“A lot.”

“Exactly. Now, probability says that every time they drank and every time they were together, the same likelihood existed that they would get into the car. The same probability existed that they would get in an accident.”

“That’s not very uplifting. Wouldn’t the probability be higher because of the times we drank? We drink often.”

“No. The ratio is the same. There are more variables, I guess, and I would have to do some real math here to find an exact probability, but think about it this way. Forget equations. You are a human being with free will. I don’t believe our decisions were programmed into the universe during the Big Bang or that they’re written into the fabric of time. You didn’t push Mike into the car. You didn’t tie him down. He made a decision. Why do you need to make the events of that night your responsibility?” I have to catch my breath. “Wow,” I add quietly. “I might be a teensy overinvested in this.”

Andrew is quiet and I give him the moment to check on the laptop and Stargazer. It hums along nicely and Jolie is there in the sky above.

“You’re not mad? That I didn’t tell you?” he asks when I sit back down.

I am in no position to hold a grudge against him, especially with the intricate stories I’m weaving. Yet, my sense of injustice nibbles at me.

“I’m not mad. It just seems strange to give up what you want.”

We’re quiet for a while and Andrew finally says, “My family isn’t even on the Cape this year.”

“Why not?” I ask. I can’t fathom being here without Nancy, Mom, Scarlett, and Dad. I imagine the stores, the roads, and the house, empty with only me inside. It wouldn’t be the Cape, it would be some kind of weird hologram.

“My little brother is only twelve and my stepmom is having a baby. It just didn’t work out this summer.”

This is the perfect moment to tell him about my own lies; to tell him that I am Scarlett’s sister, and how old I really am. But I can’t bring myself to do it. I have to be Sarah, going to MIT. I can’t be
that
part of me. The part where I am in high school or where I’m Scarlett’s sister. He is getting to know the real me, I am getting to know the real Andrew. These minor logistical details aren’t what make
us
special. They aren’t what is keeping us together right now.

“She’s twenty-nine. My stepmom,” he says quietly. “She was my dad’s dental hygienist; he’s a dentist.”

My head whips to him.

“That would make her ten years older than you.”

“You got it, Star Girl. It’s creepy.”

I clear my throat. Age is not something I’d like to be discussing right now.

“You know the Stargazer is modeled after some of the deep-space telescopes they have in the middle of the desert? The ones that look for life way out in the universe?”

Andrew rubs my back a little as if to say it’s okay I changed the subject this time. I look through the viewfinder again and at the comet blazing through our solar system. “It’ll be strange for the night sky to be without the comet,” I say. “It’s almost
like a friend to me now. I know that’s cheesy.”

“No, it’s not.”

On a night like tonight, I could jump up and touch the moon.

“When did you turn eighteen?” Andrew asks.

Or not.

“Oh, um. In May,” I say.

“Good thing I met you in June, eh, jailbait?”

“Yeah,” I chuckle but it’s sour. “Jailbait . . .”

“Have you ever . . . ?” he starts to ask, his eyes still on the stars.

“What?”

He leans on his hip.

“Have you ever . . . ,” he starts again.

The exhilaration of the comet still courses through me. He doesn’t finish the thought. In a flash, he sits up and his eyes focus ahead on the shore.

He looks up at the moon above and says, “It might work.”

“What might work?” I ask, sitting up too.

He stands up and holds out his hand to me. The waves swell and crash against the shore. The water slides up to meet the seaweed and shells scattered against the beach.

“I’ve got something to show you,” Andrew says. He pulls me toward the shore.

“But the Stargazer!”

“That comet isn’t going anywhere,” he says.

“That’s not true. It’s actually going approximately three hundred miles a second!”

In between laughs he says, “We’re only going down to the shore.”

I try to keep up, but my flip-flops slide off.

“My sandals!”

“Keep running!” he says.

So I do, I keep running and running after this gorgeous boy and my bra strap keeps falling off my shoulder and I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.

Andrew grabs me around my waist and spins me around. When he places me down, my feet touch the top of something crunchy—seaweed.

His hands are strong behind the small of my back. Andrew pulls me toward him, my mouth meets his and I again pretend that I know what I am doing when he kisses me with his mouth open. He switches the position of his head and I do too. He grips me even tighter.

When he pulls away, he smiles like he has a secret lodged deep inside.

Far up the beach, the beam of the lighthouse revolves around and around, sending rhythmic swirls of light up the distant sand. Where we are is dark except for the moon shining down.

“You have to stand where I am for it to work,” he says.

“For what to work?”

“Wow, do I know something my genius astronomer does not?”

My
genius astronomer
.

He bends over and moves the seaweed aside. The moon’s rays make the sand beneath bright white.

With his index finger, he draws an
S
shape in the sand, an
A
, and so on. Soon, my name is spelled out on the beach and it . . .
I gasp . . . it is
glowing.
I look from the moon to the sand, to Andrew’s smiling face.

“It’s the phosphorescence that makes it glow in the dark,” he says.

“It’s—” I throw my arms around him. “It’s wonderful!”

When he kisses me, his hands run up and down my sides and a tingle shoots through my whole body. He tastes sweet, like peppermint.

“Thank you!” I say and hug him again. His hand remains around my waist as we walk back to the telescope and our little spot on the beach. Once I make sure everything is still recording accurately, I lie back down next to Andrew.

“What were you going to ask before?” I say.

He runs a hand through his hair and looks up at the sky.

“Have you ever . . . ?” he leads but stops again.

“Have I what? Just say it!”

“Had sex with a guy before?”

“Oh,” I say with a hard swallow and switch the flashlight on and off.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he says.

I sit up with my legs stretched out in front of me. “I want to. I just haven’t had the chance. School. Classes. And the whole right guy thing.”

Tucker and I kissed and he felt my breasts over my shirt. Our relationship was so cerebral. I could anticipate what he would say. I knew everything about him. I thought I felt it with my body, but I didn’t, not really. Not like this.

Andrew rises onto his elbow. “I know it’s been like two weeks
or something so this might be too much. What I’m about to say.”

“Say anything.”

“When I’m with you it’s bearable. For the first time since Mike died, I’m really happy.” He puts his hand on my knee.

“Wow,” I say. The highlight of his knuckles glows under the soft light of the moon. “I don’t know what to say to that. It feels . . . important.”

“I want to make you feel good,” he says. “As good as you make me feel.”

“You do,” I say, and his hand moves farther up my knee to my thigh. “You’re one of the most sincere people I’ve ever met.”

“No, Sarah. That’s not what I mean . . .”

With his other hand, he presses on my stomach and I lie back on the sand. He kisses my kneecap. He replaces his palm with his mouth. I shiver.

“What are you—” I ask, but it catches as his lips trail over my skin. “Doing?”

The moon and the darkness make shadows on Andrew’s face. All I can see are the curve of his lips and the slight stubble on his chin. How is this boy mine?

“Is this okay?” he asks and rests his cheek against my kneecap. His face moves slowly toward the middle of my thigh. “I don’t want to do anything if it’s not okay,” he whispers, and his breath on my skin makes me jump.

I like it. And it is okay. The shivers running up and down my spine are making me shudder again. The sound of the waves, the soft graze of his lips on my knee, my thigh. His hands press against both my thighs, opening them up, his nose and mouth
graze my inner thigh . . . what was I supposed to be doing? I take in a sharp breath. I’ve never felt that before.

Breathe. Breathe. Try to catch your breath, Bean. Look at the stars. Can’t see the stars; his hands grip my thighs. Cassiopeia, soft, up, down. Comets. Comets, comets, comets,

shooting
       

stars.

“BEAN!”

Let’s swim to the moon . . .

“Bean!”

I blink and Mom’s blue eyes stare down at me. Her right eyebrow cricks up. I rip out my earphones. I fell asleep with “Moonlight Drive” on repeat.

“I’ve been calling you. Your father needs your help at work today.” She pulls back to look at me more clearly. “You fell asleep in your dress?” Mom says and glances from me to the Stargazer wrapped tightly in its case. “Is that Scarlett’s dress?”

“She gave it to me. I was up late last night because of the comet.”

I’m amazed Mom noticed I’m in Scarlett’s dress. Or maybe it’s more that she noticed I’m not in my pajamas.

“I want to hear about it at breakfast,” Mom says. “So come on. Dad says you offered to help with some cataloging.”

“But it’s Saturday and a holiday.”

“Did that ever stop your father?”

“Good point.” After my birthday dinner, I think I was apt to say anything so I could get out of there and to Andrew at the party.

Mom walks away but pops her head back in the room.

“And don’t forget, we’re hosting Nancy’s Daughters of the American Revolution Fourth of July barbecue tonight.”

I’m supposed to see Claudia and then go with Andrew to a bonfire. Mom leaves the room before I can tell her I have plans, but this involves . . .
telling her I have plans.
I could say I’m going with Claudia to Main Street, which is partially true.

Once Mom is gone, I lie back on the bed. I run a hand over my stomach, fearful to touch anywhere below the belt. I’d heard of oral sex, sure, but no one ever told me. No one ever explains that you can barely breathe, that it feels, that it feels . . . I sigh, I can’t imagine what sex must be like. Oh my God, I’ll have to do it to him. I’ll have to give him a
blow job.
I throw my face in my hands.

I kind of want to, but I have no idea how to do anything like that. I can’t ask Ettie, she’s only been on one date. I
really
can’t ask Scarlett, even though she would totally know what to do. I could ask Claudia if we got to know each other better.

I could ask Gran. What the hell am I talking about? There
is probably no worse question in the world for me to ask Gran. I can barely keep these lies together at this point, and once I get Gran on the phone, it will be like I took a truth serum. She has that effect on me.

“Beanie!” Dad calls from downstairs. I don’t want to take off this dress. I don’t want to forget last night, the phosphorescence in the sand, my name glowing in the dark, and the feel of his lips. Everything down there is—different. Alive.

“Beanie! I have to be at work early today!” Dad calls.

I jump into my routine, wash my face, brush my teeth, and wear the dress to help Dad at work.

“Well?” Dad says when we get in the car. “Coordinates?”

“Perfect. One hundred percent accurate.”

“Conditions?”

“Low light pollution. Seeing conditions could
not
have been better.”

“Was there anyone else on the beach?”

“Oh. Um. You know, kids. People fishing or whatever.”

“I mean astronomers.”

“No. No. Me. Just me. You know, me.”

Am I all right? Does having oral sex make you babble? Is that a side effect? I try to ground myself in facts. The square root of pi is 1.7721, approximately. One of the brightest constellations you can see in the sky during the winter in Rhode Island is Orion.

“You okay?” Dad asks.

“I’m tired,” I reply. “I didn’t get all packed up until midnight.”

I recite the Comet Jolie’s right ascension and declination.

Andrew’s warm touch. His fingers push up the hem of my dress. His strong grip on my hips. Is this what people mean when they say they’re falling in love? When they feel it with their body and their heart? I realize the heart is an organ, but this has got to be what they mean.

I cannot think of oral sex while sitting in the car next to my father. Think of Jim. Jim Morrison facts. First song, “Moonlight Drive.” Zodiac sign? Sagittarius.

“So are you ready?” Dad asks, and my head whips to him.

“For what?”

“Waterman Scholarship? Think you have a shot at defeating Tucker?”

“Definitely,” I say, and the moment I see Tucker in my mind, I am sure. “Oh yeah. I have a shot.”

My stomach drops.

I should have been prepared. I knew this would happen. But it still sucks.

I come to a complete stop in the maintenance shop doorway. The
Alvin
. My
Alvin
has been completely disassembled. Strewn into hundreds of specific piles, the
Alvin
is categorized throughout the room in black and white lettering. Dozens of marine biologists in white lab coats walk through the maintenance shop talking to one another and making notations on their clipboards. So much for a holiday.

A side panel lies on the floor; it’s a piece of the
Alvin
, which makes up the body of the machine. In my mind, Andrew runs his fingers along the titanium.

Rodger seemingly comes out of nowhere and joins me at my side.

“It’ll take all summer,” we say almost in perfect unison.

I want to walk around the room, pick up all the metal parts, and hold the
Alvin
’s guts to me. The top of my toes almost touch the pile of viewports, the twelve-inch portals the scientists look through into the underwater world. I squat down and as my fingers graze the acrylic plastic, Dad says my name.

We head toward his lab on the second floor and I wave good-bye to Rodger before disappearing behind the double doors.

“You know you don’t absolutely have to help me catalog today. You could celebrate. Go to town. I think I saw some people your age hanging around in the café.”

“I don’t know them, though. And I don’t think they’d want to hang out with me,” I say as I follow behind Dad up the stairs to his office.

“Why would you automatically assume that they don’t want to hang out with you? That you have done something wrong?”

I don’t assume that.

Do I? Do I assume people don’t want to spend time with me before actually checking to see if they do? I’ve never actually sat with Becky Winthrop or any of her friends. With Andrew I have been pretending to be like Scarlett because I assumed he wouldn’t want to hang out with me. It’s true. He liked me at least initially because of the Scarlett Experiment. People purposefully spend their time with my sister. I have one best friend and one former boyfriend. That’s it.

“I don’t assume that people don’t like me,” I say under my breath.

I follow Dad into the air-conditioned office. I sit down at the desk and Dad plops a binder before me. I was surprised Claudia wanted to talk to me. Maybe other people have invited me to do things and I’ve said no before giving it a chance. Maybe all of this is my fault, just not in the way I thought.

You watch the world, Bean.

Tucker’s right. I do watch the world. I do assume.

I do all of those things—alone.