Between Us and the Moon (17 page)

ME: Happy Fourth of July!

During our Fourth of July barbecue, I send a text to Claudia. It’s weird, I’ve never been nervous to send a message to a girl who could become one of my friends. Girls like Claudia, the ones who always know what to wear and what to say to guys, don’t usually want to talk to a science girl like me.

My phone chimes.

CLAUDIA: We’re in town already. Text me when you get here.

I text below the table so Nancy can’t see. She’s been making small comments lately whenever my phone beeps or chimes.

“I love this barbecue sauce,” Mom says and licks the tips of
her fingers. She hums a little as she eats, stopping only to pop another piece of chicken in her mouth. The wind breezes through Nancy’s small barbecue party. We’re outside in the backyard. I’m in a short skirt and black tank top. The skirt is mine, which means it’s fifty thousand years old and too short. The tank top is Scarlett’s. Nothing I own has spaghetti straps.

We sit at the edge of the property at a table that Nancy imported from some company in Maine. Apparently, they used to make picnic tables for the Kennedys. There are four picnic tables, each lined with white candles and linen tablecloths. Waiters walk about offering more drinks or napkins. I recognize some of the crew from the catering company Nancy hires every year.

The backyard is lit up special just for us and I wonder where Nancy finds the people to do all her bidding. At some of the tables next to ours, Nancy’s Daughters of the American Revolution pals discuss the lobster forks and Nancy’s choice in salted butter. Even though they are each in a different dress they seem the same to me.

“What are you doing tonight?” Nancy asks, drawing my eyes to hers. Her summer dress is too big. The straps keep falling off her shoulders and the hem lies along the grass like a long tongue.

“I’m going to meet some girls in town,” I say. I don’t mention that I’m only meeting them briefly before meeting up with Andrew. I wipe my mouth with a linen napkin. Nancy raises her eyebrows high and resumes a conversation with one of her friends, most likely about me.

We finish up dessert and I head out to Main Street. I text
Andrew to pick me up, not at the house but in front of the Bird’s Nest Diner instead.

When I approach the line of shops, restaurants, and busy foot traffic, I text Claudia.

ME: Here!

CLAUDIA: We’re at Plymouth Rocks, penny candy.

Nice. That place happens to be one of my favorite stores on Main Street. When I was a kid, I loved their dollar notebooks. I finally get within sight of the store. Claudia is there but with only one of her blonde friends. They sit on a bench waiting for me. Two guys come out of Plymouth Rocks and join them at the bench. They look like they’re our age, but I can’t be sure. They have on the typical outfit that all the guys at Summerhill wear—preppy shorts, flip-flops, messy hair.

When Claudia sees me, she tips her chin up and waves.

Be Scarlett.
These girls don’t know about my past or my life in the bio lab.
Be Scarlett the first night you watched her on Main Street
.

“Hey,” I say and keep my hands in my skirt pockets. I’ve seen Scarlett do this about a million times. I shake my head so my hair falls down my back. Chelsea, Claudia’s blonde friend, sits down in one of the boy’s laps. Gabe is his name, from New Jersey. He leaves Saturday like most tourists do: Saturday to Saturday.

“I love that top,” Claudia says to me.

“Thanks,” I say with a shrug. “It’s old,” I add, remembering one of my Scarlett rules.
Stay uninterested, then they will be more interested in you.

Claudia introduces the other guy as Will and kisses his cheek.
Okay, so they’ve clearly coupled up already. Claudia and Chelsea stand up and we start walking toward the gazebo. I still keep my hands in my pockets.

We head to the legit sweet shop on Main Street, the Candy Manor. We want to grab bags of fudge and candy before the band starts. I’ve never been to the Candy Manor without Scarlett or Mom. It’s pathetic. I know this as Claudia and Chelsea trade candies.

As I pick out a red lollipop shaped like a lobster, Claudia peers in my bag.

“Oooh!” she says. “Sarah has a ring pop.”

“It’s the last one!” Chelsea cries.

I slip the ring out of the bag and dangle it on my index finger. We’re standing in the middle of the crowded shop. “It is mine but I am willing to part with it on a negotiation basis only. . . .” I make my voice singsong like Scarlett does with her friends and hold the ring pop high above my head.

Both Gabe and Will ready on their toes to grab it.

“I’m a gymnast. I can jump,” Chelsea says, and her tongue sticks out the side of her mouth a bit. The eyes of these four people are on me. I would have just given the ring to Claudia, no questions asked, but this is what Scarlett does. She makes a spectacle.

A rush flows through me and I drop the ring pop.

After Gabe and Will both nearly slip out of their flip-flops from wrestling in the middle of the store, a Candy Manor employee pushes through the crowd.

“Pay and go. It’s too crowded in here tonight for that business!” The woman has a finger pointed directly at me.

Claudia throws her arm over my shoulder and laughs so the woman can’t see and we escape back out to the street. Hundreds of beach chairs litter the green. Red balloons hover and sway from the pillars of the gazebo and it smells like cotton candy and popcorn. Little carts are scattered about the field and the same lady who has sold the neon, glow-in-the-dark bracelets for years is still here, selling them for fifty cents.

People have been saving their seats since breakfast, so we walk through a maze of beach chairs and picnic blankets. We head back toward Main Street where we finally find a vacant bit of grass by the stone wall. The wall separates the field from the main road. I sit closest to the wall but lean back on my hands. Claudia and Chelsea sit across from me in the boys’ laps.

“What’s Rhode Island like?” Gabe asks. “Never been, only drive through every year.”

“It’s exactly like Connecticut,” Claudia says before I can answer. “I’m from Old Lyme,” she adds.

“That’s, like, ten minutes from me,” I say. We share a smile and I immediately hope we can hang out in the fall.

“Do you come every summer?” Will asks me.

I’m not sure what to say exactly, I don’t want it to seem like I don’t have friends here. I want them to think I have tons of options for tonight. But at the same time I want them to hang out with me.

“Yeah, it’s fun,” I say, “but there are
no
parties so I’m bored a lot.” As I am talking, I feel ridiculous. This isn’t me, but they are captivated. I throw my hair back again and it’s so long it touches the grass.

“God. I couldn’t care less about parties,” Claudia says.

“At home it’s just the basketball players barfing in the field near the 7-11,” Chelsea adds. “Claud and I don’t even go.”

She doesn’t go?

Claudia tells us about her theater company in Old Lyme and her role as both Dorothy last winter in
The Wizard of Oz
and the lead in
Cabaret
in the spring. We move from the grass up to the stone wall because we can’t see the band and a woman nearby changes her baby’s diaper. The whole field is swarming with people.

My cell reads eight thirty. I glance down Main Street toward the Goosehead Tavern. No red pickup.

“So I guess I’ll audition for
Our Town
this year, but I really love musical theater,” Claudia explains. I’m still surprised that she’s not a Becky Winthrop type, a cheerleader or party girl.

I would never have approached these girls, never would have believed we could have had a thing in common.

Dad is totally right. I do assume. I thought I had Claudia figured out but I never gave her a chance.

I make a point to listen.

“What about you? Where’s your boyfriend?” Claudia asks. “You were pretty dressed up the other night to see him at that party.”

“Oh, him. What do I need a boyfriend for?” I say and shrug. “Guys take up too much of my time.”

Claudia and Chelsea laugh. Chelsea nudges Will in the ribs. “She’s smart. I should lose you.”

“I make them
think
I like them,” I say. “I’m sort of seeing this guy and I guess we’re ‘seeing where it goes.’” I make air quotes. “I’m not into the blond hair, blue eyes look,” I say, remembering the talk with Scarlett. “But I do love his body. So, he’ll do for right now, I guess.” I add a shrug.

The group snickers and holds their hands over their mouths. Claudia and Chelsea focus on something behind me and Gabe gestures for me to turn around.

But I know. I immediately know because this is too much like a movie. No, it’s not a movie, it’s Murphy’s Law. My gut clenches.

Andrew is frowning but flinches, shaking himself out of the moment.

I hop down from the stone wall onto Main Street.

“Andrew,” I say, because more complex sentences seem hard right now. “This is Claudia, Chelsea, Will, and Gabe.” I’m all breathy and high-pitched.

Andrew simply nods and gives a polite smile.

“We’re going to watch the fireworks on Nauset Light,” I squeak. “I’ll call you tomorrow, Claudia.”

Claudia and her group say good-bye and stifle their own laughter. Andrew and I walk together, but he’s silent. I want to say I’m sorry immediately. Actually, I want to curl in on myself, into a little ball. I could be daring and take his hand, but he keeps his in his pockets.

Under the light of the street lamps, his expression is dark, brooding.

“Where are we walking?” I dare to ask.

He stops and runs one hand over his hair. “I don’t know. Do you want to go anywhere with me?”

“You know I do,” I say, and the frown is still set on Andrew’s face.

“No,” he says and shoves his hand in his pocket again. “I don’t.”

“Can we please talk? I want to explain,” I say. “I know it sounded horrible.”

We walk in silence away from Main Street. Just as I turn my back, the brass band warms up. With a glance down the long suburban street, the glitter of the red, white, and blue tinsel that circles the gazebo winks under the streetlight. I want to run backward, erasing everything that just happened, but I know, the
universe
knows, that time travel is not possible.

Andrew keeps walking and the conductor starts the festivities. In their red uniforms and blue caps, they are dots at the end of the street now. I am dying for the music to start so it fills the silence.

“Hip hip!” the band announcer cries.

“Hidey-ho!” the crowd returns. They do this three times and as I turn the corner, Lighthouse Beach comes into view. The band begins, but the brass is muffled by the waves and wind.

Andrew keeps his distance. Good. It’ll be easier to take when he breaks up with me. I got through Tucker, and I can get through this.

Except, this is my fault and I need Andrew in a way I didn’t need Tucker. We share something deeper, real.

Once we get to the beach parking lot, he leans his hands on
a wall that separates the asphalt from the dunes. About fifty or sixty feet below, the waves crash again and again. Andrew looks out at the ocean. The sunset is behind us because this beach faces east. The sky is a twilight blue, almost lavender, like on our first date.

I want to spit or slap myself. Either one will do.

The waves swell and crash and the moon is low on the horizon. It’s been almost three weeks since Tucker broke up with me so the moon is nearly waxing crescent again. It’s amazing how much and how fast things change. I would do anything to make the boy next to me even look in my direction.

“I didn’t mean what I said,” I explain, but my voice is very quiet.

“It didn’t even sound like you,” Andrew says. We both don’t dare to raise our voices to a normal speaking level. Even though the band is a half mile back, the music swells through the opening ragtime number. “Is that you? I mean, the real you?” he asks.

“The real me?”

“A girl who would say that about me behind my back.”

“I like you so much,” I say. I clear my throat because I can hear the panic and desperation in my voice. “I wish I could express how much. And it’s surprising me because I’m not usually in this situation.”

He finally looks at me and the furrow between his eyebrows makes shame flare in my stomach. I’ve never hurt anyone. I can only imagine how Tucker felt when he came to break up with me. It took me
ages
to understand what he was trying to say.

“What do you mean? You’re not usually in this situation?” he asks.

All of my excuses sound so ridiculous and childish. I want to kick something.

A couple of cars pull up to the line of spaces overlooking Lighthouse Beach. There are some couples far off at the other end, but when I see a family and two kids getting out of the car, I walk down the stairs to the sand.

“Sarah?”

I don’t look back, but Andrew’s familiar footsteps follow me onto the sand. I slip off my sandals and hold them in my hands. My toes crunch on seaweed when I finally make it to the shore.

The moon shines over the water even though the stars are just beginning to peek through the cobalt blue sky. Soon that blue will be gray, then black and all of the constellations will come out.