What I Thought Was True (21 page)

jacket.

The waves slosh into the boat, surf slapping us in the face

and we rock back and forth crazily.

“Friends of yours, Cass?”

I have this sudden awful fear that they are. Former class-

mates, fellow Bath and Tennis Club buddies, whatever. The peo-

ple he really belongs with. To.

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“Nope. Yours?”

“Despite the island girl rep, no. We usually save our topless

antics for land.”

“We’d better head in, then,” Cass deadpans. I whack him

on the shoulder as though he’s Nic, and he grins back at me

with an expression that is . . . definitely not my cousin’s way

of looking at me. And a slow smile that builds. I feel that race

of electricity slip-slide over my skin again, and meet his eyes

full on, the way we did in Mrs. Ellington’s kitchen. And that

March night.

He tightens the line on the mainsail without looking away

from me, waiting for my eyes to fall. But I keep watching him,

noticing, in the small confines of the sailboat and the strange

stillness of this moment, things I hadn’t seen before. A tiny

white scar that cuts through the left corner of his dark left

eyebrow. Faint flecks of green in the deep blue of his eyes. The

little pulse beating at the base of his throat. I don’t know how

long it is that we just look. When I finally turn away, everything on the water seems just the same. Except my sense that something has shifted.

Shutting my eyes, I tip my face up to the sun and the wind,

then open it to find that we’ve lost the gust and the boat is still, except for rocking a bit in the wake of some huge powerboat

that just sped by, full of guys wearing aviator sunglasses.

“So, this island girl thing. What’s that?”

“C’mon, Cass. Don’t play dumb.”

“I’m the one needing remedial English help, Gwen, I am

dumb.”

I turn to him incredulously. He stares back at me. His eyes

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seem to see all the way into me, and pull something else out.

“The last thing you are is dumb, Cass. I mean . . . here on

island . . . we’re the . . . well, you know how there are townies

and non-townies in Stony Bay?”

“I guess,” he says vaguely, as if he really doesn’t know.

“Well, island kids are the townies and then some. Especially

if we’re girls. We’re like summer amenities.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cass jerks up on one

elbow, eyebrows lowered.

“That we’re picnic baskets. Useful, even kind of nice to have

when it’s hot and you’re hungry. But who wants a picnic when

summer’s over?”

Cass clearly doesn’t know what to say to that. Or there’s

actually some sort of wind and water crisis that involves intense

concentration and not looking at me at all. Lots of rope hauling

and a few orders barked at me in some sort of sailor lingo I

don’t understand, which he translates after a beat or two of my

silent incomprehension.

“So you
are
a Boat Bully after all,” I say.

“Huh? Can you take the tiller for a sec—yeah, like that.” His

warm hand steadies mine, heat settling in, then lets go.

“You’re one of those guys who gets all nautical and bossy

on the water.”

“I am not. I just know what I’m doing here. Just keep hold-

ing that steady. I’ll get the wind back soon.”

Since I don’t know sailing, I have no idea whether he actu-

ally needs to pull and loosen and adjust all these things or if it’s just a way to tune out. But then he looks at me, smiles, and the

sparkle of the water is reflected from his eyes. “Don’t worry.”

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I find myself answering, “I’m not worried.”

And I’m not. I’m not worried. I’m not awkward. I’m not

self-conscious. I’m not anything except here. It feels like for-

ever since I’ve been “here” without being “there” and “there

too” and “what about there.” But none of those exist. Just me,

Cass, and the blue ocean.

He starts to say something, but whatever it is gets drowned

out by the roar of an enormous Chris-Craft surging by, leaving

a tidal wave of foaming wake behind it.

We toss back and forth against the sides for a second before

Cass decides it’s probably a life-saving decision to get out of

the line of oddly thick traffic on the high seas. I don’t think

I’ve ever seen so many sails and spinnakers and wakes. Is there

a race? Or is everyone as reluctant to have their time on the

water end as I am?

We sail in silence until the sunset turns the sky streaky Ital-

ian ice colors: raspberry, lemon, tangerine—all against blue

cotton candy. Then we head home and dock the boat. I climb

out, hand him my life jacket.

“I’d walk you home, but I’d better get this back out to the

mooring before dark.”

I say I understand. Though I actually want him to walk me

home. In the dark.

“Tomorrow night at six,” Cass says.

“Is?”

“Tutoring. You can’t put it off forever, Gwen.” He holds out

one hand, its back facing me, and ticks things off on his fin-

gers. “You told me how Old Mrs. P. Likes Things Done. I boiled

your lobsters—”

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“I thought we’d agreed not to bring that up again.”

“I’m making a point,” Cass says. “You helped me with the

hedge. I took you sailing.” He’s ticked off four fingers now.

“You gave Emory a lesson . . .”

“That’s not in the equation. We’re even now. I know you like

to be one up, Guinevere Castle. So time for you to tutor me and

find out just how stupid I am.”

“I’ve never thought you were—”

He holds up one finger. “I really do have to go,” he says.

“Tomorrow. At six. Your house.”

“Why not the Field House?” Why am I now
wanting
to be

alone with him?

“Besides the fact that it’s messy, disgusting, and smells like

dog piss?” Cass asks. “Your grandfather told me all about the

job he had as a teenager sharpening knives. I don’t know Por-

tuguese, so I can’t be totally sure what he said next . . . but I got the idea he’d be dropping by with some sharp ones if we were

alone in my apartment. Six. Your house.”

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My brother can
not
stop talking about the swimming lessons. As Grandpa is putting him to bed he tells and retells the story: “I

was brave. Went in the water. Superman helped, but I was brav-

est.” The next morning he wakes me up, shoving his suit at me,

bending down to remove his PJ bottoms. “More lesson today.”

I groan. “No, bunny rabbit.”

He fixes me with an exasperated stare. Then nudges Hideout

at my stomach, saying fiercely, “Hideout bite you.”

When I roll over, pull the pillow over my head, he moves on

to Mom, then Nic, then Grandpa Ben. When none of us agree

that it’s a lesson day he just puts on the suit and sits by the

door, legs folded, Hideout in his lap.

I worry about it to Vivien. “This was not such a hot idea.

He’s like obsessed with Cass.”

“Must run in the family.” She tips her head to scrutinize the

daisy she’s just painted on my big toe.

“You’re hilarious. I’m being serious, this could be bad. What

happens when Cass gets bored and moves on? Where does that

leave Em? Waiting for Superman.”

She snorts. “Give me your other foot. God, Gwen, what do

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you do to your soles? They’re like leather, and the summer’s

barely begun. It’s too soon to have summer feet.”

“Mine are permanent. I’m scared for Emory, Vivie. Pay atten-

tion.”

She scrabbles in her big aluminum folding nail case for a

pumice stone, frowns over two, selects the rougher. “I know

you are. I hear you. You’re afraid Cassidy Somers is going to

show up for Emory. Dazzle him. Then let him down. Hmm. I

wonder where that fear comes from.” She drops the pumice,

setting her palms together, tapping her fingers, movie-therapist

style.

“Thank you, Dr. Freud. Ouch. Don’t take
all
the skin off, Viv.

Jesus. It’s not farfetched. He let me down. Why won’t he do the

same to Emory? Maybe letting people down is what Cassidy

Somers does.”

“Maybe expecting good to end badly is what Gwen Castle

does. Sweetie, it’s different. You guys are nearly adults. You had sex without knowing each other. That never ends well—” She

holds up a hand to forestall my inevitable comment. “I know,

I know, what would I know? But I
do
. Things may be solid

with me and Nico, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind and deaf

to high school drama. I know about Ben Montoya and his

never-ending soap opera with Katie Clark, who won’t put out, so

he sleeps with girls who do, then ditches them for Katie,

making everyone, including himself, miserable. I know about

Thorpe, who’s in love with Chris Fosse, who is straight and

never going to love him back, so he had that fling with the

college boy from White Bay, who fell for him, and now Thorpe

is all guilty and conflicted.”

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“Wow, I totally missed out on
that
scandal.”

“Oh, very dramatic. Supposedly the college kid like sere-

naded Thorpe outside his window, and then Thorpe had to

come out to his parents, who apparently were the
last
people on the planet to know where Thorpe stood.”

“Where was I when this happened?”

“Pining over Cassidy Somers. Or maybe Spence Channing,”

Vivien says, reaching for the foot lotion, eyes cast down into

her box.

“God. Never Spence.” I groan.

She gives me a sharp look over her glasses. (Vivien is really

farsighted and has to wear these little granny glasses to do

her intricate toe designs.) In the silence that follows, I realize exactly what I’ve revealed by what I left out. I rub my forehead.

“The thing is, Viv—”

“What I’m saying,” she continues smoothly, “is that you are

in a sex situation with Cass. That gets cloudy. There’s none of

that with Emory. No hormones, no drama. He’s just a kid who

needs help. Cass knows how. Why would he screw that up?”

“Was. I
was
in a sex situation with Cass. Not now.”

“Uh-huh,” Vivien says. “Of course not. Because we all

choose who we choose. With our brains and nothing else.

You’re right, Gwen.”

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“Positive you don’t need some permit for this?” Mom asks,

watching me line up pencils at the kitchen table.

“Mom, it’s not daycare. It’s teaching.”

She regards me dubiously as I rip open a stack of yellow

lined-paper notebooks.

“This is the polite boy, with the abs?”

“We’ve been through this. Yes. Nic’s teammate. I’m helping

him pass an English test. No abs involved.”

Mom’s hovering. She never hovers. She has to know what’s

up with Nic and Vivien, but I’ve never seen her show it by

word or glance—not when Nic comes in at the crack of dawn

after “dinner at Viv’s,” not when Vivie and Nic vanish into the

bedroom when Grandpa Ben is out and I’ve got Em. Why do
I

get the suspicious eyes?

I guess because I’ve never brought a boy home. “Nic’s team-

mate” sounded nice and distant and official . . . but kind of

like a lie. Not the real story. Like every other way I define Cass.

Mom, who never gives me sharp looks, keeps studying my

face. I consciously try not to blush.

She realigns the placemats on the table. Nic, Grandpa, Em,

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Mom, me . . . one two three four five. Mom frowns, readjusts

number five.

“Mom. It’s tutoring. Not a date. What are you worrying

about?”

“Nothing, Gwen. Just making sure.”

After a series of firm knocks, Cass shifts back on his heels out-

side the door, wearing dark jeans and a button-down cobalt-

blue shirt. His face is faintly flushed and freshly shaved—there’s a tiny cut near his chin. Still damp, his hair appears to have

been recently combed. Basically, he comes across as though

he’s taken trouble with his looks.

Not good. I might have changed four times, but he has no

way of knowing that. There’s no concealing his tidiness—he

looks like someone who might have a bouquet of flowers hid-

den behind his back.

“You didn’t need to dress up,” I tell him immediately.

Glancing down at his shirt, he raises his eyebrows. “This

was the only thing that was clean. And not pink.”

“Oh. Well. Come in.”

He strides in, looking around curiously at our combined

kitchen/living room/workout room/playroom. His face is

expressionless. All the soaring ceilings and expensive lighting

and artwork at his house, all those rooms . . . and look at us.

Sagging Myrtle and worn, peeling wallpaper and a few of

Emory’s creations taped up, along with a photograph of Rita

Hayworth that Grandpa Ben is way too fond of, and some of

Nic’s exercise routines posted in sequential order high along

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the wall. Also Vovó’s solemn portrait/shrine and a pin-the-

tail on the donkey game that we put up for Em’s birthday

and haven’t taken down because it helps him with fine motor

skills.

“I like this. A lot of personality.”

“Isn’t that what guys say about ugly girls?” I snap.

“Is this a bad time or are you just randomly pissed off?” He

scrubs his hand through his hair, and it flops back into disar-

rayed perfection once he’s done.

“I’m not randomly pissed off. I’m—”

Randomly pissed off.

I’d been fine two minutes ago. Now I’m totally uptight.
Not

a date. Just tutoring.

Cass has moved around me to the table where I’d laid out

the yellow lined pad and pencil, opening up his backpack, the

same one he had on the beach with Emory. That softens me

immediately. He slaps a copy of
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
down on the table and grins up at me, looking through his lashes.

Long lashes. Why do boys get those when girls are supposed

to need them?

“So, we sit here?” He pulls out a chair, piles into it, rests his

elbows on the table, looks up at me again.

“Uh, yeah. Here’s fine. My room is kind of small and it—”

Is my bedroom. Has a bed.

Just then, Mom comes out of our room, stopping dead, as

though she hadn’t been expecting anyone.

Cass leaps to his feet, extending a hand. “Hello, Mrs. Castle.

I’m Cass—Cassidy Somers. Gwen’s agreed to give me some Lit

2 help.”

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Mom stares at his hand for a moment as though she has

no idea what to do with it, much as I do when Cass makes

one of his super-polite moves. Then she gingerly extends hers

and Cass shakes it. As they do, I get a whiff of some sort of

lemony-spicy scent.

Aftershave?

Cass is wearing aftershave.

Ha. He did put in an effort.
Now,
this gives me a little thrill, when seconds ago I was upset by the thought. I’m becoming

more bipolar by the minute. Maybe because the aftershave is

fighting with the perfume I put on, from a bottle Vivien gave

me four years ago. Which has probably expired and is emitting

toxic fumes and scrambling my brain.

“Well, yes, then.” Mom takes possession of her hand once

again. “I’ll just—get back— Would you kids like a snack or

anything?”

Like what, Mom? Milk and cookies? Frozen Lean Cuisine?

“Nah, thank you, I just ate,” Cass says. “Thanks for letting us

do this here, Mrs. Castle.”

He really is insanely polite. He sounds like a teenager from a

fifties sitcom
. “Golly, gee, Mrs. Castle, you sure are swell.”

“Our pleasure,” Mom returns, rising to the occasion. “Make

yourself at home, Cassidy. I’ll just get back to work. You two

won’t even know I’m here.”

Work? Now?

She goes to the kitchen closet, pulls out the vacuum cleaner,

attaching the filter. Then she turns it on and assaults Myrtle the couch, who I imagine is wearing an expression of upholstered

surprise. We’ve pretty much given up on doing anything to

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maintain Myrtle. The vacuum cleaner sound roars through the

room like a jet plane.

Cass seems to be suppressing a smile. He taps the cover of

Tess,
calls over the roar, “I guess we should get started. I have some questions.”

“Fire away,” I yell. Mom is laying into the part beneath the

cushions in a kind of frenzy. I can hear these clanking sounds as

things that belong nowhere near a vacuum cleaner get sucked

up anyway.

This has to be her way of being a chaperone, but honestly,

what does she think is happening here? We’re going to leap

on each other in a frenzy of lust after talking Thomas Hardy—

always such an aphrodisiac—brush aside the pad and pencils

and Do It on the table?

Now I’m remembering Cass tipping his forehead against

mine, perspiration sticking us together, his hand cupped

around the back of my neck, one of mine flattened against his

racing heart.

I clear my throat and focus on his paperback copy of
Tess

of the d’Urbervilles
. It’s easy to see he barely read it. The spine is uncracked, there are no notes or turned down pages or under-linings.

“Yeah,” Cass shouts, upping his volume slightly as the vac-

uum cleaner starts to cough out a Fabio hairball. “This is the

book I didn’t even get a third of the way through. I hated every

single character in it.” He hunches over a little bit, picking at a tiny gap in the corner of the cover, making it larger.

“Everyone does,” I tell him. “It’s like the Classic No One Loves.”

“Honestly? But we still have to read it.”

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“Yup.”

“Why? They’re just people behaving badly.”

“People behaving badly is, like, most of literature, Cass.”

He squints at me. “I guess. And life. Maybe.”

“Maybe,” I concede.
What are we saying here
?

“That Angel Clare dude is a complete prick.”

Mom’s now moved on to the rug, and has sucked up some-

thing that’s rattling around frantically. Talking is like trying to be heard standing on a jetty in a hurricane.

Angel who? Oh, right, Angel Clare. The hero of
Tess,
which I reread last night just to be in practice even though it’s number one on my list of Books I’d Like to Throw Off the Pier. “I

thought you didn’t read the entire book.”

“SparkNotes,” he admits, again with that embarrassed

expression.

“Hey, we’ve all done it. Just to supplement, of course.”

He shrugs, with a smile. Mom jams the nozzle of the vac-

uum cleaner under his feet. He lifts them up obediently. I duck

my head under the table.

“Mom. Do you
have
to do this now?”

She flips the deafening vacuum cleaner off, says quietly,

“Sorry. You know how I am. Can’t stand a mess.”

“Try to survive this one until we’re done,” I whisper.

“Sorry, honey,” she responds in a normal voice Cass is sure

to hear. “Didn’t realize you two wanted to be alone.”

“We don’t— Ow!” Attempting to raise my head, I’ve

smacked it on the underside of the table.

“You okay?” Cass reaches out to touch my hair, succeeding

in covering my hand as I’m rubbing the spot. He tightens his

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grip for an instant, then pulls his hand away. “Should I get

ice?”

“No, I’m fine.” Not really. I’m imagining the deepening

shades of red I’m cycling through, trying to recall their names

from art class sophomore year: scarlet, crimson, vermilion,

burgundy. “Let’s just keep going.”

Mom coils up the vacuum cleaner cord, looping it hand

to elbow, hand to elbow, carefully not looking over at us, as

though we have, in fact, started going at it on the kitchen table.

Now the kitchen door slams. “Mommy!” Em soars across

the room to her. He’s followed by a sweaty-looking Nic. Who

smells particularly ripe.

“Nico! You stink like old gym socks!” Mom says. “Take your

shirt off, outside, please, and get into that shower.”

Nic, however, has spotted Cass. His expression hardens into

one of unnatural grimness. “I was running up the Ocean hill

carrying Em,” he says. “Seemed like good training. Now I’m

going to lift, though, so the shower will have to wait.”

The combined odors of Cass’s subtle aftershave and the dis-

gusting reek of Nic are overpowering. I wonder if Cass will

keel over and I’ll have to perform CPR. This speculation should

not feel so much like a fantasy.

Cass is biting his full lower lip now, looking down at
Tess
.

I can’t tell from his downturned face whether he’s amused or

completely horrified by the three-ring circus that is my family.

“Hi!” Emory’s face lights up completely. “Superman. Hi!”

He points triumphantly at Cass, like
ta-da!

“Hey there, Superboy,” Cass says easily. My brother immedi-

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ately comes over and throws his arms around Cass’s neck. And

kisses him. On the neck.

Cass pats Em’s back. “Hey buddy.” His voice is muffled by

Emory’s hair.

“Superman,” Emory repeats.

Cass adjusts so that Emory has room to sit on his chair, but

Em’s having none of that and climbs into his lap, occupying it

firmly, like Fabio in his “here I stay” mode on my bed.

Time to intervene.

“Em, you need to give Superman some room. He has to—”

“It’s fine, Gwen.” Cass cuts me off. “Want to keep going?

You were about to explain why Angel Clare wasn’t a di—uh—

jerk. I’m all ears.”

“Well, of course he’s a jerk! I mean, come
on
. She tells him she was basically raped and he can’t forgive her because she’s

‘not the woman he thought she was’ even though I’m sure
he’d

been around. That’s without even mentioning the scene where

he sleepwalks afterward, carries her to the cemetery and puts

her in a coffin.”

“
This
is why I read romance novels,” Mom says, abandon-

ing all pretense of not eavesdropping. “None of that nonsense

there.”

Cass rubs his nose. “Seriously? I didn’t get to that one. Must

not’ve been in SparkNotes.”

I wave my hand, exasperated. “It’s supposed to symbolize

that the person he loved is really dead to him now, and—”

“But it’s just basically twisted—” Cass interrupts. The door

to Nic’s room slams open. He’s wearing a wife-beater, takes a

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few menacing steps into the room, then lifts the forty-pound

weight and starts doing bicep curls with a belligerent expres-

sion. Very Stanley Kowalski. Hullo, Nic was the one who begged

me to take
on
this tutoring thing.

Cass lifts an eyebrow at Nic. “Cruz, hey.”

“Bro,” Nic returns, practically snarling. He swings the

weight to the other arm. More curling. More glowering. Cass’s

eyebrow remains in an elevated position. How does he do that?

“Shiny.” Emory smoothes Cass’s hair, pushing it behind one