Jule pulled the towel tighter around herself and opened the shower door. “I was drying off. You came outside. I didn’t know what to do.”
“You’re always lurking around. Spying. No one likes it.”
“I got it. Now can I please put my clothes on?”
Imogen walked away.
Jule wanted to follow and slap Immie’s false, beautiful face.
She wanted to feel righteous and strong instead of embarrassed and betrayed.
But she’d have to burn off that anger another way.
She grabbed her swimsuit and goggles from a hook in the shower. In the pool, she swam a mile, freestyle.
A second mile. She swam until her arms were shaking.
Finally, she threw herself onto a towel on the wooden deck. She turned her face to the sun and felt nothing besides tired.
Imogen came out a little while later. She was carrying a bowl of warm chocolate chip muffins. “I baked these,” she said. “To say sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” said Jule, not moving.
“Everything I said was mean. And I’ve been lying to you.”
“Like I care.”
“You do care.”
Jule didn’t answer.
“I know you care, bun. We shouldn’t have lies between us. You understand me so much better than Forrest does. Or Brooke.”
“Possibly true.” Jule couldn’t help herself. She smiled.
“You have a right to be mad. I was wrong. I know it.”
“Possibly true as well.”
“I think the whole thing was a means for me to push Forrest away. I do that when I get tired of guys. Cheat on them. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m really not proud of myself.”
Imogen set the muffins down by Jule’s shoulder. She lay on the deck. Their bodies were parallel.
“I want to be at home somewhere, and I want to run away,” Immie went on. “I want to be connected to people, and I want to push them away. I want to be in love, and I pick guys I’m not sure I even like all the way. Or I love them and I ruin it and maybe I ruin it on purpose. I don’t even know which it is, and how messed up is that?”
“It’s medium messed-up,” said Jule, chuckling. “But not drastic. On a scale of one to ten, it’s like a seven, I think.”
They lay there in silence for another minute.
“But level seven messed-up is probably normal,” Jule added.
“Can I pretty please bribe you with muffins to forgive me?” Immie asked.
Jule took a muffin and bit into it. “Scott is gorgeous,” she said, swallowing. “Guy like that, what are you going to do: leave him alone and watch him clean the pool? I think you might have been legally obligated to jump him.”
Imogen moaned. “Why did he have to be so sexy?” She grabbed Jule’s hand. “I was such a witch. Forgive me?”
“Always.”
“You are made of sugar, my bun. Come to the store with me now!” She said it like the store was going to be wonderfully fun.
“I’m tired. Make Brooke go with you.”
“I don’t want Brooke.”
Jule stood up.
“Don’t tell Forrest we’re leaving,” Immie said.
“I won’t.”
“Of course you won’t.” Imogen smiled up at Jule. “I know I can count on you. You won’t tell him anything at all, will you.”
END OF JUNE, 2016
MARTHA’S VINEYARD, MASSACHUSETTS
Ten weeks before Immie made the muffins, Jule found herself on Moshup Beach without a towel or a swimsuit. The sun was bright and the day hot. After the long trek down from the parking lot, she walked along the edge of the water. Huge clay cliffs loomed over her in colors of chocolate, pearl, and rust. The clay was cracked and slightly soft to the touch.
Jule took her shoes off and stood still with her toes in the sea. Some fifty yards away, Imogen and her friend set up for the afternoon. They had no beach chairs, but the guy unpacked a bag that held a cotton beach blanket, towels, magazines, and a small cooler.
They threw their clothes in the sand, put on sunblock, and drank from cans they took from the cooler. Imogen lay on the blanket to read. The guy collected rocks and piled them, one on top of another, to build a delicate sculpture in the sand.
Jule walked toward them. A few yards off she called: “Immie, is that you?”
Imogen didn’t turn around, but her boyfriend poked her in the shoulder. “She’s calling your name.”
“Imogen Sokoloff, right?” Jule said, coming to stand over them. “It’s me, Jule West Williams. Do you remember?”
Imogen squinted and sat up. Fumbled for her sunglasses in the mesh bag she carried and put them on.
“We were at school together,” Jule went on. “At Greenbriar.”
Immie was special to look at, Jule thought. A long neck, high cheekbones. Sun-kissed. She was skinny on top, though, and weak. “Were we really?” she asked.
“Only for part of freshman year. Then I transferred out,” said Jule. “I remember you, though.”
“Sorry, what’s your name again?”
“Jule West Williams,” said Jule again. When Imogen furrowed her brow, she added: “I was a year behind you.”
Immie smiled. “Well, good to re-meet you, Jule. This is my boyfriend, Forrest.”
Jule stood there awkwardly. Forrest was adjusting his lank hair back into its bun. A copy of the New Yorker sat next to him. “You want a drink?” he asked, surprisingly friendly.
“Thanks.” Jule kneeled on the edge of the blanket and accepted a can of Diet Coke.
“You look like you’re going somewhere,” said Imogen. “With the bag, carrying your shoes.”
“Oh, I—”
“Don’t you have beach things?”
Jule thought of the most appealing thing she could say, and it turned out to be the truth. “I came on impulse,” she said. “I do that sometimes. I hadn’t planned on the beach today.”
“I have an extra bathing suit in my bag,” said Imogen, suddenly warm. “You want to go for a swim with us? I’m so effing hot, I have to get in the water now or I’ll get heat exhaustion and Forrest will have to carry me back up that long-ass path.” She ran her eyes over Forrest’s narrow body. “I don’t know if he’s up to it. So you want to swim?”
Jule raised her eyebrows. “I could take you up on that.”
Imogen pulled a bikini out of her bag and handed it to Jule. It was white and very minimal. “Wiggle it on under your skirt and we’ll meet you in the water.”
She and Forrest ran laughing into the sea.
Jule put on Imogen’s clothes for the first time.
In Immie’s suit, she dove under the waves and came up feeling miraculously happy. The day was sparkling, and it seemed impossible to be anything other than grateful for the chance to stand in the ocean, looking out at the horizon while the salt water smacked them around. Forrest and Immie didn’t talk much but rode the waves, screaming and laughing. When they tired out, they stood on tiptoe beyond where the waves broke, jumping gently and letting the water carry them up and down. “Here comes a big one.” “No, the one after is even bigger. There, see?” “Oh, damn, I almost died, but that was excellent.”
When all three of them were blue in the fingers and shivering, they returned to Imogen’s blanket, and Jule found herself in the center of it. Forrest lay on one side, wrapped in a nautical-themed towel, and Imogen lay on the other, face up to the sun and still covered in water droplets.
“Where did you go after Greenbriar?” Imogen asked.
“After they kicked me out,” said Jule, “my aunt and I left New York.”
“They did not kick you out,” Imogen said gleefully. Forrest put down his magazine.
“Oh yes, they did.” Both of them were interested now. “Prostitution,” Jule said.
Imogen’s face went dark.
“Kidding. That was a joke.”
Imogen began laughing low and slowly, covering her mouth with her hand.
“Tina whatshername used to give me wedgies and say threatening shit to me in the locker room,” said Jule. “Finally I banged her head against a brick wall. She ended up needing stiches.”
“Was she that one with the curly hair? The tall one?” asked Imogen.
“No. The shorter one who followed that one around.”
“I can’t picture her.”
“Better off that way.”
“And you banged her head against the wall?”
Jule nodded. “I’m a scrapper. You could call it a talent.”