Nantucket Blue

Eleven





A LOUD TEXTURED BELCH came from the front porch. It was so specifically disgusting, I could practically taste it.

“So, you’re trying to say that there’s a truth with a capital T,” the guy on the porch said to his friend as he watched me approach. He was overweight, with a flat, smooched face, but he wasn’t acting like it. He was sitting there like some kind of million-dollar man. It’s not fair. Guys can embrace their fatness as a unique personality trait, but we girls have to sit on the very edge of chairs in our shorts so as not to reveal the back-of-the-leg cellulite we feel bad for having even though everyone does. Well, everyone but Jules.

“Absolutely, dude,” Fitzy said, as cool and lean as a racehorse. He was wearing ’80s-style sunglasses even though it was ten o’clock at night. “How else do you explain the commonality of instincts for good and bad across wildly divergent cultures?”

I climbed the three stairs onto the porch. There was a bottle of Jim Beam between them, a pair of empty shot glasses, and plates with sandwich remains.

“I’m Oliver,” the fat one in the Deerfield Academy shirt said with a little chin nod. Okay, so I guess this was his house.

“Uh, hi,” I said. I stuck my sweaty hands in my pockets. “I’m Cricket.”

His eyes widened, full of thoughts. “I’ve heard about you. You know a friend of mine, Jay Logan.”

“Yeah,” I said, shifting my weight, glad I’d worn my good jeans. “Is he here?”

“I know he’s anxious to see you.” Oliver laughed. “He should be here any minute. In the meantime, have at it.” He opened the door and I stepped through.

Some sort of rap music was playing.… But wait, it wasn’t rap. It was more mellow and sophisticated. And I heard un–raplike instruments. I wanted to find out who it was so that I could download it. This could be part of my summer sound track. I could add it to the Jay playlist.

Jules was right. This wasn’t a big party. There were maybe twenty people here, and from the way they were lounging, leaning in door frames, draped on the furniture, on one another, I could tell they were all friends. I felt just a little foreign, like I was from Canada, or California.

Jules was sitting on the sofa holding a beer. She was wearing a little dress, and a Jack Rogers sandal dangled from her foot. She was tan, like she’d been at the beach all day. She also looked skinny—not anorexic or anything, just a tiny bit too thin. Actually, it was kind of the perfect amount. The pounds Jules had unnecessarily dropped made her features clearer, her cheekbones elegant. She looked older, that’s what it was. Why hadn’t I noticed last night?

Her Tiffany necklace dropped over the ridge of her clavicle and sparkled off center. She tried to cross her legs, but her crossing leg fell short. She swung her head back in a laugh. It took that extra effort for her to pull it back up, like the three pounds she’d lost had gathered in the ponytail spot. She was already drunk.

“Hey, Jules,” I said as I took a seat on the sofa between her and another girl, who I recognized almost immediately as Parker Carmichael. She had long, shampoo-commercial hair. I’d seen pictures of her at Jules’s house, and Jules talked about her sometimes. She was one of those horse girls who won jumping contests and had rock-hard thighs. Also, she was one of the Carmichaels, the big political family. The sofa felt a little snug for three people, but it was the only place to sit.

“Hey,” Jules said, and took another sip of beer. She made eye contact with Parker, then flapped her hand around to introduce us. “Parker, Cricket; Cricket, Parker.”

“Hi,” we said at the same time with zero enthusiasm.

“So, is Zack here?” I asked, filling the awkward silence.

“Still working,” Jules said, and wrinkled her brow. “How’d you get here?”

“I rode my bike,” I said, and shrugged, sensing that I was the only one who’d arrived on two wheels. I’d worn sneakers because I always wore sneakers when I rode a bike. It was the safe thing to do. But all the other girls had delicate shoes and pedicured feet. My dirty white Converses didn’t match the rest of me, which was kind of dressed up. And I was still a little sweaty. My bangs were sticking to my forehead. I felt the opposite of drunk. “So, where can I get a beer?”

“Kitchen,” Jules said, not even looking at me. She stood up, put a hand on her hip. “Hey, where’s Ginny? Is she on the trampoline?” she asked no one in particular.

“I think she’s with Fitzy,” Parker said. “Showing him those bodacious ta-tas.” Parker and Jules burst into laughter.

“Seriously, they got so big this year,” Jules said. “I’ve got to go get another look at them.” She staggered forward, but her foot caught on the carpet. I leaped to catch her, but not fast enough. She fell backward and landed on the floor with her dress around her waist. Parker was nearly dry-heaving with laughter. Jules was laughing so hard she couldn’t even sit up. She pounded the floor with her fists. I yanked her dress down over her freckled thighs.

“Nice thong,” Parker said. “Leopard print.” Now a couple of guys leaned in from the kitchen. Since when did Jules wear animal-print underwear? Or thongs? We’d read an article in one of those magazines about thongs and fecal matter, which had scared, well, the shit out of us.

“My bodacious cha-cha,” Jules said, laughing so hard she was drooling.

“Jules, you need some water,” I whispered. “You’re really wasted.”

“That’s some good police work, Captain Cricket,” Jules said, slapping me on the knee, then using her grip on my leg to hoist herself up. Parker rode a fresh wave of laughter and wiped tears from her eyes.

“Whatever,” I said, stinging, and made my way to the kitchen to find a beer. This was an old house. It had wooden walls, low ceilings, and small, old furniture. There was a group of guys at the table. They had men’s voices and men’s hands. They were concentrating on a card game. Poker, I think.

“Do you have a bottle opener?” I asked, a cold beer in my hand.

“It’s a twist-off,” one of them said without even looking at me.

“Oh. Thanks.” I twisted the top off and wondered what my next move would be now that I had the beer. I was about to make my way back out to the front porch when I saw that Jay had arrived. He looked gorgeous, with a new haircut and a tan that had a little bit of sunburn in it. He had such a nice body. He didn’t have a girl butt or anything, but unlike a lot of guys, he actually had one, and you could totally see it in his jeans. And he wasn’t too tall, just the most perfect height for kissing on my tiptoes.

Also, he had muscles. I bet when he was in his lifeguard bathing suit, he had those diagonal lines that go from his hips down to his you know what. I almost called out to him, but I thought it would be better if he noticed me first, so I pretended to read the calendar that was hanging on the wall, figuring he’d definitely be coming this way for a beer. I was so excited to see Jay walking toward me, but when he saw me, he looked away with disgust, and moved past me to get a beer.

“Hi, Jay,” I said, biting my lip to try to restrain a smile. He didn’t seem to hear me. “Jay?”

“Don’t talk to me, bitch,” he said.

I was so stunned I couldn’t move. I had never been called “bitch” before. With anger behind it, that word has knuckles. It has nails. Jay grabbed two beers and stepped past me, careful that not even our shirts brushed.

“Wait,” I said, finding my voice and following him down the hallway toward the back door. “What is this about?”

He turned around so fast that I jumped a little. “You think my brother’s a loser?” His face was red. His eyes were hard. He was squeezing the beers so tightly I thought the bottles might break.

“No,” I said. My heart was pounding. My cheeks burned. Jules had told him that I’d said his brother was a loser for having a DUI and working at the bagel shop. He was looking at me with such intensity I couldn’t lie. “I mean, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

“Who says shit like that?” He glared at me like I was lower than dirt. I looked at the floor, grabbed my stomach. I felt dizzy and sick. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He took a step backward and shook his head. “You know what? Forget it. I don’t care what you think. I don’t even want to bother getting angry at someone like you. It’s not worth my time.” He turned around and kicked open the back door with his foot. It slammed shut behind him.