Nantucket Blue

Twelve





“CAN WE TALK?” I asked Jules. “Outside.”

“Whoa. Sure.” She stood, straightened her dress, and followed me out the door.

“Someone’s in trouble,” Parker sang, slapping her knees.

Jules turned to face her. “If I get killed out there, her name is Cricket Thompson and she’s like, a really fast runner. So you may need to hop into the Jeep if you want to catch her. They call her ‘Wheels’ back in Provy.”

I led us to the top of the driveway, where I thought we’d be out of earshot.

“You told Jay what I said about his brother?” I asked.

“It just kind of came out,” she said.

“But I didn’t actually mean it. You know I was joking. I like him, Jules. I really like him. You know that.”

“You have to admit, it was a really mean thing to say,” Jules said.

“But I was saying it to you. In private. I wasn’t trying to be mean. You say mean things all the time. How could you tell him something like that?”

“Sorry,” she said, not meaning it at all, and threw her hands in the air.

“And why are you acting like this?” I asked. “Saying that thing about police work? I was trying to help you. All I’ve tried to do is help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” she said.

“You were making a fool out of yourself,” I whispered.

“No. Those are my friends. I’ve known them forever. I’ve known them longer than I’ve known you.” She crossed her arms and looked up at the sky, eyelids fluttering in frustration.

“She was just having a little fun.” It was Parker. How long had she been standing there? “Don’t you want her to have fun? Don’t you think she deserves that?”

“Of course,” I said, my voice rising. I clapped my hand to my chest. “I’m her best friend. Of course I want her to have fun.”

“Are you a lesbian?” Parker asked, her head cocked, her magazine hair shining in the moonlight.

“Oh. My. God,” I said, looking at Jules. “Jules? What the hell?”

“I want you to leave me alone, Cricket. I want you to stop bothering me.” I was bothering her? The worst part was that she said it in this really calm, steady, grown-up voice. “You need to get your own life.”

“Fine,” I said, shaking. “Fine. I’ll stop bothering you.”

“I didn’t want to have to say it. But you’re like, making me, Cricket.” Jules screwed her hands over her eyes. “I didn’t want you to come here. I told you not to come.”

It took all my strength to walk, not sprint, back down the driveway to get my bike. I felt hot, neon with pain, all lit up for everyone to see. My hands were trembling; I dropped the bike and it clanked against the drainpipe. Fitzy stood up.

“Is that chick okay?” he asked Oliver. Then called to me, “Hey, you okay?”

I waved awkwardly, not daring to speak, not risking public tears. My foot slipped twice on the pedal before I was able to push off, turn the wheels, and ride back into the night, alone.

I had wanted to be best friends with Jules since she’d come to Rosewood in the eighth grade. I’d been with the same group of girls for ten years already. I knew their handwriting, whether they chewed with their mouth open, and how they sneezed. So when on the first day of eighth grade, the social studies teacher asked us to find a partner with whom we’d be working for the next six weeks, I immediately turned to Jules, the new girl from New York.

From the moment we drew our time line, to the rap we wrote about Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, I liked the way I felt around Jules—like I was tipping backward in a chair, on the edge of falling. We thought that this was the best thing about an all-girls school. You could write a rap about Rhode Island history and not worry about what guys would say or if they thought it was lame. We decided it was funny, so it was funny.

It was Jules who made me cool. I’d been just a middle-of-the-pack girl before Jules. It was she who told me I was pretty, who convinced me to grow out my hair and cut my bangs and taught me about plucking my eyebrows and what a big difference the right pair of jeans could make. It was she who laughed hardest at my stories so that the other girls started laughing, too. It was Jules who told me to try out for varsity lacrosse as a freshman. “You’re the only one in our class who’s good enough,” she’d said. And she was right. After a year of her looking at me like I was the prettiest, funniest, coolest girl in our class, I started to believe it, too.

As long as she was near me.