Nantucket Blue

Twenty-three





“AW, BLESS, someone’s been snogging,” Liz said the next morning when I walked into the kitchen, which was warm and fragrant from the baking muffins. Gingerbread, I guessed. Liz leaned against the counter, one blue-nail-polished hand on her mama-sized hip, and the other wrapped around her coffee cup. Her curls looked wild, backlit by the rising sun that shone through the sliding glass door.

“What are you talking about?” I asked innocently, and tied one of the new Cranberry Inn aprons that Gavin’s chiropractor girlfriend had stenciled for us and were now part of our breakfast uniform. It was no use. There was a permanent blush on my face. I could feel it.

“Oh, it doesn’t exactly take a detective, now, does it? Your lips are practically bruised—” I put a hand to my mouth. “Fess up, Goldilocks!” She pointed a croissant at me like a pistol.

“No,” I said, pouring myself coffee. I tried to stop smiling, but the corners of my mouth would not be deterred, even with only four hours of sleep. I was a smiling fool. “I’ve got nothing to say.” I added cream and sugar, and stirred.

“There’s no use denying it. You look like you’ve just lifted the crown jewels. Besides, I saw you on the porch last night.” My eyes popped wide. She smiled at me defiantly, rubbing her hands together. “But I could only make out that it was you. I couldn’t see the guy. So, was it the writer? Did he lure you to the annex with sweets?”

“No!”

“Well, don’t be so coy. Who is he? And more importantly, is he a contender for the big bang?”

“No,” I said. “Definitely not.” Zack and I had sworn that these kissing attacks wouldn’t happen again, that it was probably best if we didn’t see each other for at least a week in hopes that our newfound, red-hot attraction would fade. Also, making out with Zack was one thing, but sleeping with him? Forget it. Jules wouldn’t ever speak to me again. Not to mention that it was understood that she would lose her virginity first, since she’d come so close last year. It was an unspoken pact.

“Why? What’s the secret?” Liz’s voice dropped low, her eyebrows arching. “Was it…Gavin?”

“Oh my god, Liz. Don’t be disgusting!”

“Well, you’re acting like it’s so scandalous. What am I to think?”

“Okay,” I said, folding under the charm of her accent. “It’s this guy I know from home. But it’s kind of…bad.”

“All the better, my dear,” Liz said, taking the industrial block of butter from the fridge and pulling the special butter knife from the drawer—the one that sliced the butter into pats with a wavy design.

“He’s my friend’s younger brother.” I couldn’t believe I was telling her this after the way she’d reacted when I’d confessed my virginity. But I wanted to tell someone so badly, and Liz was pretty much my only option.

“How young?”

“Sixteen.”

“Oh, well, what’s wrong with that?”

I looked at the timer on the microwave. Gavin would be here in three minutes to take the muffins out of the oven. He was kind of a control freak about his muffins.

“Are you kidding? A younger brother? It’s like the worst thing a friend can do.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. People get together with friends’ brothers all the time. It’s totally natural. Unless your friend has some kind of sick fascination with him. In which case, I suggest you stay far away, lest they try to pull you into their web of perversion.”

“It’s nothing like that,” I said. “I just know she’s going to hate me for it. We had this fight.” I took the chilled ramekins from the fridge, and Liz placed a fat, wavy pat of butter in each one.

“There’s nothing worse than fighting with a friend,” she said, her voice soft. “You can be awful to your mum or sister, but they’re stuck with you, aren’t they? But a friend…a friend can disappear. Have you talked since your fight?”

“She won’t talk to me,” I said. “And I came to Nantucket to spend the summer with her. She told me I was bothering her.”

“Well, she doesn’t sound like a very good friend,” Liz said, putting down the knife and facing me. “That’s a terrible thing to say.” The protective tone of her voice and the sympathetic tilt of her head felt like a cool balm on the place inside where Jules’s words had landed and burned.

“Well, the thing is that her mom—”

“I won’t hear it.” Liz cut me off. “I don’t like the sounds of her, and I say what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her. I like seeing you all aglow. Suits you, actually.”

The oven timer went off, Gavin breezed into the kitchen in his 2004 IYENGAR YOGA RETREAT T-shirt, lifted the muffins from the oven, switched on the singer-songwriter breakfast playlist, and put on the kettle for his second cup of green tea. And despite the tectonic plates that had shifted last night, my morning began just like any other.