“I…” I started, and it was like every word was a challenge, like speaking them was going through an obstacle course. “I did a really bad job,” I finally managed to say. “I don’t know how I can go back there.”
Lucy let out a long breath, and shook her head. “Taylor, it’s okay,” she said, and her voice was gentler than I’d heard it yet this summer. “Nobody cares. Nobody will even remember.” She gave me a small smile, and then turned and strolled back to the concession stand. I looked at my car for a moment, but leaving no longer seemed like it would make me feel any better. In fact, I had the distinct impression that it would make me feel worse.
So I turned and walked back to the concession stand, ducking through the employee entrance. Elliot was ringing someone up for two sodas and a popcorn, and he smiled when he saw me. I busied myself straightening the cups, but it didn’t seem like the customers even noticed me—never mind remembered me as the girl who thoroughly messed up the movie’s introduction.
Lucy met my eye across the concession stand, where she was manning the popcorn machine, and she gave me a small nod, almost imperceptible unless you were watching for it.
Half an hour later, we were locking up the snack bar, and all the people on the beach seemed to be having a good time. The picture had only slid out of focus twice so far, which Elliot told me was much better than Leland’s track record the previous summer.
Lucy had disappeared a few minutes before, and now emerged from the bathroom wearing a jean miniskirt and even more eyeliner than usual. “Wow,” Elliot said, as I yanked on the padlock to make sure it was clicked into place. “I mean, you know. Where are you, um… going?”
“Hot date,” Lucy said, as her phone beeped. She pulled it out and smiled so wide at what she saw, she flashed the dimple in her cheek. “I’ll see you guys,” she said, meeting my eye for a moment before she turned and headed toward the parking lot, and I registered that I had been included, for the first time, in this farewell.
Elliot was still staring after Lucy, his expression wistful, and I yanked on the lock once again, even though it was clearly secured. “Are you going to stay and watch the rest of the movie?” I asked, and he turned back to me, adjusting his glasses hurriedly.
“No,” he said. “I like to see a movie from the beginning. And I think I’ve missed too much.”
I held up my note cards. “I have the plot here if you want to be filled in. Straight from Wikipedia.”
Elliot gave me a faint smile at that. “Thanks anyway. I’ll see you tomorrow, Taylor.”
I nodded, and as I watched him go, realized that I would. That I was staying, that maybe for the first time ever, I hadn’t gone running away when things got hard.
I held my flip-flops in my hand as I picked my way across the beach, ducking low to try and avoid blocking people’s views. I reached my family’s blanket and settled down into the spot next to my dad. My mom was sitting toward the front of the blanket, her back to me, next to Gelsey, who was stretching while she watched. Warren’s book was forgotten next to him and he appeared utterly absorbed, his mouth hanging slightly open, his eyes glued to the screen. I dropped my shoes on the sand, and then sat down, brushing my hand over the blanket to make sure I hadn’t tracked any sand onto it. When I had run out of stalling techniques, I looked over at my dad, his face illuminated by the moonlight and by the flickering light from the screen. But it wasn’t judgmental or disappointed or any of the things I’d been afraid that I would see.
“You’ll get ’em next time, kid,” he said as he reached out and ruffled my hair. He nodded at the screen and smiled. “Have you seen this before? It’s pretty funny.” He turned back to the movie, laughing at the sight of Bill Murray strapped to the mast of a ship.
I leaned back against my hands and stretched out my legs in front of me, and turned my attention to the film. And by the time things were winding down, I was laughing out loud, along with everybody else.
chapter sixteen
“TAYLOR. RISE AND SHINE. UP AND ADAM.”
I groaned, not only at my father’s bad joke—when I was younger I’d misunderstood the phrase “up and at ’em” and had asked my father who this “Adam” character was, to his lasting enjoyment—but because it was a Sunday morning, it was my day off, and I wanted to spend it sleeping in. “No,” I mumbled into my pillow.
“Come on,” my father said, and I heard the rasp of metal on metal as he pushed open my curtains, the decorative rings sliding on the iron bar, and it suddenly got a lot brighter in my room. “Time to get up.”
“What?” I asked, squeezing my eyes tightly shut, not understanding what was happening. “No. Why?”