“Really,” said Wyatt.
“So, you don’t seem to have so much to say to me now that we’re actually together. We’re still friends, right?” She was looking down at the sand, drawing a circle with her hand. The moon lit up her face in such a way that he could see each freckle on her nose. There was the tiniest bit of sand in her eyelashes. She looked up at him. “Right?”
“Of course, we’re friends. Am I being weird? I think I need to get used to you.”
“You’re not used to me? You’ve known me your whole life.”
I need to get used to how I want to pull on that red string, Wyatt didn’t say. Used to the way I actually need to touch your lips. Sam was acting mildly rejected, and Wyatt didn’t have the confidence to set her straight. He felt incapable of self-regulation, like if he opened up about how he was feeling it would rush out and drown them both.
NOW
11
Jack’s still reading, and it’s possible that he’ll finish this book before I get through the first chapter. This doesn’t worry me because with Jack staying over the garage I can stay up late to catch up. I like the way reading these books feels so deliberate, like each page requires my full attention to take in and process the words. It’s sort of like muscle confusion, but for the mind.
Kids are building sandcastles on the beach, and teenagers are sprawled out on towels waiting for a swell. Wyatt is playing the guitar in his treehouse. All the characters have reassembled on this beach after fourteen years, and I am the only thing that’s different.
Gracie runs outside in a yellow one-piece bathing suit that may have been mine a hundred years ago. “Sammy, let’s go for a swim.” Before I can respond, she’s grabbed my hand and is pulling me up from my chair. “We’re at the beach. Put on a bathing suit.” Hands on hips, Gracie is exasperated by my beach incompetence.
“Fine,” I say, and go upstairs to change while Gracie yells through my window for me to hurry up. The urgency in her voice reminds me of a time when a beach day felt so exciting that I didn’t want to waste a single second of it.
When I’m back on the deck, she grabs my hand, and we walk through the dunes, the ones where I kissed Wyatt for the first time. “Are you going to talk to him?” Gracie asks, motioning to the treehouse.
“Not on purpose,” I say. “How long has he been here?”
“Like a month.”
“He’s been here for a whole month? Is he homeless or something?”
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
We slog through the hot sand and pass a towel island full of girls a few years older than Gracie. She steers clear of their too-loud laughter, their too-small bikinis. I try to remember being twelve, still wearing board shorts and a rash guard and trying to hang out with my brother, eyeing the older girls like they were an exotic disease I was about to catch.
I drop my towel, roll my sunglasses into my cover-up, and cover the bundle with my hat. Gracie is already running into the water. I follow her and my feet are wet, waves retreating and then racing up my calves. I wade out to where Gracie is already fully submerged, and suddenly I am also twelve years old. Weightless, unencumbered, and free. Beyond the waves, Gracie and I float on our backs and she reaches for my hand, unselfconscious in that na?ve way where you still think nothing will ever change.
Gracie’s a strong swimmer, and I like to take credit for it. When she was two years old and I was at NYU, I started taking her to swimming classes at the YMCA. The mothers looked at me with concern and a touch of horror—practically a teenager myself with no wedding ring and a two-year-old on my hip. Nothing to see here, I always wanted to tell them, she’s just my emotional support toddler. Dr. Judy assured me I’d get past this, but after Wyatt and I broke up, the only thing that brought me back to myself was Gracie. Holding Gracie in the water. Taking Gracie for a too-big sundae at Serendipity. Turning my old bedroom into a safari and taking a Sharpie to our pajamas so that we could be leopards. Gracie’s unfiltered joy should come in pill form.
We swim south along the horizon toward the cove until my limbs are jelly and I call for her to stop. “My sister is an old lady,” she laughs as we wade out of the water about an eighth of a mile from our house.
“Kind of,” I say, catching my breath and shaking out my hair. I can’t even see where my towel is as we walk along the shore, and I can’t remember the last time I just walked around in a bathing suit, the sun drying the salt and sand on my skin. “Maybe I should hang out with you more.”
“We should hang out here more,” she says. “Even Jack seems to like it here, right?”
I don’t answer because there’s someone standing by my towel; he’s stuck his surfboard in the sand. I stop. Or my feet stop; I don’t even know if I mean to stop. But Gracie is running toward him. He lifts a hand in a wave and I know I need to be an adult here. It’s been thirteen summers.
I start walking and am more acutely aware than ever of how awkward it is to walk across soft sand in a bathing suit. There’s the fact of your whole body’s being fully exposed from all angles in the horrific light of day, combined with the up-and-down jiggly motion of sand stepping. I chose a bikini from my childhood dresser, red with a triangle top and side-tie bottoms, so that I can keep the new ones I bought for my honeymoon pristine. What good are those bikinis doing me now, all wrapped up in tissue? Of all the bad decisions that have led me to this moment, the one that caused me to be approaching Wyatt with my thirty-year-old body shoved into the bikini of my youth is the baddest.
“Hey, Sam-I-am,” Wyatt says like it’s nothing. The sound of his voice is like a song on the radio that takes you back in time with the first few notes. It hits me right in the chest and moves throughout my body. My hand flies up to my neck to wipe away the memory of his lips there.
“Hey,” I say. He’s tan. His hair is a slightly darker shade of brown, longish and brushed off his face as if it’s been combed back by fingers. He’s smiling just a little bit and there are laugh lines by his eyes. I stare at these lines, a bit stunned by my own stupidity. In my mind Wyatt is seventeen, sitting by me on the beach waiting for waves. Then he’s eighteen and actively not returning my calls. That’s where I lost track of him. And now here he is, thirty-one, with his more defined jawline and his filled-in frame. Of course Wyatt grew up.
His bathing suit seems new, which is all wrong, because I’m the one who’s moved on. It is of critical importance to my inner teenager that he knows I’ve moved on. If I could think of a way to bring up my 401(k), I would.
“So, I hear you’re getting married out here,” he says.
“Maybe,” I say. “Or in Connecticut. We haven’t decided. Jack and I. My fiancé. Jack.” Oh my God, stop.
“He’s a lucky guy,” he says, which gives me pause. Wyatt was a lucky guy. Wyatt left me. How lucky could he possibly think Jack is?
“He is,” I say. “A little old for a treehouse, aren’t you?” I don’t know where to put my arms and they seem to be trying out every possible location. Hands on my hips, arms across my chest, hands clasped behind my back. It’s like I’m doing my own version of the Macarena.
Wyatt looks at Gracie. “Not really.”
“You should climb up and see it,” she says. “It’s awesome.”
“I’ve seen it,” I say, and feel my face go hot. “We should get inside. I’m getting sunburned.” I throw on my cover-up, which I can’t believe I didn’t do earlier. “Nice to see you. Come on, Gracie.”
* * *
When we’re back on the porch, my mom is leaning over the railing like she’s been watching. She gives me a look and I shake my head. No, don’t worry, I’m fine. No, I don’t want to talk about it. No, I’m not still in love with the boy who broke my heart in high school.
Jack doesn’t look up from his book, but I squeeze in next to him on the lounge chair, arranging his arm around me and resting my head on his chest. Jack’s body feels solid, like a house that’s well cared for and overly insured.
“You’re getting sunburned,” he says, pulling away.
“It’s not contagious,” I say.
“It’s not funny, you have freckles coming out over your nose just from this morning’s exposure.”
I put on my hat, and Jack lets out a breath. I settle my head on his chest. I’ve moved on to a much better place.
12