I took a deep breath. Hang out at the Butler house and possibly see Joseph. Inhale intelligent grownup. Exhale hormonal teenager. “Sure,” I said.
Keri Ann pushed her brown wavy hair off her face as it caught her lips. I envied her easy beauty. Maybe it was because my mom worked so hard on her appearance, dyeing her hair and staring at her wrinkles in the mirror every day. I always felt beauty had to be worked at, and since I definitely didn’t, I was always going to be passable. I just didn’t have the need to primp like other girls my age or like my momma thought I should. It was part of why Keri Ann and I were such perfect friends. I think we accepted our normalness, and we were okay with it. She was the exception though. She was very pretty. And her normality made her beautiful.
Faith, who owned the boutique, was always telling me to be unique. Telling me how black pearls were more prized because they were so rare. Be a black pearl, she’d say. Or even better. Be a color no one’s ever seen before. So when I’d show up dressed for work with an outfit put together from my ma’s sixties clothes and several bright color ribbons tied around my wrist or in my hair, she’d just smile approvingly and lend me a new color lip gloss she’d come across.
“So?” Keri Ann asked.
“Yeah. Cool. I can come over. Aren’t you and Nana working on a sea glass project?”
She sighed. “She’s been so tired recently. I think we’ll pass today.”
We wheeled our bikes out of the Butler Cove High parking lot and headed for the bike paths that cut all around our island. The loud sound of a truck engine revving along with catcalls, hoots, and hollers was deafening for a moment. A shiny black truck that had never seen hard work screeched past us and slowed. It was filled with some of the football team hanging out of its windows and piled illegally in the bed of the truck. I rolled my eyes. “Sand Bar tonight, girls!” someone yelled. The voice belonged to a friend of Cooper’s, who was sitting in the back with another guy I recognized from chemistry.
I waved. “When my date with Prince Harry falls through,” I called.
“Aw c’mon.” He clutched his chest. A friend of his moved his hand down to between his legs. They laughed raucously. Then he banged on the cab, and the truck roared off.
I shook my head, but I was chuckling. Keri Ann was smirking. “You’re going to be that girl, you know?”
“That girl?” I asked.
“The one they always remember from high school. The one they were too intimidated by to actually ask out, but the one they always think about.”
“You’re one to talk. I think Jasper’s the only one who had the guts to ask you out, but I know we’ve counted about seven who wanted to.”
“Ugh. They’re all afraid of Joey.”
I put my right foot on the pedal then pushed off the ground and slung my other leg over the saddle. My ankle finally felt better today. “God. That Joseph. Cock-blocking at every turn.”
We whooshed down the path through the trees. “Hey,” I said. “You mind swinging by the marina with me? I want to drop my backpack in my room and check if the mail came.”
“Did you hear from your dad yet?” Amazing she just knew what checking the mail meant to me.
My stomach sank. “No. The last postcard I got was the one I showed you in November. I’ve written to the address in New York I’ve had for years, hoping maybe someone knows something.”
“I’m sorry.” Keri Ann’s brow furrowed.
I looked back at the path.
“But he’s had other long stretches of no communication, right?” she asked. “This isn’t the first time?”
“Yeah, I guess.” I took the right fork through the pines toward the marina. “I just … I know he’s never been around. But having him there at the end of a letter or postcard was something. And I think, thought,” I corrected, “he might be planning on moving back here soon.”
“Really?” Keri Ann sounded shocked, but I didn’t slow down. “You never mentioned that.”
“That’s coz I didn’t dare believe it,” I said quietly, then shrugged and pursed my lips. “Turns out that was a good decision.”
My best friend fell silent. I could tell she wanted to say that could still happen but didn’t want to give me false hope.
“He promised once he’d be back for good for my eighteenth birthday,” I admitted. Why was I admitting it aloud? Now it was real and he wouldn’t show up, he never did. “But obviously, if that happened, I’d die of shock, so that would make for a pretty shitty way to spend a birthday.” Summoning up a smile, I slipped my hand under the strap of my backpack on my shoulder.
“Okay, well, it’s three weeks away. I agree you’d know by now if he was coming,” she said carefully.