I feel a different kind of shiver at the thought of the gold ring drifting down, down through the still water, coming to rest on a ledge with a tiny puff of dirt. I look at Jesse and I don’t see him the same as I did before. I didn’t know he thought about things like this. “That’s insane.”
“I know, right? Seriously, that ring should’ve been gone forever. He never should’ve found it.” Jesse shoves his wet hair back from his brow. “I dunno, life’s weird. Think something’s over, think again, huh?”
“Yeah. True.” I hug my knees. The sky is brightening, getting bluer, and the water’s surface is getting bluer along with it. “It’d be cool to put something down there on purpose, in case they ever drain this place, you know? Something so people knew we were here.”
“Like a time capsule.” Jesse smiles. “What would you want them to know about you?”
I glance at him, quick. The question gets my back up. What does he expect me to say? He’s prying into places I’m not sure I want him looking, so I strike a bombshell pose, leaning back on my hands. “What do you think?”
He stares for a second, then goes in for a kiss, and pretty soon I’ve got the granite against my back, towel under my head, his wet warm skin under my fingertips as I pull and stroke the muscles of his shoulders. He kisses down to the hollow of my throat, and I unhook my bikini top and feel his lips slide south.
I close my eyes and it’s good, what’s happening, but the darkness behind my eyelids reminds me of this same sky at night, with bursts of colored lights against it. Smells of smoke and burnt sugar and weed, sounds of voices, laughter—everybody’s right over there, too damn close for this—and I stiffen, my thighs tensing in memory. I open my eyes and it’s Jesse, the one I want, looking a question at me: Stop? I shake my head and kiss him hard to prove I mean it.
Eventually, Jesse ends up being the one to stop us, groaning and sitting back. “We better go. It’s almost six-thirty.” He stands and stretches, not looking at me as I straighten my suit and put on my cover-up. I tuck my towel into my bag, careful to hide the half box of Trojans I put in there this morning.
He takes me home. Wouldn’t want to be seen riding to work together. We don’t kiss when we say good-bye, and now he’s got a distracted thing going on that I don’t understand at all. With a rep like his, you wouldn’t think he’d run so hot and cold.
I go inside. Mom and Mags haven’t been downstairs yet, so I crumple my note and go to my room to get changed.
“You’re up early,” Mom says when she comes down and finds me reading the funny papers. She’s been short with me since Edgecombe, but at least she’s talking to me.
“Yup.” I turn the page. Mags makes herself breakfast, resting her head on her fist as she chews. Good ol’ Mags. I can trust her not to say a word, most of the time.
TWELVE
I’M ON FIRE. By the end of the day on Friday, I’ve moved up to the ninth slot on the board, and Mrs. Wardwell’s laughing out of the other side of her mouth. I’m feeling pretty good—hell, I’m flying—even though I pulled something in my back today and can’t really bend over. That’s okay; after tomorrow I’ll have Sunday to rest before destroying whoever’s in the eighth slot on Monday. Time’s running out: only the west field still needs to be raked, and another harvest will be over. Then back to bad ol’ SAHS for Nell and me. School’s such a crock. Teachers are all burnout cases or worse. I’d drop out if Mags wouldn’t skin me alive. I don’t think Mom would really care as long as I got a full-time job right quick.
When we get home, there’s a ladder leaning against the house. The old yellow paint has been scraped off the clapboards as high as the second-story windows. As Mags parks, Hunt comes around the side of the house, dressed in an old T-shirt and his Husqvarna cap. He raises his hand to us and picks up the ladder, carrying it with him out of sight.
“Your mom must’ve really got under his skin the other night,” Mags says back to Nell, grinning. “He started early.”
I walk over to where Hunt set the ladder down, massaging the pain in my back. “Did you actually take a vacation day?”
He scrapes a gnarly old strip of paint that’s been on our house as long as I can remember. “Half a day.”
“What color’s she going to be now?”
“Well. I been thinking on yellow.”
I grin and watch him work for a bit, poking at bits of old paint in the grass with my toe. “Listen, we’re going to Gaudreau’s to pick up supper. You want anything?”
“I’ll be gone by the time you get back. Thanks.”
“You’ll be sorry. Best fried clams in town.”
“I thought you didn’t eat anything but cereal and Moxie.”
“No. I eat fried stuff, too.”
Mags and I shower, leave a note for Mom telling her we’ll buy her a shrimp basket, and walk to the trailer to get Nell.
We don’t come here much anymore, which is kind of sad, considering it’s a stone’s throw from our back door. We girls used to hang out in the trailer a lot growing up, back when Libby wore her hair cut short and wasn’t so mean. At least I don’t remember her being that way. I remember this one time, she let us use this old Snoopy snow cone maker that belonged to her and Mom when they were kids. It leaked sticky red sugar-water all over the place, but Libby just laughed and let us make a mess.
Mags knocks once and lets us in. Everything looks the same: vinyl dinette set in the kitchen, framed JCPenney portrait of baby Nell on the wall, couch covered with a bedsheet to hide the rips that their old cat Tiger left behind. Libby looks up from her knitting, calls, “Nellie,” without so much as a hello. She has this mitten obsession; she knits them year-round. I guess it soothes her. We’ve all got more pairs than we can use, so she ends up donating a bagful to the Coats for Kids drive each December.
Nell’s bedroom is at the end of the hall, and she waves us down. It’s a crazy mess, as always, makeup and brushes scattered in front of the mirror, dog-eared cosmetology how-to’s crammed onto her bookshelf next to her old Baby-Sitters Club and Boxcar Children books. She’s still got those pink-and-white tissue-paper flowers she made in sixth grade stapled over her bed. Around them, she’s printed out a bunch of James Dean pics and stuck them to her wall in a collage. Some black and white, some color, all different sizes: Jimmy hanging over motorcycle handlebars, walking down a city street in a black overcoat, smirking around a cigarette. I guess Libby decided it was safe for Nell to have a crush on a dead guy. Not much chance of him crawling through her daughter’s window at night.
Nell finishes buttoning a sleeveless pointelle shirt and arches her back, tugging at the fabric. “I got it over to Twice Is Nice. You think it’s too tight in the chest?”
“No, it’s cute.” I reach into the ceramic dish on her dresser and hand her some pearl studs, careful not to touch the comedy-tragedy necklace coiled beside them like an eel. “These. Definitely.”
Libby watches us over her glasses as we walk by. “Nell. Bring your phone. And put on a sweater.”
“It’s hot.”