She shrugs, impatient that I’m not immediately saying, Oh, no, Cass, you’re right! I’m trying to explore all angles here. “I have no idea. There was a lot of cheap beer flowing.”
“What happened after? Did the police show up? Was the kid okay?”
She turns back to the camera. “I don’t remember. Just be careful, okay? Things like that aren’t going to win Marcos any friends, and I don’t want to see you get caught up in it.”
The first roll of thunder. I cringe. “Noted.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
ON FRIDAY NIGHT, keys press into my hand as Cassie opens the passenger door. “I already had a few shots,” she says, sinking into the torn plush passenger seat. She flicks aside a Post-It note that reads, “I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.”
I hesitate. The keys are warm from her palms. They signal power. Independence. Something I tasted when I drove Dad’s car to South Cross. Something that the DMV is adamant about withholding from me.
Cass scrolls through her text messages. I read the sender of the most recent: Jules. “Oh, sorry,” she says, looking up. “I brought you some fun, too. Figure we’ll break it out when we get to the bridge.” A Friday night that won’t be spent holed up in my room or driving aimlessly with Cassie–my social life has escalated.
Still, I’m wavering. “I can’t drive with someone under twenty-one.”
“That sure stopped you last time.” She presses her head back against the seat and looks up at me sideways. Her curls frame her porcelain face. Never a tan for Cass in the summer; only sunburn that fades to white. “We both know you’re a better driver than me.”
When I turn over the engine, the car rumbles to life, rattling my hands on the steering wheel. It’s a powerful surge, a little more than I expected, and I just hope I can control it. Despite bumping the seat forward, my leg strains to reach the gas pedal. The side-view mirror hangs on thanks to duct tape and miracles.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I push the gear into Drive.
As I glide down the road at approximately ten miles per hour below the speed limit, scanning from side to side for deer, Cass says, “Ready for this gem?” She holds her phone in front of my face.
I dare to let my eyes dart away from the road. “What’s that weird crop circle on the floor?”
“That,” she says, “is two thousand dollars a month.” She scrolls to the next ad. “‘Awesome bedroom in sweet building with roof deck,’” she reads. “We might be able to afford this one if we share a bed.”
“I am not sharing a bed with you,” I say. “You steal the blankets.”
“That was once!” The screen’s glow illuminates her grin. “This one is ‘the coolest brownstone.’ Wow, twenty-three hundred–what a steal.”
“We could commute,” I offer. We can sit side by side on the train, watching the scrubby pines of Long Island’s East End whisk away into growing buildings.
“We are not commuting.” Her smile vanishes. “The point is getting out of here.”
“How are we going to pay for uncool brownstones in gross buildings with no roof decks, let alone those?” See also: tuition, books, miscellaneous fees, Ramen noodles…
A text message arrives and she types back furiously. “We’ll work at the beach again next summer.”
“Are they raising minimum wage by twenty dollars an hour?”
She drops the phone into her lap. “This was your idea. I thought you were committed.”
Moving somewhere I wouldn’t need to drive had been a joke. While the idea’s appealing, for once I’m countering failure to use proper judgment. I’ve already had one future plan, Ocean State, blow up in my face.
“It’d suck if we moved to different places next year,” Cass continues. “We’d never see each other.”
I swallow. It was the one consideration that gave me pause in my recruiting journey. If I went to Rhode Island, we would still text and call, send each other silly photos and songs, but it wouldn’t be the same. We wouldn’t be able to walk the two streets to each other’s houses, go on late-night 7-Eleven runs, drive around in circles in the South Cross parking lot until we’re dizzy and laughing.
She picks up her phone when a new text message arrives. Jules. Again.
I wonder if she’s telling Juliana, Savannah’s bailing on moving to the city with me, and if Juliana is writing back in kind, Savannah is the worst.
As I ease across the intersection, the opening guitar chords of a familiar song begin playing over the radio.
“Is this what I think it is?” Cassie straightens up.
“Seventh grade summer anthem? Hell, yes.”
“Remember when we met those kids from Australia down at South Cross?” She’s already grinning. The city has been dropped in favor of silly lyrics and doofy-looking boy band members that we’d swooned over. “They were all, ‘We’re pro surfers,’ so you challenged them to a swim race?”
“You mean when you volunteered me?” I bet my friend Savannah could take all of you, she’d said, fists on the hips of her mint-green bikini bottom.
They’d eyed me over their sunglasses. Her?
The wind had sent Cassie’s hair flying, yet she’d never budged. Count of three. One…two…
Sprinting into the water, the adrenaline of competition coursing through me, Cassie shouting from the shore, You got this, Savannah! Show them how we do it in America!
“Either way, I beat their asses,” I say. They’d pretended to chase me out of the water, so I splashed through the foam and back up to Cassie. She’d thrown her arms around me despite the fact that I was soaking wet.
She nods sagely. “I was honored to know you.”
Next thing I know, we’re belting out song lyrics with the windows rolled down, screaming over the frigid air. The infectious beat on the highest volume obliterates any remaining tension. Cassie reaches out her hand and lets the wind bat it back, her curls tangling in her face, too busy singing to push them away.
“Drum solo!” I yell, forgetting my vehicular fear for a moment to bang my hands against the steering wheel.