Penny joined in, playing the goofball, bumping hips with Rolo until the whole crew of kids were laughing—bitchy Vanessa the hardest, clutching her belly and yelling, “Stop! I’m gonna pee!”
Maddie had avoided Penny since the fair and was still pissed at her for taking some random pills when she knew she shouldn’t, especially not with the chemo. Maddie had held back from shouting What the hell were you thinking? on the long ride from the fair to the ER in the back of the ambulance that had rolled onto the fairway—its flashing red-and-blue strobe and the carnival lights all mixed up so Penny’s pale face seemed painted. At the ER, once the blood had returned to Penny’s acne-rough cheeks, a tube pushing saline into her already bruised veins, the doctor had taken Maddie aside and asked if she’d seen Penny take anything. She had lied, knowing that was what Penny wanted. While they’d waited for Penny’s more-than-tipsy parents to show up, Penny was already cracking jokes. Good thing those black people showed up when they did—that’ll give everyone something to talk about, other than me looking like a dumbass.
Penny’s MO, Maddie knew, was to laugh even the most serious fuck-ups away, but Maddie didn’t laugh along this time, and made Penny promise she’d stop with the drinking, smoking, and gobbling every pill Bitsy and crew handed her. Just until she was done with her treatments.
Penny had answered, in a new, bitter tone Maddie didn’t recognize, “Thanks for looking out for me, Mom. Uck, you’re such a worrywart.”
That was the last thing Maddie needed—her so-called best friend making her feel more uncool than she already felt, and so, the last few days, Maddie hadn’t returned Penny’s phone calls. What could she say to Penny, who insisted on pretending her seizure was “no big whoop”? Who called Maddie a nag, smiled a goofy, tooth-filled smile, and sang that damn Indigo Girls line, And the best thing you ever done for me /Is to help me take my life less seriously / It’s only life after all, yeah.
Gerritt and Spencer dropped the ice-packed cooler into the sand. Maddie watched as Gerritt flipped the lid open with a flourish—Ta-da!
Bitsy squealed, “Baby, my favorite!”
She kissed Gerritt, a bottle of Bartles & Jaymes kiwi-strawberry-flavored wine cooler dripping in each of her hands. When their lips parted, Maddie saw Gerritt’s were shiny with gloss. He slipped a bleached rope bracelet, a prize he’d won at the fair, over Bitsy’s wrist. Maddie knew the braided rope would live on Bitsy’s arm all summer, shrinking with each shower, each swim at the country-club pool and in the salty ocean, each dip into a steaming hot tub at the parties the richest kids threw when their parents were off-island. The rope would tighten until it had to be cut away.
Maddie spotted Spencer through the wind-tossed flames. His lower lip bulged with Kodiak dip and she knew if she kissed him now he’d taste awful, like tobacco and beer, but he’d done something to his hair that night, blown it out maybe, and the feathery waves caught the setting sun so the red-blond burned bright. She wanted someone to slip a rope around her wrist. Tag her. MINE. Like the message stamped on tiny heart candies for Valentine’s Day. But was Spencer Fox the YOURS to her MINE? She wasn’t so sure.
Ricky Bell rolled a blunt, sealing the cigar wrapping with the pointy tip of his tongue.
Gerritt yelled, “You detonating a fucking bomb, or what? Let’s get this session rolling!”
The blunt made its way around the fire.
The hit Maddie took was both spicy and sweet, and a purring heat grew from a tiny speck inside her until she felt like she was made from the same stuff as the simmering gold stripe the setting sun painted from shore to horizon.
She lay on her back in the sand, not caring if it messed up her hair, and listened to Penny and Vanessa splash in the water, braving the cold June waves.
The boys raced up the wind-brushed sand dunes that had always seemed to Maddie like a mirror image of the ocean waves. Sand spit out behind their heels and they left a trail of cascading twilight-lit tracks. She and Bitsy counted the fireflies dotting the black woods as they dug their toes into the cool sand, smoked cigarettes, and sucked on the Jolly Ranchers they’d dropped into their wine coolers so the clear malt liquor turned bright pink. She felt safe with Bitsy when they were drinking and smoking, the girl’s rough edges softened.
They cheered the boys doing keg stands, the muscles in their forearms twitching as they clutched the metal barrel’s sides, sucking beer from a long plastic tube, white foam bubbling at the corners of their mouths. The boys chanted nicknames they’d made for one another years back—Rolo, Deuce, Snake—some in elementary school. When it was Spencer’s turn his shirt fell down exposing a trail of red-blond fuzz leading from his navel to down there and Maddie felt as if the bonfire’s flames had licked her face.
When the blunt came back around, Bitsy was standing next to her in the circle. Bitsy said, “Open wide, sweetie.”
Maddie did as she was told and Bitsy’s soft lips were on hers, smoke filling her mouth and nose so it streamed from her nostrils and she coughed until her sight blurred with tears. The boys around the fire nodded and mm-mm-ed like they’d tasted something delicious. Gabrielle clapped and said, “Atta girl.”
It was the kind of summer night that made falling in love feel possible, more than just the plot for one of the chick flicks she and Penny had watched weekend nights before their induction into Bitsy’s crew. A breeze set off the fluty song that had given the beach its name back when the Shinnecock Indians canoed its waters, harvesting oysters, before the boots of white men touched Avalon’s pebbled sand. The whistling call of the wind squeezing through gaps in the craggy cliffs reminded Maddie of the stories her mother had told her and Dom, before Mom had chosen her pills, about the wailing sirens, mermaids so beautiful no sailor could resist their call. That was how Maddie wanted to feel about Spencer. A need that left no room for doubt. Impossible to pull away.