Brooks’s voice leapt as he explained more, and although Maddie had no idea what he was saying, talking about rebellion and social justice and change and equality, she wanted him to keep talking. Until the horizon pinked with dawn. She’d stand here on the dark road surrounded by shitting caterpillars all night.
The call of a great horned owl vibrated around them. Five hoots, two long and three short—hoooo-hoooo-hoo-hoo-hoo—and she knew it was a sign. Something good was happening.
“What the hell was that?” He turned in a slow circle.
“A great horned,” she said. “The owl of fairy tales and storybooks.” She wiggled her fingers at him and widened her eyes. “Whoooo.”
“Hot damn.” He drew out the damn like the last note in a song.
“You never heard an owl before?”
“No owls in the city.” He paused. “Only night owls that sit on the curb in front of the bodega bumming for booze money.”
“My brother, Dom, he thinks the owls are decoys Grudder uses to spy on the islanders.”
“Whoa. That’s some Twilight Zone–level conspiracy shit.”
“They do have cameras all over the island.”
He stopped short and she slipped off the skateboard.
“Sorry,” he said. “For real, cameras?” He looked a little freaked out.
“Well,” she said, “with Grudder and everything. National security and stuff.”
“Ha, yeah I get it.” He nodded at the skateboard. “Now, my lady, hop back on your chariot.”
A car passed, its headlights swinging across his face so she saw his nose spattered with freckles, his broad forehead and the Afro (was she allowed to use that word?) that rose into an upside-down triangle. With her hand in his, she felt one step away from fingering his shoulders, his tapered waist. His shirt lifted as they made the last hill, coming onto their own street—Ring Neck Ridge—and his side was exposed. That part of guys she’d always thought the most elegant, ever since her tenth-grade art class trip to the museum in the city, where she’d sketched the statues of Greek and Roman boys, spending hours on that one detail, the place where abdomen meets hip bone, creating a smooth slide down.
They walked up the gravel driveway of White Eagle, past the white marble birds with their hooked beaks and talons. She stopped at the uneven slate path that led from the circular drive of the big house to the cottage.
“All of this”—he waved at the tall, arched windows of the big house’s bottom floor, the peach drapes lit with lamplight—“is yours?”
“It’s complicated. My grandparents own the big house. Me and my family, we live in the cottage.”
He laughed.
“What’s so funny?” She was ready to defend herself.
“Me and my family, we’re living in the cottage too. The Castle”—he wobbled his head as if mocking the name—“is as empty as a haunted house.”
She liked imagining him in the same cramped layout—maybe they even slept in the same bedroom, against the same wall, saw the same view of the woods when they woke each morning.
“This summer’s going to suck,” she said, picking a caterpillar off her arm and flicking it into the woods. “These things. We can’t even hang outside.”
“It’s biblical, for sure,” he said. “But wait. I got an idea.”
She hoped he was going to ask her on a walk. Where they’d find a caterpillar-free spot and keep talking. Being together.
“You want to come over Friday night?”
“Sure!” Embarrassed at how obviously delighted she was.
“Bring your friends.”
“Um, okay,” she said. “I’m not sure what they’ve got planned.”
She didn’t want to sound like a bitch turning him down, but how could she tell him they weren’t really her friends and she’d rather it just be him and her?
“My mom says I can use the ballroom,” he said. “It’ll be fresh. Think of it as a refuge from the caterpillar plague.”
“Okay.” She wanted to see him again and knew Bitsy would go nuts at the chance to hang out in the Castle ballroom. “We’ll be there. Like, nine?”
They stood looking up at the big house and she wondered if she should kiss him. Or just say good night and walk to the cottage. She didn’t want to make another mistake that night like she had by trusting Spencer.
A curtain moved in one of the windows—Veronica’s pale face appeared and disappeared.
Brooks whispered, “Busted.”
He hopped on his board and rolled toward the driveway.
He was a few feet away when he turned and she thought he was going to come back, and they would fall into each other and kiss, like in all the chick flicks she and Penny had watched on the party-less weekends before Bitsy had recruited them. But he just stood there, his board standing on two wheels.
“What’s your favorite color?” he asked.
“Why?” She played stubborn.
“No real reason.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and seemed shy suddenly. “I just want to know more about you. Thought maybe that was a good place to start.”
More about you. She turned the phrase over in her head. More about you.
“Me?”
“Yeah, weirdo.” He laughed his warm, buttery ha. “You.” He paused. Then walked forward, reached out, and pulled the zipper of his sweatshirt up so his knuckles brushed her chin. “Maddie.”
Her name sounded different on his lips. Better.
“Forget I asked,” he said. “It was kind of dumb.”
“It’s red,” she blurted out. “And turquoise. Together.” Something small scampered in the woods. Twigs cracked.
“How come?”
“God, you’re nosy.” But she wanted him to ask her more questions. Wanted to answer them all and let him know her.
They continued walking toward the cottage, listening to the cack-cacking of the caterpillars feeding and the patter of chewed-up leaves spat thousands at a time onto the forest floor.
“I like it ’cause”—she paused—“red for passion. Sea-blue for … I’m not sure what, but the water makes me feel safe.”
She didn’t think she was making any sense.
“Yeah,” he said. “I get that. Totally.” He nodded as if he really, truly did. “I thought maybe…” He stopped.
“What?”
“That guy. He was hurting you.”
It took Maddie a moment to remember. Spencer. Shit. How much had Brooks seen? She wished she could explode now, burst into a million pieces. Die. She was humiliated. And angry. Why hadn’t he told her he’d seen right from the start? Instead of making her trust him, feel safe, show herself to him, when it was all a waste of time because he’d seen her ugly and used, and here she was hoping, like a moron, he’d step forward and kiss her.
“I’m fine.” She started for the cottage door.
“You know,” he said, “it’s not supposed to be like that.”
She stared at the screen door covered in crawling caterpillars.
“That guy,” Brooks said, “he—”
“Please,” she interrupted him. “Stop. You should’ve told me you saw. Then we wouldn’t have had to…”
“Yeah, okay. You’re right.”
He reached past her and wiped the caterpillars off the screen door handle, opening it, nodding at the doorway.
“Go on in.”
He was on his board, the wheels skipping across the slate path, when he called, “Hey!” and she looked through the screen spotted with squirming bristled gypsies.
“Yeah?”