“Animals were put on this earth for us to eat.”
“Really, Mom? Do you ever think about the baby lamb that died so you can grow your ass?”
“Lamb doesn’t grow my ass. Ice cream grows my ass.”
“Don’t blame me for your ass,” Dad said. “Which I like, by the way.”
Mom smacked Dad’s leg. “And what are you going to eat for dinner?” she asked me. “Mushrooms?”
“Alice eats lots of stuff and she’s a vegetarian.”
“What’s next? An earring in your nose? Maybe green hair to match the vegetables?” Mom stabbed a hunk of lamb with her fork.
Dad laughed and changed the subject. “Let’s see a movie tonight.” He wiped the sauce off his whiskers with a leftover Fourth of July paper napkin. “We haven’t done that all summer.”
“I kind of have plans.”
“Oh.” I saw the My little girl doesn’t want to be with her old dad anymore and it hurts like hell expression.
“Tomorrow?” I smiled my I still love you so much, Daddy smile.
“Tomorrow’s good.”
I showered and shaved, put on lotion and makeup, dabbed the monster tail, and stuck a little butterfly barrette in my slightly grown-out bangs. I wore my favorite blush-pink dress with silver sandals and the diamond studs Grandma Hosseini gave me when I turned sixteen. And I slipped out of the house before Mom could ask me why I was trying to look pretty.
The Range Rover pulled up exactly on time, a first for Gordie Harris. I ran out just as it began to rain hard.
“Sadie,” Gordie said, drawing out my name. “You look amazing.”
“Thank you.” He squeezed my hand and didn’t let go until we got almost to Montauk. Gordie backed into a gravel lot behind a wall of sea grass.
We sat in the car and waited out the rain, talking about Gordie’s “stuff going on at home,” which had to do with Frances and her cancer and that it was worse than they had hoped. I felt like an idiot for bothering him with Are you sure you’re not mad at me? texts when he truly was dealing with real issues.
“Keith is sensitive, and when he gets upset, he regresses, so we have to be careful how much we tell him,” Gordie said, still holding my hand. “But we have a solid plan.”
“Great. What is it?”
“We’re going to adopt Keith and Frances. We’ll have an adoption ceremony and everything to make it official. That way my parents will be Keith’s legal guardians, and he doesn’t need to perseverate about Frances until the very end.”
“What’s perseverate?”
“Worry.”
“Got it.”
“Of course, my mom is planning an adoption ceremony that’ll be bigger than most weddings. You guys are on the list.”
“Aww. That’s going to be sweet.”
“Yeah.”
He pulled away a bit and stared at me, and tucked my hair behind my ear. He traced the monster tail with the tip of his finger.
“So what do you want to do?” I said, staring back.
He laughed. “Stay here.”
“Why?”
“I have a little surprise.”
The rain had moved out to sea, and I waited, my eyes focused on the craggy trees in front of me, while Gordie opened the back and moved stuff around.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t look.”
If it had been Seth, the wild groping would have been wrapping up and we would have been on the way back to Shawn’s.
“Okay, come out.”
It was still light behind the dark storm clouds, and streaks of sun dropped down over the whitecaps. I jumped out and walked around to the back of the Range Rover. Inside, Gordie had arranged a pile of blankets and pillows and tiny LED tea light candles on a tray with a thermos of hot chocolate and a pie dish covered in foil.
“You cleaned out your car for me?”
“I did. Let’s hope we don’t need a shovel.”
“Or a metal detector.”
“Or a metal detector,” he said, laughing.
We crawled in and lay on our sides facing each other. Gordie took off the foil from the pie dish.
“Do you want some cobbler?” he said.
“You made me cobbler?”
He said, “I told you I owed you for those kickass biscuits. The peaches are kind of mealy now, so I went with blueberry.”
He handed me a fork and I took a bite. It was delicious.
We poured the hot chocolate and Gordie held up his cup. “Here’s to things worth waiting for.”
I touched my cup to his.
“And to that auspicious moment when the Hamptons Hoodlum got booted from the homegrown heroes luncheon,” he said.
“I actually met that girl,” I said. “She’s having a hard time, so let’s not call her that anymore.”
“Hey, you know how at the homegrown heroes luncheon, when people were saying where they wish they were and I was being all mysterious?”
“Yeah.”
“This is where I wanted to be. With you,” Gordie said, leaning in to kiss me.
“Are you serious?”
“And can I tell you something even more embarrassing?”
“Yeah.”
“I have spent the past three years playing the most ridiculous game.” He paused and looked at me. “So, I always try to sit strategically in class so I can just make out the top of your pants, where, if I’m lucky, your shirt will ride up a little and I’ll get a glimpse of your underwear.”
I slapped his arm. “Oh my God. You little perv.”
“I’m totally a little perv.”
“How often did you see my underwear?”
“Not often enough.”
“I need longer shirts.”
“No. No, you don’t. Your underwear is the reason I’m probably going to be valedictorian. No joke. Sometimes I’d be like, Screw it. I’m not going to school today. I’m going to stay home and play my harmonica. But then I’d think, Wait, what if today’s the day I get to see Sadie Sullivan’s underwear and I’m home? Can’t take that chance.”
I covered my face with my hands. “Mortifying. And creepy.”
He looked at me with an I’m thinking about your underwear right now expression.
“Did you have a favorite pair?” I raised my eyebrows.
“The purple ones.”
“You’re kind of turning me on right now.” I moved my lips close to his.
The fluttering.
“You kind of turn me on all the time,” he said.
His shirt found its way to the front seat and the electric candles scattered all over the place and Gordie’s hand found my black underwear—the ones I never, ever wore to school—and his mouth found my mouth and it was all incredible.
We pulled the blankets up and I snuggled against him. I told him all about Shay, that I had finally had a good talk with her and things were much better. He told me he was glad because nobody on this planet is perfect and Shay was probably suffering post-inseparable-senior depressive disorder.
We didn’t talk about the Unlikelies or what happened in New York or what I was going to do with my promise to Mr. Upton. We didn’t want to sully our perfect night with things that were too intense for almost-seniors to deal with.
“So what’s going to happen when school starts?” I said, eating another heaping forkful of cobbler.
“Like, as in with you and me?”