Meet Me at the Boardwalk
Read Meet Me at the Boardwalk Online
Authors: Erin Haft
Tags: #Teen & Young Adult, #Literature & Fiction, #Social & Family Issues, #Dating & Sex, #Friendship, #Fiction
BOARDWALK
To Aimee Friedman,
the one who fixes what might
have been torn down.
Plans in the Works to Destroy Our Most Treasured Landmark!
LATE EDITION BREAKING NEWS
MAY 27, 7:15 A.M. FROM THE EDITOR
C
itizens! We may be facing the biggest crisis ever in the history of Seashell Point.
This is no joke. We do a lot of joking on this page. Not this time. Tragically, due to circumstances beyond our control, we’ve been forced to be serious for once.
For decades, our resort town has earned its reputation—and revenue—on juicy summer fun. To paraphrase
Us Weekly
, “Seashell Point’s mile-long strip of beachfront mansions provides the premier summer retreat for the East Coast jet set.” We’ve never apologized for it. We shouldn’t. Think of the celebrity sightings, the sunrises, the surfing…and, why not, the scandal. Rejoice in it! How about last season, when a certain famous news anchor was videotaped frolicking on his boat with a certain famous musician’s wife. Remember that? It set a new YouTube record for most hits.
AND—note that we have the decency not to provide the link here.
That speaks to our values. We’re protective. And yes, that still goes if you’re here for one summer only—for a fling or an affair. You’re still a part of our community. Your outrageous behavior defines us, as much as our five-star clams, the cobbled streets of downtown—and perhaps most important of all, our ninety-year-old boardwalk.
Ninety years. Think about that. our boardwalk is older than the state of Hawaii! We mention this because several professional surfers prefer the conditions at Seashell Point to those at Maui. We’ve researched. We also discovered our town is the number-one “mistress hideaway” in all of Maryland, but that’s another story…
Now think about what it would mean if the boardwalk were to be torn down. No more two-dollar buckets of fried clams at Sonny’s Clam Shack. No more Pete’s Petting Zoo. No more Amusement Alley. Can you imagine Paris without the Eiffel Tower? Hollywood without its eponymous sign in the hills? St. Louis without the Arch?
Hyperbole? maybe. But the boardwalk
is
Seashell Point.
And we fear that tearing it down is exactly what real-estate mogul Arnold Roth intends to do. Worse, he may be acting with the help of our very own tourist board president and town council chairwoman, Suzanne Kim. Though ms. Kim will neither confirm nor deny mr. Roth’s intentions, she did agree to meet with us on the boardwalk early this morning.
Her teenage daughter, Megan, tagged along.
“All I know for certain is that mr. Roth plans to enjoy the best of Seashell Point, like any other tourist,” ms. Kim told us. “He’s vacationing here for the summer with his wife, Cheryl, and daughter, Lily-Ann. They picked a very nice six-bedroom on the south side, formerly rented by some of the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs entourage.”
And how did you come to learn this information? You don’t work in real estate.
“Mr. Roth visited last summer for a weekend to get a look at the house, and he dropped by the tourist board office, mostly to tell us how much he loves our town. We did discuss some ideas he had about urban revitalization. That’s all I have to say.”
No more? Really? That’s ALL?
Ms. Kim clasped her daughter’s hand. “No, that’s not all. my daughter, as you know, cleans tourist homes during the summer. She decided to do this on her own two years ago, as a way to earn spending money. She’ll be cleaning mr. Roth’s house. Why she does this instead of working with me at the tourist board or city council is frankly a mystery, but I admire her work ethic.”
“It isn’t a mystery,” megan clarified. “Jade got me the job. And I like it.”
“Right, that would be Jade Cohen,” ms. Kim continued, in a somewhat different tone. “The local yoga instructor’s daughter, who was fired for negligence and now sells tickets for the Jupiter Bounce at Amusement Alley. The point is: If I had any doubts about Mr. Roth’s character, I certainly wouldn’t allow my daughter to work for him.”
The younger ms. Kim declined further comment.
We asked the elder ms. Kim point-blank:
What about your character? Do YOU want to tear down the boardwalk? And what would you put up in its place?
“I’ve loved and served Seashell Point my entire life,” she said. “But the boardwalk can encourage destructive behavior. Take the Jupiter Bounce—toddlers have suffered bumps and bruises. And this may sound alarmist, but tourists tend to gather on the boardwalk to cheer the surfers. The riskier the surfing, the louder the cheers. Last summer, a local boy and a dear friend of my daughter’s was hospitalized after a surfing accident. I’m not trying to discourage surfing if it’s done responsibly—and I’m not saying that surfing shouldn’t be a spectator sport, either. I just don’t want to jeopardize the safety of our citizens.”
With that cryptic nonanswer, ms. Kim ended the interview.
Shakespeare once said, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
Indeed. Something is rotten in Seashell Point, people. Don’t let them take our beloved boardwalk from us! It’s time to fight back!
The Pact
T
here’s a certain moment in your life when you realize something. It’s along the lines of: Hey, you
aren’t
a kid anymore. You might actually have to start worrying about lame grown-up sorts of stuff—like how to repair a screen door, or where to find the right scented candle to repel beach bugs, or the best way to avoid a wicked older sister. (Or how to finagle getting whisked off forever by a skinny, brilliant, gorgeous rock star. Though I wouldn’t call that a grown-up concern per se.)
Personally, I prefer to worry about which one-piece bathing suit will magically make me appear taller than an elf. And serve as a natural aphrodisiac. I have yet to find it. In my defense, though, most of the high-end stores in town are out of my price range.
Anyway, this moment of grown-up realization came for me when Dad dropped what I call the SF bomb.
I don’t know about other people’s dads, but my dad is a freak.
He
calls
himself a freak and he means it in a good way. Apparently when he was my age back in the sixties, calling someone a “freak” was a compliment. I have no way of verifying this—my two best friends’ parents are much younger than Dad. Still, I’ll take his word for the definition. He may be many things: an aging hippie, a yoga instructor,
a grizzled free spirit who nags his youngest daughter for obsessing over bathing suits…but he is honest to a fault. Honesty = good. Gray beard, poncho, and thinning ponytail = bad.
Dad dropped the SF Bomb at six
A.M.
the Tuesday morning after Memorial Day. I mention the time and date because in other towns, it might not mean much: The beginning of a short week, at most. But in Seashell Point, that Tuesday is the day the “season” officially begins. Over Memorial Day weekend, the population of our quaint little beachside dump nearly triples. (Whoops. Did I say “dump”? I meant “resort town.” I really did.) In they roar, like a herd of stampeding elephants, the Mercedes and Range Rovers and Jaguar convertibles…a massive amount of disposable incomes (whoops, tourists), who all believe that it’s glamorous to spend a summer of surf and sun in a quaint little Maryland…um…resort town. Right.
My best friends, Miles Gordon and Megan Kim, and I have practically made a career out of making fun of them.
First Tuesday of the season or not, Dad wakes up at sunrise every morning to practice yoga by the water. When it’s warm enough, I’ll join him. Not for yoga (
blech
), but to dive into the ocean for a quick cold dip. We have our routine: The back screen door of our bungalow opens directly onto the beach, and if I run fast enough, I can splash into the water literally ten seconds after racing outside.
That morning, as usual, I broke into a sprint, until I heard, “Jade, sweetie, wait!”
I stopped and turned. “What’s up?”
Dad tightened the yoga mat in his hands. He kneaded the foam anxiously—as if it were a giant rolled-up newspaper and he’d just read some bad news.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah…there’s just—something I have to tell you.” He stepped out into the moist sand and laid the mat at my feet. “Here. Sit with me.”
“This isn’t about a towel, is it, Dad?” I asked, sitting beside him. “I’m not gonna catch pneumonia or anything. I’m just gonna run right in and run right back—”
“No, Jade,” he interrupted quietly. “You know how to take care of yourself.”
He turned toward the ocean, his green eyes—exactly like mine—pensive. Dawn was just starting to break, with the faintest glimmer of orange-red sun over the waves. Okay, I have to admit it: At this time of day, in this spot, Seashell Point can be pretty beautiful. I can almost understand—at least for five minutes, until the fog starts to burn off—how tourists might want to come here every year in droves.
“It really is beautiful, isn’t it?” Dad murmured.
I laughed.
“What?” he said.
“Nothing. Except that for once I was thinking the exact same thing as you were.”
He bit his lip. “Jade, I got an e-mail last night.”
“You know how to use our computer?” I joked.
He chuckled, his eyes still glued to the ocean. “I’m gonna miss your sass.”
“Dad, you’re freaking me out a little here. And not ‘freak’ in a good way. What’s wrong? Why would you miss my sass?”
“I…” He took a deep breath and turned back to me. “I got a job offer. In San Francisco. A really sweet gig. Teaching yoga at a private studio until Labor Day. I’ll be able to run my own workshops and earn about three times what I make here. I’m going to put the extra earnings in a college fund for you.”
My eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
“Absolutely.”
I’m not a terribly emotive person—at least not with physical displays. But I threw my arms around Dad. I couldn’t help it. I probably hadn’t hugged him since his birthday.
The truth is, though, I was mostly happy for me.
“Dad, that is so cool!” I exclaimed. “You know I’ve always wanted to get out of here during the summer. Well, get out of here, period, and I’ve always wanted to see the West Coast. Maybe we can even convince Megan and Miles to come visit…” My jabbering trailed off, though, and I pulled away. “Wait. You’re not telling me the whole story, are you?”
He shook his head, silent.
“I can’t come with you. Is that it? That’s why you’re gonna miss my sass?”
“Jade, I’m sorry.” He tugged at his beard. “It wasn’t fair of me. I fought really hard with the owners of the studio to
let me stay off-premises. I wanted to rent an apartment with you, but they have a single residence on-site. It’s legally ‘one occupant only’ and—”
“No, no.” I cut him off and held up my hands, swallowing. “No worries. I’m serious. I’m happy for you.” I fought to believe the words as I said them. “I know you love San Francisco, too.” I mustered a smile. “Just please don’t tell me that I have to spend the summer with Nana in Boca Raton. It’s possibly the only place on Earth that’s worse than Seashell Point.”
“No, you won’t have to spend the summer in Boca. But I might ask Nana to come up here and check in on you once or twice.”
The disappointment began to fade. My lips curled in a grin. “What are you saying? That I can stay here alone?”
A rapid-fire montage of wild summer scenes flashed through my head: themed parties, barbecues, boardwalk protests against the tourists (except the cute boys)…all starring me, Megan, and Miles. Maybe I’d even get to kiss a hot tourist, and even better if he played in a band—
“Not exactly alone,” Dad said.
Uh-oh.
“Turquoise will be staying here, too.”
“What?”
Dad placed his hand on my arm. “Jade, this could be a time for you and your sister to bond. I’ve given this a lot of thought. And I’m sorry to have kept you in the dark for so long. But you know, sweetie, you and Turquoise are not as unalike as you think.”
“But what about her job in New York?” I practically yelled. “I thought she landed some cushy internship at a law firm with all her Ivy League buddies!”
“She decided to skip it and study hard for the bar exam instead. As crazy as this may sound to you, she also wanted to spend some time with her little sister.”
I sniffed. “Right. So she can shove my nose into the fact that she’s so brilliant, and I’m nothing more than—and I’m quoting her here, I swear—a ‘dwarfish emo chick.’ Yes, Dad. We’re absolutely alike. I’m human. She is evil incarnate.”
He laughed.
“I assume you’re laughing at my sass,” I grumbled.
Dad patted my foot. “Thanks for understanding. And I, for one, am pretty thrilled that ‘evil incarnate’ will be spending the summer with you. She’s flying into DC tonight. She’s renting a car and getting in late.”
“Wonderful,” I mumbled.
The fog was starting to break. The sun grew hotter. I wasn’t so much in the mood to take a dip. Or go to school later. All I wanted to do was to crawl back into bed. Which, of course, was why I was the one who needed the college fund—and why Turquoise didn’t. Turquoise had earned a full scholarship with her 1600 SATs and 4.0 GPA and more extracurricular activities than Seashell Point High even offered. (I’m serious. She
brought
the Model U.N.
to
school. It was even written up in
The Seashell Register
: “
LOCAL GENIUS TRUMPS DUMB YOUNGER SISTER AGAIN!
” Okay, the headline was different, but I prefer mine.)
“But seriously, Jade, listen up,” Dad said. “Later today, after school, there are some things we need to go over. The screen door is a little wobbly these days, but the shop over on Chesapeake Street has all the stuff you need to repair it. And you know those insect-repelling scented candles? If you and Turquoise want to barbecue this summer, use a different brand, the ones in those big buckets. We had some mosquito trouble last year and I want…”
Dad might have kept talking. I wasn’t sure. He could talk all the way to San Francisco, as far as I was concerned. Because I was on my way, too—across the sand and back into the house…making a point to slam the screen door extra hard, so that it rattled in its frame and cracked back open a little, just enough to let the beach bugs in.