Meet Me at the Boardwalk (5 page)

A
t first, I couldn’t focus on Lily-Ann Roth. I should have; she was even prettier close-up, but I couldn’t stop staring at Megan.

I’d never seen her act so affectionate with anyone. Not even Jade. Of course, Jade wasn’t all that affectionate, either. The last time the two of them had hugged in public was at Jade’s bat-mitzvah. Plus, Megan was wearing an apron. She must have forgotten to take it off before she’d ventured out.

“Meg, you know you’re wearing your apron, right?” Jade asked. “I can still see the spaghetti stains from last summer.”

Megan and Lily-Ann looked at each other. Then they giggled. Lily-Ann took Megan by the shoulder; she spun her around, untied her apron—and tossed it into the nearest garbage can. A seagull landed on the railing nearby, studying the apron as if it wanted to hop in after it.
A bird!
I said to myself.
That’s what I am right now: a creature with a brain the size of a bird. I have no idea what’s going on.
I turned to Jade.

“You’re right, Miles,” Jade said loudly. She stared at Lily-Ann. “In answer to your unspoken question, we have entered some sort of bizarre alternate universe.”

“I’m sorry,” Megan murmured. “Miles, Jade…I was just telling Lily-Ann about the Jade Cohen party house.”

I stepped forward. If everyone else had gone insane, I might as well join the crowd. “Hi, I’m Miles Gordon,” I said in a TV-announcer voice. “I’m not only the fry cook at Sonny’s Clam Shack, I also receive bribes.”

Lily-Ann laughed. It was a musical laugh, not at all forced. She shook my hand, lingering for a while. Her eyes were deep, deep blue, and her fingers were long—a lot like Megan’s, actually…only they were as tan as Jade’s. Her thin lips curled up in a flirtatious smile. “So you’re the boy I’ve been hearing so much about,” she said.

I dropped her hand. “What do you mean?” I asked. My voice squeaked.

“The one who takes bribes?” she said drily. She spoke as if we’d been in on an inside joke for years. “From Sonny’s Clam Shack?”

“That’s me!” I glanced toward the stand. Donny was just arriving. He, too, was wearing an apron—only his was more stained than Megan’s, and it wasn’t nearly as flattering, seeing as he weighed about five times as much as all of us combined. He hadn’t shaved in a while, either. He gave me the finger.

Lily-Ann giggled again. “So that’s your boss, huh?”

“Yeah, but his mood improves as we draw closer to nighttime.”

“Hey!” Donny shouted. He hiccuped. “Stop showing off your skateboard to the ladies and start frying up some freaking clams!”

“You have a skateboard?” Lily-Ann asked.

Reflexively, I clutched the straps of my knapsack. “I…uh…well, yeah. But it’s in here. It’s in my…backpack.” (
Why does saying the word “backpack” out loud make me sound like a six-year-old? Or does it?
)

Lily-Ann smirked. “Did you choose your backpack yourself? I mean, the color scheme? Camouflage is very—”

“Fox News?” Jade interrupted.

“Rugged?” Megan suggested.

“Hey!” Donny shouted once more. “Show off your skate skills or fry up some freaking clams! That’s an executive order!”

I gave
him
the finger.

This practice of giving each other the finger began when Donny visited me in the hospital—as diligently as Megan did, almost every other afternoon. I would wake up in a painkiller haze and see Donny, grinning and giving me the finger. I had no choice but to return the favor. Especially since he told me that the accident/recovery/stupidity was no excuse for missing work.

“Hey!” Lily-Ann chimed in. “Show off your skate skills.”

I had to smile. “Well, now you’ve asked for it.”

Megan and Jade watched me, openmouthed, as I slung my backpack off my shoulder. I heaved out the big, clunky board. I wasn’t sure what I was thinking. And actually that’s really the whole point…I
wasn’t
thinking, which was nice for the first time in a long while. All I did (at least consciously) was avoid their eyes. I hopped on and gave
myself a little kick start on the wrong foot, to see if Lily-Ann noticed.

“Dude!” Lily-Ann cried. “That’s a total Mongo!”

I hopped off and kicked the skateboard up into my hands. “What? You skate?”

She shook her head and looked down, smiling. Her blonde curls fell in front of her face. “No, but I know people who do, I guess.”

“Oh, you do?” Jade asked.

Lily-Ann raised her hands. “Guilty as charged,” she said lightly.

“You seem to have a lot going on that people don’t know about,” Jade said.

“I…um…” Lily-Ann shot Megan a pleading look. “I don’t know what to say?”

Megan retreated into the Megan Clamshell.

I was at a loss for words, too. I stared at Jade for the umpteenth time.

“Better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re an idiot, than open it and remove all doubt,” Megan stated.

Lily-Ann started cracking up. “It’s a Mark Twain quote!” she exclaimed.

Megan grabbed Lily-Ann’s arm and hustled her toward the end of the boardwalk. “I have to show Lily-Ann downtown,” she muttered in a distinctly un-Megan-like voice. “She’s going to love it. Calypso, Prada, Gucci…” They disappeared around the corner, onto Main Street.

Jade’s face looked like an old beach towel.

“I can’t take the Jupiter Bounce anymore,” Jade said. “I think I need to stop working. Why work? Why not plot our escape from this heinous town? Everyone is being corrupted. Even Megan.”

“Jade, come on. Lily-Ann isn’t so bad.”

“She isn’t?”

I gulped. “Well, think of some of the other tourists Megan has had to work for. Maybe you
both
should switch jobs.”

Jade glanced at her watch. “That would be great, except that I got fired from my first job, and nearly got Megan fired, too, by association. Speaking of which, I better get back to work. Sarah’s gonna get pissed.”

“Jade, you’re lying.”

“Why do you think I’m lying?”

“Because Sarah isn’t even
there.
” I nodded toward Amusement Alley. The gates were still padlocked. “You’re a better liar than that.”

“What, do you know everything about me?”

I shook my head nervously. “Not by a long shot.”

She took a deep breath. “Thank you. So stop giving me advice. Or name one thing you don’t know about me. And it has to be big. Bigger than that I don’t trust Lily-Ann Roth.”

I wracked my crowded head. It was sort of like looking for a lost friend in a mosh pit; it was mostly shoving away. Not to make excuses, but it is a weird thing being asked what you
don’t
know. All I could think of was what I
did
know: that
she and Turquoise had different mothers whom neither of them had ever met (tourists, no doubt, who hooked up with Mr. Cohen during yoga instruction, isn’t that “tantra”?); that her father was an unabashed hippie and was always struggling to make ends meet; that she had a crazy grandmother…and then, of course, the normal stuff; that she’d always stuck up for Megan; that she was stubborn to a fault; that she’d never say anything bad about anyone she loved, except Turquoise—

Suddenly, it hit me.

“Why did your father name you guys after gemstones, anyway?”

She giggled. “Are you serious?”

“Yes! And don’t tell me ‘because he’s a freak.’”

“I never told you?
He
never told you? Well…it’s not because he’s a freak, even though he is. It’s because of our eyes. He named us after the color of our eyes.”

I didn’t quite believe her, so I took the opportunity to jam her skateboard back into my backpack. “But you both have brown eyes.”

“Yeah, but when Turkey was born, she had these really beautiful blue eyes.”

“Wow. I can’t believe you said ‘beautiful’ and ‘Turkey’ in the same sentence,” I marveled, with just a hint of sarcasm.

Jade gave me a blank stare. “You’ve been to our house at Thanksgiving.”

I laughed. “That’s the Jade I know. So what about you? Why Jade?”

“I had green eyes. Come on, Miles. I’ve shown you my baby pictures. I actually showed them to you
at
Thanksgiving. Last year, remember? I had these bright green eyes when I was an infant.”

“So what happened? Why do you both have brown eyes now?”

She sighed and touched my arm without looking at me. “We changed, Miles. It happens.” Then she turned and walked back toward Amusement Alley.

I
arrived home at around six
P.M.
—starving and disheveled after an insane day full of screaming toddlers—only to find Megan and Turquoise sitting at our kitchen table, poring over some article on Turquoise’s laptop.
Megan has been replaced by an alien
, I thought,
roaming around town with Lily-Ann Roth and now looking up God-knows-what with Turquoise.

Turquoise had also undergone some sort of radical transformation this year. I really hadn’t noticed it until that moment. I
couldn’t
have noticed. We were proverbial ships passing in the night, which was fine. But her perky little prepster outfits were gone. The crisp pants, the spotless white tops—the whole professional look…she’d traded them in for something…boho? She wore a long skirt, sandals, and some sort of psychedelic concert T-shirt (Aquarium Rescue Unit?) which screamed, in a word, Dad. She’d also lost weight and gotten color. How, I don’t know. She looked frighteningly like me.

I closed the door behind me. I closed it pretty hard.

Turquoise and Megan turned at the same time.

“Hey, Jade,” they announced in unison.

Then they turned back to the computer screen, deep in concentration.

“Hey, guys,” I said with equal nonchalance. “So, I meant to tell you. I’ve decided to get that sex-change operation.
Also, there was a thermonuclear explosion on the beach. Anybody up for some din-din? Lobster rolls?”

Turquoise peered at me over her shoulder. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t joke about the beach,” Turquoise said with a sigh. “This thing is real.”

“What thing? Aside from everyone’s insanity?”

“Insanity?” she repeated.

Now it was my turn to sigh. I flopped down in the chair beside them, too exhausted to go on. “Please explain to your dumb sister what you’re talking about.”

“Arnold Roth is planning to make some sort of announcement about the boardwalk. He’s going to do it at Clam-Fest. He and his pretty little daughter really do want to tear it down.”

Megan shook her head and folded her arms across her chest. “Lily-Ann has nothing to do with it. But you know why I’m really mad?” she grumbled, nodding at the computer. “That he’s using Lily-Ann. And that he’s using Clam-Fest as the platform. Like he’s a…he’s a…”

“Like he’s a local,” Turquoise concluded.

“Exactly,” Megan said.

“So, what’s the difference between him and you, Turkey?” I asked.

She spun around and smirked. “Excuse me, Jade?”

“You’re not a local, either,” I said. I stood and lumbered
over to the refrigerator, scouring for leftovers. Classic. There was nothing but salad (hers) and pizza (mine)—and the salad was getting that scary grayish color it does when it’s been sitting on a shelf for over a week. “This is only the second time you’ve been back in two years. Even tourists come back more often than you do. Like Sean Edwards. He visited at Christmas.”

“Did you see Sean today?” Megan asked. Her voice had an edge.

I closed the fridge door. My appetite suddenly vanished. “Um…no. Why? Is he back in town?”

“Yes, he’s back in town,” Megan said. “And he looks fantastic. He’s changed.”

I raised my hands, trying to make a joke. “Okay…I…I didn’t know,” I stammered. “I’m just—”

“Trying to make us feel stupid for caring about something,” Megan cut in. “Because Jade Cohen doesn’t care about anything, least of all this dump of a town. Right? You said it yourself a million times. All you want to do is leave here.”

My eyes widened. For one of the first times ever, I was at a loss for words. “Meg, why are you mad at me?” I finally managed.

“I’m mad because you don’t care. We happened to grow up in a town where if you’re a local, you’re an outsider. Well now
we
outsiders are fighting against the insiders, who aren’t the locals. So are you in or are you out? Sounds to me like you’re out. You always have been.”

My lips quivered. “Meg…this can’t be about the boardwalk. And if outsiders are fake insiders, why is Lily-Ann your new best friend?”

She didn’t answer.

“Hey, you guys,” Turquoise murmured. “Let’s all just calm down. Things might not be as dire as they seem. Maybe this Roth guy wants to tear down the boardwalk so he can build his daughter an even
better
boardwalk. Huh? Huh?”

I laughed. Another first: laughing at one of my sister’s jokes. It was a day of firsts all around, but most of them pretty crappy. I stepped toward Megan.

She whirled and stormed out of the kitchen. “Bye, you guys. Turquoise, I’ll talk to you later.”

The front door slammed behind her.

I stared at Turquoise. “Why is Meg so pissed at me?” I asked. My heart thumped. “Did she tell you something? Do you know something?”

Does she know something?

“Something about what?”

Something about what happened between Miles and me,
I wanted to say, but I shrugged instead.

She turned back to the computer. “All I know is that she thinks her best friend should care more about this town.”

I frowned. Neither of us said anything for a while.

“Why don’t you read these controversial articles at our local library?” I finally asked in the silence. “I understand it’s very quiet. Fewer arguments. Plus, online porn.”

“How about this?” Turquoise said, keeping her back to
me. “I promise to read at the library if you promise to take the garbage out for once in your life. It’s starting to stink.”

“Whatever you say, Turkey.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Whatever you say, Turkey,” I repeated.

“Jade!” she yelled, still furiously pretending to read whatever was on-screen. I glimpsed the faint beginnings of a smile on her lips.

“Don’t call me Jade,” I said. “Call me…hmm. How about Dwarfish Emo Chick?”

She turned to me, but I dashed out of the kitchen before she could respond.

I kept running. I ran out the back door and collapsed into the sand with the sunset behind me. And once I caught my breath, I found myself missing Dad for the first time since he’d left. (Yet
another
first. Ugh.) I cried a little, too. Megan must have found out what happened. Miles must have told her. Like Dad, he
too
was honest to a fault. It was a mistake. I should have told her a long time ago.

Luckily nobody saw me crying, other than some random gray-haired tourist woman, strolling barefoot on the beach with her sandals in one hand. I watched the seagulls circle overhead. They reminded me of an illustrated children’s story Dad used to read me a long time ago, about a bunch of birds in New York City…and how one got lost. I think they were ducks. Or turkeys. Some kind of bird.

I felt a lot like that right now.