The Islanders (16 page)

“I mean,” he said in an exaggeratedly patient voice, “that I know you use a shampoo that smells like coconuts, and that you occasionally wear a perfume that smells like vanilla, and another that smells like melon. Which probably explains why I often get hungry when you're around.

“And, of course I know that sometimes you're silently cussing me out and giving me the finger because you're mad at me. I also know you are a basically cool person. Plenty of free-floating hostility, plenty of strangeness, but no meanness. I know that you have soft fingers, and that you have . . . well, never mind. The point is, it's not like I've never thought about you. In
that
way. I mean, you are a girl, and I am a guy, and we do spend a lot of time together.”

Nina nodded, not trusting her voice to respond.

“Don't nod. How the hell am I supposed to know if you're nodding? All I'm trying to say is . . . I don't know what I'm trying to say. I want to be straight with you because whatever else you are, you're my friend, okay?”

“Uh-huh,” Nina managed to mutter.

Benjamin stopped and turned toward her. He aimed his sunglasses at her, as always just a little off-target, but close enough to almost make her believe he could see her and that he was looking into her eyes. “I'm in love with Claire. It's fading, and maybe it will more over time. I don't know. I know I like
you. A lot. And maybe that will change into something more. That's all I have to say. I don't want to b.s. you, Nina, or make promises. Except I'll make the promise that one way or the other, I'll always be your friend.”

Nina took a deep, shaky breath. So he
was
still in love with Claire, which was no surprise at all.

On the other hand, Benjamin had admitted that the thought of Nina as an actual
female
had occurred to him once or twice. “I want you to know what you're getting into with me, Nina, that's all. And now, if
you
want to change
your
mind about this weekend, I'll understand.”

Nina chewed on her lower lip. It would be about a million times easier just to stay home from the game on Friday, and a billion times easier to skip the homecoming dance on Saturday. Weymouth High was a fairly small school. And by now everyone there, from cheerleaders to jocks to brains to the glue-huffing morons in detention, knew that she had accused her uncle of molesting her. Everyone was busy nodding and saying things like,
Wow, all this time I thought she was a lezzie and now it turns out she was just screwed up about guys.
And showing up at homecoming with Benjamin, whom half the girls in school had their sights on, would be like pouring gasoline on the gossip fire.

A very large number of girls, including, possibly, Claire,
would be pissed. So at least there was something positive.

“Nah. I can't dump you, Benjamin,” Nina said. “People would feel sorry for you, sitting home all alone.”

Benjamin smiled. “So what are you going to wear?”

“Like you would know the difference?”

“I didn't mean clothing. I meant I like the vanilla stuff better.”

“Ow, ow. That hurts.” Zoey Passmore winced and tried to pull away.

“That's what you get for throwing things at me without warming up first,” Lucas said, unimpressed by her complaints. “You've pulled your shoulder muscle. If you're going to heave a book at my head, you should at least warm up—you know, stretch. All that time going out with a jock and you learned nothing.” He poured some more oil into his palms, rubbed them together, and went back to work kneading Zoey's bare shoulder.

Lucas was leaning against the mountain of pillows at the head of Zoey's bed. She sat cross-legged with her back to him, T-shirt off and the shoulder strap of her bra lowered.

“I didn't heave a
book
at your
head
in a
jealous rage
,” Zoey corrected him in a drowsy, relaxed voice. “Oh, that's good; yeah, yeah, like that. I just
tossed
a
magazine
to you.”

“A very big magazine. Very fast toss.”

“Do that some more. It's your fault, anyway. You asked for it.”

“I was just quoting from the magazine,” Lucas said mildly. “I didn't make up the statistics. I was just pointing out that in the article they said the majority of people our age are having sex. I didn't necessarily mean anything by it.”

Zoey twisted her head toward the good side, pried open one eye, and gave him a look. He broke into a smile. “Okay, maybe I had a small ulterior motive.”

“Yeah,
maybe
,” Zoey said dryly. “See, your mistake was you shouldn't have gone right from talking about that to talking about Louise Kronenberger.”

“I was making a joke. I was just saying she probably accounted for a lot of that statistic all by herself. Joke. Ha ha.”

“Ow, not quite that hard,” Zoey said.

“You should put some ice on it,” Lucas said.

Zoey twisted around again. “So should you.”

“Oh, that's funny, Zoey.”

“Anyway, if you like K-burger so much, you'll have the perfect opportunity to get to know her,” Zoey said with poisoned sweetness. “You have the big ceremonial homecoming king and queen dance. Maybe you could bring a copy of that magazine article. You could whisper statistics in her ear.”

Lucas sighed deeply. “This is why I didn't want to get into the whole homecoming thing. I'm getting swept up into the whole school-spirit-popular-people-who-saw-who-with-who-else thing.”

“You're trying to change the subject,” Zoey said.

Lucas suddenly pulled her onto her back and crouched over her, pinning her arms over her head. “No,
now
I'm changing the subject.”

He lowered his face to hers and they kissed, a long, slow kiss that left them both breathless.

Suddenly there was a knock at the bedroom door. And before Zoey could think of how to respond, the door opened.

“Aisha!” Zoey gasped. She pushed Lucas off her and began a frantic search for her shirt. Lucas grabbed a pillow and rested it on his lap.

“Oh, God, I'm interrupting something, aren't I?” Aisha said.

“No, no,” Zoey said shrilly, leaning over the side of the bed to rummage beneath it. She came up with the T-shirt, untwisted it, and pulled it on over her head. “Come in, Eesh,” she said. “We were just, uh . . .” Zoey looked helplessly at Lucas.

“We were discussing, um, statistics,” Lucas said, sending Zoey a disgruntled glare.

“I just broke up with Christopher,” Aisha blurted.

Zoey shoved a tumble of wispy blond hair out of her eyes and looked at her friend more closely. Aisha's dark eyes were puffy and outlined in red. It was a startling realization—Aisha had been crying.

“What happened?” Zoey asked, pushing Lucas away to make room on the bed for Aisha to sit beside her.

“This sounds like girl stuff,” Lucas said. “I think I'll just head on out.” He climbed off the bed and started toward the door.

“I caught him with some girl in his room,” Aisha said bleakly.

“A girl? In his room?” Zoey was stunned. But not so stunned that she didn't notice the way Lucas seemed to cringe at this news.

“Bye,” Lucas said, slipping out and closing the door behind him. “I'll go home and try that ice idea.”

“Well, were they just talking, or what?” Zoey asked, waving a distracted good-bye to Lucas. She put her arm around Aisha's shoulders.

“They were . . . they were, well, not quite like you and Lucas just were, but close.”

“He was just giving me a shoulder rub,” Zoey said, blushing a little.

“The girl said they were making out.”

“The girl?”

“The girl from the mall.”

“The girl from . . .
That
girl? The girl with the hair?”

“She was really pretty nice,” Aisha said.

“Pretty nice? She was making out with your boyfriend, wasn't she?”

“She didn't know. Christopher told her he didn't—” She had to stop and fight back a sob. “He told her he didn't have a girlfriend.” She ended on a fierce note, her eyes blazing. “And now he doesn't, the rotten, stinking slug.”

“I'm really sorry, Eesh.”

“I'm not,” Aisha said bitterly. “I've just relearned my lesson. See, it's my fault. I always said if you get too into one guy, he'll always dump on you sooner or later. Guys. They're all pigs.”

“They're mostly pigs,” Zoey agreed reasonably.

“
All
of them,” Aisha insisted. “They only want one thing. You'll find out someday. Not that I can say
I told you so
. Not anymore.” She wiped away a tear that had trickled down her cheek.

Zoey glanced at the door to her bedroom. She should be telling Aisha that she was wrong. Some guys weren't like that. Some guys could be counted on no matter what.

NINA SAT ON THE LIVING
room couch, legs stretched out along its length, a notebook open on her lap, a bag of Doritos, a bowl of salsa, and a root beer on the coffee table within easy reach. A stubby, unlit Lucky Strike hung from the corner of her mouth. She had to strain to see what she was writing in the notebook because the only light came from the muted television. She scooped up some salsa and popped the chip in her mouth. Then she wrote:

5. Pee is blue.

She took a swig from the sweating can of root beer. Who decided this? Why not green? Why not purple? Why blue?

“What's on?”

Nina jerked and bit her tongue. She glared up at her sister. “Jeez, Claire. You creep around here like Morticia.”

“What do you want me to do? Ring a little bell so you'll
know I'm coming?” Claire sat down in the wing-backed easy chair. She was wearing a silk robe and had her hair wrapped in a damp towel.

“Actually, that's not a bad idea,” Nina said. “Would you mind?”

“What's on?” Claire asked again. Then she wrinkled her nose. “Hot sauce? Right before you go to bed?”

“I'm not going right to bed. I have this homework to do first. I'm going to stay up and watch Dave.”

“You'll be in a coma all day tomorrow,” Claire observed. “Nothing unusual about that, though, I guess. What's the homework?”

“Modern Media,” Nina said. “We're supposed to list some of the hidden messages beneath the surface of commercials.” She laughed. “My kind of class—watch TV, get a grade. I was so right to go with this instead of a lit. elective. Those poor suckers are all reading Faulkner. I'm observing that pee is blue.”

“Excuse me?”

“TV pee. It's blue. You know, baby diapers, old people diapers, the ‘liquid' is always blue. Why blue? Why not green or red? These are the big questions I'm dealing with here. I feel I'm on the cutting edge of human knowledge.”

“Red would look like blood,” Claire pointed out. “Red pee?”

“You're right. That would be like,
Hey, use our Depend Undergarments and pee blood
.” Nina nodded approvingly. “Thanks for clearing that up. It's so helpful having an all-knowing senior right here in the house with me.”

“I don't know if that's exactly what your teacher had in mind,” Claire said. “Let me have a drink of your soda.”

“Here.” Nina leaned forward as far as she could, just barely able to hand the can to Claire.

“What else do you have?”

Nina held her notebook sideways to read by the flickering blue-gray light of the television. “Well, first of all, I noticed that anytime you have a married couple in a commercial, the woman is always smarter, younger, and better looking than the man.”

“Now, see,
that's
a good observation,” Claire said.

“Um, and, wait, I can't read . . . Oh, yeah. That ad for the company that makes bulletproof vests? They say,
Every year schmuh police officers are killed
.”

“Schmuh?”

“Exactly. Instead of saying a number, they just say
schmuh
and hope no one will notice.”

“Okay.”

“Seriously,” Nina insisted.

“Okay.”

“Then I noted that it's okay to show animated earwax exploding out of your ear, but you never see a laxative commercial where—”

“I get the idea,” Claire interrupted quickly.

“Then I noticed that girls who have their period always wear white. Which led to the question of blue body fluids.”

“You'll be Mr. Mifflin's star student,” Claire said dryly. She stood up, bent at the waist, and began unwrapping the towel, letting her long damp hair hang down. She stood up quickly and began fluffing it dry with her fingers. “I'm getting my ends trimmed tomorrow at the mall, so I'll have the car.” She made a wry face. “I was going to shop for a dress for the homecoming dance, but as of right now I don't exactly have a date.”

“You still haven't brought Jake to his knees yet? Huh. I'm starting to have a better opinion of old
Joke
.”

“I may just have to stay home with you,” Claire said.

Nina started to answer but stopped herself. Sooner or later Claire would find out, and it wasn't like Nina was doing anything wrong. Still. It was sort of two major announcements in one—first, she had to make the big announcement that actually, surprising as it seemed, she
was
going to homecoming. This by itself would be an event as rare as a major earthquake. Second, there was the matter of
whom
she was going to the dance with.

“I said . . . I said I may just have to stay home with you,”
Claire repeated. She was eyeing Nina closely from beneath a questioning brow.

“Uh-huh,” Nina said, pretending to be absorbed by her notebook.

“Don't
uh-huh
me, Nina. I know you. What are you not telling me?”

Nina shrugged.

“Spill.”

“I don't have to tell you everything, Claire.”

“Yes, but you're going to anyway, so since it's late and I have to go dry my hair, why not just cough it up now and get it over with?”

“Going to the dance,” Nina mumbled under her breath, pretending to be absorbed by the TV screen.

Claire sighed. “What would that be if you were speaking English?”

Nina rolled her eyes. “I'm going to the stupid homecoming dance, all right? No big deal.”

Claire stared at her. “Oh, no big deal. It's only about the first actual date of your life. The first dance. The first school function of any kind that you've ever willingly attended. Is this because of the whole thing with Uncle Mark? Are you, you know—”

“Am I becoming psychologically unhinged?”

“You were born psychologically unhinged,” Claire said.

Nina fell silent. The mention of her uncle had cast a pall over her. This was how it would be from now on. Everyone, even Claire, would see everything she did in the light of terrible events that had happened a long time ago.

“Sorry,” Claire said, downcast. “That was over the line.” Then she smiled her rare, wintry Claire smile. “Not the part about you being psychologically unhinged. That's just a fact. But I won't bring up that creep's name again.”

“Cool,” Nina said.

“So. Who's the unfortunate guy?”

Nina took a deep breath.

“I won't laugh, I promise. Even if he's the biggest dork in school. Even if it's some defenseless freshman. Or at least I'll only laugh a little.”

“It's Benjamin,” Nina said.

Claire froze. For a full minute she didn't say anything. “Oh.”

“Look,
you're
not going out with him anymore,” Nina said defensively.

“No, I'm not.”

“This isn't going to, like, you know . . . is it?”

“I always knew you had a crush on him,” Claire said a little sadly.

“We're just friends. I think.”

“It's not any of my business,” Claire said. Her lips were narrowed to the point of disappearing.

Nina gritted her teeth. This was actually more awkward than she had expected it to be, and she'd expected it to be pretty awkward. She squeezed the ends of her cigarette between her fingers and peeked up at her sister.

“Well, I have to go finish drying my hair,” Claire said with sudden, determined brightness.

“Yeah. See you tomorrow morning.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good night!” Nina yelled after her sister. If there was an answer, she didn't hear it.

Nina and Benjamin.
Nina
and Benjamin. Nina and
Benjamin.

Her sister and her former boyfriend. Her very recently
former
boyfriend.

Claire finished running the hair dryer over the ends of her hair and hung the dryer back on its hook beside the medicine cabinet. She began combing while searching her face for any blemishes. As usual, she found none.

Of course Nina had a crush on Benjamin; Claire had known that for a long time. But lots of people had crushes on lots of other people. People didn't usually act on their crushes.

Especially Nina.

Claire turned off the bathroom light and climbed the stairs to her bedroom. It was on the top level of the house, the only room on the third floor. Her bed was neatly made, her clothing put away. The lighting was soft—shaded lamps with pink bulbs. On her desk was a box that kept track of the barometric pressure, wind speed, and temperature outside. On a wall she had a large, National Geographic map of Antarctica.

Attached to another wall was a steel ladder that led to a square hatch in the ceiling. She climbed the ladder, graceful from long experience, pushed open the hatch door, and emerged into the chill air of the widow's walk, a section of flat roof covered in weathered wood and surrounded by a waist-high railing.

It was Claire's place, even more than her room was. No one else ever came up here—not Nina, not Claire's friends. From here on a clear day or night, she could see all of North Harbor, Chatham Island's tiny village. She could see the few streetlights shining silver on cobblestoned streets, the occasional porch light piercing the dark shadow of the hill that rose from the southern edge of the town. She could look across the water to Weymouth, the mainland city four miles away that glittered bright and cold, moonlight on glass-walled buildings.

To the north, past the slow sweep of the lighthouse's beacon, and to the east, only empty ocean—a vast, dark force that
gently massaged the rocks and beaches of Chatham Island and could, on occasion, attack the island as if it were trying to sink it once and for all.

The breeze was too cool, sneaking under and through her robe. It raised goose bumps and reminded her that the full, brutal Maine winter was not so far off.

Benjamin had never come up to the widow's walk, but he had asked her, from time to time, to describe for him what she saw from here. And in the process of telling him she had realized how few details she had ever really noticed. By the end of their relationship she had learned to see much more clearly.

Well, if Nina was ready to take the plunge into dating, then Benjamin would be a good person for her to be with. He was smart and patient and understanding. He knew what had happened between Nina and that bastard Uncle Mark. He had been there when Nina had finally, after so many years of shamed silence, leveled the accusation.

Yes, if Nina was going to start dating, then Benjamin was a good choice.

It just seemed a little strange. Claire and Benjamin had done everything together. Almost everything. Everything
but.
Now, he would be going out with her own sister. It was an unnerving thought.

Claire pulled the robe tighter around her. She wished she'd
at least worn some socks. Still, she was reluctant to leave her aerie just yet. In warmer weather she often slept up here. During storms she liked to huddle under her slicker and watch the lightning snap the surface of the water.

When she had broken up with Benjamin, he'd said something to her . . . something about her being isolated . . .

She went to the tall brick chimney that fronted one end of the widow's walk. She reached around to locate the loose brick and pried it out. Inside the cavity was her diary. She took it out, sat down, and began riffling back through the pages. She'd written down what Benjamin had said. Yes, there it was, as she remembered it.

“You're an isolated, lonely, superior person, Claire. You sit up there on your widow's walk and watch the clouds overhead and the little people down below. And they have to be below you, that's the important thing, because you can't tolerate an equal for long.”

She smiled as she read it. Benjamin always did have a way with words.

Nina and Benjamin.

Claire pulled the pen from the spine of the diary.

Monday, 11:30 p.m. The wind is out of the southwest at about seven or eight knots. The temperature

She squinted to read the mercury on the thermometer nailed to the railing.

is 59 degrees.

No wonder she was cold.

Nina is going with Benjamin to homecoming.

As things stand right now, I don't have a date. I see very little chance that Jake will suddenly change his mind. I've done everything I can think of to get him to

To what? To love her? He already loved her. To want her? Oh, he wanted her badly enough. That wasn't the problem.

forgive me.

To stop blaming me for things that happened years ago.

That's what stood between them. All that stood between them. His guilt over loving the girl who had been responsible for his brother's death. And now that guilt was corroding his
life. He had been drinking. Drinking at the wrong times and in the wrong circumstances. He had narrowly avoided missing his last football game.

I gave up Benjamin for Jake. I felt threatened by the way Benjamin kept trying to force the truth from me. But now the truth is out.

I love Jake. But how long can I stand his rejection?

The breeze carried the melancholy, muffled clang of some distant buoy. Far, far out to sea, the faint lights of ships traveled south along the horizon.

Sometimes I wish everything would just go back to the way it was before. Jake with Zoey. Me with Benjamin.

Only now, Zoey was with Lucas. Nina might be with Benjamin.

And Claire?

Claire was isolated, lonely, perhaps even superior, on her widow's walk.

 

The only real images I have of either Claire or Nina are from years ago, back before I lost my sight. I remember Claire's hair, which was long then, just like it is now. I remember that it was dark, maybe even black. And I
remeber
remember an expression she wore, even as an eleven-year-old, a cool, appraising look, like everyone around her had to prove themselves to her satisfaction, and she wasn't going to be easy to impress.