3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows (7 page)

She put her napkin over her mouth and looked down at her lap. Not likely, she thought. And what would you do if I did? Would you cancel a surgery to see me? Would you really make it home from the hospital in time for dinner? The one thing this separation -would prove was that they were all separated already.

She nodded. “Okay” she said. “No biggie. I’m sure nothing’s really going to change.”

He nodded too. He looked frankly relieved by her reaction. He’d probably been terrified there would be tears and yelling. He’d probably dreaded that. He was probably thrilled to be off the hook once again. She picked at her food in silence.

As he signaled for the check, she wondered if his patience was such a good thing after all. Maybe she was a jerk to act like she didn’t care, but he was a jerk to buy it.

Ama didn’t like to sit too close to the campfire because of the sparks. She had an image of her rowdy heap of hair attracting a spark and setting her -whole head aflame in a matter of seconds. She shivered in her fleece. It would be better if she got closer, because she was freezing. But better freezing than aflame, she figured.

She felt embarrassed and stupid that she hadn’t helped more with dinner, but she had an irrational fear of can openers. And because of that she hadn’t felt entitled to eat much. And because of that she was especially cold and also hungry.

Dan appeared a few yards in front of her, brandishing his camera. He was clearly the trip photographer. “Okay, let’s get a campfire picture, group!” he called. “Crowd in a little and smile, would you?”

Ama made a face. There was no way she was crowding in or smiling.

“Say ‘cheese! Say ‘marshmallows’! Say ‘s’mores’!” Dan urged them.

Ama glowered resentfully at the camera, unwilling to look happy or diverse, just as she had done the other times Dan had pointed it at them.

She looked at Noah across the circle. He obliged Dan with a smile and went back to animatedly talking to bug-eyed Maureen. Noah looked really, really nice. Ama was sorry she’d been so puzzling and unfriendly to him for the duration of their -walk that afternoon.

Jo always said Ama was mean to boys she didn’t like, and Ama guessed that was true. But she suspected she was even meaner to boys she did like.

“I don’t like to make a big production about tent mates,” Jared was saying to the group as Ama tuned back in to the proceedings. “If the person seated to your right is the same sex as you are, that’s your tent mate. If not, look to your left. Otherwise, I’ll set you up. No coed tents, please.”

Ama was far enough out of the circle that she wasn’t quite sitting next to anybody. By the time she crept forward, the girls closest to her -were paired up. It reminded her, depressingly, of the many kickball games when she stood waiting until the bitter end to get picked. She tended to do a lot better -when the picking -was for chemistry experiments or English projects.

“Ama, who’s your tent mate?” Jared barked at her over the fire.

Suddenly everyone was looking at her again.

She swallowed. “No one,” she said.

“Who still needs a partner?” he asked, looking around the group.

One very tiny boy raised his hand. Ama figured he had to be at least fourteen to have qualified to come on the trip, but he looked more like seven.

“Well, that’s not going to work,” Jared said. He counted off the group. “We’re missing two.” He calculated. “We’re missing Carly and …”

“Jonathan,” one of the boys offered.

“Right.” Jared looked at Ama. “So you’re with Carly. Andrew, you’re with Jonathan. Done.”

Ama knew who Carly -was. She had the large breasts and the loud laugh, and was always getting gum from somewhere.

As Ama wondered where Carly had gone, some singing started up, over by Maureen. If somebody pulls out a guitar and starts strumming it, I will die, Ama thought. She decided this was the moment to go pee. She headed off, tentatively, into the darkness. She wanted to get far enough to not be caught or heard peeing, but not far enough to be devoured by wild animals, her screams unanswered.

“Oh!” She tripped over something. She staggered a few yards and came down hard.

“Ow! God! Watch it!” a girl’s voice hissed at her.

“Sorry,” Ama muttered, trying to get her bearings, trying to make her eyes see in the dark. “I didn’t realize …” Amas voice trailed off as she tried to stand up.

As her eyes adjusted she saw that she’d plowed into not one person, but two. It was a girl and a boy, and it was pretty obvious what they were doing behind the dense bush. “Sorry,” Ama said again.

She crept away in embarrassment. Now she knew where Carly had gone. And Jonathan, too. Ama had the feeling she wasn’t getting off to the best start with her new tent mate

.

The bus on the way back to the beach -was almost empty. Jo’s dad wanted her to stay the night at home in Bethesda, but she didn’t want to. She’d lied and said her shift started at nine-thirty the next morning and that she couldn’t get there in time unless she left that night. He offered to drive her, but she said she was happy to take the bus—anyway, her mom -was going to be waiting for her at the bus stop.

It was dark and warm and comforting to feel the miles slipping away underneath her, taking her farther from the Mexican restaurant, closer to somewhere, anywhere else. It was late enough that most of the beach traffic was gone. It was so dark it almost didn’t matter -where she was.

Jo curled her feet under her and put her head in her hand. She wanted to prolong the time until her mother would be waiting for her at the bus depot, waiting to see her reaction to the supposedly big news. She wanted to keep living here, in between.

When she leaned her head against the window, she noticed the person sitting in the row across from her and one up. It appeared to be a teenager—a he, not a she. Jo could only see his ear and a part of the side of his face and his shoulder. And even those parts she couldn’t see well, because it was pretty dark. But sometimes you could tell, even from seeing a bit of a person, that they were going to be good-looking. This ear -was the ear of a very good-looking person, she suspected.

She had leaned over a little more to get a better angle, nearly touching the top of her head to the seat in front of her, -when he suddenly turned his face to her. She almost let out a little gasp.

He smiled at her. She sat up quickly, obviously busted. He waved. Feeling stupid, she gave a little wave back. Her heart was pounding.

His ear did not lie. He was very good-looking indeed. She guessed he was a couple of years older than she. My, what a smile. Or so it appeared in the dark.

She looked down, -wishing to cool her bright pink face, and when she looked up again he was standing in the aisle right next to her.

“Is this seat taken?” he asked gallantly, pointing to the seat next to hers.

She laughed because they were almost the only two people on the bus, amid about fifty empty seats. She laughed because they were halfway to the ocean, and nobody else would be getting on. She probably would have laughed if he had stepped on her foot, because she was feeling punchy and embarrassed. “No,” she finally said.

“Do you mind?” he asked, sitting down right next to her.

“No,” she said again. She tried to clear her throat. “All yours.”

He was very, very cute and he was sitting so close to her she could see his individual eyelashes. One minute she was alone, and now she had him. It was as though she had conjured him right out of her imagination.

“Are you going to the beach?” she asked stupidly, because that was the only place the bus was going.

“No, to Baltimore. Damn, am I on the wrong bus?”

She could see he was teasing her. Only a boy with a smile like his could tease like that. She wished some of the blood throbbing in her cheeks would rise to her brain and give her a bit of intelligence. She had a feeling she was going to need it.

She twisted an earring selfconsciously. “I think you’d have more fun at the beach than in Baltimore,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you? Is that where you are going to be?”

Now she felt stupid again. She figured she could blush and look out the window at pure darkness or she could rise to his challenge.

“In fact, I am,” she said.

“Then I must be on the right bus,” he said.

She tried not to swallow her tongue. “Me too,” she said, a little more timidly than she’d intended.

To her surprise he reached down and picked up her hand. Her eyes widened and her breath stopped as he held it up and compared it in size to his own. “You have nice hands,” he said. “Long fingers.”

He continued to hold it as though it was a fascinating possession, and she was happy to give it to him. She forgot it was even hers anymore.

When he put it back on her lap, she wished he would take it again. To the rest of her body, her hand was suddenly like a stranger, a prodigal, gone off to have adventures in the big world. But maybe it was like a baby bird that had been held by a human, so it couldn’t come home again.

He turned in his seat to face her. His knee touched her knee. He studied her. “You play … soccer.”

She was surprised yet again. “How did you know?”

He laughed off the mystery. “I can tell you play something. Soccer-was the easiest guess.”

She nodded, feeling in every way like the easiest guess.

“You swim,” she hazarded.

“How did you know?”

She pointed to his head. “The green hair.”

She worried for a moment that she’d insulted him, but he erupted into a huge laugh, and she knew she hadn’t. She might also have told him she knew he was a swimmer by his broad shoulders, but she didn’t think his self-confidence needed any help.

“I use a special product for that. Clairol makes the color. I think it’s called fungus. Or seaweed. Or phlegm. Do you like it?”

She laughed. She did like it.

“So, Goldie,” he said, tugging on her sleeve. “You come here often?”

“Twice today,” she said.

“Really.”

“Yes.” Barging into her mind were abrupt and disconnected images of her dinner -with her dad, the things he’d told her. That was a million miles away from her right now, and it seemed like the right distance.

She didn’t want him to ask her more about that, and he didn’t. He was looking at her -with great intensity, his eyes intimate and conspiratorial. “You’re cute as hell,” he said.

“You’re cute as hell,” she said back, admiring her own nerve.

She felt the warmth of him as he came closer.

Was he going to try to kiss her, just like that? Was she going to let him?

She didn’t feel like herself. She felt like she was playing herself in a movie. Except in the movie, she was the kind of person -who would flirt with a very gorgeous stranger on a bus and even kiss him. It was a pretty good movie, she thought, as she felt his cheek against hers, briefly, and then his lips on hers.

The first kiss was soft, like a question, and when he saw that she was neither shocked nor unwilling, he put a hand on either side of her face and kissed her more deeply. The back of her head pressed against the seat. Boldly she put her palm against his warm neck. She felt his hair tickle the back of her hand and felt his pulse in her fingertips. Or maybe it was her pulse. His breath -was like steam. Or maybe that was her breath. With her other hand she felt the softness of his shirt, sort of a knit sweatshirt-type thing with a string at the neck and a wooden toggle, the kind that skaters, swimmers, and stoners wore.

He kissed her chin and under her chin and along her neck. She thought she would surely die or explode. Explode and then die. I can’t believe what is happening in this movie, she thought distantly.

She was just a bunch of nerve cells, living on the very surface of herself. His lips were warm and confident and made hers that way too. She’d often -worried about being an incompetent kisser if it ever came to it, but her mouth seemed to know what to do. His mouth had enough confidence for both of theirs.

She was faintly aware of the bus swerving off Highway 1, making the exit to Rehoboth. When the bus stopped, they broke apart. He gave her a sly look and one last hard kiss.

“This is Rehoboth Beach,” the driver bellowed.

The front door of the bus swung open. He helped her get her bag and watched her go stumbling up the aisle. She hoped he wasn’t getting off here but was staying on to Dewey Beach or Bethany or Ocean City. It would be too awkward to face him outside the bus, to act like strangers or, alternatively, introduce him to her mom. She didn’t even turn around to find out. She kept her gaze rigidly ahead; her limbs were shaky and her heart thumping wildly.

She felt like she was drunk and also underwater. She tried to shake her head to sober up. She saw her mother waiting in the car and tried to push herself back up through miles of heavy water to the air.

What did you do? she asked herself, sucking in the moist, cool beach breeze. How did that just happen?

She wished so much she could walk home, holding on to her heady buzz, rather than get into the car -with her mom and lose all of it. Would her mom see her flushed face and her shaking hands and know immediately that something was up? She felt like she was wearing her brain inside out.

What were you thinking? she asked herself, but apparently herself didn’t feel much need to answer.

“Hey Dia?”

Polly made a point of catching her mother in the short window of time between -when she woke up and -when she left the house for her studio.

Dia looked up from her large mug of coffee. Her eyes were still slightly crossed and baggy from sleep.

“Are you pouncing? No pouncing.”

That was a cardinal rule of the morning. Polly got up early and Dia slept late. By the time Dia got up, Polly was bursting -with pent-up conversation. It was hard for her to stay quiet as Dia stumbled through her morning routine.

“No. I was … I -was just going to ask you something,” Polly said defensively. She rubbed her sock feet together under the kitchen table.

“Okay. Fine.”

“Could I go to modeling camp in Gaithersburg in late July?”