Between Us and the Moon (13 page)

“See ya,” I say, and once she leaves I lift my boobs up just like she did. Yikes, I don’t think they need to be pushed up any more. I push them back down and leave the bathroom to join Andrew. When I sit down at the table of Andrew’s friends, he immediately takes my hand. One of his coworkers, Susie, leans across the table toward me.

“Sarah, is it? Our friend Andrew here is the best secret keeper on all of Cape Cod. He won’t tell us anything about you.”

He wipes his brow with a napkin; we’re both sweaty from dancing. “She’s going to MIT in the fall,” Andrew says. “There—I told you something.”

My gut tightens to hear the lie from Andrew’s mouth. I wish we could pretend I never said anything and that somehow it could be spontaneously erased from Andrew’s mind. I forget sometimes that I even lied about my age. We haven’t really talked about it since that first day at Nauset.

I wonder immediately if Susie knows Scarlett. I am thankful yet again as I look across the table at Susie that Scarlett is going to be gone for a month. Somehow whenever anyone but Andrew asks about my “future” I get tongue-tied. Looking into the eyes of someone you are so blatantly lying to
feels
wrong.

Except when I lie to Andrew.

He likes me dressed in Scarlett’s clothes. He wants me to be going to MIT in the fall. I explain to Susie that astronomy is my passion and perhaps I’ll go on to work at NASA or SETI one day. Susie leans her chin on her hand.

“So interesting,” she says.

“There’s a meteor shower next month,” I say, happy I can actually keep talking about something that is patently true. “Perseid,” I explain. Susie’s skin is weathered. Even though her eyes tell me she’s younger, I see what hours upon hours in the sun have done to her skin. She asks me questions about the comet and my experiment. I glance at my cell—it’s 11:30 p.m.—the girl from the bathroom approaches the table.

“Hey, Suse,” the girl in the green dress says, but she’s looking directly at Andrew.

“Maggie!” Susie’s voice almost squeaks. She sounds like Mom whenever someone buys her a gift she really hates. “Sarah was telling us about a meteor shower next month.”

Andrew sips on his Coke and leaves his hand around my chair.

“Oh really?” Maggie looks me up and down. “We met in the bathroom. Did you buy that dress at Viola’s?” she asks me.

“I brought it from home.” Another lie, but it just flies out.

“Oh, you’re a
tourist
,” she says and crosses her arms. “Classy, Andrew.”

Her eyes narrow and I’m reminded of the popular girls at school, Becky Winthrop’s friends. Mean girls are apparently not included in the category of people influenced by the Scarlett Experiment.

“What was the name of the meteor shower again?” Susie asks me.

“Perseid,” I say, but it is hollow.

“. . . Fascinating,” Maggie drones. “Did you guys come from an event before this?” Maggie asks.

“No,” I say.
Something
is going on. Who is this girl?

My hands lie in my lap and Andrew’s fingers intertwine with my own. Maggie’s shoes are flip-flops with little blue gems.

Maggie is also in a summer dress.

So is Susie.

My cheeks warm. No one else is dressed like me. Oh my God. Scarlett says being overdressed is more embarrassing than having toilet paper stuck to your shoe. And I’m
completely
overdressed for this party.

Maggie smirking at me with her eyebrow raised.

A rush of heat throttles me.

Images rush through my mind:

Becky Winthrop.

Tucker.

The comet and that cupcake dress and a
car
for my birthday.

She needs more interests.

Change. Become someone else.

You gotta get a stronger backbone or people will walk all over you.

“Is this what girls do?” I blurt out. “To each other?” My words are short.

Maggie’s smile falls. I stand up and snatch my purse. Andrew stands up too. I almost take a step away, but I stop and ask Maggie, “I’m curious. Do you guys have some kind of online forum? Or newsletter that you send out? Because you’re good. You’re all the same. You know exactly how to make someone feel like complete shit. You’re like every single girl in my high school.”

Susie snickers and nudges the woman next to her.

“Excuse me,” I say and walk away.

“You’re a bitch, Mags,” Andrew says.

There’s the scrape of his chair and Susie says, “Andrew, give her a second.”

My whole body rattles. I’m vibrating head to toe as I march from the table and out of the Break Away.

I pull the sweater a bit tighter over my shoulders, but it’s not enough to stop the chills. Once I get to the parking lot, I catch a reflection of myself in a car window and roll my eyes. I lift my purse up to cover my cleavage.

I want to call Mom and Dad. It’ll make them feel better when I’ve asked to stay out so late. Maybe if I call them it will make
me
feel better to hear their voices.

“I told you I didn’t want to see or hear from you, Maggie,” I hear Andrew say from the top of the stairs. His anger makes his words sharp.

“Whatever, Andrew. That girl is a
tourist.
Who dresses like
that for a summer birthday party?”

I step farther into the parking lot and take out my cell. The phone rings a couple of times on the other end.

“Hello?” Mom says.

“Hey, it’s me, Bean.” I exhale away from the mouthpiece of the phone so she can’t hear my voice shaking.

“Beanie?!” She’s either surprised or angry, I can’t tell which one. Oh boy—here it is, I should have brought the damned telescope. She somehow knows I lied.

“Just wanted to remind you I’ll be out late tonight. You said I could stay out a little later? For my birthday? Remember? Like eleven? Eleven thirty?” Making excuses seems safe. I wish I hadn’t called.

Mom yawns.

“I thought you were home already,” she says.

“But—” The rest of my words stop at my teeth.

“Be careful,” she says.

Mom always says, “Be careful.” She says it to everyone, even when they go to the grocery store. She hangs up.

She thought I was home?

I immediately dial Tucker’s number without thinking but click end at the first ring. Ugh. That means he’ll see the missed call. A tiny voice wonders if he’ll call back. I don’t want to answer it either way. I can’t tell him about my humiliation tonight at dinner or here at the Break Away in a dress that’s too fancy for the occasion. Tucker’s not mine to call anymore. He’s not the same. We’re not the same.

I can’t call Ettie, either. She’s at an overnight for band camp.

“Sarah?” Andrew calls my name from the middle of the stairs.

I thought you were home already.

I won’t go back to the party. I never want to go in there again.
Who dresses like that for a birthday party?

It’s actually really hard to think someone is home when they aren’t. People make noise—even in a big house.

“Sarah?”

“Yeah?” I call, but my voice squeaks.

Andrew’s footsteps move to the asphalt.

She thought I was home?

Radium, potassium, neon
. My bottom lip trembles. Crap.
Constellations. Name the constellations. Cassiopeia. Ursa Major.

“Sarah!” Andrew’s voice echoes behind me.

That uneasiness is back. That same uneasiness I felt before I left to meet Andrew. Like there is a hole in the center of my belly.

Andrew meets me at the edge of the parking lot. He steps in front of me and searches my eyes.

“Maggie’s crazy. She’s my ex. We dated last summer. And she wasn’t supposed to be here tonight.” He takes a step toward me and cups my face with his hands. The calluses on his palms rub at the apples of my cheeks.

“I thought this was a fancy party,” I say.

“It
is
.”

“I didn’t know I was overdressed. I thought, I thought . . .” I can’t finish.

“You could wear a prom dress to the fish market and I wouldn’t give a shit,” Andrew says.

The intensity in his eyes lifts my spirits a little.

“Really? A prom dress?”

He drops his hands. “Yes. And I’m sure you’ll tell me—”

“That would be highly impractical. The satin or the sequins could get caught on any number of shelves or—” He stops me with a kiss. Whenever he looks at me like that, I can’t be Scarlett. I slip up. How does he have this effect on me?

When Andrew pulls away he kisses my nose, too. “Let’s get out of here. Wanna go somewhere? How about the beach?”

“Okay,” I say. The embarrassment still churns my stomach even though it seems like my factual outburst was kind of . . . good?

Once we get back to his pickup, I lean my back against the truck.

“You certainly told her off,” he says and raises his eyebrows.

“I’ve never done that in my entire life.”

“You can hold your own. I like that.”

Andrew presses against me.

His touch just makes me want to do something crazy. Before meeting me, Andrew had never met a girl who tracked a comet. What about a girl who could show him the deepest parts of the ocean?

“No,” I say. “No beach tonight. I know what I want. I want to take
you
somewhere you’ve never been.”

Andrew raises an eyebrow. “Where is that?”

I want to show him something real.

The real me.

“WHERE WE’RE GOING IS A SURPRISE,” I SAY. “WE
have to stop at my house. But no one can see us,” I say.

“A covert operation? Excellent!”

I laugh from the bottom of my gut. A real laugh. My laugh. “Let’s go,” I say.

We get into the truck and I slide the window down, I want the wind to whip through my hair. Maybe I want it to sting my cheeks. Andrew’s hand slides onto my kneecap.

“I should have told you about Maggie,” he says.

“It’s okay,” I say and mean it. “My ex is coming to my sister’s going-away party. No matter how badly I don’t want him to.”

Andrew squeezes my knee again.

“You should wear that dress all the time. Grocery shopping, taking out the garbage . . . ,” he says. “I mean it. We can go clamming. I’ll wear a tux and you wear that dress, it’ll be perfect.”

I laugh and playfully slap his arm. As we pull out of the parking lot, I say, “This is very serious. My family thinks I’m twelve. They want to keep me on the shortest leash they can. If they see you, there will be a lot of . . . questions.”

“Sounds fun,” Andrew says, and we turn down Shore Road. Once we get to Seaside Stomachache, I slide out of the car and Andrew kills the motor.

“You stay on the street,” I whisper. He salutes me.

To the left side of the house is a long driveway canopied by trees. Dad’s car is first in line. His WHOI security pass is in the inner console. Dad’s key is a sensory key—it’s electronic and when I get to a WHOI building, all I have to do is hold it up to the keypad and the door unlocks.

We’ll have access to the shop where the
Alvin
is being repaired.

My heels crunch over Nancy’s shelled driveway. My heart is thudding away. I tiptoe to Dad’s car and try to keep low until I get to the driver’s-side door.

This is kind of awesome. A shaft of light moves above and a shadow takes over the dashboard of the car.

I jump down and hide below the driver’s-side door. The kitchen window overlooks the driveway. I peek up. Dad is washing something in the kitchen sink. His big head takes up almost the whole window. He could look down at any moment. He wouldn’t see me in the dark, but he would see the inner light on
in his car if he catches me with the door open.

I glance back at Andrew, but all I see is his darkened profile.

I need to do this by myself. I’m not at home, sitting on the curb outside the house, waiting for Tucker to show up. I’m not sitting around only thinking about science. I’m living my life. Nancy would be so proud.

I pull on the door handle, lay my belly flat on the seat, barely lift the middle console, and snatch the key. I close the door and I’m off.

I tip tap over the shells as fast as I can, and once I’m on the asphalt, I slide into the seat next to Andrew.

“Let’s go, let’s go!”

We use the side entrance to building 40.

“You realize this is trespassing,” Andrew says. “At Woods Hole.”

“Only kind of,” I reply with a giggle. “I sort of live here in the summer. Well, I usually do, but I haven’t been as much this year.”

We step into the darkened foyer. Only a couple floodlights illuminate the hallway toward the mechanic’s shop.

I take Andrew’s hand.

“I’ve never been here,” he says. “Even in the day.”

He stops and pulls me back.

“Wow,” he says. He looks through an enormous window and a soft blue light illuminates his face.

Through the window are four enormous tanks. Inside them are dozens of starfish: small, silver, black, big—all different kinds. They creep slowly through the water in that periwinkle light.

“Did you know?” I say. “Starfish have eyes on the ends of their arms. They’re microscopic. So if they lose an arm they lose an eye, too. Kind of sad.”

Andrew cups my cheek like he did in the parking lot and exhales.

“What?” I say.

His eyes glitter from the watery light filtering through the glass.

“Where have you
been
?” he asks with a shake of his head.

“What do you mean? I’ve been—”

“Where have you been?” he says and holds his hand behind my head. Only this time when he asks, it’s not a question.

“East Greenwich, Rhode Island?” I offer.

He laughs but keeps it quiet.

“Come on,” I say, and pull him down the hall toward the
Alvin
.

When we reach the shop, I listen but don’t hear anything beyond the door but the hum of the HVAC. We step into the room and the
Alvin
sits beneath one spotlight. There it is. The viewports are gone and the cameras, too. The personnel hatch where scientists enter the
Alvin
is open. I bet by this time next week, it’ll be completely disassembled.

It’s usually six feet long, but the
Alvin
seems smaller somehow, without all its parts.

“Okay, Star Girl. What is
that
?” Andrew asks.

“It’s a deep-sea submersible. It’s been to the
Titanic
. A couple times, actually.”

Andrew runs his fingers along the side of the titanium shell
of the
Alvin
. It makes everything in me warm to see him caress the machine I love so much. I bend over. At first I’m not even sure why I’m compelled to do this, but I slip off my shoes. I do it slowly like I’ve seen girls do on TV.

“The day I knew that the stars would be my life, my dad took me to the planetarium in Boston,” I say.

“Never been,” Andrew says. He leans his hand against the
Alvin
. I catch him checking out my legs, and his eyes move up over the rest of my body until they reach my eyes.

“I sat in the darkness and my whole future changed. It was the first time I ever realized that space could potentially go on infinitely. Can you imagine that? Stretching outward? Forever?
”

Andrew takes a step closer to me and drops his hand from the submersible. I reach up to the clip holding my hair and let it go. My hair tumbles out and flutters onto my shoulders. I’d seen some of the girls do that in the hallways at school. I’d seen it in movies and TV, too, but never had the opportunity to try it myself. Never understood its impact—until now.

“From that night on, I studied all the constellations. I knew what I loved and who I had to be.”

“I respect that,” Andrew says quietly.

“But maybe it’s changing. Have you ever had a moment like that? When who you thought you were shifted?”

Andrew nods. “The day Curtis first took me to Brewster. He volunteered at the juvie camp before I did and got me into it.” He takes another step and stops inches from me. I love the hum of the body heat between us. “It meant a lot to me to help. Still does.”

“Why doesn’t Curtis work there anymore?”

“Once you’re charged with involuntary manslaughter, you can’t exactly volunteer at a juvenile detention center after that.”

“Did he love it as much as you do?”

“More, I think. I think that’s why he—” He pauses. “—is how he is these days.”

“So, why are you lobstering if you love Brewster so much? Can’t you work full-time at the camp?”

He backs away, putting distance between us, and leans on the
Alvin
again.

“Sometimes you have to do what’s right, even if it’s not what you love, for a bunch of different reasons. Mike’s entire family lobsters. His brothers run the whole line of boats now. They really needed someone to manage it, help finance, run the offices . . .”

“So you lobster to help them?”

“I have to.”

“But it’s
not
your fault that Mike died.”

“I know you don’t agree but, I have to,” he says and runs his fingers along the side of the
Alvin
again. “I do it for Mike.”

He keeps his eyes on the sub when he says, “Thanks for taking me here. This is amazing.” He has changed the subject again like he’s done nearly every time I mention the accident. Again, I let him. We didn’t come here tonight to work out our innermost problems. I want to kiss Andrew’s pain away. I want to comfort him. I lean in first and our lips meet.

He shows me the way. My mouth follows his movements and it’s better than when we were in the water. Because we’re here.

“Where have you been?” I whisper when we pull apart.

He runs a hand over my head and says, “Brewster, Mass.”

We share a laugh.

“So tell me. Why the deep-sea sub?” he asks and keeps us so close our chests touch. I want to keep him this close to me forever.

“Scientists believe that the deep ocean is what life would be like on other planets. Deep-sea life can survive without light and without oxygen. It’s completely plausible that life at the bottom of the sea would be similar to life billions of light-years away. The
Alvin
is the closest thing I’ve got to a spaceship.”

“You make everything I see . . . better. More interesting,” Andrew says.

First he kisses the nape of my neck and slowly comes back up to my lips. I want him to do more than kiss me. I am surprised by what I want. Andrew leans his back against the
Alvin
. He pulls me with him so we lean together against the sub. We keep kissing.

He runs his hands over my body again and again until my knees buckle.

“I’ve never broken into a government facility before,” Andrew says as we idle in front of Nancy’s house.

“I’ve taken up your whole week,” I say. “And you just met me.”

He cups my cheek in his warm hand.

“I like it,” he says.

A soft breeze blows through the window and against my skin. I’d almost forgotten the debacle with the dress until the
wind cools my shoulders. I made a fool of myself and the memory cracks the polished veneer of the night and the
Alvin
.

Andrew has been watching me. He shakes his head.

“Trouble. You are going to be trouble.”

“How so?”

“I like you,” he says. “And that’s trouble for me.”

My shoulder and chest are cold when he moves away. I shiver, wanting to understand what he means but loving the mystery a little.

“I can show you the comet next Friday, if you want. It’s the one I’ve been tracking all summer. It finally reaches its perihelion.”

“Whatever it is you said sounds great. Perry-redion.”

“Perihelion.”

“Exactly,” Andrew replies.

He’s not running from me. He’s not scared of my science talk or the facts I know. He’s not even confused about a massive submersible that inches across the ocean floor. Sure, the Scarlett clothes are convincing and I wouldn’t have gotten very far without acting like my sister. I can share all of this with him—and it’s okay. At least it’s okay so far.

I want more from Andrew, more than the information he’s giving me about the accident, more about who he is on the inside. I want to spend so much more time in his arms, delving into all of the details. I’ve never felt like this. It makes my breath shudder.

“You sure you won’t be sick of me?” I ask and clear my throat. I unlatch the car door.

“You?” he says with a smile. “Never.”