Between Us and the Moon (3 page)

OUT THE BACK WINDOW OF OUR STATION WAGON
,
the trees change from the maples and oaks on my street to twisting pitch pines. We’re getting closer to Cape Cod. The bark is so bleached it’s as though all the salt in the ocean has crept into the trunk and up to the leaves. In the way back are the suitcases as well as my state-of-the-art Stargazer 5020.

I face front again.

Scarlett would never notice the different types of trees. She is too busy staring at me. Her eyes are blue slits and her mouth purses—staring. The bun on top of her head is in a tighter coil than usual, making her neck seem extra long. Mom always says Scarlett has rose petals for lips. No one ever says this about me.

“What?” I say.

“Nothing,” she says but keeps her gaze fixed. I’m sure Scarlett is counting the moments until she leaves for Juilliard’s dance orientation. She’s never been gone so long before. When she comes back from New York the first week in August we’ll say good-bye with the famous going-away party.

Scarlett raises her legs toward the air so the tips of her toes graze the top of the car ceiling. Her toes are gnarly bunions, blisters, and oozing pus. Her toenails are bubble gum pink. I don’t know, maybe it’s because she points her toes, but they look like bruised works of art. I lift my knees so they rest on the back of the passenger seat. I’ve never painted my toes.

“Sarah, you’re digging your knees into my back,” Mom says. She only calls me Sarah when she needs to tell me something important, usually to do with school or the money we don’t have. This means I must be annoying Mom so I drop my legs.

“Ettie also called you last night,” Scarlett says and stretches her hands to her toes. “I wonder what she wanted to talk to you about?” She raises her eyebrows in a knowing way.

“Shut up,” I whisper so no one can hear but Scarlett.

Scarlett stretches her legs up to the car ceiling again while wearing that stupid smug smile. I rub the hem of the Pi Nary T-shirt.

“Tell Mom. She’s going to find out from Carly eventually and then she’ll want to know why you didn’t tell her,” she whispers.

I ignore Scarlett and lean forward so my face is between Mom’s and Dad’s seats.

“So will the
Alvin
be there when we get to Woods Hole?” I ask.

“In transit from off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, on a ship back to Woods Hole. It’ll be going through some major renovations this summer,” Dad says.

I would love to be there when they take it apart. That way I can see exactly how it works. It’s amazing to think of the precision and technology necessary to protect the marine biologists inside, like Dad. The water pressure outside the
Alvin
would kill on impact.

I open my mouth for my next question: What is the maximum amount of time I can avoid Aunt Nancy? But Scarlett interrupts.

“Why do you always wear stuff that’s two sizes too big?”

“What are you talking about? Everything fits me with moderate and appropriate comfort.”

I’m wearing a baseball hat, my Math Club T-shirt, and my usual khaki shorts. Very offensive.

The truth is that I don’t know what looks good and what doesn’t. One time last year I put on one of Scarlett’s dresses, a black, short one. It looked pretty good even though the straps kept falling off my shoulders. She walked in and screamed at me to take it off until her voice cracked, and she had to whisper for the rest of the day. All the girls at Summerhill dress exactly the same. They have identical chemically highlighted hair, too. Maybe I should put some product in it like Scarlett does in the morning.

“My clothes are not baggy,” I grumble.

“You wear whatever Mom and Dad give you and lame baseball hats from your algebra club.”

“Excuse me. Our name is the Pi Naries and we are an advanced
mathematical award-winning team. So what that means is we do math. Math involves
numbers.
You can add, subtract . . .”

“Whatever, Bean. Maybe that’s why Tucker broke up with you.”

Mom spins around in her seat.

“When did that happen?” she asks. Mom’s eyes are a stormy blue—same as Scarlett’s.

“Thanks a lot, traitor.” I groan and cross my arms over my chest. I refuse to look at Scarlett. I know that face, the face of victory in relation to my immediate shame.

“Are you okay? When did that happen?” Mom asks. I hate the worry in the angle of her eyebrows and the grip of her slim fingers on the armrest.

“I’m fine. I would be even better if we could disinvite Tucker from Nancy’s party?” I ask.

Mom’s mouth parts. In her eyes is an apology. “You know I can’t do that to Carly.”

Mom haphazardly slaps Dad on the shoulder.

I shove Scarlett in her bony shoulder when Mom isn’t looking, but she shrugs. “What? You might as well get it out in the open,” she says.

Mom slaps Dad a second time; he jumps in his seat.

“What’s happening?” he asks.

“Tucker and Bean broke up,” Scarlett says. With a crane of her neck, she tries to meet Dad’s eyes in the rearview mirror. I rub the hem of the Pi Nary T-shirt again. Didn’t I ask her
not
to say anything? Whenever she is the littlest bit offended, she turns on me.

“What did Bean break?” Dad asks.

Mom shakes her head, “Forget it, Gerard.”

“Who’s broke?” Dad asks. His long hair sticks out so far on his head it comes out on both sides of the headrest. It’s like he put his finger in an electrical socket.

“Tucker and Bean,” Mom says. “They broke up. I have to call Carly.”

“No, you don’t!” I say. “You don’t need to tell Carly everything.”

“She’s my best friend, Bean. She might already know.”

I want to bang my head against the window.

Mom’s cell phone pad makes little annoying tones as she hits the keys.

“While you two are discussing my break up, maybe you could casually mention the party. That way Tucker doesn’t have to come if he doesn’t want to,” I offer. “You know, give her an out.”

I wouldn’t be in this situation if it wasn’t for Scarlett opening her big mouth.

“I invited Carly and Bill to the Cape for Scarlett’s going-away party months ago. They already got Tucker a tux.”

“Oh yes,” I say with a groan and sit back in my seat. “I know. I was there.”

“It’s not like I asked for the party,” Scarlett says.

My sixteenth birthday is a week away and I’m not getting a big party. I wouldn’t want one, especially without Gran; she and Nancy don’t exactly get along.

“I have an idea for you, Mom,” I say, turning my head to
my sister. “Why don’t we let Scarlett make the call to Carly and Tucker? She’s apparently an expert on my love life.”

Scarlett rolls her eyes at me. “Don’t flatter yourself, Bean.”

I clench my jaw.

“Can we
not
talk like that to one another, please?” Mom says. The beeping on her cell phone keypad continues.

“Actually,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest, “I didn’t get a chance to break up with
him
first, but it was my idea.”

The shame of the lie burns and I try to hide my face by turning away to the window. I know my cheeks must be red. I don’t like to manipulate the truth. Science is the search for absolute truth, but this is different. I’ve had enough criticism over the last two days.

Scarlett nudges me with the tips of her cold feet. I don’t look at her. She nudges me again.

“You are the worst liar,” Scarlett whispers. “I saw your face last night.”

I lean my head back and keep my eyes away from my sister. The massive Bourne Bridge looms ahead. I can’t wait to get out onto the beach and track my comet. Tucker thinks he has a shot at the Waterman Scholarship too. Hell no. I’ll win the scholarship and get my tuition paid in full at Summerhill for junior and most of senior year. Summerhill Academy, the place where guilt was born. Because Aunt Nancy has had to pay for it since eighth grade when I transferred from public school. I scoot down in my seat. I hate admitting it, but this shirt is from eighth grade.

“I don’t know, Mom,” Scarlett says, responding to something
I didn’t hear. “Why do I have to know everything? I have my own life to worry about.”

I press the button for the window and it slides down. The rushing of the wind drowns out the chatter about my breakup.

I slide my cell phone out from my back pocket. No calls from Tucker.

It’s weird not texting him from the car or hearing the ding of his messages. The wind whips my hair around my cheeks.

I can’t help wondering if Tucker misses me. Maybe if Mom does tell Carly that Tucker doesn’t have to come, he’ll come anyway, just to see me. I roll my eyes at myself. It’s best not to wish for something that won’t happen.

Why didn’t I see it?
I blink a few times, my vision going all fuzzy.
It’s the tear ducts obstructing my view.

Crying = death. I will not cry two days in a row.

Especially not in this small space where Scarlett can watch my tears fall. I take a deep breath and hold it in—I’m not going to cry. I know what to do. I’ll recite the elements backward this time.

Zirconium. Zinc. Yttrium. I will not cry. Ytterbium. I will not cry. Xenon
. . .

“Bean, Bean, Bean, look at you. All that cleavage just showed up in a year!” Aunt Nancy somehow thinks that because she is sixty-something she can say whatever she wants to me. She smothers me against her white Chanel suit.

I pull away from her overzealous embrace and cross my arms. I’m pretty sure I will stink like Dior for the rest of the day.

“I see you brought your little gadgets,” she says and raises an eyebrow at the Stargazer. It sits next to the car along with four catalogued boxes of comet-tracking equipment.

“It’s my Stargazer 5020.”

“Just make sure you put it up in your room where it can’t stain the carpet.”

“It’s a telescope.”

Aunt Nancy hated the rock polisher I brought along last summer and the portable microscope the year before that. There may have been a
small
incident when I was transferring some algae to the slides, but it ended up being
fine.
That part of the carpet was cut out and replaced.

Looming above us is Nancy’s four-story, light gray, shingled monstrosity, our home every single summer since before I was born. A plaque over the five-car garage reads: Seaside Sanctuary. Or as I like to call it: Seaside Stomachache. Scarlett calls it Seaside Shit Show, but I don’t tell anyone that. Once, when Scarlett and I were little, we carved our initials into one of the shingles on the back of the garage. I should see if they’re still there.

“You are a vision!” Nancy says and basically mauls Scarlett. “Your hair is like gold. Look at you!” We just saw Nancy over spring break, but she fawns over Scarlett like she’s Miss America.

I roll my suitcase into the front entranceway and haul it up the main stairs to my usual bedroom on the third floor. I should think about the comet every time Tucker’s “apologetic” face comes into my head. I’ll track the comet, write my essay, and win that damn scholarship. I’ll go to the reception lunch at Brown University, where I’ve heard they serve nineteen different kinds of cake.

By the time I reach my door on the third floor, I’m out of breath. I open up to the familiar bedroom. Nancy might be hell to deal with, but she keeps my room the same every year. She doesn’t even let guests stay in here when someone comes to visit.

As a kid, I picked this room because of the massive skylights. I wanted to watch the stars when I lay in bed.

I throw my shoulders back and lift my chest up. “Stand tall and proud,” Gran always says. I do, even though I don’t feel very proud. The summer away from Tucker will help. It doesn’t matter if he comes to the party or not. Without Tucker, I won’t have any distractions from my scientific observations on the Comet Jolie.

I’ve spent eleven long months tracking its movements—132 hours at the Frosty Drew Nature Center & Observatory, 149 hours of backyard gazing, 82 hours of research in the library.

I can’t give up now. I’m so close.

WHEN I CALL ETTIE THE NEXT MORNING, SHE
doesn’t even say hello. It rings once and she says, “First, I cannot believe you told me about this breakup via text. And second?” She takes a deep breath and her tone softens. It’s enough to make me cry. “He’s a bastard.”

“I know.”

“You’re not alone in your summer of woe. Your summer of
pain
,” she cries.

“Wow. We’re dramatic today, Ettie.”

“I didn’t even see you before you left,” she says.

I sit in Nancy’s oversized Adirondack chair and make a visor with my hand. The sun sparkles high on the bay in the distance.
I can just make out the path to the harbor beach below, but it’s hidden by green leafy trees and purple hydrangea.

“Aunt Nancy still smell like Bergdorfs?” she asks. There’s a wet click as Ettie removes her retainer. “Because band camp still smells like band camp except now they pay me to wash down the lake boats instead of being forced to ride in them. Thank God for day camp; I hate playing the cello for these brats.”

I appreciate that she is trying to keep the conversation light.

Silence.

“Well, it’s only eight weeks. I didn’t even get to Hilltop for a chocolate frozen yogurt blitz before I left. I feel cheated,” I say.

“Yeah . . . ,” Ettie says, but it’s guarded.

“What?” I ask.

Silence.

“Ettie?” I press.

“IsawhimtwonightsagoatHilltopCreamerywithBeckyWinthrop. I’msosorry”—gasp—“Itriedtocallyoulikeninehundredtimes—”

“What was he doing tutoring her at a creamery?”

“Um . . .”

“I know he likes Hilltop,” I say, “but that’s kind of ridiculous. He could have at least brought me an ice cream before breaking up with me.” Might as well be glib.

Silence again.

“Hello?”

“Bean, they were kissing,” Ettie says.

“Becky Winthrop? Yeah right. Kissing. Sure.”

“I know what I saw.”

“Tucker is not dating Becky.
Please
. He was her—”

“Tutor all May,” Ettie interrupts.

“Yes, but it was purely academic!”

Now that I think about it . . . Tucker did spend every Saturday morning tutoring Becky at the East Greenwich library.

There’s no way Tucker is
with
Becky Winthrop. Becky freakin’ Winthrop is the only sophomore on the varsity cheerleading squad. She broke up with Kyle Lennon, the hottest kid in East Greenwich, Rhode Island.
She
broke up with
him
.

“They were there at, like, seven; they weren’t even having ice cream. I guess he used his fancy biodiesel project to fuel her old junkie car. They had this huge crowd,” Ettie explains. “All the baseball players.”

“He was showing off with the biodiesel project that we made together for AP Chem?”

I helped him break down the parts of the car engine. I went to disgusting junkyards for weeks.

“My biodiesel?” I ask again.

I’m different,
Tucker had said.
I just—am. And you haven’t even noticed.

Ettie is still talking, going on and on with excuses and plans of action.

Tucker . . .
cheated
on me?

I imagine Tucker with Becky, surrounded by all the popular kids at school. They have funny inside jokes, Tucker’s the ringleader with his fancy biodiesel, and I’m at home, working on the comet, waiting for him to come over. I shiver and rid myself of the image. Tucker couldn’t have changed that much,
that
fast . . .
could he? I thought he looked guilty, and I was right.

You watch the world.

I’m sloped forward and it takes a lot of effort to sit up straight.
Tall and proud
isn’t an option right now. I want to crumple in on myself.

“I’m sorry, Bean,” Ettie says in a tone that gives away she really is. She’s probably sitting on her bed, cello leaning against the wall, with her black hair pinned up above her ears. “They’re losers,” she adds.

They aren’t the losers.

I am.

As I set up my desk, or “comet headquarters,” I can’t stop thinking about Becky Winthrop and Tucker. I see them in my head on a loop, kissing at Hilltop before he even broke up with me. How long was it going on? How long did I ignore the signs?

I toss the last pen so it rolls off the desk and onto the floor. I don’t even pick it up before heading downstairs.

“Well,
Town and Country
wanted to take pictures,
again
,” Nancy says from the living room. She’s explaining that her house is still “the talk of the town” because it sits on a peninsula at the very end of Shore Road.

Apparently this means that everything in Nancy’s house needs to be white. I mean, WHITE. White lighthouses perched on white mantles, ivory-colored couches and off-white wall paint. Interspersed with all the sea-shelled toilet paper holders, napkin rings, and scalloped shell doorknobs are miles and miles of white carpeting. This mansion is like a seashore cottage that’s
been pumped up with steroids. Since the algae incident, I’m not allowed to drink anything colorful unless standing outside on the porch.

“Beach!” Scarlett yells. I’m in the living room and she crosses in front of me toward the front door.

She’s in a blue sundress and hoists a beach bag over her shoulder.

“I’ll come too,” I say. I could use some time on the beach. I might even tell Scarlett about Tucker and Becky Winthrop. Or maybe she already knows.

“No, Bean,” she says, putting on white sunglasses.

“Why not?” I ask.

“I’m meeting Shelby and Allison at the second lifeguard chair.”

“I can’t be at the second lifeguard chair?”

“I need some girl time. I haven’t even seen them yet.”

I come to a stop and the door closes hard behind Scarlett. She knows what happened with Tucker; the least she could do is invite me to the beach. I plop down on a white lounger that faces the back patio. Mom is in the kitchen, unpacking some items into the refrigerator. I’m surprised one of Nancy’s cooks isn’t trying to help.

“Want to help me with these groceries?” she says.

The sunlight sprinkles over the gentle harbor and the wooden dock at the base of Nancy’s beach.

“Sure.” I help Mom organize some of our normal items, like Dad’s favorite Babybel cheese. “It’s not like we’re friends at home, but she at least invites me to the mall sometimes,” I mumble. “Of
course, it’s when she’s going alone, but still . . .”

“You always tell her no,” Mom says and puts away the grapes in the fridge. “You go with Ettie to the observatory or do your work. You don’t even like the mall.”

“We’ve gone for lunch loads of times,” I explain. I hate feeling like I have to justify what I choose to do with my time. It wasn’t a problem before.

All the Summerhill girls go to the mall. For
Becky Winthrop
it’s a Friday-night ritual. I don’t feel the need to hang out with gaggles of girls for fun. I mean, I guess I haven’t ever done that before, so I can’t empirically say for sure.

Mom’s brown hair falls out in wispy brown strands from a bun at the back of her head. She stands at the counter, packing the rest of the groceries into the white wooden cabinets. With the exception of the stainless-steel appliances, everything in here is white too. I hand Mom some of the cereal boxes. Nancy demands every year that her chef make all the meals, but Mom insists that we retain some normalcy at breakfast.

“Anyway,” I say, “Scarlett gets to go to the beach, and I have to help with the groceries.”

“This is Scarlett’s last summer. She should spend some time with her friends,” Mom says.

“But I want to go to the beach too.”

“So go,” she says.

“I don’t want to go by myself. Normally, I don’t mind single-person activities, but given my present situation . . .”

“I’ll go with you,” Mom says, and I don’t need to explain anymore. The wrinkles around her eyes deepen when she smiles.
She does want to take me to the beach.

“Okay,” I say, helping to pack away a box of Sugar Crunch.

“We’ll go put our feet in the water in a while. Your sister is leaving for a month. Let her get some fun in.”

“Doesn’t Scarlett always get her fun in?”

Mom throws her head back, laughing. When she does that, openmouthed, hand on her stomach, she is identical to Scarlett. Even the way her neck cranes back just so.

“Help me with the milk,” she says and hands it to me. “Then we’ll go.”

Turns out Mom has to take Nancy to pick up her heart pills.

“Might as well make yourself useful,” Nancy says as they are walking out the door. Mom’s cheeks redden and I can’t tell if it’s from anger or embarrassment. When she’s mad she purses her lips, and she isn’t doing that now. “Maybe we can find a
Providence Journal
while we’re there, help you find a new job. Lord knows you didn’t bring one with you.”

After the door closes, I decide that

1.    I hate Nancy and

2.    I should busy myself by getting started on my scholarship application and essay. August 7th will come quick.

I trudge up the stairs, past Scarlett’s closed door on the second-floor landing. Heaven forbid I set foot in there. I plop down at Comet Headquarters. On a calendar above the desk my birthday is circled in blue—it’s also the registration date for the Waterman Scholarship. The online form has been saved and filled out. I need to reread it at least two times and spell-check
before sending in the registration.

Tucker said, “A computer checks the registration. No one cares if you spell-check it.”

I’ll send it out on my birthday. That way I can spell-check one extra time just to prove a point.

I get to work and scroll through and stop where I always do: the dreaded essay question.

Please explain in 1,000 words why your experiment successfully represents who you are as a scientist and how the execution of your experiment reinforces your educational goals.

I rest my chin in my hand and tap my pen on the desk.

You watch the world.

The sunlight streams in from the skylight onto my hand and warms the skin.

I wish I had gone to the beach. I don’t have anyone to call to go with me. I just haven’t made a lot of friends here. Scarlett has. I’ve been with Dad in the labs, or the people my age that I have met over the years only stay a couple weeks at a time. Not many people come back summer after summer.

I put the pen down. Scarlett is a little like Becky. Popular, well liked, confident, and funny. Everyone is always laughing when they are around Scarlett. She knows who she is and she’s got boyfriends all the time. They don’t dump her for Becky Winthrop. She always knows exactly what to say to other people her age. I don’t. I always trip over my words and overthink
everything.

Until I can figure out why Becky and Scarlett get all the guys, it’s going to eat away at me. There are people who can just talk to other people—they can socialize and it’s not hard for them, it’s no big deal.

I get up and pace.

I can study that specific behavior. There has to be a set of parameters, something concrete that both Scarlett and Becky have in common. Since I can’t study Becky, who I might throttle to death if I saw in person, I can watch my sister. Scarlett does and says specific things that make people want to be around her all the time. Just like Becky.

There has to be a direct correlation between Scarlett’s specific behavior and style to the number of people who revere her and want to be her friend. If I figure this out, maybe I’ll get Tucker to see who I am—that I’m not “watching the world.”

I put my pen down. I can wait to write the essay. If I do this before Scarlett goes to orientation in a week or so, it’ll help me figure out what Becky Winthrop does that I don’t.

I’m going to the beach. I open the bureau and slip on my red one-piece. It’s what I wore for swim lessons and it’s comfy. I’m going to get my fun in too—in a different way. I snatch my journal and slide it into my backpack. The walk to Nauset Beach is .75 miles.

“I’m not logical,” I say aloud, and when I get outside, I hike a beach chair into the crook of my arm. “And I don’t watch the world!”