Between Us and the Moon (6 page)

THE NEXT DAY IT’S BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR
everyone but me.

Scarlett Experiment: Day 1.

Scarlett is practicing downstairs by 10 a.m. and the moment I finish my comet calculations, I put on the American flag bikini. I hide it under my T-shirt and shorts. Scarlett announced at breakfast that she was going to practice all day. Good. Plenty of time to get her bathing suit back in the suitcase before she even notices it’s gone.

In .75 miles, I am heading past the Nauset Beach guard booth and into the parking lot. Nauset Beach is the kind of place in the summer that smells like onion rings, seaweed, and suntan lotion.
In other words, it is the best place on earth. The parking lot is at capacity again, which is good because I can blend in more effectively. There are six lifeguard stations. I’ll go to the fourth one. I nod to myself. Great. I’m nodding to myself in public.

The planks of the boardwalk are hot again. I bring a smaller beach chair than last time and pull it higher under the crook of my arm. Two people with heavy footsteps run up the boardwalk behind me.

“Go! Go! Go!” a male voice yells. A tall guy zips by me and then another.

I whip around just in time to jump out of the way.

One of the guys, in red swim trunks, almost elbows me into the restricted beach grass.

“Sorry!” he calls without a glance backward.

“I could have damaged the dune grass!” I yell. “It’s a very fragile ecosystem!”

He turns.

No way. It’s the guy from the street the other night.
Andrew—I think that was his name. He would be
perfect
for the Scarlett Experiment.

Recognition passes over his face and he jogs back.

When he gets close, he smiles at me.

“You coming down?” he asks and raises an eyebrow. “Or are you going to run away faster than the speed of light again.”

“I think, I mean, maybe.” I sigh. “Yes,” I say, finally getting out something normal to say. Something more like Scarlett. “I am coming down, yes.”

“You sure about that?” he says through a laugh and follows
after his friend. He disappears off of the pathway, down the dune, and onto the beach.
Be Scarlett
, I tell myself.
Scarlett wouldn’t trip over her words.

I stand at the top of the boardwalk; Andrew and his friend run toward the ocean. They dump their things in a heap by the shore and dive headfirst into a huge wave. When I can get a good look, I recognize Curtis, the guy that Scarlett likes.

The sand is hot, burning hot. I don’t take my flip-flops off until I sit down in my beach chair. I admit, I drop my things near their cooler and towels by the water. One good wave will wet their towels. Bean, without Scarlett’s bikini, would stand at the shore and tell these guys that their belongings were dangerously close to being washed away. It’s high tide after all. But Scarlett wouldn’t do that. Neither will I. Not Sarah.

Not while I am conducting the Scarlett Experiment.

What ensures a properly conducted experiment? Make sure that you change only one factor at a time.

I peel off my shirt first and place it down on the ground next to my open beach chair. I place my hands on my hips. Next, I look left and right. There are people, but no one seems to notice my string bikini top.

Hmm. Tricky.

Observable fact: wearing Scarlett’s flashy clothes doesn’t mean I’ll have someone instantly looking at me and paying attention to what I do. Every great scientist knows that one shouldn’t expect instant gratification when conducting an experiment.

When I slip off my shorts, one of the dads nearby peers at me over his book.
Gross. Too old.
Success? Not quite. He gets back
to his book. I’m not sure this is the kind of attention the Scarlett Experiment is supposed to generate. I’ve never seen dads talk to Scarlett. The experiment hypothesizes that I find a guy that
Scarlett
would pick out. That guy looks like my gym teacher at Summerhill.

I plop down in my beach chair.

I have to remain objective. I will analyze the data after leaving the beach and try to interpret what exactly happened while I wore Scarlett’s bikini. That way I can formulate the perfect combo of clothes and behavior.

About fifteen minutes later, I am properly SPF’ed and my eyes are closed.

“I’ve never been so patriotic in my life,” Andrew says and sits down on the sand next to me. “Nice suit.”

Success. Scarlett’s bathing suit is an attracting factor.

He shakes the ocean from his hair and I take that second to check out my legs and stomach. Looks good, no stray hairs.
Okay
. . .
act natural.

At the shore, a lot of people walk up and down the edge of the water. Curtis chats with a couple of lifeguards.

“You have seaweed in your hair,” I say and sit up. Andrew is sopping wet and toweling off his legs with his T-shirt.

“Get it out for me?” he asks and leans forward. His hair is blonder than I thought. I pick out the long seaweed string and lay it next to my feet. A few icy drops from his head fall onto my thigh and roll down my shin. His eyes are more blue than green, and I think that one of his parents must be blue-eyed because genetically—

“So what were you saying about the dune grass?” he asks. Water drips down his biceps. He must notice my gaze because he looks at his arm and brushes the fleck away with his fingers.

“The ecosystem is endangered. And you almost shoved me into it,” I say, meeting his eyes again. I want to cringe because Scarlett would never mention anything about the ecosystem. Andrew loops his hands around his legs and lets the salt water drop on the sand. Even the hair on his legs is blond. “It’s important to preserve the natural beauty of the dunes,” I add with a flip of my hair.

“Is that so?” he asks with a smile. “What were you doing on the street the other night?” he asks. “Hiding in the dark?”

“What?” I laugh it off. “I wasn’t hiding.”

“You almost took a digger into the street.”

“I just wanted a second by myself.”

“So you hid in an alley?”

“I was avoiding someone I didn’t want to see,” I say, and the truth of the words comes out a bit more serious than I’d like, though I don’t think Andrew notices.

“I know what you mean. I wish I could avoid people in town,” he says. “I haven’t felt much like doing my usual thing this summer. You kind of caught me in a weird moment.”

Maybe I should ask him why he was—

“You made me laugh though. I needed that,” he adds.

“Oh yes. I’m hilarious,” I say sarcastically and try to remember to be cool.
Be Scarlett.
I don’t want to pry into his personal life because Scarlett wouldn’t. She would keep the conversation flirty. “I hear you,” I say with a dramatic, Scarlett-like sigh. “I
want to just take it easy this summer. I’m so tired of parties, you know?” I lean back in the chair and cross one leg over the other. “I went to
so
many this—whoa!”

The weight of the chair flings me back and I yelp as my legs fly in the air. Andrew grabs onto my ankle and pulls me forward just before I completely teeter backward. The chair hits the sand and my teeth clamp together.

“Wow, that was close,” he says, and his face is red. He’s trying hard not to laugh in my face. He dips his head and laughs between his knees. I place my sunglasses back on straight.

“I do that all the time,” I say with a scoff.

I want to die. I put my face in my hands. That was
not
Scarlett-like. “
Why
can’t I ever be graceful?” I say with a chuckle.

Andrew shakes his head at me, but this time we share a laugh. At least, I
think
he’s laughing with me. He squints at me and a little smile lingers on his lips. “Andrew,” he says and extends a hand. “Andrew Davis.”

I meet his warm palm with mine. “Sarah Levin,” I say and immediately tense up.

Oops. He was with Scarlett last night, he has to know her last name. He doesn’t appear to have made the connection between Scarlett and me.

“Sarah,” he says. “I like that.”

I am in no way going to explain that people call me Bean.

He’s still holding on to my hand as I
slowly
cross one ankle over the other and curse myself for not painting my toenails bubble gum pink. I bet Scarlett has nail polish I can borrow.

“So how did you become a dune grass expert?” he asks.

His hand is still in mine.

“I’m a scientist,” I say. Scientist has a very regal sound. Maybe it can redeem me from the falling incident.

He cocks his head a little. “Really?” he says. “That’s cool.”

“Do you always shake people’s hands for this long?” I ask with a glance at our intertwined fingers.

“Just beautiful, smart scientists.”

I lift my chin and try to mimic the many ways Scarlett has done this same behavior. I wonder if this is when I should act like I am disinterested so he’ll be
more
interested. Our eyes flicker back and forth from our touching skin to each other. I don’t even know how to act like I’m uninterested. “Actually, I’m an astronomer. I’m tracking a comet this summer,” I say instead. Being an astronomer is also impressive.

“The only things I track are lobster traps.”

We laugh again and he lets my hand go.

The side of his mouth lifts. The rest of his mouth follows, as if something is dawning on him.

“What?” I ask.

“I’ve never met an astronomer before.”

“I love the stars,” I say. “They’re my whole life.”

“That’s how I feel about working at the juvie camp,” Andrew says. “Right now, I lobster full time. But I work part time with troubled kids out in Brewster. You know, in the part of Brewster you don’t see. You go to school for astronomy?”

“Not yet.”

I want to ask about the juvie camp, but he keeps throwing questions at me.

“You starting in the fall?” Andrew asks.

A dash of happiness runs through my belly. This boy, with his sun-streaked hair and proud, bronzed nose is so gorgeous and is talking to
me
. I wonder if he has ever broken his nose and why the bump seems to fit him like that. I wonder why I have never spoken to a boy who looks like this in my entire life. The Scarlett Experiment is working! I am a Scarlett-pheromone-wielding phenom who can summon anyone while wearing an American flag string bikini.

“What about you?” I ask, trying to turn the question of school back on him. I figure the more vague I am, the more time I can buy to figure out what I should say.

“I’ll be a sophomore at Boston College,” he says. “I’m nineteen, but I’ll be twenty in August.”

I almost blurt out that I’ll be sixteen in a few days. He’s nineteen? That’s not
that
old. Granted, he’ll be twenty soon but that’s not for a few months.

“What do you study?” I ask, stalling.

“Well, it should be criminal justice.”

“Should be?”

He hesitates.

“I just want to make sure that’s really what I want to do.”

I can smell the ocean salt in the air and I love the way he licks the drops of water off his top lip. He keeps talking, using expressions like “the T,” dorms, and Commonwealth Avenue, but I keep thinking: Driver’s Ed, PSATs, and the Waterman Scholarship.

“Where do you go to school?” he asks.

Here it is. I can’t be evasive forever. I don’t want to tell Andrew the truth, that I’m just a high school student whose only friends are the Pi Naries and whose boyfriend just dumped her for the class boobs. I take a deep breath. That is not what the Scarlett Experiment is about. I don’t want him to get up and leave. Not after the way he looked at me when I mentioned the comet. Not after he said I was just what he needed last night. No one has needed me to make them laugh. Not until now. He might be just what I need too.

I have to answer. Where do I go to school? How silly. Of course I know where I go to school. The number one school I will apply to in two years.

“I start MIT in the fall. I’m eighteen.”

“So you gonna call me? Because I think you should,” Andrew says.

We walk up the boardwalk toward the parking lot. Curtis waits at the end of the walkway yelling into his cell phone. All I hear is, “Dude. No way. Beachcomber?”

“I’m here through August,” I say, holding the sweaty lounge chair under my arm. Without asking, Andrew takes it from me and holds it with the tips of his fingers.

“Me too; school starts the day before my birthday, sucks huh? Hey, we’ll be in the same city,” he adds. “My friends and I can show you around.”

Oh crap. MIT and Boston College are
both
in . . . Boston. They
both
start in August.

“So it’s crustaceans and convicts until school,” I say.

Crustaceans and convicts?
Wonderful.
Who even talks like that?

“Yeah, you could say that,” he says, but he’s smiling so I am taking this as a positive sign.

We stand in the parking lot, and stretching behind Andrew is the street that leads back toward Aunt Nancy’s. Cars pull out of the lot in a long line; it’s almost four thirty. I can’t help peeking around for Scarlett, even though the string bikini is now hidden under my clothes. Not only that, I would have to explain why I am talking to Curtis and his friend, Andrew.