Nantucket Red (Nantucket Blue) (7 page)

Seventeen

“CRICKET!” JULES SAID AS I ARRIVED
at the table shaking so hard that I had to put the tray down in front of her. It was Jules, Mr. Clayton, Zack, and one empty chair. Mom had been right about the Easy Spirits. Work had been a lot more comfortable once I’d surrendered, but seeing Zack in nursing home shoes made me want to crawl under the table, out of the restaurant, and down the beach, and swim home to Providence. I swallowed, not sure I had enough saliva to speak. I’d wanted to see him. I’d dreamed about it, but not like this.

“Surprise,” I said and laughed weakly. “Again?”

“Hi.” Zack said. He held me with his eyes. For a second, it was just us. This was no high five. For a moment, I thought he was going to stand up and kiss me in front of Amy and Ben and Jules and everyone.

“Hi,” I said. His cheeks patched with red.

“Cricket Elizabeth Thompson,” Jules said.
“
Sérieusemen
t
?
What are you doing here? What happened to Leo’s?”

“It’s kind of a long story.” I handed a Coke to Jules. “And I’ve been meaning to call you, but I just kept, I don’t know, not doing it.” I was about to give Zack his Coke, but my hand was trembling so much that I had to put the glass down.

“I got it,” Zack said, leaning over and taking it. His pinkie brushed the back of my hand. I willed my blood to slow its pace.

“Hi, Mr. Clayton,” I said.

“It’s great to see you,” Mr. Clayton said. “I’m glad you’re working here. This means we’ll be seeing a lot of you this summer.”

“We joined the Wamp!” Jules said. “We finally got in off the waiting list!”

“After fifteen years,” Mr. Clayton said, laughing and pushing his Prada glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“Yes,” Jules said, making pointed eye contact with Mr. Clayton. “Because of Mom. It’s what Mom wanted.”

“Jules, can we just enjoy the night?” Mr. Clayton asked. Zack stared into his Coke and stirred it with the cocktail straw.

“Well, I think it’s great. Here’s your wine.” I handed Mr. Clayton his Pouilly-Fumé, which left me with one more glass. I looked at the empty seat. Who was it for? Oh, god, I thought, did seventeen-year-old Parker have the gall to order wine? I watched Jules frown as a pretty woman in a hot-pink minidress sat in the remaining seat. I placed the wine in front of her.

“This is my friend, Jennifer,” Mr. Clayton said. I heard the quotation marks snap into place around the word
friend
. “Jennifer, this is Cricket.”

“Cricket, what a cute name!” Jennifer said. “I’m so very pleased to meet you.”

“You, too,” I said. I felt a hand on my back. A strong, tiny hand. It was Amy. She cleared her throat and gestured for me to step aside.

“I’m Amy, and I’ll be your server tonight. Any questions about the menu?”

“We need a few minutes, right, guys?” Mr. Clayton said.

“Are the moules-frites good?” Zack asked.

“The best. Our chef brought the recipe back from Paris,” Amy said.

“That’s what I’m having,” Zack said and shut his menu.

“Aw, because of Parker?” Jennifer mewled. “How cute is that, y’all? His girl is in Paris, so he’s ordering French food!”

His girl?

“Is that right?” asked Amy in her fake waitress voice. “That
is
romantic.”

Paris?
The Paris I’d been reading about in my
Musée de Rodin
book?

“Not really,” Zack said. “My girlfriend is in Paris, but I just feel like mussels.”

Girlfriend.
The way he tossed off the word felt like a rock through my window.

“What’s she doing there?” I asked, too loud, too serious.

Amy glared at me from under her mascaraed eyelashes. “Uh, don’t mind Cricket, she’s training. We’re not sure she’s going to last.”

“We know her.” Jules eyed Amy, ready to throw a punch.

“She’s like family,” Mr. Clayton added. I wanted to send him a thank-you note.

“Parker’s studying in Paris,” Zack said to me.

“Right!” Jules rolled her eyes. “She’s ‘studying.’ Puh-leez.”

“Jules,” Zack began, but I couldn’t hang around for another word.

I backed away from the table and wove through the restaurant to the ladies’ room, still carrying that stupid tray. I looked in the mirror and splashed cold water on my face.
Don’t cry,
I told my reflection.
Don’t you dare cry!
I patted my face dry with one of the cloth-quality paper towels and opened the door, where I found myself inches from Zack, who was headed to the men’s room.

“I don’t understand,” I blurted out before I could stop myself, knowing even as the words were leaving my mouth that I would regret them later. “Why are you with her?”

“I called you,” he said, looking almost scared. “Remember? And you told me it was over.”

“What?” Anger, quick as lightning, flashed through me. “
THAT’s
how you interpreted that phone call?” I uncurled my fists, took a deep breath. “I didn’t think…Zack, I had no friends at school. I was trying to get my life back. I told you to wait! If you interpreted it like that it’s because you wanted to!”

“I needed you. And you weren’t there.”

“What? No.” I reached out to take his hand.

He squeezed it quickly and let go. “Yes, Cricket.”

It was like the high five, part two. “But Parker?
Parker?
Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Hey,” he said, giving me a stop-sign hand. “Hey.”

“You’re going to stay with her?” I asked. I was on a roll.

“You don’t know her or—”

“Oh, I know enough,” I said. Amy was walking toward me, looking super pissed off, but I couldn’t deal with her right now. “What I don’t know is why you read Emily Dickinson in your spare time.”

“What are you talking about?” He flushed, bright as one of the buoys bobbing in the harbor.

Amy grabbed me by the apron and pulled me into the hot kitchen. I’d learned on the lacrosse field that some of those tiny girls sure are strong.

“What the hell was that? If I get a shitty tip, I swear, you are going down.”

“This isn’t about your tip, Amy,” I said as I retied my apron. One of the cooks licked his lips as he watched us. I turned my back to the kitchen and lowered my voice. “And it’s not like you’ve been giving me any actual training.”

“You want training? Okay. You spent way too long at that table, even if you do know them. Table six doesn’t even have menus yet. Your shirt is untucked in the back. Two days ago you ate a pastry within sight of the floor. That’s enough for some of these dickheads to refuse to pay their bill. And you should never, never put a tray on the table like you just did. If Karla sees you do that, she’ll fire you like this.” She snapped her fingers.

“Thanks for the help,” I said, not sure myself if I was being serious or sarcastic. Then I kicked open the door and walked straight to the bar.

Ben took one look at me, poured me a Coke, and pushed it toward me. It was sweet and soothing. Maybe I was done with high school boys. Maybe all this blushing in front of Ben was because my nervous system knew what was up. “How do you get to the brewery?”

“It’s on the way to Cisco,” he said, grinning. “Why, you’re gonna come?”

I wrote my number on a napkin. “Text me the address.”

“What about surfing?” he asked.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“Oh, you’re going to come surfing with me,” he said as he entered my number into his phone. “And you’re going to love it.”

“Hey, Cricket,” Amy snapped as she walked by. “Table six?”

Eighteen

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER
, I told myself as I headed home that night. I was like a lobster that had willingly jumped into the pot. What was I thinking? After the high five, it had been clear that Zack and I were through. How could he have misunderstood me on the phone before Thanksgiving? I’d told him I loved him. But that’s what happened when people did long distance, right? Love got lost in translation, scrambled at the cell-phone towers, twisted in the wireless wind. I’d tried so hard to avoid it, but it’d happened anyway.

Who knows why he was reading Emily Dickinson? Maybe it was for school. Maybe it was pure, unemotional, intellectual curiosity. Maybe I had dreamed up the moment, because I wanted it to exist. A Jeep full of college dudes blasted by, blaring ghetto rap and emitting such high levels of testosterone it was a wonder I didn’t sprout a pair of balls from proximity. As Amy would say, they were FAAs (pronounced
fahs
), Future Assholes of America. Amy probably thought Zack was a FAA, which of course, he wasn’t.

Or was he? I mean, he was dating Parker.
Parker
. I shook my head. It didn’t make sense. I walked past the Nantucket Yacht Club, where sounds of a wedding band playing “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”
blew in on a harbor breeze. I wished someone would tell me through the grapevine what he saw in her. Though it made me snarl, I tried to list her good qualities just so I could understand.

Okay, so Parker had awesome hair. That much could not be denied. She was bold, in her way. She had a number of horse-related achievements. She was a senator’s daughter, rich, exposed to music and art, well traveled, well dressed. I stood still for a moment, wondering if this made her better than me in Zack’s eyes. Did all those first-class tickets to the wonders of the world, all those two-hundred-dollar jeans and skillful descents of double black diamond trails distinguish her from me in a way I couldn’t even see?

I turned up Main Street. My pace quickened. Was she, like, really elegant or something and I didn’t even realize it? Impossible, I thought. No one was more elegant than Nina, and Parker was nothing like Nina. But was I like Nina? It’s not like I could do the things on Nina’s life list the way Parker could. I couldn’t go to Paris, not until it was time for my junior year abroad, anyway. As I climbed the stairs to the manager’s apartment, I felt that dagger of panic. How was I supposed to do everything, be everything? I’d done the best I could in high school, run myself ragged, but suddenly that wasn’t enough. The rules had changed and I didn’t even know what they were.

That was when I noticed that the shades weren’t drawn in the manager’s apartment. Liz was supposed to be having her wild sex marathon with Shane, and I was under strict instructions to insert cotton balls in my ears and head straight to the sofa. But all the lights were on. I could see directly into the bedroom. It was empty. Liz was in the kitchen, pacing with a bottle of wine. Not a glass, a bottle.

“Liz, are you okay?” I asked, barging in. She burst into tears.

“What happened?” I’d never seen Liz cry. I’d never even imagined it, but she was shaking and sobbing. I put my arms around her.

“He dumped me,” she said, gasping for breath. “He was seeing someone else this whole time!”

“Oh, Liz,” I said, guiding her to the sofa and handing her a box of tissues. “Are you sure?”

“Am I sure?” she slurred. She flung an arm in what I guessed was the general direction of Shane. “I saw the bastard with my own eyes.”

“How? Where?” I ran to the sink and poured her a glass of water, but she reached for the wine again.

“He called to cancel our date, said he needed one more day on the Cape.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” I handed her the water again.

“I just had this weird feeling that he wasn’t actually on the Cape. Like, it was weird. Paranormal. A sixth sense. I drove by his house.”

“Uh-oh.”

“He was out on the porch, kissing another girl.” Her face screwed up. “Svetlana. Skinny, horrible Svetlana. Svetlana the cow!”

“No!”

“Normally, I’m like, stiff upper lip, but, Cricket?” She waved her hand as another rush of tears came on. “I thought we were going to get married. I didn’t go to university.” She gripped my shoulders, eyes round with fear. “I didn’t go to university.”

“You still can.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know, but you can.”

“I’ve got to start my applications.” She tripped as she reached toward her laptop. “University!”

“Why don’t we tackle that tomorrow?” I guided her toward the bedroom and turned down her perfectly made bed, which was scattered with rose petals and surrounded by unlit candles. I swept my arm across the coverlet, sending the rose petals to the floor. “What do you say we get you to bed?”

“I can’t,” Liz said as she crawled under the covers. She looked like a little kid, the sheets pulled up to her nose, her curls fanned out on the pillow. “Then I’ll have to get up. And if I get up, it will all be real.”

“You just sleep. I’ll set up tomorrow,” I said, as I sat on the edge of the bed.

“The muffins and everything?”

“The muffins and everything.” I got up and backed away and turned off the light.

“Don’t go,” Liz said. “Don’t leave me alone tonight.”

“Okay,” I lay down next to her. I spotted a tube of some kind of sex oil and gingerly knocked it under the bed and out of sight.

“Tell me a story,” she said, flipping the pillow over.

“Once upon a time, there was a frog.”

“Was he actually a prince?” she asked.

“Nope, just a frog,” I said, making it up as I went along. “A girl frog. And she had many, many adventures.”

The frog had moved to a lovely new pond, gained employment with an alligator, learned to play the banjo, and entertained a flock of fairies before Liz finally started snoring.

Nineteen

“YOU JUST LET ME HANDLE
getting us the drinks,” Liz said the next afternoon. We were at the brewery, which was in the middle of the island, near Bartlett’s Farm. It was made up of a cluster of small buildings, each one with a little bar inside it. One served beer, one served wine, and the third served vodka drinks. In the middle was a courtyard with picnic tables, crowded with people in sundresses and flip-flops. Someone was grilling hamburgers in the parking lot and selling them for a mere five bucks, which was way below the going Nantucket rate of eighteen.

“I’m not drinking, because I have to practice, remember?” I said, even though I knew Liz wouldn’t listen. She hadn’t surfaced until almost noon. I’d made the coffee and muffins at five a.m., handled the checkouts, and canceled my date with Ben in order to greet any early new arrivals. I’d been planning on working out that afternoon, but I made the mistake of telling Liz that Ben, the bartender I’d met on the ferry, was playing at the brewery, and she’d said the only cure for her horribly broken heart was cranberry vodka, a good crowd, and the company of a loyal friend. “Please,” she’d said, her curls tossed and messy. “Please come with me.” So there I was, putting off my lacrosse practice yet again.

“Besides,” I added, scoping out the small stage where Ben would soon be playing, “we don’t have ID.”

“I know everyone who works here,” Liz said. “Get us a couple of hamburgers and find us a seat up front.”

I had just paid for the burgers and found a picnic bench in the shade when I saw Karla. It was pretty much impossible to miss her blue hair. She had her arm around a petite woman with coffee-colored skin and dangly earrings. She waved just as Liz returned with two cranberry drinks.

“It’s Karla,” I said, watching my boss approach, a cold, alcoholic drink in my hand. “She knows I’m not twenty-one.”

“When are you going to realize that you don’t have to be such a very good girl?” Liz said. I thought this was a little harsh after I’d improvised a thirty-minute frog story for her the night before.

“Hi, Karla,” I said, hiding the drink behind my back as she introduced me to her girlfriend, Marie.

“Heard about Shane,” Karla said to Liz. “What a jerk. Did he really think he could get away with it on this island?”

“I’d rather not discuss it,” Liz said and gulped her drink, shaking the ice at the bottom.

“Marie, this is Cricket, my newest waitress,” Karla said, introducing me to her girlfriend. “Amy trained her all week and she’s ready to bust out on her own.”

“Hey, there,” Marie said, and then laughed a little. “How did your niece feel about training a cute blond?”

“Your niece?” I asked.

“Oh, Karla, look, it’s Lisa. I’ve got to talk to her about the garden tour before Annabelle Burke does,” Marie said.

“Gotta run,” Karla said. “And hey, when are you moving into the Surfside house?”

“She’s not,” Liz said before I could answer. “She’s living with me.”

“Okay, see ya,” Karla said. She pointed to my cup and added, “Don’t get caught with that drink.”

“Liz, are you sure?” I asked, handing the rest of my drink to her. She handed it back.

“
’Course I’m sure. I’m not one of those girls who likes to be alone.”

“Thank you!” I said. “That’s so awesome of you. Seriously.”

“Is that your bartender?” Liz asked, not letting me fuss. I turned to see Ben step onstage with his guitar. “This better not be a love song. I’m not drunk enough.”

Ben began to strum. It was a love song. His voice was low and kind of country. It was a little rough, so that even though he was singing quietly about the moon, it had grit. I was just starting to melt into his voice when I saw Amy swaying to the music, front and center, gazing at him like he was a rock star.

“I can’t tell if they’re dating,” I said to Liz, motioning to Amy. “But she’s definitely—”

“Fucking him,” Liz said with a full mouth.

“I was going to say ‘in love.’ Check out the way she’s looking at him.” Amy’s head was tilted. Her eyes were focused and soft with emotion. For the first time, she looked sweet.

“She may be looking at him,” Liz said, “but he can’t take his eyes off of you.”