Never Ever (12 page)

Katie Anderson. That was her name. She was sixteen at the time of the accident, just a little older than Wylie. She wasn't driving to a party or back to her parents' fancy Hamptons abode. There was no alcohol in her system, and no crazy sibling in the backseat of the car distracting her. Katie spent her school vacations waitressing at a seafood restaurant in Fort Pond Bay. The tips were good and it was a short drive away from a family friend's home in Montauk. They had a bedroom in the basement, and that was where Katie spent her time between shifts. She had stayed late at the restaurant that night to cover for another waitress who'd wanted to leave early to celebrate her one-year anniversary with her boyfriend. On any normal night at this time, Katie would have been back in the basement, under the covers, falling asleep.

After their car hit Katie's, it skidded across the road, then screeched to a stop. Joshua asked them if they were all right and though they were all shaken up, everyone in the car was conscious and had only suffered minor cuts and bruises. Before Wylie could ask Joshua if he was okay, he got out of the car and ran to the other vehicle.

Wylie and the others stood on the side of the road and watched as he pulled Katie from the front seat and dragged
her a safe distance from the car. She wasn't conscious, but was still breathing. Wylie kept her eyes on Joshua as he pulled out his phone and dialed 911. From there, everything moved in slow motion. It felt like an eternity before the paramedics and police arrived, though in reality only a few minutes had passed.

“I'll say I was driving,” Wylie told her brother while they waited.

“No way,” he said.

“Please. This is my fault.”

“It's not your fault,” he told her, “I was driving. I'll take full responsibility.”

And he did. When the cops arrived, Joshua admitted he had been the one driving. There was no mention of Wylie's reckless behavior in the backseat, or that she was supposed to be the designated driver. They asked for his driver's license, but Joshua simply shrugged and said he didn't have one. It was then that they smelled a trace of beer on his breath and administered the breathalyzer, then placed him in handcuffs. Wylie and Micah and the three stray girls sat helplessly on the side of the road as Joshua was driven away in a cop car and Katie was driven away in an ambulance.

If only they hadn't gone to the party. If only she'd kept her word and stayed sober. If only she hadn't told the other girls they'd give them a ride home. The girls walked from the accident back to their friend's house. Wylie would never see or hear from them again. Another police officer drove her and Micah to their house.

It didn't matter what Joshua had said on the side of the road; they all knew what happened would always be her fault.

PHINN PLACED HIS HAND ON WYLIE'S CHEEK TO WIPE away the tears that were now flowing in a steady stream, but she couldn't look at him.

“What happened to the girl? When I first read about the accident, there wasn't much information on her,” Phinn said.

Wylie closed her eyes.

“She's been in a coma. A year of her life, asleep. The doctors say there's a chance she'll wake up, but there's no telling when that will be. And they're pretty sure that even if it happens, she'll never be able to walk again.”

The tears had evolved into hiccups, and Wylie tried to hold her breath to make them stop.

“If I had kept my word, he wouldn't have been behind the wheel. And I was so careless on the ride home—I could have gotten us all killed. That's why I don't drink anymore.”

Phinn pulled her close to him so that her head rested on his chest.

“It could have happened to anyone, Wylie.”

“No. It happened to me, because I'm selfish and reckless. I want you to know the worst parts of me. I'd understand if you want us to go home. I have this rare talent for screwing up the lives of everyone around me.”

“What happened doesn't change my mind about you. And you know what? If your parents hadn't been fighting that night, I bet you and your brothers would have stayed home and none of this would have happened.”

Wylie had never thought about it that way, but as she examined every domino from that night, she realized hearing the argument upstairs was the first one to fall.

“The way my dad looked at us when he opened the door and saw the cops . . . I'll never forget it. He was so ashamed of us. But my mom was even worse. She didn't want to talk about it at all. Ever. ‘Sweep it under the rug' is her motto in life.”

“Looks like we both pulled the short straw in the mom and dad department.”

“I guess that's something else we have in common. I don't want to be anything like my parents,” Wylie admitted. “Old and miserable and full of regret.”

“You won't end up feeling any of those things,” Phinn assured her.

As they sat in the field together, Phinn picked a
parvaz
flower and one more rapidly popped up to replace it. Wylie wordlessly opened her mouth and Phinn placed the flower on her tongue. She took the flower from behind her ear and tossed it in the back of his throat. They didn't shoot up in the air like they had in Brooklyn. This time, they floated up slowly to the sky, embracing each other the whole time. Wylie suddenly felt dizzy and lightheaded from all the crying.

“Everything about you is unexpected,” Phinn said. “The
way you nearly walked away from me at the bus stop when I gave you a hard time for not eating a
parvaz
. The way you demand answers to questions most people are afraid to ask. The way you tell the truth when it would be so much easier to lie.”

“Is that a compliment?” Wylie asked.

“Yes. Has anyone ever called you a mermaid?” Phinn asked.

“As in the mythical sea creature? Can't say I've ever gotten that one before.”

“They don't use it on the mainland the way we do here. We say it to describe someone who's smart, intelligent, not entirely of this world.”

“Well, in that case, right back at you,” Wylie said, her lips parting into a grin. “I mean, you brought me here. Clearly, you'd have to be smart to make such a wise decision.”

“Some might even call me a genius.”

“Teach me more words. I don't want to use any slang from the mainland. I want to talk the way everyone here talks. What do you guys mean when you say ‘tropic'? I hear it all the time.”

“Cool or awesome. I find you very tropic. Here's another adjective to describe you. Porcelain.”

“Porcelain. That one I've heard before. Like the china? Does it mean fragile?”

“It means beautiful,” Phinn replied.

“Then I think you're porcelain, too.”

Phinn laughed, then placed his mouth next to her ear and said, “Wylie Dalton, you are beyond compare.”

He pulled her toward him and kissed her as they drifted through the sky. His lips were dry but soft at the same time. It took Wylie a minute to get her bearings, floating there weightless, but once she did, she kissed him back harder. The wind picked up, but Wylie barely noticed. She was too busy falling madly in love.

ancient history

“san
Fran-cisco. Am I pronouncing it right?” Lola asked.

“Yes, that's perfect,” Wylie whispered, afraid that if she spoke too loudly, someone passing by would hear them.

“And it's in Cali-for-nee-a.”

“More like Cali-
forn
-ya,” Wylie corrected.

Lola made a quick note in her journal, then repeated after Wylie.

“Cali-forn-ya.”

“You got it!”

“I like the way it rolls off the tongue . . . California. It sounds so tropic.”

Lola had a secret obsession with the mainland. She swore Wylie to secrecy—even Maz didn't know she harbored a clandestine fascination with how the rest of the world lived. She claimed she had no desire to visit, but she kept Wylie up most nights asking questions about different cities and
states, and writing down all the information in her journal by the light of a jar full of fireflies. Wylie noticed she'd retrieved the “Charlotte” friendship bracelet from the trash and was now using it as a bookmark. It seemed odd to keep a souvenir from a girl everyone hated enough to exile, but Wylie decided against asking her about it. She didn't want to be involved in any more of Lola's secrets. Especially when, one night when they both couldn't sleep, she confessed to Wylie that she was bored with the island.

“I've lived here my whole life. Sometimes I feel a little trapped,” Lola whispered. “I would never leave, but I like to imagine what it's like in other places. You won't tell anyone, right?”

“Of course not,” Wylie said.

“I mean it. Phinn can never find out. Promise.”

“I promise.” If Wylie didn't know both of them so well, she would have thought Lola was afraid of Phinn.

“Thanks. And don't worry, you've got at least another fifty years till you start to feel restless.”

Wylie felt guilty. She'd taken an oath to abstain from discussing the mainland, and yet whenever Lola asked questions, she dutifully gave answers. Wylie even promised that once they got through talking about the mainland, she would tell Lola about other countries and continents. Part of her secretly liked reminiscing about home. If she never mentioned her old life, then pretty soon she would feel like it didn't exist.

“Do you ever think about your tribe?” Wylie asked. Up until now, she'd been too scared to broach the topic with Lola.

“Sure, all the time,” Lola answered.

“Did they have a name?” Wylie asked.

“We called ourselves the Batcheha. I wish you could have met them.” For a moment, Lola looked like she'd disappeared into a memory. She shook it off, then continued. “Sometimes I wonder what they look like now. They'd be so disappointed in me. I can barely remember how to speak Batchenise
.
”

“Do you ever regret that you didn't go with them?” Wylie asked.

“No,” Lola admitted. “It wasn't an easy decision, but in the end, I never could have asked Maz to leave and grow old with me.”

“What if things hadn't worked out with Maz? Would you have regretted it then?”

Lola shrugged. “It never occurred to me that things wouldn't work out, but that's probably because everyone in my tribe kept their partners for life.”

I wish that was true of my tribe,
Wylie thought.

“Okay, stop changing the subject. What are some other cities in California?” Lola asked.

“I'll tell you tomorrow . . .
after
you take me to the kitchen with you,” Wylie replied.

For the past two weeks, living here had felt like being on an extended vacation. Wylie had spent her days flying above the palm trees, getting to know the locals, and sunbathing near the
parvaz
field. Micah was usually holed up in Tinka's room, and Joshua was busy with his duties as chief of staff. Phinn had warned Wylie that most of his time was consumed with running the island, and he hadn't been
exaggerating. The two of them usually didn't hang out till the evening, when they'd meet in the Clearing to roast sugar roots and share stories about their days. But most of her stories were beginning to sound redundant. Wylie wanted to find her niche. Lola had promised she would give her access to the kitchen, and it was time she kept up her half of the bargain.

“This, I can't live without,” Lola said the next morning, holding up a long, wide knife with a rough wooden handle. The sunlight streamed through the kitchen window and shimmered against the blade. She sharpened it against a rock and handed it to Wylie with a basket full of onions.

“Onions, really?” Wylie asked. “Do you hate me?”

Wylie was actually quite skilled at dicing onions. Whenever things got really bad with her parents, she'd make French onion soup, and everyone would assume her tears were just a side effect of prepping the dish.

“If you run the knife, the cutting board, and the onion under really cold water, it won't make you cry,” Lola advised.

“What are we making?” Wylie asked.

“Phinn's favorite: Fried chipney-onion cakes. It's an old Batchenise recipe.”

“I have no idea what those taste like, but they sound amazing.”

“Do you want to add anything? Maybe a dipping sauce for the cakes?”

Wylie had assumed she'd only be allowed to prep and slice ingredients. She never thought Lola would actually let her pitch in with a recipe.

“I make a mean pesto dip,” Wylie said, trying to contain her excitement.

“What's pesto?” Lola asked.

“I'll show you,” Wylie said, happy she had recipes she could teach Lola, too.

They spent the rest of the afternoon mixing the ingredients for the chipney-onion cakes, flattening them into the size of silver dollars, and setting them aside to fry right before serving. For a side dish, Lola whipped up a tomato salad with
parvaz-
infused dressing. Wylie watched and took dutiful notes, then walked Lola through the steps of making pesto. Lola only interjected once, when she suggested adding apple flower seeds as a substitute for pine nuts. After searching for them in the garden, Wylie discovered that apple flowers were a vegetable that resembled a giant red Brussels sprout. Lola directed Wylie to peel away the leaves and extract a cluster of edible seeds from the core for the side dish. Lola tasted the dip and nodded her approval.

“This is delightful,” she declared. “We make a great team.”

“If we lived in New York, we could open a restaurant together. No one's ever tasted food like this on the mainland. People would have to wait months to get a reservation.”

Lola smiled wistfully. “There's no rule against dreaming, right? But for now, how would you like to help me plan the menu for prom? If we combine our favorite recipes, we could do something completely original.”

“Prom?” Wylie asked, confused.

According to Lola, prom was an annual tradition Phinn
had established years before when he started bringing new recruits to the island. For residents who'd spent most of their lives here, prom was a fun novelty event. And for newer recruits, it helped soften the blow of milestones they'd be missing back home.

“Phinn never mentioned it to me,” Wylie admitted.

“With everything he has to deal with, he probably forgot. I doubt he'd ask anyone else to be his date.”

Lola walked Wylie out to the dining room and showed her a bulletin board decked out with a handful of Polaroids from the previous year's festivities.

“Phinn only busts out the camera for very special occasions,” Lola explained.

Among the Polaroids, Wylie spotted a picture of Lola and Maz sporting wooden crowns on their heads.

“It's an embarrassing tradition,” she explained to Wylie. “I don't know whether it's supposed to be sweet or funny, but they crown us king and queen every year. No one even votes on it. I guess it's our reward for being together the longest.”

Wylie saw a picture of Bailey and Bandit, who, according to Lola, had been each other's date the previous year and were still casually seeing each other. Nadia and Patrick had gone to prom merely as friends, but they'd been dating ever since. Some of the pictures seemed to be missing from their allotted slots, but Wylie assumed those couples had kept them as souvenirs. And then her eyes landed on a candid photo of Tinka and Phinn. He had his arms wrapped tightly around her waist, and his mouth was perched right next to her ear. It looked like he'd just whispered something that made her laugh out loud.

“Phinn and Tinka went together last year?” Wylie asked.

“Only because no other guy had asked her, and Phinn felt bad. No one wants to waste their time dating her when she's just going to be infatuated with Phinn her whole life.”

What had Phinn whispered in Tinka's ear just as the photo had been taken? The question ran through Wylie's mind as she walked through the garden, picking strawberries for dessert. She tossed one in her mouth. In New York, when her girlfriends had vented about their complicated dating lives, Wylie had tried to be supportive, but she sometimes felt like they were talking in circles. She'd always told herself that was why she didn't bother with relationships. They were too confusing and could turn the most confident girl into an insecure mess. Now she was finally seeing what it felt like from the inside.

“Stop thinking about it,” she said to herself. The chickens squawked loudly, seeming to agree, but they'd just been startled by the creak of the kitchen door. Wylie looked up to find Phinn headed toward her, smiling ear to ear. He pulled her into a hug and gave her a tentative kiss on the lips. They were still in the early stages of their relationship and hadn't quite mastered the casual greeting.

“Is Lola working you to the bone?” he asked.

“Not at all—I love getting to hang out in the kitchen. I learned to make chipney-onion cakes today.”

“Now you know the way to my heart. They're even better than Chicken McNuggets.”

“Whoa. Coming from you, that's a huge endorsement.”

“Do you have time for a break? I've got a surprise for you.” Phinn smiled and bounced around on both feet. His
energy was contagious and anxiety-inducing all at the same time.

“Uh-oh. Am I gonna wake up on your boat in the middle of the ocean if I follow you?”

“Definitely not. You'll like this, I promise.”

She dropped off the tray of strawberries in the kitchen and followed Phinn outside. They rounded the corner to an outdoor dining area where all the benches and tables had been cleared away. Wooden beams created a rectangular boundary around the sandy dirt, which had been smoothed and leveled. It looked like Phinn had taken a couple of benches apart to construct the border.

“Check it out,” Phinn said. He pointed to where a basket, woven together with bamboo sticks, hung from a tree.

Wylie had never considered herself sentimental, but this was quite possibly the nicest thing anyone had done for her. He had built her a basketball court.

“I love it,” Wylie said. “The only thing missing is a ball.”

Phinn handed her a box. Inside she found a rubber ball. It was the type kids used to play dodgeball or four square in grade school.

“Next time I go to the mainland, I'll bring you back the real thing.”

Wylie turned the ball over in her hands and noticed PROM? written in large black letters. Her mind was suddenly bombarded by the visual of Phinn whispering in Tinka's ear.

“What's wrong?” Phinn asked, placing an arm around her. “I thought you'd be happy.”

She took a deep breath, then told him about the photos Lola had shown her.

“I wish Lola hadn't done that,” Phinn said.

“She didn't mean anything by it.”

“It's not easy to explain my relationship with Tinka, and yes, she has feelings for me,” Phinn replied, “but to me she's always felt more like a little sister. It would be like if I got jealous over how close you are with your brothers.”

“It's not even remotely the same,” Wylie pushed. “You guys have . . . slept together, right?”

Phinn sighed and looked up at the basket.

“Yes, but that's over now. It's been over for years.”

Wylie nodded. There was no point in pressing him further. She believed him.

“Wylie, here's the thing,” Phinn said. “I knew the moment we met on the rooftop that if I never got to see you again, I'd spend the rest of my life thinking about you. The memory of you would never be good enough. I wanted the real thing. So I didn't just bring you here to help your brother. I brought you here to make myself happy. Maybe that's selfish, but it's been a while since I've felt this happy.”

It wasn't until she heard the sentiment that she realized it was exactly what she'd needed him to say.

“So, you want me to go to prom with you?” she asked.

“More than anything.”

“Okay. I will go to prom with you, on one condition.” Wylie handed him the ball. “You make this shot.”