Swept Away (11 page)

“It gets narrower and steeper here,” Oliver says. “We should go single file.”

He moves in front of me, and I have to say, I do enjoy being able to watch the cute habit he has of tapping the bushes as he passes them, almost as if he's petting them. And the way his T-shirt shifts across his shoulders as he ducks under a low tree limb. Not to mention the curve of his butt in his cutoffs.

I'm paying too much attention to Oliver and not enough to my own feet. I trip over some roots and stumble into him. I fling out my hands to catch myself and wind up with a fistful of his T-shirt. This makes him lose his footing too, and we flail about and then land in the dirt.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” I say as he turns to look at me.

“You okay?” he asks.

“I should have warned you. I'm kind of a klutz.”

Weirdly, a total look of relief takes over his face. “Seriously?”

“Uh, yeah. Why do you look like I just told you your bout of plague is in remission?”

“It's just—I'm a total klutz too!”

“You are? But you didn't do any dumbhead thing building the tower.”

“I'm good on the micro scale,” he explains. “But macro? The
only reason I haven't slammed into a tree yet is because I'm concentrating super hard.”

“That's great!” I exclaim.

We stare at each other for a moment. It's one of those “I'm seeing you for the very first time” kinds of deep looks. Then I spoil it by bursting out laughing.

“What?” he asks, looking wary, like maybe I was only pretending to be a klutz so that he'd make this confession.

“We're both super happy that we have clumsiness in common. But we're working together on a project that requires us to not just use tools and build something, but to navigate down a river.”

He lets out such a contagious laugh that I start laughing again. We shake our heads as we smile at each other, and for a minute I think he might kiss me. He doesn't lean in, though, and I suddenly feel self-conscious. I stand and brush off the back of my shorts. Then I hold a hand out to help him up. He takes it, and I feel the warmth of his hand, its solid palm but slender fingers. It's the hand of someone who can do fine detail work, not the hand of a sports guy or a fisherman.

I drop it the minute I realize I've held it a beat too long. “Lead on,” I say in a bright voice worthy of Cynthia in one of her perkier performances. “I promise not to trip you again if you promise not to lead us directly into the river and drown us,” I add in my own voice.

He cracks a grin that makes the slightly longer front tooth poke out over his lower lip. Adorableness. “Deal.”

He turns back around, and we carefully make our way down to the water's edge. This part of the river is pretty wide, and it
moves with the laziness of a turtle. The only noticeable movement is where boulders poke up sharply and the water has to slap around them.

I scan the area, searching for a dry place to park ourselves. Like so many places in Maine, there's very little shore, and what there is here consists primarily of muddy grass. We didn't bother bringing a blanket, which suddenly seems like a serious oversight.

“I'll show you my favorite spot,” Oliver announces.

He pushes aside the branches of a thick bush, revealing a large flat rock. A large,
dry
flat rock.

“Looks good,” I say. He squeezes past the bush, then holds it back so I can make it through without too many scratches.

We settle onto the rock, the surface nicely warmed by the sun, but still cooled by the breeze off the water and the shade of the trees overhead. Oliver unpacks our lunch, and I try to find the most flattering position to sit in. I decide stretching out my legs ensures that there's no awkward possible over-revealing. I really should have checked out my outfit in every posture imaginable. Another thing Cynthia would have helped me with. There's so much that I rely on her for. My heart sinks a little remembering our fight last night.

But then it lifts again. Oliver is kneeling beside me and holding out my sandwich. I take it from him, and he shifts around to grab the sodas. He pops his can open, then clinks mine. He holds up the can like he's making a toast. “To a good morning's work,” he says.

“Without any casualties,” I add, tapping his can with mine. I wish he'd made a more personal toast, but it's still sweet.

We each take sips, then get down to the serious business of
eating. I'm not one of those girls who pretends she's not hungry when she gets around a boy. Food should never be betrayed that way. Unless it's fish, of course.

“Nice, huh?” Oliver says. He finished his sandwich and is now lying with his arms under his head, gazing up at the treetops.

I swallow the last of mine, then stretch out beside him. “Definitely,” I agree. The leaves overhead rustle with the breeze. Each time they flutter, a bright patch of blue sky appears then vanishes again.

“It's funny,” I muse. “Each part of Rocky Point is totally different, like there are four distinct towns.”

“What do you mean?” He rolls onto his side, leaning on his elbow.

I keep my eyes on the leaves above me, all too aware of the closeness of his face. I also don't want to spoil the moment by becoming
over
aware of the smear of mustard in the corner of his mouth.

“Well, there's here, all woodsy and rivery. Then there's the harbor.”

“Where the food booths were for the festival.”

“Yup. To me, the harbor is kind of the heart of Rocky Point. The
real
est part. That's where the fishermen work and live and keep their boats. The shops there aren't the touristy kind.”

“There's that lobster shack,” Oliver points out. “I even read about it in a tourist guide.”

“Yeah,” I concede. “But it's there even when tourists aren't. It's a super-convenient way for the lobstermen to unload the lobsters that aren't already tagged for restaurants.”

“What are the other parts? To you.”

“There's the bay side,” I continue. I'm enjoying being a tour guide, particularly since I can do it lying down. With a boy. A boy who is not only Cute with a capital
C
, but also seems to be completely interested. Though I'm still not sure if the interest is in me or in Rocky Point. “That's where you can go for a beach fix with actual sand. It's not very big, but there are beachy shops, beachy views, beachy things to do. Beach houses . . .”

“Beach umbrellas, beach volleyball . . .”

I giggle and continue the game. “Beach dunes, beach grass, beach . . .” I run out of things to add, so Oliver picks up.

“Beached whales.
Beach Blanket Bingo.
The Beach Boys.”

I smack him in the chest as I laugh. “And then there's the Square,” I say. “The town square,” I add, so he knows what I'm talking about. “Around there it's like a small town you might find pretty much anywhere in New England. What makes Rocky Point unique, though,” I say, just now realizing that I actually believe what I'm telling him, “is that you can experience all these different Rocky Points in a single day. With just a bike.”

He smiles. “You love it here.”

I sit up and turn to look down at him. “You know, maybe I do.”

He sits up too, rummages in the cooler, then hands me a cookie. I take it from him, frowning as I think.

“Something wrong?” he asks.

“I was just thinking I should thank you.”

“For what?”

“For a couple of things, actually. One, for making me see my
own town in a different way. Making me realize I don't actually hate it here.” I take a bite of the oversize cookie. Oh my. Probably the best oatmeal chocolate-chip cookie I have ever tasted in my entire life.

“Add thank you for this cookie!” I say, spitting crumbs. My hand flies to my mouth. “Sorry,” I mumble behind my hand.

“Thank Pops,” he says with a grin. “Like I said, he knows his way around the kitchen.”

“No lie.” I take a swig of soda to wash down the crumbs, regretting washing away the flavor of the cookie as I do. Happily it's a really big cookie, so I'll have plenty more tastes.

“What was the other thing you were going to say before the cookie distracted you?”

“Thank you for asking me to make the float with you. I've always wanted to take part.”

“So why haven't you?” he asks, taking a bite of his own cookie.

I shrug. How can I explain it just never seemed right? Cynthia wasn't into it, and no one ever invited me to join a team. He'd think I'm a friendless loser.

I turn away, trying to think of a way to change the subject, and my eye catches something floating downriver. I swing my legs around and kneel for a better look.

“See something?” Oliver asks.

“Just some twigs tangled together,” I say. Something about the sticks in the water reminds me of something.

“Doll rafts,” I murmur. My throat feels thick, and my breath feels tight, as if someone's squeezing my chest.

“What?” Oliver sits up and scoots beside me. I turn away.
I know these symptoms. I'm about to cry.
So not cool!
I yell at myself in my head.

I clench my jaw and jam my teeth together. I swallow, trying to get the lump to melt.

“What's wrong?” he asks, alarmed.

I don't want to use the “hormones” line on him—that would be more embarrassing than crying.

I shake my head, which, to my horror, makes tears actually drop out of my eyes. I cover my face.

“Mandy?”

I inhale sharply, squeeze my eyes shut behind my hands to wring out any remaining tears, then force myself to face him. “I don't mean to be a total weirdo,” I say. “I just—it's just that . . .”

He's looking at me with such soft concern I glance away. Keeping my eyes on a tree limb sticking up against a boulder in the middle of the river, I say, “I had a memory. It snuck up on me.”

“A bad one?” His voice matches his concerned expression.

I sigh. “No. A good one. One of me and my dad.”

“And that upset you?”

I shut my eyes again and give a little laugh. “Right. You're not from here. You don't know everyone's history from the moment they were born.” I open my eyes again and twist to face him. “My dad. He died when I was eight. There was something wrong with his heart.”

The concerned bewilderment is replaced by sympathy. “Oh,” he says softly. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, thanks.” I bring up my knees and hug them. Using a twig, I make little trails in the dirt. “Mostly it doesn't get to me.
You know? It's part of who I am. But every now and then a memory jumps out and grabs me.”

“And the river pulled a sneak attack?”

“Yeah.” I sense my tiny smile and realize the memory now feels good, not sad. “I don't really hang by the river much. I guess being here now . . .” I raise my head, but I'm still not quite ready to look at him, so I glance back to the water. Using the stick, I point at the clump of twigs that set me off. “That bunch of twigs for some reason made me think of the rafts my dad and I used to make. Toy-size. He called them doll rafts because I insisted on putting passengers on them. And then, of course, he'd have to go rescue them because I'd get hysterical when they'd float away.”

“Sounds like a good guy.”

“Yeah.” It comes out as a sigh. I look down at the ground again. “Yeah.” I remember something else. “Sometimes he'd make up stories to go with the rafts, usually about someone being rescued by the Candy Cane keeper.”

“Wait—like a Christmas elf?”

I laugh. “It's the lighthouse. Candy Cane. Because of the stripes. Not the official name, of course.”

He smiles. “I like it.”

“I think there was a story he told me so I'd stop being upset about a toy he wasn't able to catch in time. . . .” I try to remember the details, but they don't come. I shrug. “Anyway, being here. It suddenly brought it back.”

“It's a nice memory, though, right?” Oliver asks. “I mean, I'd hate . . . I wouldn't like . . .”

“It's a nice memory. Yes.” I put my hand lightly on his arm. “Another thing to thank you for.”

He puts his hand over mine. “My pleasure.”

Something jumps from the shore into the river, making a loud splash. Startled by the sound, we drop our hands to look. Just like that the moment's over. Thanks to a frog.

Oliver reaches up and pulls a leaf off the bush and pulls it into strips. “I miss my dad too. But at least I know if I want to I can call him. See him.”

“Was it bad?” I ask. I know some kids whose parents got divorced, and it was sometimes kind of nasty.

“Bad?” He thinks it over. “Not really. It never got ugly. They never fought—at least not in front of me. When they broke the news to me, they said it was a mutual decision, and I believed them. Now Mom says it was because they had each changed.”

“What do you think?”

He shrugs. “I just saw them as Mom and Dad. If they were different from when I was a little kid, I never noticed. But . . .” His eyes drift as his thoughts take him somewhere else. I wait, not wanting to rush him, letting him figure out whatever he's figuring out in front of me.

“The way we lived had changed,” he says finally. “Around the time I started middle school, Mom got super successful and super busy. We had more money, but I could tell there was more stress.”

“How? You said they didn't really fight.”

“Not yelling and screaming, no. But now looking back, maybe all that quiet was significant. You know what I mean?”

I nod. My brother's ex-girlfriend Fiona gave him the silent
treatment for a whole week when they were dating. It wasn't pretty.

“Mom says they ended up wanting different things,” Oliver continues. “She's actually really happy being this powerhouse. She stresses when she doesn't have enough to do, not the other way around. Her brain's always on overdrive. I think that's part of what drove them apart. Dad's one of those guys who works hard but wants to kick back, too. She didn't come installed with that button.”