Swept Away (8 page)

Oliver shakes his bangs out of his face, then pushes up his sunglasses. “So, see you around.”

I watch him as he walks toward the library. Why doesn't he actually ask me out?

And I'm back down in the doldrums. “The doldrums” is a sailing term. It refers to a spot in the Atlantic Ocean where there can be long stretches of no wind. If you're in the doldrums, you aren't going anywhere. Which is exactly how I feel. Going nowhere.

O
liver is waiting at Candy Cane when I arrive the next morning. That's three days in a row! No one can love a lighthouse this much! He
has
to be here to see me—or Celeste, I remind myself as a way to keep from giggling giddily. I skid to a stop, spitting gravel. I climb off the bike, vowing to practice so that I can do it with ease.

He smiles sheepishly. “I'm back.”

“So I see.” I smile, then stash the bike. When I turn back around, Oliver's up and waiting at the door.

“Awfully eager,” I tease, jiggling the key in the lock. The tumblers turn, but the door doesn't budge. Dang! Stuck. I let out a puff of air to get my bangs out of my face and push harder.

“Let me,” Oliver says.

I take a step back. “Be my guest.”

Oliver rattles the doorknob, then puts his shoulder against the door. It groans, but doesn't open. Oliver steps back again. “Are you sure you unlocked it?”

“It's sticking worse than usual,” I offer. I think maybe he's a little embarrassed that he tried to go all macho and failed. “The humidity.”

“Must be it.” Oliver runs a hand through his hair. “Okay. On the count of three?”

“Sure.” I step up and stand sideways to the door, figuring we'll both have to use our shoulders. Oliver moves into place behind me.

I shut my eyes and feel his warmth against my back, and
sense his chin just above my ear. I smell that scent again, part laundry detergent, part ocean, part something unidentifiable. I grip the knob, afraid I'll lean into him instead of into the door.

“One. Two. Three. Now!” Together we shove hard against the door. It swings open and we stumble through. Oliver grabs my elbow to keep me upright, but our momentum is too much. We land on the floor in a tangled clump.

We're laughing so hard, we just lie there, my arm trapped under his chest, his leg across my hip. Once we catch our breath, we quickly scramble back up to standing, straightening our clothing and not looking at each other. I think we both sensed the moment had gone on a tad too long.

To recover completely, I lean against a display case and cross my arms. “Okay. What is it about the lighthouse you love so much?” I'm genuinely curious, and there's more than a teeny-tiny part of me that hopes he'll say something like “it's not the lighthouse, it's the lighthouse keeper.” Mushy I know, but I figure it would sound a lot better coming out of his mouth than rattling around in my brain.

Oliver looks around the lobby, his eyes dancing from one photo to another. “I don't really know,” he says.

Not the answer I was hoping for.

“When I was really little, we lived near the water,” he goes on. “I don't really remember it, but there are pictures of me dressed as a pirate. Maybe that's when the whole seafaring fixa­tion started.”

I smile, picturing him as a little pirate boy. “And continues,” I say, remembering the way he studied the model boats in the Artists and Artisans tent at the festival. Now that I know he's
a completist, his behavior that day makes more sense.

“You must know a lot of great stories about this place,” Oliver continues.

I shrug. “Some, I guess.” My mind spins as I try to recall a single bit of lore from Mom's files, but I draw a blank. I never am good under pressure. I don't know how Cynthia manages, getting up there in front of everyone when she performs.

“I love a good ghost story,” Oliver admits. “Or just weird history. Lighthouses and places like Rocky Point are great sources. Not like the boring suburbs.”

Those things I'm actually into. It just never occurred to me before that maybe Candy Cane qualifies. I gaze around the lobby with new interest. Maybe I'll take another look at Mom's files while Oliver is . . . My face scrunches in confusion.
While Oliver goes around measuring things?
He has pulled out a professional-­looking tape measure and eyes the archway that leads to the stone stairs.

“Mind if I . . . ?” He jerks his pointy chin toward the stairs.

“Go ahead.”

He smiles, and I wave away his wallet. What the heck is he doing? I can't ask, because a group of kids all wearing bright orange camp T-shirts barrels in, followed by two frazzled teen counselors (the younger sisters of a couple of boys at my school) and two even more frazzled adults. Usually the camps bring kids on rainy days, so I'm surprised to see them.

“Plumbing issue,” the chunky older woman in khaki shorts and camp T-shirt explains with a sigh. “We have to find things to do with them all day while repairs are made. We missed the first
ferry to Hubbard Island, so we're here until the next one.”

That explains the frazzle. “Do you want me to let the café know that there's going to be a group?”

“We brought our own lunches, but thanks.”

Too bad. Mom would have been thrilled to have such a crowd so early in the season. “You could always grab a cup of coffee,” I suggest.

“That would be great, but these munchkins are a handful,” she replies.

She's not wrong. The kids make so much racket that Oliver comes down from the tower to see what's going on. Good thing, too, since several kids make a beeline for the stairs, a teenaged counselor trotting after them. Oliver flattens himself against the wall to let them by.

“Only three fit in the tower at a time,” I call after them. I catch Oliver's eye and give him a rueful smile. He gives me a “what can you do?” shrug. He mouths “Later” and leaves, nearly tripping over two kids rushing to the mini-gift-shop area. I'm disappointed but seriously, I can't blame him. It's as if Candy Cane has been invaded.

Once they leave and I've restored order to the lobby, it's time for lunch, which I forgot to pack. It's Keeper's Café again.

And once again, there's Oliver, sitting at the counter, chatting away with the intimidatingly beautiful Celeste. I try to back out before they can see me, but Celeste, perfect in all ways including as employee, looks up immediately. “Hey, Mandy.”

Oliver swivels and grins. “Survived the hordes, I see.”

“All in one piece. And so are the displays, thank goodness.” I
hover in the doorway like an idiot, again unsure if I'm interrupting something.

“Meeting someone?” Celeste asks, grabbing some menus.

“Oh! Nah.” She must think if I'm still standing at the door I want a booth. Oliver smiles at me, his legs stretched out, one sneakered foot over the other. That's the way he stands, too, one leg slightly over the other, ankles crossed. Must be some kind of laid-back California posture.

“Know what you want?” Celeste knows I can recite the menu as easily as she can.

The burrito was pretty close to awful, so I decide to try something nonmicrowaved. “Salad?”

“Lobster, crab, chicken, or just greens?”

“Chicken, please. And a lemonade.”

She slips a tall plastic glass under the lemonade dispenser, then places it next to Oliver. I guess that's where I'll be sitting.

“Oliver said you got a big crowd,” Celeste says, placing the rolled-up napkin holding my silverware on the counter as I settle onto the stool. “You think they'll come over here?”

“Sorry,” I tell her. “They're a camp group that brought their lunches.”

She rolls her green eyes. “Of course they did. Hang on, and I'll get your salad.”

“She must be as bored as me,” I say as she pushes through the door into the kitchen.

“Not just bored. She's not making any tips if there aren't any customers,” Oliver points out. “She's worried about school expenses.”

So she spilled her woes to him. They're getting close. When he came to the lighthouse, he was so busy measuring and sketching he never really talked to me.

I slouch, letting my hair fall like a curtain, masking the sides of my face. I don't want that flashing neon sign that always reveals what I'm thinking to show Oliver my jealousy. But seriously, why
wouldn't
he be into her? And why wouldn't she be into him?

Although . . .
Celeste's in college. Isn't he going into his junior year like me? The thought cheers me up enough to restore the appetite that I lost when I first walked into the café.

I
hear that boy Oliver has been spending time with you,” Mom says.

My fork doesn't make it to my mouth; it just hangs there, scrambled egg dangling through the tines. Once a week we have breakfast for supper, and tonight's the night.

This was Mom's late day at the library. Even though school's out, the library stays busy. Summer Regulars always run out of books to read because they forget how often it rains here. And the library has the best Wi-Fi in town, and the only truly consistent cell signal.

I shovel the scrams into my mouth, buying some time to get my various reactions under control. Shock that she knows, annoyance that everyone knows everything about everybody in this tiny town, and a teensy thrill at the idea that it's
me
people think Oliver is there to see.

“Not with
me
,” I say after I swallow. “He's in love with your lighthouse.”

Mom chuckles. “I guess I do kind of think of it as mine.” She reaches out and pats my hand. “And now yours.”

New thought: Does she know that I haven't been charging him? That would probably bug her more than the idea of Oliver trying to have his way with me up in the tower.

“If he's really interested in the history of the lighthouse, you should send him over to the library.”

The historical society's office is on the top floor of the library. The building is her home away from home. I think if she didn't believe a mom has to be present with a teenage girl in the house, she'd happily move there.

“I'll mention it,” I say, although I know I probably won't. If he's at the library all day, that means he won't be dropping by Candy Cane as often.

“Do you spend much time talking to him?”

I sigh. “Don't worry, Mom,” I say, pouring syrup onto my bacon. “I'm greeting everyone just the way a greeter should.”

My tone must irk Mom, because she bristles and says, “Good to know, but that isn't why I asked.” She taps a finger on the table, the way she does when she's getting ready to head into tricky territory. “I was wondering if you know anything about him.”

Uh-oh. How to play this? Is she genuinely asking me, or does she know already that Freaky is his grandfather? And if she does, would that mean she'd ban me from seeing him, if I ever get the chance? Outside of the lighthouse, that is.

“Not a lot,” I say warily. “Do you?” It only just occurs to me that Mom could be a good source of intel.

She takes a sip of decaf, her concession to this breakfast being of the supper variety. “Rumors. You know how Rocky Point is.”

Do I ever. “So . . . ,” I say as casually as I can. “What have you heard?”

“The one thing that seemed the most unlikely turned out to be true. He's John Framingham's grandson. He's here visiting with his mother.”

So she already knows.

One of her eyebrows rises. “You don't seem surprised.”

“Actually, he told me. And I saw them together at the Lupine Festival.”

“That's right, there
had
been a Freaky sighting.”

I gape at her. She smiles. “What?” she says. “The adults find him just as odd as you kids do.”

“How'd you find out?” I ask.

“Oliver's mother came into the library. She needed to use our Internet connection. I'm not surprised there isn't one up at the cottage.”

“Yeah, somehow the world's crankiest recluse doesn't seem the type to use social media,” I say. “So what's she like?”

“A little intense. You know, one of those high-powered types who want everything yesterday. She tried to cover it, but I could tell that our connection wasn't fast enough and that ‘relax' isn't a word she's very familiar with. But pleasant enough.”

Mom sneaks a piece of syrup-soaked bacon from my plate. “I wonder what it was like to have John Framingham as a father,” she muses. “She mentioned she grew up in Cranston,
so we may have actually been to some of the same events.”

“Freaky didn't always live up on Evergreen, right?” I ask.

“He moved here just around the time you were born, I think.”

“Did she say how long they're here visiting?”

“Hard to say. I think the plan is the whole summer, but I don't know how long she'll last. She seemed pretty frustrated by her cell service too. She made jokes about it, but I don't think this is actually vacation time for her.”

My heart sinks. I might never get a chance to really get to know Oliver if they leave soon.

J
ust near closing time Oliver walks into the lighthouse. He no longer bothers to attempt to pay since I always refuse to take his money (don't be mad, Mom!).

I'm doing the end-of-the-week tally: number of visitors, what items were sold, anything we need to restock. Pretty easy since it's been slow.

He holds his sketchbook in front of him, as if it's a protective shield. He looks different. Shy. Insecure. Not the look he usually wears.

“Um. . .” He tosses aside his bangs and clears his throat. He tries again. “Um, so I bet you've been wondering what I've been doing.”

“Maybe a little.”

He takes another step closer. What's he being so tentative about? I don't really care. It makes him look all cute and ­vulnerable.