Local Girls

by Jenny O'Connell

  “I’ll go,” I told her.

  “Really?” She seemed surprised.

  “Really. I’d like to meet them.”

  “Okay, then.” Mona brightened and for the first time since she ran toward me at the ferry I recognized the Mona I remembered. “Why don’t you go home and grab your suit and meet us there. I’ll have Zilda pack us some sandwiches for lunch.”

  Last summer Mona would practically break out into a sweat when she’d find Zilda washing her bathing suit or waiting on the patio with a pitcher of lemonade when we’d lay out by Malcolm’s pool. Don’t you think it’s creepy having somebody doing everything for you? she’d asked me, and I’d sort of agreed, even though I couldn’t even imagine being in that position. I guess Mona got over the creepiness factor.

  “Sure,” I agreed, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  “Great, to the left of the lifeguard’s stand in an hour.”

  And with that she jumped out of the car and ran up the front walk toward the door, the Louis Vuitton purse bouncing along behind her.

  Chapter 3

  The house was empty when I got home, but I didn’t expect anybody to be there. With the deli opening in exactly eleven days, my parents, Lexi, and Bart were at the store getting everything ready for the grand opening. July Fourth was two weeks away, and that meant it was crunch time. The contractor had finally finished the build-out, three weeks late, and last night Lexi couldn’t stop talking about the new refrigerator and freezer the electrician was installing today (although they were refurbished, so they weren’t really new). I couldn’t muster her level of enthusiasm for a pair of stainless steel appliances, but I was thankful that everyone was back to talking again. After the inspector discovered some wiring wasn’t up to code, and the contractor didn’t show up to work the first week of March as scheduled, there wasn’t a lot of chatty conversation going on in the house. By Memorial Day weekend our family dinners had become nearly silent, with only curt requests to pass the salt and pepper accompanying the sound of forks clanking on plates. I almost felt sorry for Bart. He was probably regretting the day he told Lexi he was more than willing to live with his in-laws if it meant saving some money so they could eventually get a place of their own. When Lexi came up with the idea for the deli, it became the number one topic of conversation in our house, and saving for a place of their own became a distant second to saving for the deli. Lexi was way into the idea of the deli. And Bart was way into Lexi, although they’d only been married two years, so there was still time for that to change. Granted, they had the whole high school sweetheart thing going for them, but I was almost convinced that Lexi’s obsession with opening the deli would do them in. Restaurant supply catalogs littered the house, the choice of which pickles to serve practically gave my father an ulcer, and we all got to count down to the grand opening every single day.

  “What’s that?” I’d asked, pointing to the 8½ x 11 piece of paper stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. On it, the number 49 was written in thick black marker. I recognized Lexi’s bubbly handwriting.

  “Forty-nine days until the deli opens,” she’d told me, and I was sure she could have recited the exact number of hours and minutes if I’d asked her.

  When forty-nine days were up and the plumber was still waiting for the industrial-size steel sink Lexi had picked out of a restaurant-supply catalog, and the drywall was only halfway finished, I figured someone would remove the countdown from the front of the fridge so we didn’t have a constant reminder that nothing was working out the way Lexi planned. But nobody did, so every night we’d sit down to dinner, a big, bubble number 1 written in bright red marker reminding us all that the great idea Lexi and Bart had had last December had turned into a fiasco.

  For a while there, the future of the Pot Belly Deli was in doubt, even though nobody actually said it out loud. Not even me, because at that point Lexi was acting pretty evil and the last thing I needed was to be on the receiving end of her wrath, which was best reserved for the electrician who decided the job would cost twice what he’d originally estimated. But now that it looked like the deli would open next week, everyone had finally lightened up.

  Lexi had grown bored with her receptionist job at the newspaper when the FOR RENT sign went up in the old bakery storefront, and she decided that the spot was perfect for a new deli. Even though Lexi’s sandwich-making skills tapped out at grilled cheese. Even though Bart’s landscaping experience didn’t exactly qualify him to run a business. Even though the store’s Winter Street address wasn’t exactly a prime spot for tourists looking to drop eight dollars on a sandwich (even I knew it was all about location, location, location). Still, she managed to convince my mom, who decided it might be fun to decorate the store, and my dad, enough that he took a leave of absence from his postal job and cosigned the lease. The man was willing to give up a job he’d had since before I was born just because my sister thought she could be the all-natural sandwich queen of Edgartown.

  Lexi had offered me a job working the counter, of course, but the last thing I wanted was to spend eight hours a day with the same four people I ate dinner with every single night. She was actually surprised when I told her no, which wasn’t unexpected, considering Lexi was twenty-two years old and sleeping in the same room she had been when she was six. Only now she shared the full-size bed with Bart instead of Mr. Snuffles, her stuffed bunny with a button for a nose.

  “No?” Lexi had repeated, as if she couldn’t fathom the idea that someone wouldn’t want to take orders for foot-long Italian subs from snotty vacationing teenagers.

  “No,” I told her. Then, because she was still my sister even if I thought she was nuts, and to show I wasn’t completely ungrateful for the offer, I added, “Thanks anyway.”

  “But we’d all be there, you, me, Bart, and Mom and Dad,” she went on. But if Lexi was trying to convince me to spend my summer behind a deli counter, practically singing “We Are Family” wasn’t the best way to go about it.

  “I was going to apply for a job at one of the inns,” I said.

  “But why?” she’d practically whined.

  “Tips, for one thing.”

  “I’m not asking you to work for free, Kendra. We’d pay you a fair wage.” A fair wage. What twenty-two-year-old says things like that? “We could even put out a coffee can and write ‘tips’ in Magic Marker on the outside. You’d get a ton of extra spending money.”

  That Lexi didn’t see the difference between people leaving you ten-dollar bills on a tablecloth and people tossing the remaining sixty-two cents of their deli bill into a can was disturbing to me on many levels. I was supposed to be thrilled with the idea of collecting change in a coffee can like some kid out of a Dickens novel?

  “Why would you want to work with a bunch of strangers when you could work with us?” she continued. “Besides, you’ll never see anyone you know at the Willow, but at the deli you’ll see people you know all the time.”

  I stared at her. It was hard to believe we were even related. I didn’t want to be ringing up sandwiches for families headed to the beach, or nannies picking up sandwiches for their charges because it was easier to spend seven dollars on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich than to make one at home. But the worst thing about the deli would be the teenagers who’d come in groups of four or five, fresh from the morning out on their boats or playing tennis or even just hungover from the night before. I knew no one my age would be caught dead at a bed-and-breakfast.

  “Fine,” she’d finally relented. “Our cash register guy mentioned he knows someone at the Willow, if that’s what you want. I’ll get you the name.”

  Now that they were really eleven days away from the grand opening, my family was all giddy again at the thought of serving foot-long sandwiches and potato chips with 75 percent gross margin (Lexi had taken to constantly spouting new terms she’d learned, like “gross margin,” “overhead,” and “cashflow”).

  So, thanks to my increasingly condiment-fixated sister (s
picy or mild mustard, yellow or brown, Dijon or domestic), I had six official Willow Inn polo shirts hanging in my closet, six shirts that I now pushed aside as I looked for a decent bathing suit. It had only recently started getting nice enough to go to the beach and this was my first time all summer. I hadn’t even gone shopping for any new suits, so I was left with last year’s selection, which ranged from merely sun-faded to elastically deprived. I grabbed the three best choices, two bikinis and a one-piece, and tossed them on my dresser, where they landed next to my piles of college catalogs.

  The green paisley bikini bottom hooked over the corner of my first choice, Stanford, so I took that as a sign. Green paisley was today’s winner.

  The Stanford catalog arrived in the mail in April, and if I hadn’t been standing next to Lexi as she flipped through the mail looking for the bill for the Pot Belly Deli sign, it would have ended up in the garbage next to a Victoria’s Secret catalog and a flyer advertising a spring special on vinyl siding. Stanford was the farthest of all my choices—a ferry ride, three thousand miles, and a world away. Mona didn’t even know about Stanford or any of the other colleges I was considering. Just one more thing to add to the growing list of things we didn’t share.

  The closer it got to noon, the worse parking would be. Mona would simply have to cross Atlantic Drive and follow the path down to the beach, but the rest of us had to find a parking space.

  I changed into the faded green paisley bikini and threw on a tank top and my jean miniskirt. If I was going to have any chance of getting even remotely close to the beach entrance, I had to leave. Now.

  Chapter 4

  So fifteen minutes later, there I was, looking for Mona and a bunch of girls I didn’t know. It was still before noon, but the sand was already dotted with families, each staking out their territory, with pails, shovels, and strategically placed blankets and chairs forming the perimeter of their compound, their kids performing border-patrol duty just in case any other beachgoers decided to hone in on their space. Sit a kid on the beach with a bucket, a large shovel, and a tendency to toss sand in every direction and it’s a pretty effective deterrent. I had to smile. It was the oldest trick going.

  In another hour space would be at a premium, and just getting to the water would require weaving in and out of little kids in swim diapers, and the parents who chased them down to the water with bottles of Coppertone in one hand and a sun hat in the other.

  I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pick out Mona’s friends among the beachgoers, but as soon as I spotted the group of five girls camped out by the dunes, I knew it was them. It wasn’t just the double-wide beach towels, oversize sunglasses, or undersize bikinis. It was more the way they looked like they belonged there, like this was their beach and everyone else was just on a day pass. Everyone except Mona was perfectly tanned, and yet there wasn’t a single white strap mark or funky bathing suit line visible. There weren’t streaks of creamy lotion down their arms or beads of sweat dripping down between their bikini tops. They were absolutely perfect.

  Mona sat up on her knees when she saw me, while the other girls lay back and continued their conversation, turning their faces toward the sun as they spoke.

  “Kendra!” Mona called out across the crowded beach, waving at me. “Over here.”

  Rather than try to navigate around the beach umbrellas, jumbo Igloo coolers, and sand castles already taking form, I worked my way down to the water’s edge and followed it toward the lifeguard stand.

  Already there were a few surfers paddling out to the breaking waves, some guys throwing a football in the water, diving for touchdowns. But rather than enjoy the splash of water slapping against my feet as I made my way toward Mona, I thought about dry skin. Lexi always told me that sand was a natural exfoliant, so according to her, with each step I was ridding myself of cracked heels. Lexi was probably the only twenty-two-year-old around concerned about cracked heels. Then again, she was probably the only one juicing lemon halves against her elbows. “Gets rid of the dry skin,” she’d told me. My sister was way too young to be so seriously dehydrated.

  I made my way through the maze of bodies until I reached the group of lounging girls splayed out on the towels beside Mona. From the looks of them I was sure there wasn’t a cracked heel, blister, or flaky elbow in the entire group.

  Mona interrupted their conversations to introduce me. “Everyone, this is Kendra.”

  I waited for her to add an explanation—“my best friend” or “the one I told you about.” But there was no explanation, and after the obligatory hi’s and nice to meet you’s they went back to talking. There were four of them, all blonde, blondish, or blonde-wannabe brunette. There was just no way all those pale streaks placed so painstakingly equidistantly were natural.

  There was Samantha, in what could only be described as a Tarzan-themed bikini that resembled a suede loincloth with dangling beads; Jilly and Emily, who were both in white and seemed way too tan considering it was just June; and Abby, whose black string bikini held up boobs that had to be man-made. They were so round and so on the verge of busting out of her top that I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d been filled with helium instead of silicone. These were Mona’s new friends.

  I mumbled something about being glad to meet them, and then noticed the piles of matching sarongs and flip-flops the exact shades of their bikini tops. My fingers traced the edges of my jean miniskirt and tugged on the hem of my plain white tank top, while I wondered if it was possible to feel both underdressed and overdressed at the same time.

  I spread my towel out next to Mona and sat down facing the water, my back to the girls. At least that way it would look like I was people-watching instead of eavesdropping on conversations that didn’t include me. Not that Mona’s friends cared. Judging from the way they continued to talk about school and the people they knew, the new guy working in the sailing center at the yacht club, they barely even noticed I was there.

  “So,” Mona stated, as if I was supposed to know what to say next.

  I nodded. “So.”

  “It’s gorgeous out, isn’t it?” she asked after an awkward moment of silence, during which everyone but us laughed at something Jilly said.

  Mona looked over her shoulder at Jilly, and then turned to me. “It’s kind of a long story, but there’s this guy at school . . .” Mona started to explain, trying to help me keep up with the conversation taking place behind us.

  But even as Mona was filling me in on the guy, I was watching Abby, who kept tying and then untying the strings on her black bikini bottom. Mona had to notice. It was beyond annoying—tie, untie, tie, untie. And the entire time Abby just kept talking to Emily and Jilly and Samantha.

  By the time Mona finished with her backgrounder on some guy I still couldn’t care less about, I was dying to say something, the least of which was, Stop tying the freaking bows! Normally I would have, even if just to Mona, and she would have laughed and totally gotten it. But she was there, right next to me, clearly in sight of Abby and her annoying bow fixation. And Mona wasn’t giving me any signs that Abby’s habit was the least bit abnormal. Or irritating.

  “God, it’s hot.” I wiped my hand across my upper lip, acutely aware that Mona’s friends didn’t appear to perspire.

  “What about you, Kendra?” Jilly asked, turning her bronzed body to face me. “What are you doing this summer?”

  I looked from Mona to Jilly and back to Mona, who was sifting a handful of sand through her fingers.

  “Kendra’s got a great job at the Willow Inn, one of the nicest bed-and-breakfasts on the island,” Mona answered, failing to mention that I also got her a great job at one of the nicest bed-and-breakfasts on the island.

  “I start tomorrow,” I told Jilly, if for no other reason than it was the first time I actually had anything to contribute to the conversation.

  All Mona’s friends nodded, not because they could understand the concept of having a job, I was sure, but because they understood that tomorrow
was Monday.

  “That should be fun,” Jilly offered, smiling at me. “My aunt and uncle are staying there in August, it’s supposed to be beautiful.”

  I smiled back, but didn’t say anything. No matter how beautiful the Willow was, I knew none of Mona’s friends would give up their leisurely summer at the yacht club to work there.

  Emily reached for the suntan lotion and popped the cap open. “We stayed at a bed-and-breakfast in Napa Valley when we went to San Francisco last year, it was cute.”

  “Speaking of California, what about Chloe at spring formal? Did you see how she was all over Brian?” Abby asked the group, of which I was supposedly one.

  I found myself shaking my head no.

  Abby noticed. “You know Chloe, Kendra?”

  Everyone turned to look at me, even Mona, who was probably wondering how I knew some random girl she went to school with.

  “Um, no, not really,” I told Abby.

  The four girls stared at me, probably wondering if I had an uncontrollable tick that made me shake my head when I had no idea what I was talking about.

  “Chloe really wanted this senior, Brian Atwood, to take her to the dance,” Mona began, resuming her role as my tutor in all things Whittier.

  The girls went back to talking about Chloe and the spring formal, and Abby went back to tying and retying the string at her hips.

  I decided Mona’s friends weren’t horrible, they were just different. Samantha, or Jane of the Jungle, as I’d come to think of her, must have reapplied lip gloss—not Chapstick or sun protection, but pink pearly lip gloss—three times in the last hour, but they weren’t that bad. It wasn’t their fault Mona invited me to the beach.

  “What does that have to do with California?” I asked.

  “Brian’s going to Stanford in the fall and all Chloe talked about since he got in was how she’s going to apply to Stanford, too.”

  I knew I should have told Mona about Stanford, about the catalog on my dresser and the manila envelope in my top drawer waiting to be filled with tips from the inn. But I didn’t. It wasn’t that I didn’t think Mona would be happy for me, or think it was cool that I was applying to school so far away from home. Because whether she was standing on the sidelines of my field hockey games yelling for me to score a goal, or spending her afternoons helping me make posters when I ran for student council, Mona never doubted I could do anything I wanted to do. Even though I played defense and the odds of me ever scoring a goal were pretty slim. Still, it never stopped her from screaming my name whenever the ball rolled toward me, and it never stopped me from actually believing that one time, I just might actually make it all the way down the field, where I’d swing my stick and watch the ball sail past the goalie and into the net.