by Nancy Thayer
So as much as she knew her heart had been well and thoroughly broken by Sebastian, she also understood with the tiny rational part of her brain that what he had said was true.
And then there was Tommy. And Isabelle. Keely’s heart was heavy. In one day, it seemed, she’d lost them both. She’d lost the chance to talk to Isabelle about Sebastian. She couldn’t talk to Isabelle, period.
She took her homework out to the back patio and sat at the table, taking comfort from the bright low sunlight, the crisp air, the changing colors of autumn, the birds too busy with their own lives to notice her. She shoved her homework to the side, folded her arms on the table, put down her head, and cried.
Why was life so difficult? What had she done, turning down Tommy Fitzgerald? Isabelle was angry with her simply because he’d asked Keely to the dance, so she should have gone with him, Isabelle couldn’t get angrier! Should she phone Tommy and say her plans had changed? Did she even want to go to the dance with Tommy? Could she just give herself a minute to appreciate the reality that Tommy Fitzgerald had asked her to the homecoming dance? Really, it was remarkable. If it didn’t exactly mean he liked her, at least it meant he noticed her. If she had accepted his invitation and gone to the dance, Isabelle would have told Sebastian, and then Sebastian would know he wasn’t the only guy who liked Keely. And what did “like” mean, anyway?
No wonder women became nuns!
“Keely.”
Keely lifted her head.
Isabelle stood at the edge of the patio, wringing her hands together like someone from Macbeth.
“Keely, can we talk? I want to apologize. You’re such a good friend to refuse Tommy. I’m sorry I was so mean. It does break my heart, and I do feel hideously jealous that he asked you instead of me. But I know it’s not your fault.” Isabelle was crying now, tears running down her face and her mouth quivering as she spoke. “You were a good friend, and I behaved like a bad friend. I’m sorry.”
Keely sat up straight. She wiped her eyes and gave a quavering smile. “I guess I understand. Anyway, I don’t want to fight over any stupid male. Our friendship should mean more than that.”
Isabelle came up on the patio. She slid into a chair. “It does mean more than that, Keely. It does. I can’t believe how nice it was of you to refuse him because of me. I guess I lost that fact in the total misery that he had asked anyone but me.” She stretched her hand across the table. “Sorry, okay?”
Keely took her hand. “Okay.”
Isabelle said, “I am so over men.”
Keely said, “Me, too.”
The autumn afternoon grew chilly as the sun sank in the sky. They went into the kitchen to search for a snack, something comforting more than nutritious. Keely made hot chocolate from scratch and topped their cups with fat marshmallows. They went back outside, the better to enjoy the warm sweet treat in the cold air.
Keely turned her marshmallows over and over, melting them slightly. Isabelle was doing the same thing, gazing down into her cup. “So what was Sebastian doing at home?” Keely asked casually.
“He had to get some of his warmer clothes. Winter coat and stuff. It gets cold on the mainland earlier than it does here. He’s already left.”
“Ah. Good. I was afraid he’d gotten kicked out of college.”
Isabelle laughed. “Sebastian? Sebastian the Good kicked out of college? Never!”
Sebastian emailed me, Keely wanted to say. He told me I’m beautiful. Then he forgot I exist.
“So Jeff Morton asked me to the homecoming dance,” Isabelle said. “I bet Jasper Childs will ask you. He’s Jeff’s buddy and he’s always staring at you.”
“I don’t think I can go to the dance,” Keely reminded Isabelle. “I told Tommy I had to do something with my parents.”
“So you don’t want to hurt Tommy’s feelings?” Isabelle rolled her eyes. “You think he has feelings? Tommy’s after sex like a shark after meat.”
“You’re gross.”
“I’m right.”
“Why are you in love with him, then?”
“Because love is so irrational,” Isabelle moaned. “Come on, let’s find a way to go together. Pleeeeeeze?”
“Sure,” Keely agreed. “If Jasper asks me.”
* * *
—
The Whalers won the homecoming game. Tommy Fitzgerald, the quarterback, drilled the ball right to the running back three times in a row. People in the bleachers screamed themselves hoarse. Tommy was mobbed at the end of the game, and the school was wild with victory. The dance at the school gym was insane. When it slowed down, half the crowd congregated at Surfside Beach. Someone built a bonfire. Someone else blasted Queen’s “We Are the Champions,” from his iPod. Lots of people brought coolers of beer or flasks of something stronger. Up on the cliff, authorities were watching, the kids knew that, and they knew that most of those police had been students here just like they were now. They knew that if there was a problem, the police would rush in. They knew the police watching them understood what it was to be young, and silently shared in their celebration.
Jasper Childs was a good guy, low-key, undemanding. Keely felt comfortable with him. Isabelle and Jeff and Keely and Jasper hung around in a clump, and when people started dancing at the edge of the water, the four of them took off their shoes and danced, too, slipping and tilting in the cold sand, singing with the music, laughing for no reason. Some couples wandered away from the bonfire, into the darkness. Isabelle and Keely spun away from the guys and danced with each other, waving their arms, screaming and laughing. While other students slid into the shadows to smoke pot or get drunk, Keely and Isabelle existed in their own personal high, as if they were moving within the eye of a hurricane, as if they were causing the hurricane, they were so happy, so alive, it was their own spirits that whirled around them and into the night, filling the air with jubilation.
* * *
—
The day before Thanksgiving, school let out at noon. Half the families were traveling off island, the other half of the island families were preparing to meet friends and relatives at the ferries.
The ocean had turned a dark, forbidding navy blue. The wind seemed to need to push harder to swell the surly water. Keely and Isabelle walked home, kicking at the last scarlet leaves scattered like tapestries on the ground.
“So,” Keely said casually, “when does Sebastian get here?”
“He doesn’t,” Isabelle answered. “He’s going to his girlfriend’s uncle’s house in the Berkshires.”
“His girlfriend.”
“Yeah, Ebba. They’ve been a couple since the beginning of October. He’s going to bring her into New York when we go down for Christmas.”
“Oooh, sounds serious.” Keely made her voice light, jokey. She wanted to fall to her knees and howl.
“He’s a freshman. It’s probably intense but I doubt if it’s serious.”
Keely dug her fingernails into her palms. She felt like a wounded wolf. She needed to growl, to bite. “Sort of like how you feel about Tommy.”
Isabelle rounded on Keely. “No. Not like that at all, and you know it. I’m in love with Tommy.”
“He hasn’t even asked you out, Isabelle.”
“He will. He’s mine. I know it. I can wait.”
Keely kicked at a pile of leaves, making them flutter up and drift back in place. “You’re a little bit crazy.”
“Hey,” Isabelle joked, “it’s part of the job description of adolescence, right?”
At Fair Street, they parted ways, heading home to do homework. Keely managed a bright smile as she walked away from Isabelle, but inside, her emotions raged like little kids did when they sat in shopping carts and their poor beleaguered moms didn’t let them have candy.
So Sebastian was dating Ebba.
It would have been nice if he’d emailed
her to tell her so she could let go of her hope.
She’d been a fool, anyway, to believe Sebastian had romantic feelings for her.
No, she hadn’t been a fool! Sebastian had started it. He’d been—he was a total rat.
She hated him. No, she wouldn’t waste her time hating him. She would forget about him.
* * *
—
Keely’s mother worked all holidays so that nurses with small children could have the time off. Keely’s father didn’t mind. Friends invited him and Keely to their house for Thanksgiving dinner. Keely was happy to sleep late, loll in bed, reading something that had nothing to do with school.
That was what her father thought she was doing.
Keely was on the floor, weeping. She stuffed her old teddy bear’s arm in her mouth to stifle the sounds of her sobs. Hope about Sebastian was a ship on the horizon, sailing out of sight. Without it, Keely was alone, on the empty island that was her life. She felt about Sebastian the way Isabelle felt about Tommy—he belonged to her. But the truth was, her feelings, her silly adolescent infatuation, didn’t matter at all.
She increased the volume on her music—Enya, whose songs were mystical and full of courage. Keely let the music pour through her, wash her clean, surround her with light. She played the same CD over and over again. She wept for hours, until she was afraid she would vomit, until her eyes burned, until her head ached, until her heart was empty.
She stood up. She was exhausted. She clicked off the music and fell on her bed. Sleep bathed her in a pool of calm.
That evening, she showered and dressed and went with her father to the O’Reillys’. They had a twelve-year-old girl who adored Keely, which was both cute and irritating. Keely forced herself to be “normal,” pleasant, polite.
When Keely and her father went home, Keely went straight to her room and shut the door.
Later, her father tapped lightly on her bedroom door.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Dad. Just tired.”
A moment of silence. “Call me if you need anything. I’m just watching football.”
“I will. Thanks, Dad.”
Keely heard him walk away and thought what a good father he was. He was present for her, and he was sensitive, not intruding on her when she hid in her room. He was a good man, her father. He was solid, sound, strong. Someday perhaps Keely would meet her own good man. Until then, she would channel every drop of pain and sadness into her writing. She would make good grades, great grades, she would focus on getting a scholarship, she would get off this island and go to college and out into the real world.
* * *
—
The summer before their senior year, Isabelle went with her parents to Australia, and so—Keely learned from Isabelle’s emails—did Sebastian. Isabelle texted that Sebastian hadn’t brought a girlfriend along.
For Keely, it was just another summer. She cleaned houses and babysat and read and wrote. She wasn’t unhappy—okay, she was. She was still sick at heart about Sebastian, about what they could have had. But the knowledge that she had only one more year of high school was like an open door in a flooded room. Soon, in one quick whoosh, she would be out in the world. She would meet many men more interesting than Sebastian.
When she had free time, she went out fishing with her father or picnicking on the beach with her friends. Toward the end of the summer, she went with her parents to look at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. It was a sprawling campus that seemed as big as a town to Keely. But it had an excellent creative writing program, and this was her first choice. Maybe her only choice, because she would have to get a scholarship.
The Maxwells returned home at the end of August. Keely and Isabelle talked on the phone, but before they had a chance to see each other, Isabelle’s parents whisked her off to tour colleges. Keely had no idea where Sebastian was. To her own private shame, she drove by the Maxwell house one evening when she knew Isabelle and her parents were off-island. Keely wanted to see if there were lights on in the house. There weren’t.
* * *
—
Their senior year was intense and emotional. Keely focused on getting good grades in all her classes, but she was aware of a new tension in the senior class, a sense of importance and anticipation shadowed by the looming knowledge that this was their last year in this particular building with these particular people.
While everyone else was partying, Keely was studying. She wanted to get all A’s. She needed that scholarship. In early December, when she had dozens of job offers to babysit and even more invitations to parties, her father had what her mother insisted on calling a minor heart attack. Keely spent much of the Christmas season traveling with her father and mother to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Her father was tested and diagnosed and given three different types of medications to bring down his blood pressure and slow his hardworking heart. After only one night in the hospital, George Green and his wife and daughter began the trip home, this time hiring a driver instead of taking the bus to Hyannis, spending two nights at the Hyannis Holiday Inn because a blizzard kept the ferries from running, and finally bumping home on the fast ferry. Keely’s father had pills and orders to slow down, to stop working so hard. It was a scare, Keely’s mother said, but it was not the end of the world.
No, it was not the end of the world, but it was pretty much the end of any social life Keely wanted. On New Year’s Eve, she babysat instead of going to the fabulous dance party the seniors held in the school gym. She needed the money, especially since her father wasn’t working full-time. She didn’t want her father worrying about money for her. When she wasn’t at school or babysitting, she spent as much time as possible watching sports on television with him.
“You don’t have to check on me, Keely,” her father told her. “I’m fine.”
“I know that. But I want to watch the Patriots, too.”
When her mother returned from work, Keely talked with her in the kitchen, giving her mother a report on how her father had seemed during those few hours. Her mother promised her that if he followed his doctor’s orders, George Green would be fine. Keely wanted a written guarantee.
By February, they knew where they were going to college. Miraculously, Keely was given a full scholarship to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Isabelle was attending Smith, where Gloria Steinem, Julia Child, and the poet Sylvia Plath had gone. Tommy also chose UMass. The two institutions of higher learning—of course people joked about the “high”—were within a few miles of each other. Buses could take you to Northampton, the hub.
Sebastian would be nearby, too, at Amherst College. Keely didn’t expect to see him. She knew he was still involved with Ebba.
* * *
—
At last, it was May. The students lined up in the room next to the auditorium. Twenty-six graduating seniors. Most of them had known each other since preschool. They were about to be set free from the captivity of law-mandated classes. Some were leaving immediately for the military or for jobs or for trips. One girl, Brioni, would be leaving to have a baby; her gown covered her swollen belly. Keely and Isabelle grumbled that this rite of passage was juvenile, almost embarrassing, but they shook with nerves and kept blinking back tears.
From the front of the room Mr. Carpenter, the vice principal, gave the order to fall in line. He opened the door. The class of 2008 processed onto the stage. Cameras flashed. The audience murmured. Jenny Perry, the valedictorian, spoke. Keely had never liked Jenny, but she couldn’t keep from silently weeping. The other girls around her were crying, too. Tim Madden, the Cape and island state representative, gave a brief, inspiring speech. The principal stood to hand out the diplomas. The class rose.
Keely walked to the front of the stage to accept her diploma, and from then on, time blurred. How long did she spend hugging and kissing her
classmates? Jimmy Jordan, a year younger and the most handsome guy in school, walked up to Keely, said, “If I don’t do it now, I never will,” and kissed Keely so thoroughly her knees went weak.
Isabelle and Janine and the other girls hugged each other and with much emotion and crying promised they’d never forget them, as if they wouldn’t see each other tomorrow and every day of their lives that they remained on this fifty-square-mile island.
Gradually the drama relaxed. Kids left to find their parents. Keely met her mother and father in the school parking lot, where they’d agreed to meet.
“Congratulations,” Keely’s father said.
“We’re so proud of you,” Keely’s mother added, starting to weep again.
“We got a little present for you,” her father said. Stepping to one side, he gestured to a used but very clean Honda Civic.
“Oh, Dad, Mom, thank you!” Keely hugged them both.
“Why don’t you drive it,” her father said, handing her the keys. “Follow us to the Seagrille. We’re taking you out to lunch.”
“Thanks, Dad, I will!”
Keely opened the door and sank into the shining interior of the old car. The engine kicked over at once. Keely put her hands on the wheel. “And this, my friends,” Keely said aloud, “this is the sensation of freedom.”
On the way out of the parking lot, Keely passed the Maxwells and Isabelle. Isabelle waved, then gestured like a game show babe at her new cherry-red convertible Jeep. Behind her, Sebastian stood, very close to a gorgeous blond woman. He waved at Keely. She pretended she didn’t see him.
* * *
—
The first day of summer vacation, Keely began the schedule she’d made for herself. She rose at six, two hours before she started cleaning houses. She sat at the kitchen table and drank coffee and wrote. Was what she wrote any good? Was she wasting her time? Cleaning houses was hard work, but having no one to share her writing with was harder.
