“What do you say?” I ask Olivia. “Sun, cool water, some tanning . . . ?”
“OK,” she agrees. Susie takes the chance to slip around her and bolt from the room, but not too fast to give me a decidedly exasperated stare.
I know how she feels.
“Look, I didn’t want to say anything, but . . . you might want to tone down all the environmentalism stuff,” I tell Olivia carefully as we pack up our towels and some snacks. She spent half of last night’s Rock Band wars lecturing Grady and Ethan about their lack of a recycling bin for our soda cans and arguing with Reeve about the fuel efficiency of his truck. I felt embarrassed even listening. Did I really sound so self-righteous and condescending when I first arrived? I hope not, but unlike Olivia, at least I knew when to let it drop.
“Why?” She shrugs, looking defensive. “She needs to hear it. I mean, I don’t know how you could stand to watch all this awful construction work all summer.”
I sigh, packing up the cooler with drinks and chips. “The B and B is a good thing. It’ll bring trade through town, remember?”
“But at what cost?” Olivia looks at me disapprovingly. “I know she’s your godmother, but you really should be speaking up about this.”
“Not everything’s a life-or-death issue, Livvy. Sometimes you’ve got to compromise.”
She glares at me. “Tell that to the birds nesting in the spruce tree.”
Olivia keeps up her monologue all the way to the lake, ignoring the pretty scatter of sunlight through the trees to rant about the evils of carbon-based fuel systems and how we’re all going to die at the hands of greedy corporations. I stroll along beside her, silent and confused. Now that we’ve spent some time together again, I don’t understand this sudden switch in her, all this new anger at the world. Sure, we’ve always been against polluting companies, and politicians, and all those usual suspects, but that just made us want to work harder in a positive way — to inspire and educate more people so we could all do something about the problem. But now? Every word that comes out of her lips is so bleak, so extreme, it’s like she can only see the bad things. The worst part is, I don’t even think she’s listening to me anymore. Or anyone. She just seems on some mission to recite her list of the world’s wrongs, regardless of timing or, I don’t know, tact.
Luckily, Fiona isn’t as conflicted as me.
“Will you just shut up?” she finally exclaims as we emerge from the trees and reach the shoreline. Turning to me, she adds, “I’ve tried to make nice because she’s your friend and all, but God! I can’t take this!”
“Thanks,” I tell her, genuinely touched that she’s made the effort. The old Fiona would have shut Olivia down right away, but the new, improved version lasted all of five minutes.
Olivia turns to me with a betrayed look. “Didn’t you hear what she —?”
“See, the lake!” I announce brightly, putting both hands on her shoulders and swiveling her around to face the beautiful scene. The wind is up, kicking up peaks and foam on the water, while the fluffy clouds sprint across a blue sky. Olivia looks around, and finally, the dissatisfied expression makes way for a smile.
“This is awesome.” There, nature will heal all. Or, not quite, because she adds, “At the collective, we meditated by the water every day. You should try that, you know. It totally bonds you to the earth, gets rid of all the capitalist false impulses.”
“Uh-huh,” I murmur, stripping off my shorts and T-shirt. My navy bikini is fading from all the use, a thread unraveling in one of the straps. “Why don’t you relax and, umm, meditate here? I’m going for a swim.”
“Me too,” Fiona says, and my mouth drops open with shock. I’ve never seen her do more than dip a reluctant toe in the water all summer. She pulls off her cargo pants and tank top — showing a surprisingly revealing black bikini underneath — and takes off toward the water. I guess Olivia is a surprising motivator.
I pause by our patch of towels and totes, rummaging in my bag. “Have you seen my sunscreen?”
“I tossed it out.” Instead of relaxing, Olivia is pulling her feet into a complicated cross-legged position.
“What? Why?”
She shrugs, tying her mat of dreadlocks back with a stretch of colored ribbon. “Those things will kill you. Have you seen the toxins they put in? Cash says —”
“It’s OK.” I cut her off before I’m treated to another joyful lesson from the Book of Cash. “Just . . . don’t go through my stuff, OK?”
She looks at me, hurt. “I was only trying to help. Do you want to pump chemicals into your body?”
“No, but I kind of don’t want to get skin cancer, either.” I sigh. “Just forget it.”
A couple of hours later, things seem to have reached a calm. The guys show up to mess around with inner tubes, Fiona loans me her sunscreen, and Olivia takes a much-appreciated break from her lecture series to bury herself in a dog-eared copy of No Logo. With a cool breeze cutting through the midday heat, and my friends lounged around me, I can almost relax.
Almost.
“Hey, Jenna, can you pass those chips?” Reeve rolls over and reaches his hand out, impatient. He’s shirtless on our patchwork array of towels and blankets, hair dripping wet from his swim, and even though I haven’t been obsessing over him the way I used to, I’m immediately distracted.
“Hmmm?”
“Hello? The chips?” He snaps his fingers at me. I blink at his tone. A few days ago, we were lazing, intertwined by that water-lily lake while he counted every freckle on my back. Now he can’t even be polite in public?
“What’s the magic word?” I challenge him.
“Uh, now?”
I throw them at him, hard. Discreet is one thing; rude is quite another.
“Jeez, what’s gotten into you?”
Olivia looks up from her book. “Aww, trouble in paradise?” she asks with an innocent look.
I glance around, panicked, but nobody else seems to have noticed her comment. Except Reeve. When I check, his face is tense.
“Don’t stress — it’s just PMS!” Grady says, lying out with his baseball cap covering his eyes. “It’s always freaking PMS with these chicks — argh!” He cries out as Fiona upends her soda over his bare chest. He scrambles to his feet, soaked with the sticky liquid. “What the hell?”
“Whoops,” she answers, deadpan. “Must be that darn time of the month.”
While they bicker, I try to catch Olivia’s eye. How could she almost give me away like that? But she stares, fixed, at her book, as if she doesn’t realize what a close call that just was. And maybe she doesn’t.
Finally, I lie back down. But instead of dozing idly in the sun, I feel anxiety begin to take hold. Things were fine when home was home and Stillwater was Stillwater, but now everything’s tumbling together, and I can’t keep it apart. The old Olivia would never spill my secrets — I could trust her with anything. But this new girl, the one who’s rude to her hostess, confiscates my things, and won’t stop ranting about the impending end of the world? I don’t know about her. I feel like I don’t know her at all.
After a while, Ethan nudges my leg with his bare foot. “I’m heading up to the river tomorrow. Want to come fishing?”
“With my record?”
“Aw, c’mon. We can find a mate to send along to poor Derek in fish heaven.”
I relax, laughing as I remember my unwanted success with the fishing rod. “Knowing my luck, I’ll find him a whole gang of friends.”
“Exactly.” Ethan grins at me warmly. “You’ll be my accidental good-luck charm.”
“Derek?” Olivia interrupts, turning to me with a questioning look. She’s moved into the shade from one of the looming pines, separating herself out from the group.
“He’s the fish Jenna caught,” Ethan answers for me. “A big one, too!”
“Was not,” I protest.
“Sure he was.” Ethan gives me a grin. “Took me ages to kill him, smashing away with that rock.”
“You weren’t complaining when you started eating the poor thing.”
Olivia gasps, eyes wide. “You started eating meat?”
I brace myself for a protest about vegetarianism, but instead, it’s Reeve who speaks up, drawling in a sarcastic voice. “I wouldn’t take her near water, dude. She’ll just fall in again.”
I pretend not to notice the dig, but it still stings. “Are you ever going to let me forget that?”
“No,” comes the immediate response from all three boys. Again, a questioning look from Olivia.
“There was a kayak trip that went wrong,” I tell her quickly, even though I’m getting tired of explaining. Especially when I’ve already told her. “I called you about it, I’m sure.”
“Maybe you did.” She flicks a page. I stare at her for a moment, puzzled. It feels like she’s giving me an attitude, but I can’t think why.
“Anyway, I think I’ll skip this one.” I turn back to Ethan. “There’s going to be a ton of cleaning up to do from this party tonight.”
“I’ll just have to struggle on without you.” He grins.
“Why don’t you take one of your guy friends, Ethan?” Olivia pipes up. “Isn’t it kind of a manly thing, fishing? Guys bonding, together, out in the wild with their tackle, all Brokeback —”
“Livvy.” I sit up so fast, I get a head rush. “Weren’t you going to tell me more about that guru guy?”
“He’s not a guru; he’s a low-impact lifestyle visionary.” She frowns at me, launching into a long description of how this guy recycles everything in his life — including bodily waste. It’s gross, but at least she stops with her loaded comments about Ethan. For now.
I manage to keep Olivia away from the group for the rest of the day, but by the time the party gets under way, I don’t know what to do. Instead of having a good time and celebrating our success, I’m acting like a glorified babysitter: running around making sure she’s not ranting at the guests about free trade, or spilling every secret I told her, or doing anything else to mess up the calm equilibrium we’ve managed to reach in Stillwater. It’s exhausting, and the worst part is, I don’t even understand why she’s so antagonistic. Livvy used to be happy, and energetic, and upbeat; now she acts as if she has one big grudge against the whole world, and we’re all part of the corporate-industrial conspiracy to destroy the earth.
Isn’t early-morning meditation supposed to, I don’t know, make you calm and content?
“I love this decor — it’s so rustic and quaint.”
“Mmm, you’ve got to taste this potato salad!”
“And if the weather holds, we’ve booked for a kayak trip tomorrow, just like on the website!”
Despite all my tension, I can’t help but feel a warm glow of pride as I drift through the backyard, overhearing snatches of conversation from the party. Everything else in my life may be teetering on the edge of disaster, but the B and B is turning out just great. The first guests arrived on schedule — a mousy-looking couple of accountants and that family from Boston — and oohed and aahed with appropriate enthusiasm as Susie showed them around the house. Now it’s getting dark, and what must be half of Stillwater has gathered in the backyard to celebrate. We spent the afternoon setting up, and now the place is transformed, with tiny twinkle lights strung up between the trees, trestle tables covered with red-and-white-checkered cloths, and a mouthwatering array of BBQ goodies. I look around happily. Grady is piling his plate with food; Ethan is talking with some older guys; Reeve is —
With Kate.
They’re just chatting, casual, but I feel a twist of insecurity all the same. She’s wearing jeans and an embroidered shirt, looking breezy and effortless again. Reeve glances away from her for a moment, and I manage to catch his eye, but he just gives me a vague smile and turns back to her.
“Hi, everyone . . .” Susie taps her fork on the edge of the salad bowl and waits for everyone to quiet down. I grab a paper cup of soda and a plate of veggie hot dogs, settling on one of the folding chairs we’ve put up around the yard, my back to Reeve.
“Don’t worry — I won’t be long. You know what I’m like with speeches.” Susie laughs, all earlier nerves gone. “I just wanted to welcome you all to Bramble Lane and thank everyone for all their hard work.” Her curls shine golden in the fading light, and she slips an arm around Adam’s waist affectionately. “You’ve all pitched in to make this happen, and we’re both so grateful for the effort. So, I guess, just have fun!” There’s applause, and everyone surges forward to congratulate them.
“Hey.” I hear a low voice behind me and turn to find Reeve. He grins at me, mischievous. “Come on.”
“What?” I protest, but he’s already taken my hand and is leading me into the house while everybody’s attention is focused outside.
“Cute dress.” Reeve pulls me into the tiny laundry room and closes the door. He moves closer, slipping his hands around my waist. Then he kisses me.
For a moment, I let him. He smells like some kind of aftershave or deodorant, fresh and woodsy, and as he pushes me back against the dryer, my pulse picks up again with a jolt. His lips are soft but insistent, his body solid and familiar around me. I relax into his arms and kiss him back, breathless, until —
“Wait.” I remember myself, pushing him away.
He grins, pushing hair out of my eyes. “Don’t worry, nobody saw.” He leans in to kiss me again, but I plant both hands on his chest and push him back, harder.
“Reeve!”
He looks at me, confused. “What?”
I can’t believe him.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you think?” Slowly giving that smile that always melts me, he plants tiny kisses on my cheek, working his way toward my mouth. I duck under his arms and slip sideways, out of reach.
“You’re serious?” I look at him, amazed. Snatches of noise and laughter from the party outside drift in through the side window, but at last, I’m not worried about getting caught. “You bitch at me in front of our friends, ignore me all evening, and then you expect to come back, for this?”
“I was just teasing!”
“No, you were being a jerk.” I fold my arms and glare at him. After days of not telling Olivia how I feel, I’ve had enough of keeping quiet and smoothing things over.
Finally realizing something’s not right, Reeve begins to backtrack. “Hey, I’m sorry — I was just messing around at the lake.” He takes my hand. “I didn’t think you’d take it like that.”
“I took it how you said it,” I tell him, standing firm. He’s twisting his fingers through mine, but I refuse to let that melting feeling in my stomach win this time. “You can’t just act like that. It’s not right.”
He drops my hand. “Hey, you said you were cool with keeping this a secret.”
“And I was.” I swallow, realizing for the first time what I have to do. I’ve insisted I’m fine with this casual thing so much that he actually believes me. But I’m not.
“It’s been fun, but I don’t want to do this anymore,” I tell him firmly. I’ve only got a few days left, but they’re not worth feeling this insecure.
There’s a long pause. Reeve looks at me. “What do you mean?”
I take a breath. “I mean, I don’t want to keep going like this. Sneaking around. I don’t like it when you’re so, I don’t know, casual, around everyone else.” I hate laying my feelings out like this, but I force myself to keep going. Meeting his eyes, I add in a quiet voice, “It hurts me.”
“But you said —”
“I know I did,” I admit. “And it’s been great. Really great.” I think of our nights on the back porch, of the first thrill of sneaking away. But all Reeve’s kisses can’t take away the sting I feel when he barely looks my way with the others. “I didn’t think it through, OK? I didn’t know it would bother me, but it does.”
There. It’s said.
I wait, hoping for some kind of agreement. For Reeve to tell me that he doesn’t like it either, and all the hassle and sneaking is stupid when we could just be. Normal.
Instead, his lips press together in a thin line. “What is this, some kind of ultimatum? I’ve told you: I don’t want everyone knowing my business, not again. I mean, you’re leaving next week!”
“Right,” I say, disappointed, but still calm. “And I get that you have all this stuff from what happened with Kate.” At this, he flinches slightly. “But I don’t want to spend my last days in town feeling crappy and ignored.” I exhale, feeling a lightness in me. Relief. “So you do whatever you want.”
I leave him there, by the pile of Fiona’s dirty laundry. I feel a pang as I walk away, but somehow, I think it’s more for what we won’t be — the fact that I’m leaving and that this will only ever be a brief summer thing.
Walking through the house, I see some kind of commotion in the front yard, lit up by the bright porch lights. There’s a truck in the driveway, printed with some kind of official insignia, and Adam is frowning while Olivia gestures wildly to a middle-aged woman in a uniform.
Olivia? I quickly hurry toward them.
“I’m sure we went through the plans when we talked to the permit office,” Adam is saying when I arrive. He looks confused. “I just have to find the papers. . . .”
“What’s going on?” I ask, directing my question at Olivia. She turns away, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her cargo pants. “Is everything OK? Should I get Susie?”
“No, it’s just a misunderstanding,” Adam says quickly. “No need to worry her.”
The woman shifts, impatient. “I was told this was an environmental emergency.”
“Well, what can I say? You know how dramatic kids get.” Adam gives Olivia a look, and begins to guide the woman toward the house. “How about you go on back and join the party, while I find those permits?” She seems reluctant, but Adam urges her. “We’ve got some killer barbecue left, and I know Mrs. Johnson brought some of those famous brownies of hers . . .”
Boys, Bears, and A Serious Pair of Hiking Boots Page 20
