I try to remind myself that I’m not really asking Julie out. She already did that part when she asked me to give her a tour of the island. I’m just finally committing to a time, which technically should be easier. After all, I already know she wants to go. That much has been established.
So then why are my palms sweating?
I rub my hands on my jeans.
“Didn’t you say you’re working a roofing job?” she asks, and I immediately wonder how much time has passed since I last spoke. Was it a normal amount of time? Or have I just been standing here staring at her like a moron?
“Yes. Right. The roofing job.” That puts me back on track. “There’s been a delay while we wait for some parts to be delivered. Which means I’m free this afternoon, and so I was wondering if maybe you want to do that island tour? Or not. I mean, if you’re busy, I completely—”
“Oh, that’s perfect!” she exclaims. “The boss just told me that a bunch of kids are leaving early today because of the holiday, so I’m off this afternoon too. Can we go to the basket museum? I’ve been hearing such amazing things about it.”
“Oh, um,” I begin awkwardly. The basket museum really wasn’t what I had in mind. It’s so cheesy and packed with tourists, but looking into her big round eyes, there’s really nothing else I can say but “Sure, sounds fun!”
She does another one of her cute little bounces and claps her hands. “Awesome. I get off in about an hour. Do you want to come back, or do you want to wait?”
I look over to the grassy area where a day care staffer is organizing the entire group of children into a circle.
“We’re about to play Simon Says,” Julie informs me. “So I totally understand if you wanna just come back later and—”
“Are you kidding?” I interrupt. “I’m the reigning champion of Simon Says.”
She giggles and gestures to the circle. “Well, then, champ. Let’s see what you got.”
CHAPTER 24
IAN
I’ve never felt more ridiculous in all my life. A skinny, overly chatty salesgirl named Molly is pulling at my shirt and adjusting my pant leg while telling me how handsome I look, and all I want to do is crawl back into that dressing room and die.
“This looks amazeballs,” she gushes, standing behind me so we can both look at my reflection in the three-way mirror. But I’m not too sure about her assessment. She’s dressed me in this dark blue suit with shoes I can literally see my reflection in. And a tie.
I don’t do ties.
The last time I wore a tie was at my father’s funeral, and that’s the last thing I want a reminder of tonight.
The salesgirl reaches around my waist to pull down the suit jacket. “Your girlfriend is a lucky girl.”
“It’s not like that,” I say uncertainly.
She cocks an eyebrow. “First date?”
I shrug. “I guess.”
Hearing that aloud makes it sound so corny and Hollywood and like such a bigger deal than it really is. A first date with Whitney Cartwright? I almost laugh aloud. What was I thinking asking out Whitney Cartwright?
But she’s so different. She’s changed so much. And when I think about being alone with her, I get this strange flutter in my stomach. Which is totally bizarre, given that I’ve known the girl since she was five years old and swimming around with floaties in the Cartwright pool.
And now I’m going on a date with her?
“Aha!” the salesgirl says as if this changes everything. “If it’s a first date, then you definitely need a hat.”
“Um,” I falter, but she’s already off, presumably to add another ridiculous item to this monstrosity. When she returns and places the hat on my head, I take one look in the mirror and know it’s all wrong. I look like a Cuban mob boss roaming the streets of Miami.
“Actually,” I say, taking off the hat and shrugging out of the jacket, “I think I want to go in a different direction.”
Her face visibly falls, like she’s a parade balloon that someone let all the helium out of. “But this is so amazing.”
“Sorry. It’s just really not me.”
Her expression grows serious again, and she snaps back into go-mode. “Got it. Say no more. I know exactly what you want.”
I highly doubt that, I think as I watch her scurry away to assemble the ingredients of Ian 3.0.
God, I hate shopping.
Two hours later we’ve finally settled on a look that is guaranteed to “sweep her off her feet” (Molly’s words, not mine) but also doesn’t cost every last dollar I have. It was a rough negotiation. Molly kept trying to put me in outfits that I was sure would make Whitney crack up laughing, while I kept trying to pick out clothes that Molly assured me would send Whitney running for the next ferry back to the mainland.
She rings me up at the register and places each new item carefully into a brown paper bag. One white linen button-up shirt, one pair of brown boat shoes, and one pair of jeans that is just a little too tight for my comfort but that Molly swears makes my butt look scrumptious (again, her word).
“Now, you have the whole night planned, right?” Molly asks, dropping my receipt into the bag and giving it a pat.
I shrug and take the bag by the handles. “Sure. I guess.”
She grabs the bag back from me. “Hold up just a sec. You guess?”
“I don’t know. I was just gonna, like, wing it. I’m a spontaneous kinda guy.”
Molly immediately starts shaking her head. “Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, NO. If this girl is as sophisticated and special as you say—”
“I didn’t say anything about her,” I interrupt.
She ignores me and continues. “Then you need to step it up a notch. You need to plan something she’ll never forget. You need to woo her.”
“Woo her?” I repeat, the skepticism dripping from my tone. “Is this the twenty-first century or the nineteenth?”
She waves this away with her hand. “That doesn’t matter. Even the most progressive girls like to be wooed. It shows you care. It shows you’re not just trying to get into her pants.” She narrows her eyes and shoots me a glare. “You’re not just trying to get into her pants, are you?”
My face flushes with heat. “What? No. I mean, she’s like a little sister to me.”
Okay, that came out totally wrong. Molly now looks horrified.
“Not like that,” I clarify. “She’s a little sister of a friend. I’ve known her almost all my life. I’m not just trying to . . .” But I can’t even say the words. “I’m not trying to do that.”
Molly pins me with another stare. “So what are your intentions with this young lady?”
Okay, what is going on here?
“I—I,” I stammer. “I don’t know.”
Molly is growing frustrated with me. “Okay. What do you know?”
“I like her,” I say without thinking, and suddenly realize that it’s true. I do like her. I like Whitney Cartwright. I never thought I’d ever think those words, let alone say them aloud. But there they are. Out in the open.
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
I shrug. “Yeah. I mean, she’s gorgeous, but that’s not it.”
Molly leans forward on the counter, suddenly very interested in what I have to say next. And I become hyperaware of how awkward this situation is. Why am I confessing my feelings for Whitney to a complete stranger?
Maybe because I can’t say them to anyone I actually know.
Molly blinks, her large eyes staring expectantly at me.
“She . . . ,” I begin, trying to put into words exactly what it is about Whitney that has gotten to me over the past month. “She challenges me. At a time when I guess I need to be challenged.”
As soon as I say it, I know it’s exactly how I feel. Just like with that song I wrote, Whitney seems to bring out a side of me that I didn’t know I had.
Molly lets out a wistful sigh. I glance down at the shopping bag still in her clutches.
“Can I h
ave my clothes now?” I ask.
She seems to snap out of a trance. “Oh! Right. Of course.”
I grab the bag just as my phone rings. I pull it out of my pocket and instantly deflate when I see my mother’s name on the caller ID. It’s incredible how quickly she can erase my good mood. Like water washing away a beautiful chalk drawing on the sidewalk. One sight of her name on my screen, and my mood is a messy blur of inscrutable shapes and muddy colors.
I hastily press ignore and stuff the phone back into my pocket.
I yank the shopping bag from the counter. Just feeling its weight in my hands and knowing what it represents, I start to calm down. I don’t have time to think about my mother and her incessant need to make cleaning out the garage a family affair. I have a date to think about. And according to Molly, the salesgirl, I’m highly underprepared.
“Thanks for your help,” I say, trying to keep my voice as upbeat as possible as I head for the door.
“You’re welcome!” Molly calls after me. “Good luck tonight! Woo her pants off!” She stops and thinks about that. “But not literally!”
CHAPTER 25
GRAYSON
When I get back to the house, I’m an agitated mess. I can’t sit still. I pace the length of the living room. I dribble a tennis ball around and around the pool. I put in a video game, only to get impatient with the amount of time it takes to load, and flip off the TV.
I eat. I drink. I even look for the emergency pack of cigarettes that my dad always keeps stashed somewhere, but I can’t find them.
Nothing seems to calm my ragged nerves.
I feel like bugs are crawling all over me. I feel like my skin is itching. I feel like a crazy person.
I start organizing the clutter of mail and paperwork on the counter. I’ve never been much of an organizer. If anything, I’m more of a de-organizer. Just like in life. I make messes of things. My friendships. My future. My life.
But there’s something about arranging this pile of envelopes into a tight little stack that makes me feel just the slightest bit better. So I keep going.
“What’s your problem?” Whitney appears from the back patio, carrying her cell phone.
I shake my head and go back to my stack. “Nothing.”
“You’re cleaning,” she says blankly.
“No. I’m organizing. It’s different.” I look at her again, this time taking a moment to study her. Something’s different about her, but I can’t put my finger on what it is.
“I just got off the phone with Mom,” she says.
My hands freeze around a pile of catalogs and magazines. I whip my gaze to her.
“She asked me why you haven’t returned any of her calls or texts,” she goes on, unfazed by my look of utter disbelief.
“You talk to her?”
She shrugs and takes a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge. “Yeah.”
Like it’s no big deal. Like our mother didn’t just walk out of our lives and leave this family in ruins.
“Why?”
She unscrews the top of the bottle and takes a sip. “Because she’s my mother. And I miss her.”
“But . . .” I falter.
“But she walked out on us?” Whitney finishes. I don’t like her tone. It’s too blasé. It’s too forgiving.
“Yeah!” The word comes out sloppily. A fine mist of saliva accompanies it and lands on the Pottery Barn catalog in my hand.
“She feels bad about that,” Whitney says. “That’s what we were just talking about. She wants to apologize to you. She wants you to forgive her.”
My grip on the catalogs tightens. I can hear some of the pages ripping. “Forgive her?” I snap. “For destroying our family? For ruining my life?”
“You crashed that car yourself, Grayson,” Whitney heartlessly reminds me. “She had nothing to do with that.”
“But she . . .” I trail off, quickly realizing that I don’t know where this argument is going. It doesn’t even sound like a real argument. But I have to finish what I started. I can’t just let it linger there. So I grasp for the first thing I can think of. “She ran out! Without any explanation.”
“If you’d just give her a chance, she’ll give you an explanation.”
“She doesn’t deserve a chance.”
“We all make mistakes,” Whitney says. “And we all deserve a chance to fix them. Don’t you think?”
I stare at my little sister in astonishment. What are these words coming out of her mouth? When did she become the wise Zen master of the family? Does this have something to do with how different she seems?
Why have I not noticed it until now? Have I been that preoccupied with my own stupid problems?
She holds my gaze, challenging me to speak. To refute her statement.
“Some mistakes are too big to fix,” I mumble.
Whitney shrugs, like she really doesn’t care one way or the other. “Fine.”
She walks over to me, dislodges a magazine from my death grip, and disappears back out the sliding glass door with her water.
I stand clutching the stack of mail in my hand, watching the supple white couch on the cover of the Pottery Barn catalog wrinkle and tear beneath my sweaty fingers.
She talked to Mom.
She took her call.
How could she do that? How could she just forgive so easily like that?
I don’t care what Whitney says. Yes, I may have crashed that car myself. Yes, I may have overreacted. I may have jeopardized my own future. But what our mother did was worse. She broke our family apart. She walked out on her responsibilities.
She quit.
Cartwrights don’t quit. My father has been drilling that into my mind since the day I was born. Maybe even before that. Perseverance is baked right into my DNA.
And yet my mother just gave up. She just left.
We all make mistakes.
I shake my head and keep organizing. Stacking and restacking and arranging and rearranging.
Just when I think there’s absolutely nothing else I can do, I catch sight of an envelope poking out from one of my meticulous stacks. I pull it out and read the handwritten note my father has scribbled on the front.
For Mike.
I open the envelope and withdraw a check. It’s all made out. Pay-to line, date, signature. Only the amount is left blank.
My father must have wanted me to fill it in once we got the first invoice.
Then I remember what Mike told me on the phone today, and I scurry over to the front door. I open it to find, just as Mike promised, an envelope taped to the wood, with an invoice inside.
I study the number at the bottom of the invoice. The amount due for the first two weeks of work.
Eighteen hundred dollars.
I look at the check again. At the big empty box next to the dollar sign. It suddenly feels like a void. But unlike all the other voids in my life right now, this is one I can fill.
One I can fix.
Before I have a chance to change my mind, I grab a pen from the drawer in the kitchen and fill in the blank space.
Three thousand dollars.
I tell myself this has nothing to do with Harper. It has nothing to do with my own stupid mistakes. Mike said his dad was injured and they need extra cash. That’s all this is. A friend helping out another friend.
Nothing more.
But as I slip the check into the envelope and secure it back to the outside of the door, I can’t help but feel the weight on my chest lift just the slightest bit.
CHAPTER 26
MIKE
Simon says spin in a circle. Simon says jump up and down. Pull out your ears and make a fish face.”
I immediately tug at my ears and fashion my lips into a perfect trout pout. Twenty kids squeal and jump and dance and point at me. Like a chorus of adorable little chirping insects.
“What?” I ask them, feigning innocence as I continue to suck air in through my puckered lips.
“Simon didn’t say!” th
ey all shout in unison.
“He didn’t?”
They shake their heads, and I let my fish face fall into a scowl. “You mean I lost again?”
Another fit of giggles.
“This game is too hard!” I grumble, giving Julie a wink. She beams back at me. Over the past hour we’ve managed to keep these kids thoroughly entertained through a strategy we developed without saying a single word to each other. She calls out the most embarrassing actions for me to possibly do, and I lose on purpose. We quickly discovered that a grown-up—or whatever I am—losing at Simon Says is funnier to these kids than anything Disney could animate.
“Okay, kids!” she calls, clapping her hands together once. “Let’s all go inside for the Silent Movie game!”
They squeal again, until Julie puts a finger to her lips, and the entire group falls quiet. One of the other staffers leads the kids back into the clubhouse, and I watch in awe as they pretend to talk to each other without sound, moving their lips and pantomiming. I’m shocked to see Jasper and Jake playing along with the other kids. I didn’t realize they even understood the word “silent.”
“What’s the Silent Movie game?” I ask as I help Julie pick up the trash around the grass and deposit it into the bin.
“It’s just a little game I invented to calm them down a bit. I showed them clips from a bunch of old silent movies and told them that the first person who talks loses the game. We play music just like in the films, and they all go around pantomiming.”
She picks up an ice chest that was once full of Popsicles and begins to carry it inside.
“Here,” I say, taking the chest from her. “I got this.”
“Thanks.”
I follow behind her into the day camp’s main room, and nearly drop the ice chest on my feet when I see what has transpired inside. Soft piano music is streaming from a pair of speakers, and every single child that was, just five minutes ago, bouncing around and giggling like they were high on something is now either sitting quietly on the floor with a book or sleeping on one of the cots.
I search the room for Jasper and Jake, certain that they must be the only two rug rats still running around and kung-fu-ing the air like the maniacs that they are. But my mouth literally falls open when I find them curled up on the same cot together, sleeping soundly.
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