by Jenny Han
The first thing she said was, “Belly, what do you think you’re doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. This whole situation is retarded. You should be at home where you belong.”
I sighed. No matter how many times I asked her not to say “retarded,” she still did. She even had a little cousin with Down Syndrome. I think she did it on purpose because she knew it bothered me.
“What do you care if Conrad is a college dropout?” she said. “Let him be a loser if he wants.”
Even though I knew no one could hear me, I lowered my voice. “He’s going through a lot right now. He needs us.”
“He needs his brother. Who, by the way, is hotter than him, hello! Conrad doesn’t need you. He cheated on you, remember?”
I was whispering now. “He didn’t cheat on me and you know it. We were already broken up. It’s not like we were ever even a real couple in the first place.” The last part was hard to say.
“Oh, right—he didn’t cheat on you, he dumped you right after the prom. What an amazing guy. Gaylord.”
I ignored her. “Will you please still cover for me if my mom calls?”
She sniffed. “Duh. I happen to be a loyal friend.”
“Thank you. Oh, and thank you so much for taking all my clothes.”
“You’re welcome,” she said all smug. “And Belly?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t lose sight of the mission at hand.”
“Well, Jeremiah’s been working on him—”
“Not that, dummy. I’m talking about the mission. You have to get Conrad to want you back, and then you have to rebuff him. Brutally.”
I was glad we were on the phone so she couldn’t see me roll my eyes. But the thing was, she had a point. Taylor never got hurt because she was the one who was in charge. She called the shots. Boys wanted her, not the other way around. She was always quoting that line from Pretty Woman, the one about being a hooker. “I say who, I say when, I say who.”
It wasn’t that the idea didn’t appeal to me. It was just that it would never work. Getting Conrad to notice me the first time around, however briefly, had been nearly impossible. It wouldn’t work a second time.
After Taylor and I hung up, I called my mother. I told her that I was staying at Taylor’s house again that night, that she was still too upset for me to leave. My mother agreed. “You’re a good friend,” she said. There was relief in her voice when she asked me to tell Taylor’s parents hello.
She didn’t even question the lie. I could hear it over the phone: All she wanted was to be left alone with her grief.
After, I took a shower and put on the clothes Taylor picked for me. A white camisole with flowers embroidered across the top and her famous cutoffs.
I went downstairs with my hair still wet, tugging on my shorts. The boys were back inside, sitting at the kitchen table and eating dirt bombs, the big sugary cinnamon muffins that Susannah used to get up early to buy.
“Look what I got,” Jeremiah said. He pushed the white paper bag toward me.
I grabbed the bag and stuffed half a dirt bomb inside my mouth. It was still warm. “Yum,” I said, my mouth full. “So … what’s up?”
Jeremiah looked at Conrad hopefully. “Con?”
“You guys should head out soon, if you want to miss the Fourth of July traffic,” Conrad said, and it killed me to see the look on Jeremiah’s face.
“We’re not leaving without you,” Jeremiah told him.
Conrad exhaled. “Look, Jere, I appreciate you coming here. But as you can see, I’m fine. I’ve got everything under control.”
“Like hell you do. Con, if you’re not back on Monday for your exams, you’re out. The only reason you’re even taking summer school is those incompletes from last semester. If you don’t go back, then what?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure things out.”
“You keep saying that, but dude, you haven’t figured out shit. All you’ve done so far is run away.”
The way Conrad glared at him, I knew that Jeremiah had said the right thing. Conrad’s old value system was still there, buried underneath the anger. The old Conrad would never give up.
It was my turn to say something. I took a breath and said, “So, how are you going to become a doctor without a college degree, Conrad?”
He did a double take, and then he stared at me. I stared right back. Yeah, I said it. I would say whatever I had to, even if it hurt him.
It was something I’d learned from watching Conrad in pretty much every game we’d ever played. At the first sign of weakness, you attack full force. You strike and you use every weapon in your arsenal, and you don’t let up. No mercy.
“I never said I was going to be a doctor,” he snapped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then tell us,” I said, and my heart was beating so fast.
No one spoke. For a minute, I thought he might really let us in.
And then finally, Conrad stood up. “There’s nothing to tell. I’m gonna head back out there. Thanks for the dirt bombs, Jere.” To me, he said, “You have sugar all over your face.” And just like that, he was up and sliding the porch door open.
When he was gone, Jeremiah shouted, “Shit!”
I said, “I thought you were gonna work on him!” It came out sounding more accusing than I meant it.
“You can’t push Conrad too hard, he just shuts down,” Jeremiah said, crumbling up the paper bag.
“He’s already shut down.”
I looked over at Jeremiah and he looked so defeated. I felt like bad for snapping at him. So I reached out and touched his arm, and said, “Don’t worry. We still have time. It’s only Saturday, right?”
“Right,” he said, but he didn’t say it like he meant it.
Neither of us said anything more. Like always, it was Conrad who dictated the mood of the house, how everyone else felt. Nothing would feel right again until things were right with Conrad.
chapter twenty-one
The first time it hit me that day was when I was in the bathroom, washing the sugar off my face. There was no towel hanging up, so I opened the linen closet, and on the row below the beach towels, there was Susannah’s big floppy hat. The one she wore every time she sat on the beach. She was careful with her skin. Was.
Not thinking about Susannah, consciously not thinking about her, made it easier. Because then she wasn’t really gone. She was just off someplace else. That was what I’d been doing since she died. Not thinking about her. It was easier to do at home. But here, at the summer house, she was everywhere.
I picked her hat up, held it for a second, and then put it back on the shelf. I closed the door, and my chest hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe. It was too hard. Being there, in this house, was too hard.
I ran up the stairs as fast as I could. I took off Conrad’s necklace and I changed out of my clothes and into Taylor’s bikini. I didn’t care how stupid I looked in it. I just wanted to be in the water. I wanted to be where I didn’t have to think about anything, where nothing else existed. I would swim, and float, and breathe in and out, and just be.
My old Ralph Lauren teddy bear towel was in the linen closet just like always. I put it around my shoulders like a blanket and headed outside. Jeremiah was eating an egg sandwich and swigging from a carton of milk. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey. I’m going to swim.” I didn’t ask where Conrad was, and I didn’t invite Jeremiah to join me. I needed a moment just by myself.
I pushed the sliding door open and closed it without waiting for him to answer me. I threw my towel onto a chair and swan-dived in. I didn’t come up for air right away. I stayed down under; I held my breath until the very last second.
When I came up, I felt like I could breathe again, like my muscles were relaxing. I swam back and forth, back and forth. Here, nothing e
lse existed. Here, I didn’t have to think. Each time I went under, I held my breath for as long as I could.
Under water, I heard Jeremiah call my name. Reluctantly I came up to the surface, and he was crouching by the side of the pool. “I’m gonna go out for a while. Maybe I’ll pick up a pizza at Nello’s,” he said, standing up.
I pushed my hair out of my eyes. “But you just ate a sandwich. And you had all those dirt bombs.”
“I’m a growing boy. And that was an hour and a half ago.”
An hour and a half ago? Had I been swimming for an hour and a half? It felt like minutes. “Oh,” I said. I examined my fingers. They were totally pruned.
“Carry on,” Jeremiah said, saluting me.
Kicking off the side of the pool, I said, “See ya.” Then I swam as quick as I could to the other side and flip-turned, just in case he was still watching. He’d always admired my flip turns.
I stayed in the pool for another hour. When I came up for air after my last lap, I saw that Conrad was sitting in the chair where I’d left my towel. He held it out to me silently.
I climbed out of the pool. Suddenly I was shivering. I took the towel from him and wrapped it around my body. He did not look at me. “Do you still pretend you’re at the Olympics?” he asked me.
I started, and then I shook my head and sat down next to him. “No,” I said, and the word hung in the air. I hugged my knees to my chest. “Not anymore.”
“When you swim,” he started to say. I thought he wasn’t going to continue, but then he said, “You wouldn’t notice if the house was on fire. You’re so into what you’re doing, it’s like you’re someplace else.”
He said it with grudging respect. Like he’d been watching me for a long time, like he’d been watching me for years. Which I guess he had.
I opened my mouth to respond, but he was already standing up, going back into the house. As he closed the sliding door, I called out, “That’s why I like it.”
chapter twenty-two
I was back in my room, about to change out of my bikini when my phone rang. It was Steven’s ringtone, a Taylor Swift song he pretended to hate but secretly loved. For a second, I thought about not answering. But if I didn’t pick up, he’d only call back until I did. He was annoying that way.
“Hello?” I said it like a question, like I didn’t already know it was Steven.
“Hey,” he said. “I don’t know where you are, but I know you’re not with Taylor.”
“How do you know that?” I whispered.
“I just ran into her at the mall. She’s worse than you at lying. Where the hell are you?”
I bit my upper lip and I said, “At the summer house. In Cousins.”
“What?” he sort of yelled. “Why?”
“It’s kind of a long story. Jeremiah needed my help with Conrad.”
“So he called you?” My brother’s voice was incredulous and also the tiniest bit jealous.
“Yeah.” He was dying to ask me more, but I was banking on the fact that his pride wouldn’t let him. Steven hated being left out. He was silent for a moment, and in those seconds, I knew he was wondering about all the summer house stuff we were doing without him.
At last he said, “Mom’s gonna be so pissed.”
“What do you care?”
“I don’t care, but Mom will.”
“Steven, chill out. I’ll be home soon. We just have to do one last thing.”
“What last thing?” It killed him that I knew something he didn’t, that for once, he was the odd man out. I thought I’d take more pleasure in it, but I felt oddly sorry for him.
So instead of gloating the way I normally would, I said, “Conrad took off from summer school and we have to get him back in time for midterms on Monday.”
That would be the last thing I would do for him. Get him to school. And then he’d be free, and so would I.
After Steven and I got off the phone, I heard a car pull up in front of the house. I looked out the window and there was a red Honda, a car I didn’t recognize. We almost never had visitors at the summer house.
I dragged a comb through my hair and hurried down the stairs with my towel wrapped around me. I stopped when I saw Conrad open the door, and a woman walked in. She was petite, with bleached blond hair that was in a messy bun, and she wore black pants and a silk coral blouse. Her fingernails were painted to match. She had a big folder in her hand and a set of keys.
“Well, hello there,” she said. She was surprised to see him, as if she was the one who was supposed to be there and he wasn’t.
“Hello,” Conrad said. “Can I help you?”
“You must be Conrad,” she said. “We spoke on the phone. I’m Sandy Donatti, your dad’s real estate agent.”
Conrad said nothing.
She wagged her finger at him playfully. “You told me your dad changed his mind about the sale.”
When Conrad still said nothing, she looked around and saw me standing at the bottom of the stairs. She frowned and said, “I’m just here to check on the house, make sure everything’s coming along and getting packed up.”
“Yeah, I sent the movers away,” Conrad said casually.
“I really wish you hadn’t done that,” she said, her lips tight. When Conrad shrugged, she added, “I was told the house would be empty.”
“You were given erroneous information. I’ll be here for the rest of the summer.” He gestured at me. “That’s Belly.”
“Belly?” she repeated.
“Yup. She’s my girlfriend.”
I think I choked out loud.
Crossing his arms and leaning against the wall, he continued. “And you and my dad met how?”
Sandy Donatti flushed. “We met when he decided to put the house up for sale,” she snapped.
“Well, the thing is, Sandy, it’s not his house to sell. It’s my mother’s house, actually. Did my dad tell you that?”
“Yes.”
“Then I guess he also told you she’s dead.”
Sandy hesitated. Her anger seemed to evaporate at the mention of dead mothers. She was so uncomfortable, she was shifting toward the door. “Yes, he did tell me that. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
Conrad said, “Thank you, Sandy. That means a lot, coming from you.”
Her eyes darted around the room one last time. “Well, I’m going to talk things over with your dad and then I’ll be back.”
“You do that. Make sure you let him know the house is off the market.”
She pursed her lips and then opened her mouth to speak, but thought better of it. Conrad opened the door for her, and then she was gone.
I let out a big breath. A million thoughts were running through my head—I’m ashamed to say that girlfriend was pretty near the top of the list. Conrad didn’t look at me when he said, “Don’t tell Jeremiah about the house.”
“Why not?” I asked. My mind was still lingering on the word “girlfriend.”
He took so long to answer me that I was already walking back upstairs when he said, “I’ll tell him about it. I just don’t want him to know yet. About our dad.”
I stopped walking. Without thinking I said, “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.” Conrad looked at me, his eyes steady.
I suppose I did know. He wanted to protect Jeremiah from the fact that his dad was an asshole. But it wasn’t like Jeremiah didn’t already know who his dad was. It wasn’t like Jeremiah was some dumb kid without a clue. He had a right to know if the house was for sale.
I guessed Conrad read all of this on my face, because he said in that mocking, careless way of his, “So can you do that for me, Belly? Can you keep a secret from your BFF Jeremiah? I know you two don’t keep secrets from each other, but can you handle it just this once?”
When I glared at him, all ready to tell him what he could do with his secret, he said,
“Please?” and his voice was pleading.
So I said, “All right. For now.”
“Thank you,” he said, and he brushed past me and headed upstairs. His bedroom door closed, and the air conditioning kicked on.
I stayed put.
It took a minute for everything to sink in. Conrad didn’t just run away to surf. He didn’t run away for the sake of running away. He came to save the house.
chapter twenty-three
Later that afternoon Jeremiah and Conrad went surfing again. I thought maybe Conrad wanted to tell him about the house, just the two of them. And maybe Jeremiah wanted to try and talk to Conrad about school again, just the two of them. That was fine by me. I was content just watching.
I watched them from the porch. I sat in a deck chair with my towel wrapped tight around me. There was something so comforting and right about coming out of the pool wet and your mom putting a towel around your shoulders, like a cape. Even without a mother there to do it for you, it was good, cozy. Achingly familiar in a way that made me wish I was still eight. Eight was before death or divorce or heartbreak. Eight was just eight. Hot dogs and peanut butter, mosquito bites and splinters, bikes and boogie boards. Tangled hair, sunburned shoulders, Judy Blume, in bed by nine thirty.
I sat there thinking those melancholy kinds of thoughts for a long while. Someone was barbecuing; I could smell charcoal burning. I wondered if it was the Rubensteins, or maybe it was the Tolers. I wondered if they were grilling burgers, or steak. I realized I was hungry.
I wandered into the kitchen but I couldn’t find anything to eat. Just Conrad’s beer. Taylor told me once that beer was just like bread, all carbohydrates. I figured that even though I hated the taste of it, I might as well drink it if it’d fill me up.
So I took one and walked back outside with it. I sat back down on my deck chair and popped the top off the can. It snapped very satisfyingly. It was strange to be in this house alone. Not a bad feeling, just a different one. I’d been coming to this house my whole life and I could count on one hand the number of times I’d been alone in it. I felt older now. Which I suppose I was, but I guess I didn’t remember feeling old last summer.
