First and Tension

by Tara Sivec

  “After four years away, I just forgot how quiet and dead it is around here this time of year, right before everything opens back up for the summer. I only had one phone call today asking about cottage rental prices, and only two of our twenty-four cottages are currently inhabited. I’m just so used to being on the go all the time and busy. I’ll get my shit together soon, I promise,” I ramble, still staring at the ceiling, wishing I could just blurt out the truth and get it over with. “I was so bored today I spent two hours teaching myself the rap in ‘No Scrubs.’”

  “No shit?” Wren mutters, resting her elbows on the other side of the counter.

  I pop my head back up to look at her, finally pushing up from the chair to lean forward to rest my elbows on the counter with her.

  “No shit. I don’t know who thought putting acquisition and Expedition together was a good idea, but let me tell you—”

  “Emily, stop,” Wren cuts me off. “I wasn’t exactly praising you for your… thrilling achievement.”

  I scoff at her nerve, but she doesn’t even give me a chance to insult her back before she continues.

  “The intervention comment was probably over the top, but something has definitely been up with you ever since you’ve been back, and it’s not just boredom, so cut the shit. When you’re bored, you get up and move and make up dance routines to the last commercial jingle you heard, or you challenge my son to a basketball game of PIG, or you move to California on a dare, or you take over the world. You’re not quiet all the time, sitting around on your ass, staring at your phone or blankly out the window, looking like you’re seconds away from bursting into tears. Which is pretty much how your face always looks when you think no one is paying attention to you lately. You seemed to have forgotten after your years away that you’re my ride or die. I’m always paying attention to you.”

  I will not burst into tears. I will not burst into tears….

  Wren slides her arms across the counter until they bump into mine, grabbing my hands and giving them a squeeze before she continues.

  “I haven’t said anything, because I just thought it was taking some time for you to readjust from living in the big city for so long, but this is more than that. You quit cheerleading to come back home, but you don’t seem very happy about that decision now that you’re here. Aren’t you happy being home?”

  And there it is. The reason why I haven’t told anyone the truth. That look on Wren’s face right now that says she would be crushed if I told her I’m not as happy to be back here on this island as she is to have me back. Or the same look I know I’d see on my parents’ faces if I told them I would rather do anything else for a living than run Sandbar Cottages.

  Feeling like this hurts my soul and makes me feel like the worst friend and daughter in the world that I just don’t know how to be completely happy here. I do love being home, and seeing Wren’s smiling face, and being a part of everyone’s lives again in real-time instead of over a phone call, or a text, or finding out something on social media because they forgot to call and tell me. Like the first time Wren’s son Owen hit a grand slam at one of his baseball games.

  I’m happy when I’m with my friends and can be a part of their lives. It’s just the times when they have their men to go home to, or careers they’re excited to get back to, or kids to take care of… things I don’t have to occupy my time and make me forget that I’m not where I want to be, doing what I want to do.

  “Of course I’m happy.” I smile at Wren. “I’m always happy when you kick down the door of my parents’ business and interrupt my workday with your sparkling personality.”

  Technically, I’m not lying. I’m with my friend—ergo, I am happy.

  Wren doesn’t return my smile. She just stares me down long enough that I start to fidget before she pulls her phone out of the front pocket of one of her many hoodies with the Dip and Twist logo on it—her family’s ice cream shop she runs with her mom. Another twinge of guilt hits me, wishing I could love my family business as much as Wren does.

  “Shut down the computer, turn off the lights, and lock up. I’ll drive,” she orders as she taps at the screen of her phone and then brings it up to her ear before turning away from me to head back to the wide-open door she didn’t bother to close when she burst in here.

  “Seriously?” I mutter as she just marches away from me, expecting me to do what she demands.

  “Birdie, call Tess and meet me at the Dip and Twist,” Wren speaks into her phone as she pauses in the doorway to dig into the pocket of her jean shorts for her golf cart keys. “We need an emergency Sip and Bitch, stat.”

  Awww hell…

  “Don’t you have a hot, ex-pro baseball player waiting for you at home and a growing teenage boy who needs dinner?” I ask hopefully while she listens to whatever her sister is saying to her on the phone and then looks back over her shoulder at me.

  “Shepherd and Owen are at baseball practice, and then he’s taking Owen over to the mainland for tacos, because according to my fifteen-year-old, ‘The tacos on this island aren’t bussin’.’ Whatever the fuck that means. We’ve got all night; don’t you worry about me.”

  With that, she goes back to her conversation with Birdie and walks out onto the front porch of the office. With a sigh, I get up from my chair and do what Wren demands.

  One does not just deny a Sip and Bitch order, even if one knows all the bitching is going to be about her.

  I’ve always been the best at putting a smile on my face, even when everything around me is a dumpster fire. No one wants to see a cheerleader lose her shit on the sidelines. That’s just not good for morale. Looks like I’ve lost my touch, and I haven’t been faking it until I make it very well.

  Guess it’s time to end my five-month ban on tequila… and figure out a way to tell my friends the truth without them hating me.

  “Fuck you, fuck you, and definitely fuck you.”

  For the first time today, my mouth breaks into a real, genuine smile instead of a fake one, when me, Wren, and her sister Birdie all arrive at the Dip and Twist at the same time, greeted by our friend Tess in her usual fashion.

  “It’s always a pleasure to see you, Tess.” I laugh as she hands the three of us our boozy slushes when we climb up next to her onto the purple picnic table we carved our names into as kids.

  The purple picnic table in a sea of brightly painted picnic tables under a large awning attached to the side of the Dip and Twist building, which the entire island knows to keep open at all times for us, in case the need for a Sip and Bitch should occur. Thankfully, it’s still the offseason and it’s dinnertime, so there’s only one other customer here. The odds are pretty good Tess didn’t have to threaten anyone with bodily injury who might not know the rules of the purple picnic table.

  “I hope you’re all happy drinking in front of me while I sit here dying,” Tess complains as we slurp noisily on our slushes that are filled with more booze than fruity syrup and crushed ice, just how we like them.

  “You’re not dying; you’re pregnant,” Birdie reminds Tess, brushing her blonde hair out of her eyes before reaching over and resting her hand on Tess’s rapidly growing, six-month baby bump.

  “Same thing,” Tess grumbles, smacking Birdie’s hand away to place her own over her belly, giving it a loving rub, regardless of her annoyed words. “Whoever taught my husband how to read should be torched. He won’t let me color my hair, he won’t let me have coffee, and he won’t allow me within fifteen feet of open flames because of smoke inhalation. He’s basically removed all joy from my life. I am the walking dead with my roots showing.”

  No one was more surprised than… well, everyone, when strong, independent, hard-ass, “I’m never getting married or having kids” Tess Powell called us the week of Christmas, during a getaway her boyfriend Bodhi took her on to a bed and breakfast in the mountains of West Virginia, to say they were eloping, and they were having a baby. Even though her glare alone during every Sip and Bitch recently c
ould light a small building on fire, I’ve never seen Tess happier or more content. All thanks to a pothead golf caddie who absolutely adores her and worships the ground she walks on.

  “All right, who else wants to start bitching, now that we’re sipping?” I ask around the straw still shoved in my mouth, pleased that Tess unknowingly ended my tequila ban for me and didn’t give me the same vodka slush everyone else has.

  I just won’t think about the last time I had tequila, now will I? It’s safer for my sanity this way.

  My friends all just stare at me while they sip their drinks, aside from Tess, who holds her arm straight out to the side, slowly pouring her bottle of water out and muttering “Fuck this water bullshit” under her breath.

  “Come on, Birdie,” I urge with a chin lift in her direction. “You’re tits-deep in wedding planning for this summer. I’m sure you have something to bitch about. Is Palmer still insisting everything at the reception be golf-themed? That must suck, huh?”

  Birdie answers me by slurping her drink, so I turn my head toward Wren.

  “I know Shepherd just proposed, but I’m sure he’s been annoying you, trying to set a wedding date, when you just want to enjoy being engaged for a while, right?”

  Another loud slurp with no verbal reply.

  “Tess? Want to complain some more about how much you have to pee now, or how fat your ankles are, or something? Anything? Anyone?” I beg, looking around at all the blank faces, butterflies flapping around in my stomach while I try to quickly drown them with frozen, grapey tequila.

  “Yeah, sooo, we’re only here because of you and all the bitching you’ve clearly kept bottled up for five months, looking all sad when you think no one is watching,” Birdie informs me.

  Goddammit.

  Wren just shrugs when I frown at her.

  “I didn’t say one word to them. They have both come to me several times and asked what the hell has been up with you. I’m not the only one who cares about you, so spill it. Tell us what’s wrong, and don’t lie, or I’ll go against Bodhi’s wishes, give Tess a lighter, and set her loose.”

  Tess forcefully shoves my upper body back with her arm so she can see Wren on the other side of me.

  “You have a lighter? On you right now? Can I touch it? Smell it? Just let me look at it! Come on, Bodhi will never know,” Tess begs, folding her hands together under her chin and bouncing up and down on top of the table.

  Her phone immediately chimes twice with two incoming texts, and we all lean forward to look when she picks it up from the table on the other side of her.

  Bodhi: Text me as soon as you leave the Dip and Twist so I know how long it will be before you get home so I don’t worry.

  Bodhi: And no lighters! Love you bunches!

  “Fuck… you,” Tess says as she types those exact words to her husband, quickly hitting Send before putting her phone back down. But not before glancing at the gorgeous, Oregon sunstone surrounded by red and orange sapphires on the third finger of her left hand with a huge smile on her face.

  All my friends’ rings are blinding under the glow of the florescent lights at the Dip and Twist, making it hard to keep my eyes off them. Palmer Campbell, pro golfer and Birdie’s childhood crush, proposed at the San Francisco Open on national television last summer.

  Shephard Oliver, former pro baseball player and current high school baseball coach of Owen’s team here on the island, proposed to Wren with a platinum band with what looks like red baseball stitching engraved all around it and a giant ruby surrounded by diamonds in the center. He asked Wren to marry him out in centerfield, the spot where he used to famously play, when they went on a tour of a few college ball fields, planning for Owen’s future. And where they officially started their future together. Shephard got down on his knee in front of Wren and Owen in the middle of the outfield, promising to love and take care of both of them forever. Thankfully, he had one of the college coaches record the whole thing, and we’ve all watched and cried happy tears over it a hundred times since it happened.

  Not for the first time since I’ve been home, a rush of jealousy washes through me, and I hate it. I’m deliriously happy for my friends, but sometimes, I just wonder, why not me? And that sucks. And that also makes this tequila slush go down entirely too easy.

  “All right, no more interruptions. Spill it,” Wren orders me again. “We love you, and we just can’t handle watching you sit around not doing anything for—”

  “Um, hello?” I stop her. “Did you miss the part where I told you I taught myself the rap in ‘No Scrubs’?”

  “No shit?” Tess asks. “That’s hard, what with acquisition and Expedition so close to each other.”

  “That’s what I’m saying!”

  “Oh my God, Emily Jean Flanagan, quit stalling!” Wren shouts in her stern mom-voice. “What the hell is going on with you, and don’t lie!”

  “Just tell us, come on!”

  “You’ve been keeping it in long enough!”

  “It can’t be as bad as you think. Spill it!”

  “If you don’t give us the goods, I will rip out your throat with my bare hands and dance in your blood in the moonlight!”

  Everyone slowly turns to stare at Tess with wide eyes, while her shoulders droop and her lip starts to quiver.

  “I just really miss fire, you guys,” she whines before Wren and Birdie start back in on me at the same time.

  “Just tell us what the—”

  “I didn’t quit being a Vipers cheerleader and decide it was time for me to come home. I got fired and had to come home!” I finally shout to get them to stop nagging me and to finally get it off my chest. “That job paid for shit, but it paid more than my waitressing and dog-walking jobs I also had to take in order to be able to afford to live there, sooo…. You know, just one of the many things I begged management to make better for the girls and then got fired over, because I guess fair treatment for female athletes is frowned upon.”

  “Oh, Em…,” Wren whispers, immediately scooting closer and wrapping her arm around my shoulders.

  “I’m trying to be happy. I am,” I tell them, looking down at my now-empty cup as I start picking at some of the Styrofoam around the lip of it. “It’s just… I didn’t make the decision to come back; it was made for me. And I’m so sorry I lied to you guys. I don’t know… I guess having the choice taken out of my hands just makes it harder to accept, because I wasn’t ready to be done with that part of my life yet. And I don’t want you to think I don’t adore being here with you guys, because I do. I want Summersweet to be my home; I just don’t want it to be my everything. I want to be able to leave and experience other places, then have a home to come back to, where I can let my hair down and be myself. And I hate that I’m hurting your feelings by admitting this, when you guys love everything about being here all the time, and I hate that it would break my parents’ hearts if they knew. My life is just a mess, and you guys all have your shit together and men who adore you, and I’m just sad, and alone, and so. Fucking. Bored.”

  Everyone sits quietly, processing everything I just admitted, while I sniffle and swipe at my stupid tears as I slip down off the picnic table. No one says a word as I walk over to the pick-up window, grabbing three more boozy slushes that Laura, Wren and Birdie’s mom, just made for us and left on the counter while she’s closing up inside. I hold my breath and wait for them to start yelling at me as I hand out the slushes, avoiding Tess’s angry, snapping teeth when I give her another water.

  “Is that it?” Wren finally asks, making me choke on the big gulp of tequila slush I just took.

  Once I finish coughing and take another giant sip of my slush to ease the pain in my throat and the shock to my brain, I finally remember how to speak.

  “Huh?” I ask oh-so eloquently.

  “Well, aside from the firing part, which I’m assuming will require a plane ride to California to kick someone’s ass, we already know all of that about you, Emily,” Wren says with a smile and
a shrug as Birdie and Tess nod in agreement. “We’ve known ever since the day we met you that you were destined for something much bigger and better than this island. We know Summersweet is just a stopping place before you move on to something more exciting. Watching you completely own it out there the last four years just proved it.”

  “We’re just happy to have you here, for however long you stay, and we’ll always be here waiting for you to come back,” Birdie adds.

  “You’ve spent your entire life cheering all of us on,” Tess reminds me, making me sniffle back more tears. “Do you know how fucking awesome it is to be able to cheer you on every time you do something cool that we’re insanely jealous of? Dude, you were on an episode of Hell’s Kitchen one time when the show requested a few Vipers cheerleaders at dinner service, and that’s on the low-end of cool things you’ve done. You’re living the life all of us wish we could have, but we don’t have the balls to, and we’re just sitting around, excited to see what you’re going to do next.”

  Flopping my ass on the bench seat next to Wren and Tess’s legs, I thunk my head down on the table in front of me, feeling like an idiot that I wasn’t just honest with them from the very beginning.

  “I love you guys. I hate to break it to you, but I’m not going to do anything exciting next, except change jizz-stained sheets in the cottages while I wait to die alone,” I complain, with my face still pressed into the table.

  “Awww, cheer up! You still have Ryan,” Tess jokes, making all of us groan and me lift my head to snarl at her. “And besides, you don’t change the jizz-stained sheets; you organize the schedule for someone else to change them. Six degrees of jizz separation and all that.”

  “Hilarious,” I deadpan, while Wren gives me more life advice.

  “Seriously, you have got to put an end to these weekly dinners with Ryan. Where you both politely avoid talking about anything important and continue to do this weird ‘are we Amish-dating or are we friends’ thing, where no one is sticking their tongue down anyone’s throat or getting laid,” she reminds me. “All because you don’t want to hurt his feelings and tell him the spark fizzled out long before you even moved away, and trying to pick up where you left off once you got back, like you always do, is pointless. Put an end to it so you stop feeling guilty about diddling yourself every time you look at Quinn Bagley’s poster hanging on your bedroom wall, fantasizing about the night you spent with him before you moved back here.”