“I’m gonna hit the shower.” My dad gives her a look.
I squirm and am all about getting the ginger.
“You can take the car, honey,” my mom offers.
“Nah, I’ll ride.” It’ll take me longer. I glide past Teddy’s house, slowing down with the question of whether I should rescue him and bring him along. Never mind, he’ll just harass me about calling Grady.
The remaining wind from the storm earlier blows my hair back behind me as I roll toward the market, comparing and contrasting my parents’ lunacy with Teddy’s parents’ stolidness. Is that a word? I’ll have to look it up. If it isn’t, it should mean a blend of stoic and solid, in other words cold, bland, and anti-Teddy.
If Teddy fits in with Autumn and Kurt, I'm not sure where I belong. I feel boring, like the Westings, but I’m also warm, friendly, and understanding. Joss belongs to the Wohl and Breuk tribe, for sure. Her parents are probably old punks with a huge collection of vinyl. When I was born, my parents had the snazzy idea to compound their last names to Wohlbreuk. But I don’t feel like a Wohl or a Breuk. I'm not sure what that makes me. The remaining wallpaper lining my interior bubbles and peels. And that bright red sofa, I've never seen it before, but I suppose it looks comfortable enough. I didn't ask for this change.
I pop into the market and grab a gnarled nob of ginger.
At the counter, Lucy Chang, the owner, greets me, “So nice to see you, Willa. What are your parents making for dinner tonight? Let me guess, a stir-fry? I have some lemongrass they would like.”
I pull a face suggesting she probably wouldn’t survive one of their creations. “Not sure.”
“Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Moments later, Mrs. Chang reappears with a bundle of what looks like stunted palm leaves. She hands them to me with a smile. "It's almost graduation. Where are you off to next year?”
This question makes me want to stick all the pieces of gum on the counter into my mouth so I can't answer. “Not sure.”
“Wayne is going to MIT. We’re so proud. Whatever you decide, I’m sure you’ll make your mom and dad very happy.” She turns to the cash register, but not before I notice the quizzical look on her face matches my own. The question about what I'll be doing next year looms gigantic and vaporous like the planet Jupiter. I had a space obsession when I was little. Science has always fascinated me. "That'll be ninety cents, please,” she says.
I hand her a dollar and rush out of the store. Across the street, the beach stretches wide and the crashing waves promise to mash the mounting uncertainty out of me. The stubborn question that has been dogging me for months rears up how do I know where to go if I don’t know where I am or who I am or what I want to do?
I kick off my sneakers, pad across the soft and blowing sand to the hard pack, and let the frigid water of the Atlantic graze my toes.
A single figure dots the horizon, straddling a surfboard. I turn my gaze farther. I inhale. Thoughts melt away.
I close my eyes; Joss inhabits my inner vision wearing a thin tank top. A strap falls off her smooth shoulder. She doesn’t bother to fix it. The curve of her chest rises and falls as she steps toward me, then she pulls me close, and puts her lips on mine. I stagger backwards. I exhale as someone catches me before I fall into the sand.
“Hey, watch it there.”
I whip my head around; the area between my legs matches the blaze of heat that sweeps across my cheeks.
Grady stands with the low hanging sun at his back and his slick wetsuit dripping. He runs his hand though his damp hair.
“Whatcha doing here?” I ask as if it isn't obvious. The waves on my internal shores crash, forming a tsunami.
“Surfing. Clearing my head. Catching you from falling. You okay?”
Oh, I've already fallen. Three words: His Royal Hotness. I clear my throat. “Yeah, I'm fine. Lost my balance,” I offer pathetically.
He tears the Velcro strap from his ankle, wraps it around his board, and gestures down the beach toward the rocky pools that Teddy and I used to explore nearly every afternoon when the tide was low. I cajole my legs into forward motion.
“I can’t believe we only have two weeks left,” he says.
I can't believe I'm talking to you. I clear my throat again. “Actually thirteen days,” I say, correcting him.
“Are you going to tell me the hours and minutes remaining too?” He laughs.
“I’m not that enthusiastic about leaving,” I blurt.
“I figured you were. Sorry—”
“No, I mean I am, but I’m not. Actually I don’t know—”
He stops, the laughter gone from his eyes. “Seriously, I know exactly what you mean.”
“Huh?”
“I mean I think I get it. For the last four years, it’s like we’ve been racing to the finish line, graduation. Some of us are sprinting now, but I don’t know, I want or need to slow down. It's like I'm sucking wind or something."
“Yeah, that. Exactly,” I say, relieved someone understands. “I feel like I’m being pulled along toward graduation, but at the same time I’m kind of digging in my heels against…"
"A deep undercurrent of uncertainty.”
“Well said.” I chuckle. “I’ve never been able to put it into words. I thought I was, like, the only one who felt that way. The weirdo who lives in the weird house—”
“Your house isn’t weird. It’s actually wicked cool.”
“You sound like Teddy. I mean Theo.” I backpedal, because the truth is everyone thinks Teddy is weird even though he has it way more together than me. I get a pass because I don’t look the part. Then in a sudden rush of verbal diarrhea, I say this aloud.
“Willa, we’re all a bunch of weirdos,” Grady says.
I want to say, "No, you're in the cool crowd." There's probably an engraved plaque somewhere in Puckett that says as much. Then his lopsided smile comes into focus. The drips coming off his wet hair dazzle in the remaining sunlight, and I hear him say the word weirdos, all over again in my head like it means babe or hottie.
Grady laughs and then kicks a splash of water at me. I splash him back and we race toward the tide pools as he yells, “I’m already weird. I mean wet.”
My shirt is soaked and it should be noted that a wet gray T-shirt is just as unforgiving as a white one.
“Teddy and I used to come down here and pretend we were marine biologists.” Wow, Willa. Mature and cool. Good job confirming the true caliber of my weirdness.
“Is that what you’re going to study, marine biology?” Grady asks.
“Uh, no. Hey, look a nudibranch!” I call, excited and not caring if I slip on the rocks as I splash closer to the little creature I spotted in a nearby pool.
“A what?” he says, scrambling after me.
“Nudibranch. N-U-D-I-B-R-A-N-C-H.” I spell it because it won me the spelling bee in fourth grade. And because farts and words like that are still funny. It's my father's fault. “A new-dee-brank,” I say, helpfully emphasizing the syllables. I squat and gently stir the tide pool. “There it is. See that coral and white creature that looks kind of like a slug with hair or tons of antennae?”
Just inches away from me, Grady peers into the pool. I smell sunblock, salt, and boy. “Cool,” he says, gazing intently at the pool and then my hand, my shoulder, and my face.
I blink my eyes back to the nudibranch. “They’re really rare. Teddy and I spent years looking for them. We always hoped to see the colorful kind, but they live in tropical waters and are poisonous. The ones around here are more neutral toned. The cool thing is nudibranchs are hybrid. They can walk and swim. Fish, obviously do their thing with the fins and all and regular gastropods can only inch along.” When I look up, Grady stares at me with sparkling eyes. “Sorry, I’m totally babbling.” And a certified weirdo, which despite what he said, he is not.
“Hey, look, there’s a starfish,” he says.
We move to another pool. Our heads brush softly and then our hands tou
ch as we both reach in to shift aside some seaweed. A zing jolts from my hand through the circuitry of my chest before landing below my belly. I rock back on my feet, steadying myself on the uneven rocks.
“Sea Star,” I say. “S-E-A—” He interrupts what might be me trying to flirt. It’s still in research and development so I can’t be totally sure. Remember, I'm new at this.
“Sea Star?”
“They’re not fish. So Sea Star. Just like a ladybug isn’t a bug, it’s a beetle. Lady beetle. Or if you want to get really technical lady and gentleman beetles.”
Grady looks up at me with a smirk. “I love getting technical.”
I leave his comment floating in the air. Love. Technical. Like penises and vaginas technical or science technical? He was in my junior year earth science class, and I doubt his future lies in geology. As for me, the organized and sensible study of science is fascinating and so is he.
He stands. I stand. He looks at me. I bite my lip and gaze down at the incoming tide. He brushes a stray hair in my face back behind my shoulder, and I look up, trying to pretend my shudder is from a gust of wind. The air is still. So is my breath. “I, uh, better get this ginger back home.” I remove the warm root from my pocket. I’m still clutching the stiff lemongrass. The lemon and salty air refreshes my senses.
“Looks like a nudibranch.” He butchers the word as he points at the ginger root.
“Nudibran-k,” I say, once more emphasizing the correct pronunciation.
“Nudibrain?”
“Nudibranch,” I repeat.
“Nudibrunch.”
I elbow him teasingly and then he clobbers me playfully, and we’re both lying down in the sand. My heart threatens to pulse right out of my chest.
“I just wanted you to keep saying nudie.” He laughs.
“I know,” I whisper.
He leans close enough that I could count the sunbaked freckles on his nose, reminding me of Joss’s chocolate ones.
“I better go,” I say, pressing up to sitting.
He pulls me to my feet. His hand is rougher and bigger than Teddy’s, yet pruned from the salt water. It magnetizes me and I don’t want to let go, but I do. The waves take up conversation as they ebb and flow between us.
He grabs his board, and I veer inland to find my sneakers in the sand. He rambles on about his plans next year at BU. “Finance. Boring. I know. I figure I can always change majors.”
I don’t censor myself. “That does sound boring.”
“I agree, but I have a head for math and if I party too hard that first year, at least I won’t flunk out. I sometimes think about studying culinary arts or something else entirely, but I dunno. My parents and all that,” he says dismissively as if I understand. I don’t.
My parents are so freewheeling I’m not sure where my borders begin or end, what kind of flag I’ll fly from my dorm or what my future looks like at all. If I wanted to join a circus, they'd support me. If I aspired to go to the moon, my mom would work on improving the nutritional value of the freeze-dried food. My dad would talk to my boss, double check the safety gear, and confirm that I'll be home from space for our annual New Year's Eve Star Wars marathon.
Then we’re at my skateboard, stashed at the edge of the beach. “So, uh, see you around,” I say as I begin to roll away.
Footfalls on the sandy sidewalk catch up to me.
“Willa, can we, uh, actually see each other around?”
“Nudibranch,” I say with a smirk.
As I ride my board away, I let his question keep up with me, hoping "around" is sometime soon. At my back, the smile he wears casts its net over me, lifting my lips into a smile to match his.
Chapter Four
☼
Tuesday
The next morning, it's as if I'm still walking on the beach, reliving the strangely meaningful and flirtatious conversation I had with Grady O’Rourke at sundown. With every sand-caked fiber of my being, I resisted calling Teddy last night. But retaliation isn't satisfying when the person on the receiving end doesn't realize revenge is being exacted.
On the other hand, it's as though I'm slipping into an unfamiliar and troubling place where our friendship morphs and changes shape. I've never withheld anything from him before.
I shove a bathing suit in my backpack and rush outside to wait for Teddy with an extra smoothie, labeled Theo in my mother's writing—the letter O is in the shape of a little heart. My mom is so embarrassingly sweet sometimes.
The sun rises with a potent reminder that it’s a flaming, scorching ball of heat. Already sweating, I take a sip of my smoothie. She drew a heart around my name with little beams like sunshine. It's things like this that make the source of my dorkiness obvious. But I quietly thank her; the peanut butter banana smoothie despite all manner of green ingredients is delicious.
The summer bugs already buzz. Whoever paints the sky made quick work of erasing the clouds and filled it in with a rich shade of blue. I imagine what life is like in places where the sky is always this color, where it rarely rains, where life carries on at a constant instead of hanging on for dear life as if riding the spinning teacups. I let the sun soak my skin and warm my hair. The increasing heat reminds me vividly of Joss and Grady which leads me to questions about why humans pair off the way they do and how exactly nudibranchs mate. I think of the episode of Girls and wonder about having a husband or a wife. A Grady or a Joss. I slurp the last sip of my smoothie.
The slamming door of Teddy’s house knocks me out of my ponderings.
“Morning,” I say all rainbows and sunshine.
Teddy returns with a groan and a stormy expression.
I want to return to our version of normal, but I feel like I have a mouthful of peanut butter, minus the smoothie. I clear my throat. “Remember when we used to have walkie talkies?”
He’s silent.
“Then your mom confiscated yours.”
No reply.
“I still have all the notes we’d launch from window to window after the coast was clear and your mom and dad had gone to sleep.” I expect at least a laugh because on more than one occasion, we’d lose a note to the ground below and be terrified someone would find it the next morning before we had a chance to pick it up. Usually they were "would you rather" questions and they got pretty silly and disgusting. Then we started writing totally random things so if someone did find the notes they’d think there’d been an overnight alien invasion or something.
After that, we messaged via computer. When we got our own cell phones, we’d just text. Lately, it’s neither. And this silent treatment, or whatever, makes me feel like I’m drinking kombucha or pickle juice. I want to punish Teddy by keeping last night to myself, like he kept his news, but I don’t have that kind of SCOBY or vinegar in me. We’re best friends and even if he was the first to break the unwritten code, I remain an abiding citizen.
I take a lungful of grape juice scented air as I buckle up. “I one-upped your dare,” I say, unable to take his uncharacteristic quiet as he nears the ninety-seconds of silence mark. Today, I’m afraid he’ll surpass a minute-and-a-half.
His response is lost in thoughts or traffic.
“I talked to Grady last night,” I say more loudly.
“Yeah?” Teddy says, though his lazy drawl sounds halfhearted as if the smoothie isn't the same as caffeine.
“In person,” I add.
“You didn’t.”
“I did, Teddy. We walked along the beach at sunset, found a nudibranch, splashed, and rolled in the sand.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
“Scouts honor.” I hold up three fingers.
He narrows his eyes. “Eye color?”
I roll mine. “I’ve known that for four years. So have you. Rich brown. Like coffee.”
“Where’s he going to college?”
“BU.”
“Hot and smart. Okay, what did he think of the nudibranch?” Teddy asks with perfect pronunciation.
“H
e loved it.” Grady's gruff voice repeats the word nudie in my mind, sending me aquiver.
“Dang, it’s already eighty-five degrees,” Teddy says, glancing at the dash. “I forgot my swim trunks.”
“Heatwave.” My voice puddles. He may as well mop me off the floor from his lack of enthusiasm about my news.
When we pull into the lot, Joss practically parts traffic, walking with the confidence of a queen. I sizzle. Even if it wasn’t already hot, I’d still be molten. Then Grady walks by, wearing baggie shorts and a tee, and gives me a lazy smile. The sizzle turns into broiling.
“See, toldya.” I expected moderate gushing from Teddy or at least teasing about His Royal Hotness. Instead, I received silence and a change of subject to the weather of all things.
Joss is almost at the Grapesicle. It would be convenient if my chromosomes or DNA lined up, organized, and simplified my cells and brain neurons. It's like I'm using telemetry to figure out what's going on.
Joss or Grady. Girls or guys.
Much like my undecided chemistry, the fourth year student body couldn’t decide on a single senior prank for Muck-Up Day. It got out of hand, so now we live with the threat that there will be practical jokes appearing throughout these last weeks. I’m on guard, except today, this one I’m totally in on.
Heather rushes up to Teddy and me. “The bubbles were supposed to be last week, but Berlin couldn’t get the machine to work. So today, bubbles and the slip and slide.” She pauses for effect and adds, “In the halls.”
“No way. I thought it was on the football field.”
She pulls my T-shirt from my chest with her forefinger. I jump back and hug my arms close as I turn to apologize for knocking into someone.
“Gotcha,” Grady says, already shirtless. “Is this going to become a thing?” he asks, smiling at me.
Heather and Teddy cat their heads from him to me, him to me, him to me.
“Thanks,” I mumble, unable to flirt when under their watchful eyes.
“Better get to class,” Teddy says.
“Better put on that bikini,” Heather adds, winking at me.
I straighten myself, eager to rush to off, but Grady is still there, his hand clutching my arm. I look at it and then up at him. His eyes sparkle and his lips quirk.
Chasing Days Page 4
