The Summer of Letting Go

by Gae Polisner

  “It’s okay, I forgot a suit, anyway,” I say. “I’ll hang here. You guys go ahead without me.”

  Peter doesn’t seem to care either way. He whips off his shirt and follows Lisette toward the surf. When she gets there, she turns and yells, “Hey, Brad, aren’t you coming in with us?” I’m wondering the same thing, my heart beating fast, as he sloshes up next to me.

  “I’ll be in soon!” he yells back.

  I stare down, away, to anywhere but next to me.

  “So, it’s just us, then,” he says.

  I don’t answer because I’m finding it impossible to breathe.

  twenty-seven

  “Aren’t you going in?”

  Bradley looks at me, and I look at him, and there’s this weird, awkward moment where our eyes lock.

  “Nah. I’m going to hang back here and explore for a while. You want to come with me?”

  Yes! “Won’t Lisette mind?”

  He shrugs. “I doubt it.”

  I look down the beach after her, wondering what I should do. But Bradley is right. She’s already swimming out into the waves.

  We move to the edge of the inlet where it’s easier to slog along. My heart is having serious palpitations, which makes it hard for me to think.

  Why did Bradley stay back? Does he feel sorry for me?

  “Man, look at that!” He points up to where a large bird swoops overhead and disappears into the dunes. “You know what that was?” I shake my head, pretty sure it wasn’t a pelican. “That was a great blue heron! They don’t even live here; they build their rookeries on Gardiners Island, but they come here to feed.”

  “Rookeries?”

  “Yeah, nests. They have these huge nests they call rookeries. But not over here. Is it okay if we head in that direction?” He points away from the ocean toward the dunes.

  “Yeah, sure,” I say, barely managing two words.

  As we walk, Bradley points out plants and animals, amazing things I never knew existed here. Not just horseshoe crabs, but minuscule bugs that skim the very top of the water. He makes Long Island sound like some sort of exotic paradise. He points out eel grass (which grows in meadows and can grow up to four feet tall), eastern oysters (their pearls are pretty, but not worth much), and orange-billed winter cormorants (his favorite birds, even if they’re common, because they all stand facing in one direction, their beaks making goofy expressions). He tells me how when bluefish feed in a frenzy, it appears as if the water’s surface is boiling. He shows me how clamshells have rings that tell you their age, the same way a tree trunk does. As he talks and points and digs, his eyes sparkle, and it gets harder and harder to remind myself that he’s Lisette’s boyfriend rather than mine.

  Every few minutes, he wades deeper into the inlet to scoop up another handful of life-filled silt and sand.

  “See this?” he asks, pushing at a little white speck.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s a mole crab. They’re so small, you can’t tell which side is their head and which is their butt. So you have to watch how they walk. Because they walk backward, so, see, if I touch him like this, he goes that way, so his head is over here.”

  I try to watch as he pokes at it, but I’m lost in his lips and the sound of his words.

  “How do you know all this stuff?” I finally manage.

  “AP Biology. Mr. Barrett. Plus, I went to this camp in Florida one year. I thought I wanted to be a marine biologist.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you don’t anymore?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. I just think all this ocean stuff is cool.”

  “Oh.”

  “What do you like?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say, and for the first time in a long time, I realize how very true this is. I’m starting eleventh grade and I haven’t even thought about it. As if I have no permission to really want or care about anything. I guess I should start thinking about it soon. “I like the water,” I suddenly whisper. “And swimming. And I love my job with Frankie Sky.” Tears spring to my eyes when I say this, and I turn my head so he won’t see.

  He looks off across the inlet politely, letting me collect myself. “That’s so cool that you do,” he says finally. “So, are you thinking about your brother?”

  “Yes,” I say, “I guess I am.” I stop, but it’s not because I don’t want to tell him more about Simon. In fact, it surprises me how much I want to be open with him.

  “That must’ve been hard,” Bradley says, sloshing forward again. “My mom lost her brother, too, when she was, like, eight years old. He was only five, so it’s kind of like the same as what happened to you.” I nod, overwhelmed by his telling me this. I wonder if Lisette knows. “He died in a car crash. Her father was driving. My grandfather. My mother wasn’t in the car. She still remembers him to this day.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think you ever forget,” I say.

  He stops again and looks at me. My stomach churns, in a good way. “That was dumb of me,” he says. “I didn’t mean it like that, like you’d forget him. What I meant is she still misses him, like a lot, like every single day. And she’s forty-three, so I know it must be really, really hard.”

  I look down at the water.

  “Anyway.” He bumps my shoulder with his, nudging me to walk again. “I didn’t mean to be morbid. I can find you more mole crabs.” I laugh, and he smiles this cute sideways smile he has. After a while, he says, “Hey, you want to sit down for a minute?”

  I look back toward the ocean for Peter and Lisette, but we’ve walked so far, it’s hard to make out much from here except a few big boats dotting the horizon.

  “How far out do you think those guys are?”

  “No idea.”

  “How come you didn’t go with them?”

  “Me? I don’t know.” He steers us up toward the dunes. “I guess I’d rather be doing this.”

  The sand toward the dunes is warmer and feels good on my toes. I try to walk a few paces ahead of him to keep our shoulders from touching. Because I want them to be touching so badly.

  My mind races through everything—from his invitation to the movie and Lisette telling me he thinks I’m pretty, to the other day on my front stoop—but I can’t form a solid, reasonable thought.

  “Hey, hold up. Check this out!” He kicks at something in the sand, then leans down and fishes it out. “Wow, cool. Here, for you.” He places a flat, white disk in my hand.

  I blink at it. It’s a sand dollar.

  I feel light-headed at the sight of it and at the swirling sense that everything lately is unexplainable, bigger and more powerful than I am.

  “What?” he says. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s just that these things, they’re rare, and . . . Well, never mind. It’s stupid.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You want to know?”

  “I do if you want me to.” My heart goes tumbling when he says that.

  “It’s just that, when I was little, I was kind of obsessed with shells. I collected them. Nautilus shells, jingles, scallops, everything. But I didn’t have one of these. And I really wanted one, so I was always hunting for them. And, well, it’s what I was looking for the day my brother died.” My voice cracks, but I manage to keep back the tears. I’ve never told anyone that part, about the sand dollar, not even Lisette. I don’t know why I’m telling Bradley now.

  “Wow,” he says, “that’s pretty crazy.” I nod and swallow, closing my fingers around the perfect circle in my hand. “So, do you want to sit for a second?”

  “Yes, okay. I think I do,” I say.

  He drops down in the sand, and I sit next to him, my knees folded up, my arms wrapped around them. I open my palm and look at the sand dollar again. No doubt it is magical.

  “Are you okay, Frankie?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You seem so sad.”

  “I’m not sad.” My heart starts up again with all the
things I want to say. “Not now, anyway. It’s just that this summer, so far, it’s been the weirdest thing. Ever since it started.”

  “Weird how?”

  “Well, you said you believe in reincarnation, right?”

  A look crosses his face, confusion then recognition, like he remembers Lisette was asking for me. “I do,” he says. “I believe in lots of stuff like that. But definitely in karma and reincarnation.”

  “How come?”

  “Why not? I mean, take a computer. You plug it in, and there’s electricity in the wires, in the walls, so it runs. When you unplug it, the computer doesn’t run anymore, but the electricity is still there, right? It doesn’t just disappear. So I guess I think of our bodies like that, full of energy and information. And when we die, that has to go somewhere. So I think it does. It travels into another person’s body.”

  “Do you mean like a soul?”

  He shrugs. “I guess. Why are you asking me, Frankie?”

  I look him in the eyes, and it kills me how deeply he looks back at me. Like he really cares what I’m thinking.

  “I don’t know, exactly. Well, kind of I do. Promise you won’t think I’m crazy.” He nods. “Okay, this kid I’m watching . . .” I stop because my breath goes away. Because he’s resting his knee against mine.

  “Yeah?”

  Like, actually touching mine.

  “It’s just that this kid, he looks exactly like my brother. And his birthday—it’s the same day my brother died.” I pause and take a deep breath. “Which wouldn’t be that weird, except he was here, at this same beach, the day my brother died.”

  “Wow.”

  I nod, because I don’t know what else to say, because I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore, and I don’t really care, either, as long as I’m talking about it with Bradley.

  I stare out over the inlet, trying to ignore what his knee is doing to my stomach—oh, and his hand, which is also on my leg now—and figure out how I got sucked into this vortex. This horrible, wonderful, amazingly dizzying vortex.

  My sparkler wish flashes through my mind.

  “Like the Christmas Island crabs,” Bradley is saying. “Did you ever hear of them?”

  “The what?” I blush. I can barely think, let alone follow the conversation.

  “The red crab migrations.” He sits up straighter and pulls his knee away from mine. I try to focus on what he’s saying, but my brain has fled a million miles away.

  “No. I’m sorry, the what?”

  He laughs. “The Christmas Island red crabs.” He draws a circle in the sand and puts legs on it. Then pincher claws.

  “No, why?”

  “Well, Christmas Island is this place in Australia. I don’t know why it’s called that, so don’t ask. But it’s covered in these bright red crabs. Like millions and millions of them.”

  “Millions?”

  “Yeah. I swear. Anyway, they’re land crabs, but they need to lay their eggs in salt water. Don’t ask me why about that, either. They just do. So every year they migrate from the land to the ocean to lay their eggs. Then, as soon as they’re done, they head right back to land again.” I nod, but my head feels buzzed, like the night at the beach with Lisette. “Anyway, it takes days for these crabs to make the trip, and there are so many of them it’s crazy, like a red carpet moving sideways across the roads. You should see it, Frankie.”

  “I’d like to.” I want to say more, but can’t muster anything because I’m dizzy from the combination of his story and the way he says my name, but also from the fact that his hand is on my leg again, and his thumb is rubbing my thigh. I do everything in my power to keep it from trembling.

  “Yeah, it’s cool. But the point was, you were asking about karma.” I was? I don’t remember what I was asking. “Because it takes them forever to do all of this, and there are so many crabs that they have to close the roads, so the cars can’t use them for days. Except they can’t close all of them, so the crabs that pick the wrong roads get crushed to bits, hundreds of thousands of them. So how can you explain that? I mean, except by having bad karma?”

  I have no idea because your finger is moving on my leg.

  “Frankie?”

  “Yeah? Sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?”

  God, I don’t know! Sorry that the crabs get crushed. Sorry that there’s such a thing as bad karma. Sorry that I’m sitting here with you, because whatever’s about to happen, I know I won’t be able to stop myself. Because even though I want to be sorry, I’m not. I’m sorry I’m not sorry! I’m the opposite of sorry.

  “Frankie?”

  “Yes?”

  And then there are no more words, because Bradley Stephenson’s lips are on mine, and he’s kissing me, his warm tongue nudging its way in and swirling around with mine. And Lisette is right, because the whole world goes spinning, and the air bursts with sparkler bits, silver-white wishes erupting like light through a dark sky.

  Exactly the way I imagined.

  And then he stops. “Shoot,” he says. “Shoot.” He looks down.

  I look down, too. I don’t know what to say.

  Neither of us says anything.

  Finally, he says, “It’s getting late. We should probably get back to Pete and Lisette.”

  I push myself up, but I’m off balance. I start to walk the wrong way, but then realize and turn the right way. I walk fast, my arms wrapped around me. The sand feels cold now, and I wish I had my shoes. My sneakers are back at the tide pool.

  The tide pool, which seems like hours ago.

  God, what if Peter and Lisette are looking for us?

  Bradley speeds up behind me, the sand crunching under him. “Frankie . . .”

  He catches my arm, but I yank it away. “It’s no big deal, don’t worry about it . . .” he says. But I just focus on the sound of the sand. “Frankie, wait. Talk to me!”

  I want to cover my ears, block him out, block it all out—everything except the part where his hands are on me and we’re kissing.

  • • •

  When we reach the tide pool, it’s empty, quiet. The sun is starting to dip, but Lisette and Peter aren’t in sight. Their stuff is still there, though, on the edge of the inlet, so I guess they haven’t come out yet.

  I turn to Bradley, my arms still wrapped tight to my chest.

  “We can never do that again, period. Okay?” I can barely make the words come out, and in my heart, I mean them less than anything I’ve ever spoken. I wish I could unsay them, throw myself into his arms like in one of those cheesy romances that Mrs. Schyler has on her shelf, but Lisette doesn’t deserve that. And I don’t deserve it. It’s no big deal, he had said.

  “Right,” he says. “I got it.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, veers away from me toward the edge of the tide pool.

  I sit in the damp sand next to my sneakers and stare out at the ocean, to where I think I see them, Peter and Lisette, two dark spots swimming in.

  twenty-eight

  At least Bradley’s right. As far as Lisette goes, everything seems okay.

  She seems oblivious to anything wrong, rambles on about some friend of Peter’s cousin who was out on the water on a Sunfish. Where they’ve been hanging for the past hour. While I was kissing her boyfriend.

  “You should have come!” Lisette says, pulling at a corner of Peter’s towel to dry herself. “It was pretty awesome.” Peter hands her the whole towel, then helps to wrap it around her.

  For a split second, I find myself praying that Lisette and Peter have fallen in love out there in the water, on that Sunfish, and that she’ll break up with Bradley forever. Then he’ll proclaim his love for me, and everyone will live happily ever after.

  “So, hey,” Lisette says, leaning her still-wet body against Bradley’s. “Did you guys have fun?” When she moves away, you can see dark splotches across his T-shirt where she’s marked him.

  “Yeah. We just walked,” Bradley says.

  “Do you want to stay lo
nger, or should I call Alex so we can make the movie?”

  I stay silent. I don’t really want to do either. I only want to be with Bradley again.

  “Up to you,” Peter says.

  “Movie,” Bradley says quickly.

  “Is that okay with you, Frankie?”

  “Yeah, sure, it’s all okay,” I mumble.

  “Movie it is, then,” Lisette says, texting Alex as we start the long walk back to the parking lot.

  • • •

  The movie’s some comedy-thriller spoof with zombies and werewolves and dead people popping up everywhere. I can’t pay attention to save my life, because all I can think about is Bradley.

  Periodically, I glance over. He sits on the end, his fingers entwined with Lisette’s. Next to me is Peter. He smells like sweat and suntan lotion and popcorn. It’s better than being next to Lisette.

  Even from here, I feel like the guy in that Edgar Allan Poe short story about the murderer who buries the old man with the telltale heart. The old man’s heart beats so loud from under the floorboards, he’s sure it will give him away. I’m surprised she can’t hear mine ratting me out from here. If she finds out, she’ll hate me, and she’ll have every reason to.

  And yet. I glance over at Bradley again, and my heart just crushes some more.

  I stare down at my lap and try to think of something happy instead. I close my eyes and picture Frankie Sky and me on the steps of the pool at the club.

  In my mind, he smiles at me, and I take his hand, and we wade into the water and swim.

  • • •

  I shut the bathroom door, turn on the shower, and let it run.

  The water is cool. I can’t stand it hot. I like the feel of the cool water on my skin.

  It’s September. Two months since Simon died. The days are so different than they used to be.

  I went back to school this month, and that’s different, too. I can tell that everyone feels sorry for me.

  I double-check that the door is locked, strip off my clothes, and lean over the cool porcelain ledge to stopper the drain and let the bathtub fill.

  I’m not supposed to take a bath, just a shower. I’m not allowed to fill the tub.