Shining Sea Page 6

  “Dad, you can’t just—”

  “I can. The professor’s a good man; don’t get me wrong. He created the Clean Ocean Zone, and that protects the waters all along the coast . . .” Dad’s train of thought seems to pull out of the station. “But I still don’t want you over there.”

  I give a mumbled response that could be construed as a yes or a no, then watch Dad mentally slap his forehead as he remembers he’s talking to his teenage daughter.

  “Arion. If you ever go over there, be careful, okay? And don’t go by yourself.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain Rush.” I salute him. Bo lives there. How dangerous can it be?

  Balancing the dishes, Dad returns the salute. Then he picks up a pile of newspapers stacked on the overstuffed armchair I’d insisted we drag up here, an armchair being an essential factor of the getting-lost-in-a-good-book equation. The blanket from the living room hangs off one side.

  “Dad?” I nod toward the chair. “Aren’t you a little old for babysitting?”

  He stops in the doorway. “Aren’t you?” We both laugh, but his chuckle is off. Embarrassed. “I didn’t want to leave you by yourself, sweetie, I admit. I stood watch for a while. Sat here talking with Bo, actually, had a nice chat. Read the paper.”

  Bo Summers, in my room.

  “Front’s coming in.” Dad continues standing in the doorway, as if he has more to say but hasn’t decided if he wants to say it. Today’s talk is already the longest we’ve had in years.

  Finally, he confesses, “Bo and I sat here for quite a while on Friday night. It got late. I started to doze off. I’d been up since four. At some point, when I nearly rolled out of the chair, he told me to go to bed.” Dad looks apologetic. “I was worn out. He said he’d stay, make sure you were all right.”

  I try to imagine what it must be like for Dad, starting a new job, a new life, with a seventeen-year-old daughter in tow, worrying about his other daughter’s health, waiting for his wife. It must be hard, but he loves me, and love shows on his face as his words come faster now.

  “He’s a responsible boy, bringing you home like that, making sure you were okay. Said he wanted to stay whether I slept in the chair or down at the house. I couldn’t say no—and I tried to. He said he wouldn’t dream of leaving. Kept saying something about this being his fault.”

  His fault? Goosebumps spring up along my arms.

  “I didn’t let him stay in here, of course. You two barely know each other, is that right? He said he met you at the library.”

  The library. He remembers. The odd conversation I just heard between him and his brother is already fading, but Bo remembers our humiliating non-meeting at the library. Great.

  “So I told him to stay as long as he liked, and I put your dressing table chair out in the hall. He left for a bit yesterday, last night he came back, saying all the same things, insisting he wanted to stay, that he had to stay.” Dad looks impressed. Again. “Early this morning he was wide awake. Told me to go get some breakfast. So I did. And I made more broth. He stayed until I came back. Passed him on the stairs. You were alone for about one minute.

  “He’s quite a guy. Actually thanked me for letting him sit in that cold hall all night long, on a straight-backed chair. You must have made quite an impression on him.” Dad gives me a little smile, then shuts the door.

  Another shiver passes through me, a series of shivers. I need a hot bath.

  Afterward, I examine my cowboy boots—still wet, probably ruined—then open the door to the hall. The antique ladder-back is still out there. The chair doesn’t exactly match the dressing table, but Mom had painted both with climbing vines that hid curling words, phrases like, “Know thyself,” and “Art fills the void,” and given me the two as a pair.

  Trying to imagine the tall surfer sitting there, keeping watch while I slept, I sway just a little on my feet. Two nights.

  You could knock me over with a feather.

  BEACH WALK

  Carrying Maine Lighthouses under one arm, I finally leave the bedroom, intending to take the big book of photographs down to the cottage. Compared to the companionable clang of hard-bottomed boots, my sneakers are nearly soundless on the metal stairway.

  Nearly soundless, unlike Bo’s footsteps—and his brother’s—which, I realize now, had been completely soundless. I heard them talking in the hall but never heard them leave. Not like that’s important, but it feels like another hole in my memories. I’ve lost an entire weekend.

  But once I’m outside, inhaling one balmy breath of salt air after another, I remember enough to know that all I want to do is forget Friday afternoon—when I’d been unable to catch my breath—forever. I just want to curl up on the couch, near Dad.

  Only, when I get down to the cottage, I have an almost physical craving to stay outside. Sitting down on the landing, I lean against the front door and open the library book. On page fourteen, Rock Hook Lighthouse juts up into a stormy sky.

  Rock Hook Light is 208 feet tall, almost as tall as the tallest lighthouse in the country, but that’s nothing. The Pharos, when it had existed in 330 BC, had stood 450 feet high.

  Tourists destroyed the Pharos. They were referred to as invaders back then. Okay, so it was earthquakes, but tourists could have done it, if there’d been any around . . .

  The book slides from my lap. Had I dozed off? I blink—

  An image of enormous wings flares in front of my eyes like a flash from a camera.

  Standing quickly, I nearly stumble as I start down the steps to Crescent Beach.

  I’d vowed not to come down here, but it’s like I’m being pulled. Leaving the book behind, I tear off my sneakers and plunge one foot, then the other into the cool sand.

  The relief is immediate. This is where I belong. The sound of the surf, the slightly feral smell of the sea, the ocean itself—although too close for comfort—all say, You’re home.

  Music became my life over the last year, but music isn’t something you can touch, not like the sand I scoop up now. Letting it fall through my fingers, a thousand aches seem to fall with it, leaking from a heart that music sutured but didn’t heal. The music brought flashes of joy, but this—the sun, the sea . . . this is what I love.

  But—the water. It scares me to be so close to the water. And yet I feel like I need to be.

  I begin humming a melody, a song I’ve been working on, and try to imagine that fear is something I can simply walk away from. Lifting my face to the sun, I walk south.

  The waves slide up— Shh . . . spreading glassy transparency over the sand before slipping back to the sea. Gulls plummet from an almost piercing-blue sky, diving down into the dark water.

  Soon, the giant black jetty is just up ahead. It sprawls from the bottom of the bluffs down to the water and into the waves, which . . . makes no sense at all.

  The breakwater in front of Crescent Beach was built parallel to the beach in order to protect it, and to protect the bluff that the lighthouse stands on. This jetty is perpendicular to the beach. It’s basically a towering wall. A wall big enough to hide something behind.

  Like, maybe, the fact that you aren’t the same as other people.

  Even though I’m thinking about him, I startle as Bo appears at the top of the rocks. Still, I only hesitate for a second.

  “Come down,” I call to him, beckoning with a hand that’s suddenly trembling.

  He stands motionless, as if considering. Then all at once he’s climbing down the rocks, his movements like falling water. What would have cost me at least ten minutes and a twisted ankle takes him two seconds. Before I’ve even taken another breath, he’s standing next to me.

  I’m not sure why, but I take a step back.

  He gives a short laugh. “Smart. So why aren’t you smart enough to stay away from here?”

  “What the—” I scowl. “Whatever. In case you’re interested, I came to thank you.”

  “Oh, I’m interested. My brother, apparently, thinks I’m very interested. How muc
h of our conversation did you hear?”

  “How did you know—”

  The sharp look he gives me now is enough to make me catch my breath. At the sound, a thin smile appears on his handsome face.

  Confused, I simply glare at him. Then I stammer, “Enough. I heard enough to know that I have no idea what you were talking about.” And I don’t.

  Impulsively, I shut my eyes, pretending Bo isn’t the most gorgeous guy I’ve ever seen. When I open them, I make sure to look past him, to the bluffs. If this is how the conversation is going to go, I’d better cut to the chase.

  “Why did you lie about the tide pool?”

  “Tide pool?”

  His voice is all innocence, and so melodic—my eyes shift involuntarily back to his face.

  “Y-you know what I mean; you said I ‘fell into a tide pool.’ You told me, and my dad.”

  “Would you prefer he knew the truth? Because I can—”

  “No!” Briefly I imagine what Dad would do if he knew I’d fallen from Rock Hook Cliff. “No, actually, now that I think it through.” Our eyes catch, and I try to look away, try to remember the questions that seemed so urgent just a minute ago, but I can’t do either.

  Then he drops his gaze, and my head clears. Quickly I say, “But I would like to know the truth.”

  “Oh, would you? Well. The truth is, you should go home.”

  “Fine, I’ll go home. And you can go—”

  “To hell?” Bo looks amused. “I probably will. If not for my sinful thoughts, then for my rude behavior.” With a lithe movement, he sits and begins cupping handfuls of sand—releasing the grains slowly over the tops of my feet. “You’re welcome.”

  He sounds slightly chagrined. I look down at the top of his golden head, not sure what to think, but finally decide to sit down.

  The sand on my right foot slips off.

  “You should be more careful,” he says, covering my foot back up.

  “Maybe if I knew exactly what I needed to be careful of . . .” I begin adding to the hill of sand.

  “But that’s the problem, isn’t it? There’s nothing exact about building a sandcastle.”

  The blond hairs on his forearms glint in the sunlight. He has long fingers, the hands of a musician. Remembering how he’d held me in his arms, warmth spreads through me. It’s embarrassing to be so physically drawn to him, someone I hardly know.

  The three buttons at the neck of his shirt are undone, showing his collarbone, the hollow at the base of his throat. I examine his thick gold lashes. Lowered, they hide his eyes.

  “There are no blueprints,” he says, shaping the tower that rests on my feet. “Nothing but constantly shifting sand—and imagination. Shovels should be banned, I think, because hands”—he smooths the base of the castle, his fingers brushing my ankle—“are far more articulate.”

  The brief touch sends me drifting somehow, so that I have the sensation of floating . . . on my back . . . in a warm bath, or . . . or . . .

  “Friday,” I say. The word is an unsteady thing. “When I fell. How did you catch me?”

  “Water, of course, is the third ingredient.” He bends over my feet. “Sand, imagination, and water. Some people would put water first on the list.” He lifts his gaze until we’re eye to eye. “Not you.”

  It feels like—I’m slipping into the sea. “How?” I demand faintly. “How did you do it?”

  “How did I do what?” A hint of a smile plays on his lips.

  I tear my gaze from his. “You know what—you just said it. You admitted you lied to my dad. So, how? How did you drop out of the sky and into the water just in time to save my life?”

  In an instant Bo is on his feet. “I did not drop out of the sky.” His voice is rough with anger.

  “You did—I saw you.”

  His eyes are on fire. Blue flames, green, a shimmer of gold. “Go home, Arion.”

  A thrill speeds through me. On his lips, my name is a song.

  “I just wanted to say thanks—”

  “You said it.” The three terse words cut through the salt air, and before the sound of them has time to fade, Bo disappears behind the black wall of the jetty.

  ECHO

  Dr. Harrison joked once that all musicians have OCD tendencies. Ha-ha.

  Bo. What is he?

  During dinner with Dad, and later, while I’m doing homework, that question—and a million others about Bo—slices through my thoughts like a swimmer’s strokes through water, again and again.

  Listening to the new song I’d managed to download before the nearly nonexistent Internet connection dropped, I write to Mom, telling her I’ve met the most beautiful boy—then hit “Delete.” After starting over and writing about school, I hesitate. But Dad wouldn’t have told Mom about my fall; he’s smarter than that. Closing the note with x’s and o’s for Lilah, I shut down the computer. The email will have to go tomorrow, from the library.

  But thoughts of Mom won’t go so easily, even though, in a way, she herself has been gone longer than Lilah has. And I’ll probably never know why. She’d blame it on her art.

  Tonight, I wish I could talk to her, about Bo, about my walk. But she hardly ever picks up her phone, and even if she did, we wouldn’t really talk. We’d just exchange trivia.

  After getting out my guitar, I open a notebook filled with lyrics and bad poems, and turn to a blank page. I pick up a pen, then put it down. Straighten a stack of paperbacks. Line up a handful of guitar picks. Focusing on small things can save you. I learned that even before Lilah’s accident. Learned to focus on the small things. When you look at something small for a long time—it opens. Then you can see a long ways.

  Usually when I’m looking at that long view, I see words, find songs, and something’s clarified. But sometimes, I just see the past. I see Mom. Loving me. But I can’t feel it. It’s like having a photo of something but not the thing itself.

  As if the love she gives me now is an echo, and the original sound is gone.

  Mom used to joke, “I loved you until you started talking back.” But I hadn’t talked back, Lilah had, and Mom still loves her more. Why do adults joke about things that aren’t funny?

  Playing around with a bunch of different chords, I settle on a minor one, of course. Next, my fingers land on the strings and form another chord, but not one I recognize. The combination of notes is—different. Dissonant. Don’t think. Just play.

  “To tell the truth,” I whisper sing, “I’m not okay.”

  “Thank you for asking, and now will you stay? Or smile politely and just walk away.”

  I have no idea where this is going, but the next verse comes out as if it’s already written.

  “To tell the truth, I’m sure I look fine. You can’t see what’s hidden with the naked eye, it’s like trying to find something blue in the sky.”

  My voice shoots into my upper register—

  “Gently—pick me up carefully . . .

  Gently—hold me. Rock me . . .

  Gently like she—used to do.”

  Scrambling to write the words down, the bridge bursts from the center of my body and up through my throat. I can almost hear the drums: a broken roll on the snare, a hesitant kick on a bass drum that just makes it to the downbeat on time. An ascending bass line that sends the next section soaring— Tears start rolling down my cheeks, but I must be feeling better, because depression is debilitating. You can’t write a song if you’re wasting away. You wouldn’t want to. Grief, that’s fuel, but the “depressed artist” thing? It’s a myth.

  “Myth!” I shout. Then I shout it again, listening carefully—although not, I realize with a start, for an echo, but—for an answer.

  Don’t know why I’m surprised when none comes.

  SUNSET

  “Ready for this?” Mary asks. Of course, she’s the first one here.

  “Not really.” I stroke one of the hot-pink petals on the one last flower that clings to a Rugosa rosebush at the back of the lighthouse. Late-afte
rnoon light edges the petal with gold.

  “Don’t worry. I told you. You won’t have to do anything. The guys will dig the fire pit, my Kevin’s bringing food, and Pete said—”

  “He’ll bring beer.”

  “How did you guess? And your contribution?” Mary holds up a bag of marshmallows.

  So far, though I’ve been invited to a bunch of parties, I’ve only been to two, both at Mary’s house. Each time I ended up wedged between a couple of Kevins.

  But today is different. Today the party is here.

  “We really should’ve waited until tomorrow night,” I say.

  “True,” Mary agrees. “It’s not like this is going to help anyone’s test scores.”

  For students concentrating on marine sciences, school will have a slightly later than usual start tomorrow. Not so we can sleep late “’cause we’re gonna be partying half the night,” like Pete claims, but to give us time to make it over to Seal Cove, a public beach on the west side of the peninsula. The longest and supposedly prettiest beach on the Hook, it’s also the site for the infamous rules-and-regulations exam.

  Listing a bunch of rules and filling in blanks won’t be a problem. It’s the hands-on part I’m worried about. Tomorrow at nine a.m., I’ll be on a boat, in the water.

  As much as I want to embrace the beach, want to walk at the ocean’s edge, the idea of actually being on a boat, of actually being in the water, terrifies me.

  “You’re still stressed, aren’t you?” Mary says. “But not about the party.” I nod, and she gives me a sympathetic look. “You’ll be fine tomorrow; it’ll be like riding a bike.”

  “Yeah . . . if you saw the hills in my old neighborhood, you might not think that was such a good comparison.” But tomorrow’s test isn’t the only thing bugging me. Earlier this week I asked Mary about Summers Cove and told her how Dad had said not to go there. I was going to ask her about Bo too, but she got this weird look on her face. Then she said she had to go and hurried off to PE. Maybe now is a better time.