Girl Out of Water(49)

I stand there kind of shocked because instead of one of Aunt Jackie’s friends on the stoop, I find Lincoln and Austin. Lincoln is wearing a tight, white T-shirt, which hugs his hard stomach, where my eyes land for a solid three seconds.

“Hey,” he says. I draw my eyes to his face. He’s smiling—like really smiling, like I know what you were staring at smiling.

“Hey. Hi. Umm…” I pause. “What are you guys doing here?”

“See?” Lincoln tells Austin and nudges his shoulder. “Didn’t I tell you Anise was the most hospitable person in the world?”

“Ha-ha.” I shift on my feet. “But really, what are you doing here?”

“Emery invited us,” Austin says. Good. At least she’s still talking to someone. “Well, she invited me, and then I asked if Lincoln could come, and she said you’d like that, so I—”

“She did?” I flush.

Lincoln nods. “She did. So can we come in?”

“Uh, yes. Come on in.”

I wonder if Emery invited Austin because she likes him or because he was the only friend she could invite. If she and her friends are even half as tight-knit as my group of friends, maybe the incident was more serious than I’ve been telling myself. If Emery’s still upset tomorrow, I need to press her to tell me what happened.

“Thank you, gracious host.” Lincoln half bows, and then they both step inside. I point them toward the backyard, and Austin heads that way, but Lincoln lingers next to me. He bends slightly, and for a second I think he’s going to kiss me. But he just brushes his finger across my cheek and whatever chocolate or powdered sugar is there and then licks it off his finger.

He grins as I stand there blushing. “Delicious.”

? ? ?

An hour later, about a dozen of us are congregated in the backyard, all piling our plates with food from platters of burgers, hot dogs, grilled veggie kabobs, and tilapia. Not to mention coleslaw, homemade potato chips sprinkled with paprika and pepper, and our favorite summer salsa chock-full of onions, black beans, tomatoes, pineapples, and lime. Lincoln and I make our way down the line of food. I hold our two plates so Lincoln can use his hand to pile them with a bit of everything. “Have I mentioned I’m in love with your dad?” he asks.

“If you finish everything on that plate, he’ll probably be in love with you too,” I say.

“Everything on this plate?” He raises his eyebrows. “Darling, this is only round one.”

He walks off to join Austin and my cousins around the lip of the pool. Emery and Austin are chatting quietly. Maybe she’s confiding in him like she used to confide in me when she was younger, sharing my bed on their family vacations and whispering secrets under the blankets.

Before joining them, I walk over to the grown-ups. Aunt Jackie, her friends, and Dad sit around the large table. Aunt Jackie already looks happier, a slight flush on her cheeks. Though, the flush might be from her cup of sangria. “Hey, kiddo,” she says as I stand behind them. “Have you met everyone?”

I shake my head and get introduced around the table. All the faces and names blur together, but I smile like I’ll remember each and every one. One of the women, I think Claire, wearing a light blue cardigan, looks at me and then Jackie and then says, “Goodness, Jackie, you were right—she looks exactly like her. Spitting image.”

Her. Blue Cardigan Claire must know my mom—must have known my mom. I wonder if they were close before she left, if they’ve seen each other since my mom was my age. I wonder how many friends my mom has made over the years only to move on and leave them behind.

I take her comment as my cue to leave. “Nice to meet you guys.” I rush the words and head toward the pool.

Spitting image. You remind me of her.

Even though my mom is never with me, I can’t escape who I came from, how I look, and now, with being gone all summer, perhaps how I act too. It’s like no matter what I want, bits of my mom cling to me. My skin crawls at the thought. I wish I could scratch it off.

? ? ?

A couple hours later, the kids have all migrated into the front yard. Parker and Nash skateboard up and down the driveway, Austin and Emery dribble a basketball against the pavement, sometimes throwing it into the rusted hoop, and Lincoln and I sit on the grass, making our way through the entire plate of Parker and Nash’s specialty cookies, which turn out to not be disgusting so much as delicious. Blue Cardigan Claire’s comment aside, for the first time in days, I’m relaxed; Aunt Jackie is home and healthy, all the kids seem happy, and I’m eating cookies next to the best-looking guy in Nebraska.

“I’m going to be sick,” I mutter, biting off another piece of the chewy, candy-filled cookie. “Like sick sick. Like C-grade zombie flick sick.”

“Right there with you.” Lincoln rubs his stomach like he has a beer belly instead of washboard abs. “I’ve got to get this recipe. Maybe my dad will bake them.”

“Is your dad the chef of the family too?” I ask.

“I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call him a chef, but he definitely does most of the cooking. Mom is the definition of a workaholic.”

“What does she do?” I ask.

“I told you we used to move around a lot, right?” I nod. “She’s one of those people companies bring in to fire other people. Say some giant corporation needs to get rid of three hundred employees? They’ll bring her in to assess who’s integral and then fire everyone else. The jobs usually take about six months, which means—”