What I Thought Was True(33)

“Don’t even joke about that.” Vivien shields her eyes with her fingers. “Not a shark. Just some crazy person who doesn’t mind being shark bait.”

We watch in silence as the head rounds the breakwater, coming our way. Now I can see brown shoulders glisten in the sun, arms pumping rhythmically. A man. Or a boy.

“Today’s Nic’s and my five-month anniversary,” Vivien says absently, still staring at the water.

“Five months? Try twelve years. I was the one who married the two of you when you were five.”

One glimpse of Vivien’s downcast eyes and the slight smile playing at her lips and I get it . Right. Five months since they’ve been doing it.

“Nic’s taking me to the White House restaurant. What do you think I should wear?” Vivien answers herself: “My navy sundress. I know Nic likes it. He couldn’t keep his hands off me last time I wore it.”

The swimmer has reached the dock and as I watch, he disappears while climbing the ladder, then, at the top, plants his hands flat on the slats, and swings his legs to the side, the way Olympic gymnasts vault over the horse. Then he stands up, shaking his hair out of his eyes.

“Hey—yet again—Gwen. Hi, Vivien. What’s up, Emory?”

Cass peers down at Em, then over at me.

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Emory smiles at him before returning his attention to his bucket of water, now mostly empty. He leans over toward the ocean and I snatch at his life jacket.

Vivien straightens, hugging her knees to her chest, scanning Cass’s face, then mine.

“Need a refill?” He reaches for the bucket but holds his hand away from it slightly, waiting for Emory to decide.

Em tilts his head and then scrapes the bucket across the dock toward Cass. I gaze at the horizon, at a band of cormorants drying their wings on the breakwater. After ducking the bucket full again, Cass stands over me, little drops of water glinting in the sun across his chest, then dripping from his hair and the bottom of his suit onto me. He points to Emory’s life jacket.

“He’s still learning to swim?”

“He doesn’t know how. At all,” I say shortly.

“Never had lessons?”

“He had some water therapy when he was really little—at the Y—it freaked him out. Nic and I have both tried doing it here but it never took. I—” I cut off before I can tell him Emory’s entire life story.

“I bet I can do it. Teach him,” Cass says casually. “I worked at this camp, Lend a Hand, as an assistant counselor last year. That was my job, helping the”—he makes air quotes—“‘reluctant swimmers.’”

I squint at his face. “Think you’ll have time for that? They keep the yard boy hopping around here. Old Mrs. Partridge alone is a full-time job.”

Cass grins, dimples grooving deep. I suppress a strange urge 113

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to dip my fingers into them. “She called me over at the end of the day Friday to tell me I’d done her yard all wrong. Again.

That I was supposed to do it ‘vertically.’ But you were there, right? That isn’t what she said.”

“She’ll switch directions on you every time. That’s what Mrs. Partridge does with whoever’s the current Jose. You’ll get used to it.”

“The current Jose.” Cass turns the phrase over. “I’m not sure I’m down with being ‘the current Jose.’ Sounds like the flavor of the month.” He flips his wet hair out of his eyes again, scattering drops on me, then lowers his voice. “I’ve only put in two days, still getting my rhythm going here, learning the ropes . . . you know. But this place has gotten . . . a little crazy, hasn’t it?”

“It always was, Cass.” I shield my eyes and peek up at him through the fence of my fingers.

“That’s not the way I remember it. I mean, sure, there were always people like Mrs. Partridge, I guess. Yelling at us to get off their lawn and not pop wheelies on the speed bumps.”

“Not people like her. Her. She’s a Seashell trad—” I stop, swallow. “She’s been here forever.”

“Really? I don’t remember her at all. She doesn’t seem to know me either.”

Clear as day, I can see Cass, age eight, leaping off this same pier on so many summer afternoons with the sky dark like the one today—skinny shoulder blades, gangly legs, fluffy fly-away hair, skinned elbows, barnacle-scraped knees. Not exactly what’s standing here now. All that tan skin.

“You’ve changed a bit.”

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Emory chooses this moment to dump more cold water down my swimsuit.

Cass’s lips twitch, he ducks his head like he wants to say something but rules it out. “For real, though . . . Part of my job is to rake the beach. Every other day,” he continues. “Get the rocks and seaweed off during low tide. Nuts, since it all rolls back in with high tide.”

“Oh, I know!” I say. “Crazy, right? I wonder what it’s like to be so rich you expect nature to cooperate with you. That you can just hire someone to fix it.”

As soon as I say this I feel stupid. Remember who you’re talking to, Gwen. The crown prince of Somers Sails.

“Look, why don’t we just try a starter lesson? See if it plays at all?”