Along for the Ride(15)

‘Don’t tell me to calm down, okay, Esther? Who was she?’

Another silence. Stupid Heidi and her stupid checkbook, I thought, burying myself more deeply into the nearby one-pieces. ‘We don’t know,’ Leah said. ‘Some summer girl, a tourist.’

‘Well, what did she look like?’ Maggie demanded.

‘Does it really matter?’ Esther replied.

‘Of course it matters! It’s paramount.’

‘It is not,’ Leah said with a sigh, ‘paramount.’

‘Was she cuter than me?’ Maggie asked. ‘Taller? I bet she was a blonde. Was she a blonde?’

Silence. I peered out from behind the rack of suits, by this point not surprised at all to see the redhead and the girl in the pigtails from the bonfire. They exchanged a look before pigtails – Esther – said, ‘She had black hair and fair skin. Taller than you, but kind of bony.’

‘And her skin wasn’t that great,’ the redhead, who had to be Leah, added.

I felt myself flinch, hearing this. First, I was not bony. And okay, so I had a couple of zits, but they were temporary, not a condition. And anyway, who were they to say –

Suddenly, the bathing-suit rack before me parted right down the middle, like the Red Sea. And just like that, with a clattering of hangers, I found myself face to face with Maggie.

‘Did she,’ she said, narrowing her eyes at me, ‘look like this, maybe?’

‘Holy crap,’ Leah said. Beside her, Esther slapped a hand over her mouth.

‘I can’t believe this,’ Maggie said as I fought the urge to try to protect myself with a nearby bandeau. ‘Did you hook up with Jake last night?’

I swallowed, the sound seeming louder than a gunshot. ‘It wasn’t,’ I began, then realized my voice was wavering and stopped, taking a breath. ‘It was nothing.’

Maggie sucked in a breath, her cheeks hollowing. ‘Nothing,’ she repeated. Then she dropped her hands from the suits on the rack, letting them flop to her sides. ‘You hook up with the love of my life, the boy I wanted to marry –’

‘Oh, man,’ Leah said. ‘Here we go.’

‘And it’s nothing? Really?’

‘Maggie,’ Esther said, walking over, ‘come on. It’s not about her.’

‘Then what it is about, exactly?’

Esther sighed. ‘You knew this was going to happen sooner or later.’

‘No,’ Maggie protested. ‘I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that at all.’

‘Yes, you did.’ Esther put her hand on her shoulder, squeezing it. ‘Face it. If it wasn’t her, it just would have been some other girl.’

‘Some other stupid girl, ’ Leah added, picking up the magazine and flipping through it. Then, as an afterthought, she glanced at me and said, ‘No offense. He’s just an idiot.’

‘He is not,’ Maggie protested, tears filling her eyes.

‘Come on, Mag. You know he is.’ Esther glanced at me, then slid her hand down Maggie’s arm, wrapping a hand over hers. ‘And now, you can really start to get over him. If you think about it, this is probably the best thing that could have happened.’

‘That’s right,’ Leah agreed, flipping another page.

‘How do you figure?’ Maggie whimpered, but she allowed herself to be led back to the counter, numbly taking her mocha as Leah handed it off to her.

‘Because,’ Esther said gently, ‘you were still just hanging on, torturing yourself, thinking he was coming back. And now you have to let go. She kind of did you a favor, if you really think about it.’

Maggie looked back over at me, and I made myself stand up straighter. I couldn’t believe I’d actually been worried about her: she was tiny, pink as a powder puff. Thinking this, I emerged from behind the suits and started for the door.

‘Wait a second,’ she said.

I didn’t have to stop. I knew that. Still, I slowed my steps, turning back to her. But I didn’t say anything.

‘Do you,’ she began, then stopped and took a breath. ‘Do you really like him? Just tell me. I know it’s pathetic, but I need to know.’

I just looked at her for moment, feeling all those eyes on me. ‘He’s nothing to me,’ I said.

She kept her gaze on me a moment longer. Then she picked up the checkbook, walking over and holding it out to me. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

Maybe in the world of girls, this was supposed to be a turning point. When we saw beyond our initial differences, realized we had something in common after all, and became true friends. But that was a place I didn’t know well, had never lived in, and had no interest in discovering, even as a tourist. So I took the checkbook, nodded, and walked out the door, leaving them – as I had so many other groups – to say whatever they would about me once I was gone.

‘So,’ my mother said, ‘tell me everything.’

It was late afternoon, and I’d been dead asleep when my phone rang. Even without looking at it, I knew it had to be my mom. First, because it was her favorite time to make phone calls, right at the start of cocktail hour. It wasn’t like I was expecting to hear from anyone else, except maybe my brother, Hollis, and he only called in the middle of the night, having yet to fully grasp the concept of time zones.