Left Drowning(19)

But, damn, that was hot. Even though I don’t know why Chris pulled away or what I did wrong, that was still been hot.

And that is enough to make me smile.





JULY

TWENTY-FIRST



“I’m going down to the water,” Blythe calls into the house and then leans forward on the deck’s wooden railing. Even with all the trees, there is still an amazing view of the ocean cove, the water sparkling in the mid-afternoon light. And she loves that briny smell, especially strong now, at low tide. The stink always makes her younger brother, James, wrinkle his nose, but she breathes it in with pleasure.

“Have fun at the clam graveyard hour!” James shouts. That’s what he calls low tide. Blythe’s repeated explanations that the smell has nothing to do with dying clams, and, that in fact, the clams are just fine and perfectly alive, does nothing to make him like it any better. Or understand her love for it.

The truth for his sour attitude, she thinks, is that James is still pissed that she was the one to choose their vacation house from the list of possible rentals her parents printed out.

It didn’t seem worth being pissy about. It was only for two weeks, after all. Once the fourteen days were up, Blythe’s family would finally be able to move into their new summerhouse in Bar Harbor, a house called The Stone’s Throw, where the current owners were taking longer than expected to pack up their things. The delay was a surprise and put Blythe’s parents in an awkward spot; by mid-July, it was virtually impossible to find any place to rent near popular Bar Harbor. That’s how they ended up in Chilford, a couple of hours south, in an old house.

Luckily, it turned out to be a fine substitute vacation home for the place in Bar Harbor, and they settled in right away.

Blythe knows that fun, easy vacations aren’t easy to come by for most families, but hers pulls them off every time. She knows that’s mostly because her parents walk that magic line between being involved in her life and giving her space to grow up on her own. Plus, her brother is pretty damn great, too. It seems like she and James should fight more, given that she is seventeen and he is fifteen, but they don’t. He is levelheaded, disciplined, and reasonable—many things that she is not. But under that cool exterior, he is kind. Truly, incredibly, deeply kind. And miraculously modest, considering that he is the top-ranked soccer player in Massachusetts. She is definitely the more carefree and sillier of the two, but James seems to appreciate that about her. They are a good pair.

“Hey, James! Jamie!” she hollers. “The dying clams want to say hello to you! Come down to the beach with me!”

“What? My God, quit yelling, you nut.” Her brother slides open the screen door and puts his hands on his hips. “We’re on a relaxing vacation. Soft voices, calm attitudes.” He half smiles, and the spark in his eye tells her that he is most definitely in a good mood.

“Come swimming! It’s a perfect blue-sky afternoon. There’s a dock not too far out that we can swim to.”

“I just scarfed down a massive sandwich. Later, okay? I’ll have to work off the six pounds of food I ate.” He pats his muscled stomach. He is a good-looking kid, Blythe knows, yet so far he has resisted the nearly incessant phone calls and overall interest from swooning girls. Soccer is his priority. “You shouldn’t swim that far alone, though,” he continues. “Take the boat, and I’ll watch you from up here.”

“Okay, Mr. Responsible. You can rescue me if I start to drown. I’m no hotshot soccer star, but I can swim well enough.” It’s true. She is a good swimmer. Her strokes and form might not be pretty by swim team standards, but she is capable of handling herself in even rough ocean water. All of her general athletic failings don’t seem to matter in the water. She feels strong in the water and, more than that, she just loves the feeling of buoyancy. Nothing compares to being cradled and moved by the force of the ocean. You just have to be aware of its power. “Never forget,” her father had once said, “the current, the tides, the waves … they are all smarter than you are. They are in charge. It’s your job to listen. Don’t ever stop listening.”

Her father was right. And so Blythe always listens to what the water tells her. “Fine, fine, stay here. I’ll be back in a bit. Wanna do steamers and lobsters for dinner? I saw a guy on the side of the road with a seafood shack. We can cook for Mom and Dad!”

“You got it,” he says, smiling. “Have fun.”

The path from the house to the shore runs under tall evergreens and is lined with feathery ferns. Blythe likes the way the leaves tickle her legs and how the rocky terrain makes her take her time getting to the water. She wants to slow down in general while here. This Maine vacation will be the calm before the storm. College applications are ahead of her in the fall, her senior year of high school: SATs and then forms, interviews, and freak-outs. Matthews is her top choice, obviously. Her parents met there, and aside from that cool aspect is the plain truth that it is an excellent college. She doesn’t want to go to an overpopulated university where she’d get lost in a sea of students. Frat parties and campus chaos are not her thing. Matthews is going to be her school. It has to. She even has on a frayed Matthews T-shirt right now. The pale blue lettering is chipped in more places than she can count and the red background is now closer to pink, but she doesn’t care how ragged the shirt is. It is her favorite. The Wisconsin winters would suck, obviously, but the beautiful campus and dynamic professors would make up for that. Blythe sort of hates that she will have to put down on her application that both her parents went there, because she wants to get in on her own merit, but she also isn’t entirely above using that connection if it can guarantee her an acceptance. If that’s what gets her in, then she will just have to validate the shit out of their decision to admit her once she’s there.