September Girls Page 10

  An ocean is large. It’s so large that it’s probably dangerous to think about its largeness for too long. This may be the reason that we are crazy. Spend too much time contemplating something beyond comprehension and one can start to lose what one had in the way of marbles.

  You can see why we would be afraid. It’s too easy to get lost. Even just sticking a toe in is dangerous. And an ocean can swallow you, even when you can swim.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  .....................................................................

  TEN

  I WOKE UP in Nalgene’s lair achy and dry mouthed and a little hungover. I guess we’d had more to drink than I’d realized. Plus I’d slept inside an attraction at a miniature golf course, which never helps. DeeDee was gone. I had also inexplicably managed to lose one of my socks.

  I tried not to invest too much significance into her disappearance. She probably had to go to work. Or whatever. But I still felt sort of abandoned and stupid as I dropped out of the trapdoor at the base of the ship and onto the golf course, ignoring the stares of a vacationing family playing through the third hole, and walked right past Nalgene—who was occupied separating colored balls into canisters and not paying attention—out through the front entrance onto the beach road to head home.

  No one was at the house when I got back, and my head was killing me, so I poured myself a giant bowl of Lucky Charms, sat down in front of The Price is Right, and was asleep in two seconds. I didn’t wake up until I heard Dad clanking around the kitchen after a long day’s treasure hunting. He was milling around the room, shirtless and whistling as usual, hauling this big-ass plastic bucket behind him.

  “Wanna help me sort through the day’s spoils, Tiger?” he asked hopefully, wiggling his eyebrows.

  “Are you talking to me?” I said, being unnecessarily prissy just for the fun of it. “No thank you.”

  “Suit yourself.” Dad took his bucket and dumped it out over the dining table, all his scavenged metal crap clattering out in a messy pile. I couldn’t tell exactly what he’d scored, but it looked like a lot of aluminum cans and maybe a fork or two.

  “Anything good?” I asked, curious in spite of myself.

  “We’ll see,” he said. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

  “Yes, but which man’s treasure is it?” I asked. “Yours? And if so, why exactly? To me those look like a bunch of sandy fucking Budweiser cans.”

  Dad was hurt. “We’ll see,” he repeated. “Anyway, I hope you’re having fun at the beach. Tiger.”

  “I am,” I said.

  “Where were you last night?” he asked. I turned around, surprised.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. Okay, obviously I knew what he meant, but I was still surprised.

  “You think no one notices when you’re out all night?”

  Actually I did think that. While my father had once been mostly normal—inquiring as to the state of my homework, smelling my breath when I came home from a party to see if I’d been drinking, objecting to me staying out all night with no explanation—those days felt like a very long time ago. In recent weeks I’d almost entirely forgotten that in addition to being an avid scavenger of metallic bric-a-brac, he was charged with the parental duty of keeping track of my whereabouts.

  “Next time I’ll tell you,” I said, and I took a beer out of the fridge and went to sit on the porch, knowing there would be no objection. It was mostly for show. I didn’t even really want the beer.

  As soon as I had time to actually sit and think, I was overtaken with humiliation at the events of the previous night. I had a sneaking suspicion that when a girl actually did finally deign to grab your hard-on that it was an unpopular and possibly completely pussified choice to ask her if she could please stop. No doubt she had fled in disgust—Kristle and Jeff were probably right this minute sitting with her and speculating about my potential homosexuality—and if I ever saw her again it would only be for long enough for her to look away awkwardly, trying to suppress a sneer.

  I had a feeling DeeDee was probably not going to be kissing me again.

  The moral of the story here is that if you’re ever offered anything that seems like it might lead to sex, there is no turning back. You just have to take it as it comes or you will remain a virgin for life.

  At least, that’s what I thought until I heard DeeDee’s voice and looked over the edge of the porch to the driveway, where she was standing in an old white T-shirt and a pair of cutoffs, using her hand as a visor.

  “Sam!” she shouted.

  “Hey,” I said. “How’d you know where we’re staying?”

  “I asked Jeff,” she said. “Come on, I want to go to the beach.”

  “Just a second,” I said, my chest swelling as I fumbled for my shoes. I was happy to see her. I didn’t bother to tell my father where I was going.

  It was getting late-ish and the sun had that perfect, golden quality that means it will be getting dark in no time. People were packing up their umbrellas and coolers and drifting toward home. There were still a few stragglers fucking around in the surf, but you could tell that they would be gone soon too. DeeDee offered no explanation where we were going; we just turned right on the shore and started walking. We walked in silence for a few minutes before I decided that I had to say something.

  Sebastian always advised me to ask questions when in doubt. “Girls like to talk about themselves. If you can’t think of anything to say, just ask some dumb question about nothing, and if you’re lucky she’ll go off and you won’t have to say anything else for another ten minutes and she’ll think you’re a great listener.”

  “So why do you guys come here?” I asked.

  “Come here?” DeeDee asked, surprised, like she’d never considered it before. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Russia’s kind of far away, right?” When Sebastian had formed his theories about girls, he obviously hadn’t met one as guarded and evasive as DeeDee. “Why come all the way here?”

  She paused. “Oh, I don’t know. There’s not really a lot for us to do at home. They let us come to work in the summers. Like an exchange program. It’s good money—well, not that good, but good enough. And of course the weather’s nice. Much nicer than Moscow. Then we stay here through the winter, because why bother going back? Even in winter, the weather’s not so bad either. It would be a waste to go home and lose our tans. Not to mention all the English we’ve picked up. This is my second summer.”

  “But you still think of there as home?”

  She shrugged. “I guess. What’s home anyway?”

  “It must be hard to go back,” I said. “You would think you’d get used to it. You would think you’d start to feel more comfortable here.”

  “Well, yeah. But look at us. We don’t belong.”

  I know she didn’t mean it literally, but I looked at her anyway, took in her whole everything. I tried to imagine that I was seeing her for the first time, which wasn’t so hard because she had already changed to me since the first time I’d seen her.

  She changed every time I saw her—became more formed. She became both more complicated and also easier to understand. And it was true that she and the other Girls stood out here, with their wild hair and strange parties and floating, undersea eyes. True. But I couldn’t imagine them anywhere other than here. Maybe it was just my lack of imagination, but it made no sense to me that they could call another place home, especially a place as cold and gray as Russia.

  “I’m glad you came and found me today. I kinda thought I would never hear from you again.”

  She frowned and raised an eyebrow. She seemed genuinely surprised. “Really? Why?”

  “You know, because of last night. Because I wouldn’t—you know.”

  And she just laughed—a real laugh that was warm and sincere—and put her arm around my waist. Her hand was resting against my hip bone.

  “Skinny,�
�� she remarked. “You’re so dumb.”

  “It’s hard to explain,” I said. She hadn’t asked for an explanation, but I figured I owed her one anyway. “Say there’s this thing you want, this thing that seems more important than everything, this thing you’ve been waiting for because it will make you into something else. And then you get a chance at it and it’s almost as if you don’t want to change. Because you’ll miss the person you were before.”

  “That makes more sense than you know,” DeeDee said. And then, after a pause, she changed the subject and asked a question I was not expecting: “Do you miss your mom?”

  I looked at her. Why would she ask something like that? “Uh,” I said. “Yes. I mean no.”

  “Same,” she said. I didn’t know what she meant. Which was she agreeing with? Yes or no?

  “I’ve found that mothers can be very unpredictable,” she said. “In the end, they can’t protect you.”

  “Same,” I said.

  “But I do miss her,” DeeDee said.

  “Same,” I said. It might have been the first time I had admitted it. I don’t know if it was even true. “I don’t know what I miss. She was so different by the time she left. I think she must have been really unhappy. Maybe I just miss being little and not understanding anything.”

  “Yeah,” DeeDee said. “I don’t really have a good memory for that type of thing.”

  The beach had grown increasingly narrow as we’d walked, and the people had begun to disappear until they were gone entirely, and then the shoreline ended right in front of us. Well, it didn’t end exactly: there was a rocky outcropping growing out of the dunes and stretching fifty feet into the ocean, blocking our path. It was unusual; this was not really a rocky kind of beach.

  “Here we are,” DeeDee said. “This is what I wanted to show you. Come on.”

  Then she was scrambling ahead over the rocks and I tried to climb up after her, unsure of my footing, trying not to slip. The boulders were steep and sharp and there was no obvious path; I was instantly clumsy. I was still feeling my way up the first few rocks by the time DeeDee was already at the top of the ridge, looking down at me in amusement, cheering me on, and cracking up every time I stumbled.

  But after slipping a few times and nearly twisting my ankle, I finally found myself at the top of the climb and it was worth it: I stood next to DeeDee and looked out to the other side and saw an empty crescent of shoreline, bounded on all sides by rocks, forest, and tall dunes. The water was calm and horizonless and bluer than it was anywhere else at this beach.

  “What do you think?” DeeDee asked. I didn’t bother replying; it was obvious how extraordinary the cove was. “This is where we come, sometimes,” she said. “I don’t like the water, but it’s peaceful here. Just to sit on the sand. It feels private, you know? I mean, it is private. Nobody else knows about it, besides us.”

  Somehow I knew that when she said “us,” she was referring to the Girls.

  “How can it be secret?” I asked. “It’s right here on the beach. You just walk far enough and here you are.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess it’s harder to find than you’d think.”

  Without hesitation, she made the fifteen-foot leap to the sand below, landing in a crouch before flopping onto her ass. I was about to jump when I decided against it and instead made my way down the rocks. I scraped my knee as I went, but it didn’t really hurt.

  The sun was setting. We went to stand in the surf. It was like we’d found the edge of the world.

  “Do you ever feel like there’s something unusual about this beach?” I asked. “Like it’s not quite real or something?”

  “Have you heard of The Lost Colony?”

  I didn’t know what The Lost Colony had to do with anything, but I had seen billboards for it on the highway when we’d been driving here. “Sort of,” I said. “It’s a play or something, right? Like based on a true story?”

  “Yeah, a really boring play that no one will ever shut up about,” DeeDee said. “They put it on for the tourists. It’s been going on forever. Andy Griffith was in it years ago, before he was Andy Griffith. Whoever Andy Griffith is—some kind of local celebrity I think. He’s another thing no one will shut up about.”

  “So?”

  “So, it’s all lies.”

  “Andy Griffith wasn’t in it?”

  “No, he was. I mean, I assume that’s true. But the play itself is all lies. They say it’s a true story but it’s all bullshit.”

  “You have a lot of opinions,” I said.

  She tossed her hair crossly. “Well why shouldn’t I?”

  “No,” I said. “I like it.”

  “Oh, thank you,” she said. “I’m so glad you approve of me having a thought in my brain.” As usual her annoyed scowl barely covered a grin. She meant it, but she was also just fucking around.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Just tell me about the lost Pilgrims.”

  “Thank you.” DeeDee put her arm around my shoulder, I guess as a conciliatory gesture.

  “So, okay, they lived here; they had their whole little colony thing set up, doing whatever colonists do. Tormenting natives or whatever. They’re here, everything’s going good. And then one day, they’re just gone. Their houses were still standing like nothing had happened, but it was like the people just vanished into thin air. Like they’d been zapped. Where did they go?”

  “I remember the story now,” I said. “We learned about it in school when I was little. They were kidnapped by Indians. I don’t know why people still think it’s a mystery.”

  “No,” DeeDee said. “That’s where you’re wrong. That’s the exact part that’s bullshit. Of course the Indians are the ones who get blamed for everything; it’s typical but it’s also fake. It’s crap.”

  I had put my arm around her now too. Talking to DeeDee felt familiar, like talking to someone I had known forever. It had been a long time since I’d had that feeling with anyone.

  “Okay, so what happened to them?” I asked. “And also, what does this have to do with anything?”

  “You asked what was wrong with this place,” DeeDee said. “So think about this. Why does everyone assume that something had to make them disappear? Why couldn’t they be capable of their own disappearance? It’s this beach. It’s what it’s all about. This is where people come to disappear. Isn’t it obvious?”

  It wasn’t obvious at all: I didn’t know what to say.

  “But it’s also more than that. It’s also where people disappear to. Many of the people you meet here have already disappeared from one elsewhere or another.”

  “Like who?” I asked.

  She cocked her head and crossed her arms at her chest, leaning back in satisfaction. “Like you, maybe?”

  “I don’t feel like I’ve disappeared,” I said. “I feel like I’m right here. Wherever here is.”

  This time I knew exactly what I was doing when I kissed her. This time I didn’t hesitate.

  We were entwined in the sand when I heard the sound of a throat clearing, just over the roar of the waves. DeeDee and I broke away from each other, first rolling over onto our backs and then, realizing not only that we’d been discovered but also who had discovered us, standing up quickly. It was Jeff and Kristle. Jeff was smirking of course, waggling his eyebrows at me like a total idiot, but Kristle looked pissed, her arms folded and hip cocked, eyes placid but cutting.

  “Well hello there,” she said. “What are you two up to?”

  “Ha-ha,” I said.

  “Hey, Kristle,” DeeDee said. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it and then dropped it, like she’d decided it was a bad idea after all. “We were just . . .” She trailed off.

  “I can fucking see what you’re doing,” Kristle said. As if she hadn’t been the one who had just asked.

  “What’s the big deal?” I said. “It’s a free country.”

  Kristle looked at me only long enough to roll her eyes. “There are things you don’t know a
bout my little sister,” she said, then went straight back to staring a hole in DeeDee.

  “Yeah?” I said. “Well there are things I do know about her too. So who cares?”

  Kristle finished with me, though. “Did you tell him about us?” Kristle asked DeeDee. “Does he know what happens?”

  “Just shut up,” DeeDee said.

  “Tell me what?” I said. “What happens?”

  No one said anything. Jeff was looking quizzically from me to DeeDee to Kristle and back, and Kristle’s face was even more stony. She was glaring at DeeDee as if to challenge her.

  DeeDee was staring at the ground as if she’d actually done something wrong. I wasn’t sure why she wasn’t just telling Kristle to fuck off. So I did.

  “Fuck off, Kristle,” I said.

  “Listen,” she said. “DeeDee and I need to have some girl time. A woman-to-woman chitchat.”

  “Um,” I said. “And you’re in charge why?”

  “It’s okay, Sam,” DeeDee said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” But she didn’t make a move to leave, and then Jeff was taking me by the shoulder and leading me away. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s give these two a chance to claw each other’s eyes out. Or whatever it is girls do during girl time.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  .....................................................................

  ELEVEN

  WE FELT THE first drops of rain as soon as we jumped onto the main beach from the cliff of rocks that bordered DeeDee’s cove. The sun was nearly gone, but it was still light enough out that we could tell there was a dark cloud hovering over our heads. “Well shit,” Jeff said. “We’re gonna get soaked.”

  There was a bolt of lightning out over the ocean, spidery and silent, tinting the whole beach in eerie neon purple. Jeff put his hands on his hips and looked out at the horizon in concerned contemplation, as if he had some say in the matter of weather. The crack of thunder came several seconds later, and then the rain really started to come down—it just started pouring. We were drenched before we even had the chance to cover our heads with our arms. I can’t exactly say I minded. The rain was warm and felt good.