September Girls Read online

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Yep. About thirty years ago, Tiger. Hard to imagine I was ever your age, huh?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  “That’s when I first heard about the treasure. People were always talking about it but supposedly no one ever found it. But over the years I’ve been thinking. What if the treasure was disguised somehow? What if someone did find it, but it wasn’t what they expected? Maybe they thought it was junk and tossed it right back?”

  “So what you’re saying is that the priceless treasure might be an old fork or a screwdriver or a crappy earring? Or whatever stuff you’ve been finding out here and hauling back to the house in that dumb bucket?”

  The big orange bucket Dad had taken to carrying around with him was lying on its side next to the metal detector. I picked it up and perused its contents. There was only one thing in it so far: a small coin. I took it out to look at it more closely: it was a euro, probably dropped in the sand by some German tourist.

  “Well at least it’s money,” I said, letting it clink back into the bucket. “If you ever go to France you can use it to buy a fancy French gumball. It’s a start. But I don’t think they even had euros in the days of pirate legend.”

  “Legendary, Tiger. Legendary. That’s exactly the right word. The treasure is legendary. But you can’t trust a legend. First rule of treasure hunting, buddy. Legends get confused. There’s always some truth to them, but if you get too hung up on the details, you’ll usually miss what’s right in front of your face. Unless you remember that, you’ll miss something in a place like this. There are lots of legends around here.”

  “Like the Lost Colony?” I asked.

  Dad tipped his head like he’d misheard me. Then he beamed.

  “Exactly like the Lost Colony. Exactly.” I had finally gotten his attention, and now he stopped digging. He looked up at me expectantly, prideful and thrilled, all that’s my boy.

  A sense of hopefulness hung in the air as he waited for me to say something else. But when I didn’t, his face fell again and he went right back to his work, resigned to the fact that I would never get it.

  I didn’t care at all what he was talking about. Dad’s treasure hunt was obviously a total waste of time. But wasn’t everything around here a waste? “Want some help?” I asked. Why not? Without DeeDee or The Price is Right to occupy me, I now had nothing but time to kill.

  He looked at me suspiciously. He had gotten used to me trying to trick him with good humor.

  But I wasn’t fucking with him this time. I got down on my knees and started to scoop. We began to dig a hole together.

  It was harder work than I’d expected it to be, but after a few minutes the task became more and more satisfying. I started to see how it wasn’t as much of a waste of time as I’d thought—I still didn’t expect to find anything, but at least we were doing something, making some kind of measurable progress. The pit was deeper and deeper by the second, the two of us working together. After a summer of walking in circles, thinking I was going somewhere always to wind up back where I’d started, it was nice to be doing something that was resulting in a basic, straight line, getting straighter and longer, even if in the least useful direction imaginable.

  So we kept digging, uncovering nothing. The sun moved overhead. My muscles were aching and my back was sore. I kept going. I wasn’t actually planning on stopping. I wasn’t expecting him to stop either. But finally he did.

  “Aw, fuck it,” Dad said. “Your old man’s not as young as he used to be. There’s not anything here. I’m never going to find it.” A week ago I would have told him he was right, to just go ahead and give up, but now I didn’t want to see him disappointed.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “Maybe not today, but you’ll get there eventually.” I stood and Dad stood too. He thumped me on the back and looked over his shoulder.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’ll walk you home.” I picked up the bucket, and he picked up the metal detector and slung it over his shoulder. He looked like an old, tired Huck Finn. We started back for home. Dad was whistling, which normally drove me crazy, but at that moment I didn’t care. I may have even whistled along with him myself.

  Eventually the song petered out and we walked for a bit in silence. “So what’s going on with you and Mom?” I asked. “Why do you think she’s back?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “She won’t even tell me how she found us.” He looked at me sidelong, posing a question.

  I wanted to ask him about DeeDee, but I knew that I couldn’t deal with the monologue that would inevitably follow if I did. “Do you want her to stay?”

  “I want her to do what makes her happy,” he said. “That’s all she’s trying to do. I actually admire her for it, sort of.”

  “Give me a break,” I said.

  “You’ll understand when you’re my age,” Dad said with a shrug. “One day you look around and realize all the choices you thought you were making might have been the wrong ones. That they might not have even been choices at all. Actually, I hope you don’t understand. That’s why I brought you here, I guess.”

  I had stopped paying attention. I was only thinking of what I had done wrong. Of how I had found the thing I had been looking for and how I had lost her so quickly.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  FOURTEEN

  I STAYED AWAY from DeeDee like she obviously wanted me to. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s getting messages. I had misjudged the situation at first, but now I understood. Just like Kristle said, I’d gotten my hopes up. DeeDee had blown me off the way I’d blown Sasha Swain off a million years ago. And if DeeDee didn’t want to see me I wasn’t going to be a stalker about it.

  It was annoying, then, that she was the one who would not leave me alone. In fact, she was more present to me these days than ever. Even if only in an imaginary way. I hadn’t seen her since she’d blown me off at the restaurant a week ago. I kept expecting her to come find me, but she didn’t. I was thinking about her all the time.

  Every time I came out of the surf I’d look up into the distance, hoping to spot her approaching through the dunes. Several times I thought I saw her rolling from the waves, even though I knew she couldn’t swim. Every time I smelled cigarette smoke, I thought it might be hers, and when I turned around and saw that it wasn’t, I would wonder: What was she doing now? What about five minutes ago, or five minutes from now? She seemed capable of existing in past, present, and future all at once, as if it was no thing, as if the linear notion of time was something she brushed off as silly and irrelevant and possibly offensive to her—oh, that?

  Was she at the Fisherman’s Net, wandering irritably from table to table, or was she taking the trash out, or was she walking up the beach with Kristle, both of them running their fingers through wet hair, their backs to the sun as they bickered? Maybe she was on the pier. Or pushing a shopping cart through a dusty aisle at Seamark, thinking, Today, frozen waffles and granola bars, or Why not brussels sprouts for once? Or dancing at some party, arms in the air, throwing her head back. Wait, no: that wouldn’t be her. More likely she’d be sitting alone on a balcony or secluded away in some bedroom reading a dusty old paperback and waiting for other boys—stoned, confused, a little drunk—to stumble in and find her.

  I wouldn’t flatter myself to think that maybe she would be waiting there for me. But of course, I couldn’t help wondering anyway. Even during the middle of the day when there wasn’t any party happening.

  And just when I thought I’d managed to put her aside for a minute, an hour, I’d close my eyes and see her face again.

  I wondered what I had done wrong.

  I thought about talking to Jeff, asking his advice, but he was no help anymore. He never had been, but there was a moment when it had seemed possible that he could be. That moment had passed. Jeff
was barely at the house anymore. His excuse was that he didn’t want to be around Mom, and maybe that was half-true, but I wondered if it had something to do with me. He’d stop in every now and then just to brush his teeth or pick up some clothes, or eat some cereal or whatever, none of which really counted. The times that I’d tried to catch him in conversation, he’d extricated himself as quickly as possible.

  Was it Kristle? Was it something else? I couldn’t believe I’d thought I could count on him.

  I actually thought about calling Sebastian for advice, but I could practically hear his voice: Wait, this is all over some girl? Don’t be such a fucking vagina, dude! I mean, dude! You go to the beach for a month and you turn into a human tampon!

  I was lonely again. Before, being lonely had felt romantically belligerent—a satisfying fuck-you to everyone—but this time it was just loneliness. It was prickly and cold.

  Which was maybe or maybe not an explanation for the dream I had when I fell asleep on the beach on a day that was one in a string of many identical, aimless days since I had tried and failed to enjoy The Price is Right and had gone to see DeeDee at the restaurant.

  In the dream, DeeDee and Kristle and Jeff and I were all in the sand together, but I was somehow in two places at once: standing in the sand, but also observing myself from a perspective a few paces behind, a few feet above. The four of us were standing there in a row, just looking out at the sun setting on the horizon, our fingers grazing one another’s in silhouette like we were a string of old-fashioned paper dolls. The sun doesn’t set over the Atlantic Ocean—even my dream self knew that—but I supposed it could have been a different ocean as it swallowed the pink, sinking sphere.

  Without saying anything, the girls stepped forward. They began to wade into the water. Toes, calves, thighs. The waves were hitting hard but they kept walking. Hips, breasts, shoulders. They didn’t stop.

  I tried to look over at Jeff and found that I couldn’t. I tried to speak but I couldn’t do that either.

  I wanted to chase after them. I wanted to shout at them both to come back. I just wanted them to turn around and look at me, just look at me long enough for me to reach out and stop them.

  The water began to crash over their bodies, but they walked on until they were nearly out of sight.

  I was outside myself and I was paralyzed. They faded off into nothing. From every direction, I could feel glowing eyes on all of us.

  Then the sun was gone and the water wasn’t much like water anymore. It was black and tarry and dangerous, and my mother was walking out of it. The color returned slowly as she approached, and I realized the sun was out again. I wasn’t dreaming anymore. Mom was wearing this sort of old-fashionedy bathing suit that I hadn’t seen her in before, black with white trim and a halter that tied at the neck. It didn’t look like the sort of thing that they’d approve of at Women’s Land, but it didn’t look like anything that Gonzo the tattoo artist would pick out for her either. I didn’t know where she’d gotten it. I supposed it was something that was just hers. In the sun, the inky snake splayed across her chest appeared to squirm.

  I thought of what my father had said: about the choices she had made and the ones she was still making. She had decided to take action. Even if it had been pointless, even if it had been the wrong thing, even if it had just only led her back to us eventually, it was still action and that counted for something.

  She didn’t notice me looking at her; in fact she seemed to be half somewhere else entirely. She was standing alone in an awkward spot not quite far enough from another family’s huddle and was staring off into middle distance, fiddling with her hair. Out of nowhere I felt an overpowering affection for her. Well, she was my mother.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  LOVE

  We have heard a lot about “love.” We have a hard time understanding it, but we don’t feel too bad; we have heard that it’s a difficult concept for many people.

  Without a full understanding, it’s hard to decide whether it’s real. We are divided. Among those of us who do believe, we are divided again as to whether it’s a good thing—a gift, a miracle—or a corruptive force.

  One thing we have reached consensus on is that—real or not, whether from the Deepness or the Endlessness—love is strange and dangerous. There are many reasons to love someone, reasons that are not often discussed. It’s not as simple as one is led to believe.

  It makes little difference to us. We don’t love anything or anyone. Nothing. This is an unspoken promise that we have made not only to ourselves but, more importantly, to one another. Selfishness is our one true law. It provides order. Our knife must stay sharpened.

  But every once in a while we’ll be walking along the beach road together, off to some house to be cleaned or another shift at another restaurant, and we might turn at the same time and find ourselves facing each other, pausing in rapt fascination at the sight of a familiar and beautiful face. It is a face from a magazine, filtered through a dream; it’s a face that has been passed down, a face we invented.

  We might find our breath catching at the way the sun catches the other’s hair, the way she pauses for a moment and thinks before laughing. The way she reminds us of our many selves and the way she is different and singular.

  Sometimes—rarely, but sometimes—it occurs to us that we would do anything, sacrifice anything, for her.

  We never discuss this. We hope it doesn’t count as love. The worst thing we could do is love one another.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  FIFTEEN

  KRISTLE WAS IN my room and she was naked. I thought I was dreaming at first, but I rubbed my eyes and sat up in bed, and she was standing motionless, arms at her sides, her body hard and glowing like a statue made of moon rock.

  “Shh,” she said. “Your brother’s asleep on the couch.”

  “What the fuck?” I said.

  “Shh,” she said. “It’s no big deal. It’s just sex.” And she crawled into bed on top of me, her nipples scraping my bare chest, and started kissing me on the mouth.

  I pushed her off. “This is so fucked up,” I said. “What are you doing?”

  “Shhhh,” she said. “Just relax. Don’t make it such a big deal.”

  “You’re my brother’s girlfriend,” I said.

  “We don’t believe in girlfriends around here,” she said. “It’s one of many things we don’t believe in.”

  She took my hand and placed it between her legs. It was moist and warm and soft with downy hair, and I’m ashamed to say that this time I didn’t recoil. One can only resist so much, okay? “See?” she said, beginning to grind. “No big deal.” Her hair was brushing my face, and I felt my breathing get shallow. “I’ve seen you staring at me,” she said. “Be a man.”

  Be a man. Most things had changed since the beginning of the summer, but this was a constant: I still had no idea what it was supposed to mean. Maybe I was even less certain now, having found myself in this strange kingdom of girls. Everything was ruled by dream logic around here; it made the entire concept of manhood seem pathetic and, well, flaccid. Not that it hadn’t seemed that way already.

  Kristle had moved the covers from my body and was straddling my midsection with her hand inside my underwear, where my dick was aching. My fingers were inside her, and she had her head thrown back, lips parted halfway in a look that implied concentration more than pleasure.

  Then there was a crack of light coming from the hall, and I looked up to see my brother silhouetted in the doorway. He didn’t say anything, but I pushed Kristle off me and threw the sheets back over myself.

  “Sam?” Kristle said. “Look, I won’t if you really don’t want to, but . . .” Then she saw that I was dumbfounded, and
she looked over her shoulder to where my brother was just staring, frozen in place.

  “Shit,” she said, scrambling to her feet, still naked. “Jeff!” He was gone and she was chasing after him. All I could think to do was just try to fall back asleep and hope it had been my imagination.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  SIXTEEN

  I WENT TO find DeeDee. She’d never told me where she lived, but it wasn’t hard to track her down. I waited till Tuesday, her day off, and followed a trail of girls up the beach road until I found myself standing in front of the pink motel that I’d walked to on the first morning here. Like many things here, it made backward sense that this was her home.

  There was a blond Girl in the parking lot, another one of them, leaning against a car and smoking of course. “Do you know where DeeDee lives?” I asked, knowing that she would.

  She looked up and her eyes darted with recognition. She twisted her neck and brushed her hair from her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. “Why do you want DeeDee?” she said. She gave a long blink. Her tongue darted out as she moistened the corner of her mouth.

  “I found something of hers,” I said. “I want to give it back.”

  “What is it?” she asked. “I’m Jenuvia, by the way. You’re Sam, right?”

  “Yeah. But can you just tell me where she lives?” I said.

  The Girl gave a disgruntled shrug. “Four-A,” she said. “But she’s in a terrible mood. She’s been sick. You sure you want to talk to her?”