First published in the USA by Dial Books 2014

This edition published 2016 by Electric Monkey

an imprint of Egmont UK Limited

The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Text copyright © Huntley Fitzpatrick 2014

Published by arrangement with Dial, an imprint of Penguin Young

Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

First e-book edition 2016

ISBN 978 1 4052 8038 9

Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1738 0

www.egmont.co.uk

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For you, John, for more than twenty years of your love, faith, and friendship. For all the moments when I despaired of Cass or Gwen or Nic, and you said softly, “I like them.” For all those distracted hours of mine when you picked up the slack. Picking up groceries, taking kids to ballet . . . those things never show up in romantic novels. But they should.

For you, K, A, R, J, D, and C, the Fitzpatrick six . . . who love books and beaches and summer. What I know is true? You are the best things that have ever happened to me.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Chapter Thirty-eight

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

About the Author

Chapter One

Nothing like a carful of boys to completely change my mood.

There’s a muffled expletive from inside Castle’s Ice Cream, so I know Dad’s spotted them too. A gang of high school boys tops his list of Least Favorite Customers – they eat a ton, they want it now, and they never tip. Or so he claims.

At first, I barely pay attention. I’m carrying a tray of wobbly root beer floats, foil-wrapped burgers, and a greasy Everest’s worth of fried scallops toward table four out front. In a few weeks, I’ll be in the rhythm of work. Balancing all this and more will be no big deal. But school got out three days ago, Castle’s reopened full-time last week, the sun is dazzling, the early summer air is sticky with salt, and I have only a few more minutes left in my shift. My mind is already at the beach. So I don’t look up to see who just drove in until I hear a couple of whistles. And my name.

I glance back. A convertible is parked, slanted, taking up two spaces. Sure enough, Spence Channing, who was driving, shakes his hair from his eyes and grins at me. Trevor Sharpe and Jimmy Pieretti are piling out, laughing. I whip off my Castle’s hat, with its spiky gold crown, and push it into the pocket of my apron.

“Got a special for us, Gwen?” Spence calls.

“Take a number,” I call back. There’s a predictable chorus of ooo ’s from some of the boys. I set the tray down at table four, add soda cans and napkins from my front pockets, give them a speedy, practiced smile, then pause by the table where my brother is waiting for me, dreamily dragging French fries through ketchup.

But then I hear, “Hey, Cass, look who’s here! Ready to serve.” And the last boy in the car, who had been concealed behind Jimmy’s wide torso, climbs out.

His eyes snag on mine.

The seconds unwind, thin, taut, transparent as a fishing line cast far, far, far out.

I jolt up, grab my brother’s hand. “Let’s get home, Em.”

Emory pulls away. “Not done,” he says firmly. “Not done.” I can see his leg muscles tighten into his “I am a rock, I am an island” stance. His hands flick back and forth, wiping my urgency away.

This is my cue to take a breath, step back. Hurrying Em, pushing him, tends to end in disaster. Instead, I’m grabbing his ketchup-wilted paper plate, untying my apron, calling to Dad, “Gotta get home, can we do this take-out?”

“Not done,” Emory repeats, yanking his hand from mine. “Gwennie, no.”

“Gettin’ slammed,” Dad calls out the service window, over the sizzle of the grill. “Wrap it yourself, pal.” He tosses a few pieces of foil through the window, adding several packets of ketchup, Emory’s favorite.

“Still eating.” Emory sits firmly back down at the picnic table.

“We’ll watch a movie,” I tell him, wrapping his food. “Ice cream.”

Dad glances sharply out the take-out window. He may be brusque with Em from time to time, but he doesn’t like it when I am.

“Ice cream here.” My brother points at the large painting of a double-decker cone adorning one of the fake turrets. Yes, Castle’s is built to look like a castle.

I pull him to the truck anyway and don’t look back, not even when I hear a voice call, “Hey, Gwen. Have a sec?”

I turn the key in Mom’s battered Bronco, pressing hard on the gas. The engine revs deafeningly. But not loud enough to drown out another voice, laughing, “She has lots of secs! As we know.”

Dad, thank God, has ducked away from the service window and is bent over the grill. Maybe he didn’t hear any of that.

I gun the car again; jerk forward, only to find the wheels spinning, caught in the deeper sand of the parking lot. At last the truck lurches, kicks into a fast reverse. I squeal out onto the blazing blacktop of Ocean Lane, grateful the road is empty.

Two miles down, I pull over to the side, fold my arms to the top of the steering wheel, rest my forehead on them, take deep breaths. Emory ducks his head to peep at me, brown eyes searching, then resignedly opens the foil and continues eating his limp, ketchup-soggy fries.

In another year, I’ll graduate. I can go someplace else. I can leave those boys – this whole past year – far behind in the rearview mirror.

I pull in another deep breath.

We’re close to the water now, and the breeze spills over me soft and briny, secure and familiar. This is why everyone comes here. For the air, for the beaches, for the peace.

Somehow I’ve wedged the car right in front of the big white-and-green painted sign that marks the official separation between town and island, where the bridge from Stony Bay stops and Seashell Island begins. The sign’s been here as long as I can remember and the paint has flaked off its loopy cursive writing in most places, but the promises are grooved deep.

Heaven by the water.

Best-kept little secret in New England.

Tiny hidden jewel cradled by the rocky Connecticut coast.

Seashell Island, where I’ve lived all my life, is called all those things and more.

And all I want to do is leave it behind.

Chapter Two

“Kryptite the only thing,” Emory tells me, very seriously, the next afternoon. He shakes his dark hair – arrow-straight like Dad’s – out of his eyes. “The only, only thing can stop him.”

“Kryptonite,” I say. “That’s right. Yup, otherwise, he’s unstoppable.”

“Not much Kryptite here,” he assures me. “So all okay.”

He resumes drawing, bearing down hard on his red Magic Marker. He’s sprawled on his stomach on the floor, comic book laid out next to his pad. The summer light slants through our kitchen/living room window, brightening the paper as he scribbles color onto his hero’s cape. I’m lying on the couch in a drowsy haze after taking Em into White Bay for speech class earlier.

“Good job,” I say, gesturing to his pad. “I like the shooting stars in the background.”

Emory tilts his chin at me, forehead crinkling, so I suspect they aren’t stars. But he doesn’t correct me, just keeps on drawing.

An entire day after running into the boys at Castle’s, I’m still wanting a do-over. Why did I let them get to me this time? I should have laughed; flipped them off. Not very classy, but I’m not supposed to be the classy one here. I should have said, “Well, Spence, we all know that with you, it wouldn’t take more than a sec.”

But I couldn’t have said that. Not with Cassidy Somers there. The other boys don’t matter much. But Cass . . .

Kryptonite.

An hour or so later, our rattly screen door snaps open and in comes Mom, her dark curly hair frizzing from the heat the way mine always does. She’s followed wearily by Fabio, our ancient, half-blind Labrador mix. He immediately keels over on his side, tongue lolling out. Mom hurries to push his bowl of water closer to him with one foot while reaching into our refrigerator for a Diet Coke.

“Did you think about it some more, honey?” she asks me, after taking a long swallow. Caffeinated diet soda, not blood, must run through her veins.

I spring up, and the old orange-and-burgundy plaid sofa lets out an agonized groan. Right, I should be making decisions about what to do this summer, not obsessing about the ones I made yesterday – or in March.

“Careful!” Mom calls, waving her free hand at the couch. “Respect the Myrtle.”

Emory, now scribbling in Superman’s dark hair, heavy-handed on the black marker, offers his throaty giggle at the face I make.

“Mom. We got Myrtle from Bert and Earl’s Bargain Basement. Myrtle has three legs and no working springs. Getting off Myrtle makes me feel like I need a forklift. Respect. Really?”

“Everything deserves respect,” Mom says mildly, plopping onto Myrtle with a sigh. After a second, she crinkles her nose and reaches under the cushion, extracting one of my cousin Nic’s ratty, nasty sweatshirts. A banana peel. One of her own battered romance novels. “Myrtle has lived a long, hard life in a short time.” She swats me with the gross sweatshirt, smiling. “So? What do you think – about Mrs. Ellington?”

Helping Mrs. Ellington. The possible summer job Mom heard about this morning, meaning I wouldn’t have to keep working at Dad’s again. Which I’ve faithfully done every year since I was twelve. Illegal for anyone else, but allowed for Nic and me, since we’re family. After five years, for sure, I could use a change from scooping sherbet, frying clams, and slapping together grilled cheese sandwiches. More than that . . . if I’m not handling Dad’s at night, I can help Vivien on catering gigs.

“Is it for the whole summer?” I plop down, stretch back gingerly. If you hit her the wrong way, Myrtle lists like the Titanic before its final dive.

Mom unlaces the shabby sneakers she wears to work, kicks one off, stretching out her toes with a groan. She has daisies delicately painted on her big-toenails, no doubt the work of Vivien, the Picasso of pedicures. On cue, Emory leaves the room in search of her slippers. He would have gotten her the Coke if she hadn’t beaten him to it.

“Through August,” she confirms, after another long draw of soda. “She fell off a ladder last week, twisted her ankle, got a concussion. It’s not a nursing job,” she assures me hastily. “They’ve got someone coming in nights for that. Henry . . . the family . . . just wants to make sure someone’s looking out for her – that she’s getting exercise, eating – not wandering off to the beach by herself. She’s nearly ninety.” Mom shakes her head as if she can’t believe it.

Me neither. Mrs. Ellington always seemed timeless to me, like a character from one of those old books Grandpa brings home from yard sales, with her crisp New England accent, straight back, strong opinions. I remember her snapping back to some summer person who asked “What’s wrong with him?” about Em: “Not as much as is wrong with you.” When Nic and I used to go along with Mom on jobs, back when we were little, Mrs. E. gave us frosted sugar cookies and homemade lemonade, and let us sway in the hammock on her porch while Mom marched around the house with her vacuum cleaner and mop.

But . . . it would be an island job. A working-for-the-summer-people job. And I’ve promised myself I won’t do that.

Rubbing her eyes with thumb and forefinger, Mom polishes off her soda and plunks the can down with a tinny clink. More tendrils of hair snake out of her ponytail, clinging in little coils to her damp, flushed cheeks.

“What would the hours be, again?” I ask.

“That’s the best part! Nine to four. You’d get her breakfast, fix lunch – she naps in the afternoon, so you’d have time free. Her son wants someone to start on Monday. It’s three times what your dad can pay. For a lot less work. A good deal, Gwen.”

She lays out this trump card cautiously, sliding the “you need to do this ” carefully underneath the “you want to do this.” Whatever Nic and I can pull in during the summer helps during the Seashell dead zone, the long, slow months when most of the houses close up for the season – when Mom has fewer regulars, Dad shuts down Castle’s and does odd jobs until spring, and Em’s bills keep coming.

“What about her own family?” I ask.

Mom hitches a shoulder, up, down, casual. “According to Henry, they won’t be there. He does something on Wall Street, is super-busy. The boys are grown now – Henry says they don’t want to spend their whole summer on a sleepy island with their grandma the way they did when they were younger.”

I make a face. I may have my own thoughts about how small and quiet Seashell can be, but I live here. I’m allowed. “Not even to help their own grandmother?”

“Who knows what goes on in families, hon. Other people’s stories.”

Are their own.

I know this by heart.

Emory bounces back into the room with Mom’s fuzzy slippers – a matted furry green one and a red, both for the left foot. Reaching out for Mom’s leg, he pulls off the remaining sneaker, rubs her instep.

“Thanks, bunny rabbit,” Mom says as he carefully positions one slipper, repeating the routine on the other foot. “What do you say, Gwen?” Mom leans into me, nudging my knee with hers.

“I’d have afternoons and nights free – every night?” I ask, as though this is some key point. As if I have a hoppin’ social life and a devoted boyfriend.

“Every night,” Mom assures me, kindly not asking “What’s it matter, Gwen?”

Every night free. Guaranteed. Working for Dad, I usually wind up covering the shifts no one else wants – Fridays and Saturdays till closing. With all that time open, I can have a real summer, do the beach bonfires and the cookouts. Hang out with Vivie and Nic, swim down at the creek as the sun sets, the most beautiful time there. No school, no tutoring to do, no waking up at 4:30 to time for the swim team, none of those boys . . . Running into them yesterday at Castle’s was . . . yuck. Out at Mrs. E.’s, the farthest house on Seashell, I’d never have to see them.

I can practically smell my freedom – salty breezes, green sun-warm sea-grass, hot fresh breezes blowing over the wet rocks, waves splashing, white foam against the dark curl of water.

“I’ll do it.”

It’s an island job. But only for one summer. For one family. It’s not what Mom did, starting to clean houses with my Vovó, her mother, the year she turned fifteen to make money for college, still cleaning them (no college) all this time later. It’s not what Dad did either, taking over the family business at eighteen because his father had a heart attack at the grill.

It’s just temporary.

Not a life decision.

“Hon . . . did your dad pay you for your days yet? We’re running a little behind.” Mom brushes some crumbs off the couch without meeting my eyes. “Nothing to worry about, but – ”

“He said he’d get it to me later in the week,” I answer absently. Em has moved from Mom’s feet to mine, not nearly as sore, but I’m not about to turn him down.

Mom stands, opens the fridge. “Lean Cuisine, South Beach, or good old Stouffer’s tonight? Your choice.”

Gag on Lean Cuisine and South Beach. She stabs the plastic top of a frozen entrée with her fork, but before she can shove it into the microwave, Grandpa Ben saunters in, his usual load of contraband slung over his shoulder, Santa Claus style. If Santa were into handing out seafood. He pushes one of Nic’s sweat-stiffened bandannas to the side of the counter, unloading the lobsters into the sink with a clatter of hard shells and clicking claws.

“Um, dois, três, quatro. That one there must be five pounds at least.” Excited, he runs his hands through his wild white hair, a Portuguese Albert Einstein.

“Papai. We can’t possibly eat all those.” Despite her protest, Mom immediately starts filling one of our huge lobster pots with water from the sink. “Again I ask, how long will it be until you get caught? And when you go to jail, you help us how?” Grandpa’s fishing license lapsed several years ago, but he goes out with the boats whenever the spirit moves him. His array of illegal lobster traps still spans the waters off our island.

Grandpa Ben glares at Mom’s plastic tray, shaking his head. “Your grandfather Fernando did not live to be one hundred and two on” – he flips the box over, checking the ingredients – “potassium benzoate.”

“No,” Mom tells him, shoving the tray back into the freezer. “Fernando lived to one-oh-two because he drank so much Vinho Verde, he was pickled.”

Muttering under his breath, Grandpa Ben disappears into the room he shares with Nic and Em, emerging in his at-home mode – shirt off, undershirt and worn plaid bathrobe on, carrying Emory’s Superman pajamas.

“Into these, faster than a speeding bullet,” he says to Emory, who giggles his raspy laugh and races around the room, arms outstretched Man-of-Steel style.

“No flying until you’re in your suit,” Grandpa says. Em skids to a halt in front of him, patiently allowing Grandpa Ben to strip off his shirt and shorts and wrestle the pajamas on. Then he cuddles next to me on Myrtle as Grandpa fires up a Fred Astaire DVD.

Our living room’s so small it barely accommodates the enormous plasma-screen TV Grandpa won last year at a bingo tournament at church. I’m pretty sure he cheated. The state-of-the-art screen always looks so out of place on the wall between a cedar-wood crucifix and the wedding picture of my grandmother. She’s uncharacteristically serious in black and white, with the bud vase underneath that Grandpa never forgets to fill every day. It’s a big picture, one of those ones where the eyes seem to follow you.

I can never meet hers.

Lush, romantic music fills the room, along with Fred Astaire’s cracked tenor voice.

“Where Ginger?” Emory asks, pointing at the screen. Grandpa Ben’s put on Funny Face, which has Audrey Hepburn, not Ginger Rogers.

“She’ll be here in a minute,” Grandpa tells him, his usual answer, waiting for Emory to love the music and the dancing so much that he doesn’t care who does it.

Em chews his lip, and his foot begins twitching back and forth.

My eight-year-old brother is not autistic. He’s not anything they’ve mapped genetically. He’s just Emory. No diagnosis, no chart, no map at all. Some hard things come easy to him, and some basic things he struggles with. I wrap my arms around his waist, his skinny ribs, rest my chin on his shoulder, feeling his dark flyaway hair lift to tickle my cheek, inhaling his sun-warm, little-boy scent. “This is the one with the funny song, remember? The sunny funny-face song?”

At last Em settles, snuggled with his favorite stuffed animal, Hideout the hermit crab, in his arms. Grandpa Ben won him at some fair when Emory was two, and he’s been Em’s favorite ever since.

I nudge aside Fabio, go outside to the front steps, because I just can’t watch Audrey Hepburn being waifish and wistful. At nearly five eleven, nobody, no matter how nearsighted, will ever say I’m waifish.

Squinting out over the island, over the roofs of the low, split-level houses across from ours – Hoop’s squat gray ranch, Pam’s dirty shingled white house, Viv’s pale green house with the red wood shutters that don’t match – I can just barely catch the dazzle of the end-of-day sun off the water. I lean back on my elbows, shut my eyes, and take a deep breath of the warm, briny air.

Which reeks.

My eyes pop open. A pair of my cousin’s workout sneakers are inches from my nose. Yuck. Eau de sweaty eighteen-year-old boy. I elbow them off the porch, onto the grass.

The screen door bangs open. Mom slides down next to me, a carton of ice cream in one hand, spoon in the other. “Want some? I’ll even get you your own spoon.”

“Nah, I’m fine.” I offer a smile. Pretty sure she doesn’t buy it. “That your appetizer, Mom?”

“Ice cream,” she says. “Appetizer, main course, dessert. So flexible.”

She digs around for the chunks of peanut butter ripple, and then pauses to brush my hair back from my forehead. “Anything we need to talk about? You’ve been quiet the past day or so.”

It’s ironic. Mom spends most of her spare time reading romance novels about people who take their clothes off a lot. She explained the facts of life to a stunned and horrified Nic and me by demonstrating with a Barbie and a G.I. Joe. She took me to the gynecologist for the Pill when I was fifteen – “It’s good for your complexion,” she insisted, when I sputtered that it wasn’t necessary, “and your future.” We can talk about physical stuff – she’s made sure of that – but only in the abstract . . . Now I want to rest my head onto her soft, freckled shoulder and tell her everything about the boys in the car. But I don’t want her knowing that anyone sees me like that.

That I’ve given anyone a reason.

“I’m fine,” I repeat. She spoons up more ice cream, face absorbed. After a moment, Fabio noses his way through the screen door, staggers up to Mom, and sets his chin on her thigh, rolling his eyes at her beseechingly.

“Don’t,” I tell her. Though I know she will. Sure enough, Mom scrapes out a chunk, tapping the spoon on the deck. Fabio drops his inches-from-death act and slurps it up, then resumes his hopeful post, drooling on Mom’s leg.

After a while, she says, “Maybe you could walk down to the Ellingtons’” – she wags the spoon toward Low Road – “say hiya to Mrs. E.”

“Wait. What? Like a job interview? Now?” I look down at my fraying cut-offs and T-shirt, back at Mom. Then I run inside and come back with my familiar green-and-pink mascara tube. I unscrew it, flicking the wand rapidly over my eyelashes.

“You don’t need that,” Mom says for the millionth time, nonetheless handing me her spoon so I can check for smudges in the reflection. “No. I pretty much told her you’d take the job. It’s a good one. But I don’t know how many other people already know about it. And such good pay. Just get there, ground floor, remind her who you are. She’s always liked you.”

This is why, three minutes later, I’m toeing on my flip-flops when Grandpa Ben hurries out, his shock of curly white hair tousled. “Gwen! Take this! Tell Mrs. E. they are from Bennie para a rosa da ilha, for the Rose of the Island. Mando lagostas e amor. I send her lobsters and love.”

I look down at the moist paper sack encased in Grandpa’s faded rope-mesh bag, from which a pair of lobster antennae wave menacingly.

“Grandpa. It’s a job interview. Sort of. I can’t show up with shellfish. Especially alive.”

Grandpa Ben blows out his breath impatiently. “Rose loves lobsters. Lobster salad. Always, she loved that. Amor verdadeiro.” He beams at me.

“True love or not, these are a long way from lobster salad.” One of the lobsters is missing a front claw but still snapping scarily at me with its other one.

“You cook them, you chill them, you make the special sauce for her to eat tomorrow.” Grandpa Ben thrusts the bag at me. “Rose always loved the lagostas.”

He’s aged in the years since Vovó died, more so since Dad moved out and he moved in. Before then, he seemed as unchanging as the figureheads on a whaling ship, roughly hewn, strong, brown as oak. But his face seems to sag tonight, and I can’t stand to say no to those eager chocolate eyes. So I bundle the mesh sack onto my wrist and head down the steps.

At nearly six o’clock the early summer sun is still high in the sky, the water beyond the houses bottomless bright blue, glinting silver with reflected light. There’s just a bit of a breeze, and, now that I’m out of range of Nic’s shoes, the air smells like cut grass and seaweed, mingled with the mellow scent of the wild thyme that grows everywhere on the island.

That’s about all we have here. Wild thyme, a seasonal community of shingled mansions, a nature preserve dedicated to the piping plovers, and the rest of us – the people who mow the lawns and fix and paint and clean the houses. We all live in East Woods, the “bad” part of Seashell. Ha. Not many people would say that exists on the island. We get woods at our back and can only squint at the ocean; they get the full view of the sea – sand tumbling all the way out to the water – from their front windows, and big rambling green lawns in back. Eighty houses, thirty of them year-round, the rest open from Memorial through Columbus Day. In the winter it’s like we year-rounders own the island, but every spring we have to give it back.

I’m halfway down Beach Road, past Hooper’s house, past Vivien’s, heading for Low Road and Mrs. Ellington, when I hear the low clattery thrum of a double lawn mower. It gets louder as I walk down the road closer to the water. The rumble builds, booming as I turn onto Low Road, where the biggest beachfront houses are. The maintenance shack on Seashell – the Field House – has these huge old stand-up mowers, with blades big enough to cut six-foot-wide swaths in everyone’s yard. As I pass the Coles’ house, the sound stutters to a halt.

And so do I.

Chapter Three

At first I just have to stare, the way you do when confronted with a natural wonder.

Niagara Falls.

The Grand Canyon.

Okay, I’ve never been to either, but I can imagine.

This summer’s yard boy has climbed off the mower and is standing with his back to me, looking up at Old Mrs. Partridge, who’s bellowing at him from her porch, making imperious sweeping gestures from left to right.

“Why can’t you folks ever get this?” shouts Old Mrs. Partridge. She’s rich, deaf, and Mom’s number one candidate for undetectable poison. Not only are all the people who work for her in any capacity “you people,” most of the other island residents are too.

“I’ll work on it,” the yard boy says, adding after a slight pause, “ma’am.”

“You won’t just work on it, you’ll do it right. Do I make myself clear, Jose?”

“Yes.” Again the pause. “Ma’am.”

Old Mrs. Partridge looks up, her mouth so tight she could bite a quarter in half. “You – ” She jabs her bamboo cane out at me. “Maria! Come tell this boy how I like my lawn mowed.”

Oh hell no. I take a few steps backward on the road, my eyes straying irresistibly to the yard boy.

He’s turned to the side, rubbing his forehead, a gesture I recognize from Mom (Old Mrs. Partridge can get a migraine going in no time). He’s in shorts, shirtless . . . broad shoulders, lean waist, tumble of blond hair bright in the sun, nice arms accentuated by the bend of his elbow. The least likely “Jose” in the world.

Cassidy Somers.

Oh, I should keep backing away now instead of what I actually do, which is freeze to the spot. But I cannot help myself.

Again.

Snagging the shirt draped over the handlebars of the lawn mower, Cass wipes his face, starts to mop under his arms, then glances up and sees me. His eyes widen, he lowers the shirt, then seems to change his mind, quickly hauling it over his head. His eyes meet mine, warily.

“Go on!” Mrs. Partridge snaps. “Tell him. How Things Are Done. You’ve been around here long enough. You know how I like my lawn. Explain to Jose here that he can’t just mow it in this haphazard, higgledy-piggledy fashion.”

I feel the sharp edge of a claw nudge under my arm and slide Grandpa Ben’s bag to the ground behind me. This is bad enough without lobsters.

“Well, Jose,” I say firmly. “Mrs. Partridge likes her lawn to be mowed very evenly. Horizontally.”

“Horizontally?” he repeats, tipping his head at me slightly, the smallest of smiles tugging the corner of his mouth.

Cass. Let’s not go there.

“That’s right,” I say. “Jose.”

He leans back against the mower, head still cocked to the side. Old Mrs. Partridge has caught sight of Marco, the head maintenance guy on the island, making his final rounds with the garbage truck, and temporarily deserts us to bully him instead, railing about some hurricane that’ll never make it this far up the coast.

“You’re the yard boy on island this summer?” I blurt out. “Wouldn’t you be better off – I don’t know, caddying at the country club?”

Cass lifts two fingers to his forehead, saluting sardonically. “This year’s flunky, at your service. I prefer yard man. But apparently I don’t get a choice. My first name has also been changed against my will.”

“You’re all Jose to Mrs. Partridge. Unless you’re a girl. Then you’re Maria.”

He folds his arms, leans back slightly, frowning. “Flexible of her.”

I’ve barely spoken a word to Cass since those spring parties. Slipped around him in school, sat far away in classes and assemblies, shrugged off conversations. Easy when he’s part of a crowd – that crowd – striding down the hallways at Stony Bay High like they own it all, or at Castle’s yesterday. Not so simple when it’s only Cass.

He’s squinting at me now, absently rubbing his bottom lip with his thumb. I’m close enough to breathe in the salty ocean-scent of him, the faint trace of chlorine. Suddenly that cold spring day is vivid in my mind, closer than yesterday. Don’t think about it. And definitely not about his lips.

He ducks his head to see my eyes. I don’t know what mine show, so I direct my gaze at his legs. Strong calves, lightly dusted with springing blond hair. I’m more conscious of the ways he’s changed since we were kids even than the ways I have. Good God. Stop it. I shift my gaze to the limitless blue of the sky, acutely aware of every sound – the sighing ocean, the hum of the bees in the beach plum bushes, the distant heartbeat throb of a speedboat.

He shifts from one leg to the other, clears his throat. “I was wondering when I’d run into you,” he offers, just as I ask, “Why are you here?”

Cass is not an islander. His family owns a boat-building business on the mainland, Somers Sails, one of the biggest on the East Coast. He does not have to put up with the summer people. Not like us – the actual Joses and Marias.

He shrugs. “Dad got me the job.” He leans down, brushing grass cuttings off the back of his leg. “Supposed to make a man of me. School of hard knocks and all that.”

“Yup, we poor folk make up in maturity what we lack in money.”

A flash of embarrassment crosses his face, as if he’s suddenly remembered that, while we both go to Stony Bay High, I don’t have a membership at the Bath and Tennis Club. “Well . . .” he says finally, “it’s not a cubicle, anyway.” His sweeping gesture takes in the gleaming ocean and the swath of emerald-green lawn. “Can’t top the view.”

I nod, try to picture him in an office. I’m most familiar with him near the water, poised to dive into the school pool or, that one summer, hurling himself off the Abenaki dock into the ocean, somersaulting in the air before crashing into the blue-black water. After a second I realize I’m still nodding away at him like an idiot. I stop, shove my hands in my pockets so violently I widen the hole in the bottom of one and a dime drops out onto the grass. I edge my foot forward, cover it.

Done with browbeating Marco, Old Mrs. Partridge tramps back up the stone path, points at Cass with a witchy finger. “Is this break time? Did I say this was break time? What are you doing, lolly-gagging around? Next thing I know you’ll be expecting a tuna sandwich. You, Maria, finish explaining How Things Are Done and let Jose get to work.” She stomps back into the house. I step away a few paces. Cass reaches out a hand as if to stop me, then drops it.

Silence again.

Go, I tell myself. Just turn around and go.

Cass clears his throat, clenches and unclenches his hand, then stretches out his fingers. “Uh . . .” He points. “I think . . . your bag is crawling.”

I turn. Lobster A is making a break for it across the lawn, trailing the mesh bag and Lobster B behind. I run after it, hunched low, snatch up the bag, and suddenly words are spilling from my mouth as freely and helplessly as that dime from my pocket. “Oh I’ve got this job interview, sort of . . . thing, with Mrs. Ellington – down-island.” I wave vaguely toward Low Road. “My grandfather knows her and wants me to make lobster salad for her.” I shake the lobsters back into the bag. “Which means I have to, like, boil these suckers. I know I’m a disgrace to seven generations of Portuguese fishermen, but putting something alive into boiling water? I’m not— It’s just— I mean, what a way to go – ” I look up at Cass, expressionless except for one slightly raised eyebrow, and clamp my mouth shut at last. “See you around,” I call over my shoulder, hurrying away.

Nonchalant. Suave. But really, are there any nonchalant, suave good-byes that involve unruly crustaceans? Not to mention that the Good Ship Pretense of Nonchalance sailed several blatherings ago.

“Will I?” Cass calls after me. I pick up my pace but can’t resist a quick reverse look at him. He just stands there, arms still folded, watching me scurry off like some hard-shelled creature scrabbling over the seafloor. Except without the handy armor.

Chapter Four

I keep speed-walking down Low Road, my thoughts racing ahead of my feet. The yard boy is everywhere on island, all summer long. Cass will haunt my summer the way he preoccupied my spring.

I hear a sound behind me, rubber on sand, skidding. I turn, my breath catching. But it’s just Vivien, bouncing over the speed bump on her old-fashioned, sky-blue Schwinn with the wicker basket, legs kicked out. She looks, deceptively, like an ad for something wholesome. Butter. Milk. Fresh fruit. Her glossy brown hair is caught up in pigtails that don’t look stupid, her cheeks glowing in the heat.

“Hey!” she says. “Your mom told me where you were going. Wanted to say good luck.”

“I thought you were meeting up with Nic.”

Vivien flushes the way she always does at Nic’s name, the thought of Nic, the sight of him. Yes, things have shifted, rearranging our childhood trio into something different.

She shakes her head. “I talked him into applying for the island painting and repair gig. He’s interviewing with Marco and Tony right now. If that works out, please God, he won’t have to rely on Hoop’s connections to get sketchy painting jobs all over the state.” She rolls her eyes. “That was a good idea . . . why?”

“Hoop’s an idiot,” I say. Nic’s best friend and partner for the summer in the house-painting business, Nat Hooper, can make a disaster of anything, and Nic is far too good-natured to stop him.

I hear the zzzzzzz of the mower starting up again. It takes all my concentration not to look back over my shoulder. Did Vivien see Cass? She must’ve.

“Hey, want to work a clambake with me Friday night?” Vivie asks. “Mom and Al are catering a rehearsal dinner. Ver-ry fahn-cy. It’s on the Hill – okay with that?”

“Absolutely. Nic up for it too?”

“Oh, for sure. We’ve got the bar covered, but low on waiters and servers. Hoop’s not sure he can make it – might have ‘a hot date with a special lady.’ Although I’m thinking the special lady is digitized. D’you know any other guy who’d be willing?”

I can’t help shifting my eyes down the road. Vivien trails my gaze, and then stares back at me with a little crinkle between her eyebrows.

“Have you seen this year’s yard boy?” I ask, wary.

“Yup.” She watches my face. “I gave him the gate code when he drove in to report for duty this morning.”

“You didn’t think to mention it to me? No warning text? Nothing?”

“Oh shit, sorry.” Viv lowers her heels to regain bike balance. “I tried once, but you know how cell reception sucks here.” She sneaks another look over her shoulder. “I should have kept trying.”

I follow her eyes back to the Partridge house, where Cass has dutifully returned to mowing the lawn. Horizontally. Shirt off again, hair gleaming in the sun.

My God.

“What, Gwenners? Thinking of asking Cassidy to be a spare set of hands?” She tips her head at me, eyes twinkling.

“No! What? No! You know my policy. Hands off. Avoid at all cost.”

Vivien snorts. “You sure? Because you’re getting that glazed look that leads to bad judgment, impulsive decision-making, and a walk of shame.”

Even though it’s Vivie, no real criticism there, I can feel my face go red. I look down at the ground, kick aside a pebble. “There were only two actual walks of shame.”

Vivien’s face sobers. She flings her leg over the bike and knocks back the kickstand, moves closer. “Cassidy Somers . . . right here on the island. Just . . . watch your step, Gwenners. Be careful with yourself.” Her fierce expression is so at odds with her sweet face and my childhood nickname that I want to laugh, but there’s a little twist in my stomach too.

We all can’t be Vivie and Nic.

My cousin and my best friend have been an item since we were all five, when I ceremonially performed their wedding service on Sandy Claw Beach. Since we were more familiar with boat launchings than weddings, I bashed them both on the knees with a bottle of apple juice.

How many people, honestly, get the guy they’ve loved all their lives treating them like they’re rare and precious and deserving of adoration? Hardly anyone, right?

Still, there’s a big gap between that and some unseemly scuffling in the sand.

Or a bunk bed.

Or a Bronco.

“Gwen!” Vivie snaps her fingers. “Stay with me, here. Remember your promise. Want your dad to catch you rolling around on the beach again, like with” – she hesitates, lowers her voice – “Alex?”

I cringe, turn my back on the Partridges’ lawn. Then I hold up one hand, resting the other on an imaginary Bible. “I remember. From now on, I will not, no matter how tempted, get even close to a compromising position with someone unless I love them and they love me.”

“And?”

“And unless we’ve passed a lie detector test to prove this,” I finish obediently. “But I have to say, that’s going to be awkward. Carrying around all the equipment, setting it up . . .”

“Just stay out of the sand dunes. And far away from those parties on the Hill,” Vivien says. “When it’s real love, no equipment necessary. You just look in their eyes and it’s all there.”

“Go apply for that job at Hallmark right this instant !” I swat her on the shoulder. She ducks away, kicking the bike back into gear, laughing.

I wouldn’t pass the lie detector test myself if I didn’t say that, oh, I want what Vivien and Nic found without even having to search. I give one last look over my shoulder at the back of Cass’ uptilted head, as Mrs. Partridge once again bellows at him from the porch.

Chapter Five

The Ellington house is the last one on the beach – big, turn-of-the-last-century, graceful, stretching along the shore like a contented cat in the sun. It’s got weathered dove-gray shingles and gray-green trim, two turrets, and a porch that sweeps three-quarters around, like the tail of a cat cozying close.

Taken with all that, the carport where Mrs. E.’s Cadillac is parked looks so . . . wrong. There should be a carriage house there, an eager groom in livery waiting to take the reins of your horse.

I walk up the side path to the kitchen door, wondering if this is the correct thing to do. You never know on the island. Half the houses Mom cleans welcome her in the front and offer her a drink, the other half insist she go around back and take off her shoes.

Toeing off my flip-flops, I look down at my feet, wishing for a second I had dainty ones like Viv, or that my nails were decorated with polish and not a Band-Aid from stubbing my toe on the seawall.

Mrs. Ellington’s glossy oak side door is propped open by a worn brick, but the screen door is closed. “Hi . . . ?” I call down the shady hallway. “Um, hello? . . . Mrs. Ellington?”

A television murmurs in the distance. A porcelain clock shaped like a starfish ticks loudly. From where I am I can see the gleam of a silver pitcher on the kitchen table, a tumble of zinnias glowing in it. I put my hand on the screen door, poised to push it open, then hesitate and call out again.

This time, the TV is immediately silenced. Then I hear click/thump, click/thump coming down the hardwood floor of the hallway, and there’s Mrs. Ellington. Her hair’s whiter and she’s holding a cane, one ankle tightly wrapped in an Ace bandage, but she’s still beautifully dressed, pearls on, smile broad.

“Gwen! Your mother says you are Gwen now, not Gwennie. I’m delighted to see you.” Propping her cane against the wall, she pulls open the screen door, then holds out both hands.

I slide my bag o’ lobsters down behind my back and take her hands, her skin loose and fragile as worn silk.

“So you’re to be my babysitter this summer! How it does come round,” Mrs. Ellington continues. “When you were tiny, I used to hold you in my lap on the porch while your mother cleaned. You were a dear little thing . . . those big brown eyes, that cloud of curls.”

There’s a note of melancholy in her voice when she uses the word babysitter that makes me say, “I’m just here to be— ”A friend? A companion? A watchdog? “I’m just here to keep you company.”

Mrs. Ellington squeezes my hands, lets them go. “That’s lovely. I was just getting ready to enjoy a nice cool drink on the porch. How do you like your iced tea?”

I don’t drink tea, so I draw a blank. Luckily Mrs. Ellington steams ahead. “It was quite warm this morning, so I made a big batch of wild cranberry, which should be perfect now. Personally, I adore it cold and very sweet with lemon.”

“That sounds good,” I say, glancing around the kitchen. It looks the same as when Nic and I were little – morning-sky-pale-blue walls, appliances creamy white, navy-and-white checked cloth on the table, another Crayola-bright bunch of zinnias in a cobalt glass pitcher on the counter.

When Mom makes iced tea it’s a two-step process – scooping out the sugary powder and mixing it with cold water. Mrs. Ellington’s iced tea is a production involving implements I never knew existed. First there’s the bucket for ice and special silver tongs. Then the lemon and another silver thingie to squeeze it. Then a little slanted bowl to set the tea bag in. Then another little bowl for the squeezed lemon.

Mrs. E.’s blue-veined hand opens the cabinet, flutters like a trapped bird, hovering between two glass canisters. After a second, she selects one, the one with rice in it. The one I know from years of coastal weather must contain the salt. Rice keeps salt from sticking in the moist heat. She places it on the counter, starting to screw off the top.

I put my hand on top of hers gently. “I think maybe it’s the other one.”

Mrs. Ellington looks up at me, her hazel eyes blank for a moment. Then they clear, clouds moving away from the sun. She touches her fingers to her temple. “Of course. Ever since that silly fall I’ve been all in a muddle.” She shifts the canister back onto the shelf, takes down the other one.

Then scooping the sugar into a silver canister . . . and some sort of scalloped spoon . . . This process was obviously designed by someone who didn’t have to do their own dishes. Or polish their own silver. Mrs. Ellington again asks me how I like my tea, and I want to say “with everything” just to see how it all works. But I repeat “Cold and sweet,” so she removes a frosted-cold glass from the freezer. She blends sugar in the bottom and finally pours tea for me, then does the same for herself.

“Let’s have this on the porch,” she suggests.

I start to follow her, but remember Grandpa Ben’s gift. Just in time. One of the lobsters is again crawling for its life, this time scrabbling down the hallway toward the back door. I hastily snatch it up and put it, indignantly waving claws and all, back into the soggy paper bag.

I’d have expected Mrs. Ellington to be horrified, hand pressed against her heart, but instead she’s laughing. “Dear Ben Cruz,” she says. “Still setting those traps?”

“Every week all summer.” I open the refrigerator, shove the bag in, hoping that Houdini the lobster and its cohort will be stupefied by the cold before I have to slay them. I pass on Uncle Ben’s message, translated entirely from Portuguese.

Mrs. Ellington sets down her cane again to clasp her hands together. “Lobsters and love. Two essentials of life. Do come with me to the porch, Gwen dear – if you wouldn’t mind carrying the glasses? There we can discuss the other essentials of life.”

The porch too – just exactly the same – all old white wicker furniture with the worn, teal-colored hammock swaying in the breeze. The Ellingtons’ wide lawn fades into sea oats, sand, and then the azure ocean. To the far left is Whale Rock, a huge boulder that looks exactly like a beached humpback whale. At high tide all you can see is the fin, but the water’s low now and almost the entire rock is visible. The view’s so stunning, I catch my breath, with the feeling I always have when I see the prettiest parts of the island – that if I could look out my window at this all the time, I would be a better person, calmer, happier, less likely to get flustered with school or impatient with Dad. But that theory can’t really work, because Old Mrs. Partridge up the road has one of the best views on the island – I mean of the water, not of Cass Somers – and it doesn’t sweeten her disposition at all.

Mrs. Ellington clinks her glass against mine. “Here’s to another sunset,” she says.

I must seem puzzled, because she explains, “My dear father’s favorite toast. I’m quite superstitious. I don’t think I’ve ever had a drink on the porch without saying it. You must answer ‘Sunrise too.’”

“Sunrise too,” I say, with a firm nod.

She pats me approvingly on the leg.

“I imagine we should negotiate our terms,” Mrs. E. says.

Damn. I stammer out something about the salary Mom mentioned – she must have been wrong, it had to be too good to be true – and Mrs. Ellington chuckles. “Oh, not money. That’s all been settled by your mother and my Henry, I suspect. I meant terms as in how we will rub along together. I haven’t had a . . . companion before, so, naturally, I need to know what you enjoy doing and you need to know the same about me, so we don’t spend the summer torturing each other. I must say . . . it will be good to be around a young person again. My grandsons . . .” She trails off. “Are off, living their lives.” For a second, all eighty-plus years show on her face as her usual smile fades.

I have a flash of memory of some big party she held for one of the grandsons. His wedding? Twenty-first birthday? Big tent. White with turrets. Almeida’s catered. There were fireworks. Nic and Viv and I . . . and Cass . . . lay on the beach and watched them burst and glimmer into the ocean. A private party with a public show. Like the ocean, no one owns the sky.

After a moment, she continues, resolutely. “As they should be. Now, do tell me all about yourself !”

Uh . . . What “all” does she want to know? The kind of “all” I tell Viv is different from the “all” I tell Mom, so God knows what the “all” is to someone who might want to employ me, and . . .

As if hearing my mental babbling, she again pats me on the knee. “For example, how do you feel about the beach, dear Gwen? Like it or loathe it?”

Does anyone on earth hate the beach? I tell Mrs. Ellington I love the ocean and she says, “Good then. My friends – we call ourselves the Ladies League, but I believe there are others on the island with less flattering names – the Old Beach Bats comes to mind . . . Anyway, we like to swim every day at ten and again at four – just as the light is shifting. Sometimes we make a picnic and have a day of it. The beauty of age – we really don’t need to worry about sunscreen and we can linger all day.” Her eyes get misty as they look out over the water, her wrinkled face softening with a dreamy expression that makes it suddenly clear how beautiful she must have been back then. The Rose of the Island, indeed.

For the next half hour we cover Mrs. Ellington’s likes and dislikes, from her favorite and least favorite things to eat – “If you ever make me egg salad I shall reconsider my good opinion of you” – to her views on exercise – “I shall like good brisk walks when this silly ankle recovers but when I’m in the mood. I don’t wish to be prodded” – to technology – “You won’t be perpetually typing on or answering your cell phone, will you? When I’m in the presence of another person, I want them present.”

I guess I pass the test, because Mrs. Ellington finally pats my hand and says, “Good then. Our new regime will start on Monday.” She beams at me, lowering her voice. “I was dreading this. I am a creature who enjoys solitude. But I think, bless fortune, I may be lucky in my employee.”

I thank her, and then remember I have to cook the lobsters. Hell. Does she even want me to do this now? Or am I dismissed? If I am, can I leave her with living lobsters? Should she even be using a stove? Nic got a concussion playing soccer in middle school and he was out of it for days. I’m about to ask her what she’d like me to do when there’s a knock on the screen door, forceful enough to rattle the loosely nailed boards. A voice calls, “Uh – hello? Seashell Services!”

“I wonder what that can be.” Mrs. Ellington’s eyes brighten as if a visit from the island maintenance crew is cause for excitement. “The hydrangeas aren’t due to be pruned and we had the lawn mowed only yesterday. Do let’s go see.”

Though her back is as straight as ever, her gait is so wobbly, despite the steadying cane, that I waver behind her, trying to be on both sides at once to break her inevitable fall.

“Hullo?” the voice calls again, slightly louder. More recognizable.

“Com-i-ng!” sings out Mrs. Ellington. “Do come in! My progress is gradual, but we will be there in good time!”

I wish her progress were nonexistent, because far too quickly we reach the kitchen, where, yes, Cass is standing, looking particularly tan against the dainty ruffles of the sheer white curtains.

“My dear boy!” Mrs. Ellington says.

How has he managed to be her dear boy after just one day spent mowing her lawn? Does she remember him from that one summer? Old Mrs. P. didn’t.

“Gwen, dear. This is Cassidy Somers, who will be keeping the island beautiful for us this summer. Cassidy, this is my new” – she hesitates, and then continues firmly – “this is Guinevere Castle.”

I wince. Concussion or not, Mrs. E. recalls my whole, real, hopelessly romance-novel name. Which I never use at school. Or anywhere. Ever.

Unfazed, Cass extends his palm cheerfully. “Hello again, Gwen.”

I ignore his outstretched hand. “We’ve met,” I say, turning quickly to Mrs. Ellington. “We know each other. Um, not that well. That is, we’re not friends. I mean . . . We don’t have that much in common . . . Or know each other at all, really. We just . . . we go to high school together.” I conclude these ravings, not looking at Cass, and wait miserably for Mrs. Ellington to decide I’m a lunatic.

Instead, she smiles gently at me. “Schoolmates. How lovely. Well, then, I do believe our gentleman caller could benefit from some of our iced tea. Will you do the honors, Gwen?”

I nod, opening the freezer to scoop out the ice and, with luck, cool my blazing face. Grateful I don’t have to mess with all the silverware, I pour tea into an iced tumbler and hand it to him, trying to avoid any contact with his fingers. Which means that the sweaty glass nearly crashes to the ground. Good thing Cass has fast reflexes.

Mrs. Ellington flutters next to him, apologizing for not asking if he takes lemon and sugar.

“No, just as it pours is great. Thanks.”

“It is terribly easy to become parched in this heat,” Mrs. Ellington says, “particularly when in the throes of physical exertion. You must feel free to come by my house at any time to get something tall and cool.”

Cocking his head at her, Cass gives her his best smile. “Thank you.”

He chugs the iced tea. I watch the long line of his throat, look away, wipe my fingers on my cut-offs. My palms are actually damp. Fantastic.

“Perhaps a refill for him, Gwen? Now, dear boy, why are you here? If it is in regard to the bills, those all go to my son Henry.”

“It’s not that,” Cass says swiftly. “I’m here to boil your lobsters.”

My head whips around sharply.

“We’ve been looking to expand our list of services,” he continues, calm and reasonable. “Competitive times and all that.” His eyes cut to mine and then away again.

“Really?” Mrs. Ellington moves closer, as though he’s a magnet with an irresistible pull. “How so?”

“Well . . . um, seems as though the yard boy usually just mows and weeds. And” – Cass takes a long slug of iced tea – “I think . . . there’s room for more. Dog walking. Grocery runs. Um . . .” He looks up briefly at the ceiling as though reading words off it. “Swimming lessons.”

“Enterprising!” Mrs. Ellington exclaims.

Cass tosses her another smile, and then continues. “When I saw Gwen here heading over with your, uh, dinner, I thought it might be a good time to show you my technique.”

“You have a technique ?” Mrs. Ellington clasps her hands under her chin, a happy child at a birthday party. “How accomplished! I wasn’t aware there was any such thing with regard to lobsters.”

“Technique might not be the right word,” Cass says. “Where’s your lobster pot?” He asks this with total assurance, like every kitchen in New England has such a thing. But yes, Mrs. Ellington does, the exact same huge, spattered black-and-white enamelware one we have at home. He pulls it out of the cabinet she opened for him and takes it to the sink, totally at home, practically toeing off his shoes and kicking back on the couch.

“You know,” I say, struggling to keep my voice level, “I can do this. You don’t need to – ”

“Sure you can, Gwen. But I’m here.”

I think my eyes actually bug out. Him being here is exactly the problem. But this is still sort of a job interview; it’s not like I can arm-wrestle him for the lobsters.

He fills the pot with cold water and sets it on the stove, turning the gas up high, talking rapidly all the while. “Technique implies finesse – or skill. This isn’t really that. It’s just . . .” He fiddles with the knob, concentrating on lowering the flame. “Some people get bothered by the idea of cooking something alive, you know. Plus, lobsters can make that screaming sound – I’ve heard it doesn’t really mean anything, and their nervous systems aren’t well-developed enough to feel pain – their brains are the size of a ballpoint pen tip, but . . . it can still bother some people.”

Oh, yes, thanks for rescuing me, Cass. I’m just so squeamish.

I don’t want to kill lobsters. But I can.

“Indeed,” Mrs. Ellington says. “I always made a point of leaving the kitchen when Cook boiled lobsters. Or chopped the heads off fish.” She shudders reminiscently.

Cass flashes that melting smile at her again. All charm – the kind that pulls you in as surely as a hand in yours, and can hold you back just as firmly, leaving you wondering which is real, which Cass is true. As I think this, he glances over at me, straight into my eyes this time, and I’m taken aback by the expression in his. Readable for once, not guarded the way it’s been since March.

Direct.

Deliberate.

Challenging.

I turn away, open the refrigerator, take out the bag of lobsters, pulling it close to my chest. He reaches for it and I hold on tighter. He pulls, gently, looking at me quizzically to see if I really will challenge him for possession of a bag of shellfish.

I let go.

“Thanks, Gwen.” His voice is casual. “So, yeah, some people put the lobsters in the freezer for a while to numb them out. But that doesn’t seem all that much more humane than the heat, does it?”

He disentangles Grandpa Ben’s rope-mesh sack and sets the wrinkled brown paper bag that was inside it on the table. One huge claw immediately gropes out, clunking on the wooden island. Despite a stint in the Sub-Zero, Lobster A has not lost its mighty will-to-live.

“They say,” Cass continues, dipping his hand into the bag, “that if you kill the lobster too far ahead of time, it gets all tough and then it’s no good for eating.”

He twists Lobster A right and left to avoid its clinging claws. “Look away, Gwen.”

I’m not used to the note of command in that laid-back voice and instantly fix my gaze out the window on the beach plum’s fuchsia blossoms, then shake myself. “I can handle this,” I repeat to Cass. Then, trying to sound brisk and casual: “It’s in my blood, remember?”

“There,” he says, ignoring me. “Just a quick knife to the brain and then into the very hot water. No time to feel a thing.”

Mrs. Ellington claps her hands. “That does relieve my mind. It seems to work. No waving claws. None of that awful sound.”

“I’m done now, Gwen. You can look.” It’s an aside. Quiet, not mocking.

“I am looking,” I mutter, feeling suddenly adrift.

“These guys are, what, one-and-a-half-pounders? So fourteen minutes or so.” He reaches for the egg-shaped timer on the stovetop, deftly twists it. “I can stay and take ’em out if you like.”

I clear my throat. “You can go. I’m fine. I’ll take it from here.”

“You are a marvel, young man!” says Mrs. Ellington. “I am delighted by Seashell Services’ new policy. Dare I hope you also clean fish?”

“I do whatever needs doing.” Cass flicks me a quick glance, then grins at her again, that wide, slightly lopsided smile that creases the corners of his eyes. “Thanks for the iced tea. It was the best I’ve ever had. See you later, Mrs. Ellington.”

He crumples the soggy brown lobster bag and tosses it to the trash can. It bounces off the side. Without looking at us, he scoops it up, drops it directly in, then turns down the hall.

His “Bye Gwen” is so quiet it’s barely a whisper. But I hear it.

“What a kind young man,” Mrs. Ellington says. “Handsome too.”

I examine the lobsters bobbling in the water, now vivid red and motionless, and stare at the ticking timer. With ten minutes to go, I pour Mrs. Ellington more tea and start on Grandpa Ben’s sauce. She watches, bright-eyed and interested, murmuring occasional comments. “Oh yes, of course. How could I have forgotten the sour cream? Dear Ben Cruz had this down to a science.”

I’ll have to ask Grandpa Ben how it is that Mrs. Ellington knows his secret recipe for lobster salad. Sauce finished, I dump the rosy lobsters into a colander, running cold water over them and hoping it’ll cool me down too. I feel weirdly off balance.

“These will be perfect for lunch tomorrow,” I tell Mrs. E. over my shoulder, trying to sound breezy. “Unless you want them for dinner tonight, in which case I can make a butter sauce. Or hollandaise.”

“Oh no!” she says. “I want Ben’s lovely sauce with chilled lobster. I will make do tonight. In fact.” She cocks her head, then calls out, “Joy! ”

Just as I’m worried she’s lost her mind for real, the door opens and a tired-looking woman in hospital scrubs comes in from the carport. “Yuh-huh, Mrs. El? I’m here.”

“Well hello, Joy! This is Guinevere Castle, who is to keep me out of mischief during the day. Gwen, this is my night nurse. Joy, will you show her out? I find myself a bit fatigued with all the excitement of the day.”

Joy leads the way through the porch hallway into the carport, hauling her gray hoodie off over her head and hanging it on a hook on the wall. “So you’re the babysitter.”

That word makes me uncomfortable. “I’m here to keep Mrs. Ellington company during the day, yes.”

Joy grunts. “You’ll be getting the same amount of money I am, without medical training. Makes no sense. That son of hers has more cash than brains, if you ask me.”

I don’t really know what to say to that, so I stay quiet.

“She needs a trained nurse twenty-four/seven, after a fall like that. Could easily have been a broken hip, and at her age that can be the beginning of the end, but the family just won’t accept it. I got no patience with them.”

Maybe you shouldn’t work here then, I think, and then want to scratch the thought out. Here on island, how many of us have a choice, really? Joy opens the latticed screen door to the carport and I walk out, grateful our shifts won’t coincide much.

Outside, I halt, listening. Over the soft roar and shush of the waves, I hear the lawn mower thrumming again, farther down Low Road. Even though it’s the longer way home, I turn uphill in the direction of High Road.

How am I going to get through a whole summer of constant Cass? I’ll have to ask Marco and Tony what his schedule is . . . Right. “Tony? Marco? Your yard boy’s a little too hot for me to handle, and now he’s getting on my nerves too, so if you wouldn’t mind ordering him to wear a shirt? Grow some unsightly facial hair, pack on a few pounds, and stay clear of Mrs. E.’s? Thanks a bunch.”

I pick up my pace, and then turn into the small, beaten-down clearing in the Green Woods at the bend in the road. Maple trees arch and curl their branches over me, making the path a tunnel. The air smells earthy and tangy green. These woods have been the same for hundreds of years. When we were little, Nic, Vivie, and I used to play a game where we were the Quinnipiacs, the first people to live on Seashell. We tried to tread soundlessly in the forest, one foot in front of another, not even snapping a twig. Now a turn by a twisted branch, then another by an old stone shaped like a witch’s hat, and I’m out in the open again, by the rushing creek that runs into the ocean, cleared only by a bridge so old that the wood is silver and the nails rusty dark red. I climb to the apex of the bridge, look down at the water, clear enough to see the stones at the bottom but deep enough to be well over my head. I shuck off the T-shirt I’m wearing over my black sports bra, kick off my sneakers, climb to the highest point of the bridge, and jump.

Chapter Six

The water is an icy shock, stripping away any fears or feelings. I blast up toward the surface, emerge, take a deep, gasping breath of air, then plunge back down into the cold depths, push off from the pebbly bottom, flip toward the surface, turn on my back, eyes closed, lazily breathing in the difference between the icy water and the still, summer air.

Rising in me, I know, is what I’ve been trying to avoid. For months. I open my eyes, let the memory lap at the edges of my thoughts, then close them again, and give in.

They call it the Polar Bear Plunge, which doesn’t really make sense because it’s held in the spring – and here in Connecticut, polar bears are pretty damn scarce.

But ocean water in March in Connecticut is the stuff of hypothermia. And the Polar Bear Plunge is Stony Bay High Athletic Department’s big spring fundraiser. There’s always a bonfire, and the cheerleaders and the PTO bring hot cider and yell encouragements as the athletes run into the icy water. Parents and people from town show up – to bet on who stays in the water longest, who will swim out farthest. This year, since Vivien was cheer captain and Nic was on the swim team, which I’d been timing for all year, I got up at seven a.m. and went with them to watch.

The morning was blinding bright and extra cold. There’d been one of those freakish heavy coastal snowstorms the week before, and patches of snow still drifted in the tall sea oats. I wanted to stay in Vivien’s warm car with the heat on nuclear, but Nic was in swim trunks and Vivie wearing her skimpy cheer outfit with only Nic’s sweatshirt pulled over it. So I got out and stood by the bonfire in the name of supporting the football team, the field hockey team, the soccer team, the baseball team, the basketball team, and the swim team.

Plenty of show-offs all around, stripping down and striking muscle or cheesecake poses to hoots and whistles from the well-bundled crowd. Hooper, though small, was speedy and mighty confident for a skinny, pale guy. Ugh, and he was wearing a Speedo. Gross, Hoop.

I clasped my fingers around a foam cup of cider, blowing into it to feel the warm steam on my face, then heard a rustle of movement next to me, felt this prickle of awareness across my skin, and turned. It was Cass. He’d shucked off his parka and shirt and was now unbuttoning the top of his faded jeans, revealing navy swim trunks.

I expected him to be out putting on a show like the others. Even Nic, hardly an exhibitionist, swirled his sweatshirt on a finger with a grin before tossing it to Vivien. But Cass was alone, quietly undressing. Right next to me.

I assumed he didn’t realize who I was. I’d grabbed Mom’s parka on the way out the door, and with the hood tipped up I had all the sex appeal of the Goodyear Blimp.

He hesitated, then kicked his pants and the rest of his discarded clothes into a pile farther from the fire.

“Bet on me, Gwen?”

I looked at him. Shivered. Shook my head.

“You should. Nic and Spence are the flashy ones with all the strokes, but I’m all about going the distance. And endurance.”

“I’m not the betting kind.” I took a sip of my cider, breathed in the apple-cinnamon-scented steam, added quietly, “Good luck.”

He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, then shook his head and loped off. I tried unsuccessfully not to follow him with my eyes as he strode through the crowd, but . . . Those nice shoulders, the V of his upper body tapering down. I mean, it was purely aesthetic. Who wouldn’t look?

The opening air horn blasted, shrill, ear-splitting.

Everyone plunged into the water. Jimmy Pieretti, ever the comedian, was wearing a yellow-and-white polka-dot bikini, although I couldn’t imagine where he found one that fit. Nic got delayed by Vivie’s good-luck kiss. There was a lot of splashing and yelling and swearing.

“Quit your bellyaching and focus!” Coach Reilly bawled through his bullhorn. Through the crowd, I saw Cass dive into the water, then slice through the surf, shoulders and forearms flashing in a fast crawl. Yes, there were chunks of ice. I marveled at some people’s school spirit. You couldn’t have made me take that plunge for anything less than world peace or having Emory’s medical expenses paid for life.

I walked down closer to the water, where Vivien was jumping up and down with the other cheerleaders.

“Shake it, shake it, Stony Bay. Swim it, swim it, all the way.”

About twenty kids had already lurched back out of the water toward the bonfire. Nic was sticking it out, but he looked crimson with cold. Jimmy Pieretti was evidently going for “Longest Time Underwater” because I could see his enormous legs sticking out in a headstand as the crowd shouted, “Jimbo, Jiiiiiiiiiimbo!” He had to top two hundred fifty pounds, but that wasn’t enough insulation: his toes were blue.

Coach, a bunch of parent volunteers, everyone was watching, but I still found myself counting heads, scanning the water. By the shore my whole life, I’d grown up knowing what the ocean could give, then take away in a flash.

Where was Cass ? He was popular, but no one was chanting his name the way they were for Jimmy or even Hoop, who had dashed out of the water to throw up on Coach Reilly’s shoes.

Where was Cass ? Someone could easily have drowned in this noisy, yelling crowd, without anyone noticing.

I ran to the edge of the water, shielded my eyes from the bright sun dazzling off the waves, seeing black spots dancing in front of me. But no blond head. The race had been going on for at least five minutes, maybe more.

“Coach. Coach! Where’s Cass Somers?” I pulled at his sleeve as he raised the bullhorn again, my voice panicky. “Can you see him? Do you have binoculars?”

“Which one of you morons spiked the cider?” Coach bellowed. “You guys are disastrous. What the hell!”

I yanked at his sleeve again, and he turned, face ruddy against his thick black hair. “Not now, Gwen.” He tried to sound gentle. Coach had always been good to me, maybe because my dad’s restaurant donated food and ice cream for the beginning and end-of-year rallies. “Got a public relations disaster here. If the PTO finds out about the cider, we can kiss this fund-raiser good-bye.”

“I can’t see Cassidy Somers. He’s in the water somewhere.” I tried to haul Coach with me into the waves, which were HOLY FROSTBITE frigid. My skin felt like it was being peeled off with a thousand knives carved from ice. Coach remained motionless, a red-faced Rock of Gibraltar. So I yanked off my parka, tossed it to the sand, waded in up to my knees, my waist, my armpits.

“Gwen! What the hell are you doing?” Vivien shouted. “Are you insane?”

Now everyone was back on shore, except me, in my clinging jeans and soggy hoodie, and there was a splash and Cass surfaced right in front of me, eyes wide and blue, hair plastered over his forehead, darkened to shifting shades of amber and gold by the water. He gave his head a shake, tossing his hair out of his eyes.

“I . . .” My teeth were chattering. My whole body was trembling. Cass too was shuddering so hard, I could feel his legs buck against mine. “I thought you’d drowned.”

He didn’t say anything, just reached out and wrapped an arm around my waist, stumbling as he tried to steer me to shore.

I was shaking and he was breathing hard and fast. I wasn’t sure who was holding up who, but he’d been in the water longer and I had the sense that I was towing him. Coach wasn’t even watching us, having headed up to the bonfire to cuss out his wayward team.

“I th-thought you’d drowned,” I repeated when we got to land. Vivien was holding out one of the big quilts from the back of her mom’s car. Cass’s fingers swiped at it, but didn’t close. It was me who grabbed it and shook it open, reaching for his waistband to pull him close to me under the quilt. Smack against him, I could feel his heart racing.

“Thank you,” he said. “I w-w-wasn’t drowning, but if I had been, that would h-h-have been an awesome rescue. As it was, it was plenty am-m-mazing.” His breath was white in the frigid air but felt warm on my face and now I was conscious that my hands were tight on his cold waist and I was practically thigh to thigh with Cass Somers.

Coach came over at this point. “You aced the distance and length record, Somers. Maybe the personal stupidity one too.”

Cass nodded, game face, neither gratified or abashed. Then he looked over at me. “Can we g-give G-Gwen the Lifeguard of the Year award, Coach? She w-was trying to save me.”

Coach snorted. “All you two need saving from is your own foolishness. Didja even kick off your shoes, Castle?”

I wiggled my wet toes in my hiking boots. “N-no.”

“Glad you’re not on my team,” Coach huffed. “You gotta think on your feet.” He scanned the beach for Mrs. Santos, the school nurse, but she was bent over Hooper, face concerned.

Coach sighed. “Always that guy,” he said. “Scat, kids. The bonfire’s not going to do it for you. Go someplace warm. And lose those sopping clothes, pronto.”

I was someplace warm. Cass’s arm was tight around my shoulder. It was thirty degrees, tops, but I felt hot.

“Can you drive me home?” he asked. “I came here with Pieretti and I think he’s w-wasted.” In addition to the chattering teeth, his voice sounded slurry.

“Well, that was a given,” I said. “Can’t you be the designated driver? Or, oh, were you drinking too?”

“N-no. My lips are j-just numb. B-but frostbite may be setting in.” He held one whitish blue hand outside the blanket, flexing it gently, wincing. “I can’t feel my fingers. Doesn’t seem safe to wait. Jimbo’s car’s got a stick shift. Hang on.”

He disentangled himself from the quilt, and my arms, and walked slowly up the beach toward the bonfire. Vivien immediately scooted to my side.

“What’s going on?” She gathered the quilt folds around me more securely. “What’s up with you and Sundance?”

“Nothing. I thought he was d-drowning. He wasn’t.” I gave a short laugh. “End of story.”

“I doubt that.” She ducked around to the other side of me as Cass returned, carrying his clothes and Converse.

“All set,” he said. “Thorpe is d-driving Pieretti home. You can drive me – can you handle a s-stick? Pieretti can grab it when he sobers up. Then I’ll bring you home.”

I found myself saying only, “I can drive a stick,” concentrating on pulling Mom’s parka back up. After lying on the cold beach sand, it felt like an ice pack.

“Cool.” He put a hand on my down-covered back, steering me to Jimmy’s car up in the beach parking lot.

It was a Kia. Why did huge Jimmy Pieretti have the smallest car in the world? I squelched my way into the driver’s seat, shivering again. I’m sure my lips matched the navy-blue vinyl seats.

“Here.” Cass tossed the keys to me. I snagged them in midair, and he smiled at me, the sidelong curl revealing his dimples, crinkling the corners of his eyes, taking his face from perfect to real. When I turned the keys in the ignition, he snapped on the hot air, which blasted glacial currents at us.

“It’ll heat up in a minute.”

“That’s okay. I’m f-f-fine.”

“Gwen, you’re a Popsicle.” He dropped his clothes in my lap. “P-put these on.”

My face heated instantly. “I c-c-can’t do that!”

He folded his arms. “Want me to do it f-for you?” He flexed his fingers. “As soon as the numbness and tingling go away . . . But I thought you m-might not wanna wait that long.”

“It’s fine. I’ll just change later.” I notched up the heat a few more degrees. It seemed to get even colder.

“C’mon. I can’t have your f-freezing to death on my conscience.” He said all this in a flat, logical tone without glancing over at me. “Just change.”

“Here?”

“Well, I th-thought you might like the privacy of the backseat, but whatever my fearless rescuer w-wishes.”

“You want me to take off my clothes in the backseat?” I echoed, like an idiot.

“C-can’t get warm if you just put the dry clothes on over wet ones,” he told me, still in that serious, scientific way. “So, yeah, d-ditch yours, put on mine. I’ll wear my parka over my suit. It’s fine. But do it fast. I’m f-freezing.” He shuddered.

His clothes were faded jeans, a black turtleneck, thick woven gray wool socks. Sandy, but not dripping wet or icy cold. I stumbled over the stick shift and into the backseat, unzipped Mom’s parka, then halted, my eyes flicking to his in the rearview mirror. “No looking.”

“Damn. I was hoping you’d forget about the m-mirror. No problem. I’ll just shut my eyes. I’m getting kind of warm and drowsy, anyway. Must be the hypothermia c-coming on.”

I tried to move quickly. My drenched hoodie made a wet slapping sound as I yanked it over my head and onto the backseat. My fingers were too stiff to undo the clasp of my bra, so I just left it on. Though I’d forbidden Cass to do so, I couldn’t avoid a glance in the rearview mirror. Fantastic. My hair stood out in icy-dark Medusa curls, my nose was red, and my lips, yes, blue with cold. I’d never looked more bedraggled in my life. I shoved myself into Cass’s clothes and stumbled back over the seat.

Cass did indeed have his eyes closed; his head slanted back against the headrest, his black parka bundled around him. There was a silver strip of duct tape on the shoulder, starkly bright against the black. He looked pale. Had he really gone to sleep? Into a hypothermic coma? I bent over to take a closer look.

He opened his eyes, smiling. I caught my breath. He moved in infinitesimally closer, dark lashes fluttering closed, just as Coach rapped hard on the window.

“C’mon, you two clowns. Get a move on. This isn’t a drive-in movie.”

We were silent after that as I pulled out of the parking lot, through town, following Cass’s mumbled directions. He reached out, flexing his fingers, then drumming them against the dashboard.

I tried to drive resolutely but couldn’t resist a few stolen glances.

Always when he was doing the exact same thing.

It was strange. Like a dance. One I’d never done.

“First left up here,” he said. I turned onto one of those quiet, tree-lined streets with wide, paved sidewalks and generously spaced houses with their rolling lawns. So different from the scrubby twisted pine bushes, crushed clamshell driveways, and shoulder-to-shoulder ranch homes of my side of Seashell. “You turn down this road.” He indicated a right onto a drive with a sign that said “Shore Road.”

I couldn’t help but gasp when I saw the house. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen . . . Modern, but somehow old-fashioned, built along the long strong lines of a sailing ship, a schooner, a clipper ship – something majestic poised to conquer the sea. One whole side of the house was bowed out with a narrow rail around the second story, high and proud, jutting like the prow of a boat.

“Wow.”

Cass tilted his head at me. “My uncle designed it. That’s what my parents were building – that summer.”

“It’s amazing. This was where you went? When you left us?” Then I winced because . . . because the Somerses were on the island for one season. It’s not like they abandoned us. Me. But Cass didn’t blink.

“Yeah. My brothers still rag on me because I mostly got to grow up here and they were already off to college. Down there” – he pointed down the low hill, grass turning to sea grass, tumbling softly down to the ocean – “there’s a good stretch of beach. Just ours. It’s beautiful. I’d like to show it to you. But not now. We’d both freeze.”

A mansion. No one could call this anything but that. Not a house. An estate. It reminded me a bit of Mark Twain’s house, where we went on a school field trip once. But that was built to look like a riverboat, and this could only be a sailboat. The yard had all these big trees, a wrought-iron bench under a willow, a fountain even. It looked like something from Perfect Life magazine.

A mansion and a private beach.

I did not belong here.

“I’m glad you didn’t drown,” I said, at the exact moment he said, “Thanks for wading in after me.”

“It was nothing,” I added, just as he said, “Gwen – ”

We both stopped. His eyes were the darkest, purest blue. The ocean in winter.

“Look . . . My parents are going away tomorrow for a week. I thought I’d live the high school cliché and have a party. Will you come?” He’d somehow moved closer again, smelling like the best of the coast: salt water, fresh air.

I leaned toward him without meaning to, without a clear thought in my head, and he bent forward and kissed me. It was such a good, sweet kiss – a simple press of the lips at first until I opened, wanting more, and he was ready. No jamming tongues or bumping teeth. Just one smooth delicious glide and then a rhythm that made my insides jangle and had me tilting against him, gasping for breath, then diving back for more. We kissed for a long time – a long, long time – and he let that be it, only brushing his hands into my hair and gently grazing my neck with his thumbs.

“Will you come?” he repeated.

I looked back at his house, that huge house. I’d never heard of Cass having a party. Who would be there? Spence Channing. The people Cass hung out with at school. Jimmy Pieretti, Trevor Sharpe, Thorpe Minot. The Hill guys – the boys who lived on Hayden Hill, the richest part of Stony Bay. No one I knew well. A . . . a party.

And Cass.

I swallowed. “What time?”

He reached into the pocket of his parka and pulled out a blue Sharpie. Uncapping it with his teeth, he took my hand, his thumb dancing lightly over the inside of my wrist. He turned my palm closer. “How far, again, is it from your house to your dad’s restaurant?”

“Three miles,” I said faintly, feeling all the hairs on my arm stand on end.

He made an x on the base of my wrist, traced up to the line of my index finger, made another x, and then slid his hand down my palm, making three x ’s below my thumb. “An approximation,” he said. Then wrote “Gwen’s” by the first x, “Castle’s” by the next. And “Shore Road” by the three x ’s. Then “Eight o’clock Saturday ni – ”

“Ha!” my cousin laughs. He grabs my wrist and pulls me under, before hauling me above the water again.

I splutter and wipe my hair out of my face. “Nic! What the hell!”

“Thought I might find you here. What are you doing, crazy? You were headed straight for Seal Rock. Head-first.”

I have inadvertently gulped in a mouthful of brackish water and am coughing. “I – ”

He thumps me hard on the back, dislodging another series of coughs. I dive back under, come up, flicking back my hair, then notice that he’s freckled with large spatters of white paint. Jackson Pollack Nic.

“What?” he asks as I frown at him.

I twitch my finger from his bespattered face to his speckled shoulders. He looks down. “Oh. Yeah. We were doing old man Gillespie’s garage ceiling. Then I went to check out the island job. Didn’t have time to clean up.” He scrubs his hand through his mop of sandy hair, much of which is also coated with paint. “Maybe I should have?” he offers. “Is this not a professional look for a job interview?”

I’m treading water, trying not to let myself be dragged away by the rushing creek current.

“How’d that go?”

“Aw . . . you know.” Nic cups his hands in the water, splashes it on his face, slapping his cheeks. “It was what’s-his-face, the island president. In his shorts with the blue embroidered whales and his effing pink shirt. He acted like it was all competitive. But I know from Aunt Luce that no one wants that painting and repair job. Too much aggravation. Almost as bad as yard boy. We’ve got it in the bag. Hoop’s pissed.”

“You’ve got a steady job all summer and Hooper’s mad?”

Nic dunks under, bobs up. “He doesn’t want to work for ‘those summer snobs.’ Painting, we could’ve headed around the state, maybe camped out on Block Island or something, whatever – gotten the hell off island, for Chrissake. Hoop’ll come around, though. Anything’s better than working for Uncle Mike.”

Yeah. These past few years Nic has done anything and everything to avoid working for Dad. Or, lately, even having dinner with him.

My cousin whacks me on the shoulder and starts doing a fast crawl to the rocky shore. I used to be able to beat Nic every time, but since swim team, and especially since he’s been training for the academy, no contest. He’s nearly drip-dried; shaking the last drops off his shaggy hair, by the time I clamber up next to him and throw myself down in the sand. He tosses himself down next to me.

We lie there for a while, squinting at the evening sun filtering through the trees, saying nothing. Finally he stands up, reaches out a white-splotched hand to pull me to my feet. He glances around the shore.

I know what he’s searching for. A skipping stone for Vivie. I study the sand for a thin, flat rock, but Nic’s eyes are better trained, longer attuned. He finds one – “Here’s a keeper” – slips it into the pocket of his soggy shorts, jerks his head toward the sandy roadside. “Hoop let me take the truck home. Party on the beach tonight. We’re going to start this summer off with a bang.”

Great, both Cass and a party on the first real day of summer. Talk about Kryptonite.

Chapter Seven

After we stop at the bridge for my clothes, we head down High Road and pass the Field House, where the mowers are stored – and where the yard boy’s summer apartment is, right over the garage. But for sure Cass wouldn’t be staying there – he’d be going home to that sailing ship of a house. Just in case, I scrunch lower in my seat, the peeling vinyl scraping my thighs.

Nic shoots me a look, but says nothing. I sink farther down, yawning for extra authenticity. Soon I’ll be skulking around my own island in a wig and a trench coat.

“So the bonfire’s on Sandy Claw tonight,” Nic says. “Bo Sanders. Manny and Pam and a few more. Hoop wants to hit it, but he doesn’t wanna drive home, so Viv’s picking us up.”

“You can drop me off at the house.”

“No way, cuz. You’re coming. The recluse bit is getting old. You know you love these things.”

And I do. I mean, I always have. Just . . .

“You’re coming,” Nic repeats firmly.

“Yes, sir, Master Chief Petty Officer, sir.” I salute him.

“You mean Admiral, Ensign,” he corrects, elbowing me in the side. “Show some respect for the uniform I don’t have yet.”

I laugh at him.

No one can say Nic is unambitious. Since career night freshman year, he’s had One Big Dream. The Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. He’s got pictures of it – their sailing team, their wrestling team, on the wall of the bedroom he shares with Grandpa Ben and Emory, the Coast Guard motto – WHO LIVES HERE REVERES HONOR, HONORS DUTY – scrawled over his bed in black Sharpie, he does the workout religiously, obsesses about his grade point average . . . basically a 180 from the laid-back Nic of old, the guy who could never find his homework binder and was always looking up with a startled “Huh?” when called on in class. It’s the same raw focus he’s had with Vivien since childhood. One can only hope that that discipline someday extends to picking up and washing his own clothes.

“Seriously, Gwen. If I have to drag you. I can bench nearly my body weight now.” He cracks his knuckles at me threateningly, then shoots me his sidelong, cocky grin.

I elbow him back. “For real? Does Coach know? How long till you can bench him ?”

“Only a matter of time,” Nic says smugly.

I burst out laughing. Coach is huge. “You really need to work on your inferiority complex, Nico.”

“Just calling it like it is, cuz.” Nic’s smile broadens. It’s quiet for a second. Then his face sobers. “I want that captain spot so bad I can taste it. It’s gotta go to me, Gwen.”

“Instead of Cass or Spence, who always get what they want?” A note Nic hits a lot. He was by far the star swimmer before they transferred in last September.

Nic shrugs.

I bump his shoulder with my own. “You leave them both behind every time, Admiral.”

We ditch Hoop’s truck in his pine-needle-covered driveway and reach our house on foot just as Vivien pulls up in her mom’s Toyota Corolla. She beeps at us, waving Nic over. He leans through the window, kisses her nose, then her lips, hands slipping down to gather her closer. I look away, squeeze the dampness out of the fraying hem of my shorts.

Viv. The first serious Nic Cruz Goal I can remember.

We were eleven and twelve. I decoded the scribbly cursive in his I Will notebook, this goal journal he kept hidden under his mattress – not a safe spot when your cousin is hunting for Playboys, wanting to bribe the hell out of you. But the I Will journal proved even more useful than porn, most times.

Kiss Vivien.

I figured Hoop had dared him. Despite the wedding ceremony when we were five, I didn’t think of them as a couple. It was thethreeofus. But there it was, spelled out in red pen right in the middle of his other goals: Be next Michael Phelps. Own Porsche. Climb Everest. Find out about Roswell. Make a million dollars. Buy Beineke house for Aunt Luce. Kiss Vivien.

For some reason, that one I didn’t tease him about.

Then a few months later the three of us were sitting on the pier at Abenaki, enjoying the post–Labor Day emptiness of the beach. Nic reached into his pockets, pulled out a bunch of flat rocks.

“Pick me a winner,” he’d said to Vivie. She’d cocked her head at him, a little crinkle between her eyebrows, then made a big show of finding the perfect skipper, handing it to him with a flourish.

“One kiss,” he’d said softly, “for every skip.”

The stone skated over the water five times, and my cousin claimed his reward from my best friend while I sat there still and silent as the pile of rocks, thinking, I guess Hoop didn’t dare him.

“Gwen’s trying to bag out on us, Vee.” Nic’s voice breaks into my thoughts.

Vivie shakes her head firmly. “Miss the first bonfire of the season?” she calls through the open window. “Not an option!” She reaches over, holds up a supermarket bag, shakes it at me. “I got the gear for s’mores!”

Nic has already climbed into the front passenger seat. He ducks forward, flipping it so I can climb in the back. “C’mon, cuz.”

I sigh and tell them to hold up while I change my soggy clothes. When I get inside, Mom’s got the phone to her ear, frowning. She holds a finger to her lips, jerking her head at the couch. Grandpa’s fast asleep, head tipped back, mouth open. Emory is curled like a cashew nut, his head in his lap, snoring softly.

“Yes, I understand. Yuh-huh. Extensive cleaning. Yes. Top to bottom. Of course. By four o’clock tomorrow? Oh, well, that is a Saturday and – uh-huh. Okay.” Mom sighs, rustling the pages of the book on her lap. “Allrighty then.”

When I come back out in a baggy shirt and an even older pair of shorts, Mom’s off the phone and buried in her latest bodice buster. She carefully marks her spot with a finger. “You’re going out?”

I shrug. “Beach with the guys. What was that? Someone already giving you hell?”

Mom sighs again. “It’s those Robinsons.”

I’d already turned toward the door, but stop in my tracks.

“They’re back?”

“Renting the Tucker house again for the next two weeks. Some wedding in town – cousins of theirs. Want the house to sparkle. By tomorrow.” She rubs her thumbs over her temples. “Here for only a few weeks every few summers, and I swear, they’re more trouble than half the regulars put together.”

“Can you pull that off ? By tomorrow?”

She shrugs. “No choice, really. I’ll manage.” Mom’s theme song. Her glance drops to her book once again and she smiles at me wickedly. “I’ll think about it later. I’m pretty sure this Navy Seal is about to find out that the terrorist he’s been sent to capture is his ex-wife – and she’s pregnant with his triplets . . . and married to his brother.”

When I slide into the backseat of the car, there is the necessary interval of waiting while Nic and Vivien make out. I hum under my breath, trying to ignore the kissing noises and rustle of clothes. After a couple of minutes, I lean forward, tap each of their shoulders. “I’m right here,” I whisper.

Nic looks back, wiping Vivien’s shiny peach lip gloss off, winks at me. Vivien just smiles in the rearview mirror, eyes bright. Then she reads my face. “What’s wrong?”

“The Robinsons are coming back,” I say flatly, digging in my pocket for the mascara I grabbed from the bathroom.

She blows out a breath, ruffling the little strands of hair stealing out of her pigtails. “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Shit,” Vivie says, turning the key in the ignition, squealing backward with a jolt. Nic and I brace ourselves, his hand against the dashboard, me with my feet flattened against the back of the driver’s seat. Viv jerks the car forward and revs the motor like she’s in the Indy 500. She flunked her driving test three times.

“Yeah,” I mutter.

Nic’s leaned back now, his elbow resting on the sill of the open window. “Don’t worry about it,” he says.

I swallow, shrug, scratching at a mosquito bite on my thigh. Vivien roars into the driveway of Hooper’s house, narrowly missing the mailbox, and leans heavily on the horn, blasting so loudly I expect it to blow leaves off the nearby trees. Without looking, Nic reaches over, lifts her hand, and kisses it. “I think you’ve made your point.”

Hoop bounds down the steps, his hair sticking up in all directions. As usual he looks like he dressed in the dark – plaid shirt, ratty striped shorts. He whacks Nic on the back, then slides in next to me, too close. “Yo Gwenners!” he says, nudging me with a pointy shoulder.

“Hey, Hoop, whoa, can I have some space?”

“Sure, sure.” He slides a fraction of an inch farther away, then smiles at me goofily. We peel down the hill, headed for the less ritzy of the Seashell beaches. The summer people stick to Abenaki, which is shielded from the open sea, has gentler waves and a less rocky beach. That’s where they moor their boats. But Sandy Claw is where the local kids go, the place for illegal fireworks and loud music from someone’s car speakers. In fact, the sound of the music as we drive close is so loud Vivien has to shout to be heard. “This catering thing, tomorrow? It’s got a black-and-white theme. The uniforms work fine for us, Gwen, but Nico, you’ll need a dinner jacket.”

Nic groans. “Tell me no tux. Please, Vee. I lose half the cash I make renting the damn thing.”

“If I have to wear a monkey suit, I’m out,” Hoop says. “Turns off the ladies.”

Vivien’s eyes widen at me in the rearview mirror, comically large. Five-foot three-inch, clothing-challenged Hoop, the chick magnet. Maybe if he’d stop calling them “the ladies.”

Sandy Claw’s already crowded when we get there, kids we’ve grown up with milling around the bonfire and the shore.

Hoop springs out of the car and heads for the cooler, brushing aside the cans of Coke and orange soda with single-minded purpose, rummaging for the beer. Vivien hauls a plaid picnic blanket from the back of the truck. She hands it to Nic, giving him her glowing, mischievous smile. After laying out the blanket, they immediately begin doing their thing. It’s a testament to . . . something about Nic and Vivie that no one even bats an eye at them macking all over each other. Nic calls to me as they lie down, “Grab me a brew, cuz?”

“To drink or should I pour it on you?” I call back. He ignores me, all wrapped up – literally – in Vivien.

Pam D’Ofrio walks over next to me, says only, “Really keeping it PG tonight, aren’t they?” in her flat, deadpan voice.

We’re joined by Manny Morales, Marco’s – the head maintenance guy’s – son.

We talk for a few minutes about summer jobs – Manny’s doing dishes at this place called Breakfast Ahoy, Pam’s working at Esquidaro’s Eats, one of Castle’s rival restaurants.

“It beats babysitting,” Pam says. “Last year I sat for the Carter twins. They were four and so crazy their mom insisted I put them on those leash things when I took them out. My first day, we were walking to the playground and they wrapped their leashes around a telephone pole, tied me up like a spider with a fly and ran off. Took me ten minutes to undo the knots. Little SOBs.”

“Didja quit?” Manny asked.

Pam shakes her head. “No guarantee what I quit for wouldn’t have been even worse.”

Manny asks, “You gonna rat me out to my dad if I snag a beer?” He’s sixteen and Marco’s strict.

We shake our heads.

He comes back, settling down heavily next to us against the waterlogged old tree trunk that’s been on the beach forever. Nic and Vivien carry on like our own private floor show.

“Must be nice,” Pam says. “Being comfortable doing that. In public.” She shakes her head. “Can’t imagine.” Pam has been with Shaunee, her girlfriend, since eighth grade.

Manny drains half the bottle, wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “At least they’re putting a ring on it,” he says, lifting his elbow at Nic and Vivien.

“What? ” I ask.

“Getting hitched, right?”

I scoot back in the sand, staring at him. “What?” I say again. Then laugh. “No way. Why would you think that?”

“My brother Angelo works at Starelli’s Jewelers, in the mall. Nic and Vivien were in this weekend, checking out engagement rings.” Manny scratches the back of his neck, looks uncomfortable, like he just said more than he should have.

I peek over at Vivien and Nic. He’s smoothing her hair back and giving her these nibbling kisses along her jawline.

It can’t be true. Vivien’s incapable of keeping anything to herself about Nic (way more than I want to know about my cousin). And Nic, while he doesn’t tell me everything . . . he’d never keep a thing that big from me. Ever.

Manny’s pushing at the sand with his feet, avoiding my eyes, and I realize I should have said something in return, but I can’t even find words.

Getting married?

That’s crazy.

I mean, I imagine they probably will eventually. Eventually. Vivien is seventeen. Nic just turned eighteen last month . . .

Mom and Dad were seventeen and eighteen when they got married. But look how that turned out. And that was years ago. A whole different time. Nic and Viv . . . now?

“Not that crazy. It happens,” Pam comments quietly. I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud. “Dom married Stace right out of SBH.”

Yeah, and Stacy took their one-year-old and moved to Florida two years ago.

What about senior year? What about the Coast Guard?

Is Vivien pregnant? No, impossible, she’s on the Pill and Nic is hyper-responsible.

I lie back on the blanket, rest my arm across my eyes, listen to the general blur of conversation. It’s still warm, but the angle of the sun has that flat, end-of day slant. When I peer through the canopy of my arm, I can see that Vivien has temporarily disentangled herself and is toasting a marshmallow, carefully turning it to the perfect puff of brown on each side, just the way Nic likes it. At cookouts this summer, I know he’ll nearly burn her hot dog – Viv likes it charcoal-briquet style – and load it down with ketchup, mustard, mayo, relish. After the Fourth of July parade on Seashell, when everyone eats Hoodsie Cups, she’ll snag two but eat the chocolate half of both, swapping with Nic so he gets both vanillas.

Now he’s watching her lazily, sifting through the sand next to him, probably in search of another flat skipping stone.

But . . . an engagement ring?

Hooper is attempting to get Ginny Rodriguez to give him the time of day by asking her to bet on whether he can drink five beers in ten minutes without barfing.

Manny scratches the back of his neck again, red-faced and uncomfortable. The flush could be the beer, but he seems to know he put his foot in it. “Gwenners,” he starts, then looks up and jumps to his feet. “Dude. You came.”

I shield my eyes and peer over at the newcomer.

Great.

I mean come on. Three times in one day!

“Sure I did,” Cass says easily, lifting a hand to greet Pam. He gives me a quick glance, then looks down, lashes shielding his eyes. “I’m an island guy now, right?”

“You are not,” I practically growl, “an island guy.”

Manny straightens, startled. Pam’s eyebrows rise and she looks back and forth between us.

“Course he is, Gwenners. He’s working for my dad. He’s an honorary Jose, aren’t you, dude? Nab something from the cooler and take a load off. The first days are killers.”

“Ah, it’ll be okay,” Cass says, “once I figure out the whole horizontal thing.”

That’s it. I feel suddenly exhausted. Cass. Nic, Viv, engagement ring. The Robinsons. The lobsters. I clamber to my feet, feeling as though I weigh about a thousand pounds – and, let’s face it, probably looking like it in my baggy, so-attractive clothes. I walk over to Nic and Viv, nudge Nic sharply with my toe, jerk my thumb toward the pier. “Let’s head out.”

Like Pam and Manny, Nic does a quick double take at my tone, checking Vivien for translation. She glances over at Cass, wrinkles her nose, then stands up, pulling Nic with her. We walk to the edge of the pier, dangle our legs over. Well, Nic and I do. Vivien slides her legs over Nic’s, entwines her hand in his. I open my mouth to ask, then think: If they haven’t told me, they don’t want me to know, and shut it again.

“Check that out,” Vivien says in a hushed voice, pointing out across the water. It’s low tide, shoals of rippling sand peeking up out of the sea-glass-green water, ancient-looking gray-brown rocks, the sun burning low and pale orange in the sky. “This is the most beautiful place in the world, isn’t it? I never want to leave. Everything I love is right here.” She rests her head on Nic’s shoulder.

I look at our legs lined up together. Viv’s skinny and already tan, Nic’s well-muscled and sturdy, and mine, long and strong.

Nic scrounges in his pocket for the skipping stones from earlier, hands me one, nods at the ocean. I squint, slant the stone to what seems the perfect angle, fling it out. One. Two. Three . . . sort of a sinking four. Nic edges Vivien off his lap, cocks his head to the side and throws.

Six.

“Still the champion.” He hauls Vivien to her feet, swoops her in for six kisses.

“It’s not as though Gwen is after what you are,” Vivien points out, a little breathless after kiss number four.

No, it isn’t. But . . . God, I wish, for the millionth time, that I could be like her and Nic, so sure of what they have, what they want. That I didn’t always feel jangly, restless, primed to jump off a bridge and let the current carry me away. I glance over my shoulder at the distant blond figure standing by the bonfire.

Especially tonight.

Chapter Eight

Dark’s just starting to glow into light the next morning when I bike down to the beach. I can barely make out the figure standing at the end of the pier, hands on hips, surveying the water. Only that familiar stance tells me it’s Dad. As I get closer, I see his tackle box open, a big bag of frozen squid beside him. He called last night, told me to meet him at Sandy Claw early.

I’d expected him to get on me for bailing on him at Castle’s this summer. But when I’d said on the phone “Hey Dad, I’m sorry that I – ” he’d cut me off.

“You gotta do what you gotta do, Gwen. But, since you’re not gonna be around every day, I want to do this. I’ve got something for you.” Now he looks up from the hook he’s baiting as I scramble over the rocks. Noting the cooler I’m carrying, he gives me the flicker of a smile.

“What’d you bring me, Guinevere?”

He takes the loaf of zucchini bread with a grunt of satisfaction, motioning to me to pour coffee from the thermos. I stayed up late last night, following the directions in Vovó’s stained old copy of The Joy of Cooking, and turning that engagement ring over and over in my head. When she’s worried, Vivien gives herself pedicures and facials. Nic lifts weights. I bake. So, Vivien ends up looking more glamorous. Nic gets fitter. And I just get fat.

“Damn good thing you can cook. Not like your mom. A woman who can’t cook . . .” He trails off, clearly unable to think of a terrible enough comparison.

“Is like a fish without a bicycle.” I was on debate team last year and we used that quote from Gloria Steinem as a topic.

“What does that mean?” Dad asks absently, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. I guess you could say he’s handsome. Not stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks gorgeous, but good-looking enough that I can squint and understand what Mom was thinking. He’s still fit and muscular in his mid-thirties, his hair thick. Nothing soft about Dad. He wears flannel shirts, year-round, sleeves rolled up to reveal the ropy muscles of his arms. He’s got high cheekbones and full lips, which both Emory and I inherited. “Did you bring cream cheese?” he asks.

“No, I did not, because cream cheese on zucchini bread is disgusting.” I hand him a tub of butter and a plastic knife.

“Sorry I haven’t seen much of you lately, pal. I’ve been doing the grunt work, gettin’ set up for the summer crowd. Sysco trucks coming and going to restock – they never tell you what time, keep you hanging all damn day – and I’ve got the new summer bunch for training – you know what that’s like.” Even though it’s been twenty years since Dad moved here from Massachusetts, his er ’s are still a ’s and his ar ’s are ah ’s. In fact, his accent gets stronger every year.

I refill the cup of coffee he’s already gulped down and pour one for myself.

“Start cuttin’ up the bait,” he directs, mouth full, handing me a box cutter and jerking his chin at the bucket of squid.

It’s still early June and not all that warm in the mornings yet. I feel as though my fingers are freezing to the slippery squid as I try to slice them – harder to do on the jagged rock than it would be on a flat surface. The tide is high, so the air’s not as briny yet, there’s a fresh breeze coming off the water, and the waves slap gently against the rocks. The dark blue sky overhead is fading fainter in the east.

“Good coffee.”

“Thanks.”

“Gwen.”

“Yes?”

“You’re making the pieces too big. The fish’ll just run off with the hook like that.”

“Sorry, Dad.”

More silence as he polishes off half the zucchini loaf and I deal with freezing cold slimy bait.

“Dad,” I finally say. “You were eighteen when you and Mom got married, right?”

“Barely,” he says. “Here, let me bait your hook.”

“Would you say that was . . . too young?”

He gives me a sharp look from under his thick brows. “Wicked young. We had no business getting hitched. But . . . well . . .” He clears his throat. “You were on the way and – why are you asking me this? You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you?”

“No! Of course not. Jeez. I’m on the Pill.”

He winces, and I realize I should have said I’d never even held hands with a boy, not reassured him about my effective birth control. Whoops.

“It was a medical thing. For my complexion and because my period was – ”

Dad holds up a hand, hunching his shoulders in pain. “Stop! As for me and Luce, we were kids. Had no freaking clue what we were getting into.” He holds out his coffee cup. “Got more?”

I splash hot black liquid into his cup, the plastic top of the thermos, then ask something I’ve always wondered about. “Do you regret it? Marrying Mom? Like, if you had a do-over, would you?”

Dad takes a sip of coffee, screws up his face as though it’s burned his tongue, blows out a breath. “I’m no good at this garbage” – the way he says it sounds like gahbage – “imagining things fell out some different way than they did. Waste of time. That’s your ma’s territory, with all her foolish books. If you mean, do I regret you, no.” He hands me my pole, reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a wad of bills. “Your back pay.”

I take it from him, count it out, then hand him back half. Our tradition. He’ll put it into his pocket, then take it to the bank for my college fund when he deposits Castle’s income. Dad’s big on the fact that it matters that I see the money before half of it is gone. I’ll give most of the rest to Mom.

“You can have first cast, kiddo.”

I hoist the pole to my shoulder, fling it out, watching the fragile transparent line shimmer in the air as the hook dips into the waves.

“Decent,” Dad says. “Put a little more arm into it next time.”

He grins at me. For a moment, I feel this surge of affection for him and I want, the way I wanted yesterday with Mom, to tell him the whole story . . . the boys and Nic and Vivien and the ring and . . .

But we’ve never talked like that. So, instead, I reel my line in, hopeful for an instant as it snags hard on something, until I realize it’s just a clump of kelp.

“Pal, look.” Dad clears his throat, squinting as he stares out at the far horizon. “I’m gonna give you something my folks didn’t give me when I was your age.”

Not a car. Not a trust fund. Dad’s parents were, as Mom puts it, “unfit to have pets, much less kids.”

“What is it, Dad?”

“You can bait that hook and hand me my pole. What I’m going to give you, Gwen, is the truth.”

Here’s where, in one of Mom’s books, or the classic movies Grandpa Ben likes, it would turn out that Dad was actually royal but estranged from his family. That I was the next heir to . . . My imagination gives out at this point from sheer futility.

Dad casts, a perfect arc, line shimmering, glimmering out into the sea. “What’re you waiting for, Gwen? Get going!”

So I shove slimy squid onto another hook and cast out myself. I know I do it well. Strange how you can be good at something that doesn’t mean anything to you at all. But it’s always mattered to Dad. The times we spend fishing are some of our best, most peaceful. When he’s on the water, all Dad’s rough edges smooth out, like he’s sea-glass.

“You got your mom’s brains, and her looks. Sweet Mother of God, she was a beauty. Stopped your heart, seeing her.” He rubs his chest, looks out at the water, and then goes on. “You got those and my guts. You’re a hard worker and you don’t bellyache about every little thing.” He pauses, wipes his fingers off on his faded shorts. “But the only chance you have of getting anywhere with any of that is to get the hell off this island.”

“I love Seashell,” I say, automatically. True and not true. I tip my face up as the first fingers of the sun stretch across the water. My feet in their worn flip-flops are cold, the chill of the rocks seeping through the thin rubber soles.

“Yeah, love,” Dad says. “That’ll get you nowhere fast. Look. I’m not going to sit here moaning about the mistakes I’ve made. What’s done’s done. But you’ve still got time. Chances. You can have . . .” He stops, his attention snagged by a distant sailboat. Dad checks out sailboats – the big beautiful ones like this Herreshoff gliding by, ivory sails bellying in the wind – the way some of the guys at school check out cleavage.

“Can have what, Dad?”

He throws back a gulp of coffee, grimaces again. “More.”

I’m not sure where he’s going with all this. Dad’s not really one for self-reflection. He concentrates on casting out his line, jaw tense.

After a few minutes he continues. “Here on Seashell, it’s always going to be us against them, and let’s face it – it’s gonna be them in the end, because ‘them’ gets to choose what happens to ‘us.’ Get off island, Gwen. Find your place in the world. You got a ticket in your hand already with the old lady losing her marbles.”

My line sways, spider-webbing in the water. Dad catches me by the elbow with one hand, and then carefully reels in my line, calloused warm hand over mine. “She’s loaded and she’s losin’ it. You’re gonna be there every day. Her family isn’t. Make the most of that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She’s redoing her will this summer. I heard her nurse, Joy, talking about it online at Castle’s. Her son wants to take over power of attorney, so she’s tying up the legal stuff . . .”

“Dad, that has nothing to do with me.” Is he really suggesting what I think he’s suggesting? I feel like throwing up, and it’s not the combination of frozen squid and empty stomach. I look at Dad’s ducked head, incredulous.

“For God’s sake, the damn fish took the bait right off the line without me even feeling a tug. Bastard. Put some more on, pal. What I’m saying is you’ve got the goods to go places. Do it for me. Do it for your ma. Just be real smart, is all I’m telling you. Pamper that old lady within an inch of her life. Her family’s off in the city, she’s on her own. Better you wind up with a nice little chunk a change than them, the way I see it.”

“Dad . . . are you saying . . .”

“I’m telling you to keep your eyes open for opportunity. Mrs. E.’s not noticing stuff around her house the way she used to – and she never was one of those ones that knew exactly how many silver crab claw crackers she had, not like some of the fruitcakes your mom cleans for.”

I close my eyes, picturing Mrs. Ellington’s porch, the engraved silver of the tea service, the polished antiques, the leather-bound, gold-embossed books in the bookshelves. Her family legacy.

This is my legacy? Does Dad actually believe that the only way I’m likely to have anything is to grab somebody else’s? What happened to all his lectures about hard work and the people who got ahead were the ones who sucked it up and put their nose to the grindstone, and . . .

“Dad?”

I can’t seem to come up with anything more to say. He stares out at the water, at the distant horizon, eyes somber. I keep chopping bait, sliding it on the hook, bending and casting out. I remember Mrs. Ellington watching that separation of sea and sky during our interview, Nic, Viv, and I doing the same last night, and for the first time I realize that none of us are seeing the same thing. That all our horizons end in different places.

“So, I need you to fill in for me at lunchtime today. This won’t be a usual thing. But I just had to fire this kid – too much of a moron and always showing up late and high. I’m shorthanded for this afternoon. We’re gonna get slammed. Can you pinch hit? I’ll pay you overtime, even though it’s not a holiday. C’mon, pal.”

“I have a rehearsal dinner with Vivien and Almeida’s tonight. Plus watching Em all day. And Mrs. Ellington starts Monday. I can’t work all the time.” Visions of any summer lazing are quickly fading to black in my head.

“If you play it smart, like I said, you won’t have to.” He brushes zucchini bread crumbs off his faded olive green shorts, crumples the now-empty foil wrapper and sticks it back in the cooler. “But today, I need you. The first few weeks I’m figuring out who the bad apples are. And you’re my good egg.”

“Dad. About what you said. I mean, about Mrs. Ellington – ”

“Just think about it, Guinevere, smart advice from your old man.” Dad takes the pole from me, securing the hook. “Embroider it on a pillow. Spray-paint it on your wall. Just never forget it: Don’t be a sucker. Screw them before they screw you.”

Chapter Nine

Back home, I push open the screen door to the familiar sound of Nic running through his Coastie fitness routine – the little grunt he always makes when he picks up a weight, the clatter and puffed exhale when he sets one down. I hardly wanted to get out of bed to meet Dad, but here’s Nico – who I happen to know was out until three in the morning with Vivien – ensuring his physical fitness.

“You are not a normal teenage boy,” I say as I enter the living room, which is like climbing into a gigantic wet sneaker. Em’s curled on the couch, nestled in a blanket with Hideout the hermit crab in his arms and Fabio drooling on his leg, dividing his attention between watching Nic sweat and some Elmo video.

“No.” Panting, Nic rolls to his side, lets the weights he’s been bench-pressing crash to the ground. “I’m better, stronger, faster.”

“Smellier,” I say. “Where’s Mom?”

“Robinsons’,” he grunts, picking up the weight again, his damp, sandy brown hair sticking to his forehead.

Oh, right. Making their house sparkle. On a Saturday. God, Mom. Doctors are on call, not you.

I sit down next to Emory, ruffling his hair. He smells sticky and sweet, no doubt from the bowl of Cap’n Crunch he’s got resting on his lap. He snuggles his head against my shoulder, shoving Hideout under my nose.

“Say good morning to Hideout.”

“Morning, Hideout.” I catch a whiff of spaghetti sauce – Emory sneaks him bites during meals.

For a few minutes, Em and I both watch Nic like he’s theater, while I turn over in my head various casual, subtle ways to bring up the ring. I inhale, bite my lip, blow out a breath a few times. Nic’s too focused on his weight curls to notice that I look like one of the bluefish Dad caught as it flopped around on the rocks.

How would this even work? Would it be a long engagement? Like – they’d marry when he got out of the Coast Guard Academy? Or are they planning to do it now ? I’m picturing Viv moving into the bedroom Nic shares with Grandpa Ben and Emory. Or Mom and me having to move out of the room we share and sleep together on Myrtle to give them privacy (though that’s never seemed too high on their list of requirements). Or Nic and Vivien resurrecting the battered old tent we used to pitch in the yard all summer as their love nest. I can’t see them moving in with Viv’s mom and stepdad. Al usually glares at Nic like someone from the Old Testament, and Mrs. Almeida pitches a fit when she even catches them holding hands.

It’s so ridiculously implausible in the light of day. Because it’s all the same – Nic’s focused scowl on the uplift, relaxing into pained relief as he sets the weight down, his faded, torn, “lucky” camouflage green workout shirt, sleeves torn off – everything. Manny must have been talking through his beer brain.

“Do I look like I’ve gained weight to you?” Nic asks abruptly, my staring at him with a crinkled forehead finally getting through.

“Yup, those shorts make your but t look huge.”

He frowns at me. “I’m serious. I’ve been eating over at Viv’s all the time since school got out and her mom’s desserts . . . If I bulk up too much, my swim timing will suck, and those guys will take their edge and – ”

“Nico, you’re fine.”

He blows out a breath, lowering the weight and panting.

“Can you hold my ankles while I do crunches?”

I drop to the floor, loop my fingers around his sweaty, hairy ankles. I’ve been doing this for him for years, and the familiarity of it makes me brave again.

“Nico, Manny said – Are you and Vivien – ”

“D’you think I should shave my legs?” he interrupts, panting.

“For prom?”

“For speed.”

“I don’t think your pelt slows you down too much, cuz. Nobody else on the team does it.”

There’s a sharp, military-sounding rap on the door. I get up and open it to find Coach Reilly awkwardly holding a plastic bag. He’s so out of context that I blink. I’ve never seen him on the island. Cass, now Coach. It’s a Stony Bay invasion. He thrusts the bag at me as though it’s a bomb with a ticking time clock, then glances around the room, his brows pulling toward each other. “Your ma here?”

I glance into the bag to find it full of romance novels with titles like The Desirable Duke and The Sheik Who Shagged Me. I so don’t want to think Coach reads these.

“My neighbor was gonna chuck ’em. I know Lucia goes for this kind of thing. So . . . she’s not home?”

I shake my head, try not to squint at him. Dad calls Mom “Luce,” only “Lucia” when they’re arguing. But the way Coach says the word, it sounds . . . different. I didn’t think he thought of her as “Lucia” – as anything but my mom, Nic’s aunt. I’m beginning to think I know absolutely nothing about what’s going on with anyone.

“Come on in.” I open the door wider.

He shoulders his way into the room. “Hey, Nic the Brick.” Nic, who’s at the top of a weight curl, grunts a hello.

Emory gives Coach Reilly a distracted wave. Coach ruffles his hair, asks, “When you going to run track for me, Big Blue?”

Em holds out his arms, says, “Whoosh, faster than a locomotive. Speeding.”

“Just what SB High needs, buddy,” Coach says, sitting down heavily on one of the kitchen stools and unzipping his SBH jacket. He looks even more flushed than usual.

“Can I get you some water?” Or a defibrillator ?

“Naah. Gwen, gonna cut to the chase. Got a kid on the swim team who’s in a jam. Screwed up in English and flunked that big final. Two-thirds of his grade shot to hell. The teacher will let him retake at the end of the summer. But he needs a tutor. I know you saved Pieretti’s butt with Lit 1 last fall. If Cass doesn’t maintain a good average, he’s off the team. We need him. I figured since he’s right here on the island this summer, it would be easy for you guys to find the time.”

Of course I knew instantly it was Cass. Not because I think of him as a bad student, but somehow the minute I heard Coach say “swim team,” I knew. Cass is getting to be like that one rock on the beach that you stub your toe on every time.

“I don’t think I’m the best person to help him,” I say. “Pam D’Ofrio tutors. And she’s on island too.”

I hear a sound like a cat choking up a hairball. It’s Nic, clearing his throat.

“You okay, Brick?” Coach asks.

Nic coughs again in that same incredibly fake way, then wheezes out. “Need a cough drop. (Hack, hack.) Gwen – can you show me where you keep yours?”

He jerks his head toward Mom’s and my bedroom with these big pleading eyes. Mystified, somewhat irritated, I follow him.

The minute we’re inside, he grabs my forearm. “Do it. Man up and do it.”

I lean back against the door. “Why? If Cass gets booted, your shot at captain is in the bag.”

Nic grimaces. “No way do I want to win like that. Get it handed to me. Besides, Somers ups my game. I do my best when I’m trying to outdo someone. I need that edge.” He’s been looking at me intently. Now his eyes fall to Mom’s ruffled pink-and-brown bedspread.

“Look, I know things are maybe a little” – he rubs his perspiring jawline without looking at me – “whatever. With you and Somers. I mean, pretty damn clear last night, whatever the hell that was. But do this. For us. I need Coach to write me a rec for the academy. He went there. That’s huge. I need it.”

“You honestly think he wouldn’t rec you if I don’t tutor Cassidy? You’ve been on his team since freshman year. Cass and Spence just got on last year.”

“Probably. But I don’t know for sure. I need sure. The CGA is one of the hardest damn institutions in the country to get into. Every boost counts,” Nic says, stretching his arms over his head, revealing armpit hair that may actually be piling several minutes onto his swim time. “C’mon, cuz.”

I fix him with my own intimidating stare. “You will owe me forever for this. I own your soul.”

“My ass, maybe. Not my soul. God, this is just tutoring, Gwen. I’m not asking you to screw the guy.”

My face must change color, because Nic starts stammering. “I didn’t mean . . . I meant . . . I wasn’t . . . That didn’t come out like . . .”

I point a finger at him. “Your soul,” I repeat. “Vivien can have your sorry ass.”

“Deal,” Nick says swiftly. “My sorry soul is all yours.”

When we get back, Coach has sat down next to Emory, and is looking at the pictures in the Superman comic book Em is leafing through, his arm around Em’s shoulders. I skid to a halt, swallowing, and realize I’m not sure when I last saw Dad do that.

Making one last attempt to extract myself from this situation, I ask casually, “Have you mentioned this idea to Cassidy? Because he might not be up for it.” I hear Nic hoist one of his weights again and wonder if he’s going to bop me on the head with it.

Coach spreads his hands. “He’ll be up for what he needs to be up for. This is important as hell. We have a shot at state coming up but only with Somers. On your end, adding tutoring during the summer looks damn good to colleges. You know Somers can afford to pay top dollar.”

Family, money, looking good to colleges. My Achilles’ heels. Assuming you can have three of those.

“Help me out here, Gwen. Take one for the team.”

Even without the Nic pressure, it would be nearly impossible to say no to Coach. He’s a good guy. Everyone knows he was crazy about his wife, who cheered at every meeting, brought hot chocolate for the boys on the bus, and who died last fall.

I take a deep breath. How bad can this be? Obviously, based on yesterday, I already knew I was going to be seeing more of Cass this summer than I’d planned. This is purely professional. I didn’t quit timing the swim team after what happened in March, after all. I just managed to avoid any personal conversation. I can do the same with this. “I’m in.”

Coach claps me on the back hard enough to knock the wind out of me and says he’ll speak to Cass about it. “You two can work it out next time you run into each other.” He punches his hand into the pocket of his jacket, jingling what sounds like loose change. “Gwen? Keep it on the down low. No need to let the world know he’s had any struggle. Once or twice a week should cut it. He’s a smart kid. He’ll do whatever he needs to do to get where he wants to go.”

Yeah. I know.

Even though I thought I’d escaped, here I am at Castle’s once again, trying to get out of wearing my little hat with the crown around it.

“Whatcha think of this week’s specials?” Dad asks, nodding at the blackboard.

I’ve parked Emory at a picnic table in the shade and set out finger paints, a situation that could turn critical at any moment.

“Stuffed peppers,” I read out loud from the top of the blackboard. “Maple-basted bluefish?”

“Well?” Dad asks, tipping back on his heels, squinting at the board. “I figure two new specials a day – or every coupla days, just to keep ’em guessing.”

“Dad . . . People come to Castle’s for . . . beach food . . . summer food. Burgers. Hot dogs. Lobster rolls. They’re not going to want to stop off after spending the day at the beach and have maple-basted bluefish. Ever. Where’d you get that, anyway?”

“Food Network,” he says absently, rubbing his chin with his thumb. “We gotta do something. Last time I drove by that damn Doane’s, there was a line all the way down the pier.”

“They sell ice cream and penny candy. There’s always a line. I’m not sure maple-basted bluefish is playing to the same crowd.”

Emory tugs at me with one hand, holding up the other, coated in red paint, like Lady Macbeth. I pull him over to the little outdoor sink at the back and rinse him – and me – while Dad follows, continuing. “Nah, think about it, kid. The season’s here, we get the college kids, the renters. The renters’ kids. They’re doing the marijuana. They get the munchies. They come here – they see the specials. We sell out.”

“Dad . . . if kids get the munchies, they want cheese fries or brownies. Not maple-basted bluefish.” No one wants maple-basted bluefish. Blech.

His gaze sharpens on me. “How do you know this, Guinevere Angelina Castle?”

Um, I’m a teenager? I go to high school? “Health class.”

Dad shakes his head. “Don’t you dare go down that dead-end road, mess with your brain.”

“Don’t worry, Dad. I stick to cocaine.”

He scowls. “Well, knock it off. That stuff ’s wicked expensive. And pull up your shirt – there.” He jerks his head at my neckline. It’s not even low. I tug it up anyway. Dad tosses me my purple apron, even better coverage, and tells me to man the side booth. “And put on your hat.”

Within ten minutes, we’re totally overwhelmed. Nedda, who must have the patience of all the saints, because she’s worked here for three years, is slaving over the grill. A busload of tourists headed to Foxwoods is taking up two-thirds of our parking lot and three-quarters of our burger supply. A skinny new guy named Harold is languidly manning the fry basket. I’ve got Emory parked at a back table now, with a grilled cheese.

“Gwen, table six, fast. We’re running behind,” Dad barks. “I’ll handle the orders, you hustle ’em out there. We get more tips if a pretty girl does the running.”

Dad rarely dishes out compliments, so they always hit hard when he does. I’m blushing a little as I gather up the tray of burgers and birch beers and head out to six. Which . . . naturally . . . is Cass. And someone who looks a lot like him. Not his dad. Dark-haired, but with the same lean-muscled look and piercing blue eyes.

Cass has his back to me, hands braced on the table. “We’ve been through this a million times, Billy. What more do you want from me?”

“Some sign that you’ll listen to your own brain instead of Channing’s. We all know how well that worked out at Hodges, squirt.”

I suppress a smile at the nickname.

“That was a year ago, Bill – and it was just a joke. That place takes itself way too seriously.”

“A joke that got you out on your ass. Still pretty damn embarrassing for Jake too, since he works there. Spence’s dad might have finessed it so expulsion didn’t show up on his record, but it’s on yours, little brother. For keeps.”

Cass is now digging a thumbnail into the wood of the picnic table. The backs of his ears are flushed. I’m standing there with their food, blatantly eavesdropping. I always kind of wondered why he and Spence came to SBH last fall as juniors. Prepped-out Hodges is where Stony Bay kids go when price is no object.

“Look, you’re smarter than this, squirt. I’d hang it up if I felt like you’d learned your lesson, but you haven’t. This garbage with your grades looks like more of the same screwing up to me. To everyone. I love Spence, but he’ll always come out smelling like a rose. You won’t.”

“You’re my brother, Bill, not – ”

“Dad and Mom would tell you the same thing.”

“They have. Constantly. You know Mom, she loves to over-explore. Look, I’m paying my dues – working on the island, mowing freaking football fields’ worth of lawns. I did a dumbass thing, got a few lousy grades. Let’s move on, for Chrissake,” Cass says, standing abruptly. “Shouldn’t the food be here by now?”

He whirls around and almost directly into me. One of the drinks splashes tsunami-style into the plate of fries and onto my apron.

“I – was just bringing you this.” I start mopping at the fries, but they’re hopeless. Then I brush at my shirt, totally frazzled. “I’ll get you some more. No problem. It’ll only take a minute.”

“Is that ours?” his brother calls out.

“I’ll take it,” Cass says, reaching for the tray. “You don’t have to wait on me.”

“It’s my job,” I say. He’s got his hands on the tray, and mine are there too in a kind of flashback to our near-wrestle over the lobsters. And my peacoat, last spring. I drop my hands, wipe off my palms, shove the soggy napkins into my apron pocket.

He stands there balancing the tray in one hand, looking out at the cow pasture that’s directly behind Castle’s, jaw clenched. “You heard all that, right?”

I shrug. “It’s okay. I mean, nothing to do with me.”

He examines my face, then grins. “I call bullshit. You want to know.”

“Ha. Don’t kid yourself. I couldn’t care less what you did then.” My turn to look off at the cows, try to absorb their barnyard zen. “Or now.”

He sets down the tray, slants a hip against the table. His brother’s gotten up and is heading for the service window, no doubt to complain about the ditz who ruined their fries.

“Ever been inside Hodges – aside from the pool area?”

“Other than the girls’ locker room, no.”

“Pretentious as hell for small-town Connecticut.” He shrugs. “Not to mention that you had to call the teachers ‘master’ and ‘mistress’ whatever. Should be called ‘Stodges’ instead of ‘Hodges.’” He tugs at his collar as though the mere memory is choking him.

I’m smiling despite my determination to project complete indifference.

Cass cocks his head at me, folding his arms. “Oh, never mind. Why am I telling you this? You don’t care.”

“Do not do that. Now you have to tell me.”

He rocks back on his heels, smiles. “Careful, Guinevere. You might forget you hate me.”

“I – ”

I look over to see if Dad has noticed my dawdling, but he’s apparently in some sort of near altercation with a vendor, who is holding a huge cardboard barrel of ice cream. Automatically, I check the table where Emory was drawing, but he’s not there. Oh God.

The parking lot.

The road.

I whirl around.

Then I feel a soft brush past me, and my little brother steps in front of Cass, head titled. He’s so small, even though he’s eight, that reaching up to Cass’s chest is a big deal. He touches it lightly, moves his finger across it in a slow, snake-like motion. I have no idea what he’s doing.

“Superman,” he says proudly, like he’s seen through Cass’s disguise. He traces the shape again – it’s an S, I realize – and beams at both of us.

Cass looks down, game face on, but not freaked out. I hope.

“Hi, Superman,” Emory repeats, invisibly drawing the shield thing around the S.

I don’t know why he’s doing this. Cass has neither dark hair nor a cape waving in the wind. Maybe the blue of his shirt or the way he stands with his shoulders back, chin lifted.

Now Dad looks over. “Sorry,” he calls to Cass and his brother, who’s returning with a fresh order of fries, then to me: “Gwen, don’t let your little brother pester the customers, for God’s sake.”

“It’s fine,” Cass calls. His brother sets the fries down on the table and immediately Em’s reaching for them.

“Superman,” he repeats, popping one in his mouth and chewing cheekily.

“Em, no!” I struggle as I usually do when people meet him for the first time, whether to explain or just let them take Em as Em.

“My brother is – ”

Cass cuts me off. “We bumped into each other on the beach yesterday. He was with your grandfather. I gave them a lift up the hill. They seemed tired.”

I blink. “Before or after your rescue attempt with the lobsters?”

“Before.” Cass winks at Emory, who is eating another fry. “The Man of Steel never rests. Or maybe that’s Jose the yard boy. I get my alter egos confused.”

“Hi there,” his brother says to me, with a short wave. “Bill Somers.”

“This is Gwen Castle, Billy. She’s the one I was saying should tutor me for that English makeup.”

Wait. This was his idea? Not Coach’s?

“Good to meet you. And – don’t pull your punches with squirt here. He deserves it.”

Cass’s ears turn red. He shoots Bill a swift death-glare.

“Gwen!” Dad calls. “Get your little brother back over here. You don’t have time for screwing around.”

Bill tells me it was a pleasure, Cass has retreated into his bland, neutral look, and Emory’s made a major dent in their fries. I stammer out an apology, take Em’s greasy hand, and turn to go, only to run into the solid wall of Dad. He’s got yet another new plate of French fries, not having missed a thing.

“Sorry about this. These’re on the house too,” he says. Then, stern, to me: “Get back where I can keep an eye on you, kid. Emory’s the one who is supposed to need a babysitter.”

God, Dad. I feel my face burning. But Cass is looking down at the ground, not at me, nudging at the pebbles with the toe of his sneaker, all neutral face. Dad’s bristly and defensive, Bill faintly amused. Only Emory is completely at ease. He sidles up to Cass, traces the shield design once again, sweeps his finger in an S. “Superman,” he says.

“I wish,” Cass mutters.

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