After Taylor and I hung up, I called my mother. I told her that I was staying at Taylor’s house again that night, that she was still too upset for me to leave. My mother agreed. “You’re a good friend,” she said. There was relief in her voice when she asked me to tell Taylor’s parents hello.
She didn’t even question the lie. I could hear it over the phone: All she wanted was to be left alone with her grief.
After, I took a shower and put on the clothes Taylor picked for me. A white camisole with flowers embroidered across the top and her famous cutoffs.
I went downstairs with my hair still wet, tugging on my shorts. The boys were back inside, sitting at the kitchen table and eating dirt bombs, the big sugary cinnamon muffins that Susannah used to get up early to buy.
“Look what I got,” Jeremiah said. He pushed the white paper bag toward me.
I grabbed the bag and stuffed half a dirt bomb inside my mouth. It was still warm. “Yum,” I said, my mouth full. “So . . . what’s up?”
Jeremiah looked at Conrad hopefully. “Con?”
“You guys should head out soon, if you want to miss the Fourth of July traffic,” Conrad said, and it killed me to see the look on Jeremiah’s face.
“We’re not leaving without you,” Jeremiah told him.
Conrad exhaled. “Look, Jere, I appreciate you coming here. But as you can see, I’m fine. I’ve got everything under control.”
“Like hell you do. Con, if you’re not back on Monday for your exams, you’re out. The only reason you’re even taking summer school is those incompletes from last semester. If you don’t go back, then what?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure things out.”
“You keep saying that, but dude, you haven’t figured out shit. All you’ve done so far is run away.”
The way Conrad glared at him, I knew that Jeremiah had said the right thing. Conrad’s old value system was still there, buried underneath the anger. The old Conrad would never give up.
It was my turn to say something. I took a breath and said, “So, how are you going to become a doctor without a college degree, Conrad?”
He did a double take, and then he stared at me. I stared right back. Yeah, I said it. I would say whatever I had to, even if it hurt him.
It was something I’d learned from watching Conrad in pretty much every game we’d ever played. At the first sign of weakness, you attack full force. You strike and you use every weapon in your arsenal, and you don’t let up. No mercy.
“I never said I was going to be a doctor,” he snapped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then tell us,” I said, and my heart was beating so fast.
No one spoke. For a minute, I thought he might really let us in.
And then finally, Conrad stood up. “There’s nothing to tell. I’m gonna head back out there. Thanks for the dirt bombs, Jere.” To me, he said, “You have sugar all over your face.” And just like that, he was up and sliding the porch door open.
When he was gone, Jeremiah shouted, “Shit!”
I said, “I thought you were gonna work on him!” It came out sounding more accusing than I meant it.
“You can’t push Conrad too hard, he just shuts down,” Jeremiah said, crumbling up the paper bag.
“He’s already shut down.”
I looked over at Jeremiah and he looked so defeated. I felt like bad for snapping at him. So I reached out and touched his arm, and said, “Don’t worry. We still have time. It’s only Saturday, right?”
“Right,” he said, but he didn’t say it like he meant it.
Neither of us said anything more. Like always, it was Conrad who dictated the mood of the house, how everyone else felt. Nothing would feel right again until things were right with Conrad.
Chapter twenty-one
The first time it hit me that day was when I was in the bathroom, washing the sugar off my face. There was no towel hanging up, so I opened the linen closet, and on the row below the beach towels, there was Susannah’s big floppy hat. The one she wore every time she sat on the beach. She was careful with her skin. Was.
Not thinking about Susannah, consciously not thinking about her, made it easier. Because then she wasn’t really gone . She was just off someplace else. That was what I’d been doing since she died. Not thinking about her. It was easier to do at home. But here, at the summer house, she was everywhere.
I picked her hat up, held it for a second, and then put it back on the shelf. I closed the door, and my chest hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe. It was too hard. Being there, in this house, was too hard.
I ran up the stairs as fast as I could. I took off Conrad’s necklace and I changed out of my clothes and into Taylor’s bikini. I didn’t care how stupid I looked in it. I just wanted to be in the water. I wanted to be where I didn’t have to think about anything, where nothing else existed. I would swim, and float, and breathe in and out, and just be.
My old Ralph Lauren teddy bear towel was in the linen closet just like always. I put it around my shoulders like a blanket and headed outside. Jeremiah was eating an egg sandwich and swigging from a carton of milk. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey. I’m going to swim.” I didn’t ask where Conrad was, and I didn’t invite Jeremiah to join me. I needed a moment just by myself.
I pushed the sliding door open and closed it without waiting for him to answer me. I threw my towel onto a chair and swan-dived in. I didn’t come up for air right away. I stayed down under; I held my breath until the very last second.
When I came up, I felt like I could breathe again, like my muscles were relaxing. I swam back and forth, back and forth. Here, nothing else existed. Here, I didn’t have to think. Each time I went under, I held my breath for as long as I could.
Under water, I heard Jeremiah call my name. Reluctantly I came up to the surface, and he was crouching by the side of the pool. “I’m gonna go out for a while. Maybe I’ll pick up a pizza at Nello’s,” he said, standing up.
I pushed my hair out of my eyes. “But you just ate a sandwich. And you had all those dirt bombs.”
“I’m a growing boy. And that was an hour and a half ago.”
An hour and a half ago? Had I been swimming for an hour and a half? It felt like minutes. “Oh,” I said. I examined my fingers. They were totally pruned.
“Carry on,” Jeremiah said, saluting me.
Kicking off the side of the pool, I said, “See ya.” Then I swam as quick as I could to the other side and flip-turned, just in case he was still watching. He’d always admired my flip turns.