Now, Daisy assembled an armful of shiny bathing suits, then fetched the oversize tackle box where she kept all her pins and props. As she got to work, I sat in the doorway that led into the window, alternately watching her and the crowds passing by. En masse like this, the tourists all blended together into types: younger folks moving in packs; parents with strollers, toting huge beach bags full of gear; older couples, walking slowly. The only constants were sunglasses and the feel of spare time. Again, it occurred to me how weird it was to be permanent in a place that to everyone else was only temporary. Like I could never be sure if they were the ones who weren’t real, or if I was.
“I think I’m going to need a few metal rulers,” Daisy said, holding up a gold bikini top and squinting at it. “And maybe some saw blades.”
“Sounds dangerous,” I told her, as a group of girls walked by, outright gawking in at us. It was like they didn’t realize we could see them as well. “I thought this was about robots.”
“Dangerous robots,” she murmured. She was getting into the zone, that quiet place where her ideas came together. No need for me to stick around. Pretty soon she’d forget I was there anyway.
“I gotta go,” I told her, getting to my feet. “I’ll call you later?”
She nodded, and I slipped out of the store, waving at Auden and Heidi. As I headed back to the parking lot, it was nearing two p.m., which gave me about two hours before my father and Benji crossed the bridge over here to my side.
I got in the car, rolled down all the windows, then turned around to the backseat floor to dig for my drive-by list. Just beneath it, I saw a piece of card stock poking out and grabbed it as well. It was one of my graduation announcements, left over and forgotten. I ran a finger over it, reading the letters of my name and my high school. It had been such a big deal at the time, like the finish line of a race I’d been running for as long as I could remember. My mom and dad were there, my sisters, my grandmother, all of my friends. But as was so often the case, it was the one person missing who you thought about more than the ones who were right in front of you.
Stupid, I thought now, tossing it back behind me and turning my attention to the drive-by list again. House after house, their names like fairy tales: Gull’s Cry, Carolina Dream, Driftwood Escape, Tide Traveler. I’d hit them all, slowing down to peer again from the outside at someone else’s vacation, looking for anything amiss or suspect. But if they happened to glance out, they wouldn’t even realize this. To them, I was just another girl passing by.
5
I ONLY CHEWED gum when I was nervous, and could always gauge the stress level of anything by how many sticks it took to calm me down. Sitting outside the Reef Room that evening waiting for my father and Benji, I was up to four and counting.
This was not where I wanted to be. It had been a long day, and Morris and I had planned to go to the movies, then meet Daisy when her shift ended to hit whatever parties were going on down at the Tip. Instead, I was in my car with a sore jaw, wondering how dirty a person could actually get from cleaning pools all day.
I hadn’t planned to bring reinforcements, figuring this would be weird enough without throwing anyone else into the mix. But then, as I was leaving my house, I panicked.
“Are you chewing gum?” was the first thing Luke said to me when I finally got hold of him. I’d already left two what I’d hoped were casual-sounding voice mails, but clearly he could hear the Big Red in my voice.
“What’s weird about that?” I shot back, entirely defensive. “You chew gum sometimes, you know.”
He was quiet for a moment, so I could fully absorb how crazy I sounded. Then he said, “What’s going on?”
I told him. And opened another piece. By the time I’d stuffed it into my mouth, he’d assured me he would get back to his house, take the fastest shower possible, and meet me as soon as he could. Now, though, as a Subaru wagon with Connecticut plates pulled into the lot, I knew it wasn’t soon enough.
I hadn’t seen my father since the previous September, when he, Benji, and Leah were down over Labor Day weekend. They’d stayed at Miss Ruth’s, although she’d already moved to an assisted living facility by then, and we’d had dinner together at this same restaurant. I was in the thick of my pre-application madness then, so my father and I spent much of the meal strategizing. So much so that I’d actually felt kind of bad for Leah and Benji, who, clearly not as enthused about the subject of power essays and early admissions as we were, left to take a walk on the pier when they’d had enough. I had to admit, though, I’d liked having his full attention, as well as this project in common. I was happy to share anything, actually, other than our weird, somewhat shameful origin story.
Fast-forward to April, and that last e-mail, followed by the long stretch of silence, and the memory took on a different tinge. As he parked a few rows over, I opened another stick of gum. But with my jaw already aching, one cheek protruding, for once I knew better than to make a bad situation worse. So I put the stick on the dash instead, then spit my wad of gum into a tissue. Without it, my mouth suddenly felt light and huge, like I could say anything.
I’d just gotten out of my car when I saw Theo, the guy from Sand Dollars. Just my luck. He was climbing out of a white van a few spaces over, a cell phone pressed to his ear.
“Right,” I heard him say as I shut my door. “Two orders of the chicken satay, the big Caesar with no olives, one Margherita pizza. Got it. Anything else?”