Page 11 of On Fire Island

I laughed, surprised by her proclamation, but Matty was speechless. Now they both looked down, shifting their weight from one foot to the other on the dry sandy clay, little clouds of dust wafting through the silence. It was likely the first time there had been any awkwardness between them. And the longer Matty was silent, the more foolish Dylan felt.

I don’t know what Dylan expected, but I knew this reaction wasn’t it. It was as if, as ridiculous as it may seem coming from the mind of a sixteen-year-old, having sex with Dylan had obviously not occurred to him. I guess it was because they weren’t actually boyfriend and girlfriend. From what Ben and I had witnessed the summer before, it always seemed very aboveboard, if you get my drift. Like they had covered every inch of territory on the island apart from each other’s bodies, which just stood as another one of their many adventures. Actual sex was a huge leap from there. Though I got what Dylan was feeling. Like I said before, Dylan Finley never met a race she didn’t win—until now, I guess. I was sad she was thinking of her virginity that way, but not all that surprised.

I wanted to shove Matty or yell at him to snap out of it, but Dylan stepped in and did both.

She pushed her hands into his chest and shouted, “Matt! If you don’t want to do it with me, just say so.”

He recovered, but not well. “No, no. It’s fine.”

Dylan became angrier. “Fine? Don’t do me any favors.”

“No, I mean, not fine. Of course I’ll do it.”

He touched her cheek again, and it brought a small smile to her face.

“I would love to do it with you, Dylan.”

Dylan’s smile widened, and she kissed him gently on the lips. The whole interaction felt a bit forced on both sides, very perfunctory. Maybe it was just nerves.

“Do you want to come in?” he asked, in a very half-assed way. He had a lot to wrap his head around. To his obvious relief, she tapped on her watchless wrist.

“Seventeen hundred hours, remember?”

He smiled at her and said, “OK. See you tomorrow, Dyl Pickle,” in homage to their usual nightly exchange.

“Not if I see you first, Hazmat,” she responded, as she had a zillion times before.

As she rode off, I took a good look at the four corners where I had lived. While the ball field looked visibly different on the outside, the three houses that surrounded it were forever changed on the inside. I wondered how the summer would play out and how much of it I would see.

eight

The Eight O’Clock Ferry

When the eight o’clock boat came and went without Ben on it, I imagined his eyelids becoming heavy and his fighting to stay awake, parked on the beach exactly where I had left him. I could picture his inner turmoil—feeling the exhaustion wash over him but knowing that setting an alarm in order to make the ferry would mean turning on his phone and being on the hook for the dozens of missed calls and texts that would surely be waiting for him. His absence in the city would be worrisome to say the least, especially to his own mother, whose heart ached for him and his loss as if it were her own. I hoped he would wake up in time to make the last boat of the night, aptly named the “dead boat,” whose only purpose was to wait at the dock on the other side in advance of the morning departure. Once on board the passenger-less vessel, it would be easy for him to sit downstairs, unnoticed by the captain and the one crew member above—his shiva-fugitive status would remain intact.

Luckily my trip to the ferry wasn’t a total loss, as Renee stepped off the boat and, just as quickly, out of her heels. She was still wearing her funeral outfit. I was surprised she hadn’t gone homefirst to change, but when you want to be at the beach right away, there is little that can stop you. As far as I knew it was the first time she’d been back since the divorce. My last memory of her and Tuck together was us all lying on the beach one late afternoon. Renee resting her head on Tuck’s potbelly, Tuck twirling her hair in his fingers, both so seemingly content in the life they had built together.

She began walking toward her house, but after half a block turned around and headed to town. My guess was she was hungry and knew nothing much would be waiting for her at home. Besides, it had definitely been the kind of day that required a good strong drink or two if she were to have any chance of falling asleep later. She stopped in to the first restaurant in town, Matthew’s, and sat down at one of the small tables that flanked the bar.

“A bowl of clam chowder, extra crackers, please.”

Like mother, like son.

“Anything to drink?” the server asked.

“Tequila and club soda. With a lime. Actually hold the soda and make it a double.”

The drink arrived first, and when the chowder came she requested another. It was a lot for her, she didn’t usually drink hard liquor. She looked around. It had been a while since she had been there. Matthew’s was the place to be when she was younger, especially on Thursday nights for Margarita Madness. She had hostessed there the summer before her dad sold the house, and whenever she looked back on that time an uncontainable smile sprouted across her face. Tuck didn’t particularly care for Matthew’s, so she hadn’t been back in years. Nothing had changed, from the old-salt decor to the thickness of the chowder. She was thankful for that.

A group of twentysomethings were playing darts in the corner.One of them caught her staring and smiled. She felt his eyes still on her as she finished her soup. It wasn’t odd, in my opinion at least. Even in the full throes of grief, her hair down and messy, her eyeliner smudged, Renee was still gorgeous. A few minutes later, the guy approached, darts in hand.

“Want to play winners?” he asked.

“Are you winners?”

“I am.”

He was adorable. Scruffy with a shy smile. His Levi’s looked older than he did, and he wasn’t wearing any shoes. Renee had painfully slipped her shoes back on when she entered the restaurant, and she was literally dressed for a funeral. The tequila had just begun to soothe the ache in her heart, a little, and for some reason that she didn’t quite understand she kicked off her shoes again and agreed to play. She was good at darts. Darts was a big thing in most of the bars on the island, so she’d had her share of practice during her younger years. Plus, I doubted she was in any rush to go home to the street where her best friend and her husband no longer lived.

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