Page 32 of On Fire Island

At home she sat in her bed playing Wordle and contemplating the fact that solving the daily word game would once again be the most exciting part of her day. The house still smelled like garlic. Her phone buzzed as she typed in her standard five-letter first word:TEARS.

It was ironic, because I noticed she rarely shed any.

Where you at?Gabe asked.

She ignored it and studied the game. She had anR, anA, and aT. She placed down her next word.QUART. Nope. Just the order of theARTchanged. Her phone buzzed again. It somehow sounded angrier than the first time.

Hello?

CHART, she thought as her phone vibrated yet again.

Are we good?

She knew she should answer, at the least; ghosting him wasn’t nice. But she was too weak in her resolve to start a back-and-forth. She knew their pairing had a short shelf life, and she had laughed at Tuck’s choice to rob the cradle too many times to do the same. Not to mention that she could barely look Matty in the eye all week.

It wasn’tCHART.

She perused the available letters and played around with different combinations in her head.

Ok. I’m leaving on the 10:00 am ferry, but this is not goodbye. I really care about you.

She turned back to Wordle and typed inAPART.

“Splendid!” the game responded.

She didn’t feel splendid.

nineteen

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

Early July brought a heat wave the likes of which I hadn’t felt in years—not that I felt it now. The air was hot and heavy. Windless. Everyone seemed to be laboriously trudging through it, except for Ben. Dense with grief, he moved with it in perfect synchronicity.

I took a walk down to the bay and sat on the dock watching the kids in the water—learning to swim or just horsing around, their sunburned arms wrapped around brightly colored swim noodles, their heads bobbing up and down with the current. I had always had the same thought when watching similar scenes in the past—one day. The realization that that dream would not be achieved would have broken my heart a few months back, but now I sat firmly in the “it is what it is” mindset. It was a favorite saying of my mother’s, and I cringed every time it left her lips. Nothing my mother did was what it was—unless it was exactly what she wanted. Ironically, the phrase had now become my death mantra.

I was surprised to see Matty and Dylan whip by me and dive in, racing to the floating dock as they probably had countless timesbefore. The contrast between their behavior now and the last time I saw them together made me laugh. I noted they seemed more comfortable acting like kids than contemplating adulthood.

It may have been the first time they had been together since the incident on the dunes. Dylan was working nights at the ferry terminal while Matty was delivering groceries during the day. Dylan would never say no to a night shift, and the overtime money that came with it, while Matty had other motivations aside from his finances for working a summer job.

Being a delivery boy at the market was a rite of passage. Matty was honored to be one of the chosen few whom Big Les tapped on the shoulder and said, “Hey, kid, want to work here?” The tasks were divided according to the sexual norms of the 1950s. The chosen girls stacked the shelves and checked out groceries, while the boys mostly did deliveries or, on very busy days, helped behind the deli counter. Though only day-trippers and renters gave them their sandwich orders. It took years to learn how to make a sandwich to rival Little Les’s.

Dylan, on the other hand, was working for every bit of her spending money at UC San Diego. Her goal was to earn enough to last till next summer so that she could just be a student and study and have fun. The fun part made me worry. Between her strict father and growing up on this isolated island, she seemed a bit starved for it. I was honestly happy about her and Matty’s plan to lose their virginity together. At least she wasn’t thinking like one of those girls that gets to college, goes wild, and burns out. Though, between the lack of time, place, and prophylactic, who knew if it would ever happen for them? I hoped it would before I left. I’m not particularly partial to a cliffhanger.

Apparently, Dylan had spent the morning completing online registration for her fall term. When she shut her computer, she felta weird mixture of panic and excitement. She embraced the latter and used the Find My Friends app to surprise Matty. She found him sweating over a cart full of groceries a few blocks from her house. She helped him quickly deliver his load and convinced him to take a quick break to go jump in the bay.

That first slap of the cold, dark water brought them right back. Dylan reached the dock ahead of Matty, climbed on, and held out her hand for him. She was a faster swimmer, yes, but more than that, she never hesitated at the start. Her leap was a part of her last stride while Matty always paused and hung back for one, and two, and even three seconds more. By the time he jumped in, Dylan was three lengths ahead. Dylan was always three lengths ahead. It may have been why she was so consumed with the thought of being behind.

“I’ll get you next time,” he said, reaching for her hand, hoisting himself up and sprawling out on the floating square dock beside her.

I doubted that would ever happen.

Matty may have been a star on the ball field, but Dylan was practically half-fish. When they were young, you could see her coaxing him to ride the waves. He would still be standing at the edge timing his entry while she had already cut through the third break. Legend is she swam before she walked. She would take off from the safety of her parents’ blanket, crawling full speed ahead to the ocean at just ten months. Jake taught her to swim soon after, and her mother nicknamed her the Little Mermaid. The nickname stuck, but her mother did not. She took off when Dylan was just a toddler.

“This summer bites, Matty. We hardly see each other.”

“Maybe I can ride the ferry over with you tonight and help you work.”

“My dad will never allow that.”

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