Page 54 of The Beach Trap

“Um, sure,” she says. “Want to hold the other end of the flag?”

I go outside and take one end of the flag while she snaps a few pictures, keeping my hands out of the shot.

Kat looks glamorous, as usual, wearing a gauzy see-through cover-up over a blue-and-white-striped bikini. Her nails are painted an orangey red, her skin so poreless it looks airbrushed. I feel sweaty and disheveled next to her, like my first day of high school when I walked into class wearing overalls and Granddad’scompany T-shirt when all the other girls wore makeup and new outfits from the mall.

“Did you always spend the Fourth here as a kid?” I ask, trying to make conversation.

Kat nods, moving the flag a millimeter to the right. “Always. What did you do on the Fourth when you were growing up?”

“My granddad usually grilled hamburgers, then we’d drive to the city park to watch fireworks. Grandma would make caramel corn and bring it in a paper sack, and we’d lie on our backs on an old denim quilt and look up at the sky.”

“That sounds nice,” Kat says, giving me a brief smile.

“It was.”

And it’s true. I have lovely memories of this holiday with my grandparents, but the way I answered her question feels like I erased all the years before I went to live with them. Before my mom died.

One summer in particular sticks out in my mind—the summer I turned nine, the last summer we had together. She’d braided my hair with red, white, and blue ribbons, and we went to our neighborhood parade. I have a vivid memory of sitting on the curb, kicking my feet in my jelly sandals. I remember my mom’s curly blond hair in a high ponytail, her red halter top, her oversize sunglasses. And I remember looking around at all the families there at the parade, all the kids with their momsanddads, and wondering why my father wasn’t there.

My mom always told me he had to travel a lot for work, and I was young enough that I believed it. Young enough that I didn’t question why he only kept a few changes of clothes in my mom’s closet, why he wasn’t always around for my birthday, why he rarely came to my school events.

But all of a sudden, my mom’s explanations didn’t make sense.

I turned to my mom—she was sitting with friends, talkingand laughing—and said, “Why is Daddy gone for work if it’s a holiday?”

My mom’s smile froze. Her friends went silent and glanced away. I knew I’d said something I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t understand why.

“He—he just can’t be here right now, sweetie,” my mom said.

That was the first time I knew there was something embarrassing about my family, something so wrong we couldn’t even talk about it. And of course, I had to wonder: Maybe there was something wrong withme?

It’s painful to realize, now, that he was here in Destin with his real family. Probably not even thinking about the fact that his other daughter was sitting alone on a hot street curb, watching the other kids with their dads, wondering if it was her fault that he wasn’t around more.

My eyes sting and I stand quickly.

“Are you good now?” I say to Kat. “I—I need to get back to what I’m doing.”

Kat looks startled but nods. “Yeah, I’m good. Thanks for your help.”

I rush back into the house before she can see that my eyes are watering.

•••

I give Kata wide berth after that. She’s prepping for an epic, color-coordinated, red-white-and-blue-themed dinner for tomorrow, and none of that is appealing to me. Of course, neither is what I’m currently doing: removing wallpaper in the upstairs bathroom, using a steamer to loosen the paste so I can peel it off. I want to finish before I go to bed, but at my current rate, that’ll be past midnight.

Halfway through the first wall, I get a text from Noah:What are you up to?

Setting down the steamer, I start to reply that I’ve been stripping wallpaper for the past hour. Then I pause, my thumbs hovering over the keyboard. Noah’s been walking the line between friendly and flirty with his texts the past few days. Maybe I should meet him halfway.

I type one word and hit send before I can rethink it.

Blake:Stripping

His three dots appear and disappear, like he’s trying to figure out how to respond. My heart rate quickens. Then finally—

Noah:Um

Noah:Please be serious

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