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“Hey—yet again—Gwen. Hi, Vivien. What’s up, Emory?” Cass peers down at Em, then over at me.
Emory smiles at him before returning his attention to his bucket of water, now mostly empty. He leans over toward the ocean and I snatch at his life jacket.
Vivien straightens, hugging her knees to her chest, sca
“Need a refill?” He reaches for the bucket but holds his hand away from it slightly, waiting for Emory to decide.
Em tilts his head and then scrapes the bucket across the dock toward Cass. I gaze at the horizon, at a band of cormorants drying their wings on the breakwater. After ducking the bucket full again, Cass stands over me, little drops of water glinting in the sun across his chest, then dripping from his hair and the bottom of his suit onto me. He points to Emory’s life jacket. “He’s still learning to swim?”
“He doesn’t know how. At all,” I say shortly.
“Never had lessons?”
“He had some water therapy when he was really little—at the Y—it freaked him out. Nic and I have both tried doing it here but it never took. I—” I cut off before I can tell him Emory’s entire life story.
“I bet I can do it. Teach him,” Cass says casually. “I worked at this camp, Lend a Hand, as an assistant counselor last year. That was my job, helping the”—he makes air quotes—“‘reluctant swimmers.’”
I squint at his face. “Think you’ll have time for that? They keep the yard boy hopping around here. Old Mrs. Partridge alone is a full-time job.”
Cass grins, dimples grooving deep. I suppress a strange urge to dip my fingers into them. “She called me over at the end of the day Friday to tell me I’d done her yard all wrong. Again. That I was supposed to do it ‘vertically.’ But you were there, right? That isn’t what she said.”
“She’ll switch directions on you every time. That’s what Mrs. Partridge does with whoever’s the current Jose. You’ll get used to it.”
“The current Jose.” Cass turns the phrase over. “I’m not sure I’m down with being ‘the current Jose.’ Sounds like the flavor of the month.” He flips his wet hair out of his eyes again, scattering drops on me, then lowers his voice. “I’ve only put in two days, still getting my rhythm going here, learning the ropes . . . you know. But this place has gotten . . . a little crazy, hasn’t it?”
“It always was, Cass.” I shield my eyes and peek up at him through the fence of my fingers.
“That’s not the way I remember it. I mean, sure, there were always people like Mrs. Partridge, I guess. Yelling at us to get off their lawn and not pop wheelies on the speed bumps.”
“Not people like her. Her. She’s a Seashell trad—” I stop, swallow. “She’s been here forever.”
“Really? I don’t remember her at all. She doesn’t seem to know me either.”
Clear as day, I can see Cass, age eight, leaping off this same pier on so many summer afternoons with the sky dark like the one today—ski
“You’ve changed a bit.”
Emory chooses this moment to dump more cold water down my swimsuit.
Cass’s lips twitch, he ducks his head like he wants to say something but rules it out. “For real, though . . . Part of my job is to rake the beach. Every other day,” he continues. “Get the rocks and seaweed off during low tide. Nuts, since it all rolls back in with high tide.”
“Oh, I know!” I say. “Crazy, right? I wonder what it’s like to be so rich you expect nature to cooperate with you. That you can just hire someone to fix it.”
As soon as I say this I feel stupid. Remember who you’re talking to, Gwen. The crown prince of Somers Sails.
“Look, why don’t we just try a starter lesson? See if it plays at all?”
Emory dumps some water on Cass’s leg. It slides smoothly down the muscles of his calf. I close my eyes, open them to see Cass watching my face intently.
“You mean in exchange for the tutoring?” I hurry to ask.
“No,” he says. “That would be a whole separate deal.”
“What tutoring?” Vivien intercedes, firing me a “you didn’t tell me this!” look. Which I return in spades. In my case, we’re talking a few summer evenings. In hers, a lifetime commitment.
“Gwen agreed to help me get back on track in English.” He reaches for Em’s again-empty bucket, heading down the steps for a refill. Which means his voice is muffled as he adds, “You can’t put it off forever, Gwen. We need to figure out logistics.”
He comes back up, hands the bucket to my brother, then stands there for a second, looking at me. “As in your place or mine?”
A horn blasts from the parking lot. Vivien’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Gotta go. Let me know where, okay?” He slides by me, pulls a red towel I hadn’t noticed before off the slats of the pier. He cracks the towel into the wind, wraps it around his waist, then tosses over his shoulder: “Decide about the swim lessons. I may be no genius in Lit 2, but that I can do.”
Okay, I watch him go. The whole length of the pier and then into the beach parking lot, where Spence Cha
A long low whistle and Vivien is fa
“There’s going to be a whole season of this.” I open the cooler, peer into it and finally fish out a granola bar for Emory, rather than . . . a can of sardines or a cantaloupe. “What the hell will I do?”
“That Avoid Him At All Costs plan of yours? I’m not sure he signed off on it.” Vivien tilts her head, staring into the parking lot as the car backs up and surges forward, too fast, of course, because it’s Spence and rules don’t apply to him. “Maybe you should give him another chance?”
“You were the one who told me to watch out!”
“I know.” She hunches her shoulders, shivering a little as another chilly breeze comes off the water. “It’s just maybe . . . maybe you’re watching out for the wrong things.”
Chapter Twelve
Mom catches Nic and me before we head out the door Monday morning. “Did Mrs. E. talk about how often she’s going to pay, Gwen? It would help a lot if I knew if it was every week or every two. And what about you, Nico? Marco and Tony still pay by the job? And did Almeida’s give you some at the end of the night, or . . .”
Nic and I look at each other. A barrage of money questions first thing in the morning can’t be a good thing.
“Like always, Aunt Luce. They bill the houses and then the owners send the checks. But Almeida’s paid.” He heads back into his room, returning with a roll of bills neatly wrapped in an elastic band. “Yours is in here too, Gwe
I reach out my hand, but Mom’s faster. She takes the bills and begins leafing through them, her lips moving as she silently adds the denominations. Finally, she gives a satisfied nod, divides the money carefully in thirds, returning some to Nic, some to me, slipping the rest into her purse.
“Anything wrong, Mom?”
She blinks rapidly, which, if she were a poker player, would be her tell. “Nothing,” she says finally.
“Sure, Aunt Luce?” Nic asks, tapping each of his shoulders in turn. “Broad shoulders. Ready to listen. Man of the house and all that.”
Mom ruffles his hair. “No worries, Nico.”
Once she leaves, Nic and I have only to exchange a glance. “Damn, what now?” he says.
I shake my head. “If she starts taking in laundry, we’ll know something’s up.”
Taking in extra is what happened last winter when the hot water heater melted down, the Bronco needed brake work, and Emory needed an orthotic lift in one of his shoes because one leg is slightly shorter than the other. Grandpa Ben also began spending a lot more time at bingo nights, honing his card shark skills.