Be True to Me Page 2

  “Carpie said kids work,” said Gil.

  “They do. We do. We all have jobs, for pay or volunteer.”

  “Volunteer?” He quirked an eyebrow.

  “It seems corny, but everyone pitches in somehow.”

  “So what are you volunteering to do there?” His smile was teasing.

  “Well, June and July it’s nothing but tennis,” I said. “See, I lost the Junior Girls Singles championship last year, and my parents went ape.” Even after a year, my tennis fiasco humiliated me. “I’ll be on the court day and night.”

  Gil looked amused. “I’m teaching swim classes and waiting tables at the yacht club. Guess I’ll be the boy fetching your ice-cold Yoo-hoos and Winks.”

  “No, no, it’s not that way! Kids always work at the club. We wait on one other, we babysit one another, we teach the little ones to swim!”

  He laughed. “I didn’t mean to rile you.”

  “I don’t want you to think I’ll be having this la-dee-da summer, while you’re toiling away.”

  That made us both laugh. “It does sound pretty cushy,” said Gil. “I’ve helped at my stepdad’s hardware store since I was knee-high. Now, that’s some dull work.”

  “There’s loads of kids on payroll who still have fun. Mrs. Walt—you know Walt’s Chocolates? Well, that’s her family—but at Sunken Haven, she’s just the sweet old lady who runs the thrift shop, and I worked there last year.” I was rambling, I blamed the wine and beer and not quite knowing how to act around a boy who made me feel so giddy. “All I’m really saying is it’s busy, you know . . .”

  Gil’s eyes were warm on me. “It’s cool how you’re so serious about everything. You’re a funny princess.”

  “No, no! I’m not,” I answered sincerely.

  He laughed. “Especially when you don’t mean to be funny.”

  But I’d meant that I wasn’t a princess.

  Our burgers arrived, distracting us as we squirted ketchup and loaded the buns with lettuce, onions, and pickles. Led Zeppelin was on the jukebox. “What sort of music do you go for?”

  Now Gil leaned in on his elbows. I’d struck a nerve. “Clapton, Tom Waits, Lynyrd Skynyrd. But I dig most any rock-and-roll—me and my pal Kenny took a bus twenty-three hours to see The Who in Fort Worth.”

  “I’ve been to Madison Square Garden twice this year. Once for David Bowie and once for Elton John.” This wasn’t true—it was Daphne who’d gone. But I’d heard enough about both concerts. In the moment, staring at Gil, I wanted it to be true so badly that the truth itself seemed like a tiny detail.

  “Elton John? That guy’s a dud.” Gil began to sing “Bennie and the Jets” through his adenoids.

  My cheeks got hot. Daphne never did dud things! Or did she? What would Daphne say in this moment? “Well, I saw Elton’s whole act, and it’s a complete hoot!”

  Gil shrugged. “Piano’s good if Waits is playing it. I’m more into guitars myself.” He molded his hand around an invisible neck, and with the other hand, he strummed air. “I used to mess around in a band—we called ourselves The Mindbenders. But that was B.C.—Before Carp. Now I’m at the firm day and night. He’s got me in his focus—which I do appreciate,” added Gil quickly. “Hope I wasn’t coming off ungrateful.”

  “Have Carpie and your family mended fences?”

  Gil paused, as if deciding how to frame this. “Matter of fact, one of the deals of my being here is, I can’t contact my family.”

  “Why not?”

  He smiled, guarded. Sipped his beer and shrugged in answer.

  “But that’s family politics for you,” I said. “Anyway. I’m glad you told me. I’m always here to listen if, you know—” I floundered “—you want to tell me more.”

  Now Gil eyed me in a way that burned up my cheeks. “I want to know more about you.”

  “Oh, okay. Me. Um. Like what?”

  “Like . . . what do you love?”

  “Love! Oh my gosh! Don’t put me on the spot!” I hid behind my beer mug—only a few sips remained. I wouldn’t order another. Even one drink made me too careless with my words. “I love tennis,” I told him after a pause.

  “Where I’m from, that game’s for snobs.”

  “I never feel snobby when I play. I feel happy. Unless it’s . . .” against her. “Unless it’s too competitive.”

  “Have you got a shelf full of trophies?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Aw, you’re stewing about something.” Gil’s voice was gentle. He tipped his head, watching me. “Cat got your tongue? Tell me.”

  “No. There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Come on. Put it out there.”

  Fritz O’Neill. She was something real. She was something to put out there. But I wouldn’t even speak her name out loud. Not tonight.

  Fritz O’Neill, who last summer had entered the Junior Cup Tennis competition at the eleventh hour. Then she’d casually annihilated me. My loss had shocked the family. My mother’s and Daphne’s names were both etched into plaques that hung in Haven Casino’s center hall.

  But not mine.

  “I’m training super hard for a tennis rematch that I lost last summer. I’ve been practicing after school and every weekend.”

  “Bet you’ll do fine.”

  “There are other good players.”

  “Like who?”

  “I guess I can’t remember her name.”

  “Arrright, arrright.” Gil popped his last huge bite of burger in his mouth. He ate too quickly, but his appetite also made him sexy, like a wolf.

  When “Young Americans” came on, I clapped for it. “I love this song!”

  “I’ll get out there if you want.”

  Toward the far end of the room near the jukebox, kids were bouncing and shimmying and trying to look like they weren’t working too hard on their moves.

  “Okay.”

  Gil slapped a ten on the table to pay. “Let’s go.”

  When I stood with him, he took my arm and led, turning me in and out easily, and then pulling me close. When he held me to his chest, I melted against the press of his body. Were Dalton girls watching? Was Jack Hollander? Would people talk about how smooth we looked out here? I felt expansive with all the possibilities.

  And when the song ended and Gil stared down at me, for once my uptilt felt entirely natural. I’d never felt so radiant as I did in his gaze.

  Gil leaned in close to my ear. “Hollander’s. Bowie. You. At least I got one New York night exactly right.”

  We danced to a few more songs, then we left the bar, sailing into the warm, almost-summer night. We had enough time to walk uptown and still beat my curfew. Three hours ago, I hadn’t even known he existed, and now here was Gil Burke, blazing bright as a comet through the center of my world. I was giddy with it, almost frantic with wanting to absorb and memorize every detail of each, shared moment.

  “Kinda funny, remembering about earlier,” Gil said, as if he’d been listening in on my thoughts. “When Uncle Carp first mentioned his goddaughter?” He took my hand and slid his fingers through mine. “For some reason, I pictured a little girl with braces and a hula hoop.”

  I sighed. “Carpie thinks I’m still a child.”

  “You’re anything but.” He said it sweetly. Not like a come-on. His fingers were woven strong through mine. Gil had seemed sure right from go that I was special—a fun-loving New York girl with connections to “It” bars. And now a brand-new thought overtook me.

  First Gil had rescued me from my fight with Daphne. Then he’d sprung me out of the apartment and whirled me into this perfect evening. What if Gil had come here all the way from Elmore, Alabama, to Sunken Haven for me?

  Could it be true? Instead of a summer playing handmaiden to Daphne, was I being delivered something entirely different—a summer in the spotlight? A summer starring Gil Burke and me? The idea, as it steeped, filled me with tense, panicky joy—it sounded too good to be true, like something a West Village psychic would promi
se for fifty cents.

  Summer flings and sexy romances were Daphne’s territory. Not mine. I was the one you didn’t pick.

  I swatted off my hope like a bumblebee, knowing it was too late. I’d already been deliriously stung.

  FRITZ

  Fort Polk, Louisiana

  I’d had such a bad spring.

  I spent my last day at home before Sunken Haven working a full shift on my feet at the PX. Ringing up shoe trees and salad spinners and whatever else was sale-priced low enough to send the army wives scrambling. An hour before I got off, a lady came in and ripped my head off because I didn’t think she could return a knee brace she’d been using for about a month. Good thing it was only my fake birthday. If this were my real birthday, Jesus, I’d probably have burst into tears.

  My parents were throwing me a month-early party. They did it every year, since they never saw me on my birth date, July fifteenth. I’d always compare the two dates—the one here, versus the real one I’d spend hanging out on Main Beach with Julia and Tracy, sunbathing and debating which parties to hit later.

  In fairness to my parents, they made the night special in its own way. When I came out of my room, showered and changed for the evening, a haul of wrapped presents was displayed in a festive heap on the table. And foodwise, Mom had gone all out: iced vegetable mousse and her seven-layer spinach-crabmeat casserole. To be safe from pickier eaters, she was also heating up a couple of packs of Jimmy Dean pigs in blankets.

  The heat in the kitchen was baking the whole house. June in Louisiana was even hotter than July in Sunken Haven. The best cooldown was to stick my head in the freezer, where my cake waited in its pink and brown polka-dot Baskin-Robbins box.

  “Fritz, if you’re ready, will you get your head out of there and go see who’s at the door? Since your brother won’t budge.” Mom had made Kevin stay home tonight, but he was spaced on The Six Million Dollar Man in my parents’ bedroom, the only room with an air conditioner.

  “No problemo.” I slammed the freezer shut and went to meet the Fowlers as they banged through the screen door and into the living room.

  “Hi, Mrs. Fowler. Hello, Major Fowler!” Mrs. Fowler was a flow of Dashiki caftan and cigarette smoke as she wafted over to deliver my birthday gift.

  “Oh, thank you, Mrs. Fowler.”

  “You’re very welcome, Almost Birthday Girl. Though I’ll tell you, the walk over just about did me in. Whew, this heat.” She plopped onto our sectional and plucked a flowered packet of cigarettes from her purse, lighting the butt of her last cig to a fresh stick. Then she crossed her legs and patted the place beside her. “Now, come sit here by me. You all packed and ready? How many times have you been out to Fire Island now?”

  “This is the seventh,” I said. “I’ve been visiting Julia since I turned ten. It’s basically the best place in the world. And my last shift at the PX was today.”

  “Well, that explains your big smile. Even if you couldn’t pay me to visit a place called Fire Island.” Mrs. Fowler fanned herself with the back of a hand. “You can fry an egg on my stoop as it is.”

  “Funny thing is, it’s cooler there than here.” And I’d be there tomorrow! Smelling the salted wind through the marsh grass. Feeling the sand between my toes, and Julia’s shoulder jogged against mine, as we walked to the candy store.

  Sunken Haven was as unlike a ten-hour shift ringing up layaway as you could possibly get.

  “What’s the connection again to this place?” asked Mrs. Fowler.

  Mom arrived to set the cheese board on the coffee table. “My friend Patsy Tulliver and I were both pregnant in Fort Hood,” she said. “Me with Kevin and Patsy with Dot. We did Lamaze classes together and got close, and so did our daughters. Even after Patsy’s husband left the service, Fritz and Julia stayed friends, and they always spend summers together. The Tullivers are so generous about hosting.”

  “And Julia’s my best friend,” I added, sounding like a third grader. But I was so excited to see her that I wanted to say her name out loud.

  “Our Fritzie needs a break. It’s been nothing but double shifts since school got out.” She ruffled my hair. “I have a good feeling about this summer.”

  She said it partly because she wished it, since I’d had such a bad spring. My breakup mopes, my speaker-blasting of “Crazy On You,” my TV marathons—I wasn’t my usual self.

  “I’m ready for it,” I agreed.

  “You still feeling bad about that boy?” Mrs. Fowler asked when Mom had scooted back to the kitchen. She took a long drag on her cigarette, exhaling smoke through her nostrils like a mystic.

  “What boy?”

  “What boy! Fritz! You know what boy! Colonel Houlihan’s younger son. The football player with the big ears who stole your smile.”

  “Oh, Scott.”

  “Oh, Scott! Oh, him! He was never right for you. Big ole show-off. I used to see him come into the rec center with the other boys on the football team.”

  “He dated me when I was a cheerleader, and he dumped me when I quit the team. So that was, you know . . . enlightening.” I hated talking about it. Scott had been so cool—right up till the minute I realized he’d only seen us the way he wanted his friends and teammates to see us. “I was dumb about him.”

  “Breakups hurt,” said Mrs. Fowler, “no matter how they happen. But the hurt doesn’t stick forever. You’ll heal, Fritz.”

  I smiled in answer, as if I agreed—even though I had no idea if that was true—and leaned forward to dip a carrot stick in onion dip. If I was supposed to be getting over Scott Houlihan, then leaving Fort Polk was a start.

  Soon the party hit its groove. Neighbors never bothered to ring our bell, they just blew on through, delivering six packs, and gifts for me. The air was thick with smoke and Chique perfume, recently stocked at the PX, and the scent of choice this summer.

  The gifts were fun, but Stephanie Ewart, my best on-base friend, had taken a babysitting job tonight, and once Mom put on the Donna Summer, the living room turned into a sad scene of adults in jumbo bell-bottoms all juking out, then quickly checking with me:

  Fritz, do your friends do the hustle or is that only us old fogies?

  I slurped down a slice of ice-cream cake. The air was roasting me.

  When nobody was watching—not that anyone would have cared—I slipped to my room. The Junior Cup was balanced on my blue Samsonite. I was sorry to be returning the cup. I’ve been winning sports medals and pins and trophies since I was knee-high to a peanut, but I’ve never gotten to keep anything as grand as this old lady. Sterling silver.

  All year, it had sat on my bookshelf, reminding me of summer.

  But it wasn’t mine. Then again, nothing on Sunken Haven was mine for keeps.

  I turned up “Magic Man,” the first track on Dreamboat Annie, which never left my turntable. Then I unwrapped my birthday gifts: portable hot curlers, a few albums, some color-change mood lipsticks, and three seventeen-dollar birthday checks.

  By the time I pulled on PJs, the house had quieted. Only then did I let myself check in with my old diary, rereading this and that, and eventually, of course, I led myself back down the painful path of entries about me and Scott. Which led me to flipping back even further, to the well-read details from the two times we’d almost had sex. (Both almosts were at the Park & Rec, parked behind the picnic tables, in the back of Mrs. Houlihan’s station wagon, which smelled like their cocker spaniel, Cookie. Each time, I’d had second thoughts. And so, instead of sex, we’d had a fight.)

  I don’t know why I always reread those parts. Maybe because it felt like I dodged a bullet? I knew some girls didn’t care about it, but I had zero regrets that my first time hadn’t been with a guy who ended up being not at all who I’d hoped he was.

  Tomorrow, I was outta here, and I was leaving my diary at home. I was done with writing down every journal-worthy moment, preserving my emotions only to be humiliated by them. For the rest of this summer, Julia and I’d be together, earni
ng tips and partying on the beach and enjoying all the usual fun. Maybe I’d remember everything, maybe I wouldn’t. It didn’t mean I hadn’t lived it.

  Fort Hood, Fort Lee, Fort Polk. Our family had moved onto three different bases since I started spending summers with Julia. I was used to army living, but Sunken Haven was my childhood constant, the one place that pulled me in and held me, year after year, to its unchanging comforts. In some ways, it was the closest I’d ever had to a permanent home. I felt lucky every summer that I got to go back.

  JEAN

  Sunken Haven, Fire Island

  “She’s nothing to me.”

  We’d arrived three days ago. And every single day had been a slow, dragging, nail-biting torture, wondering when I’d see Gil again.

  I had tried to keep myself distracted. There was tennis clinic in the morning and most afternoons, of course. I’d also reunited with my best friends, Sara Train and Rosamund Wembly, and we’d been as inseparable as ever, meeting up for light lunches and beach time and bike rides, rotating lazy visits to one another’s houses, with nights reserved for the usual icy beers on someone’s deck or out on the dunes. The rhythm of a summer season was so set, it was already hard to distinguish the days of this summer from the chime and dissolve of years before.

  Except that this summer, all I’d thought about was Gil. He’d been one of the most tantalizing secrets I’d ever kept. A thousand times a day, sunbathing on Main Beach or ordering grilled cheeses at the club, Gil had been on the tip of my tongue. If only I could dare to speak about him! How my story could shake up this quiet afternoon, as Sara shellacked her toes alternating colors of bright yellow and purple while Rosamund made a chocolate-pudding Bundt cake—Lazy Days always had the best-stocked pantry, thanks to Mrs. Otis, who ran our home like an army general.

  I imagined myself casually starting the conversation, about how I’d met and fallen head over heels for the handsomest, smartest, most charming guy in New York. City.