WHEN I GOT HOME from the beach the next day, my mother was sitting at the kitchen counter eating some of the leftover chicken. Pulling at the meat of a drumstick. She smiled at me. “Did you go for a swim?”
“More than one.” I pulled out a stool and joined her on the other side of the counter. Glanced at the clock by the sink. Six fifteen. “What’s up with you?”
“Sewing. Beading. Bustling. The usual.” She licked a finger. “Mrs. Levinson’s a saint.”
“I know. It’s good even the next day. I had some for lunch.”
My mother swallowed another bite. “Saint of Roasted Chickens.”
I laughed. “Yeah.”
“So.” Her eyebrows arched. “Anything you want to tell me?”
I took a deep breath. “Yes. So. I’m hanging out with Handel Davies tonight.”
My mother offered me the wing of the chicken. “Interesting.”
I shook my head. She shrugged and took a bite of it herself. “Apparently, more than I realized,” I said.
She wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Well, you know the people around here.”
“Yup. Lived here my whole life and all.”
Another smile from my mother. “Raised you the entire time, too.”
“Raised me to be a smart girl,” I said, looking at her directly so she knew I meant what I said.
“That’s what I like to hear.”
“He’ll be here at eight, Mom.”
She looked me up and down. Took in my tank top and short-shorts. “You’re going like that?”
“Nah. I’ll change,” I said. “I should, right?”
“You should.” She got up. Washed her hands in the sink. Dried them. “I’ve got something you could wear.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Follow me.”
My mother’s room was small. Compact, but tidy. Bed made perfectly. Italian lace curtains flowing alongside the windows. Not a piece of clothing peeking out from a drawer or draped over the chair in the corner. Order was essential when you lived in a tiny house, she always said. Order was important for a good life.
She opened the closet, searching. I sat down on the bed, careful not to muss it. Watched her go from one dress to the next. Noticed the way her dark hair flowed long and thick over her shoulders while she moved, Italian curves from head to toe. My mother was thirty-five, had me when she was eighteen, was married by nineteen and divorced by the time she was twenty-one. I took after both my parents—my mother’s nose and eyes, the color and style of her hair, but I got my father’s tall, thin build. My mother shifted, and I saw a slice of profile. Suddenly tears were pushing into my eyes. I’d lately become aware of how things could change from one minute to the next, how I could lose something precious in a single moment, and I drank in the sight of my mother like I might never see her again. Like I needed to remember her every detail, just in case.
Details.
Michaela’s father. Wanting more details.
Like the metal plate on the toe of Patrick McCallen’s boot?
But that was for tomorrow. Tonight was still mine.
“Found it,” my mother said, the sound of her voice breaking into my thoughts. She pulled out a skinny silk tank the color of a cloudless sky. Something she’d sewn herself. “Casual yet pretty, and you can wear it with your jeans.” She held it up to me. “It will look better on you, anyway. You have the right body. It’s a little slutty on me.”
“Mom!” I laughed.
She started laughing, too. “It’s the truth.”
I took it from her. Leaned in and gave her a hug.
“What was that for?” she asked, tilting her head. Taking me in.
“I just love you,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome. Now go shower. I’ll stay out of sight when he shows, all right?”
“You’re the best,” I told her, and took off to my room, thinking about how strange it is to feel so lucky and so unlucky all at once.
• • •
My heart pounded. It wouldn’t stop. I put a fist over it.
Handel Davies and I were walking toward town. He hadn’t said a word about where we were headed. Either Bridget or Michaela might be right about our destination. At any moment we could stop on a corner for the night or end up on a fishing boat. I was hoping for something more interesting.
“So it’s only you and your mother in that house?” Handel asked.
I watched him light a cigarette. Take a puff. “Do you think we could hide anybody else in there?”
The left side of his mouth turned up in a smile. “I guess not.”
“It’s just us. My mom didn’t have any more kids after she got divorced.”
Handel gestured left, and we turned down Chestnut. “My ma knows her.”
“Really?”
“I think every woman around here has been to your mother for some reason or another. Wedding. Christening. Funeral.”
We were passing Mrs. O’Brian’s house, and she was in her front yard, watering some plants. She stared hard at Handel and me. I gave her a wave and a look that said mind your own business, and she went back to her watering.
“Which one brought your mother to mine?” I asked.
“My sister needed her prom dress fitted,” he said. “That, and my uncle Billy’s funeral.”
“Oh. Sorry to hear that.”
He shrugged. Took one last drag of his cigarette, then stubbed it out on the edge of a trash can at the street corner and tipped it inside. “That’s business as usual in my family.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say, and I was a little surprised Handel spoke so easily about it. I remembered reading about how Billy Nolan had gotten shot in the middle of the street one day, but I hadn’t thought he might be related to Handel. Then again, it was well known across town that Handel’s family—extended family at least—was deep into shady dealings. Sometimes living in this town seemed like being on a movie set. Nolan must be Handel’s mother’s maiden name. I wasn’t sure how much more I wanted to know on the subject of Handel’s family and their, well, business.
Handel hooked a finger into the belt loop of his jeans. “So, some friends are hanging out over in the dunes tonight.” We reached the end of Chestnut, and Handel stopped. “I thought we could head there.”
“Yeah?” I asked, trying to seem casual. I knew about the parties in the dunes. They’d been going on for years. It was the place people went to drink and have sex and get into all sorts of trouble during the summer, and therefore a place I’d always avoided. “Sounds good.”
Handel’s eyes flickered over my bare arms and the low cut of my tank top. “You going to be warm enough? It’s cooling off now that the sun’s going down.”
The way his stare slid across my skin simultaneously gave me chills and made me nervous. I shrugged. “I’ll be fine,” I said, but as we cut right, then left, and I could see the wharf in the distance, I wasn’t so sure, and I didn’t mean about the cold. I could practically see my mother purse her lips in a tight line if she found out I was going to the dunes with Handel Davies. My friends would be divided. Michaela would cross her arms and get judge-y. Tammy would say I should go see what it’s like, and Bridget would probably celebrate the idea, and make some comment about how Handel could just ravish me on the beach instead of his boat.
But then there was me.
What did I think?
For so long, I’d always done what I was told. I’d gotten good grades, been a good friend, been a good daughter to both my parents. Been a teacher’s pet, worked hard for my spending money, crushed on nice boys who didn’t notice me. After the break-in I’d tried to go on like before, as though nothing had changed, doing the same things as always—studying, working, helping, listening. But for some reason those things had become much harder lately, as though they were just out of reach. This spring there were days when I felt like skipping school, when I wished for a party instead of studying, and when I found myself wanting to kiss someone—no, more than kiss someone—who wasn’t good for me, who might break my heart in such a way that the pain would overcome the agony from that night that still permeated my every cell. The good in me had started to peel away like skin, as though all along it had been a mask I’d worn that, with the slightest touch, would fall apart, revealing this other Jane below.
A Jane who wasn’t as good.
I glanced at the boy next to me, his blond hair pulled back from his face, his eyes, beautiful and dangerous, a demeanor that said come here and beware at once.
Handel was perfect for her.
This new Jane.
The briny tang of the beach got stronger as we got closer, and my lungs expanded to take it in, my heart calming as the scent made its way into my body. When you grow up alongside the ocean, there’s nothing better than that seaweed smell, potent and constant, the surest sign that you are where you belong. I paused, closed my eyes, and felt Handel slow his pace. I let the feeling of home steady me. This place, this town. What it meant. How it meant everything. But then another feeling worked its way inside, hooked into me sharply: the sense that Handel already knew who I was, that I was a girl on the verge of tipping one way or the other, and that he wanted to be around to see which way I went.
When I opened my eyes again, there he was, waiting.
Stare steady. Piercing.
I nodded. I was ready.
“This way,” he said quietly, and led me down some wooden steps along the wharf. They creaked under our weight. The sound of water lapping against the boats mingled with the talk of nearby fishermen as they smoked and remembered the business of the day. There was Mr. Johansen and his sons, Mr. Lorry, Old Man Boyd—who everyone actually referred to as Old Man Boyd—a few guys too hidden behind the others to recognize, and a couple of the Sweeney brothers. They were staring full-on and hard at Handel, then at me, puffing their cigs in unison like an ugly chorus line.
When we reached the beach, I slipped off my flip-flops, careful not to step on the sharp shells littered underneath the tall wooden pilings. The sand was cool between my toes in the evening air.
“You hungry?” Handel asked.
“A little,” I admitted.
“We could grab a bite at Aunt Carrie’s before we head to the dunes.”
“Sure,” I said. Aunt Carrie’s was a lobster shack built on the beach. There was a counter where you ordered and a few picnic tables in the sand and that was it. My mom and I went there twice every summer, once over Memorial Day weekend when it officially opened for the season, and again on Labor Day before it closed.
When we got there, a few families were scattered about, eating out of red plastic baskets lined with red-and-white-checkered wax paper, and more than a few people were unself-consciously munching corn on the cob, stray kernels and butter dripping down their chins. Handel and I went to the window. I asked for clam cakes and red chowder and a lemonade, and Handel asked for a basket of fried shrimp and a Coke. I dug in my pocket and came up with a few crumpled bills, but he waved the money away.
“I’ve got it,” he said, and paid for us both.
I bit my lip to hide my smile. Handel paying made it feel like a real date. While he waited for our order to come up, I went and chose a picnic table, the one farthest to the side, just under an old, majestic tree with branches that hung out over the beach. I debated whether to sit on the end of the bench facing the ocean, which would be an invitation for Handel to sit next to me—maybe a little weird, but then we’d both have a view—or take the very center of it, which would signal that he should sit facing me on the other side of the table. I settled on the second option, deciding it was more casual.
It wasn’t long before Handel was heading my way, a tray full of food, napkins, and drinks, balanced across his arms. He set it on the battered gray wood, then placed the Styrofoam bowl in front of me and the brown bag already stained with grease next to it. Then he sat down facing me, just where I thought he would.
For a while, we ate in silence.
Handel popped shrimp after shrimp into his mouth, occasionally glancing my way. I did my best not to slurp or get too much food all over me, which was difficult when dipping clam cakes into chowder. In between sips of lemonade, I tried to think of something to talk about and ended up on a subject that had me curious since Handel had first spoken to me on the beach two days ago.
“Handel,” I said, watching as he wiped his hands with a napkin.
“What’s up?”
“Your name. Handel. I was just wondering, you know, why Handel?”
His face colored a little. “It was my mother’s idea.”
I scraped my spoon along the bottom of the bowl. “Parents usually are the ones who decide their children’s names.”
“Yeah, well. Mine’s embarrassing. I’ve always felt that way, ever since I was a kid.”
I finished up the last crunchy bite of clam cake. “You? Embarrassed?”
Handel dragged one of his shrimp through a plastic cup of cocktail sauce. “What? You think I’m immune?”
“I don’t know. Kind of,” I admitted. “You’re . . . you after all.”
He chewed slowly. Then swallowed. “What does that mean?”
“You’re Handel Davies, Town Bad Boy,” I said, before I could stuff the words back in with the rest of my dinner.
Hurt—or maybe it was worry—flashed across his eyes. But then Handel chuckled. “I’m not really that bad.”
“No,” I said slowly, looking at him. “You’re not.”
This got a grin from him. The first one of the night. “You’re not so bad, either, Jane.”
I laid my spoon down. This time I didn’t try to hide my smile. “Thank you, but we’ve gotten off-topic.”
“I like this topic,” he said, still grinning.
“We were talking about your name.”
He pushed his basket to the side and leaned his elbow on the table, eyes on me. “It’s not something I talk about with just anyone.”
I pushed the remains of my dinner next to his and mimicked his position. “I’m not just anyone.”
“No,” he said, the way I had before. And added, “You’re not,” just like I’d done.
“You can’t flirt your way out of answering,” I said.
He furrowed his brow. “Was I flirting?”
I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. “Um, yeah.”
“Only because you started it,” he countered.
“Just tell me,” I demanded, my face flushing even deeper. “Or there shall be no more conversation this evening.” I tried for a jokey tone, but it came out more vulnerable and nervous than kidding.
Handel didn’t move. Just stayed there, propped on one elbow, watching me with that beautiful, strong face, skin tanned from so much sun, long stray locks of hair falling across his forehead, and those strange dark eyes with their halo of blond lashes. “All right,” he said finally.
I took a big gulp of my lemonade. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“So, when my mother got pregnant,” he began with a bit of resignation, “she started thinking about how she’d always wanted some other life. To get out of here and do something big and important and how she never did it. Instead she got married young and had my three older brothers, and worried all the time that they would have the same fate as her, especially since they were boys. They would become fishermen like our father and all the other men in this town and settle into the life before they’d chosen it.” Handel paused to take a sip of his Coke. “With me, she wanted to do everything differently from the beginning, and for my mother, everything began with the name you gave your kid.”
“That sounds reasonable,” I said.
Handel reached over and tapped the table in front of me. “Like Jane, for example. Do you know why your parents called you Jane?”
The mention of my parents, plural, made me flinch the slightest bit. I shook my head.
“You should ask your mom,” Handel said. “I’m sure there’s a story there.” He hesitated a moment, seemed like he wanted to say something else about this, about my name or my mother or my parents. But he didn’t. “My father was the one who named my older brothers. Aidan, Colin, and Finn.” Handel watched me with some curiosity, as though he wasn’t sure how much I already knew about his family. Or even wished that maybe I didn’t know much at all.
I nodded to tell him I did know. Because of course I did. Everybody around here knew about the McCallens, the Sweeneys, the Quinns, and, lastly, the Davies boys. We knew their names, the parents, the brothers and sisters, even the grandparents if the family was second generation, and sometimes the cousins and uncles, too.
“With me,” Handel went on, “my mother decided she was doing the naming and put her foot down about it with my father. I was due around Christmas, and every year my mother goes with my dad to the holiday sing with the symphony up in the city. She loves it, and he takes her to make her happy. Do you see where I’m headed with this?” He looked at me again, like maybe I could finish the story for him.
A lightbulb had gone on. “I have an idea,” I told him. “Maybe.” I wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily.
He sighed. “Well, my mother’s favorite part of the symphony is at the end when they ask everyone to stand up and join in for the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus—”
“By Handel.”
“Yes. George Frideric Handel, to be exact. And that particular year, with my mother in her ninth month and nearing her due date, she was belting out the words next to my father, and apparently, I was kicking along to the music.” Handel’s skin flushed deep red underneath his tan. “This is getting too graphic. I’m sorry. I’m also mortified.”
I burst out laughing. “You shouldn’t be. I’m enjoying this. I’m just surprised.”
“Surprised? By too much information?”
“No,” I said, trying to suppress the laughter that still wanted out. “I just thought you’d be different.”
Handel’s eyes danced. “You’ve given me some thought? Before coming out tonight?”
“I’m not letting you flirt your way out of finishing this story.” I fought the blush that threatened to compete with Handel’s own. “I want to hear it to its very end, even if it turns out to be more graphic.”
“Fine,” he said, wiping a hand across his face like this might erase the flush in his cheeks. “The graphic part is over, though; don’t worry.” He took another long sip of his Coke and swallowed. “So my mother decided this was a sign, and that was the moment she decided to name me Handel. She figured if she named me after a famous German composer, then maybe I would be destined for great things.”
“That’s sweet.”
Handel stared at the remains of our dinner. “I hate the thought of disappointing her since it looks like I’m turning out just like every other Davies in the family.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Can’t help thinking it, though, you know? Now I’m just another townie turned fisherman—just one with a fancy name.” Before I could respond, Handel turned away, glancing at the water and the sky, which had turned the bright blue of evening, except for a rose-pink streak along the horizon. The stars were starting to come out. “You about ready to head?” he asked.
I nodded.
We got rid of our trash and began making our way farther down the sand toward the place where the beach got wider and the dunes got higher.
“Thanks for telling me that story,” I said. “I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
“I think you owe me one now,” Handel said with a laugh.
A piece of clear blue sea glass caught my eye in the fading light. I bent down to pick it up. Inspected it, then put it in my pocket. Continued down the beach. “I don’t know that I have any stories quite that good.”
He glanced at me quickly. “I know that’s not true.”
The playful look in Handel’s eyes disappeared, swapped out for something more intense, and I wondered if the story he was sure I could tell him had to do with the night I didn’t remember as clearly as everyone wished, the same night I wanted to forget altogether. I forced a laugh. “You think you already know me that well?”
He shrugged. “Maybe not. But I’d like to,” he added.
My heart swooped.
Handel stopped this time. Bent down to retrieve a flat object like a mushroom cap that seemed to glow. Held his hand out to me, palm open. Sitting at its center was a sand dollar. It was perfect. Fragile. Delicate. “Take it,” Handel said, everything about him soft, vulnerable, beckoning me like the open hand he offered.
I picked it up, my index finger grazing his skin. “It’s beautiful.” I brought it close, admired the star that marked its back, the tiny hole meant for breath. Felt how light it was, an airy meringue from the sea. I pocketed it, nestling it next to the sea glass. “Thank you.”
“Jane,” Handel said.
I waited for him to go on. He didn’t. The evening light had reached that point where it seemed to make everything shimmer, turn the world to a mirage. “What?” I asked.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said.
I drew an arc in the sand with my toe. Then drew another. Looked up at him. “Me too.”
Handel’s brow furrowed. “No—I mean, yes, I’m glad you’re here, now, but I’m glad nothing bad happened to you that night . . . when . . .” He trailed off.
I swallowed. “Let’s walk. It’s getting late.” I started off again.
Handel followed. “You don’t like remembering it, do you,” he said. “Or talking about it.”
I glanced at him. Saw how every one of his steps left an impression in the sand. “Would you?”
“Sometimes remembering things can help,” he said.
“Not for me.”
Handel’s eyes were on me. “What do you remember, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Not much.” I stumbled. Caught myself. “Can we change the subject?”
“Of course. Sorry.” Handel hesitated. “If you ever do want to talk about it, you can,” he offered.
“Okay.” I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. The air had a chill to it, and a shiver passed through me.
“Jane,” Handel said as the dunes took shape ahead of us. “I really am glad you’re here. The world is better with you in it.”