GROUPS OF SHADOWS TOOK shape in the moonlight. Figures rose up from the dunes, shifting, appearing, and disappearing again. Handel and I started along the sloping sand, tall grasses on either side of us, forming a path.
“You ever been here to hang out?” he asked. “I don’t remember seeing you around.”
“No,” I admitted, slightly pleased Handel had memories about me, even if they were memories about my absence.
“Sometimes it’s fun,” Handel said, turning slightly left so we could start our climb up the dunes. “And sometimes it’s not. We’ll see what it is tonight, and if it’s not so great we can leave.”
“Okay,” I said.
He dropped his flip-flops to the ground and slipped his feet into them. Glanced down at mine. “You should put your shoes on,” he said. “Sometimes there’s broken glass.”
So I did.
We arrived at a big round clearing between the hills of sand, the sea grass at the center long ago stamped away by the feet of crowds partying constantly during the nights of summer. There were people everywhere, more than I’d expected, a lot of them guys, and all of them with big cups in their hands or cans or bottles. Laughter scattered across the dunes, along with high-pitched giggling. A group of girls stared our way and whispered to one another. I looked around for someone I knew, and I recognized a few faces, but pretty immediately realized this was an older crowd. Girls and guys who’d graduated at the very least last year, if not a few years before.
Handel looked at me, hesitant. “There are a few people I should say hi to. There’s a cooler with beers over there.” He pointed toward a place off to the side where there was still enough grass to hide everything. “If anyone gives you a hard time, just say you’re with me. I’ll be right back.”
I nodded. Watched him walk off toward a series of shadows on the periphery. On the one hand, I liked that Handel wanted me to tell people I was here with him if they asked, but on the other, I was dismayed he didn’t seem interested in introducing me to his friends. I headed to the cooler, not so much because I wanted a beer but because I needed something to do. A few guys stood around it like guards, and it occurred to me I might not be able to just grab one, that I might have to pay. But the second I got close, one of them gestured at me and opened the lid.
“What’s your pleasure?” he asked.
There was a smile on his face, but not one that put me at ease. Even in the darkness, I could see his eyes running all over me, my arms, my legs, where the tank top I wore dipped low across my chest, the same place Handel’s stare had gone. With Handel I’d liked the attention; it made me feel bold and wanted, his gaze on my skin an invitation to become something more than I already was, to experiment with new versions of myself. But this guy just made me uncomfortable. For a split second, I wondered if he could have been one of the guys from the break-in. I shook off the feeling as quickly as I could.
“I don’t know,” I said stupidly, wishing I had a sweater I could close over my neck.
His eyes returned to my face. “Why don’t I help you find out?”
“That’s all right.” I bent down to grab the first beer on top—a can of what, I didn’t know—careful not to let my top fall open, clutching it with my free hand. I didn’t need him looking down my shirt. “I can help myself.”
He fit the lid back onto the cooler. “That’s too bad.”
I popped the top of my beer, and it responded with a loud shhhhh. “No, really. It’s not.” I turned to leave, to find Handel, or really anyone else who seemed safer to talk to than this guy, but then he grabbed me, his fingers wrapped around my arm.
“Don’t go,” he said. “You haven’t even told me your name.”
“Get off me,” I said through clenched teeth. I yanked my arm away hard—so hard that his hand went flying into the air.
“Jesus,” he said, shocked and annoyed.
I didn’t care. I was already stumbling toward the other side of the dunes, trying to ignore the stares of the people who’d witnessed what just happened. I glanced behind me to make sure he wasn’t following me, when I bumped into someone else.
“Sorry,” I said automatically, only to look up and find myself staring into the eyes of Patrick McCallen.
“Jane Calvetti,” he said.
I swallowed. Why had Handel left me alone like this?
“Hi.”
“What are you doing here?” He sounded surprised to see me. “Are those friends of yours around somewhere?”
I kept my eyes level, refusing to check out his shoes, to see if he was wearing those boots with the metal toes. I couldn’t handle it right now if he was. “No.”
“Did you come alone?”
From his lips, the question seemed ominous, though his tone was friendly. “No.” I tried to remember to breathe. It occurred to me I should be listening to his voice, trying to see whether it was familiar, but it was so hard to concentrate. The world sounded like the inside of a conch shell.
But Patrick was smiling at me—smiling kindly. “Aw, they went off and left you by yourself in this place?”
He sounded so nice.
I nodded slightly. Studied his eyes, so open, even sweet. He suddenly reminded me of Seamus. Then I let my gaze drop to the ground, and there they were.
Those boots.
My heart contracted. Squeezed tight, refusing to expand. Patrick’s demeanor together with the boots didn’t add up. “I should go find the person who brought me,” I said. “Handel Davies. He’s probably wondering where I’ve gone off to.”
Before Patrick could respond, I walked around him and then kept on going, needing to be away from him as quickly as possible. I searched the shadows for Handel. I’d been having a good time earlier tonight, but now I wasn’t. Not at all. Everywhere around me I saw unfamiliar faces. Any of them could have been part of the break-in. My hands curled into fists.
I forced my breath to slow. Tried to get ahold of myself.
If I could just calm down, think straight, maybe everything would be okay again. After all, technically, nothing bad had happened. A guy flirted with me at the cooler, and I ran into Patrick McCallen, who—aside from what were ultimately unfounded suspicions at this point—had tried to be nice to me.
I went to a place in the clearing where no one else was standing, one at the crest of the dune with a view to the ocean. I studied the waves awhile, focused on the sound of them crashing, and even took a long gulp of my beer. It was terrible, but at the moment, I didn’t really care.
I was starting to feel better.
But then a girl, familiar, but I couldn’t think of her name, older by a few years, was staggering around in the dark, a big cup of beer in her hand—or maybe it was something else—sloshing this way and that with her movements, liquid spilling over the lip down her arm and onto the beach. I stepped aside so we wouldn’t crash, but she followed and stopped in front of me, standing way too close—closer than a person who was sober would.
“Who are you?” she asked, her words slurred. She fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a lighter. She flicked it and held it up to my face, a tall orange flame burning between us. Her eyes were glassy in the glow, a splash of freckles bright across her nose and cheeks. “Wait—I’ve seen you before. You’re that girl that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The one whose father—”
Before she could finish, before she could say that word I knew came next, and before I could think better of it—I raised my arm high, and it came down fast, smacking away her cup. The unexpected swipe had stolen the rest of her speech. In her other hand she still held the lighter, but now her jaw was hanging open. “You bitch,” she slurred. “That was my beer!”
Like I didn’t know this.
Once again, I turned around and started walking the other way. There was nowhere safe for me to be.
“That’s right,” she yelled after me. “Leave! You don’t belong here!”
Despite being drunk, the girl was right. I didn’t belong here—I never would. It wasn’t my scene. Why had I come? Why had I allowed Handel to bring me? And why had he wanted to? I longed for the familiarity of my friends. Bridget’s easy laughter. Tammy’s sarcasm. Michaela’s protectiveness. Finally, finally, after what had seemed like hours but was probably only the span of a few minutes, I saw Handel. He was standing by himself, smoking a cigarette. He seemed lost in thought.
I went straight up to him, and before he could say anything, I spoke. “I want to go,” I said. “Now.”
He blinked, startled. “Is something the matter?”
Yes. Everything.
“Are you okay?” he asked. He sounded so concerned.
I shook my head. “I just want to go.”
“All right,” he said. “Give me a sec. I need to tell the guys we’re leaving.”
I watched as Handel went to his friends, a series of shadowy figures, notable only by the occasional orange burn of their cigarettes, tiny fiery lights in the darkness. But I didn’t want to wait, not even a minute. I started to walk, not with any particular direction, not at first, but then I was up and over the dunes on my way toward the water. The sound of the waves was so close, so constant. They drowned out the doubt and unease threatening me, carrying it away with the tide.
A little ways ahead I saw a blanket set out on the sand, an abandoned towel forgotten by some beachgoer. It was an invitation, and I went to it, kicked my flip-flops to the side, sat down, legs outstretched, and leaned back on my elbows as though it was daylight and I was sunning myself. The night and the starlight and the familiar crash of the ocean in the dark knit themselves around me like a protective shield. After a while, I lay down completely, giving in to the way the beach called me to relax, my eyes on the sky, following the black shapes moving across it, summer storm clouds on a trip toward the moon. At some point soon, it was going to rain.
“Jane,” I heard Handel call out from down the beach.
I lifted my head slightly. Handel was a tall, moving silhouette.
Soon, he stood over me, looking down at my stretched-out form. “Did I do something to upset you?”
“I just . . . I just don’t belong there,” I said, then rested my head against the towel again.
He was silent a moment, digesting this. “Did someone do something to you?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” I gripped the blanket tight in my fist. Then let it go. I looked up at Handel. “You know how you said that sometimes that place is really fun, and sometimes it really isn’t? Tonight, it wasn’t. And then, you left me all alone.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have taken you there. I should have known better.”
I stayed silent. Waited for him to explain.
“And I shouldn’t have left you even for a minute,” he went on. “I just . . . had to get something out of the way with my friends, and I didn’t want you to be around for it. I wish we could go back to the beginning and start the night over. I would do everything differently.” Handel sounded so yearning as he said these words. He stared at me lying there. Seemed like he was debating something. Then he spoke. “Can I join you?”
At first, I didn’t answer. I was thinking maybe we should just call it a night.
But then I reminded myself how our evening began. How much I’d been enjoying it. I shifted as far as I could to the towel’s edge to make room. “Okay,” I said.
And just like that, our night was saved.
When Handel asked if he could join me, I didn’t think he would lie down, but that was what he did, and now we were stretched out, side by side, on a blanket meant for one, staring up at the stars as they disappeared behind the clouds. For the first time since dinner, I began to feel good again. My breaths came slow and full, the warm ocean breeze a soothing whisper all around. There was something so childlike and innocent about lying here with Handel. It was the kind of thing Bridget and I did when we were small and still sat with our mothers under their umbrellas and dug for crabs in the sand. Handel and I managed not to touch, not in a single place, not our shoulders or our hands or our feet, but I was so aware of him, his skin in the places it was exposed and his clothing in the places where it wasn’t, the curve of his jaw and the rise of his chest as he breathed. I wondered if he was thinking the same about me.
It’s amazing how much was said without saying a thing.
After another while, Handel shifted positions. He rolled onto his side, facing me, propping himself up on his elbow like at dinner. I could feel his eyes on me.
“You won’t tell anyone about the story of my name, will you?” he asked.
I laughed softly, my eyes still on the clouds above. They were about to eclipse the moon. “No, I won’t,” I said. “I promise.”
He let out a big breath, a long sigh of relief. “Good.”
“Were you really that worried?”
I could almost feel the smile cross Handel’s face even though I wasn’t looking at him. “I’ve got an image to maintain.”
“Oh yeah?” I rolled onto my side, too, so we were facing each other. I propped myself up in the same position, happy to note that the smile I’d imagined on Handel’s face was real. “And what image is that?”
“You said it yourself earlier. I’m the town bad boy. One of them at least. That story about my name would kill my reputation.”
I reached out and flicked him on the arm. “You’re leaving out the other half of what I told you. The part about how you’re not so bad.”
“Yeah. Well. I have my days.” He combed his fingers through his hair. Glanced toward the ocean. “Sometimes it’s hard to look my mother in the face. Knowing that every time I go off to work on the docks, she’s wishing things turned out differently.”
Thunder rumbled far off in the distance. The air around us was growing thick with humidity, like you could slice it. “Maybe it’s a sign,” I said.
“A sign of what?” Handel asked.
I was so tempted to reach out and touch him, but I settled for a look. “A sign from the heavens that your mother was right,” I said. “You are destined for great things.”
“Oh, of course I am.” He laughed. “What things exactly?”
More thunder sounded. “Meteorology?”
“In this town? No way.”
“Right,” I agreed as a bolt of lightning cracked and lit up the ocean, flickering, then going out. “Firefighter, then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the storm is a sign I should be a fisherman after all.”
In other circumstances I might have laughed at this, but Handel’s voice was so even, so steady. Like he really believed this was what he was meant to do. Or that it would be a relief to just let himself be this and only this. So all I said was, “Probably, that’s what it is,” and we turned our talk to other things.
“Why are you doing this, anyway?” I asked Handel eventually.
“Doing what?”
“Hanging out with me.”
Handel looked out over the ocean at the lightning again before turning, ever so slightly, in my direction. “I just,” he said, and paused. “I just . . . wanted to get to know you.”
“Okay,” I said, because I felt like he’d told me the truth, and because it was okay. I wanted to get to know him, too, so much, more now than ever, and this seemed fine. More than fine. Like something I deserved.
• • •
Just before the rain came, we agreed we’d better get going or risk getting stuck in the storm. All I could think about was whether Handel would try to kiss me. Or if the right moment arrived, whether I would try to kiss him.
“I’ll walk you home,” he said.
“You don’t have to—”
“Of course I do.”
“It’s not like it isn’t safe,” I said with a laugh, one that died in my mouth as the word “safe” strangled me a little, because I wasn’t sure if that was true anymore. Especially not with Patrick McCallen just down the other end of the beach.
“I picked you up and I’ll drop you back,” Handel insisted, his voice light, a smile on his face that made me forget those dark thoughts, that made me swoon really.
We made our way up the beach toward the wharf and the parking lot. We reached the sidewalk and I stopped under the light of a streetlamp to slip my feet into my flip-flops. When I looked up again, Handel’s eyes were on my waist. There was a sliver of exposed skin along my hips, between the hem of my top and the start of my jeans. A thin line of sand clung to it. Handel reached over and brushed it away, his fingertips sliding along my navel so quickly it was a whisper.
Right then, big fat drops of rain plopped one by one on the ground around us.
“We’d better hurry,” Handel said.
We made our way down the street toward my house, dodging raindrops in the dark, neither of us with an umbrella. Thoughts of leaning just a little closer to Handel, close enough that our lips would touch, darted in and around me as we walked, a game of hide-and-seek among trees. I wondered if this crossed his mind, too, as the rain picked up, becoming a torrent, and we started to run, the two of us racing until we reached my yard.
“This way,” I shouted over the din, going around to the porch at the back of my house, grabbing for the tiny metal knob of the screen door and opening it so we could rush inside.
The two of us were soaked and panting from the run, my long hair wet and tangled, just like his. I started to laugh between big heaving breaths and so did Handel, the earlier, unpleasant part of the evening erased by all that intimate talk on the beach. I switched on a lamp. It was a murky dark green, made from an old jug, and the light from it was weak but enough to see the expression on Handel’s face. His eyes were different, bright and easy. Everything about him was different now, less weary and cautious. He looked younger.
Then he noticed the picture frame on the table.
My dad and me, just a year ago. He wore his uniform and was standing next to his police car. I was perched on the hood of it, knees up to my chin, a smile on my face, dark hair falling all around. A camera catching that split second when a girl suddenly becomes someone worth seeing.
Handel picked it up. Studied it.
I watched as the weariness in him returned.
“You were close with your father,” he stated, the memory of my family gripped tight in his strong hand. “You must miss him. You must want the police to catch whoever killed him.”
My mouth opened. Shut. Handel had startled me. Such boldness. Cut right to the heart of things. Of me. “I, um,” I stuttered. Stopped.
He put the frame down, a soft click against the wood. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”
I watched Handel. He wouldn’t look at me anymore. Looked everywhere but. Tension radiated off him, his shoulders, his neck. There was silence, things grown awkward and strange after so much ease. I wanted to fix it. I wanted the connection back. “I don’t know,” I said quickly. “Sometimes I hope they don’t catch anyone.”
His eyes found me again. Slowly. There was something in them, but it was something I couldn’t quite read.
“No?”
I shook my head. The rain pounded harder on the roof of the porch, filling the gaps between words.
Handel blinked. “It’s late. I should probably go.”
“Okay,” I said. He was right. It was late. But I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want our night to end like this. I wanted that kiss.
“Yeah,” he said, like he was torn. Caught between two things, maybe to stay or to go. Maybe.
“See you around,” I said then, just like that first day at the beach, before I’d walked away from him. No, I’d strutted. Definitely. Acted like I didn’t care. Like Handel and I talking didn’t matter.
He already mattered, though. A lot.
“See you,” he said, just like that day, too, but this time it was Handel leaving me behind, and me, watching him slip through the screen door of the porch into the pouring rain, listening as the door banged shut, closing him out or maybe it was me in, the sound of his footsteps pounding through the wet and the darkness of the night.