MAUREEN
“Hey!” Tammy advances toward me, waving one hand while the other steadies her purse strap. It’s the second half of July, height of the season, and the pier is packed with tourists. Some kid nearly runs Tammy over on a skateboard. “How’s the job search going?”
“Predictably shitty,” I say.
“Yeah. Well. Sorry.” She sighs. “It is midseason. Everybody’s got their crew at this point.”
“It’s okay. I’ll find something,” I say, but I’m more worried than I let on. I tried a few of the upscale restaurants, but when they found out I worked at the carnival, their faces curled up like they smelled weeks-old garbage. At one souvenir shop I got a ten-minute rant from a lady about how she’d hired too many employees and none of them wanted to work Saturdays. I got halfway up the pier and gave up. Most managers wouldn’t even give me a job application to fill out, and the ones that did handed it to me with a sort of sad pitied face that said unless a sea monster washes ashore and eats all of their employees, I ain’t got a chance until next May.
“Well, you can stay with me as long as you need to,” Tammy says.
“I’m sure Mabel will love that.”
“It’s fine.” She flutters a hand in dismissal. “Come on. Let’s go in Mason’s. I need a new belt.”
We wander around Mason’s. I check out the accessories, gliding my fingers along earrings, necklaces. Everything’s either red, white, and blue clearance or lace, lace, lace. I slide on a mesh glove and practice my Material Girl moves in the mirror. Tammy’s still browsing the belts when I grow bored.
“Just wait outside for me,” she says. “I’ll be right out.”
Tammy’s taking forever, so I walk down the pier. On the beach, a group of kids howl as they shoot off bottle rockets, blues and greens and purples. I stand near the railing and stare down into the waves. Squint my eyes, try to spot a shimmery tail just beneath the surface. A tousle of hair clipped back by a seashell pin. But all I see is ragged seaweed, drifting in muddy clumps.
I could leave Opal Beach, but the thought of starting over again is overwhelming. Where would I go? I can’t go back home.
I breathe in the hot, humid air and lean against the railing, fishing out Desmond’s Super 8 camera from my bag. I’ve thought about selling the camera—the pawn shop would probably give me at least a week’s worth of pay for it. But I like it. I’ve never had anything as expensive as this before. And it’s dumb, but part of me feels like I could use it for good, to make up for all the images that Desmond filmed through it.
It’s dinnertime and people are milling about. A little boy makes his way like a bullet through the crowds, nearly colliding with two women in intense conversation. I film as one woman squeals with surprise, then glares at the mother chasing after him. Above, on a balcony, a group of teenagers balance beer bottles on a thin railing, Van Halen blaring. I lower my camera and see one of the boys wink at me and beckon me to come on up, his finger curling like a New Year’s paper noisemaker.
I shake my head, smirking inside—you wish, I think, shoving the camera back inside my bag—and it’s then that I spot a tall, loping figure sauntering past, taking his time. Clay’s uncle. Zeke. He carries himself different from everyone else—it’s the suit, I think, which really does make him look like a transplant from the 1920s. He stops at Shark Shack, opens the heavy doors and disappears inside. The kernel of an idea starts to blossom inside me.
“Okay, sorry.” Tammy’s standing in front of me, clutching a paper bag.
I blink and then focus on her, still thinking about Zeke. “What?”
“I said I bought you a present. Well, us,” she says. Her cheeks are slightly flushed, like she’s just come back from a run. She rummages around inside the bag, finally removing two small blue boxes. She hands me one, and I open it at the same time she opens hers. “Best friend necklaces,” she chirps, her flush deepening.
“They’re so cute,” I say, plucking both charms from the satin nests inside the boxes and cupping them in my palm. Two puzzle piece halves of a heart, zigzagged down the middle, each with its own chain. A best-friend-necklace kind of girl is about as far from me as one can get, but I won’t hurt her feelings. “Tammy, that’s so sweet.”
“And look, they’re engraved.” She turns mine over. “You get the TQ one, for me,” she says. “And I get the MH. They were running a special. No extra charge for the engraving.”
I clasp it around my neck. “What do you think?” I twirl.
“One thing. Mabel would kill me. You can’t tell her.”
“Tell her? Won’t she see it?”
Tammy stops. Her eyes widen a bit as she ponders. “We just—we won’t wear them around her. Okay?”
“It’s hard to keep anything from that girl, but I’ll try. But hey, don’t they have three-way best friend necklaces? I feel like she and I have become really close in the last few weeks.”
Tammy frowns. “Maureen, don’t joke. Seriously. She’d spaz. I mean, we’re not close. Not like that, but she wouldn’t like it all the same. I just don’t want to hear all about her opinions on it and everything, it’s just easier—”
I kiss her on the cheek. I have this sudden surge of affection for her. This sudden wish for everything to work out. For there to be this forever friend-ness that her necklaces suggest, anniversaries and birthdays and weddings and old ladies locking hands over brunch. For a second, I allow myself to believe it’s possible. Me. Tammy. Clay. Opal Beach.
“Cross my heart, hope to die,” I say. “It’s our secret.”
Later that night, Tammy and I are making dinner—a casserole, for god’s sake, like an old married couple—when there’s a knock on the door. I’m in the middle of chopping broccoli, so Tammy wipes her hands on a dish towel and goes to answer it. She returns seconds later, jerking a thumb back. “It’s for you.” I raise my eyebrows. “It’s Clay,” she says, and I can’t help but sense a weird kind of disappointment in her tone.
At the door, he stands tall and awkward. “Can I borrow you for a minute?” he asks earnestly. “I won’t take you away from your girls’ night, promise.”
I tell Tammy I’ll be back before the oven timer goes off and follow Clay down the hall and out the glass double doors of the apartment building. He’s parked in one of the visitor spots, clearly the fanciest car in the lot, and I imagine the goons who hang out by the dumpsters smoking weed will be circling it soon if he leaves it too long.
“What’s up?”
He leads me across the street to the beach access bridge. We walk up halfway where we can see the ocean.
“I just wanted to see you. I keep thinking about going to this tournament, and I hate leaving you again, Maureen,” Clay murmurs in my hair, kissing the top of my head.
I envy him, and Tammy, for their eternal optimism. I want to lean into it, get caught up in it, but I can’t.
“But you’re not leaving for a few weeks,” I say. “It’s going to be fine.”
“But summer will practically be over by the time I’m back.”
“I know, Clay. I’ve been thinking about that.” I take his hand and wait for him to look at me. “Summer has to end at some point. You know that.”
“Ouch,” he says, clutching his heart. “You’re a cruel woman.”
“We have to be realistic, don’t we?”
“We don’t have to end, though.” He brushes back my hair with his hand. “Right?”
“How? You’ll be going off to college. You’ll forget all about me.”
“It’s not that far. I’ll come back on the weekends.”
“That’s sweet, but I know how these things go, Clay.”
“I won’t forget about you, Maureen. And you’ll find something here, I know you will,” he says, as though it’s a given, as though I haven’t been song-and-dancing at every business in Opal Beach for the last week or so, kissing ass, spinning lies about my experience, all for nothing except the one asshole at the surf ’n’ turf grill who suggested with a wink that I might have luck pole dancing at the strip club in Jasper.
“Look, just think about it,” Clay adds. “Come on, I’ll walk you back.”
We hold hands as we start walking. “I saw your uncle earlier today at the pier, by the way,” I say.
Clay’s frown deepens. “At Shark Shack? Yeah. No surprise. That’s where he goes to get drunk and hit on the waitresses.”
“At your house, he told me he plays poker. Maybe he’ll let me play. I can earn some money...you know, until I find a job.”
Saying it aloud seems to make it more real, like I’ve cemented it in the sidewalk we’re walking on.
But Clay shakes his head. “That’s a terrible idea. My uncle’s an asshole.”
“That’s perfect, then. I’ll be able to take his money.”
“I know you think everything is a joke, Maureen. But this is not. My uncle Joe is lazy. Everyone hates him. Worse than Barron. Worse than that creep boss of yours from the carnival.”
“I’m not joking! Is that what you think? This is my chance, Clay.” I stop in front of Tammy’s building. Try to calm down. Maybe Clay doesn’t understand after all. He sees the world in black and white, right and wrong. I try again. “Don’t you see? It’s the way I can stay. Here.”
He softens. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. We’ll figure it out, okay? Together.” He tilts my chin up. “Hey,” he whispers. “This isn’t why I came tonight. I have something for you.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small box, the kind you see in Valentine’s commercials where the girl gets all emotional. My heart stops.
“Clay—”
“Look.” He opens it, and I see a small ring with a red heart in the middle. “It’s a promise ring.” He adds sheepishly, “So you won’t forget me while I’m gone.”
“Oh, Clay, it’s...” I trail off. Pick it up, slide it on. It fits perfectly, and yet it seems wrong. Too good to be true. “I can’t take this...”
He leans in and kisses me. “Of course you can. Just promise me you’ll be here when I get back.”
I know I can’t promise that. Everything’s shifting, ending, beginning. I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow, or the next day, let alone two weeks. I want to tell Clay that I’m scared. I want to tell him about my mom. I want to tell him how, when I’m with him, it almost—almost—feels like everything could be okay. Almost.
“Promise,” I say. “The moon.”