WE STILL HAD A MONTH of school left when Mark came home at the end of May. Tabby and I were at my house and he just showed up there on the porch with a bunch of flowers, scooped her into a hug. Keegan was skulking behind him, hanging back like a pet that wasn’t allowed indoors. I didn’t want either of them in the house, but there was Mom, asking if they wanted to stay for dinner.
“I wish we could,” Mark said. “But I want to take my girl on a proper date.” I swear, he winked at Mom, and even more embarrassing, she blushed. Mom, forty-two years old, blushing because of a boy half her age. I hated her in that moment, for the baby-pink blotches on her cheekbones, shiny and high like hard candies.
I hated her. I hated Mark. I hated my girl, like she was his property. I hated Mark’s hand on Tabby’s lower back, his other hand clamped firmly around hers, a fleshy seashell. The only thing I didn’t hate in that moment was Tabby’s face. She was smiling, but it was pinched at the corners, her smile generally reserved for school pictures and the lunch lady in the cafeteria.
“Do you have a vase, Maggie? These should go in water,” Tabby said, handing her the flowers. I didn’t know what kind they were, just that they were a riot of purple and pink. Somehow I knew the act of passing the bouquet to Mom was a rebellion Mark wouldn’t like, something Tabby did anyway.
Suddenly I didn’t want to let her go anywhere with him.
“I could eat, too,” I said, peeling the skin back from my thumb cuticle. “Maybe Keegan and I can tag along.”
That took Mark by surprise. His face clouded over, but only for a second, because he was calculating like that. He wasn’t about to show his opponent that she had struck him somewhere it hurt.
“I am kind of hungry,” Keegan said. I tried not to show my shock that he was playing along. Maybe he was bored. Maybe he was horny and wanted in my pants. Maybe I didn’t even care. Dallas wasn’t talking to me anymore.
“I don’t see why not.” Tabby tugged on Mark’s arm as he stood there like a department store mannequin. “We have the whole summer to ourselves, right?”
Mark grunted, reduced to a caveman. There were things he wanted to talk to Tabby about that he didn’t want anyone else to hear. If we were there, he wouldn’t be able to say them, wouldn’t be able to squeeze his words into her. He would be alone with her eventually, but at the time, I really thought putting it off one more day would make a difference.
So we went to this fancy restaurant downtown where my parents sometimes go on dates. Umbrage, the place with the lights strung up around the awning. The four of us got squished into a table at the back. Keegan ordered a beer without getting carded, and when it arrived, I took a big sip. Then his hand moved from the table to my bare leg, and I let it stay there, even though it was heavy and hot.
Mark had recovered by then. His arm slung around Tabby’s shoulders like a scarf. I noticed the dark brush of stubble where his hair was growing back. He had to shave his entire body for swimming, Tabby had told me.
“All of it?” I had asked.
“Everything except his head. And, well, he might have left a little behind in other places.”
Mark the Shark. His swimming nickname. Once I heard it, I couldn’t think of him any other way. Cutting through the water, hunting for prey. He even started to look less human to me. Eyes too far apart, like they were set on his face that way specifically for him to know what was happening on either side of him.
But Mark the Shark was a gentleman at dinner. He even ordered for Tabby, a gesture I thought was chauvinistic and gross, but one she didn’t balk at. She eased into his arm, let Mark talk about everything he wanted to do that summer. He said “I” a lot more than “we.”
“I’m going to take this girl camping,” he said, matter-of-factly, like it wasn’t up for debate. “Did you know she has never been?”
I never noticed before how often he called Tabby “this girl” and “my girl” instead of her real name. I wondered how many girls at Princeton got the same treatment. The shiny faces in the background of his Instagram, hair flying, arms in the air, always trying to get somebody’s attention, and probably ending up with attention from someone they never wanted, because that was how life worked.
That was how my life worked. Keegan’s hand wasn’t just on my legs but sandwiched between them, inching upward under the tablecloth.
“Tabby has been camping,” I said flatly. “She hates it. Her parents made her go last summer and it was a disaster.”
“That’s because my dad had no idea how to pitch a tent, and it was pouring rain.” Tabby glared at me from across the table. “Just because I tried something once and didn’t like it doesn’t mean I hate camping.”
It stung. She was siding with him in a battle she might not have even known was going on. Keegan’s hand slid up slowly, the meaty weight of it a relief somehow.
“And a picnic,” Mark said. “We need to go on a picnic, right, babe?”
He was gaining steam because he knew he had pulled out in front. He folded Tabby closer to him, his arm not a limp scarf but now some kind of dangerous snake, a boa constrictor, like the one that zoologist brought to school last year as part of the career fair. We were allowed to touch it, and I only did because Tabby did, because her boldness meant it was okay, that neither of us would get hurt.
“A picnic would be fun,” Tabby said. “But only if we can get one of those old-fashioned wicker baskets. I’ll make sandwiches and we can bring champagne.”
In that moment, I had no idea who she was. Tabby had never mentioned wanting to go on a picnic with an old-fashioned wicker basket. She didn’t even own a lunch bag. When she brought her lunch to school, it was in a plastic grocery bag, a hasty afterthought when she was sick of eating cafeteria fries.
“Anything for you, babe.” Mark kissed her cheek. I fixated on his fingers, how tightly they gripped her arm. When he pulled away, they would leave white indents.
“I don’t know why anyone would want to eat outside,” I snapped. “Especially during the summer. It’s too hot and there are bugs everywhere.” I knew I had lost the battle and that I was verging on pathetic, but I didn’t care. I needed her to know I was still armed, that just because her fight had been sucked out didn’t mean I didn’t have enough to spare.
Keegan had remained almost totally silent, periodically sipping beer with his free hand. I unclenched my legs, an invitation for him to creep in.
“What are your plans for the summer, Keegan?” Tabby asked, choosing that moment to rope him into the conversation, sounding formal and forced. His hand stopped moving, like he couldn’t do what he was doing to me and answer a question at the same time. I couldn’t tell if I was relieved or disappointed.
“Same old,” he said. “The store isn’t going to manage itself.”
“You got promoted?” she asked. “Congratulations.”
“It’s a pretty big honor,” he said. “The last manager passed the torch to me because he’s going to Stanford this fall. He knew a lifer when he saw one.”
I felt sorry for Keegan, affection spreading through my chest like fire. In that moment, I forgot that he was more than likely spying for Mark while Mark had been away at school. I managed to clear my head of that. We all did shady things for our friends. I dropped my hand under the table to meet his, to let him know I wanted it there. But his hand, formerly its own animal, was still.
“You could apply for college, too,” Tabby said. “Even community college. It’s not too late.”
Keegan laughed. “It’s too late for a lot of things.”
Mark cut in. “I keep bugging him about college, but it’s no use. People need to do their own thing.” Then he launched back into his summer itinerary, one he had apparently put a lot of thought into. The Calloway Carnival in July. The beach. A road trip to Cape Cod to see the turtles. Keegan’s hand woke up, his fingers breaching the sides of my underwear. I picked up my water and downed half the glass because I wasn’t sure what to do with my own hands.
His thumb, rubbing slowly at first, then faster.
After, I felt like I had done something wrong. Maybe I just felt cheap. I let a boy inside my body at a restaurant and we weren’t even on a date. It was the first time anything had been inside since—since. When the food came, I barely touched mine. When the bill came, Mark paid for his and Tabby’s, and Keegan and I paid separately. Maybe he felt like he had already given me enough.
I never told Tabby what happened. I never told her that as we were leaving, Mark bent down to pick up his wallet and looked up our waitress’s skirt. I never told her a lot of things, and maybe if I had, she would have paid me the same courtesy.