WILL COMES OUTSIDE WITH PAPER PLATES AND PLACES them on the table in front of us. He sits next to Whitney.
“Thanks,” I say. I take a small slice, even though I’m starving. If Danny were here, we’d fight for the biggest piece.
“Now I remember seeing you before,” Will says. He takes the largest slice. “Around campus,” he says. “With a paddle.”
“I paddled,” I add, ridiculously.
“You did?” Whitney asks with her mouth full. She licks her fingers.
“Yeah. I missed most of the season, but they let me practice with them, since I’d been doing it in San Francisco.” I wish the season wasn’t over. I miss the long paddles out in the open ocean, where we’d sometimes be accompanied by dolphins.
“You steered,” Will says, and I’m surprised he knows this. “Like a blind woman.”
I want to tell him that we won all of our races, so I couldn’t have been that bad, but I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. He looks carefree and light, his eyes warm, welcoming, like you could fall into them.
“How do you know I steered?” I ask.
“Lissa,” he says. “I came to a few of her races.”
“She seems nice,” I say with a note of insincerity.
“She’s very nice,” he says with a slight grin. I can’t tell if he’s making fun of her or me.
Whitney smirks.
“What’s the paragraph?” I say to Whitney. “The paragraph your mom was talking about.”
“Oh God,” Whitney says and puts her feet up on the chair. “For French. ‘Write a paragraph about Olivier’s weekend and include the animals above.’ Like, I’m sure Olivier’s weekend included an elephant and a spotted owl.”
“Just make it up,” Will says, picking a mushroom off the pizza. Why am I noticing everything he’s doing, and why do I think it’s adorable? “Make up anything. The teacher—you have Schappel, right? She just wants to make sure you know the words. It doesn’t have to make sense.”
“But I don’t know any of the shit I’m supposed to use. Like passé composé?”
“What?” he says. “Where are you, dim Whit? How do you miss this stuff? Like, where do you go in your head? Kahala Mall? Claire’s?”
“I don’t shop at Claire’s!” She elbows her brother.
“Ow,” he says. He looks poised to say more, but can’t seem to come up with anything, so takes a bite of his pizza instead.
“Can you write the paragraph?” Whitney asks. “You’re so smart, Will. What happened to me?”
“I have no idea,” he says. “I like this song.” He leans back and nods his head.
I listen to the music. I love this song too, in fact, though I don’t know what it’s called and don’t want to ask Will and give him the satisfaction of teaching me something. I kind of like the unpredictable terrain between us, like we’re both not sure where to step. It’s an old song, from the sixties or seventies, and it sounds kind of country.
“What happened to you is that you don’t try,” he says. “You don’t want to work for anything.”
He says this in a soft, sincere way, and I want him to continue, to understand what he’s getting at.
“Can you write it?” she asks, and I realize she’s talking to me. Before I can answer, she gets up and runs inside, probably to get the assignment.
“Don’t help her,” Will says, but again, he doesn’t say it in a mean way. With Whitney gone, I feel like we’re the adults talking about our wayward girl.
“I may not be able to anyway,” I say. “I only took French in seventh and eighth grade.”
He looks across the table, scanning me. “You’ll be able to.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because a blind woman would be able to.” That slight, highly effective grin.
“What do you have against blind women?” I ask.
“They can’t steer,” he says.
We don’t break eye contact. Again, I’m off balance, not sure of his tone, but liking our rhythm. I don’t know if this is naive of me—like a bird enjoying the growling of a cat. I can’t tell if he’s flirting with me or just treating me like his sister’s friend, or maybe both.
Whitney comes back out with her laptop and two mugs that I assume are filled with Kahlúa. I lean down and look at the assignment. I guess I still remember a few things.
“Can you?” she asks. “Then I have nothing this whole weekend, and my mom will back off.”
“I guess,” I say.
It really isn’t that hard a task, and I wonder if I’m missing something. I type a paragraph about Olivier’s animals getting loose. A goose has babies. A cat lives on rib eye made from a cow. An elephant crushes a spotted owl. Il meurt.
C’est terrible.
I don’t put it in passé composé, but figure she can do that, or attempt to. I sense Will’s disapproval. I also realize that leaning over to type has made my camisole hang down. I take a quick glance, then decide not to adjust. I look up, and Will looks away.
“Here.” I push the laptop toward her. “There are all the animals. See, I used suivre, vivre, naître, then you can just rewrite it with passé composé.”
I can’t help but look at Will again to see where his eyes are. They’re on me.
“You could be her tutor,” he says.
I lean back onto the couch, pretending to be at home, at ease.
“Maybe you can even get community service credit for it, since, you know, you’d be working with someone with special needs.”
“Says the idiot who flunked kindergarten,” Whitney says.
He doesn’t color externally, but I can tell she’s triggered some kind of insecurity mechanism. “Because I switched to Hanahauoli and was too young,” he says.
“I just love that story,” she says. She rubs her hands together.
“Because you can’t find anything else that’s wrong with me,” he says. “You can have it.”
I laugh, and he looks at me and smiles like we’re sharing a secret.
“You guys done?” Will asks. There’s still half of the pizza left. Whitney takes one more bite of hers, then slings the rest onto the box. Will gets up and takes the box.
“Want me to foil it up?” I ask.
The siblings stare at me as if I’m talking French.
Will looks down at the box and wrinkles his nose a bit, as though it’s a week old. “I’ll just throw it out.”
• • •
After dinner, Whitney brings out dessert. I take a sip of my drink while looking out, still wondering what to make of Will—is he just trying to be a good host like his mom would want him to be? I take another sip, not wanting to make anything out of anything. I need to float a little more, let things roll under me like swells. I need to enjoy the movement. The lights from the coconut trees cast a glow on the ocean. I wonder how cold that dark blue water is. I wonder what vacations feel like when you already seem to be on one every day.
“What kind of pie is this?” Will asks.
“It’s not exactly a pie,” I say. “It’s a Pavlova. The only kind my mom makes.”
“What’s a Pavlova?” Whitney asks. She slurps from her mug.
“Basically a meringue, with fruit and whipped cream on top.” I say.
“Is it called that because it makes you salivate?” she asks.
I see she’s made a reference to “Pavlovian response” and am almost proud of her, but realize as a peer, I shouldn’t really have that right. I don’t know if I’m smarter than her, necessarily. As Will said, I think I just work harder.
In class, I hold back answers, depending who’s in the room with me. Sometimes knowledge impresses, sometimes it just alienates you further, but something about Will makes me want to show off what I know.
“It’s named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova,” I say. “She was the greatest ballerina of her time.”
Will and I lock gazes for a moment.
“When she danced,” I say, “she seemed to soar and float, like she had wings. The Pavlova is named after her because it’s light and airy. Graceful.”
“That’s nice,” he says.
“I still keep thinking of the dog,” Whitney says.
I feel bad for wishing she weren’t here.
“Like it?” Whitney asks, after I’ve taken another sip from the mug. The drink has created a heat under my breastbone.
“What is it?” Will asks, looking into Whitney’s cup.
She hands it to him. He takes a sip, then keeps it. He looks down at the Pavlova. It’s truly beautiful—strawberries and blueberries cradled in a cloud.
“Looks too nice to eat.” He looks at me over the rim of his cup. I take another sip.
Whitney stabs a fork into its middle and carves out a scoop.
“What are you doing!” he says.
“I forgot plates,” she says. “And we’re going to eat it anyway. Why does it matter?”
“You could show some respect,” he says. “Get a plate.”
“It’s fine,” I say, almost touching his hand to put him at ease.
“Relax,” she says. “You’re getting uptight in your old age.”
I take my fork and scoop out a bite. The cream fills my mouth and I chew the fruit. I love the sweetness and air.
“My mom would have wanted it this way,” I say. Will follows my lead.
“Oh, wow,” he says.
“Good, right?” I say.
“I can feel my thighs growing,” Whitney says, leaning down for more.
Will and I look at each other over her head.