“I’m Claire Hart,” I answered, maybe confessed, to Pepper Toohey and the table full of her fair-haired relations staring at me.
“You grabbed her off the street and dragged her in here!” the tall boy next to me shouted in my defense.
He brushed his long bangs out of his eyes. His hair was that dark, pre-summer blond that was sure to lighten in the sun. He was thin, but not skinny. He was wearing a faded T-shirt that said Nantucket. If he was Pike, then he would probably be a sophomore in college.
“What? I’m sorry. I thought she was your new girlfriend, Pike,” Pepper said in a loud stage whisper. It was the most insincere apology I had ever heard.
“I’m his new girlfriend!” a brunette, seated at the far end of the table, declared as she stood up, copying his tone and gesture, except she had no bangs to brush back.
Her hair was perfectly contained behind a navy blue headband embroidered with little sailboats. Of course she was Pike’s girlfriend. She was beautifully dressed; she wore a short white dress and navy blue sandals, both patterned with the same sailboats on her head. I felt like a ragamuffin sitting there in my old sundress and beat-up sandals, even though the Toohey kids all looked like bums, too.
The girlfriend was impeccably groomed. I had taken a shower that morning, but this girl just glowed.
“Oops. Sorry. My mistake,” Pepper said. “Can’t seem to keep them straight.”
“I should get going,” I said and stood. I could feel my face turning red and throbbing in humiliation.
Pepper pulled me back down.
“No way. You have to stay for lunch—that is, if you’re free. Please let me make up for my rudeness. We’re here almost every day in summer; we were bound to meet and be friends sooner or later. Why not today?” She said it with a big smile.
Ha. That’s a joke. I had lived in Keech my whole entire life, and I had never actually met a live Toohey before. I had waited on some at the Dairy Dip two summers ago. But despite the fact that my dad knew her dad and that every summer, the town swelled with Tooheys migrating to their family compound, I couldn’t say I had ever officially met one.
“Oh, please stay!” the girl across from me said. “Pepper’s right. We were bound to meet sooner or later. And now we have a great how-we-met story!”
“Yeah, you can be the friend Pepper kidnapped,” Pike said, and they all laughed.
“Yes, we’re going to hold you for ransom,” Pepper joked, and they all laughed again.
I weighed my options. Since it would be slightly less embarrassing to stay and have lunch than get up and walk away with kids from school watching, I stayed.
“Yes, why not today?” I said, and they all cheered. No other introductions were made. The Tooheys just assumed everyone knew who they were. The sad thing was I did kinda know who they all were, if not specifically than by tradition. Every generation had its confusing array of juniors and a Pike and a Pepper and a Pixie and a Cheddar. So basically, if you guessed from that selection of nicknames, no matter how old you were, at least one of them in your own age range would answer.
A girl from school waited on us and pretended not to know me. This was good, since Pepper ordered a beer for herself and one for me, although clearly none of us were old enough to drink. But the drinks came anyway. I would never have tried that here—or anyplace else for that matter.
I put my tote bag under the table, and it fell over, sending my book sliding onto the feet of the girl across from me. She picked it up and placed it on the table in front of her, then pulled a pair of vintage round tortoiseshell eyeglasses from her purse and read the jacket.
“Oh I love this author!” she said. Please don’t open that, I prayed. The girl turned it over and examined the back. Her blonde hair was cut into a 1920s-style bob with severe bangs. A bumblebee barrette was clipped into her hair on the left side of her head, serving absolutely no purpose other than to sparkle.
This would have to be Pixie. She shared her nickname with a kooky great-aunt who lived alone on one of the harbor islands and wrote poetry and letters of outrage, both of which she sent into the Keech Town Crier. I always thought Pixie was a lot younger than me, but here she was, drinking beer with the rest of us. I had seen her around town all year, mostly at the bookstore and the post office, wearing her trademark red sneakers and retro eyeglasses. If she ever noticed me, she certainly didn’t let on. She was the only cousin whose family lived in Keech Harbor year-round. She didn’t go to a fancy prep school. She was homeschooled or, as she put it, “tutored.” I wish I had known that was legal to do. I would have liked to spend a few years at home reading books and keeping Flo company while she cleaned.
She handed the book back to me, and I slipped my disguised textbook back into the bag.
“Split a bucket of steamers, Meredith?” Pike called over to the girlfriend, who was resigned to her seat in exile at the far end of the table. She whipped her head toward him, flipping her brown hair and shooting him a look.
“Gross,” she said.
“How about you?” he said to me. “Would you split a bucket with me?”
I said yes, even though I had a sandwich in my tote bag that I would have to eat later because Flo made it and would want to know why I didn’t eat it. It didn’t occur to me that I could feed it to the gulls instead.
The clams were messy but good. The only conversation I had with Pike involved the quality of individual clams (“good one” or “sandy”), the butter, and the discard dish for the shells. Still, Meredith, the girlfriend, didn’t like it. Listening to every word, she sat still, fork in hand and poised motionless over a plate of iceberg lettuce and rigid cherry tomatoes (who orders salad at the Dock n’ Dine?), waiting for an opportunity to stick that fork in my eye.
I never knew clams could be so threatening! I got them because I figured splitting a bucket of clams would be the cheapest option.
But that didn’t matter, because the bill never came. The Tooheys just got up and took me with them. I reached for my purse, but Pepper stopped me.
“Don’t worry about it; it’s all on Uncle Chet’s tab,” she whispered. “He’s taking us for a sail this afternoon—you should come! It will be so much fun! I just love the first sail of the season … And don’t thank him for lunch, whatever you do,” she said, winked, and then laughed.
Dad said he wanted me to have fun this summer. And here I was about to go sailing with the Tooheys. How could he object to that? He thought they were God’s gift to Keech. So I went.