We’re perched on the huge rocks near the shore, a ways from the boardwalk, nestled somewhere between Northgate Beach and Aiden’s dad’s place. The scent of his bonfire wafts down the bluff, and I know—because it’s Aiden—that any minute now, he’s going to start roasting some sort of snack over the flames.
“Can I ask you something?” She’s drawing something in the sand with a stick—a series of connected swirls, almost hearts, like a sort of clover without the stem. The hint of Georgia in her voice . . . it’s so subtle that I wonder if her parents dragged her out there from somewhere else and repotted her.
I know what that feels like, even though we’ve never left the county. I’ve been dragged to this guy’s place, to that guy’s, to Rosie’s next savior’s. We’ve been living in the house we rent now for almost two years, and it’s the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere.
I give her a nod, although it’s pretty dark on this beach—just a wedge of moon in the sky, presently blanketed by drifting clouds, and the lampposts on the boardwalk are a hundred feet behind us—that I wonder if she sees it, if she sees me, if she’s noticed my gaze lingers a little too long when I look at her. “Sure.”
“What’s with the fourteen?”
I pause for a second. “It’s my jersey number. In football.” So I simplified, didn’t tell her why I chose to get a tattoo of the number.
“Yeah, but it’s a tattoo. Permanent. Probably more permanent than a jersey number, I’m guessing.”
“I really like football.”
“Ohhhkay.”
The way she says it makes me feel like she doesn’t believe me, like she can see right through me. I’ve been told I’m pretty transparent like that, though. I’m not good at hiding what I’m thinking.
“My sister has a tattoo,” she offers. “It’s a shamrock on her ankle.”
I wonder if that’s what she’s drawing in the sand. And if so, why.
“I’m thinking I might get the same one.”
I like tattoos. And the fact that she’s considering one . . . Damn, I like this girl.
“How old is your sister?” I ask.
“Sixteen. Same as me.”
Chatham’s a twin? Maybe that’s why she came up to my sisters and me on the beach. Just as I’m about to speculate, she says, “We’re not biological sisters.”
“Oh.” There’s a story there, just as there’s a story inked on my chest with the number fourteen. But I don’t want to pry. If she wants me to know, she’ll tell me.
She doesn’t. Instead, she asks, “So, you live here in Sugar Creek?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately? It seems . . . nice. Quaint.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess it could be.” If you pull Damien Wick out of the zip code, if you hit the delete key on my last girlfriend, if you erase all the insane parts of my mother . . . “I suppose it’s just like any small town. Kids growing up here can’t wait to get out, probably because no one ever does. Not much happens here, nothing changes.”
Then Rachel Bachton skips through my mind. If she’s still out there somewhere, what would she give to come back?
“Predictability can be comforting,” Chatham says.
I think of the notation under the boardwalk. Rachel Bachton was here. “Actually, I guess it’s not one-hundred-percent true that nothing happens in Sugar Creek.”
“Really? What happens?”
I consider telling her about Rachel. But I want to tone down the crazy, if quaint appeals to her.
“I mean,” I say, “you showed up here, didn’t you?”
“I did. Think we might be staying a while.”
This makes me smile. “You should. We could cut English class together. Come down to the bluffs. Skip stones instead of analyzing Macbeth.”
“You shouldn’t cut English.”
“You want me to go to English class?”
“I liked Macbeth.” She shivers in the night breeze.
Of course she’s cold. Summer’s officially over now, and she’s still wearing those short shorts. And sure, it was mid-seventies today, but once the sun goes down, the temperature plunges, especially near the shore.
Aiden’s call echoes over the lake: “C-caw! C-caw!”
Normally, I’d answer him with my own c-caw—it’s a system we established once after making a break for it out of a kegger with cops in pursuit—so he knows I’m coming back, but the whole thing seems sort of goofy in Chatham’s company. Would the girl who’s a genius with sand sculpture and apparently doesn’t mind Shakespeare think I’m unsophisticated if I let out my own c-caw?
Better not risk it.
“You might make this town more interesting,” I say.
“I doubt that.”
I can’t help but pry a little now. “What brings you here, anyway?”
Chatham turns her face to the breeze off the lake, and her hair whips in the wind.
Aiden’s roasting marshmallows. I smell the hint of charred spun sugar in the air. “C-caw!” His call sounds again.
She tucks a chunky curl behind her ear. It’s this moment, I know: I’m going to know everything about her, and then I’ll tell her everything about me. I feel that connected to her.
“You want to know why I’m here?”
What I really want to know is if she’s going to stay.
She licks her lips and sort of smiles. “I really like football.”