The Four Musketeers were on our way to Hurricane Island. There used to be a lighthouse on the island, but during a major hurricane back in Civil War times it was destroyed and never rebuilt. Now it was just a pretty little island in the gulf with pristine white sand beaches littered with seashells. A perfect place to do nothing. No cell reception. No private boat docking. Just a white dome in the middle of a turquoise ocean. With sea oats sprouting from its crest, it reminded me of a balding man’s head.
Normally, it would have been a day which brought lots of visitors to the island, but the bill fishing tournament was the main attraction that weekend. The whole town turned out to greet the sport-fishing boats as they came in with their catch. It was even covered on live TV. I couldn’t understand the excitement of killing those magnificent spear-headed creatures. They were the wild stallions of the sea.
We boarded the water taxi to Hurricane Island and the captain waited an extra ten minutes to make sure no one else was coming. When we finally pulled away from the harbor, we were it—just the four of us plus the captain. Thirty minutes later he deposited us on the shore and told us he’d be back in four hours. I couldn’t believe our good luck. We had the island to ourselves!
I’d volunteered for food duty, and spent the morning putting together PB&J sandwiches, roast chicken, carrot and celery sticks, sliced apples, and bottled water. Not exactly Big Mama’s Fish House, but my West Coast-bred arteries needed a break. We’d all come prepared by wearing swimsuits under our clothes. I even brought along a sun umbrella that we wedged up against a sand dune.
It was a day of pure fun and, for the first time since Zat appeared in my life, I actually had no thought in my head other than what was happening around me right at that moment. We occupied the entire island like little kids who’d been left alone in a candy store. It only took thirty minutes to walk around the island and less than that if you went straight through the middle. We collected a bucketful of shells and we snorkeled and swam.
While we were eating our lunch, Mai came up with the idea we rename it Secret Island and anything we said to each other could never leave the island. It seemed like a silly but fun game so we went with it.
“Alright, what does everyone want to be and where do you want to go to college?” Mai asked. She turned to Alonso who hadn’t been very talkative and said, “I know you’re still young so you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
LeGrand went first, “Where do I want to go to college or where will I go to college?”
“Both,” Mai said.
“Where I want to go to college is southern California—UCLA or USC. Where I will go to college is Princeton.”
“How do you know that?” I asked. “Princeton’s hard to get into, isn’t it?” I had an idea, but I wanted to hear him say it.
“I’ve got the right genealogy. My great-grandfather, grandfather, father, my uncles . . . they all went to Princeton. My dad gives them a lot of money. It’s like a family business.”
“Why UCLA or USC?” Mai asked.
“I’ve always wanted to live in California. I’d like to work in the film industry, specifically acting, if you really want to know. I’ve only told this to one other person so y’all go ahead and laugh at me if you want.” The corners of his lips pulled up as though he was getting a head start on us.
But which one of us was going to laugh at this gorgeous boy who oozed charisma and charm? It was almost impossible not to imagine him as a movie star.
“We’re not laughing,” Mai said. “So do it. Scared of your dad or something?”
“C’mon Nuggins, be nice,” I said at the same time LeGrand flung a dried starfish at her, ninja style. “Better work on ditching the accent, LeGrand, if you want to be the next Brad Pitt.”
“I think I can handle it. Okay, Miss Big Shot Mai, tell us about your plans,” he said.
“UCLA is one of my schools,” Mai said. “Any school in a big city far away from here is fine with me. And I’ve always thought I wanted to be a commercial artist, or something along those lines. You next.” She looked at me.
“I don’t know. Maybe a writer, maybe a tennis pro. I’ll definitely be applying to some schools in California too but I still need to do a lot of research.”
“Maybe you can get a tennis scholarship,” LeGrand said. “You should’ve seen her kick my dad’s ass on the court.”
That topic still made me nervous. Mai knew the real truth about Clyde, but LeGrand didn’t and I wasn’t about to let him find out. But the closer we got as friends, the guiltier I felt about keeping the secret. He was always inviting us to The Lucky Lady and we were always declining. Even that day he’d offered to have one of his crew members drop us off at the island but Mai said she just loved the water taxi. He had to be wondering why.
“How about you, Alonso? Any ideas yet?”
Alonso lay stomach down on the towel, his head turned to one side. The sun had already dried us, and a thin white residue of salt was visible on his skin.
He stared at the large pink scalloped shell he was turning over and over in his hand. “I have an idea,” he said to the shell.
“And that is?” LeGrand gently prodded.
“Materials science,” he spoke so quietly we had to strain to hear him above the sound of the lapping waves. “I want to go to MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, or Northwestern.”
“Holy shit!” Mai said. “What’s material science?”
“Materials science,” he corrected her, putting an emphasis on the plural of the first word. “It’s the study of the structure of materials.”
“What would you do?” LeGrand asked.
“Work on a hydrogen battery for cars. Design cheap, high efficiency solar cells. Create a better artificial heart valve. There are a million different things you can do with that degree.”
He said it as if it was something as simple as reciting what he ate for breakfast. Are you listening, Zat? I wished he could have heard Alonso just then, but maybe they’d meet in one of my dreams.
“Wow, Alonso. I’m impressed. Really.”
Mai was beaming at him. A sweet smile spread across Alonso’s face.
“Yeah, really, man. That’s cool. Very cool. A lot more cool than being an actor,” LeGrand added.
“Hey, no putting yourself down on Secret Island,” Mai said. “Next question . . . what’s your biggest fear?”
“Becoming my dad,” LeGrand didn’t hesitate. “That one was easy.”
“For me,” Mai said, “it’s getting stuck in this town for the rest of my life.”
They both looked at me.
“My biggest fear . . . I don’t know. I guess it’s finding out I’m crazy. That things I think are true, really aren’t.” I knew Mai got my meaning by the look she gave me.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” LeGrand asked.
“I don’t know. It sounds stupid, but that’s it.”
“No fair. You’re being evasive.”
Mai came to my rescue, “Your turn, Alonso, what are you most scared of?”
“Nah,” he said. “Nothin’.”
“You’re scared of nothing?” her voice rose about three octaves. “Not even zombies?”
Alonso’s back shook a little like he was laughing but he kept playing with the seashell in his hand and didn’t say anything after that.
__________
The four hours flew by and before we knew it, Alonso spotted the water taxi on the horizon. It was a day I knew I’d remember for the rest of my life, and I was reluctant to leave it behind. The security of close friends, the beauty of the natural world. I wanted everyone to have what I had at that moment. I couldn’t wait to share it with Zat and hoped I could share in a tangible way. We packed up our stuff and sat on the beach to wait, all of us with our gazes fixed on the tiny boat that slowly got bigger with each passing minute.
“Hurricanes,” Alonso said quietly. It came out of nowhere.
We turned to look at him. It was unusual for Alonso to volunteer a conversation starter.
“What about hurricanes?” I asked.
“That’s what I’m afraid of . . . hurricanes.”
“Why you scared of hurricanes?” Mai asked. “Ever been through one?”
“Katrina,” Alonso said without turning his gaze from the boat that had almost reached us by then. “Lost my granny then. After that, we left New Orleans and moved here.” The surface of his soft, brown eyes turned shiny with just a hint of dampness clinging to the lower lashes.
LeGrand scooted a few inches closer to him and put his arm around Alonso’s shoulder, giving it a few pats. “Sorry, man,” he said. “That’s tough.”
__________
Mattie Lynn made a big deal out of graduation day for the Friends Across the Bay program.
She ordered a huge cake from the clubhouse, which I picked up on my way to work. It was rectangular with green icing, white lines, and a miniature net that split the cake in half. Four tiny plastic players, with rackets held in various poses of play, were eternally frozen on the delicious tennis court. She thought of everything—both male and female players, both white and brown-skinned. At the feet of one of the players, a small round gob of yellow frosting was the ball that would never bounce up to be struck by a racket.
Mattie Lynn gave out certificates of completion to all the friends and certificates of appreciation to all the mentors.
She presented me with a certificate of special appreciation for someone “without whose valuable behind-the-scenes assistance, the program never could have been a success.” It was kind of cute. I admit I’m susceptible to flattery.
I’d picked up green and white balloons that morning to decorate the tennis clubhouse. A big banner that said “Congratulations to Our FABulous Friends!” was stretched across the wall. I’d made the banner at my house following Mattie Lynn’s instructions. Mai helped me with the design even though she claimed she had copyrighted FABulous and it was intended to be used only for sarcastic purposes.
Everyone seemed to have fun, even Alonso, who truly was celebrating the end of the program.
Kiet was quiet that afternoon, probably mourning the loss of Mattie Lynn from his life. And as though she sensed it, she was extra attentive to him and hugged him every chance she got.
LaShawn consulted with his mentor about tennis team in high school. They were lucky to have him and I knew I’d be seeing him on the courts in school. LaShawn was going to be a freshman, just like Alonso.
Afterward, LeGrand suggested we call up Mai and have her meet us at The Lucky Lady where the four of us, including Alonso, could celebrate with a graduation dinner. Alonso called his mom to see if it was alright, which, of course, it was. I knew Dee was happy to see him get out and socialize whenever the opportunity presented itself. But there was no way I was setting foot on that boat and taking the risk of running into Clyde.
“I have to go home for a while and help my mom with something,” I said. LeGrand had heard this story before and his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Could we just eat someplace on the beach? It’d be easier for me and Mai to get to the beach once I’m home, instead of coming all the way back here.”
“Okay,” I could hear the hurt in his voice but he was too much a gentleman to press me. “Alonso, how about you come and hang out with me, and when Babe’s done with whatever she has to do, we’ll meet up with her and Mai at the beach.”
I hurried off, burning with shame at my deceit. LeGrand was so excited to plan this night for us, and once again I’d ruined his plans with a lame excuse.
__________
“I think you need to tell LeGrand why you never want to do anything on The Lucky Lady,” Mai said as we pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant. “Otherwise, he’ll sail off into the sunset at the end of the summer and wonder why his besties never wanted to come visit his cute, little dinghy.”
“Dinghy?”
“It’s not what you think, Babe. Don’t go having any dirty thoughts. A dinghy is a boat.”
I threw a stick of gum at her. “I know what a dinghy is.” I parked my truck right next to LeGrand’s Beemer.
The guys got out of the car, where they’d been waiting for us, and we all walked into the restaurant together.
“I’ve been thinking,” Mai said after we ordered. “Since Alonso’s the only one who’s likely to be a success in life, we need to keep mentoring him even after we all graduate and go off to college.”
Mai’s statement stung a little even though I knew she was just playing around the way she always did. Not because I was hung up on success, and not because I doubted Alonso’s future success. I just didn’t want to be prejudged on what might happen in my future. And what was success anyway? Happiness? Money? To me, it was the first.
“Good idea,” I said. “That is, if you want us to keep in touch, Alsonso. We’ll be pros at applying to colleges by then.”
“Yeah, our college counseling services suck,” Mai said. “I can help you with all the financial aid stuff when you apply to college. I already had to figure that out by myself.”
“Maybe you can help me with that too, Mai,” I said.
“What can I do?” LeGrand had been quiet up to that point.
“You can . . . you can find out what connections your father has. You know, pull some strings,” Mai laughed.
“Hah! Funny,” LeGrand wasn’t laughing and I could tell Mai had gone a little too far again.
Alonso looked up from the food he’d been pushing around his plate while we girls planned out his life.
“You could teach me how to play tennis,” he looked directly at LeGrand.
“You’re joking?” LeGrand said, the corner of his mouth pulling up into that half-smirk.
“I’m serious,” Alonso said. “I always wanted to learn. I just didn’t want to be part of Mattie Lynn’s pity party.”
“Babe should teach you then,” LeGrand said, the seriousness of Alonso’s statement sinking in. “She’s a lot better player than me.”
And then miracle of miracles, Alonso looked me right in the eye for the very first time.
“No offense, Babe,” he spoke slowly. “But I’d rather learn from a dude.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw LeGrand’s surprised smile and Mai’s open mouth. We were all thinking the same thing. And we were all so happy.
__________
I thought about LeGrand a lot that night and even introduced him to Zat in my dreams. It seemed impossible that LeGrand wasn’t in on all of this, because it felt so real. When Zat and I climbed into LeGrand’s red car, and drove through the streets of Alonso’s neighborhood, we eventually realized LeGrand was no longer with us. I was glad because it gave me a chance to talk to Zat privately about the nagging guilt which dogged me when it came to my relationship with LeGrand. I didn’t want there to be any hard feelings or misunderstandings between us when he went back to Memphis, but I was afraid there already were. Mai only reinforced my concerns. I knew she had a big old crush on LeGrand, which might have made her more sensitive to his feelings. But who didn’t? He was a human magnet—even Zat admitted it.
Zat told me to be truthful with LeGrand. “Be gentle with him,” Zat said. “Just like he’d be with you.”
But how do you diplomatically tell your friend his dad is a perv and that’s why you avoid meeting up at his place? It would be a huge test of our friendship, and one that terrified me, because I’d reached the now or never moment. If LeGrand couldn’t accept it, it might mean we weren’t meant to be friends. After all, I hadn’t done anything wrong.
I texted him to get together after work and right off he asked me to meet him at The Lucky Lady. I suggested the tennis clubhouse instead. We could take a walk, I said. I knew whichever way the conversation went, I was going to miss LeGrand badly. He’d be going back to Memphis in a few weeks.