Then it was the final days of summer, and Cairn and her best friend Delphine rowed through the darkness. The hulking silhouette of the old lighthouse on Demeter Island loomed over them.
Cairn checked her watch as they coasted into the shore. “Five minutes!”
Delphine hopped ship onto the rocky embankment, caught the line from Cairn, and tied it to a metal rod driven into the stone. “Relax. We’re about to have the best seats this side of Cape Ann.”
Cairn could not relax.
Tonight was bigger than Delphine knew.
A padlock secured the front door of the decommissioned lighthouse, but a month ago, they’d snapped the original with bolt cutters and replaced it with one to which only they possessed the key.
The two girls clambered up the rickety spiral staircase inside until they emerged onto the metal catwalk above. They laid down a nest of blankets and pillows and propped themselves against the glass walls of the lantern room, the beacon within long since dark.
“To thirteen years of fireworks together,” Cairn toasted as she popped open a bottle of champagne she’d pilfered from her parents’ wine cellar. The cork flew over the railing and out of sight, to land in the water some sixty feet below. “You sure this is safe to drink with your diabetes?”
“Absolutely not.” Still, Delphine snatched the champagne from Cairn as it began to overflow and took a long swig directly from the bottle.
Cairn leaned in and wiped away the bubble mustache that had formed on Delphine’s upper lip. “Just try not to go hyperglycemic on my ass before the finale,” she pleaded.
They were just in time: a crack like a gunshot echoed over the bay from the south, and the first firework exploded against the starry sky. A barrage of shells followed in red, blue, and gold, molten confetti raining down on the water. Even a mile away, they could hear the delighted cheers of the thousands of residents camped out along the town beaches, all celebrating the last weekend of summer before the school year began and autumn exhaled its first cool breath across the state.
But nobody had a view like them.
As the display unfolded, Cairn chanced a look at the girl beside her. The light of the fireworks flickered over Delphine’s profile, illuminating the faint scar along her jawline—she had taken a punch for Cairn once in a parking lot altercation and her opponent had been wearing a mood ring.
The corner of Delphine’s lip curved up in a slight smile. She unconsciously played with the small conch shell through which she’d threaded her dark, curly hair.
Cairn’s pulse thrummed in her ears. Her cheeks flushed with a warmth she couldn’t blame on the champagne.
The pair had been inseparable since kindergarten, when Delphine and her father immigrated to America from Jamaica. As kids, they’d given themselves the codenames “Tropic and Tundra.” Though born in such different climates, fate had brought them together in a small town on Massachusetts’s northern shore.
Even as Cairn had felt the winds of their friendship change in her heart, she tried to bury those feelings deep. But in just a few days, Delphine would leave their coastal town to study voice and opera at Juilliard in New York City.
Delphine finally caught Cairn staring and cocked one eyebrow. “Care to share with the class, Ms. Delacroix?”
Cairn had prepared a whole speech for this moment, but what came out instead was, “Sing for me.”
Delphine started to protest, but she must have recognized the earnestness in Cairn’s face, because she nodded, closed her eyes, and launched into an old jazz standard in her soulful, seductively hoarse voice:
The rustling dune grass,
The autumn tides,
A blanket in the sand,
The star-filled sky,
Could you imagine anything better?
The horizon’s promise,
The sea-spray flowers,
The dawn’s got questions,
But tonight is ours.
Could you imagine anything better?
Could you dream of anything better?
The last word itself broke apart and dissipated into the Atlantic breeze. Delphine opened her eyes.
Cairn took Delphine’s hand in hers. “I’ve got this problem,” she said. She had used these same four words every time she needed advice from Delphine. When she fought with her parents. When a bully stalked her after school. During her ill-fated relationship with a basketball player sophomore year.
Tonight was different. The weight of thirteen years beared down on Cairn’s tongue. Her mouth went dry, so she swallowed and repeated, “I’ve got this problem: I’m in love with my best friend, but I’m terrified that saying it out loud will tear down everything we’ve built. Do I risk it all and tell her before she leaves? Or do I hold it in and always wonder if my life could have been just a little bit more?”
Cairn had envisioned this moment many times, rehearsed what she would say, prepared for a spectrum of reactions from Delphine, ranging from reciprocation to disgust.
In all of her fantasies and worst-case scenarios, Cairn never expected her best friend to laugh. It burst out of Delphine in her singsong alto like she’d just heard the funniest joke.
Tears brimmed in Cairn’s eyes, a painful cocktail of hurt and humiliation and rage. She rose to her feet and lunged for the door, preparing to sprint down the corkscrew stairs and put as much distance between them as she could.
But a hand caught her by the wrist and reeled her back onto the catwalk. Delphine spun Cairn around and pressed her against the glass of the lantern room. Her lips hovered over Cairn’s.
Then she kissed her.
Cairn was in free fall. Their lips danced uncertainly over each other at first, searching for a common rhythm, but there was beauty in the imperfection. Delphine felt different, tasted different than she had in any of Cairn’s dreams. She was vaguely aware that the fireworks display had reached its bombastic finale, but she could barely hear anything over her thundering heartbeat as she shuddered longingly and drew Delphine deeper into her.
When Delphine reluctantly took a breather, she cupped Cairn’s face in her hands. “The reason I laughed,” she explained, “is because only you would wait to confess your love until we were trapped on an island together with only one boat. Can you imagine the awkward ride back to the mainland if I hadn’t felt the same way? Unless your contingency plan was to maroon me here. You, Cairn Delacroix, are irrational and impulsive and so immersed in the world your heart dreams up that sometimes you don’t lead with your brain. But it’s for all those reasons and more that I’ve fallen in love with you, too.”
Soon they were both laughing out of relief. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to kiss your stupid lips,” Cairn said.
Delphine leaned her forehead against Cairn’s. “To thirteen years of fireworks.”
The next day, Delphine joined Cairn’s family on a sunset ride in their boat, the Lemon Shark. Even though her father spent most of his days examining rocks, Cairn never saw him happier than when he stood at the helm of the old bowrider. He accelerated up to twenty-five knots, grinning into the relentless sea wind.
As the mainland grew smaller behind them, Ahna stared vacantly north with glazed eyes that saw something Cairn could not. Cairn reached back and squeezed her mother’s knee. “You seasick?”