Dave: Mari is on her way. Wish me luck!
Me: You two are staying here? Come by the blind spot! I think there’s gonna be a to-do? A foofaraw? Not sure of the technical terminology.
Dave: You might be thinking of the term “hoedown.”
Me: Pretty sure you need bales of straw for that.
My fingers flew across the phone, sending energy through the ether, directly into Dave’s brain. Texting him was different from texting Avani. He responded instantly. Like he actually wanted and needed me around. I just wished that I didn’t feel so . . . so . . . so . . . sick for her presence. I didn’t want to hook up with her—that was done, I knew—but even those few seconds in the car with her and Carrie and Jessie, earlier, had felt so right.
What Pothan forgot was that Avani and I had always been friends! We’d hung out for months before we started “hanging out.” And we talked about stuff too! I told her all my crazy theories about how to get ahead. Heard about her constant friendship drama with Carrie. We’d spend hours sitting in silence in her basement, drinking from the cup of each other’s company. And when we weren’t together, we were texting. Just gossip. Or little jokes. But it’d been so important—that sense of being always connected to another person. And now it was ruined.
Dave was totally game to come out, and in ten minutes I saw a tall form striding toward me. He was with a girl, short and a little chubby, whose smile I saw from thirty feet away.
The figure waved an arm, and I waved back.
We met in a nowhere spot, a few blankets set down at the edge of a little cove of rocks, and most of the light came from the intersecting beams of our phones.
“This is cool,” the girl said. “So this is where it happens? The rich beautiful people getting into trouble on the beach stuff?”
“Hey, I’m Nandan.”
“Mari!” she said. “Dave! You’re supposed to introduce me!”
The three of us sat down, folding the edges of the blankets over our laps to provide some shelter. The song of the wind got louder, and now it blew sand off the rocks and into our faces.
Avani: Thanks for finding a spot! Can you get some driftwood? Pothan is being a dick, but I’ll get him out there soon.
Me: Sure.
Mari peered over my shoulder. “What is it? What’s happening?”
“Avani wants me to gather driftwood,” I said.
“I can help!” Mari said.
The blanket was held tight around her shoulders, and she looked heavy and padded and crone-like.
“What?” I said. “No. No. . . . No. We are not doing this.”
“Huh?”
“Come on, let’s pick up all this stuff,” I said. “Wait, actually let’s just leave it here.”
Crossing to the other side of the rocks instantly halved the wind. We walked far from the dying lights of the boardwalk. I had texted Avani that I’d left the blankets behind, and now I was afraid to look at my phone.
Mari chattered between us, and Dave hardly said a word. He pulled away from Mari when she reached for his hand to get help climbing over the rocks.
Pulling myself out of my own head, I said, “Uhh, did you drive here?”
“My mom dropped me off!” Mari said.
“Seriously? Your mom dropped you off at the Santa Cruz boardwalk after dark?”
“Why?” she said. “Is that stupid? My mom would love to hear this. She’s always wondering if she’s a bad mom.” Her fingers flew over her phone. “Just told my mom the consensus is that she did something stupid. Okay, now she’s texting back. ‘WHYYYYYYYYYYYY?’”
“I don’t know. . . .” I shrugged. I didn’t want to imply she was too close to her mom. That was the sort of thing that Pothan and Avani did. They put people down, just to make themselves look better. It was like making people wait for you. It was automatic. Something that reinforced the idea you were better than them.
“What?” she said. “What were you gonna say?”
“Uhh, it’s no big deal. Most people come here to escape their parents, but you and your mom are cool with each other, and that’s awesome.”
“I didn’t know there was anything to worry about!” Mari said. “She loves Dave!”
As we came to the end of the rocks, I saw a big bunch of kids standing at one end, near the century-old wooden roller coaster. I waved a hand, and we slowly approached.
Avani looked at me with confusion. “Oh, hey . . . ,” she said.
Carrie was there, too, but things had gotten weird between her and Avani. She was talking to this other girl I didn’t recognize. Pothan tugged a beer out of his jacket pocket and lobbed it in my direction. My catch went wrong, and I slapped the can into the sand, stinging my fingers.
“What’s up?” Pothan said.
I introduced my friends. Mari, so talkative a second ago, went completely silent, while Dave answered only with shrugs and “Hmms” when Pothan asked him stuff.
We merged with the group, and I got hugs and fist bumps from the people I knew. Jessie acted really happy to see me, and she apologized, in a whisper, for abandoning me. “Carrie’s girlfriend showed up with some other Holy Redeemer girls.”
“Ohhh . . .” I glanced quickly at the girl, who, wearing jeans and a hoodie instead of the Redeemer uniform, seemed the same as a Grenadine High girl.
Avani ignored me; she caught up in the orbit of Henry, the only openly gay guy among our group of friends. I insinuated myself into their circle and waited for my chance to join the bantering.
Maybe it’s a stereotype, but some people are just really gay. They have soft wavy hair, they buy clothes that fit really well, and they say everything with a sardonic, half-joking tone. Henry told me once that when he realized he was gay, it was frustrating, because he was like, Ughhhhh, my parents were right! Apparently they’d been hinting to him that he might be queer since like age six.
“Nandan!” Hen said. “You are my hero. You are my idol. You are . . .”
“What . . . ?” I said. “What’s happening?”
“Your pants. They’re incredible.”
They were garishly embroidered bell-bottom jeans, bought from a thrift store. “Thanks.”
For the first time Avani looked at me. “Nandan has no eye,” she said.
“What the . . . ?” I shook my head. “I think Henry is saying the opposite.”
“Oh . . . relax.” She wrapped an arm around me, and we both let the warm glow of Henry’s voice fall over us. We were in the darkness cast by the roller coaster, and all the faces were indistinct. Avani rested her head against my shoulder.
“You two were so perfect together,” Henry said.
The polarity had switched. Henry’s attention dragged Carrie and her girlfriend toward us. Dave and Mari were still hovering nearby, and I introduced them to Avani, and she exerted herself to actually be nice to them. We laughed and had fun. I even teased Avani about the blankets I’d left beyond the rocks.
She got mad, saying I could’ve at least brought them back. She stomped off, trying to find somebody to help her get them. I was about to follow, but Henry shook his head.
“Don’t humor her,” he said.
He was right. When I took a few steps in her direction, she was arrogant and cold again.