Something else he learned from his father.
John turned and admired Caroline’s back instead. She was still scanning the sky. He took her all in then: pink tailored shirt with small gingham checks tied at the waist over black capris, white socks with saddle shoes. He should have tried harder with his own clothes. He wore jeans and a plaid shirt. He was missing a belt today, so the pants hung a little too low, which is why, just now, he had to hitch them up a bit before moving to cross to her side.
If Caroline sensed his presence next to her, she didn’t show it. Just kept her eyes on the horizon.
John kept his eyes on her.
4
BUNNY
Bunny glanced up from her book and gave John one of her slow smiles. One that she knew made him uncomfortable, even though he thought he could hide it with a smile of his own. When he looked away, she was pleased with herself. It was silly, but it made her feel powerful.
She watched John watch Caroline. She sighed. Bunny thought joining the group would make her feel like she was a part of something. But it had just made her miss her friends back home and feel more alone. She would for sure quit the group after today. The people here were so basic, especially Frank and Oscar. They spoke of such childish things—extraterrestrials and all of that. She took one look at the covers of the magazines they read with the half-naked women being carried away by monsters from other planets; that was all she needed to know about them. But at least they read—she had to give them that.
She looked at her watch. Her older brother was late. Will was always late even though he didn’t have a job. Bunny had an idea of what he did with his time, but she didn’t say anything to their dad. What good would it do? It’s not like they’d pack up their things and move back home because Will was gambling. New York had been a worse place for that.
She found where she’d left off on the page and kept reading—a Miss Marple mystery novel from her favorite writer, Agatha Christie. Miss Marple was so funny. She said what she was thinking and didn’t sugarcoat it. Sure, she got away with it because she was an old lady, but it didn’t matter. Bunny would love to be a private detective one day just like Miss Marple. But she didn’t plan to wait until she was as old. You just had to know how to read people and the environment. Bunny could do both.
Take the group she was with now—these people she was stuck with in this dinky town that had no sense of culture. She would never say that, of course—not unless someone asked her. If they did, she’d have no trouble being honest. Bunny valued the truth more than anything. But she knew no one would ever ask; the others had no concept of life outside the Monterey Peninsula.
Teddy was the only one who showed promise, but he’d probably end up fishing the rest of his life, even though she knew he wanted out. It was obvious he wanted to be a pilot. But he was too much of a good guy—the one who does the right thing like stay and work for the family business out of obligation. He’d probably spend his whole life in a five-mile radius and one day go crazy with the weight of it and walk out on his family. She didn’t know much about John. She just knew he liked baseball. And Caroline.
Caroline was pretty, though she wore her hair a little too long and in childish ponytails. She was also very smart, but not as smart as Bunny. Of course, Bunny didn’t let on how smart she was. She didn’t want to alienate people right off the bat, especially boys. Occasionally she scored poorly on an exam so as not to draw too much attention. Her peers didn’t need to know she spoke English, Spanish, Italian, and French. She had tried Mandarin, but it had proved much more challenging. Bunny didn’t like the feeling of failure, so she’d given up, blaming it on a “terrible instructor.” In front of the others in the club she read murder mysteries, which she loved to escape in. The thrill of solving a crime always the motivation. But at home she read books on Boolean logic, computers, and physics. She had a whole bulletin board dedicated to her idol, Ada Lovelace—gifted mathematician and the world’s first computer programmer.
Bunny had joined the club for three reasons. The first was that she was bored out of her mind. In the city, there was always something to do and see. She was used to hanging out with friends in cafés, going to hear live music, dancing, seeing plays. All this area had was a drive-in movie theater, a bowling alley, three art galleries, and a few restaurants. The second reason was, for all of her apathy, Bunny was a patriot at heart. She’d watched all the films like the rest of them and couldn’t help but get caught up with the whole doing-something-for-the-country attitude. And the third reason, which Bunny kept private, was that, as she looked into the future, she wanted to work with rockets. She kept her eye on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and all the work they were doing. As a woman, she knew that she could get into their Computing Section, but she was also interested in being a chemist. She figured being part of the human radar chain might get her closer to her goal. She could at least put it on a résumé.
But the club had proved uninspiring. Not enough planes flew by to keep her attention. The conversation, when there was any, bored her. She missed her friends and the excitement of the city. Bunny spent many evenings on the phone with her best friend Judy hatching a plan. They figured next year Bunny could move in with Judy and finish out her senior year of high school. Her father would be against it, but she would convince him. Just because he had accepted a job at the Defense Language Institute didn’t mean she had to be stuck here, too.
The only good thing about where Bunny lived now was the beach and how beautiful it was. Bunny couldn’t deny that. When she had first seen the Pacific Ocean and the shoreline, she understood for a moment why people loved California, and why some never wanted to leave. This ocean was a wild, uncontained beauty—something that her city eyes had never seen. But with the beauty came a gray loneliness that seeped over her when she wasn’t looking, something she was not used to feeling.
The move had not only uprooted Bunny physically, it had altered her entire sense of self. Back in New York, she was confident; she knew her world and her place in it. She’d had a group of friends. She was liked—well, by some people. No one was liked by everyone. But she knew who she was and where she belonged. Here, she’d had to reinvent herself, and she didn’t like who that new person was—a loner who didn’t even stand out. She was still the new girl after being there for a year. She hadn’t figured out how to get in with these people, and now she didn’t even try anymore. So she acted like she didn’t care that she was alone every weekend. Acted like she was above the others in the club.
Her whole life felt off-kilter, like she had been knocked out of orbit and now had a new course. The problem was she didn’t like the direction, and she didn’t know how to get back on track.
“Guys,” Caroline said. Her tone was all sharp edges.
Bunny looked up.
“Yeah?” John said, from his position to the left of Caroline.