“Ru’s at the party?” Nonna’s eyebrows rise. “And you’re not?”
“There is no party!” I lie.
“Leave her alone,” Mom says, waving her hand in the air. One thing I’ve always appreciated about my mom is that—unlike almost everyone else in my life—she’s never once nagged me about stepping outside my comfort zone! or just taking a chance every once in a while! She of all people totally gets it: how one false move might lead you down a path you can’t turn back from. How one mistake might alter the entire course of your life. After all, it happened to her, though she’s never put it quite so baldly. Still, it’s not a secret that I was born in what would have been her freshman year of college, or that until she met Jim she was a single mom trying to raise me on waitressing tips.
She was impulsive—just once, she didn’t think before she acted.
And she paid for it.
“Even if there was a party, I wouldn’t be going,” I say now, swallowing the rest of my pizza crust before getting up and trashing my paper plate. I grab a seltzer of my own, holding it up in a salute before heading for the staircase. “I’ve got a hot date tonight”—I see the excitement flash across Nonna’s face—“with a book.”
“How completely on brand,” she says. “This she got from your side.” Nonna tsks at Dad, whose nose is still buried in his crossword. She’s chiding him, ostensibly, but the truth is I know they both like the thought that he could pass something on to me, genes be damned.
“ ‘Bois de Boulogne, par example,’ ” Dad calls as I’m heading up the stairs to my bedroom. “Four letters. Ends with a c.”
“Don’t look at me,” Mom says. “I speak Italian, not French.”
“Parc,” I call back into the kitchen. Nonna’s laughter is the last thing I hear before I shut my bedroom door.
* * *
I meant what I said to Nonna—I’m fully intending to spend this summer catching up on all the non-school reading I’ve put aside over the course of the last four years—but I can barely concentrate for sounds of Bethany’s party drifting in through the open window: The thumping bass of a Beyoncé song. A splash as someone cannonballs into the water. A girl laughing as loudly as if she were sitting right here on my bed.
I roll over on the mattress and rest my arms on the windowsill, peering out into the deep blue darkness. It’s that lovely temperature between warm and cool, the last dregs of the heat of the day still lingering in the air. I can smell honeysuckle mixed in with the brackish scent of the narrow, rocky creek that runs along the property line behind our house. I breathe in, watching as a couple of kids careen down Bethany’s dock before stopping short right at the edge. The two of them collapse with laughter, coming precariously close to ending up in the water anyway. They lie there for a while, looking up at the stars, and I watch as they eventually roll toward each other and start to kiss.
Reckless, I think, knowing even as the word occurs to me that I sound even older—and definitely crustier—than Nonna. To be honest, I’m not even sure if it’s the running or the kissing that seems so risky and ill-advised.
I look away just in time to spy another pair standing in the distance, their dark outlines just barely visible through a copse of pine trees on the opposite shore: Clayton and Bethany, I realize immediately, leaning forward in spite of myself.
It’s probably creepy that I’d know Clayton’s stance anywhere, the shape of his body obvious to me from a hundred yards away, though I like to think it’s simply a testament to my keen powers of observation and commitment to best research practices. Still, the cold fact remains that until today, Clayton and I had had exactly three substantial interactions over the course of our high school careers, none of which were exactly what you’d call romantically promising. Behold, Rachel and Clayton’s Greatest Hits:
Freshman year, we had geometry with Mr. Rosen, a sadist who wore an army-green pair of TOMS shoes every day even in winter and liked to make us race proofs against each other up at the front of the room. I was up against Victoria Ahmed, thought I’d won, and was fully preparing to take my victory lap when I realized that what I’d actually done was write “Clayton property of multiplication” instead of “Commutative property of multiplication” in eight-inch letters on the whiteboard.
Sophomore year, I was picking up a fresh-packed pint of ice cream for my mom at Moxie’s in town and ran into him getting sundaes with his family—including his Tory Burch–clad mother, who leaned close to my ear and politely informed me that my skirt was tucked into my underwear. Clayton had no comment at that time.
Senior year I swung by the chemistry lab during my free period to return an AP study guide I’d borrowed from Mrs. Lee—and walked in on Bethany and Clayton in full-on makeout mode. Three months later and the image is still burned into my retinas: Bethany boosted up onto the edge of one of the counter-height benches with Clayton standing snugly between her legs, his elegant hands creeping up her denim-covered thighs. They were going at it so enthusiastically that I probably could have escaped without either one of them noticing, except for the part where I was so surprised I knocked over an entire cart of beakers, which shattered all over the linoleum floor with a sound like the explosion at freaking Chernobyl.
Tonight the two of them stand facing each other by the water’s edge, not getting closer but not apart, either. Bethany leans in for a second—a kiss, maybe?—but it’s hard to tell. I shift up onto my knees on the mattress, squinting through the screen for a closer look and wishing idly for a pair of binoculars, although to be fair that would be over the line even for me. Whatever happens, it only lasts the briefest of moments before she steps back again, moving farther away from him than where she started. Holy crap, are they having a fight? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve caught them melting down from my perch in the crow’s nest of my bedroom. One time last summer she pushed him right into the creek.
After a moment Bethany shakes her head and turns back in the direction of the house, hands shoved into the pockets of her perfectly shredded cutoffs. I’m expecting Clayton to follow, but instead he dawdles by the creek, reaching down and trailing his fingers along the ground for a moment before coming up with a couple of stones and tossing them into the water with audible plunks. Just then, his head moves as though he’s glancing up toward my window. Toward me.
My breath catches in my throat, a flare of panic before I remember that at least he can’t see me.
Wait. Can he see me?
That’s when Clayton raises a hand and waves.
Oh my God. He can see me.
I face-plant into my pillows, letting out a muffled, horrified wail. I might actually be dying. Yep, I’m dead.