Chapter 6 Spring Break #2
“Freshman retreat, your deodorant. Sophomore summer—at the lake—your razor. And remember skiing with my family last year? You forgot your toothbrush and we had to run out to the gas station?”
“Fine,” Hannah laughs. “You’re right. As usual.”
“As usual,” Baker singsongs, a smirk on her face. “Okay, let’s get changed and head downstairs. We should help Clay’s mom with those sandwiches.”
They pull their swimsuits out of their bags, and now the energy in the room changes from giddy to awkward.
They haven’t thought about this part—about how to change in front of each other after what happened on Mardi Gras.
Hannah digs farther into her bag, pretending to search for something else, buying time to figure out what to do.
But then Baker slips into the bathroom, swinging the door behind her so that it doesn’t fully shut, but doesn’t remain open, either.
And Hannah understands, as she hears the rustle of Baker’s clothes falling to the floor, that she is supposed to change out here, in the bedroom, in a separate space.
“Are you finished?” Baker calls through the bathroom door.
Hannah finishes tying her turquoise two-piece. “Yeah, I’m good.”
She merely glances at Baker when she comes out of the bathroom: a glance just long enough to see that she is wearing her favorite red bikini. “All set?” Hannah asks, just for the sake of making conversation, just to keep herself focused on something other than Baker’s toned olive skin.
“Yeah,” Baker says, looking anywhere but her. “Are you bringing anything?”
“Couple of books. Maybe some headphones.”
Baker’s eyes land on Hannah’s skin for a lightning-quick second. “Yeah. Good idea.”
The sand is hot under Hannah’s feet as she and her friends saunter down toward the water, their towels slung over their shoulders, Baker and Joanie carrying beach bags, Clay lugging a food cooler.
“Feel that sun,” Clay says, arching his neck skyward. “I could soak it up all day.”
“Good thing we brought SPF fifty,” Joanie says, “or Hannah and I would fry like bitches.”
“Joanie, what does that even mean, ‘fry like bitches’?” Hannah says.
“You know what I mean. Don’t ask me to explain my genius mind to you.”
They drop their towels and bags on a patch of hot, smooth sand about twenty feet from the water, and without further ado, Clay, Wally, and Luke sprint into the waves, whooping and hollering.
Hannah, Baker, and Joanie spread out their towels and survey the beach to see who else might be here, but they don’t recognize anyone from St. Mary’s.
“And now,” Joanie says, pulling twin bottles of sunscreen from her bag and tossing one to Hannah, “let the sunscreen process begin.”
“Should I time this?” Baker says.
“You should probably put some on,” Hannah tells her. “Remember last summer? How burnt your shoulders got?”
“I know, Mom,” Baker says, smiling as she crouches by her bag. “But I’m not using your Irish-grade garbage. I want some color.” She pulls a bottle marked SPF 20 from her bag, then lifts her tank top over her head. Hannah stares forcefully at the floral pattern on her beach towel.
“The boys are gonna burn,” Baker says, squinting toward the ocean as she rubs sunscreen over her upper arms.
“Wally will make them come back in a minute,” Hannah says, struggling to reach her shoulder blades. “He can’t help himself.”
“Here,” Baker says, coming closer, “let me get your back.”
She spins Hannah away from her, and after a long second, Hannah feels the shock of cold lotion on her skin. Then Baker’s hands are there, warm and soothing, rubbing over her shoulders and upper back, trailing down her lower back and hips.
“Are you using the fifty?” Hannah asks, struggling to keep her voice even.
“Of course,” Baker says, her voice bordering on tender. “I don’t want you to burn at all.”
And then Hannah feels Baker’s fingers on the back of her neck, playing with the stubborn wisps of hair that have escaped from her ponytail. “All set,” Baker says, her voice still harboring some of that tenderness.
“Thanks,” Hannah says, turning around to give her a half smile.
“Can someone do my back?” Joanie asks.
Baker’s eyes tick away from Hannah’s. “Sure.” She clears her throat, and her voice resumes its normal lilt. “Did you get your shoulders yet?”
On that first night at the beach, hours after Clay’s parents have gone to bed, Hannah and her friends sit by the pool drinking whiskey Cokes.
Hannah can feel the sun’s latent heat trapped beneath her skin, can taste the salt on the air when she takes a breath, can hear the ocean’s rhythm playing deep in her ears.
She sits in a love seat with seashell-patterned cushions, and Baker sits next to her, barefoot and already starting to tan, her legs pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her calves.
Clay sits on the ground with his whiskey glass secured between his feet, and every other minute he shakes it, takes a swig, and spits back the ice cubes.
Joanie and Luke sit tangled up in the same chair, her knees bumping into his stomach, her fingers playing with his curls.
Wally sits in the opposite chair, occasionally catching Hannah’s eye and smiling in his steady way.
They talk for hours, one of them always heading inside to pee, another always rising to fill the ice bucket, another always carrying the thread of conversation so that nothing ever stops.
They take turns shushing each other so as not to wake Clay’s parents, and Baker and Wally take turns announcing the time and insisting they should all go to bed, but they continue to lounge in the cooling air while Clay tells the story of the time he broke a classroom window in second grade, and Luke tells the story of the time he got a crayon stuck up his nose in kindergarten, and Baker tells them about the boy she punched at Vacation Bible School because he told everyone her name was “Paper.” They laugh hard at each other’s stories, leaning forward in their seats to point and say “You would do that,” and all the while the ocean plays for them in the background, quiet music in their teenaged cathedral.
“I’m getting tired,” Baker says, bumping her shoulder against Hannah’s. “You ready for bed?”
“Want me to make you one last drink?” Hannah asks, her heart beating happily, her fears quelled by the alcohol and the ocean’s magic.
A tipsy smile plays across Baker’s face. She shakes the ice cubes in her glass, then shakes her head with that same lax smile. “Just sleep for me.”
They say good night to the others. Clay whines that they ought to stay for a while longer, ’cause don’t they know they’ve got a whole handle of whiskey and a whole ocean of water to keep them company? But Baker yawns and shakes her head no.
“Tomorrow night,” she promises. “When we don’t have to get up for Mass the next day.”
“Fuck,” Clay says, at the same time that Luke says, “Shit.”
“What time is it?” Joanie asks.
“Almost four,” Baker says. “And Clay’s mom said we had to leave by nine fifteen.”
“I don’t know why they can’t give us a Sunday off,” Clay says, wiping a hand down his face. “I’m sure the Good Lord would understand that we’re on vacation.”
“And drunk,” Luke says.
“It’s Palm Sunday tomorrow,” Baker says, her voice flat, her eyes glazing over.
“All right, whatever,” Clay says, picking himself up off the ground. “I guess we should all head to bed and continue this tomorrow night.”
“Let’s get some water first,” Wally says. “We’re gonna be hungover in the morning.”
“This is why I don’t like Catholicism,” Luke says as they clean up their glasses. “It seems to get in the way of everything.”
Upstairs, in the quiet of their bedroom, Hannah and Baker get ready for bed with a comfortable calm between them.
They stand in front of the bathroom mirror and brush their teeth together, crossing their eyes at each other’s reflections.
Baker washes her face while Hannah changes, then Hannah washes her face while Baker changes.
They peel back the bedcovers and shimmy their bodies beneath the sheets, the linens cool on their bare legs.
“I feel tipsier than normal,” Baker whispers.
“We had a lot of whiskey,” Hannah whispers back.
Baker closes her eyes, then shifts closer to Hannah so that they’re lined up, front to front, like two hands meeting in prayer.
Hannah smooths Baker’s eyebrow with her thumb, then runs a hand down the back of her head. Baker shifts even closer, until her face is on the edge of Hannah’s pillow.
“You okay?” Hannah asks, her heart beating fast, fast, too fast.
Baker opens her bleary eyes. “Yeah,” she says, her voice drunk and only half-there.
They stay like that, facing each other, until Hannah touches Baker’s cheek and tells her to go to sleep.
“Only if you do,” Baker whispers.
Hannah closes her eyes and dreams.
As Wally predicted, they are very hungover the next morning. Mrs. Landry watches them warily while they cross the church parking lot, her eyes somewhat suspicious, until Clay tells her the partial truth: that they were awake until four in the morning, hanging out by the pool.
“Quality time is important to us,” he says convincingly. “We only have a couple more months together.”
“Aw,” Mrs. Landry says, rubbing his back affectionately. Behind her, Luke and Joanie mime gagging into their song sheets.
“Well, you made a choice, now you have to make do with it,” Dr. Landry says gruffly. “The important thing is that you’re here.”
The church is much smaller than St. Mary’s.
The eight of them file up the center aisle, stepping carefully over the stone floor, ceiling fans whirring high above their heads, the air in the room humid and stale.
Mrs. Landry leads them into a pew and Hannah sits down between Clay and Baker.
Clay closes his eyes and breathes deep through his nose, and Hannah wonders whether he might be sick.