Chapter 1 #2
“Wow,” I say, because all of my other thoughts are inappropriate to say out loud, like “holy crap!” or “run Summer run!” or “If I’d gotten pregnant in high school I think I would’ve killed myself.” Instead I say, “That must’ve been rough,” because God knows, I’m not in a position to judge.
“Eh,” she shrugs. “He’s an idiot. Don’t get me wrong, we love JT, but his mother, Mandy? She’s crazy. That’s why I’m watching him and Carly, because she took off two years ago.”
“Oh, so you babysit them every day?” I’m trying to follow this girl’s story and figure out why she’s telling me all of this and how I can possibly sneak away without her noticing.
She takes another gulp of soda and adjusts her top. Her skin is super tan. “Yeah, he works down in Myrtle when he’s not here working with Bobby.”
“Who?”
“My husband.”
“Oh.”
“My family owns the campground, so there’s always work here, but the guys also work at the marina. Well, Justin and Nick work at the marina primarily. Whit and Pete do sometimes, now that they’ve finished with school, but they all kind of go back and forth.”
I’m starting to get a headache.
“Enough about me, I hear you’re staying with your mom? She’s some kind of writer?”
I don’t even pretend to be shocked she knows this. I have a feeling we were a breaking addition to the campground newsletter. “She’s writing a book about some serial killer. Donald something.”
“Gaskins?”
“Yeah that sounds right. Donald Gaskins killed a whole bunch of people around here back in the seventies.” At least, I think that’s what she told me.
“Oh.My.God. You’re kidding right? Donald Gaskins, the serial killer from Florence?”
I shrug. “I think so.”
A huge grin spreads across her face. “Wait ‘til I tell Bobby. He’s obsessed with serial killers. He makes us watch all those biography shows and things. Personally, I think it’s gross, but he can’t get enough.
Plus, there’s no one famous from around here, so Gaskins is like, one of our claims of fame.
” She sighs. “It’s pretty typical the only local person worth writing a book about is a crazy guy who killed people out on the highway. ”
Again, I’m not sure what to say and just offer up a lame, “cool,” in hopes she’ll stop talking, at some point. She doesn’t, so I settle into my chair, close my eyes, listen to the small waves hit the shore, the squeals of the children playing, and more small-town gossip than I will ever need.
Worried about the pink splotches on my skin, I attempt an escape about an hour later.
“You must spend a lot of time indoors,” Anita says. I pull my sundress over my head. “No beach trip for spring break?”
“Not me. My friends all did though.” I should have gone with them. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t be on the side of an ocean right now, living in a camper with my mother.
“Not enough money?” she speculates.
For some reason I tell her the truth. “No, I spent it with my boyfriend.”
Anita raises an eyebrow. “A boyfriend worth skipping spring break sounds pretty interesting.”
“He’s not my boyfriend anymore. So unfortunately, it was kind of a waste.”
“Oh, well that sucks,” she frowns. “Well, by the end of July you’ll be brown as a berry and you’ll have so many fun stories to tell your friends.”
Anita has no idea my friends are barely speaking to me, and even if they were I’m too embarrassed to tell them about this humiliating summer vacation.
Not when they are all about to head to Europe on the school trip I busted my ass to get a scholarship to attend.
Plus, I’ve endured enough humiliation for a lifetime.
There’s nothing like getting caught with your pants down, literally, to make you reassess your life goals.
“Maybe,” I smile, unable to outright lie.
I wave goodbye and leave her to her tabloid magazine and kids, taking the walkway back to my camper.
Since ours is on the front row, it’s a short trip.
I’m surprised, though, to see my mother outside the trailer propping up the blue and white-striped awning.
“Hey,” I say to my mom, dropping my chair and bag on the ground.
“How do you like it?”
“It’s great,” I say, touching the fabric over my head. “You should’ve waited. I could’ve helped.”
“Oh this nice young man came by and helped me with it. He helps manage the property.”
“Bobby?” I ask, recalling the name of Anita’s husband. She said he manages the campground while her brother worked at the marina. I suspect the guy that turned off my water is probably Bobby. Maybe he came over to help my mom to make up for being such a wanker.
She has a string of lights in her hand and is weaving it around the underside of the awning. “I think he said his name is Justin?” She eyes my chest and touches me with a finger. “Wow, you’re red.”
“I know. I may have forgotten sunscreen.”
“I have some aloe in the bathroom cabinet, but you’ll still probably peel.”
I touch the red skin on my arm and make a white spot. “Great.”
“I’m going on a field trip this afternoon—for the book. Do you want to come?” she asks.
I consider her offer for a moment but realize if she’s gone then I can have the camper to myself for a while. “I think I’ll stay here and continue unpacking.”
It’s a white lie, I think later, when I’m clean and sprawled on my bed.
Just one more to add to the pile. I’m in shorts and a tank top with aloe slathered all over my body.
I do feel bad, lying to my mother. She’s always been supportive and honest with me—something that, until recently, I had been with her.
Humiliation makes it harder to tell the truth.
It also makes me desperate because I pull out my laptop to see if I have any messages or emails.
We have wifi here, since Mom needs it for her book.
The computer takes a minute to warm up but soon I’m faced with a long string of emails.
I open the first one from my friend Irene. Apparently, she is still talking to me.
Wish you were coming! There’s still time. We don’t leave til the 1st and I talked to Mason. He says you can still come. The choice is yours…call me.
Then from Catherine:
I’m sorry about how things ended between us. I was just shocked and worried. I get now that you were in a weird place but hiding won’t make it better. Face it and own the mess. It’s not the big deal you think it is. No one knows but us and we’re not telling.
My friends mean well, but I wish they would leave the subject alone.
They’re leaving for Paris in a couple of weeks (thirty-five days—but who’s counting?) and the willpower it took to walk away from Mason has been the hardest thing I’d ever managed to do.
I’d given up a lot for him—spring break, prom, graduation activities…
so many things, and now I’m giving up the trip because he’ll be there too and I just… can’t.
I noticed there were no emails from him. There never have been. He couldn’t leave a paper trail or anything tangible to connect us together. I guess texts could be deleted but emails were too risky. At the time I brushed it off. Like a lot of things.
I run my hand between the mattress and the wall and dig out my journal.
The photo is of the two of us, a selfie.
Both our heads are on a pillow and he’s smiling at the camera while I’m smiling at him.
It’s a good photo. A telling photo. Little did I know, within weeks of this photo everything would be a mess.
Next to the picture is the airline ticket to France.
Still valid. As long as I have it I know there’s a chance.
A choice. But choosing him, which is what it would mean, is not an option.
The metal door opens and my mother walks into the camper. I toss the papers back in the book and slide them next to the wall, unable to just trash them like I know I should.
“Get up,” my mother says, seeing me lying on the bed. I notice a bottle of wine wrapped in a brown paper bag in her hand. “Put on something nice.”
“Why?” I ask. I’m not even sure I can. My sunburn is pretty bad. No chance I can wear a bra.
“We’ve been invited to cocktail hour.”
“Cocktails? In a trailer park?”
“Yes, every Monday they have cocktail hour. We’ve been invited.”
“You’re kidding. You want to go?” I can tell by the look on her face she wants to go. What has my life come to? Where is my mall-shopping, suburban, keeping–up-with-the-Joneses mother?
“Oh, I’m going. And so are you.” She starts to undress and I avert my eyes, but not before I see the old jagged scar on her chest. The one she got climbing a fence when she was a kid. In a second, she’s slipped behind the shower curtain and yells, “Twenty minutes. Be ready.”