The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James Read online

I need to Google it. Oh, wait, I don’t need a bra because I’ll have on a bathing suit. I need to find my bathing suit and make sure it’s not full of sand. I need to calm down is what I need to do. I roam the house in a daze, trying to breathe, tossing stuff in my bag as I go. I don’t even know what I take. I’m so excited, so relieved that Quinn is still in this with me, that I really think I might pass out.

  I hide my bag under my bed and stuff myself into bed before my body has the chance.

  I’m still wide awake, too pumped about Quinn’s surprise to fall asleep, when I hear a car door slam outside. I sit up in my dark room and glance at my clock.

  Way past midnight.

  I crawl out of bed and peer out the window. There’s an old truck in the driveway, its headlights beaming onto our front porch while Kate and Lena talk by the steps.

  My stomach clenches like a fist. I press my hand to the cool glass. Lena has her arms crossed and she’s staring down at her big stomping boots, nodding at something Kate is saying. She wipes at her eyes. Then Kate wipes her eyes too and shakes her head. I wish I could hear what they’re saying. I wish I could just fling the window open and ask them. More than that, though, I wish I didn’t care what they’re saying at all.

  CHAPTER

  11

  I slam a bottle of SPF 40,000 onto the kitchen table, rattling the dishes.

  “Sunny, what in the world—”

  “Slather me down!” I say. Then I crack open a can of Ensure I already grabbed from the fridge in preparation and sip dutifully. “Ah, delicious.”

  “What are you doing?” Kate asks. She wipes up a few droplets of coffee spilled by my exuberance. She looks exhausted. Her hair is in a messy bun and there are mascara flakes under her eyes.

  After Lena drove off last night in her old truck, I didn’t sleep super-great. I kept staring at Lena’s photograph, wondering when she’ll just give up on trying to see me. And then I thought about Quinn and going out on her boat today before circling right back around to Lena. Sleep was totally impossible.

  “I’m willing to endure all manner of sun- and sea-related precautions, just know that,” I say to Kate. She and Dave share yet another look. He stayed late last night until Kate got home and then he came over early this morning to walk with her to the bookstore.

  “What are you talking about?” Kate asks.

  I take a deep breath and let loose. “My friend Quinn wants me to meet her at the beach”—my face burns fluorescent red because I’m a terrible liar—“and I can totally go by myself and I won’t swim out to the sandbar and you can stay home and relax because you look way tired.”

  I inhale dramatically and Dave smirks while he sprinkles a little shredded cheese and dill on the sunny-side-up eggs he’s cooking at the stove. Kate only likes eggs when he cooks them. Kate says this isn’t true, but I made her some truly magnificent scrambled eggs one time for her birthday, just like Dave taught me, and she nearly puked. And she says she’s not in love with him. Yeah, right.

  “Gee, thanks,” Kate says, then eyes me over her cup. “The beach, huh?”

  I nod, my breath held tight in my lungs. “And I’ll be with Quinn, which means she’ll be there to call 9-1-1 if I drop dead.”

  “Not helping your case there, Sunshine,” Dave says as he adds some toast to his and Kate’s plates, but he’s still smiling.

  “I’m just saying, I won’t be alone.”

  Kate shakes her head, but she’s smiling too. She doesn’t notice my bright red liar face, I guess. The docks are part of the beach, technically. Just less… beachy.

  “You did okay yesterday, I guess,” Kate says.

  “I so did.”

  “But that doesn’t mean you should overdo it.”

  “I will underdo it, I promise.”

  She sighs and that dratted wrinkle between her brows sinks in real deep and I know what’s coming and it’s not permission to go to the beach.

  “Sweetie, I’ve been talking to Lena a lot and I—”

  “Kate,” I say. “For real?”

  “I just worry you’ll regret not talking to her. I don’t want that for you. She wanted to come by today if you’re up for it and…”

  She trails off as my face scrunches up tighter and tighter. Dave clears his throat and shoves some eggs into his mouth. Kate sighs again. She’s made of sighs.

  “Okay, sweetie,” she says. “One step at a time.”

  Try zero steps. “Can I go with Quinn?”

  “Yes, you can go to the beach with Quinn, but I want to meet this girl. Soon.”

  “Deal. No problem.” I knock back the rest of my Ensure and grab my bag, which is heavy with I don’t even remember what, my heart already skipping happily. “Love you bye!” I kiss Kate on the cheek and bolt.

  “Sunny St. James, get back here.”

  When I turn around, Kate’s heading straight for me, already popping the cap off the SPF 400,000.

  So close.

  When Quinn sees me wandering up the dock—probably looking totally lost until I see a flash of her blue hair—she climbs over the side of a white dive boat named Adeline, and waves at me.

  “You’re here!” she yells as I get closer. She’s wearing her grass-green bikini top with the pink lollipop print and cutoff shorts, her blue hair piled on top of her head, curls everywhere.

  “I’m here,” I say, breathless from my excited-nervous walk over here.

  “Are you okay?” she asks.

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

  She shrugs, but I know. Heart transplantee starts huffing and puffing and everyone freaks out. Her eyes dart down to my chest, where I know my high-necked bathing suit covers up my scar one hundred percent.

  “I’m not mad at you for how you reacted,” I say. Because it’s not like we can ignore the fact that she knows and I know that she knows. “I freaked out, that’s all. I wanted to tell you myself.”

  She takes a step closer to me and her arm brushes mine. “I get that. It just surprised me. I mean… a heart transplant. That’s… wow.”

  “Yeah. It was pretty wow for me too.”

  “I can’t imagine what that was like. Margot said it was really rough.”

  I fight back a massive eye roll. I don’t want to get into Margot with Quinn. Ever.

  “It pretty much stunk,” I say.

  She smiles nice and soft. “Well, I think you’re amazing and brave.”

  “Not really. It’s not like I had a choice. It was either die or don’t die, you know?”

  “I never thought of it like that.”

  “I’ve thought about it a lot of ways.”

  “Yeah. Well, I still think you’re amazing.”

  My face gets all warm and I shrug. “Thanks.”

  She smiles at me. “And we don’t ever have to talk about it unless you want to.”

  “You don’t have a million questions you’re dying to ask?”

  “Oh, I do. But I can wait until you’re ready to tell me.”

  “You’re a pretty great best friend.”

  She giggles and it’s the cutest sound. “I’m about to be even greater. Guess what?”

  “Oh, yeah, my surprise.” I look around for something amazing, but all I see is a bunch of people in bathing suits walking around the dock and untying boats to cast off. “It’s not the boat?”

  She grins. “Nope.”

  “We get to go diving?”

  “I wish.”

  “Ride a dolphin? Please tell me we get to ride a dolphin.”

  She laughs and shakes her head. “Come and put your bag down.”

  I follow her onto the boat, which is small and has a thick navy stripe running down the side. There’s a low platform in the back where divers jump into the water, and a silver ladder descends into the aqua depths. In the wheelhouse, a lady with brown skin, dark brown eyes, and the same blue-black hair as Quinn sits surrounded by a bunch of camera equipment. She has on a wet suit and looks super-smart and official.

  “Th
at’s my mom,” Quinn says, flapping her hand at the lady, but she doesn’t introduce me. Instead, Quinn stands up on her tippy-toes and shades her eyes with her hand while she looks down the dock.

  “Hey, you must be Sunny,” the lady says. She stops twisting what I think is a big old lens onto a big old camera and smiles at me. “I’m Marisol.”

  I hear the faintest trace of her Puerto Rican accent. I wave at her. “Hi. Thanks for letting me come.”

  “Of course. Hopefully the dolphins will cooperate and you and Quinn can catch a glimpse.”

  “That’d be amazing.”

  Marisol winks at me and then goes back to her camera. I’m about to ask how it all works—diving, breathing underwater, how the camera gets a clear shot under the ocean—when Quinn yanks on my arm.

  “Whoa, hey,” I say, but Quinn just keeps pulling me until I collide with the boat’s rail.

  “Here’s your surprise,” she says, smiling so big I can hear it in her voice.

  “What is—” But I don’t get the rest of the question out because I see what it is very clearly.

  What he is.

  A boy our age with super-tan skin and floppy, sun-lightened hair is striding down the dock with an older guy. They both have on flowered board shorts, white T-shirts, and sunglasses.

  “Oh.”

  Quinn giggles and then covers her mouth to stop the giggling.

  “Who is he?” I whisper-yell, but Quinn just shakes her head. Then she rolls her shoulders back and clears her throat as the guys—the men? the boy and the man?—get closer.

  “Ladies,” the older guy says, nodding at me and Quinn as he steps onto the boat. “Hey, Marisol.”

  Marisol stands and shakes his hand. “Hey, Nathan. I think I’m all set.”

  “Good weather for it today.”

  She nods and squints at the clear sky. “Let’s hope the dolphins agree. Hey, Sam, how are you? You remember my daughter, Quinn, right? And that’s her friend Sunny.”

  Sam squints at me and I squint back.

  Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. That isn’t just any old Sam. That’s Sam Blanchard. I haven’t seen him in over a year, but it’s definitely him. He was in my kindergarten, second-grade, and third-grade classes. His favorite color in elementary school was pea green and he was obsessed with fish. Or maybe it was squid. Could’ve been sharks. Point being, he likes ocean life and hardly ever talked about anything else.

  He’s also the first boy Margot ever kissed.

  “Hey…” he says, still squinting. He flicks his perfect hair off his forehead. “Sunny St. James, right?”

  I nod and wave while Quinn chokes on another giggle.

  “How’s your… uh, you know…” Sam drags his eyes to—I kid you not—my chest area and back up again.

  “Good,” I say. “I’m great.”

  “Oh, good. Margot told me you had, like… well, you know.” He waves his hand back and forth. Quinn stops giggling.

  “A heart transplant?” I say. “Yeah… I know I had one of those.”

  Sam nods, his face going tomato red. “Right. So… glad you’re okay.”

  “Yep. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” I grab Quinn by the arm and drag her to the diving platform. We pretend to watch the dock fill up with vacationers carrying fishing poles and coolers. Really, I see nothing. Just Sam’s short, bronze-colored hair and that awful pitying look in his eye.

  “So, I guess you know him, huh?” Quinn asks after a couple of seconds of silence.

  “It’s Juniper Island. I know everyone, pretty much. How do you know him?”

  “His dad owns this boat and is taking my mom out on her dives this week. The first time we went out, a couple of days ago, Sam was there too. I figured you could try with Sam, since it was your idea.”

  “Try… what?” I squeak out, even though I know. But I need to be sure Quinn and I are talking about the same thing here.

  “K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” she singsongs, a giggle sliding through the letters.

  I grab my stomach, which has grown fingers and is yanking my heart down to my feet. “I can’t kiss Sam.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just… I can’t. I want a boy I don’t remember eating glue in kindergarten.”

  Quinn cracks up. “Did he actually eat glue?”

  “I don’t know. I just can’t.” He was Margot’s first. He will not be my first too. “You should kiss him. He’s perfect for you.”

  Quinn’s eyes get really big. “Um, no way.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Because this was your idea, Sunny. You should go first.”

  I crane my neck to get a look at Sam in the wheelhouse; he’s chugging water from a neon-green Nalgene bottle. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “You can. For sure. I’ll help you,” Quinn says.

  “You will?”

  “BFFs, right?”

  I nod. “Holy mermaids, are we really doing this?”

  “Do you still want to?” she asks.

  “Yes!” I say it loud, and Sam glances at us while filling a cooler with ice. I slap my hands over my big mouth. I do want to. Super-want to. I’m all about the kissing, I am. I just didn’t realize the wanting was going to turn into doing quite this fast. But New Life Sunny is nothing if not spontaneous and fun and ready for anything.

  “Okay,” Quinn says. “So what do we do?”

  “We need a plan. The best plan that was ever planned.” I open my bag and look through the supplies I collected last night. Notebook and pens for said plan, coconut-flavored lip balm that Margot left at my house over a year ago that I can’t bring myself to throw away because I really like coconut, a lone flip-flop that has no clear purpose, and—

  Oh. My. God.

  In my frenzy last night, I actually put a bra in my bag. A real-life bra. It’s black and lacy and definitely belongs to Kate. It also wouldn’t fit me if I stuffed it with a whole drawerful of socks.

  I clamp my bag closed with my arm. “Um. Well—”

  “You girls take a seat,” Marisol calls at us from the wheelhouse. “We need to cast off.”

  Quinn and I glance at each other, our eyes as big as full moons.

  “Here we go,” she says, swallowing so hard I hear the gulp.

  “Here we go,” I say. Then I slick on some coconut lip balm.

  CHAPTER

  12

  We head to open sea. I stretch my arm over the side of the boat and watch my shadow flicker over the blue water. There’s so much under there. A whole universe.

  Quinn and I stand at the front of the boat—pardon me, the bow—and lean on the railing as it speeds over the waves. Quinn used some of my lip balm, so she smells like coconut and her mouth is super-shiny, which makes me want to bust up laughing and makes my stomach flip and flop all at the same time. I can’t believe I might get my first kiss today.

  Quinn tosses another look over her shoulder at Sam, who’s standing with his dad in the wheelhouse. Marisol is still snapping and clicking camera stuff. Quinn and I have decided to play it cool with Sam. Act totally uninterested. That’s what I remember Margot doing and it seemed to work. We flip our hair a lot. Or, at least, I do. Quinn doesn’t need to try too hard to act cool and pretty.

  “Do you ever wish mermaids were real?” I ask her.

  “Totally,” she says. “Wouldn’t that be amazing?”

  “Maybe they are. There’s no way we can know everything that’s out there, right?” I sweep my hand over the ocean.

  “I guess not. When I was little, I used to believe there were people in the water. I called them the Water People.”

  “Clever.”

  She nudges my shoulder and laughs. “Shut up. I was, like, four. Plus, I was on boats a lot, because of what my mom does, and it got pretty lonely. I made up friends, that’s all.”

  “Mermaid friends?”

  She shrugs.

  “I used to tell myself that my mom was a mermaid,” I say.

  Quinn laughs.

>   “No, really.” Then I tell her the whole story. How Lena left me with Kate when I was four and never came back, so I made up this whole tale about how she was a mermaid. And since I was a human girl, with legs and all, she decided that I fit better on land than in the water with her.

  Quinn doesn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. When I finally glance at her, she’s looking at me with her eyes all sad.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I know she’s not really a mermaid.”

  “No, I know,” Quinn says, her voice super-soft. “So… that lady on the beach yesterday. She’s not your mom?”

  I shake my head. “She’s my Kate.”

  “Your Kate.”

  “A Kate is better than a mom.”

  Quinn nods, like that makes complete sense, and I think I like her even more.

  “I don’t have a dad,” she says. “Well, I do, but he died.”

  “Oh. Wow, I’m sorry.”

  She shrugs. “It was before I was born.”

  “How?”

  “Cancer.”

  I wince and press my hand to my chest, feeling that my heart is still in there. Then I reach out and slip my fingers between hers. She jolts a little, her eyes widening on our hands. I’m about to yank my arm away when she squeezes my palm. I squeeze back.

  “My dad died too,” I say. “Right after I was born.”

  She squeezes my hand even harder. “How?”

  “Motorcycle accident.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “Yeah.” I don’t think about my dad very much. Kate doesn’t even have any pictures to show me. He was never like Lena, where I had to figure out how to fit in my brain somehow the fact that she was alive and chose to live without me. My dad never even had the chance.

  “Do you know why your mom really left?” Quinn asks. “Do you think it was because of your dad dying?” She scoots closer to me so our shoulders touch. Her hand is warm in mine, as balmy as the sea air.

  “No way.” I stick out one flip-flopped foot and wiggle my toes. “It was because I don’t have a mermaid tail.”

  Quinn laughs and I laugh, but my stomach knots up. I want to tell Quinn the truth, that Lena is an alcoholic and couldn’t take care of me, but suddenly, I feel embarrassed. Like, why couldn’t Lena just stop drinking? If she really loved me, couldn’t she stop? Even if she had to leave me for a while, why did she stay gone for so long? Eight years. That’s two-thirds of my whole life. I’ve never talked about it with Kate, but I’ve thought about this stuff a lot over the past few years. Like maybe Lena knew. She knew there was something wrong with me, with my heart, which is the most important part of a person ever, and that’s why she stayed away.