The Stepping Off Place Read online

Page 5


  “What happened to you?” I asked Scott quietly, though I was pretty sure he went to a Colgate party in Greenwich.

  “What? Nothing,” he said innocently, fixing me with his shut-up stare. I smirked and sat down. I would miss him this summer, too. He left in a few days for the Vineyard. They were both going to islands, and I was the one who felt deserted. I sighed into the fridge, getting syrup.

  “Hattie, where will we be without you all summer?” Mom said, pouring coffee for her and Dad.

  “I feel the same way,” Hattie said. She wasn’t lying, really, but she couldn’t feel the same way. From the beginning, Hattie brought a breath of normalcy into our house that had been absent my whole life. She allowed us to relax in our own home. Of course nobody said it out loud. If we did, then we’d have to acknowledge how hard it could be the rest of the time. And that would be defeatist, which is no way to survive Spencer’s kind of autism. Just ask my mom—the annoyingly relentless autism warrior.

  “To Hattie,” Mom said, lifting her mug. “May your summer be bright and fun!”

  We clinked juice glasses and coffee mugs, and I felt a pang of something like homesickness, which didn’t make any sense, until I realized it kind of did.

  In my room, Hattie zipped her duffel. Her sister Helen would arrive to whisk her away from me any time now.

  She stood slowly. “Ooch. A little sore in the nether regions.”

  I snorted, remembering the same sensation after prom. Confess, now! I thought. But I couldn’t bear her knowing what a fool I’d been. I’d let myself be taken advantage of, an old-fashioned phrase reeking of weakness, but perfectly fitting. Jay Seavers took advantage of my naivete, of my hunger for attention, and to do that he must have spotted it, which means I exposed it. I didn’t even have the wits to hide it. No, I couldn’t confess. I told myself it could be like that tree falling in a forest thing. If nobody heard about it, it didn’t happen. I changed the subject. “You do realize you’re deserting me, right? Because you don’t look sad.”

  She squinted, but she was busted. And why would she be sad? She had sailing and tennis and cousins with tales of surfing off the horn of Africa. Her parents even transported their three horses up to The Thimble so she could ride all summer. Most of all, she had Santi, the guy she wouldn’t admit she truly loved. She checked her phone. “Eleven eleven,” she said, no stranger to the art of distraction herself. “The magic time.” This was in reference to a fortune-telling game we’d played at sleepovers since forever. It’s called Sea of Life and involves a Nordic gnome, a bowl of water, and a walnut shell boat. I smiled, turning the table on her.

  “Mr. Tomten?” I asked the air. “Did Hattie sleep with Gib Soule in preparation for unleashing her lifetime of repressed lust for Santi Herrera?”

  “Oh God!” She laughed.

  “Mr. Tomten says YES!”

  “Mr. Tomten?” Hattie said, looking up. “Will Reid be burden-free by the time she crosses the bridge into Maine in two weeks?”

  “Please,” I said, carefully avoiding eye contact. “And it’s two and a half weeks.”

  She hoisted her duffel bag onto her shoulder and I did the same with her second one. We walked downstairs and outside, and sat on them on the driveway. It was already hot and muggy.

  “What’s that, Mr. Tomten?” Hattie continued. “She’ll be a sexual warrior by the end of the summer?”

  I chuckled. “Okay, let’s leave poor Mr. Tomten out of this. He only answers yes/no questions anyway.”

  She put on her Ray-Bans, pulled her hair elastic out, and redid her ponytail. “Don’t let his little red cap fool you. Mr. Tomten is also a tiger in the sack.”

  I snorted.

  Near my bare toes, an ant carried a flower petal three times its size across the pavement. It didn’t matter about trees falling in forests. Sooner or later Hattie would find out about Jay and I’d have to explain why I’d kept it from her. I sucked in a breath—the MacGregory reverse sigh. “About the burden thing,” I began, watching the ant disappear into the grass.

  “Don’t give me any of your self-deprecating crap. This is nonnegotiable. Remember when you wouldn’t dive off your own diving board?” She thumbed over her shoulder toward our backyard. “Now you jump off Pulpit Head. And you like it.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “You do too.”

  I gave her a look.

  “By August, this is you.” She hopped to her feet and snapped an imaginary whip while making a whi-chaaa sound. “Hey, Max? Lemme wax your back.” Then she laugh-said, “How ’bout those butt cheeks? Whi-chaaa!” She doubled over at her own joke, and I couldn’t help giggling. Just like that, I let myself off the hook for hiding the truth.

  “Promise me you’ll only watch those crap romance movies one night a week,” she said. “And you’ll swim with Spencer. And take him bowling.”

  I nodded dismissively. “I’m going to work on my 5K for cross-country.”

  “Admirable,” she said. “But also, go out, Reid!”

  I almost told her about my pact with Hammy then, but if he didn’t follow through, then I’d have to tell her that. I couldn’t bear it.

  Helen buzzed up the driveway in Mrs. Darrow’s bright red Mini. She got out and hugged me. “Look at you, all grown up!” Helen, an international relations student at Brown, had just finished her junior year in some remote part of India. She was a flawless version of Hattie. Blond ringlets bounced around her shoulders in perfect disarray. Her smile was glamorous and friendly at the same time. And she always had these unbelievably hot, star-athlete boyfriends. “When are you coming to The Thimble?” she asked.

  “July eighth,” I said.

  “Hattie’s psyched for that.” She squeezed Hattie’s shoulders.

  Hattie busied herself loading her luggage.

  “Don’t let her fool you,” Helen said softly. “She misses you a ton.” Her eyes stayed on me an unnervingly long time. I smiled stupidly.

  Hattie slammed the trunk. I wanted to cry.

  We hugged and she climbed in the car. “Two weeks,” she said. “There better be some news.”

  Helen backed down the driveway. Hattie yelled, “Whi-chaaaa!” And she was gone.

  In my room, I got ready for my first matinee shift at the dinner theater. The initial zip of my girl tux skirt made an audible mockery of the pathetic summer I had in store. Scofield Dinner Theater was the local landmark that time forgot, the one you drive by all the time and never notice. It mixed live musical theater with bland dining. Jasper Chang, my chemistry lab partner, was the one who told me the Scofield Dinner Theater was hiring in April. He’d bussed tables there for two years and talked me into applying, eyes buggy through his safety goggles. “It’s so campy,” he’d said, noting that the geometric orange carpet is the same one as in that horror movie The Shining—the one the kid rides his Big Wheel on and where he finds the terrifying sisters (Hattie had gotten me to watch it three times).

  Faye, the floor manager, greeted me by the hostess stand. The air inside the place was tomblike, which made the fact that the patrons were bussed in from senior centers either hilarious or tragic, depending on your mood. Faye was raven haired, late thirties, with a bit of alcohol puff to her face and a lot of eye makeup. “We’re sold out for two weeks,” she said, blowing out her cheeks. “God, these old folks love Man of La Mancha.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “You know, ‘To dream the impossible dream’? Chasing windmills? Don Quixote and Sancho Panza?”

  I stared at her.

  “It’s old.” Her phone buzzed. “Like them.” She looked at it and sucked in a rattly breath. Faye’s persistent stress, coupled with her frequent hushed phone calls, led to much conjecture among the staff about a possible second, less legal job. Jasper said drug dealer. The prep cook thought mob. I didn’t doubt it. Faye handed me a stack of papers. “Tri-fold these? I need a smoke.” She hustled toward the loading dock as I opened the program.

  THE MAN
OF LA MANCHA

  BASED ON THE 1605 SPANISH LITERARY CLASSIC

  THE INGENIOUS NOBLEMAN SIR QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA

  BY MIGUEL DE CERVANTES

  And then the memory hit me. In eighth grade, Hattie and I had made an iMovie for Spanish class based on Don Quixote. Hattie played the starring role—suave, tall, thin dreamer Don Quixote. I played the squat sidekick, Sancho Panza, faithful squire. We drew mustaches and beards on ourselves and recited ridiculous lines, like, “Don Quixote es guapo y muy muy alto,” and, “Sancho Panza es gordo.” Hattie rode her horse, Lyra, and I rode old Barnaby. Back then, Hattie wasn’t tall or suave, but it was an alternate version of our reality, which made it comic genius. The class loved it.

  And I realized that I’m still Hattie’s Sancho Panza; it’s who I’m meant to be.

  I dropped the programs on the hostess stand with a thud and texted a picture of one to Hattie.

  Me: Remember our Spanish movie in 8th grade?

  Jasper rolled his cart into the lobby. “Reid MacGregory, thank GOD! I’ve had four straight shifts with Bitter Barb.”

  Bitter Barb worked the day shifts all winter. If I were sixty-two and a hostess at the Scofield Dinner Theater, I’d probably be bitter, too.

  “One more story about her ungrateful daughter-in-law,” Jasper said, “and I might have had to stab her in the kitchen.”

  “Geez, that’s a little drastic,” I said, though I smiled.

  He made his Bitter Barb face and launched the whiny voice. “‘Jasper, why does she feed my son such terrible food? Now he’s FAT. My Billy was never fat. My husband Hal was never fat.’” He implored the sky, still in character. “‘Make some salads already!’” He shook his head, steering his bussing cart toward the kitchen and backing through the cushioned doors. “Bitter Barb,” he grumbled.

  Jasper Chang hung with the drama rat pack at school. He took the leads in Once Upon a Mattress and Grease and taught me jazz hands and pas de bourrées during our downtimes. Hattie and I didn’t spend time with the theater kids. Hattie barely knew who Jasper was, and having a friend she didn’t know was a foray into uncharted land for me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. But he’s the kind of guy who gets you to spill a lot of info without realizing you’re doing it.

  After we’d seated the house and shut the doors for Act One, he said, “Why so blue, MacGroo?”

  “I’m not blue.”

  Jasper squinted at me. His hair, black and shiny like patent leather, swept his forehead.

  “I hate Scofield in the summer,” I said.

  “What? Are you on something?” he said, with a dramatic eye squint.

  “It’s so boring!” I said. “I’m doing this”—I waved my arm in front of my uniform—“by choice.” I sighed. “It’s unnatural.”

  “True,” he said. “Hattie left, didn’t she.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “I know I’m pathetic.”

  “You aren’t pathetic. You just need to widen your circle. Step outside your comfort zone.”

  “You sound like Oprah,” I said.

  He considered this. “I’m okay with Oprah.”

  I organized menus in a basket. Jasper was right, but the problem was, as evidenced last night at the party, I generally needed a Hattie to push me out of my comfort zone (save the disastrous Dickhead incident). “Well, I might be stepping out a little bit.” My voice went quiet. “With Sam Stanwich.”

  He cocked his head.

  “You know, Hammy.”

  His eyebrows jumped. “The Sandwich?” Jasper wagged a finger at me. “You sly honey badger.”

  I laughed. “It’s not like that. We just understand each other, kind of.” I’m not quite sure that covered the Summer of Hammy and Reid, but it was the best I could do on short notice.

  “Understand schmunderstand. Surely you know boys and girls can’t be just friends,” he said. “Except in cases such as ours, that is.”

  “He probably already forgot he suggested it,” I said, hoping I was wrong but starting to brace myself in case I wasn’t.

  “Unlikely. He’s secretly into you. Or you’re secretly into him. Either way, someone’s hormones are an inferno. Two weeks and you’re on each other like horned-up snow monkeys.” He snapped.

  I shook my head. “Snow monkeys?”

  “YouTube it—Our Amazing Planet, episode sixty-three. There’s a reason their faces are so red.”

  “Ew.” I tossed today’s seating chart into the trash. “Hammy’s in love with someone else.”

  “Pshaw.”

  “He is! Hattie.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “Right. And while Hattie’s gone, he’s celibate? Methinks not. Take it from me, a guy will only wait around so long.” He rolled away.

  I hadn’t let my mind entertain the possibility of Hammy and me—and I wasn’t about to. I’d let myself hope about Captain Dickhead, and it almost killed me inside. Hammy Stanwich was all about Hattie Darrow. And I was Sancho Panza. That’s just who I’m meant to be.

  For the rest of the shift I kept flashing back to the prom. Captain Dickhead had wormed into my head again, even as I led elderly couples to their tables. The prom was at Howebrook Country Club, one of Scofield’s fanciest, and because Charlie was a member, a waiter he knew let a bunch of us sneak out to the golf course—Charlie and me, Hammy and Hattie, and Emma Rose and her date, Captain Dickhead. We took turns joyriding in a golf cart way out by a duck pond. There were vodka drinks involved, and somehow Dickhead and I drove off together, leaving the others to practice putting on the fourteenth green.

  As we puttered uphill, around a stand of trees, my bare shoulder jostled against his tuxedo jacket. The intimacy of it was oddly intoxicating. He smelled like one of those cologne ads in my mom’s Vanity Fair magazine. Sophisticated. Out of my league.

  “Let’s see what this baby can do,” he said, gunning it. I grabbed the edge of the seat cushion to keep from rolling into his lap. We hit a stump or something and both popped into the air. I lost my grip on the cushion, but landed on the seat. Jay bounced right out of the cart.

  “Oh my God!” I cried. The cart kept its forward momentum. It must’ve been knocked into neutral. I grabbed the wheel, headed for the duck pond. “Help!”

  “Push the brake!” Jay yelled.

  I couldn’t respond in my panic. My sandals were back on the green and I worked my toes, chimp-like, until I clamped onto the pedal and pushed. The cart went faster.

  “Ahhh!”

  “That’s the gas!”

  “No shit!” I resisted the urge to abandon ship and slammed the ball of my foot onto the second pedal. Too hard. The cart lurched to a halt. I slammed into the dashboard with a grunt. I kept my toes curled around the brake pedal and reached for the gear shift. Finally, all was still.

  A duck quacked somewhere to our right.

  Jay ran to me. “Holy crap! Are you okay?”

  I lifted my head. Jay Seavers was frightened. For me.

  I paused, blinking. A surge of Hattie’s and my witchiness from the Headless Horseman night last October coursed through me. “From here out,” I said, casting a teasing gaze his way, “I drive.”

  He turned away, breaking a smile. “Jesus, I thought you were dead for sure.” He put his hand on the small of my back as I stepped onto the grass. I fluffed my skirt. His hand remained, rubbing slowly. It was awkward and not awkward at once. An ungainly laugh bubbled out of me, somehow passing as confident.

  “Did you hear a duck?” His laugh was throaty. He pulled me against him, gently. Expertly. I heard Hattie in my head. Seavers is busting a move! My brain vibrated.

  “Yes, somewhere over here . . .” I broke away—testing him, maybe. He stuck close, like Boomer.

  Five paces more and a frenzy of quacking erupted. I jumped and Jay grabbed my hand. We watched in silence as three ducks rose out of the darkness and settled onto the middle of the glittery pond, bobbing as if nothing had happened.

  He twined his fingers betwee
n mine. I felt completely unprepared for this moment. He turned my face toward him.

  “Hey,” he said softly. His eyes bored into mine. Brown. Lit with flecks of night sky. He pulled me closer. “You look beautiful.”

  I couldn’t think. The vodka. The flecks. Feeling wanted. His mouth covered mine. I didn’t kiss back at first, but his warm hands cupped the nape of my neck and I felt myself melt into him, so needy for this and the softness of his lips, his Vanity Fair scent filling my head.

  Jay Seavers knew what he was doing. I heard a zipping sound and a few heartbeats later, my Mardi Gras green dress slipped from my torso. I clutched it, but heard Hattie. You have a pretty smokin’ hot bod these days, Reddi.

  “Hey,” I said in the absolute fakest protest ever. I didn’t know who I was. Certainly not my overthinking, neurotic self. I dropped my dress.

  “Whoops,” he replied with equal fakeness that he somehow pulled off.

  Next thing I knew, we were lying in the grass and his breath was on my cheek and his hands were everywhere at once. He murmured embarrassing things in my ear and I couldn’t get ahold of myself. His glossy eyes hovered over mine. I watched a vein pulse in his temple. Thump. Thump. Thump. Were we going to be a couple? Me and Jay Seavers?

  “You want to?” he asked. I had no idea. “Don’t worry, I have a condom.” That was actually not at the top of my worry list, but I couldn’t think. Thump. Thump. Thump. He smiled and I closed my eyes.

  Somewhere in the midst of replaying all these memories, I finished my shift at the dinner theater. I found myself sitting in our driveway with the engine running, staring at my dad’s rosebushes. I shook my head like that would clear Captain Dickhead out once and for all. Not that simple. “I need to go for a run,” I said aloud, and got out of the car.

  As I changed, I told myself it didn’t matter if Hammy forgot the Summer of Hammy and Reid, or changed his mind. He was pretty high when he asked me, after all. So if he didn’t call, I wouldn’t blame him. I’d be bummed, but I had the running goals for cross-country, and the third season of Outlander awaited me after my shower and dinner.

  I swung one foot up onto a bookshelf in the family room and stretched my hamstrings. “I’m taking Boomer for a run,” I announced to Mom, Linda, and Spencer, who were jigsaw puzzling at the kitchen table.