Pilgrims Don't Wear Pink Read online

  “That does sound scary,” he agreed. “So . . . where’s your boyfriend?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.” I looked down at the sand. “But if you mean Cam, he went to go practice with the other Squaddies.”

  “Ah, yes, the annual Demo Squad serenade of ‘What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor?’ in which they all try to outdo each other in emulating the titular sailor,” he said disdainfully.

  “Ahoy!” We turned simultaneously toward the boathouse, where President Harrow was standing in front of the band, microphone in hand. “Ahoy, avast, and gather ye round, mateys!” President Harrow was also in full pirate regalia and looked like he was having the time of his life.

  Garrett and I followed everyone else into the boathouse.

  “Welcome to the Sea Shanty Showdown, laddies and lassies!” he continued, booming over the microphone. “I be Captain Harrow, and welcome to me boathouse. The Dread Pirate Travis”—President Harrow indicated the unhappy-looking pirate who had signed us in—“will be announcin’ the competitors as they take the stage. When it be over, the dread panel of judges, who be me-self, the Jolly Roger”—here he indicated Roger the publicist—“and sweet Maddie May”—our internship coordinator, in a black pantsuit and an eye patch—“will be pickin’ the top three, and then ye, the unruly mob, shall decide the victor by the ancient test of the sea: the applause-o-meter!” The crowd cheered. “Dread Pirate Travis, the mike be yours. ARRRGH!” President Harrow finished up and passed the mike.

  “Hey,” Travis said glumly in the microphone. “Ashling? Did I pronounce that right? Ashling? Whatever.”

  “IT IS SUSANNAH FENNYWEATHER!” she boomed, roughly snatching the microphone away from Travis. “I know not what be this volume-enhancing stick of sorcery, but use it I shall.”

  Someone who sounded like Cam snickered and repeated, “Stick of sorcery.” I turned—all the Squaddies were in the back of the boathouse, clinking bottles and chugging beer.

  Ashling then busted out an off-key, operatic rendition of something called “Yankee Privateer,” which lasted for the longest seven minutes of my life. Yes, seven whole minutes. I watched them tick slooowly away on Garrett’s watch.

  Once Ashling quit the stage, amid a halfhearted smattering of applause, things improved vastly. Lots of different people and groups from the museum got up to sing, most of whom I didn’t know, singing songs I didn’t recognize, but they were all really good. I even found myself dancing a little bit to “Maggie May.” The Squaddies went last, and by this point they were all so trashed that “What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor?” was almost unintelligible. They swayed together in a large clump, until the one on the end abruptly fell over and passed out, cutting the song short with a dramatic conclusion. Laughing raucously, they dragged their fallen comrade offstage, back into the corner closest to the beer.

  “Now is the time for anyone who has been inspired by the magic of music and the spirit of the sea to sing if they so choose,” the Dread Pirate Travis read dispassionately off a sheet of paper, returning to his post on the microphone.

  “Libby does a unique interpretation of ‘Hey, Ho, Blow the Man Down,’” Ashling said nastily, putting extra emphasis on the words ho and blow.

  “Yeah, Libby, blow the man down!” one of the Squaddies yelled.

  “Cam, dude, you need to hit that,” another Squaddie said, so loudly and drunkenly that everyone heard.

  “Are you singing ‘Blow the Man Down’?” Travis pointed the microphone limply in my direction.

  “NO!” I shouted, trying not to cry, although my lip betrayed me with a telltale wobble. I felt someone touch my arm. It was Garrett, and he looked pissed, a muscle tightening in his jaw.

  “Are you okay?” he asked concernedly. “Don’t pay any attention to them,” he whispered. “They’re just drunk assholes.”

  “I know,” I whispered back. If I cried at something called a Sea Shanty Showdown, I would never forgive myself.

  “Okay, then. Whatever,” Travis continued, “are you gonna sing something else?”

  “Um . . .”

  “Sing! Sing! Sing!” Somehow, a drunken chant/slow clap had materialized. “Do it! Do it!”

  It was like a mob situation. People I didn’t know were propelling me forward, until I somehow, inexplicably, ended up in front of the band, microphone in hand, abandoned by the Dread Pirate Travis. Garrett stood in the corner, shrugging wildly, making facial movements like he was sorry but had no idea what had happened.

  I didn’t know any sea shanties. I mean, yes, I had recognized the tune of a few of them from Ashling’s CD, but that’s it. I didn’t know any of the lyrics. Standing up in front of a packed boathouse, I could only think of one vaguely water-related song I knew all the words to, because Dev had preformed it as Tina Turner in the talent portion of the Miss Gay Minnesota Drag Pageant, and I had been one of his backup dancers. It wasn’t a sea shanty. It was a body-of-water pop song. But it was the best I had.

  “Do you guys know ‘Proud Mary’?” I turned to the band. Silence. “Tina Turner?” I whispered frantically. Nothing. Oh, this was not good. “Just, um, follow my lead, I guess.” That worked in movies and stuff.

  “I left a good job in the city,” I started tentatively, a cappella.

  “Working for the man every night and day

  And I never lost one minute of sleeping

  Worrying ’bout the way things might have been.”

  The accordion player picked up on what I was doing.

  “Big wheel keep on turning

  Proud Mary keep on burning.”

  Now the whole band was in on it—fiddle, accordion, banjo, and all.

  “And we’re rolling, rolling

  Rolling on the river.”

  Now I was really getting into it. Like full-on belting it out, and the band was rocking. Well, as much as an accordion can rock.

  “Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis

  Pumped a lot of ’tane down in New Orleans

  But I never saw the good side of the city

  Till I hitched a ride on a riverboat queen.”

  Without me even knowing that I was doing it, I’d started up the arm motions. The original choreography had arisen from the depths of my subconscious and it was out in full force.

  “Big wheel keep on turning

  Proud Mary keep on burning

  And we’re rolling, I said we’re rolling

  Rolling on the river.”

  By this point, the crowd was really into it. Like jumping and screaming and woohing and singing along. People were even dancing! I felt like frickin’ eighteenth-century pirate Hannah Montana or something, with all those screaming people.

  “If you come down to the river

  I bet you gonna find some people who live

  You don’t have to worry if you got no money

  People on the river are happy to give.”

  Yeah, I was full-on Tina Turner–ing it up there. Like crazy-dancing power-belting Tina Turner.

  “Big wheel keep on turning

  Proud Mary keep on burning

  And we’re rolling, rolling

  Rolling on the river.”

  People were woohing and calling, “Take it home! Wooh! Yeow!”

  And I did.

  “Rolling, yeah! Rolling, rolling on the river.

  Rolling, ooh! Rolling, rolling on the river.

  Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river.”

  The crowd erupted into thunderous applause. All of sudden, I remembered where I was, blushed furiously, and shoved the microphone back at Travis. It was like I’d been momentarily possessed by Tina Turner, and she’d just left my body.

  “What,” Garrett shouted over the roar, clapping madly, “the hell was that?!”

  “I have no idea!” I shouted back.

  “That was amazing! I had no idea you could sing like that!”

  “Oh, I was in church choir, back in Minnesota, and stuff.”

  “Church choir.” He
laughed. “Jesus, Libby, that was something else.”

  “Quiet, quiet.” Travis was tapping the microphone, restoring order. “The judges have determined that, although that was face-meltingly awesome, it was not, in fact, a shanty, so disqualified. Bummer.”

  A handful of people booed, but I didn’t care about winning the Showdown. He proceeded to announce the three finalists. I clapped distractedly throughout the applause-o-meter, barely noticing that my favorite “Maggie May” group took first place—I was too jittery from all the adrenaline. It was like I’d just chugged a case of Diet Coke, eaten a bag of Pixy Stix, and gone on a roller coaster. As the crowd broke up, I went out to get a root beer for the way home.

  When I got back in, I looked around for Cam—we had come together, so I had thought we would leave together. But the only Squaddie I saw was the one who had passed out, who was now awake and vomiting noisily into a pirate hat.

  I left the boathouse and stood on the dock, scanning the beach and the water for Cam.

  “Libby, he’s not coming.” It was Garrett, standing behind me, fiddling awkwardly with the zipper on his navy hoodie sweatshirt.

  “Well, he might.” Garrett gave me a look. “Okay, he’s probably not coming,” I agreed, “but we didn’t make plans to leave together or anything, so—”

  “You can’t apologize for him forever,” Garrett said sanctimoniously.

  “That’s none of your business,” I snapped. God, why did he always act like he was better than everybody?

  “Sorry.” He sounded surprised. “I was just trying to—”

  “Well, stop. Just stop.” I hugged myself, cold in the wind. I sighed noisily, not really in the mood to fight. “It’s been a long night.”

  “No kidding.” He ran a hand though his messy hair. “Especially when Ashling sang ‘Yankee Privateer.’”

  I laughed shakily. “True story. I think I aged seven years in those seven minutes.” I shivered even more violently. Even though it was summer, it got cold at night.

  “Come on.” He started walking. “Let’s go home.”

  “You know,” I said, as I trotted after him with my teeth starting to chatter. “This would be the point where a gentleman would offer me his coat.” Because even though it said “Starfleet Academy” on the back of his hoodie, I was cold enough that even that was looking appealing.

  “I didn’t think you’d want it.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t go with your outfit.”

  “Wow, Garrett.” I was stunned. “I didn’t know one could manage to be both sensitive and insensitive at the same time.”

  “It’s a gift,” he said, stopping to unzip his hoodie. He held it out to me. “Are you coming?”

  Wordlessly, I took the hoodie from his outstretched hand, and followed him into the night.

  Six

  “Please just put on the SPF forty-five.”

  “No, Suze, no! For the thousandth time, no!” I sat up in my Little Mermaid beach chair and turned to look at her. “I want to come back from this summer at least a little tan.”

  “You’ll be very sorry if you come back with even a little skin cancer.” She squirted out another giant blob of sunscreen. I don’t know where she kept putting it, as there was barely a square inch of her flesh exposed to the sun. She had on a huge straw hat, sunglasses, an oversize “Go Public!” NPR T-shirt, and capris over her bathing suit. I hadn’t actually seen said alleged bathing suit, but I assumed it was pretty full coverage.

  “I’m not gonna get skin cancer!” I shuffled around in my beach bag and pulled out the Hawaiian Tropic bottle I’d just bought at the CVS. “See? This Golden Tanning Lotion has SPF six!”

  She shook her head. “Libby, I’m just saying, there’s no need to give you-know-who more ammo. She’s really, really mad.”

  “What? Who?” I reclined my chair, closing my eyes under my sunglasses. “Ashling?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, looking over her shoulder to peer under the nearby beach umbrellas.

  I don’t know what she was looking for—even though we were at the public beach in downtown Camden Harbor, at the height of tourist season, there was barely anyone there. Just a mom with two little kids, and another girl around our age, napping in the sun in an itsy-bitsy bikini.

  “You don’t need to call her you-know-who, Suze. We’re not in Harry Potter, and she’s not Voldemort. Fear of name creates fear of a thing. Or whatever it was that Dumbledore said.”

  “Fine. Ashling is really, really mad.”

  “What’s she mad about?” I asked.

  “The Sea Shanty Showdown!” Suze squealed. “She is furious, furious, that you didn’t perform an actual shanty. She’s been yelling about historical accuracy and total disrespect for traditions and all sorts of things nonstop. And then last night I heard someone screaming in the basement . . . screaming like a wounded animal.” Suze’s eyes took on a haunted look. “For a brief, crazy second, I thought it was the ghost, but then I noticed Ashling wasn’t in her bed. She won’t admit it, but I think she’s also really mad that you got more applause than she did. Which is probably why she resorted to primal-scream therapy, to try to deal with these feelings she can’t express or articulate, because she’s trying to deny them,” Suze added thoughtfully.

  “Yikes.” It’s not like I had gone out of my way to piss Ashling off. I hadn’t even planned on singing. Really, she had no one to blame but herself—she started it. I never would have even been up there in the first place without her catalytic “Blow the Man Down” comment. “So she’s really mad, huh?” I chewed my lip.

  “Yes. And then when I asked her if she wanted to come to the beach with us—”

  “You asked her if she wanted to come to the beach with us?!” I shot back up. “Suze, it’s my day off. I want to enjoy myself.”

  To that end, I’d invited Suze to pick up beach supplies (magazines, tanning lotion, foldable Disney-printed children’s beach chairs, and towels) at the CVS in downtown Camden Harbor and walk to the beach with me to spend the afternoon in the sun. I reasoned it would be silly to spend a whole summer on the Maine coast and never have seen the beach.

  “I know, I know,” she apologized. “But I didn’t want to leave her out. I didn’t want to make things worse than they already are. I wanted to make peace.”

  “To use a nautical phrase, I think that ship has sailed.” I leaned back again.

  “But then she went on this diatribe about needing to protect her porcelain complexion from the sun’s fierce power,” Suze continued in a rush, “and how only a—oh, what did she say—a ‘common streetwalking slag,’” Suze remembered, “would allow herself to be browned by the sun.”

  “Gee, I wonder who she was talking about,” I said sarcastically.

  “Libby, what if she stones you? Or builds stocks and a pillory in the town green? Or makes you wear a scarlet letter?” Suze asked fearfully.

  “While I wouldn’t put any of those past her, I think I’ll be okay. Ashling doesn’t run Camden Harbor. What is she going to do, ask Maddie to have the costume shack embroider a scarlet ‘T’ for ‘tan’ on my chest?” Plus, that kind of punishment had gone out with the Puritans in the 1600s. It was 1791 in Camden Harbor—practically the modern age. Ashling would never do something so historically inaccurate.

  Suze picked up her book. I rustled around in my bag and pulled out my Martha Stewart Living. Thankfully, it was not owned by Mono Corps, which I’d decided to boycott as a sign of solidarity with my still absent friend. I hadn’t heard from Dev since that last frightening conversation, and I was starting to think it increasingly likely that he’d been whacked by the cashmere mafia. And no matter what I did, no matter how many times I called him, I couldn’t reach him! It was so frustrating to know that something was wrong but not be able to do anything about it.

  I flipped it open: “Martha’s Flower-Arranging Secrets: Six Steps to Beautiful Bouquets.” Ah, now this was more like it. Relaxing in the sunshine with a lovely floral pictorial spread. I wa
s well on my way to a beautiful bouquet—five steps in, in fact—when . . .

  “Hey.”

  I looked up, squinting into the sun in my cheap white designer-knockoff sunglasses. They sort of made me look like a bug, but I liked them. I held up a hand to shield my eyes and saw Garrett standing above me, illuminated by the sun.

  “Hey, Garrett, what’s up?” I squinted at him. We’d been getting along a lot better since the Sea Shanty Showdown. I’d learned not to bring up anything that could possibly prompt him to wax rhapsodic about sci-fi or computer games or anything equally lame, and he’d learned not to walk around barefoot. He’d even stopped calling me “Hello Kitty” for the most part. Sometimes he called me “Proud Mary” now, but I decided that was an upgrade.

  “Do you know Suze?” I asked. They nodded at each other. It seemed like Garrett knew everybody here, but I guess he was actually from Camden Harbor, so it made sense. Plus he had all those nosy investigative reporter instincts.

  “Hi,” she said shyly, squirting out an extra-big goop of still-more SPF 45.

  “You here to work on the tan?” I asked him. “Because no offense, you’ve got a long way to go.” I mean, Garrett almost made me look tan, and I was one step away from albino. But nothing creates a pallor like bathing yourself in the flicker of a computer screen. Turned out I’d been right about my World of Warcraft hunch. Garrett had confessed one night that he’d had to quit cold turkey after he’d been so involved with the game, he almost missed his own graduation.