Huntley Fitzpatrick - What I Thought Was True

Nic stares at them, blinking as though he’s just woken up, then shakes off Cass’s arm, backing toward the parking lot.

“I’m good, don’t worry about me,” Spence assures Vivien.

Spence is assuring Vivien?

“You’re hurt,” she says, her voice cracking.

“Flesh wound,” Spence tells her. And he smiles at her in a way I’ve never seen Spence smile at anyone. “Don’t. God, Viv. Don’t cry. Please. You know that kills me.”

Hooper and I are gaping at them, as is pretty much everyone else.

“Yeah,” Nic says. “This is just . . . Just . . . well . . . fuck this.” He turns around, scrubs his eyes with the heels of his hands, starts to walk away.

“Holy shit,” Hoop says.

“Go after him, Gwen,” calls Vivien, still wiping away blood. She’s crying. For Nic? For Spence? Not knowing which makes me flash white-hot furious.

“Me? What about you? And you, Spence? What was that? It’s not enough to take his captain shot, you had to go for his girlfriend too?”

“This isn’t like that, Gwen,” Cass says. Spence just stares at the ground.

“This? There’s a this? And you knew? When were you going to tell me? Ever? What happened to ‘I’m not going to lie to you, Gwen’?”

He’s ruffling his hand through his hair with that same expression he had the night after the Bronco.

Guilt.

Viv’s still crying. Spence is wiping away the blood still running from his nose with the back of his hand. Hoop’s muttering, “I haven’t had enough beer to deal with this.” Pam and Manny and the other island kids are standing around helplessly, murmuring.

And I can’t stop my mouth. “So what did you two do to get this?” I ask.

“What did we do?” Cass asks, low and furious. “We swam. I deserve this. Spence does. This has nothing to do with money. It’s about teamwork. And you know it. Maybe Nic used to be able to do that. But he can’t anymore. I don’t know why, but you know it’s true. He’s a cheater.”

“Nice, Cass. You’ve taken this away from him. And now you take his integrity too? Classy.”

“I didn’t take anything, Gwen.”

I back up, move away from all this, everything, everyone.

“I didn’t take anything,” he repeats, turning away.

I scramble up to the parking lot. But there is no longer any sign of Nic.

* * *

“Come fly, come fly come fly with me,” sings Frank Sinatra loudly, in his seductively snappy alto. Emory is swaying to the beat, doing his version of finger snapping, which involves flicking his pointer fingers against his thumbs. He’s got the happy head-bobbing down, though. Grandpa Ben is cooking dinner, waggling his skinny old-man hips in time to the beat. I reach over to turn Frank’s exuberance down a few notches, but still have to bellow when I ask if he’s seen Nic.

Grandpa Ben shrugs.

“He didn’t come back here? Where the hell did he go? Where’s Mom?”

Ben clucks his tongue. “Language, Guinevere. He was not here when I got back from the farmer’s market. Your mother, she is on a date.”

A what?

Nic’s pulled a disappearing act. Viv’s consoling Spence. Cass knew. And I blew him off, even when I . . . I . . . And Mom’s on a date. Whose life is this???

Grandpa shrugs again, points to the note scrawled on the dry-erase board on the fridge. “Papi. On a walk around the island with a friend. If you see Nic, talk to him.”

“If you see him, keep him here,” I say. “I’m going to look for him.”

I grab Mom’s car keys, clatter down the stairs, and am throwing the Bronco into reverse before it occurs to me to wonder how Grandpa Ben managed to translate a “walk around the island with a friend” into a date.

They’re walking side by side. Not holding hands or anything. But side by side is startling enough. Mom with any man but one on the cover of a book is a jolt. I jerk the truck to a halt. “Mom. Coach? Where’s Nic? Have you seen him?”

Mom’s frowning, worried. Coach’s face looks, if possible, even ruddier than usual. He’s out of his element, no whistle, wearing a baggy yellow windbreaker that somehow looks sadder, so much less official than his SBH jacket.

“We were hoping with you. He was headed to that bonfire,” Mom says. “Wouldn’t talk to me. He was wicked upset.”

Wicked. Dad’s word.

“I’ll say,” I snap, trying not to glare at Coach. Who’s just doing his job and not actually responsible for this whole mess.

“Look, Gwen,” Coach says, weary but resolute. “Inches from winning state this year. We need captains with nothing to prove. Gotta have that. Nic’s a solid kid . . . but these days, he’s no team player.”

“I should have insisted he talk to me,” Mom says. “I tried calling after he left, but I just got that damn voicemail. He never recharges his phone.” She pulls out her own, punches in a number, shakes her head. “Stupid voicemail again.” The creases in her forehead deepen. “Get Vivien,” she tells me. “She’ll know where he is.”

* * *

He’s not at Abenaki. I strain my eyes, looking way out beyond the pier, but there’s nothing in the water but a flock of seagulls, and a lone kayaker way far out. The bridge by the Green Woods is still and deserted. Standing there, I feel a pang. What used to be Nic’s and my place, years of memories, feels as if it belongs to me and Cass now. That thought leaves me feeling strangely disloyal. How did I not know about Viv? I’m so off balance, the way you are when you step off a rocking boat onto land, not sure how to find your footing.

I drive back to Sandy Claw, but the logs from the bonfire are just embers now, and no one’s still hanging around. Nobody at Plover Point, not even the plovers, who have raised their eggs and moved on. I pull into Hoop’s driveway to find him sitting on the steps smoking.

“Not here?”

“Nope.” Hoop drops the cigarette, grinds it out with the heel of his flip-flop. “I was hoping you were him when I saw the Bronc. Not answering texts either. Dunno where he is, but he’s on foot, since we hit the beach in my truck. Wanna beer?”

I shake my head, tell him to text me if Nic shows. He nods, lighting another cigarette, popping open another beer. As I drive away, I see him in the rearview, rumpled shirt, shoulders slumped. Will he still be sitting on those same steps, doing those same things, twenty years from now?

I find myself driving to Castle’s.

It’s ten thirty, a slow night, and it’s shutting down. All the other workers have long since gone home. There’s only Dad, tossing water on the grill, scraping off the last particles of grease and onions. Pulling out Saran Wrap to cover the tubs of ice cream in the freezer so they won’t get freezer burn before he jams the lips on. Chopping onions and peppers for tomorrow’s hash browns, knife flashing so fast it’s a blur. Those jobs are so familiar. I’ve done them all. Dad’s concentrating, never looks up to see me watching him.

This is the last place Nic would ever go.

I’m not even sure why I came. That “fix it, Dad” feeling? I can practically hear Cass saying, “You get pissed off when I rescue you.” I swallow the lump in my throat.

We were doing so well there for a second.

* * *

I drive back toward Seashell, hitting the gates just as Cass’s BMW roars up the other direction on Ocean Road, a little too fast over the speed bumps.

We both slow to a stop, our headlights picking out individual blades of grass on well-mown, carefully tended lawns on either side of the street, their brilliance turning the green into gray and white.

The passenger-side door of Cass’s car opens, and Viv climbs out, crossing over to me.

“You gonna hear me out?” she asks.

“You gonna help me find Nic?” I return.

She walks around the front of the Bronco, opens the passenger-side door and slides in.

I expect Cass to zoom away immediately, but he doesn’t, idling the BMW by the side of the road, waiting . . . for what? Me to get out and talk to him? What am I supposed to say?

I stay where I am, and after a few seconds, he pulls forward and leaves us in the quiet of the night.

“I didn’t mean to,” Viv says, quickly, like she’s accidentally broken a plate or something.

I slow to Seashell’s only stop sign. Shift into park, because no one’s behind us. No one’s in any hurry this time of night. Ever, really, on Seashell. That’s one of the promises that should be on the sign separating us from the causeway. All the time in the world.

Except that that’s a promise no one can really make.

Forever.

“You got together with Spence by accident?” I ask, then hate the harshness in my voice. If anyone can understand that, it should be me. But Viv isn’t supposed to have “crumble lines.” Or not this kind. And if she did . . . why didn’t she tell me?

She leans her head back against the headrest, eyes shut. “What do I say to you, Gwen? I hate that you know this. I’m glad you know this. I want to make excuses . . . I want to say they’re enough. But they’re not. I hurt Nic. You. If I didn’t lie to you, I sure didn’t tell you the truth, even when we said no secrets. Joke’s on me. Because, let’s face it, in my head I was all judgey about you and some of your choices. Alex, freaking Jim freshman year. Ugh. Cass, the first time around. Spence . . . I pretended not to be, but I was . . . smug. Like I couldn’t get what you were thinking, so you must have been wrong. I guess you knew that. You had to have felt it. I guess that’s why we couldn’t really talk this summer. ’Cause I suddenly got it. And . . . and I didn’t want to get it! I wanted Nic. Only. Ever. Until . . . Until I didn’t anymore. And I didn’t know what to do with that.”

Did I know, deep down? Maybe. This weird feeling I’ve had this summer . . . I thought it was because things were different—me the third wheel, not a threesome anymore. But maybe I somehow knew that we really were, really, not a threesome anymore.

I lean my forehead on the steering wheel. “But Spence, Viv? Why him—of all people?” I turn so I can see her, flipping my hair away from my face. “Did you do it to . . . to hurt Nic? Is that what this—Spence—is about?” As I ask, I feel an unwanted pang of sympathy for Spence, the handy weapon in someone else’s war. Again.

“No. Not at all.” She flushes. “But hell, Gwen . . . I thought Nic and I were . . . in this together. And then he’s all . . . ‘well . . . eight years from now, we’ll’ . . . Eight years! What am I supposed to do, while he’s off having adventures, meeting girls who . . . I don’t know. Dangle from tow ropes with their teeth? He’s supposed to stay impressed with the girl who keeps everyone’s water glasses filled? Screw that. I . . . can’t compete. And I . . . don’t want to. What’s wrong with wanting to be here? If what I want is a little less big, less noble, than what he wants . . . does that make me a loser? That’s the thing. I don’t feel like a loser with Spence. He . . . I . . . Al got that contract to work with the Bath and Tennis Club late this spring . . . and it seemed like everything he did there, we’d run into Spence, because even though his dad owns it, his dad is kind of . . . out of it. At first I started talking to him just because of business. But then . . . he’s not who I thought he was. At all.”

I’m starting to wonder who is. But to be fair, I have to weigh the six or whatever girls in the hot tub against Cass’s unflinching loyalty and those flashes of perceptiveness I’ve seen myself.

“I started feeling . . . really liking him . . . that’s why I wanted the ring. I thought it would make me stop thinking about Spence and focus on Nicky.”

“You do know that’s incredibly messed up, right?”

She raises her hands in defense. “You don’t get to be the only one who can be stupid and blind, Gwen.”

“Yeah, welcome to my world.” I’m laughing despite myself. But then I sit up and look at her, my lifelong friend, with the cartilage piercings at the top of her ear that Nic hated, but never told her because she wanted them, and I hurt so much for my cousin—what he had, what he lost—that I have to fold my arms against my stomach to keep the pain contained. “Viv? Did you ever really love Nic?” I ask it, and then wish I hadn’t. I’m not sure I want to hear the answer.

“I’ll always love him.” She responds so quickly that I know it’s true. “He was my first . . . everything. I never thought—I never planned—he’d be anything but my only everything. But these few months, and especially the last few weeks—it’s not the same. He’s . . . not the same.”