my life. Like every part of me is open and exposed, but also completely awake, and like I can feel everything in the world, good and bad. Like I’m able to feel more somehow. But how do you protect yourself?
Saz texts: Yvonne and I used a dental dam. Because guess what? Lesbians can get STDs too, folks. I’d never even heard of such a thing, but Yvonne’s had more partners than I have, including Robbie Ziffren, and she’s super careful. (Remember Ziff? He was a senior when we were sophomores.)
I text: I sort of remember Ziff. (He hung out with the Lawler brothers, right?) But I’m not talking dental dams or condoms or birth control because I know all about that (thanks, Mom). I’m talking how do you make sure you don’t get hurt? Heart, mind, soul, etc.
I sit staring at the phone, at the little typing dots. I wait and I wait and I wait.
Behind the counter, Terri stands, stretches, and starts her routine of closing down the store for the day. She says, “Five minutes, Claude.”
“Okay.” I make a show of gathering my stuff, dragging it out as much as I can. Notebook in the bag. Pen in the bag. Hat on my head. Stand up. Push the chair in. Double-check that notebook is in the bag. Double-check that pen is in the bag. Dust off table. Pretend to look for keys when I haven’t used keys since Ohio because everyone on the island leaves their doors unlocked.
When I can’t delay any longer, I start walking toward the door. My hand is on the doorknob when the phone buzzes. I look down at the screen. After all these minutes, Saz has written just two words: You don’t.
* * *
—
I find Wednesday at the inn, changing the sheets in one of the downstairs guest rooms, the one off the library. I knock on the open door and she looks up at me over the bed, black braids swinging as she works. “Hey, Mainlander.” She doesn’t seem surprised to see me.
I walk into the room and she wrestles with the fitted sheet, so I grab a side and together we cover the mattress and smooth the wrinkles with our palms, and then we add the flat sheet and the comforter. All the while I’m trying not to picture her laughing with Miah on the front porch, which is exactly what my brain wants to do.
We arrange the pillows and the two of us stand back, shoulder to shoulder. I reach for a corner of the comforter and give it a tug so that it’s all perfectly even.
She says, “What do you want?”
“To ask you about Miah.”
“Did he tell you about us?”
“Only that you had something last summer.” I hate saying the words aloud because I hate that they’re true. It’s stupid, but I don’t want to think about Miah and Wednesday. I only want to think about Miah and me.
“So did you do it? Did you sleep with him?”
“We’ve been hanging out—”
“So you are sleeping with him.”
“I wanted to talk to you before we hang out again.”
“Why?”
“Because friends come first.”
“I wouldn’t really call us friends, Mainlander.”
“I just felt like I should ask you. It seemed like the right thing to do. So if you and Miah have something going on, I won’t hang out with him anymore.”
She sits on the corner of the bed. The whole time she’s looking at me, she rubs at the comforter, smoothing the wrinkles she’s created. “We were together for two or three weeks last summer, and that was it. But no, we don’t have anything going on now. Not since then.”
“Do you like him?”
“I barely know him.” She stands, gathering the old sheets off the floor. “You’ll see. By the end of the summer, you probably won’t know anything about him either. So you’re not going to bother me. But just be careful. Miah pretty much only cares about Miah.”
Again: Just be careful.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that he’s got this whole other life on the mainland that he never talks about, and when he’s done with you, he’s done. No ‘Hey, that was fun, thanks for the memories.’ So yeah, you can have him.”
I wait for a minute, in case she changes her mind. She bunches the sheets under one arm and then walks past me to the bathroom, where she dumps the sheets into a laundry basket and starts collecting towels.