this summer.”
In that moment, Miah sees me and his face lights up. He meets us on the top step.
“Captain.”
“I almost didn’t recognize you with shoes.”
“They’re like prisons for the feet.”
Beside me, my mom clears her throat.
“Jeremiah.”
“Mrs. Henry.”
“Call me Lauren.” She doesn’t correct him about the last name. “So tell me about yourself. How long are you here? What is it you do when you’re not on the island? And what are your intentions with my daughter?” She pretend-frowns.
“Ignore her, please,” I say to him.
He says, “The next three weeks. Try not to get in trouble. And I have no idea.”
This makes her smile. “Okay, then. Interrogation over.” To me she says, “Don’t worry. I’m going to go talk to that nice couple from Cleveland. See you at dinner.”
After she walks away, I say, “Are you eating with us?”
“I can’t. I thought I was. Hence the prisons for the feet. But Bram’s having an Outward Bound emergency. After I help save some stranded trail clearers, I’ll come get you and we can walk on the beach. There’s a meteor shower tonight and it should be pretty incredible, as long as the moon doesn’t get in the way.”
There are voices and the bang of a door, and suddenly all these guests and staff are milling around and converging on us. I wave to Jared and Wednesday but in my mind I’m going, Don’t come over, don’t come over. Wednesday looks past me at Miah and then turns away. I try not to focus on the way her hair shines in the early-evening light.
“You left your phone in my truck.” Miah hands it to me and says, “I brought you something else.” It’s a clear container with a black lid. Filled with treasure.
I open the lid and shake the contents back and forth, examining the shark teeth and shells and other pieces of things I can’t identify. I pull out the prehistoric tooth he found. “But that’s yours.”
“We found it together.”
For the first time, I feel this kind of weird formality with him. Maybe it’s because we’re dressed as if we’re going to prom and he’s not barefoot and my mom is somewhere nearby, but I don’t know what to say.
The ringing of a bell makes me jump. Miah is on his feet, the ones imprisoned in shoes, and says again, “I’ll be here afterward to get you.” And he kisses me on the cheek, lingering there for a second. In my ear he says, “You are spectacular, Claudine Llewelyn Henry.”
* * *
—
After dinner, we drive to the dunes and spread out the blanket, and we’re the only living souls around. We lie down, side by side, under the largest moon I’ve ever seen. Miah says, “We may not get anything. But who knows? The brightest meteors can sometimes shine through, if we’re lucky.”
I’m feeling that same weird formality, even though I’m the only one dressed up. His suit jacket is gone, the pants have been replaced by shorts, and he’s barefoot again.
The night feels muted, as if it’s waiting, and we stay quiet, lying there, not touching. I want to lean over and kiss him or take his hand or feel his skin. I reach out to touch the gold of his arm, at the spot just below the rolled-up sleeve. My fingers are as light as a breeze. He looks down at them and then up at me.
“Captain.”
“Crew.” And then I laugh. “Captain. Crew. Get it?”
He stares at me for a good long minute and then he’s laughing too. “Goofball.”
Suddenly a single trail of light blazes above us, and the sky comes alive with streaks of light and color. We immediately go silent, staring upward. The meteors are like fireworks without the noise, and I imagine the sounds they would make if they could—a kind of bright, spiraling symphony.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to see them,” I whisper.
“We weren’t.”
We fall silent again, watching. They’re doing it just for us, I think. Our own private concert.
At some point, a long time later, I tell him, “My dad says that it’s a rare person you can be silent with. Companionable silence, that’s what he calls it. He says most people talk too much about nothing.” I can feel Miah’s eyes on me. “He says there’s a difference between not talking when you’re there together and not talking when one of you is there and one of you is there but far away.” My voice drifts off and now I’m thinking