Nantucket Blue - By Leila Howland Page 0,27

with a flat, smooched face, but he wasn’t acting like it. He was sitting there like some kind of million-dollar man. It’s not fair. Guys can embrace their fatness as a unique personality trait, but we girls have to sit on the very edge of chairs in our shorts so as not to reveal the back-of-the-leg cellulite we feel bad for having even though everyone does. Well, everyone but Jules.

“Absolutely, dude,” Fitzy said, as cool and lean as a racehorse. He was wearing ’80s-style sunglasses even though it was ten o’clock at night. “How else do you explain the commonality of instincts for good and bad across wildly divergent cultures?”

I climbed the three stairs onto the porch. There was a bottle of Jim Beam between them, a pair of empty shot glasses, and plates with sandwich remains.

“I’m Oliver,” the fat one in the Deerfield Academy shirt said with a little chin nod. Okay, so I guess this was his house.

“Uh, hi,” I said. I stuck my sweaty hands in my pockets. “I’m Cricket.”

His eyes widened, full of thoughts. “I’ve heard about you. You know a friend of mine, Jay Logan.”

“Yeah,” I said, shifting my weight, glad I’d worn my good jeans. “Is he here?”

“I know he’s anxious to see you.” Oliver laughed. “He should be here any minute. In the meantime, have at it.” He opened the door and I stepped through.

Some sort of rap music was playing.… But wait, it wasn’t rap. It was more mellow and sophisticated. And I heard un–raplike instruments. I wanted to find out who it was so that I could download it. This could be part of my summer sound track. I could add it to the Jay playlist.

Jules was right. This wasn’t a big party. There were maybe twenty people here, and from the way they were lounging, leaning in door frames, draped on the furniture, on one another, I could tell they were all friends. I felt just a little foreign, like I was from Canada, or California.

Jules was sitting on the sofa holding a beer. She was wearing a little dress, and a Jack Rogers sandal dangled from her foot. She was tan, like she’d been at the beach all day. She also looked skinny—not anorexic or anything, just a tiny bit too thin. Actually, it was kind of the perfect amount. The pounds Jules had unnecessarily dropped made her features clearer, her cheekbones elegant. She looked older, that’s what it was. Why hadn’t I noticed last night?

Her Tiffany necklace dropped over the ridge of her clavicle and sparkled off center. She tried to cross her legs, but her crossing leg fell short. She swung her head back in a laugh. It took that extra effort for her to pull it back up, like the three pounds she’d lost had gathered in the ponytail spot. She was already drunk.

“Hey, Jules,” I said as I took a seat on the sofa between her and another girl, who I recognized almost immediately as Parker Carmichael. She had long, shampoo-commercial hair. I’d seen pictures of her at Jules’s house, and Jules talked about her sometimes. She was one of those horse girls who won jumping contests and had rock-hard thighs. Also, she was one of the Carmichaels, the big political family. The sofa felt a little snug for three people, but it was the only place to sit.

“Hey,” Jules said, and took another sip of beer. She made eye contact with Parker, then flapped her hand around to introduce us. “Parker, Cricket; Cricket, Parker.”

“Hi,” we said at the same time with zero enthusiasm.

“So, is Zack here?” I asked, filling the awkward silence.

“Still working,” Jules said, and wrinkled her brow. “How’d you get here?”

“I rode my bike,” I said, and shrugged, sensing that I was the only one who’d arrived on two wheels. I’d worn sneakers because I always wore sneakers when I rode a bike. It was the safe thing to do. But all the other girls had delicate shoes and pedicured feet. My dirty white Converses didn’t match the rest of me, which was kind of dressed up. And I was still a little sweaty. My bangs were sticking to my forehead. I felt the opposite of drunk. “So, where can I get a beer?”

“Kitchen,” Jules said, not even looking at me. She stood up, put a hand on her hip. “Hey, where’s Ginny? Is she on the trampoline?” she asked no one in particular.

“I think she’s with Fitzy,” Parker said. “Showing him