Mom’s distraction as an opportunity to skim my notebook for key words and phrases I’d copied from the diary.
“But, Mom?” I said into the phone.
“Yeah?”
“‘What is life, if not for living?’” I was hoping she would recognize her own quote.
“Is that from that Weight Watchers commercial?”
“No. It’s from something else.”
“Well, I don’t see what it has to do with me coming to Nantucket, especially since I get seasick on boats.” Yeah right, I thought. In the diary, she and Lover Boy had been on numerous boat trips. There was a ferry ride to Cape Cod for a stolen night in a motel, into which they checked in as “Mr. and Mrs. Donald Duck.” There was also a zippy cruise in a Boston Whaler out to Tuckernuck Island, not to mention a secret sunrise sail. Mom’s computer zinged with a hearts victory.
“Mom, are you sure you have seasickness? Are you sure that you’re not inventing that?”
“Excuse me, but I think I know whether or not I get sick on boats.”
“Then take a pill!” I said.
“Watch your tone, please,” she said.
Gavin knocked on the sliding glass door and made a “keep it down” gesture. I gave him the okay signal. I hadn’t realized I’d yelled.
“Sorry, Mom. I just want you to picture this.” I glanced at the notebook, skipping over any boat-related notes. “Dunes. Sunsets. Lobster. Cisco Beach. Beer.”
“Beer? I don’t drink beer,” she said. “What’s this about? Oh no. Have you signed me up for some singles’ thing? I told you—”
“No, Mom. I just want you to come out here for my birthday,” I said. “It’s only a week away.”
“You were nine the last time you wanted me around on your birthday.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to college next year so maybe I’m feeling sentimental.”
“Well, that’s very sweet. But I’m afraid I’d come all the way out there and you’d just want to be with your friends, not boring old Mom.” Boring old Mom? I was staring at the words “nude beach” in her diary. “How about when you get back, we go out to Sue’s Clam Shack? Are you sure there’s no one that you want to see out here?”
“The only person on Nantucket I want to see is you, and I’m going to see you in just a few short weeks.” Zing! A hearts success.
“I just want you to think about it. Promise me you’ll think about it.”
I hung up and opened the book, wishing I could find the right words, the ones that would lure her back out to this island, this unlikely rock of love. The problem was that in the diary she was more specific about what she and Lover Boy had done to each other’s bodies than where exactly they’d been. I wasn’t about to recite those passages to her. I could barely read them without wanting to barf. A page caught my attention—she’d written in a circle around a poem.
Dear Emily,
Right now I’m sitting in front of the library, where I’ve come to escape Aunt Betty, who was lecturing me on the importance of knowing how to properly set a table. She thinks my parents haven’t taught me any feminine charms. All I want to do is think about last night with Lover Boy. On one hand, I’m confused because he canceled our last date. He said he needed to work on law school applications and it gave me a weird feeling. It’s still only summer and he’s barely mentioned law school this whole time! On the other hand, I wonder if I’m being paranoid. He cares so much about his future. He has big dreams. I want him to follow his dreams! And it was just last week when he told me that he loves me, and I knew it was true when he said it, the way you just know. He loves me!
I’m listening to the crickets as I write this. And I just realized that I’m writing here on your poem about the cricket. I love that crickets are here in this magical time, when it’s not night or day but some in-between time. I’m deciding right now that when I want to think of a day with magic in it, I’ll think of this day. I will say to myself: Cricket. It will be my secret code word for magic or love or both.
Love, K.
My name. Mom had always said that I got my name because I used to chirp in my crib. But that wasn’t the whole truth. I read