Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel - By Hilary Thayer Hamann Page 0,101

a pull off his beer and minimized his eyes. He extended the bottle in my direction. I stepped forward, taking a mouthful and handing the bottle back.

“This is Rob,” Rourke said unceremoniously, as though stating the obvious, the way a wildlife guide might say, This is a lion. He kicked at the sandy ground. “Cirillo.”

“Hi,” I said. “Where are you from? Brooklyn?”

“Brooklyn,” he said with a grimace. “Jersey.” He flipped his chewing gum between his teeth. “I came out to see Harrison. He lives across the street.” Rob turned to Rourke. “She doesn’t know that?”

“Guess not,” Rourke said.

“Oh,” Rob said, “and I figured you were a smart girl.”

“Guess you figured wrong,” I said.

Rourke moved to the passenger side of the car, and he paused chillingly before stepping in. The door slammed shut.

“Guess I did,” Rob said, with a pause. “Figure wrong.”

Rourke’s anger was new to me. It was not slow and corrosive like Jack’s, but fast and volatile. I didn’t know Rob well, but it was clear he understood Rourke’s state of mind. I looked to him for an explanation, and he looked to me, withholding one. I was glad Rourke had him as a friend. I would’ve given anything for a friend like that.

Rob slipped from the hood, popping the latch of the driver’s door. On the red fender was the chrome head of a running cougar. Rob rolled down his window before getting in, and he looked at me. “See you,” he proposed with a cautious wink.

“See you,” I said, walking off before they pulled out. It was nice of Rob to let me go first.

By the time we got to the Tattler, I’d lost the spirit of the day. “I’m sorry,” I told Ray. “I think I’d better go home.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ray hollered over the noise of the bar. “I’m glad you came.”

“Can you give me a ride to the train?”

“I’ll drive you home,” he insisted. “I’m totally sober.”

“It’s okay. The train goes right to my house.”

In order to make the train, I had to say goodbye quickly. Everyone was disappointed to see me go, though no one seemed surprised. I wondered if I seemed like the type who would just head out.

“Don’t be a stranger to Montauk,” Mike said as I kissed his cheek.

Will patted my shoulder. “Take it easy there, Evie.”

“Don’t worry, Will,” Ray said, “she’ll take it easy everywhere.”

Jane gave me a hug and whispered, “I saw you with your beau.”

“Oh,” I said, “not the skinny guy.”

“I know, I’m not blind,” she snapped amiably. “Remember—find out where he lives.”

The Montauk train station is like a toy train depot. Alongside the station house and platform, there is a fanning spray of track lines where overflow cars get emptied, repaired, or cleaned. It was nearly dark. I wondered if Montauk got dark first in all of America because it’s so far east.

“Almost,” Ray said, checking his watch. “The New England coastline is farther east than we are. The most eastern spot is in Maine.”

“Still,” I said, “coming almost first in nightfall. And in dawn.”

“That’s right,” he said. “You’ll have to come back sometime when it’s less chaotic.”

By chaotic, I knew Ray was referring to Rourke, not to the parade. Though they hadn’t spoken, it would have been impossible for him not to have noticed Rourke appearing out of no place. If he had been a drawing, he would have been a scribbled hive or an inky twister approaching at a treacherous incline from the corner of an otherwise unpopulated page.

The doors of the waiting train opened all down the line. A uniformed man emerged and toddled unsteadily toward us. He looked like Oz—not the Magnificent Oz at the end of the movie, but the roadside fortune-teller at the beginning.

“And what can I do for you young revelers?”

Ray put his hand on my shoulder. “How much for one passenger, to East Hampton?”

The little man peered at me. “Well, now, that depends on whether or not you’re Irish.”

Ray said, “Everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day!”

The conductor mounted a set of steps to the last car. “You’ve a fine head, son. No charge!” He scanned the empty platform and cried out, “All aboard!” Silence filled the wake. “Looks like you’re the only passenger,” the man said. “Either you’re a rebel or you know something no one else does.”

“A rebel,” Ray said admiringly.

The trainman told Ray to check again. “This one has a secret.”

Ray gave me a kiss. “See you tomorrow in calculus,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, climbing