Between Us and the Moon - Rebecca Maizel Page 0,68
he’s talking about Mike, too.
It just comes through me; I don’t even know why I say it. Maybe I say it because it’s true and right now saying anything true roots me to the ground.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” I say. “All the time.”
He kisses me again and we only pull apart when a group of women laugh up near the stairs. Their voices echo over the beach.
I feel alone with Andrew even though there are people around. We decide not to bother with the bonfire party tonight with all of his friends. Who needs a beer keg and a drum circle when there’s Andrew and me under the stars?
As the last of the Technicolor sparks rain back to Earth, we spend hours on the beach. I don’t even know what time it is when the beach starts to empty out. All I know, all I need to know is this: Andrew, the constellations, and me.
TWENTY
“BEAN!” MOM SAYS THE NEXT MORNING AND OPENS the door my bedroom. “Phone!”
I’m still in bed with one eye squinted open at my cell phone; I missed a text from Claudia at 11 p.m.
CLAUDIA: Details on that guy? Beach soon?
She doesn’t seem weirded out by last night’s fiasco. I am about to text her back when Mom calls me again, “Beanie! It’s Gran!”
Gran! Thank God! I’m out of bed, down the stairs, and when I hit the bottom all the glass chandeliers shake. Nancy’s face scrunches when she looks up from flipping through an address book. On the table in front of her are RSVP cards. I bring the phone outside to the patio and shut the door behind me. I sit down on my favorite Adirondack farthest from the door.
“Finally! Someone with some sanity!” I cry.
“Break on through to the other side!” she sings through the phone.
And on cue, the truth serum is in effect.
“Gran. I think,” I whisper, “I think I’m in love.”
“It’s a little too late, dear. Jim Morrison is dead,” she whispers back.
“Har. Har. No, with a boy. He loves The Doors.” I’m back to speaking at a normal decibel.
“And I just thought you missed your granny.”
Nancy opens the patio door; I am sure she’s trying to eavesdrop, but I don’t think she can when I’m all the way down here. Even though she’s Gran’s sister, she doesn’t understand our relationship.
“And now you do too?” Gran asks. “Love The Doors?”
“It’s more than that. I want to talk to this guy, connect with him, you know what I mean?”
“Sure do.”
Gran talks to me about the ’60s, the Vietnam War, and space travel. She tells me about The Doors and other bands she liked during that time. I tell her all about the Comet Jolie. I don’t tell her about Andrew and me on the beach. But I do ask this.
“Do you think . . .”
I have no one to ask. And let’s face it, what we did on the beach has been on my mind since it happened and I want it to happen again. But I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do or when you do it or how you ask for it again.
“Do you think . . . ,” I try again.
“This is a sex question isn’t it?” Gran asks. I open my mouth but nothing comes out. “You took too long to respond, dear,” she says. I can imagine her at her house in San Diego, overlooking the water. “I guess we have come to that magical age. Spit it out,” she says, and I wish I was there sitting with her and Gracie.
“Well, are you supposed to want to touch a boy? I mean, when you love him?”
“Hell, honey, you can want to touch him even if you think he’s a complete ass!”
I laugh at this. It echoes out to the trees and bay in the distance. I haven’t laughed in this house in a long time.
I take a breath of salty air to ask something else but can’t find the courage to admit I would lie to someone about my age. I want Gran to tell me it’s natural, that people lie all the time. I want her to invent some way that I can be with Andrew and continue to let him think I am going to MIT in the fall. I never thought the lie with Andrew would go this far. I never thought he would want to be with me.