Second Star

16

Every morning I wake up with the sunrise. I grab John’s board and run down to the water. Sometimes, Pete and the crew beat me out the door, but most mornings, I’m the first one there. Every day I get a little braver, paddling out with no one else in sight, going farther and deeper into the ocean, taking on bigger waves. At night, alone in my room with nothing but the moonlight to illuminate the page, I scribble down every detail of the day in my notebook, but there’s nothing that feels like it’s going to lead me to my brothers, not yet. Instead, I find myself writing about Hughie’s smile and Matt’s goofy sense of humor, Belle’s dirty looks and the shivers that go down my spine every time Pete is close to me. When I finally pull the covers up around me, I can still feel the sensation of the waves rocking me back and forth, like some kind of lullaby. I’ve never slept so well in my life.

New muscles sprout up on my arms and legs. My stomach aches as my abdominal muscles develop. But the truth is, it also aches with hunger. Pete and his friends did get food with the cash they made from the raid on the Brentway house, but it’s not exactly the most nourishing stuff. Since we don’t have electricity, they only buy things that can be eaten without being cooked, things that don’t go bad when left unrefrigerated. It’s a lot of cold cereal and energy bars.

There’s an enormous old grill on the back porch, abandoned by whoever lived here before Pete and the boys. Pete finds me studying it one afternoon, my hair still wet from the morning’s surf, my bathing suit still damp.

“Whatcha doing?” he says, coming up from behind me.

“Checking out the grill,” I answer. It’s not all that different from the one in my parents’ backyard. Before my brothers ran away, my father used to grill our dinner every Sunday night. Steak, chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob—my mouth waters just thinking about it. I stood next to him while he cooked, every Sunday since I was five. He used to call me his sous-chef.

“What for?” Pete asks. I turn to face him. Beads of salt water sparkle across his shoulders in the sunlight.

I shake my head, grinning. “Come on,” I say, grabbing his hand. “We’re running some errands.”

Thirty minutes later, I turn the car into the parking lot of an enormous supermarket. My dad would disapprove. He liked to go to specialty stores and greenmarkets early Sunday morning, pick up the freshest produce, organic meats. But beggars can’t be choosers. I wanted a one-stop shop where I could buy everything from meat to cooking supplies to paper plates, plastic knives, and forks.

It’s an ugly, depressing building, in a strip mall filled with one box-shaped store after another. Just a few minutes out here, surrounded by cars and streetlights, mothers pushing strollers, businessmen wearing suits and ties, and I already miss Kensington.

“You know,” Pete says as I unclick my seat belt and hop down from my car, Michael’s surfboard still peeking out from the backseat, “I’ve never actually run an errand before.”

“What do you call it when you and the boys run into town for supplies?”

Pete shrugs, grinning. “We don’t call it errands,” he says, resting his arm around my shoulder as we walk through the parking lot toward the store.

“You’re not wearing shoes,” I say as I begin pushing a cart up an aisle. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen Pete wearing shoes. I’m not even sure he owns a pair. I wonder if this is the kind of store where they’ll kick him out for being barefoot. No shoes, no shirt, no service. But Pete strides so confidently up and down the aisles that I can’t imagine anyone would even notice.

I pick out corn and zucchini, steaks and chicken. An enormous bottle of barbecue sauce. I direct Pete to heave a bag full of charcoal into the cart.

“You sure you know what you’re doing here, Wendy?”

Instead of answering, I grin. I know exactly what I’m doing. Even after we’ve loaded everything I want into the cart, I continue roaming the aisles lazily. Pete puts his arm back around my shoulders and I lean into him, enjoying the sound of the bad music drifting down from the store’s speakers, the breeze of artificially cooled air on my bare legs, all the people who barely look at us as we walk past them, people who surely just assume that we’re a normal teenage couple loading up our cart for a party, people who have no idea that this will be the first hot meal we’ve had in weeks. I don’t ask Pete how long it’s been since he, Belle, and the boys have had a real meal. When we finally get in line, Pete stands behind me and I lean against him, my back against his front. Who knew that a trip to the grocery store could feel so romantic?

I pay with a handful of cash I grabbed from my duffel bag before we left Kensie, and Pete holds my hand on the way back to the car. As we pull out of the parking lot, Pete says, “So, Hughie tells me that you’re going to help him get his GED.”

I nod as I pull onto the freeway, turning on my blinker to change lanes. I’ve always preferred to stay in the right lane, to be ready to exit at any time. But now I pull into the middle then over to the left, pressing down on the gas.

“He was really excited about it,” I say.

“What does he need his GED for?”

I shrug, keeping my eyes on the road. “You never know.”

“You don’t need a high school diploma to live the way we do. It’s not like college.”

“Of course not,” I say. “But if it’s something he wants, why shouldn’t he have it?”

Pete doesn’t answer, and I glance over at him. The answer is written all over his face: with a high school diploma, Hughie might get a real job and leave Kensington behind.

“Hey,” I say, taking one hand off the wheel and placing it on Pete’s arm. “He doesn’t want to leave, you know. He says you’re his family.”

Pete nods. “We are a family,” he says, taking my hand in his. “You’re a part of our family now, too.”

I nod, pulling my hand away and placing it back on the wheel. I’ve never been a part of something the way I’m a part of this.

After Pete and I haul the groceries into the house on the cliffs, I pour the charcoal into the belly of the grill and use my dad’s method for stacking and lighting the briquets. While the fire heats up I prep the food. Pete watches me, and I narrate every step, for once teaching him something instead of the other way around.

Soon, everyone is watching me turn the corn, brush the meat with barbecue sauce. You’d think they’d never seen anyone cook before, and maybe some of them haven’t, or at least not for a long time.

When Matt and I finally carry the food back into the house, I’m surprised to see that Pete has spread a blanket on the floor and set out paper plates and plastic utensils. He’s even folded napkins beside each place. I look at him and grin, taking my seat at one end of the blanket, and he sits down opposite me at the other end.

As everyone digs in, I watch Pete. He eats carefully, almost delicately, savoring every bite. My own food gets cold as I watch Pete and the boys eat, but I don’t mind. It’s too much fun to see them. Even Belle is digging in with enthusiasm, barbecue sauce making a ring around her lips—though unlike everyone else, she doesn’t tell me how good it tastes, doesn’t thank me for cooking.

Pete’s right—we are a family, and for just a few minutes, it feels like Pete and I are about twenty years older than we actually are, like we’re the parents and these are our kids sitting around the blanket. This is our house, and these boys—and Belle—they’re our family. And tonight, I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job of taking care of them.