What I Thought Was True

Chapter Thirty-five

Beach bonfire tonight.

As Cass drives us down the hill, I can see sparks crackling upward, flicking and fading into the darkening summer sky. Dom D’Ofrio is always overenthusiastic with the lighter fluid. The tower of flames shoots nearly ten feet high.

“That looks like something you’d use to sacrifice to the Druids, not toast marshmallows,” Cass says as we near the beach, the sun sliding purple-orange against the deep green sea.

To my surprise, when Cass picked me up, Spence was slumped in the backseat of the old BMW, scowling.

“He had a bad day. Thought this might cheer him up. You mind?” Cass whispered.

“Yo Castle,” Spence says now, a listless version of his usual cocky self. “Sundance stormed you yet?”

“Don’t be a dick,” Cass returns evenly.

“S’what I do best,” Spence returns, then sticks his head out the window, taking in the scene.

This bonfire is a lot more crowded than the first of the summer. The summer people’s kids have discovered it and are milling around, mostly in clumps, but sometimes venturing over to other clots of people, sitting down, feeling out the possibilities. Pam and Shaunee have parked themselves next to Audrey Partridge, Old Mrs. P.’s great-granddaughter. Manny’s flicking his lighter for Sophie Tucker, a pretty blond cousin from the house the Robinsons rented. Somebody’s dragged out a grill, and now Dom is enthusiastically pouring lighter fluid onto those charcoal briquettes too.

Cass backs the car into a spot with relatively low sand. We all get out.

Viv is standing near the water, arms hugging her chest, ponytail flipping in the wind, looking out at the distant islands. The sky’s clear enough tonight that it seems as though you could reach out and touch them. Viv doesn’t turn and see me. Manny comes up beside her, bumps her shoulder with his elbow, and hands her one of those generic “get smashed fast” red plastic cups. He walks back up the beach, catches sight of us, cocks his head a bit at the arm Cass has draped over my shoulder. “Nice shirt,” he mutters as he passes me.

It’s one of Cass’s oxfords, loose and knotted at my waist, a flash of stomach over my rolled-up jeans. Not a look I would have tried before.

If I remember right, Manny was the one who welcomed Cass to the island because of his yard boy status. Now the causeway can’t go both ways?

I head over to the cooler, pick up a beer I don’t care about. No sign of Nic or Hoop.

“Who’s the short fat dude, Sundance?”

“Manny. Good guy. Relax, Spence.” Cass grabs my hand, an aside to me. “Don’t let him get to you. He’s in douchebag mood today.”

“You two are sweet together,” Spence offers unexpectedly, sounding oddly sincere. “Nauseating as that is.”

I mouth, “Is he drunk?”

Cass shakes his head. “It’s not that.”

“Feelin’ sorry for myself, Castle. Just do it, Sundance. Cut me loose. Go back to Hodges.”

“I’m not that guy,” Cass says so firmly—convincing Spence? Or himself? “Forget it for tonight. Let’s just relax.”

For a while, relaxing works pretty well. Pam has the music cranking, good mix of old and new. It’s a warm night and the sky is filled with a gold that rims the corners of the clouds, and shafts of pinkish light that slant down to the water. The charcoal heats up, the sweet burnt smell singeing our noses.

Cass and I are adding ketchup and mustard to our hot dogs when I see Nic, standing on the pathway that runs from the parking lot to the beach, staring at us, hands balled in his pockets. Hoop stands behind him, a small, badly dressed, angry shadow.

Nic’s white-faced and stormy-looking, all his features frozen, angry, as though he’s watching a nightmare come true.

“Yo, trouble at high noon,” Spence tells Cass, scrolling mustard over his own hot dog so vigorously that the Gulden’s squirts all over the sand.

“Don’t make it worse,” Cass says, shoving a napkin at Spence.

But immediately, it’s worse.

It starts with Nic doing that slow clap-clap thing, guaranteed to annoy anyone. “Nice job, guys. Snagging both captain and cocaptain. What do they call that? A coup? Nice coup.”

Cass doesn’t say anything, focused on his hot dog. Spence is quiet too.

Nic walks over, chin raised. “Nice coup,” he says again.

“You don’t get it, man,” is all Cass says.

“No?” Nic asks.

“No. This is no preferential thing,” Cass starts. Vivie walks up then. Cass glances at her, back at Nic. “These last months . . . this whole last year . . . swim drills were all about you, Nicolas Cruz. Nothing about teamwork. You don’t seem to know what that means. If you deserved to be captain or cocaptain, you’d be lining up behind us. Not acting like this.”

“That’s bullshit,” Nic says. “We all know there’s a fucking I in team. You’re not swimming to make me look good. We’re all after I. So I’m just gonna say it. I need this, Somers. You don’t. Channing? Forget it.”

“You want us to feel sorry for you now? I do. Sundance does,” Spence offers. “Because this West Side Story, us-against-them crap and your shitty attitude is what keeps you stuck, Cruz. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“You’re lecturing me?” Nic shouts. “You’re telling me to be fucking satisfied with what I’ve got? That’s rich. You’re the one who has to take everything.”

Viv has her hand over her mouth. Spence steps forward, shoulders square. Cass grabs his arm.

Dom, Pam, Shaunee, Manny are moving away from the fire toward us now, attention snagged. Hooper assumes roughly the same stance behind Nic as Cass has behind Spence, but without the restraining hand. His is raised, placating. Or just unsure what’s going on.

“Be honest with yourself. At least. I haven’t taken a thing from you that you deserved to have,” Spence says calmly. Cass yanks him back a little, jerking him to the side.

“Stop talking, Spence,” he says.

Instead, Spence takes another step forward, pulling out of Cass’s grip. “You don’t deserve any of it,” he repeats to Nic. “None of it. And for sure, not her.”

Nic’s fist shoots out so fast it’s a blur and Spence’s head snaps to the left. He staggers back for a second. We watch him stumble—a surreal, slow-mo movie. Nic charges forward, eyes blazing. Ready to hit him again. Cass moves in between them, fending Nic off with a forearm to his chest and grabbing Spence’s arm tightly, yanking it back.

Vivien brushes past me. I try to clutch at her—don’t want her to get in the way of Nic. He doesn’t seem to be seeing straight. But instead of hurrying to him, she’s wiping at the blood gushing from Spence’s nose with one hand, the other cupped around the back of his head.

Nic stares at them, blinking as though he’s just woken up, then shakes off Cass’s arm, backing toward the parking lot.

“I’m good, don’t worry about me,” Spence assures Vivien.

Spence is assuring Vivien?

“You’re hurt,” she says, her voice cracking.

“Flesh wound,” Spence tells her. And he smiles at her in a way I’ve never seen Spence smile at anyone. “Don’t. God, Viv. Don’t cry. Please. You know that kills me.”

Hooper and I are gaping at them, as is pretty much everyone else.

“Yeah,” Nic says. “This is just . . . Just . . . well . . . fuck this.” He turns around, scrubs his eyes with the heels of his hands, starts to walk away.

“Holy shit,” Hoop says.

“Go after him, Gwen,” calls Vivien, still wiping away blood. She’s crying. For Nic? For Spence? Not knowing which makes me flash white-hot furious.

“Me? What about you? And you, Spence? What was that? It’s not enough to take his captain shot, you had to go for his girlfriend too?”

“This isn’t like that, Gwen,” Cass says. Spence just stares at the ground.

“This? There’s a this? And you knew? When were you going to tell me? Ever? What happened to ‘I’m not going to lie to you, Gwen’?”

He’s ruffling his hand through his hair with that same expression he had the night after the Bronco.

Guilt.

Viv’s still crying. Spence is wiping away the blood still running from his nose with the back of his hand. Hoop’s muttering, “I haven’t had enough beer to deal with this.” Pam and Manny and the other island kids are standing around helplessly, murmuring.

And I can’t stop my mouth. “So what did you two do to get this?” I ask.

“What did we do?” Cass asks, low and furious. “We swam. I deserve this. Spence does. This has nothing to do with money. It’s about teamwork. And you know it. Maybe Nic used to be able to do that. But he can’t anymore. I don’t know why, but you know it’s true. He’s a cheater.”

“Nice, Cass. You’ve taken this away from him. And now you take his integrity too? Classy.”

“I didn’t take anything, Gwen.”

I back up, move away from all this, everything, everyone.

“I didn’t take anything,” he repeats, turning away.

I scramble up to the parking lot. But there is no longer any sign of Nic.

“Come fly, come fly come fly with me,” sings Frank Sinatra loudly, in his seductively snappy alto. Emory is swaying to the beat, doing his version of finger snapping, which involves flicking his pointer fingers against his thumbs. He’s got the happy head-bobbing down, though. Grandpa Ben is cooking dinner, waggling his skinny old-man hips in time to the beat. I reach over to turn Frank’s exuberance down a few notches, but still have to bellow when I ask if he’s seen Nic.

Grandpa Ben shrugs.

“He didn’t come back here? Where the hell did he go? Where’s Mom?”

Ben clucks his tongue. “Language, Guinevere. He was not here when I got back from the farmer’s market. Your mother, she is on a date.”

A what?

Nic’s pulled a disappearing act. Viv’s consoling Spence. Cass knew. And I blew him off, even when I . . . I . . . And Mom’s on a date. Whose life is this???

Grandpa shrugs again, points to the note scrawled on the dry-erase board on the fridge. “Papi. On a walk around the island with a friend. If you see Nic, talk to him.”

“If you see him, keep him here,” I say. “I’m going to look for him.”

I grab Mom’s car keys, clatter down the stairs, and am throwing the Bronco into reverse before it occurs to me to wonder how Grandpa Ben managed to translate a “walk around the island with a friend” into a date.