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Vivian kept walking. “I plan to enjoy my freedom by going shopping. Maybe I’ll buy myself something pretty. You and Emma go get lunch or something.”
She strode into the pharmacy without another word. Through the window, I watched her pause at a rack of cheap sunglasses by the door and try on a pair shaped like hearts.
“Well, I guess it’s just us,” Theo said, turning my way. “You hungry?”
We walked to a diner that was as sleek and shiny as a bullet andsettled into a booth by the window. Theo ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and a vanilla milk shake. I did the same, minus the milk shake, which Vivian never would have approved of in a million years. While we waited for the food, I stared out the window and watched cars lazily cruise up and down the street, their lowered windows revealing kids, dogs, harried mothers behind the wheel.
Even though he was across the table from me, I didn’t want to look at Theo too much. Each time I did glance his way, I pictured him in the latrine shower, glistening and beautiful and oblivious to my prying gaze. The image brought a shameful warmth to my face, my stomach, between my legs. I wondered if Vivian knew that was going to happen when she urged me to peek between those ill-spaced cedar planks. I hoped not. Otherwise, it just seemed cruel.
And Vivian wasn’t cruel, despite sometimes appearing that way. She was my friend. My summer-camp big sister. As I sat there with Theo, listening to oldies drift from a corner jukebox, I understood that the whole trip was Vivian’s ruse to let me spend time alone with him. Another apology. One better than flowers.
“How are you liking Camp Nightingale?” Theo asked once the food had arrived.
“I love it,” I said, taking a rabbitlike nibble on a french fry.
“My mother will be pleased to hear that.”
“Do you like it there?”
Theo took a bite of burger, leaving a smudge of ketchup on the corner of his mouth. I resisted the urge to swipe it off with a flick of my finger. “I love it, too. Unfortunately, this looks like it’ll be my last summer before internships take over my life. College certainly keeps you busy. Especially when you’re premed.”
“You’re going to be a doctor?”
“That’s the plan. A pediatrician.”
“That’s so noble,” I said. “I think it’s great you want to help people.”
“And what do you want to be?”
“I think I want to be a painter.”
I don’t know why I said it. I certainly had no artistic ambitions I didn’t quite know what to do with. It just sounded like the kind of profession Theo would want a woman to have. It was adult and sophisticated. Like something from a movie.
“Emma Davis, famous painter. That has a nice ring to it.” Theo gave me a smile that made my legs quiver. “Maybe I’ll come to one of your gallery openings.”
Within seconds, I had my entire future mapped out. We’d keep in touch after the summer, exchanging letters that would become more meaningful as time passed. Love would eventually be declared. Plans would be made. We’d have sex for the first time on my eighteenth birthday, preferably in a candlelit room at some exotic locale. We’d stay devoted as I went to art school and he completed his residency. Then we’d marry and be the kind of couple other people envied.
As outlandish as it seemed, I told myself it could come true. I was mature for my age, or so I thought. Smart. Cool. Like Vivian. And I knew exactly what she would have done in that situation.
So when Theo attempted to take a sip of his milk shake, I beat him to it, leaning in and sucking from his straw. The move was bold, so utterly unlike me. I blushed, my face turning the same shade of peachy pink as the lip gloss I left behind on Theo’s straw.
Yet there was more boldness in store. The kind of thing I never would have attempted had I spent even a fraction of a second thinking about it. But I didn’t think. I simply acted, closing my eyes and tilting my mouth toward Theo’s, the vanilla taste on my tongue spreading to my lips as I kissed him. His breath was hot. His lips were cold. The warmth and chill merged into a sweet, fluttery sensation that filled my body.
I pulled away quickly, my eyes still closed. I didn’t want to look at Theo. I didn’t want to see his reaction and bring an end to the magic spell I was under. He ended it anyway, softly saying, “I’m flattered, Emma. I really am. But—”
“I was just kidding,” I blurted out, my eyes still squeezed shut as my heart twisted inside my chest. “It was a joke. That’s all.”
Theo said nothing, which is why I leaned back in the booth, turning to the window before opening my eyes.
Vivian was on the other side of the glass, her presence an unwelcome surprise. She stood on the sidewalk, wearing the drugstore sunglasses. Heart-shaped frames. Dark lenses reflecting diner chrome. Although I couldn’t see her eyes, the smile that played across her lips made it clear she had witnessed everything.
I couldn’t tell if she was happy about what she saw or amused by it. Maybe it was both. Just like during her games of Two Truths and a Lie, it was sometimes hard to tell the difference.
21
My excuse for going into town was to fill a prescription for allergy medicine I’d forgotten to bring with me. Yet another lie. At this point, I’ve fallen off the truth wagon completely. But again, I consider it justified, especially because it gave me the chance to return to Dogwood and grab my backpack and Vivian’s diary. By then the paint on the door had been completely wiped away. The only evidence it had been there at all was a swath of freshly cleaned wood and the nose-tickling smell of turpentine.
Now Theo and I ride in the same mint-green pickup that had whisked us out of camp fifteen years ago. Inside, all is silent, the radio apparently having died years ago. Theo drives with one hand on the steering wheel, his bent elbow jutting out the open window. My window is also rolled down. I stare at the woods as we leave Camp Nightingale, the trees a blur, light sparking through their branches.