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TWELVE

I decided to take a break from fixating on my father’s love life and obsess about my own. I hadn’t heard from my boyfriend since before my mother died, and I ached to have him hold me and comfort me.

Van was the only boy I’d ever loved, the only boy I’d ever slept with, and now, at a time when I needed him more than ever, he was seven thousand miles away.

I’d met him a year ago. It was the summer before my junior year, and my overprotective father, who couldn’t help noticing that his two daughters were—and I quote—“blossoming,” decided to have us work at the restaurant. His logic was simple: (a) he could keep an eye on us, and (b) he could keep us away from “those damn horny teenage boys.”

It might have worked. Except for the fire.

About two months before Lizzie and I started our summer jobs at the restaurant, there was a kitchen fire. It could have been a total disaster, but the McCormicks have a knack for turning lemons into lemonade. So, Dad and Grandpa Mike decided to roll the dice, take over the empty dress shop next door, build a bigger, better kitchen, and double the size of the place.

Van had a summer job working for our contractor. I worked the day shift as a waitress. And for two months, while half the restaurant was operational and the other half was under construction, I spent as much time as possible bringing coffee, sandwiches, and cold drinks to the half where there were no customers.

I was sixteen. Most of the boys in my class were still going through that gangly teenage growth spurt. Van was seventeen, and he was definitely not a boy. He was six feet tall with a mop of thick blond hair, deep blue eyes, a strong jaw, and the magnificent hard, muscular body of a man. He was totally out of my league.

But that didn’t stop me. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. Not with my hawkeyed father always hovering about. But for all his paternal vigilance about “boys, who only have one thing on their minds, Maggie,” he seemed completely unfazed by my regular visits to the construction site. It didn’t hurt that I told him I might want to become an architect, and I was learning a lot from Nick Ridley, the crew boss.

The hard part was getting through to Van. He hardly noticed me. I don’t think he was shy. I think it was probably because he was too intimidated to start flirting with Finn McCormick’s daughter while he was on the job. But little by little, I worked my untested girlish charm, and by mid-July we were talking regularly. Actually, I did most of the talking. Van was the strong, silent type, but that gave him a special quality that most boys—most men, in fact—don’t have. He was a great listener.

Van was about to go into his senior year, and his plan was to join the Marines right after graduation. My plan was for him to be the one to take my virginity before the summer was over.

Our first date wasn’t really a date. He’d told me during the week that he and his friends were going to spend Saturday at Waterfront Park Beach. I said, “Small world. I’m going there too. Maybe I’ll run into you.”

It was a total lie, but I had no trouble recruiting a few of my girlfriends to help me turn it into a reality. And—surprise, surprise—we ran into Van at the beach. It didn’t hurt that we cruised the parking lots till I spotted his motorcycle.

I was a young girl, but I filled out my bikini like a grown woman, and I caught more than a few dads—who were there with their families—checking me out.

For the next four hours, Van and I did that dance teenagers do when they know they have the hots for one another, but they don’t have enough experience to leave the party and hop into bed.

We walked on the beach and talked. We rubbed suntan lotion on each other’s back. I straddled his shoulders, and we played chicken fight in the water with our friends. We won the first two rounds, but on the third one, we got bowled over, and we both went in the drink.

I came up coughing and sputtering and grabbed on to him to steady myself. “Are you okay?” he asked, putting his arms around me.

I pulled myself against him, felt the bulge in his board shorts, and I pulled closer still.

“Almost,” I said, my lips drifting closer to his. He leaned in, and we kissed. “Mmmmm... feeling better already. Except I think I’m getting too much sun. Irish girls don’t tan; we burn.”

“Dutch boys have the same problem. We should both get off the beach.” He smiled. “You want to go hang out someplace shady?”

“What’d you have in mind?”

He pretended to think about it, but it was obvious he’d already worked it out in his head. “You any good at ping-pong?”

“I can beat your sorry ass with one hand tied behind my back.”

“You’re on,” he said. “I have a ping-pong table in my basement.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m kind of grungy from lying on the beach all day. I’d hate to make a lousy first impression on your parents.”

“My parents aren’t home. We have a cabin in the Adirondacks. They’re up there for the weekend. We can blast the music as loud as we want.”

“I don’t have wheels,” I said. “I drove here with Tiffany.”

“I’ve got my bike and an extra helmet.”

“I don’t know,” I said, making him work for it. “What do you think my father would say if he saw me riding around on a Honda?”

“It’s not a Honda lawn mower . It’s a V65 Magna—one of the fastest production motorcycles on the planet. I let your father borrow it last week. He came back with a shit-eating grin on his face, which from a Harley guy is a rave.”

I shrugged. “In that case...”

If I had any second thoughts, I got over them as soon as I got on the back of his bike and wrapped my arms around his chest. We’d spent the whole afternoon ogling one another half naked. I was ready for the other half.

I knew what I was going to do, and I made a mental note of the date: August 8, 1996—the day I was going to lose my virginity.