Page 13 of The Dead of Summer

We splash through Sam’s house as though we never mean to leave it.

“Just don’t break anything!” Sam calls after us.

Despite his claims of there being no food, we find a pantry of snacks.

Even though no one is hungry, Elisa and I get to work arranging a charcuterie board entirely out of fruit snacks and potato chips, all upon an expensive driftwood cutting board I am certain has never seen the ocean.

“This feels profane,” Elisa keeps saying as she shakes a can of whipped cream. “This is godless. Do you remember the doomsday people who protest at the library?”

“Of course. They’ve been predicting the end times for years.”

“Maybe they’re onto something. I mean, look at this. We are so lost, just as a species.” She adds an elegant swirl down the board’s edge, anyway.

I take the moment to confess something. “I didn’t think you guys would want to stay.”

“Are you kidding? We’re not leaving you alone with this psycho.” She says this with enough bite I know she actually kind of likes Sam, too.

We crowd around as Sam sits at the piano and regales us with wild exploits of his life in New York City.

I’m mesmerized at how he accompanies himself, his hands scrambling from hectic études to tremulous ballads, perfectly matching the twists and turns of his actual life.

Not to be outdone, Bash brushes him off the piano.

Then, plunking out random notes for comedic effect, he tells the story about how he had to dive into the ocean to save me when I fell overboard during a whale watch in sixth grade (mostly true).

Then there was the time Elisa posed as an elderly woman to get us into an R-rated movie (completely true, down to dropping her dentures).

And who could forget the time Bash brought an entire stadium to its feet by delivering a spontaneous dance performance on the Jumbotron?

“Come on,” Sam groans. “Now you’re making shit up.”

Bash sets his jaw. “Ollie, if you will accompany me.”

I ease onto the piano bench and play a vamp as I set the story up for Bash.

“In seventh grade we took a school field trip to Boston for a Bruins game, and we spent the whole time trying to get the Jumbotron on us, but it kept focusing on other people who would just stop dancing the second they saw themselves, and we were so mad. We promised each other that no matter what, when the big eye found us, we’d go for it.

We swore when it came time to shine, we’d shine . ”

“So what happened?” Sam asks. “Did the camera ever find you?”

I rumble my left hand in the deep region of the piano, creating suspense. Bash perfectly acts out the moment of being caught in a spotlight. “It did. Right as I was walking back to our seats after grabbing a bucket of popcorn.”

“And?” Sam presses.

“Shine time, baby!” Elisa and I shout Bash’s famous quote. It’s his cue to reenact the now-legendary dance that got an entire stadium to cheer him on. I’m laughing so hard at his commitment that I forget to keep playing.

“Just look up Dancing Popcorn Kid. It was a meme,” I eventually say.

Sam is beyond amused. “Wait! I’ve seen that! The video of the kid dumping popcorn on himself is you ? I didn’t know you were internet famous.”

“That’s right. No one can compete.”

My fingers, which have returned to lightly vamping, stumble.

Compete? Is that what Bash and Sam are doing?

I’m surprised I even care. I feel a little odd, a little new.

Blame the shock, blame the cold, blame the beer, but just now the clutch of the day shook loose, and my heart remembered its pulse.

“I think there’s only one way to settle this,” Sam says. “Cannonball contest, anyone?”

We scramble out onto the deck, shedding clothes until we’re hurtling into the luminous pool in just our underwear.

It’s so warm that steam drifts from our skin when we get out to do it all again.

The euphoria I feel is perfect. Primitive and pure.

I can’t help but smile at the way the shatter of light fills our faces with ghastly shadows as we drag one another down through glassy chains of bubbles.

When Sam proposes the hot tub, I’m not quite ready to get out of the deeper water.

I float with Elisa, looking up through the steam at the flung-high pebble of the moon.

“Ollie,” Elisa says somewhere near me.

“Yeah?”

“Be gentle with Bash, okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you guys have always liked each other.”

Bash and Sam are making each other laugh in the hot tub. I feel a pang of jealousy, and the urge to get between them. Maybe I know a bit about what Elisa’s saying.

“That was ages ago,” I whisper, but the still water brings out the harshness in my denial.

“Not for Bash. Just be careful with him, okay? He’s excited you’re back. We both are.” I sense she has more to say, and eventually she adds, “Sam is nice, but he’s seasonal. If you’re really back for good, pick the boy who lasts through the winter.”

I exhale until the air is gone from my lungs, and I sink into the edgeless blue of the deep end. I come up, and Elisa is seated on the pool’s edge, watching me.

I flick a little water at her. “I’ll take the note. Anything else you wanna say?”

She smirks. We both know there’s a lot she wants to say. I’m letting her know I can handle it. Elisa has always been tough, and it has always been worth it.

“Yeah,” she says after a time. “I never got to tell you, but I’m so sorry about what happened to your mom. I know she’s okay now, but I bet it’s still really hard.”

I know she means it, because she looks at me in a way that makes me feel actually seen. I’m not just her asshole friend, and I’m not some clueless mainlander here for a good time. There’s a shared pain holding us together, and even though the embrace is one that hurts, within it I am her brother.

I pull myself out of the water so that I can face Elisa across the drifting steam. It’s like we’re two people floating on a cloud.

“It’s hard,” I admit. “It’s almost impossible, to be honest.”

“What do you mean?”

After a whole day, I’m still searching for the words to describe the molten anger that spewed out of me last night. I pick through my words as carefully as I dare, knowing at any moment the bubble we sit in could break.

“It’s just hard to come back to everything and pretend like nothing was ever wrong. I thought I lost everything, but then I got it all back, but I still feel like I’m the one piece that’s missing. Everyone else is so excited, and I’m just …”

“Scared?”

“Yeah. And sad, and …” I search for the right word. “Heavy. Like, too heavy to float along with everyone else.”

“I get that. When my mom …” Elisa’s voice catches in her throat.

She takes a second to try again. “After she went away, I used to dream she was on the mainland living a new life. I wanted so badly to follow her. I felt like she had woken up from this nightmare I was still trapped in. I was so sure she was waiting for me. Sending me signs. It took a long time for this place to feel like home again.”

I want to believe that I am traveling through such a thing as Elisa’s long time. I can feel my heart moving. I hope it’s toward home.

“That fight with Gracie sounded pretty rough,” Elisa says.

I glance up at the stars, willing them to stay put. I’m not ready to face Gracie tomorrow.

“You heard everything from Bash’s mom?”

She nods. Her face darkens as she folds up her knees to her chest. Her shoulders betray a shiver, but I don’t know if she’s cold or if she’s crying.

“I wish I could have a fight with my mom.” Her voice is faraway. “Is that weird?”

“No,” I say right away. “To be honest, it felt good. It’s the most we’ve talked in months.”

“Really?”

It feels forbidden to crave what Elisa and I crave, but instead of scolding myself, I set aside my judgment and wonder: Why? Where does this lightness come from, when I think about saying all the unsaid stuff out loud to Gracie?

“It didn’t feel good to yell at my mom, but it did feel good to finally be honest. Ever since she got better, she’s been so determined to be positive.

About everything. All the time. There’s no room to be sad, but I’m sad.

And I wish I could talk to her about it, but I just end up feeling like I’m not making her fight worth it if I’m not happy all the time. ”

“So what do you do instead?”

“I smile.”

Elisa takes a deep breath, unfolds, and looks up at the stars again. “Well, if you need a mom who can really listen, I’m happy to share mine. It’s pretty much all she’s good for these days. Sometimes I light one of her cigarettes like incense and just talk her ear off.”

“What do you talk to her about?”

Elisa gives me a sly glance. “Boys. Girls. My dad. You. And my ongoing plot to ruin Imogen Pfaff’s life.”

“You’re a one-woman show, Elisa.”

She’s smiling, but it’s a smile I know well. One wrapped tight over a wound that still won’t heal.

“Honestly, I mostly just ask her to show me where her lighter is.”

Elisa’s mom, Doro, quit smoking again and again, for years, but she never quit her lighter.

It was a tarnished, heart-shaped contraption that popped open with a flamboyant crack.

The flame was a wobbling apricot petal. Whatever she wore, it was secure in a pocket for easy access.

I remember Elisa fixating on it because when they found Doro’s shoes on the beach, they also found her socks, cigarettes, and cell phone tucked within them, but no lighter.

“Still no luck finding it?”

Elisa shrugs. “Nothing to find, probably. She never left that thing behind. Maybe I’m just jealous of it.”

Bash and Sam call for us to join them, but before the bubble bursts, I need to ask Elisa one last question. I slip into the steam and swim to her edge so I can whisper.

“Hey, one thing I’ve been thinking about since my mom got sick. Do you ever wonder about what happened to your mom’s research?”

“All her old exhibits are still up in the visitors center at AMIOS. We can go if you want. I haven’t been in years.”

“No. The other stuff. Do you think she was onto something? About the water and sand here? The way it makes people sick?”

“Ollie, don’t say that.”

“It’s been on my mind for a while. I mean, something has to be making people sick here, right?

And today just got me thinking, you know?

Isn’t it weird that the adults have a protocol to keep people home in case of a sickness spreading?

It reminded me of your mom’s report. Back when Gracie got sick, I tried looking up anything related to the old Easter Energy plant and the chemical spill in the sixties, but there’s nothing.

It’s all so vague. And I’m wondering if maybe your mom’s report—”

“How fucking dare you.”

Elisa wrenches herself up and away from the pool. She grabs a towel and marches toward the house, but I catch her right before she can run inside. I’m not sure what I’m going to say—I don’t think I’m wrong, yet I’m desperate to apologize.

“Elisa, I’m sorry—”

“No, I’m sorry, Ollie. I’m so fucking sorry!

” Her shouts draw Bash and Sam out of the tub.

“I’m just so sorry that you almost lost your mom.

And I’m so sorry you almost lost your friends.

And I’m so sorry that despite getting your precious little life back, you’re still so unhappy that you’d rather dig around in my trauma for clues to some old conspiracy theory instead of just figuring out how to be fucking grateful . ”

The betrayal is so sharp that it’s through me before I can even feel the pain of the stab. Out weeps my anger from last night.

“I’m sorry, too, Elisa. I’m sorry I wasn’t a good enough friend to you while my mom was fighting for her life against bone cancer.

And I’m so sorry that you would rather search for a stupid junk lighter than answers about what happened to your mom.

But mostly, I’m sorry it hurts so much for anyone on this fucking island to look at the facts and ask what the fuck is going on! ”

“Facts? Well, bad news, Little Miss Pseudoscience, you can’t just make up whatever facts you need to corroborate your own personal tragedy, which, by the way, fucking worked out in the end!”

I spread my arms, trying to grab on to the night itself, and all the drama that’s led to this moment. “The entire island got shut down by drag queens because of an unknown sickness! Does that feel worked out to you, Elisa?”

Somewhere in the last few seconds, Elisa has shattered into someone much smaller and sharper. Every word she speaks has a deadly edge.

“No. It feels like the hysterical mind game of a resentful, broken boy who wants everyone to be as miserable as he is. You should have stayed gone.”

She turns her back on me, on Bash and Sam and the party that’s only just begun, on the stars hanging above the black ocean, and she stomps into the house.