Better Than the Best Plan Page 13

  Spencer rolls his eyes in my direction as if to say dads, but the muscle in his jaw is tensing as he grits his teeth.

  “Be back by curfew. I want you rested.”

  “As if you know my curfew,” Spencer mutters as he turns to head out the door. I have no choice but to trot after him like a stray puppy. I guess introductions won’t be happening, so I give Spencer’s dad a smile and small wave over my shoulder as we go. He doesn’t even notice, though. His focus is back on his phone.

  Just before we make it out the door, Spencer’s mom pops out of the kitchen clutching a Ziploc bag full of cookies. “Take these with you,” she says, striding down the hall for the handoff. “Oatmeal chocolate chip with pecans. Did I hear your father?”

  She glances up the stairs, as if he might still be standing there, but he’s gone.

  “Nothing like being parented by the top of someone’s head,” Spencer says to his mom, miming staring down at an invisible phone.

  She ruffles his already-mussed curls.

  “You know he’s working,” she says. “Don’t be out too late.”

  “You want me back by my curfew?” He hooks his fingers into sarcastic air quotes.

  “Keep being a smart-ass and I’ll be happy to give you one. In the meantime, use the judgment I worked so hard to instill in that thick skull of yours, okay?”

  While Spencer and his dad’s exchange was all acid and sharp points, Spencer and his mother have the kind of easy rapport I’ve seen on family sitcoms. It’s so familiar, even though I’ve never experienced anything like it myself. Most conversations with my mother felt more like New Age sales pitches. Oh, Ritzy, you really should give crystals/oils/underwater meditation a try. It’ll change your life! Mom was never clear on what about my life needed changing. When it came to the more utilitarian side of parenting, things like appointments or curfews, I’d been largely on my own, which is what had made my earlier conversation with Kris so surprising.

  As I was heading out the door, waving good-bye, she stopped me and started giving me the third degree. Where was I going? Who would I be with? Who was driving? And when would I be home?

  “Oh, uh, I’m not really sure,” I’d said with a shrug, eager to get out the door. I didn’t want to leave Spencer waiting, and I also didn’t like having to explain myself like that. “Spencer’s my ride, so I guess whenever he heads back.”

  Kris wrung her hands, like she was trying to work herself up to a dare.

  “What’s up?” I asked, inching closer to the door.

  “I’d like you home by midnight,” she said, and I don’t think I could have been more shocked if she asked me to please skip home while singing “Memory” from Cats. A curfew? I was getting a curfew?

  “I don’t know what time Spencer…” I trail off, because I don’t know how to end this conversation. Am I supposed to just say okay? Or is this a negotiation? What if Spencer isn’t leaving at midnight? What if his curfew is later? Do I just make him take me home?

  “Just tell him you’ll need to be home by midnight,” she said, and there was something final in her tone that told me this would not be a negotiation.

  But now I have a perfect in to bring it up.

  I smile at Mrs. Ford. “Um, Kris said I needed to be home by midnight, so I guess we both have a curfew tonight,” I say with a shrug.

  Spencer gives me a sideways look, but his mother just smiles, then points at me. “I like her,” she says.

  * * *

  Spencer’s car is a tiny vintage sports coupe, a two-seater painted powder blue with a brown leather convertible top and cracked brown leather seats.

  “You don’t mind the top down, do you?”

  I shake my head, thankful I pulled my hair back, or I’d probably collect every bug on the island in it.

  “Good, because I can’t actually get it to go up. I’ve been working on this car for two years. Finally got it running reliably this summer, so I can start on the bodywork next.” The driver-side door creaks as he pulls it open, and I have to give the passenger side a good heave with both hands before it finally releases itself to me.

  “You fixed this car?”

  “Yeah. It’s amazing what you can learn from watching YouTube videos,” he replies with a shrug. I take my seat and try to shift around so the cracks in the leather aren’t cutting into the backs of my thighs.

  The car roars to life. Or should I say, groans. After a few wheezes, the engine turns over, and Spencer throws it into reverse. We back out of the garage, the engine sounding like a bunch of soda cans in a dryer. I worry that I’m riding in a teenage boy’s high-stakes Lego set, but after a minute or two, the engine seems to calm down and sink into a familiar rhythm.

  We follow the edge of the shore around the island. It’s getting dark, and things are quiet, the only lights coming from the few homes set far back from the road, half hidden by sand dunes. I sneak a glance at Spencer. His left elbow is resting on the edge of the open window, his left hand draped over the bottom of the steering wheel. His right hand rests on the gearshift. The wind is whipping his blond curls, but his face is still as stone as he appears to be staring fifty miles down the road ahead.

  I settle in for the drive. In minutes, Spencer downshifts and turns on a dirt road that winds through the dunes. We pull to a stop next to a brand-new white Range Rover and a sporty black BMW sedan.

  We get out of the car and approach a small campfire, around which sit a handful of people about my age. I recognize the couple from the charity party because once again they’re draped over each other, sharing a single seat atop a flat rock. I also recognize Ryleigh the lifeguard, but the other guy, blond and attractive in that fresh-faced surfer kind of way, is new.

  Spencer takes an open seat on a log, and though I keep waiting, he never introduces me. Finally, Annie elbows him hard in the ribs.

  “Oh, right,” he says. “Guys, this is Maritza. Maritza, the guys.”

  “Well done, Spence.” Annie rolls her eyes at him.

  “I met you the other night!” says the silver-dress girl, who is now wearing a pink-and-green shift dress so bright it practically glows in the dark, with neon-pink lipstick to match and a pair of comically oversized sunglasses perched atop her head despite the inky blackness of night. “I’m Ryleigh.” I bite my tongue to keep from telling her that this is actually our third introduction.

  “You met Avery and Bennett the other night. And that’s Eli,” Spencer says, pointing to the blond surfer guy. “And you know Annie.”

  “Better known as Annistyn,” Eli quips. “With a y.”

  “Where?” I ask.

  “Does it matter?” Annie groans. “Please. Just call me Annie.”

  “Her parents were firmly Team Jen,” Ryleigh drawls.

  “It’s a family name, if you must know,” she snaps at her friend, then turns to me. “They have entirely too much fun teasing me about my name.”

  This is the part where I’d normally pull an Annie and give them a “call me Ritzy,” but I’m not going to. Ritzy was the girl back in Jacksonville, the girl with only one good friend and a flaky mom, the girl who wore ratty clothes and never had enough cash. But Maritza? Maritza is a girl who hangs out on the beach and works at a country club and has a curfew. Maritza is a girl surrounded by perfect parents who cook dinner and bake cookies. Maritza rides in vintage sports cars and has a whole group of friends with silly rich people names who are both popular and nice. Maritza fits in. Why would I want to bring Ritzy into that?

  “You wanna drink?” Ryleigh asks.

  Annie reaches for the lid of a cooler and flips it open. “We have beer, and Avery swiped a bottle of champagne from her parents’ fridge.” Across the circle, Avery hoists a black bottle that glistens with sweat.

  “It was left over from my sister’s graduation party,” she says, like having champagne lying around your house is normal.

  “We also have Coke,” Annie says. She lifts the lid on the cooler, which is filled with brown gla
ss bottles of beer and clear glass bottles of soda.

  “It’s Mexican Coke,” Ryleigh says with a flourish, and Avery elbows her hard. “What? I just mean it’s made with cane sugar. You know, instead of chemicals or whatever.”

  “I’m sure that still has plenty of chemicals,” Eli says, hoisting his beer. “Unlike this, which is downright natural.”

  “Please, beer is not natural.”

  Eli turns the bottle in his hand, clears his throat, and reads aloud. “Yeast, hops, and malts.”

  “I’ll give you a thousand dollars if you can tell me what any of those things actually are,” Annie says.

  I accept a bottle of Coke, which Spencer opens by smacking the lid on the edge of a rock, a move that I’ve never seen outside of a television set. I take my seat on a vacant log around the fire and wonder what I’m going to say to these people. But I quickly realize the answer is, not very much. They have a boisterous shorthand full of inside jokes and continued conversations that leave very little space for a new person to jump in. It feels sort of welcoming, like I can know their secrets and be part of their club, even if I can’t get a word in edgewise.

  And so I sit, clutching my glass bottle of ethnic soda, and listen to them talk. The focus of tonight’s conversation appears to be college applications, which is at least something I can understand. At Southwest, they started talking to us about college apps last year. We practiced writing essays in English class, and we all had to pay a visit to the guidance counselor to discuss our “options.” My guidance counselor, Ms. Silverstein, sat there on the other side of the desk, batting her overly mascaraed eyes at me while she waited for me to answer the And what do you want to do? question. By the time I walked out of that half-hour meeting, I had a list of schools (all public and in state) and deadlines, the names of three teachers who could write me recommendations, and a packet of information on financial aid. That’s what I knew college planning to be. But these kids? These kids approach college planning with the strategy and skill of an NFL draft. Apparently, Bennett’s mom has hired someone to come help him apply to college and is insisting he apply to ten schools. Avery groans, not because ten is too many, but because her college consultant is making her apply to fifteen.

  “One dream school, four reaches, five targets, and five safeties,” she says, and I’m not sure if the nasally impersonation is meant to be her mother or the consultant. “As if I’d go to any of my safeties. Please. I’d take a gap year first.”

  “I’m taking a gap year,” Annie says.

  “Your parents are cool with that?” Ryleigh asks with the same shock you’d expect from someone hearing her best friend is getting a face tattoo.

  “Yeah,” Annie replies with a shrug. “I mean, I’m not even sure what I want to do with my life yet. I need time to explore.”

  There’s a moment of heavy silence while the group contemplates deferring college for a year, and before I know what’s happening, I hear the words coming out of my mouth.

  “What’s a gap year?” I ask.

  Six pairs of eyes swivel toward me, a mixture of surprise and a little bit of pity.

  “It’s when you defer college for a year. Some people get jobs, some people volunteer or do mission trips. A lot of people travel.”

  “Or if you’re Alexis Antonini, you sit on your couch blogging about reality shows and claim you got internet famous when one of your tweets goes semi-viral,” Ryleigh says, and my question is quickly forgotten as they start cracking jokes about Alexis Antonini, which then becomes a series of jokes about other classmates, which becomes Bennett complaining that his lacrosse team’s regionals win means a trip to the state tournament, onto which his mother is tacking a tour of Florida State.

  They’re such champagne problems. That’s what my mother would say. “Them’s champagne problems.” Sometimes it would be with a deep, syrupy southern accent or sometimes with this twenties-style gangster affectation. She said it when I cried over missing the fifth-grade safety patrol trip to Washington, D.C., because I had to go on a yoga retreat with my mother’s ashram. She said it when I had to miss tryouts for the spring play because we were at a drum circle for peace. She said it every time I complained that her essential oils were giving me headaches:

  “Them’s champagne problems.”

  But the thing was, I never told her that those didn’t feel like champagne problems to me. They just felt like problems. And now, sitting here listening to these otherwise very nice people whine about summer programs and Ivy League schools and literally too much winning, all while drinking actual champagne, their luxury cars parked just a few yards away, I want to scream. Or laugh. Or scream with laughter.

  “Where’s Spencer?” Eli asks as the fire starts to die down and we can get better looks at one another across the lowering flames.

  “I thought he went to take a leak,” Bennett replies, but then I hear the familiar groan and rattle of the engine. Spencer. Is leaving.

  “Oh crap, that’s my ride!” I jump up from the log and start jogging toward the car just as the rear lights turn white. He’s thrown it into reverse. I wave as I approach the car, partly so he won’t leave me and partly so he won’t run me over. “Spencer! Hey, Spencer!”

  The brake lights illuminate red, and the car stops. He turns over his shoulder, sees me, and makes a face I can’t quite read in the darkness.

  “Oh yeah, I’m supposed to give you a ride home,” he says.

  I climb into the car without a word and settle into the passenger seat, stretching the seat belt across me and fastening it with a metallic click. He doesn’t say anything else as we peel out, sand spitting from the back wheels. It’s not until we’re at least a mile down the road that Spencer shouts over the wind.

  “Sorry for being kind of a dick tonight,” he says. He shrugs as he says it, a crooked smile on his face, and I can tell that he’s gotten himself out of stuff before by being aw shucks charming. But I’m not buying it.

  “Kind of a dick?” I fire back. “You nearly left me there!”

  “It’s not like you’d have been stranded,” he replies. I guess the apology portion of this conversation is over. “Anyone would have taken you home.”

  I narrow my eyes. “It’s actually less about the ride and more about the fact that your head was so far up your own ass that you forgot about the existence of the other human being you brought here in your car.”

  He pauses for a moment, then nods. “Yeah. Sorry.” He looks over and gives me a crooked grin before focusing his attention back on the road. “It’s really not about you. I owe you one.”

  He tosses it off like it’s nothing, like he says it all the time. And I bet he does. I’m starting to realize that people on this island trade in favors. It’s their currency. Sure, Lainey and I have had an elaborate series of IOUs over the years, but we’re talking a few dollars for a breakfast burrito or a movie ticket, a tank of gas at the very most. But the stakes feel higher here. It’s easy to owe when no one doubts your ability to pay. When no one is going to ask for more than you can give in return.

  * * *

  Spencer was silent for the rest of the ride home. He didn’t even drop me off at Kris’s house, instead pulling into his own driveway, leaving me to walk across the dark lawn. I glance at the dashboard clock just before I get out and see the time: 12:29 A.M. In one night I’ve had my first curfew and blown my first curfew.

  As I cross the lawn, I start wondering what’s going to happen when I get inside, and the look on Kris’s face when I find her at the kitchen table with a mug of tea tells me it’s not going to be good.

  “You’re thirty minutes late,” she says as soon as the door shuts behind me.

  “Sorry. We got to talking and I lost track of time.” I’m ready to shrug it off when I notice the stony look on her face.

  “I called you and texted! The only reason I didn’t call the police was because I called Kate. She said you guys were still at the beach.”

  I remember S
pencer, who’d been quiet all night, firing off a text, and I feel a second flare of anger at him. He knew I was supposed to be home, and he knew Kris was looking for me, but couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. What a guy.

  Not that my anger at Spencer does anything for me now. I pull my phone out of my pocket, but I don’t see any missed calls or texts. Not from Kris or anyone else. And then I notice the little letters in the top corner that read NO SERVICE.

  “I’m sorry, my phone looks like it’s not working,” I say. “I guess I should have called, though.”

  “You guess you should have called? Maritza, right before you walked out of here, I told you that I wanted you home at midnight. You agreed. So when you don’t show up, and you don’t call or text, all I can do is worry.”

  “I figured since everyone else was out so late, it was probably fine. You really didn’t have to wait up for me.”

  “But I was worried, don’t you get that?”

  “I’m sorry,” I reply, but even I can hear the exasperation in my voice. Jeez, I was only half an hour late. It’s not like I stayed out till dawn.

  Kris takes a deep breath. “This might have been different if your phone had worked. Then I could have reached you, and then at least I wouldn’t have been envisioning you dead in a ditch somewhere. But your phone didn’t work, and you didn’t have the sense to try to check in or let me know what your plan was.”

  Kris walks to the sink and deposits her mug, rinsing it thoroughly first, then turning to me.

  “We’ll talk about it more in the morning. And we’ll figure out what’s going on with your phone. For now, let’s just get some sleep.”

  Kris waits for me to head for the stairs first, and she trails after me, as if I might make a break for it instead. She doesn’t even say good night as I head into my room, which is how I know she’s really mad.

  And then I’m really mad. Because the whole thing is just monumentally stupid. She knew exactly where I was, because I told her, and because she called Kate, who confirmed it. So I wasn’t in by midnight. That was a completely arbitrary time anyway. I’ve made it seventeen years without a curfew. I lived for two weeks without any adult supervision at all, and I was just fine. Yet I come to Helena Island and suddenly I have to answer to someone else? This is all such a joke. When Mom left, she told me to follow my own path, but so far it feels like I’m being led around by other people.