“Me neither,” I said. I meant my mom.
“I probably won’t get to go to film school,” he said. “I might not make it to college at all. My dad doesn’t understand why I can’t stay here and take over the plumbing business, since the money’s good.”
In a matter of minutes, Kennedy had transformed in front of me. Knowing what he was dealing with at home clarified why he acted the way he did, and where his anger came from.
But understanding him better didn’t help me like him. I should have encouraged him to go to film school no matter what his dad said. At some point, I had stopped caring. I pictured him in ten years, a long-haired plumber claiming he could have gone to film school if he’d wanted, and making bitter comments about blockbuster movies that everyone else loved.
Instead of comforting him about his home life, I surprised myself by saying this: “You can’t give me the silent treatment anymore.”
“What?”
“The silent treatment. You get mad at me and stop speaking to me for days. I can’t stand it, and I’m not going to put up with it. My mom and dad did that to each other when my dad still lived at home.”
Kennedy stared at me across the water, like he was now having a revelation about me. A wave hit him in the chin, then another. Still he watched me.
Finally he said, “Me! You give me the silent treatment.”
“I certainly do not,” I said.
“You never say anything.”
“I’m saying something right now. I hear myself speaking.”
“You’re excruciatingly quiet. Dating you is like being given the silent treatment all the time.”
Well, maybe he shouldn’t date me, then, if it was such torture. Maybe we should break up. These words were on my lips as I glanced toward shore.
Damn my contacts, giving me excellent distance vision. Against my will, I focused on the island of our towels and umbrellas. Grace and Brody were sitting up, facing us, her body tucked between his spread legs. He massaged her shoulders.
Instead of breaking up with Kennedy, I grumbled, “Why don’t we ever make out?” If I was trying to prove to him that I was sane and logical and not on my period, the question wasn’t going to help. At this point, I just wished I could put on a show for Brody akin to the one he was putting on for me.
“What are you talking about?” Kennedy asked. “We do make out.”
Something told me the way we’d kissed wouldn’t meet Tia’s standards for “making out,” even a little. I asked, “Do you ever want to get down and dirty?” I sounded like an ad for an Internet porn site. I wasn’t sure how else to phrase it. A guy like Brody wouldn’t have cared how I put it. He would have accepted the invitation without question.
“That just seems cheap,” Kennedy said. “It doesn’t even sound appealing.”
“I’m kidding,” I said. “You’re right—the whole day’s had a fraternity mixer vibe. I guess it’s rubbing off on me.”
“Do you want to leave?” he repeated.
“I’m not ready to leave,” I repeated.
“Let’s get out of the water, at least,” he said.
Sitting next to him on a towel, listening to him make jokes, wouldn’t be any more titillating than standing next to him in the ocean, listening to him make jokes. But there was no way I would refuse his company after what I’d seen Brody do with Grace.
We sloshed toward land. Grace lay on a towel now, with Cathy and Ellen beside her. Brody was tossing a football with Will—“tossing” in this case meant he was bulleting it fifty yards. He wasn’t touching Grace anymore, but I’d seen what I’d seen.
As a last-ditch attempt at not resenting Kennedy so much, I gave him an opening to make me feel good about myself. He didn’t even have to make up a compliment. I saved him the trouble. I shouted over the noise of the surf, “Do you like my new bikini?”
“You look like a lifeguard,” he said. It was like the time I’d worn a cute, structured blazer to a party and he’d said I looked like a man, and the time I’d worn a gauzy black minidress and he’d said I looked like a wiccan.
After we reached shore, he patted a place for me on his towel—gee, thanks!—and we settled side by side, not touching. Sitting next to each other on a towel was his idea of serious physical involvement. What if he made it to film school after all, and we were still dating in college? Would we sit next to each other on a blanket spread out on the quad? Was this how snarky intellectuals got knocked up?
“Ladies and gentlemen.” Brody stood at the edge of the towel island, bouncing the football back and forth between his hands without looking at it. The ball was so familiar to him that it might as well have been part of him. “It’s time for football. Touch football, so girls can play too.”
Grace sat up and raised both hands. “I’m on your team, Brody!” she slurred.
“Drunks can’t play football,” Brody said. “Seriously, you’ll get hurt. But you can cheer.”
The drunk cheerleaders high-fived each other in response. Cathy called, “Can we cheer sitting down?”
Disgusted, I closed my eyes and lay back on my towel.
“Brody,” I heard Noah call, “if you get hurt, Coach will kill you.”
“He won’t get hurt,” I said to the air. “Just don’t fall on him, Noah.”