It was something I’d learned from watching Conrad in pretty much every game we’d ever played. At the first sign of weakness, you attack full force. You strike and you use every weapon in your arsenal, and you don’t let up. No mercy.
“I never said I was going to be a doctor,” he snapped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then tell us,” I said, and my heart was beating so fast.
No one spoke. For a minute, I thought he might really let us in.
And then finally, Conrad stood up. “There’s nothing to tell. I’m gonna head back out there. Thanks for the dirt bombs, Jere.” To me, he said, “You have sugar all over your face.” And just like that, he was up and sliding the porch door open.
When he was gone, Jeremiah shouted, “Shit!”
I said, “I thought you were gonna work on him!” It came out sounding more accusing than I meant it.
“You can’t push Conrad too hard, he just shuts down,” Jeremiah said, crumbling up the paper bag.
“He’s already shut down.”
I looked over at Jeremiah and he looked so defeated. I felt like bad for snapping at him. So I reached out and touched his arm, and said, “Don’t worry. We still have time. It’s only Saturday, right?”
“Right,” he said, but he didn’t say it like he meant it.
Neither of us said anything more. Like always, it was Conrad who dictated the mood of the house, how everyone else felt. Nothing would feel right again until things were right with Conrad.
chapter twenty-one
The first time it hit me that day was when I was in the bathroom, washing the sugar off my face. There was no towel hanging up, so I opened the linen closet, and on the row below the beach towels, there was Susannah’s big floppy hat. The one she wore every time she sat on the beach. She was careful with her skin. Was.
Not thinking about Susannah, consciously not thinking about her, made it easier. Because then she wasn’t really gone . She was just off someplace else. That was what I’d been doing since she died. Not thinking about her. It was easier to do at home. But here, at the summer house, she was everywhere.
I picked her hat up, held it for a second, and then put it back on the shelf. I closed the door, and my chest hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe. It was too hard. Being there, in this house, was too hard.
I ran up the stairs as fast as I could. I took off Conrad’s necklace and I changed out of my clothes and into Taylor’s bikini. I didn’t care how stupid I looked in it. I just wanted to be in the water. I wanted to be where I didn’t have to think about anything, where nothing else existed. I would swim, and float, and breathe in and out, and just be.
My old Ralph Lauren teddy bear towel was in the linen closet just like always. I put it around my shoulders like a blanket and headed outside. Jeremiah was eating an egg sandwich and swigging from a carton of milk. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey. I’m going to swim.” I didn’t ask where Conrad was, and I didn’t invite Jeremiah to join me. I needed a moment just by myself.
I pushed the sliding door open and closed it without waiting for him to answer me. I threw my towel onto a chair and swan-dived in. I didn’t come up for air right away. I stayed down under; I held my breath until the very last second.
When I came up, I felt like I could breathe again, like my muscles were relaxing. I swam back and forth, back and forth. Here, nothing else existed. Here, I didn’t have to think. Each time I went under, I held my breath for as long as I could.
Under water, I heard Jeremiah call my name. Reluctantly I came up to the surface, and he was crouching by the side of the pool. “I’m gonna go out for a while. Maybe I’ll pick up a pizza at Nello’s,” he said, standing up.
I pushed my hair out of my eyes. “But you just ate a sandwich. And you had all those dirt bombs.”
“I’m a growing boy. And that was an hour and a half ago.”
An hour and a half ago? Had I been swimming for an hour and a half? It felt like minutes. “Oh,” I said. I examined my fingers. They were totally pruned.
“Carry on,” Jeremiah said, saluting me.
Kicking off the side of the pool, I said, “See ya.” Then I swam as quick as I could to the other side and flip-turned, just in case he was still watching. He’d always admired my flip turns.
I stayed in the pool for another hour. When I came up for air after my last lap, I saw that Conrad was sitting in the chair where I’d left my towel. He held it out to me silently.
I climbed out of the pool. Suddenly I was shivering. I took the towel from him and wrapped it around my body. He did not look at me. “Do you still pretend you’re at the Olympics?” he asked me.
I started, and then I shook my head and sat down next to him. “No,” I said, and the word hung in the air. I hugged my knees to my chest. “Not anymore.”
“When you swim,” he started to say. I thought he wasn’t going to continue, but then he said, “You wouldn’t notice if the house was on fire. You’re so into what you’re doing, it’s like you’re someplace else.”
He said it with grudging respect. Like he’d been watching me for a long time, like he’d been watching me for years. Which I guess he had.
I opened my mouth to respond, but he was already standing up, going back into the house. As he closed the sliding door, I called out, “That’s why I like it.”
chapter twenty-two
I was back in my room, about to change out of my bikini when my phone rang. It was Steven’s ringtone, a Taylor Swift song he pretended to hate but secretly loved. For a second, I thought about not answering. But if I didn’t pick up, he’d only call back until I did. He was annoying that way.
“Hello?” I said it like a question, like I didn’t already know it was Steven.
“Hey,” he said. “I don’t know where you are, but I know you’re not with Taylor.”
“How do you know that?” I whispered.
“I just ran into her at the mall. She’s worse than you at lying. Where the hell are you?”
I bit my upper lip and I said, “At the summer house. In Cousins.”
“What?” he sort of yelled. “Why?”
“It’s kind of a long story. Jeremiah needed my help with Conrad.”
“So he called you ?” My brother’s voice was incredulous and also the tiniest bit jealous.
“Yeah.” He was dying to ask me more, but I was banking on the fact that his pride wouldn’t let him. Steven hated being left out. He was silent for a moment, and in those seconds, I knew he was wondering about all the summer house stuff we were doing without him.
At last he said, “Mom’s gonna be so pissed.”
“What do you care?”
“I don’t care, but Mom will.”
“Steven, chill out. I’ll be home soon. We just have to do one last thing.”
“What last thing?” It killed him that I knew something he didn’t, that for once, he was the odd man out. I thought I’d take more pleasure in it, but I felt oddly sorry for him.
So instead of gloating the way I normally would, I said, “Conrad took off from summer school and we have to get him back in time for midterms on Monday.”
That would be the last thing I would do for him. Get him to school. And then he’d be free, and so would I.
After Steven and I got off the phone, I heard a car pull up in front of the house. I looked out the window and there was a red Honda, a car I didn’t recognize. We almost never had visitors at the summer house.