17 · Lucy
Sunday night, after my shift at the Full Loon, I ride home with my mom. Usually she doesn’t stay much past seven on Sundays, but tonight she waited for me.
As soon as we’re out of town, she says, “I’m sure you’ve heard I finally hired Rita’s replacement.”
“Yep.”
“Her name is Joellen. She’s married with a couple of kids. They live out on Papyrus Lake.”
“That’s nice.”
“She can’t work Monday nights during the summer, so I need you to pick up another shift.”
Monday nights. Ben will be there.
“No.” It’s more of an exhale than a word.
“Look, Lucy, this isn’t a request. I need you to do this.”
“Can’t you ask Jeannie to do it? Or Rosemary?”
“Rosemary works the day shift. And Jeannie’s working five days.”
“What about Patty? Or hire another part-timer.”
She sighs. “Patty already works the Monday night shift. You know how hard it is to find good staff. Look how long it took me to find Joellen.”
“Mom. I can’t do it.”
“Lucy, please. We’re stretched pretty thin this summer as it is. I can’t hire another part-timer, especially when I had to hire someone to take Clayton’s place.”
I swallow hard and tell myself it’s not just about Ben.
“Mom,” I start, and my voice cracks. “It’s my only day off. The only day I get any time to myself, you know? This summer—this summer has been so hard already . . .”
She sighs and there’s a pause. Then, in that tender voice I’ve heard so much over the last ten months, she says, “It’s been almost a year, sweetheart. I know that Trixie was a good friend, the best friend, and we all loved her, but at some point you have to let go of this sadness. It’s time. It’s time to move on, to get on with your life.”
She reaches across the center console and squeezes my hand.
She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t, the counselors at school don’t, the ones who said that it was okay to be sad, but we had to learn that life goes on, that we need to move on, carry on.
I hated them for saying it.
“No,” I whisper into the window. Tears slip down my cheeks.
The car fills with a cloud of uncomfortable quiet that settles around us for the rest of the drive. When we get home, I run to the backyard to my escape, the lake. Shay won’t be down there at this time of night.
But Simon is.
He’s dragged two of the Adirondack chairs down to the beach. The sky is a dusky blue, not quite dark.
I’m surprised to see him here, but I’m not unhappy about it. He won’t tell me that it’s time to move on.
I wipe a hand across my cheeks to check for lingering tears. I sit down in the empty chair. “Hi,” I say.
“Hey,” he says. “Feels like I haven’t seen you for days. I’ve missed you. Are you feeling better?”
Last night, after my morning out on the boat with Emily and Ben, I’d been exhausted. I ignored Simon’s call and texted that I wasn’t feeling well, and I wouldn’t be able to go to the movies like we’d planned.
“Mm-hmm.”
He takes a long drink from his glass. “Sun tea. Mom made it today. You want some?”
He offers me his glass, but I shake my head. His fingers are stained sky blue.
“I’m okay, thanks.”
“How was work? I tried to talk Mom into having dinner at the Full Loon tonight, but she was too into her painting, you know? So I had a peanut butter sandwich instead.” He laughs. “Doesn’t compare.”
“Were you painting today, too?” I point at his stained fingers.
“Oh, uh, yeah,” he stammers. “I’m not as good as Mom, but yeah. I could show you sometime.”
I nod, but don’t say anything. I close my eyes and lean my head against the back of the chair.
“I like it up here,” Simon says after a minute, “but I could never live in a place like this. It’s too quiet.”
“Too quiet?” I open my eyes and look at him. “How can it be too quiet?”
“In St. Paul, there’s this constant stream of noise. The air is solid with it. Sirens. Music. Talking, shouting. It never stops, not even in the middle of the night.” There’s fondness in his voice.
“And you like that?”
“Yeah, it’s like I know I can go to sleep because somebody else is always going to be awake, making sure that things go on as normal. I don’t have to keep watch all the time.”
“What are you keeping watch for?”
He shrugs. “You know it’s just me and my mom, right? My parents have been divorced for a long time. Things weren’t always great between them, you know? So I watch out for my mom, I guess.”
“Where does your dad live?”
“South St. Paul, not too far from us.”
“Shh. Don’t talk for a minute,” I say. “It’s actually not that quiet.”
I smile as I hear the cry of a loon overhead, the rustle of the leaves in the breeze, the chirp of an angry chipmunk, the rumble of a motor out on the lake.
“I stand corrected,” he says. “How can you sleep with all this noise?”
“It’s soothing,” I tell him. “No matter what, life on the lake goes on.”
“Lucy?”
“Yeah?”
“If I ask you something, will you be honest with me?”
I hesitate before I nod.
“Was, uh, was Ben your boyfriend?”
I sigh. I can’t help it. This must be the night for uncomfortable conversations. “No. I already told you that.”
“Do you want him to be?”
I don’t know how to answer this. He asked me to be honest, and I want to be truthful without telling him the actual truth. “I wanted him to be, yes.”
“Do you still?”
“Simon . . .” What I want or don’t want doesn’t really matter.
“No, I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”
A part of me thinks this whole thing might be easier if I do answer, though, even if I don’t tell him everything. “A lot of things changed between me and Ben after Trixie died. Sometimes it still hurts.”
There’s a pause, and then he says, “Oh, okay.”
What I said must be enough for him.
Mosquitos buzz near my face and I swat at them. “We’ve got citronella candles in the shed. Bring those down next time.” I reach over and smash one on his calf. “Don’t you have mosquitos in St. Paul?”
I smile at him. He reaches across the arm of his chair and clasps my hand. This time, his hand is sweaty. This time, Ben’s not around to see. This time, he means it.
I tug my hand away a minute later to slap at a mosquito on my neck. “I’m getting eaten alive here.”
Simon stands up and smiles down at me. “I’ll walk you home.”
We walk up the hill toward my house and stop at the bottom of the stairs to the deck.
“There are so many stars here,” he says. “It’s so beautiful. I wish I could paint this.”
He leans over and his lips touch my cheek in the slightest whisper of a kiss.
“Good night, Lucy.”
Simon turns and walks across the grass. I watch until he ducks around the lilac bush, out of sight, my hand on my cheek.
I like him. I like his shaggy hair and his paint-stained fingers. He’s nice to me and he wants to spend time with me.
I want to spend time with him.
That’s got to count for something.