Vacations from Hell

We spread our towels out and lie down, me on my stomach, Evan staring up at the sun. He has a book spread out over his stomach: The Postman Always Rings Twice, I think it is, though I can’t read all of the spine. I was surprised when I found out Evan loves to read. I wouldn’t have thought any boy who looked like he did had interests outside maybe sports and girls, just like I never would have thought he’d have any time at all for a skinny, unpopular girl who wore unmatching socks and boys’ T-shirts because she didn’t know what she was supposed to be wearing anyway.



But I found out I was wrong. Evan had time for me. The sort of time that meant we spent hours together in Phillip’s library, talking or playing Halo on the big-screen TV. The sort of time that meant he actually waved to me in the hallway sometimes, even when other people could see him. The kind of time that meant that on Tuesday nights, when we had dinner at Phillip’s, he’d wait for me outside school in his car, the parking brake on and the engine running, the passenger door propped slightly open. For me.



I’d slide into the seat, smile over at him. “Thanks for waiting.”



He’d reach across me to pull the door shut. “No problem.” The flush across the back of his neck as he bent to turn the key in the ignition let me know he noticed how close to him I was sitting.



Once we were so involved in conversation that even when we pulled up to Evan’s house, we didn’t get out of the car, just sat while it idled in the driveway, our voices mingling with the music from the car stereo. I reached to push a dangling bit of hair back behind my ear, but Evan’s fingers were already there—hesitant, gentle against my skin. “Violet,” he said when I went silent. “You know—”



The car’s window shook as Phillip banged on it. “Evan.”



Evan rolled the window down.



“Pull the car up into the garage” was all Phillip said, but one look at Evan’s white face told me that the moment was gone forever.



“Evan.”



I think for a moment that it’s my mother’s voice speaking and half sit up, looking around for her. But the beach is still deserted. Evan is sitting up as well, and I follow his gaze to see Mrs. Palmer, the lady from the pink house, standing in her half-open gateway. She’s too far away for me to have really heard her voice, and yet I could swear that I did, as if she were speaking in my ear. She is wearing a long pink dress today, almost the same color as her house, its halter neck leaving her brown shoulders bare. She has sunglasses on.



Evan is already standing, gathering up his towel. Sand glitters on his back and shoulders like a dusting of sugar. “See you later, Vi.”



I crane my neck to look up at him. “But where are you going?”



“Anne said that since I helped her with her car, we could take her boat out on the water today.” He seems to sense the way I’m looking at him, because he adds, “I’d bring you, but the boat holds only two people.”



I say nothing, and he turns away—relieved, I think, that I’m not making a fuss. I watch him walk toward the house, the sun beating down like a hammer, and when he passes through the gate and Anne shuts it behind him, the sun seems to burst off all the shards of glass that decorate the front of it like an explosion. I shut my eyes against the hot, refracting light.



With nothing else to do, I wander up and down the beach, taking photos with the pink digital camera Phillip gave me as a present, back when he was making an effort to get me to like him. I had never particularly wanted a camera, but I amuse myself with it now, taking photos of bits of glass buffed by the ocean, the hulls of deserted fishing boats, the distant black line of the horizon. Words someone has written in the wet sand by the ocean’s edge, already faded past readability. A sea horse washed up on the sand, its tiny mouth open and closing in drowning gasps. I throw it back out to sea.



On my way back to the villa, I stop and look out over the water. Anne’s boat is there, drifting on the waves, its sail white as a dandelion clock against the dark blue sky. Though I can make out only the outline of a pair of shapes I think must be people, one thing is clear: Evan was lying. You could certainly fit more than two people on that boat.



My mother is silent at dinner, pushing her food around with her fork. Phillip ignores us both, humming to himself as he slices jerked pork onto his plate. It takes him a while even to notice that Evan isn’t there, and when he asks where he is, I tell him that his son is in his room with a headache. I don’t know why I’m covering for Evan. Maybe I just don’t want to hear any more shouting.