Chapter 4
The first weeks of summer pass and nothing happens. Maru develops a routine out of the nothingness. Wake up late, lie in bed staring at the ceiling until the need for food or coffee or to pee becomes unmanageable. Walk to the beach, or the forest, or more often than not, just the lake beside her house. Sit there. Read a little. Maybe stop in and say hi to Harvey. Skip lunch without noticing. Somehow find herself sitting in Seb’s old room. She tells herself this is because it’s hot and the basement is cool. She tries to force herself to have dinner with her parents every night, but sometimes the hours slip past 6, 7, 8pm and she realizes she’s still down there, sitting in the dark.
Penny never follows up on her offer to go walking. Maru’s not sure if she’s upset.
“Maru?” Robin asks, and by the way she’s staring at her she knows she’s been zoning out again.
“Yes?” She asks, feeling the exertion to pull herself out of her own head to focus on her mother. They’re at the dinner table. Demetrius’s baked peach and pickled hops stew steaming in the dish between them.
“I was just asking if you’d be coming to the luau tomorrow.”
“Oh, that’s tomorrow?”
She notices her mom and dad exchanging a glance before Demetrius tells her it is.
She shrugs, “yeah, I guess I’ll come.”
“I heard from Jodi that Sam’s coming up, it will be nice to see him again, won’t it?”
“Yeah, sure.” It’s the best she can offer. Why her mom thinks she’d give a shit about Sam visiting is beyond her. He never so much as looked at her back in the day when him and Sebastian were pals.
Her parents leave before her. When they ask through the bedroom door if she wants to walk down with them she says she’s doing her hair, then she’ll follow. Her mom sounds pleased that she’s making an effort. Never mind that in reality she was still in bed in her pajamas.
It takes her almost an hour to move.
She pulls her sundress on. A plain one. She opts not to put her bathing suit underneath, knowing she won’t swim.
The communal meal’s already been served when she gets there. Lewis is happily monopolizing the governor’s company. He seems pleased, the food must have been good this year. Someone must have been successful in convincing her dad not to put in the ghost fish.
She just needs her parents to see that she’s here and then she thinks she’ll leave. She sees them preoccupied on the dance floor, Emily twirling by herself in circles around them. Sighing because she knows she’ll have to hang out for a while, she heads for the punch bowl.
Ry’s already there refilling. She’s looking at the bowl and Maru doesn’t think she knows she’s there until she holds out a glass. It isn’t until after she says “I think Pam spiked it, as usual, if that’s good with you” that she looks up at her. She looks right into her eyes and it takes Maru off guard for half a second before she reaches out to take the cup.
“It’s fine.”
Ry shrugs, getting herself a glass. “I don’t know if it is, last year Caroline and Jodi got so plastered they confronted Lewis about why he won’t go public with Marnie. Right in front of the governor.”
“Oh, dear.” Maru says before taking a sip.
Ry smiles at her softly and Maru feels like she has to be somewhere else. She doesn’t know why or where to go. Penny saves her the trouble of thinking.
“Hey Maru.” She smiles lopsidedly at her, it’s the most friendly she’s seemed since Maru’s gotten back. Her hair is falling loosely out of its bun, she’s wearing a dress that’s tighter and more low cut than Maru’s ever seen her in. She looks sexy, in some conventional kind of way, and Maru feels weird noticing it.
Penny sloppily gets herself a glass of punch, saying hi to Ry.
Interrupting Maru states “you’re having punch.”
Penny smiles sweetly at her but there’s defiance behind it, “yes, I am,” and “if you’ll excuse me,” and she turns and stumbles slightly through the sand towards where Sam and some guy Maru doesn’t know are standing.
“She seems to be having a good time.” Ry says, and Maru pries her eyes off Penny for a second to see that Ry’s noticing something weird too.
Maru puts her mostly full glass back down on the table, “I think I’ll go join them.”
Alex doesn’t love town festivals. Ever since Haley left he’s felt out of place at them, like an unwanted guest hovering at the edges. Even when people invite him in to their conversations or activities, it feels like a false nicety.
But he likes to bring his grandma to them. He knows she loves the tradition and a chance to catch up with her old friends in the valley. So he’s happy to see her happy. Tells himself that’s enough. But she’s more popular than him, and he still finds himself by the edges, alone.
Today Ry finds him. He wonders if she feels sorry for him or if it’s because she’s by the edges too. It’s hard for him to tell. She seems so easily friendly in a way he isn’t, but she’s never at the center of things. She’s not like Haley, who is happy to do the talking for him, and it makes him feel a bit awkward when she actually wants to listen to his opinion. But it’s not the worst. He feels like he’s almost having a normal conversation when she sees something coming towards them.
“You’re out for once.” Her words are cheeky but her smile isn’t and Alex sees what he didn’t notice. Shane waking towards them, his hands in his pockets and looking sheepish. Alex tries to ignore the flip flop of his stomach.
“Got bored.” He shrugs. Alex notices the sun is bringing out freckles across Shane’s nose. Had those been there when he’d installed the solar banks at his house the week before? He’d been too scared to look.
“Well, we’re glad. Right, Alex?” She nudges him and there’s nothing he can do but nod. She laughs playfully.
“So far you haven’t missed anything. Much less theatrical than last year.”
“I just came for Gus’ food.” Shane shuffles his feet, looking at the sand.
“Sure.” Ry says, and Alex can’t decipher her tone, Shane shoots her something like a warning look.
He shifts uncomfortably when there’s a moment of silence between the three of them.
“I should go check on my grandma.” He says it reflexively, without really thinking, without realizing he’s cutting Ry off from saying something. Why can’t he be normal and have a conversation? But it’s too late, so he leaves them to their own company.
Evelyn’s enjoying talking with Gus and Carolyn, hasn’t minded his absence for a second.
The guy she doesn’t know is Sam’s friend from the city, Connell. When she walked over and said hey she immediately regretted it. Sam and given her a slow up and down look and said something stupid like “almost didn’t recognize you, looking like a girl, Maru.” She wished she’d worn her weather inappropriate overalls just to avoid the remark.
She’d wished she’d had something biting to say back. Penny was watching her, tipsy happiness clouding her eyes a little, but something like annoyance there too. Then Connell was introduced to her. He was stupid. The kind of guy that says “I was being sarcastic” when she doesn’t laugh at his jokes. Unable to comprehend that she realized that, he just wasn’t funny. Even though they have nothing to talk about and there’s no chemical energy between them, he keeps moving closer throughout the afternoon. Sam has his arm slung around Penny. Penny’s dress strap is falling down her arm and she does nothing to fix it, just keeps looking at Sam like he’s everything.
Penny’s getting drunk, and it startles Maru. She feels she can’t tell her to stop, but she wants to. She tries to find a moment when Sam or Connell aren’t around so she can say it privately, but they’re always there. She’s so focused on watching Sam and Penny that she doesn’t notice she’s getting drunk too. Connell’s been slipping her punch all night, and she’d absentmindedly been accepting.
Pam passes out in the sand right after the sun sets. Her mouth wide open, snoring. She’s off to the side, so it’s not an outrageous public display, but anyone who does see is a little caught off guard. And then caught off guard with being caught off guard. Pam’s always been a sloppy alcoholic, so of course this is the kind of behaviour the towns people would expect from her, but why haven’t they seen it before?
Every year leading up to this Penny always shuffles her mother off before she fully passes out. It’s a fine balance she has learned to walk. Get her too early and she gets surly and mad at Penny for interfering with a perfectly fine evening, get her too late and the exact scene demonstrating itself now will occur. It’s been hard work for Penny to learn how to enjoy festivals when she knows this is how they’ll end. Hard work that never pays off because she doesn’t enjoy them. Until tonight.
Alex has been Penny’s next door neighbour since he moved to Pelican town. They’re the only two people of their generation that never moved away. They’re both quiet readers, or at least have been for the past few years. Yet they’ve never formed a friendship, barely an acquaintanceship. It’s rare they ever say a word to each other, not even a hello.
But he notices her now. He sees Pam in the fading sun and knows he should go and help. Knows it would be physically easy for him to get her up and move her back to the trailer, right beside his own residence.
He remembers Penny and looks around for her, thinking why isn’t she dealing with this?
He sees her off to the side, with Sam and Maru, plus another stranger. She’s laughing, red in the face, sloppy. Alex never thinks about Penny, but he’s always unconsciously assumed that she’d be the same as him. Strict about sobriety after witnessing what alcohol can do. But he sees that she’s not, and it makes his gut churn.
“Alex honey, I think we should do something.” It’s Evelyn speaking, snapping him out of his emotions. She’s looking at Pam too.
“What can we do?” It comes out darker than he anticipated and he can tell from his grandma’s face that he’s exposed himself too much. “I’ll handle it.” He mutters, turning towards Pam and gritting his teeth. He doesn’t want to help her.
Before he can even take two steps he sees two people step in for him. They each lift her by and arms and lead her towards town. Ry and Shane. He catches Shane’s eye for the briefest of moments, sees the lucidity there, something like sadness too, and he feels something inexplicable swell inside him.
Him and his grandma leave shortly after and he has this fluttering hope that on their walk home he’ll run into Shane. He wants to thank him. He knows he has no reason to and that he won’t, but he desires it. He tries not to think about that too much when they get in without seeing him or Ry.
Instead he thinks about Penny and his reaction to seeing her. He wonders about why he never considers her, never lets her cross his mind. It starts to dawn on him that maybe it’s because she reminds him too much of his past. Maybe there are things he hasn’t fully come to terms with.
Maru sees Shane and Ry dragging Pam back to her trailer and notices that Penny doesn’t notice. She’s seen Penny carefully lead her drunk mother back home from festivals countless times. She even tried to convince her to forget about her a few times, not understanding why Penny didn’t just shake off the burden, how she couldn’t ever do that. Now, seeing that Penny was doing that, she was concerned.
When Sam says he’s going to get them all another round of drinks and Connell goes to help, Maru finds her chance.
“What are you doing Penny?” She wants it to come out soft but it comes out accusatory. Full of reproach.
“Having fun, aren’t you?” Penny giggles. She’s drunk like a teen. Maru wonders if this is her first time being drunk, or if she’s gotten into a habit since she’s left. It scares her that she doesn’t know.
“No. I’m not.”
“You need to lighten up.” Penny shoves her shoulder lightly, playfully.
Maru shoves her back without thinking, a little less than playful, “you need to get a grip.” She wishes she wasn’t drunk. Why did she take those drinks from Connell?
“OH so you’re going to boss me around now? That’s the Maru I know. Yes, tell me what to do and how to be, please! I’d love some advice.” Penny’s voice drips in unnatural sarcasm.
“Stop it, Penny. Why are you being like this?”
“Like what? Like a twenty-two year old?”
“It’s not like you.”
“Not like me? Not like me? You don’t even know me.”
“I know you better than those two!” Maru is near yelling now, motioning towards Connell and Sam who are making their way towards them across the beach. She lowers her voice to a hiss, “you’re not someone who gets drunk and fawns all over idiotic boys.”
“Maybe I am. Maybe that’s exactly the person I am and you just never noticed because you’re too busy thinking about equations or whatever else to notice the real people around you.”
“Penny…”
“Leave me alone, Maru. I didn’t ask for you to come back.” Penny turns and goes toward Sam. Maru sees her press herself into him and whispering in his ear before he, Connell and Penny all disappear to a dark place.
She’s standing there like a dumbstruck idiot – her plastic cup of boozed up punch slightly crushed in her clenched hand – when her parents walk past her, holding hands and smiling.
“Having a good time?” Her dad asks her, beaming. She knows they’ve seen her with Penny and the others.
“Yeah.” She responds numbly.
“We’re heading home, but don’t think you have to.” Her mom winks at her, smiling.
She forces a smile, “I think I’ll stay out for a bit.” She doesn’t want to be here anymore, never did, but can’t stand the idea of being stuck in her room. She leaves her happy parents and wonders down the beach, carefully skirting around the other villagers, not making eye contact, until she makes out to the second pier. She walks to the end and sits down, not knowing what else to do.
Her only relief is that Connell doesn’t come after her.
She sits there for a long while, the din of the luau slowly getting quieter. She knows at this point the governor has probably left and Lewis is getting drunk either to drown his sorrow or to celebrate. Marnie is sticking close to him. Pierre’s gone home, mumbling about the loss of a productive business day. Carolyn’s staying out with Jodi. Jas and Vincent, back in the day, would be pouting to go home now, but now that they were older they might have snuck off somewhere to do who knows what. Elliott and Leah had left long ago. Clint’s drunk crying over Emily to Willy, while she’s still dancing in a hallucinatory haze.
She wonders where Harvey is. Why didn’t she talk to him? Why did she stupidly try to guard Penny when she could have just been spending time with Harvey, the only good person in this town? Penny would do what she wanted, it didn’t matter what Maru said or did to influence her. And Penny was right, Maru didn’t know what she was like anymore. Maybe she was the kind of person who liked flirting with dumb boys and getting drunk on the beach with her friends. Was that really so wrong?
She’s broken out of her reverie by footsteps on the dock. She looks behind her to see Ry approaching. She holds up her hands, as if in surrender.
“Sorry, didn’t know you were out here. I’ll leave if you need a minute.” Maru’s not sure if she believes her. She turns back towards the water.
“It’s fine.” Though it’s not, and she wishes she would go. But Ry can’t read her mind and sits beside her anyway.
“Have an okay night?”
Maru gives a muffled laugh, but still says “yeah.”
“Are you lying?”
She turns to look at Ry in surprise. She knows her cover ups are always transparent, but nobody ever calls her out on it.
“No.” She says reflexively, turning back towards the sea with a frown. It’s transparent too.
This time Ry doesn’t question, just follows her gaze out across the dark ocean, “yeah, I guess it wasn’t so bad this year.”
“Get Pam home okay?” Maru asks, because she doesn’t know what else to say.
Ry frowns. “We did.” There’s a long silence before she adds, “get Penny home okay?”
Maru huffs, “no. No. She’s with Sam.” She pulls her legs up to her chest and wraps her arms around them.
“He seems like an alright guy…” Ry says it hesitantly, and if Maru wasn’t still drunk she might have noticed that it was a baited hook to get her to contradict.
But she doesn’t notice, and she falls for it. “He’s an idiot. He always has been.”
“His friend seemed to like you.”
“He is even worse,” failing to notice that Ry was paying attention to such things.
“Yeah?”
“The kind of guy who wishes he was like Sam.”
“Too weak to have his own personality?”
Maru can’t help but smile. “Something like that.”
“I know a few of those.”
“I guess you would, if you lived in Zuzu.” Maru grumbles, holding her knees closer.
“Didn’t love it there, then?”
Maru frowns, “no.”
“You were so excited before you left.” Ry muses, kicking her bare feet absently over the side of the dock.
Maru catches her breath, so Ry remembered her back in the day? She shakes the feeling that gives her, unable to interpret it. “I was excited for school. Not the city.”
“Too bad they’re inextricably linked, huh.” Ry’s making some kind of face that Maru can’t make out since she’s looking out to sea and not at her. She wonders what Ry’s experience with the city was like, but before it can hit her how weird it is to be wondering about someone else, Ry asks, “so you prefer it out here?”
Maru notices she’s been staring and turns away. “I don’t know.”
They sit without speaking for some time longer. Maru thinks she can feel the space between them and wonders what it would be like to close it. She feels the same sizzle of desire she always gets when she’s drunk and wants something to distract her from her life.
But she’s not going to act on it. Not here, not where she has no anonymity. She wants to sit there until the farmer leaves, like moving first would mean losing some kind of game.
Ry shows no inclination to leave, seems completely content to sit there in silence and stare out at the waves and the starry sky.
Eventually it dawns at Maru that if she tries to win this game it’ll be endless. She blurts out, “so Shane’s working for you now?” Her voice unnatural on the evening air.
Ry nods, “yep. Yeah, he is.”
“And that’s good?”
“It’s really good. I don’t think I’ve ever worked so well with someone.”
Maru knows she could say something about how that probably surprised a lot of the villagers, considering his past, etc., etc. But that’s not something that interests her, and she already feels stupid for starting this conversation she doesn’t want to have.
She’s silent for long enough to let Ry know the topic is dropped before she stands up. “I think I better go home.”
Ry looks up at her, “it’s getting late.”
“It must be for you.”
Ry laughs, getting up and following her off the dock. “Yep. Ten o’clock is pretty much the dead of night for a farmer.”
Maru laughs but she’s pretty sure it’s just the lingering alcohol in her system. They walk the rest of the way down the now empty beach in silence. When they get to the bridge, they both pause.
Ry looks her directly in the eye, there’s a ghost of an amused smile on the edge of her lip. “Come by the farm sometime.” She says it softly, almost like it’s an amusing request. All Maru can do is nod, and then Ry puts her hands in her pockets and turns to go, disappearing down the road towards the woods.
Maru’s not sure what’s just happened between them.