I trailed Frank down the stairs and stepped onto the sand, then immediately kicked my flip-flops off so that I could feel it on my bare feet. I saw Frank do the same, pulling off his sneakers and then lining them up neatly by the deck’s steps.
I walked toward the water, to where the sand got soft and more pliable, but where my feet would still be dry. There was just something about the beach at night. It was so quiet, without anyone else yelling or playing Frisbee or blasting their music. And maybe because of this, the sound of the water—even though we didn’t even have real waves—seemed that much louder. And then there was the moon. It was huge tonight, in a sky that was filled with stars that reflected down on the surface of the water.
I expected that this would be it—I’d seen that Frank’s house was, in fact, on the water, and now I’d leave and go home. But as I turned back, I saw Frank sitting on the sand looking out at the water, his legs extended in front of him. I hesitated for only a moment before I sat down as well, not too close to him, pulling my knees up and hugging them. “I like your backyard,” I said, and Frank smiled.
“Well, I should enjoy it while I can,” he said, picking up a handful of sand and letting it fall through his fingers. I sensed there was more to come, so I just looked at him, waiting, trying to be as patient with him as he’d been with me. “My parents are getting a divorce,” he said. He let the rest of the sand fall and brushed his hands off. “That’s what you saw the other morning.” I could see the hunch in his shoulders. “It’s gotten pretty messy.”
I felt myself draw in a breath. It was what I’d guessed, given the screaming fight that I’d witnessed. “I’m really sorry, Frank.”
He nodded and looked over at me, and it felt like in that moment, I was getting to see the real Frank Porter, like he was finally letting his walls down a little, not putting a good face on things. “Yeah,” he said, giving a short, unhappy laugh. “They work together, so they’re keeping it quiet, so they don’t lose any jobs. But they’re having trouble dividing assets, so they’re not supposed to be in the house together without their lawyers present.” His mouth was set in a sad, straight line, and though he was trying to sound like this wasn’t bothering him, he wasn’t really pulling it off.
“So,” I said, leaning a little closer to him, trying to understand this, “I mean, who’s living here with you?”
“Well, they’re trading off,” he said. “In theory. It seems to be easier for them to just stay near their other projects.”
I nodded and looked down at the sand, smoothing out a patch of it, over and over again. Even though my parents weren’t paying any attention to me or Beckett, they were still there. And I knew if I needed them, I could shake them out of their writing stupor.
“Anyway, that’s why I’m here for the summer. I usually go to a program at Princeton. And I was going to go back again, but neither one could agree on who should pay for it, so . . .” He shrugged and gave me an attempt at a smile.
Even as I started to form the question, I knew I wouldn’t have asked him if it hadn’t been dark and I couldn’t have looked down at the sand instead of at him. “Is your—I mean, is Lissa at the Princeton program?” It was what I’d been wondering since Frank had been trying to get in touch with her on the drive here. It had reminded me that, in all the times I’d seen Frank this summer, he’d never been with his girlfriend.
Frank nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “We didn’t think she should have to miss out just because I couldn’t go.” I waited for there to be more, but Frank just looked out to the water, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded like he was trying his best to be upbeat. “Anyway, Collins got me the job at IndoorXtreme, and here I am. It wasn’t the summer I was expecting, that’s for sure,” he said. But then he smiled, a small smile, but a real one this time. “But it’s turning out better than I imagined.” He raised an eyebrow. “I mean, just tonight, I might have saved someone from getting arrested.”
I smiled. “Thank you for that, by the way.”
Frank waved this off. “All in a day’s work.”
“Does the offer still stand?” I asked, not knowing that I was going to, just blurting it out. “To help me with the list, I mean?”
“Of course,” Frank said, turning to me. “Actually,” he said with a smile, “I kind of already started.”
I laughed, and knew that I really shouldn’t have been surprised by this. “Of course you did.”
“So,” he said, and in his voice, I could hear Frank Porter, class president, beginning an assembly. “I’ve made a list of all the Jamies at our school, and divided them by gender, and—”
“Actually,” I said, feeling myself start to smile as I leaned back on my hands, “that one’s taken care of.” Frank raised his eyebrows, and I extended my legs out in front of me, settling in for the story. “Okay, so the other night . . .”
I told Frank the story about delivering pizzas, and chickening out, but then going back to the gas station, remembering what he’d told me about the guy’s name, and then we somehow moved on to other things. Before I knew it, the conversation was just flowing without me having to try and guide it, or be aware of its every twist and turn. I was no longer thinking about what I should say. I was just going with it, letting the conversation unfold.
“That makes no sense whatsoever.” He just stared at me. “It’s on the list because you’re afraid of horses?”
“Yep.”
Frank just tilted his head to the side, like he was trying to figure this out. “So, uh,” he said after a moment. “Would these be, like, regular horses? Or possessed demon horses?”
“Regular horses,” I admitted as Frank looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. “I don’t really know why.”
“Well, for me it’s heights,” he said, shaking his head. Then he looked at me and I could see him start to blush a little. “As you probably saw the other day. My dad took me on a site visit when I was three, and I remember looking down and just freaking out. It’s one of my earliest memories, and it involves sheer terror. And I tried to get over it last year, when we flew to Montreal for an academic decathlon . . .”
“It is not a good movie.” Frank and I were now walking along the water’s edge; as he’d been sifting through the sand, he’d come upon a rock and wanted to try skipping it. He also wanted to try and convince me that Space Ninja, the movie that had been playing at the multiplexes since Memorial Day, was an example of quality filmmaking.
“It is,” he insisted, and when I raised my eyebrows at him, he laughed. “Okay, maybe the fact that I saw it with Collins colored my appreciation of it. But you have to admit, it was way better than Ninja Pirate.”
I just stared at him, wondering how he’d ever gotten a reputation for being one of the smartest people in school. “How is that proving your point?”
“In a well-ordered universe,” Frank said as we looked for more stones, since the first round of skipping hadn’t gone as he’d hoped, “skipping stones would boomerang back to you, and wouldn’t just be an exercise in futility.”
“In a well-ordered universe,” I countered, “people would stick to skipping stones on lakes and not, you know, Long Island Sound.”
“Can I ask about Lissa?” We had temporarily moved back to the steps after Frank had gone inside to get us both sweatshirts. “Do you miss her?”
He nodded and was silent for a moment before he said, “Yeah. I mean, we’ve never really spent this much time apart, so . . .” He shrugged. There was a long pause before he added, his voice quieter, “I think it’s harder to be the one left behind.” He looked over at me. “Do you?”