Janna King

Sandpiper Islands

Sam walks along the boardwalk, gazing out at the ocean and seagulls. The sun is warm, but there is a cool breeze that chills her bare arms. Small yachts and lobster boats are parked along the docks and behind her are the post office, small library, and food market. She remembers coming here with her best friend Caitlin Johnson many summers in elementary school. Dressed in pink and purple and wearing huge seashell necklaces, they would run across the beach as mermaids on land, two blondes searching for buried treasure and special rocks. Now Caitlin is in the theater clique at school and barely even says hi to her when they pass in the hall. She dyed her curly hair dark brown.

Sam scratches her arm. She watches the small cruise boat come into the dock. She can hear Captain Novotney on the loud speaker: “…And that concludes our tour. I hope you enjoyed your visit to the Sandpiper Islands in Long Island Sound.” The people file off of the boat, mostly young families and middle-aged and elderly couples. A girl around six years old bounces all the way back to her family’s car while her younger brother cries. Captain Novotney’s teenage son Tyler gets off the boat as well. He sees her and waves. Caught off guard, she doesn’t lift her hand to wave until he’s already turned his back.

Sam walks through town to her mom’s shop, a place with smelly incense, sparkly jewelry, soaps, and handmade gifts. Outside there is a sculpture garden, with gray pupil-less cherubs and sad-looking stone cats. The strong aroma of the shop makes her eyes water and her nose itch. Her mother is ringing up a customer, an older woman wearing a purple shawl. Sam’s mom is tall and slender with graying blonde hair, murky-blue eyes, and sun spots from too many days tanning at the beach in her youth.

“Thank you, have a nice day.”

The customer leaves the store. Sam leans on her elbows against the counter where her mom is working.

“Hi, honey,” her mom says. “How was school today?”

“Fine,” Sam says, shrugging. She runs her fingers through her long dirty blonde hair. “Can I have eight dollars? They’re doing Into the Woods at school; I want to buy a ticket.”

“Is Caitlin in it?”

“Yeah. She’s the witch.”

“That sounds like a good role! I thought only the upperclassman got main parts. Well, we always knew she was talented. I bet she’s having fun.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Sam looks through a small basket of rings next to her.

“You should try out for the play next year,” her mom is saying. “I’m sure you could get into the chorus at least. And you could spend more time with Caitlin and make other friends, too.”

Sam shrugs. “I’m not an actress.”

“You could be,” her mom says, smiling at a customer walking in the door. “If you wanted.”

That night, Sam sets up her easel, acrylic paints, and canvas in her garage as she often does. She’s been working on the same painting for two weeks now, off and on. Although she likes the idea of it, something in the execution is not working for her. The painting is abstract, curving shapes and lines in muted colors. It looks like something her mother would hang over the couch, which is not what she is going for.

She dips her brush into the smooth, milky white paint and dots it onto the canvas. She’s painting purely out of boredom now, not inspiration. She can hear her 10-year-old brother Tommy complaining about not wanting to go to bed and her mother becoming agitated with him. Ever since her parents got divorced two years ago, her mom has been more easily frustrated when it comes to her parenting. Sam dips her brush into a mix of orangey red and paints long, diagonal stripes across the canvas, striking out the mess of a picture underneath.

At school, Sam goes through her day alone as usual. Although she does well in all her classes (with some struggles in math), her favorite is art. Mrs. McKinley is also her favorite teacher. She is in her early thirties, young enough to still be the cool teacher at school. She wears close-fitting blouses and dress pants and has dark hair that is always pulled up in a sloppy bun. Mrs. McKinley lets Sam do independent art projects because she is more advanced.

Caitlin is in Sam’s art class. She and two of her new friends from theater named Stef and Rachel talk and laugh while they work on their paintings. Caitlin is painting a picture of a girl lying dramatically on a red velvet sofa, her face full of Hollywood angst. She fixes her newly brunette hair constantly, flipping her curls so they bounce. Sam sits across the table from her, watching her freckled nose scrunch up when she laughs. Most days go by without Caitlin saying anything to her.

The bell rings. The students shuffle out of the classroom. Sam puts finishing touches on her painting. It’s abstract with earthy tones. Caitlin stops behind her and looks over her shoulder.

“That’s cool,” she says.

“Thanks,” says Sam, surprised.

Caitlin starts to walk to the door and Sam says, “I like yours, too.”

Caitlin just nods a little. “Nah, it’s bad.” She leaves the classroom, following her friends.

Sam sits at the table for a minute. She stares at the mural of the ocean and brightly colored fish on the wall, without realizing she is staring.

“Everything alright, Sam?” Mrs. McKinley asks from her desk in the corner.

“Yeah,” Sam says, snapping back into the present. She takes her brushes and cleans them in the sink.

The sun is bright and the flowers are in bloom when Sam walks home from school. Daffodils line the streets on either side and the apple trees in the little park with the playground are covered in white and pink blossoms. The little town of Rocky Shore is at its best as Sam walks past the post office and the market. Her backpack is heavy on her back. She stops to sit on one of the benches by the Sound and looks out at the water and the Sandpiper Islands in the distance. The islands are small and rocky, but decades ago celebrities used to spend the summers in their houses there. Now they are owned by several wealthy Rocky Shore families who bought them up about ten years ago.

Sam sees Tyler Novotney carrying empty lobster traps onto his father’s boat at the docks. She’s known his family her whole life, as she’s known most families in town. Along with conducting boat tours of the Islands, they’re in the lobster business.

Tyler is walking towards her now. He’s wearing a grey T-shirt and jeans on his athletic body, his brown hair blowing slightly in the breeze. “Hi,” he says, sitting at the other end of the bench about two feet away from her.

“Hi,” she replies, smiling cordially. When he doesn’t say anything else, she adds, “How are you?”

“Pretty okay. You?”

She nods. “I don’t see you in school.”

“I only have classes in the morning. It’s great being a senior.” He smiles. “You’re a sophomore, right?”

She nods again. They sit in silence for a few uncomfortable moments, at least on her part. Tyler seems pretty relaxed, gazing out at the water, but he always seems like that.

“You’re working on the tour boat now?” she asks him.

“Yeah, just helping out here and there,” he says, reaching into his jeans pocket and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. Looking at Sam, he stops, and starts to put it away again.

“It’s ok,” Sam says.

“Thanks,” he says, pulling out a cigarette and putting the rest of the pack back in his pocket. “You don’t smoke, do you?”

“No.”

“That’s good. I’m trying to quit, but…”

He doesn’t finish. He puts the cigarette to his lips and takes out a red lighter, lighting the end and taking a long drag. He blows the smoke out, eyes closed, and Sam notices how long his lashes are.

“You still hang out with Caitlin Johnson?” Tyler asks.

“Not really,” Sam says. She thinks of how Caitlin complimented her painting in art class.

“Oh, that’s too bad. You guys were like twins. But those things happen. I don’t talk with many of my old friends either.”

Sam nods. Tyler takes another drag of his cigarette. Over on the docks, three seagulls fight over a clam.

“Well, I should get home now,” Sam says. “I have to be there when my brother gets back from school.”

“Alright. See you later,” Tyler says.

“Sure,” Sam says, pulling her backpack up onto her shoulders and walking up to the street. She turns to look back at Tyler sitting on the bench by the Sound. She only sees the back of his head and the trail of smoke from his cigarette.

On the first day of high school, Sam and Caitlin had stuck together. They went shopping for school supplies and picked out their outfits for the important day. Sam wore a pink polo top with khakis while Caitlin decided on a purple T-shirt and jean capris. They wore a touch of make-up and Sam straightened her hair. Caitlin prided herself on her natural blonde curls, and so made sure they were in top form. They met at the playground and then walked the rest of the way to school together. However, Sam had always earned better grades than Caitlin, and was placed in all honors classes except for math. The only honors class Caitlin got into was World History. This was the only class they shared; they didn’t even have the same lunch period.

Still, things went pretty well for weeks, the two of them walking to school together, both on the way there and back. But after about a month, Caitlin stopped meeting Sam at the flagpole after school. She said she had theater practice; she had gotten into the chorus of The Music Man. Sam knew she didn’t have practice everyday, but Caitlin never waited for her, so Sam walked home alone. .

On opening night of the Rocky Shore High production of Into the Woods, Sam sits in a seat on the right side of the auditorium. Although she doesn’t know much about acting, she has gained an appreciation of theater from attending Caitlin’s performances throughout the years. Sitting in the hot, cramped non-air-conditioned auditorium amid her classmates and their families, she fans herself with a program. The lights dim and she applauds with everyone as the curtain goes up and the band starts to play.

The theatrical performances at school tend to be well funded, and it’s apparent in the sets and costumes here. Sam enjoys the play and the twist on fairy tales, laughing in the first act and quickly wiping away the tears that start to form in her eyes from the second act. With the final line of Cinderella’s “I wish…” she feels better and yet sadder than before, both at the same time. The whole cast had been good and Caitlin had done a great job in her role as the Witch. Feeling inspired after the Finale, Sam waits outside the auditorium for the cast to come out. They walk out in costume, hugging relatives and accepting big bouquets of flowers.

Caitlin is talking with Stef and Rachel (Cinderella and the Baker’s Wife) and the guy who played the Wolf and Cinderella’s Prince. Stef is saying how she almost forgot her line at a pivotal moment and they are laughing and joking. Sam approaches Caitlin.

“Hi,” she says, and nods at the others in acknowledgement. “Great job.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Caitlin says, smiling in her black witch costume. Her friends smile politely.

“You were really good.”

“Thanks,” Caitlin says again. She spots a fellow cast mate and runs to hug her giggling. Stef and Rachel follow her and the guy dressed as the prince smiles at Sam before walking away.

Sam walks home humming songs from the show softly.

Despite it being Saturday, Sam’s mother wakes her up at eight o’clock the next morning. She has just learned that she has to drive Tommy to a baseball game at a school in the next town over, so would Sam please work in the shop today until she gets back? Sam tries hiding under the covers pretending not to hear, but her mother keeps nagging at her, so eventually she gets up.

Working in her mother’s shop is not a lot of fun. Sam is slightly allergic to all the incense and fragrant soaps and although it gets pretty steady business, it’s mostly just middle-aged women that come in. Ironically, the shop is named Samantha’s. Her mother opened the store and named it when Sam was three.

Her mother has been trying to boost business since her divorce. Sam’s dad is a financial advisor and makes good money. Now that the family’s only income is from the shop and the monthly child support check Sam’s dad sends from upstate New York, they can’t afford the luxuries they used to. They had to move out of their house, Sam’s childhood home, the summer before Sam started high school. She misses it a lot, but the good thing about their new, small house is that it’s closer to the center of town, the high school, and the Sound. She can walk everywhere.

Sam sits in the chair behind the counter. If she were to have her own shop named after her, it wouldn’t look like this one. The inside of the building is one small room with antique-styled decorations, gold and pink sashes of fabric on the walls, stars and angel ornaments hanging from them. Her mother sells somewhat expensive handmade jewelry from local artisans, as well as high-priced clothes.

There are three women in the store when Tyler Novotney enters the store. He looks surprised to see Sam working there. He’s wearing a brown hoodie with jeans and has a camera hanging off of him on a strap. He smiles at her, walking over to the counter.

“Hey, you’re working for your mom now?” he asks.

“Sometimes. She needed me to fill in for her today while she’s at my brother’s baseball game. What are you looking for?”

“Looking for?”

“To buy. Guys don’t usually come in here.”

“Oh,” he smiles. “It’s my sister’s birthday. She’s going to be twenty-six. I don’t know what to get her. I was thinking jewelry or something.”

“Well,” Sam says, leaning in closer to Tyler and lowering her voice so the women in the shop won’t hear her, “A lot of the stuff in here isn’t very trendy. But we do have some youthful jewelry over here…” She gets up and walks towards the back of the store. Tyler follows her.

She shows him the chandelier earrings she likes, running them over her fingers. They come in different colors: green, silver, gold, blue, purple. They sparkle in the light.

“Thanks,” Tyler says. “Do you like the purple ones? It’s her favorite color.”

“Yeah, they’re great,” Sam says.

They walk back to the counter and Sam rings up the earrings on the cash register. She takes out a little box from the shelf behind her and lays the sparkly earrings on the soft cotton padding.

“What are you taking pictures of?” she asks, looking at his camera.

“Oh, just things around town. I’m taking Digital Photography at school.”

“I want to take that class next year,” she says, taking the money he hands her. “I like painting and drawing, but I haven’t tried photography yet.”

“Oh, you should. I like it a lot.”

Sam hands him his change and a bag with the box of earrings. Tyler looks around the shop at the women browsing and then asks her, “Do you mind if I take your picture?”

“Oh…” she says, surprised. She doesn’t really want her photo taken.

“Just sit there,” Tyler says, already adjusting his camera. He holds it up to his eye and she fixes her hair, not knowing where to look or what to do. “You don’t have to smile or anything. Just look at me or off to the side a little.”

Nervous, her heart pounding, she looks at a woman riffling through handmade cards at the back of the store to the right. She hears the camera shutter click. She looks at Tyler, smiling awkwardly, when click-click, he takes another picture. He looks at the pictures on the screen of his camera and then puts it down, letting it hang on its strap by his side.

“Looks good,” he says. “Thanks.”

She nods, slightly embarrassed.

“And thanks for the help with the present. I think my sister will really like these.” Tyler smiles, puts up his hand, palm towards her, as he leaves the shop.

That evening, Sam paints a picture of an empty beach, the ocean stretching out to the horizon, the sky almost as dark as the water.

The rain on Monday brings the warm weather down a good ten degrees. Sam looks out the window in art class, occasionally adding a brushstroke or two to her earth-toned painting. Everyone in class is subdued because of the weather, except for the group of jocks taking the class for their art credit. Tim Reynolds is telling jokes to his friends, who keep laughing obscenely loud at the punch lines. Mrs. McKinley seems especially tired, sitting at her desk and staring at her work for several minutes at a time before returning to reality and getting up to walk around the classroom.

“How’s it coming?” Mrs. McKinley asks Sam, standing bent over behind her to look at her painting, her long silver necklace dangling down.

“Fine,” Sam says. “I’m feeling sort of uninspired right now, though.”

“The weather,” Mrs. McKinley says, nodding. “You’ll get back on track.”

Suddenly Sam feels that someone is looking at her from across the table, and she knows who it is. She looks back, watching as Caitlin slowly turns her gaze away and back at her own painting. Mrs. McKinley walks over to look at Liane Hui’s portrait of an old woman.

In that moment, Sam feels nauseous and wishes she could disappear, drop out of school, travel the world painting, and maybe take up photography. She sees Caitlin through her peripheral vision, and feels like stomping on her. She runs her fingers through her hair.

After she finishes eating her lunch alone in the cafeteria, she walks down the white hallways to the ladies room. The bathroom has brown paper towels littered all over the floor and there are slight burn marks on the wall from the time last year Jennifer Conti was smoking and almost set the bathroom on fire. She enters a stall, locks the door, and sits on the edge of the toilet seat. She takes her iPod out of her backpack. MP3 players are not allowed in school. She puts the earphones in her ears and sets the iPod on shuffle. “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)” by Janis Joplin plays. She listens to music for ten more minutes, de-stressing, until the bell rings and she goes to her geometry class, feeling somewhat rejuvenated.

Two o’clock. The bell rings, students shuffling through the halls, out into the wet weather. The rain has stopped, but it’s still gray out. Sam walks past the security guard, Joe, and down the concrete stairs. She passes groups of people huddled around each other waiting for the bus. When she gets down the road, she hears someone jogging behind her, and then a guy’s voice: “Sam!”

She thinks of Tyler, and his camera click-clicking at her. She turns slowly, but is surprised to see one of Caitlin’s theater friends. He looks about six feet tall, thickly built with short curly brown hair and a confident smile. Maybe too confident. Sam isn’t sure.

“Hey,” he says. “Remember me?”

Besides seeing him with Caitlin sometimes, she doesn’t know what he means.

“I’m Paul. I was the Wolf and Cinderella’s Prince in Into the Woods,” he says. “We met after opening night.”

“Oh, right,” Sam says. She hardly thinks ignoring someone while she briefly talks to a friend counts as meeting someone.

“I know this is weird,” he says, laughing a little. “But when I saw you that night, I asked Caitlin about you, and she said you guys used to hang out and that you’re a really cool person.” Sam’s head is spinning. Used to hang out. Yeah, that really describes nine years of being best friends. You’re a really cool person. Caitlin said she was a really cool person.

“Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out sometime.”

She stares at him, still caught in thought, unprepared to speak, let alone make a decision about anything. A school bus pulls up to the curb behind them and Paul looks back at it, shifting his weight to his other leg as he pulls his backpack up on his back.

“Okay,” Sam says.

“Great!” Paul gives her a thumbs up. A thumbs up? “I gotta catch my bus; I’ll get your number from Caitlin.” He walks backwards to the bus, a goofy smile on his face.

She nods, reminding herself to smile. Turning, she walks towards home, her head and heart racing.

Paul calls while her family is having dinner. Her mother answers and looks entirely too pleased to hand the phone over to Sam. Paul says his best friend is having a party on Friday night and a bunch of the theater kids, including Caitlin, are going, and would she like to go with him? They make plans and she hangs up. Tommy says, “Why is a boy calling you?” and Sam tells him to shut it.

Sitting on her bed in her pajamas, Sam looks at her photos on the wall. She and Caitlin at the Bronx Zoo when they were eight, eating ice cream outside the market at age six, at their friend Lily’s twelfth birthday party, the year before Lily moved to Florida. Sam hasn’t taken them down because they are memories of her childhood, signifiers of who she is. It doesn’t matter that Caitlin isn’t really in her life anymore; the point is that she was, and why should Sam pretend it didn’t mean anything?

But she is going to a party with Caitlin on Friday now. She might date one of the guys in her group of friends.

Sam gets under the fluffy lavender comforter and rests her head on her pillow. In a photo from the fourth grade of Sam, Caitlin, and their old friends Francesca and Danielle, Caitlin is smiling perfectly at the camera, which is probably being held by one of their mothers. Sam is beaming, even though she is wearing mismatched socks and her hair is cut too short so that is poufs out around her head. She realizes she hasn’t smiled like that for a camera in a long time. In Tyler’s pictures, she had simply stared off to the side, her mouth a straight line. Sam rolls over and turns off the lamp.

The next day it rains again. Sitting in English class, Sam doodles in the margins of her notes. She draws a girl with hair like hers, but with extra large eyes and a small mouth. At lunch she listens to music on her iPod in the bathroom. She keeps her eye out for Paul, but she never sees him. Every time she thinks about going to the party on Friday, her stomach lurches, and although Sam doesn’t know whether it is a good or bad anxiousness, she tries to think about something else.

Walking home from school, Sam passes the docks as usual. She stands under her umbrella and looks to see if there is anyone out there, but there isn’t, maybe because of the rain. She’s about to keep walking when she sees a figure leaning against the boatyard building, a faint trail of smoke coming from his direction.

Sam walks down to the square, dirty white cement building. No one else is out in town except some kids coming home from school. The place feels so empty and Sam likes how it’s so still except for the choppiness of the water because of the rain. The cold revitalizes her spirits.

“Hi,” she says, walking up to Tyler and joining him under the shelter of the roof ledge. His hair is wet and he’s wearing a brown jacket.

“Hey,” he says. “What’s up?”

“Not much,” she answers, her arms crossed to keep herself warm. Her gray hoodie isn’t helping much. She’s standing in mud. “Am I ever going to get to see those pictures you took of me?”

Tyler grins. “Sure. They came out really nice, too.”

“I’m thinking of buying a camera myself,” she says.

“Yeah?” Sam notices that his eyes are green.

“I can’t afford anything really expensive, though. Just a cheapie.”

“That’s ok. You can still get pretty good shots.” Tyler drops his cigarette on the ground and puts it out with his shoe. “I can help you pick out a good camera.”

“Thanks. That would be great.”

“I can drive you to Circuit City or someplace whenever,” Tyler says, still looking down at his shoe.

Sam feels impulsive and bold, which is such a strange feeling to her that she thinks she better act on it while she can. “Are you free now?”

Tyler turns and looks at her, lips closed but smiling. After a minute he says, “Let’s go.”

The rain lets up as Sam rides in Tyler’s red pickup truck. They stop at Sam’s house so she can get money from her room while Tyler waits in the truck. The house is empty, her mom not having gotten home from the shop yet, her brother at a friend’s. There is a message on the answering machine from her dad wanting to make plans to have Tommy and her come visit him over the summer. She doesn’t particularly look forward to visits at her dad’s, awkwardly conversing with the woman he left her mom and their family for.

Sam runs up to her bedroom, takes an envelope of Christmas and birthday money that she has been saving, and puts it in her purse. Walking back out to the truck, she sees her 63-year-old neighbor, Mrs. Kelso, taking her little terrier, Charlie, out for a walk. Mrs. Kelso nods and smiles at Sam, trying to look inconspicuously at the red pickup truck.

The inside of Tyler’s truck is slightly messy, papers and some tools lying on the floor by Sam’s feet. Tyler turns on the radio to some alternative rock station. Sam chews a cinnamon gum stick that she picked up in her house.

“What are your plans for next year?” Sam asks Tyler as he drives.

“I’m going to UConn,” he says.

“Cool. Do you know what you’re going to major in?” They’re driving out of Rocky Shore now into the next, larger town.

“Environmental science.”

Sam nods. “That sounds really cool.” She listens to the song playing on the radio, “Above You, Below Me” by Badly Drawn Boy.

“What about you? Do you know what you want to do for college yet?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I guess I might want to major in art.”

“Well, you have plenty of time to figure it out,” Tyler says. “But I think that’s great. I might like to minor in photography or something. I’m definitely going to take some classes, anyway.”

He turns into the Circuit City parking lot. He twists around to look back as he parks, putting his hand up on the back of her seat as he turns the wheel with his other.

As they walk into the store, Tyler says, “I’d like to see your paintings sometime.”

“Oh,” Sam says. The florescent lights and shiny floors are bright compared to the grim weather outside. “Okay… they’re not much, though.”

Tyler smirks. “You’re too modest.” They walk past red and white walls and aisles of TVs and stereo systems.

“Fine, but you have to show me your photography, too, you know,” she says.

“Of course.”

Most of the cameras are out of Sam’s price range, but eventually they find one that is pretty good quality, less expensive, and on sale. They open the box back in the truck and Sam takes her first picture with her new camera: Tyler caught unaware, putting the key in the ignition.

Sam still works on her paintings in art class, but her free time is consumed by taking photos. Close ups of household objects, self-portraits with arm held out from her body, shots of her mother when she’s not looking, which then leads her to sigh and ask Sam to stop. Doesn’t she have any homework to do? Sam explains that she finished it all already. It’s not entirely true, but she gets it all done eventually. After a few days she runs out of things to take pictures of at home, so she walks around town taking photos.

She runs into Tyler at the market buying a deli sandwich. She buys an iced chai.

“We should go drive somewhere to take pictures,” he says, standing outside the market. “Have a field trip day.”

“Yeah, that would be great,” Sam says.

“How about tomorrow?”

“Oh, I can’t tomorrow,” she says, fiddling with her camera. “I’m kind of going on a date.”

“Oh,” Tyler says. “Okay. Well, some other time.”

She nods. “Definitely.”

“Who’s the guy?” he asks, pulling out a cigarette and lighter from his pant pocket.

“Paul Wechsler.”

“Oh okay. I sort of know him.” He lights up. “We had Little League together.”

“I don’t even know him really. He’s friends with Caitlin.”

“Well, good luck,” Tyler says, blowing out smoke. “See you later.”

He walks down the path to the docks. Sam watches him for a minute, snaps a picture—Tyler, framed by the ocean, light hitting the side of his face—then heads home.

Paul picks Sam up outside her house at nine the next night. She has told her mom about the date and that they are going with Caitlin as well. Her mother is excited for her. Sam comes downstairs wearing a lavender satin shirt with jeans and her mother asks if shouldn’t she maybe wear a skirt. Sam ignores her.

Paul is wearing a blue T-shirt and khaki pants. He drives his own BMW. In Rocky Shore, there are the wealthy, and there is the middle to working class. She used to be one of the wealthy ones, before her dad left. Caitlin’s family is wealthy. Tyler’s is working class. It’s a simple division and everyone in town knows who belongs to which group. She finds out that Paul moved to Rocky Shore three years ago, which is why she doesn’t know any of his history.

Paul asks her questions on the ride over: what her hobbies are, what classes she is taking at school, has she seen such-and-such movies? They pull up in front of a large white house next to the water. Sam can tell that, like many of the wealthy people’s houses, it has it own little spot of private beach. Rap music is pulsating from the house.

“The guy throwing the party is my best friend Alex,” Paul says. “His parents are in the Vineyard for the weekend.”

They walk up the porch stairs. Paul opens the door. The music is blasting. She looks at all the preppy white people listening to rap music. Her eyes hunt for Caitlin, but she doesn’t see her. The house is pretty filled with people, many of them holding bottles of alcohol. Paul spots his friend Alex Hamilton (Sam knows that his father owns an architectural firm and his mother works in the local government). Paul introduces her.

Then she spots Caitlin. She’s coming in from another room, her friends Stef and Rachel crowded around her laughing. Caitlin has her curly brown hair up in a high bun and she’s wearing long sparkly earrings that dangle down to her bare shoulders, with an off-the-shoulder shirt and dark jeans. She sees Sam and nods at her in acknowledgment before sitting down next to Jimmy Landry.