The Cousins Read online

  I lick my lips, which taste like cinnamon and chlorine, while I wait for him to go on. When he doesn’t, I prod, “You think what?”

  His shoulders tense, then rise in a shrug. “Just—not today. I have stuff to do.”

  I don’t have the energy to ask what stuff. I lean toward him for a kiss, but Thomas pulls back. “Better not. I don’t wanna get sick.”

  Stung, I retreat. Guess that’s what I get for lying. “Okay. Text me later?”

  “Sure,” Thomas says. As soon as I’m out of the car and shut the door, he reverses out of my driveway. I watch him drive up the street with an uneasy flutter in my stomach. It’s not as though Thomas waits for me to make it through the front door when he drives me home, but he doesn’t usually take off quite that fast.

  The house is quiet when I get inside. When Mom is around she always has music on, usually the nineties grunge she liked in college. For one hopeful second I think that means I have the place to myself, but I’ve barely set foot in the living room before my father’s voice stops me.

  “Back so soon?”

  My stomach twists as I turn to see him sitting in a leather armchair that’s too big for the cramped corner of our living room. His author chair, the one Mom bought when his book was published. It would look better in one of those office-slash-libraries with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, an imposing mahogany desk, and a hearth. Our tabby cat, Eloise, lies stretched across his lap. When I don’t reply, he asks, “How was the meet?”

  I blink at him. He can’t really expect me to answer that question. Not after the bomb he dropped last night. But he just gazes back calmly, putting a finger in the book he’s holding to mark his page. I recognize the cover, the bold black font against a muted, almost watercolor-like background. A Brief and Broken Silence, by Adam Story. It’s his novel, about a former college athlete who achieves literary stardom and then realizes that what he really wants is to live a simple life off the grid—except his rabid fans won’t leave him alone.

  I’m pretty sure my father was hoping the book would turn out to be autobiographical. It didn’t, but he still rereads it at least once a year.

  You might as well, I think, my temper flaring. No one else does.

  But I don’t say it. “Where’s Mom?”

  “Your mother…” Dad hesitates, squinting as the sunlight streaming through the picture window reaches his eyes. The light brings out glints in his dark hair and gives him a golden glow he doesn’t deserve. It makes my chest hurt, now, to think about how mindlessly I’ve always worshiped my father. How deeply I believed that he was brilliant, and special, and destined for amazing things. I was honored that he’d given me an A name. I was the Fifth A, I used to tell myself, and one day I’d be just like them. Glamorous, mysterious, and just a little bit tragic. “Your mother is taking some time.”

  “Taking time? What, did she, like…move out?” But as soon as I say it, I know it isn’t true. My mother wouldn’t leave without telling me.

  Eloise startles awake and jumps down, stalking across the living room with that irritated look she gets whenever her nap ends. “She’s spending the afternoon with Aunt Jenny,” Dad says. “After that, we’ll see.” A different note creeps into his voice then—petulant, with an undercurrent of resentment. “This is hard on all of us.”

  I stare at him, blood pounding in my ears, and imagine myself responding the way I want to: with a loud, disbelieving laugh. I’d laugh all the way across the room until I was close enough to rip the book out of his hands and throw it at his head. And then I’d tell him the truth: There is no us anymore. That’s ruined, and it’s all your fault.

  But I don’t say or do any of that. Just like I didn’t push Coach Matson into the pool. All I do is nod stiffly, as though he said something that made actual sense. Then I trudge silently upstairs until I reach my bedroom door and lean my head against the cool, white wood.

  You know what you did. My grandmother’s letter from years ago said that, and my father has always insisted that she was wrong. “I can’t know, because nothing happened,” he’d say. “There’s not a single thing that I, my brothers, or my sister ever did to justify this kind of treatment.” And I believed him without question. I believed that he was innocent, and treated unfairly, and that my grandmother must be cold, capricious, and maybe even crazy.

  But yesterday, I learned how easily he can lie.

  And now I don’t know what to believe anymore.

  I’m going to be late.

  I’ve been in this car for almost three hours, driving seventy-five miles through stop-and-go traffic from Providence to Hyannis. It’s been the longest, most expensive Uber trip of my life.

  “Typical last weekend in June,” my driver, Frederico, says as we crawl through Saturday-morning Cape Cod traffic. He brakes as the light we were about to pass through turns yellow. “What can you do, right?”

  I grit my teeth. “You could’ve run that light, for starters.”

  Frederico waves a hand. “Not worth it. Cops are everywhere today.”

  Google Maps says we’re just over a mile away from the ferry that will take me to Gull Cove Island. But even when we get through the red light, the line of cars ahead of us barely moves. “I’m supposed to leave in ten minutes,” I say, hunching forward until my knees bump the seat in front of me. Whoever last rode shotgun in Frederico’s car likes a lot of legroom. “Are we gonna make it?”

  “Wellll,” he hedges. “I’m not positive we’re not gonna make it.”

  I suck in a frustrated breath and start stuffing papers back into the folder I’m holding. It’s full of press clippings and printouts about Gull Cove and Mildred Story—mostly the island, though, because Mildred’s practically a recluse. The only social event she ever shows up for is the annual Summer Gala at Gull Cove Resort. There’s a picture of her in the Gull Cove Gazette at last year’s event, wearing a giant dramatic hat and gloves like she’s the queen of England. Donald Camden, her lawyer and sender of the infamous you know what you did letter, is standing next to her. He looks like the kind of smug asshole who would enjoy the job.

  Mildred is now best known for being a patron of the arts. Apparently she’s got a massive private collection of paintings and sculptures, and she spends a ton of money supporting local artists. She’s probably the only reason there’s still an artist community on that overpriced pile of rocks they call an island. So she has that going for her, at least.

  The back of the folder has a few things related to Aubrey, Milly, and their parents. Old reviews for Adam Story’s book, coverage of Aubrey’s swim meets, an article about Toshi Takahashi making partner in one of New York’s biggest law firms. I even dug up an old New York Times Vows column on his and Allison Story’s wedding almost twenty years ago. Nothing about their divorce, though.

  It’s a little weird, maybe, to be carting all this around, but I don’t know these people. And when I don’t know something, I study it.

  I shove the folder into my duffel bag and zip it up. It’s one of those oversized bags meant to see a kid through two weeks of summer camp. It has to last me two months, but I don’t have much. “Don’t you know any back roads?” I ask Frederico. We’re down to eight minutes.

  “These are the back roads,” Frederico says, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “How fast are you?”

  “What?”

  “Can you run a five-minute mile?”

  “Shit.” I exhale as his meaning hits me. “You can’t be serious.”

  “We’re not moving, kid. If I were you, I’d make a run for it.”

  Desperation turns my voice into a snarl. “I have a bag!”

  Frederico shrugs. “You’re in good shape, aren’t you? It’s either that or miss your ferry. When’s the next one?”

  “Two and a half hours.” I look at his dashboard—seven minutes to go—and make up my mind. �
��Fuck it. I’m going.” A mile isn’t that long, right? How bad could it be? Better than being stuck at a dock for almost three hours. Frederico brakes so I can get out, and I loop the straps of my bag around my shoulders like an oversized backpack.

  He points out the window. “GPS says it’s on the right. Should be a straight shot along this road. Good luck.”

  I don’t answer, just take off for the grass at the side of the road and start running. For about thirty seconds it’s fine and then everything goes to hell: the bag’s thumping too hard against my back, I can feel rocks through the thin soles of my cheap sneakers, and my lungs start burning. Frederico was wrong; I’m not in shape. I look it, because I spend hours every day hauling boxes, but I haven’t flat-out run in a long time. My lung capacity sucks, and it’s getting worse by the second.

  But I keep going, lengthening my strides because it doesn’t feel like I’m getting anywhere near fast enough. My throat is so dry that it aches, and my lungs feel ready to explode. I pass a cheap motel, a seafood restaurant, and a minigolf course. The air is hot and muggy, the kind that settles over your skin even when you’re standing still, and sweat coats my hair and pastes my T-shirt to my chest.

  This was a big mistake. Huge. How am I going to explain collapsing on the side of a Cape Cod road to my parents?

  Somehow I’m still running, my bag whacking me painfully with every step. My eyes sting with sweat and I can barely see, but I keep blinking until I make out the edge of a squat white building. It looms closer, and I spy a cobblestone path and a sign that reads STEAMSHIP AUTHORITY. I don’t know how much time has passed, but I’m here.

  I drag myself to the ticket window, panting. The woman behind the glass, a blonde with heavy makeup and teased bangs, looks at me with amusement. “Ease up on the heavy breathing, handsome. You’re too young for me.”

  “Ticket,” I gasp, digging in my pocket for my wallet. “For…the…one…twenty.”

  She shakes her head, and my pounding heart drops to my feet. Then she says, “You like to cut things close, don’t you? You almost missed it. That’ll be eighteen dollars.”

  I don’t have enough breath left to thank her. I pay, grab my ticket, and push through the doors into the station. It’s bigger than I thought, so I pick up my pace to the exit, one hand pressing against the stitch in my side.

  There’s a fifty-fifty chance I’m going to hurl before I get on this boat.

  When I reach the dock there’s hardly anyone on it, just a few people waving at the ferry. A guy in a white shirt and dark pants is standing at the entrance of a walkway connecting the dock to the boat. He checks his watch and grasps a chain that dangles to the ground, fastening it across the two posts on either side of the walkway. Then he looks up and catches sight of me lunging toward him with my ticket outstretched.

  Don’t do it, I think. Don’t be a dick.

  He takes my ticket and unclips the chain. “Made it in the nick of time. Bon voyage, son.”

  Not a dick. Thank Christ.

  I stagger up the pier and through the ferry’s entrance, almost groaning with relief at the air-conditioned chill that greets me, and collapse in a bright-blue seat. I dig inside my bag for my water bottle, unscrew the top, and drain almost the entire thing in three long gulps. Then I pour the rest over my head.

  Note to self: take up running this summer, because that was pathetic.

  My fellow passengers all ignore me. They look primed for vacation, wearing baseball caps, flip-flops, and T-shirts with what I’ve come to realize is the unofficial Gull Cove Island logo: a circle with the silhouette of a gull inside and the letters GCI above it.

  I keep still until my breathing returns to normal, then pull a Gull Cove Island tourist brochure out of my bag and flip to the transportation section in the middle. The ride is two hours and twenty minutes, and we’ll pass Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket along the way. Gull Cove Island is smaller than either of them—which is saying something, since Nantucket is only fourteen miles long—and what the brochure calls “more remote and rugged.”

  Translation: fewer hotels and worse beaches.

  I put the brochure away and survey the crowd. It looks like people are just leaving their luggage wherever, so I stuff my bag under my seat and get up. Might as well check the place out. I head for a staircase next to the snack bar, and my stomach instantly growls. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast and that was five hours ago.

  Upstairs looks almost the same, with a staircase that goes to the top deck. That’s open air, and everyone is clustered around the railings that overlook the ocean. It’s overcast, threatening rain, but the air that was choking me onshore is crisp and salt-scented here. Seagulls circle above the boat with noisy cries, water stretches smoothly on every side of us, and for the first time in a month this doesn’t seem like the worst idea I’ve ever had.

  I’m more thirsty than I am hungry, so I decide to head back downstairs and get something to drink from the snack bar. I’m preoccupied, digging for my wallet to check how much cash I have on me, and almost bump into somebody who’s heading up as I’m going down.

  “Watch it!” says a girl’s voice.

  “Sorry,” I mumble. Then I look up and gulp. “I mean, hey. Hi.”

  At first, all that registers is that this girl is drop-dead gorgeous. Dark hair, dark eyes, and full lips curved in a smirk that should probably be annoying but isn’t. She’s wearing a bright-red sundress and sandals, with sunglasses holding back her hair and a large, man-sized watch on one wrist, and—oh.

  Oh, shit. I can’t believe I blanked for a second. I know exactly who this is.

  “You mean hi?” she asks. The smirk gets bigger. Possibly a little flirty. “Are you sure?”

  I step back, forgetting I’m on a staircase, and nearly fall. I take a few seconds to consider my predicament while I grasp the rail to steady myself. I was hoping to avoid this particular person, at least until we got to Gull Cove. But now that I’ve almost literally run into her, I guess there’s no going back.

  “I’m sure,” I say. “Hello, Milly.”

  She blinks in surprise. Behind us, someone clears his throat. “Excuse me,” calls a gruff voice. “I’m trying to get downstairs.” I turn to see an old guy in plaid shorts and a Red Sox baseball cap hovering behind me, one foot on the top step.

  “Hang on. We’re going up,” I say, and reverse course. He steps aside to let me pass, and I lean against the wall of an alcove beside the staircase.

  Milly follows, her hands on her hips. “Do I know you?”

  Crap. I can’t believe I was just checking her out. I don’t think she minded, either. Awkward. “Yeah. Well, sort of. I’m Jonah.” I hold out my hand. Her eyes widen, and she doesn’t take it. “Jonah Story.”

  “Jonah Story,” she repeats.

  “Your cousin,” I clarify.

  Milly stares at me for a beat. Then she takes my hand so gingerly that her fingers barely graze mine. “You’re Jonah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  I let annoyance edge into my voice. It’s my trademark, after all. “Do you have auditory issues? I’ve responded affirmatively multiple times.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Oh, there you are. I got a little confused by this whole”—she waves a hand near my face—“J. Crew model look you have going. I have to admit, that’s unexpected. I thought you’d look how you talk.” I’m not going to rise to the bait and ask her what she means, but she keeps going without prompting. “Like a constipated gnome.”

  Points for creativity, I guess. “Nice to meet you too.”

  Her nose wrinkles as she looks me up and down. “Why are you all sweaty?”

  I resist the urge to sniff myself to see if I smell. From the look on her face, I probably do. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

  “Why are you e
ven here? I thought you didn’t see any point in arriving in tandem?”

  I fold my arms, wishing I’d never come upstairs. Talking to her is wearing me out. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it up. “My schedule changed.”

  Milly clucks her tongue a few times before lifting her hand in a beckoning motion. “Come on, then. You might as well meet Aubrey.” I’m not in the mood for more people, and it must show on my face because she rolls her eyes and says, “Trust me, she’s not going to enjoy it any more than you are.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Hey!” Another voice breaks in. “There you are! Thought I’d lost you.” It’s a girl my age wearing a short-sleeved blue hoodie and gym shorts, her blond hair pulled back into a low ponytail. She has serious freckles, the kind that cover not just her nose and cheeks, but her entire body. I’ve seen her face throughout the news clippings in my folder, although she’s usually wearing a swim cap. Aubrey’s smile, aimed at Milly, widens when she notices me. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “You’re not,” Milly says quickly. She gestures toward me like she’s a game show host giving away a prize nobody wants. “Guess what? This is Jonah.”

  Aubrey’s brows shoot up. She glances uncertainly between Milly and me. “Really?”

  Milly shrugs. “Apparently.”

  Aubrey’s eyes are still ping-ponging between us. Even when she’s not smiling, there’s something friendly about her face. And honest. She looks like she’d be a terrible liar. “Are you guys messing with me?”

  Time for me to talk again. “Sorry I don’t splash my face all over social media like a mindless lemming desperate for attention.”

  “Oh.” Aubrey nods. “Okay, then. Hi, Jonah.” She looks back at Milly, whose eyes keep wandering to the ocean like she’s weighing the pros and cons of pushing me overboard. “You don’t really look like a Story.”

  “I look like my mother,” I tell her.

  Aubrey sighs and brushes a strand of windswept pale hair out of one eye. “Me too.” Then she takes a deep breath and steadies herself, like she’s about to dive into a frigid pool. “Come on. Let’s go downstairs and sit for a while. Might as well get to know one another.”