Page 2 of Holding On

But that fourteen-year-old girl I remember is now a sophisticated young woman who moves with elegance and grace. As Laurel tosses her a towel, Maya flashes a wide smile and laughs. She tilts her head back just as I remember, though her braces are long gone. Then she glances over to me and Devon, still sitting in the car with the air conditioning on and the windows rolled up.

Maya hasn’t spied us yet.

I don’t know if I say, “Oh shit,” out loud, but something triggers Devon’s sisterly slap to my shoulder.

“Crush” doesn’t even explain the odd combination of feelings I had for Maya that summer. I was ten. She was four years older, and I measured to her shoulder, even with my fro as high as I could pick it. She was lanky, with hundreds of beautiful braids, tight and soft, wound in a thick bun at the back of her neck. I loved watching her do anything—eating an ice cream cone, flipping pancakes, jumping around in the ocean. Smiling at anyone but me. If she smiled at me, I became mute or stupid or both.

I was ashamed of my own interest in her nipples as they tightened under her swimsuit top. I had sisters. I was raised a feminist. Yet all I could do was ogle her. I’m not even sure I wanted to touch her. She was too perfect. I just felt this incredible yearning to be near her. To breathe the same air. To be close enough to catch a whiff of her perfume. To witness the tremor at the corners of her mouth just before she laughed.

And now Maya is here for— “The whole summer?” I ask.

“Yes,” says Devon. “I was dying to tell you. She’s in her final year of law school at Loyola and landed a summer job with Audrey Pratchett.”

Maya, Laurel, and Cory disappear around the corner of The Inn and head toward the shore.

“Jesus, Devon, you could have told me.” The door handle feels slick when I grab it.

“And miss out on this? Hell no. We all remember how smitten you were. Oh my God, you were adorable. Writing her songs and stuff after we got back—”

“I did not.”

“Poetry, then. You were adorable.”

“You already said that. Okay, well, we’re all grown-ups now, so let’s just be cool.”

“If you’re going to be cool, you’d better go say hi. The longer you wait, the more awkward it will be.”

Point taken, except— “She didn’t see us.”

“I texted Laurel, who told her we were pulling in.”

Oh my God. It’s like I have four mothers.

Part of me is angry, but when I watch Devon with that slaphappy look on her face, I can’t be mad at her. In a few moments, her husband, Luke, strolls across the parking lot in swim trunks, a white towel thrown over his shoulder. He’s deeply tan and lean. He opens the driver’s side door for her, and as he scoops her up in his arms for a long kiss, I sigh in mock misery.

“Get a room,” I mutter, climbing out of the car. As they part, they both look at me and laugh.

Devon scans the back of the station wagon for a moment.

“Nothing in here needs to go in right away, right?”

I think for a moment, something I used to be pretty good at until moments ago, when this new info that I’ll be spending a summer with Maya screwed me up. “Uh . . . no. Wait, the guitar.”

“I got it,” says Luke, and he smiles, tipping his head toward the beach. “You go. Everyone’s down there.”

Clearly, he’d been appraised of my nascent puppy-love interest.

“Who didn’t you tell?” I say to Devon, and this time I hear the annoyance in my own voice.

Back in Luke’s arms, she’s oblivious. I try again, even though I’m trying not to be that whiny little brother. “I’m almost twenty-two, you know. There are things about me you don’t know.”

Devon just shrugs her shoulders and pretends to bite a fingernail. It’s hopeless. The Russo sisters can’t help themselves.

I start toward the veterinary clinic to the left of The Inn. It’s three in the afternoon on a Sunday, so it’s closed. As I reach for the side-yard door, Salty, a horse, nickers, and I hear one more piece of advice from Devon as she yells, “Get your trunks on!”

No doubt Maya heard that too.

Shit, shit, shit.

I climb the stairs from the back of the clinic on the first floor to the living quarters on the second. My old room is on the right, next to what used to be George’s bedroom and is now Claire’s. Laurel and Devon’s old rooms are on the left. This is where we lived after Mom and Dad died, and George, our dad’s friend and clinic partner, raised us and tried to run The Inn.

The hall is covered with photos of when we were kids, and most are of my older sisters. The very last one is a group photo of sorts: we’re all busy doing kid stuff, and I’m sitting on Chloe’s lap. She’s the oldest. The one who told stories. Who left notes from fairies and elves and made me believe that one day I would speak with dolphins. In the photo, it looks like I’ve made a breakthrough. Clutching a plush dolphin, I’m riveted to her face.

Turning into my old room seems anticlimactic. I always liked my room with the horse posters, primate chart, and detailed shark species diagram. It’s just that I didn’t expect to be here this summer. What happened in Denver did a number on me, and I’m not really sure what to think about it.

I slip off my blue jeans, and they drop to the floor. Glancing out the small square window facing the water, I do a doubletake. There’s Maya, holding hands with Cory and running along the edges of sea-foam left behind by waves on the beach. His bright blond curls bob in the breeze, and Maya’s laugh carries. The tide is halfway in. They’re dancing together, with Laurel and her boyfriend, Mateus, by their side.

When Laurel and Mateus each take one of Cory’s hands to swing him over the shallow waves, Maya glances toward the clinic, her eyes raised to the second floor.

Looking for me.

What a memory she has.

Stepping back quickly, my heart thuds and my prick stiffens.

How the fuck am I supposed to concentrate on my job when she’s living right next door?

I sigh. Twelve weeks is a long time.