Summer Skies and Ocean Eyes

“So, how is it?”

I was used to these long-distance phone calls with my dad, but it was almost like I could feel the added hundred miles between us today.

“You know those P. Diddy music videos shot in Miami?” I asked, turning my face so close to the window of the diner, I could see puffs of my breath materialize on the glass. It blurred my view of the busy, picturesque beach located about two-hundred feet away: perfectly parallel to the boardwalk the restaurant sat on.

Static fizzled on my cell phone as Dad thought over the right answer. I knew he had no clue who P. Diddy was, but minor details like that have never stopped him from humoring me. “Yes.”

“Well it’s like that, except there’s no multi-million yacht sitting by the shore, not everyone in a bathing suit looks like they just got off the runway, and there’s not nearly enough Ciroc Vodka.” I watched as a group of kids rode past on their bikes, all gripping surfboards twice their size under one of their arms as they wove through the crowd.

Past the cement road and light gray sidewalk, there was a sextet of adults playing beach volleyball, kicking up hot sand. Patches of tanners were lined up here and there, pinched off into their own cliques as people tossing Frisbees and footballs tried to find a way to maneuver around them.

“So I’m guessing you’re saying it’s nice?” Dad’s voice rose as he attempted to comprehend my description. Turning my attention back to the cold plate of fries in front of me, I nodded at no one in particular. I could hear a fresh explosion of sizzle as cooking meat reached my nose, the diner’s cook was making more burgers.

“Like something you’d see in a travel brochure. It’s gorgeous,” I mumbled as I took a particularly hardened fry and traced patterns in the ketchup splotched on my plate. “It almost doesn’t feel like an actual, real place.”

I could hear the clacking of Dad’s keyboard on the other end of the phone over the retro music and chatter of the diner that surrounded me. He could never focus on one thing at a time: the dire need to multitask was one of the things that used to drive Mom crazy before they divorced.

I didn’t mind it. Comparatively, even when Dad was doing a project for work while catching up with me, he remembered things a lot better than Mom did when I had her full attention.

The fact that he was typing also showed me that Alice and my half-sister Brie were out. They were probably at their mommy-child yoga class, or at another mother’s house for a scheduled playgroup. Petite and innocent, Alice was all about structure: especially with three year-old Brie.

“Well, it has to be real, or else you wouldn’t be sitting there.” Dad’s voice was smug with his own joke.

“Yeah, thanks for that dose of logic, father.” I couldn’t help but smile.

“So tell me, how many friends have you made already? There must be lines and lines of them waiting to meet you,” he teased. Dad was managing to stay relatively calm over my first full phone call in, I knew he was dying to hear every detail of Naples.

Especially about Jon Rivers, Mom’s beau of eight months.

I rolled my eyes, watching as a waitress carried a platter of plates toward a group of four girls who looked to be in junior high. They were all chattering back and forth like a flock of birds, I couldn’t separate where one girl’s sentence ended and another began. All of them were sporting brightly colored tank tops over bathing suit halters, and shorter than short shorts, topped off with a variety of flip-flops. With perfectly coiffed hair and designer bags at their feet, they were the Everyday Joe of this town.

For some reason, my tank top didn’t look as good as theirs, and my jean shorts had holes in them from continuous wear, not because they were designed like that. I had never given my attire much thought in my hometown, but here, it was glaring me in the face that Naples had different expectations.

“Well, I’ve only been here for one night, but there’s nothing on the Possible Friend Front. Though, I have already received two marriage proposals. You know how the guys flock to me,” I joked, dropping the fry back to the plate. The sound of Dad’s fingers on his keyboard abruptly stopped.

“Really, Calico. I know I’ve said this a million times, but stay away from boys. They’re all bad, and stupid. Stupid, Cal.” He was stern as he said this, making me chuckle as I shook my head.

“Even if they’re rich and I could marry one? I mean, I could get you a vacation home,” I offered, wagging my eyebrows. The clacking of keys started again, and Dad sighed.

“Are you feeling homesick yet?” He shifted the conversation as far as he could away from boys. I bit my lip, an image of my best friend Carissa waving goodbye to me at the airport making my heart twist. I had stayed at her parent’s house the three months after Mom moved down here, finishing my junior year of high school in Michigan.

“Yeah, but, you know,” I tried to keep my voice light and whatever-ish, “I’ll get used to it. I would have been going away to college a year later, anyway.”

There was already an ache thickening like cement in my stomach as I thought of everything I left behind. The house I grew up in, my friends, my school--they were all parts of my old life and were nothing but memories now.

Only a night into this, I wished for my old bed. I felt immature and childish for feeling so homesick, but it’s there, weighing down my mind and limbs.

“So...Where’s Your Mother?” he asked in a way that said he was trying not to sound too interested. Dad always referred to Mom as “Your Mother,” I haven’t heard him say the name Laura since they split when I was five. I used to be sad about that when I was younger, it was like he didn’t want any other association with her except for the fact that she was his daughter’s mother.

But now that I’ve gotten older, I’m able to understand everything better. They weren’t right for each other, and the magic of a broken condom had been the only reason uniting them in the first place.

My Mom, Laura Cleary, was what the old neighborhood ladies liked to call whimsical. It was pretty much the nicest way they could put her tendencies into one word as they gossiped. Forgetful, flighty, a little nonsensical, spontaneous, and equipped with a smile and laugh that could make anyone forget the aforementioned qualities: Mom had always been the talk of the town.

Then Dad was the opposite, well, almost. He was as responsible as it could get, a look-before-he-leapt kind of guy. Punctual, easy-going, and above all else: dependable, Dad was everything Mom lacked. He had cleaned up all her messes and fixed all that she had broken.

They would have been the perfect combination if it wasn’t for the fact that they drove each other crazy. The saying that opposites attract is true--Mom and Dad sure were attracted to each other when they started dating, but I Happened before they could realize it wasn’t going to work out.

I gave them kudos for trying those five years, but they were better off separated.

“She went to go pick up a couple things from a small hardware store down the street. It’s cool, there’s a whole community of these tiny shops down the boardwalk. I saw an ice cream place, an antique shop, and I’m sitting in a diner that’s facing the ocean right now.”

I stared out the window again at the sunny day. The bright powder blue sky converged heavily with the horizon of the aquamarine ocean, and I could catch a couple puffs of slate gray clouds starting to move toward the beach.

Mom’s boyfriend Jon had explained to me that the summer months usually brought a lot of storms in Florida. The morning could start out clear and picturesque, but there’s usually a bout of showers that roll in around late afternoon almost every day. He said they mostly pass through quickly, but the last thing you’d want to do is get caught in a nasty one.

“Sounds great, it seems like you’ll have more than enough to do this summer,” Dad said quietly, “You better start working on that tan, Albino Girl.”

I opened my mouth to blame his genes for my lack of color, but Mom burst into the diner and stopped my train of thought. Her wavy, light caramel hair was up in a whispy ponytail, large sunglasses perched on her tan, small nose above her sun-like smile. A bag was hooked around her arm next to her purse, bouncing against her torso clad in a beachy peach sundress.

“Oh, Mom’s back. I have to go, Dad,” I quickly said. Though he was on the phone and Mom was right here, it was best not to mix their presences. She chirped hello to a perpetually tired looking waitress before spotting me.

“Okay, thanks for checking in, Calico. Call again sometime soon.”

“Bye.” Never a pair for saying “I love you,” we both ended the call as Mom came to a barreling stop at my table. Pushing her sunglasses up to rest on her head, she excitedly looked down at me with dark hazel eyes.

“Why are you still here? I thought you were going to go explore for a bit while I ran my errand.” She shook the small brown paper bag at me while pointing out the window at the beach with a free hand. I shrugged, getting to my feet as I slung my discount tote over my shoulder.

“I don’t know. I called Dad, I haven’t really talked to him since I first got here yesterday.” I waited for Mom to stiffen the way she used to when I mentioned him, but there wasn’t the tiniest of bristling. I guessed that the oh-so-casual reference to Dad didn’t phase her anymore: she was hundreds of miles away.

“Well, come on, we have to be back home for dinner soon, but I’m not letting you go before you touch the ocean for the first time. You’ll never forget it, I swear. It makes me wonder how we lived so long in Michigan without the sea so close.” Mom’s words were enthusiastic as she snapped her sunglasses back down and started pulling me toward the exit. I barely managed to pull the five dollar bill out of my pocket and toss it on top of the table before we left.

Like the day before when I first stepped out of the air-conditioned airport, the weather slammed against me like a sumo wrestler. Yesterday I had almost stumbled, completely bewildered by the combination of elements that had hit me for the first time.

The air was heavy and thick, sitting heavily in my lungs as I tried to remember how to breathe again. It’s like every time I exited an air-conditioned building down here, I had to coach myself through those first couple breaths. Not to mention that the sun and Florida must have been a completely different one than in Michigan, because it came out with a kind of oppressive vengeance that made me cringe.

Mom was blissfully unaware of all of this, it’s like she was made to live here her whole life. I was already starting to feel the beginning prick and itch of sweat, while she looked like she couldn’t be cooler.

We cut through the busy street of the boardwalk, making a beeline toward the ocean. She toted me after her, it was hard for my longer legs to match her short, zippy steps. We ripped through a game of beach volleyball, interrupted a couple paths of Frisbee, and tumbled right over a group of sunbathers before finally making it to the place where the waves tumbled up to the sand.

It was her job to create a line of havoc, and mine to embarrassedly apologize to the people who had probably pinned us as another pair of crazy tourists.

“This is it.” She said it like this is it. The reason for everything. The answer to every question. The ocean. Mom let go of me, stretching her graceful neck as she tilted her face to the sky and held out her arms.

With the body and poise of a ballerina, Mom was one of those women who made everything seem effortless. From the way she walked to how she dressed, there was always an aura of ease that followed her around. Also, an aura of being slightly crazy, but no one could carry it better.

And of course, I never felt very blessed with that kind of finesse--courtesy of, again, Dad’s genes. I have his dark brown eyes and gumpy ears, and a sprinkling of freckles that lightly patters from cheek to cheek across the bridge of my nose. Standing at five foot eight, the only thing I inherited from my short mom was her shiny caramel hair, though hers was a couple shades lighter now from the sun-drenched days she’s been having.

As we stood there, Mom was quiet for the first time in a while, which left enough space in my mind for me to inspect my new surroundings. I looked down at my black flip-flops, calculating a thought for a moment before I took them off and held them at my side.

The wet sand was warm and malleable, speckled with bits of shells and little pieces of drift. It felt good on the bottom of my feet, and without thinking, I started to move closer to where the sand and water met. The ground became mushier and mushier as I moved forward, watching as my toes squelched into it.

Then, a brush of water came up and momentarily covered the top of my feet before smoothly pulling back. It surprised me, causing me to look up at the ocean from where I stood.

Everything else started to become a noise in the background as the gush of waves and brush of wind filled my ears. The smell was salty and earthy, with an aftertaste of fish, as I stared: seeing the endless horizon of the ocean up-close for the first time. It was every kind of blue, green, and gray, constantly moving and changing right before my eyes.

I breathed in, and out.

“See? You love it, don’t you? I knew you would.” Mom’s voice caused me to jump, emerging somewhat sharply out of my thoughts. Like someone flipped a switch, the business of the beach came crashing back over me like a bucket of water. It was loud again, there were people all over, and I was still states away from home.

“Yeah,” I replied, somewhat at a loss of words. Mom reached over and tucked a couple flyaway hairs from my ponytail behind my ear.

“Let’s get going, Cal. Jon should be home soon. You’ll probably be spending a lot of time here this year, anyway.” Mom grabbed my hand again, and as I prepared myself for another jolting caboose ride from her back to the nearby parking lot, I looked up at the sky. The clouds that I noticed earlier were growing and darkening, moving closer and closer to the beach.

Others were taking notice of that too. Many of them were packing up, saying goodbye to the sun until later today.

“Maybe,” I mumbled, remembering to put my flip-flops back on. The ocean was really cool, but I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time crammed in a crowd of beachgoers like this.
“We’ll see.”

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

Jon’s place was about a three-minute drive away from the beachside boardwalk. A two-story masterpiece, it was tucked in an almost scary-perfect suburb. With four bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, a large office, sunroom, game room, living room, kitchen, dining area, and foyer: it was huge.

All the houses in the neighborhood were equally large, with pristinely cut green yards and gorgeous flowers and light gray sidewalks. They were mostly European-style, made of light colored bricks with spacious windows so that neighbors could catch a glimpse (but not too much) of what was inside.

Expensive cars I would have never seen roaming the streets of my old, small town were parked in the driveways, shiny with the kind of new car smell you could see. A couple kids were usually playing near the roads, congregating with their new-release scooters and bikes to race each other down the midnight black pavement.

After growing up in such a tiny apartment my whole life, it was kind of a shock to suddenly have so much living space.

Jon wasn’t home when we pulled up to the house, so I had a little time to attempt to unpack my stuff. There were boxes of it piled against one wall of the guest room, all transported little by little over the past couple weeks so it would all be here when I moved.

For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to begin unpacking. In some way, I thought that when I started to take out my things and put them into their new places, it would mean that everything that had been happening these past couple months wasn’t some dizzying dream, but real.

Mom wrapped her sun-warmed arm around me and reached up to kiss my cheek as the two of us walked through the foyer. “You’re absolutely going to love it here.”

Giving me an encouraging smile, she nimbly rounded the corner and climbed the stairs to go to her room. I stood near the entrance of the living room, looking around at the professional decor. Everything was composed of warm browns, light gold, and earthy reds: comfortable and lived-in in an organized and clean way. It was awkward how all these things I had never seen before were suddenly part of the place I was going to call home. I felt like a guest here, and I wondered how long it’ll take until I get over that.

A clink and clatter came from the other side of the house, making me snap my attention that way. Placing my purse on the chocolate suede couch as I walked past, I went through the swooping arched doorway that led to the kitchen. The smell of cooking chicken that I had faintly caught when I first walked in fully presented itself.

“Oh, Calico. You have a good day?” It was Jon’s maid, Lilia, leaning over some kind of soup boiling on the stove.

I had met her yesterday when I first walked into the house. Short and chubby with peppered black and gray hair, Lilia was a no-nonsense looking woman. She came to clean Jon’s house every weekday, and helped him with things like getting groceries or picking up Kendall and Griffin from school. Mom said she cooked dinner for the family twice a week, so I guessed that tonight was one of those nights.

“It was good, Lilia. What about yours?” I asked, decided to stall with her instead of going up to face those boxes in the guest room. It looked like she barely heard me for a second, enveloped in adding different spices to the mixture.

“Good, Calico.” She said my name Kah-lee-ko. “You allergic to anything?”

I blinked slowly. “No.”

“Come taste this.” Lilia frowned and motioned me over. I walked around the gray marble island counter to her as she pulled up a large spoonful of rice, chicken, and peppers in a light orange liquid. Before I could ask what it was, she pushed the spoon at my face and I took a sloppy slurp of it.

It sizzled against my tongue on the moment of contact. I accidentally choked, coughing as it burned down my throat Lilia continued to watch me with a concentrated expression, thick lips pulled the tiniest bit downward.

“Wow.” I coughed again, eyes watering. “That is some spicy stuff.”

“So you like it?” She asked, somehow thinking that deathly spicy equaled good. I licked my bottom lip, why was everything in Florida so damn hot? Lilia said she was from Puerto Rico, they must be born with tongues of steel down there.

I didn’t know how to tell her the sip was painful, so I settled for nodding and giving her the most encouraging smile I could.

“It’s Asapo, one of Griffin’s favorites.” Pleased enough with my reaction, Lilia turned back to the mixture, mocha brown eyes watching it intently. The soup gurgled on as I idly stood there, wondering if that meant she was done with me and I should leave.

I took her silence as a yes, turning to walk back through the provincial-styled kitchen to the arch. “Calico, you need to unpack your boxes. I need to clean floors tomorrow and I cannot clean floors if there are boxes in the way.”

I stopped and turned around, but Lilia was already focused back on her soup without waiting for a reply. Repressing a sigh, I nodded to myself and went back to the living room.

I had just retrieved my purse from the couch when Griffin came bursting in through the front door. Clobbering through the foyer like an elephant, he messily kicked off his shoes before walking into the living room.

Headphones from his iPod were in his ears, I could hear the music blaring from across the room. He was mumbling along to the lyrics, missing most of them as he began to go up the stairs without seeing me.

Griffin must have been one of the cutest twelve year olds I’ve ever met. I’m sure he’d be horrified if I told him that, but every time he walked into the room I wanted to hug him. Short and skinny, he had a full head of light, straight blonde hair that never wanted to lay flat. Griffin inherited his dad’s forest green eyes, and donned an adorable braces-filled smile that gave him a lisp I could catch every now and then if I listened for it.

His foot was on the first step when he noticed my presence, causing him to reveal a smile full of red rubber over the metal brackets. “Hey!” Griffin’s voice was still that of a preteen girl.

He pulled his earbuds out as he walked over, putting his hands on the hips of his skater shorts. “Where did you and Laura go today?”

“She showed me around a little, then we went to the beach.” I resisted the urge to reach down and tousle my hand through his hair. Younger siblings were never my specialization. I’ve only seen my half-sister Brie less than two dozen times. But, I could tell that Griffin and I were going to have no problem getting along.

“Oh. Well tomorrow, you should go with me to the skatepark. I can show you all my friends and they even have a hot dog stand right by. Or, you know, they have nachos too if you don’t like hot dogs,” he brightly suggested, eagerly looking up at me. I inwardly chuckled at the thought of hanging around Griffin and all his middle school friends. “Then we could go to the arcade on the boardwalk! That’s another one of my favorite-”

He stopped dead in the middle of his sentence, blonde brow furrowing as he sniffed the air. Eyes widening, his hands turned in to fists as he jerked them up to his shoulders.

“Lilia’s making asapo!” There was the lisp. “Lilia! Can I try some!?”
 Griffin jogged past, forgetting me altogether as he disappeared into the kitchen. I could hear Lilia’s stern voice through the doorway. “Solamente uno.”

Mom’s footfalls could be heard before she made her way down the second half of the stairs. She had changed out of her sundress into some yoga pants and a clean white t-shirt.

“Jon just called.” She walked to the couch and leaned against the back of it. “He won’t be home until late tonight, some trouble at the office. And Kendall called earlier to tell me she was eating at a friend’s house. Looks like it’s going to be me, you, and the little monster with braces.”

Mom had quickly taken to both of Jon’s kids, in a way that could have made me jealous if it wasn’t such a relief that she had melded to quickly and fluidly into their lives. Truthfully, I had been expecting the worst when she first announced that she was moving to Florida to live with her boyfriend and his family. I had always been more of the mother in our relationship, it was hard to picture her being that kind of figure to two kids she didn’t know.

Like he had heard her make fun of him, Griffin made an entrance once again. Grinning, he pointed back toward the kitchen. “Hey Laura! Lilia’s making asapo!”

“Oh!” Mom dramatically gasped, “Good!”

“I know, right!” Her answer satisfied the boy as he nodded, then jogged back to the staircase, plodding noisily all the way up to his room. Once she was sure he was out of range, Mom frowned.

“Okay. I love Lilia, but my tongue literally falls off twice a week when she cooks. Jon said I’d get used to all the spices, but I cry, Cal. I cry,” she fearfully whispered, careful of Lilia’s ears. I laughed, glad to be back with my mom again. I hadn’t thought that three months without her would be difficult, but I missed feeling needed in the way that Mom needed me.

“It’s all right. We’ll lose all feeling in our tongues together. Who needs to taste things, anyway?”

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

“They even have a cliché Hispanic maid,” I chuckled as I cradled my phone between my shoulder and ear.

“Really? Does she like, even wear the outfit?” Carissa asked, completely curious. I could picture her talking to me, sitting on the top bunk of her bunk bed with her pet iguana cradled in her arms, a ponytail of wild black curls bouncing this way and that from her scalp.

“No. I’ve only seen her twice, but she wears plain colored t-shirts and these thin-looking white cotton pants.” I pushed the box I had emptied moments ago to join another, away from the seven other ones I had yet to unpack.

Carissa gave a disappointed sound on the other side of the line. “That’s no fun.”

“If it helps, you can imagine her in the whole maid outfit.” I ran my tongue over my top teeth, smoothing my fingers over the long row of books I organized on my bookshelf. It may have not been much, but it was a start.

The first box that I had opened included my bedding, bath products, and stuffed animal Kow the Cow that Carissa had gotten me for my tenth birthday. It made the room that had been given to me from Jon look like a forgotten guest’s quarter that was being used for storage.

The two of us settled into a comfortable silence as I tapped my feet against the shiny, wooden floor. Being best friends since the first grade, we didn’t have to be talking for it not to be awkward.

Rissa Coblerone had been the girl who showed up at school every day with muddy elbows and knees, and a brand new patch of Band-Aids. It was like her mom had gotten tired of cleaning the old bandages and put a layer of them on her kid to accept the inevitable. With her crazy gap-toothed smile, Carissa was the craziest girl in the first grade.

I remember that she had on Batman and Sesame Street Band-Aids the fateful day of her jump. Her arms were covered in them as she raised them toward the sky from where she stood at the top of the tire pyramid. It was only about eight feet tall, but back then it had looked like a mountain.

A small crowd of elementary school kids had gathered around--me included--watching in amazement as Rissa basked in the glow of all the attention she was getting. With the enabling cheers of our classmates, she had flung herself off the pyramid, holding those Batman and Sesame Street arms out like they would catch the wind. It had been almost magical, watching her coils of hair fly behind her as a look of pure ecstasy graced her face.

But that only lasted for about one point five-seconds before she landed with a thud and crack on the ground. Everyone else freaked, having never heard an arm break before. The crowd that had been cheering her on moments ago fled, and I was the only one left to rush over to her.

I remember she cried, and I tried my best to help her calm down before helping her get to one of the overweight recess aids. With her free hand, she had grabbed my arm and didn’t let go until they finally sent her to the hospital. It was weird, seeing fierce, wild Rissa so upset and scared, but I let her grip my arm even as all the blood was cut off.

The next day, she came back to school with the same off-kilter grin as always, and a bright blue cast on her wrist. A black sharpie had been shoved in my face.

“Calico, your name is really weird but you’re going to be the first to sigh my cast.” I did as I was told, put-off by her bluntness, but I wrote as neatly as I could before Rissa snatched the marker back and sprinted to her seat. “Oh, and I almost forgot! You’re my best friend now!”

And that was that. As different as we were, I didn’t have a choice in the matter.

“I really, really miss you. Already. It’s ridiculous,” Carissa murmured, “You know I forgot to go to my lacrosse practice today?”

I rolled my eyes, doing a three-sixty turn of the room. It was much bigger than my one back home, and it even had its own private bathroom with a shower and bathtub. A colonial-looking dresser with dark cherry wood was next to the boxes, with a long, rectangular mirror sitting beside it. It was all more than I needed, and I wished I could be more excited about how lucky I was.

“I leave you for one day, and you’re already messing up your schedule? Maybe this will be good, you’ll learn how to take care of yourself without me reminding you all the time.” I smiled to myself, going up to one of the empty boxes and giving it a good soccer-kick.

“I need Mama Calico back. No one else knows how to keep me on track like you.” Rissa was a lot like my mom in many ways, especially when it came to being forgetful. Hyper, needy, and bizarre, she was always getting herself into situations that I had to help pull her out of. She said it herself, I was the mommy of the group back in Michigan. I had a knack for taking care of people and fixing problems--some would even call it a talent.

“That’s right, I’m irreplaceable,” I huffed, looking up to watch my ceiling fan turn round and round. I actually wanted to turn it off, Jon kept the air conditioning blasting like an Arctic freeze, and I haven’t had a chance to dig the sweatshirts out of my boxes yet.

But, the settings were chosen by some remote that Jon couldn’t seem to find.

“I am going to be so lost without you this summer,” Rissa pouted, “You’re like my GPS for everyday uses.”
 It was hard to gulp back the words of how much I was really going to miss her: so much that it already squeezed at me in an almost unbearable way. As much as my best friend insisted she needed me, I needed her, too.

“Oh. I’m glad I was like an appliance to you. So much for being your friend.” I settled on saying something less heart-to-heart. Slowly moving to the ground, I laid with my back on the cold floor, knees bent as I stared at the ceiling. My tongue was still raw from dinner, I could feel it pulsate with my heart.

“No! Jeez, Cal. I thought you’d take that as a compliment-”

Suddenly, the door to my room was whipped open.

Kendall strolled right on in, making a beeline for my bed where she firmly plopped down on the foot of it. I barely had time to react during the process, one moment she was in my doorframe, the next she was staring at me intently from across the spacious room. It was going to take some time to get used to her acting like she owned the place.

“Hey Rissa?” I interrupted whatever she had been saying to me.

“What?”

“I’ll call you back later,” I slowly said, then hung up the phone. Kendall continued to stare, sitting there like a statue. Pulling myself into a sitting position, I crossed my legs.

“Uh, hi?” I was torn between asking her to knock next time or simply accepting that the girl was always going to be like this.

She blinked her wide, green eyes slowly: plump lips in a solid, straight line across her face. Kendall, being the stylish fifteen year old she was, always had a look of boredom about her.

“Hi,” she flatly replied.

We met yesterday at the airport, Jon had taken the day off work and brought his kids and Mom so everyone was there to pick me up. After seeing pictures of her sent from my mom via e-mail, the way she acted hadn’t surprised me much.

I slightly squinted my eyes at her after it was apparent she wasn’t going to say anything else. “Was there something you wanted or...?”

Kendall sighed, picking at her nails in a blasé way.

“What have you been doing up here?” she asked, looking past me at my bookshelf.

“I’m trying to unpack,” I answered, pointing to the two empty boxes. She nodded, reaching behind herself to grab one of my many decorative pillows.

“That’s all you’ve got done? You said you were unpacking yesterday, then this morning before you and Laura left.”

I pressed my lips together, nodding. Ever since the two of us first talked, all she ever seemed to want to do was ask me questions--to which she usually appeared uninterested in the answer. I was sure her dad had been egging her on to converse with me, and make me feel as comfortable as possible or something like that.

“Yup, so what are you doing up here?” I tried my best not to sound annoyed. As easy as it was to like Griffin, it was that much harder to like Kendall.

“Dad called and asked me to check on you, you know, in case you make a break for it out your window back to Michigan.” It may have been a trick of my eyes, but I swore a corner of her mouth twinged up for a millisecond.

I cleared my throat. “Guess I shouldn’t have asked. Does he really think I’m going to do something like that?”
 “No. I added that last part based off how you’ve been so quiet ever since you first got here.” She was winding a piece of her pin-straight platinum blonde hair around one finger, while the other hand tapped its nails in an unsteady rhythm against my pillow.

“Great.” I suddenly felt ten times more tired.

“I don’t blame you, though,” she said, sitting up straight as she started tossing the pillow to herself. “I mean, I would be the same way if I had to move states away, into a complete stranger’s house.”

“Right.” I wished I had more to say to her. There was a small feeling of relief that rippled through me at what she had said. Even though it was tiny and coming from a girl like her, a bit of sympathy felt good.

“Doesn’t your dad live in Illinois or something? I would have thought you’d want to only move one state away instead of coming all the way down to Florida.” It was obvious that Kendall wasn’t exactly psyched to have me here.

“Yeah. But the thing is I’ve lived with my mom ever since Dad got a job in Illinois when I was seven. After being with her my whole life, it only felt right to follow her down.” I was trying to explain it as simply as possible. “Plus, my dad got married six years ago and now has a little three year old, like he tried starting over again. I feel like I could fit in to Mom’s new life more than I could my father’s.”

My words washed over Kendall, seemingly unheard until she nodded once. “Oh.”

She accidentally dropped the pillow, the two of us watched as it fell to the ground. Another lull came between us, the only sound coming from the cooled air rushing through the air conditioner. Kendall was genuinely comfortable with it as she once again examined her nails.

I stared at the pretty girl, thinking about how I had tried to figure out with my friends back home what I was going to call Jon’s kids. I mean, my mom and Jon weren’t engaged, and I didn’t know if they ever intended on getting married. Mom’s marriage had been a bust, and from the smaller than small tidbits I’ve heard about Jon’s ex-wife, the end of their relationship was incredibly sloppy and painful.

So Kendall and little Griffin weren’t my step-siblings, they were only people I was now sharing a place with. It would be kind of a mouthful to introduce them as “They’re the kids of my mom’s boyfriend whose house we all live in.”

Just then, there was a soft knocking on the frame of my open doorway. Mom poked her head in, looking pleased when she saw that Kendall and I were in the same room without being called to a meal.

“Hey girls,” she chirped, brightly stepping into the room and putting her hands on her hips in a peppy, can-do fashion. I looked over at Kendall, she was actually smiling at my mom. Mom had blasted into her life like a lunar landing three months ago, and yet she still looked okay with that. I was envious of her relaxed confidence. “I was looking through the kitchen and I found a fondue set! I thought since Kendall was home, we’d all eat some chocolate covered strawberries and watch a movie or something.

“Yeah, sounds like fun,” Kendall agreed, swinging her legs bouncily off my bed and standing to her feet. The two of them simultaneously paused and looked my way, waiting to hear my answer.

“Sure,” I’ll be down in a minute,” I said, trying to give her a good smile. Mom beamed as Kendall walked out the door to go downstairs.

“Books look nice,” she quietly teased, “See you in a few.”

I nodded as she left, listening to her disappearing footsteps as she walked down the long hallway to the stairs. Taking in a deep breath through my nose, I got up and picked up the pillow Kendall had dropped.

As I carefully straightened up my set, pulling at the comforter to make the blanket sit right again, I looked out the sliding door that led to a small, private porch. I hadn’t slept much last night, most of it I had spent sitting in the comfortable sun chair Jon had put out there.

It had an amazing view of the whole backyard, which included the pool, extravagant veranda, old swing set that Griffin didn’t use but wouldn’t let anyone take down, and Jon’s ex-wife’s gardens, which a paid help took care of now.

I padded across the floor and flicked off the light. With one last, long glance at the boxes behind me, I turned my back on them and followed the happy chatter downstairs.

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

It was freezing.

It was the beginning of June, I was all the way in southern Florida, and I had extra blankets piled on top of me. You would have thought that I wouldn’t be shivering in discomfort, much less feel the need to put on two pairs of socks.

But, I was quickly starting to realize that Jon was obsessed with air-conditioning.

I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal, it’s not like I could really sleep, anyway. Even though my body felt worn and tired, my brain still shot out thoughts at a million miles an hour, making me restless.

The big, block numbers in green of the clock on my bedside table gallantly showed the time was five o’clock. I squished my eyes shut, trying to stop my legs from fidgeting around. For the past two nights I’ve laid here, there’s been this claustrophobic sensation I get from staring up at the crisp, white ceiling.

When I opened them again, they instantly connected with the blinds that were muffling the glow of the moonlight through the sliding door. The long, skinny rectangles stretched from a bar a couple inches below the ceiling to a quarter of an inch to the ground. They were contemporary and stiff, I would have much rather looked at the door they hid than the blinds themselves.

A small vent was a little to the right of them, making them gently sway and clack against each other as the cold air erupted into the room.

Without thinking, I removed the thick layers of blankets and swung my sock-fattened feet over the side of the bed. I carefully tiptoed over to the blinds, a force of habit from living in a creaky-floored apartment my whole life up to this point.

I reached the center of the blinds, and meticulously pressed a sliver open with the pads of my fingers. The bright moon cast a sharp ray of light through the hold I had created: it stood out like neon against my body.

As I pushed more blinds aside, my eyes tiredly surveyed the darkened backyard that was visible from where I stood. It looked almost surreal, there were palm trees right by the pool. Palm trees had only been something I would have seen on TV. To look into my new backyard and see them didn’t seem right.

There was a particularly tall one right by the end of my tiny balcony. It curved just right, so that its long, jagged leaves brushed the railing. I tilted my head to see it, then unlocked the glass door as quietly as I could before slipping out into the much warmer air.

Now that my atmosphere didn’t feel like Alaska, it almost made it easier for me to breathe. From where I stood after shutting the door behind me, I could still smell the ocean.

Instantly, I was starting to feel hot, so I peeled off the socks, dropped the hoodie that I zipped over my t-shirt, and removed the pair of sweatpants that had covered my basketball shorts.

They laid in a heap as I again focused on the smell of the ocean. Thinking about the waves, a tugging in my navel to go back and feel the warm sand squish around my feet surprised me.

A chorus of frogs echoed through the night as I took one more deep breath of fresh air. Holding it inside my lungs, I reached down and gathered up my clothes, then walked back into the tundra of the house.

After placing the unwanted clothes on my bed, I grabbed my tennis shoes before delicately turning the know of the door to the hall, and glanced into the pitch-black hall.

Ears pricked for movement, I moved out of my room in a fluid motion. My steps were long and tactful as I made my way down the hall.

A minute later, I successfully pushed the “disarm” button on Jon’s security system like he had showed me my first day, and stepped out the front door. There was an odd, guilty feeling tugging at my stomach as the warm air wrapped around me once more. It wasn’t like I was really sneaking out, or that going for a walk was a preposterous thing, but it still felt like I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to.

Putting on my shoes and lacing them tight, I began my walk to the beach. Having remembered the simple succession of roads to take to get there, the early morning was peaceful. I crossed a couple joggers speeding by with their iPods in, getting an early start to their day, but other than that, I was alone.

Once I passed out of the entrance to the epitome of rich suburbia that I was now supposed to call home, there was a sprawling park. After the park, came a large dance studio, and after that, there was a large stretch of pavilion clad with benches and empty displays. I was guessing by the signs that surrounded it that it must have been a local Farmer’s Market on some days.

Finally, after passing the cluster of restaurants, local shops, and some boathouses by the boardwalk, I got to the sand again. A car slowly drove behind me, headlights jaggedly casting a harsh glow on the street before it moved on.

The ocean was so much better at night, darkened in a mysterious kind of way.

And quiet. A different kind of quiet.

I took in a deep breath, admiring the salty tang on my tongue as I concentrated on the sound the waves made. Taking my shoes off, I left them in the dry sand and moved in toward the water.

As I walked knee-deep in the mild waves, a calm, silky feeling weaved through my
mind. Mom was always telling me to look on the bright side of things, and ever since I first set foot off the plane, I’ve been trying to do my best. Other than being able to be with her, it was ridiculously hard for me to come up with much else.

But now, I know that without question: it’s the ocean.

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼