“Roanoke? Isn’t that in Virginia?”
“Different Roanoke. Haven’t you ever learned about the lost colony in school? The settlers who disappeared?”
Oh, yeah, this is vaguely familiar. “I think so. Maybe.”
“Guessing history is not your subject,” Jasmine teases, and I confirm that it’s definitely not. “Anyway, it was this whole thing in the late sixteenth century—the first attempt at a colony. These people came over from England, set up a town, and then… completely disappeared. Nothing left but a single word: CROATOAN. There are all sorts of theories about whether they were murdered or just moved to another place, but no one’s ever been able to definitively say. There’s a theater right near the gardens we were at today that does a show about it every night. I bet your friend would love it.”
“Oh man, she would!” Bringing Kiki down here for a weekend sounds like a lot of fun, and there’s no way a mystery like that isn’t already super high on her radar. “Do you think your dad would let me have a friend here for a couple of days?”
Jasmine shrugs. “Sure, why not? If you’re still gonna be here August 18, that’s the day to go. It’s silly, but they call it Virginia Dare Day. They even use a real baby in the show, in honor of Virginia Dare’s birthday—she was the first new settler born on colonized soil. Garden admission is discounted that day, too, if you wanna take her there.”
I actually don’t know when we’re heading back to New York. You’d think I’d be counting down the days, but right at this moment, I’m looking forward to going on some more adventures here. Seeing more stuff. Learning more from this girl who’s full of surprises. “That’s a cool idea, thank you.”
She nods. “Sure. I’ll leave you to get dressed.”
The barbecue that night is a lot of fun, as is pizza and night swimming at Keisha’s the evening after, and going to a Battle of the Bands at a club the night after that, and a sunset sail on Brea’s boat the night after that. The days are cool too, even as Jasmine begins to trust me with heavier equipment and more work, leaving my muscles sore and my skin lobster-pink at the end of long days shooting lighthouses, slow-crawling crabs, and hang gliders. I get to see everything touristy from a completely different angle, and I always expect Jasmine to mock the cheesy gift shops and fanny packs, but shenever does. Instead, she plays the role of tour guide, adding her own little-known facts about the first flights to our stroll around the Wright Brothers Memorial and the histories of the different lighthouses. It’s clear that coming to the Outer Banks for summers her entire life has given her a profound pride in the place.
I’ve never seen someone find so much beauty in everything.
But by Friday night, which brings us to a poker game at Carter’s, she seems wiped. She doesn’t acknowledge it as she drives us to his house, though. She’s just quiet, the way she is to and from photo shoots, a time I’ve come to realize she uses to go over her plans in her head. But unless she’s planning card strategies, that isn’t what’s on her mind.
I don’t push. Something tells me that never works with her.
“How real is this poker game?” I ask instead. I brought it up to distract her, but I’m a little nervous. “Is this, like, playing for M&Ms, or for actual cash? Because I don’t have a whole lot of the latter.”
She waves her hand. “I know. Don’t worry about it. I’ll spot you.”
Okay, I’m annoyed. It’s enough that I’m living in her house, well aware my mom is her dad’s secretary and I’m her “assistant.” I don’t need to be handed out cash favors. “I’m not looking to be spotted; I want to be prepared.”
“You’ll be fine” is all she says, and now I’m silent too, irritated at her new clothes and this fancy Jeep and how she’s probably gone to shows for every one of thesestupid bands on her stupid satellite radio. But then she follows it up with, “Here, why don’t you pick the music? Put on whatever helps you de-stress.”
I do not need to be asked twice to blast Demi Lovato.
It turns out the buy-in is fifty bucks, which I don’t have. But I offer to help Carter in the kitchen, shoving trays of frozen pigs in a blanket and mozzarella sticks in the oven as slowly as I can to avoid the question of whether I’m going to be up-front about not having the money, or do something stupid like promise to pay Jasmine back so I can not embarrass myself in front of my new friends.
But when all the food is in and I’ve stirred the lemonade for so long I’ve probably churned it into butter, I’m out of time.
When I finally enter the game room (yeah, he has a game room), Carter says, “Hey, Jasmine’s low on cash this week, so we’re doing a buy-in at ten. That cool?”
I shrug, forcing myself to meet his eyes so I don’t have to look anywhere near hers. “Sure.”
Turns out, I am not very good at poker—not at bluffing, nor remembering that a flush is a thing, nor reading other people’s facial expressions. But Jasmine is wiping the floor with everyone. I should’ve known she’d be great at it. She has the best poker face I’ve ever seen. I’ve picked up slight frowns and nose wrinkles I thought must indicate crappy cards, but nope. Inside of an hour, she has everyone’s money, including mine, and shockingly, nobody feels like playing another round.
“I knew I should’ve let your invite get lost in the mail,” Carter teases, but it’s obvious from the wayhe’s looking at her that it’s everyone else’s invites he would’ve rather lost instead. I expect Jasmine to flirt and it to take point-twelve seconds for them to head off to his room, but all she says is, “Better luck next time, sucker,” as her long, ring-laden fingers proceed to shuffle the cards like a pro.
We drink hard cider and play Asshole until Jack and Derek disappear to fool around and Owen and Brea head to a party on the beach, and it’s me and Jasmine, Keisha, and Carter left.
The wingwoman handbook dictates that Keisha and I GTFO, but she doesn’t appear to be in a rush to go anywhere. Instead, she takes the deck from where it was abandoned during the rush of cheek-kiss goodbyes and gives it a shuffle worthy of Vegas. It’s starting to feel like I’m the only one here not born with an ace up her sleeve and a joker in every pocket. “Spades?” she suggests, cracking her cinnamon gum, but judging from the way Carter and Jasmine seamlessly shift around the table to split us into teams—cousins versus housemates—it isn’t really a suggestion.
This is confirmed when I reach for a second cider, only to feel Jasmine’s rings dig into my wrist. “You’re gonna need to keep your wits about you, Tinkerbell,” she warns me. “These two share a Spades brain.”
I snort. “I think I can handle it.”
I could not, in fact, handle it. “The two of you are such shitty cheaters!” I yelp after getting utterly destroyed for a third hand in a row. “This is not humanly possible.”
Keisha smiles smug and wide, tossing her tightbeaded braids over shoulder, while Carter throws back his head and laughs. “We’ve been coming down here since we were babies,” she says, her Southern accent coming in stronger as the night wears on and the alcohol settles in. “Carter’s brother and our cousin Richie trained us at this table as soon as we could walk.”
“There’s not a lot to do here after dark before you get a driver’s license,” Carter confirms. “At least not before I discovered girls.”
