Maeve’s heart sank. She looked around, certain someone would pop out from behind a dune or stump, point at her, make fun of her for what they could see and for what they couldn’t know. She stood, brushed off her pants. “Yeah, I knew it. You’re like them. I didn’t do anything, okay? Nothing. One time, I wrote her name on a piece of paper. That’s all. Then everyone turned it into something it wasn’t. I mean, I like boys. Like everyone else. I like ... Oskar. The exchange student? But my parents wouldn’t approve, so I keep it a secret.”
Wendy was on her feet now too. She tried to interrupt Maeve’s rant but couldn’t get a word besides “no” in edgewise.
“Maeve!”
“What?” Maeve’s arms were crossed, her hip jutted. She could see that Wendy was upset, almost to tears. “What?” she asked, more gently this time.
Wendy sucked in the wet sea air and huffed out breath after breath. “I thought ... I thought maybe you ...” Her teeth scraped her lips. “That maybe you ... were like me. I mean, I like you.”
Maeve didn’t know what she was supposed to do. Cry. Laugh. Run. It dawned on her. If she did or said the wrong thing, it would all be over. She would be over. “I like you too.” It was enough. She hadn’t said or done anything that couldn’t be explained if she misunderstood the situation.
“No. I like-like you.” Wendy’s posture sank, and her face softened into a grimace like she was ready to take a punch.
Maeve looked up, tried to make sense of the whole universe. A trillion stars, pinpricks in tar paper. “There’s a star up there for every crazy thought I’m having right now.” There was no turning back now. “To tell you the truth, I’m scared to death you’re joking me and that I’m going to say something and all of this is going to be a giant fake out. I would die.”
Wendy took a step forward, put her hand inside Maeve’s jacket, resting it on her waist. Maeve’s own hands were paralyzed by her side. Wendy moved closer until their bodies were practically touching. A moment closer, and Wendy’s hand brushed Maeve’s face. They tilted toward each other awkwardly until their lips touched, plum wine on apricot, kissing each other in little waves and then more fully, with a current as deep as the sea.
At first it was exciting to have a secret. Maeve was inflated, floating. They had to be careful, not letting on to anyone that they were ... what? Maeve wasn’t sure. It was like that thing with the tree falling in the forest. Could they be going together if no one knew? And they didn’t go on dates. They didn’t hold hands in the foyer or by their lockers. Wendy’s prom date was the captain of the boys’ basketball team, though she assured Maeve they were just friends.
“Does he ... know?” Maeve asked. They sat on a picnic table, eating lunch outside, spring in full bloom, a safe distance between them. Maeve marveled at other girls touching each other playfully. That she and Wendy wanted to touch each other made it necessary to avoid each other completely. Instead, they shared a Coke from the machine, the can sitting between them.
“No one knows,” Wendy said. “No one can know.”
“I wish we were going to prom together,” Maeve said, though she couldn’t imagine it, not really. A boy and girl could go together as “just friends,” so why couldn’t two girls do the same? “Or that I was goingso I could see you get crowned prom queen!” She shoved into Wendy playfully, and Wendy shoved back.
“Yeah, right,” Wendy said. “As if.” The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. “Hey. I have an idea. Could you come over this afternoon? My mom is picking me up, but I could drive you home after.”
Wendy’s mother was a formal woman, elegant to Maeve, the way her shirt tucked neatly into a fitted skirt, pantyhose matched to her skin tone, silver-blond hair pressed into a tidy bun. She was on the board of the historical society, a member of the garden club. “Ladies who lunch,” Wendy said. The dusky scent of her filled the car.
“Maybe I know your mother?” Mrs. Walker asked on the short drive to their house. Maeve tried to picture her mother chatting over tea, musing about preservation, but it was impossible. Faye Sullivan was not a joiner.
“I don’t think so, but she might like the garden club. She loves flowers. She worked at Ransoms—or what used to be Ransoms—when she was a girl,” Maeve offered.
“She grew up here?” Mrs. Walker said to Maeve’s reflection in the rearview.
“Mostly, yes. She and my grandparents came from Ireland when she was little.”
“I see.”
Maeve wasn’t sure what Mrs. Walker saw, but whatever it was had shut down the conversation. Wendy said her mom was like the heirloom roses in their garden—showy and groomed and prickly. It made Maeve smile, as she stared at the back of Mrs. Walker’s stiff hair, to think how much her own mother would not like the woman’s fussy ways. Maeve’s mom didn’t wear makeup, except occasionally lipstick. She did not paint her nails, though she kept them clean and filed. Her hair was thick and straight, brown like Maeve’s, but instead of hints of red, hers was streaked with random silverstrands that glinted like tinsel. She cut her hair herself, evenly across the bottom, and pinned each side behind her ears. She wore pants most days and a shirt that buttoned or a sweater that did not. She was not much for chatter and would often hush her or Molly if they went on about most any subject. “Enough talking,” she would say. But she was also playful and funny. She was the first to take out board games or a deck of cards and, as far as Maeve could remember, had never turned down an invitation to take a magic carpet ride on the rug in the foyer, a flight of fancy Molly made up after hearing the story of Aladdin.
In Maeve’s literature class, her teacher lectured about a character’s interiority, the life and thoughts lived on the inside that are not meant for the light of day. “A good character will have a rich interior life that either seeps out from the cracked and broken places or explodes under pressure.” Maeve could not imagine her mother’s interior life. If Mrs. Walker was a prize-winning rose, grown for show, then Maeve’s mom was a wildflower cropped up in a field or a violet that could bloom in the cracks of a sidewalk. She never talked about her childhood other than coming to America on the ship with Maeve’s grandparents, how she had been a quiet girl who kept to herself, and how she only bloomed after she met Maeve’s dad. Maeve had to admit that it sounded romantic but also a little sad, too, like her mom was nothing at all without her dad. He had tons of stories about growing up with his big sisters and a father who was a big talker and a big drinker. But her mom’s childhood stories were flat as paper dolls. Even when Maeve’s grandfather told stories about Faye, they were lacey, delicate, and filled with holes, like her inner life was dandelion fluff.
Wendy stole a look over her shoulder. Maeve smiled, shuddering to think what her mom would do if she could read Maeve’s mind. What a mess! Maeve felt like two different people—one was some version of herself who made her parents proud, who learned from her mistakes, who didn’t lie or sneak around, and the other was this Maeve, the one riding in the back seat of some fancy car who wanted nothing more than to jump the bones of a girl smiling at her from the front seat.
Wendy lived in a centuries-old clapboard-sided house near the river, chosen by her mother for its history and by her father for the fact that it was close, but not too close, to the college where he taught political science.
“Leave your bag here,” Wendy said, once inside the door. “Shoes too. She doesn’t like clutter.” The house was light and formal with curving furniture tightly upholstered, still-life paintings of fruit and flowers, maritime images of ships at sea. A shining banister swirled up the staircase like the inside of a conch shell.
“Your house is really nice,” Maeve offered as they climbed.
“It’s a museum. C’mon.”
Her mother’s voice followed them up the stairs. “Doors.”
“Doors?” Maeve asked.
“Yeah, uh, no slamming doors, so close it super quietly.”
