“I think he meant you in particular, my dear.” Nardo took delight in her embarrassment. “Come now, little cow, fetch me a milkshake.”
“Why don’t you fetch my ass?”
He blew a plume of smoke into her face. “You wish.”
Emily turned away again. The stench of smoke made her stomach squeeze. She put her hands to her face. Her cheeks felt as if they were on fire. She was still a little breathless from being so close to Clay, and she hated herself and her stupid body for the response. She stood up from the booth so fast that her head swam. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Sympatico.” Ricky bumped her shoulder against Blake so she could slide out of the booth. She told the boys, “Try not to blow yourselves up while we’re gone.”
This last missive was for Nardo, who wagged his eyebrows again in response.
“Jeesh,” Emily muttered when they were out of earshot. “Why don’t you just tell Nardo how you feel?”
“You know why,” Ricky said.
Everyone knew why. Bernard Fontaine was a dick. He had always been a dick. He would always be a dick. Ricky’s fatal flaw was that she knew this, had seen it in action every day for nearly her entire life, yet she still held onto the minuscule hope that he would change.
“Pop-Pop,” she called to her grandfather behind the grill. “Nardo needs another milkshake.”
Big Al gave her a wary look, but he went to the milkshake machine.
The funny thing was, Big Al thought Nardo was the bad influence when, in fact, it was Clay who was constantly leading them over the cliff. Every single stupid thing they’d ever done, from stealing booze to doing drugs to swiping cash and valuables from out-of-state cars, had been Clay’s idea.
And he had never, ever been the one to pay the price.
Ricky said, “Let’s go out back for some air.”
Emily followed her down the long hallway. Tendrils of cold air pulled her along. She could smell the salty sea spray wafting in through the open door. Wind whipped at her hair. The boardwalk rolled like a carpet along the shore.
Ricky took a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket, but Emily shook her head. She still felt queasy, which was nothing new. Lately, any odor set her off, whether it was fresh flowers on the kitchen table or her father’s stinky cigars. She was probably coming down with a stomach virus.
Light flared from the match as Ricky struck the box. She held the flame to the tip of her cigarette. Her cheeks sucked in. She huffed out the smoke with a harsh-sounding cough. Emily thought of something Blake had said the first time his sister had smoked: You look like someone who’s smoking because you think it’s cool, not because you want to.
Emily kept herself upwind, walking to the edge of the boardwalk. She rested her forearms on the railing. Below, the sea swirled around the pilings. She felt a gentle spray of water on her skin. Her cheeks still felt hot from the sensation of Clay holding her so close.
Ricky could always read her mind. “You asked about me and Nardo, but what about you and Clay?”
Emily pressed her lips together. Four years ago, Clay had decided that sex would only complicate the group dynamic. Emily took the edict to mean that he wasn’t interested, because Clay always found a way to get what he wanted.
She told Ricky, “He’ll be in New Mexico this time next year.”
“That’s not so far, is it?”
“It’s almost one thousand nine hundred miles.” Emily had done the calculations using a formula she had found in her father’s Old Farmer’s Almanac.
Ricky coughed on a mouthful of smoke. “How long would that take to drive?”
Emily shrugged, but she knew the answer. “Two or three days, depending on how much you stop.”
“Well, Blake and I will be up the street in Newark at good ol’ UD.” There was a sadness to Ricky’s smile. The only positive that had come out of her parents’ tragic death was a lawsuit that had put in place funding for Ricky and Blake’s college. “Anyway, how many hours away will that be from you?”
Emily felt bad because she hadn’t calculated the distance between Foggy Bottom and the University of Delaware. Still, she hazarded a guess. “Couple of hours at the most.”
“And Nardo will be at Penn if his dad bribes the right people. That’s only a few hours away from UD.” Ricky had clearly done that equation. “So that’s not far at all, is it? You can hop on the train and see us anytime.”
Emily nodded, but she didn’t trust herself to speak. She felt so unbelievably weepy, torn between desperately wanting her life to change and just as desperately wanting to stay safely inside the clique forever.
If Ricky felt the same, she didn’t say. Instead, she smoked in silence. Her foot rested on the bottom rung of the railing as she scowled out to sea. Emily knew that she hated the water. Ricky and Blake’s parents had died in a boating accident when the twins were four. Big Al was a good provider, but he was a reluctant parent. The same could be said for Nardo’s folks, who were always on business trips in New York or vacations in Majorca or at a fundraiser in San Francisco or a golf tournament in Tahoe or anywhere, really, that didn’t involve spending time with Nardo. As for Emily’s parents—well, there wasn’t much to say for Emily’s parents other than that they expected her to succeed.