The Ocean Between Us

“Art school, you mean.” Emma felt a grudging admiration for him. He’d wanted that forever.

“I need to take my shot.”

“I know. But Dad will say it’s not practical, that you’ll never make a living doing art. And maybe he’s not so wrong, Brian.” She thought about her brother’s magical drawings. He created new worlds, whole universes with such clarity of vision that sometimes she believed they were real places. “But then again,” she added, “maybe he just doesn’t want you to be a starving artist.”

“It’s my choice to make it work or fail, not Dad’s. Being a starving artist is a lot more appealing to me than the Navy.”

Emma said nothing, but she knew one thing for sure. Brian would never go to the Naval Academy. His hero was Robert Crumb, not John Paul Jones.

“So have you told Dad yet?” she asked.

“Idiot. Of course not.”

“Are you going to tell him before he goes on deployment?”

“Hey, how about worrying about your own plans for a change?” Brian asked, parking the truck.

“I don’t have any plans, so I’m not worried.”

He shook his head. “You’d better start playing the lottery, then.” He grabbed a jumbo bag of Chee-tos—his contribution to what was loosely termed a “party”—and took off without waiting for Emma. That was fine with her. Brothers and sisters didn’t go to parties together.

All their lives she and Brian had struggled with this. On their fifth birthday, they had thrown themselves into a jealous row that didn’t end until Emma sank her teeth deep enough in Brian’s arm to draw blood. After that year, they’d always had separate parties, one supervised by their mother, one by their father unless he was at sea. In that case, someone else would step in, usually another Navy mother.

Their rivalry was typical of twins, according to the experts. Emma knew this because her mother had read everything ever written about twins. Parenting Twins. Educating Twins. Raising Twins as Individuals. There was a whole body of literature out there, it seemed, to enable twins to feel normal.

It was dumb to pretend there was nothing unique about twinship, she thought, putting on lip gloss while studying her mouth in the visor mirror. Being a twin wasn’t normal, but it didn’t have to be a problem if you didn’t feel like making it into one. Now that they were practically through high school, it wasn’t such a big deal. But that still didn’t mean she felt like showing up at a party with her brother.

The action was in full swing already. A group of kids sat around a big bonfire, and music roared from someone’s car stereo. Bottle rockets left over from the Fourth of July whined and popped. A few grocery sacks and ice chests hinted that the foray for beer had met with success. The last of the daylight lingered on the water, flickering with the motion of the waves.

The sight of her friends gathered around a beach fire lifted her spirits. The glowing logs gave off a peculiar aroma, and the lively yellow flames illuminated about a dozen kids, mostly seniors. They were a mixture of Navy kids and locals who knew their way around.

Driftwood logs, smoothed and bleached by storms, lay like giant pickup sticks along the rack line of the beach and provided seating around the fire. Brian had already eased into the group and was sitting between two varsity cheerleaders. Girls were nuts for her brother’s goofy charm, his looks and the offhand kindness that was second nature to him.

As she stepped into the circle of light Cory Crowther stood up to greet her. She liked that. He was also sports-hero handsome, with big shoulders, a great smile and probably an ego to match, but he seemed to genuinely like her. Although he’d been away most of the summer, everyone knew him—captain of the football team, son of a Carrier Air Group commander.

“Hey, Emma,” he said in a good-natured drawl, perhaps elongated by a hint of beer. He patted the spot beside him. “Come sit with us. You know Darlene Cooper, right?”

“Hey, Darlene.” Emma smiled at the girl beside Cory.

“Hey.” Darlene was a heavyset girl in a tie-dyed T-shirt, with multiple piercings and multicolored hair. She was extremely cool, Emma thought.

Darlene pushed a cooler toward her. “Beer?”

“Thanks.” Emma took a can of Rainier, even though she didn’t care that much for it. She’d take a few sips and carry the can around for a while, just so they wouldn’t think she was a dork.

“So are you nervous about starting school in a new place?” Cory asked.

Emma shook her head. “If I let moving freak me out, I’d have shot myself by third grade.”

“I’m glad you didn’t shoot yourself.” His leg moved—maybe accidentally, maybe not—so that it was aligned with hers, warm and solid. She liked the feel of it and didn’t move away. Maybe Cory was a bit full of himself but he was a key player around here. He was important in the small, contained, sometimes brutal world of high school, and she could do worse than win him over as an ally.

“Where are you from?” Darlene asked.

“Most recently from Corpus, on the Texas Gulf coast. How about you?”

Darlene took a big slug of beer. “All over, like you. Whenever my dad gets orders, off we go. It’s just the two of us.”

“Your mom’s not with you?”

“Nope. She took off when I was a baby and I haven’t seen her since.”

Emma sensed the hurt beneath Darlene’s nonchalant attitude. “So what do you do when your dad goes to sea?”

“Depends. Sometimes I stay with friends or family. One time I had to go to a foster home because there wasn’t nobody.” She shook back her candy-colored hair and took another sip of beer. “This year’s going to be cool, though. Now that I’m eighteen, I get the apartment all to myself while he’s on deployment. Our complex has hot tubs and a pool in the courtyard.”

“That is so bitchin’,” said Shea Hansen, who sat across the fire. “I can’t wait to be out on my own.”

Shea had tanned legs and wore loose nylon athletic shorts, like a runner. Her father was the minister of Trinity Lutheran Church in Oak Harbor, and Shea taught vacation Bible school there. Emma knew the whole community would be shocked by the sight of Shea sitting around and drinking beer. Adults tended to see what they wanted to see. And in hometown girls like Shea, they saw the good girl who could do no wrong.

Emma pointed out the varsity bars, divisional championship and state finals pins on the boiled-wool front of Cory’s letter jacket. “You’ve been at the same high school all four years,” she said. “How’s that work?”

He stretched his feet toward the fire. “We were transferred here five years ago, and my mom decided this was where she wanted to stay.”

“So what happened when your dad got orders?”

“My mom and I stayed put. The old man spent his next two assignments as the oldest guy in the BOQ. He’s back now, learning to be a family man again. He never was much good at it.”

Emma braced her hand on the beach log and turned to look out at the inky water, speckled with reflected stars. She couldn’t imagine her father in the bachelor officers’ quarters. He’d shrivel up and die there. Everyone’s family was different. She was glad her parents believed in staying together, whether the assignment was to Fallon, Nevada, or the wilds of Alaska.

“No way was my mother moving after she found her dream house over on Penn Cove,” Cory explained.

“This place seems to have that effect on people,” she said, thinking of how her mother had looked when they’d gone to see that funky house on the bluff.

“Must be nice, staying in one place for five whole years.” Darlene opened another beer.

“No, you’ve got it nice,” Cory said. “Your own apartment. As soon as they start their cruise, it’ll be party central over there.”

Darlene tossed a stick into the heart of the fire. She watched the flames wrap around it. “You bet.”

Emma couldn’t help feeling sorry for Darlene, who lived alone with her dad and had raised herself without a mother. She drank too much and didn’t quite manage to hide the loneliness in her eyes.

“So do you miss Texas a lot?” Shea asked Emma. “Did you leave a boyfriend behind?”

“No, and yes.” Emma grinned. “Texas weather is too hot for me. And yeah, there was a guy.” She’d dated Garrett for six months, and he’d been the best boyfriend in the world. He was polite, kind and extremely cool. His father was a country club golf pro and his family had never lived anywhere but Corpus. When she left Texas, they had both cried. He promised to write, call and e-mail every day. She promised nothing of the sort. After so many partings, she knew better. But her crazy heart didn’t. It always broke, no matter how hard she tried to protect it.

“You don’t have a boyfriend now,” Cory pointed out.

“That’s right.”