The Moon and More(91)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“How can you say that?” I replied. “If this party’s a bust, it hurts you and Clyde just as much as her.”

“This party’s in Colby,” he said, waving his hand. “It doesn’t count for anything, other than a chance for Ivy to get his new work on film while the locals gape. If this stuff ends up getting the attention I think it will, Clyde won’t even need her little movie. In fact, we’ll probably be better off without it.”

Maybe it was the way he said the words Colby and locals, neither of them nicely. But I said, “We? I thought you didn’t have the job yet.”

“Why do you keep harping on that?”

“Because it’s the truth?”

“Emaline,” he said, sounding tired. “Jobs like this are earned, not given. It’s not like bringing towels to people, okay?”

Ouch. “And you think that’s all I do.”

“I think,” he said, picking up the camera again, “that you have no idea what it’s like to live in the real world.”

“Which is New York,” I said, clarifying.

“Which is anywhere other than this small, coastal berg, where you know every single person by name and nothing ever changes.”

“Berg?” I said.

He snapped a picture of the canvas. “It means small town.”

“I know what it means. I did well on my verbal, remember?”

“Clearly. You got into Columbia.”

“Who’s harping now?” I asked. “And what does that have to do with this?”

“It has everything to do with this,” he replied, turning to look at me. “Emaline, you’re a really smart girl on paper. And it’s not your fault you’ve done some not-so-smart things.”

I was speechless. Literally: no words.

“But the truth is, you haven’t had a lot of outside influences, people to show you there is another way,” he continued. “I’m here now. And I’m telling you, you do not want to take this job with Ivy. It will be a mistake.”

“You think I made a mistake turning down Columbia.” Now, apparently, I could talk. Barely.

He rolled his eyes. “You’re a girl from Colby High School who got into the one of the best schools in the country. It was a dream come true.”

“Not my dream, though.”

Another eye roll. “This is exactly my point. You don’t know what’s out there, Emaline. If you even had the slightest idea, you’d understand what you’re missing.”

Instead of replying, I looked at him, closely, standing there before me. This boy, in his jeans and expensive fitted T-shirt, hipster sneakers, owner of sport coats. Someone to whom everything had to be Big and Special, or not worth his time.

But that is the hard thing about the grand gesture. Once you pull off one, what’s left to do but start planning the next? Get used to pomp and anything less is just a disappointment. Why stop at the Best Summer Ever when you could try for the Best After Ever? The truth was, there was no way everything could be the Best. Sometimes, when it came to events and people, it had to be okay to just be. I’d already explained that to my father. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to do it again.

And it was in that moment, a plain and simple one, that I knew what he’d said was right. I didn’t know very many people like him. But I was beginning to think that was okay. One was probably enough.

“You know, I think I’m going to go now,” I said. “I have a lot of work to do.”

“So you’re really going to do this to me,” he called out, as I walked away. “You’re taking the job.”

“Yep,” I said over my shoulder.

I heard him sigh. “You’re not who I thought you were, Emaline.”

Finally. Something we could agree on. “No,” I told him. “I’m not.”

And then I was walking, towards that open door that looked out on the boardwalk. It was late afternoon, still sunny, and I could see ocean. Funny how now that I knew I didn’t have to make the ideal exit, this one came damn close anyway.

20

“EMALINE? WHERE DO you want us?”

I turned, looking over at all the activity before me. Finally, I located Robin, from Roberts Family Catering, standing by the back door, a dish wrapped in foil in her arms. “You can use the kitchen as a staging area,” I told her. “What we don’t have passed we’ll put on the big table up at the front.”

“Right,” she said, gesturing to the girl behind her, who was pulling a cooler. They started across the floor, into the increasing chaos: guys from Everything Island, setting up small tables and chairs, Morris stacking beer and wine by the bar, Benji unloading flowers we’d bought at Park Mart, and Daisy arranging them in every vase I’d been able to get my hands on.

“Do we have cups?” Morris called out to me.

“Didn’t I give them to you?”

He looked around. “Ummm . . .”

“Under the main table,” Benji called out as he passed, dwarfed by a huge bundle of lilies. “They were in the way.”

Morris bent down, locating them. “Thanks, dude.”

“You’re welcome. Be right back!”

And then, he was gone again, the only one truly running, although we probably all should have been. I looked at my watch. It was two thirty, which meant I had only about two and a half hours to somehow pull all this together. The crazy thing was, after all I’d already managed to accomplish in the last few days, I was thinking I might actually do it.

It was hard to say what was the biggest surprise about working for Ivy. Not that she was a hard-ass, or a demanding, exacting perfectionist. These things I already knew. What still caught me off guard was the last thing I would have expected: it was fun.

Sure, she’d snapped at me a few times. And if you even tried to talk to her in the morning before she had any coffee, you got what you deserved. But underneath the brittle exterior, there was this crackling, tangible energy, so different from anyone I’d ever been around. I’d long watched my mother, grandmother, and even Margo as they worked, taking lessons on how to deal with problems. But Ivy was like a brand-new master class. I wasn’t going to call it the Best Job Ever. I sure did like it, though.

“Watch the ceiling!” I heard her yell now, and turned to the other side of the Pavilion, where she was overseeing the guys we’d hired to hang the canvases. This was supposed to have been done the day before, but Theo and Clyde had been so indecisive about what to include we’d ended up cutting it way close. “I said high. Not as high as it could go, just go ahead and hit the ceiling.”