“Well then, I guess this is it.” Jonas stands up and puts his hand out to shake mine. “See you next summer.”
“Why don’t you kiss him goodbye?” Conrad calls from inside the screen porch.
“Shut up, Conrad,” I say, taking Jonas’s outstretched hand.
“Give him a big wet tongue kiss.”
“Ignore him,” Jonas says.
“You know what,” I say to Jonas, “I do have time for a quick swim. One sec.” I run and change into my bathing suit. Jonas is already swimming out when I get back. I dive in and catch up to him. “I’m sorry. He’s a complete idiot.”
“Boys his age have a one-track mind,” Jonas says.
I laugh. “You really are so weird.”
“It’s been a great summer, Elle. Thank you,” Jonas says, treading water in front of me.
“It was a pleasure,” I say. “One last breath-holding contest?”
“It’s not a contest if I always win,” Jonas says. “Though I’ll admit you’ve gotten marginally better.”
“Please.” I laugh. “I’m the state champion.”
“One, two, three, under?”
I nod.
We duck underwater and hold our breath. Then, without thinking, I pull him to me and kiss him.
* * *
—
I wait until Jonas has left before confronting Conrad. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” Conrad flips the pages of his comic, eats a last spoonful of soggy cereal. Milk dribbles from the corner of his mouth. I watch it run down his chin onto his neck like a bead of white sweat.
“Act like a pig.”
“You shouldn’t be hanging around with a twelve-year-old.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“It makes me sick.”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t,” Conrad says. “But you’re embarrassing the family.” He stands up and gets in my face. “Did you let him get to first base?”
My mother and Anna walk past the house, heading to the car. “Put pears on the list,” I hear Mum say. “And minute steaks. Oh—we’re almost out of bourbon.”
“Did you let him finger you?” Conrad says.
I turn on him now. “I’m embarrassed to be seen with you,” I say. “You’re the embarrassment in this family. Not me.”
“Yeah, right.”
“It’s true. No one wants you here, creeping around in the bushes like some pervert with your disgusting blackheads. Why don’t you move back with your mom? Oh, right,” I say. “She doesn’t want you either.”
Conrad’s face turns a dark shade of red. “That’s a lie.”
“Really? What’s her number? Let’s call her and ask.” I walk over to the black rotary phone and lift the receiver. There’s a list of important numbers on a scrap of paper, thumbtacked to the wall. I scroll down it and find the number. Dial. “It’s ringing.”
“Screw you,” Conrad says, and runs outside. He is crying.
“Baby!” I shout after him.
In my hand I hear a tinny, faraway voice: “Hello? Hello?” someone is saying. I put the receiver back in its cradle.
* * *
—
Retribution for my cruelty to Conrad comes quickly. It begins with an itchy feeling under my eyelids. My throat swells. By late afternoon my face is oozing with blisters. I can’t open my eyes at all. The doctor tells us there is only one way to contract this kind of poison ivy: someone at the picnic must have thrown a vine-covered log into the fire when I was sitting in the path of the smoke, which carried the poisoned oil directly into my ears, my mouth, my nostrils. My mother has set up a camp bed for me in the darkened pantry. She covers my face and neck in wet cheesecloths soaked in calamine lotion. I look like the leper from Ben-Hur. She brings me cold chamomile tea and a straw. Puts a bowl of ice next to the bed. Swallowing is torture.
Everyone is in the living room playing poker. I hear wooden chips being tossed into the pot. Anna and Leo arguing about who had the better bluff. My mother laughs. Conrad laughs. My bandages are drying out, sticking to the painful sores. I try to call out, but my voice won’t work. More laughter. I bang on the floor with my foot, and at last hear footsteps approaching.
“Mum?”
“She sent me to see what you need.” It is Conrad.
“I need Mom!” I whisper. “My bandages are stuck.”
“Okay,” he says, but instead of leaving, he sits down on the edge of the bed. A bubble of panic rises in my throat. I lie there, helpless, and brace myself for whatever is coming.