Lauren McDermottIntermediate Fiction WritingFinal12/08/14

Fireworks

She’d never wanted to come to the Fourth of July barbeque in the first place. It was

hosted annually at their country club, a massive white slab cradling the Western shoreline of

Tokeneke Island. The island stood a few miles off the coast of southern Maine, known for being

summered by those escaping the city heat of Boston, New York, and Washington. It was an

idyllic place, with lazy, lapping water, twinkling cocktail nights, and the outdoor shrieks of

children playing in the dark. Most of the summer residents on Tokeneke Island would be there,

and these days she preferred solitude. However, it was her mother’s absolute favorite event of

the year, so her father insisted that she and her brother be there.

June had barely just ended, and it had already been a miserable, sticky summer for Meg

Smith. Her mother wouldn’t be there this year, but she’d expected to shade in her absence with

the familiarity of her girlhood. However, the island that she’d joyously returned to had changed.

Several new houses had cropped up on previously open tracts of land. The dirt roads were erased

by slabs of scorching pavement. And a lot of the residents had changed. Some treated her

differently, they way someone might carefully cradle something of immense preciousness and

fragility. Some looked different. Mrs. Tanner had shocked everyone by going down four dress

sizes. Mr. Collins’ head of thick black hair was now blindingly white. But the most changed

were her friends. Connie, Addie, and Sue had each left the island last September sporting uneven

tan lines from playing outside all day with Meg, and the boys when they let them, and came back

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this June nearly unrecognizable. Their eyelashes were coated black in swaths of mascara, the one

piece bathing suits they had once worn were replaced by two pieces that showed off nut brown

stomachs, and their was noticeably lighter and straighter. Sue was the worst. She had swapped

her thick black glasses for contacts, and revealing a face surprisingly prettier than Meggie had

ever realized.

As soon as she saw them six weeks ago, she’d wanted nothing to do with them. Of the

four of them, she was the youngest, even though it was by little more than a year. She hadn’t

taken the steps they had yet. She didn’t want to. And she hadn’t wanted them to either.

They had greeted Meg warmly at the start of the summer, and she’d given an icy greeting

in return. That set the standard for every encounter, which she was successful in keeping sparse.

The majority of her days she spent alone. It was easier that way. In solitude she couldn’t see the

changes time had tempered.

Being at the beach club made her keenly feel the emptiness in the space where her mother

should have been. She was sitting lonely and little lost, when she saw her brother’s golden head

flash among an assortment of boys toting rusted bats and weathered baseball gloves. Aside from

a few growth spurts and new cases of acne, the boys had not changed much. It wasn’t painful to

be around them. The previous months had taught her the value of distraction as a coping method

(although avoidance and denial were her very favorite), so she followed them. They were headed

to the corner of the beach that had been designated generations ago as a makeshift baseball field.

There were less then a dozen of them, from little Robert Kent, all of seven with his jack-o-

lantern grin and blue popsicle dyed mouth, to Eric Lord, who was going off to college in August

and couldn’t stop grinning about it.

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There was a series of variable factors that decided whether the boys let her play or not. If

the group was mostly older boys, then she couldn’t play. If her brother was there, who at sixteen

was one of the leaders of that group, the boys left the decision up to him. He usually said yes, but

sometimes he said no. If it was a mixed age group like this one, chances were she’d get a nice

sunny yes, but there was always the slim possibility that she’d get prickly sharp red no.

Her brother had stopped to pour sand out of his shoe, and was trailing at a leisurely pace

behind the rest of the pack.

“Hey! Hey Tom,” she cried trotting over to her brother. “Can I play with you guys?” she

asked, cupping a hand over eyes as she looked up at her tall brother against the high afternoon

sun.

He glowered at her, “Are you kidding me? After you spied on me with Sue last night?”

Oh. Right. She’d been trying all summer to deny the existence and nature of Tom’s

relationship with Sue. That was another big change. Sue had been her friend, then Tom’s friend,

and now more than Tom’s friend. She hadn’t even suspected anything until last night, when she

had walked in on Tony sucking Sue’s freckled face off, her blue nails bright in his blonde hair.

He hadn’t locked the porch door last night, it really hadn’t been her fault she had stumbled across

the pair. Spying implied that she wanted to see her brother make out with her old friend. She was

probably more embarrassed then Sue was after last night.

She shoved him, hard, but he didn’t fall or even stumble. “I wasn't spying!” She hissed.

“You didn’t lock the door dumbass.” When his scowl remained, she added, “Let me play or I’ll

tell dad. You know how pissed they’ll be that you weren’t at John’s house like you said you’d

be.”

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He laughed, “Then I’d tell them that the real reason Tommy Fritz scraped up his knee

was because pushed him too hard after he put ice in your bathing suit. You can play, Meggie.

But you’re going to have to rotate in when somebody leaves the game. We have an even number.

We’re not gonna push one of the boys out for some twiggy chick,” he said, pulling her ponytail

lightly so she’d know that their spat was of the sibling variety, a quarter threatening, half teasing,

and the rest compromise.

So she sat on the sidelines by third base, doodling with an old stick who’s thorns dug into

the soft flesh of her palms when she took a particularly vigorous stroke. Sue, Connie, and Addie

sat cross-legged and giggling across the field, on a strip of grass that skirted the sand. When,

she’d approached the field they’d gestured for her to join them, but Meg had pointedly ignored

them. Their dogged persistence irritated her. She grew with more gusto, and felt the stick tear

blisters in her hands. Buried underneath of her resentment, Meg knew that the baseballs field’s

distance between her and the other girls hurt more than the thorns burrowing into her skin. She

shoved down the ache spreading in her chest and diverted her attention to more important

matters, like the baseball game and her sand drawing.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, but the sun was starting its descent and she’d

already endured several jokes from the boys. There was Hey Meggie, waiting to play? which

brought gales of laughter when she jammed her middle finger into the air. She stuck her tongue

at Meggie my arm is pretty tired, you could fill in for me in a bit. Ah! No, just a Charley horse.

Sorry Meggie maybe later. Other times she ignored them, like when Meggie get outta here go

play with the other girls was shouted. It maybe hurt her feelings, just a tiny bit, but it was better

than the dull ache that had been her constant companion since last October.

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But really, it was good natured and all typical boy teasing until Tony Miller spoke up.

Tony’s chin was weak and his face still held the last traces of baby fat, but the younger girls and

even some of the older ones thought he was cute. At thirteen, He was a year younger then Meg,

but she still had to look up when she talked to him. At eleven, he was part of the big boys group,

and had been campaigning all summer to transition to the biggest boys group that Tom was in,

even though he really had at least two more good summers as part of the big boys. A key part of

his campaign was bullying girls and the little boys, a tactic he hadn’t realized was useless with

them. They were teenagers; they liked girls now, and little boys weren’t all that relevant to them

anymore. He was the rich kid that nobody really liked. Meg attributed to this to Tony’s steadfast

belief that everyone should like him because he was rich. He was constantly present though,

always so insistent and loud that he always seemed to be present in the hub of boys on the island.

He was standing five feet away from Meg at third base, his long shadow brushing the

scabs on her knees.

“Meggie,” he said, voice raised so that everyone on the field could hear. “I don’t see why

you want to play ball. You already have two there,” gesturing towards her chest. “They’re small

but seem like good ones to be. Go back and talk to the other girls about bras and shit. You

shouldn’t be playing with us anymore. You’re too old.”

Across the field, Tom looked murderous, flushed red and splotchy with rage. The girls

stopped their prattling, and Sue was making as if to get up. Meg didn’t pay them any attention -

they were background noise. She didn’t see much of anything else, just felt the deep welled

anger rising up from her stomach.

The red-hot summer sun smashed violently into the horizon, forcing itself under the

waves. On shore, Meg Smith slammed her fist into Tony Miller’s smirking face before he could

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register the motion. It was like fireworks, the crunch of Tony’s nose breaking up under a tiny

fist, a red eruption of sparks launched out of his nose in perfect droplets, before they became

shapeless in their fall to the earth.

“What the hell!” He screeched, voice rocky and hard to decipher like gravel grinding

against gravel. Nobody heard the rest of what he said though. Between the laughter and his own

horribly mangled voice, Tony’s garbled words fell uselessly on the sand.

His face was the color of puce, from anger or embarrassment or pain, Meg wasn’t sure,

and she smirked when he glared at her before stalking off towards the clubhouse. That punch had

been such a release, like her muscle had been poised to spring for months. She watched him go,

unfazed and triumphant despite the fact that the encroaching darkness marked the end of the

baseball game. There was little chance of her getting in trouble. Tony wasn’t the tattling type,

not when he was so desperately trying to integrate himself with the older boys. She couldn’t see

him running off to cry to his mother.

Oh. Oh. Meg felt as though she had been the one punched, not Tony.

Her mother would have been so disappointed in her. But she wasn't there to be

disappointed. She could feel her face crumple, like someone had pulled a precariously position

Jenga piece and the whole tower came tumbling down.

Several small herds of boys were already trailing in the wake of Tony’s departure, but

Tom was still there. He noticed the look on her face, and gestured for his friends to go head back

towards the clubhouse.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked, voice lowered in concern and seriousness.

She shook her head. “No. I just want to be alone for now.”

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He studied her face. “Alright. But you should come back for the fireworks. They were her

favorite part.”

“I know,” she whispered.

She watched him run off towards the distant hub of voices, and the back of her throat

stung. She tried to bite back a sob, but it crawled determinedly up her throat. She could feel it

pushing against her muscles as it crawled towards her mouth, and pried her rigid jaw open to

escape into the quickly darkening air. Then she was on her knees, crying into her bloody hands.

She was sure her face was a Jackson Pollock painting of tears, snot, and Tony’s blood, but she

didn’t care. She sobbed about her lost friendships, Tony’s comment, her exclusion from the

baseball game, because underneath that all she was just a girl who really really missed her mom.

All of the pain she had been locking up all summer came spilling out of her chest like gaping

bullet wound. It wasn’t just Tony, or the game, or the girls; this tear fest was bound to happen,

any combination of triggers could have catalyzed the destruction of her carefully constructed

walls. Only a year ago life had been so much simpler. Before last October.

A light touch upon her shoulder made Meg spin around in surprise. It was Addie, flanked

by Connie and Sue, peering down at her with big cow eyes. She felt the heat of a deep blush

spread like a rash on her cheeks, and averted her eyes quickly.

“This isn’t about Tony is it?” Connie, ever the brave one, asked. “Except I totally would

have punched him too. That little snot deserved it. Honestly, I would have done more – like …”

she stopped talking when Addie shot her a withering look from next to Meg. Addie, queen of

manners of decorum and manners, had always insisted that Connie struggled with the concept of

tact.

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Of the three of them Sue stood timidly, her shadow even hazier then the rest. It was

unlike her to speak up, especially given her current entanglement with Tom, but she talked next.

“I know what today meant to your mom, and I, I mean we, well we wanted”

“What it means!” Meggie spat. “She’s dead but it still means something. It has to for

somebody. I’m trying to preserve her memory, but everyone else is moving forward or treating

me like I’m made of glass! I was so excited to come back here this summer, because I thought at

least you guys would help me, but you went ahead and changed too! She was here last summer.

All summer. She cooked dinner and sang and played tennis with me and Tom and my dad. I just

want to, like, pause, time. To grab those moments and hold on to them. This place was supposed

to stay the same. Seeing you guys look so different, so grown up – well that just reminded me

that my mom isn’t going to be around to see that. She’s not gonna be around to see me grow up

either. You guys were supposed to stay the same… so that I could remember her better, and

maybe, you know, just pretend…”

The words dangled precariously in the silence that followed, before Addie’s voice sliced

through the tangible quietness. “She’s gone, Meggie. And before you say anything, I know that

you know she’s gone. You can’t pretend she’s not dead. But your not mourning her in a healthy

way.” She paused, readjusting her crossed legs, and continued gently, “She died last October

Meggie. And I know last time you were here she was so vibrant and healthy and alive. And that

you want to preserve her memory. But you can preserve it without stopping time.”

“I know that,” Meg whispered. “But if things were the same, I thought I could just

pretend, maybe, that she was going to come back from the grocery story or that she was out on

the boat, fishing. But everybody’s too different. No matter how much I try, since everybody

changed I can’t pretend.”

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“Is that why you’re always alone? ” Addie asked.

Meg nodded. “I followed the boys today because I couldn’t bear to be alone here today

though. The fireworks were her favorite, you know. And the boys, well they changed the least.

They get bigger, but they never really change. They’re always pretty much the same inside. Like

my dad and Tom. They were fine after like a month.”

“Tom’s not fine,” Sue said hesitantly. “I know he seems fine. I thought so to, at the

beginning of the summer. But when you pushed us away, when I couldn't talk to you or comfort

you, I felt like I had to do something to help. So I asked Tom for advice on how to approach you,

and he just completely broke down in front of me. You and I have always been closer, but I’ve

been friends with Tom for just as long. So when I couldn't help you, I helped him instead. We

started hanging out more. I guess he felt better when I was around. That’s why I was over all the

time. And just so you know,” here Sue broke eye contact and blushed. “Last night, when you

walked in on me and Tom. When we were on the couch. That was the first time. And it’s going

to be the only time. He kissed me, but you came in before I could pull away. I’m so sorry. You

must have been horribly mad at me.”

“Not really,” Meggie admitted. “It just made me start to realize that maybe since I’m

isolating myself I’m not really living. That I’m missing out on the things my mom is missing out

on. And she’d be so disappointed in me.”

“Do you think you could let us all in now?”

Meggie glanced around. The day had melted into shadows, but she could see Sue’s fair

hair framing her face in wispy, starlight tentacles. Connie’s heartfelt smile, lips pulled tight and

the dimples in her cheeks carved as smooth as a knife through butter. Felt Addie’s sturdy

presence brushing the fringes of her own.

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“Will you?” Sue asked, stepping forward and holding out her hand.

“Yeah.”

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