Where I Belong by Gwendolyn Heasley Page A

think it gives him purpose, which he lacks as he eats up his trust fund.
    We meet him in town near Orange Street and jump into the back of his hunter green Jeep Wrangler. There are more SUVs in Nantucket than anywhere else, even Colorado. I am sure of this.
    “Hey, ladies,” Dennis says. “Looking good for underage girls.” Dennis often says creepy things like this, but he’s totally harmless.
    “Thanks, Dennis,” I say. “You are looking good for being Bronson’s brother.”
    “Hey, hey, Miss Corrinne,” Dennis says, and looks back at me from the front seat, “as I remember it, I caught you and him making out on our couch just last summer.”
    “Last summer,” Waverly says. “That’s a lifetime when you are fifteen.”
    I can always count on Waverly to say the genius thing and defend me. She’s been like that since we were little girls playing in our fenced-in nursery school sandlot.
    “Okay, then,” Dennis says. “You girlies are going to have to get a professional driver for the way back. I am going to the Box tonight.”
    No shocker there. Everyone goes to the Box, the local dive bar. Everyone, that is, with a really good fake ID that will scan or the privilege of actually being legal.
    “Think you could sneak in two hot girls?” Waverly asks as she locks eyes with Dennis in the rearview mirror.
    “Not a chance,” Dennis says, gunning the car once we hit the main road to Madaket. “I am in enough trouble there for a bar fight that my friend started.”
    After a few more minutes of banter with Dennis, he pulls up to the seashelled driveway to their house.
    “I’d tell you girls to be good,” he says, “but I know you won’t listen.”
    We both laugh and jump out of the Wrangler. Walking toward the front of the house, I see that a bunch of our summer friends are already there and hanging out on the porch. On the side yard, croquet’s been set up, and a drink cart is overloaded with top shelf booze.
    “Hello, lovely ladies,” Bronson says, approaching in madras with a denim button-down. He looks decent, and I can almost see why I made out with him last summer. “How about a life-is-good?” Bronson says and points to the drink cart. “As you may know, it’s the signature drink of the island.”
    “Sure,” Waverly says, and grabs my hand. “After all, life is pretty damn good to us.”
    Bang!
     
    The sound of pots and pans clanking around snaps me out of better times, B.R., Before the Recession. Glancingat the photograph of Waverly and me one last time I realize that times like those might never happen again. If I want to feel happy, my memories might be the only place to go. Searching out a mysterious smell—a cross between street chestnuts and the cotton candy at Yankee Stadium—I get up and go to my grandparents’ kitchen.
    “There’s Texas’s newest driver,” Grandpa announces in his game show host voice.
    “Your grandfather says you’re a natural,” Grandma says from the stove. “I guess you and your mom are different, because she cost us a fortune to get insured. Three accidents with a learner’s permit. Maybe she always was a city girl in her core.”
    “What are you baking, Grandma?” I ask.
    Tripp pipes up from the couch, “Cherry-chestnut cobbler.”
    “Your grandmomma has great news, Corrinne. She just called up an old friend of your mom’s, Ginger,” Grandpa says.
    I do not believe that Grandma, “news,” and a woman named Ginger mean anything good for me. But I indulge my grandfather.
    “Really? What is it?” I ask.
    “I got you a job,” Grandma says as she douses the crumble with brown sugar. “It isn’t healthy for you to just mope around the house after school. You need some fresh air.”

    “I don’t remember saying I need a job,” I remark with my hand on my hip. “It’s not exactly like I have anywhere to shop.”
    Only my friend Sarita worked. That’s because she had to buy a second cell phone. Her parents were monitoring her every call