“I’m Winnie,” says Winnie, smiling big at me. “Short for Guinevere.”
“Matilda,” I tell them. I bend over the sink and wash my hands.
“I have gum,” says Winnie. “Do you want?”
“Thanks.” I take it from her and unwrap it. It’s wintergreen.
“Sorry to be weird,” says Holland. “But you look like someone. Do you live here? On the Vineyard?”
“No.” I bend over the sink again and drink some water straight from the tap. In the mirror, my eyes are red and my hair is absolutely chaotic with humidity. My skin looks gray. The two of them are hovering over me like they have nowhere better to be. “It was a small plane,” I add, standing up. “And some bad lunch. I’m all right.”
“Do you want to change your shirt?” asks Winnie.
I look down. There is vomit and Dorito dust on my hoodie. “Yeah.”
I have a henley on underneath, so I pull the hoodie off and try to shove it in my backpack, but it doesn’t fit, so I give up and wad it into a ball.
They’re still hovering.
“Really, I’m okay,” I say. “You don’t have to be so nice.”
“Listen,” says Holland. “We’re not in any rush. We’re waiting for my mom, and her plane is delayed. Do you have a ride? Do you know your way around? I know this place pretty well. I have family here.”
“I’m going to get— Are there taxis here? Or should I get a rideshare?”
“There are taxis if you go out the side entrance,” says Holland. “Are you going up-island?”
“I don’t even know what that means,” I confess.
“Up-island is away from the big towns. It’s the countryside.”
“I’m going to—well, it’s outside West Tisbury.”
“That’s up-island. And us, too. We have a rental house there, no parents. A whole crew of girls. Except me, because I don’t believe in the gender binary. So when you’re not puking, and you’ve got settled, you should come hang out. Right? We’re here for the rest of the summer. Post-graduation par-tay.”
In LA, rich girls look glossy and aspirational. Holland and Winnie don’t seem to be trying at all. Winnie’s wearing makeup, but her dress is loose and her nails are short and her backpack is beat-up. Holland is rummaging in her Celine raffia bag. I know those cost thousands of dollars, but hers is well-worn, like she doesn’t even realize it’s designer. From it she pulls a circus of random items, including squashed juice boxes and a glucose monitor, while looking for her phone to give me her details.
I can’t think why these two would invite some random vomiter from the airport toilets to hang out with them, but maybe life on Martha’s Vineyard is even quieter than I imagined. When Holland finds her phone, she gives me her info, takes mine. Then they hand me an extra stick of wintergreen gum—“In case you barf in the taxi!”—and run off to meet the incoming plane.
10
The Vineyard taxiis actually a van. It’s dented and covered with bumper stickers. The only way I can tell it’s a taxi is a sign in the window.
The driver is a boy maybe a little older than me, leaning against his vehicle with his arms crossed. His lower lip is pushed out in a pout. He’s sunburned across his nose and his white skin is heavily freckled, like summer has been trying to mark him as her favorite. Wavy dark hair in need of a cut. His broad swimmer’s shoulders are hunched up to his ears, like he can hardly bear to be standing in this airport parking area.
He squints at me from under his baseball cap as I plop my backpack and duffel in front of him.
“Do you go up-island?” I ask. I try to sound like I know what I’m talking about.
“Mm-hm. Ten dollars.”
I recite the directions from Kingsley’s email: “I have to go to South Road, outside West Tisbury, and get dropped off at the strawberry. Can you do that?”
He folds his arms. “South Road, yeah. But strawberry what?”
“I don’t know.”
He shakes his head, thinking. “Maybe it’s a farm stand.”
