Free The Island by Elin Hilderbrand Page B

was invited to stay for lunch, an hour involving the whole family eating char-grilled burgers around the picnic table on the bluff that overlooked the beach, during which Tate’s father interrogated Barrett about his aspirations and plans for the future. The answers formed the sum of what Tate knew about Barrett Lee. During the lunch, Barrett looked at Chess fourteen times. Tate counted, and it was like fourteen nails in the coffin of her hopes for love.
    She had spent her entire life losing out to Chess, but she couldn’t stand the thought of losing out to Chess with Barrett, and so she employed the only tactic that had ever been successful for Tate with a boy: she showed an interest in what he was interested in. This had worked organically for Tate at school—she liked Lara Cross, she liked Bruce Springsteen, and so did certain boys. These boys paid her attention; they thought she was “cool,” unlike the rest of the female high school population, who only cared about makeup and Christian Slater.
    What did Barrett like? He liked fishing. Toward the end of that fateful lunch, Tate had proclaimed several times, too loudly to be ignored, her burning desire to go fishing. She was dying to go fishing. She would do anything to go fishing. If only she knew someone who could take her… fishing.
    Her father said, “We get the hint, honey. Barrett, would you be willing to take my daughter fishing?”
    Barrett smiled uncomfortably. He flicked his eyes at Chess. “Uh, both of you, or…”
    “God, no,” Chess said. “I think fishing is just one more form of animal cruelty.”
    Tate rolled her eyes. This sounded suspiciously like one of the radical positions Chess had picked up, like a flu bug, at the Colchester Student Union. “You eat fish,” Tate pointed out. “Is that cruel?”
    Chess glared at her. “I don’t want to go fishing,” she said.
    “Well, I do,” Tate said. She grinned at Barrett, not caring how transparent she was. “So you’ll take me?”
    “Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Or my father could…”
    Tate’s father said, “I’m sure Chuck is too busy to take Tate fishing. If you agree to do it, Barrett, I’ll be happy to pay you.”
    Tate was mortified.
    Barrett said, “Okay, yeah, sounds good. So… we’ll have to go pretty early. I’ll pick you up at seven, okay?”
    She was nothing more to him than an hourly wage, but what could she do now?
    “Okay,” she said.
    That night, Tate didn’t sleep. She closed her eyes and imagined Barrett’s arms encircling her as he showed her how to cast. She imagined kissing him, touching his bare chest, warmed by the sun. She sighed and relaxed in the fact that she was most definitely attracted to the opposite sex.
    She was up at dawn, dressed in a bikini, a pair of jean shorts, and a skimpy T-shirt that she had stolen from Chess’s drawer. Chess was sound asleep and wouldn’t notice until Tate got back, at which point it would be too late—the magic of the T-shirt would have worked. If Chess wanted to bitch about Tate borrowing her T-shirt without asking, she could go right ahead. Tate would be anesthetized by the power of Barrett’s love.
    At quarter to seven, Tate carried a waterproof bag containing a sweatshirt, three peanut butter and honey sandwiches, two bananas, and a thermos of cocoa down to the beach to wait. The bikini and Chess’s skimpy T-shirt didn’t offer much in the way of warmth, and Tate waited on the misty shore with her arms crossed over her chest, her nipples as hard and cold as the pebbles under her feet. When she heard the motor of Barrett’s boat, she tried to appear sexy and enticing, even though her teeth were chattering and her lips, she was sure, were blue.
    Tate’s heart was hammering in her chest as she waded out to the boat; she was convulsing with the chill.
    Barrett offered her a hand up. They were, for one sweet second, holding hands! He said, “I packed a picnic lunch, some beers and stuff, for after