Meet Me By The Dock

Chapter 20

"Do we knock or just walk in?" I ask my mom as we weave up the driveway through the mass of cars in front of the Remington house.

He just moved in this year. How can he have so many friends?

"Probably just walk in, that seems to be what everyone else is doing." She shrugs and we make our way up their stairs which are made out of wide slabs of wood. I'm carrying a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies covered with tinfoil. People enter and exit their blue front door with bags of ice and crockpots.

We enter through the door and into the foyer which branches out to a wide hallway. Were met with the smell of barbecue and a buzz of conversation coming from the next room. Their foyer resembles ours with its tall ceiling, but they have a grand, glass chandelier and walls of light grayish blue, where ours are white.

When you pass through the foyer and down the hallway, you enter their kitchen which seems to be where everyone congregates. "Hello, you must be the Grace's." Says a sweet voice behind us.

I turn and find Matthew's mom, she's in a blue dress that flows down to her ankles. She has long locks of light brown curls and a kind smile. "That's us." My mom returns her smile. "We brought cookies, is there anywhere specific you want us to put them?" She asks and gestures to the plate I'm carrying.

"Oh thank you," She claps her hands together and looks me up and down in an endearing way like she did when I first met her, "You can put them right over there." She points to the counter space next to the stove, seemingly the only counter space open.

"So, how are you liking it here?" My mom leans her hip on their gray marble countertop and asks. Mrs. Remington pours herself a glass of white wine, she raises her eyebrows to my mom as if to say want any? My mom politely shakes her head no.

"It's nice, peaceful." She takes a sip of her wine and continues, "We were going to get a place a town over but then I heard about all of these noise complaints and parties."

"Oh yeah," my mom explains, "It's closer to the beach, that's where most of the parties are."

"Yeah," Mrs. Remington nods slowly, "So, I'm glad we chose here, we all are."

She must have forgotten I was standing there because her eyebrows jump up in surprise for a moment once I catch her eye, "Oh! Matthew's out back, sweetie."

I smile, "Thank you." I say and turn towards the back door, which is in the shape of a grand, wide arch.

The doors are already wide open, so I step through them onto the elevated, wooden deck. The entire space is taken up by a long picnic table covered in fruit and drinks. There are piles of pineapple and grapes, and rows and rows of stacked, sliced watermelon. Well now I know where all the watermelons went.

There are people on all sides of me filling their plates with all different kinds of colorful fruit. A woman with her hair thrown into a claw clip fills a little boy's plate full of all different fruits, as the boy points out which ones he wants. A group of men wearing almost identical polos –they look like they were dragged here by their partners– are now huddled in a group in the corner talking about golf or whatever it is men talk about with each other in their free time. I recognize a lot of them from the Anderson's start-of-summer barbecue. I try to look around for Matthew as indiscreetly as I can. He's the only one I know here and I want to talk to him to make sure things aren't awkward between us.

"Excuse me, could you pass the iced tea?" My thoughts are interrupted by a light British accent.

My head turns slowly because I'm not entirely sure they were talking to me. When I turn to my right I'm met with a boy around my age with tawny brown skin and a curly, ash brown, afro atop his head. He raises both eyebrows at me, "The... iced tea?" He asks again.