One Last Summer

by Jo Noelle

  Chapter 4

  Cole Zamora

  For ten years, I’ve been working here and saving money with the hope that when Walter wanted to sell Misty Harbor, I’d be ready. Eighteen months ago, I would have been in a great place to make an offer, but twelve months ago, I spent all that hope in less than sixty days, but it was money well spent. I’ve started saving again, but it’s not enough.

  Forcing my eyes to open wide, I give my head a shake and select “print.” It’s just after six o’clock, and the sun’s been up for an hour already. But I’ve been up for three, reworking a seventeen-page paper of a business plan for my entrepreneurship class. Because of Walter’s announcement, I deleted the fictitious business description and statistics, replacing them with information and ideas based on Misty Harbor Cottages.

  I tuck the pages into a portfolio, email the assignment to my professor, and head out of Walter’s office, mentally checking off the assignment and, more importantly, feeling pumped to have a solid plan for running the cottages when I win.

  Walter stacks repair orders on a clipboard and passes them to me. “You or Jenna gonna win this thing?”

  “Yeah. Me or Jenna.” I smile up at him to say, I know, lame joke—he just shakes his head. Me and Jenna, hopefully, if my plan works.

  We move to the table, and he begins to list the work for today. “Run through every cottage with the prep list. Then after lunch, we’ll look at the hot tub. The itinerary for this week is on the board. We’ve got a family reunion coming in this afternoon, and they’re using the four cottages that aren’t being renovated. They’ve signed up for everything we offer—fishing, shrimping, combing the beach for oysters, barbecue, hiking in the national forest. One day, a few of them are going on over to Forks—hoping to get bit by vampires, I guess.”

  “Who was bit by a vampire?” Jenna asks as she enters the kitchen, a curly ponytail bouncing from the gap at the back of her Mariners baseball cap.

  I want to vault over the table and take her in my arms, taste her lips again, feel her touch on my face, and hold her every day of our lives. But if she ever suspected that I had a plan to win her heart this summer, she’d leave. It’s going to be rough—she has a way of kicking me out of her life whenever we get too close. I have one summer to see if our broken pieces fit together or fall apart. For better or worse.

  Walter hands her a clipboard too. “We’ve got three cottages on a quick flip today. You’re going to be busy,” he says as Jenna pulls up a chair. He turns his attention back to me. “What time are you meeting with the planning department for your permit?”

  Jenna’s eyes snap toward me. “You need a building permit?”

  Do I hear worry in her voice? I just nod, then answer Walter. “I’ll pick up the plans at eleven and drop them off with the county. I don’t have to meet with them, so it’ll take thirty minutes, tops. I’ll be back right after lunch. We can still fix the hot tub.”

  Walter scans his notes and opens a calendar, but doesn’t look at us as he says, “You and Jenna will need to try it out tonight before we open it up for guests.”

  There’s a little panic in Jenna’s eyes that she covers with a skeptical look. I don’t want her to push me away. I remind myself of my plan to win her over—take down her defensive walls, remind her of the good times we’ve had, help her see me as the Cole she’s known forever, give her someone to trust. If I do this, I might stand a chance.

  This situation definitely falls into step number one—defensive walls. I tell Walter, “Can’t do that today. I need to finish my homework and the applications for the safety permits.”

  Walter harrumphs and mumbles something about a gift horse, then takes a gulp of his water.

  “What are you doing to the cottage that you need plans and a permit for?” Jenna asks while pouring juice into a glass.

  I shrug dismissively, not needing to give her any other hint about my plans for renovating Willow. She’ll see us break ground soon enough. “You got enough juice yet?” I ask as the cup overflows.

  She jerks her hand up as Walter scrambles to rescue all the papers, and I throw a towel on the puddle.

  At three o’clock sharp, the families for the reunion arrive, filling the parking spots like an Olympic synchronized driving team. After checking in, the grandfather, with a long blast on a whistle, lines everyone up with military precision and calls out their cottage assignments. Two young teen girls are the only ones breaking ranks, whispering and giggling as they stare at me.

  Seal sits by the golf cart where I’m loading the luggage. The girls sit on the log, eating licorice. They slap their legs and whisper loudly, “Here, puppy, puppy.”

  I notice Seal’s head perk up. “Stay,” I command. If he gets friendly with the children, he’ll think up all kinds of mischief. Seal’s ears droop. He really does stay, which surprises me. I wouldn’t accuse him of being an obedient dog.

  The girls continue to call him, kneeling down to tempt him over. Seal drops down too and starts army crawling toward them. The girls squeal and call louder.

  I try to hurry away with him, but the load tips, and I have to balance it again and pack the remaining bags in the trailer I’m pulling. The girls have Seal at their knees now. He’s rolled over and they’re rubbing his tummy, but he can’t stay. “Seal, come.”

  If dogs could swear, I think he would. He turns toward me and walks mechanically with his tail between his legs.

  Later in the afternoon, Jenna and I hit the canal to gather some oysters for dinner. We walk along our pebbled beach out to the line of oysters left from high tide. Jenna sets the bucket between us and asks, “What size, chef?”

  “Size of your hand. We’re having a barbecue.” After a few minutes of gathering, we walk back up the hill to the picnic table.

  Walter pulls up to the pavilion in his golf cart with all the barbecue supplies just as we bring the oysters.

  “I want a rematch,” Jenna says. “I think I’ve got a system that will win this year. Same rules—whoever shucks the most oysters in five minutes wins. The loser cooks dinner for a week.”

  “Let’s change one thing. Instead of removing the oyster completely from the shell, it has to be on the half shell, loosened, and ready to barbecue.” I grab two corners of the plastic table cloth, throw the other side to Jenna, and pull it down over the tabletop.

  “Walter’s the judge. And I want the good knife,” Jenna says, throwing her hand out to seal the deal.

  Nope, I have a better idea. “You want to hug on that?”

  “Sure.” She wraps her arm around my shoulder and hits me with a side hug.

  Walter stops setting out the equipment and says, “Ah, you got the friendship hug. Tough luck, that.”

  Thanks, Walter, for mentioning it. “Fine, we’ll flip.” I pull a coin from my pocket and toss it in the air, hearing Jenna say, “Heads.”

  Of course she chooses heads. I peek beneath my hand, and there it is. “The knife’s yours.”

  During several frenzied minutes, we seem to be setting oysters aside at about the same time.

  Walter begins counting down from thirty seconds. “Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven. Twenty-s—”

  Jenna screams and drops her knife. She’s holding an oyster in front of her, and her face looks pale. There must be blood. I toss my oyster down and grab a clean towel, pressing it into her hand. After a moment, I remove it to see a deep slice across her palm, still gushing blood.

  Worry twists my gut. “Better keep this over it. Let’s go. You might need stitches. Where’s your towel?”

  “I dropped it, but I didn’t have time to pick it up—I’d lose.” Jenna’s words hiss between clenched teeth, her eyebrows furrowed.

  Walter calls out and tosses me the key to the golf cart and calls out. “Get her to the house and take her to the hospital.”

  “Count them. I got twenty-four,” she calls over her shoulder.

  Moving up the path to the cart wit
h one arm around Jenna’s waist and my other hand holding her wrist, I reply, “I got twenty-four too. You can’t count the one you got blood on. I win.”

  Walter stands next to the pavilion. “I’d have to agree with that. Cole wins.”

  I’d be excited, but rushing Jenna to urgent care takes the glory away. Once there, she’s moved to the top of the list, ahead of the kid with a rash and the woman who threw up into a trashcan across the lobby from us.

  For the third time, Jenna relates the story of what happened, first to the receptionist, then the nurse and now the doctor. It wasn’t a knife cut, like I had originally thought, but instead the jagged edge of the oyster shell slipped across her palm after she dropped her towel.

  “You’re going to need a few stitches.”

  Jenna immediately turns toward me and pats the side of the bed. “Please!” Her voice is a little shrill and her eyes pleading. The only thing she might hate worse than the sight of blood is the sight of a needle.

  I slip up onto the right side of the bed while the doctor rolls up to her left. The nurse moves a small table next to Jenna to rest her forearm on and another next to the doctor with a suture kit on top. He starts prepping the area with blue drapes then antiseptic across her skin.

  “You’re going to feel a little prick and a bee sting,” the doctor says.

  Jenna leans onto my chest, and I hold her right hand with mine. She gives a tight squeeze, and I whisper to her to close her eyes. When I see the doctor getting ready to tie off the first stitch, I say, “You’re doing great. Just relax,” hoping she won’t pay attention to the tug against her skin as it lifts.

  After he finishes and gives us final instructions, we head back home.

  “Thanks for being with me, Cole.” She examines her bandaged hand. “I really hate that kind of thing.”

  “I know—glad to help.” I’d like to add “always,” but I’m not going to push it. “I’m sorry, Jenna. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”

  “Don’t you dare think this was your fault. I was trying to win.” She leans her head back on the seat. “I hope Walter enjoyed the oysters.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  It took almost three hours to make the round trip to get stitches for Jenna. When we arrive back at the cottages, there’s mysterious pink poop squirted all over the yard. Walter taped a note to the front door that Seal must have eaten something that didn’t agree with him, and that I owe the little girls who checked in with their families today a big bag of red licorice, ending the note with a comment. Bet you can put those two together. Clean the grass.