The Goodbye Summer

by Sarah Van Name

  “Good,” I say. “I’m really tired, though. I’m gonna go to bed.”

  “Oh, okay,” she says, and she starts to say something else, but I’m already out of the room and up the stairs. I take off my clothes and get into bed naked without brushing my teeth. I try to imagine rolling over and finding him there instead of the wall. The backs of my eyelids are etched with the constellations above Arizona. In my mind, the lines between the stars draw themselves into brilliant shapes. September.

  Chapter 2

  I walk into the aquarium gift shop at 8:58 a.m. It’s empty except for Jenny, who is lounging against the display of animal-themed chocolate bars behind the counter.

  “Hey,” she says. “We got a thing today.”

  “Oh yeah?” I drop my backpack and lean beside her.

  “Yeah. The kids, the fuckin’, whatever it is”—Jenny snaps her fingers—“Junior Aquarium Camp, they get to come in today and pick a figurine. It’s included in the price of tuition.”

  She gestures at the clear bins of small plastic sea creatures that line the back of the store. At two dollars each, they are some of the cheapest things we offer. They’re big enough that you can’t eat one, which is a selling point for parents, but they’re not very well constructed.

  “What do they do with them?” I ask.

  “Who knows,” Jenny says. “But listen.” She turns toward me, her eyes serious behind her glasses. “No substitutions, okay? This isn’t a goddamn restaurant. They can’t have a stuffed animal. They can’t have a poster. They can’t have chocolate. They can’t—listen, even if it’s cheaper, it doesn’t matter, like, they can’t have a pen. Or a sticker. They can have one figurine.” She leans back and exhales. “The director was very fuckin’ clear on that point.”

  “Okay. I mean, that shouldn’t be that hard,” I say.

  “You’d be surprised. They can be sneaky.” She extracts herself from behind the counter. “Anyway, you’re here now. I’m heading back to my office. Got some”—she waves her hand in a lazy trail—“stuff to do.”

  I reach under the counter to the drawer with the phone book and brush my fingers around the back until I find my chocolate bar. Yesterday I saw Jenny take one from the wall behind us, which is bullshit because she gave me a big lecture about theft in our hour of training on Friday. When I saw her take it, I asked if I could have one too. She said yes as if it was no big deal, but I’m pretty sure she had to take them out of her salary. Or mine.

  My chocolate bar has a panda bear on the wrapper, which is now crinkled and folded in half, and contains little dried cranberries. I take one square, fold it back up, and replace it in its hiding place. I’m guessing Jenny would eat it if she found it, out of spite.

  I pull out my phone and text Jake:

  hey

  He doesn’t reply. He’s not up yet.

  People drift in and out for hours. Moms with babies and toddlers. Nannies with older kids. The occasional elderly couple, or a group of fourteen-year-olds, parents having dropped them off in front of the building.

  I was hoping Jake and I would be able to text more in the morning. During the school year, he used to always text me at this time, when the grocery store was nearly empty. It’s looking like the aquarium will be similarly slow. In school, I could never answer—my teachers were really strict about phones. I could talk to him now, but he won’t respond.

  As I’m checking my phone for the thirtieth time, the doors to the aquarium area open from the inside and four blue-shirted, khaki-panted Junior Aquarium Camp counselors slip out. The same girl from yesterday is among them. She’s speaking quietly but rapidly to one of the guys, her hands gesticulating in big loops that are impossible not to watch. The guy shrugs, and she hangs her head in an exaggerated signal of defeat as the conversation ends. I find myself smiling, watching her.

  The four counselors position themselves in a wide, loose arc across the lobby, starting at the door to the aquarium area and ending at the activity room. In their matching uniforms, hands clasped behind their backs or resting on their hips, they look sort of like bodyguards awaiting celebrities—almost, but not quite, cool.

  Then they all take out their phones. It ruins the illusion. One of the guys shows his screen to the girl. She leans over to look, her ponytail swinging to the side, and I see her laugh. I can hear the sound of it, barely, through the open door to the gift shop. The glass between me and them makes it feel like a silent movie.

  Then the aquarium doors crack open. “Incoming!” someone bellows, and the counselors straighten up. The doors burst open from the inside and a flood of six- and seven-year-olds run out. Some of them go the wrong way, try to run outside or toward the gift shop. The arc of counselors gently nudge them back into position, and they change direction as easily as if it had been their intent the whole time. They look like a school of fish, small and sparkling.

  The guy at the end closes the door of the activity room after the last kid. “Clear!” the first guy yells, and all the counselors laugh. They head toward the activity room in a clump, moving slowly and talking.

  But the girl breaks away from the group and jogs toward the gift shop. I stand a little straighter and brush a stray hair out of my face. She grabs the glass door frame and swings her body around it, looking right at me. I haven’t noticed until now just how small she is, not even five feet tall.

  “Hey,” she says, walking over to me and sticking out her hand. “I’m Georgia. With the camp.” She cocks her head to the right, toward the now-packed activity room.

  I shake her hand. Her palm is as dry as her shoulders are damp.

  “I’m Caroline,” I say. “I…work at the gift shop. Which I guess you know.”

  She laughs. “No worries,” she says. She spins around, displaying the COUNSELOR lettering on the back of her shirt, and looks over her shoulder at me. “My job’s pretty obvious too.” My phone buzzes in my pocket.

  “Anyway,” she continues, “we’re gonna be bringing in the kids for the figurines pretty soon. In about twenty minutes. I talked to someone about it earlier, I think your boss? Jenny?”

  I nod at Jenny’s closed office door. “Yeah. She got in before me this morning. She told me you’d be coming.”

  “Cool. So you know the whole thing. One figurine, no more, nothing else, et cetera.”

  “Got it.”

  Georgia rolls her eyes. “It’s ridiculous, I know.” She smiles, and I smile with her without meaning to. “Anyway, we should be in and out in fifteen minutes max. I’m gonna give you a sheet, and you put a check in the box at the intersection of their name and their animal. Then we’re going to the pool and we’ll be out of your hair.”

  “Gotcha. I thought you went to the pool in the morning? That’s how they always did it when I was in camp,” I say, and immediately feel silly. I don’t know why I want her to like me, but I do, and I doubt she cares that I went to her camp when I was little.

  “No, yeah, we usually do, but the local swim team had a meet today. They’re using the aquarium pool this summer while they’re renovating the pool at Central. When they have morning meets, we go in the afternoon,” she says. “Personally, I think I’m going to like going in the afternoons better. Sometimes they’re sleepier in the morning. Easier to deal with in our other activities. Then when they really ramp up the energy, if it’s an afternoon session, we get to stay at the pool longer. There’s a lot less shit for them to mess with there.”

  “So, if it’s afternoon today, why is your hair wet?” I ask. Another inane question. My phone buzzes in my pocket for a second time. I want her to leave so I can stop ignoring Jake. I hate it when he ignores my texts, and I don’t want to do the same thing to him.

  “Oh,” she says, touching her head. “That’s just from my shower this morning.”

  “Oh, okay,” I say. “Cool.” The gift shop is silent for a few seconds. From
Jenny’s office, I hear a familiar burst of sitcom music. She watches TV at lunch. And the rest of the day. She told me when I asked that it helps her focus, which I’m not sure I believe.

  “Well,” the girl says, “I’m gonna go check on the kids.”

  “Georgia, right? It was nice to meet you,” I say quickly, now suddenly wanting her to stay as much as I wanted her to leave a moment ago. “I think I’m the youngest person working here, and I don’t know that many people, so…I guess…yeah. It was nice to meet you.”

  “You’re not the youngest,” she says and smiles. “I’m sixteen.”

  “I’m sixteen too,” I say.

  “Oh, hey! Two of us. Nice meeting you too, Caroline,” Georgia says. She flashes me a smile and jogs back to the activity room.

  My phone buzzes insistently and I pull it out of my pocket. I have two texts from Jake and one from my dad. I tap Jake’s name.

  hey baby

  what’s up

  where were you when I texted?

  don’t you have work

  The symbol that means he’s typing appears and disappears. I look at the texts from my dad.

  Hi Caroline. Wanted to check in

  hope you’re having a good day.

  Takeout Chinese 4 dinner tonight if u want.

  I sigh inwardly. I already told my parents I’d be out until curfew tonight. I think they understand that I want to spend time with Jake, but they still want to lure me home.

  Thanks Dad. I think I’ll be out tonight.

  But I appreciate it. My day’s good. Hope yours is too.

  Jake responds as I hit send.

  called in sick ;)

  are you kidding me

  you need the money

  actually WE need the money

  relax baby

  I needed sleep

  gotta be ready for you tonight ;)

  Against my better judgment, I smile and look around at the shop. It’s empty, but I still feel like someone’s watching. I pull my phone closer as he continues.

  anyway I was tired

  I’ll go tomorrow it’s cool

  and I’m making a surprise for you tonight

  what is it?

  I can’t tell you!

  wouldn’t be a surprise ;)

  don’t be mad baby

  I’m not

  I’m excited for tonight :)

  gotta go tho

  ok love you

  love you too

  I have to type my last message fast because the counselors are lining up in the same graceful arc, this time from the activity room to the gift shop. Georgia stands closest to me. The guy at the end shouts, “Incoming!” The activity room door opens, she turns around to wink at me, and the children come running in and collide with the plastic bins of sea creatures, hands scrabbling.

  “Clear,” yells Georgia as she ushers in the last kid, a blond-haired girl with a shirt covered in fish. Good luck, she mouths across the room to me, her lips forming the words big and exaggerated. But I don’t have time to dwell on that because a little boy is standing in front of me, his head level with the top of the desk, and he is waving a small plastic whale.

  The next twenty minutes are a blur of names—four Madisons and three Connors—and sea creatures. I shoo a kid’s hand away from the jewelry display as a blond girl, who appears to be the only other female counselor, briskly picks up a boy who is trying to run out of the store and deposits him back inside. I decline another child’s sincere offer to purchase a chocolate bar with a handful of dimes. Two kids start sword-fighting with rolled-up posters, and one of the male counselors yells “I’m so sorry” in my direction as he runs to separate them. It’s absolute madness but kind of nice—working with all the counselors makes me feel like part of their team. When I finally get a chance to breathe, the counselors are forming their line again, which culminates at the front door this time.

  Georgia comes over to the desk as I’m registering a stingray to a redheaded boy with a stuffy nose.

  “All done?”

  “This is the last one,” I say. I mark an X at the intersection of Connor M. and stingray.

  “Great. I’ll see you later,” she says. She grabs the little boy’s hand and leads him to the door where the other kids have collected in a clump. Some of the boys are making their animals fight. A shark and a starfish are locked in deadly battle near the stuffed animal display. She herds them, in clumps and one by one, out to the front of the building where the rest of the counselors are waiting to lead them to the pool on the other side of the complex.

  Jenny pops her head out of her office. Her TV’s laugh track is conspicuous in the sudden silence.

  “What was all that?”

  “The camp kids getting their figurines.”

  “Oh.”

  “Wanna know what animal got chosen the most?”

  She shuts the door.

  “Dolphin,” I say to no one.

  I look at the clock. It felt like no time at all, but the campers were in the store for almost thirty minutes. And I still have hours left in my shift.

  An old man buys a stuffed seal and asks for it gift-wrapped. I have to tell him we don’t do that. He purchases a tote bag with cartoon seaweed on it, places the seal inside with no tissue paper, and leaves. A group of teenage girls come in, pick things up, put them down again. I watch their purses closely. They’re the kind who would try to steal candy or a pen. I know because my friends used to do that kind of shit, and they look a lot like my friends. But they don’t steal anything. After a few minutes, they leave and amble outside to the parking lot where they lean against a car and pass around a single cigarette.

  I text Jake.

  what is your favorite sea animal?

  This time, he replies immediately.

  what? why

  the kids had to choose a sea animal

  the camp kids at work

  dolphin whale shark starfish or stingray

  eel

  not an option

  I like eels

  you’re gonna like the surprise later

  what is it???

  can’t tell ;)

  maybe it’s eels

  I laugh aloud and Jenny, leaving her office to go to the bathroom across the lobby, looks at me suspiciously.

  “What’s going on?” she says.

  “Nothing,” I say, and tuck my phone into my back pocket. I coast until five, when a few moms and kids come in to buy trinkets after camp dismisses, and close the shop at exactly 5:30. My closing work is supposed to take until six, but today and yesterday it only took me a few minutes. Georgia and the counselors are still counseling when I leave at 5:45, chatting with kids whose parents are late. But Georgia looks up at me as I leave.

  “See you tomorrow, Caroline,” she says.

  “Bye, Georgia,” I say. It’s nice that she thought to say goodbye to me, and I feel light and happy as I walk outside to Jake’s car—he is early today, thank goodness—and climb in.

  “What’s the surprise?” I ask him after we kiss. He grins and starts to drive, one hand on my thigh, the other resting loosely on the wheel. I roll down the window as the radio bursts into song.

  When we get home, I find out: flowers and the promise that his roommates won’t be back until eleven.

  “So we can be loud,” he says and grins. My guts twist into a knot and untangle themselves just as quickly, my body’s now-familiar response to being wanted. Before we started dating, it was a foreign sensation. Now I feel lucky every time, but worried, as if I am equally likely to lose it as I am to feel it again.

  He turns me around gently and starts kissing my neck, my stomach pressed against the kitchen counter. The flowers peek out of a water glass in front of me. Their petals are bright pink and yellow, and th
ey look like they’ve been pulled right from a garden. Fresh. Sometimes the store manager lets him bring home the old flowers, still pretty, but wilting and browning at the edges, the ones that no one will buy even on triple markdown. I’ve gotten used to seeing them around the house one day, then throwing them out the next. But these are brand new.

  “Do you like ’em?” he whispers in my ear.

  “I love them,” I say and turn around. “I love you.”

  We have sex in the living room, and I’m loud like he likes. I like it too. He doesn’t do anything different from usual. It’s not as if I’m normally holding back screams. But this feels more adult somehow. Freeing. No one around to tease us when we shut the door to the bedroom or pound on the wall during.

  After, we lie on the couch. I watch him play video games, and he feeds me crescent moons of clementines. I get home at eleven o’clock exactly.

  That night I dream of Jake, and in the dream, we’re in a cabin somewhere cold, the edges blurry. We’re sitting on his couch, staring into a fire as if it’s TV. I think he’s angry at me, but I don’t know why. I relented and went to the Northeast with him, and in the dream, I love it. It is better than I could have possibly expected, but he is somehow disappointed. I feel strange and guilty at how straight he’s sitting against the couch, the firelight reflected in his irises.

  I move closer to him. He feels far away and cold, like a statue. We are alone here. We will never have to speak to anyone again. The thought should be a comfort, but it feels all wrong. I try to lean my head on his shoulder; his bones are sharp, and I can’t find a comfortable place. He is still staring at the fire, and the walls are dissolving, something throbbing inside me or knocking outside of me, I can’t tell, everything getting colder—

  I wake up hyperventilating.

  When I was little, I used to have nightmares all the time. Monsters under the bed, kidnappers outside my window, burglars in the closet. After I screamed for my mom, too terrified to get out of bed, she would come into my room and turn on the lights.