Two Summers

by Aimee Friedman

  I take a sip of my drink. Asking Mom what Aunt Lydia might have meant would be a dead end. If only I could ask Dad himself. I stare across the street at the gray Hudson River, as if it might contain the answers.

  But all the river does is remind me that I am here, in Hudsonville, and Dad is in Berlin or France or someplace. Someplace that feels impossible—as impossible as time travel, or Hugh Tyson being my class partner, or Mom’s theories about parallel worlds.

  I sigh and turn to walk toward Deer Hill. There are no answers, for now.

  Wednesday, July 12, 10:49 a.m.

  “Bonjour, Summer!”

  Bernice, the silver-haired, flour-dusted woman behind the counter, greets me with a smile as I step inside the bakery. The bell over the door chimes.

  “Bonjour, Bernice,” I reply, breathing in the sweet smell of rising dough.

  Without having to ask, Bernice promptly reaches into the glass display case and takes out a fresh golden-brown pain au chocolat for me.

  Why does this kindly French bakery lady know my name, and my order? Because for the past week, I have followed an unshakable morning routine:

  Wake up stiff-necked after a night of restless sleep (I haven’t yet adjusted to the time difference, or the narrow twin bed). Steal downstairs, praying not to bump into Eloise (who is usually still sleeping). Pass through the kitchen, where I exchange bonjours with Vivienne (who is usually getting ready to go paint in the barn). Then, cross the street to the bakery, where I purchase what has become my favorite new breakfast.

  Now Bernice hands over the pain au chocolat in its white paper sleeve.

  “Ça va?” she asks me brightly as I fish in my shorts pocket for euros.

  Though I haven’t exactly mastered the language, I have, thanks in part to Bernice, learned a few useful French phrases. I know that “Ça va?” means “How’s it going?” and that the appropriate answer, funnily enough, is “Ça va,” which means “All is well.”

  “Ça va,” I echo, giving Bernice a weak smile, along with the euros. There’s no need for her to know that, in fact, not all is well.

  It’s been a long, lonely stretch of days since I’ve arrived in Les Deux Chemins. Dad is still in Berlin, and I feel like I’ve been holding my breath, waiting for his return. His house, while charming, has a coldness, almost a creepiness, to it. Maybe because of the people who are staying there.

  Eloise, when she’s not sleeping, crying in the shower (I’ve heard her doing that twice now), or dashing off to her art class and dinners with friends, continues to be the worst. She stalks around in her stylish sundresses, slamming doors, huffing, and eyeing me with the disgust usually reserved for rodents. Sometimes, if I’m, say, eating in the kitchen and she’ll walk by, I’ll catch her staring at me—in an intense, scrutinizing way that’s unnerving. If I meet her gaze, she’ll look away.

  Vivienne is worlds nicer than her daughter (granted, that’s a pretty low bar). She seems sympathetic to my sorry situation, and asks me every morning how I’m doing: am I sleeping well? (no); am I eating well? (yes). It’s Vivienne, I know, who keeps the fridge and pantry well-stocked: I’m always able to find tasty cheeses and little jars of yogurt, cans of sardines, and fresh sliced fruit. Last night, I came upon a small glass tub of something called “tapenade” that turned out to be a delicious paste made of crushed olives. I’d spread it onto a hunk of bread and called that dinner.

  I’d been hoping that Vivienne and I might have a meal together—or at least another hot-cocoa chat. But, for all Vivienne’s politeness, I sense an aloofness from her. She’s forever going out to eat, or dashing off to paint in the barn, or whispering on the phone in the living room. So I’ll eat my lunch and dinner quickly, and alone, at the old oak table. Which has made me feel pretty invisible. Almost like a ghost.

  I’ve taken to holing up in my medieval chamber, wishing my phone worked and reading my South of France guidebook, underlining the places I want to visit. Like the Riviera: a string of glamorous beaches not far from here. And most of all, Galerie de Provence, the gallery outside of town where Dad’s portrait of me hangs. But I don’t actually go anywhere, except for the barn studio and, occasionally, Boulevard du Temps. And, of course, the bakery.

  “Merci,” I tell Bernice, opening the door with my pain au chocolat in hand. The bell chimes again. “Au revoir!”

  “Au revoir, Summer!” she calls back, and I can tell she gets a kick out of the novelty of my name.

  I think of Cute Waiter Jacques—how he, too, found my name amusing—and my heartbeat quickens as I step out into the sunshine. Jacques’s note is still buried in my tote bag; I haven’t dared call the number he left me. On my rare trips to Boulevard du Temps, I have dared to stroll past Café des Roses, my pulse pounding while I tried hard to look nonchalant. But I never once spotted Jacques there, waiting tables. Maybe his parents banished him to dishwashing for good. Or maybe I dreamed him up completely.

  Crossing Rue du Pain, I pluck the pain au chocolat from its paper sleeve and take a bite. Buttery flakes of pastry and hunks of dark chocolate fill my mouth. Mmmm. If I were in Hudsonville, I’d be having dry Cheerios right now.

  Well, no—not now, I remind myself. It’s six hours earlier in Hudsonville. I imagine the peach pre-dawn sky stretching over the hushed houses and the gray river. I picture Ruby in her room, sleeping beneath her colorful tapestries. Then I feel a pang of disquiet, thinking of Ruby’s email from last night.

  I push the thought aside and push open the gate that leads into Dad’s garden. The lemon trees cast shade over the stone benches, and the rows of lilacs emit their fragrant scent. The overgrown grass tickles my calves as I walk past the pool.

  My second day here, I eagerly put on my bathing suit and hurried into the garden, only to have my hopes crash. The pool’s shiny blue surface is a trick—its bottom tiles are all scummy. Mom would roll her eyes and say that was just like Dad, to have a pool for status but never keep it clean enough to swim in.

  Not that I’ve told Mom about the pool. Or, you know, about Dad’s absence. A surge of anxiety tightens my throat, and I half choke on a piece of pain au chocolat. Mom has been emailing me every day, asking if I’m okay and also if Dad would please call her already. She must sense that something is up. I’ve written back to assure her that all is well (“Ça va!”) and that Dad and I are busy. But the lying is starting to make me feel sick and knotted-up inside. I’m not sure how much longer I can go without breaking.

  “Non!”

  The annoyed shout comes from inside the house. I stop in the middle of the garden and peer up at the green shutters. I can’t see anything, but I do hear another raised, female voice, speaking in French. Eloise and Vivienne, I realize. They’re fighting. They must be in Vivienne’s room, which is at the end of the second floor, and, like mine, faces the garden. Vivienne always keeps her door shut, and her curtains are drawn now, too.

  I stand still, listening, wondering what the fight is about. After a moment, though, the voices die down, so I resume walking.

  I pass the rosebushes, and the sunflowers, and finally arrive at the red barn. I swallow the last of my pain au chocolat and wipe the crumbs off my mouth before opening the creaky door.

  Dad’s studio is spacious and airy, with rough-hewn wood floors and sunbeams slanting in through the skylight. It smells strongly of paint and turpentine, which is how Dad’s clothes always smelled. I smile at the memory, as I do every time I come in here.

  There are easels set up around the room, and stacks of sketch pads, and containers full of paintbrushes and charcoals. It feels like an artist’s haven, and I guess it is; in addition to Vivienne, various paint-stained women and men pop in regularly, claiming an easel and wordlessly working. Today, though, only Monsieur Pascal is here, wielding his paintbrush and studying his canvas.

  Monsieur Pascal is approximately ninety-nine years old, and very cranky. Vivienne explained to me that he’s a famous artist who lives in Les Deux Chemins, though she didn’t intr
oduce us, which I didn’t mind. I did, however, realize that Monsieur Pascal is the elderly man standing with the rosebushes in Dad’s painting, the one that hangs in the living room here. I recognized his gray beard and straw hat.

  I keep quiet as I walk past Monsieur Pascal toward the far corner of the barn, where there is a small desk alongside several big cardboard boxes. This is where I work, although I’m not doing any painting or drawing, of course. I am fulfilling my duties as Dad’s “summer assistant.”

  Over the weekend, Dad emailed me from Berlin to apologize (for the millionth time) and to say that, since I was asking, and if I really wanted to, I could start organizing his papers and sketches in his studio. So, for the past few days, I have been doing just that. It’s no easy task—Dad’s desk was strewn with receipts, email printouts, old tubes of paint, notes scribbled on index cards. And his sketches are all stuffed haphazardly into the boxes. I guess I inherited my messy tendencies from Dad.

  But to my surprise, I have found it satisfying to turn his chaos into order. I cleared off his desk, wiped the dust with a rag, made labels for the file folders inside the desk drawers, filed the loose papers.

  Who am I? I think now as I survey the spotless desk. It’s like another Summer has taken over.

  I sit cross-legged on the cool wood floor and turn my attention to one of the big boxes of sketches. Dad told me that he had all his old sketches shipped here from Paris for the summer, to use as inspiration.

  As Monsieur Pascal’s paintbrush makes soothing swish-swish sounds, I lean forward and flip through the large sheaves of drawing paper. Some sketches are only smudged charcoal silhouettes; they remind me of a photograph that comes out blurry on the first try. Others, like a woman standing in the distance on a beach, are a bit more detailed.

  Then I come upon a sketch that looks familiar: a mailman pushing his cart down a tree-lined city street. It takes me a minute to realize that the colorful, painted version of this sketch hangs in the Whitney Museum in New York City. Ruby and I went there over winter break, and I’d felt immensely proud, seeing Dad’s painting on the wall and the official placard beside it: THE DELIVERER, BY NED EVERETT, OIL ON CANVAS.

  It looks like there’s something written on the back of the sketch, so I turn the paper over. Afternoon Mailman, 53rd Street, Manhattan, Dad has scrawled there, along with the date: seven years ago, when I was nine. Pre-divorce. I picture Dad back then, taking the train down to New York City and sketching various passersby. I guess he eventually decided The Deliverer sounded more artsy than Afternoon Mailman.

  I continue flipping through the sketches, and find one that makes me smile. It’s a charcoal rendering of an old man in a straw hat standing between two rosebushes: the sketch version of the Monsieur Pascal painting. On the back, Dad wrote: Claude Pascal, Les Deux Chemins. The date is from last summer.

  I realize that the rosebushes are from the garden here. I glance across the studio at the real Claude Pascal, and then back down at Dad’s handwriting. It’s so cool to get a glimpse of how my father works, to learn that he draws a sketch first, and then creates his painting based off that. It feels, in some modest way, like I’m growing closer to him, even though he is still far away.

  Creeaaak.

  The noise startles me, and I look up to see the barn door opening. Vivienne storms inside, her face flushed, clutching her paintbrush. She’s wearing a silky white blouse with paint-spattered cuffs, and her reddish hair is in its usual low ponytail. She doesn’t acknowledge Monsieur Pascal, or me. She probably doesn’t even see me; I am sitting obscured by the boxes.

  A second later, someone else storms through the door—Eloise. It’s clear that she’s followed her mother in here, and that neither of them is very happy. In fact, Eloise is crying—tears glisten on her cheeks and her mouth quivers. It’s super irritating that she looks pretty even now. From behind the boxes, I watch as she and Vivienne stand facing each other. I remember how I heard their raised voices earlier.

  “Maman!” Eloise spits out in a rage, her hands making fists at her sides. “Ne marche pas—loin de—moi.” She’s sobbing, trying to catch a breath between her words. “J’en peux plus! Elle—”

  “Arrête!” Vivienne snaps. She shuts her eyes and rests her fingertips against her forehead. “Il n’y a rien que je peux faire,” she adds, sounding drained and exhausted.

  I try to remain motionless in my hiding spot. Even with my newly acquired French skills, I have no idea what Vivienne and Eloise are saying. But it’s fairly obvious that they’re having a major argument. Again, I recall fighting with Mom before I left home. I wonder if we looked the same—frustrated mother, daughter in tears.

  Eloise lets out another sob and starts to say something else, when Monsieur Pascal turns away from his easel. He scowls at Eloise and Vivienne, as if they should know better than to disturb the master at work.

  Looking embarrassed, Vivienne walks over to him and says “Pardon!” plus more French words that must be apologies. Meanwhile, Eloise stands still, sniffling and wiping her wet cheeks with the heels of her hands.

  What were they fighting about? I’m so curious, and I don’t even know why I’m so curious. I guess I don’t have a lot going on in my own life right now, so it’s interesting to peek in on someone else’s.

  As Vivienne talks to Monsieur Pascal by his easel, Eloise gazes forlornly around the studio. I feel a reluctant twinge of sympathy toward her, and then—

  She looks right at me, her eyes widening.

  I freeze.

  She can see me? I thought I was hidden by the boxes! Not for the first time, I have the sense that Eloise is sort of otherworldly. Spooky.

  She glares at me, her face chalk-white and her lips in a line. I watch in horror as she starts marching toward me. The sunlight shines on her golden curls and her lace-edged white dress, making her look deceptively angelic. I hug my knees to my chest and try to shrink into myself. Disappear.

  “What are you doing here?” Eloise demands, towering over me. In spite of my fear, I notice how seamlessly she is able to switch from French to perfect English. I’m a little jealous. “Were you listening?” she presses, her eyes bugging out of her head. “Were you spying on us?”

  Okay, I guess I was sort of spying, but not intentionally. And, I realize as I peer up into Eloise’s frantic face, I have every right to be here. I feel a flash of righteous anger. This is my father’s house! I may be adrift and disoriented, my only friend in this country may be Bernice the bakery lady, but that doesn’t mean some random bully can steamroll over me. Right?

  I lift my chin, twisting the woven bracelets on my wrist, thinking of Ruby. Then I think of Skye Oliveira, and that gives me enough fuel to get to my feet and rise up to my full height, which is a couple inches taller than Eloise.

  “I was here first,” I tell her, surprised by the strength in my own voice. I gesture down to the boxes. “Going through my dad’s sketches. You came in from nowhere with all the drama about who knows what.” My hands are trembling, so I clasp them together.

  Eloise’s cheeks turn scarlet, and she jerks her head down to look at the boxes. Then she glances up at me, and for no discernible reason, her eyes fill with tears again. I wonder if she’s one of those cruel people who are incongruously thin-skinned: the very definition of being able to dish it out but not take it.

  “You’re wrong,” she snaps at me. “You have it backward.”

  I frown at her, confused. I can feel that my own face is flushed, and that my throat is tight. But I’m more annoyed than hurt. It’s all frothing up inside me: the burden of lying to Mom, the recent weirdness with Ruby, the loneliness of the past week …

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I blurt. “And I don’t know what you have against me.” Eloise blinks, and I’m shocked myself. I’m not used to speaking so plainly to anyone. But I keep going, wondering if this is a new Summer, like the one who cleaned Dad’s desk. “From the day I arrived,” I hear myself saying, “you ha
ve been nothing but rude to me, and I never did anything to you.”

  I clasp my hands together even tighter. Eloise’s mouth opens slightly, and now I can’t read her expression—is she surprised? Angry? Regretful? Maybe some combination of all three? The notion of her apologizing seems impossible.

  Before Eloise can speak, though, Vivienne is hurrying over to us, flapping her hands like she wants to wipe away any negativity.

  “Pardon—I am sorry, Summer,” she says, looking worriedly from me to Eloise and back again. “I did not realize that you were in the studio. What—what are you two talking about?” Her voice is tight and she is gripping her paintbrush hard.

  “Actually, I was just leaving,” I say, which isn’t true, but I’m trembling again and I want to get away from Eloise before I crack and lose any of the composure I’d magically gained moments before. “Excuse me,” I mutter, stepping around the boxes. I head for the barn door with my heart in my throat. Monsieur Pascal has gone back to painting, as if nothing happened.

  I rush out into the garden and exhale once more. My hair is getting into my eyes, and I brush it back carelessly. I can hear Vivienne and Eloise inside the barn, speaking to each other, their voices hushed and strained. I hope they’re not planning to stay at Dad’s much longer this summer. Even though the house would be eerie empty, I’d prefer that to the specter of their mysterious issues.

  Sighing, I cross through the garden and open the gate. I’ve stopped shaking, but my head is still spinning from my rare moment of bravery. I wipe my sweaty palms against my purple tank top—another Ruby hand-me-down.

  I pause next to Dad’s front door, and consider going inside to email Ruby. I could fill her in on what just happened in the barn. But that would also mean responding to her message from last night, and I don’t quite know how to do that. I frown and kick at a pebble beneath my flip-flop.

  Ruby’s latest email was an explosion of exclamation marks and all caps, letting me know that she and AUSTIN WHEELER were now DATING.