Two Summers

by Aimee Friedman

  “My dad’s a painter,” I go on. “But luckily, since I have zero artistic talent, there’ve been no expectations put on me.” I smile to myself.

  Hugh laughs again. He looks at me and I feel my pulse quicken. “Is that why you were going to France this summer?” he asks. “To visit your father?” Then he glances down, and I could swear he’s blushing. “I—I overheard you saying something about that in school,” he adds in a rush.

  I’m blushing, too. I had for so long assumed that Hugh didn’t pay any attention to me. That no boys did. But maybe Hugh had paid a little attention? My heart races.

  “Yeah,” I say, turning my camera over in my hands. It occurs to me that if I had gone to France this summer, if Dad hadn’t canceled, then I wouldn’t be here now—talking to Hugh, at this magical swimming hole. I would have missed out on this.

  Hugh kneels down to pick up his camera, and he takes a picture of the water from that position. Again, I think he looks kind of like a wildlife photographer, and I have the crazy image of the two of us traveling together, someplace exotic, like a safari, taking photographs, Hugh writing stories—

  I shake my head to clear it of these insane thoughts. Hugh, meanwhile, is sitting down on one of the large, flat boulders. He leans back on his elbows and kicks off his flip-flops, stretching out his long legs and letting his feet dangle in the water. I can see the comfort and ease he feels at the place. He’s no longer the formal Hugh I know.

  I hesitate for a moment—Should I? Shouldn’t I? What if I look silly?—before following his lead. I set down my camera and unlace my sandals—my fingers are trembling a bit—and then I sit on the sun-warmed boulder. Carefully, I dip my toes into the water; its coolness is a shock, but a pleasant one.

  There’s silence between me and Hugh, but for once it doesn’t feel awkward. Birds chatter overhead. I take pictures of the pine trees and the water, and so does Hugh. It’s a glorious summer day, the kind Hudsonville hasn’t seen in some time, with a pure blue sky and no humidity in the air. The surface of the water sparkles. I close my eyes, tilting my face skyward and feeling the heat of the sun.

  “I know,” Hugh speaks up, sounding thoughtful, “that you don’t really like me.”

  My eyes fly open and I’m so stunned that I think I will slip off the rock into the water. “What?” I ask.

  Hugh stares ahead, a muscle in his jaw jumping. He is definitely blushing now. “I can tell. You sort of avoid me in school. You kind of get this look on your face like I bother you.” He frowns and casts a glance at me. “And I know you weren’t too happy to be my partner this summer.”

  I open my mouth. But only a strangled sound—half cough, half laugh—emerges. How can I reply? You’re wrong, Hugh. I the-opposite-of-don’t-like you. My head spins as I stare at him. I guess my “Hugh face” did work—too well.

  “I thought you weren’t happy to be my partner,” I finally squeak out. My blood is roaring in my ears. Oh God. So much for not humiliating myself today.

  But Hugh shakes his head, and he smiles at me. It’s the first time I think he’s full-on smiled in my direction, and the effect is as brilliant as the sun. “You’re a good partner,” he tells me. “I mean, today hasn’t been half bad, has it?”

  I shake my head back at him. I smile, too, and it’s so freeing, to finally drop the fake indifference of the “Hugh face.” I can feel it: that same recklessness I felt at Better Latte on Friday night, only this one is fiercer. Wilder.

  “It’s been wonderful,” I admit. “Impossible and wonderful.”

  I’m not making sense. And I’m blushing even more now—a blush that is spreading across my neck and arms and legs. I want to cool off. I want to hide. There’s only one thing I can think to do. I put down my camera, scoot forward on the rock, and plunge feetfirst into the water.

  I submerge completely. It feels deliciously cold, and my new-old polka-dot dress balloons up around me. My hair floats in all directions and I let my feet paddle lightly.

  “Summer!” I hear Hugh calling from above. “What are you doing?”

  A second later, there’s a splash and he’s underwater beside me. I feel his hand on my arm and we swim up together, breaking the surface and treading water.

  “Are you okay?” Hugh asks me. He must have removed his glasses before he dove in. His eyes are so bright, his dark lashes are wet, and his face is spattered with droplets of water. He’s still holding on to my arm, and his fingers feel warm on my skin.

  I realize he was worried about me. “I am,” I assure him, laughing. My hair is streaming down my back, my soaking dress is sticking to my skin, and I feel sort of … beautiful. And brave. Not brave like Ruby, but like me. “I don’t need saving,” I add.

  Hugh grins at me, bobbing up and down in the water. “I figured you don’t,” he says. “That’s not really why I jumped in.”

  So why did you? I want to ask, but my bravery wavers. Our faces are close together and our knees bump underwater. My heart does the stop-start thing it did on the first day of photography class, when Hugh walked in. What is happening? I think, because something is happening, here, now, in this hidden spot in Hudsonville, surrounded by pine trees and a waterfall.

  I remember what Wren said on the train ride, about Hugh liking a girl.

  What if? I ask myself, paddling in the water, looking at Hugh.

  No. It can’t be.

  But seriously, Summer. What if?

  The notion I’m flirting with is too impossible—too wonderful. I feel like my heart might burst. So I turn and paddle back to the shore. Our cameras and Hugh’s glasses and notebook and pen sit there, waiting, mute witnesses.

  I pull myself up out of the water and sit, dripping, on the rock. Hugh does the same, and we don’t say anything. Then we glance at each other, both of us soaking wet in our clothes with only the sun to dry us, and we both start laughing.

  We laugh and laugh, and the charged moment from when we were in the water seems to dissolve. Maybe I’d imagined it.

  Hugh picks up his glasses, still laughing. “I’m glad I had the foresight to take these off,” he says, examining the lenses. “Get it? Foresight?”

  I snort. “You shouldn’t be a writer,” I say, wringing out the ends of my soggy hair. “You’re clearly a comedian.”

  “I know. My humor is a rare gift.” Hugh slides on his glasses as I chuckle. Then he squints at me. “I think I need a new prescription,” he says. “You don’t wear glasses or contacts, do you?”

  I shake my head. “Twenty-twenty vision. For now.”

  I think about vision. I look down at my camera, and over at Hugh. He is no longer Hugh Tyson: Terrifying Crush. And this time, my perspective shift is staying. He is the Hugh who laughed with me. The Hugh who jumped into the water after me. He will always be that Hugh, from now on, I realize. Everything has changed.

  The sound of a car pulling up behind us, on River Alley, makes me jump. I turn to see a bunch of little kids tumbling out of a station wagon, shrieking and armed with towels and water wings. I’m envious of their towels. The kids tear past me and Hugh, and cannonball into the swimming hole.

  Wordlessly, Hugh and I exchange a glance; our peace has been disrupted. So we stand, still damp and dripping, and gather our belongings and head over to our bikes.

  “So,” Hugh says, brushing his hands down his wet board shorts, “it’s pretty cool to now be able to say you swam in the Hudson.”

  I’m lacing up my squishy sandals. “Hang on,” I say, confused. I look toward the swimming hole, now dotted with hollering children and a haggard-looking father. “That’s the Hudson? I thought it was, like, a creek or something.”

  “Nope.” Hugh smiles his brilliant smile, putting on his bookbag. “It’s part of our mighty river. Funny, right?”

  I stare out at the blue water. It is funny, how the river here seems totally different from the gray one that runs along Greene Street. I remember the poster that hangs in Mom’s bedroom, with the quote from Heraclitus: Y
ou cannot step into the same river twice. Maybe that’s because rivers, like people, are constantly changing.

  Hugh and I get on our bikes, and pedal back onto River Alley. I lead the way this time, going fast, my wet hair flying behind me. Dappled sunlight filters through the leaves of the skinny trees. I don’t know the time, but we must have been at the swimming hole for a while; the air has a subtle, almost-evening chill to it. The breeze tickles my neck and lifts the hem of my dress again. I don’t mind as much now.

  Without thinking twice, I go straight to Deer Hill and pedal up and up until I reach Rip Van Winkle Road. Home.

  “Oh God,” I say, realizing. I stop the bike in front of my house, and look back at Hugh. My face flushes. “I’m sorry. I just came here automatically. This is—this is where I live.” Did I ever think Hugh Tyson would be on my street? No. But did I ever think anything that happened today could have happened?

  Hugh rests his elbows on his handlebars and grins at me. “I thought you brought us here to shoot this street for the assignment,” he says. He cranes his neck to read the street sign on the corner. “Rip Van Winkle Road.” He looks back at me, his eyes sparkling. “Like the story?”

  I nod, dredging up my memory of the story Mom and Dad used to tell me when I was little. The legend of Rip Van Winkle, a man who fell asleep and woke up twenty years in the future, to find the whole world changed.

  “I’ve never been here before,” Hugh adds, glancing around. I follow his gaze, taking in the familiar squat houses and the squares of green lawn. So different from the grandeur of Hugh’s street, Argyle Road, with its sleeping-elephant mansions. Rip Van Winkle Road is as new to him as the swimming hole was to me.

  And I realize that my street should be my spot for the assignment. The decision I’d been wrestling with for days suddenly seems easy.

  I tell this to Hugh, and we take out our cameras and prop our bikes against my porch. My house looks dark—Mom must be out, probably with Max, I think a little bitterly. I can see Ro at his perch in the window. His narrow eyes are watching me with intrigue, as if I am now worthy of attention because of the boy beside me. I smirk.

  Hugh and I take pictures of my street—of the pale-blue sky above the rooftops, of the identical houses standing in a row like soldiers, of the slight bend in the road up ahead. Then we sit down on my porch steps to scroll through our cameras’ digital feeds and review our work from the day.

  The evening breeze has almost dried us off, and I can feel my hair curling against my back. I can also feel the warmth of Hugh’s arm near mine as we sit close together.

  Hugh is intently studying both our camera screens. “Check it out,” he says, showing me his photograph of the waterfall alongside mine; the colors and angles are very different. “We didn’t see the same spot in the same way. Lydia is right.”

  I smile, grateful to my aunt for inadvertently putting me together with Hugh. “But,” I argue as I lean over to take his camera from him—our hands brush and my skin tingles—“it could be that we took those photos a few seconds or minutes apart, so the sunlight changed. Maybe it’s about time.”

  “Maybe.” Hugh nods, his eyes on my camera. “By the way,” he says, in an offhand manner that’s not really offhand, “what you said before wasn’t true.”

  I freeze. “What do you mean?” I ask. Is he going to wade back into the question of whether or not I dislike him?

  Hugh holds up an older picture on my camera screen—the iced mocha from Monday. It seems like eons ago now. “When you were talking about your dad,” Hugh says, keeping his earnest gaze on me, “you said you had zero artistic talent. That’s not true. You’re an amazing photographer, Summer. You—you see things. You really see them.” He glances down quickly.

  My heart jumps. The sound of him saying my name—and the weight of what else he’s saying—makes my cheeks flush. “Thanks,” I say, shaking my head, “but a lot of people can take pictures. It doesn’t make me an artist. You’re good, too,” I point out, holding up his camera.

  “Come on.” Hugh nudges me, and my face flushes hotter. “I’m not even as close to as good as you are. You don’t just take pictures—you, what is it? You ‘draw with light.’ ” He grins, but his eyes are still serious. “Of course you’re an artist.”

  I can’t deny that his words send small shivers of pleasure down my back. I think of the exhibit at the museum, and let myself wonder—fleetingly—if my photographs could ever be displayed someday. Like Dad, I think. Am I more like Dad than I thought?

  I brush off the notion for now, and give Hugh’s camera back to him. Since he’s going to be in Washington, D.C., for the next few days, he says he’ll email me his photos tonight. That way I can put together our portfolio and present it to Aunt Lydia tomorrow.

  We get to our feet. There’s emptiness in my stomach at the thought that our day is over. I can’t believe that mere hours ago I was so scared and stiff around Hugh—we were both stiff around each other. I feel like Rip Van Winkle, like I’ve woken up to find that the world is new and different.

  I expect Hugh to say good-bye and head toward his bike, but instead he walks me up the porch steps to my front door. I can feel Ro watching us from the window.

  I adjust my bookbag strap on my shoulder, feeling the old nervousness rise up in me. Hugh glances down and rubs the back of his neck, a movement that I now recognize as him feeling nervous. I try to breathe evenly.

  “Thank you for a fun day,” Hugh says, in his formal way. “I’ll see you when I’m back from D.C.?”

  I nod, knowing that I’ll see him in class—but does he mean I’ll see him in another context, too?

  “And before I forget,” Hugh adds, his face reddening, taking a step closer to me, “happy birthday.”

  He remembered? I think in shock. He remembered my rambling at the museum on Friday? I’m trying to process this fact when Hugh gently brushes a curl off the side of my face. He does this like he thinks my hair is pretty, not too messy or frizzy. Then, even more impossibly, he leans in so close I can smell his soapy-clean scent. And he kisses me on the cheek.

  Hugh Tyson kissed me? Hugh Tyson kissed me!

  It wasn’t a real kiss, of course. But from the way his lips lingered on my skin, from the way his hand tilted my chin up, it felt like a kiss with … potential. A what-if? kiss.

  I feel myself melting, so I lean against the door. Hugh takes a step back, biting his full bottom lip. I think—I hope—I wish—that I no longer need to tell Hugh that I don’t dislike him. And I think—I hope—I wish—that I no longer need to ask Wren who Hugh likes.

  I watch as Hugh walks down the porch steps and gets on his bike, waving to me as he pedals off into the dusk. I wave back, my heart dancing, and then I turn to unlock my front door. Ro, in the window, eyes me, impressed. I grin and float into my house. Suddenly, I am looking forward to my birthday.

  Two evenings later, on my sixteenth birthday, I am still floating. Even as I head into Orologio’s with Mom for the dinner I don’t want to have, I can’t keep myself from smiling. The day with Hugh—the what-if? kiss—has been playing on a loop in my head, making me smile at random moments. And I’m sure Aunt Lydia had no idea why I was blushing like crazy when I presented photos of the swimming hole and Rip Van Winkle Road to the class on Monday.

  “The birthday girl is glowing!” exclaims Jerry, the maître d’ who has worked at Orologio’s forever. He welcomes me and Mom inside with a sweep of his arms.

  I glance at the mirrored wall next to the restaurant’s entrance. My skin is flushed and my lips are pink from the gloss I swiped on in the car. I look … nice, even with my Picasso-ish features and messy tumble of hair. I’m wearing the polka-dot dress, which, after the day with Hugh, I’ve started thinking of as my “lucky dress” (I laundered it after my dip in the Hudson). I also have on the Grecian sandals and hoop earrings, and I’m carrying a black purse Mom lent me for the occasion. My wrist seems naked without Ruby’s woven bracelets; I still haven’t gotten u
sed to their absence.

  “Your friend Ruby was in here yesterday,” Jerry adds, as if he’s read my mind. He picks up two menus and motions for me and Mom to follow him. “With Austin, and another couple. Some kind of anniversary double date, they said.”

  “Oh,” I say, my smile wilting. Right. The stupid two-week anniversary. And I’m sure the other couple was Skye and Genji. Ugh.

  I feel Mom shoot me a sidelong glance as we walk into the dining room. I’m annoyed at Jerry for knowing everyone in town, and for blaring peoples’ business to the world like he’s a human Instagram. I’ve made it to today without telling Mom about my fight with Ruby, and I’d really prefer not to get into it now, in the middle of Orologio’s.

  The dining room is spacious and bustling, with its candlelit, white-cloth-draped tables, and cheerful red-painted walls. The homey aromas of olive oil, tomato sauce, and cheese drift from the plates the waiters are whisking around. Jerry leads us toward the round table in the back that Mom always reserves; I see that Aunt Lydia is already there, sipping a glass of red wine.

  I wonder where Ruby and her crew sat last night. Had Ruby thought about me, and all my birthday dinners here? Had she felt any remorse or regret? I guess the fact that she hasn’t so much as texted me Happy Birthday today tells me all I need to know.

  “Happy birthday!” Aunt Lydia calls, rising from her seat. Tonight, for once, she and Mom look identical. They’re both wearing black dresses and high heels, and Aunt Lydia’s hair is down. Behind her glasses, Mom even has on the same kind of eyeliner as Aunt Lydia. It’s eerie. “You look so grown-up, kiddo,” Aunt Lydia adds, giving me a hug as Jerry sets our menus on the table and walks away.

  I thank my aunt and hug her back. It’s funny to think that I saw her only a few hours ago, at our Photoshop lab. I’d been relieved that she hadn’t made some announcement about my birthday to the class, or, worse, led them in song.

  So it had been a surprise when, after the lab, Wren had presented me with a gluten-free cupcake she’d baked herself—it tasted awful, but I’d pretended to enjoy it—and a gift certificate to Second Time Around.