Two Summers

by Aimee Friedman

  As I talk, and as Ruby listens, I know I’m also explaining—or trying to explain—things to myself. But it still seems like a story about someone else, another Summer.

  When I finish, I chug from my bottle of water, my throat parched. So I’m caught off guard when Ruby tackles me, wrapping me in a huge hug and almost knocking me over onto the grass.

  “Oh my God, Summer,” she whispers, squeezing me. “Oh my God.”

  “I know,” I say, hugging her back. We’re both sticky with sweat, and I am—as Ruby mentioned earlier—still sort of mad at her. But it feels good to hold on to someone, to keep from drifting up and away into space.

  “What happens now?” Ruby asks, pulling back, her tone tremulous. “With you, and your mom, and … ” She trails off. Usually, she’d be telling me what to do. Now she appears as lost as I feel.

  “I have no idea.” I sigh. There is no future I can envision; I can only take things second by second. “It’s a little bit like my life as I know it is … over, I guess.” That’s the kind of overdramatic thing Ruby would say, except, in my case, it feels pretty earned.

  “I can’t even imagine,” Ruby murmurs, shaking her head. “The whole time—the whole time—when we were—growing up?” I nod, understanding her bewilderment. “But your—dad,” she sputters. “He was always so nice.”

  I shrug, scratching at my mosquito bite. “Not everything is as it seems,” I say, echoing what my mother once told me. But deep down, I feel a pinch of wanting to believe that my father isn’t a bad person.

  Ruby shakes her head again, looking dazed. “I wish you’d told me sooner,” she murmurs. “You should’ve texted me right away! You could’ve come straight to my place from Orologio’s!”

  I remember how empty I’d felt last night, searching the sky for stars. “I think I needed to be alone,” I reply, digging my fingers into the plastic of my water bottle. “Besides … ” My stomach tightens. “We haven’t exactly been on great terms.”

  Ruby’s face falls and she nods, fiddling with her woven bracelets. “That’s true.”

  I pluck at my own, lone bracelet. “I know you went to Orologio’s the other night, by the way,” I tell her. “With Austin, and Skye, and Genji.” I notice that I feel no venom now; mostly, I’m just relieved to get a reprieve from thinking about Dad.

  Ruby glances at me, her eyebrows raised. “Instagram?”

  I shake my head. “Jerry.”

  “Ah.”

  “So, two-week anniversary?” I ask, picking at my sandwich crust. “When were you guys counting from?” It’s something I’ve been wondering, in the back of my mind.

  Ruby resumes twisting her bracelets around on her wrist. “Skye’s Fourth of July party.” She pauses, and then begins speaking quickly. “The dinner was supposed to be on July eighteenth. But I told Austin we needed to do it the night before. I didn’t even know if you’d be there on your birthday, but I knew it would feel wrong to be in Orologio’s on that same night.” She shoots me a tentative smile. “It’s our place, you know?”

  I feel a stirring in my throat like I might cry. But I don’t know how I could; I must have used up my tear quotient for the year.

  “This was our place, too,” I say, gesturing around the park. The kids have moved on from playing tag to clambering up onto the band shell and dancing. “Remember?”

  “Of course,” Ruby murmurs. Tears are hovering on her bottom lashes. Her eyeliner is going to run. “Oh, Summer. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I reply. “You didn’t tell my dad to go have a secret family.” I say this in a semi-joking way, like I can actually see through the awfulness to the absurdity of the situation. And maybe I do. Or maybe I will, one day.

  Ruby smiles sadly, swiping at the black lines on her cheeks. “That’s not what I mean. I feel bad because of—you know. Friday night. At Better Latte.”

  Of course I know. I tug on a blade of grass. “You were being honest,” I murmur. I have a new appreciation for honesty now, hurtful as it can be.

  “I think I was—frustrated.” Ruby frowns. On the band shell, the kids are laughing about something. “I had, like, this set idea of how I wanted my summer to go.”

  “So did I,” I remind her. My heart constricts. “We’d both assumed I’d be in France, and planned accordingly.”

  Ruby nods, sniffling, and a fly buzzes past us. I swat at it.

  “But,” I add, “you still got what you’d planned for.” My tone is matter-of-fact, not spiteful. “Your summer of falling in love.” Instantly, for no good reason, Hugh jumps into my mind. I feel my cheeks flush red. Ruby doesn’t notice.

  “My summer of love,” she echoes, and she gives a short laugh. “Who knows if Austin and I will even make it to August?” She rolls her eyes.

  “Really?” I ask. I struggle valiantly to not feel secretly pleased by this revelation. I pick up my sandwich again and take a bite. I see the kids leap off the band shell and run pell-mell toward the ice-cream vendor.

  Ruby shrugs and picks up her sandwich, too. “He’s sweet, but he can be sort of dense sometimes. I’m not totally sure if we’re the best match. Maybe,” she mumbles through a mouthful of turkey, “you were right.”

  I almost choke on a slice of avocado. “I was right?” I kind of cough-laugh. “Not you?” I ask. Ruby smiles sheepishly. I’m tempted to ask her about Skye—if I was right about her, too—but I don’t want to push my luck.

  “Could you guys form a line?” I hear the harassed-looking ice-cream vendor shout at the swarming kids.

  I chew and swallow the rest of my sandwich, working up the nerve to say what I need to say next.

  “You were right about something,” I tell Ruby, and she looks at me. “It probably is … healthy for us. To not spend every waking minute together.” It hurts to admit this. But I remember how freeing it had felt, to talk with Wren on the train. To venture to Second Time Around. To splash into the swimming hole. All without Ruby.

  You weren’t even supposed to be here, Ruby had told me. Suddenly, I wonder if she had it backward. Maybe I was supposed to be here. Maybe everything had happened for a reason. Maybe France wasn’t my destiny; Hudsonville was.

  Ruby nods, her bottom lip trembling. “I think we needed a breather,” she says carefully. “I never wanted us to stop being friends, though.”

  I feel a pressure lift off my chest, and I peer up at the cloud-dusted blue sky. “Well,” I say, thinking out loud, “I guess it’s like conjoined twins, you know? They have those surgeries to separate them, but they’re still twins.”

  Ruby sputters out a laugh and tosses her balled-up tinfoil at me. “You’re saying we should have a surgery?”

  I shrug, smiling fully for the first time since last night. “It’s one idea.”

  “I have another idea,” Ruby says, putting her floppy sunhat back on. She nods toward the ice-cream vendor, where the kids are still congregated. “Dessert?”

  “Dessert,” I affirm. We get to our feet and start across the lawn.

  Some of the kids have already acquired their cones and are standing off to the side, rainbow sprinkles and vanilla soft-serve melting all over their mouths and hands. But two kids—two little blond, freckled girls—stand in front of the cart, solemnly reviewing the menu options printed on the vendor’s striped umbrella.

  I do a double take. These are the girls I saw here on the Fourth of July, turning cartwheels in the grass. The girls who made me think of me and Ruby.

  I stare at them. Is their presence a sign that Ruby and I really will be okay? I don’t know. I watch as they purchase their chocolate-and-vanilla-twist cones and scurry off together. Maybe their presence means something else.

  “So … ” Ruby says, interrupting my thoughts as she hands me a twist cone of my own. She knows my favorite. “I was wondering. Aren’t you kind of curious about her?”

  I blink at Ruby. “Who?”

  Ruby nervously takes a bite out of the top of her chocolate-almond cone. “The … o
ther girl,” she says, repeating the terminology I’d used earlier. She eyes me cautiously. “In France?” she adds. “She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?”

  “Oh.” I jerk my head back, startled. Somehow, I’d managed to shove her—and Dad—out of my mind. Now they’re storming inside again. I grip my cone in my fist. No, I want to lie. Curious? About her? Not at all.

  “I am,” I confess, the truth spilling out of me. “She’s my—she’s … ” I cannot say the word sister. Or half sister. I will not even think it. “She’s a mystery,” I finish. Which is also true.

  “You’re melting,” Ruby tells me, and I look down to see ice cream dripping onto my fingers. I start licking the chocolate-vanilla swirl, and even through my fog of distraction, I’m aware that the cool sweetness tastes perfect—exactly like summer.

  “Do you think you’ll call your dad back, then?” Ruby adds gently, her tone very far from bossy. A hot breeze blows across the park, lifting the brim of her hat and loosing curls from my topknot. “Like he asked? Maybe … it would actually be helpful?”

  An hour ago, I would have snapped at Ruby that she didn’t understand, that there was no way I would ever acknowledge my father again. But now, standing with her in front of the ice-cream vendor, I feel that certainty being shaken. I am not sure what to do.

  Should I call my father back?

  A decision. I am terrible at making decisions.

  The kids, including the two blond girls, dash past us and out of the park, treats in hand. They laugh with anticipation, the summer wide open ahead of them, the threat of August and school still light-years away. The younger you are, the slower time goes; the world seems bigger, and more possible. I watch as they scramble onto bikes and scooters and disappear into the hot blue day. I wonder if they’re going to the swimming hole.

  My phone buzzes once in the back pocket of my shorts, startling me. A text message. I ask Ruby to hold my cone and I take out my phone. My heart leaps.

  Hey, Summer. I hope you had a great birthday and that the presentation went well in class. I’m sure you rocked it. I’ve been taking some cool pictures of D.C. Will have to show you when I’m back. See you tomorrow. —Hugh

  I cannot prevent the smile that overtakes my face. It’s so like Hugh, to still sign his name, as if I haven’t had him saved in my phone since New York City. At the thought of New York, I smile wider. I wonder if Hugh and I might go there together someday. See you tomorrow, he’d written, meaning in photography class, of course. But the word tomorrow is in itself a hopeful one. A word with potential, like a kiss on the cheek.

  “Okay, what is making you smile like that?” Ruby demands. She steps closer to me, holding our cones aloft in both her hands. “I’d grab your phone if I could.”

  Now I’m blushing in addition to smiling. “I got a text from Hugh,” I say, taking my cone back from Ruby but keeping my phone tight in my grip.

  Ruby’s eyes bug out again. “Hugh Tyson? Are you kidding me?”

  I shake my head, crunching into my cone. In the midst of all the drama, I’d forgotten that I’d never told Ruby about Hugh, and the swimming hole, and everything.

  “How are you so calm? What is happening?” Ruby is asking, her ice cream now melting all over her hands as she stares at me in awe. “We’re talking about the same Hugh Tyson, right? The mayor’s son? Nerdy-cute? The boy you pretended to hate so he wouldn’t know you were obsessed with him? Just like, casually, whatever, texting you?”

  I laugh. “Yes, the same Hugh,” I reply, my stomach giving a little flip as I think of his nerdy cuteness. “It’s … a whole other story.”

  “Apparently,” Ruby says, still wide-eyed. Before I can stop her, she is angling her head to look at my phone. But it’s not to read Hugh’s text—it’s to check the time. “Ugh.” She groans. “And of course I have to go back to Better Latte now. So unfair.”

  “I’ll tell you later,” I say, returning my phone to my shorts pocket.

  Ruby looks at me, eyebrows raised anxiously. “Promise?” she asks.

  “Promise.”

  She pops the rest of her cone into her mouth and then she leans forward to give me another big hug. I can smell her familiar flowery perfume. She steps back, saying that she will text me, and that Alice is coming home this weekend, so we should all get together. Then she waves, hurrying through the open fence. I wave back.

  It’s not until she’s jumped onto her bike and pedaled off that I realize we didn’t say Love you times two. But maybe that’s okay. We might fracture, I see now, but we will also heal. I can let go of Ruby. It doesn’t mean I will lose her.

  I finish my cone and then I go back to my blanket to pack up. I stash everything into my bookbag and I leave Pine Park, knowing exactly where I want to go next. I pedal over to Deer Hill and turn onto River Alley, the skinny trees whipping past me.

  The group of kids, I soon discover, did not come to the swimming hole after all. The secluded spot is as serene as when Hugh first showed it to me. I kick off my flip-flops and sit on the flat, smooth rocks, dipping my feet into the cold river—a balm in the heat. The waterfall burbles, and I take pictures, and I think.

  Hours pass. The fierceness of the sun mellows a little, and the clouds stream across the sky. The water ripples around my ankles, growing cooler, growing warmer. Afternoon begins to bleed, ever so slightly, into early evening.

  By the time I get back on my bike and pedal homeward, I have made my decision.

  There are no more doubts or second guesses, I realize when I reach Rip Van Winkle Road. But, I think, hopping off my bike, uncertainty isn’t always a bad thing. If not for uncertainty, people would never let go of grudges, or secrets, or fears.

  I slip into my air-conditioned house. It’s actually gotten too cold in here; I switch off the AC and push open the windows in the living room. Ro is napping on the sofa. While I was at the swimming hole, I’d gotten a text from Mom, telling me that she was going onto campus for her class, but that she wouldn’t be home very late and, also, was I okay and where did I run off to? I’d texted back to say that I was okay, and that I didn’t run anywhere too far.

  I drop my bookbag off in my room, along with my sunglasses. Then I sort through the clutter on my desk, searching for the slightly crumpled piece of paper I left there weeks ago. When I find it, I take it with me into Mom’s empty bedroom. I brush off my shorts before sitting on the edge of her bed and I draw in a big breath, lifting the phone from its cradle.

  I dial Dad’s cell but it goes straight to voice mail. I glance at Mom’s clock; it’s midnight in France. Maybe Dad is sleeping. I end the call, wondering if I should try him tomorrow instead. But no. I have gathered my courage, and I need to follow through. Besides, I think wryly, why not let Dad get yanked awake, abruptly, by the ringing phone? He upended things for me with a phone call; turnabout is fair play.

  I try his landline next, and my heart thumps as the phone rings in my ear.

  One ring, two rings—

  “Allô?”

  A girl has answered, like the last time I called. Her voice is still light and melodic, but now there’s an undercurrent of worry. Of stress.

  I feel a chill go through me.

  It’s her.

  The other … girl.

  It has to be.

  Of course she answered the phone last time, and this time. She lives in France, in Dad’s house. In her house.

  “Allô?” she repeats, sounding annoyed.

  The image that I’ve been trying to block out all day appears in my mind’s eye again: long blond curls, blue eyes, white dress. A teenaged version of Fille. But the image is faint and wispy. Ghostlike. She is kind of a ghost, I realize. Her existence is sketchy, unreal. And she haunts me.

  I sit silent on the bed, clutching the phone. I’ve lost my voice.

  “C’est qui?” the ghost demands.

  This phrase is familiar to me; I’d learned it online when I was studying French vocabulary before my trip. C’est qui? means “Who is th
is?”

  Who am I?

  I am Summer Everett. Ned Everett’s daughter. All my life, I’d thought I was the one and only, and I was mistaken. But I am also more than a daughter. I am a good photographer. I am a good friend. I am sometimes late, sometimes early, sometimes on time. I am large, Walt Whitman had written in one of his poems. I contain multitudes.

  When I open my mouth to speak, though, I don’t say any of that. I don’t even say my name. Instead, impossibly, I say hers.

  “Eloise?” I ask.

  I hear her sharp intake of breath. I’m surprised, too. As long as I didn’t utter her name, she wouldn’t become a person. Now I’ve crossed that threshold.

  “Yes,” the ghost—Eloise—says. All annoyance is gone from her tone; she sounds wary. Then she whispers: “Summer?”

  Another chill races down my back.

  That’s right. She knows me.

  Do they know about us? I’d asked Mom, standing shell-shocked outside Orologio’s. They do, Mom had answered.

  Which explains why, the last time I’d called and introduced myself, Eloise had been so cold to me. I was her ghost, a faceless mystery across the ocean.

  “Yes,” I answer.

  Our yeses hang there, between us, like a rope we are both holding on to. A mutual confirmation. She knows that I know; I know that she knows. We are each aware of the other. There is no secret anymore.

  “Do you want to speak to—him?” Eloise asks, her voice catching awkwardly on the him. I wonder what she calls my father—her father—our father. Our father. That will never not be weird.

  “Is he awake?” I ask gruffly, looking at Mom’s clock once more.

  “He is,” Eloise answers softly. “We all are.”

  We. My chest tightens. Eloise is not alone. She has my father, and her mother. She has an unbroken family. Unlike me. Unfair, Aunt Lydia had said. I swallow hard.

  “He’s upstairs,” Eloise is saying. “Shall I go get him?”