About Last Summer

by Patricia B Tighe

  “Yes!” Geoff said. “Make her come to you.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “It’s gonna make me nuts not to know the truth.”

  “Just expect a crazy explanation, especially if Kenzie had anything to do with this Alejandro person,” Dylan said. “She probably made him up.”

  Geoff pursed his lips. “Bet she did. Besides, how did Amanda find out? They either told her to yank her chain or she was eavesdropping. And that means she only has partial information.”

  Yeah, okay, incomplete info could make Amanda come up with a story like that. But still. I was having a hard time uncurling my fists. I wanted to bust into the house, take her back to the room where only last night she’d told me she loved me, and …

  She loved me. She’d said it. I’d believed it. Did I still?

  I wanted to, but last summer’s pain burned in my gut. If I wasn’t going to confront her about it, I seriously needed a distraction. Dylan had his head bent toward Geoff, who was saying something about Tabasco sauce.

  “Good,” Dylan said, “but we need something more lasting. Something they’ll remember for years.”

  “Right, right,” Geoff said and started pacing.

  “Hey, guys,” I said.

  They looked over.

  “I’m in.”

  Gabby

  “He’s avoiding me,” I whispered to Kenzie while we were putting the lunch dishes into the dishwasher.

  She turned on the faucet to rinse a plate. “You sure?”

  I gazed across the kitchen. The guys had just gone out the front door, Geoff saying something about inspecting the forest. The adults were chatting in the living room, and Molly had drifted off to wherever she usually went. Amanda and Haley were upstairs getting ready to go into town with Mrs. Bryson and Dylan’s mom.

  “Yes. He hasn’t spoken to me since last night, and he wouldn’t look at me during lunch. Amanda must’ve gotten to him.”

  “I don’t get it,” Kenzie said, pointing to two glasses that were out of her reach. I brought them to her. “This entire week he’s watched you or talked to you. Something’s happened, and I don’t think it was Amanda’s news. He’d be in your face asking questions if that were it.”

  “What do you think it could be?”

  She closed the dishwasher. “Don’t know. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s taking advice from Geoff. Or even Dylan.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Because he’s acting differently,” she said, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “And the only thing that changed—other than maybe Amanda spreading gossip—is that he’s spent all day so far with those guys.”

  I poured myself another glass of iced tea. “But why would they have told him to ignore me?”

  “They’re probably just being jerks.”

  Guess if Noah wasn’t worried about Alejandro, I shouldn’t be either. But why wasn’t he worried? Did that mean he really didn’t care? I ran a finger around the rim of my glass. “Should I forget about explaining Alejandro?”

  “Well, do you want to chase after them so you can tell him?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then don’t.” She frowned. “Though it’s irritating for a guy to say one thing at night and then the next day act like you don’t exist.”

  From the set look of her face I figured she was talking about Dylan.

  “And we leave tomorrow afternoon,” she continued. “They aren’t making good use of the time they have left.”

  I sipped my tea. “Maybe they think they are.”

  “Like this is part of some plan?” She huffed out a laugh. “That sounds about right. In fact, it sounds like Geoff.”

  I smiled. “Guess we need to make our own plan for the afternoon, don’t we?”

  She put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “I’m starting to rub off on you, aren’t I?”

  I laughed. “How could you tell?”

  “It’s that sneaky look in your eyes. Come on. Let’s go upstairs and brainstorm.”

  I followed her out of the kitchen. In the space of one morning, I’d gone from being worried I was going to break Noah’s heart to being worried because I didn’t have his attention. I shook my head at myself. The time had come to decide one way or another what I was going to do about him.

  At least I could still be Gabriela for a bit longer.

  Noah

  Kenzie was playing badminton against Molly and Gabby in the backyard. Their laughter and voices, a little muffled by the closed window of Geoff’s bedroom, rang out as they jumped around in the grass. Badminton was truly a stupid game, but watching Gabby lurch around made me want to play too. Even her awkwardness was cute.

  “If we succeed at this, Kenzie may never speak to me again,” Dylan said.

  He and Geoff sat on the carpet writing out the notes we were putting in the girls’ costumes to replace their lines from the play. I turned away from the badminton game and leaned against the wall beside the window.

  “This?” Geoff scoffed. “They’re both actors. They’ve probably got the real lines memorized by now. The fake ones won’t bother them. At least not for more than a minute or so.”

  Dylan pushed his note cards toward Geoff. “I meant the other part of our plan.”

  A look of evil glee came over Geoff. “It’s going to be so perfect. They’re not going to know what’s happening.”

  “No one’s gonna know what’s happening,” I said. “Hope your dad won’t be pissed we’re screwing up his play.”

  “He may act grumpy about it, but he really won’t care,” Geoff said.

  “But Kenzie will,” Dylan said. He lay back and stared at the ceiling. “She always needs to know what’s going to happen. Tries to organize things down to the nth degree.”

  “That’s what’s so perfect about this plan,” Geoff said. “She’ll think our trick is replacing the cards, but it’s really going to be taking over the play.”

  Dylan grunted. “You know how I feel about her, right? I mean, she might decide she’s had it with me.”

  Geoff stacked the cards, straightening them against his thigh. “If she does, I’ll make sure she knows it was all my idea and that I forced you to go along with it.”

  Dylan laced his fingers behind his head. “That doesn’t make me feel much better.”

  “Will she really be that angry?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Geoff said. “Maybe.”

  “It depends on how embarrassed she is,” Dylan said. “She gets really freaked out about PDA, and this is gonna be in front of both your parents and mine.”

  Geoff ran a hand across his jaw. “Look, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want. You can even decide while we’re in the middle of it. We won’t care.”

  He glanced up at me, so I said, “Yeah, not a problem.”

  “Chances are she’ll be really angry, but I doubt she’ll hold a grudge,” Geoff said. “She’ll be too busy planning revenge.” He laughed.

  “I hope so,” Dylan muttered.

  Geoff got up. “Besides, she deserves it for making me sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer while holding antlers on my head. Not to mention this fake persona Gabriela that she and Gabby have created.”

  We laughed. “I wish I’d seen that,” Dylan said.

  “It was amazing,” I said.

  “I’m always amazing,” Geoff said and wandered to the window. “Wow, Molly is playing badminton. She never plays sports unless it’s a special occasion. I need to get down there.”

  “Nope,” I said. “We agreed to stay away from them today.”

  “But—”

  “He’s right,” Dylan said, sitting up. “You’re supposed to be on our side.”

  “But Molly isn’t a part of this.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said.

  Geoff looked from one of us to the other and shook his head. “Seriously? Couple of babies,” he muttered.

  Dylan laughed but stopped at a knock on the door.

  Mr.
Bryson stuck his head in. “Oh good, you’re all here. Come on down to the garage. We need to test out the spotlights.”

  “Sure, Mr. Bryson,” I said.

  As soon as the door shut, Geoff tried to punch my arm, but I jumped away. “Sure, Mr. Bryson,” he mimicked in a sing-songy voice. “Look what you’ve done. We could’ve gone outside.”

  Dylan clambered to his feet. “Quit whining. You know he would’ve found us wherever we went.”

  Geoff hid the cards in a dresser drawer and then grumbled under his breath all the way out of the room and down the stairs. I understood his irritation. I didn’t really want to help his dad either. But it would keep my mind off the worry that ignoring Gabby was the exact wrong thing to do.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Geoff headed for the back door. “I’m just gonna say hi.”

  Dylan and I exchanged a glance and then raced up and took his arms. “No saying hi to Molly,” I said. We swung him around.

  Geoff swore. “You’re a couple of—”

  “Come on, man,” Dylan said. “Don’t defect. No leaving the brotherhood, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We’d do it for you. Now let’s go. Helping your dad will probably only take half an hour, especially if none of the spotlights work.”

  We walked forward, Geoff still dragging his feet. “He’ll just find something else for us to do.”

  Which was still better than staring out a window at Gabby having fun without me.

  Gabby

  Kenzie set the plate of cookies in the microwave oven, which made her navy swimsuit cover-up dress slip off her shoulder. She pulled it back up absentmindedly while concentrating on entering the seconds on the keypad. Molly removed the top from the vanilla ice cream and scooped up the first portion to drop onto our warm chocolate chip cookies. Those two sure took that particular dessert seriously.

  I sat on a barstool at the kitchen island, waiting to be wowed. The girls had gone into near raptures describing the cookie ice cream concoction while we were outside. I fidgeted with my pale pink cover-up, trying to cover more of my thighs. I’d only packed my bikini because Kenzie said to bring it, just in case. But there we were, the three of us wearing bikinis and cover-ups, and it was all because of Molly.

  I’d been surprised when she’d been so enthusiastic about our plan to show the guys we could have plenty of fun without them. Not only did she set aside her sketchbook to participate, but she suggested we should sunbathe, saying it would drive the guys crazy.

  When I reminded her they were ignoring us, she narrowed her eyes and said, “Just because they’re ignoring us, doesn’t mean they’re not paying attention.” Then she and Kenzie high-fived like it was the best idea ever.

  I wasn’t so sure. It felt weird sitting in the kitchen of the Brysons’ vacation home wearing next to nothing. It would’ve been different if there were a swimming pool or we were going to one. Or if we were at Kenzie’s house or my house. But anyway.

  Molly slid one of the desserts across the counter to me. “See what you think.”

  The scent of warm chocolate rose up to greet me, and I dug in to the melting ice cream and warm cookie. They were right. It was heaven. “This is so good,” I mumbled through my food.

  Molly grinned. We spent about thirty seconds eating in silence, but then Kenzie slid off her stool. “I forgot the whipped cream.”

  “That’s overkill,” Molly said before spooning more cookie into her mouth.

  It did sound like overkill, but Kenzie found a can of the stuff in the refrigerator and shook it up. She squirted a small mound onto her dessert, hesitated, and then said, “What the heck,” and aimed it at her mouth. Something went wrong, and instead of shooting out in a stream, the whipped cream splattered across her face. She let out an un-Kenzie-like shriek and erupted in laughter. Molly snorted, and I laughed behind my hand, trying to keep cookie bits from spewing out of my mouth.

  Kenzie put the can down and slid one hand across her cheek to clean it. “I cannot believe I just did that.”

  “Here, wait,” Molly said. “That’s gonna be sticky.” She wet a paper towel at the sink and brought it to Kenzie, who pressed it against her face.

  I leaned over Molly’s empty seat. “You’ve got some in your hair.”

  “Great,” Kenzie said.

  I pulled excess whipped cream out of her hair with my fingers while Molly wiped another paper towel across the shoulder of Kenzie’s cover up, causing it to slip down again. “You seriously got this everywhere,” Molly said.

  “Right,” Kenzie said. “Lesson learned. Back up.” She yanked her cover dress over her head and examined the material. “I should probably soak this.”

  I was just straightening away from her when something moved in my peripheral vision. I looked over. Dylan, Geoff, and Noah were squished together in the entryway from the garage, their mouths half open.

  “Oh, hello,” I said, remembering my Gabriela accent at the last second.

  “Going swimming?” Dylan asked in a voice much higher than normal.

  Kenzie laughed, but it sounded forced—like she knew she was about to be made fun of and was acting like she didn’t care.

  “We’re having a snack,” Molly said as though we stood around in bikinis eating cookies and ice cream every afternoon.

  Geoff’s gaze ran all over Molly, whose big gauzy shirt was totally see-through. “You have to wear a swimsuit to get a snack?”

  “Did y’all want something?” Kenzie said. Her chest and face had turned light pink, but she didn’t bother to cover herself up. Her bright red bikini top practically screamed, look at me!

  Dylan took a step forward as if he were caught in the bikini’s tractor beam. Then came a long silence before he cleared his throat and said hoarsely, “Cokes. We came to get Cokes.”

  Molly tilted her head toward the refrigerator. “Then …”

  Dylan and Geoff didn’t move.

  I couldn’t help it. I giggled. Talk about an awkward situation.

  Finally, Noah let out a quiet grunt. “I’ll get them.” He edged out from behind the other guys and retrieved the sodas from the refrigerator.

  I watched him the entire time. Would he finally make eye contact? It was such a simple thing, but I couldn’t believe how much I wanted him to. No, needed him to.

  He took the drinks to the boys, who accepted them without even looking at him. “Let’s go, guys,” Noah said, turning Geoff around. “We have more work to do.” He tugged at Dylan’s arm and managed to get both of them heading back to the garage. “Later,” he said over his shoulder.

  And just when disappointment was filling my chest, Noah turned back, looked straight at me, and winked. My mouth curved into a stupid smile. Seconds later, the garage door shut behind them.

  I didn’t have time to enjoy that warm feeling, though, because Kenzie pressed her cover up against her face, stifling a quiet moan. Molly raised an eyebrow, but methodically finished off her dessert and took the plate to rinse in the sink. When Kenzie lowered the material she whispered, “Can we get out of here?”

  “Yup,” Molly said. “Give me your plates.”

  We cleaned up our mess and made it into the backyard in four minutes. Molly laughed quietly. “I know it was embarrassing, Kenz, but that was perfect. Dylan looked stunned.”

  I arranged my towel in the grass beside theirs. “Hasn’t he ever seen you in a swimsuit before?”

  “Not since we were twelve.” Kenzie sat cross-legged on her towel and stared down at her chest. “I’m not even that big.”

  Molly and I laughed. “Doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Molly said. “Show a boy skin and he’s happy.”

  Kenzie gave us a scornful look. “That wasn’t exactly the point of this.”

  Molly leaned on her elbow to prop up her head. “It was partly the point. They started it by ignoring you. You countered by showing them that was perfectly fine with you. Then you topped it off by making them regret it.”

>   Practical Molly. “She’s right,” I said. “I don’t know whose idea it was to ignore us, but I hope they’re all sorry now.”

  Molly grinned. “They are. I promise.”

  Kenzie lay back and squinted at the sun. “I hope I don’t regret it. I still don’t know exactly how I feel about Dylan. I wasn’t trying to make him more interested.”

  “Kenz, he can’t get any more interested,” I said. “He already loves you.”

  “Don’t,” she said. “Please. It just makes me feel guilty.”

  “Don’t worry,” Molly said, turning onto her stomach. “You’ll figure it out.”

  “I hope so,” she said.

  I wasn’t sure what to say. Kenzie and Dylan would make an awesome couple, but she had to get there on her own. If I pushed, she’d run the other direction.

  I needed to focus on my own decision anyway. I took off my cover up and settled against my towel, letting the sun’s warmth relax me. Being without Noah that afternoon had made me want him more than ever. Which had probably been his goal. But would it be the best choice in the long run?

  If I told my parents I was dating a guy who lived in another city, their faces would probably crease with permanent frowns—especially my mom’s. I could even list her arguments.

  1. It’s not safe to drive to San Antonio by yourself.

  2. He’ll distract you from school and you won’t get your homework done.

  3. There are plenty of boys in your own school to date.

  4. Who is this boy? We don’t even know him.

  5. He’s too old for you, which wasn’t even true since Noah was only six months older.

  From there, her reasons would get even more illogical. But that was just my mom. She wanted to dictate everything I did.

  A thought hit me and ice ran through my body. My parents wouldn’t tell me I couldn’t date Noah, would they? Or absolutely forbid it? I drew in a shaky breath. I hadn’t even considered that.

  “You okay?” Kenzie asked.

  “Uh, uh,” I said.