I can see it now. One sunny day they’ll all be lounging around the infamous lifeguard picnic table, generations of Huckabee Pool employees’ names carved into the worn wood, a historic roll call sitting right alongside a couple of overexaggerated penis drawings.
My name will come up. Matt will get that stoic look on his face that I know so well, jaw locked, eyebrows jutting downward, and before you know it, no matter how much he tries to stop them, Jake or one of the gossipy junior girls will tell the tale of my very public cheating, ruining any chance of Blake not thinking I’m a total shit and my one opportunity to actually have a friend this summer. Which I apparently need more than ever, since things are weird with Kiera now too.
I’m relieved Olivia works at the mall in the next town over. She’d for sure tell her within the first ten minutes.
The daydream fades, and I pick up my phone, making up an excuse.
No… I just remembered I said I’d help my dad—
I pause, trying to think of something moving related.
I said I’d help my dad clean the windows before a showing on Tuesday.
It’s lame, but I send it anyway, sighing as I put down my phone and turn the stove top off. So much for Blake helping me with the list.
I feel in my pocket, my fingertips finding the worn paper I’ve tucked away there, a small comfort.
Maybe it’s the one thing that can help me fix all of this.
7
Scrolling through Instagram at the kitchen table on Wednesday morning, I tap on Blake’s story for the millionth time. It’s a boomerang from an hour ago at the less-than-sanitary Huckabee Pool, the caption reading, “FIRST DAY OF WORK!”
We haven’t talked since Monday afternoon when she said she was hired, and after today I’m sure I’ll never hear from her again. It’ll be super awkward when my dad and Johnny inevitably try to force us to hang out.
Sighing, I take another bite of my cereal and open my photo gallery. I scroll all the way back to the first couple of photos on my phone, taken just before my mom died. I usually avoid them at all costs, but today I’m looking for something.
A picture of my mom’s tattoo.
“Maybe try to figure out more of the backstory for some of them,” Blake had said on our phone call a few days ago. “Maybe that’ll tell you where to start.”
That led me to the only direct link between the list and something I knew about. Something I saw every day.
My mom’s tattoo.
I pause on a photo that my dad took of the two of us at the garden store over by the apple orchard. She’s pushing a bright orange cart around the greenhouse, pretending to struggle from the weight, while I lounge dramatically on top of the cart, two bags of potting soil sitting underneath me.
I swipe right, moving farther and farther back in time. It’s strange to see my mom getting healthier and healthier with each passing picture, when all I know is the opposite. I watch as the dark circles around her eyes fade, her gaunt cheeks fill out slowly.
I pause on another photo, of my mom fast asleep on my dad’s shoulder after a rough doctor’s appointment, then a photo of her and Nina laughing at Kiera’s birthday party, followed by a photo of the two of us after a long day of gardening, lottery tickets from the small gas station by the highway clutched in our hands, dirt stains on our jeans.
Finally, I find it.
A picture of my mom holding a sparkler on the Fourth of July, just before her brain cancer diagnosis, her blue eyes shining, her forearm tattoo faint in the fizzing glow of light. Zooming in, the words become clearer, the block letters spelling out AN INVINCIBLE SUMMER.
I remember asking her about it when I was pretty young, my chubby first-grader fingers tracing the letters over and over again.
All she had said was that it reminded her of the summer she became friends with my dad and Johnny. She never said any more than that. I’m missing the why.
“Morning!” my dad says as he lumbers sleepily into the kitchen.
I put my phone down quickly, instantly transported back into my super not-invincible summer.
“Morning,” I say back, half-heartedly picking at my Cheerios while I eye his dirty work boots. Mom would’ve thrown a fit to see him wearing those anywhere past the front door, but this isn’t going to be our house anymore, so I guess none of that really matters.
“You good?” he asks as he pours some cereal into a bowl, sloshing milk on top of it a moment later.
“Yeah.” I shrug.
“That wasn’t very convincing,” he says, leaning against the counter and pointing his spoon at me.
“I’m great! Never better!” I say, faking a huge smile.
He chuckles at that, scratching his thick beard. “You got work today?”
I shake my head no. Nina kept me late last night, the two of us making a wedding cake for the Mckenzies. In trade, she gave me today off. I’d insisted it was fine, since working kept my mind off everything, but she told me to “go do something fun with my friends.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I don’t exactly have any friends right now.
He nods to my phone, munching noisily on his cereal. “Whatcha looking at?”
I look down to see the picture of my mom still filling up my phone screen. Instinctually, I reach out to tap my home button before he can get a look, but something stops me before I press down. I want answers. And I’m in a bad enough mood today to risk some discomfort if it means I’ll get them.
“Just trying to figure out what this means.” I grab my phone, turning it to show him the picture.
“Mmm,” he says, swallowing his mouthful and averting his eyes to his bowl, his Cheerios suddenly becoming incredibly fascinating.
For a solid minute it’s just crunching. I push a Cheerio around and around in the leftover milk in my bowl, watching it dunk below the surface, reappearing a moment later. I know he remembers the list discussion we had. I know he knows what I want to know.
“An invincible summer,” he says, exhaling. I look up at him, our identical dark eyes meeting. He shrugs and gives me a small smile. “It’s a part of a quote. Some translated lines from this thing a French guy wrote. I think his name was Albert Camel? Camera?”
“Camus?” I ask, practically jumping out of my seat as I remember the worn book I found in my mom’s box of high school memories. A worn book by Albert Camus.
“Yeah, him,” he says, nodding to confirm my suspicions. “I don’t know what the whole quote was. She found it in a book the summer we all became friends. I think in a lot of ways, it kind of set the list in motion. She said the words summed up what she wanted that summer to be for her. A moment in time, in her life, where nothing could touch her, where she could do anything.”
His words give me chills.
He takes a bite of his cereal, talking through a mouthful of Cheerios. “Did you know your mom liked that book so much she actually wanted to go live in France at one point?”
My eyes widen in surprise. I had no idea. “Wait. She what? France?”
“Yeah,” he says, chuckling. “She studied French in high school and was determined to get out of Huckabee one day and board a plane there for good. You know, marry some stylish Parisian and eat baguettes by the Eiffel Tower and shit.”
I laugh, giving him a once-over in his torn jeans and sweat-stained T-shirt.
“Eventually, she just wanted to go to France,” he says, noticing my look and smirking. “And then we got married, and had you, and she realized she had everything she needed right here in Huckabee.”
He gets a distant look in his eyes, a furrow forming on his forehead. Finally, he clears his throat, taking one last solemn bite of his cereal.
“You good?” I ask him as he puts his bowl in the sink, the spoon loudly clattering against the porcelain bottom.
He nods, looking back to give me a small, thin-lipped smile.
“That wasn’t very convincing,” I say.
He laughs, calling out, “I’m
great! Never better!” before kissing me on the top of the head and leaving for work.
I look down at the tattoo on my mom’s arm, processing all this new information. An invincible summer. Her invincible summer.
If the quote is the key, I finally know what I have to do.
* * *
I don’t even bother to clean the dishes. The second my dad crosses over the threshold, I’m tearing up the stairs to my room. I duck under the edge of my floral bedspread, my hands clawing at the box I’ve hidden under my bed.
I rifle through everything, the manila envelope, the stuffed moose, the soccer T-shirt, until I see the book, nestled into the corner.
I pull it out to see “L’ÉTÉ” is written across the front in a bold red, “par Albert Camus” just underneath it in black.
And… there’s my first problem. As I flip through the yellowing pages, I realize this entire book is in French. With three years of Spanish under my belt, I couldn’t find the quote she’d pulled her tattoo from even if I tried.
I stop my flipping, my brow furrowing when I see there’s a page missing, a gap between 156 and 159, the jagged paper near the binding the only clue that something had been there.
She’d ripped a page out.
I could probably just Google it? Or…
I flip back to the title page and see a faded blue stamp reading “O’Reilly’s Used Books,” and suddenly the possibility of my first bucket list item is sitting right in front of me.
9. Buy a book in another language.
If they have this exact book, not only would I check my first list item off, but I could figure out what that missing page said. And, if I could figure out what the missing page said, I bet I could figure out what the whole quote was. I could find my answer.
It isn’t much, but it’s a place to start. Finally.
8
I peer at the sky, the downpour of rain ricocheting off the metal overhang in front of Nina’s.
Just perfect.
Of course I forgot my rain jacket on the one day the sky decides to dump out an ocean of water. That, and my bike tire popped on the way here, so I’ll be stuck not only walking to O’Reilly’s, but also waiting in sopping-wet clothes for my dad to come pick me up at Hank’s to go to the Carters’ to help them unpack.
Talk about bad luck.
I would just hide out at Nina’s, but… I’ve put off starting the list for almost a whole week now, and I’m not going to let some rain and a missing jacket ruin it for me. The Huckabee Lake trip deadline is getting closer with every day that passes, so even if I have to walk the half mile to O’Reilly’s Used Books in the rain, I’m going to do it.
Gritting my teeth, I step out onto the sidewalk, and the rain instantly soaks straight through my shirt and pants. I clutch at the strap of my tote bag as I slosh my way straight down Main Street, I feel my shoes getting heavier and heavier with each passing second, my fingertips finding the lucky quarter I’d tucked into my jeans pocket this morning.
Something about starting the list made me feel like I should bring it along. Although it isn’t proving to be much help.
I keep my head down, counting my steps as I go, to distract myself, the numbers blurring together as I pass forty.
I pull the quarter out and squint down at it, rain pelting me in the eyeballs. “Aren’t you supposed to be lucky?” I mutter.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a faded light blue truck pull over onto the shoulder, the window rolling down.
“What are you doing?” a voice calls out to me.
I turn my head and squint into the truck. “Blake?” She’s wearing a red lifeguard sweatshirt, the hood pulled up over her wavy hair. Or at least I think she is. It’s hard to see through the rain.
“Uh… walking?”
Talk about stating the obvious.
She grins and shakes her head at me. “You want a ride?”
I nod gratefully as she reaches across to unlock the door. I pull at the handle, clambering inside with a sigh of relief, my wet clothes squeaking on the worn, aged leather, my tote bag tumbling onto the floor.
“Isn’t this your grandpa’s old truck?” I say, once I can finally see again. When my mom died, Blake’s grandma and grandpa would pop over every now and then to see how we were doing, this truck chugging noisily into our driveway, Mrs. Carter lugging a giant casserole up our front steps. But Mr. Carter died two winters ago, and I haven’t seen it since.
“Good eye,” Blake says, nodding as I manually roll up the window. “My grandma gave it to me a few days ago to get around.”
“Johnny won’t let you borrow the Porsche?” I ask. She gives me an amused eye roll as I sit back in the seat.
“I wouldn’t drive it even if he let me,” she says, the corner of her mouth ticking up into a smile. “Way too flashy. He’s always been a fan of attention. I think it’s some pro-surfer residual.”
I pull my seat belt on and study her face as she shifts the truck into drive, wondering if she knows anything yet.
So far, things don’t seem awkward, and she’s the one who stopped, so that’s a good sign.
She peers in the rearview mirror for traffic. True to Huckabee form, there isn’t any. “So, where are we heading?”
“O’Reilly’s Used Books,” I say, nodding straight ahead as the seat belt I’m pulling on clicks noisily into place. “It’s four blocks down on the right.”
“Are you working on the list?” she asks, her eyes wide with unfiltered excitement as she eases us back out onto the road. “Wasn’t there a book-related thing on there?”
“There might be.” I push my wet hair behind my ear and pull the tote bag onto the seat, digging inside to find the folded list and the Albert Camus book, tucked safely in the rain-safe plastic of three Ziploc bags I’d stolen from Nina’s.
Carefully, I pull out the book, holding it up to Blake as she slows to a stop at a stop sign. “I’m looking for this. Page one fifty-seven and one fifty-eight are missing. Torn out. I think the quote my mom’s tattoo is from is on one of those pages, and I think it can give me a bit of context. Backstory. What set the list in motion. Like what you said on the phone.”
Blake nods, taking it all in. “You think he’ll have a copy?”
“I hope so,” I say as I point halfway down the block at the O’Reilly’s Used Books storefront, relieved to see there’s a parking spot right out front. “Only problem is that if he does, it’s in French.” I peer at the peeling gold lettering just above the door while Blake parallel parks the grumbling truck like a champ. “I’m banking on Mr. O’Reilly maybe knowing enough to translate.”
I shiver, my soaked clothes making my teeth chatter in the AC. Blake’s dark eyes glance over at me as she puts the gearshift in park, the sound of the motor dying away, the rain falling onto the metal of the roof overtaking it.
“Here,” she says, unclicking her seat belt and pulling off her sweatshirt. I can’t help but notice the toned lines of her lower stomach. She holds it out to me, her arms tan against the white of her lifeguard tank top. “This’ll help.”
I slide the warm sweatshirt on gratefully, and a wave of her ocean smell and the balmy scent of sunscreen surround me. “You always smell like a day at the beach,” I say as I squeeze my head through the top and shimmy my arms through the open holes, the sleeves continuing on long past the tips of my fingers.
Blake raises her eyebrows, amused, and I realize just how weird that sounded.
Why can’t I be normal around her? Have I seriously lost all my social skills in just a few weeks of exile?
Luckily, Blake doesn’t make it weird. “Soon I’ll smell like a day in Huckabee!”
“Oh God,” I say as I throw open the door, the metal hinges squeaking noisily. “Let’s hope that never happens.” I pull the hood of Blake’s sweatshirt up and hop out, the two of us laughing as we run together through the rain.
* * *
The inside of O’Reilly’s is exactly like I remember it.
>
The smell of old paper wraps around us the second we step inside, warm and comforting. There are piles and piles of books everywhere, tucked onto towering wooden bookshelves and stacked on top of tables, tiny signs tacked to the ends of aisles to guide you to what you’re looking for. The lighting is dim, and some of the corners are thrown into darkness, faded red and blue and brown spines barely peeking out at you from their hiding places.
“Go find it, Emily.”
Suddenly, I am back here with my mom, grabbing her hand tightly as I peer into the dimmest, spookiest aisles, afraid of something coming at me from the darkness.
Hearing her ask me, “Find a book with gold writing on the cover,” or, “Find a cover with a dragon on it.” She made me fall in love with the place, dark corners and all, by coming up with little games to play.
Pretty soon I didn’t need the games anymore. We’d come almost every weekend, just the two of us. She’d browse the romance section, while I’d wander back to young adult, the two of us finding our way back to each other as we worked our way across the store.
It feels wrong to be here without her.
I don’t turn, but I feel Blake standing just behind me, and feel some small comfort that I’m not here completely alone.
“Emily Clark!” a voice says. I turn my head to see Mr. O’Reilly is propped up on a stool just behind a tiny, worn wooden counter, a pair of glasses perched on the edge of his nose, a red cardigan tucked around his narrow shoulders. He reaches up to tug at the corner of his mustache as the door closes noisily behind us. “It’s been a while. What brings you in today?”
“Hi, Mr. O’Reilly,” I say, digging around in my bag for the book. “I know it’s a bit of a long shot, but I’m looking for…” I pull the book out, still tucked in a Ziploc bag. “This.”
He holds out his hand and I give it to him. Blake shifts excitedly from foot to foot next to me, her eyes wandering around the shelves like she’s determined to find it first.
The Lucky List Page 7
