The Summer of Us

by Cecilia Vinesse

  “Oh.” Rae’s gaze fell to the sand. Clara’s eyes were so bright and earnest that Rae didn’t think she could lie to her. “I’m not exactly sure. But I think it had something to do with—you, actually.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. Aubrey might have asked whether you and Gabe liked each other. Or something.”

  “She did? Where the hell did that come from?”

  “I believe from her good friend Too Much Champagne.”

  Clara laughed, and Rae slid from her chair to the ground beside her.

  “But I don’t see Gabe that way.” Clara wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. “I can’t even imagine kissing him. It would be so creepy.”

  “I know,” Rae said. “Remember when Aubs and Jonah got together? You said you’d never date someone from our friend group. You called it a ‘recipe for awkwardness.’”

  “Oh yeah.” Clara turned to face the water, and the light from the bridge illuminated her profile.

  Rae hadn’t fallen for Clara because she was beautiful, but once she had fallen for her, the beautiful thing had become impossible to ignore. Even now, Rae couldn’t help noticing the sweep of her eyelashes, the dip of her collarbone. Another boat passed by them, its light reflected on the water’s surface.

  “What about you?” Clara asked, watching it pass.

  “Do I have a crush on Gabe?”

  “No.” Clara looked back at her. “Do you like anyone? Or did you? Before we left school?”

  Rae rolled her warm can of beer on the ground. “Not really.”

  “Typical Rae. So many girls, so little time.”

  “That is not typical me.”

  Clara smiled. “It really is. You fall hard for someone, but then the relationship lasts approximately ten seconds. You’ve clearly forgotten all about Emily St. James.”

  “What about her?”

  “You kissed her at prom.”

  “Yeah, but she kissed me first. What was I supposed to do? Pretend I didn’t notice?”

  “Because that doesn’t prove my point at all,” Clara said flatly.

  “Well, you kissed your prom date, didn’t you?”

  “Jack?” Clara stretched her legs across the sand. “I did. But he was pretty boring.”

  “So boring you dated him for a month?”

  “He was a cute college guy. I was infatuated with him. But then I realized he wasn’t deep or poetic—he was just dull.”

  Rae traced a few lines in the sand. “I think you made the right call. You don’t want to move to LA with a boyfriend. You want to be free to meet lots of hot art-school guys.”

  “I guess,” Clara said.

  The blue flags snapped in a gust of wind. Rae kept rolling her beer can. She felt a dull ache at the base of her ribs, the same one she got every time she thought about Clara leaving. Or meeting some stupid perfect guy. But she had to remind herself that this feeling was good. This was the feeling of moving on.

  She and Clara had been friends since their first semester at LAS, but Rae’s feelings for her hadn’t changed until the summer after junior year. Their friends were off traveling with their families, but Clara had stayed in London to do a fashion internship at the Victoria and Albert Museum while Rae worked part-time at her mom’s antique store. They began spending all their free time together—floating between each other’s houses and staying up till three AM to watch old movies like Moulin Rouge! in Clara’s room.

  Her room was crowded with a sewing table, dress mannequins draped in patterned fabrics, and inspiration photographs pinned to a bulletin board above her desk. Being there made Rae feel like the world was made of such vivid colors. Like everything was a little more intense, a little more concentrated there, in that tiny space with Clara’s purple-painted walls and the high window above her bed. It was the first time since meeting Aubrey that Rae felt another person slip so easily into her life.

  Except being with Clara was nothing like being with Aubrey.

  It was like being with a girl Rae wanted to kiss. Because Clara had been right earlier—Rae did harbor intense, all-consuming crushes. And those crushes usually became intense, all-consuming relationships. And those relationships always ended. But since she and Clara had no hope of dating, Rae was stuck here, in the pining stage, waiting for the day her feelings would finally burn out. “We should do your pact,” she blurted.

  Clearly, that day was not today.

  Clara dusted sand from her knees. “Really? You want to meet again in Paris?”

  “Sure. How do we make it official? Do we sign it in blood or something?”

  Clara scooted across the sand. “Or we could drink to it.”

  “Better idea.” Rae opened her beer, and instantly, warm, foamy liquid sprayed everywhere.

  Clara covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh no!”

  “Shit!” Rae held the can away from her, beer sputtering onto her arms and legs.

  “Quick! Take this.” Clara grabbed a towel someone had left on one of the loungers, but already the beer was soaking into Rae’s clothes. She wiped some off her lap. “Great,” she said. “I’m going to smell so wasted.”

  “I guess that’s what happens when you roll a beer around for ten minutes,” Clara said. “But it’s okay. We can share.” She started to hand over her drink but paused for a second, her arm suspended between them. “But only if you really mean it,” she said. “Only if you want to come back here sometime. Even if it’s only the two of us.”

  Another boat appeared from under the bridge, stirring the night breeze—a breeze that touched Rae’s cheek, that moved through Clara’s hair. It rippled the river beside them, the water as dark as a pool of black ink.

  Rae took the drink from Clara. “Yeah,” she said. “Even if it’s only the two of us.”

  7

  Aubrey

  Saturday, July 2

  PARIS

  Come on, Aubrey! Keep up!”

  Clara stood as she pedaled, her bright-red ponytail snapping against her back. Jonah was right behind her, and Gabe and Rae were behind him, cycling next to each other. Gabe said something and she laughed, wobbling on her bike. Aubrey squinted and bent her elbows, begging her legs to work harder. Her head throbbed as sunlight reflected off the passing cars. She swore that the smell of champagne was everywhere.

  “How are you doing back there?” Rae called.

  “How are you not hungover?” Aubrey called back.

  “I can’t hear you.” Rae dropped back to wait for her. “Jesus. Are you dead?”

  “Getting there,” Aubrey muttered.

  Rae, of course, looked great. She was wearing cute cutoff overalls, and her long curls had been wrangled into two braids. Early that morning, Clara had woken them all up so they could get coffee and bike to the Centre Pompidou. Aubrey had been shocked that Clara hadn’t seemed even remotely queasy. And that neither Clara nor Rae looked tired.

  Aubrey glanced up at the nearest street sign. They were on the rue de Rivoli, moving away from the Centre Pompidou and getting closer to their next stop: the Louvre. Construction cranes loomed in the sky, and the lunch rush-hour traffic clogged up the road. Aubrey winced as cars swerved around them; she hated that the bikes they’d rented hadn’t come with helmets.

  “So,” Rae said, “tell me about last night.”

  Aubrey squeezed her handlebars. “You were with me last night.”

  “Not for all of it. What happened when we left?” Rae’s words were muffled by roaring jackhammers, which gave Aubrey a moment to think. She wanted to tell Rae what Gabe had said, but she couldn’t face it yet. The embarrassment felt too fresh. “Is it TMI if I tell you I puked in a Starbucks bathroom?” she asked.

  “Ew,” Rae said. “Yes.”

  “Well”—Aubrey felt her sunglasses slip down her nose—“that’s what happened.”

  Afterward, Jonah had taken them on the Metro back to the hotel, where they’d hung out in Aubrey’s room and he’d found an old French m
ovie on TV. Aubrey had fallen asleep to the muted, underwater sound that black-and-white movies always seemed to have and whispered conversations in a language she couldn’t understand.

  “Sounds romantic,” Rae said.

  “Watch it, or I’ll push you off your bike.”

  “You can’t even let go of the handlebars!” Rae lifted her own hands and briefly held them overhead. A railing separated this part of the bike path from the rest of the street, but Rae still looked brave. Young and wild and unafraid of anything. She moved her fingers like she was trying to catch the air.

  “Please stop,” Aubrey said. “I can think of a thousand ways this could end horribly.”

  Rae stopped and grinned with all her teeth.

  “Turn left!” Clara called from up ahead. They went through a long, cool archway that led to the place du Carrousel. Aubrey saw everything all at once: the long line of tour buses, the shining glass pyramid, and the Louvre itself, zigzagging around the plaza’s perimeters.

  Aubrey’s bike hobbled to a stop.

  “Damn,” Jonah said to her. “You don’t look so good.”

  “She’s totally great,” Rae said. “I hear near-death experiences make you stronger.”

  “Bad news,” Gabe said, holding up his phone. His eyes skimmed straight over Aubrey, and her embarrassment felt new and raw all over again. She picked at her handlebar with her thumbnail. “We can’t park our bikes here,” he said. “We have to go somewhere else and come back.”

  “Oh God.” Aubrey collapsed against Jonah. “Why isn’t today over yet?”

  Clara shaded her eyes; an image of the pyramid was reflected in her sunglasses. “Aubrey. It hasn’t even begun.”

  But, somehow, it did end.

  Hours and hours went by, hours they filled wandering the unending corridors of the Louvre and sitting on the Right Bank eating falafel. As soon as the sun set, they returned their bikes and traipsed back to their hotel to change for the night.

  Now it was after eleven PM, and the nightclub they were in was crowded. People filled the dance floor—girls wearing skintight jeans and strappy tank tops, guys with their hair gelled up straight. Music played over the speakers, but Aubrey couldn’t tell if the lyrics were in English or French.

  She was standing against the back wall, holding a soda, while Rae, Clara, and Gabe danced with everyone else. Jonah had gone outside to answer his phone—probably to reassure his mom that they were all safe and currently sober.

  Aubrey sipped her watery soda. She saw Gabe grab Rae’s hands and spin her in a circle. It was strange, because Rae and Gabe had never really hung out without Aubrey before. She’d always considered herself the thing that linked them together, that made them friends in the first place. But maybe that was selfish. Clearly, they got along just fine without her.

  “Taking a dance break?” Jonah dodged around two girls bobbing their heads to the electric beat and took his place beside her.

  “I got soda.” Aubrey held up her glass. “Was that your mom?”

  “Leah.”

  “Oh.”

  Jonah was wrapped up in the music and everything going on around them, so Aubrey let herself roll her eyes. Of course it was Leah. Getting in the way even when she wasn’t here. Making everything about her.

  “She wanted to talk about the apartment,” Jonah said. It was so loud he had to speak next to her ear.

  “The apartment?” Aubrey shouted.

  “You know. The three-bedroom place her friend rents in Alphabet City? Leah’s moving in next year, and she said she’d put in a good word for us.”

  “A good word about what?”

  “About us moving in with them.”

  For a moment, Aubrey was grateful for the noise. It gave her time to gather her thoughts. For her mind to tick through a series of memories—of the spring when she got accepted to Columbia; of their whole senior year, when she and Jonah would talk about New York. It ticked back to junior year, when she and Jonah would hang out at play rehearsals and Leah would drag him away to tell him some gossipy, pointless secret. He always glowed when Leah paid attention to him. And sometimes, it made Aubrey wonder if he secretly liked Leah more. Which was ridiculous—after all, she was Jonah’s girlfriend—but still. Leah could make her feel so small.

  “Let’s get out there.” Jonah laced his fingers with hers. “Or we’ll miss everything.”

  A rap song was playing now, one that Rae and Gabe knew all the lyrics to. They blasted through each line while Clara cheered them on. Bodies slammed against Aubrey’s back. She thought about what she would be doing if she were home instead—probably reading a book in bed, or maybe watching The Temple of Doom with Chris, arguing with him over whether or not it was the worst Indiana Jones movie (she was a firm yes; he was a firm Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). She knew she should dance, too, but she didn’t exactly feel like it, so she just nodded her head a lot.

  The song ended, and Gabe held up his hand for Rae to high-five.

  “Why are you so tall?” she asked, jumping up to meet him.

  “Don’t know, Preston,” he said. “Why are you so short?”

  Preston, Aubrey thought. Usually he only called her by her last name.

  “Does anyone want water?” Clara fanned her face with both hands. That afternoon, after the museum, she’d painted each nail white with a neon-green line down the middle. She turned toward the bar and stopped cold. “Oh my God.” She tugged on the bottom of Rae’s shirt. “That girl is totally checking you out.”

  Everyone stared in the direction Clara was looking. “Smooth, guys,” Rae said. “Very subtle.”

  “What’s with the haircut, though?” Jonah asked.

  “I kind of like it,” Gabe said. “Very young Carrie Brownstein.”

  Rae buried her face in her hands. “Jesus Christ, you’re all exactly like my mother.”

  Another song started, but none of them were dancing; they were a beat of stillness in a sea of motion. Gabe and Jonah talked over Aubrey’s head. She looked down and saw the pink laces on Gabe’s shoes and the stripes on Jonah’s old sneakers. Their voices collided above her. It was almost like she wasn’t even there.

  “I need some air,” she said.

  Instantly Rae said, “I’ll come with you.”

  And Aubrey felt absurdly relieved. Outside, the night was lukewarm, and she slumped against the beige wall beside the club’s entrance as tiny cars and scooters zipped down the street. The sky was smoggy and dense with clouds.

  “That place is so tacky.” Rae dug around in her pocket for a stick of strawberry gum.

  Aubrey still had her drink, which she placed on the sidewalk. “Jonah wants to move in with Leah next year,” she said.

  Rae stopped digging. “No effing way.”

  “Yeah,” Aubrey said. “Or I should say, he wants us to move in with her. They were on the phone tonight, planning it all out.”

  “What a control freak!”

  “Leah? Or Jonah?”

  “Definitely Leah. No offense, but Jonah’s too hapless for that.”

  “That’s not offensive.” Aubrey held out her hand, and Rae gave her a stick of gum. They both stood there for a minute, just chewing, waiting for the sugary taste to fade. Aubrey couldn’t imagine going back inside that nightclub. “Gabe doesn’t want to be my friend anymore,” she said.

  “What?” Rae asked. “When did that happen?”

  “It happened last night. At the Arc de Triomphe. I wanted to tell you about it this morning, but I could barely even think about it. Plus, I was super hungover.”

  “So, hold on. Are you upset about Jonah? Or about Gabe?”

  “Maybe both.”

  “Or maybe you’re just upset because everything’s so different now.”

  Aubrey watched someone across the street flick a cigarette butt to the ground. Rae was definitely right—everything was different.

  It had been for three weeks. It had been since the last night of the musical, when, in a darkened backs
tage room, Aubrey and Gabe had kissed. When, just like that, the space between them had evaporated to nothing. His mouth on hers. Her mouth on his. It had lasted only a few seconds, but that didn’t matter. It was still a kiss.

  A kiss that Aubrey had spent every day of the past three weeks trying to figure out. She’d sprawled out on the grass in her backyard, going over and over that moment. Like there was some secret meaning to it. Like, if she could just find that meaning, the kiss would suddenly make sense, and she could forget all about it.

  She thought over the silly crush she’d had on Gabe freshman year. She remembered the afternoons they’d spent painting sets together and the weekend mornings she’d biked over to his house so they could spend all day sitting on his living room floor, listening to the old, folksy records his dad collected.

  But then, during their sophomore year, Gabe stopped inviting her over so much. He’d get this distant look in his eyes and make up excuses whenever she asked if he was free. Eventually, she realized: He must have figured out that she liked him. He must have been trying to tell her he only thought of her as a friend. And by the time Jonah asked her out a few months later, Aubrey only thought of him as one, too.

  Or, at least, she thought she did. So why had she kissed him? How had she let all of this happen?

  “Okay.” Rae blew a curl out of her eye. “You want me to tell you something you don’t want to hear?”

  “No,” Aubrey said. “Of course I don’t.”

  “Well. Tough love, baby.” Rae stood in front of her and snapped her gum. Her cheeks were still bright red from dancing. “Maybe this whole thing with Gabe isn’t about him despising you. Maybe it’s—the opposite.”

  “The opposite how?” Aubrey asked.

  “Aubs, have you ever considered the possibility that Gabe likes you? You know, as more than a friend?”

  A motorbike stopped in the street, its engine popping. Frenzied energy built up in Aubrey’s chest. “There’s no way,” she said. “He wouldn’t be treating me like this if he did.”