Serial Summer

by Angel Lawson

  ~*~

  “You went to the cocktail hour?”

  I shade my eyes and look at Anita who has a huge grin on her face. “Yes, my mother made me go.”

  She howls with laughter, even bending over to hold her stomach. “Oh. My. God. That’s the worst.”

  “What, the fact I went at all or the fact I went with my mother?” I ask with disdain.

  Still laughing, she says, “Both. They’re both terrible.”

  “Well, it’s not like I had much of a choice.”

  “Don’t worry. Next Monday I’ll save you.” She stretches her legs out into the sand. The girls play by the edge of the water and JT works on the foundation of a castle. We’ve started meeting here, unscheduled, for the last couple of days.

  “I’m holding you to that,” I tell her.

  We sun in silence for a while. I’m definitely more diligent with the sunscreen, not wanting to repeat the terrible burn from my first day out. Right now I have big, flakey, peeling skin all over my chest. I look like a leper.

  “So Paige,” Anita says. “You said you broke up with your boyfriend. Are you seeing anyone else?”

  I keep my eyes closed and say, “No, not yet.”

  “Really? Huh. I’m surprised.”

  I’m not sure how to answer that so I keep quiet, hoping she’ll get bored and change the subject. “I mean you’re really pretty and not to sound lesbian, but you look great in that bathing suit, although you could show a little more skin.” I turn and stare. “What?” she asks. “I can’t help it. Your boobs are right there. I noticed.”

  I sigh and sit up, adjusting my chair so I can see her better. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I’m not sure I’m really dating material right now. The breakup was pretty horrible.”

  Anita’s face falls. “Oh, I’m sorry. That sucks. Was it serious?”

  “As serious as these things get, I guess.” This is a lie of course. My heart hurts just talking about it. Because it was great. And then it wasn’t.

  “What happened?”

  I make a face. “Too soon?” I beg. No way can I talk about this. Not now.

  “Another time,” she says and from the tiny smile on her face I know she means it.

  “Deal.”

  I’m about to close my eyes when she asks, “So did you meet anyone interesting at the cocktail party? What about Mrs. Graves? She’s the one with the tiny sherry glasses.”

  “I must have missed that. No one paid me much attention. They were all enthralled by Julia and her stories.”

  “I told Bobby about the book she’s writing. I had to hold him off from coming over.”

  I smile. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. She loves talking to her fans and about dead people and stuff.”

  “Good, he can talk to her and not me.”

  I nod in agreement and then remember something. “I did meet this one guy. Richard? He seemed nice.”

  “Oh yeah, he’s Bobby’s uncle. Super nice.”

  “He’s from here?” I’m surprised. He seemed higher class than Anita and the other locals. His speech sounded less country. He dressed nicer, too. I hold back on those remarks.

  “Yeah, he’s an attorney. He went to UNC for college and then Duke for law school. But he came back here to work and live.”

  “He lives in the campground?”

  “No,” she says. “He has a house off the waterway. He just comes down to the parties and stuff. He knows everyone down here.”

  “Oh,” I say. I guess this is proof I shouldn’t judge books by their covers. Anita sits up and starts packing her bag.

  “Come on!” she yells at the kids, and they all scramble up the beach. “I’m gonna go in for lunch today. I didn’t feel like packing anything. Want to come?”

  “I think I’ll just sit here for a while longer.”

  “Okay, but cover up. Don’t burn again.”

  “Okay, mom.”

  “Ha ha. You’ve already got one of those around here.”

  “Tell me about it,” I mumble and pull my hat down over my eyes and lay back in the sun.

  Chapter Four

  “He doesn’t look like a serial killer,” I say, holding up the photo. It’s a grainy copy of a black and white mug shot. He’s not attractive. Kind of hard looking, but it’s hard to tell with such a bad picture.

  My mother keeps her eyes on the road, obviously already having seen the photo. “They never do. But this guy was bad. Really bad.”

  I flip through the papers she gave me when we left the camper. “This guy seems a little more serious than some of your other subjects,” I note.

  “How is one more serious than the other?”

  “You know what I mean, this one is an old case and not nearly as sensationalized as some of the others you’ve written about recently. The ones with the high-profile divorces and crazy families in court. This says they think he killed over a hundred people!”

  She shrugs. “I’m trying for something different this time. See how the publisher and readers like it. After seventeen books I just needed a change.”

  She pulls the car into the parking lot of a small brick building with block letters on the front that spell Florence County Records. We get out of the car and quickly walk to the door, hoping to move out of the heat as fast as possible. Summer in small town South Carolina is hot. By the ocean there’s a breeze, but an hour inland, things are blistering. For a fleeting moment I think of the French Alps, and wonder what I’m doing here—how I can get back to the city to make my flight. There’s still time.

  “I just want to gather everything we can from here. I know most everything is on the internet these days but I feel better making sure I’ve connected all the dots. We may be able to find some local papers that haven’t transferred over.”

  “Right,” I say, following her inside. The cool air-conditioning hits my face and I take a deep breath. I wait in a hard, plastic chair while my mother talks to the lady behind the desk. My phone buzzes, letting me know I have a message, and I check and see it’s from Mark. Again. He’s been calling every day, saying the same things, trying to get me to go on the trip. For me to come back. For us to talk. I delete the message knowing there is nothing to talk about that won’t lead us back down the same road.

  “She said we can go to the back and look through the papers,” my mother says, waving me over to the counter. I follow her down the long, narrow hallway to a room with rows of filing cabinets. I’ve done this job with her before. Research, filing, organizing notes, it’s definitely not glamorous. “I want anything that mentions Gaskins.”

  We work steadily for an hour, only stopping once to get a Pepsi from the vending machine. I pop the top and lean back in my plastic molded chair and say, “So tell me more about this family you have around here. Why the big secret?”

  We haven’t talked much about Cousin Jimmy since we got here but my mother’s unspoken familiarity with the community is unnerving. She knows this area inside and out, taking back roads and mentioning long-gone places.

  “No secret,” she says, pushing her glasses to the top of her head and rubbing her eyes. “I just grew up and grew apart from these people. When Mama and Daddy died I didn’t have a reason to visit. I had you and your father and this career…”

  She trails off and she absently rubs her chest. I decide to probe a little further. “But now?”

  “I remembered hearing the tales from the older cousins as a kid and I thought it would make an interesting story. There’s nothing sinister going on, Paige.”

  “It’s weird finding out you have family you never knew about, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “I know, and I just never thought it was a big deal. It wasn’t exactly a secret, just part of my life I’d moved away from.” She looks guilty enough when she says this so I let it go.

  We’re on the drive home when she says, “Speaking of secrets, when are you going to tell me what happened at school?”

  I look out the window at t
he passing fields and ramshackle farms. “There’s not much to tell. The semester sucked. I just wanted a break.”

  “From France? You really expect me to believe that?” I glanced at her but said nothing. “You worked so hard for that trip.”

  Tears build in my eyes and I keep my face turned away. I did work hard for that trip. I had to apply for a scholarship through the school. I put together a presentation and wrote an essay. Unfortunately, even though I worked hard, I worked harder making a fool of myself in front of Mark and his wife. Ugh, his wife. I suck the tears back and say, “I know. I realized it was just too far away. I want to be here now. Next year will be better.”

  I barely get the words out. I have no idea how I can ever set foot on campus again, not with this hanging over my head. I’m won’t just be Paige Barnes, junior at Vandy, undeclared major. I’m Paige Barnes, home-wrecker. I should just start wearing a scarlet letter on my chest.

  My mother must sense my panic because she lets it go, neither of us ready to spill our secrets.

  ~*~

  Monday rolls around again, in that way that time moves equally fast and slow during vacation. I can’t believe I’ve been here a week, yet at the same time, fall seems so far away. I’m eating a bagel and trying to decide if I should just go back to bed or maybe tackle some laundry when I hear a knock on the door.

  My mother is on a pre-writing, brain-charging walk. I open the door and find Anita, kid on her hip, standing at the bottom of the metal step. “Hi,” I say. “What’s up?”

  “Pack your beach bag, we’re going to the island.”

  I look over the water and to the big houses and island where the Atlantic sits on the other side. I’ve only been over there once, just to drive around. “To the beach?”

  “Yep. It’s Monday. The boys have the day off and we’re going to have a picnic and play day. Plus, I promised to save you from another cocktail hour.” She doesn’t give me time to respond before she walks away and says over her shoulder, “Meet me in thirty minutes at my house.”

  I gather my bag and chair and leave a note for my mother and set off for Anita’s camper. I wind through the campground paths until I reach her place. Her trailer is less like a trailer and more a house. It’s located under a big, shady tree near the back of the grounds. A pre-fab is what I heard someone call it. I’d seen the kids playing outside once when I was looking for the main office. It’s not water-front but the cool air under the trees felt nice and it’s separated just enough from the other homes to give it a sense of privacy.

  Anita and Sibley wait out front, a pile of toys, coolers and chairs at their feet. Bobby walked back and forth to the truck loading it all in the back. I approach them and poke Sibley in the belly which gains a laugh and say, “I would’ve thought locals would take less to the beach.”

  She smiles. “Back before I had kids all I needed was a surfboard and a towel. Now I know if we want to stay for more than an hour we have to take some supplies.”

  “You can surf?” I ask in awe.

  “Of course. That’s how I met Bobby way back. Well, it’s how I met his brothers who in turn introduced me to him.”

  “How many brothers does he have?”

  Bobby walks behind us, lifting a cooler over his head and says, “Three. John Thomas, Justin, and Peter.”

  “I’m assuming John Thomas is JT’s father?”

  “Right. He runs the marina; well, with Justin. He just graduated from Clemson.”

  “Who graduated from Clemson?”

  She makes a face like I should be able to follow all of this. “Justin. And then Peter lives in Myrtle Beach.”

  “Oh, so you can move away, after all,” I joke.

  “You can,” Bobby says, tossing the last of the stuff in the back of the truck, including my chair. “If you want to leave all of this. Just watch, at the end of the summer we’ll have to kick you out of here.”

  I check to see if he’s joking, like I expect, but the expression on his face is completely genuine. It’s obvious Bobby loves living in this tiny spot of heaven-hell. Me? I’ll stick to vacationing.

  “Paige, you can sit in the back seat with Sibley,” Anita says and I pick up my bag and climb in the truck. Bobby has one of those huge trucks with a full front and back seat. I ignore the gun rack in window and the ever-present scent of fish that seeps into every crevice around here. All-in-all though, the truck is pretty clean.

  The ride from the campground to the beach is quick. I thought we would park at the public access but Bobby passes the community entrance. A mile or so down the road he pulls into an ocean front beach house driveway and parks the truck under the house.

  “Whose house is this?” I ask. It’s not one of the big modern houses but it has a wide screened in porch and I can hear the waves the second the door opens.

  “Our friend’s parents own the house. They don’t rent so we’re welcome to use the outdoor showers and boardwalk when they aren’t here.”

  “That’s awesome,” I say, hopping out of the truck. The warm breeze hits my face and I’m engulfed by the roar of the ocean. I’m not exactly knocking my water-front home but this…this is heaven.

  I volunteer to take Sibley out to the beach while Anita and Bobby unpack the truck. I hold her tiny hand and I laugh at her running down the boardwalk on wobbly legs toward the ocean. She’s faster than I predict and dashes out of reach before I realize it. Afraid I won’t catch her before she reaches the steps at the end, I yell, “Sibley!”

  She turns and smiles a goofy baby smile but takes one step back toppling off the step.

  “No, no no,” I say, thinking about how the first time Anita lets me loose with her baby I’ve damaged her. I race to the edge and stop.

  “Thank god,” I breathe with a sigh of relief. Sibley sits one step below, laughing and clapping her hands at a man who cradles her in his lap. He looks up and flashes me a grin before holding her under the arms and tossing her into the air.

  “It’s you,” I say, because it’s him. The guy who shut my water off.

  “It’s me.”

  “What are you doing here?” I ask. He’s shaved his beard, which makes him even more handsome. Great.

  “Playing with Sibley. Making sure she doesn’t fall to her death,” he gives me an accusatory look.

  “She ran off!” I argue. “And she’s really fast!”

  “It’s all good,” he says, rubbing his nose against Sibley’s. “Uncle Justin caught you.”

  “Wait,” I say, eyeing his light brown hair, blowing out of its quasi-faux –hawk. “You’re Bobby’s brother?”

  “Yep,” he nods. “And you’re the girl from the shower with all the shampoo and the robe and all that.” He winks, gesturing to my hair and stares at my chest with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, making me squirm. He sticks out his hand. “Nice to meet you—formally.”

  “I haven’t told you my name.”

  “Paige. It’s about time you realize there are few secrets in Ocean Beach.”

  I ignore his hand and grab the baby. She squeals in protest, but when she sees we’re walking toward the shore, she stops. “Come on, Sibley, let’s go see the water.”

  I don’t look back until I’ve reached the edge of the beach and the cool June water rushes over my toes. Still on the steps, Justin pulls Anita in a bear hug and then grabs the cooler out of Bobby’s hands. They head to an already-forming group a ways down from where I’m standing. I’ve already got that feeling. The one in the pit of my stomach that tells me I’m attracted to this guy and how much fun I could have getting to know him. That feeling is surrounded though by a bigger one that reminds me of the last time I felt this way and the disaster that followed.

  I groan into the wind and watch as Sibley falls into the ocean. “You know,” I tell her, “Not every handsome guy has to be an epic love story. He’s just a guy, kind of a pervert I think. Why am I making a big deal out of a non-deal?”

  Sibley stands up and water drips down her legs
and laughs.

  “I mean all he did was say ’hey‘, and offer me roadside assistance and turn off my water. I mean, he’s kind of a jerk.”

  “Wa-ter,” Sibley says. I realize I’m behaving irrationally and need to join the group before they all start talking about me.

  “Ready to see your Mama?” I ask and she takes my hand, following me down the beach.

  Chapter Five

  The sun burns hot on my already tender skin and my hair feels like straw from the wind and sea air. Once I got over my weirdness with Justin, I relaxed enough to enjoy the day, watching everyone surf and swim. I stay out of the water though, only going up to my knees to cool off.

  “You ever going to get in?” a girl named Ivy asks. She has a huge surfboard under her arm. Her parents own the house we’ve occupied for the afternoon. Even though the house itself is off limits we have access to an outside shower and bathroom. There’s also the porch so there isn’t much else necessary. I kind of like the townie way of doing the beach.

  “No, I’m not really into swimming in the ocean,” I reply.

  She cocks her head. “Scared?”

  “I just don’t really like swimming where I can’t see the bottom.” I think back to vacations on the gulf and the crystal clear water. The gulf is nothing like the Atlantic, which has dark sand and crunchy, broken shells littering the ocean floor.

  “You’ll get used to it,” she promises.

  “Leave her alone,” Justin says, from behind us, skimming his board across the water. He attempts to grab Ivy by her waist, but she lunges out of the way, trying to hold onto her bathing suit top at the same time. All the girls here wear bikinis. Except me. It’s hard not to notice I’m surrounded by permanently brown people that take to the water like fish. With my pale skin, discomfort in the ocean and one piece tank, I am clearly the odd man out.

  I watch Justin and Ivy paddle past the breakers, gliding over the waves with ease and confidence. They seem happy together. I suspect he’s just flirty, which makes me jealous and relieved all at once. Who am I to be jealous of a girl I just met? I walk up to the house and sit next to Anita and a couple of other people on the gazebo area mid-way down the boardwalk.