The Next Chapter of Luke

by Jenny O'Connell

  But I wasn’t testing him. I really did want him to be with his friends, even if partly because I was still trying to repent for what I did to Luke, too. When I started writing the guide for our senior time capsule, I may have wanted to prove I wasn’t the nice person everyone expected me to be, but now I almost felt like I had to prove that I was. Nice, and not psycho, which is what most of the school called me when they found out about the guide.

  “Seriously.” I grabbed for his hand and squeezed. “Go.”

  Luke paused for a moment and then squeezed back. “You sure?”

  “Yes,” I told him, and let go.

  Luke bent down and kissed me, his lips lightly brushing against mine, like a feather landing before being blown in another direction. He slipped away before I could pull him in closer and keep his kiss from floating off.

  “Okay, everyone, smile!” Our headmaster commanded, “One…”

  As our headmaster counted down for the photographer, I looked over at Luke, hoping for one more glance, a sign, that even though the school year was over and a whole new chapter of our lives was about to begin, nothing would change between us.

  I watched him, the broad shoulders of his graduation gown wedged against Owen and Joey as they huddled together for the final photo of our high school careers.

  “Two!” I was still looking at Luke when the photographer and our headmaster shouted the number out in unison.

  Only two wasn’t the number worming through my head as I heard voices around me humming cheese through gritted teeth. It was the number seventy-eight.

  Only seventy-eight more days before we left for college—I’d counted. Eleven weeks of summer. Just over two months. And then Luke and I would be 108 miles apart (I’d calculated that, too).

  “Three!” A flash of light lit the space around our senior class as the photographer recorded our graduation day for the school archives.

  In a few weeks, when our senior class photograph arrived in a cardboard envelope with a letter from our headmaster wishing me well in my future endeavors, I would remember that moment. How, unlike Lucy and Josie and the rest of my class, I wasn’t looking into the camera and grinning on cue with the other ecstatic graduates. Instead I was looking over at Luke, hoping that he would look over at me, waiting for him to give me some sign that our story wouldn’t end once summer was over.

  Do you feel any different? Luke had asked me as we stood outside the cafeteria. Although I didn’t answer him at the time, I knew that the answer was yes. Because there was only one word to describe the girl standing beside Lucy and Josie in our class photo. And that word was scared.

  Long-Distance Relationship Tip #3:

  When you’re apart, do similar things, such as reading the same book, watching the same movies, or listening to the same music. This way you’ll have something to talk about when you run out of things to talk about.

  Which, I guarantee, you will.

  “They want me in New York for three days before heading to Chicago,” my mom told us over breakfast the next morning.

  She was going on a three-week tour for her latest etiquette book, and her publicist had been finalizing travel plans for weeks, which meant that every morning TJ, my dad, and I heard about flights and airports and local TV talk shows that would feature Patricia Abbott, etiquette guru, in a two-minute segment about the dos and don’ts of webiquette. That’s what my mom called it, transitioning from referring to her latest book as the authority on “online behavior” after her publisher suggested she come up with a catchier word that would resonate with a population spilling their guts on social media. In some perverse way, the whole reason she wrote the book in the first place was because of Josie and Luke. My best friend and my boyfriend. Who were boyfriend and girlfriend for a little while until Luke broke up with her in an email. At the time, my mom wasn’t so appalled that Josie and her boyfriend broke up, just that he would do it in such an impolite manner.

  It took my mother all of two days to pitch the idea for a new book to her agent and publisher, and a mere three weeks to fill 178 pages of dos and don’ts about emails, texts, social media, and anything Internet related. She dedicated three whole chapters to online dating, which, unbeknownst to me and my brother, meant that while I was finishing up my senior year in high school, my mother was trolling online dating sites, identifying everything that people were doing wrong in their quest for love. I’d had no idea that while I was chronicling my relationship with Luke in a notebook that would eventually result in my public humiliation at a school assembly, my mom was sitting at her laptop typing out her latest best seller.

  I buttered my English muffin and barely listened as my mom rattled off the latest itinerary for her tour. New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas… they all started to run together until I heard her say something that did not end with a first-class seat assignment. My name.

  “What about Emily?” I asked.

  My mother folded her hands on the table, weaving her fingers together deliberately, as if there was a precise position they had to be in when she spoke. I knew this meant only one thing: my mom was about to suggest something that was not up for debate. “I think you should come with me.”

  TJ choked a little on his orange juice and tried to cover it up with a cough that sounded about as genuine as the words that came after it. “That sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it, Emily?”

  TJ loved to mess with people. And he was good at it. Way better than I was, probably because, as the second born child of Polite Patty, he managed to emerge without the expectation that he’d be anything but the opposite of me—mainly I’d be the good one and he’d be the other one.

  “Go with you? Like on tour?” I asked, attempting to clarify what she meant (and hoping that I was wrong).

  She sat back in her chair, pleased that I understood her brilliant plan. “Exactly.”

  I looked over at my dad, expecting some help. I mean, he’d practically just moved back in after staying behind in Chicago for four months while his family moved back to Boston. Four long, winter months without his little girl. Lonely stretches of days missing his only daughter who would be heading to college at the end of the summer. Leaving the nest. This was his chance to step up and declare that I should stay home with him instead of playing sidekick to Polite Patty for three weeks.

  My dad pushed his coffee mug aside and swept the crumbs from his English muffin into the palm of his hand. “I think that’s a great idea.”

  I should have known better. Since the morning I woke up and discovered that my dad was back at our breakfast table instead of 867 miles away in Chicago, there hasn’t been so much as a disagreement about which brand of orange juice to buy (the pulp versus no pulp debate was one that used to occur on a daily basis in our house). I wasn’t sure if my dad didn’t want to rock the boat now that he was back, or he and my mom had come to some middle-aged meeting of the minds that resulted in a second honeymoon phase and a unified front that left no hope for my divide-and-conquer strategy.

  “But I’m supposed to babysit for the Brocks before heading down to the Cape with Josie and Lucy.” My appeal was met with patience, but it was obvious my pleas weren’t having any impact. “Mr. Holden is holding my job at the Scoop Shack until I get there.”

  “It’s just three weeks,” my mom assured me. “And it would be such a great experience for you.”

  “Following you around for three weeks? What kind of experience is that?”

  “I meant the traveling.” She frowned at me. “And there are worse things than assisting a best-selling author on her promotional tour to major cities while learning about the publishing industry. You’d think most girls would jump at the chance to go behind the scenes and visit TV and radio studios.”

  “That’s true.” My dad shrugged and exchanged a glance with my mom. Some sort of silent baton passing was taking place, and now it was up to him to get me to see how unreasonable I was being. “Come on, Emily. It’s a resume builder.�
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  Really? A resume builder? That was his strategy? I was all of one day out of high school and I was supposed to start thinking about building my resume?

  No. What I was supposed to be doing was sleeping late and hanging out at the beach with my friends before swirling ice cream cones at night for a few hours. I was supposed to enjoy spending the next couple of weeks with my boyfriend before he left for lacrosse camp. I’d spent all of high school doing everything right—the right clubs, the right volunteer activities, the right AP courses. Couldn’t I just spend the next few months relaxing?

  “But Luke and I don’t have a lot of time together before we both go away for the summer.” It was lame, bringing up the boyfriend, being the girl who couldn’t leave the guy. I never wanted to be that girl, but things were looking dire, and I was hoping to tug at their heartstrings just a little. After all, they liked Luke. I was their good kid, the reliable one, the child who always did what she was expected to do while TJ got away with just sliding by. TJ hadn’t even bothered to look for a summer job yet, and here I was with a babysitting gig until I left for the Cape and a job at the Scoop Shack. Granted, asking customers if they wanted a waffle cone or a cake cone didn’t exactly qualify as resume-building material, but I had four years of college for that.

  “Please don’t make me do this.” I practically held my hands together in prayer, bowing my head as I asked for their mercy at the altar of my breakfast plate and half-eaten English muffin.

  “You know, Emily, there’s something I think you’re forgetting.”

  I looked up and found my mom smiling, like she’d just remembered the most excellent thing that would make me rejoice at the idea of living out of a suitcase for three weeks.

  “What’s that?” I asked, a sliver of hope still alive.

  “Think of all the frequent flier miles you’ll earn.”

  The miles? I was supposed to give up three weeks with Luke and my friends so I could take advantage of the benefits of an airline loyalty program?

  “I don’t want miles, I want to be home,” I told her.

  “And you will be, I promise. The tour ends the last week of June. You’ll be on the Cape before July Fourth as planned.”

  One week at home, that was my consolation prize?

  “I know that right now you want to stay here, but by the time you graduate from college, you might be able to use those miles for a free flight somewhere great, like a trip to Europe or somewhere else really special,” my dad said, attempting to make me see the pot of gold at the end of the very distant rainbow.

  The decision was obviously made. I was going on a book tour with my mom. And I should be happy about it because one day I might be able to parlay my misery into a trip to Europe.

  It didn’t sound like a good trade-off at all. And I knew Luke wouldn’t think so, either.

  • • •

  It was a done deal negotiated without me—I was going on tour with my mom. After breakfast, I ran through the timeline in my head and tried to figure out how to make it all work. If there was one thing I’d learned from my mom, in addition to knowing that a dinner roll should be buttered one bite at a time, it was how to plan. The tour was over June twenty-fifth, and I was supposed to start work at the Scoop Shack on Friday, July second. I knew there was no way Josie’s dad would let me start any later. July Fourth weekend was the busiest time of the entire summer, which was why, when he agreed to let Lucy and me work there, we had to swear an oath on a banana split that we’d be available. That may be an exaggeration, but it’s not far off. He made us sign a contract. It wasn’t a legal contract, just a document stating that we’d be there on the date we promised and we’d work until we had to leave for school in August. Mr. Holden thought it would teach us what the real world was like, and he didn’t want us thinking that, just because the Holdens owned the Scoop Shack, it was any less of a real job.

  Back when Josie asked us if we wanted to spend the summer at her house on the Cape, Lucy and I had jumped at the offer. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in a beach house all summer? If all I had to do was scoop a few sundaes and mix a few milkshakes, I was up for that. Besides, we knew the Scoop Shack’s owner and our future boss, so we thought that gave us instant seniority (and preference over shifts). Josie’s dad bought his favorite childhood ice cream stand on Cape Cod when he sold his software company for a ton of money, and that made Josie—and, as her best friends, me and Lucy—practically in charge. The whole thing sounded downright cushy. And after the senior year I’d had, it was exactly what I needed—a low-pressure job with some serious side benefits (I didn’t care what my mom said; I’ll take free ice cream over airline miles any day).

  There was another reason I’d jumped at Mr. Holden’s job offer, though. Something I couldn’t help think about even if I didn’t admit it to Lucy and Josie when I’d said yes: it was a way for me to ensure that no matter what happened between me and Luke, I’d be okay. Although, at that point, we’d all put the whole notebook thing behind us, being with Luke still felt new and different. It felt real. I wasn’t pretending anymore. I wasn’t hiding behind a time capsule or trying to prove a point. I was exposed—not because the entire school knew what I’d done to Luke, but because the buffer I thought I’d put in place between us had been worn down and there was nothing left, like a protective scab that finally falls away, leaving only tender pink skin underneath. There was still a small part of me that wondered if Luke would change his mind—if he’d decide I wasn’t worth all the trouble I’d caused, or, even worse, that he could never really trust me again.

  I’d accepted the job at the Shack and prepared to spend the summer at Josie’s Cape house just in case. If Luke did break up with me, it wouldn’t matter. I was prepared. I was covered. I was with my best friends.

  When Lucy and I told Mr. Holden yes we’d just been accepted to college, and everything was moving so fast there was no way I could imagine how it would feel now. Which was like I wanted to press pause and hold onto what we had now just a little longer.

  No matter how many times I flipped through the calendar on my phone, it didn’t change the timing, or what I had a feeling would happen next. Josie and Lucy knew that when my mom made up her mind, she didn’t change it, and even if she did, I had already committed to babysit for the Brocks through the end of the month. My mom’s tour didn’t change our summer plans, even if they’d agree that spending the next three weeks in airport security lines was more punishment than resume builder. I wasn’t so optimistic about Luke. He didn’t know Polite Patty as well as Lucy and Josie, but he knew I couldn’t just refuse to go. What I could do, though, was tell Lucy and Josie that I wouldn’t arrive on the Cape until after Luke left for lacrosse camp.

  My summer job consisted of working in a red wooden barn with a six-foot tall plastic ice cream cone on its roof. I knew that Luke didn’t think making sundaes was nearly as vital as coaching a bunch of future lacrosse stars for six weeks. I also knew that Luke accepted the counselor position last summer, when the director asked if he’d like to come back as a coach instead of a player once he graduated. His choice was made way before we were together, before I’d even moved back from Chicago. It would never occur to me to ask him not to go, and I hoped he wouldn’t ask me to blow off leaving for the Cape until he went to camp. Not just because it wasn’t fair, but also because I didn’t want to have to choose.

  I decided to text Luke that I was heading over to his house. There was no point in waiting for a reply. It was barely ten o’clock and he was probably still asleep. It was Saturday, after all.

  • • •

  “Hi Mrs. Preston.” Luke’s mom was lacing up her sneakers in the kitchen when I knocked on the side door. She ran five miles every day and had been trying to recruit me to join her and experience what she called a runner’s high. High or not, while I appreciated that Luke got his athleticism from his mom, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be on the losing end of a race with a fifty-year-old woman. Thankfully, I’
d managed to politely avoid committing to join her any time soon.

  Mrs. Preston waved me into the kitchen.

  “Emily!” She stood up and came over to hug me.

  “Is Luke awake?” I asked.

  “He’s upstairs, but who knows if he’s even opened his eyes yet. Hopefully I’ll be back in less than thirty-five minutes.” Luke’s mom tapped the black digital watch she always wore on her wrist when she ran. “You can go on up.”

  It was just one of the differences between our families. Luke was not allowed anywhere near my bedroom if my parents weren’t home, and when they were, my mom always popped her head in for routine spot inspections, as if Luke and I would be tearing each other’s clothes off and going at it in my bed while my parents were downstairs cooking dinner. They may as well have placed yellow crime scene tape around my bed and installed a tripwire to detonate my pillow in a burst of feathers if we so much as laid our heads down together.

  I wasn’t sure they knew or didn’t know that Luke and I had slept together before everything blew up, or that under the glow-in-the-dark planets stuck to the ceiling above us in Luke’s room, he’d muttered something that sounded an awful lot like I love you and I heard myself whispering me, too. It wasn’t that my parents would be appalled or that I’d have to listen to lectures about being too young to have sex; after all, I’d been nothing if not responsible in my eighteen years. No, it was the horrifying thought of my mom feeling free to share her knowledge of STDs and methods of birth control, and the fear that I would become the subject of a new book on the etiquette of intercourse.

  I watched Mrs. Preston sprint out the kitchen door with a wave good-bye, and then headed upstairs to see Luke.

  The hallway leading to Luke’s room was quiet, and when I reached his door, I turned the knob slowly and silently. He was still in bed, curled up around his pillow with the comforter pushed to the side, exposing his bare legs. The hairs on his leg were already fading to a pale blond from spending every afternoon outside at lacrosse practice, and he had a faint tan line ringing his ankle where his socks stopped. The far window was cracked halfway open, and I could hear the birds singing outside, calling to each other from one tree to the next in a repetitive way that made me imagine their conversation consisted of you come here, no you come here over and over again.