The Summers

by Iva-Marie Palmer

I laughed. “Well, she was a little scary at that party,” I said. I’d told Becca about my face-to-face with Ashley. Since her souvenir metaphor, I couldn’t walk down the boardwalk without getting an ominous feeling as I passed the shops selling knickknacks and seashells.

  “But that’s crazy,” Becca said. “You know Ryan is a person, not a thing you just put in your pocket and take with you. Maybe you’ll have to do long-distance, or whatever, or maybe it doesn’t last forever, but it’s not like you’re ruining him for Harborville. She sounds like she has a giant chip on their shoulder.”

  I shrugged. I hadn’t brought it up to Ryan, and he’d never mentioned that his ex had been at the party. I did half wonder if that was why he’d wanted to leave so hastily. I wished I could ask him, but after I’d almost screwed things up by wanting to keep our relationship a secret, I decided it was better to let this one go.

  “I just wish she looked less like Mila Kunis with a chip on her shoulder, but I guess so. I mean, it seems like it’s really over, you know?” That was the other thing: Even though Ashley was extremely pretty, it was harder to picture her with Ryan than it was to see myself with him. From the way she’d spoken to the extreme precision with which she put herself together, I envisioned her as the kind of woman who’d always keep him waiting as she got ready, or who wanted to know the day’s plans before doing anything. Ryan seemed to appreciate my spontaneous side.

  “I think he really likes you,” Becca said, stopping the boat and sitting next to me on the low bench seat. “He talks about you at work sometimes, how you’re a writer and going to Berkeley and how great you are. I mean, it’s kind of sickening.”

  I swatted her. “Shut up,” I told her. “Maybe I’m worth it.”

  “Whatever,” she said. “But I’m glad you’re happy.”

  She opened our cooler and pulled out a bottle of water. After taking a long drink, she turned toward me with a faintly sly smile. “Can I talk to you about something?”

  Becca, I noticed, had gotten older. Obviously, that was the way things worked, but the person I saw before me was different from how I thought of her in my mind. When my mom died, she was only thirteen, and Tea was twelve. I’d always seen them as my two little sisters, like there was a big dividing line between the two of them and Eliza and me. I could still regard Tea as the baby, organizational chops aside, but it was clear to me that Becca wasn’t a kid any longer.

  “Of course,” I said just as my phone vibrated in my pocket. “Just hold on a second.”

  The message was from Ryan. “Know it’s last-minute, but can I see you tonight? It’s important.”

  I texted back that I was on the boat with Becca. “Later tonight?”

  “Was hoping before sundown. Like now. Sorry. I understand if you can’t.” I knew I was going to feel terrible for ditching, but suddenly the end of the summer glimmered on the horizon, and I felt a racing, urgent need to spend every second with Ryan possible. Becca and I could go boating later in the week, I decided. I texted that I’d meet him in the marina.

  “Becs . . . don’t hate me but, can we go back to shore?” I sheepishly peeked in the cooler, where Becca had packed food and my favorite strawberry icebox cake.

  “Wait, really?” Her look made me feel like the worst sister in the world, but I knew there was no going back now.

  “Ryan says it’s important. . . .”

  “Of course it’s important.” Becca turned away and started the boat. She didn’t look away from the shoreline the whole way back in. I started to think about how I’d make it up to her and what I could say, but I knew that Becca was best when she had some space.

  Ryan was waiting by our slip when we pulled in. Becca smiled pleasantly at him. “Hey, Ryan,” she said, and I felt some relief. If she were really upset, wouldn’t she have been angry with Ryan, too?

  “Hey, Becca. So, I heard you were making a delivery the other day,” he said. I suddenly felt both sick, and like I should dive in the water and swim far, far away. “That’s weird. For a cook to make deliveries. On her day off.”

  Becca’s eyes shot panicky darts in my direction, as if to say, tell him. “I’m going to go unload the boat.”

  I let her leave, then turned to Ryan with my best Who, me? puppy-dog look. He cut the tension by laughing, and raised an eyebrow. “So you wanted to know more about Ashley,” he said.

  “I know way too much about her now,” I said, feeling a little sick to my stomach but relieved that this was at least out in the open now. “I met her at the party, you know. We had a weird conversation. Sorry for not bringing it up.” I felt my face heat up. “Did you know all along?”

  “Katie, Katie.” He used my nickname in a chiding tone, but there was a lightness to it. “You can’t make a delivery from my restaurant without me knowing. Especially when the receiver didn’t make the order.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Did she come to the restaurant?”

  “Yeah, but not ’til today. Typical Ashley, I had my hands full with two orders and she wanted me to literally drop everything.” He shook his head and it wasn’t one of those fond that’s-just-like-Ashley shakes, but more an annoyed one. “Anyway, she told me she was just going to let it go, but then she met you at the party and I guess needed to inform me of my bad decisions. I think there was more, but I told her we had a date and she stormed off.”

  “I’m sure she was thrilled to have your conversation cut short so you could come meet me,” I said, and then felt a little bad. I had started it after all.

  He smirked. “She must be threatened by how gorgeous and smart you are.” He leaned in to kiss me, and some of my worries slipped away.

  “If you wanted to know about my ex, you could have asked,” he said, whispering in my ear. “Though I kind of like that you were jealous.”

  Becca must have been eavesdropping because she’d been moving extra slowly to take things off the boat. Noticing that the storm had passed, she tugged on the cooler and hefted the boating supplies off the dock. She’d gone to a lot of trouble for such an abbreviated trip. I’d definitely make it up to her.

  “Want some help?” Ryan asked.

  Becca shook her head. “No big deal,” she said. “I’ll be fine on my own. Just ask Kate.”

  The comment stung, but I wasn’t about to start this conversation with her when Ryan was standing right there. We would have to talk later.

  “Thanks for sharing her,” Ryan called after her.

  Becca wheeled the cooler past us with a halfhearted wave as she threw everything into the car and sped off. Ryan and I were alone.

  My face still warm, I asked: “So, was that what was important? The Ashley thing?”

  “Nah,” Ryan said. “I just like messing with you.” He took my hand guided me toward his truck.

  “We’re driving somewhere?” I asked, surprised. I looked down at my cutoff shorts and T-shirt. “Am I dressed okay?”

  “You’re fine. We’re not going to prom or anything. Just something I want to show you.” He opened my door for me and I got inside, curious. The Ryan glide was missing a little, and he seemed somehow fidgety, tinkering with the rearview, constantly changing the song on his iPod.

  We pulled onto Route 28, which was technically a highway that ran through the Cape, but was charmingly low-key. We drove past lines of houses and shops, shaded beneath a lush canopy of full green trees. I closed my eyes, letting the breeze coming in my window and wash over me. Ryan found a Black Keys song and let it play. We listened and drove, the cars in front and behind us filled with families heading back from the beach. In a few months, these streets would be mostly silent again, as vacation ended and fall reclaimed lives with new starts and responsibilities.

  “You know about Castaway Lighthouse, right?”

  “Yes, I went there once as a kid,” I said. Castaway Lighthouse was a few towns up the Cape from Harborvill
e. Ten years back, it had been badly damaged in a hurricane. Perched on the same cliff had been a famous restaurant inside an old mansion, which had also closed due to extreme damage.

  If we were going to the lighthouse, I didn’t quite understand why. It had been beautiful once, but it was still roped off. I remember lawn signs from a campaign a few years ago, when a Massachusetts congressman had rallied to get funds to restore it and reopen as a museum, but didn’t have any luck.

  Instead of taking the road that led toward the lighthouse, Ryan veered toward the old restaurant. Gravel crunched under the truck’s tires. I looked down, wondering how stable the roads were here since the hurricane.

  When we reached the summit, he pulled next to the mansion. Though it was faded and water-damaged, you could still see the shimmer of the sunset-orange paint beneath the dust and weathering. Since it had once been a home, massive picture windows stood on either side of the French doors. The glass had been blown out and you could see inside, to where the previous owners had opened the main rooms into one large dining area, with a viewable kitchen area off to one side. A huge verandah unfolded off the back of the home onto the cliff side, giving you a view of the water and the entire Cape as it stretched out on either side. It was truly breathtaking.

  “They don’t want as much for it as you’d think,” Ryan said behind me.

  I spun to face him. “Who doesn’t?”

  “A bank owns it now. After the insurance settlement, the previous owner just turned over the mortgage because he didn’t have the energy to restore the place. And, there’s actually some grant money to fix things up because it’s a historic site.”

  I wasn’t sure if I was following. “So . . . you want to buy it? And then do what with it?” The question came out sounding a little accusatory. I thought Ryan flinched a bit as my words reached him, but he rebounded with a smile.

  “This would be my restaurant,” he said. “And something totally different from the other places on the Cape. I think if the menu is special enough, we might get East Coasters year-round, like some of the best places in Nantucket.”

  I thought of him cooking for me, and at his parents. I had assumed that was just for fine-tuning the menu at Landrys’ to get the younger crowd and bring in new business. I’d had no idea he wanted to be a real chef, let alone a restaurateur. Definitely not to the point that he saw himself running a restaurant this enormous, nor as high-profile as it would be if it became what he was talking about.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “That I’m not a trained chef. But there are schools where I can finish in the off-season, while the renovations are under way. And I have ideas anyway. I could really start developing a menu tomorrow.” He looked at me eagerly.

  “So even if you go back to school, you’d want to open a restaurant here?” I said.

  “Yeah, absolutely.” He nodded. “Harborville boy for life.”

  I thought back to the conversation with Ashley. She’d been right about some things, but wrong about others. Ryan had his own dreams without me putting them in his head. He was talented and I felt as strongly about that as I did about him. But she was right about him belonging to Harborville, through and through. This was what he wanted, to be here, and to create a future here. He didn’t really belong to my world, except as maybe a memory I’d store somewhere amid the pieces of the new life I’d build when I had to move on from the summer. When I looked at my life for the next few years, I saw Berkeley, and then nothing. Not “nothing” in a bad way—more like one of the blank pages in my writing notebook, a wide-open space for me to fill in. When Ryan looked at his, he was here. With all the details clear in his head.

  “So, you’re in it for the long haul?” I asked again, though I already knew the answer. I wasn’t sure what my expression said, but I could tell Ryan was disappointed.

  His maintained a semblance of a smile. “Isn’t that the dream? Simple life, beautiful family, live on the beach year-round?”

  I offered him a weak grin in return, not because it was my dream, but because I understood now that it was his.

  “So, what do you think? Can you imagine yourself as a Harborville girl?”

  I let my mind drift. I could picture getting serious with Ryan. I could picture his restaurant, and even him in it—running the kitchen the way he did at his family’s restaurant, but this time, in a space filled with white tablecloths, the sun setting over the ocean in the background. But when I tried to get past the summer, my summer, I just saw myself at Berkeley. I saw my first trip down the hall of my dorm, my first moments inside my room, my first huge and anonymous lecture hall course. And I was alone. Just me, and a new start. My chance to figure out who I was, to not be the girl with the dead mother, to not just be Eliza’s little sister, or one of the Sommers girls.

  “You can’t, can you?”

  He wasn’t looking at me, but was facing the boarded-up restaurant. His light green eyes were darkened by his thoughts, as they roved over the coast, past me, past everything. In that moment, he was farther away from me than he’d been when we’d argued about keeping us a secret.

  I took his hand in mine and squeezed it, leaning against his shoulder. He pulled me close. I was relieved he wasn’t angry, and that had to mean something about us, but I knew it didn’t mean that I saw myself here forever.

  “We always have the summer,” I told him, dusk falling fast, as if to remind us that time wasn’t really on our side. The summer had felt so infinite just weeks ago, but the days were getting shorter already.

  Real life would rush in as swiftly as the night, and Ryan and I had different paths to take.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up with intent. No matter what was going on with me and Ryan, I did need to start thinking about Berkeley and my classes. I cared for him, a lot, and I didn’t want to hurt him, but I also didn’t want to be so carried away by romance that I forgot to think about my future. Ryan’s future was right here, but mine was a coast away. I had to be ready for it.

  I took a few of my required reading books down to the main house, along with a few of the short stories I’d finally finished and wanted to review. I didn’t have to work at Grace’s today.

  Becca was nursing her own cup of coffee and staring off into space from her seat at the kitchen counter.

  “Hey, Becs,” I said. “Sorry again about yesterday. Ryan just had something really important to talk to me about, and I couldn’t make him wait. How was your night?”

  She just swirled her mug of coffee and didn’t look at me. “We’re almost out of coffee creamer,” she said, more to the room than to me. “I’ll put it on the list.”

  I waved her off. “I’ll do it,” I said. “I can run by the store this afternoon.”

  “As long as nothing more important comes up,” Becca said. Her normally raspy voice was flat and barely carried.

  When we’d parted ways yesterday, I’d thought we were okay—or at least that we’d be able to talk about it if we weren’t. And I’d been apologetic, hadn’t I? Or did I not say sorry? I played back our abbreviated outing and realized my interest had been so piqued by Ryan’s invitation that I’d asked her to steer me back without a second thought. Right after she’d wanted to tell me something.

  “Becca, I realized how crappy I was yesterday with the Ryan thing. I completely blew you off, and you’d been about to tell me about something important.” I approached her at the counter and put a hand on her shoulder blade. She didn’t exactly brush me off, but her back tensed beneath my hand.

  She nodded toward my Berkeley reading. “Don’t you have some reading to do?” She turned toward me and I saw that her eyes were watery around the rims. “It will be so nice for you to get completely away from the rest of us. First stop, Mom’s studio, next stop, California.”

  A ball of guilt formed in the pit of my stomach. Had I really bee
n pulling away so much that I seemed eager to leave them behind? “Will you please just talk to me about what was important yesterday?”

  “The big problem is, it was important yesterday and today it’s already done,” she said. “I already lost my virginity. I can’t get it back to see if my big sister thought it was a good idea.”

  What? The information headed straight to my gut. As did the words “big sister.” I sometimes was so busy being Eliza’s little sister that I forgot Becca was mine.

  “With who?”

  “Why does it matter?” Becca asked, with narrowed eyes that said she didn’t think I deserved to know.

  “You know it matters,” I told her. “And you know you want to tell someone. I had Eliza to talk to when it happened with Matt.”

  Becca pulled Middlemarch off of my pile of books and flipped through it. For half a second, I thought she was going to pluck a name off its pages to use as the identity of her deflowerer. Maybe “Tertius Lydgate” didn’t sound like a Harborville name, because instead, she tossed the book back on the counter like it was another symbol of all the ways I’d failed her.

  “Garrett Landry,” she said. “There, you know now. You’ve fulfilled your sister-bonding time quota for the summer and can be on your way.”

  I nodded. I had had a feeling she was going to say Garrett. I may have been a little MIA for the summer, but I wasn’t blind.

  “I don’t want to be on my way,” I said, making my voice firm. “I know I’ve been distant this summer. I think with all the wedding stuff I was trying to finally stake out my own life away from Eliza. And then Ryan happened. So I got caught up in what everything meant for me.”

  “And you forgot that I need a big sister, too? Just like you need Eliza more than you think?”

  I laughed. “You’re like the double-whammy champion of guilt-inducing comments,” I told her. She was right: As much as I was annoyed with Eliza, I also felt at times like I was losing her. Even going out with Ryan wasn’t just about finally making something of Eliza’s mine, but about declaring my separateness from her. It was a little lonely. I could only imagine what Becca had been going through. “But yeah. And right now, I don’t matter. What about you? Are you okay? Did things go badly?”