Next Summer

by Hailey Abbott

  “Very funny. I don’t see any reason why you and I should sit here and kill ourselves putting that thing on wrong.”

  “So…you think sticking your boobs into the road will make someone else do it?”

  Ella rolled her eyes. “Duh. That’s what boys are for.”

  “Wow,” Kelsi said. “That’s really deep, Ella. I’m impressed.”

  “Check it out,” Ella interrupted, sounding smug. She flashed a cat-ate-the-canary grin at Kelsi. “Can I deliver, or what?” She gave her cleavage a quick pat, which made Kelsi roll her eyes.

  Kelsi turned slowly and watched a red pickup truck roll to a stop just a few feet away. Inevitably, the buff young cowboy-type behind the wheel was entirely focused on Ella’s chest.

  “You ladies look like you could use a hand,” he said, which Kelsi found so beyond patronizing she almost keeled over with rage, but Ella shot her a warning glance.

  “And you look like you have the kind of hands we need,” Ella told the guy. He all but preened.

  “I can’t believe you,” Kelsi muttered.

  “Watch and learn,” Ella shot back, and sashayed over to the guy.

  About fifteen minutes later, Brian the Helping Hand was back in his pickup truck, and the Tuttle sisters had a freshly changed tire. And a phone number scribbled on the back of an old 7-Eleven receipt, which Ella threw carelessly into the ashtray.

  Kelsi started the car and pulled back into traffic.

  “You can thank me anytime,” Ella murmured, still smug.

  “Now I really can’t believe you,” Kelsi retorted.

  There was silence. Then, somehow, Kelsi found herself smiling. “‘Oh, Brian!’” She mimicked Ella’s flirtatious simper. “‘You’re just so strong!’”

  Ella let out one of her trademark snorts. “Hey,” she said, “whatever works. I didn’t want to change that tire. Did you? We didn’t even know where to start.”

  “‘Oh, Brian, I can’t believe how masterfully you work those lug nuts!’”

  Ella laughed. “I never said that— I’m not a complete ditz!”

  “You define ‘ditz,’” Kelsi corrected her. “You do it on purpose.”

  There was a quiet moment again while Kelsi switched lanes.

  “I really am sorry,” Ella said quietly. “About Peter, and…everything. I wish I could undo it somehow, seriously. I never wanted to hurt you. I’m not even sure how it all got so out of control.”

  Kelsi thought about that for a moment. “So it was you he was with all summer,” she said. “Not that girl from the restaurant, the one who worked with him.”

  Ella sighed. “No, I think he was sleeping with her, too. Bastard.”

  “And what about this summer?” Kelsi couldn’t seem to stop asking questions, even though she was terrified that the answer was going to hurt her even more. If Peter and Ella had hooked up again this summer, it would be even worse. Maybe because it was closer. Or because she and Ella were closer. “Why was he texting you?”

  “I don’t know,” Ella said. “It came out of nowhere. I think maybe he saw me around town or something.”

  Kelsi thought she was going to have to see a dentist if she continued to grind her teeth like she was doing. She forced herself to stop.

  “And…?” The words came slowly. “Did you…see him again?”

  “God, no,” Ella said, and let out a bark of laughter. “I mean, I saw him in the sense that I looked down a street and saw him being a disgusting sleaze with some poor unsuspecting girl.” She told Kelsi about the redhead and the brunette. “But that was it. There’s been no actual contact. I swear.”

  Kelsi felt herself ease up. So Peter hadn’t specifically chosen Ella. He was simply a slimeball, and maybe that shouldn’t make her feel any better, but it did.

  “Don’t sleep with any of my boyfriends again,” Kelsi said, deadly serious. “Don’t even flirt. Just so you understand, if you ever do, I’ll never speak to you again. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Ella whispered. Kelsi thought she might even be crying a little.

  “I’m your sister,” Ella said weakly after a moment and snuffled a bit. “You think I don’t know what that means, but I do.”

  “I hope that’s true,” Kelsi said quietly.

  After a few minutes, Ella shifted in her seat and looked at Kelsi directly.

  “By the way,” she said, “I wasn’t flirting with Tim.”

  Kelsi bit her lip. “I don’t want to talk about Tim.”

  “Okay.” Ella shrugged. “But he wasn’t flirting with me, either.”

  “Ella, I was sitting right here,” Kelsi snapped at her. “I saw—”

  “Who knows about flirting, you or me?” Ella interrupted. “He was funny and he was talkative, but he was not flirting with me. He was being friendly. Believe me, I know the difference.”

  “I don’t…” Kelsi broke off.

  “He’s into you,” Ella said.

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it!” Kelsi insisted, because when she thought about Tim, something surged inside, and she had the suspicion that it was fear. Fear that he would never talk to her again, or make her laugh, or smirk in that smart-ass way of his. It suddenly seemed that the loss of those things might actually cripple her. And that feeling wasn’t something she could even begin to share with Ella.

  Though she did kind of like the fact that Ella thought Tim was into her.

  “What about you?” Kelsi asked her sister. “You’ve been out so late every night. I know it’s paranoid, but I really did think you and Peter…”

  Ella gathered her blonde hair back with both hands and groaned.

  “A world of no,” she said with a sigh. “It was Jeremy, but that’s pretty much a total bust. I don’t think he likes me much.”

  “What do you mean?” Kelsi asked.

  Ella gave her the rundown on the Jeremy situation, and soon Kelsi was laughing despite herself.

  “So,” Ella finished, after lots of hand waving and eye rolling, “he obviously thinks I’m like a sexual predator or whatever. Right?”

  A cruelness stirred in Kelsi then. She wanted to shrug, and say Of course not in that way that meant Yeah, he does, just to wound Ella. But Ella clearly cared about Jeremy. For the first time in her life, Kelsi’s little sister was seriously in doubt over whether or not a guy was into her. Kelsi could see the flush high on Ella’s cheeks and the confusion in her round brown eyes.

  Kelsi realized she couldn’t bring herself to deliberately hurt Ella. She was starting to understand that her anger toward Ella had almost nothing to do with Peter. It went deeper than that—back to their childhood, when pretty, confident Ella had been the one who got all the attention.

  But Ella was just…Ella. She couldn’t help drawing all the attention her way, or the fact that boys flocked to her. Being mad at Ella for being Ella seemed unfair and pointless, Kelsi thought. That would be like yelling at the ocean for its waves.

  There was a part of Kelsi that was still angry, but there was a much bigger part that loved her sister, no matter what. And now, she wanted to help her.

  “You idiot,” Kelsi said, almost fondly. “Have you even thought about being subtle?”

  28

  Beth barely let Kelsi and Ella get out of the car before she was spilling every horrible detail of George’s discovery right there outside the cottages.

  “And now I don’t know what to do,” she concluded. Beth knew she sounded hysterical, but she couldn’t help it. “No one’s even seen George since last night and what if he, like, decided to walk back to Boston or something? Anything could happen to him! He could be picked up by some serial killer and—”

  “Okay,” Ella said, cutting her off. “You need to breathe and think rationally for maybe one minute here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Beth said. She closed her eyes and breathed, but it didn’t make her feel any better. She wasn’t sure she’d ever feel better. She’d been up all night, and all day she’d alternated between crying on h
er bed in the fetal position—the one that George was so familiar with—and wandering around Pebble Beach looking for George, ignoring Adam’s calls.

  “First, we need a drink,” Ella declared. “We had a long drive, and you’re having a crisis, and I believe I have the perfect cure.”

  “I can only imagine what that means,” Kelsi said, and Ella snorted with laughter. Beth noticed the look they exchanged—friendly and possibly even affectionate. Apparently, they’d done some bridge-building on their road trip, but she didn’t have the emotional energy to ask about it.

  Ella hoisted up her bag and headed for the house. “Our room in, like, five minutes,” she called over her shoulder. “I’m hitting Dad’s liquor cabinet.”

  “So,” Kelsi said, crossing her arms and turning to look at Beth directly once the screen door slammed shut behind Ella. “When you say ‘Adam,’ do you mean the Adam I’m supposedly dating?”

  Beth wanted to burst into tears, until she saw Kelsi’s smile and realized her cousin was okay with that part. She probably had never really been that into Adam. Beth sighed with relief. At least that was one less person she had betrayed.

  Later, Beth and her cousins lounged across the beds in Ella and Kelsi’s room. Ella had scored a bottle of vodka, a carton of orange juice, and three glasses, which she’d set out with elaborate ceremony. She began mixing drinks immediately.

  “We’re lucky Dad never checks his alcohol,” Ella said.

  “What makes you think he doesn’t?” Kelsi asked, taking her drink from Ella. “I always figured he knows we help ourselves sometimes, but he wants to be the fun dad who lets us do stuff like that in the summer.”

  Ella stared at her sister. “That’s sick.”

  “But possibly true,” Kelsi said, laughing. Ella looked disturbed by the possibility.

  “Suddenly,” she said, “this is less fun.”

  “How was Jamie?” Beth asked, swirling her drink around in the glass, wanting to forget about herself for a while.

  “She’s great,” Kelsi said, turning to look at Beth. “I think academic life really agrees with her.”

  “She thinks you’re crazy to pick some random surfer guy over George,” Ella added, sipping daintily from her drink. “She said, and I quote, ‘But Beth’s been in love with George for years.’”

  “You told her what happened?” Beth didn’t know whether to be outraged or touched.

  “Like that’s a surprise!” Kelsi laughed, and settled back against her headboard. “Ella thinks it’s her duty to be the Tuttle family version of The Enquirer.”

  “Please!” Ella fluttered her lashes dramatically. “I’m US Weekly, thank you very much!”

  Beth snuck another look at Kelsi. She really did seem okay about Adam, but Beth couldn’t help feeling even worse because she hadn’t considered her cousin’s feelings for even a second. And there she’d been, so quick to judge Ella for basically doing the same thing. Some loyal family member she was.

  “Of course, Jamie wants to know about your drama,” Ella was saying. “What else is she going to do? She’s in summer school. She’s, like, convent girl. She’s pining for stories from the beach.”

  “What am I? A soap opera?”

  “You said it, Bethy, not me.” Ella giggled.

  Beth groaned. “You guys. Help me. I want George back, but I keep thinking about Adam…”

  “This is actually simple,” Kelsi said, assuming her Big Sister voice. “You need to choose the boy for you. George or Adam.”

  “Ooh!” Ella chimed in, scooting closer on the bed. “We can make a list!”

  “How can I just make a choice like that?” Beth asked. “This is pretty major.”

  “It’s like making a college decision,” Kelsi said. “You can agonize about all the pros and cons of all the available choices, but then at the end, it’s really about which one you just know in your gut is right.”

  Beth searched herself for an answer, but nothing came. “I think I just…I really ruined everything.”

  All three of them were quiet then, until Ella started fussing around the room, topping off their drinks. Beth had slept so little in the past few nights that she already felt buzzed. It was definitely an improvement from how she’d been feeling earlier, she thought as she took another gulp.

  “George hates me,” Beth said mournfully. “And I can’t really blame him, you know?”

  “He loves you,” Ella replied, flopping back down on the bed without spilling her drink. “Come on, Beth. You know that.”

  Beth thought about that for a minute. She and George had always had this intense affection for each other. It was uncomplicated. Effortless. They were soul mates.

  In that moment, it suddenly seemed very clear. All this time, Adam was merely a George proxy. A stand-in, someone she transferred all her feelings to because she was lonely. G-2, indeed. Not to say that she wasn’t attracted to Adam in his own right. But Beth realized that the connection she had with George was irreplaceable. George was irreplaceable.

  But would he ever forgive her?

  Beth sighed and stared at the contents of her glass. “He used to love me. But I keep remembering the look on his face. What he must have thought in that moment…” She broke off, and then downed the rest of her drink so quickly her throat burned.

  “We need a plan,” Kelsi said firmly. “You should rent one of those planes and write an apology in the sky. It’s a grand gesture. It should at least get him to talk to you.”

  “No, no, no!” Ella shook her head. “Nobody reads those things.”

  “I do.” Kelsi was grinning.

  “Beth, listen to me,” Ella said. “I may not be a genius, but if there’s anything I do know about, it’s boys. Take it from a girl with experience. You have to go the romantic route. You know, like dinner at that expensive place in town, or some begging in public.”

  “How is that better than skywriting?” Kelsi asked.

  “Will you stop with that?” Ella retorted.

  “Oh, because your date plan is actually going to work?” Kelsi rolled her eyes. “Bethy, you’d have better luck throwing George in the back of the car and holding him hostage until he promised to talk things out.”

  “Now that’s more like it!” Ella said. She turned to Beth, her eyes bright. “We could totally work that. One of us can drive, and all the other two have to do is jump him and drag him into the car, which shouldn’t be too hard ‘cause he is pretty skinny.”

  “Guys!” Beth was laughing, grateful to feel tipsy. “I think you’re missing the bigger problem,” she said, aware she was slurring slightly.

  “Have another drink,” Ella urged her, passing over the vodka bottle.

  “I don’t even know where George is,” Beth said. “The first thing I need to do is find him.”

  “Here’s my final piece of advice,” Ella said wisely. “Let George have his space for a while, but don’t give up on him. Believe me, boys are sensitive, but they can take a surprising amount of abuse. He’ll forgive you.”

  But every time Beth remembered the ravaged look in George’s eyes, she wasn’t so sure.

  29

  Tim wasn’t the only one with secret places scattered around Pebble Beach, Kelsi thought later that afternoon as she made her way down the side of the bluff on the other side of the cottages. All you had to do was get about a fifth of the way down the rocky outcropping, and there was a comfortable ledge to sit on. Kelsi liked to perch there and watch the schooners go by on the sea below, their sails proud and full against the wind as they headed up the coast to Camden and Bar Harbor.

  She was almost to her secret spot when she heard someone cough from down on the ledge. Great. All she wanted was to be alone and think, and maybe see a pretty sailboat. And she felt unreasonably annoyed that someone else apparently knew about the place she considered hers and hers alone.

  “Hey,” George said when Kelsi took that final jump and landed on the ledge, breathing hard. She did a double take, surprised
he’d turned up so suddenly.

  “Uh, hi,” Kelsi said. She brushed the dirt off of her hands. “I didn’t know anyone knew about this hideout.”

  “Beth and I followed you here once a couple summers ago,” George said with a faint smile. “Sorry.”

  “No problem,” Kelsi said. She went and sat next to him, crossing her legs and staring out at the water. There was just the faintest breeze, bringing the smell of pine from below.

  George sighed, and Kelsi faced him. She figured the stunned, hollow look in his eyes meant he hadn’t gotten much sleep.