The Summer of Letting Go

by Gae Polisner

  “It’s my fault,” I say. “I should have made sure he was drinking.”

  “It’s not anyone’s fault, Francesca. Just one of those things.” Her red heels click across the linoleum. Mr. Habberstaad walks on her other side. He’s been so sweet and fatherly, not at all the gruff man I met in his office that first day. “Of course, they’ll want to hold him here for a few hours to run some routine tests and keep a general eye on things, make sure his temperature goes down. And they do have to make sure there’s no infection—that it wasn’t an episode of endocarditis.” I turn to her, alarmed, and she adds quickly, “But they doubt it was, and they don’t seem worried at all. At any rate, if all his blood work comes back negative, they’ll discharge him this evening, or first thing in the morning, latest.”

  “I want to stay with him.”

  “Don’t be silly, Francesca. Frankie’s grandpa is on his way. You say a quick hello to him and then let Mr. Habberstaad take you home. You must be exhausted.”

  “But what about his heart?” I ask cautiously.

  “Other than confirming that there’s no infection—and there won’t be—so far everything sounds quiet on the EKG.”

  “Everything?”

  She nods and shrugs. “Absolutely no evidence of a tear.” My eyes widen and I open my mouth to ask more, but she presses a finger to her lips. “Shush,” she says, smiling, “never question a good thing when you have one.”

  We reach triage. Frankie sits on the stretcher with his sunglasses on. “Beans!” he says when he sees me. “You is blue again!”

  “Believe me, Frankie,” I say, hugging him, “now that I see you, I am the total opposite of blue.”

  • • •

  I lie in bed and stare out my dark window, then glance at my cell phone on my nightstand—3:04 a.m.

  Lately, there’s been a whole lot of not sleeping going on.

  I pick up my cell, grateful that Bradley dropped it home to me. I check for a text from Lisette, but there won’t be any. There were none at midnight, and I’m sure there won’t be any now.

  I grab Fisher Frog and hug him to my chest. Of course, I’m happy and relieved that Frankie is okay, but that doesn’t solve the mess I’ve made with Lisette.

  Lisette, my former and only best friend, ever, in the world.

  Not a single text from her since this afternoon.

  I raise Fisher Frog above me and whisper, “How do we make such big messes of things, Fisher Frog? That is what I want to know.” But he just dangles his arms and legs, one plastic eye glinting at me. “Lots of help you are,” I say, tossing him to the foot of my bed.

  Maybe I should send Lisette a note, try to explain things. But I don’t know what I could say that would possibly make anything right.

  Hey, Lisette, real sorry I kissed your boyfriend, but you’ve had plenty of them, so what’s one less, right? Plus, I think I’m in love with him, so could you maybe go easy on me?

  Geez, who could blame her for hating me?

  I turn on the light, walk to my closet, and slide out my old wooden step stool. On the high shelf is a small shoe box where I keep my most prized possessions. My baby-name bracelet strung with pink and white square letter beads. A ribbon I won for a poem I wrote in third grade. A piece of ruby beach glass I found before Simon died.

  Only one last thing to do.

  I carry the box over, place it on my bed, and find my half of our hot pink enamel heart pendant. They were a present to each other the first Christmas Simon was gone. Lisette’s mother had taken us to the mall to go shopping.

  “See? Our hearts are one together,” Lisette had said giddily, latching my half around my neck, still at the store counter.

  “And broken if separated,” I had answered, latching the other around hers.

  With them secured around our necks, she had moved so close to me that our breath mixed, so she could hold her half against mine. They fit together perfectly, like puzzle pieces.

  “Let’s always wear these, even when we’re old, okay? And let’s never fight or do anything mean to each other, like keep secrets, or break promises, or anything bad like that. If we do”—Lisette fake snapped them apart in a dramatic motion and stepped back—“each of us will have our hearts broken. So we have to promise, Beans, okay? We have to swear never to break the other person’s heart.”

  I had panicked. “But what if we do, Lisette? What if I hurt you and don’t mean to? What if I can’t be . . .” I had stopped, dumb tears filling my eyes, but we both knew the end of the sentence: What if I can’t be trusted? And how could I be trusted when I had just let my own brother die?

  “Don’t be silly, Beans. Of course you can!” She pulled me back in and pushed our pendant halves together. “See, each of our pieces is nothing alone. But when you put them together, they’re totally perfect, like we are.”

  “But what if I do, Zette? What if I mess up? I have to know. I’m not keeping mine unless I know.”

  She had dropped my half and rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine. If you ever mess up—if either of us does—”

  “Even by accident.”

  “Even by accident, then we give our half back to the other person. That way we don’t have their heart anymore, and they can give it to a new, better friend. How’s that? It’s a perfect solution.”

  “Good,” I had said, but I’d made us pinkie swear before I could feel relaxed again.

  Then, at the beginning of ninth grade, we decided to take them off, that they were juvenile, so we put them away for safekeeping.

  “For our thirtieth birthdays, we’ll take them out and wear them,” Lisette had said as we ceremoniously wrapped them and sealed them away.

  Now the thought of sending my half back literally breaks my heart, but I know it’s what I have to do. She’ll know it’s permission, and I owe her that. She’ll know exactly what it means.

  I walk to my desk with the pendant clutched so tightly, it leaves indents in my palm, and pull a piece of loose leaf from my drawer. I stick the pendant to the center with Scotch tape, then fold the paper around it and fasten the sides.

  On the front I write, Lisette, please know that I am sorry, Beans. Then I leave it on my desk, turn out my lights, and pray I can sleep until morning.

  forty-one

  I bike over to Lisette’s house early, drop the package in her mailbox, and go home to wait for her to text or call. Better yet, for her to march on over, hands on hips, toss the package back at me in exasperation, and say, You know, Francesca Beans Schnell, you are so very stupid. Of course we are still friends. We have always been friends, and we will always be friends. Just because you made a mistake doesn’t mean I’ll never forgive you.

  I check the mailbox fifty times.

  I check my cell phone.

  I check e-mail.

  But there’s no marching back.

  Nothing from Lisette comes all day.

  And why would it? I screwed up. I betrayed her. We’re not little kids anymore.

  Lisette is done with me, and has every right to be.

  I’ve got no one to blame but myself.

  • • •

  By the next morning, I still haven’t heard from her. Somehow, I need to go on with my day.

  I call Mrs. Schyler, who says Frankie’s fever is gone, so it’s okay if I want to come over.

  I do. I am desperate to see Frankie Sky.

  Not to mention to get out of the house. Mom and Dad keep giving me endless concerned looks. But I don’t know what to tell them. The truth is, I’m worried about me, too.

  I’m heartbroken about Frankie and Lisette. Plus, Bradley keeps texting, and I’m trying (trying!), but I’m heartbroken about him, too. How can I want to be with a person so badly, even when I know that it’s wrong?

  Mostly, I’ve refrained, only texted back when he checked in about Frankie. And even that was hard to resist:

  Him: How’s Frankie doing?

  Me: Better! Thanks.

  Him: Glad to hear.
>
  Me: Did u talk to Lisette?

  Him: Sort of.

  Me: Is she okay?

  Him: No. Mad.

  Me: I feel awful.

  Him: Me too. Btw, did u kno male fiddler crabs have a yellow love-claw they wave around to fight off other males?

  See? How do I resist that?

  Yet, somehow, I do. Since then, we haven’t texted at all.

  So, then, I’m turning over a new leaf.

  Doing the right thing.

  No more cookies for me. No matter how delicious they are.

  Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

  So why do I feel so awful?

  • • •

  I walk up the Schylers’ driveway. Frankie watches me from the window.

  I can see from his face that he’s feeling better, but also that Mrs. Schyler has told him that they’re moving away. Don’t ask me how I can tell such things from the window like that. It’s just how it is between Frankie Sky and me.

  Still, I’m glad he knows, because I feel too sad about everything to keep faking it.

  I walk slowly up the front steps, feeling the weight of the fact that there will only be a few more times I get to see him.

  He opens the door, but doesn’t let me in, rather steps out and shuts it quickly, squishing Potato in half. The dog yelps. “I said no, Tato!” he says, opening the door again so Potato can squeeze back inside.

  Frankie stands on the stoop in his bare feet, blue Batman underwear, and no shirt, looking a lot like the first day I came here. Only today he has no towel cape, which I guess means he won’t try to fly.

  He puts his hands on his hips and looks at me. There’s a tattoo on his stomach—one of those press-on kinds— Superman, arms raised in the air. And a second on his arm of the Incredible Hulk or the Green Hornet, or some other superhero who is green.

  “Hey, Beans,” he says. “I seed you from the window.”

  “I seed you seeing me, Frankie.”

  He nods approvingly and sits on the steps with a loud sigh. I sit down next to him.

  “Frankie Sky is moving,” he says.

  “Yeah. I heard. It makes me pretty sad. But also, I’m happy for you, too, you know? Because you’ll like Joey a lot, and your mom likes him so much, and that makes her happy, which is good.”

  “Yep,” he says. “But I is blue. And Beans is blue. And not the glasses kind.”

  “A little,” I say, leaning against him.

  He rests his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands and he thinks like that for a while. “Don’t be blue, Beans,” he says finally, “because Frankie Sky knows how to swim. And Beans teached him just like she said.”

  “Taught,” I say. “I taught you how to swim.” Even though, as I say it, I doubt that it’s true, that I had anything to do with Frankie knowing how to swim.

  “Taught, right! Beans taughted me.”

  I giggle. “Well, I think you pretty much taught yourself how to swim, Frankie.” He nods, but doesn’t say anything.

  I look out across the street and think of the first day I met him, and the day at the club when he dove in and nearly drowned. How I dove in after him without even knowing if I remembered how to swim. I think of the way the sun sparkled down on us as he moved through the water like a frog, and how he smiled at me.

  It’s only been a few weeks of summer. How can it feel like I’ve known Frankie Sky forever if he doesn’t hold a piece of my brother?

  “And I doesn’t have a hole in my heart anymore, Beans,” he is saying, “because it was just a fever sick, but not a scary heart sick. So Grandpa Harris says I don’t need to know how to fly. Well, only in a plane to Cape Cod, but also we can drive in the car if we want to.”

  “Well, that is the best news, Frankie, because it scares me when you try to fly.”

  “I won’t. Only if Beans is there, ready.”

  “Okay, good.” I reach out and poke the tattoo on his belly, and he giggles. The superhero wrinkles and disappears into the folds. “Want to hold my hand, Frankie?” I ask.

  “Yep,” he says. “Yep, I do.”

  • • •

  On my way home, I run into Mrs. Merrill. Okay, lie. I walk into her backyard to find her.

  I’m not sure why. I just feel like I need to talk to her.

  Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen her at the club, or even leave the driveway much, for that matter, so I’m guessing she also lost a friend.

  She kneels in front of a yellow rosebush, pruning off dead buds. I take a deep breath and cross the grass to talk to her.

  “Hello, Francesca!” she says before I realize she’s seen me. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” And I can’t help but smile, because I’ve been a thief, a cheat, a liar, and, worse than all of that, a snitch, and yet somehow she actually seems genuinely happy to see me. Which makes me feel a little bit like a traitor.

  I sit on the ground next to her, kick off my flip-flops, and run my toes through the grass. “Your flowers are so pretty,” I say.

  She sits back and pushes a wisp of hair from her eyes. “Thank you. I try. It’s a lot of work, but they make me happy.” She sighs, which makes me wonder how happy she really is. “So, how are you, Francesca? I haven’t seen you for a few days. Everything okay at home?”

  “I think so,” I say.

  “Well, good then.” She looks at me hard. “You don’t look so happy.”

  “No,” I say. “Frankie Sky is moving. And Lisette found out about things.”

  “I see,” she says gently. “That’s tough.” She leans away and snips a few more blossoms, then turns to me and slips one behind my ear. “So, what are you going to do?”

  I pull the rose out and look at it. It’s a perfect chiffon yellow. Fragile, but so very fragrant. I hold it to my nose and breathe in its scent, which is less sweet and more lemony than I’m expecting. I slip it back behind my ear and stand up.

  “I’m going to try to fix things, I suppose.”

  forty-two

  I sit at my desk and stare at the yellow rose from Mrs. Merrill that I tacked to my bulletin board last night. The edges have started to turn brown.

  Covering the rest of the board are a few year-end exam reminders and other school stuff I never got around to taking down, plus an endless array of photos of Lisette and me, stuck up there with pushpins. Some are so old that she smiles beneath two long, blond pigtails tied with pink ribbons, and I sit next to her, my face framed by a hideously short boy haircut that barely reaches over my ears.

  There are a few from middle school, and last year, too, near our lockers, and even a few from this summer, the day with Alex and Jared at the beach. In one, our sunburned cheeks are pressed together, the sky blue and bright behind us. I cropped the water out so my mother wouldn’t know where we were. In the other, it’s turned dark, and our faces are lit eerily by the bright white sparklers that we’re holding.

  That was right before I made the wish about Bradley.

  I look at the red crab claw that sits on the corner of my windowsill. It makes my heart hurt. The thing is, I want to be sorry that I let him kiss me, and part of me really is sorry. But another huge part of me isn’t sorry. Because in spite of what happened with Lisette, I wouldn’t give up those kisses with Bradley.

  I pick up the crab claw and use it to slide my cell phone over, but still no messages from her.

  I think about reading through all the old ones from Bradley, but it will only make it harder to do what I have to do. I slip my cell phone in my pocket, throw on sneakers, and head downstairs.

  I owe Lisette this. Whatever happens, I owe her a real apology. She needs to hear in person how much she matters to me, even if it’s all mixed up with other things.

  It’s still early, so I walk slowly, trying to make it take as long as possible. But eventually I’m on the hill that’s her street, and her house comes into view.

  I walk across her lawn and up her front steps and stand for a minute before I can bring myself to ring
the bell.

  She answers a few seconds later. Pulls the door open and stands in her pajamas, hands on hips, glaring.

  I clear my throat. She waits.

  She’s not going to make this easy for me.

  “Hey, Zette,” I manage. My voice shakes. I can barely look at her.

  “So, did you want to come in or what?”

  “Can I?”

  She holds the door open and moves aside.

  I follow her inside, and this feeling comes over me like it’s been forever since I’ve been in her house, which, in a way, it kind of has. So much has happened since the last time I was here. For a second, I long to time travel back to when both of us were little and silly and everything felt lighter and easier.

  But the truth is, nothing has been easy for me, not since the moment my brother died. And yet, somehow, I do feel lighter now. Somehow, despite everything, some sort of weight has been lifted. Obviously not about Lisette, but the blanket of my brother Simon’s death.

  “Um, Frankie, did you want something?”

  My eyes snap back to her. She looks so hurt and angry. “Could we go to your room?” I ask.

  “Sure, I guess, but you’ll have to make it fast. I have stuff to do.”

  When we reach her bedroom, she shuts the door and sits on her bed. I stand awkwardly, not knowing if I should sit next to her.

  “You seriously should have told me, Beans,” she blurts, throwing me off from what little order of explanation I had crafted at home. “You should have told me something happened with you and Bradley instead of fooling around behind my back.”

  I start to stammer something about wanting to, or trying to, but it’s a lie, so I stop. I didn’t come here to lie. I came here to tell her the truth.

  “You’re right, Lisette. You are. And I’m so very sorry. Because I love you, I swear I do. You are the best friend ever, and I should have found a way to tell you. Or not do it. I think I didn’t tell you because even I couldn’t believe it.”

  She rolls her eyes a little. “Believe what?”

  “That anyone like Bradley could truly like me. I mean, could actually know about Simon and what happened and still truly like me. That I could possibly deserve to be liked.” I choke up, no matter how hard I’m trying not to.