Summer of Yesterday

by Gaby Triana

  You’re living on in my heart, Haley, like I hope I’ll live on in yours.

  I’ll love you always.

  Jason-Jason

  7-4-88

  I drop the note into my lap and close my eyes. He has the most beautiful handwriting I’ve ever seen from a boy. Okay, that hurts. Learning that about him now, and knowing there’re a multitude of other things about him I’ll never get to learn.

  I wish I would’ve had more time. I wish I could’ve brought him back with me. I wish I wouldn’t have focused so much on trying to get home and just spent my time and energy getting to know him. I wish, I wish, I wish.

  I unfold the last quarter of the paper and there’s more:

  P.S. Keep the chain. I was going to give it to you that night and never got the chance.

  I reach into the bag, and two more items slide out into my hand. One is his chain. His tacky gold chain with the rope twists that I made fun of. Now it’s mine forever. The treasure on Discovery Island doesn’t exist? The one from the scavenger hunt list? “Ha!” A crazy laugh escapes me, the kind that only happens when you truly let go, hysterics through tears.

  And the other item—fits like a glove. White with white case. Cracked in the corner of the screen. My phone. Amazing. More proof that this wasn’t all a dream. He found it here after I left it by accident. It’s traveled thirty years back in time, then thirty years forward again. Now it’s right back where it started. This sucker’s seen more than I have.

  He could’ve just kept it. My souvenir to him. I would’ve bought another one.

  But then I remember the pics from River Country. Yes! Hopefully, they’re still inside. Then I definitely won that scavenger hunt, hands down! I press the power button, but it doesn’t turn on. I hear Jake’s voice low along the ground. “Plug in the battery pack.” I almost forgot about him. Has he been sitting there watching me this whole time? I guess he deserves it after waiting for me for so long. Or maybe he wants to tell his brother how I reacted when seeing it all.

  Inside the bag is a battery pack, that old kind that you plug into the charging slot. I slide it into place and wait. As I sit there in the darkness, listening to the water run and the crickets chirp throughout the island, another sound joins the night, one I’m familiar with, one that will never mean the same without Jason.

  Fireworks from Magic Kingdom.

  Like clockwork every night.

  And they’ll be extra special tonight.

  I look up and smile as the first big explosion of sparkles fizzles into the horizon of trees. My phone turns on right then. First the battery symbol, then the glowing apple, and finally . . .

  Oh my God.

  While we were sitting and playing with my phone, after we hot-wired it, I guess, he took a picture of us. My head on his shoulder, a giddy smile on my face and on his—amazement, upon discovering technology beyond his wildest dreams. It’s serene and content, a moment in time that I’ll never have again. It even has an ethereal hazy glow you can’t get with any photo-­editing app.

  And he set it as my home screen.

  So it’d be the first thing I saw when I got my phone back.

  “Rad, Jason.” I can’t help but smile from ear to ear.

  Never will I ever change this pic.

  All I wanted this summer was a fling, but instead I got Jason. Love in River Country, of all places. A huge teardrop slides off my nose and lands smack right in the middle of our pic, splattering out in all directions, light from the screen filtering through the tear, creating a myriad of colors. Like shimmery, dreamy fireworks at the end of a long, magical day.

  acknowledgments

  I was doing a last-minute check of my laptop’s trash one day when I opened a story I’d started over a year before. I’d only written a few chapters and didn’t know what to do with it anymore, and being the hater of clutter than I am, I had tossed it. But then I gave it one last read, and something stopped me. How could I throw out a story set in Disney World, my favorite place in the world, during the eighties, the time I grew up? I’d make it work somehow. I had to finish it! Those chapters turned into Summer of Yesterday, a love letter to a place and time forever etched into my heart.

  Like Haley, there are people in our lives who believe in us. Like Jason, they risk a lot to support us. But those who bring us down are important as well. They give our lives obstacles, conflict, so our victories can be sweeter. So I’d like to thank everyone who played a part in getting this book out. To the one who said, “She won’t succeed,” thank you for pissing me off, making me want to win even more. To the one who said, “She doesn’t have what it takes,” thank you for forcing me to work harder. To the one who said, “I don’t believe in her,” thank you for helping me find angels who do. But mostly, thanks to my children—Noah, Murphy, and Michael—for keeping me focused and filling my life with purpose; my mother, Yolanda, for being the only person who read the entire draft when the world was too busy; my father, Oscar, for taking me to Fort Wilderness when I was little and shooting video of River Country and the train that’s no longer there; SCBWI Florida, my thirteen-year-long support system; my editor, Patrick Price, for understanding how important this story was to me and for fighting for it; my amazing agent, Deborah Warren, for taking a risk and believing in me when I needed it most.

  Without these “folks,” a new generation would never know about River Country, an awesome, forgotten place in time. But most of all, my husband, Chris, who’s always said, “Don’t worry about anything . . . just write.” You have no idea how important that was to me. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

  about the author

  GABY TRIANA is the author of many books for young adults, a cake designer, a mother of three boys, and an all-around extremely busy person. Her books include Backstage Pass, Cubanita, The Temptress Four, and Riding the Universe, which collectively have earned an IRA Teen Choice Award; been listed as ALA Best Paperbacks; been praised by Booklist, School Library Journal, Kliatt, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly; and been named one of Hispanic maga­zine’s Good Reads of 2008. In addition to writing books and designing whimsical, sculpted cakes, Gaby serves as Co-Regional Advisor for SCBWI Florida. Her obsessions include Disney World, Halloween, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” driving fast cars, planning writing conferences, and spending time with her family in Miami. Visit her at www.gabytriana.com.

  MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT

  TEEN.SimonandSchuster.com

  authors.simonandschuster.com/Gaby-Triana

  Want some more summer romance?

  Read on for a peek at

  Pulled Under,

  a Sixteenth Summer novel,

  by Michelle Dalton.

  Difficult questions come in all shapes and sizes. They can be big and philosophical, like “What’s the meaning of life?” Or small and personal, like “How do you know if you’re really in love?” They can even be evil (Yes, I’m talking about you, Mrs. Perkins), like “For the quadratic equation where the equation has only one solution, what’s the value of C?” But of all the world’s questions there is one that stands alone as the single most difficult to answer.

  “Does this bathing suit make me look fat?”

  If you’ve ever been asked, then you know what I’m talking about. It’s not like you can just say, “No, but your butt kinda does.” And it’s not like you can say, “Oh no, it looks great. You should definitely wear that on the beach, where every guy you know will see you.” Instead you have to find that delicate place between honesty and kindness.

  I know this because I hear the question all the time. I work weekends and summers at Surf Sisters, a surf shop in Pearl Beach, Florida, where women asking you how they look in all varieties of swimwear kind of comes with the turf. (Or as my father would say, it “comes with the surf,” because, you know, dads.)

  It’s been my experience that a gre
at many of those who ask the question already know the answer. This group includes the girls with the hot bodies who only ask because they want to hear someone say how great they look. My response to them is usually just to shrug and answer, “It doesn’t make you look fat, but it is kind of strange for your torso.” The proximity of the words “strange” and “torso” in the same sentence usually keeps them from asking again.

  Most girls, however, ask because while they know a swimsuit doesn’t look right, they’re not exactly sure why. That’s the case with the girl who’s asking me right now. All she wants is to look her best and to feel good about herself. Unfortunately, the bikini she’s trying on is preventing that from happening. My first step is to help her get rid of it for reasons that have nothing to do with her.

  “I think it looks good on you,” I answer. “But I don’t love what happens with that particular swimsuit when it gets wet. It loses its shape and it starts to look dingy.”

  “Really?” she says. “That’s not good.”

  I sense that she’s relieved to have an excuse to get rid of it, so I decide to wade deeper into the waters of truthfulness. “And, to be honest, it doesn’t seem like you feel very comfortable in it.”

  She looks at me and then she looks at herself in the mirror and shakes her head. “No, I don’t, do I? I’m no good at finding the right suit.”

  “Luckily, I can help you with that,” I say. “But I need to know what you’re looking for, and I need to know how you see yourself. Are you a shark or a dolphin?”

  She cocks her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

  “Sharks are sleek and deadly. They’re man-eaters.”

  “And dolphins?”

  “They’re more . . . playful and intelligent.”

  She thinks it over for a moment and smiles. “Well, I probably wish I was more of a shark, but . . . I’m a total dolphin.”

  “So am I. You know, in the ocean, if a shark and a dolphin fight, the dolphin always wins.”

  “Maybe, but on land it usually goes the other way.”

  We both laugh, and I can tell that I like her.

  “Let’s see what we can do about that,” I say. “I think we’ve got a couple styles that just might help a dolphin out.”

  Fifteen minutes later, when I’m ringing her up at the register, she is happy and confident. I know it sounds hokey, but this is what I love about Surf Sisters. Unlike most shops, where girls have to be bikini babes or they’re out of luck, this one has always been owned and operated by women. And while we have plenty of male customers, we’ve always lived by the slogan, “Where the waves meet the curves.”

  At the moment it also happens to be where the waves meet the pouring rain. That’s why, when my girl leaves with not one but two new and empowering swimsuits, the in-store population of employees outnumbers customers three to two. And, since both customers seem more interested in waiting out the storm than in buying anything, I’m free to turn my attention to the always entertaining Nicole and Sophie Show.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nicole says as they expertly fold and stack a new display of T-shirts. “Absolutely. No. Idea.”

  In addition to being my coworkers, Nicole and Sophie have been my best friends for as long as I can remember. At first glance they seem like polar opposites. Nicole is a blue-eyed blonde who stands six feet tall, most of which is arms and legs. This comes in handy as heck on the volleyball court but makes her self-­conscious when it comes to boys. Sophie, meanwhile, is petite and fiery. She’s half Italian, half Cuban, all confidence.

  Judging by Nic’s signature blend of outrage and indignation, Sophie must be offering unsolicited opinions in regard to her terminal crush on the oh-so-cute but always-out-of-reach Cody Bell.

  “There was a time when it was an embarrassing but still technically acceptable infatuation,” Sophie explains. “But that was back around ninth-grade band camp. It has since gone through various stages of awkward, and I’m afraid can now only be described as intervention-worthy stalking.”

  Although I’ve witnessed many versions of this exact conversation over the years, this is the first time I’ve seen it in a while. That’s because Sophie just got back from her freshman year at college. Watching them now is like seeing the season premiere of a favorite television show. Except without the microwave popcorn.

  “Stalking?” Nicole replies. “Do you know how absurd that sounds?”

  “No, but I do know how absurd it looks,” Sophie retorts. “You go wherever he goes, but you never talk to him. Or if you do talk to him, it’s never about anything real, like the fact that you’re into him.”

  “Where are you even getting your information?” Nicole demands. “You’ve been two hundred miles away. For all you know, Cody and I had a mad, passionate relationship while you were away at Florida State.”

  Sophie turns to me and rolls her eyes. “Izzy, were there any mad, passionate developments in the Nicole and Cody saga while I was in Tallahassee? Did they become a supercouple? Did the celebrity press start referring to them as ‘Nicody’?”

  I’m not about to lie and say that there were new developments, but I also won’t throw Nicole under the bus and admit that the situation has actually gotten a little worse. Instead, I take the coward’s way out.

  “I’m Switzerland,” I say. “Totally neutral and all about the chocolate.”

  “Your courage is inspiring,” mocks Sophie before directing the question back at Nicole. “Then you tell me. Did you have a mad, passionate relationship with Cody this year?”

  “No,” Nicole admits after some hesitation. “I was just pointing out that you weren’t here, so you have no way of knowing what did or did not happen.”

  “So you’re saying you did not follow him around?”

  “Cody and I have some similar interests and are therefore occasionally in the same general vicinity. But that doesn’t mean that I follow him around or that it’s developed into . . . whatever it was that you called it.”

  “Intervention-worthy stalking,” I interject.

  Nicole looks my way and asks, “How exactly do you define ‘neutral’?”

  I mimic locking my mouth shut with a key and flash a cheesy apology grin.

  “So it’s not because of Cody that you suddenly decided that you wanted to switch to the drum line?” Sophie asks. “Even though you’ve been first-chair clarinet for your entire life?”

  “You told her about drum line?” Nicole says, giving me another look.

  “You’re gonna be marching at football games in front of the entire town,” I say incredulously. “It’s not exactly top secret information.”

  “I changed instruments because I wanted to push myself musically,” Nicole explains. “The fact that Cody is also on the drum line is pure coincidence.”

  “Just like it’s coincidence that Cody is the president of Latin Club and you’re the newly elected vice president?”

  Another look at me. “Seriously?”

  “I was proud of you,” I say, trying to put a positive spin on it. “I was bragging.”

  “Yes, it’s a coincidence,” she says, turning back to Sophie. “By the way, there are plenty of girls in Latin Club and I don’t see you accusing any of them of stalking.”

  “First of all, there aren’t plenty of girls in Latin Club. I bet there are like three of them,” Sophie counters. “And unlike you, I’m sure they actually take Latin. You take Spanish, which means that you should be in—what’s it called again?—oh yeah, Spanish Club.”

  It’s worth pointing out that despite her time away, Sophie is not the least bit rusty. She’s bringing her A game, and while it might sound harsh to outsiders, trust me when I say this is all being done out of love.

  “I had a scheduling conflict with Spanish Club,” Nicole offers. “Besides, I thought Latin Club would look good on
my college applications.”

  It’s obvious that no matter how many examples Sophie provides, Nicole is going to keep dodging the issue with lame excuse after lame excuse. So Sophie decides to go straight to the finish line. Unfortunately, I’m the finish line.

  “Sorry, Switzerland,” she says. “This one’s on you. Who’s right? Me or the Latin drummer girl?”

  Before you jump to any conclusions, let me assure you that she’s not asking because I’m some sort of expert when it comes to boys. In fact, both of them know that I have virtually zero firsthand experience. It’s just that I’m working the register, and whenever there’s a disagreement at the shop, whoever’s working the register breaks the tie. This is a time-honored tradition, and at Surf Sisters we don’t take traditions lightly.

  “You’re really taking it to the register?” I ask, wanting no part of this decision. “On your first day back?”

  “I really am,” Sophie answers, giving me no wiggle room.

  “Okay,” I say to her. “But in order for me to reach a verdict, you’ll have to explain why it is that you’ve brought this up now. Except for Latin Club, all the stuff you’re talking about is old news.”

  “First of all, I’ve been away and thought you were keeping an eye on her,” she says. “And it’s not old. While you were helping that girl find a swimsuit—awesome job, by the way . . .”

  “Thank you.”

  “. . . Nicole was telling me about last week when she spent two hours following Cody from just a few feet away. She followed him in and out of multiple buildings, walked when he walked, stopped when he stopped, and never said a single word to him. That’s textbook stalking.”

  “Okay. Wow,” I reply, a little surprised. “That does sound . . . really bad. Nicole?”

  “It only sounds bad because she’s leaving out the part about us being on a campus tour at the University of Florida,” Nicole says with a spark of attitude. “And the part about there being fifteen people in the group, all of whom were stopping and walking together in and out of buildings. And the fact that we couldn’t talk because we were listening to the tour guide, and nothing looks worse to an admissions counselor than hitting on someone when you’re supposed to be paying attention.”