That’s what I was feeling, I realized. Pre-empty. And after the unadulterated fullness of the past few weeks, it was depressing indeed.
Will showed up at The Scoop the next night at exactly nine o’clock. I was working alone because it was my mom’s book club night and my dad was home with the kids. Will gave me a casual wave over the heads of the customers who’d arrived just before him. Then he went over to one of the chalkboard tables in the kids section to wait for me.
By this time of year, the summer people knew as well as the locals that The Scoop closed at nine. So around 8:50, every ice cream addict on the island (or so it seemed) would rush their dinner checks or snatch their picnic blankets off the beach. Then, boisterous and giggly, they’d all pile into our shop. At this time of night, they tended to buy extravagant desserts. They wanted towering sundaes, chili-spiced chocolate shakes, or crepes filled with piped Nutella and hazelnut gelato.
They lingered in the booths, groaning over the ice creamy goodness.
They had all the time in the world.
Some nights this annoyed me to death. I wanted to shout at them, Go away already! Don’t you know that Gabriel Garcia Márquez is waiting at home for me, not to mention my lime-green bathtub?
Other times I lingered along with them. I’d make myself what I called a sampler platter—tiny divots of my favorite ice creams lined up neatly in a banana split dish. Then I’d sit a booth or two away from the customers; close enough to eavesdrop without seeming to hover. I’d close my eyes while the ice cream melted on my tongue and feel the work-induced throbbing in my feet ebb.
But tonight, Will was here. Which meant I didn’t want ice cream and I didn’t want gossip—I wanted him. I wanted to scooch into a booth next to him and give him a flirty kiss hello. I wanted to make him taste my latest flavor (Root Beer Float), then cut my chore list in half so we could go for a walk on the beach.
I couldn’t allow myself to do any of those things, though. Because everything that brought me closer to Will was also another step toward certain heartbreak.
Has Will not even considered this? I wondered as I dished up the last order.
From the way he was smiling at me, his face as open as a window, it didn’t seem he had. Or maybe he just didn’t care about what was going to happen eight short weeks from then.
I was hoping the last-minute customers would provide a buffer between us for a while, but as soon as I rang up the last order, they all drifted out to the boardwalk to perch around the extra-long picnic table out front.
I tossed my scoop into the sink and trudged to the door to flip the OPEN sign to CLOSED.
“Wow, you work hard here,” Will said, still sitting at the chalkboard table. “Your love for ice cream must run way deep if you can still eat it after scooping all night.”
“Well …,” I said, shrugging and giving him what was probably a pained smile.
I went to the little closet where we kept the cleaning supplies and grabbed a spray bottle of bleach water and a rag.
I didn’t start with the tables farthest from the kids section just to avoid Will. I always started there. I shot him a couple of awkward smiles as I started spritzing and wiping down the tables.
Will just looked at me for a moment. He rolled a piece of green chalk between his thumb and forefinger, then said, “I called you yesterday.”
“I know.” I sighed. “I’m sorry. Caroline needed some girl time, and then I was so tired after being up so late the night before …”
I trailed off, not wanting to allude to the barbecue.
“I called you this morning, too,” Will said.
I didn’t know what to say to that one, so I just focused extra hard on my work, making careful, straight swipes across each tabletop with my rag.
Suddenly I heard a clatter from the supply closet. When I looked up, Will was emerging from it with a broom and dustpan.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said, my voice trembling a little.
Will just shrugged and started sweeping, following just behind me to catch the crumbs I was wiping off the tables. I skipped the chalkboard tables, because Kat and Benjie were in charge of those. They got upset if anybody destroyed the artwork before they got a chance to see it.
After that Will silently helped me put the lids on the ice cream tubs, set the lights on dim, and carry the final load of sticky spoons, bowls, and coffee mugs to the industrial dishwasher in the back.
But when I started updating the grocery list, Will finally said, “You’re not really going to the store after you close up shop, are you?”
“No,” I said wanly. “It’s just, whoever closes is supposed to make a note of all the things we ran out of that day.”
“I have a feeling you never, ever skip a day of school,” Will said. He grinned and leaned against a stainless steel counter, crossing his legs at the ankle.
I didn’t laugh or joke back like I was supposed to. I just nodded, confirming that, yes, I was a total rule-following nerd.
“I also have a feeling that you’re avoiding me,” Will said. Now he crossed his arms over his chest.
I could have denied it. I could have tap-danced my way out of it.
But already Will and I were beyond that. There was no option but to be honest with him.
So I nodded again.
“Okay, that’s weird, because the Fourth of July?” Will said. “It was one of the best nights of my life.”
“Mine too!” I burst out, finally looking up at him. It was only then that I realized I’d been avoiding his eyes ever since he’d arrived. Now that I allowed myself to look at him directly, I had to stifle a quiet gasp.
After not seeing him for a couple of days, Will looked so good I wanted to throw my arms around him. His hair was getting longer. It hung in his eyes, looking painfully cute. After all these days in the sun, he had a deep tan, which made his brown eyes look kind of sparkly. He was wearing another one of his T-shirts that hung just so off his broad shoulders. I wanted to touch it, to touch him.
But that, I thought to myself, would hurt.
In that moment of hesitation, it also occurred to me what I must look like after four straight hours of working. My hands smelled like bleach after cleaning the tables, and my hair was coming out of its sloppy bun. I could feel a few tendrils grazing my cheeks. I reached up nervously to smooth them behind my ears.
“Anna, stop,” Will said, apparently reading my mind. “You’re beautiful.”
I slumped against the dishwasher so that Will and I faced each other from opposite sides of the kitchen.
“Don’t say that,” I whispered.
“Why not?” Will said. I could hear an edge in his voice, a kernel of exasperation.
“Because, this just keeps getting better,” I said. I was gripping the counter above the dishwasher as if I needed its support to be able to say all these things. “That’s only going to make it hurt more when you leave.”
“Leave?” Will shook his head in confusion.
“Leave!” I said. I was the exasperated one now. “At the end of the summer, remember? When you go back to your kuh-nishes and the Brooklyn Bridge and …”
I trailed off when I remembered that Will didn’t exactly have a life of glamour and happiness waiting for him back in New York. I waved a hand in front of my face as if it could erase what I’d just said.
“Just,” I revised, “when you leave here.”
“Oh.” Will cocked his head to the side. “Huh.”
“So you hadn’t thought of that at all?” I said.
“I guess not,” Will said. “I mean, yeah, I knew it was out there. August twenty-ninth. That’s the date on our return plane tickets. But, Anna—that’s ages away.”
“It’ll fly by,” I said glumly. “It already has.”
“So that’s a reason to ruin the time we do have?” Will said.
“Who’s ruining anything?” I said. I pushed myself away from the counter and stalked over to the tall shelving unit w
here we kept the paper products. I yanked down a stack of napkins and pushed my way through the swinging door into the ice cream parlor. After the bright lights of the kitchen, the shop felt dark and shadowy. I stumbled a bit as I headed to a table in the kids section and began to push napkins into the spring-loaded dispensers.
I could feel Will behind me, staring at the back of my head, but I didn’t turn around.
“Just don’t think about that,” Will urged me. “Think about now. Think about the other night!”
“I don’t know if I can do that,” I grumbled.
“You probably never pull all-nighters because you forgot to study for a test, do you?” Will said.
I whipped around and glared at him. My eyes had adjusted to the dusky light and he looked annoyingly handsome.
“I guess I’m just not as cool as you,” I said. “I can’t just live in the present.”
“Well, you don’t really have a choice, do you?” Will said with maddening logic. “I mean today is today. You’re in it, Anna. And you can be in it with me, say, walking to that dumb place down the boardwalk and getting some curly fries. Or you could just stay here and make that grocery list for a shopping trip that’s not going to happen for a week.”
I bit my lip and looked away from him. I just … I just needed a minute to think. I went to the table where Will had been sitting when he’d first come in that evening. I started to stuff a wad of napkins into the dispenser. But then a doodle on the chalkboard tabletop caught my eye.
It was a tree.
A big, messy, sprawling tree covered with familiar-looking five-pointed leaves—not to mention a pink bicycle, a bunch of pinwheels, and a snake twined around its trunk.
Also on Figgy Pudding’s trunk? One of those old-timey hearts with initials inside: AP + WC.
“Aw …,” Will said as he saw me staring at the chalk drawing. “I’m an idiot. I’ll just …”
He grabbed a napkin out of the dispenser and wadded it up, clearly intending to smudge out the heart, the whole thing.
“No!” I cried, grabbing his wrist before he could get near the drawing.
It was the first time we’d touched that night.
We looked at each other, wide-eyed. An instant later we were tangled up together, kissing so hard that I couldn’t breathe. Clearly Will couldn’t either because when we pulled apart, we both gasped. This made us laugh until we’d exhausted what little breath we had left. Then we were kissing some more, and giggling at the same time. It was kind of messy—but wonderfully so.
At some point during all the making out, I sat on the chalkboard table and wrapped my ankles around the back of Will’s knees. Later we’d discover that my backside had smudged Will’s drawing, ruining it completely.
“It was only gonna get erased tomorrow,” Will said with another big chuckle.
At that moment it was easy for me to shrug it off too. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t save the drawing; stash it in my vanity drawer to keep forever. It had been a moment. One of countless wonderful moments I’d had—and would have—with Will.
That was, if I let myself have them.
As Will and I locked up The Scoop and headed giddily down the boardwalk together, I told myself that I could. I could handle being with Will now, even if I had to say good-bye to him later. It was worth it.
But did that mean I could forget about that looming goodbye? About August 29?
Not really. Not, in fact, for a minute.
After that, I didn’t want to waste another minute of my time left with Will. But—we barely saw each other for an entire week. What thwarted us? The most unromantic obstacle you can imagine—the weather.
Every day Dune Island was pummeled by tropical thunderstorms. The rain, lightning, and thunder would start rolling in around ten o’clock. It would linger on and off through the day, like a grumpy guest constantly dozing off, then snorting himself awake right in the middle of your house. The storms held us hostage.
And during the brief windows between storms? The sun would come out baring fangs. The heat was wet and claustrophobic. Just breathing became a chore. You couldn’t see all the spores and mold and motes floating through the air, but you knew they were there, and they made everyone feel cranky.
Steam rose off Highway 80.
The boardwalk developed a disgusting sliminess that never had a chance to dry out.
My bedsheets became so damp and sticky, I seriously considered sleeping in the bathtub. Figgy Pudding’s decorations, of course, were ruined, and we pretty much had to forget about making waffle cones at The Scoop. They were too floppy to hold anything. My dad came up with the idea of passing out waffle cone rain checks and got a write-up in the Dune Island Intelligencer for it. Sophie was so embarrassed, she went into hiding for an entire day.
Me? I was sort of grateful for the diversion, even if it was an incredibly silly one. Because the rain had also seriously dampened my opportunities to be with Will.
We couldn’t go anywhere outside because my parents wouldn’t let me drive their car during the storms. And I wouldn’t let either of us ride our bikes to see each other.
“Anna, you spend half your life in the ocean,” Will said on the phone one dark, thunderous morning. He was trying to coax me into meeting him for coffee on the boardwalk. “You’re not willing to get a little wet for me?”
“Please, you think it’s the water I’m worried about?” I said. “It’s the lightning.”
“Oh, come on, nobody really gets struck by lightning, do they?”
“Are you near a computer right now?” I asked. Cradling my phone between my ear and shoulder, I headed to the kitchen and grabbed my dad’s laptop. Within a few seconds I’d sent Will a link to an article about the hundreds of coastal Georgians sizzled by strikes every year.
“Oh my God!” Will said as he scanned the article on his end.
“Yup,” I said. “Lightning strikes and tractor accidents—very common cause of death and disfigurement around here.”
“Talk about Southern gothic,” Will said.
I closed the laptop. It was too wet and noisy to go out to the screened porch, so I wandered into the living room. Kat and Benjie were sitting on the floor with bowls of Cheerios in their laps and a board game between them. My mom was curled up on the couch with some knitting. It felt like one of those boring national holidays where there’s nothing to celebrate and nothing to do.
“Speaking of gothic,” I said, settling into the lumpy chair near the window, “did you hear about the new horror movie that’s out? Sounds amazing. I heard it turned a reviewer’s hair white. Needless to say, he gave it a thumbs-down.”
“Why am I not surprised that you’re not the romantic-comedy type?” Will snorted.
“A movie!”
That was my mom. I glanced over at her. She’d dropped her knitting into her lap and she was grinning at me.
“That’s the perfect thing to do today,” she said. “We could go to the first matinee. Your dad doesn’t need me at The Scoop until four.”
“Movie, movie!” Kat and Benjie shrieked, which of course, summoned a thump thump thump to the staircase. Sophie poked her head over the banister.
“Are we going to the movies?” she asked. “Can I ask Emily?”
“Sure,” Mom said, getting to her feet and smoothing her hair. “That’s why we got the minivan. Anna, tell Will we can be at his house in twenty minutes. I’ll go get the movie section.”
“Um,” I squeaked, “but I didn’t … um, Mom?”
Over the phone I heard Owen’s voice saying, “Wait a minute, are you going to a movie?”
And then a female voice called, “Take your brother. He’s driving me crazy.”
Before we knew it, Will and I were going on a date to a Cineplex in Savannah—with almost everyone in our families. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
But Will laughed—so I did too. In fact, Will seemed goofily charmed by the whole thing—scrunching into my mother’s van, r
unning through the rain to the theater, waiting in line at the concession stand while Kat and Benjie debated popcorn versus candy.
Then we all split up to go to different theaters. Will and I went to the horror flick, my mom and the kids picked something G-rated, and Sophie and Emily chose a chick flick. Owen was on the fence, but at the last minute, he said to the girls, “Ah, what the heck. I’ll go with you.”
“Seriously, Owen?” I squawked while Sophie and Emily dissolved into delighted giggles.
I looked at Will in surprise.
“Does your brother really like chick flicks?”
“Let me ask you something,” Will said as Owen sauntered toward the theater with the girls. “Who among us has the most snacks?”
Sophie and Emily had a giant tub of popcorn to share and a box of candy each, plus Cokes. I pointed at them.
“Not for long,” Will said.
“Your brother is literally going to take candy from children?” I said.
“Shamelessly,” Will said. “He’s the best food-filcher you’ve ever seen.”
I laughed as Will and I walked into our own theater. When the doors closed behind us, Will looked around with exaggerated paranoia.
“Are they all gone?” he asked. “Are we alone?”
“At last!” I said with mock drama.
He grabbed my hand. We hurried down the aisle, sank low into a couple of seats, and finally, finally kissed each other hello.
“This is so much better than coffee,” Will murmured as the lights went dark and the previews started.
“Yeah, because there’s candy.” I cackled, rattling the box of overpriced gummy bears that I’d bought at the concession stand.
“Yeah,” Will said sarcastically, before he started kissing me again. “That’s exactly why. The candy.”
I laughed. Then I forgot about all the family members in the building and snuggled up with Will. With the air-conditioning blasting, I actually felt chilly for the first time in ages, and Will’s warm arm against mine felt good. Over the sinister music of the movie trailers, you could just barely hear the soft patter of the rain on the roof. It was the coziest sound.
Sixteenth Summer Page 14
