Those Summer Nights

by Ivy Smoak

  Kristen jogged over to me. “We’re holding people up.” She gestured to the agitated family that had been behind us the whole time. They didn’t understand the art of mini-golf. “What’s going on?”

  “There’s some issue with my tuition.” I pressed on my dad’s cell number and pulled the phone to my ear. “Tell J.J. to take my shot for me, okay?”

  She nodded and left me alone.

  My dad’s phone went straight to voicemail. Son of a bitch. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to Nancy. But I didn’t really see a way around it. I wasn’t waiting to figure this out on his time, especially if this was somehow his fault. The knot in my stomach was leaning toward him being the problem, not the admissions office. I hung up the phone and dialed their house number.

  After a few rings Nancy answered. “Hello? Wilson residence,” she said.

  “Hi, Nancy. It’s Mila. Is my dad there? I really need to speak to him.”

  “Oh.” She sighed like my existence tired her. “Dale asked you not to use this number, Mila. Call his cell. Bye.”

  “Nancy! Wait! He didn’t answer. I tried to call his cell phone first.”

  “That’s because we’re on our way out. We were just heading to dinner with our girls. Can’t this wait?”

  Our girls. Fuck you too. “I just need to talk to him for a minute. I won’t keep him.” I never do.

  “Fine. You can talk to him for exactly one minute. But we have reservations. So don’t dawdle.”

  I never dawdled on the phone with my dad. These conversations were as painful for me as they were for her. Regardless, I could picture her pulling out some fancy gold pocket watch and timing the conversation.

  “He’s a very busy man,” she added.

  “Can you please just put him on the phone?” I didn’t mean to snap, but God she had a way of crawling under my skin. Like she was my father’s keeper. And her perfect new family couldn’t mingle with scum like me.

  “I will not have you speak to me like that. Dale!” she called. Her words were muffled as she held the phone away from her mouth, but I could still make out what she was saying. “Dale! It’s your other child. And you should have heard how she spoke to me. I won’t tolerate this for another second. You need to figure out a way to make this stop.”

  Tears bit the corners of my eyes. I knew they were trying to punt me out of their lives. That was very clear from my last conversation with my father. But hearing it out loud? It still stung. I wasn’t a menace that needed to be stopped. They were in the wrong here, not me.

  “Mila, what did you say to Nancy?” My father sounded madder than I’d ever heard him.

  “Nothing. Dad, I…”

  “You will not disrespect my wife. Do you understand me? You have no business speaking ill words to my family.”

  His family? I was his family. Why did he always say stuff like that? Could he not hear himself speak? I wiped my cheek as a tear slowly fell. This conversation was as awful for me as it was for him. Earlier this summer I promised myself I was done with him. But here I was, trying to cater to his insanity. Letting him belittle me. “I didn’t say anything rude to her. I just asked her to put you on the phone. That was it.”

  “Well it must have been your tone. You’ve always had a problem with your tone.”

  Did I? I wiped more tears off my cheeks. That was the first time I’d ever heard about it. But it probably was true around him and his family. Talking to Nancy was like talking to a Barbie doll with her head cut off. Perfect on the outside but clearly no brain because of the no head thing.

  Kristen, Reggie, and J.J. were staring at me. I couldn’t do this in front of them. I didn’t want them to see me like this. My father made me feel weak and small. That wasn’t the person I was here. I had worked hard all summer to make sure of it. And if I stood up here another second in the stifling heat, I was going to pass out. I dropped my putter and made my way back down to the crowded boardwalk.

  “I’m sorry, Dad.” I wasn’t. Maybe my tone had been rude, but had he ever heard his wife speak to me? She was the epitome of rudeness, at least where I was concerned.

  “You should be.”

  I rolled my eyes. Such an asshole. I tried to lift my shoulders. He was not going to break me in this conversation. I refused to let him. “I’m calling about tuition. There’s been a problem with the payment to the University of New Castle?”

  “The University of New Castle? You go to SMU.”

  Someone bumped into me on the boardwalk and I almost dropped my phone. “I used to. But I told you I was transferring. I forwarded you the email a few weeks ago.”

  “I never check my personal email. I’m a busy man, Mila.”

  Too busy for his own daughter? “Can you please send the payment tonight? There’s an online portal…”

  “I already did.”

  What? I really was awful on the phone. I had no idea what he was talking about. “But you said you didn’t send tuition to the University of New Castle.”

  “Because I already sent it to SMU.”

  “Dad.” I felt like a wave had just crashed down on top of me. “What are you talking about? I asked you not to send it.” I pushed through more people until I was on the sand. Usually stepping onto the beach was relaxing but the sand was too hot tonight. The beach was too crowded. Everything felt wrong.

  “I don’t remember all that,” he said. “You mentioned you were on vacation somewhere this summer or something. Mila, I really need to go.”

  “I’m not on vacation. I moved here for the summer because I hate California. I hate it there. I can’t go back.”

  “Tuition’s already been paid.”

  “Then un-pay it.”

  “That’s not how it works. You’ll be fine. Chin up, Mila.”

  Tears were currently dripping down my chin. “Chin up? Are you serious? Did you not hear a word of what I said the last time I called?”

  “I was busy. I was in the middle of a game with my daughter.”

  “I’m your daughter. Me. Just because you left my mom doesn’t mean I’m not your blood!”

  “We all make mistakes. Marrying your mother was mine.”

  There was a double meaning to that. If marrying my mother was a mistake, that meant having me was too. My tears started falling faster. I couldn’t be strong when I talked to him. He had this way of making me feel weaker than ever.

  “Maybe leaving SMU would have been yours,” he said. “So…you’re welcome.”

  “I’m miserable in California, Dad. I told you all this before. I don’t have a single friend. I…”

  “Make friends then. If you’re having trouble doing that then maybe you need to take a good look at yourself.”

  What the hell did that mean? “My friends are here. My life is here.”

  “Lives aren’t built around summers. They’re built around hard work and dedication.”

  Dedication? Who was he to say life was built on dedication? He certainly wasn’t dedicated to my mom when he cheated on her. Or me when he left. “There has to be something we can do. If I call admissions…”

  “I’m not going through that hassle just because you like the east coast more than the west coast. You need to grow up.”

  He wasn’t listening to me. “I was depressed, Dad. I felt like a ghost. I couldn’t eat or sleep. My grades started to slip because I couldn’t focus. I’ve never been so miserable in my life.” Listen to me. Hear what I’m saying. Help me.

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. I have to go…”

  “The last time I was that down was when you left in the middle of the night. Do you know how much that hurt me? How much it hurt Mom?” My voice cracked on “mom.” He had hurt both of us. My mom dealt with it by flitting through relationships. And me? Clearly I hadn’t learned to deal with it at all. Or else I wouldn’t be standing on the beach sobbing all alone.

  “I’m not having this conversation with you, Mila. It’s been years. Get over it.”

 
“How am I supposed to get over it if you won’t talk to me? You can’t erase me, Dad. You can’t undo me just because I was a mistake. For once in your life would it hurt you to care?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I need you. I need you to help me figure out how to fix this mess. Please. Don’t you care about me at all?”

  “Go to SMU or don’t. That choice is yours. But I have a reservation I’m going to be late for. And please do not call this number again, we’ve talked about this. Nancy is right. This needs to stop. For good this time.”

  “Fuck you.” The words fell out of my mouth before I could stop them. But once they were out there, at least I could stand up a little taller. Despite the tears streaming down my cheeks and the sobs escaping my throat, I’d finally told my dad how I felt. I’d finally stood up to him. And seriously, he deserved it. Fuck him.

  “I’m glad we’re on the same page,” he said and hung up.

  I let my hand drop to my side. That was it. My relationship with my own father boiled down to two words at the end. No “I love you.” Just a goodbye “fuck you.” I didn’t deserve that. Not from the man in my life that I was supposed to look up to. Not from anyone.

  “Mila?”

  I turned around to see J.J. staring at me. How much of that conversation had he heard? Did he think I was a monster from the way I spoke to my father? Would he leave me too?

  But he closed the distance between us without waiting for me to say anything at all. He held me as I cried ugly tears. Snot dripping onto his shoulder ugly tears. He held me until I couldn’t cry anymore.

  “It’s okay,” he finally said as he rubbed his hand up and down my back. “We’ll figure it out.”

  I cringed, knowing he’d pretty much heard the entire conversation. “It’s not okay.” I rubbed the evidence of tears and snot of my face with the back of my hand. “He sent my tuition to SMU. It’s too late. I have to go back.”

  “Then come to New York with me. Screw California. You can start a restaurant without a degree.” Those words maybe would have been enough for someone else. He believed in me. He wanted me to live in New York with him. But all I heard was that he didn’t want to do long distance. And it was easy to fixate on that because I’d lived a life without love. And for once in my life I needed the words. If he wanted me to move to NYC with him, I needed to know exactly how he felt about me.

  I pulled back at him and just stared into his ocean blue eyes. Say it, J.J. Of all people, he knew what I needed. He knew me. And yet…he didn’t say anything at all. “You could come to Cali,” I said. Him dropping everything and moving with me? If he couldn’t say the words out loud, he could show me that he loved me. It felt like the only way.

  “I have a great job lined up, Mila. I can’t just drop everything and go to California with you. My life is here.”

  Without me. I tried not to start bawling again. I hugged him again, trying to hide my face from him. What it came down to was that he wasn’t willing to change his plans for me. So why should I be willing to change my plans for him? I needed to find the strength to put myself first. For once in my life I needed to realize that I was important. I mattered. Because I was the only person capable of believing in myself. “And I can’t go to New York,” I said into his neck. “I have to finish school.”

  He didn’t say anything back. He didn’t have to. J.J. could do long distance if it wasn’t quite that far away. Weekend train rides back and forth between Delaware and New York was as far as he was willing to go. But I was about to head back to the west coast for a whole year. With no money to visit him.

  It didn’t matter that he held me a little tighter as we stood there. It didn’t matter that this was the best summer of my life. All that mattered was that he’d warned me right from the start. He didn’t do long distance. And I was supposed to be putting myself first this summer. I just didn’t realize how much it was going to hurt.

  Chapter 28

  Friday

  I was supposed to leave next week for the University of New Castle. But I didn’t have the luxury of waiting until the last minute to move now. I needed to find an apartment in Cali. Sign up for new classes. Start over. Again. I’d wanted to prolong summer until the last minute, but what was the point now? It was about to end anyway. Sticking around for an extra week would just make it that much harder to say goodbye. Ever since I had found out about the tuition mix-up, I had heard the clock ticking down in my head. The last week had felt like torture anyway, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “I can’t believe you’re not coming back to Newark with me.” Kristen stuck her bottom lip out. “I was so excited. We would have had so much fun.”

  It still hurt to talk about. Everything had been right there for me. Everything I’d ever wanted. I felt gutted. And I didn’t have anything left to say, so I continued packing.

  “Have you said goodbye to J.J. yet?” she asked.

  But she knew I hadn’t. I’d spent all night with her last night, reminiscing over our summer and of course drinking margaritas. At least I’d finally learned how to hold my tequila. And I’d spent all day at my last shift at Sweet Cravings. I bowed out a little early with the excuse of needing to pack. J.J. would be stopping by here right after work.

  I shook my head. “My Uber comes in thirty minutes. I told J.J. to come over…” I glanced at my phone. “Well, he should be here any minute now.”

  She sat down on the edge of my bed. “Does he know you’re leaving early?”

  “He’s about to.” I closed my suitcase and zipped it shut.

  “Mila.”

  I didn’t look up at her as I rummaged around in my purse to make sure I had everything I’d need to board my flight.

  “Mila.” She grabbed my hand. “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing? You can try to take out a loan. You could postpone the University of New Castle a semester while you sort things out. There has to be a way.”

  Maybe. But what was the point? I had an opportunity to not start my career in debt. How would I ever get a loan for a restaurant space if I already had a pile of student loans I couldn’t afford to pay back? I’d spent my whole life trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Now that I found it, I wasn’t going to let it slip through my fingers because of summer like. Yes, like, not love. Because J.J. had made it clear he didn’t love me. “I’m trying to think about my future.”

  “And J.J. fits into that how?”

  I sighed because it hurt so fucking much to actually say the words out loud. “He doesn’t.”

  “Mila.”

  “Are you going to sit there and tell me that Reggie is the love of your life? That you’re going to get married and have babies and the whole shebang? And live happily ever after?”

  “No. But that’s different and you know it. Reggie and I were always going to be and were always meant to be a summer fling.”

  “Well, so were J.J. and I.”

  “You know that’s not true.”

  “He doesn’t love me back, Kristen!” I could feel my tears threatening to spill again. “His solution to my problems was that I should drop everything and just move to New York. I don’t even like the city.”

  “Guys are dumb, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. Just because he hasn’t said it…who cares. It’s about the way he makes you feel. And the way he looks at you. I can tell he loves you even if you can’t. You spent all summer trying to get the things you deserve out of life. And now you’re just going to throw it all away?” It looked like she was going to start crying now. “Please don’t leave.”

  I knew she had the best intentions. But what she was really upset about was that this was our goodbye too. “I’m sorry.” I leaned down and hugged her. “But I have to.”

  She sniffled. “God, your dad is such a dick.”

  I laughed. “That he is.” I leaned back. “But this isn’t really goodbye. We can call each other all the time. And once I’m done with school, there’s no way I’m staying in Cali.
”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  She took a deep breath. “I should probably give you some privacy so you can talk to J.J.”

  Right when she said it, there was a knock on the door. I swallowed hard. You can do this. Be strong.

  Before I could go answer it, Kristen launched herself at me in a bear hug that was so tight I could barely breathe. “I’m going to miss you,” she said.

  “I’m going to miss you too.”

  She sniffled again as she pulled back. And without another glance she ran over to the door and opened it. “Hey,” she said to J.J. She squeezed his arm and then disappeared down the steps.

  It looked like he was about to ask if she was okay, but then he spotted my suitcase. And probably my face. He closed the door and walked over to me. For a second I just let myself stare at him. He’d come straight from the beach. He hadn’t even bothered to put a shirt on. Tan skin, perfect six pack, and muscular shoulders. The smell of summer was all around him, drifting over to me. He pushed his sunglasses up when he reached me, showing off those perfect ocean blue eyes.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I have to leave early. I have a lot to do before classes start.”

  He looked back at my suitcase like he didn’t understand. “How early?”

  I looked at my phone. “Fifteen minutes.”

  He laughed, but not his usual one that made me smile so hard it hurt. “Wait, what?”

  “My flight’s in a few hours and I have to get to the airport.”

  “You’re leaving today? And you’re only just telling me now? What the hell?”

  I shrugged. “I thought it would be easier this way.”

  “Easier for who? You? It’s certainly not easier for me to be blindsided. I had all these plans for our last week together. You can’t leave now.” He put his hands on my shoulders. “It’s going to be months before I can possibly see you again.”

  Months? I couldn’t afford to come visit him. And I knew he didn’t want to come visit me. He had told me he was willing to try long distance. From Newark to NYC. But not this. We’d never talked about it at all. I knew how he felt about it though, I’d known it from the very beginning, and I gave him my heart anyway.