A Summer of Chances

by Roxanne Tully

  “Sure you don’t have anything stronger in there?” I teased raising an eyebrow at him.

  He shot me a look.

  The next question was boiling inside me and given the silence, it was even harder to hold back.

  “So what were you doing that night at the pool, anyway?”

  “Would you believe I’m a part-time watch guard?”

  I shook my head lightly. “I thought that was my job,” I joked.

  He smiled and played with his soda cap. “I just needed to go someplace I could be alone. I was considering the beach, but…”

  I understood. The beach didn’t possess the same brilliance that you can witness from sitting poolside at night, the reflection of the moon complementing its crystal blue tones. The shimmering wrinkles in the water were mesmerizing. The ocean was plain black at night and lacked any soothing effects, except maybe for the sounds.

  “I get it. Beach is too dark.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s it. That and it felt a little too cliché to sit out on the beach drinking. That really makes me a bum. At least by the pool I felt, I don’t know, like I had a privilege to be there. Someplace to go.” He looked at me. “Clearly I was wrong. Sorry I scared you.”

  Was I hearing this right? He was apologizing to me?

  “So,” he started in his most cheerful impression of a high-school girl. “How was your date with Fancy Pants?”

  “Bearable,” I said after swig of my soda.

  “Ah! So where does bearable land on a scale of ‘definitely second date’ and ‘you’ve gotta be kidding me’?”

  I watched him hold out his hands to mockingly weigh the two options, and found myself actually considering it. After I got home that night, I barely gave Chris a second thought. Which was unlike me. I would overthink even bad dates more than I should have at certain times in my life. Since I wasn’t about to answer his question, I decided to turn the tables on him.

  “Is that why you were lounging at the pool after hours? Were you weighing your options?” I asked.

  He looked at me thoughtfully. “No.” Then he turned back to the burning fire.

  Now he had me curious. Which was probably exactly what he wanted. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was because of a girl. “That’s okay, I’m not much of a talker either. Especially not about my love life.”

  Rick coughed out the sip of soda he’d just taken, to imply that I’d made him choke. It was so loud I looked over at the kids. No movement. Then he started chuckling, which only irritated me.

  “Are you done now?”

  He cleared his throat and shook his head vigorously. “I’m good. Sorry. You thought I went there to wallow over a girl? I got better ways of doing that. One that’s proven to be more effective than listening to country music alone in your car,” he paused. “With a pound of ice crea—”

  “I get it, Rick,” I snapped, annoyed.

  He stopped smiling and looked at me thoughtfully, then turned back to the fire. “Sorry, it’s just my sister.”

  Suddenly the most horrific things entered my mind. Anytime someone mentioned being worried about a family member, I tensed up. I didn’t even know he had a sister, but I guess I didn’t need to.

  “Oh, is she okay?”

  He concentrated on the fire then looked up after a moment. “Oh, yeah. No, she’s fine. For now, at least.”

  I didn’t understand, but I decided not to say as much and wait to see if he wanted to tell me more.

  “Jill’s sixteen. She’s a sweetheart, not your average rebellious teen. My mother got remarried a few years back. They live in Maryland but travel a lot, so we stayed with my dad. My mom’s great—she calls, visits, we go see her—but now Dad found a new business venture in Florida. A bar,” he paused. “I don’t want to go, but Jill…”

  “She has to,” I finished.

  “She’s still a minor. That’s why I still live with my dad and her. To watch over her. He’s a great dad, would never hurt her, but he’s had his head full of ways to get over my mom. He won’t give Jill the attention she needs. I can’t leave her. She needs me.”

  I nodded, understanding.

  “That’s why I didn’t take Sarah’s offer to stay at Bays House. I need to be nearby.”

  “So you’ll need to stick it out there for at least two years.”

  “A year and eight months,” he corrected immediately.

  I turned to stare into the fire for a moment. “Where would you be if not for Jill? Or if it was a different situation?” I asked curious to what he wanted.

  “I would have moved out on my eighteenth birthday,” he said with a forced laugh.

  “Do you think Jill would want to live with you?”

  “You mean alone? I don’t know, I’ve never asked her.” He frowned and then shrugged. “I guess she would. Anyway it wouldn’t matter. He’d never go for it.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “I’ve mentioned it, but he didn’t take me seriously.”

  “Of course he didn’t. You weren’t serious,” I said with a shrug.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just said you’ve never asked her. And you’re still living at your dad’s house. Don’t you think you need to change that before he takes you seriously?”

  He frowned again. “So you think I need to get an apartment.”

  “I think you need to start by talking to Jill.”

  Rick nodded. I noticed him glance at his watch. I must have bored him.

  “So what’s your story?”

  “My story? Doesn’t everyone here already know my story?”

  “Why are you here, Amy?” He tilted his head.

  I was a little envious of Rick at that moment. He had a clear problem and ways to fix it. Mine I couldn’t figure it out, and it was starting to make me crazy. “I don’t know. I guess I thought the farther I went, the less likely I’d be able to turn back.”

  “Deep.” He let out a huge smile, which I understood as holding back laughter.

  I found the humor in it and burst out laughing myself.

  “Shh,” he warned, pointing at the kids. But I could have sworn I saw his eyes brighten when I started laughing at myself.

  For some reason, his appreciative look brought me back to reality. This was Rick: the guy who was my worst nightmare when I got here—and now the one I couldn’t stop thinking about. Sure, he’d opened up to me, but it was all selfless. Not the woe-is-me, I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-my-free-life drama I had brought with me.

  But the expression I was seeing on Rick’s face suggested the opposite. He frowned and stared into the fire.

  “Amy, I’ve been really curious about you since you showed up here.”

  “Ha, I hate to disappoint you, but there’s nothing interesting going on here.” I raised my hands, forming an invisible aura around me. But what he just said threw me off-guard, and I was suddenly feeling self-conscious.

  “How would you know what I find interesting?” He shifted to face me. “As a matter of fact, I’m very interested to know why you traveled from a city that probably has way more to offer.”

  “’Cause I can’t stay at the dorms for the summer, and I didn’t want to move back home,” I paused, hoping that would be enough reason, but he didn’t move. He listened for more. “My dad got remarried last fall. I was already living on campus by then. So moving in with them now, it would feel, I don’t know…weird wouldn’t really describe it.”

  “So you don’t like her?”

  “Oh, no, Marci is great. She’s perfect for him. She’ll really take care of him the way…” My eyes fell. “…my mom did.” For some reason, I felt more emotional about my mother at that moment, but I fought back. He must have picked up on it, because the next thing I knew, Rick reached out and put his hand on my arm gently.

  “I’m sorry.” Rick didn’t look away, which was strange. People usually found a way to be distracted by something.

  I shrugged. “No, no, it was a lon
g time ago. I’m really happy for him. I just think it’s time to find what makes me happy.”

  “So you didn’t come here because you needed a job and a place to stay.”

  “No. At first that’s what it was, but the farther I drove from the city, the happier I felt.”

  “Was U of Denver your first choice?”

  “I thought it was my only choice.” I felt as though I was losing my voice and cleared my throat.

  He nodded, understanding. Then after a few more minutes of talking, laughing, and teasing, we watched the fire slowly fade out. For a second before the fire went out, I was sure that I could have made it to sunrise talking to Rick.

  He stood, dusting his cargoes, a strange choice for someone who was about to sleep outdoors. He glanced at the kids and back at me.

  “Good-night, Amy,” he said in the smoothest voice I’d heard on him.

  We made our way to our sleeping bags, which were on opposite sides of the kids, and I stared at the dark sky for a few minutes before dozing off.

  CHAPTER 15

  By midmorning the next day, the sun was really beaming, and the heat rose above ninety. And from what I heard, it wasn’t stopping there. It wasn’t as warm earlier when Rick and I woke up at sunrise. The campers were all still sleepy by the time we packed up. But I managed to convince them to try to enjoy the scenery for a few minutes before we left.

  I threw on my white shorts and navy tank top and took a lazy stroll down the boardwalk to get an iced coffee and a croissant. I was by myself, since Rachel was at a biweekly scheduled lifeguard safety training. All the Bays Beach Club and Summer Camp lifeguards get together at the club pool every other week. Rachel explained that they normally went over everything we already knew, including basic water safety, standard CPR, how to tell trouble before it happens, and the usual role-play that I remember from my training a few sum-mers ago.

  It was a few days before the camp’s Fourth of July show. This year the holiday fell on a Monday. It was mandatory for the camp staff to participate in preparing for the show, including working on decorations. I showed up at the gym a quarter after ten. The plan was, as Sarah had explained it, to build most of the decorations at the gym, painting the signs, making hats, preparing costumes, and readying various raffles. Molly, the other art teacher, was already bustling along. The fact that she was walking around with a clipboard and not actually doing anything gave me the idea that she might have taken the lead on delegating. Trish and Mickey were there folding the T-shirts that were to be displayed for sale. A few other camp staff and volunteers were there too. Some people I recognized who worked at the gift shops and the beach club tennis courts and the bartender from the Bays Club Grille were all doing something. I spotted Jeff there. He was packing the gift baskets. He saw me and winked. I looked away as if I’d been looking past him and didn’t notice.

  “Hey, Molly,” I called.

  “Amy! Great. Now we can really start getting creative around here,” she exclaimed. “Come over here and look at my ideas for the backdrop for the stage.”

  I walked over to her colored sketch of the backdrop that would go on the outdoor stage in the back of the main building. It was of a beautiful summer beach with a sunrise behind it.

  “Wow. That’s incredible, Mol.”

  “Thanks, I feel like it still needs something…I don’t know…original.”

  I stared at the small-scale image for a moment and envisioned it enlarged, spreading across the white columned stage. Then it came to me: the rising sun letting out a glow into the sky, shining light onto a translucent but vibrant American flag. The flag would need to be wavy and cover most of the backdrop. I explained the idea to Molly and lightly drew a sketch of it over some vellum paper I found on the supply desk.

  “You can do that?” She stared at me, amazed.

  “Well, sure, with translucent paint. I can pick some up at the hardware store. I’ll get a red, white, and blue and maybe a yellow for the rays.”

  “Do you think you’ll have enough time?”

  “Sure, it won’t take long. I’ll just go check out the backdrop to see how much paint I’ll need.”

  “Great.” She handed me her sketch and gave me a thumbs up before dashing off. She glanced back midstride

  “The backdrop’s being set up on stage right now, if you want to go put some primer on it first.”

  A few minutes later, I walked out to the stage, which was built on the deck in the back of the building, facing the beach. I put down my basket of supplies on one of the white folding chairs. I heard a couple of voices from the direction of the stage and turned.

  I felt my lips part. A guy with incredibly toned legs and bare tanned biceps was holding the backdrop upright. I couldn’t see his face, since it was tucked behind the set piece, but I did see a few strands of soaking wet hair peeking from the edge. He wore dark-gray gym shorts and a white tank. If just the left side of him was that hot, I couldn’t wait to see the rest of him. I blinked when I saw who came from behind the backdrop. It was Rick.

  He was still holding one end of the six-by-seven-foot backdrop while looking behind it. “You don’t want to push too hard, but you will need to give it a little more to align it with my side.”

  I recognized the girl holding up the other end of the flat: the waitress from the café, Haley. That’s when I remembered that she was on staff at the club and was probably volunteering. Her choice of whom she wanted to help was no shock. I couldn’t explain at that moment why it bothered me.

  Rick spotted me. His eyes stood out even from the distance. His forehead glistened from sweat.

  Haley glanced over in my direction and turned away. “Why can’t you just move it closer to mine?” she complained.

  “Because that’s not where it goes, Hale.”

  Hale? I guessed they were friends, or maybe something more? My heart sank in disappointment, which surprised me, again. I shook my head. The heat must have been getting to me.

  Rick turned back to me. And I was thankful that I was wearing my new baseball hat—hoping it covered up my stare.

  “Hey, you here for the backdrop, right?” he called, his eyes squinting in my direction.

  My head snapped. “Uh, yeah, but I can come back if you’re still working.” Or not.

  “Sorry, we’re almost done here.”

  “Okay, how’s that?” she asked breathlessly. But I didn’t really see the flat move much at all.

  Rick let out an exhausted breath, looking at the distance between her end and his, which was still clearly way off.

  “Can I help?” I offered, taking a step toward Haley’s end. Haley frowned, but she let go of the flat and backed away. I stepped forward and embraced the wooden set piece, gripping it from top to bottom. I steadied my legs and prepared to lift.

  “Okay, ready?” I warned.

  “Yep,” he said settling into a stance.

  I lifted the piece, putting weight on my legs, and shifted it to align with the side columns. There were two in front and two in the back. The drop was built to fit right in between the back two, which is where Rick had aligned his end.

  “Perfect.” Rick stood and stretched his legs. “Thanks.”

  I noticed Haley roll her eyes as she stood one step off the stage with her arms crossed.

  “No problem,” I said.

  Rick came from around the flat and admired it, then he looked at me and was half smiling. His eyes were bright as ever in the sunlight.

  “Well, I guess our job is done here.” Haley jumped back up to the stage and reached for Rick’s hand. I glanced down instinctively, then swallowed my jealousy and glanced away. Unfortunately, Rick had caught my eyes there and held his gaze at me.

  “C’mon, Rick. Let’s go get some iced coffee. It’s hot.” Haley pulled on his shirt like a child asking for ice cream.

  I picked up the buffer from my basket and started sanding around the edges of the wooden flat.

  I noticed Rick gently unleash himself
from Haley’s grip. “Do you need help here, Amy?” Rick offered.

  “Nope. I’m good. You guys go ahead.” I turned my head quickly toward my work to hide whatever irritation I felt build inside me start to show.

  CHAPTER 16

  Sunday morning my cell phone rang, and I debated letting it go to voicemail. But then again, I wasn’t getting many calls lately, so I figured I’d at least see who it was. I glanced at the screen and smiled.

  “Hi, Em,” I greeted my best friend, Emily, the same way each time. She had a knack for telling my mood whenever I’d answer any way differently, so I convinced myself to acquire a routine greeting.

  “Amy! What’s the deal? You haven’t called me in days.”

  “I know. I’ve been really busy and getting so tired after camp.”

  “Is it that girl Rachel? Should I be worried?” Emily joked. But she didn’t sound too upset or worried in the least. She actually sounded happy.

  “What’s going on, Em?” I offered in my usual way of changing the subject to her.

  “I have so much to tell you” She sighed. “Okay, you remember that guy from our Ancient Literature class?”

  “The one who wouldn’t stop challenging the teacher every chance he got?” I remembered the guy. Good-looking but arrogant.

  “Well, turns out, he’s working at the community center this summer, and we’ve been talking, and he’s been totally flirting with me…”

  Em continued for what seemed like hours on her new romance. I was happy for her. I’d told her briefly about Chris—or, as she referred to him, “the club soda guy”—and how horribly our date had gone.

  “So, do you guys have, like, a Fourth of July shindig or anything?”

  “Not a club or camp official shindig, but a couple of people are throwing a party on the beach. Not sure if I’m up for going.”

  “I know, it’s hard to have fun without me, right?” she asked in a manner I could only hope was a joke.

  “Right, Em.” I hadn’t expected any real words of encouragement from Emily for me to socialize or even try to make friends here.