After Summer (6 page)

“I would say that you won’t believe the quality time we’re about to have,” George said, wrapping his arms tight around her waist and grinning. “So much quality they might have to redefine the term.”

So much for redefining the term “quality time,
” Beth thought later that night.

She didn’t know what was wrong with her, except that she felt something small, hard, and mad, right in the center of her chest. She’d thought that skipping practice would mean she and George would have hours and hours to cuddle and talk about the things they never seemed to talk about these days. Where they wanted to go to college next year, for example. Who they wanted to be. These were the things Beth thought about all the time, and used to be the things she talked about with George.

But not tonight.

Tonight she’d barely had time to finish the Spaghetti-Os George had prepared for them before he had dragged her up to his bedroom. They’d stretched across his bed and started kissing and touching and moving against each other.

Beth had felt all flushed with pleasure—it was so nice,
just messing around for a change—but then of course George had undone his zipper and reached for the condoms, and everything else had taken its due course.

Afterward, George fell asleep immediately (as was his custom), and Beth lay there, staring up at the ceiling, wondering why she felt so alone. She knew she loved George, knew he knew her better than anyone. He had always been, and still was, her best friend. But if that was the case, why had he never
once
noticed tonight that Beth was feeling different, and that something was wrong?

Ella pretended she was far too engrossed in her copy of
Us Weekly
to notice that Ryan had just walked through the door of the boys’ building and out into the sharp sun of the quad. She subtly adjusted the way she was sitting on her bench, and began, ever-so-gently, to wind a strand of her hair around and around her finger.

It was a little flirtatious, sure.

But
flirting
wasn’t
doing,
as she had explained to Jeremy last week on the phone. She had pretended that she was talking about the latest episode of
The Hills,
which was partly true. Jeremy had agreed. They hadn’t caught up in a lo-ong time—Ella felt guilty about not calling him back often enough—and she had been so wanting to hear his
voice. But Ella knew they’d more than make up for their lack of correspondence that weekend.

“Hey, Ella,” Ryan drawled, coming to a stop in front of her.

Ella looked up slowly, as if it was hard to tear her eyes away from the latest Lindsay Lohan Goes Wild story.

The wind brought the smell of winter with it, and kicked up color in Ryan’s cheeks. Today he’d managed to mess around with his uniform a little bit, so everything sat just outside school guidelines, right down to the mussed-up hair and loosely knotted tie. Even though Ella
knew
he probably did it himself—deliberately—she couldn’t help but admire the careless sort of vibe it gave him.

“Hey,” she said after a moment, as if she was thinking of other things. He smiled.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “Waiting for me?”

Ella gave him her patented
you wish
look. “I had to get outside,” she said. “Sometimes school feels like it’s suffocating me.”

“I hear you,” Ryan said, dropping down next to her on the bench, so they could both look out across the autumn-colored quad, trees losing leaves every time the wind picked up.

“So, friend,” he said, raising his eyebows and looking at
her. “I think it’s time that I cement my reputation as the coolest kid at St. Augustine’s.”

“I didn’t know that was your reputation,” Ella murmured teasingly. “I thought you were just the
new
kid.”

“At the moment, yeah.” He gave her a sly look, indicating that he knew exactly how cool everyone thought he was. It was that kind of confidence that made Ella feel like purring. “Which, obviously, needs to change.”

“Aw, poor baby.” Ella laughed. She reached over and patted his hand. “Not getting enough attention?”

Ryan shot her a look as if to say that no amount of attention would be enough.

It was moments like this that made Ella think she and Ryan were two halves of the same whole. Or something else lame and vaguely poetic. She just knew that she
got
him.

“So I’ve decided to throw the Halloween party to end all Halloween parties this weekend.” Ryan leaned forward and fastened his gaze on Ella’s. “I’m thinking you should come over early on Saturday and help me dress.”

“You don’t know how to dress yourself?” Ella asked, feeling her cheeks—what the hell?—flush. Ella
never
blushed.

“I think you could do a better job,” Ryan replied with a smirk. “And who knows? We might have fun.”

His tone was completely suggestive, and he made absolutely no attempt to hide it.

He was just so naughty. And Ella wanted to lap it up.

It was almost too bad that she couldn’t go to his house.

Almost.

“My boyfriend’s coming up for the weekend,” she said, letting her lashes sweep closed, as if she was regretful. In truth, her whole body hummed with excitement every time she thought about
finally
seeing Jeremy again. “We have our own private Halloween party planned. Otherwise, I’d swing by.
After
you were dressed, of course.”

“You should bring him,” Ryan said, his eyes steady on hers when she looked at him again. “Let him check out the scene around here.” He sounded unabashedly like he planned to take Jeremy down. Ella was a sucker for teenage boys’ competitive urges. She thought they were just adorable.

“Here’s the thing about Jeremy,” she said, leaning forward herself, so they were in the same position. Like a mirror image. “He’s not really into the scene here.” She gave Ryan a smile. “He’s into me.”

“Who could blame him?” Ryan’s grin was wide. “But this party is going to be epic. I guarantee it. We’re talking DJ, light show—”

As he continued, Ella felt a swell of regret. She really didn’t want to miss out on anything, truth be told.

“It might be a great party,” she said. “But since I’m not going, it obviously can’t be
that
epic. By, like, definition.”

“You make a good point.” Ryan looked at her, slowly, carefully, and it was like he could read her. “You know you want to come, Ella.”

“What I know,” she told him with a dazzling smile, “is that I can’t wait to see my boyfriend.”

Because as bummed as she might be to miss a party, Ella knew she wanted to see Jeremy more.

When her cell rang Friday evening, Ella was already nearly dizzy with excitement. Her mom was, mercifully, away for the weekend (Ella’s parents were divorced). She’d rented a selection of slasher flicks, decorated the den with jack-o-lanterns, and bought bags of Halloween candy. The only challenge would be to keep herself from slipping into her costume before Saturday night. The costume she’d prepared especially to wow Jeremy.

No matter what Ella told Marilee or Ryan, being in a long-distance relationship was a challenge. Ella wasn’t as good on the phone as she was in real life. She always had the best intentions of blocking out time for her and Jeremy’s daily scheduled phone call, but other things always seemed to pop up and interrupt those plans. Whether it was an impromptu shopping trip for Halloween costumes with Marilee, forgetting to put her cell phone on the charger after a long conversation with Jamie, or just zoning out while updating her MySpace profile, poor Jeremy sometimes got the shaft.

She wasn’t happy about it. It frustrated her, especially when he complained about their recent lack of phone time. It wasn’t that she didn’t care—she obviously did. But she knew no amount of phone calls or texted-photos could ever achieve what the real-life sight of her in something clingy could.

Ella grabbed her phone, seeing it was Jeremy. “Where are you?” she cried. By her calculations, Jeremy should have left his home around 3:30 or 4:00 at the latest, which meant he should be rolling into her driveway anytime after 7:00. It was 6:45.

There was a pause. “Ella, I don’t know how to say this,” Jeremy spoke quietly. “I’m not coming.”

The words didn’t make sense.

“What do you mean?” Ella asked.

“I mean, I’m not coming,” he said. “I’m still in Philadelphia. I’ve been sitting here with the car keys in my hand. For hours.”

“What?” Ella felt stupid. Her tongue felt clumsy in her mouth. “Is something wrong with your car?”

“It’s not the car.” His voice sounded heavy, and Ella felt something freeze in her belly.

“Then what is it?” she demanded. “Jer, you could have been here by now!”

“And then what?” he asked. “I know that if I see you, I’m just going to overlook the fact that you always forget to
call me, and when you do, it’s like you’re concentrating on everything but our conversation. And for all the quizzes and stuff I e-mail, you’ve never once sent me one.”

“I know,” she said hastily. “I’m not very good at all the communication stuff, but I can be—”

“I don’t think you can,” Jeremy said sadly. “I don’t think that’s who you are, Ella. Maybe we should have left things the way they were in the summer. We work better when we can
see
each other.”

Ella had the strangest flashback then. She remembered that night in Maine when she’d pulled out her biggest power move on a date with Jeremy, and he hadn’t reacted at all the way she’d expected. This moment felt similar. Like he was playing some game she’d never even heard of before.

“What are you saying?” she asked then, even though she was pretty sure she didn’t want to hear his answer.

“I’m really sorry, Ella,” Jeremy said, and it didn’t make Ella feel any better that he sounded legitimately upset. “I think we should just…end things.”

For a moment, Ella felt frozen in place. She could hear Jeremy’s voice saying her name, but it seemed to come from very far away. She had to struggle for a moment to breathe.

And then a tiny voice inside her whispered that maybe Jeremy was right. Maybe she’d been kidding herself.

Because she was Ella Tuttle. And just maybe
she
was the one who’d had enough—enough of pretending to be satisfied
with silly e-mail quizzes, late-night phone calls, and an absentee boyfriend. She had lost her head in this Jeremy situation, she realized. She didn’t need this long-distance shit. She needed someone right in front of her. Someone real, and fun, and exciting.

Someone more like her.

“Ella?” Jeremy sounded worried. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. She took a breath and then let it out. “You know, I’m glad you said something. This long-distance thing doesn’t really work for me, either.”

“Well, maybe we should talk more—”

“I don’t think there’s anything to talk about,” Ella said smoothly.

She didn’t feel frozen anymore. She knew how to do this part. She was excellent at breaking up, actually. All her cousins said so. It was a skill, like anything else. She knew it was best to hit them with it quick and then get out of the conversation even quicker.

“Ella—”

“I’ll never forget last summer,” she said, and then she clicked off, because she’d never seen the point of hanging around talking things out when someone (usually her, of course) had decided to go. There was nothing left to say.

“Okay,” Taryn announced on Friday night. She marched over to the closet, took out Kelsi’s peacoat, and tossed it at her. “Let’s go. I told Bennett that this time you would absolutely be there. He’s beginning to think you’re my imaginary friend.”

“I don’t know,” Kelsi said, folding her hands in her lap as she sat on her bed. “Tim said the pledges might get out of their secret thing on the early side—”

“Which means anywhere between midnight and two a.m.,” Taryn cut in. “Come on, Kels, you have time to come over and watch the movie. Bennett and his friend from high school spent all summer filming it. Even if it sucks, we’ll have fun, which”—she gave Kelsi a significant look—“you could use.”

She was right.The truth was, Kesli thought as she got up, put on her coat, and followed Taryn out the door, she was glad to have the diversion. She and Tim hadn’t really talked things out after their fight outside his frat’s party. They’d just sort of…kept going. Pretending everything was the same. But a coldness had grown between them. They hadn’t even fooled around once since The Fight.

Sneaking a glance at Taryn as she climbed into the car, Kelsi knew what her roommate would say: that Kelsi and Tim needed to hash it out. Taryn was a big fan of hashing things out. She was as free and forthcoming with her emotions as she was with her sexuality. Kelsi both admired and feared that.

Kelsi knew she should talk to Tim, but that felt so heavy, like some object she had to roll out of the way before she got to what she really wanted—which was simply to kiss and curl up beside him again. To be easy with him again, the way it had been before.

Half an hour later, Kelsi was sitting in Bennett’s dorm room with him, while Taryn parked the car. His room was as small and cramped as the room her cousin Jamie had stayed in over the summer while taking a writing course at Amherst, but it was decorated with amazing, brightly colored artwork and band posters.

Kelsi thought of bringing that up to Bennett—about
Jamie having gone to Amherst. Anything to break the awkward stillness in the room. Bennett, sitting in a chair across from her, was simply studying Kelsi’s face.

“It’s really nice of you to share your movie with me,” Kelsi finally said nervously. She thought maybe she’d said that before, but she couldn’t stand another moment of the oppressive silence. “I’m really impressed that you have a movie to show in the first place, to be honest.”

Bennett, Kelsi couldn’t help noticing, didn’t appear to notice the quiet. He had that same compelling ease about him that Taryn did, although he didn’t look much like her. Kelsi had expected someone small and skinny like Taryn. But Bennett was taller and lankier than Kelsi had been imagining. He was every inch the hipster, in a frayed corduroy jacket and Buddy Holly glasses that seemed custom-made for his intelligent face and shaggy coppery-red hair.

“Taryn says that I got all the creative genes in the family,” Bennett said, leaning back in his creaky desk chair. He grinned, showing a dimple in his cheek. “It’s cute, especially coming from Taryn. Her whole life is creative.”

Also cute, Kelsi couldn’t help thinking, was Bennett’s raspy, Kiefer Sutherland-y voice.

“So how are you liking freshman year so far?” Bennett asked, still smiling. “Taryn’s pretty psyched that she got such a cool roommate.”

“Taryn’s great,” Kelsi said truthfully. “But you know that.”

“Yeah, she’s okay.” But he was laughing.

“She, and so many of the girls at Smith, are so smart—it’s amazing.” Kelsi forgot to feel awkward as she began speaking. In fact, she was excited to have an actual discussion with a guy that didn’t involve keg-pumping strategies. “In one of my classes the other day, we got into this huge debate over which female mythological figures were male constructs and which were more clearly feminine, and then it turned into a whole
different
discussion about how to read pop culture today for the same messages.”

“Like how the Brad-Angelina-Jennifer triangle taps into social concerns about women?” Bennett asked, grinning.

“Exactly!” Kelsi said, laughing. “I mean, believe me, nobody thought about stuff like this at St. Augustine’s.”

“Don’t tell me you went to Catholic school,” Bennett said with a chuckle.

Kelsi laughed, too, rolling her eyes. “My whole life. The sisters might have been interested in intellectual discussions, but none of the other girls were.” Kelsi sighed.

“College is cool,” Bennett said simply.

Kelsi nodded. “I guess I like that I’m finally in a place where nobody thinks I’m a freak for
wanting
to study,” she said, and paused. “Taryn said you guys went to a much more creative kind of high school.”

“Well, sure,” Bennett said. “But then it became a whole competition about
how
creative you were. How many ironic references you could put into your film, how many intertextual asides in your poetry—if you see what I mean.” He grinned. “So I, obviously, had to be the
most
creative.”

“Of course.” Kelsi waved a hand at the wall over his desk, which was covered with abstract paintings in different sizes. Wild, moody colors, purples and browns. “I like those,” she said. “Did you do them?”

“I’m experimenting,” he said, swiveling to look at them. “Did you see that exhibit in the college art center?”

“Yeah, Taryn took me,” Kelsi said, sitting forward. “My favorite was the huge seascape in all those random colors.”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to play with,” Bennett said, leaning forward, too. “I’m not much of a painter, but I like to mess around with ways of seeing.”

“Like that seascape,” Kelsi agreed. “Somehow, making the colors nothing like the ocean at all made me miss the ocean more than any photograph would have.” She thought of Pebble Beach with a pang of longing.

“Right!” Bennett said with obvious delight, and then they both gave a start when the door swung open and Taryn bounded in.

“Oh, my God,” she cried. “Did you guys even notice I was gone for about a hundred years? Thanks for answering your cell phones, losers!”

Under the guise of pulling out her phone to check the missed calls list, Kelsi took a deep breath and put aside the surprising disappointment she felt. Was this just another cool conversation, like ones she’d had with different girls at Smith? Was Bennett just another smart, interesting person?

If so, why were her cheeks so hot and flushed?

She was being ridiculous.

First of all, she was in love with Tim. She knew that, despite the recent turmoil.

And besides, Bennett was Taryn’s brother. Observing them talking to each other, gesturing in the same way and so obviously easy in their skin, Kelsi figured that Bennett had just been sweet-talking her. If he was as similar to Taryn as he seemed, he probably spent a lot of time getting impressionable girls out of their pants by talking about
art
and whatever.

And Kelsi would sure as hell not be one of them.

“Okay,” Bennett said. “Crisis averted. Can we watch the movie now?”

“Let’s do it,” Kelsi said, and smiled.