Last Summer (11 page)

On another gorgeous Pebble Beach day, Kelsi decided not to mope around the house, and took her frustrations out to the yard and focused them on the tetherball set. It was surprisingly therapeutic to hit the ball, sending it spinning and spinning on the end of its rope.

Kelsi was seriously considering installing a tetherball set in her dorm room next year. She had a feeling it would come in handy during finals.

She gave the ball a
whack
because she missed Bennett.

Then another, more vicious
whack
for his new Art Snob persona, which Kelsi now fully admitted to herself that she hated.

Whack
for Taryn, and whatever
her
problem was these days.

Whack
because Kelsi didn’t know what to do with a best friend who was cold, distant, and seemed to be avoiding her.

Whack
and then another, harder
whack
because when Kelsi asked, Taryn totally lied and said she didn’t know what Kelsi was talking about, and that everything was fine.

Kelsi hit the ball back and forth, harder and harder, with escalating force, and then, finally, put everything she had into one last
whack.

It was pretty satisfying to watch the cord wrap itself around the pole. She
almost
felt better about the fact that it was yet another Saturday and she wasn’t with her boyfriend.

Almost.

Kelsi turned back toward the cottages.

“I wouldn’t want to be that tetherball,” a deep, familiar voice said. Kelsi turned and saw Bennett sitting on the nearest picnic table.

Kelsi felt herself gape at him.

She couldn’t believe it.

There he was, stretched out across the bench, looking rumpled and adorable in his jeans and a Ramones T-shirt. He had stubble on his jaw, and his eyes were bloodshot behind his black glasses, but he was sitting there in all the glory of the Maine sunshine.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” she cried, and ran, hurling herself into his arms. She held him so close, she could
actually feel his skin, and convinced herself that she wasn’t dreaming. She shut her eyes and leaned into him.

“I knew I was coming up since yesterday,” he whispered into her ear, pulling her down onto the bench and nuzzling her neck, “but I wanted to surprise you.”

“This is the best thing that’s happened all summer,” she whispered back, letting him rock them both.

“Plus, I’ve bailed so many times, I thought you might not believe me, anyway,” he admitted.

Kelsi pulled back so she could look him in the eye, and smiled. Then she kissed him.

“I’ll always believe you,” she promised.

Then she fell back into his arms, and felt like she could stay there forever.

It was the most perfect Saturday of the summer. Kelsi showed Bennett
everything.
She introduced him to all her relatives, and took him on a tour of Pebble Beach, from her favorite schooner spot on the rocky bluff to the pier. She pointed out the sand pits where the town held their Fourth of July clambakes, and the farmer’s market where all the fresh produce was sold. They had coffee and shared a vegan cupcake at a little café Kelsi had always loved, and then walked up and down Main Street as night began to creep in.

“It’s beautiful here,” Bennett said. “New York feels like another lifetime.”

Which Kelsi liked hearing. Because maybe realizing that there were things beyond Carlos’s art world would be good for Bennett. Maybe it would remind him that he didn’t have to be as pretentious and work-obsessed as it seemed everyone else in Manhattan was.

But Kelsi didn’t say any of that. She didn’t want to ruin the moment. So instead she just took his hand.

Later, they stood together on the edge of the pier, looking out over the water at the small, rocky islands that cluttered the bay. They were all pines and boulders, and they created fascinating shadows across the calm water, which Kelsi and Bennett took turns pointing out to each other. They stood there until the sun was completely gone, the last streaks of red and pink faded into the inky blue of the oncoming night.

Bennett sighed a little bit, and pulled Kelsi into the crook of his arm.

“This has been an amazing day. It’s going to be tough to go back to New York tomorrow.”

Kelsi let out a sigh of protest. “I don’t want to talk about it yet,” she told him. “We’ll have to deal with it tomorrow.”

Bennett kissed her, hard and long, and then kissed her again on her forehead.

“I love you,” he said. “This summer has been so tough, but everything’s going to be fine in a few weeks.”

Kelsi smiled into his eyes. “I know. I’m glad,” she said.

They held hands and walked back into town. They were standing on Main Street, debating whether to have dinner out or at home, when Kelsi saw a familiar figure detach from the jostling crowd outside Ahoy.

It was Taryn, who Kelsi had been expecting to run into all day. Somehow, they never had.

“She’s going to freak when she sees me,” Bennett predicted, laughter in his voice.

Kelsi hadn’t told Bennett about the cold shoulder Taryn had been giving her. She thought that would only put him in an awkward position, and she didn’t see the point in that. So she put on as big a smile as she could, fully prepared to pretend that everything was fine between her and Taryn.

“Hey there,” Bennett said when Taryn drew close, her head down.

She obviously recognized his voice because she jumped, and her mouth fell open when she looked up and saw him standing there.

“Surprise,” Bennett said softly.

His tone was strange, Kelsi thought—almost careful. But then she quickly forgot about that, because Taryn stiffened and looked from Bennett to Kelsi, and then back again.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said fiercely. “What are you doing here?”

“Surprising me,” Kelsi said, feeling her stomach tense.

“Ease up, Taryn,” Bennett suggested quietly, sounding tense.

“Whatever,” Taryn snapped. She wrapped her arms around her middle. “I can’t deal with this.”

“Taryn—” Kelsi started, but Taryn threw up a hand and Kelsi’s words died in her throat.

“Have fun,” Taryn said bitterly, and then she turned on her heel and took off in the opposite direction.

For a moment, Kelsi and Bennett just stood there in the dark.

“What was
that
?” Kelsi asked, bewildered. She shook her head. “She’s been acting like a weirdo for a while, you know. It’s like she’s mad at me about something.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Bennett said. He settled his arm around Kelsi’s shoulders and kissed her ear. “In a few weeks, we’ll be back in Massachusetts and everything will be back to normal.”

“I don’t know,” Kelsi said, but Bennett kissed her again, this time on her mouth.

“Trust me,” he urged her. “It’s been a hard summer, but everything’s going to be okay.”

Kelsi wanted to believe him more than anything, so she kissed him back, and then gazed at him. He was more beautiful to her than the stars that crowded the sky above them.

“Come on,” she whispered, and gave him a sexy smile. “Let’s not waste our one night together in Pebble Beach.”

The next morning was hard, as Bennett had to leave very early, and Kelsi got up to see him drive south, down the dirt road toward town. It was so early that she waved a hello to Beth, who emerged from her cottage already in her running gear, and looked surprised to see anyone else up and about.

Kelsi watched her cousin take off at a good speed, and then went back inside to crawl into her bed.

Much later that afternoon, she was awake again—but just barely. She was sitting sideways out in the hammock in the backyard, talking to Bennett on the phone and contemplating the sunshine that made it through the pines to warm the grass beneath her feet.

“I’m sitting in traffic outside Danbury,” he told her. “But it was worth it. Are you okay? You sound strange.”

“I’m just mellow,” Kelsi assured him. “Yesterday was wonderful. I’m so glad you came.”

“Me, too,” he agreed. Then he laughed a little bit. “Don’t get so relaxed you forget to miss me,” Bennett teased her. “That’s unacceptable.”

Kelsi laughed, and enjoyed some highly satisfying mushy talk with him. So it was particularly embarrassing when she hung up to find Taryn standing there.

“How’s Bennett?” Taryn asked, giving Kelsi an icy stare.

“He’s fine,” Kelsi replied uneasily. “Just stuck in traffic. Why?”

“He didn’t tell you, did he?” Taryn blurted out. Her cheeks were very pink.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Kelsi felt helpless. “What’s going on with you?! What was last night all about?”

“I get that this isn’t my business, but I can’t believe you would want him to throw his life away,” Taryn said in the same hard tone—which, Kelsi realized belatedly, was masking the fact that Taryn was very upset.

“You have to tell me what’s going on, Taryn,” Kelsi finally said firmly. “Or I can’t contribute to this conversation.”

Taryn took a deep breath, and then met Kelsi’s eyes.

“Carlos offered Bennett a residency in his gallery, for next year. It’s an unheard-of honor.”

“That’s
amazing
!” Kelsi agreed. She frowned at the phone in her hand. “I don’t understand why he hasn’t told me—”

“Because he turned it down,” Taryn snapped. She took a ragged breath. “He turned it down, Kelsi, even though Carlos hasn’t offered anyone a residency in years! He turned
it down because he wants to stay in Massachusetts. With you.”

Kelsi just stared at Taryn, uncomprehending.

“But that’s…” She couldn’t finish.

“Career suicide,” Taryn finished for her. Her mouth tightened. “He won’t listen to me. So it’s up to you. What do you think he should choose? His entire future? Or you?”

Ella watched Taryn storm away from the hammock, headed in the direction of the beach.

She realized she was holding her breath, waiting to see Kelsi’s reaction to the news.

Because she’d engineered the confrontation and because she was just hoping Kelsi would take it better than she had last summer when the person who’d betrayed her was Ella.

Ella had been watching the cold war between Taryn and Kelsi develop ever since she’d stumbled into it the morning Kelsi returned from New York. The last few weeks had been excruciating—Taryn had been avoiding Kelsi, who, in turn, just looked confused. And worse, hurt. Things had been better briefly when Bennett had shown up yesterday,
but Ella suspected that Kelsi’s good mood probably left with him in his rented Impala.

Ella hadn’t been able to bear it another second, so when Taryn wafted into the living room earlier that afternoon, Ella had taken matters into her own hands.

“You need to tell her,” she had announced.

Taryn had looked startled. As well she might. As far as Ella knew, Taryn had no idea that Ella was onto her.

“Um, okay,” she’d said, acting as if she hadn’t known what Ella was talking about.

“Kelsi deserves to know what’s going on,” Ella had told her. She couldn’t remember ever having been more serious.

Taryn had stared at her for a long while. Ella had been afraid for a moment that she would demand to know how Ella had figured everything out, but she didn’t. She just shook her head.

“You’re a little bit spooky,” she said, which Ella might have taken offense to, until Taryn continued, “but you’re absolutely right.”

Maybe she
was
right, Ella thought now, but that didn’t make her feel any better if Kelsi’s heart was shattered
all over
again.

Finally, Kelsi rose from the hammock, and turned so Ella could see her face. She looked dazed more than anything else. But not, Ella was relieved to see, in pieces.

Kelsi walked in the cottage door and didn’t seem to notice that her sister was sitting right there until Ella shifted position on the couch.

“Oh,” she said, distracted. “I didn’t see you.”

“It’s better that you know,” Ella said hurriedly.

Kelsi focused on her and shook her head.

“Are you kidding me?” she cried, color flooding her cheeks. “Did Bennett tell everyone on the planet except me?”

Ella frowned. “What does Bennett have to do with anything? I’m talking about Peter.”

“Peter?” Kelsi’s brow furrowed. It was like she didn’t know who Peter was. Like she’d forgotten him. Ella rushed on.

“Your roommate is seeing him. In alleys, apparently.” It was maybe a little bitchier than necessary, but Ella was offbalance. If Taryn hadn’t told Kelsi about Peter, what
had
they been talking about out by the hammock?

“Oh,” Kelsi said, her forehead creasing in confusion. “
That
Peter.” She blinked as if to clear her head. “I can’t imagine why you’d want to talk about that guy, El, but I can’t do it right now. I have to lie down.”

Ella was at a loss.

“Did you hear me?” she demanded. “Taryn is, like,
actively
dating him! They were all over each other in the Lighthouse!”

“I don’t need details, Ella,” Kelsi said impatiently. She
pushed her hair back from her forehead. “And what do you care what Peter does?”

Ella gaped at her. She actually felt her mouth drop open.

“Why don’t
you
care?” she threw back at Kelsi.

“I told her he was a player,” Kelsi said dismissively, and waved one hand in the air to underscore her disinterest. “Taryn can handle herself.”

She knew.

Ella literally couldn’t take that in. Her body shook a little bit, and her ears popped, like she’d just gotten off an airplane.

But her voice still sounded kind of normal.

“You knew?” she asked, with a little squeak at the end.

“What?” Kelsi’s eyes narrowed as she searched Ella’s face. “Of course I knew. Why are we talking about this, anyway?”

“Because I don’t get it!” Ella cried. The fact that she was upset seemed to finally dawn on Kelsi, who frowned. But Ella just kept going. “Why don’t you care? Why aren’t you outraged that Taryn would do this to you?”

Now Kelsi looked like she was at a loss.

“Do
what
to me?” she sputtered, and Ella could see that her sister had no idea what was happening.

“Let me be sure I understand this,” Ella said shakily. “So when you found out what happened with Peter and me a whole
year
after the fact, that was so awful that it completely ripped us apart. But when
Taryn
has a full-on
fling
with the
same guy, it’s all good. Because
Taryn
is so wonderful that no matter what she does, you adore her. Is that it?”

Kelsi sighed. “Okay, you’re kind of jealous of her,” she began in that long-suffering tone that Ella hated. The one that meant that Kelsi thought she was a complete pain in the ass.

“I am not
jealous
of her!” Ella cried, completely losing her cool. “I just don’t see why when I do something, it’s the end of the world, but when she does the
exact same thing,
except even
worse,
you don’t give a shit!”

“It is not the same thing!” Kelsi snapped. Then she closed her eyes. “I’m not going to fight with you about this. I don’t even understand why you care! It’s none of your business, Ella.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Ella said bitterly. Her hurt feelings from the whole summer rose up in her like nausea. “Nothing you do is my business anymore. Now that you have the great and wonderful Taryn, why should you care about anyone else? You’ve barely even been here this summer, Kelsi. And you spend every one of the five minutes a week you actually are here with your college roommate—you know, the one you
lived with all year
—instead of even
pretending
to hang out with your family. Why did you even bother to come to Pebble Beach at all?!”

“You are unbelievable,” Kelsi replied slowly, her eyes wide. “I don’t even know what to say!”

“You don’t know what to say or do about anything!” Ella yelled at her. “When you’re here it’s like you’re on a different planet! Did I miss the part where we suddenly don’t even talk? You look right through me! Have you even noticed the fact that I’m sleeping on a pullout couch this summer like a loser so that you can install your stupid friend in
my
bedroom?”

Kelsi put out both her hands, as if to ward Ella off. “I can’t deal with this right now!” she said, her voice rising. “You don’t understand. Bennett has made this incredibly—”

“Oh, right,
Bennett,
” Ella interrupted with a roll of her eyes. “Because
he
’s a winner.”

“What did Bennett ever do to you?” Kelsi demanded.

“I, personally, couldn’t care less about Bennett,” Ella informed Kelsi angrily. “But he’s spent the whole summer breaking plans with you, and every time you come back from New York you’re more and more miserable. What’s there for me to like?”

“Maybe you didn’t notice that he was
here,
like, five hours ago?”

“For the first time all summer,” Ella snapped back. “And I bet you’ll be miserable all over again before nightfall!”

“I’m miserable because I want to be with him, Ella,” Kelsi threw at her, furious. “I’m
in love
with him! I think about him all the time, I feel like I won’t make it until the next time we have sex again, I feel like I can’t breathe—”

“Wait—
what
did you say?”

Because Ella could not possibly have heard that right.

“Forget it,” Kelsi said angrily. “You wouldn’t understand.”

She clearly didn’t understand what
she’d
said. Or Ella had misheard her. Nothing else made sense.

But Ella had to be sure.

“Did you say until you have sex?
Again?
”

Kelsi looked flushed. “I don’t know what I said.”

But Ella wasn’t going to let it go.

“So, you’ve slept together,” she said softly, feeling young and small, and hating it.

They stared at each other across the living room and, it seemed to Ella, the entire span of their childhood.

“Yes,” Kelsi said finally. “I have had sex with Bennett.”

Ella nodded. She ran her tongue over her teeth and then nodded again. “When?” she asked.

“The first time was a couple of months ago,” Kelsi said. “But I don’t—”

“A couple of months ago,” Ella repeated, “and you didn’t tell me. Your virginity was this
huge
thing to you for
years,
and you didn’t even tell me that you lost it.”

She felt like such an idiot. She remembered sitting in the kitchen earlier this summer, trying to get Kelsi to open up about boys and sex. She’d thought it was Kelsi’s same old problem of being pressured. She couldn’t believe how
stupid she’d been or that Kelsi had let her blunder around like that. Ella felt hot tears sting her throat. She wanted to curl up in a ball and cry.

Kelsi groaned. “I know this seems like a big deal, but really, I didn’t mean to not tell you. I just didn’t have time.”

“But there was enough time to fill Taryn in on the details of what went down with me and Peter,” Ella snapped. “Summer’s almost over, Kelsi. You were
never
going to tell me.”

That just hung there.

And the longer it hung there, the more Ella knew that she was right.

It was awful.

“You’re making this into a much bigger thing than it is, El,” Kelsi finally said, taking a step closer.

What she didn’t say was that Ella was wrong.

And it was like Ella finally saw everything for the first time.

Kelsi liked Taryn better. There was no competition. Taryn had already won. Ella was just the foolish little sister, the one who didn’t get the in-jokes. The one who tagged along, unwanted.

The little tramp who Kelsi didn’t even include in her life anymore.

And that was how Kelsi wanted it.

“You’re right. I was making it into a bigger deal than it was,” Ella said finally, her tone as cold and hard as ice.

“Come on, Ella,” Kelsi murmured, not quite looking at her.

“Don’t worry,” Ella said stiffly. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

And then she turned around and headed outside, as fast as she could walk with the tears blurring her eyes.