Perfect Summer (6 page)

Without another word, the deliveryman walked back to his truck, climbed up, put it in drive, and sped away.

Summer sank to the grass. Someone had sent her flowers. For real, this time. She yanked the red bow loose, worked it off a corner, tossed off the lid, and ripped back the waxy, green tissue paper.

Not roses…pencils.

Seven rows of yellow, unsharpened, number two pencils were tied with a thick, red satin ribbon. A bouquet of pencils. A small, white envelope was wedged under the ribbon.

Summer worked it out and opened it.

Ms. Ames,

I hope these erase your bad opinion of me. See you on Monday.

CAG

P.S.—Lead poisoning is only a myth.

Grayson was long on charm, she’d give him that. And he was witty, which was unexpected.

Her mother leaned over Summer’s shoulder. “I take it this CAG is a man?”

No, he’s a horse.
Summer did her best to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “Yes.”

“I’m late.” Her mother checked her watch. “Sorry to run.”

Don’t be sorry. Run
faster. “That’s a shame.”

Her mother pulled open the driver’s door. “Don’t forget, next Thursday, seven thirty.”

Trying out the selective hearing bit, Summer turned her back on her mother and walked to the rosebush. She didn’t turn around until she heard her mother’s car back out of the driveway and hum down the street.

So what if her first floral delivery had come from Office Max? Summer fought the urge to lean down and sniff the pale pink erasers. She set the box on the front porch. It didn’t hurt that her mother thought she had a man interested in her.

Pencils? She couldn’t let Grayson have the last word.

A male voice called from the other side of the red-tipped photinia hedge separating her yard from the one on the left. “Is she gone?”

“Yes, Satan has left the building.” Summer pulled back a clump of branches and smiled at her neighbor, Chuck. “Tell Stan it’s safe.”

Chuck and Stan, her nosy—um—concerned next-door neighbors, were a blessing and a curse.

“We saw you on TV. Clint Grayson…yum.” Stan’s clean-shaven face popped out from the break in the hedge. As always, he was impeccably dressed in tailored khakis and a pressed shirt. His fine-boned frame and bald head were a complete contrast to his partner’s heavyset build and wrinkled jeans. “Chuck, honey, mix us up a batch of your famous margaritas. Our Summer needs liquor.”

“It’s, like, ten in the morning. I haven’t had breakfast—”

“We’re gonna need some nachos too,” Stan called over his shoulder to Chuck, who was headed back to the house. Stan turned back to Summer. “Molly kicked me out of the house while she steam cleans the carpets. Chuck’s only allowed in the kitchen because it’s tile and she—”

“Doesn’t do tile on the weekends,” Summer finished for him.

Eight years ago, Stan had committed his life to Chuck knowing that his partner was the sole guardian of his sister, Molly, who had Down’s Syndrome. Stan had not only accepted Chuck’s eccentricities but he’d accepted Molly’s obsessive need to steam clean the floors. In fact, he bought her a new steam cleaner every Christmas. That was true love. Summer wanted to believe it really existed, but she'd never experienced it personally.

Stan slung an arm around Summer’s shoulders. “How come I’m the last to know about you and my favorite football player?”

“Don’t sulk. According to my mother, it causes frown lines—”

“Speaking of the Queen of Darkness—”

“She’s really gone, I promise—”

“No, that’s not it. Um…I don’t know how to say this, but I think she’s finally crossed the line from crazy-mean bitch to psycho-crazy-mean bitch.” Stan dropped his arm and opened Summer’s front door, stepped back, and waited for her to enter. Manners—Summer never got tired of them.

“I’ve got news for you. If there’s a line, she was born just south of it.” Summer led him to the kitchen. She didn’t need to tell Stan to have a seat. He was practically family. “Tea?”

She pulled the glass pitcher out of the fridge.

“No, I’ll wait for the ’ritas.” Stan slid onto one of the brown leather barstools under the granite bar she’d installed last month. “Last weekend, we took Molly to Bryan for that Special Olympics bowling tournament against the Aggie Bombers—”

“I forgot. How many medals did she win?” Summer grabbed a glass from the cabinet next to the sink and pressed it against the ice dispenser lever in the freezer door.

“It’s the Special Olympics, so everyone wins a medal.” Stan grinned with pride. “Okay, five. On our way back from Bryan, we stopped in Lambert because a gourmet chocolate maker moved from Houston to make chocolates—”

“Chocolates in Lambert? It’s a small town in the middle of nowhere.” Summer poured dark tea into her glass.

“Yes, Lambert.” Stan leaned in closer. “Your mother was parked across the street from the chocolate factory, watching it. It was all very cloak-and-dagger.”

Summer leaned against her kitchen island. “Is this like the time you saw Sandra Bullock at Taco Shack?”

“It could have been her. The hair was right.” He waved his hand dismissively. “This was your mother. It was her license plate—
LAMES
—that still makes me laugh.” His shoulders shook. “I’m telling you, she was casing the joint.”

“‘Casing the joint?’ Who are you, Elliot Ness?” Summer shook her head. “Why would my mother be in Lambert? The nearest Neimans is in Houston.”

“That’s where the psycho part comes in. She’s the food Nazi, right?” Stan crossed his arms as his eyes turned huge. “You don’t think she’s planning some sort of attack? Like a chocolate terrorist thing?”

“You need to stop watching all those conspiracy theory shows. I assure you, my mother is lots of things, but a choco terrorist—I don’t think so.”

The front door banged open. “Whew, I made it out just in time. Molly was about to start the living room, and she’d kill me if I messed up her perfect rows.” Chuck stepped into the kitchen, margarita pitcher in one hand and all-clad baking sheet piled with chips, shredded chicken, and cheese in the other. “I need to borrow your oven.”

Chuck handed the margaritas to Summer, pulled open the top oven door of the double ovens across from her refrigerator, slid the pan in, and hit bake. “Did you tell her about our
LAMES
sighting?”

“She didn’t buy the choco-terrorism thing either.” Stan slid off the barstool and grabbed the margarita glasses out of the china cabinet lining the wall of the breakfast room.

“Told you.” Chuck opened the cabinet with dishes, pulled out a salad plate, grabbed the sea salt from the pantry and a key lime from the fridge, and spent a couple of seconds at the knife block selecting just the right one. “What about the man?”

“I forgot.” Stan set the glasses on the counter in front of Chuck. “She was hugging a hot guy.”

Summer cocked her head to the left. “Come on. Do I look like a sucker? If you’re going to con me, you have to make it plausible. My mother doesn’t hug…ever. Stick with the choco-terrorism plot—it’s feasible.”

Lillian Summerville Ames was about as emotional as a robot and not half as warm.

Chuck poured salt in a circle on the plate, cut the lime and ran it around the rim of a glass, inverted it, swished it in salt, and filled it with margarita. He handed Summer the glass. “You get the first one.”

She knew better than to ask if it was sugar free.

“Thanks.” Okay, she’d only have one. There were things to do today starting with the pencil bouquet. “I want to show you something.”

After setting down her glass, she retrieved her long-stemmed rose box from the front porch and set it on the kitchen island. “What do you think?”

She pulled back the green tissue paper and handed Stan the note.

“How sweet. A bouquet of pencils.” Stan believed in happy endings and love at first sight and Santa Claus.

What Summer wouldn’t give to have his faith.

Chuck snatched the card out of his partner’s hand. “Who’s CAG?” His bushy eyebrows bounced off his hairline and settled in a straight line over no-nonsense gray eyes. “This one better be good enough for you. I should meet him and find out.”

“The big brother I always wanted.” Summer patted his cheek. “These are from Clint Grayson, and he only wants me for my class—my students, that is.”

She had absolutely no chance with the football player. It wasn’t like tomorrow he’d wake up and suddenly be into Amazon fat girls. That should make her sad or mad, but all she could come up with was relief. She smiled to herself. Pleading no contest wasn’t admitting defeat. It was being realistic. She had no chance. There would be no awkwardness, no worrying about the way she looked, no trying to find the right thing to say. He would never be attracted to her. It was…liberating.

She
didn’t matter to him because he was charming her just to get at her students.

Shameless and clever.

Two could play that game.

He wanted her help…fine, he could have it. But it would take work, and her students were off-limits.

Pencils? She knew just where to stick them.

Lillian turned off of South Lamar into the Whole Foods parking lot and pulled into the nearest space. Lunch with Leticia wasn’t until one thirty, but she’d sensed that Summer hadn’t really wanted to spend time with her, so she’d come up with an excuse to leave. Her daughter, the one person she truly loved, didn’t exactly feel the same way about her.

With the precision of a four-star general strategizing an invasion, Lilly had planned her visit to Summer’s house. It had to feel casual but not too casual because their relationship wasn’t close enough to pull off a drop-by. Other mothers and daughters treated each other like old friends, but not Lilly and Summer. Every time Lilly opened her mouth, things she hadn’t meant to say tumbled out. She let her head drop back against the rest and rolled down the window for some fresh, cool air. Nasty had been her state of being for as long as she could remember. The only time she stepped out of herself was around Davis.

Her cell rang with the ringtone of a rotary dial phone. Life had been easier when phones had cords and handwritten notes had been a primary means of communication.

She picked up her iPhone and slid her finger across the screen. “Hello?”

“Thank God, I caught you.” Leticia, sister-in-law and money-sucking dependent, sounded breathless. “Claude was running late, so I just finished my massage. Can we postpone lunch? My mani-pedi is next, and my nails are atrocious.”

Cuticles before family…even when that family member was footing the bill. Lilly’s husband hadn’t provided for his sister and her daughters, so all these years, Lilly had been providing for Leticia. “Sure.”

Two parking spaces down from her, a man in a red tee shirt balanced three full Whole Foods paper bags while he talked on his cell phone. It looked rather inconvenient. Why didn’t he put the bags down, open the trunk, stow the bags inside, and then continue his conversation?

“Next week?” Leticia offered.

Not that Lilly particularly liked her sister-in-law, but Lilly didn’t have anything else to do. She did her best to sound neutral and not needy.

“Perfect.”

Leticia’s voice was muffled. “I must go. Sandra is ready for me.”

The line went dead. Lilly pulled up her calendar and changed the lunch date. Apart from that one entry, her calendar was a wasteland of nothingness. No one wanted or needed her. The Junior League Christmas Bazaar planning committee wouldn’t start until next month, the Ames Foundation, of which she was on the board, preferred that she not attend the meetings, and she’d had her hair and nails done yesterday.

She hit the month view looking for something to validate her existence. The nearest actual calendar event was the Bandana Ball in a few weeks. Like the crystal perfume bottles she collected, she was pretty and useless…a human tchotchke sitting on the shelf of life waiting to be dusted.

Good God, she was pathetic.

Her phone belted out the first few notes of the Dixie Chicks’ “Cowboy Take Me Away,” and she couldn’t help the smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.

“Hello, Davis.” She really should end it with him. Her forty-eight years to his thirty-five was shocking…and exciting.

“Darlin’, my last patient just trotted out, and I’m finished for the day.” His accent was deep East Texas, and his voice was as soothing as iced tea on a hot day. “What say I drive down and take you to dinner and get a tour of Austin from a native Austinite?”

“I have a better idea. Your house…steaks on the grill and my latest purchase from Teddys for Bettys.” Austin was out of the question, and he knew it, but lately he’d been on this kick to take her out in her hometown. He wanted to meet her friends and family. Preposterous. She couldn’t be seen with him. For God’s sake, she was about to run for President of the Junior League. It was the modern-day version of Victorian England’s
ton
, only meaner and, thanks to Botox, wrinkle free.

“I could be there in an hour and a half. I’ll stay until Tuesday, if you’d like.” Usually, one night was her max. “I’m at Whole Foods now. I could pick up the steaks and a bottle of wine.”

“Fine.” He drew the word out, and she could hear the disappointment. “Call me before you leave so I’ll know what time to expect you.”

“I can’t wait to see you.” Lilly knew it sounded lame, but it was true. Her time with Davis equaled freedom…freedom from responsibility and worry and boredom. “See you soon.”

She’d have to think up another excuse; her maid was getting suspicious of all the weekend, overnight outings. Inez was like a dog with a bone trying to figure out where Lilly was going, but the truth was out of the question. No one knew about Davis because he was her own delicious little secret—a risqué departure from her suffocatingly perfect life.

Davis was a six-foot-two-inch, walking, talking redheaded vacation, and the only time Lillian got to be Lilly were the stolen moments they had.