Summer Boys (5 page)

The Tuttles did so much barbecuing that, on the Fourth of July, they celebrated by
not
barbecuing.

Ella spent the whole morning in her strapless polka-dot bikini, snoozing on the hammock in the backyard and drinking some iced tea that she’d spiked with Jack Daniel’s from her dad’s liquor cabinet. She was deliberately avoiding her favorite glossy fashion mags, and had plucked a couple of
National Geographic
s out of the pile by Kelsi’s bed earlier that morning. Whenever she thumbed through Kelsi’s more intellectual reading material, she thought about the nuns at her school in New Canaan, Connecticut, and wondered what it would be like if they fussed over her the way they did over Kelsi, instead of yelling at her for passing notes and sneaking out at lunch. But somewhere in between the photos of African villagers and the articles on the preservation of the rain forest, Ella’s mind started to wander, and suddenly she was fantasizing about being profiled on E! because of her stellar fashion sense.

It was swelteringly hot and humid outside. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sun felt so strong that Ella kept picking up the glass of iced tea she’d lodged into the grass and holding it against the outside of her thighs in order to cool off.

She was considering packing up her things and running into the kitchen for a snack when the screen door slid open and Kelsi and Peter stepped onto the deck.

On second thought, maybe I’ll stay put,
Ella thought to herself as she put a piece of gum in her mouth and started chomping on it furiously. She could see out of the corner of her eye that they were at the table under the umbrella, holding hands like a honeymooning couple.

Ella let out a frustrated sigh, slammed the magazine shut, and dropped it onto the grass. She then picked up a copy of
Glamour
instead. She browsed through the table of contents and flipped to the makeover section, which was her personal favorite. A heavy girl with caterpillars for eyebrows had gotten a pluck and color, and her cheeks and eyes had been brushed with the same flattering shade of peach. A brunette with a bad perm had had her hair straightened, and they’d penciled her lips into a pouty bow. Ella absolutely loved success stories, especially those involving makeup and hairspray.

She turned over again and put down the iced tea. She rubbed at the sweat collecting above her naturally full lips. She glanced from below lowered eyelids at Kelsi and Peter on the deck, and wondered what they were talking about.

Finally, unable to resist anymore, she rolled out of the hammock and got ready to stage a little interruption. Ella rubbed at the places where the ropes had left indentations in her skin and
tugged at her swimsuit to make sure it was properly aligned. Then she padded across the grass toward the deck. An invigorating breeze came off the ocean and made her feel refreshed and alert, like she’d just had a shot of Red Bull instead of J.D.

“Hey, guys. What’s going on?” Ella asked as she slipped her fingers into the waistband of her bikini bottom, snapping the elastic a little. She was trying to send out a message to Peter via mental telepathy.
Notice me.

“We’re just talking about what to do tonight,” Peter answered. “Do you feel like going downtown? We can watch the fireworks from there.”He met her eyes in the completely normal way people do when they ask you a simple question, like “How was your day?” or “Can you tell me where the bathroom is?” But regardless of whatever Peter had just said, Ella couldn’t help but shiver as if the temperature were thirty degrees below zero.

Her body responded before her mind did, so she just nodded her head. Then suddenly her brain caught up. If they went out and partied downtown, she’d probably meet some boys. And maybe if she met a boy she liked, she could start thinking about
him
all the time instead of lusting after her older sister’s boyfriend. Problem solved. It was that simple.

Now all she had to do was find something amazing to wear.

Jamie fiddled with her beaded necklace, refusing to look at the clock. She reached down to the hem of her denim skirt and gave it a tug. Ethan was fifteen minutes late.

The cousins and George had gone downtown to eat dinner and hang out and maybe watch the fireworks. The adults were all over at Beth’s parents’ place, along with the little kids. There was a warm breeze coming through the screen door that made her think about that romantic late-night picnic that she and Ethan shared on the beach last Fourth of July. Where on earth was he? If she had to wait another fifteen
seconds,
she might explode.

Instead of getting up and checking herself out in the mirror for the twentieth time, Jamie picked up one of the dusty children’s books that were a permanent fixture in the cottage.
The Princess and the Pea.
She thumbed through the pages and tried to distract herself. Maybe she’d find some ideas for her own writing. Sometimes the magical kingdoms and fantastic characters in children’s books really inspired her.

She was looking at an illustration of the princess lying on her enormous pile of mattresses when the screen door squeaked open. Ethan appeared in the doorway just as she stood up. He was wearing an electric blue surfing T-shirt that proclaimed have a whale of a day, and a weak smile.

The smile made Jamie feel slightly nervous.

She walked up to him, slipped her hand into his, and stood on tiptoe to kiss the corner of his lips. “Hey, good lookin’. What’s up?”

He gave her a mild shrug while his hand stiffened in her grasp. “Nothing. What’s up with you?”

“Not much.” Had they just met or something? Jamie felt like introducing herself.
Hi, my name’s Jamie. I’m your girlfriend.

They moved over to the couch and sat down. There was nothing between them but silence.

“Are you okay?” She put her hand on his thigh.

“Yeah,” he said indifferently while he aimed his gaze at the armrest of the couch.

“Good,” Jamie said confidently, although she knew in her gut it wasn’t true. “We have the house to ourselves,” she whispered as she leaned in closer to him and grinned. Ethan, on the other hand, didn’t budge or soften to her touch like he usually did.

“Jamie, I think…” He stopped himself so that he could swallow hard.

Okay, this is it,
Jamie said to herself. Something big had gone wrong along the way. Ethan had been acting strange for weeks. She suddenly didn’t want to know what it was.

“I think, maybe, you got the wrong idea,” he said.

Jamie’s hand fluttered to her necklace. She held her hand there for a few seconds and reminded herself to keep breathing or
else she’d faint from a lack of oxygen to the brain. She cleared her throat. “Wrong idea? About what?”

“J, I think you’re an amazing girl.”

Oh, shit.

“I just…it seems like you think…” He took a breath. “Ever since we slept together last summer, I feel like things have been a little intense for me.”

Jamie was hanging on his every word, hoping that he wasn’t going to do what she expected him to.

“I had an awesome time with you last summer. I still want to hang out with you. But it’s, like, you think we’re more than we are. We’re just enjoying each other, you know? Nothing serious.”

“Nothing serious.”

“I mean, I’m not, like, your boyfriend or anything. I thought things between us were more, you know, casual.”

Jamie felt like her pounding heart had just collapsed into her abdomen. Not her boyfriend. Not her boyfriend.

All of a sudden, she laughed in that way someone laughs when nothing’s really funny but they’re too nervous to keep quiet. If only this conversation were a train and she could pull the emergency stop and escape. But then she started to think of all the reasons he
was
her boyfriend. They had spent so much time together, and she had thought they had something special.

“Ethan, this is ridiculous. We e-mailed all last year. We…we were
together.
” Jamie said through slightly gritted teeth.

Her whole body felt like it was on fire with embarrassment and anger. She looked down at her nails and started picking at them. The fury inside of her was about to explode, and she had to calm down before it did. She was torn between feeling like she wanted to reassure him that she loved him and feeling like she
wanted run him over with his precious bike. She was just so confused that all she could do was sit there and let a couple of tears stream down her flushed cheeks. There was no way to fight them back this time.

“Jamie,” he said, taking a moment to wipe those tears away with his fingers. “I am so, so flattered that you like me this much. Come here.” She let him pull her into a hug. “We can still hang out. Maybe we should just be friends, that’s all.”

Jamie pressed her face into the fabric of his T-shirt where he was holding her. She put her arms around him and squeezed very tightly. He had said
friends
—the dreaded “f ” word! How could this be happening?

Ethan pulled back and lifted her chin. He kissed her cheeks, then worked his way over to her lips. Jamie could hear his breathing quicken along with the rhythm of waves crashing onto the beach. The crickets were loud tonight, too, making chirping noises as they hid up in the maple trees planted along the property line. She breathed in his kiss.

Jaime couldn’t help but wonder if Ethan kissed all his friends like this. If that were true, maybe being friends wouldn’t be so bad.

“We could go into my room,” she blurted out, without thinking too much about how Ethan might react. She couldn’t stop herself. He was so sexy. And, for some reason, he now seemed hotter than ever.

Ethan looked at her long and hard, then turned away from her. Jamie could see regret in his eyes, but she wasn’t sure if he regretted breaking up with her, or if he regretted that he’d just kissed her. Jamie also averted her gaze to the coffee table by the couch,
because she could feel her face flaming up again and she wanted to hide it.

She felt so awful about this whole situation, and for some reason, felt like she was to blame for it, even though she thought she had played all her cards perfectly. Filled with self-loathing and self-pity, Jamie leaned her head against Ethan and hoped that he would comfort her this one last time. But he gently pushed her away from him.

“Jamie, I think I should go.”

“Wait, right now?”

He seemed to feel so awkward that he couldn’t even reply.

“But…” She couldn’t get her head straight enough to say, “How can we be kissing each other one minute and broken up the next?” Or “How could we have been
together
but not be considered boyfriend and girlfriend all this time?” Surely it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Then her mind started racing through all the plans they had in the future that would now be screwed up. What about tomorrow when they were supposed to go play laser tag at the arena in Portsmouth? Or their dinner date later in the week? Jamie felt like her whole world was collapsing, and she couldn’t figure out why.

But the panic made it hard for her to breathe, much less say any of it.

Ethan rose from the couch and headed toward the door. Jamie followed close behind, praying that he’d change his mind and wrap her up in his arms for the rest of the night. But instead, he unlatched the screen door before turning to her and saying: “We
can
be friends, right, Jamie?”

Jamie was totally numb. “Sure, why not?”

“Trust me, everything is going to be just fine.”

She nodded dumbly, knowing in her heart how far from the truth that was.

Ethan’s frozen demeanor melted somewhat, and he reached to hug Jamie, who was only too happy to oblige. Their embrace felt normal again. No weirdness like before. Maybe now that Ethan had gotten everything out in the open, he was more relaxed. Although she wanted to stay that way forever, Jamie made herself pull away first. After all, a girl has to maintain at least a shred of dignity at a time like this.

“I’ll call you,” he said softly.

Jamie put her hand on his chin, as if it were the easiest, most natural thing in the world for her to do. She was relieved when he didn’t pull away.

But Ethan didn’t do anything else. He didn’t move, or try to kiss her. He just stood there, looking like he had just broken the heart of someone he truly cared about.

They were a million miles from where they used to be.

I’m okay. I’m okay.

Jamie kept repeating this to herself every ten seconds. She figured if she chanted that long enough, she might eventually feel that way.

Jamie sat on the couch with one of her many notebooks opened on her lap. She was staring at a bad poem she’d written a couple of days ago, wondering what had motivated her to write in the first place. She tore out the page and crumpled it up in frustration, then flipped back to earlier pages, which were filled with short snippets of writing. When she’d first shown her notebooks
to Ethan, it was an exhilarating experience, kind of like letting him see her naked. She was worried at first about what he’d think of her work or the pictures she’d drawn or pasted on the pages. But Ethan had loved everything that was in her notebook. It even inspired him to show her his own writing, which he kept all over the place—in boxes, binders, and manila envelopes. Reading his prose and poetry was like seeing a tender, vulnerable side of Ethan, and she’d been blown away by how talented he was. All the thoughts and dreams that he had written about were the same kinds of fantasies that she had kept secret for so long. That’s when she knew there could never be anyone more right for her.

Jamie snapped herself out of her memory and brought herself back to reality. And one thing was for sure: Reality sucked. She got up to slide the glass door closed, shutting out the sounds of the summer night. She turned on the TV and Letterman was on. Was it 11:30 already? She flipped through the channels and caught flashes of NBC, Fox, and the WB. Nothing held her attention. She remembered that a few summers ago, she’d gotten up after the grown-ups had gone to bed, and sneaked downstairs to watch the
Late Late Show,
even though she was supposed to be sound asleep. She thought about how funny it was that when you were eleven or twelve, staying up past your bedtime was rebellious and daring. Things had really changed since she was a kid. She turned off the TV, shuffled into the bathroom, and splashed water on her face. Then Jamie stared at her reflection in the mirror over the sink and didn’t recognize herself. Her freckles were bright dots against almost invisible skin. Her green eyes looked like they were floating in the whiteness of her face. She looked so blank. She was suddenly a nonperson. Jamie, but not Jamie.

Ethan had broken up with her.

She put her hands to her face and walked back into the living room. She sank down on the couch and touched the spot where he’d been sitting. For a year, she’d had him beside her, even when he wasn’t really there. She loved his face. She loved the way he smelled. She loved a million things he’d done, or that they’d done together. Once, on the beach last summer, he’d grabbed her, pulled her onto his lap, and said, “I’ve got you, and I’m never letting you go.”

She couldn’t move. She stared out the sliding glass door, though there was nothing to see in the dark.

Finally, Jamie stood and slid her feet along the floor to her room. She didn’t bother to turn on the fan. She just crawled onto the sheets and rolled onto her right side, trying to fall asleep. She heard her aunt and uncle and the kids come home. But she stayed wide awake the whole night.
I’ve got you,
he’d said.
And I’m never letting you go.
She kept hearing Ethan’s voice echo in her ears for hours on end.

Shivering in the heat, Jamie finally cried herself to sleep as soon as the morning sun dared to show its face.