Summer of Love (17 page)

When we’re all coiled up together, limbs twisted and tangled but not entirely undressed or anything, Charlie says, “Actually, I take back what I said before. I didn’t ask you here for a reason.”

“Oh — now we get to the truth?” I debate momentarily whether I should tell me my lack of sex experience or if he’s figured that out by now in that unspoken way. But Charlie’s not talking about all things physical.

“I was…I’m hoping you’ll come with me…”

Our faces are so close he looks fuzzy, his eyes melding into one Cyclops eye, so I back up for a second. “Where?” I ask even though I feel fairly certain I’d go anywhere with him or that he’d make any place better.

“To my house.”

“The cottage? Now?” I sit up so he knows I’m game.

He gently pushes me back so I’m flat on the blanket again. “Not my little hovel. My other house — that’s not really mine. My parent’s house.”

“You’re inviting me home?” I ask happy and smug.

“It’s annoying,” Charlie promises. “It’s formal.” He says like formal means smelly. “It’s all class and conformity and confinement.” Then he sighs. “Home sweet home.”

“It sounds fun,” I say even though what he’s described isn’t fun. “You know what I mean, right? Seeing where someone comes from or meeting their friends or family — it’s revealing. In a good way.”

“Yeah — plus we can run around on the back lawn with multicolored sparklers.”

Sparklers. Fireworks. “Wait — is this a Fourth of July thing?”

Charlie and looks up at the ceiling. “Yup. The annual Addison banquet.”

“I thought Trip Randall cornered the market on annual fourth of July bashes,” I say and picture Henry and his haughty crew.

Charlie sits up and turns his head over his shoulder so he can see me. “The Randall’s are new money. It’s lame to even say that — but it’s true. And the Addisons are old old money.”

“You talk like you’re not a part of it.”

Charlie shrugs. “Probably because that’s how I feel. Anyway, every year since the island was settled, the Addisons —”

“You family,” I add to make a point. You can’t choose your family, but it’s yours whether you like it or not.

“Every year
my
family invites the crustiest of the crust to this dinner. It’s a thing — you know — to be invited. And the first summer Trip Randall was here — I was little. Maybe five or something — I remember he come over to the house uninvited and basically demanded to be included in the dinner.”

“But he wasn’t?”

“No. Not for any reason other than my parents hardly knew him. They’d mainly heard about how he was buying up all the old beach cottages and razing them so he could build mammoth summer houses and sell them for a massive profit.”

“So now it’s what — like a feud?”

“Pretty much. If you get invited to the Addisons, you go. God, that sounds so pretentious. Sorry. But it’s just what people do. Mable went last summer.”

My reaction: agog at the idea. I’m shocked. “But she’s hardly rolling in it…” I catch myself using the present tense. “She wasn’t wealthy…”

“You don’t have to be wealthy to be invited, just interesting. So will you come? It’s not like I’m close with them — my family — but I’d like to go this year. And bring you.”

“So I can meet them?”

“That — plus I have an announcement to make and I want you there for it.”

Cue the big drums — an announcement! “What kind?”

“Ah — not so fast. You have to come to the dinner and then you’ll know.”

The moment of truth. How to tell Charlie about Arabella’s need to have me be with her on the fourth. “It all sounds really good, Charlie. Really…I want to go…but I promised Arabella I’d be with her.”

“She can come, too.” Charlie looks worried for a second, making me think he’s saying we can come, but maybe it’s a slightly larger deal than he’s making it out to be. Maybe he has to approach his parents at their respective thrones or something.

“She already rsvp’d to somewhere else.” I say and try to avoid eye contact for a second to lessen the blow.

“Let me guess — she’s going to the Randall’s — with Henry — and you’re supposed to tag along?”

I’m a little disgruntled with the tag along implications. “I am friends with them — I wouldn’t be tagging along. She just wants me to spend more time with her. Which I’m sure you understand since I’ve been with you or working for a steady couple of weeks. It’s just that…we planned this summer together and now…”

“I get it,” Charlie says, his voice a little lower. He gets up and walks, shirtless, over to the sweet table and returns with a double brownie specked with caramel. “I know the value of friendship, believe me. I’ve misplaced a couple of friends along the way myself — or been misplaced — and I wouldn’t recommend it.” He doesn’t elaborate on that statement but does say, “If you can get her to change her mind…especially before you go…” Then he cuts himself off by shoving in a mouthful of brownie.

“Going? Where am I going?”

“I messed up big time — sorry. Ignore the previous comment.” Charlie stand up, his moth still crammed with chocolate and goes to the table. “Crème Brule.”

I make a confused face, my upper lip twisted up in a statement of disbelief. “Crème Brule? It is my favorite dessert but its relevance to the conversation could be debated…”

“I know. It’s your favorite and you were supposed to go for it first, but you didn’t because you’re unpredictable. It’s one of the things I find so appealing about you but…”

“So what does it mean?”

“It means…eat it.”

I stare at the oval ramekin and know that with the cookies, brownie and pastry already consumed there’s no way I’m going for the binge of digesting more. “I can’t. Seriously.”

“Okay, fine. It’s my fault anyway.” Carefully, he lifts off the crunchy sugar glaze in one sheet. Underneath, in delicate icing it reads:

High calorie, get it?

I look at Charlie. “There’s another note under the vegetable platter,” he explains.

I look at the table. “I didn’t even notice the veggies what with all the other delectables…”

“Keep reading.”

I do.

Searching high and low, right? High calorie, low calorie…not that you usually get consumed with calories or anything, but since you’re headed to the place of vanity I figured I’d try to out-clever myself…You’re the sweetest girl (even more than the crème) ever and your past is solid. Now it’s time to find your future. Your E-ticket confirmation on Jet Blue is under your name. As you find your wings, just remember your roots. Always, Mable

PS To find your next clue, get on board.

“It’s a flexible ticket,” Charlie explains. “Mable told Paula Flan, the pastry chef — who had it all in writing. She couldn’t fit the whole confirmation number in the thing…” He points out the ramekin.

“It’s a ramekin.” I say and yet again my mouth is open in surprise. “So I’m just supposed to go? It’s just so weird because I have this college interview in California and I’ve been stressing about getting money for the ticket and my dad wouldn’t pay for it and…”

“Slow down, take a breath. Eat a bite of brulee.”

I do and then we kiss and it’s sweet and melty and delicious.

“So I guess I’m heading to Cali,” I say, thinking of my alumni interview, the potential for starstruck stupor if I manage to get to Martin Eisenstein’s party, and if all this is leading me on a bigger search than college or career — what if it’s maternal? Roots and wings. Roots and wings — which will I find?

“I’m just saying be careful,” Dad says. “You never know what you’re going to find…” He doesn’t wrap all of his concern up in the cross-country collegiate issue because he knows there’s more. “Have you…?” He uses the two words as though they’re a complete question.

Have I….

…spoken to Jet Blue five times to confirm, switch, then reconfirm my flights?

…told Doug and Ula the coffee mavens that I’m taking a break from the café?

…thought about where things are going with Charlie? After one long-distance dilemma with Asher, I’m not so keen to keep on with a something that’s probably supposed to be a summer fling but doesn’t feel that way. If I’m at Hadley and he’s here during my senior year, it’ll be too hard. Should I break it off now? Or is that just cutting great thing short?

…avoided some serious glares from Henry Randall when he stopped by to order a caramel macchiato until his friend, Jay, slapped his shoulder and told him it’s a girlie drink?

…Considered trying to locate my birth mother, Gala, who could be in LA?

Yes to all of the above. But Dad’s only real concern is with the college stuff. He’s been worried about the Mom stuff before, but often thinks if we don’t talk about something, then it’s not a problem. So I try to press the issue, just to see if he has any advice or — and this is what I don’t want to hear — warnings.

“Have I thought about what?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

I know him too well. Just when he might reveal the tiniest bit of info about my mother, he pulls back. “Dad — it’s just a quick trip out west.”

“You sound so cavalier.”

“Like every other Hadley student.” He and I have talked and laughed before about how so many prep school students throw around vacation hot spots or travel plans as though a journey to Capri is like a quick trip to the mall.

“But you’re not like that,” Dad says, defending me to myself.

I sigh and stick my feet into the sink. I’m sitting on the kitchen counter, eating pretzel sticks dipped into cheese Louisa, Dad’s girlfriend, had delivered by next day refrigerated mail — both because she knows I like it and — this is my suspicion — she knows I’m a little annoyed that she’s influencing my dad about where I should go to college. Namely, nowhere west. “Oh yeah? How am I?”

“You’re down to earth and grateful and…”

“Dad?” I stick my toe into the faucet and feel the drops of cold water run down my foot. “I’m not really changing all that much.”

I mean what I say — it’s not like I’m a different person than I was last year or even last month. But with each day that fades into the next, there’s this gradual shift. And it’s not just tastes in music or jeans or even my life dreams or goals. It’s more that if I back up and look at myself from a distance, like I do sometimes with a movie camera image or if I’m writing in my journal, there’s growth. Not life-altering used to live in a yurt and now I live in a big city — more like this feeling I have of everything leading somewhere. How all my actions are connected to the next ones, and all my decisions now actually matter — as say compared to seventh grade or winter of sophomore year — which all feel very episodic. And I want to explain my tangential revelations to my father, to tell him that these days feel profound, but I suspect he’d just come back with a “you’re just growing up” or worse, not say anything at all for fear he’ll — in his mind — lose me further.

“Well — didn’t you tell me when you first started Hadley — that the more things change the more the stay the same?”

I don’t know what he means by this so I just respond with, “It’s an old saying, right?”

“Right.” Dad clears his throat and sighs. “So — you’re off then?”

I swing my feet around from their icy position in the metal sink to the floor, where I’ve conveniently dropped a dishtowel to use as a bathmat. Once I drop down onto the floor, I slide across the linoleum and wood on the towel, faux-surfing until I get to Arabella’s room where I begin to search for a suitable Fourth of July outfit. I agreed to do with her to the Randall’s big party, but since I didn’t bring many black tie gowns (read: I don’t own any) to the island, I need to borrow or buy (read: no money, not going to happen).

“I’m not exactly running out the door as we speak but, yeah, I guess my departure is imminent.” I say that last part with an English accent as though that will soften the reality.

“Can I give you a little advice?” Dad asks.

“Sure!” I say, the exclamation point nearly visible I’m so glad he has something to offer other than dismay at my Stanford interview and the morph into adulthood.

“Okay — before you meet with Martha Wade — and remember, she’s a Hadley trustee so I know her quite well by now — you should brush up on your college questions. What did she study there, what your own interests are, how Hadley Hall in particular set you on a path to Stanford? Usually, alumni interviews are done locally, so she’s really going out of her way to meet you…there.” He pauses before there to slip in his feelings about that location.

“Got it. Brush up on facts. Anything else?”

“Oh, it’s tricky, Love. I want you to do the best you can — and I can’t believe you’re old enough to go off on a college interview. Not to mention all the way across….”

“Dad — it’s not the first time I’ve traveled by myself.”

“All I’m saying is that I don’t know what’s at the end of Mable’s…whatever you’d call it. A scavenger hunt?”

“Hmm, scavenger hunt is when you have to pick up things like pine cones or photos with the Red Sox mascot, Wally. I think it’s a treasure hunt.”

“Well,” Dad says and I can envision him shifting from one foot to the other, roughing his stubble and worrying. “What’s the treasure?”

I pause in Arabella’s doorway, looking at the mess in front of me. Unlike her usual tidy self (her room at Bracker’s Common was an ode to neatness, her flat in London always in order, same thing with her room at Hadley), the bedroom looks like all of the items got together in a blender switched on with no top — read: books, bathing suits, sarongs, prairie skirts, mini skirts, shorts, cut offs, flip flips, sandals, running shoes (not that she likes to go running with me on a regular basis but every once in a while I can convince her), cds, and various knitting projects are scattered on every surface — bed, night table, floor, and layered on chairbacks and the floorlamp.

“The treasure?” I ask amidst so many items that were probably — when originally purchased — considered treasures in their own rights. “I don’t know.”

“Oh,” Dad says, “I didn’t know if you had an idea of what — or whom…” He lets his words fade and I know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking it’s my mother, his ex, the one he hasn’t seen in almost two decades and the one I’ve never met. And I want to tell him he’s wrong, that the journey Mable set me on has nothing to do with her — but I can’t say that because part of me suspects that it’s true.