Summer of Love (18 page)

“Whatever it is, Dad, it’ll be okay,” I say.

“I’m nodding even though you can’t see me,” he says. “I love you and…just do your best and be…happy.”

“I’ll try. And you have fun, too.” I’m, about to add something silly about eating sardines in Sardinia, where he and Louisa are headed for their holiday, but I notice something in Arabella’s heap that gives me pause.

“Bye, Love,” Dad says. “And I almost forgot. Two things: Poppy Massa-Tonclair turned in her final evaluation of your journal project…”

“Really? Oh my gosh — what’d she say?”

“I’ll send it to you — but the gist was that she thinks you’ve got promise!” He’s clearly thrilled for me and my heart races with the news. My emotions soar to a new pinnacle of excitement.

Then he adds, “And you got your dorm assignment. You’ll be in Fruckner House.”

From pinnacle to pit of despair. “What?” I snap out of my revelry. “There’s no way I can live there…”

“It’s all rebuilt,” Dad assures me, “After the fire they really outdid themselves with the renovations. It’s far beyond any of the other houses — bigger rooms, nicer kitchen…”

“Dad — it’s Lindsay Parrish’s dorm.”

Dad tsk tsks. “Are you girls still not getting along? Well, hopefully that’ll change.”

“Dad — there is no way in hell that I will ever be friends with her. If I can make through a day without a sneer from her, let alone a term, it’ll be a miracle.”

“Well, you have all of senior year to work that out,” he says, not understanding in the slightest that boarding period sucks, boarding in Lindsay Parrish’s house where she’s the queen, at a school where she’s the co-head monitor with my ambiguous amore Jacob — well, that’s just intolerable.

We hang up and I’m still in my state of shock when I remember the item on the floor that distracted me in the first place. Underneath Arabella’s bed — as if it were shoved under there for safe keeping, or, um, hiding — is a bright yellow bathing suit complete with tiny monogram — HR. I pull the shorts out from under the bed with my toe and examine it from a distance like they have potential to bite — which maybe they do. Reasonable explanations for my best friend to have Henry’s bathing suit within the confines of her bedroom?

1) She borrowed it (unlikely)

2) He visited here and left it after changing and his friends left post-changing items, too (semi-likely)

3) He left it here after a private post-beach gathering with Arabella (most likely)

So without getting angry — I mean it’s not like the bathing suit means anything necessarily — I slide the suit back into its cave and consider what I should do. If I tell Arabella I saw it, she’ll either come clean with its significance (or lack thereof) or brush it off as nothing. But if I just allow things to unfold — as Mable suggested first thing this summer — maybe the truth will be revealed to me. From the other room, I hear Arabella’s footsteps on the stairs and wonder what she’d do if I just brought the bathing suit out to show her.

“Hal-lo?” Arabella’s voice booms from the kitchen and I can hear her drop her sunglasses and bag on the counter. It’s funny how you get to know the music of someone’s actions — I know the way my dad’s shoes sound in different seasons, his happy walk, his sad whistles — and I know the same things about Arabella. She’s in a good mood, I can tell, from the easy way the keys, glasses, and bag clinked down. If she were annoyed, she’d have clomped them onto the counter.

“I’m in here,” I say and make sure the yellow suit is back where it belongs. “I’m searching high and low for an outfit.” High and low, high and low, like Mable’s clue. California beckons and I’m so curious about what’s out there. What if I get to Stanford and find it’s exactly the school I want? Or what if I land and want to turn around before I’ve stepped foot outside of the airport?

“Be right in,” she yells and then I can hear her mumbling — presumably into her phone, though possibly to herself.

“That was Chris,” she says, explaining the mumbles.

“How’s he doing?”

Distracted, she shrugs, “Fine. Now what about this?” From the far left side of her closet, she pulls out a hot pink dress that’s short in the front and long in the back.

“Um, are you forgetting that I’m a redhead?” I hold up my pile of auburn locks next to the dress. “Next!”

We sort through piles of clothing, holding up items for inspection and then Arabella flops onto her bed. I want to be more excited about this process, about being girly and finding clothing for the Fourth, but I’m not into it. Part of me wants only to go to Charlie’s house and meet his parents and see his home life — even if he’s been out of it for a while. He’s such a secretive person — or maybe not secretive but cautious — that I feel kind of privileged to be let in. And I don’t want to miss my chance. But the other part of me wants to…

“Where ARE you?” Arabella asks, her arms akimbo.

“California,” I say.

She looks away. “Oh. If you’re always gone, maybe you should just go?”

“Meaning what, exactly?” I ask.

“Just that you could go now — it’s a flexible ticket, right? There’s no point in being here if you’re just treading water until…”

I talk over her to prove my vehemence. “I’m not treading water. I’m swimming. I’m here — I was just thinking about it. Never mind. I’ll be there soon enough. What’s the difference between now and five days from now?”

“Five days.”

I sigh. “I’m getting a soda — want one?”

“You never drink soda,” she says.

“I know — I have the sudden urge for orange soda, though.” I slide my feet along the wood floors to the kitchen, wondering if I should ask about Henry’s bathing suit’s presence in Arabella’s bedroom, if I should be a spur-of-the-moment person and just suddenly fly to California, or if I should even tell Arabella that I have no interest in going to Henry’s party — that if I go to a Fourth of July celebration, I would ideally celebrate with Charlie, too.

I open the fridge and grab a cold glass bottle of orange soda, then look around for a bottle opener for the top. It’s from a local distributor and not the bottle cap you can just screw off. As I look, Arabella cell phone rings from the counter. I look at the caller ID and see Henry’s name.

“It’s Henry,” I shout to Arabella. I can hear the bed squeak as she stands up in the bedroom. “Just neg it.”

I press end and the phone is quiet. Then, out of instinct, I press the send button to see her call list — and find that Chris’s number is nowhere to be found. The Hadley area code is different than the Vineyard — and the last three calls on her phone have been from Henry. I’m just closing her phone when Arabella emerges from her room.

“What were you doing?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I say and swallow air, nervous. “Have you seen the bottle opener?”

“Why were you looking at my phone?”

“No reason,” I say even though we both know I’m not being truthful. Arabella walks away toward her room — her pissed off walk, with her feet pounding the floor — and comes back with the bottle opener in her hand.

“What was this doing in your bedroom?” I ask, smirking. “No — wait — I don’t want to know.” I mean it as a joke, but it comes off kind of judgmental. When Arabella just stares at me, I open my soda, swig, and then just proceed without caution. “Why wouldn’t you just say you were talking to Henry? Why lie and say it was Chris?”

Now it’s her turn to blush and stammer. “I just…it wasn’t…

“You just didn’t want me to be suspicious?”

“Suspicious of what?” she asks. Her
whats
always sound like
fwaht
, so elegant.

My mouth burns with the sweet sting of my drink. “You tell me. If you say suspicious, probably there’s a reason.”

Arabella backs up until she’s seated on an orange and blue faded surfboard loveseat. “Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

Arabella points to the boogieboard chair next to her. “Come sit and let’s spill it.”

I gulp, place my bottle on the counter next to the infamous cell phone and sit. “You’re with Henry?”

Arabella purses her lips and nods. “Yeah.”

I get chills, even though this shouldn’t be shocking. Even if it makes sense, when friends hook up, it still feels weird. “For how long?”

“Since before you got here.”

Now I’m kind of annoyed. “For that long? You didn’t tell me?” I think back to getting here, to hanging out together, to Henry being all flirty with me and Arabella not saying anything. “I…you…he…” Pronouns come sputtering out of my mouth but nothing follows.

“I don’t know, Love. I thought it was one thing — just a quick fling or friends with…but I think I really like him.”

“So why did you do all that — like send me to his stupid dinner party all dressed up when you were the one who should’ve gone?”

Her hair twirled around her finger — one of her nervous habits — Arabella answers without looking directly at me. “Maybe I was sort of playing hard to get?”

“So I was the pawn in your little chess drama?”

“No — no — not like that…I wanted you to go and have fun, not just so I that I didn’t…”

It all clicks in. “So when people said that Henry was getting together with some girl on the lawn of the club way after the party ended, that was you?”

“You make it sound tawdry.”

I look at her with my anti-bullshit look. “I think rolling around on the formal grounds of a private club qualifies as tawdry.”

“Now you’re judging me? This from the girl who hooks up with a summer guy only to ditch her best friend?”

“First of all, I didn’t ditch you,” I say. “and second of all, Charlie’s not a summer guy. He’s…”

“What is he?” Arabella brings her knees to her chest and tucks herself into a ball.

I pause, looking out the window as though the answer might appear to me in sky writing. “I don’t know.”

“So…”

“So,” I say. “What do we do to make all this better?”

Arabella shrugs, her hair shifting with the movement of her shoulders. “I like Henry a lot.”

“And does he…”

“Feel the same way?” she asks, her eyes filling up with tears. “I don’t know.” I go sit next to her so I can comfort her, which is a funny thing to do after we’ve been so annoyed with each other, but there’s so many emotions in one small apartment that we’re both overwhelmed. “He was here…when you were out the other night. With Charlie. And we…”

“You mean, late? After I closed up?” I think about I made the choice to go have dessert at the lighthouse with Charlie and that at that same time, Arabella was with Henry here and how maybe if I’d stayed here, she wouldn’t have done whatever she did with him that’s now making her cry.

“I’m not like this — I’m that girl that just does what she wants, right?” Arabella asks. But it’s not how I see her, honestly. She dated Toby — a charismatic but self-centered guy — who cheated on her, but whom she was prepared to take back. I would never say her self-esteem needs inflating but at the same time, she’s pretty tolerant of guys who treat her poorly.

“What does Henry say?”

“Not much, actually. I don’t know if he’s off having — being with other people while he’s with me or if he’s more into me than he’ll let on. He’s kind of a closed book.”

“Which is funny, because he seems so face value,” I say and put my arm around her shoulder. I don’t want to think about the backrub he gave me at the beach, about how he flirts with everyone — or more specifically me — although lately he’s been pretty standoffish. “He’s been kind of rude to me.”

Arabella nods. “I think — and I hope you don’t take this the wrong way — but I think he’s disappointed that you’re with Charlie.”

“And that’s why he’s being a jerk?”

“That — plus…” she pauses.

“What?” I sigh. When did summer get so loaded with drama and issues?

“He found out your real age — that you’ve been lying about being at college at Brown.”

“And let me guess, you didn’t want to cover for me?” I bite my lip and shake my head.

“You know that if it were something important I would. But it seemed so trivial — so dumb — at this point the only reason you weren’t coming clean was because of your pride. And I didn’t want to lie to him in case…”

I know where she’s headed — to the female land of thinking way too far ahead. Like if their relationship continues part the summer, becomes some big deal, then she won’t have a lie contaminating the purity of their love. “Don’t you think you’re getting ahead of yourself?”

“Probably,” she says, not mad that I suggested it, more agreeing. “Aren’t you?”

I think about Charlie, about how it feels to be wrapped in his arms, to talk with him about books, and writing, all while shucking corn and skipping rocks into the water by his cottage, about how I wish he’d say something about the future of this.

“Mable once told me to judge a guy not by what he says but by what he does,” I say. “So if I look at Charlie — and granted it’s only been a few weeks…it looks promising.”

Arabella stands up and silences her ringing phone yet again. “So what’re we going to do about the Fourth of July predicament?” she asks.

Suddenly, I get an idea. “I know what to do!” I smile huge and rush over to her.

“What? What?” Arabella’s curiosity is outweighed by my excitement. I pull her over to the door and down the stairs toward the café. She clings to my hand, laughing and along for the ride.

Doug and Ula, the brother sister coffee team, are whipping the college student slackers into shape, showing them how to better serve the coffee consumers.

“Excuse me, Doug?” I ask and tap him on the shoulder. He’s the nicer of the two so I figure I’ll go to him first. Arabella stands by my side knowing nothing of what I’m about to do. “Doug? I know you’re in the middle of something…”

“Yes, we’re doing a promotion for the Fourth, really trying to push our new berry-burst drink. It kind of plays to the idea of fire works, don’t you think?”

“Um, sure,” I say and the get to my point. ‘Doug? As you know I’ve requested time off next week for my college interviews…and well, I wanted to let you know that I’m actually leaving tomorrow. Morning.”

Arabella’s eyebrows are raised as high as they’ll go as she listens to my uncharacteristically spontaneous choice. “And also, Arabella’s coming with me.”