Summer of Love (25 page)

“POA?” he asks.

“Plan of action?” I tighten my lips together and pull him out the door and down the spiral steps as I talk. Motivation begins to hit. “We go to your dorm, shove casual yet adorable clothing into your bag and you rejourney with me to the Vineyard.”

Chris halts on the staircase, teetering over the edge. “Now? Aren’t you exhausted from the flight? I mean a day ago you were…”

“I was in LA. With Sadie. A half sister. Jeez.” I pull him one step farther down. “And now — I know where Gala is. And where two guys who’ve — as you said — taken a lot of energy from me. Not that they haven’t given a lot back but….”

“I get it,” Chris says and this time he’s the one to yank me by the arm, to the door and lock it after switching off the kitchen light.

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s like my instinct after landing at Logan was to come back here. To my house. Which isn’t really mine anymore, is it?” Chris shakes his head. “I wanted some mythical safe place where none of this new stuff — none of the information that’s been pelted at my brain could get to me.”

Chris nods as we walk the familiar path to his dorm. Campus is empty. Peaceful like this, it’s difficult to imagine the grounds teeming with khaki, suntans, and sudden scholastic pressures in September. I try to relax, telling myself we have some of July, Illumination Night in August on the Vineyard, the annual Agricultural Fair there, and Labor Day — marking points before I’m officially a Hadley Hall senior.

“Love?”

“Yeah?”

Chris looks back at my house, then out to campus. “The thing is, change can find you anywhere. You can’t run from it. Trust me, I speak from experience. One minute I was the hook-up artist du jour and the next I was coming out to the entire school. Now I’m starting up the GSA.”

“Ah, yes, the Gay-Straight and Everything in-between Alliance…I’m sure you’ll be great at that.” My flip-flops scratch on the pavement, my mind still reeling. “But just so you know, I wasn’t running from it — from change,” I say and push my bag so it’s on my back rather than my shoulder. “I was hiding from it.”

“And now?” Chris waits for my words before we grab his stuff and jump on the bus to Cape Cod that will take us to the ferry terminal.

“Now I’m heading right for it.”

The ocean funnels out in front of me, seeming to widen as we get farther away from the mainland. Chris and I sit on blue plastic seats, our feet on the white metal railings, enjoying the cool sea air that causes his hair to stand on end and mine to whip this way and that while seagulls dart around for scraps of bread.

“You’re so good at that,” Chris says, punctuating our conversation with compliments.

“At what?” I have a habit of scanning the ferry for people I know — acquaintances from Hadley, random kids I’ve met at parties or even faraway faces from London. I stop myself form doing this now, realizing it’s a fine thing to do when alone, but rude when in the midst of a conversation.

“At describing situations. Or conversations.”

I’ve just finished telling Chris everything that happened in LA — all the way from coming up with a new name for Slave to the Grind 2 on the plane with Arabella to meeting Sadie, to thinking my mother was about to pop up at any minute. “Well, thanks. I guess I need to paint a picture really clearly to have it make sense.”

“It’s more than that.” Chris turns his head, checking out another group of prep school students, all with worn-in t-shirts, casual clothing that looks comfortable and cool while still effortless. He looks back at me. “You know how some people have a gift for soccer or they excel at Latin?”

“Like Dalton Himmelman?” I ask. “Man, I just pulled his name out of nowhere. Isn’t that so weird how you can go months without saying — or even thinking about — someone from school?”

“It is a bizarre fact of life,” Chris agrees. “Though perhaps Dalton isn’t the best example of random — I mean, he is Jacob’s best friend.”

“True…” I start to say more and then am stopped by yearbook-style candids in my mind. “Remember when Dalton and Jacob took apart Ms. Galligan’s car and reassembled it on the roof of Maus Hall?” I smile thinking about it. “Everyone stood there, staring up at it like it had been placed there by some giant creature.”

“See? Even then,” Chris says. “Do you ever listen to yourself?”

“What do you mean?” In front of us the Vineyard Haven port comes into view, the shelter of the cove making the wind lessen. My hair stops doing its funky dance and the sun feels hot on my shoulders. “Oh my god I just got a wave of total nausea. And not from seasickness.” The reality of all of these people and potential upheavals waiting for me on the quiet island suddenly hits.

“You, Love. Your talent isn’t taking apart cars and being snarky and witty like Jacob. It’s not triple-lettering in sports like Nick Samuels. It’s not organizing and motivating people like me…” Chris gives a little shimmy then pats himself on the back. “It’s words.”

I breathe in the salty air, the smells of suntan lotion and seafood — lobster rolls and lemonade — the smells of summer that will begin to fade fast. “Doesn’t it feel like right after the fourth of July summer slips away?” The image of water rushing down a drain comes to mind but I don’t say this — I just think of it and do some mental math about how long I have left before senior year starts. The ferry docks with a lurch. Chris and I stand up, grab our bags and begin the shuffle toward the gangway and into the masses of disembarking passengers.

“You’re right, you know,” I say to him when he’s in front of — but not looking at me. “I just like them. Words. I get to control them, or pick exactly which ones to use. And I always like when people tell me their stories from start to finish — rather than ‘yeah, you know, I met a girl, we kissed on the beach’ — it’s so much more satisfying when someone takes the time to tell you about the beach, why they went there, what the girl looked like — or boy, sorry.” Chris smiles at me and nods.

We stand, angled toward land, but for now stuck in a crowd on neither boat nor firm footing. “So singing is done?”

I shake my head. “No. I’ll always love to sing. But it’s been dawning on me that writing — words, like you said — are what I like most.” Maybe parts of change are gradual, learning something about yourself over the passage of time. Then I remember the multiple phone calls from my dad, from Jacob, from Charlie, the possibility that my mother is right here — in the crowd of people waiting.

“So basically you’re loving college essays,” Chris says.

I shrug. “I dread the idea of them like everyone else — but maybe the reality will be better.”

“Maybe you just described your whole return trip to the Vineyard,” Chris says and points.

We follow the herd onto the pavement and I try to see what — or whom — Chris is pointing to. Another wave of nausea rushes over me and I grab Chris by the shoulder for support.

“What?” he grips me back, steadying my wavering.

“I just thought — all of them could be here. Charlie. Jacob. My mother. Gala. She could be here.”

“First of all, how would anyone know you’re here right now? Aren’t you supposedly still in LA? Isn’t that what you told everyone — that you needed more time out there?” I nod. “Second of all, you really think the random triad would wait for you together?”

I shake my head slowly. “No. I just. I need…”

“I know what you need,” Chris says.

He’s probably thinking I need to chill out, run around screaming on South Beach until I’m hoarse, or chase away my freak out with good music, or talk more while licking a black raspberry ice cream cone from Mad Martha’s until I have some semblance of clarity. “No, you don’t.”

“Yes. I do.” Chris is adamant and pushes me forward, directly into —

“Dad!” I’m practically smushed into his chest and tilt my head up to see his face.

“Love.” My name is a full sentence to him. He takes my bags, puts his arms around my shoulders and hugs me. The same kind of hug I’ve had from him since I was little — tight but not smothering, with no patting because he knows I don’t like that. Still hugging, I turn my head so I can see Chris. He’s watching us and nodding, and mimes ‘I called him for you”, making the universal phone call sign with his thumb and pinky. I nod. Chris did know what I needed — and he backs away into the crowd while I continue to be hugged, buoyed by my dad, rocked by his solidity.

“I didn’t even know I missed you,” I say to him when we have our ice coffees. Dad pulls my car over to the side of the public beach in Oak Bluffs and we walk with our drinks over to the less-populated side where the water is full of reeds.

“Gee, thanks.” Dad sits on a wide flat boulder and pats next to him so I’ll come and sit. Normally I might flinch at this but right now, I willingly sit right next to him. “I missed you.” He offers this as an opening to what we both know is the undercurrent.

I hand Dad my coffee, put my head into my palms, my face getting wet from the condensation that remains on my hands from the cup and my own tears. I cry and cry, the kind where your shoulders heave, your nose runs, and my voice sounds muffled, though Dad miraculously understands every word. “My whole life I never asked for her. Or at least not at the beginning. It was just us, you know? You and me and our pancake mornings. You taking me to kindergarten in those orange pants I insisted on wearing even though they were too long and I tripped in front of the school. You taking pictures of me and Arabella.”

“Us,” Dad says. “We were quite a team.”

I look up at him, blurry with tears. “We’re not anymore?”

“We are. Or course we are.” Dad takes a long sip from his iced coffee. “But things change. You know that. We’ll always be us…”

“Just different?” I sit up, stretching my back, and take my coffee back, sipping the sweet chill of it until I know what to ask. “So you saw her? I mean, obviously, you saw her. And she’s here and I was of course on the other side of the planet. Or country — but it’s different enough out there to feel like another planet…”

“Love?” Dad raises his eyebrows and waits for me to tame my slurred words.

“Yeah.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about your mother. About Gala.” He shakes his head and stands up, leaving his drink nestled between two rocks. “There was a lot I didn’t know.”

“Like?”

He turns to me, his brow furrowed, the sun highlighting his hair, making it reflect red-gold hues. Maybe my red hair comes from him, too, I think. Mable showed me a photograph of Gala and I know she has red hair, that the lineage of hair tone comes from her — right to Sadie, and onto me. “I always thought she left really suddenly. Out of the blue.” He pauses, and I imagine he’s right back in their old apartment with an infant me.

“She did, Dad. Mable said she woke up, asked you to give me a bottle, and when you came back she’d already bolted. I’d call that fairly sudden.”

“It wasn’t exactly like that — true, her actual departure happened really quickly. But in the years since she’s gone I’ve thought a lot about it — and I think a part of me knew it was coming. She was leading up to it the whole time.”

“So the fact that my mother — your wife — former wife, that is — oh my god, did you guys ever get a divorce?” The nausea returns, the overwhelming cloud of confusion hovers overhead. “The fact that Gala went poof was a given? Then why didn’t you try to stop her?”

Dad comes back over to me and crouches down so we’re face to face. “That implies I had any ounce of control over her. And I didn’t. It was one of the things I liked so much about her — that impulsivity.” He smiles, remembering. “She was up for anything — a moment’s notice and she’d have a bag ready for Majorca. At eleven o’ clock at night she’d perk up at the thought of driving until we ran out of gas, just to see how far we’d get…”

I let myself slouch, ignoring all issues of posture, and wipe my eyes again. It’s so sad, thinking about the younger version of my dad that I didn’t know, that I’ll never know. The one who’d never been left, the one who liked impulsiveness. Now he thrives on planning, structure, organization. “And how far did you get?”

“We got to now,” Dad sighs. “Look, Love. We have a good life — you and me. Don’t we?”

I nod. “We do.” I don’t insert the ‘even though you’re making me board in the fall’ because I don’t want to interrupt any info he might tell me about my mom. He’s been so secretive about her — or, not secretive, just dismissive — and I want to suck up everything he has to say before I meet her in person.

“Gala went off to have her own life, and we picked up the pieces. It’s not like our lives were put on hold and neither was hers. Even though I knew she’d leave — or at least part of me did — I also knew she wouldn’t be back.”

“But Mable said you waited. For a couple of months.”

“Sure — a grace period of sorts. I didn’t throw out her papers or move her clothing. It was like a museum to the way things had been. And then — I just admitted it.”

“Admitted what?”

“That the past, the life I’d known, was gone. You can try to recreate it — or make a memorial to it, but the truth is that what you once had — once it’s gone — you can’t ever get it back the same way.”

I hear this and what I think is — he’s absolutely correct. That’s what I kept thinking I’d do with Jacob, what I tried to do with Asher after I left London, what I assumed I’d do with my mother — if I ever met her. “So then, what do I do now?”

Dad stands up and raises his voice, putting on his headmaster voice that’s usually reserved for assemblies and faculty meetings. “Folks, we have a banner moment! Love Bukowski has asked her father for advice. She wants to know what she should do and — yes, that’s right — she wants me to tell her!”

I laugh and flick more condensation water at him. “Come on, Dad. I ask you for your opinion…sometimes.” I look at him. “So?”

“So — now you proceed knowing you’re not trying to keep everything calm and orderly, you’re not trying to hold on to the past. You’re making a new future. You’ll meet Gala — you’ll see what happens. The reality is I saw her very briefly, long enough for her to tell me she wants to see you, and I don’t know her any longer. I guess I’ll always know parts of her, but I don’t know the details of why she’s here, other than to meet you.”