Fifteenth Summer Read online

  BALSAMIC STRAWBERRY, GRAPEFRUIT MINT, AND LEMON ROSEMARY.

  What was with all the herbs? I’m sure my parents would have swooned over these flavors, but to me they sounded like the names on bars of soap. I steeled myself for another bummer, until I came to the last item on the menu. Then I grinned.

  “Raspberry Limeade,” I said with relief. I handed him a few bills and said, “I’ll have one of those, please.”

  “Nice safe choice there,” the Pop Guy muttered as he dug into his steamy freezer. I would have been stung, but the Pop Guy was also famous for being a cranky food snob, so I just ducked my head to pull off the cellophane wrapper, and headed off.

  Before I could get very far, though, the Pop Guy called after me, completely ignoring a cozy-looking couple who looked like they’d been just about to order.

  “Hey, I’ve seen you here before, yeah?” he said. “I recognize that hair of yours. Been a while.”

  I nodded.

  “Been a year,” I said.

  I thought back to the fourteen-year-old me the Pop Guy remembered.

  That version of myself wouldn’t have even caught the Pop Guy’s dis. The insult would have skimmed over her head—most stuff that adults said did. The fourteen-year-old me had also been wearing her first underwire bra. She’d worn way too much frosty lip gloss, and she’d wanted nothing more than to have a sleepover with Emma every Saturday night.

  And it had never occurred to her that her grandmother wouldn’t be around forever, or at least until she was very old herself.

  To the fifteen-year-old me, that fourteen-year-old seemed really, really young.

  I did still like her taste in frozen treats, though. My herb-free pop was fabulous—almost as good as a dunk in Lake Michigan.

  I strolled slowly up the sidewalk, pausing to peek into each familiar shop.

  But then, on the corner of Main and Althorp, I spotted something that almost made me drop my pop in the gutter. Across the street, next door to Mel & Mel’s Coffee Shop, where I’d been eating pie since I was a toddler, was something new.

  There was never anything new in Bluepointe.

  The sign over the door said DOG EAR in a funky typewriter font. Next to the name was a cartoon of a floppy-eared Labrador retriever. The dog was resting its chin on its front paws while it gazed at—

  This was the part where I really did drop my pop, right onto my flip-flopped toes.

  The dog was reading a book.

  Which meant not only was there a new shop in Bluepointe, but it was my favorite kind of shop ever—the kind that sold books.

  As I race-walked across the street, pausing only to shake the sticky raspberry juice from my feet, I tried to lower my expectations.

  It could be a new age bookstore, I told myself. All crystals and tarot cards and self-help books.

  Or worse, I bet it’s a pet store, with an entire Dog Whisperer book section and toy poodle outfits and liver-flavored cupcakes.

  I arrived at the bookstore and plunged through the door with so much breathless drama that the little bell on the door clanged. I could feel a dozen heads turn toward me.

  “Welcome to Dog Ear!” said a woman behind the counter. She had long, gray-streaked hair that looked soft and pretty instead of scraggly and old. She looked small behind the stacks of books on the corner of the L-shaped counter. Propped against these stacks were little cards with paragraphs written in pink, orange, and lime-green ink.

  “Grab something to read and a cookie,” the woman told me with a warm, deeply dimpled smile. “We’ve got vanilla wafers today.”

  She gestured toward a lounge in the back corner of the shop. Two people were already there, tucked into a faded blue couch, absorbed in books. At their feet was a huge black Labrador retriever. It must have been the dog on the sign. One of the readers, a woman in cuffed denim cutoffs just like mine, had her bare feet propped on the dog’s ample back as if he were no more than a furry ottoman. She popped one vanilla wafer into her mouth and tossed another to the dog, who gulped it down with a loud smack.

  On the lemon-yellow wall overlooking this little lounge was a gallery of amazingly detailed posters, each advertising a book signing and featuring a mash note from the author.

  To the best little bookstore in town! And I’m not just saying that because you’re the only bookstore in town . . . .

  Tell E.B. he owes me my sandwich back. XOXO . . .

  On the opposite side of the store, tucked behind a few rows of turquoise bookshelves, was a children’s area enclosed by a tiny white picket fence. It had a fluffy green shag rug and beanbag chairs, plus a bright-red train engine, the perfect size for a toddler to climb into.

  String after string of fairy lights swagged from the ceiling. Between the light strands dangled random stuff like a cardboard moon, a Chinese lantern, and a disco ball.

  Normally I would have fallen on the bookshelves like a bear just out of hibernation. But I found that I couldn’t quite move. Because when you walk into the bookstore you’ve always fantasized about but never thought could exist in real life, it kind of throws you. Some irrational part of me thought if I went any farther, or touched anything, it would all vaporize and I’d wake up from a dream.

  When the woman at the counter started to look concerned, I did take a few stumbling steps forward.

  I picked up one of the index cards propped against the books on the counter. Next to the book’s title, someone had written: A-minus. As you know, I rarely give out such a high grade. I read this book when I was recovering from a breakup. Yes, I know all of you were rooting for the breakup. Don’t gloat, people. Anyway, next time somebody stomps on your heart, you should read this book. You’ll hate the lead character for being much prettier than you, but you’ll forgive her when she fails to make tenure at her hoity-toity liberal arts college.

  “Everyone who works here writes up little book reviews,” the woman at the counter said, interrupting me. “That one’s by Isobel. She’s not here right now, so I can tell you . . .”

  She shifted to a stage whisper.

  “She’s a bit of an oversharer.”

  I laughed.

  “Good books will do that to you,” I said.

  “Oh, honey,” the woman said, “Isobel doesn’t need a good book to tell us the most appalling things about her personal life. She’ll read the weather report and start spilling her guts.”

  This woman was talking to me in that frank way that middle-aged people only talked to other middle-aged people. Which made me feel both proud and paranoid. This couldn’t all be for real, could it?

  “Who are you?” I blurted. “I mean, um, when did this store open? It wasn’t here the last time I was in Bluepointe.”

  “Do you like it?” the woman said with a conspiratorial grin. “Good, ’cause it’s mine! Well, my husband’s and mine, but I do more of the day-to-day because he’s a professor in Chicago. We’re nearing our one-year birthday.”

  “I like it,” I said as I continued to take it all in. Outside the kids’ picket fence was a tall refrigerator box painted purple and labeled THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH. And next to the couch, where you’d think there’d be an end table or something, there was a basket of yo-yos. Not shrink-wrapped yo-yos for sale. Just loose, mismatched yo-yos, their strings trailing over the basket’s edge. Clearly the Dog Ear owners believed that shopping for books just naturally led to the urge to yo-yo.

  “I like it a lot,” I breathed.

  “Well, go get you some cookies, then, before E.B. eats them all,” the woman said. “Yesterday we had Fig Newtons, and he did not like those at all, so he’s playing catch-up.”

  She craned her neck to address the dog, who was still sprawled beneath the feet of the reader.

  “Aren’t you, ya big fatty?” the owner cooed.

  The reader with her feet on E.B. gasped.

  “Don’t you listen to Stella,” she told the dog, feeding him another cookie. “There’s just more of you to love.”

  Stell
a rolled her eyes and said to me, “He looks more like Wilbur the pig than a dog. That’s why we named him after E. B. White.”

  While I laughed, Stella turned to the girl on the couch. “Darby, are you going to buy that book ever, or just come here every day to read it?”

  The woman grinned and said, “I’ll take option B.”

  Stella laughed and shrugged, as if to say, Fine with me.

  Best. Bookstore. Ever.

  I finally found the strength to drift over to the YA section. Refreshingly, it was placed smack-dab in the middle of the store, instead of tucked into some shadowy corner in the back. I rounded the aqua bookcase, almost licking my lips in anticipation of all the pretty book jackets arrayed on the shelves like candy.

  I stopped short when I saw that somebody else was in the aisle.

  Not just any somebody. A boy. A boy so tall and long-limbed that his slouch against the bookshelf make him look like the letter C. A boy with fair skin, and a perfect nose and neatly shorn brown hair.

  A very cute boy.

  He was squinting at the cover of a paperback, but when I took a few steps down the aisle, he looked up at me. I saw a flash in his eyes. They were brown—the exact same brown of my favorite velvet chair at Granly’s cottage. They had long lashes and thick brows the same wet-sand color as his buzz-cut hair.

  The pretty brown eyes glanced back at his book for a moment, then quickly snapped right back to me. Now they were widened in an expression that seemed a little stunned.

  This, of course, caused me to catch my breath and spin around to face the bookshelf.

  That was a double take, I thought. It was definitely a real-live double take! For . . . me? For me!

  A feeling of both giddiness and panic bubbled inside me. Hoping my face wasn’t turning bright red, I bent toward the bookshelf and pretended to search for a particular title. Meanwhile, I could feel the boy staring at me.

  My hand floated up to my ponytail, which felt like it had frizzed into a giant puffball in the heat. I twirled a lock of hair nervously around my finger.

  He was still looking, I could tell.

  For maybe the first time in my life, I wished I were a stereotypical redhead, all sassy and impulsive. I’d swing myself around and stare right back at him. My dark blue eyes would crackle impishly, and my smile would be twisty and mischievous, just like the redheads I’d read about in books but had never actually met in real life.

  Of course, even those redheads might have hesitated if they’d just emerged from a three-day road trip, plus a crying jag, with barely a glance in the mirror. My sleeveless red-checked shirt, which had surely been cutely crisp and picnicky when it was first made in the 1970s, was now faded and wrinkly and had a permanent ballpoint pen stain near one of the buttons. The Revlon Red polish on my toenails was chipped, and for all I knew I had a raspberry limeade drip on my face.

  I skimmed my fingertips across my chin, feeling for stickiness. Then I tapped at the corners of my mouth to make sure there were no raspberry remnants there.

  Since I seemed to be drip-free, I shot the boy a sidelong glance.

  He was still looking at me.

  And now he was saying something to me.

  “There’s nothing on your face, you know,” the boy said in a low, somewhat raspy voice.

  It took a second for me to realize what he’d said and what it meant. Clearly my attempt at a subtle chin check had been anything but subtle.

  “What?” I blurted.

  “It looked like you were wondering if you had something on your face,” he said. “Maybe mayonnaise. You know, from the coffee shop? I just thought I’d let you know, there’s not.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Um, thanks. I wasn’t at the coffee shop.”

  “Oh, okay,” he said.

  We looked at each other blankly for a moment before I blurted, “Besides, I’m not so into mayo. I’m more of a mustard girl.”

  I cringed. What was that? Please tell me I’m not talking to this boy about condiments!

  But the boy nodded as if this were a perfectly normal thing to say to a cute person of the opposite sex. Who knew? Maybe it was. Maybe I should ask him what kind of stuff he put on his ham sandwiches.

  Then I imagined those words coming out of my mouth, and I clamped my lips shut to make certain that they didn’t.

  The boy returned to his book, which gave me the chance to stare at him. He looked so different from most of the boys I knew. They were always swinging their hair out of their eyes with swoops of their heads, something that I hadn’t realized I found annoying until just now. This boy’s hair was sleek and neat and allowed a view of his very nice forehead.

  Wait a minute, I thought. There’s no such thing as a nice forehead. Foreheads aren’t nice or not-nice. They’re just . . . foreheads. What kind of weirdo admires a guy’s forehead of all things? What does that mean?

  But I think I already knew.

  It meant that I had been struck with an instantaneous crush—a crush that was possibly mutual (there’d been that double take, after all) but just as possibly not.

  I tried to think of something to say. Something breezy and bright that had nothing to do with ham sandwiches. Of course, my mind was blank—except for the part that was consumed with this boy’s long fingers and his stylish Euro sneakers and (still!) his forehead.

  So I just watched in silence as he turned to a wheeled cart behind him. It was stacked neatly with paperbacks. I assumed that Stella, the store owner, had left them there so she could shelve them later.

  The boy took a silver pen off the cart.

  It hovered over the front cover of his book.

  I felt myself tense. What was he doing? Was he going to write something on the book cover?

  Only when I heard the sound of paper tearing did I realize that he was doing something even worse. He was slicing the cover off the book! The pen was not a pen. It was an X-Acto knife!

  Maybe Stella didn’t mind if customers read her books without buying them or got vanilla wafer crumbs in the bindings. But even she wouldn’t stand for this, would she?

  “What are you doing!” I cried, grabbing the boy’s wrist.

  Now it was his turn to be shocked.

  “I’m doing my job,” he said. “What are you doing?”

  I realized I was still clutching his wrist. It felt satiny smooth and warm. I dropped his arm like it had burned me.

  “What kind of job involves slashing a book cover?” I demanded. “What did that book ever to do you?”

  That’s when something weird happened.

  Weird in a wonderful way.

  The boy smiled.

  His teeth were very white and straight, except for one crooked eyetooth. Each of his cheeks had a dimple in it.

  “It’s nothing personal against the book,” he said. “It’s just being remaindered. These all are.”

  The boy gestured at the cart full of paperbacks.

  “Remaindered?” I asked. “What’s that?”

  “They’re not selling,” he explained. “So we return them to the publisher. But it’s too expensive to ship back the whole book, so we just send them the cover and recycle the rest of the book.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling stupid and sad all at once. I eyed the cart full of books.

  “You’re going to slice up all those books?” I said. “How can you stand it?”

  “They’re not selling,” the boy repeated with a shrug. “If we don’t get rid of the ones that won’t sell, we won’t have room for the books that will.”

  I plucked a tomato-red paperback off the cart.

  “Waiter, There’s Soup in My Fly,” I read.

  “Fly-fishing humor,” the boy said with a sorrowful shake of his head.

  “Well, I don’t know why that’s not selling,” I said sarcastically. I reached for another book.

  “My Life as a Cat Lady,” I read with a shudder.

  “I’m telling you,” the boy said. With one hand he reached out to take the
book from me. With the other he held up his X-Acto knife.

  “No,” I protested, plunking the book back onto the cart. “How can you kill off all those innocent cats?”

  “Well, we are dog people here,” the boy said, glancing toward the lounge, where E.B. was wetly gobbling another vanilla wafer. The boy rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  But he also smiled, and those dimples showed up again.

  My stomach fluttered. I hoped he couldn’t tell. Quickly I bent down so I could peer more closely at the books on the cart—and hide my face from him.

  One paperback was sunset orange. I pulled it out.

  “Coconut Dreams by Veronica Gardner,” I said. “That sounds beachy to me. I’ll take it.”

  The boy laughed.

  “You’re not actually buying that,” he declared.

  “I’m rescuing it,” I said, hugging the book to my chest. “This book does not deserve to die.”

  “Do you even know what it’s about?” he said.

  I glanced at the back of the book.

  “It’s a dollar ninety-nine on clearance,” I said, eyeing the red sale sticker. “Ooh, and it’s YA! That’s a good start. Let’s see . . .”

  I began to read the description on the back cover aloud.

  “ ‘Nicole can’t believe her parents have shipped her off to camp for the summer. Even if the camp is on a tropical island—’ ”

  I paused to snort.

  “Sounds deep,” the boy said, prompting me to read on.

  “ ‘Nicole is super-mad about it. What about hanging out at the mall with her friends? What about her job at the frozen yogurt shop? She’ll miss all the parties and all the fun, which is just what Nicole’s parents want! At first Camp Coconut is awful—early wake-up calls, catch-your-own-fish breakfasts, a monsoon—’ ”

  “A monsoon!” the boy and I blurted out together.

  “Okay, safe to say that’s a stretch,” I said with a giggle.

  “ ‘But then,’ ” I read on, “ ‘everything changes. Nicole meets a local boy named Kai. Their summer love blooms like a coconut flower, but like the tide, Nicole knows it can never last.’ ”