Fifteenth Summer Page 5

  Sure enough, when we pulled up to the stand (purple!) just outside of town, there was a crowd milling around it. But as usual nobody seemed to mind the wait. The evening air was cool and breezy, and the air was so lit up with fireflies, it made the weedy gravel lot feel like a fairy ring. Nobody was in a rush, and you didn’t even have to expend mental energy mulling your custard order, because the Blue Moon had exactly two flavors: chocolate and vanilla.

  We always ordered the same thing anyway. Dad and Hannah got hot fudge sundaes, hers with sprinkles, his with nuts. I got chocolate custard in a cake cone. Mom had a cup of vanilla drizzled with chopped maraschino cherries, and Abbie got a butterscotch-dipped sugar cone. We all got huge servings, even though frozen custard is about as bad for you as a bacon-topped donut, as distant from the calorie-free, pomegranate-flavored frozen yogurt of our hometown as you could get. That was exactly the point. This first-night ritual was our way of saying good-bye to California for the summer, and hello to Bluepointe, where things—until now—had always been as sweet and easy as frozen custard.

  I took a giant bite of my cone as soon as the kid behind the counter handed it to me.

  “Oh!” I groaned through a messy mouthful of chocolate. “Thish ish shooo good! How do I always forget the perfection that is frozen custard?”

  “If you remembered,” my dad said, wiping hot fudge off his chin with his napkin, “you’d never need to go back for more. And what fun would that be?”

  I grinned and took another huge bite. As I swallowed, though, I felt a wave of cold surge though my head.

  “Owwwwww, brain freeze!” I groaned. I turned away, squeezed my eyes shut, and slapped a hand to my forehead.

  In a few seconds the yucky feeling in my frontal lobe passed, and I opened my eyes—to find myself looking right at—Josh! He was just walking away from the Blue Moon window, holding a simple vanilla cone. Behind him was his mom, digging into a sundae with about half a dozen colorful toppings on it.

  Also just like me—he seemed stunned. After what felt like a long moment, during which we just stared at each other, he gave me a little wave.

  I gave him a little smile.

  And then Stella spotted me. Waving at me with her fudgy spoon, she said, “You were in Dog Ear today, weren’t you, honey? How do you like that book?”

  “Oh,” I said, trying to sound breezy and comfortable even though I completely wasn’t, “I haven’t had a chance to start it yet.”

  “Well, you let me know, okay?” she said.

  I nodded as, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Josh’s gaze drop to the ground. He ate his frozen custard in giant, hurried bites until his mom wandered off to chat with someone else. Then he took a few steps toward me.

  “You should,” he said seriously.

  “I should . . . what?” I asked him. I wondered how this was going to go. Was he going to be flirty Josh or surly Josh?

  “You should come back to Dog Ear,” he said.

  I raised my eyebrows. That definitely didn’t sound surly.

  “I finished the remainders,” Josh went on. “I promise, all the books are safe for the next few months. And . . .”

  Now Josh looked a little embarrassed. “I can also promise you the staffers will be more polite.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That sounds sort of like an apology.”

  “It sort of is,” Josh replied.

  Which might have been sweet in a different tone of voice. But Josh said it in such a somber, almost curt way, I didn’t know quite how to take it. Was this just him doing the right thing, clearing his conscience? Or did he want me to come back to Dog Ear . . . to see him?

  I didn’t know what to say. What’s more, my melting tower of frozen custard was beginning to tilt dangerously in my cone. And my family was not two feet behind me. I knew it wouldn’t be long before they emerged from their custard hazes and noticed me talking to a boy. That would mean awkward introductions, followed by a sisterly interrogation for which I would have absolutely no answers.

  What could I tell them? This is Josh. We totally hit it off this afternoon. And then we didn’t. And now I don’t know what’s going on, except that I still find him painfully cute.

  It would have made no sense to any of them. It barely made sense to me!

  So I simply said to Josh, “Well, I guess I’ll see you then.”

  As I turned back to my family, I realized I’d said pretty much the same thing when I’d left Josh at Dog Ear that afternoon. Of course, I’d been completely lying then.

  Now? I hoped what I said would actually come true.

  I barely tasted the rest of my frozen custard. In fact, I threw my cone away when it was only half-eaten. This was unheard of.

  But, of course, everything was different this summer.

  My parents hammered that point home as we walked back to the car, doing our best to wipe our sticky hands with flimsy paper napkins.

  “Your dad and I have decided that we’re going to move into Granly’s room,” my mom announced. “Hannah, you can have our old room so that you can have a quiet place to study. Abbie and Chelsea, we can split up the bunk beds for you if you want.”

  “But—” Abbie began. It was pure reflex for her to protest the injustice of Hannah getting her own room. But then it all must have sunk in, because Abbie clapped her mouth shut.

  Mom and Dad were moving into Granly’s room—her empty room.

  It made sense. After all, the house was small and it was silly to leave an entire bedroom empty all summer.

  But it was also incredibly depressing.

  After we’d loaded ourselves soberly into the car, I pressed my knuckles to my lips.

  Part of me wondered, why had we even bothered with this first-night outing? All our Bluepointe rituals were shattered now that the person at their center was gone.

  But another (guilty) part of me was glad that we’d gone and I’d gotten another glimpse of Josh.

  After we got home, I flopped into the rocker on the front porch. I didn’t want to go in and watch my parents move their stuff into Granly’s room. Instead I rocked slowly while the crickets sawed away outside the window screens. After a few minutes I picked up my purse from the floor where I’d tossed it and fished out my wrinkled memo pad and a pen.

  What if? What if Granly was still here? What if I hadn’t run to town this afternoon? What if the library had been open? That whole “butterfly causing a tsunami with one beat of its wings” thing has always made me crazy. It makes it seem like there’s an either/or between everything—your grandmother living or dying. A summer spent in humongous Los Angeles or a tiny town in Michigan.

  Why can’t you have both sides of the either/or? If my grandma was here, maybe I wouldn’t have met a cute boy today. Now I’ve met the cute boy, but I can’t tell my grandma about him. See? Either/or. I guess that’s just how life works.

  I scratched out my exhausted thoughts until the pen almost fell out of my hand. Then I stumbled to my room and flopped into bed in my checkered shirt. I hadn’t unpacked yet and couldn’t find any of my pajamas.

  In the middle of the night, I was awakened by the muffled (but still unbearable) sound of my mother crying from Granly’s room on the other side of the wall.

  It didn’t wake Abbie up, because nothing ever woke Abbie up.

  But just to test the theory, I grabbed the little flashlight that was always in the nightstand drawer. I flicked it on and aimed it at Abbie’s face—her utterly placid, sleeping face. I wiggled the light back and forth over her eyes, but they remained stubbornly closed. Then she made a cooing noise and flipped over so she faced the wall.

  It didn’t seem fair that Abbie was not only sound asleep but was having a good dream.

  Now in the next room I heard the low grumble of my dad’s voice. He must have said the exact right thing, because my mom gave a sniffly laugh, then quieted down. Gratefully I smushed my head deeper into my pillow and resolved to laugh at my dad’s next joke, no matter how corny it
was.

  I aimed the flashlight at the wall. It was papered instead of painted because Granly thought wallpaper was warm and cozy. The paper was barely pink and dotted with tiny impressionistic butterflies—each one just a few swipes of ink and a couple blobs of watercolor. They were the pale greens, blues, pinks, and tans of birds’ eggs.

  This wallpaper was in one of my earliest memories. I don’t know how old I was—young enough that I was put to bed before the sun had fully set. I was also young enough that I couldn’t yet read myself to sleep. So instead I tried to follow the pattern in the wallpaper. I found the gray-blue butterfly that seemed to be dancing with the coral one, then I searched for the spot where the pair repeated. I pointed at the blue and coral butterflies over and over, working my way around the room, until my eyes became the butterfly wings and fluttered shut.

  Now, at three a.m., searching out my favorite butterflies with a flashlight felt more like a hunting expedition than a relaxing way to drift off to sleep. So I groped for the nightstand and grabbed the first thing I found there.

  I squinted at the book through half-closed eyes. Oh. Coconut Dreams.

  Stella wanted to know what I thought of it. So did Josh. At least it had seemed that way.

  So, even though I was already pretty sure what I would think of Coconut Dreams, I smiled as I cracked it open and started reading.

  The best thing I could say about the story of Nicole’s exile on the Island of Bad Similes was that it put me to sleep within three pages. The last thing I thought as my flashlight slipped out of my fingers and I fell back asleep was, This is better than a sleeping pill. I wonder if I could stretch Coconut Dreams out to last two and a half months.

  With all the what ifs I had to think about—not to mention the what nows—I had a feeling I was going to need it.

  Maybe it was because my dad was taking some time off work. Maybe it was because my mom was a fourth-grade teacher who thought every moment of every day should be educational.

  Whatever the reason, our first weeks in Bluepointe became all about family outings.

  Normally my sisters and I would have protested. Our time in Bluepointe was supposed to be lazy, so lazy that moving from the couch to the kitchen required serious consideration. So lazy that you could spend two hours in the lake, just bobbing around and counting clouds. So lazy that you’d subsist on chips and salsa for lunch and dinner if it would get you out of having to think about or help prepare a real meal.

  But this summer, of course, was different. None of us wanted to be in the cottage much, especially me. Being home made me ache for Granly. It also gave me time to talk myself in circles about Josh. One moment, I felt certain that he liked me, and I would make definite (okay, definite-ish) plans to put on my cutest vintage sundress and head to Dog Ear.

  The next minute, I would talk myself out of it. I wondered if I’d misread what he’d said. I pictured myself showing up at Dog Ear, clutching my long to-read list like a total dork, only to have Josh be all casual and brush-offy.

  Or maybe, I thought, I’d show up and he wouldn’t even be there. Then I’d have to go back. It might take multiple attempts to pin him down. The next thing you know, I’m a stalker.

  The idea that it could all go well—that was the scenario I couldn’t quite envision. I knew that kind of thing happened all the time. It had been the easiest thing in the world for Emma and Ethan. But it had never happened to me, and I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that it ever would.

  If I just put off going to Dog Ear, I told myself, I could delay the inevitable disappointment.

  So that was how I ended up joining my family for an endless series of day trips. We went wild mushroom hunting in the Michigan woods. My parents had read about it in some foodie magazine, and they would not be deterred by the fact that choosing the wrong mushrooms could kill us all. (Somehow we survived. And the mushrooms actually weren’t bad, if you could get past the lingering taste of dirt.)

  After that we spent an afternoon churning butter at a living history museum a few towns over.

  We rode inner tubes down the South Branch Galien River.

  We cooked massive breakfasts and elaborate dinners, each involving new and difficult recipes that my parents had squirreled away over the course of the year.

  And, oh, the antiquing. I knew we’d gone overboard with that when I found myself having a serious internal debate about which kind of quilt pattern I liked best, Double Wedding Ring or Log Cabin.

  But toward the end of June it all fell apart. Abbie slipped out one morning for a “quick dunk” in the lake and never came back, so I was sent to look for her.

  When I got there, she was still in the water. And even though she was just bobbing around in a bikini instead of seriously training in her Speedo, I decided I’d better not disturb her. I had no choice but to flop onto the sand and start texting with Emma. I’d just happened to stash my phone in my bag on my way out the door, along with a giant tube of sunscreen, Granly’s old copy of Sense and Sensibility, and my bathing suit and cover-up.

  You know, just in case.

  One by one the rest of my family arrived. First came my dad with a soft cooler full of soft drinks. Then Hannah, who had a beach blanket and a mesh bag of clementines. And finally my mom, wearing her purse and a confused expression.

  “But we’re going to that artists’ colony to watch them make fused glass,” she complained. She was decked out in touristy clothes: capri pants, walking sandals, floppy-brimmed hat—the works.

  “That sounds fascinating,” Hannah said, shielding her eyes with her hand and squinting up at Mom. “But you know what would be an even more interesting way to spend the day?”

  “What?” Mom asked.

  “Lying on this beach doing absolutely nothing,” Hannah said.

  Without looking up from my phone—where Emma had just finished a long, dramatic story about getting caught making out with Ethan in the parking lot of the LA Ballet—I raised my fist in silent solidarity.

  “There’s not another glass demonstration until August,” my mom protested feebly. I couldn’t help but notice, though, that she kicked off her sandals as she said it.

  “Maybe Hannah’s right, hon,” my dad said. “It’s been a long few weeks. It’s been a long year. Maybe it’s time for a breather. We can go see them blow glass next time.”

  “Fuse glass . . . ,” my mom said. But her teacherly voice trailed off as she gazed out at the blue-green, sun-dappled lake.

  She sat down gingerly on the blanket.

  “Cold Fresca?” Hannah asked, digging into the cooler for my mom’s favorite drink.

  Mom shrugged as she took the can and popped it open. She took a sip. It turned into a deep swig. Then she dug her toes into the sand, flopped back onto the blanket, and said to the sky, “Oh. My. Gawd.”

  “See?” Hannah said to her. “Nice, huh?”

  I held up my hand so Hannah could high-five me, then returned to my cell phone.

  That’s when Abbie emerged from the lake, shaking the water out of her hair like a wet puppy.

  “Uh-oh,” she said, eyeing Mom. “Well, I guess it was too good to last. So what’s on the agenda today? Making our own soap? Tracing Johnny Appleseed’s steps through Michigan?”

  “Here,” Mom said as she reached into the cooler. “Have a Coke. We’re not going anywhere.”

  “Oh. My. Gawd,” Abbie said, gaping at our mother.

  “She’s crossed over to the dark side,” Hannah said happily. Then she flopped onto her back next to my mom and closed her eyes for a nap.

  At some point we got hungry. So we threw on our flip-flops and shuffled up to town.

  Perhaps because it was the first café we hit on Main Street, we wandered into Dis and Dat. A little hole in the wall with mustard-yellow walls, Dis and Dat sold two things and two things only: hot dogs and french fries. Both the food and the thick-necked guys behind the counter had south-side-of-“Chicawgo” accents. They clapped their serving tongs l
ike castanets and pointed them at you as they interrogated you about your hot dog toppings.

  “You want some of dese pickles?” they’d demand. “How about some of dose peppers?”

  They’d shake celery salt on your dog and announce, “A little of dis.”

  Then they’d squirt on some mustard and say, “And a little of dat.”

  I couldn’t help but feel a little insider pride when Hannah marched up to the counter and barked, “Five of ’em with everything.”

  She knew not to say “please” and she definitely knew not to ask for ketchup. Chicagoans have this weird thing about ketchup on a hot dog. Ask for it, and they’ll act like you said something disgusting about their mother.

  “That’s what I like to heah!” the guy behind the counter said to Hannah. He started tossing butterflied buns onto an orange plastic tray. Hannah couldn’t have been more pleased if she’d gotten an A-plus on an exam. My dad laughed and gave her a squeeze.

  “Think she’ll do all right at U of C?” he asked the counterman.

  “Don’t you worry ’bout her,” the counter guy said, pointing his tongs at my dad now. “A U of C girl. She’s a sharpie.”

  “She’s a genius!” my dad agreed.

  “Daaaaaad,” Hannah said. Her grin faded fast.

  But at least the hot dogs were amazing. We sat down at one of the cramped sidewalk tables to devour them. In addition to the celery salt, peppers, pickles, and mustard, each dog was piled with chopped onions, tomatoes, and pickle relish dyed an unnatural emerald green. I sat with my back to the plate-glass window so the Dis and Dat guys wouldn’t see me picking off the onions.

  “Yummmm,” Abbie said as she wolfed down her dog. “I’m so getting something from the Pop Guy for dessert.”

  As she peered down the street to see if the rainbow umbrella was there (it was, of course), she suddenly clutched at Hannah’s arm.

  “Hey,” Hannah said, dropping her french fry. “That hurts.”

  “It’s him!” Abbie hissed. She released Hannah’s arm to gesture wildly at the other side of Main Street.