Fifteenth Summer (7 page)

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.

M
aybe 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.

A
t 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 like 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.

“Oh my God,” Hannah said, covering her face with both hands. “You’re such a spaz. He’ll see you!”

“It’s not yours,” Abbie almost shouted. “It’s
mine
. You know—James. Or John . . . Wait a minute—Jim? Jim! I think it’s almost definitely Jim.”

She crammed her last bit of hot dog into her mouth as she stood up.

“What are you doing?” Hannah asked.

“Catching up to him,” Abbie declared. “Hello. We have it all planned, or did you forget?”

“Didn’t the plan involve you looking hot in your swimsuit?” I said as I crammed a fry into my mouth.

“What?” Abbie said. She glanced down at the wrinkled shorts and baggy T-shirt she’d thrown over her bikini. She shrugged
and whipped off her shirt, revealing her tan, muscly abs and her skimpy swimsuit top.

“No,”
both my parents said at the exact same time.

“You guys are so hung up,” Abbie sighed as she shimmied back into her T-shirt. “It’s just a body. What’s the big deal?”

“Don’t answer that,” my mom said to my dad with a wry smile. “It’s a trap.”

Hannah and I rolled our eyes at each other. My parents loved it when they got to join forces and tease us. Which, if you asked me, was kind of mean. It’s not like we could help being teenagers any more than they could choose not to be old and wrinkly.

Abbie knotted her T-shirt at the waist and wove her disheveled hair into two sleek braids, which rendered her instantly adorable.

The she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me and Hannah.

“Hurry up!” she said.

“What?” I squawked. “I’m not going with you!”

I glanced over my shoulder to look at myself in the Dis and Dat window. My outfit was okay—I was wearing a gauzy vintage swim cover-up that looked better the more it wrinkled, which was a good thing, because it was
very
wrinkled. But from the neck up my look was . . . problematic. Even in the dim reflection of the window, I could see that a bunch of new freckles had popped out on my face in the morning sun. My hair was so lake-tangled that a neat braid like Abbie’s was out of the question. Even my usual ponytail could barely contain it. Spiral curls sproinged out along my hairline, pointing in all different directions.

“A, yes you are going with me. Both of you,” Abbie said to me and Hannah. “And B, it doesn’t matter how
you
look.”

Hannah looked at me and bit her lip.

“It matters a
little
bit,” she said before reaching over and snatching the rubber band out of my hair. I felt my wild ringlets bounce off my shoulders.

“Hey!” I said.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for the past hour,” my mom said with a grin. Turning in her seat next to mine, she scrunched my hair a little bit and then smiled. “I love it. It’s just like Granly’s.”

Then her eyes went glassy.

And I really didn’t want to go down that road—not after the perfect morning we’d just had. So I grabbed my beach bag and jumped up to follow Abbie, who was already halfway down the block. Hannah huffed into place behind me a moment later.

The Silver sisters began to stalk their prey.

Jim or John or James was sauntering slowly about a block ahead of us. He was totally Abbie’s type. Super-tan, super-muscly, and happily aware of both. It turned out he was moving at that turtlelike pace so he could check himself out in every store window he passed. He also had to shake his long, blond-tipped bangs out of his eyes every few steps.

Hannah and I rolled our eyes at each other.

“Perfect summer fling material,” she whispered to me.

“Ugh,” I said. “I know where
I’d
fling him.”

Abbie was so fixated on sneaking up on him, she didn’t hear us. When she turned to whisper to us, her face was alight.