Fifteenth Summer

I guess since I’d forgotten to feel nervous before Josh arrived, all my nerves hit during our walk down the beach. I couldn’t think of anything to say as we picked our way around shrieking packs of little kids and college students laughing as they popped the caps off bottles.

I wanted to hold Josh’s hand, but the wind was picking up and I needed my hands to hold my skirt down.

Josh was quiet too. He asked a couple polite questions about my parents and my sisters.

Then I asked him how dinner had been with his parents.

“Oh, fine,” he said. “Some of those poets who like to come into Dog Ear set up right next to us, and they started improvising.”

“Ooh,” I groaned. “Improv poetry? That sounds painful.”

“Oh, my dad ate it up,” Josh said. “He likes that kind of thing. He went to Woodstock, but don’t ask him about it unless you want to listen to him go on about it for three hours.”

“Woodstock!” I said. “But how— How old—”

“Sixty-six,” Josh said, answering the question I couldn’t quite bring myself to ask. “He was fifty-one when I was born, and my mom was forty.”

“Wow,” I said. “I mean, I knew they were, you know, on the older side . . .”

“Yeah.” Josh shrugged. “That’s why they only had me. But I think that’s what they wanted anyway. I mean, my parents have never been the romp-around-with-a-bunch-of-little-kids types.”

“Oh,” I said.

I hadn’t really thought before about how different our lives really were. I’d grown up in a suburban house where there had always been us three kids (and usually a few of our friends) hanging out in our TV room, raiding the fridge, or playing in the backyard.

Meanwhile, Josh had never even had a backyard. Before moving to Bluepointe he and his parents had lived in an apartment in Chicago, and Josh had taken the subway everywhere he needed to go. Now they lived in one of the lofts that overlooked Main Street, just a few steps away from Dog Ear.

It seemed very sophisticated and grown-up.

Maybe that was why Josh had proposed a “real” date, when I’d just been content to hang out wherever we landed. And why he felt the kind of responsibility for Dog Ear that never would have occurred to me.

We arrived at a spot where the picnic blankets were sparser and there was an empty patch of sand in front of the dune grass.

“This looks like a good place to see the fireworks,” Josh said.

We sat and stared at the darkening sky for a few long moments. For some reason I was at a loss for words again.

“I wonder when they’re going to start,” was what I finally came up with.

Then I started to feel miserable. Why was I suddenly making small talk? This was Josh, with whom everything had been so easy and fun and right ever since our first kiss.

Josh reached over and took my hand, but just like my small talk, it felt forced. Like what you’re supposed to do on a date, instead of what he wanted to do.

“Well . . . ,” Josh said, staring out at the horizon just as I was, “this is weird.”

“I know!” I said, exhaling with relief and turning to look at him. “Did my family freak you out?”

“No!” Josh said. “I liked them. I mean, from the three minutes or so I spent with them. Your mom seems like such a normal mom.”

“What, like June Cleaver?” I said with a laugh.

“No, she just seems, I don’t know, comfortable in that mom role,” he said. “She seems kind of sad, too.”

“Yeah,” I said, hanging my head. “My grandma.”

“I know,” Josh said. His hand tightened around mine. “Listen, do you want to go back? We could watch the fireworks with them, if you want. Or . . . you could be alone with them.”

I looked up at Josh’s face, searching for what he really meant. I wanted to know what he was thinking just from gazing into the depths of his eyes. I wanted to be back on that road that we’d started on, the one where we just got each other and being together felt completely natural.

But now Josh felt opaque. I couldn’t figure out what he meant by his offer. Was he being selfless? Or was he pushing me away?

“I don’t want to go back there,” I said.

“Okay,” Josh said with a nod.

“No,” I said urgently. “I mean back to how things were when we first met, and I liked you and you liked me, but both of us were too scared to say anything about it. And you sent me all those mixed signals . . .”

Josh frowned.

“What mixed signals?”

“You know!” I said. “When we first met. You were all hot and cold. You were sweet, then you were surly. You told me about the job at Mel and Mel’s, but then when I got it, I swear your face went white.”

“And then I kissed you,” Josh said quietly. He looked like he wanted to kiss me right then, but I wasn’t having it.

“Yeah!” I said. “You can see how I was a little confused. But then, well . . .”

I grabbed Josh’s hand, loving how familiar his long, slim fingers felt and how neatly and automatically they crisscrossed with mine.

“But then I thought we were all figured out. I mean, it’s been amazing. Until tonight.”

Josh cocked his head and said, “Chelsea, you of all people should know nobody gets ‘figured out.’ You never figure it all out—but you keep trying.”

Now I cocked my head at him.

“That’s a funny thing for you to say,” I said.

“Why?”

“Well, I hope this doesn’t sound bad,” I said, “but I think you’ve got some issues with, you know, control.”

Josh smiled a tiny bit, then took his hand back and leaned into the sand, propping himself up on his elbows. He gave me an I’m listening look.

“Well, there’s the way you have a folder or drawer or cubby for every little thing at Dog Ear,” I said.

“That’s true.” Josh nodded.

“And you do this sport that’s all about precision and timing,” I said. “And what about your friends? You skipped that whole lantern-making extravaganza even though I can think of one person—one girl—who would have really liked to see you there.”

Josh snorted.

“And then there’s your hair,” I said.

“My hair?” Josh said, slapping his hand on top of his head.

“No, no, I love your hair!” I said, getting up on my knees so I could reach over and stroke his sleek, spiky hair. His eyes fluttered closed for a moment. “It’s just that it’s so different from a lot of boys’ hair. It’s so close-cropped, it never gets messy, never gets in your eyes. It’s very . . . practical.”

Josh shook his head slowly as he gazed at me. And in the almost darkness I couldn’t quite tell what was going on in his face. Was he mad?

“But attractive,” I said with an earnest nod. “Did I mention th—”

I didn’t get to finish what I was saying, because Josh was on his knees too, wrapping his arms around me and kissing me hard. He came at me with such force—or maybe just because it was too dark for him to have good depth perception—that we toppled over into the sand. We landed, our arms still tangled up together, on our sides.

This made us burst out laughing. But then, quickly, we were kissing again, our hands buried in each other’s hair and our bodies pressed together. When we finally broke apart, we were breathing hard. We lay on our backs for a moment, staring up into the black sky.

Then Josh rolled over so that he was facing me, and I rolled toward him. He put his hand on my cheek.

“I think you do have me pegged,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said with a coy smile. “I think I’ve got to do some more investigating.”

Josh moved his hand up to my temple. He pulled free a curl that had poofed out of my ponytail and spiraled it around his finger. Automatically I reached up to tuck it back behind my ear, but he stopped me.

“You like your hair under control too,” he said. “But I loved it that day you came into Dog Ear with your sisters. It was all loose and wild.”

“And red,” I said with a long-suffering sigh.

“And red,” Josh said, but from the way he said it, I could tell he thought it was a good thing.

Also because he started kissing me again.

But then abruptly he stopped and pulled back far enough to look me in the eyes. I wished I could see the pretty, velvety brown of his eyes, but it was too dark to see colors. We’d become black and white, like an old movie.

“You make me want to, I don’t know,” Josh said with a little self-conscious laugh, “not lose control so much as release it.”

“That’s the nicest thing-that-I-don’t-completely-understand that anybody’s ever said to me,” I teased.

Josh shrugged happily.

“Like I said, that’s the whole point,” he said. “Not-figuring each other out.”

I touched his hair again.

“I’m enjoying not-figuring you out,” I said.

“I’m enjoying not-figuring you out too,” Josh said. Then he squelched my laugh with another kiss—a kiss so long and deep that it made me feel dizzy, especially in the pitch-dark of our little nest near the dune. I sank into the kissing so deeply that I forgot where we were.

Which is why I was startled when we were interrupted by a huge Pow!

Only when I saw bright red sparks tendrilling down through the sky over the lake did I remember.

“The fireworks!” I said.

Josh’s hand was on his chest.

“I forgot too!” he said breathlessly.

Pow!

The next one was gold and shimmery. It made a sizzling noise after it exploded.

I sighed and leaned against Josh. He swung his arm around my shoulders, and I snuggled in even closer.

Usually, watching fireworks made me feel tiny, almost consumed by the huge starbursts looming above me. But in Josh’s arms I felt different. Safe and not quite as small as before. But way more exhilarated.

“I’ve changed my mind,” I said to Josh during one of those breathless pauses between explosions. “I think I like dates after all.”

“Me too,” Josh said. “I think we should go on another one”—he paused for another big Pow—“as soon as possible.”





And that’s why Josh showed up at my house on my very next day off—carrying two giant paddles.

“This one’s yours,” he said, thrusting one of them at me with a big grin.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, stepping off the front steps into the gravel with my arms crossed. I was wearing my favorite bathing suit, the high-waisted black halter with the white polka dots. It wasn’t vintage but looked it. Over that I wore my gauzy, flowy cover-up. “I thought we were going to the lake!”

“We are,” Josh said. “Just not Lake Michigan. We’re going to Wex Pond. Well, to be specific, we’re getting into a boat on Wex Pond. My parents’ landlord has a little rowboat there, and he said we can use it whenever we want.”

Wex Pond is what Bluepointers called the Albert R. Wechsler Reservoir, because that was a pretty fancy name for what was really just a big bowl of water surrounded by farmland, some crooked trees, and a few docks.

I propped the oar on its end next to me and looked at it dubiously.

“I think you’ve got the advantage here,” I said dryly. “Is this thing gonna give me blisters?”

“How about we just try it,” Josh proposed. “I packed us a mayo-free lunch and everything. If you don’t like it, we can go back to the beach. I promise.”

I couldn’t help but smile and nod my consent. It was so easy to be adventurous with Josh. I think I would have even agreed to go fishing with him, even though that would have driven my dad crazy.

“Let me just water the plants,” I said, laying the oars down in the gravel and leading him to the backyard.

“Oh, yeah. How’s the garden?” Josh asked. He walked over to check it out while I unwound the hose from its reel on the back of the house.

“Wow!” he said.

“I know!” I said, proudly pulling a couple weeds from around the lettuce plants. “I mean, about half of the radishes croaked, and one of my cucumber vines is looking pretty puny, but everything else is getting huge.”

It was a little embarrassing how proud I was of my garden. The tomato plants got visibly bigger and fluffier every day. The pale-green romaine leaves were looking less delicate and translucent. They stood straight up. And most of the other plants had started sprouting trumpet-shaped yellow flowers.

“Hey, look!” Josh said, bending over to peer closely at the biggest tomato plant.

I crouched next to him to squint at the fuzzy branch. Then I gasped.

One cluster of little yellow blossoms had been replaced by tiny tomatoes! They were as green as Granny Smith apples and just as hard, but they were unmistakably tomatoes. Each had a little cap of pointy leaves that made it look like a gift-wrapped present.

“That was so fast!” I exclaimed. I did a quick inspection of the other plants and shrieked again when I found a collection of little cucumbers, curled under the big, flat leaves like shy caterpillars.

I jumped up and down with my garden hose, accidentally spraying Josh a little bit.

“Sorry!” I said. “I just can’t believe I actually grew something. I mean, all I did was stick them in the ground and water them, but still! Pretty cool, huh?”

“Pretty cool,” Josh said with a crooked smile and a hint of a tease in his voice.

“Okay, I know it’s dorky,” I said. “But I don’t care. I’m super-proud of my little vegetables, and I will not be inviting you over for salad when they’re ready.”

“No!” Josh said, rushing over to put his arms around me. “Salad vegetables are the only ones I like. Please?”

“I’ll consider it,” I said. I finished spraying the soil. The July heat was getting so bad that the dirt caked right back up by late afternoon. I put the hose back and grabbed my jar of cayenne pepper from the windowsill. After giving the plants a quick sprinkle, I led Josh inside.

My mom was at the kitchen table, pinning pink and pinker squares together in a complicated pattern.

“Hi, Josh,” she said warmly. Even though I still thought her baby clothes quilt was a little weird, I was happy to hear a normal warmth in her voice again, instead of that forced perkiness that had been there when we’d first arrived in June.

“I’m just going to get my bag from the bedroom,” I told Josh, slipping into the hall.

When I got there, Abbie was sitting on the floor with her legs stretched out to the sides. On the rug between them were various piles of papers. They were in all different sizes, colors, and states of wrinkliness, but they all looked old.

“What’re those?” I asked lightly as I headed for the closet.

“Granly’s letters,” Abbie said. “Most of them to and from Grandpa.”

I froze at the closet door and turned to stare at my sister.

“Wh-what?” I stammered. “Why are you looking at them?”

“Listen,” Abbie said brusquely as she slapped one of the letters into a pile, then scooped up another from a box sitting at her hip. “Mom has abdicated. We both know this quilt project of hers is not about getting all nostalgic about us as babies. It’s about avoiding thinking about Granly!”

“Well,” I murmured, “I think it’s a little of both . . . .”

“Whatever,” Abbie said. “You have a date with Josh, Hannah is off getting hickeys or whatever with Fasthands. And I’m here. So I might as well go through Granly’s things myself. I mean, isn’t that the point of us being here all summer?”

I felt terrible.

“Listen,” I said, sinking to the floor just outside her circle of paper piles. “You shouldn’t have to do that by yourself. Do you want me to say something to Mom? Or I could—”

Abbie held up her hand to stop me.

“You know what?” she said. Her face and voice softened. “I actually kind of like it.”

She picked up the letter that she’d just slapped down, and smoothed it out on her leg, as if apologizing to it for the rough treatment. Then she read from it. With her head bowed and her hair spilling forward, I couldn’t see her face, but her voice sounded a little different—slower and more lilting. Less like Abbie and more like Granly.

“ ‘Dear Artie,’ ” Abbie read. That’s what everyone had called Grandpa, though his real name had been Arthur. “ ‘It feels funny to be so looking forward to the summer when last summer was so beastly. But my New Year’s resolution was to look forward, not back, and I have been better at keeping at that than I have been at studying for my statistics exam. I really don’t believe stats have anything to do with library science, and no (boring) thing you can say will convince me otherwise. By the way, you did catch what I said about last summer, didn’t you, Artie? Now what, or whom, do you think is the reason for that?’ ”

As Abbie read, I put my hand over my mouth without realizing it. I could just hear my grandmother saying those words, even if they were in my sister’s voice.

But then again I couldn’t. Because that had been a Granly I never knew, the Granly who was young, writing a love letter to her boyfriend when she was supposed to be studying. And that “beastly” summer. What was that about?

“You know what I think she’s talking about? That summer?” Abbie said as if she’d seen the question in my eyes. “I think they broke up.”

“But we never heard about that!” I whispered, glancing at the door.

“Well, obviously it all worked out in the end,” Abbie said with a laugh. “It’s funny, isn’t it, how someone’s story can change? Maybe when Granly wrote that letter, that was their story, that they had come close to saying good-bye to each other forever.”

“Which would have meant no Mom,” I whispered, shaking my head in wonder. “No us.”

“Yeah, and once they were married, who knows if they ever thought about it again. Maybe when your big picture is in place, all those bumps in the road along the way get sort of smoothed over.”

I thought about that.

“Do you ever feel like,” I asked, “right now, it’s nothing but bumps?”

“Oh, yeah,” Abbie said, nodding in recognition. “Why do you think I love to swim so much? There’re no bumps in water.”

Abbie replaced Granly’s letter in its pile and smoothed it out carefully.

“Anyway, I think you should read these letters . . . sometime. Mom, too. When you’re ready.”

I picked another letter up, holding the dry, crackly-feeling paper between my thumb and forefinger.

“I . . . I might be ready.”

Abbie shook her head.

“I know you’re not,” she said. “But that’s okay. I am. I don’t know why I am, but I am. So I’m going to get them all organized for you in little folders, which I know Hannah will approve of, and we can take them home with us. And when you’re ready—they will be too.”

I teetered over the piles of paper to give Abbie a thank-you hug.

“Aren’t we huggy,” Abbie said, pushing me away with a grin. “You’re clearly getting some action.”

“Shut up!” I whispered, glancing again at the bedroom door as I got to my feet. “You’re so gross.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But I also know what I’m talking about.”

I laughed as I checked myself in the mirror. I’d worn my hair half-down as a concession to Josh, with only the front sections pulled back into a big tortoiseshell clip. But there was nothing I could do about my freckles, other than smear them with tons of sunscreen and hope no more popped out after my day in the sun. I grabbed my bag, blew my sister a kiss, and met Josh out front.





By the time we arrived at Wex Pond, which was about a two-mile walk from Sparrow Road, we were both hot and sweaty.

Josh led me to the end of one of the rickety, rocking docks. There, bouncing against the timbers, was a shabby once-white rowboat that looked barely big enough for the two of us. The interior of the boat was blackened with dirt and a little puddle of water. There was one seat in the center that hardly looked big enough for two backsides.

“Isn’t it great?” Josh said, jumping easily into the boat and holding out his hands so I could hand him the oars and our bags.

“Um, do you want an honest answer?” I said as I shuffled my feet out of their flip-flops.

“Of course not,” Josh said with a smile. He got a sly look in his eyes as he pulled a nylon picnic blanket out of his bag. He spread it out on the bottom of the boat. Then he produced a little pillow and tucked it into the back of the boat (or maybe it was the front, I couldn’t quite tell).

“I was lying about you having to row,” Josh said. “You get to sit there while I row you around. You can pretend you’re Daisy Buchanan.”

My mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”

“Well, you like playing Gatsby, don’t you?” Josh held out a hand to help me climb into the boat. “And, conveniently, my English class read that book this year. If I get tired of rowing, I’ll peel you a grape.”

I burst out laughing.

“I’m not that much of a princess, you know,” I said. “I’m a waitress! And I’m pretty good with a garden rake.”

“All the more reason you deserve to relax,” Josh said. “If you want something to do, think of another installment for Diablo and the Mels. The same bit’s been on the specials board for the past three days.”

“No pressure or anything,” I said as I sank into the little waterproof nest he’d made me. “Besides, it’s a good bit, right? ‘B. smites that low tipper.’ I should leave it up longer as a cautionary tale.”

Josh laughed, which made me smile—it always did. And he was right. Even though I could feel the cold of the puddle beneath the blanket, and it smelled kind of moldy down there, lounging while he rowed me around the pond did make me feel kind of like a princess.

My perch also gave me a great view of Josh’s arms flexing as he leaned forward and back, pulling at the oars.

“Do you need me to be your coxswain,” I said. I imitated Tori’s cute, squeaky voice and pointed. “A little to the right, Joshie.”

“Har-har,” Josh said, a little out of breath with the rowing. “By the way, you don’t say ‘right’; you say ‘starboard.’ ”

“Oh,” I said. I watched him take a few more pulls on the oars.

“What do you like about rowing?” I asked.

Josh cocked his head to think for a moment.

“I like the efficiency of it,” he said. “One stroke can take you a whole boat-length down the river. And I like how a whole row of guys can all be communicating with each other, matching each other’s rhythm, putting extra muscle into it, sprinting for the win, all without saying a word.”

I nodded slowly, imagining the steady, strong back-and-forth motion of a queue of boys, all with shaggy hair fluttering in the breeze, save one.

That communication without words but through breath and rhythm and some sort of telepathy . . . it fascinated me.

Sometimes I felt that Josh and I had that kind of silent way of speaking to each other, with our eyes and our gestures.

And of course with kissing.

Everything seemed to make me think about kissing lately. But I didn’t want Josh to know that (even though I had a feeling that he felt much the same way). So I grabbed my bag and rooted around in it until I found Someone New, an Allison Katzinger novel that I was rereading after finding my own left-behind copy on Granly’s bookshelf.

“You brought a book?” Josh squawked.

“Of course,” I said, blinking at him. “What, you don’t have one?”

“Do you just bring a book with you everywhere you go?” Josh said. He looked like he was trying to decide if this was maddening or cute.

“Um, pretty much, yeah,” I said. “I mean, if I still had my e-reader, I might not have brought it onto a boat. Then again, I probably would have. That’s kind of why I don’t have an e-reader anymore.”

I sighed, remembering my little electronic tablet fondly.

“Anyway, I thought you wanted me to relax,” I said, giving his leg a nudge with bare toes.

“That is what I said, isn’t it?” Josh said. He angled the oars so they backchurned the water, slowing the boat down. He kept on working the oars until we’d pretty much stopped.

Then he grinned at me.

“Wouldn’t want you to get seasick.”

“Oh, really?” I said. “Well, fine!”

I tossed my book back into my bag, pulled myself up, and plopped down on the seat next to him. Grabbing the oar out of his right hand, I said, “Teach me to row.”

“Yeah?” Josh said, squinting at me.

“Yeah! You make it sound so magical. I want to try it.”

“Okay,” Josh instructed, “flatten your oar while you’re pulling back, then turn it just as you hit the water, like you’re scooping ice cream. I’ll count, and you go with that rhythm, okay?”

I nodded.

But every time Josh brought his paddle forward, mine seemed to go backward. And vice versa.

And then somehow I was paddling twice as fast as he was, but when he sped up, I slowed down.

The upshot was that our rowboat was spinning around in circles, and I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t row anymore.

“I hate to say this,” Josh gasped between laughs, “but I think you have no future as a coxswain.”

“Now do I get to read my book?” I joked. I stood up to turn around so I could settle back into my nice waterproof nest.

But the boat was still twirling a bit. So Josh, trying to be helpful, dug an oar into the water to stop it.

Which tossed me off balance, and well, you can guess what happened next.

Splash!

It took Josh about two seconds to jump in after me.

“Are you okay?” he cried.

My feet found the bottom of the pond, and I stood up. The water only reached my shoulders.

“I think I’ll make it!” I replied, laughing as I wiped water off my face. “I’m not even ruining any clothes.”

I reached down and peeled my soaked cover-up over my head and tossed it into the boat.

“But thanks for coming to my rescue,” I said, giving Josh a light kiss on the lips.

“Anytime,” Josh said, giving me a bigger kiss in return.

I turned to float on my back. My fingertips grazed his torso as I fluttered my hand to keep myself balanced.

“It’s so peaceful in here,” I said. “So different from the big lake. I could stay out here forever.”

Josh said something, but with my ears underwater, it was garbled. I splashed myself back to a standing position.

“What was that?” I asked.

Josh looked down at the water for a moment, pensive, “I said ‘I wish you would.’ ”

My easy smirk faded.

“When do you leave again?” Josh asked.

Automatically I waved my hand—a Not for forever gesture. Because that’s how this summer had seemed for so long—like an endless stretch of days, each longer and hotter and lazier than the last. The ending felt so distant, I’d stopped believing it would ever arrive.

But now that Josh had asked me to think in terms of the calendar, my eyes widened.

“We leave the third week of August,” I said. “We’ve got to give Hannah time to get home and pack and fly back out for school in September.”

Josh looked down at the water. Our hands flittered back and forth beneath the surface, keeping us upright.

“That’s about a month away,” he said.

“A month,” I said. My voice sounded craggy suddenly.

“Well, that’s better than weeks,” Josh said, and I could tell he was adding brightness to his words, the way my mom perked up faded fabric in her quilt by edging it with sunshine-yellow thread.

“Much better than days,” I added.

It didn’t feel quite real that these rowboat, beach, and blueberry days . . . were going to end. That my life was going to go back to slamming locker doors, and spiral-bound notebooks, and babysitting, instead of slinging mayonnaise and reading nothing but novels. And being with Josh.

It didn’t seem real, and yet, when Josh pulled me to him, there was a new urgency in the way we kissed.

I let my hands linger on his bare shoulders, trying to memorize all his curves and angles.

He lifted a hand to smooth back my hair and sent water trickling down my face. It felt like tears.

I let my feet leave the soft, loamy mud at the bottom of the pond so that I was afloat, held in place only by Josh’s arm around my waist.

And we kissed as if we had all day. If we pretended the day was endless, then a month was nothing to fear.