Fifteenth Summer

August





It’s strange what will drag you out of bed the morning after your heart’s been broken.

Food won’t do it, even if your dad is making bacon and blueberry pancakes. Even if he has deferred to the fact that his daughter’s soul is crushed and he has promised to skip the mouse ears.

Needing something to read won’t do it. I couldn’t read through the tears in my eyes anyway. The words blurred, or worse—were replaced by images of Josh’s face. Either way the pages got wet and splotchy, and I ended up reading the same sentence about six hundred times.

Having to pee? Okay, that made me get up, but it doesn’t count if you make it quick and jump directly back into bed.

Being scheduled to work also wouldn’t rouse me. If I called in sick that afternoon, I decided, it wouldn’t even be a lie. I was sick. Heartsick, headsick, and actually a little queasy and headachy, although maybe that was due to lack of food.

So what did make me crawl out of bed at around eleven in the morning?

My garden.

My first impression of this first day of August, other than the fact that it was a dismal, awful, oh-the-humanity kind of day (for me anyway) was that it was hot. Not cheery, sunshiny, let’s-go-to-the-beach hot. No, this was a ruthless white heat, a wilting, joy-sapping, punishing heat. A garden-destroying heat.

My plants needed me.

Ever since mid-July the garden had required daily watering. If I skipped even one morning, I noticed the plants began to wilt. The stems sagged and the leaves curled inward as if to protect themselves from the sun’s glare. The half-red tomatoes would wrinkle, and the cucumbers would take on a dusty cast.

When that happened, I’d feel as guilty as if I’d neglected a pet.

What’s more, the garden was on the verge of being edible. The tomatoes were looking plumper and redder each day. The cucumbers had outgrown their gherkin infancy and had grown into stout little pre-pickles. And my squash were getting so potbellied, my dad promised to use them the next time he made shish kebabs on the grill.

How lame would it be to let the garden shrivel up now, just because my heart was a raisin?

Maybe it was Granly’s ghost who made me roll out of bed and slump to the backyard to unreel the hose. Maybe it was just stubbornness or force of habit. Either way, I did it. I didn’t bother to change out of my nightshirt or put on flip-flops before I plodded outside.

I felt like I was watching myself from a distance as I uncoiled the hose and started spraying my plants. I got no satisfaction from watching the dry, dusty dirt become wet, squishy, and nourishing. Nor from the spiky yellow-green scent that sprang off the tomatoes when I watered them. I didn’t even feel happy when my spray uncovered a whole new trove of baby cukes, some of them still wearing their shriveled yellow blossoms.

I cared enough to keep the garden alive, but the daily joy it had given me all month? That was gone.

I was numb.

I finished watering and turned off the spigot. Then I leaned against the house and tried to think of something, anything, I wanted to do for the rest of the day.

Beaching it with my sisters would be awful. They’d be all careful and sweet around me, and it would break my heart further.

If I spent time with either one of my parents, I knew I would just curl up into a ball and cry.

Then I thought about Mel & Mel’s, and the clatter of dishes whooshing out of the Hobart, of filter baskets being slammed into the geriatric coffeemaker, and the constant scrape of chairs on the floor and fork tines on china. I realized that that was where I wanted to go. It was the only even remotely tolerable place I could imagine spending this awful day.

But what about Josh on the other side of the brick wall?

I was almost certain he wouldn’t come into Mel & Mel’s. Even if he’d become a cold workaholic robot, he wouldn’t be that cruel, would he?

Or maybe he’d stay away simply for the time it would save. After all, girlfriend drama or, say, eating would cut into his busy schedule.

Now, I knew, Josh would do anything to avoid that.





By the time I left for work, I thought I’d pulled myself together. I’d put on makeup. (Well, except for mascara. The last thing I needed was telltale black streaks trailing down my cheeks.)

I’d pulled my hair into its usual ponytail but refrained from twisting it into an angsty bun.

I even decided against my first impulse outfit—a dour black T-shirt and dull, army green cargo shorts—and forced myself to wear a butter-yellow tank top and some stretchy denim shorts.

I looked almost presentable. Certainly not like someone who’d realized she was giddy-in-love just minutes before being brutally dumped.

I even felt a little hopeful as I walked my roundabout Dog Ear–avoiding route to Mel & Mel’s. Nobody there had to know what had happened. I could immerse myself in the rhythm of greeting/serving/clearing. The white noise of the coffee shop clatter would cancel out the turmoil in my head. My body would propel itself through what had become routine motions, and the exhaustion I felt at the end of the day would be welcome.

Maybe I’d leave work somehow feeling a little better.

Maybe I would even sleep that night.

But I only had to step through Mel & Mel’s door for my whole suffer-in-silence plan to crash down around me.

“Oh, Chelsea!” Andrea cried when she saw me. She’d been en route to the kitchen with a tray full of dishes, but she immediately put it down on a table and rushed over. “What happened?”

“What?” I said, my voice squeaky. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, clearly something’s really wrong,” Andrea said. “It’s all over your face.”

“But I put on makeup!” I protested while Andrea guided me to a stool at the counter. Melissa popped up from behind it like a gopher sniffing for trouble.

“Let me get you a drink, hon,” she said. She made me my favorite—iced tea and lemonade. “Now spill.”

“It’s nothing,” I said, shaking my head and pushing away the icy drink. It was already beading up with condensation in the steamy heat.

“Drink up,” Melissa said in a harsh Big Mama voice. It was so different from the firm sweetness of my own mother’s voice, but somehow it was just as effective.

“Okay,” I said. I took a huge, delicious swallow. It was so cold and sweet, it made my teeth hurt, but it was also delicious. I could have put a straw into a pitcher of it and drunk the whole thing right there. It was the first thing I’d tasted that day that hadn’t made me want to gag.

Finally I plunked my glass back onto the counter, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and announced, “Josh broke up with me. He said he needs to focus on the store.”

“What?” Andrea cried, putting both hands to her face in shock.

“Well!” Melissa said. “I can’t believe it! I mean, I can because he’s a boy and they do crazy things all the time, but . . . Josh? That boy is in love with you. We could all see it. Am I right, Al?”

Al Thayer had just walked in and was heading to his usual table in my section, but when Melissa spoke to him, he wheeled right around and came to join us at the counter. He hopped onto the stool next to mine, which was pretty impressive, considering that Mr. Thayer was pushing eighty. He was also my favorite regular, so it gave me a tiny lift to see him.

“How’s my favorite little waitress?” he said, tweaking my ponytail.

“A, that’s kind of sexist, Mr. Thayer,” Andrea said, crossing her arms over her chest. “And B, I thought I was your favorite little waitress.”

“Did I ever say, Andie,” Mr. Thayer said, his white eyebrows crunching into a bushy line over his big nose, “that you weren’t also my favorite? You can have more than one, you know.”

“No you can’t,” Andrea and I said at the same time, which made her laugh and made me almost smile.

“Well, I can,” Mr. Thayer said. “Besides, did you ever write me into a serial, Andrea?”

He glanced at the specials board, where the latest installment of Diablo and the Mels was still glowing beneath the list of pie flavors.

B. didn’t like Thayer. She of all people (or whatever) didn’t trust a man who ate his eggs with hot sauce. That was her thing.

“I expect B. and me to have a grand battle, my dear,” Mr. Thayer said. “Make it happen.”

I tried to laugh, but all that came out was a pathetic little honk.

“So, what’s the problem?” Mr. Thayer asked.

“Josh,” Melissa, Andrea, and I said at once.

“I thought as much,” Mr. Thayer said. “What happened?”

“He’s choosing career over love,” Andrea said dramatically. “Men!”

“I don’t think you can call Dog Ear Josh’s career,” I said wanly. “I mean, he hasn’t even graduated from high school!”

“He’s a good boy,” Mr. Thayer said. I felt my eyes well up. My tongue went so thick in my mouth that I couldn’t talk, but I nodded. Because I couldn’t help agreeing with Mr. Thayer. Even though I was hating Josh for choosing his parents over me, I also loved him for it. He was a good boy.

“But,” Mr. Thayer went on, “being good doesn’t mean you’re always right. And being a boy, a young man—well, that’s a trial-by-error time if there ever was one.”

“So you think he made a mistake?” I choked out. I didn’t know why this filled me with such hope. I guessed it was because Mr. Thayer was old. And a man. So he knew more about this honor and manhood thing than I did.

“If he did,” Mr. Thayer said, “I don’t think Josh will be too proud to admit it. He’s a good boy. And I am thirsty. Can I have one of those Arnold Palmers, young lady?”

He pointed at my almost-empty glass. I hopped off my stool, nodding hard and flicking the moisture from beneath my eyes at the same time.

Soon after, a summer swim team came in, celebrating a win and wanting massive amounts of food. After that there was the dinner rush. So, just as I’d hoped, I didn’t have time to think.

Which wasn’t to say I forgot about Josh. He was always there in the back of my mind.

The fact was, he’d been in that spot, hovering in my consciousness, ever since I’d met him. First he lodged in my head as a curiosity, then as a delight. Now he was a wound, a fresh paper cut that wouldn’t stop stinging.

When my shift was almost over, and my section was down to one table—a couple nursing cold drinks—I slumped against the counter and breathed a long, tired sigh.

But I followed it up with a little smile. I’d been right to come in today. I put my elbows on the counter and propped my chin on my fists.

“Do you know what, Melissa?” I said to Mel as she did her nightly receipt tally. “I’ve made a decision. When I go back to LA, I’m not taking any more babysitting jobs. I’m going to wait tables.”

“Put me down as a reference, sweetie,” Melissa muttered without looking up from her receipts. But a moment later she stopped herself and looked at me.

“You know, I almost forgot you were from LA!” she said. “You seem so . . . Bluepointe. And you never talk about your life back home.”

I bit my lip and glanced at the Dog Ear wall. I hadn’t been thinking about my life back home either. I glanced at the little calico cat calendar that Melissa kept tacked up next to the cash register. I quickly added up the days we had left in Bluepointe.

Twenty-one.

Twenty-one days that Josh and I could have been spending together. It wasn’t much. On the other hand, you could cram a whole lot of fun—and a whole lot of love—into twenty-one days if you wanted to.

“Too bad he doesn’t want to,” I muttered to myself, shaking my head.

But then I frowned and replayed (for, oh, about the fortieth time) the things that Josh had said to me the previous night.

“This isn’t what I want; it’s what I have to do.”

I bowed my head, scrunching my fingers into my hair. How could Josh think that this was right? He meant well, but if his mom knew what he’d done—

I lifted my head abruptly.

Of course, Stella didn’t know. That was the whole point. Josh’s mom was sweet, but kind of clueless. I would have bet she had no idea how much Josh was doing—and sacrificing—for Dog Ear.

I hopped off the stool and untied my apron at the same time. As I hurried toward the kitchen to hang up my stuff, I called to Andrea.

“Can you do me a favor and check out my last table? Please?”

Andrea looked at me in confusion.

“There’s something I’ve gotta do,” I said. “Now. Before I lose my nerve.”

Andrea glanced over her shoulder at the Dog Ear wall, then looked back at me and nodded excitedly.

“Only if you promise to come back after and tell me everything that happened,” she said.

“I hope there’s something to tell,” I said with a nervous grin. “Thanks, Andie.”

I darted into the bathroom and dabbed at my shiny face with a damp paper towel. I rubbed at the circles under my eyes, until I remembered that I wasn’t wearing mascara and those circles weren’t going anywhere. I took out my hair elastic and cringed as my curls—which looked even brighter after two months in the sun—sprang out in a Medusa-like puff. I pulled the front bits back and let the rest of my hair coil around my shoulders.

Then I gave myself a last, hard look in the mirror, stalked out of Mel & Mel’s, and went next door.

Every other time that I’d walked into Dog Ear, I’d felt elation swell up inside me. It wasn’t just about Josh, either, though that had been the biggest part of it. I just loved the place, with its pretty yellow walls and goofy rainbow review cards, the picket fence and Josh’s broody posters. I loved that there was always some kid running around with a book in one hand and a yo-yo in the other, and of course I loved the couch and the snacks.

Maybe that’s why my eyes teared up the moment I walked in. Because I was afraid of losing Dog Ear in addition to Josh.

As the door jingled closed behind me, E.B. ambled over. He pushed his big, blocky head beneath my hand for an ear scratch. I whispered hello to him and nervously scanned the store for Josh.

I didn’t see him, but I was sure he was there. Somehow I could feel him there, the same way I knew it was him whenever he called me.

Isobel was at the cash register. I gave her a little wave and walked toward the stacks. E.B. shuffled along behind me until he realized that I wasn’t heading toward the lounge—where there was a basket of Triscuits and a can of spray cheese on the coffee table. He gave a little snort and trotted away.

I couldn’t quite believe where I finally found Josh. He was sitting on the floor in the children’s aisle, the exact same spot where we’d had our first kiss.

For some reason this gave me hope. Maybe we could somehow go back in time, to the improbable perfection of that kiss and . . .

I stopped there, because even if time travel were possible, I wasn’t sure how it would fix things.

Josh looked up at me, his eyes wide and startled. They weren’t nearly as cold as his voice had been on the phone the night before. They also had gray shadows that exactly matched the ones under my eyes.

But once Josh got over the shock of seeing me, he clenched his jaw and frowned.

“Chelsea, I—”

I shook my head and gave him a stern Let me talk look. Then I knelt before him, glad that I was wearing pants today instead of one of the poofy skirts that could make a quick exit difficult.

“Have you ever told them?” I asked Josh. He went a little pale and cringed. Once upon a time I might have been offended. But now that I knew Josh, I knew what that expression meant. He didn’t want to get rid of me. He wanted me to stay—and keep talking.

“What do you mean?” Josh asked me.

“Your parents,” I said impatiently. “Do they even know how you feel? Do they know that you grind your teeth every time you have to change the receipt tape or update the store’s website? That they’re living this owning-a-bookstore dream because you’re the one with your feet on the ground?”

“Of course they know,” Josh said. Now he sounded impatient with me. “How could they not?”

“You’re a good son,” I said with a shrug. “Maybe they just assume this is your dream too.”

“That’s the thing,” Josh said. He grabbed a book off the shelf and held it up. “This isn’t a dream. This is a store. A business. It’s like this . . . beast that needs to be fed. And if we don’t keep up with the feedings, the store goes under, my parents lose piles of money, and where does that leave them?”

“And you?” I added. “You know, you’re allowed to put yourself into that equation too.”

I pulled the picture book gently from Josh’s hands and laid it on the floor. I knew not to shelve it out of order and create more work for him.

“I think if your mom is anything like mine,” I said, “she would prefer that you did think of yourself, at least a little bit.”

“What do you mean?” Josh said.

“I mean, you should talk to your parents,” I said, getting to my feet. “Tell them what’s been going on with you, Josh. Tell them—”

I looked down sharply, trying to contain the tears that had suddenly welled up in my eyes.

“Tell them everything,” I said. “And tell them what you want, for once. I think they might surprise you.”

Then I turned to leave. I wanted to take a last, lingering look at Josh’s face, but I knew if I did, I would burst into tears. I didn’t want that, and not just because it would have been mortifying. I also didn’t want to manipulate Josh into coming back to me. I wanted him to do it because being with me made him happy. I wanted it for him as much as for myself.

I guess if I wanted a confirmation that I really did love Josh, then that was it—even if it was too late.





I went straight to bed after I got home. Despite my head’s best efforts to keep me awake with a looping tally of anxieties, my exhausted body dragged me into sleep.

And when I woke up, it wasn’t quite as hard to get myself out of bed. There was a tiny kernel of hope that maybe I’d gotten through to Josh. And maybe I’d hear from him.

Even if I didn’t, at least I’d tried. I’d done something. I’d gotten my say. It wasn’t exactly cheering, but it made me feel a little better about this whole breakup thing.

I had to water again. The sun was as searing as ever, even at nine thirty in the morning. I had breakfast with my sisters first. They were quietly watchful but didn’t crowd me with a How’re you doing? inquisition. I showered and threw on a blue sundress. It was the one dress I had that happened to have pockets, which meant I could keep my phone on me at all times. You know, just in case. Then I headed into the backyard.

As soon as I stepped off the laundry room steps, I knew something was wrong.

My mom was standing in front of the garden with one hand covering her mouth. She saw me and took a halting step toward me.

“I just got back from a walk,” she said. “I thought I’d check to see if there were any tomatoes ripe enough for lunch, and . . . Oh, honey, I’m sorry.”

I shook my head in confusion as I walked toward her, but as soon as I got a look at the garden, I knew what she was talking about.

It had been decimated.

The ground beneath the tomato plant was littered with half-gnawed fruit, including lots of green tomatoes. The lettuce leaves were riddled with rodenty bite marks, and two of the cucumber vines had been torn out of the ground altogether. As for the radishes, it was like they’d never even been there.

I slapped both hands on top of my head.

“Yesterday,” I croaked, “when I watered, I forgot the cayenne pepper!”

I couldn’t believe how quickly my garden had been destroyed. It was like the animals were getting back at me for my spicy repellant.

“I’m sure it was deer,” my mom said. “They can tear a garden to pieces just like that.”

I thought of Granly, sitting at the kitchen table, watching beautiful forest animals sample her veggies, loving how delicately the deer tiptoed through the plants.

I dropped to my knees at the edge of the garden, not caring if I got dirt on my pale blue dress. I began yanking the stringy remains of my lettuce plants out of the earth. I tossed them into a messy pile at my side.

And it was only when my mom crouched down to put her arms around me that I realized I was sobbing.

“I wanted it to be different!” I said through angry tears.

“Different? What do you mean?” Mom asked.

“From Granly’s garden,” I cried. “Hers got all eaten up, but mine was supposed to be different. It was almost there!”

“Wait, look!” my mom pointed at the one cucumber plant that was left intact. Then she stepped into the garden and said, “And there’s a lot of squash still here, and I found three lettuce plants that they missed.”

“Okay,” I said quietly, wondering why I wasn’t comforted at all.

Mom picked her way back through the messy thatch of plants. She handed me a big, unscathed squash, its yellow skin waxy and perfect.

“Thanks,” I muttered, swiping away my tears. Only when she sat next to me did I realize she was crying too.

“I’m sorry, Chelsea,” she sighed. “About . . . everything.”

I nodded sadly. Then we sat there in silence but for the occasional sniffle and, of course, the hot-day hum of the cicadas.

“Why do you think it was so important to you,” Mom wondered, “that your garden turn out differently from Granly’s?”

I shrugged.

“I guess,” I said, feeling guilt wash over me, “I kind of wanted to . . . move on? To not always be stuck in this place where it feels like we have to do all these things that she did, but without her. I guess I just want to get to that place where she’s not here but life goes on and . . . and it’s bearable.”

It felt kind of terrible to utter all these things out loud, especially to my mom. But it also felt kind of wonderful to say them, like something that had been clamped down on me had suddenly released its grip.

Mom sighed.

“It has become more bearable, hasn’t it?” she said. “I think being here has made it so.”

I blinked. It was true. Living in the cottage with Granly’s furniture and her photo albums, and even her egg cups, had gotten a little easier.

“But not to the point where you can go through Granly’s stuff,” I pointed out.

“It’s funny. I was just pondering that on my walk,” Mom said. “I was thinking that maybe I am ready, and I think it’s because I’m getting to the end of my quilt.”

“It’s going to be really pretty,” I said. “The quilt.”

Mom nodded absentmindedly.

“You know,” she said, “I was doing some pattern research online, and I found this article about mourning quilts.”

“Morning quilts?” I said. “Like for cold mornings?”

“No, the other kind of mourning,” my mom said. “An Appalachian woman, when she suffered a loss, would make a quilt. All that piecing and batting and hand-stitching—it’s so absorbing. It doesn’t make your pain go away, but it gets you through it. Making the quilt both distracts you and makes you focus on the person you lost. The work carries you through the days. It is true, you know, that cliché about time. It does heal all wounds.

“The funny thing about the mourning quilt is, once it was finished, it was just another quilt to throw on the bed,” Mom went on. “It wasn’t made into a shrine to hang on the wall or put in a chest. They didn’t have that luxury. And besides, the mourning quilt was about the process, not the product.”

“Has it been that way for you?” I asked.

“I think so,” Mom said, nodding thoughtfully. “I think I’ve been mourning more than just Granly. I’ve been sewing up these baby clothes, and sometimes I just can’t believe you ever wore them. You’re all so grown-up. And Hannah’s leaving—”

Mom’s voice caught, and she shook her head apologetically while I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed.

“I’m not graduating for ages,” I reminded her. “I can’t even drive yet! You’ve got me trapped.”

Mom laughed and squeezed me back.

“You know that’s not what I want,” she said

I nodded. I did know. And if it was hard to feel exactly lucky right then, what with my phone still silent in my pocket, I did feel grateful.

“Mom?”

My mom and I turned to see Abbie hesitating at the back door. She was holding a big storage bin—the plastic kind with the locking lid. And she had a funny look on her face.

“I found this in the back of Granly’s closet,” she said as Mom and I stood up and walked over to her. “I thought it was gonna be clothes, but look . . .”

Mom and I peered into the bin. Inside there was a neat stack of cardboard boxes. They were closed loosely, without tape, and on each one Granly had written a name.

Our names.

My mom inhaled sharply, then shook her head.

“She told me about those boxes,” she whispered. “Such a long time ago. I’d forgotten.”

“What are they?” I asked as my mom took the bin from Abbie and carried it to the kitchen table.

“Adam?” my mom called down the hall. “Hannah? Can you come in here?”

Then she turned to me to answer my question.

“These are the things Granly wanted each of us to have after she died,” Mom said bluntly. “During one of our visits here, just before she was taking that trip to Scandinavia, she sat me down and told me where the key to her safe deposit box was and where all her passwords were and things like that. And she told me about this box of things she’d set aside for us. I didn’t pay much attention because she was so young. I told her she’d be around for forever.”

Mom’s voice wobbled but she pressed on.

“When she died,” Mom said, “I did remember about the bank vault and the passwords, but somehow I forgot about this.”

My dad came into the kitchen, with Hannah right behind him.

“What are those?” Hannah asked, peeking into the bin.

My mom pulled out the box with Hannah’s name on it.

“Presents!” Mom said. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she was smiling through them.

Granly hadn’t written my name on my box in careful calligraphy or anything precious like that. It was just a quick scrawl with a Sharpie. But it still brought me to tears to see her handwriting.

As each of my family members opened their boxes and silently read the notes Granly had written to them, the whole kitchen filled with sniffles. Even my dad’s eyes brimmed as he held up a men’s watch with a satiny ivory face and gold Roman numerals.

“It’s Grandpa’s watch,” he said, immediately buckling the worn leather band onto his wrist.

Abbie pulled two framed works of art out of her box. They were two of the red Conté nudes that Granly had loved to collect. Both female figures were in motion—their muscular bodies leaping through the air, their hair flying out behind them.

“I remember these!” Abbie said, wiping at her cheek with the back of her hand. “I always loved them.”

“She gave me Grandpa’s passport holder,” Hannah cried, holding up a brown leather wallet embossed with Grandpa’s name in gold.

Mom was the only one who wasn’t surprised by her gift.

“I always told her I wanted this,” she said, lifting a string of pearls out of her box. The clasp looked like a blossom—a cluster of gold petals. “She used to wear these pearls every Saturday night when she’d go on dates with Grandpa.”

I was the last one to open my box. Inside I found a thin stack of familiar leather-bound notebooks. Granly’s journals. Flipping one open, I saw more of Granly’s handwriting—some of it in ink, some of it in smudgy pencil—pages and pages of it.

Two more of the journals were filled up, but the fourth was blank.

I opened the card that Granly had written to me.

For my Chelsea, who’s a writer (too). Enough with those scraps of paper! With all my love, Granly.

I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it again. I was speechless.

Chelsea, who’s a writer?

Where had Granly gotten that idea? I was a reader. And yeah, I wrote stuff down on those scraps of paper. But that didn’t count.

Did it?

Timidly I opened the first of Granly’s notebooks again.

Daddy and Mother want to go to the South Shore for all of June, and I think I’ll just die if I have to go with.

My eyebrows shot upward. That was a pretty good beginning.

And a familiar one.

I couldn’t wait to read more.