Chapter Eleven
WHEN SUMMER OPENED HER EYES AND SAW THE STRIP MALL, FOR a second she thought she was back in Walford. There was a Radio Shack, a GameStop, a sketchy-looking Chinese takeout. Then she realized she was alone in the Pea Pod and they didn’t have Piggly Wiggly supermarkets up north.
She was rubbing the sleep from her eyes when she noticed Alice and Tiernan walking toward her from across the parking lot, each of them swinging a white plastic Piggly Wiggly bag. Summer had always been fascinated by places like this—these ugly stretches of strip malls, fast-food joints, big-box stores. They were part of a game she played with herself to try to see through the current landscape and get a glimpse of how the land used to be. Sometimes it was impossible, but here she could make out the ghost of the farm that once was—cows in a lush grassy field over there, and, beyond it, a creaky red farmhouse.
In reality, the place looked identical to the one they’d passed yesterday back in West Virginia. Maybe the whole country looked like this.
“Where are we?” Summer asked as Alice opened the door.
“Welcome to Lucky Kentucky!” Tiernan said in a bad Southern drawl.
After they’d left Gert’s, they all agreed that (a) West Virginia was cursed, and (b) no matter how much anyone had to pee, the Pea Pod would not pull over again until they’d crossed the border into a better state.
“Okay, ladies,” Alice announced. “Which one of you is up first for your Pea Pod driving lesson?”
Summer stretched her arms and let out a long yawn. She vaguely remembered drifting off to sleep while Alice was in the middle of a tirade about how sick of driving she was.
“Not it!” Tiernan chirped before Summer could snap out of her yawn and answer.
“Okay, then you’re making the sandwiches,” Alice ordered.
Summer wasn’t in the mood for a driving lesson—she had barely woken up—but once again, Tiernan and Alice had steam-rolled her. Classic.
“You realize I don’t even know how to drive a stick, right?” Summer asked.
“Well, you gotta learn sometime,” Alice said, hopping into the passenger’s seat. “Now, getting it into first is the hardest part.”
Alice went on, detailing the basics of a manual transmission while Summer positioned herself behind the wheel.
“All you want to do is just give it the tiniest bit of gas,” Alice instructed, “but make sure you wail on the clutch at the same time.”
Well, here goes nothing. Summer took a deep breath and started up the Pea Pod. She could feel Alice’s eyes on her as she gently pressed the gas pedal and shifted into gear. But the Pea Pod just jerked forward, then stalled out.
“You see what I mean?” Alice asked. “It’s all about the timing.”
When wasn’t it about the timing? After all, if Jace hadn’t dumped her, she wouldn’t be stuck here in Alice’s Auto School.
“Maybe it should be Tiernan’s turn.”
“You’re doing fine; just give it another try,” Alice said.
Clutch, shift, gas. Clutch, shift, gas. Summer repeated the order in her head as the van stalled out again, then a third time.
“Shoot!” Summer slammed her hands against the steering wheel as the Pea Pod stalled the fourth time in a row. “It’s impossible.”
“Don’t wuss out now,” Tiernan said with a mouth full of PB&J. “You’re just getting started.”
“Give it one more try,” Alice pleaded.
Summer swept her hair out of her eyes and turned the key in the ignition. If Jace were here, he’d offer to take over for her. But at the moment, no one could get her out of first but herself.
Clutch, shift, gas . . .
“There you go!” Alice clapped excitedly as the Pea Pod chugged forward. “You did it!”
“Woo hoo!” Summer said sarcastically, but she couldn’t squelch the look of pride on her face if she tried. The Pea Pod was actually moving forward, and best of all, she was driving it. After Summer had circled the lot a few times, Tiernan placed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on her lap. Grape jelly leaked through the crust onto her bare leg.
“Oh, no thanks,” Summer, said handing the sandwich back. “I’ll get myself something later.”
“But I thought PB and J was your favorite,” Alice said.
Summer caught Tiernan’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Not everyone can eat Hostess snack cakes all day long and manage to stay a size zero.”
“Oy vey, don’t tell me you’re one of those . . .” Tiernan sighed. One of what? The health-conscious? The non-obese? No one Summer knew ate peanut butter anymore. A spoonful of the stuff practically had as much fat as a person was supposed to eat in an entire day. Not that anyone had consulted her on the sandwich choices.
Alice put her half-eaten sandwich on the dash. “What do you think, Summer? You ready to take it out on the open road?”
“That depends,” Summer said. “Were you guys hoping to die today?”
“You’ll do fine,” Alice scoffed. “Just give yourself ten minutes to drive around the little roads before you take it on the highway.”
Summer sighed and headed for the exit, shifting perfectly at the stop sign, then again when she pulled out onto the main drag.
“You do realize I have no clue where I’m going,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Alice said. “This is just for practice.”
“But whatever you do,” Tiernan warned, “make sure not to cross the West Virginia border.”
Summer stalled out at the first set of stoplights, but she made it through the next two without a hitch. After a few more miles, it was hard to remember why the clutch had seemed so tricky in the first place. Kind of like her anger at Jace. Last night’s crying jag seemed so far away. Today life didn’t feel nearly as tragic.
“No freaking way!” Alice shouted excitedly. “Look!”
She pointed at a blue-and-white truck a few cars in front of them. On it was a cartoon painting of a snowman, dripping with all the colors of the rainbow. Above him were the words MR. FROSTY’S SNOW CONES.
Tiernan read the tagline aloud: “‘If you want to be cool, come chill with Mr. Frosty!’”
“This is amazing!” Alice said. “It’s totally a sign!” She held up the map they’d made last night, her finger on the collage of the snow cone smack dab in the middle of Kentucky.
Alice and her signs. As a girl, they’d all convinced themselves that they had some kind of “magical connection” with the band. It started in Strawberries Records at the Walford Mall while they were reading the liner notes off that first Level3 CD (they’d all burned themselves copies by then) and noticed that track one was called “43,” the same number as Tiernan’s soccer jersey. Then they saw track four: “Skipper,” the name of Alice’s dog. Track eight was “Summertime Girl.” Later, they’d gone online and learned that Level3 toured in a VW van that was just like the Pea Pod. The “Banana Boat” was the same year and everything—only school-bus yellow. Of course, the guys had ditched it for a real tour bus as soon as the band got big.
“Don’t lose him; he’s signaling!” Alice cried.
Summer followed Mr. Frosty down a side street. Two miles later, the landscape was all trees and farms.
“Don’t you think we’re getting a little far off track?” Summer asked.
“We’re still on pavement,” Tiernan said, her mouth full of peanut butter.
Alice looked out at the scenery. “Let’s give it one more mile.”
Exactly .9 miles later, Mr. Frosty turned into an elementary school parking lot. Alice and Tiernan were bouncing in their seats like a couple of two-year-olds, chanting, “Snow cone! Snow cone! Snow cone!”
At least snow cones were fat free.
The human Mr. Frosty was a bookish-looking guy in his thirties. All around the inside of the truck he’d taped pictures of a woman and a little boy. Mrs. Frosty and Frosty Junior?
Summer stared at the long list of flavors. Cantaloupe, coffee, raspberry cheesecake. There were so many to choose from, it was overwhelming.
“I’ll have a purple plum, please,” Alice said, stepping up to the counter.
“And I’ll try a bubble gum–green apple combo,” Tiernan added.
Summer reread the list. On the one hand, cream soda was a flavor you didn’t see every day. But she was always a fan of anything banana.
“I don’t want to rush you or anything,” Mr. Frosty said, turning to her. “But just to give you a head’s up: The rug rats are coming.” He pointed over her shoulder to the playing field where a swarm of little kids, all in matching yellow T-shirts, had rounded the hill and were tearing across the grass toward his truck. Alice and Tiernan were already at a picnic table next to the school, digging in.
She handed Mr. Frosty a five. “I’ll go with banana, then.” It hadn’t really been a decision as much as a response under pressure.
She made it to Alice and Tiernan’s table just in time to avoid the munchkin stampede.
“Deliciousness,” Tiernan said, slurping the juice from her waxy paper cup.
“Well, I think this proves our luck is starting to turn around, wouldn’t you say?” Alice asked.
“Better than West Virginia,” Tiernan agreed, shaking off a case of the shivers. “That place is just plain scary.”
Summer nodded as she nibbled the edges of her snow cone. It tasted okay, but she should have gotten cream soda.
“To Lucky Kentucky!” Alice said, holding up her cone for a toast.
“To Kentucky!” Summer raised her cone to join Alice’s.
“Salud!” said Tiernan, giving each of their snow cones a gentle tap.
But when the toast was done, Summer lowered her cone back down a little too fast and the slushy mass of ice slid out of her cup, landing on the wood chips with a squoosh.
“Bummer,” Alice said. She had already nibbled her snow cone flat.
“Just go ask them for another one,” Tiernan said. “It’s like the best unwritten law in the universe. Drop an ice-cream cone and you get a free replacement. It’s a total do-over.”
“Well, this isn’t an ice-cream cone,” Summer said, sounding more uptight than she’d meant to. “The policy might not be the same.”
“Mr. Frosty’s cool. He’ll hook you up.” Tiernan’s lips were half-green, half-pink.
“That’s okay. I’m fine.” Summer shrugged. It wasn’t like she needed all that sugar anyway.
“Oh, please,” Tiernan shot back. “You barely even ate any of it. Look at you, sitting there with your little empty cup. It’s tragic.”
Summer glanced over at Mr. Frosty, and just seeing the painting of the snow cone on the side of his truck made her mouth start to water. If there was ever a perfect day for a snow cone, this was it—hot and muggy, and she’d probably burned three hundred calories with all that weed-pulling back at Gert’s.
“I think the world would be a much better place if the free ice cream concept applied to everything, don’t you think?” Alice asked, crunching on a chunk of ice.
“I’d get a new virginity,” Tiernan announced, causing Alice to laugh so hard, she spit a mouthful of purple snow-cone juice onto the ground, which, of course, sent them all into complete hysterics.
Summer had always admired how uncensored Tiernan was. Sure, her lack of a filter got her into trouble sometimes, but it also got her what she wanted. Summer, on the other hand, spent so much effort not saying what she actually thought and denying herself the things she thought she “shouldn’t” have that sometimes it was hard to remember what she really wanted in the first place.
But not this time.
“I’m going to get a new one,” Summer declared, standing up. “A snow cone, that is,” she clarified.
She took her place at the end of the long line behind a group of obnoxious ten- or eleven-year-old boys who were shoving each other and hocking loogies on the pavement. Boys. They didn’t change all that much, did they?
Which reminded her she needed to call Jace.
“Hey, where’ve you been? Didn’t you get my texts?” He sounded flustered, desperate.
“I got them,” Summer answered slowly, trying not to give away too much about her feelings on the subject. Between last night and this morning he’d sent her about ten text messages—all of them sweet little apologies begging her to come home. The sad part was, his strategy worked. She was actually starting to miss him. But something about hearing his voice brought back those other, more complicated feelings. In text-message world, Jace was the perfect boyfriend. But in real life, Jace was still Jace.
“Come on, Summer, please.” His voice was so low, she could barely hear him. “I said I’m sorry. You know I’m sorry. Just come home. I miss you.”
“I miss you too,” she whispered into the phone.
“If you get here by Friday morning, we could still leave for the Vineyard together. I’ll even buy your plane ticket home, to make up for everything.”
Summer’s eyes flickered across the parking lot to Alice and Tiernan. “You mean, leave the trip before we even see the show?”
“Why not? You’re not actually having fun, are you?” But Jace didn’t wait for her answer. “Just tell me what town you’re in, and I’ll look up the closest airport.”
Normally, Summer hated it when Jace flaunted his family’s money, but there was something romantic about the idea of having her boyfriend fly her back home because he couldn’t live without her for another second. Then again, why should she come running just because he called?
“I don’t know where I am,” she finally answered.
“Well, do you see any signs?”
When Summer turned around to look, she saw Tiernan marching toward her.
“Jace, I’ll call you back.” She shut her phone and stuffed it in her pocket.
“Hey,” Tiernan said. “I’m just coming to let you know Alice is going to give me my driving lesson while you wait. We didn’t want you to think we were taking off without you or anything.”
“Of course,” Summer managed to sputter, even though two seconds ago she’d considered doing the very same thing.
“Wish me luck!” Tiernan called as she headed to the Pea Pod.
“Nice hay-er!” one of the little boys yelled at her back. But Tiernan just ignored him and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Summer was still in shock. Until Jace’s offer, it hadn’t occurred to her that she could actually leave. That she still had a choice. Jace was trying to undo his mistake. And now he was giving Summer the chance to undo hers—coming on this trip. It would be like hitting the reset button.
Part of her was dying to go back to Walford, to be back with her friends, curled up in the comfort of her very own bed. But if she let Jace pay for her plane ticket, that didn’t just mean she was going back home, it meant she was going back to him.
The Pea Pod made a loud grinding noise as it lurched forward, then stalled out. At least she wasn’t the only one.
“Bite me!” Tiernan yelled, forgetting about the open window.
“I’ll bite ya!” shouted the same little boy. The rest of his gang howled with laughter. Then Summer noticed that one of the other boys had something in his hand. And whatever it was, he was aiming to throw it at the Pea Pod, which was now bucking along in spurts. Without even thinking, she reached out and grabbed the boy’s wrist.
“You’d better not be throwing things at my friends.” She glowered, like she was actually some kind of authority figure. She released the boy’s wrist as he opened his hand. A golf-ball-size rock fell to the ground.
Her friends. The word left an aftertaste in her mouth. Were Alice and Tiernan really her friends, or had it just come out like that, out of habit? And, if so, was it possible she missed Jace out of habit too?
“These twerps bothering you?” asked a boy walking toward her. He appeared to be about her age, but he wore the same yellow T-shirt as the younger kids. And even though he wasn’t very tall, he was strikingly handsome, with honey-blond hair and just the slightest hint of a double chin, suggesting a future as a frat boy, or a car salesman.
“I think I’ve got it under control,” Summer said, shaking her hair off her shoulders.
“Twerps, if I find you acting out, y’all are gonna lose your snow-cone privileges,” the boy warned. His voice had a twinge of Kentucky in it, but in a good way.
“Sorry ’bout that,” he said to Summer. “These little hellions are mine for the next six weeks. Guess I got the short straw this year.” He pointed to the word “counselor” just below the soccer-ball logo printed on his shirt, then smiled at the boys. His teeth were straight and white, with the clean familiar shape of someone who’d just gotten their braces off.
“I’m Finn.” He held out his hand.
She took it. “Summer.”
Then the Pea Pod’s tires squealed so loudly that they both turned to look. At least Tiernan was actually moving.
“You with those girls, in the van?” Finn asked.
“Kind of,” Summer said.
“Kind of?”
“Well, yeah. I’m currently with them.”
Finn looked confused. “Y’all not getting along or something?”
Summer thought about it. “It’s a long story,” she finally said.
Finn smiled at her again. She was being enigmatic, but he seemed to be enjoying it. Most boys did.
“Camp’s over in a couple of minutes.” He pointed to the line of mothers waiting in their air-conditioned cars. “Then I’m going to take a swim in my pool. Maybe you and your ‘kind of’ friends want to come along?”
“Maybe,” Summer said, smiling a little wider than she’d intended. What was it with Southern boys and swimming?
“Finn’s got a girlfriend,” one of the little boys sang out in the familiar teasing tune. They both pretended not to hear.
“Oh, shoot,” Finn said. “I forgot that I took my morning run coming over here. If y’all do want to come over, maybe you could give me a lift back to my house? It’s just up the main road about a mile.”
Summer didn’t mean to, but she laughed right in Finn’s face. “I’ll have to check with my traveling companions on that one.”
“If y’all are headed back to the highway, it’ll be right on your way.”
Summer nodded back at Finn as she strode across the parking lot, soaring with renewed enthusiasm for the possibilities of the day. She’d call Jace later, when she’d figured everything out. There’d still be airports wherever they ended up tomorrow.
The Pea Pod cut through the steady stream of minivans now entering the parking lot, screeching to a stop right in front of her. Evidently Tiernan had gone from novice to stunt driver in five minutes.
“Summer has a boyfriend,” Tiernan said in the exact same singsong voice as the little boy.
“His name is Finn,” Summer said, looking past Tiernan to Alice. “And he invited us to go swimming with him. At his pool.”
“Oh, good God!” said Tiernan indignantly. “Does anyone in the South do anything but swim?”
“Well, it is a million frigging degrees down here,” Summer said, sweeping her hair off her neck. “Anyway, his house has to be pretty close by since he ran here this morning, so I figure if we want to go, we could give him a ride?”
Alice got that scrunched-up look on her face that she got every time she was about to get up on her high horse. “Well, not according to the rule we made . . .” She stared right at Summer on the word “we.”
“Oh, come on, Alice. He’s a camp counselor, for crying out loud. And a pool is way less sketchy than a swimming hole.”
Tiernan gave her a snide grin.
“We’ve only driven three hours today,” Alice said. “I’d like to make it at least as far as Lexington so we’re not stuck with another huge day of driving.”
“I’m down with that,” Alice’s sidekick agreed. Like Summer expected anything else.
Most of the time Summer went through life not knowing what she wanted. But every time she actually did manage to make a decsion, there was always someone there to question it, or make her feel like she was wrong. She stormed off in a huff, not even waving to Finn, who was staring at her from across the parking lot with a confused look on his face.
The line at Mr. Frosty had come and gone, so Summer marched right up to the window of the snow cone truck and slapped $2.50 on the counter.
“I’ll have a cream soda, please.”
As far as she knew, the free replacement rule only applied if you ordered the same flavor. But, for once, Summer was going to get what she wanted, even if it meant having to pay.
“LOST & FOUND”
I WAS LOOKING THROUGH THE LOST AND FOUND
FOR SOMETHING I COULDN’T DESCRIBE.
BUT THERE WAS ONLY ONE GLOVE,
AND IT WASN’T MY SIZE.
—from Level3’s second CD, Rough & Tumble