The Summer We Came to Life

Chapter

58





PACKING TO LEAVE TAKES THE WHOLE MORNING. From the second Lynette opens our door and shoos us out of bed, she and Cornell hardly leave us alone for an instant. They sweep and laugh and clean and bark out orders. I’ve never seen anything like it, those two. It is only by the grace of their incredible organizational harmony that we are all packed by brunch time. I add my suitcases to the lineup by the door and head out to the porch to help Isabel set the table.

“Are you going to do the happy dance again?” I’m only half mocking. Consoled by the idea of a second chance, they’ve been positively giddy all morning.

Isabel smoothes down a napkin and looks at me. “Yep. Every day till we’re a hundred years old.”

Lynette comes out with a plate of sandwiches. “You girls still giggling like a pack of crazies out here? Three women about to turn thirty, one unemployed and one, my daughter, eager to be a single mother. Now what do you guys have to be so happy about, huh?” Lynette’s fake frown reveals itself as a grin.

Isabel takes my hand. “Well, as it turns out, Lynette, a whole helluva lot.”

Cornell appears with a fresh round of iced tea on a tray. “Honey, where’d Jesse and Arshan get to?”

Come to think of it, I haven’t seen either of them all morning. “They’re packing, I hope.”

Suddenly we all jump at a loud thud. Isabel takes off running and I’m right behind her. We all pile up at the door to Jesse’s room.

Please don’t let anything bad happen. Please don’t let anything bad happen. “Oh my God, I swear I can’t handle—” I say as I raise my hand to knock.

“Well, me neither, missy,” Lynette snaps as she pushes past me and swings open the door.



Nothing, not even coming back from the dead, could have prepared me for the sight before my eyes.

At my feet is an entire bookcase dumped clean of its contents.

And beyond the mound of seashells, romance novels and knickknacks are Jesse and Arshan doing it on the couch. A flash of crepe-paper skin, varicose veins, and—oh, Jesus— Jesse’s five-inch heels.

Jesse tucks a long, sweaty shock of hair behind her ear and looks up at Arshan, who’s turned to stone and pretending none of this is happening. “Great guns, y’all, march your sweet little butts outta here!”

Lynette shuts the door before any of us can blink, and we stand there rooted in place, the image seared onto our eyeballs like a nuclear explosion. I bite down on my knuckle and wait to follow Isabel’s lead.

Cornell has no such tact. “Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me,” he yells, slaps his hand to his forehead, and starts laughing so hard he punctuates the phrase the second time with barnyard snorts. “You’ve got—” snort “—to be—” snort “—shitting me!”

“Cornell!” Lynette makes an earnest attempt at consternation but takes another look at her husband and lets out a guffaw even louder than his.

I’m laughing so hard I think I just peed my pants. Isabel looks a little green around the edges but she’s being a good sport. Kendra looks at me slyly and busts out with the happy dance. “Go Arshan! Go Jesse!”

And in some weird perfect moment in time, all five of us follow suit in a conga line back to the porch, laughing all the way.

While, I presume, Jesse and Arshan carry on about their business of falling in love. Finally.