“Poetry?”
I laugh. “No, why would you guess that?”
He smiles and shrugs. “I don’t know, you seem the type.”
“What type is that?”
“The type with angsty drama?”
I set the journal down next to me and twist to face him. “I don’t have angsty drama.”
“You have mom drama.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that one. Me and my mama drama.” I laugh at my own joke, and immediately regret it. God, I’m a dork.
Aiden laughs.
“But I don’t write poetry. I’m not that cool.” I tap my pen again. “I write stories and stuff.”
“What kind of stories?”
Here we go. Kissing stories.
I look away from him, back out to the water, and try to think about how to explain to him that I write a lot of things, but usually the one thing they have in common is that there’s a love story. Even when I try not to, it’s always there. But I don’t write the trashy stuff Aunt Sarah likes to read, and that’s what people always think of. I sigh, and reluctantly look back at him. “The kind with words? And a beginning, middle, and end.” I give him a nervous smile.
“What kind of stories, Olivia?”
I laugh. “Love stories, mostly.”
“That makes sense too, I guess.” He looks back out at the water and I wonder what he means by that. What makes me the type of person who writes love stories? If he only knew how completely unqualified I am at the moment …
AIDEN
“Do you draw?” Olivia asks.
She’s changing the subject, which is fine, because I don’t need to talk about her romance novels. That could get … weird. My mom used to have them around in the summer at the beach. My dad’s swimsuit magazine had nothing on Mom’s books. Thrusting and quivering and … ugh. If Mom only knew the things I saw on those two pages when I was twelve.
“Yeah, and I paint.” I pick up a handful of sand, because it makes me nervous to say it out loud. Because there’s nothing concrete to declare me an artist. It’s just something I’ve always done. My label as a pitcher was everywhere. It was on the programs they handed out at baseball games, and in newspapers, and on my awards. I never felt like I was pretending in baseball. But being an artist? Something feels so intangible about that label. Like I’m not allowed to just give it to myself. I feel like I need it though. For someone to slap a label on me so I can know what I am now.
Olivia’s face twists up in surprise. “Really?”
I don’t like the tone of her voice, the utter shock I can hear in it. “Yes. Really.”
Her face drops. Why do I have to be so damn self-conscious about this?
“I just didn’t know that. I don’t know why I would though.” She turns back toward the water and her voice is softer. “Sorry.”
We’re like mirror images, the two of us sitting with our arms wrapped around our knees, facing out toward the water. The jerk and the new girl. It’s going to be a long summer if she’s afraid to talk to me.
“You want to come with me?” I nod up toward the dunes that climb out of the grass behind us. “I have some prep to do for a project.”
“Um.” She looks around herself, like she’s not sure she’s the one I’m actually talking to.
“Do you want someone else to come with us?” I’d like to think she isn’t scared to walk off with me, not after we spent so much time together today, but she doesn’t know me that well, I suppose.
She looks surprised. “No, it’s not that.” She shakes her head. “I’ve just got this thing…” She reaches in her bag and pulls out a quarter.
I laugh. “So this is a thing, huh?” I wonder if it has anything to do with our coin toss this afternoon.
“It is,” she says. “It’s a new thing. A sort of … personal experiment … for an essay I’m writing.” She says it tentatively, like she’s hesitant to even share this much.
“Okay, so heads…”
“Heads, I go with you. Tails”—her eyes look out to the water—“I stay here alone, watching Troy and Beth make out. Feeling extremely uncomfortable.” She laughs, but she sounds nervous.
“That’s hard to compete with, I can see why you’re leaving it up to chance.” I’m just teasing her, but I see a flicker of something on her face and she drops the coin onto the blanket and laughs.
“You’re right, let’s go.”
I make sure Olivia puts her sandals on—the dune grass can be like razor blades if you catch it just right—and she slings her bag over her shoulder and follows me. Ellis catches my eye as we’re leaving and I point up to the tree-covered dunes behind us. He returns my gesture with a salute and a smile.
I love the way climbing through the shifting sand makes my legs burn. My summer is usually one long training session, but I haven’t been running in the morning like I normally would.
We’re only halfway there when Olivia seems to be getting winded. Her face is bright red, and though she isn’t gasping for air, it seems like her breath whistles in and out.
“Are you okay?”
“My asthma isn’t great in the heat,” she says.
Crap. “We can turn around, it’s not a big deal.”
“It’s fine, I’ll be fine.” She smiles like she’s trying to reassure me, but she’s still sort of wheezing. “How much further is it?”
“We’re about halfway.”
“Okay.” She nods and lets out a big rush of air as she says what sounds like, “Let’s do this.”
I shouldn’t laugh, but I do, because she looks desperate to be done with this and I probably should have warned her about the climbing. “We’re getting close, I swear.”
She lets out a little grunt of gratitude, like she needs to save her energy for hiking, not talking, and I laugh again. “You and Zander don’t hike?”
“No.”
“And you don’t canoe, or kayak?” I hold up a branch that’s hanging across our sandy route of ascent, and she passes under.
“Nope.”
“What do you do?”
“I don’t know, just normal couple stuff, I guess.” She takes a deep breath and pushes herself up over a little log that’s blocking our path. “We went to the movies and hung out at his house, and … I don’t know … indoor stuff.” I can’t tell if she sounds sad, or if it’s just a product of her exhaustion.
“Huh.”
“This is the kind of stuff you do with all of your girlfriends?”
“All of my girlfriends?” I laugh. I haven’t had a girlfriend. Not really. I’ve made out with girls, and I’ve gone to the movies with girls. I’ve had dates to dances and girls I’ve flirted with at parties. I had a girlfriend in eighth grade, before you actually did anything with them. But I’ve never had anyone I would have called a real girlfriend. Someone I spent all of my free time with, or whose parents I knew, or who came to all of my games. I guess baseball was my girlfriend. Or Ellis. I stifle a laugh. God, I can’t wait to tell him that revelation.
As we near the top of the little dune, the trees start to thin out and the pink sky pokes through. Our trip back, going downhill, will be faster, but I still need to keep this quick, before darkness catches up with us.
At the top of the hill there’s a flat area, a ten-by-ten plot of sand surrounded by trees and dune grass. I love this spot, the way the sandy paths crisscross through the dune grass below, like tiny ant trails, and you can see the lake stretch out from north to south, going on endlessly into the distance. People don’t realize how big Lake Michigan is. How much it looks like the ocean, but lacks its salty water and carnivorous creatures. The sand is less coarse, and there are no shells, only rocks, but it’s big and beautiful and not to be underestimated. Tourists are always thrown by how big and impressive the lake is. And even though Olivia has lived here forever, she has the same look on her face—like she’s seeing it for the first time. Or maybe just seeing it through different eyes.
Olivia’s hands are o
n her hips and she’s slightly hunched forward, catching her breath. “Wow. This is … incredible.”
“Worth it?” I bump her elbow with mine, and she almost topples over, like her legs are rubber. They probably are. I put my hand on her arm to steady her. “You gonna make it?”
She looks at me and smiles, and then she sinks down into the sand, looking out across the water. “Worth it. And yes.”
She’s already pulled out her little notebook again, and sets it on her knees.
My mom’s camera is tucked into the bag hanging across my back, and I pull it out and loop it around my neck before pulling a water bottle out. I hold it out to Olivia. “It’s warm. Sorry.”
She takes it and smiles. “Thanks.” Her eyes fall on the camera. “You’re into photography too?”
“I’m actually a pretty horrible photographer. I’m just taking some reference photos so I can paint it back home.”
She hands the water bottle back to me and I take a drink. “I didn’t know that was a thing,” she says.
“You thought every painting ever painted was done while someone sat in that very spot?” I’ve probably used up my sarcasm quota with Olivia today, but I can’t help myself.
“Yes.” She gives me an exaggerated smile. “Like in a movie. A man in a little chair with an easel in front of him. In a beret.” She laughs. “I guess I just never thought of it, period. You think about the book on the shelf … not the writer sitting at their desk.”
“—Or on a dune.”
“Or on a dune.”
“I actually have a spot in the dunes where I’ve been doing a lot of my drawing lately.”
She nods like she’s not sure what she’s supposed to say to me. She fidgets with the pen that’s pinched between her knuckles. “Maybe you could show me sometime? I’m sort of lacking inspiration these days.”
“You’d probably need to flip for it, or something?”
She smiles. “Probably.”
“It’s a hike,” I warn. “Not as bad as this one, but still.”
“I can handle that.” She laughs. “I’ll just pack my inhaler so I don’t die.”
OLIVIA
When I was eight, a body washed up on shore at one of the beaches just north of us. I was living with my mom, and I remember her reading the newspaper article out loud at the little table in our kitchen, like she was the narrator of a gruesome movie. Gasping at the descriptions, the way the body had been affected by its time in the water. No limbs. That’s all I could think about. This stump of a person lying on the beach. How close someone would have gotten before realizing what it was. God, I still get goose bumps thinking about it. I refused to go in the lake that entire summer. Even the next summer, every time anything touched me I was sure it was a severed limb or something. Usually it was just a floating stick, or a stray plastic bag, or something completely innocuous. I was always sure nothing would freak me out more than that.
But when “Skinny dip!” comes screaming out of Beth’s mouth—like a knife through the night air—I’m not sure which is worse: the prospect of there being a body in the lake, or my naked body being in the lake. The beach is never pitch black. That’s what they don’t tell you in books and movies. The moon lights up the lake like a spotlight overhead, and washes the color out of everything like an old black-and-white movie. Best-case scenario, the whiteness of my yet-to-be-tanned skin blinds everyone. Worst case—I sneak a glance at Aiden, but he hasn’t moved off of his spot on the blanket. Since trekking back from the dunes, we’ve returned to our original spot on the beach. He’s stretched out on the blanket, his eyes closed, and I’m lying on my stomach, sketching a picture of the beach, so I can prove to him how artistically inept I am. Every few minutes he’ll open an eye and sneak a peek at it. When he hears the s-word, his eyes open.
The coin is still lying on the blanket and I pick it up, rubbing it between my fingers.
“Whatcha got there?”
Instinctually, I grip the metal tighter between my fingers.
“Olivia?”
I open my palm, revealing the shiny circle that’s forcing me out of my safe little world this summer.
I take a deep breath and drop the quarter into my other palm. “Heads, we climb the dune again.” I let out a nervous laugh. “Tails … we skinny dip—” It doesn’t even sound right coming out of my mouth. Like that time my Oma announced we were having a “circle jerk” at a family picnic, when my aunts and cousins and I were sitting with her in a circle of lawn chairs. She was … slightly confused about the term. Gross.
Aiden’s eyes are on the coin as I flip it above our heads and it comes back to rest in my hand. I turn it onto the back of my palm and hold it there, not wanting to see what my fate is. I look out at the water and back at my hand and let out a shallow breath. Here we go.
Aiden’s voice cuts into the quiet night air before I have a chance to reveal it. “It’s too cold for that shit.” He stands up and pulls his shirt over his head, revealing an eyeful of skin. “Let’s just swim. Save the skinny-dipping for after the Fourth when it isn’t a polar bear swim.” Aiden reaches his hand down and I take it before he hoists me up. “You in?”
The coin is still sandwiched between my hands. I reveal the shining bird and smile. “I’m in.”
AIDEN
We’re canoeing along the shoreline, in water so shallow we’re likely to run ourselves ashore. I didn’t think about having to break against the river’s current on my own. Not that Olivia isn’t in the canoe, but at this point her paddle in the water would probably hurt more than help. I didn’t really think through this whole canoeing-in-the-dark business. Everything is hazy, and it’s hard to tell how far we actually are from shore, or one another. It’s a sobering reminder of what it would be like behind the wheel of my car. I’m staying close behind Ellis, tighter than I usually would, so I can let him and the light he has affixed to the bow of his boat lead us through the dark.
When we reach the river, we bank the boats on the shore and flip them over so we can carry them. Ellis parked a pickup down the dirt access road, and it’s better than canoeing all the way back upstream, but it’s also a pretty long walk to make it from the river to the little road.
“I’m glad we’re not canoeing the whole way back in the dark.” Olivia lets out a little grunt as we step over a log that lies across the path. “But this canoe is so much heavier than I expected.”
“We carry canoes all day.”
“We drag canoes.” She laughs. “And that’s ten feet.” She takes a deep breath. “This is … more.”
We’re about twenty feet from where the truck is parked along the dirt road. Ahead of us, Ellis and Troy are pushing the first canoe up onto the metal brace in the back.
I only have twenty more feet to propose the idea that has been forming in my brain all night. “I have a proposition for you.”
“I’m pretty committed to not skinny-dipping until the Fourth of July. You said it yourself.” She laughs, and she doesn’t sound nervous this time.
“You don’t have a car,” I say.
“This is true.”
“But I do.”
“Okay…” Her voice is questioning, confused.
“What if you borrowed my car for the summer?”
“That sounds … like a strange arrangement. Why would you loan me your car? What are you going to drive?”
“Well, I’d loan it to you, because I can’t drive it right now anyway. And because I was thinking you could maybe help me out by driving me places once in a while.” I hate how douchey this sounds when I say it out loud. It sounded so much better in my head.
“I sort of thought the whole bike-riding thing was just a statement.”
“Of what?” I ask.
“I don’t know … your resistance to what’s expected?”
“I like that.” I laugh, because it’s a much cooler explanation than the truth. “But I’m not that creative.”
She’s quiet, and I think maybe it
was a horrible idea to bring this up after one evening hanging out together. But all I can think about is ArtPrize, and how I need to get there. And Olivia’s fun to hang out with—she keeps things interesting; I wouldn’t mind being trapped in a car with her for a few hours. I’m actually kind of excited at the idea of getting to check out everything at ArtPrize with her.
“What if we started with a trial run? Would you want to go to ArtPrize with me this weekend? You can test-drive my car, and I can test my theories about your artistic eye.”
We’ve finally reached the truck, and I take a few steps back, inching my hands up the body of the canoe. “You can let go.” Olivia moves aside, and I hoist the metal body up onto the braces, next to the others.
Olivia slips her hand into her bag and pulls a coin out. It’s a penny, and she has some trouble balancing it on her thumb. It flips into the air, and comes back down with a soft skitter on the gravel. “Crap,” she mutters.
I turn my phone’s flashlight on, and we squat down, looking for the coin. “This may be a sign,” she says.
“Found it!” I spot the copper next to a back tire, and Olivia follows my flashlight and squats down to examine it. I can’t make out what it is.
“You’re in luck,” she says. “I have zero plans this weekend, and I’ve always heard ArtPrize is pretty cool.” She picks up the penny. “And our friend Abe—I mean President Lincoln,” she adds in a reverent tone, “says I’m going.”
I laugh at her last-minute show of respect for her penny, and a wave of calm comes over me as I tackle this one problem. Maybe she won’t go for my idea all summer, but at least I’ll have this one weekend. Despite everything, maybe the summer fates are on my side. Maybe I have that one thing going for me.
OLIVIA
Aunt Sarah’s official stance on the whole lottery fiasco is that she didn’t know about it. I texted her after work yesterday, and she said we’d talk about it last night and figure everything out. I don’t know what everything is, but last night I left before she got home, and this morning she had left for work by the time I got up. So when I get home from work, and her car is in the driveway earlier than usual, I know it’s because we have to talk.
When Summer Ends Page 10