The Goodbye Summer

by Sarah Van Name

  Which doesn’t mean I can’t help out my guests a little. Mom has launched into a slew of questions about where Georgia goes to school, what grade she’s in, and what she does at the aquarium, but I interrupt her.

  “Mom, I think Georgia and I are gonna go upstairs. I want to shower before dinner and, you know, show her the house and stuff.”

  “Oh!” Mom exclaims. “Well, of course that’s fine. Dinner should be ready in half an hour or so—”

  “It’s okay. I can stay down here while you shower,” Georgia says. “Keep Mrs. Caroline’s Mom company.” She leans against the kitchen counter and peers at the cutting board. “Can I help at all?”

  I go upstairs, happy but baffled. As I leave, Mom starts her questions again, and I wonder what kind of person would want to extend a conversation with my mother at their inaugural meeting. She mellows out after a while, but I’ve never introduced her to anyone who has willingly stayed for that first interrogation.

  And sure enough, when I walk back into my room, wrapped in one towel and drying off my hair with another, Georgia is sitting on the bed and inspecting my pictures.

  “Oh, sorry—I would’ve changed in the bathroom if I’d known you were in here,” I blurt, grabbing a pair of shorts and a tank top from the pile of clothes on my dresser.

  “Well, I meant to stay downstairs, but I couldn’t do it,” she says. She grins ruefully. “Your mom talks a lot. She’s really into the Fourth of July, did you know that? Event planning generally. I got a full recap of the brunch she hosted for that volunteer society, the Better Bonneville Group? I think my mom’s in that technically, but she never goes. But mostly she wanted to talk about me. She had a billion questions about my job. And she wanted to hear all about my classes next year.”

  “I am so sorry,” I say, wincing. “She never stops talking…” I step into my closet and close the door, maneuvering around the piles of clothes to find a spot where I can pull on my shorts. “One sec, I’m gonna change.”

  “I don’t hate it,” Georgia responds, her voice muffled by the door. “It’s just a lot to take in. I told her I wanted to wash my face but came up here instead.”

  I put on the tank top and open the closet door. “Are you sure you don’t want to shower? You have time. You could borrow some of my clothes.”

  Georgia looks down at her khakis and bright blue counselor shirt, sweat stains fading but visible beneath her arms and breasts. “That would be great, actually. If you have anything that would fit me?”

  “Um…” I look in my closet and regret making the offer. I don’t know how to estimate other people’s clothing sizes, but compared to me, Georgia is rounder all over—hips, boobs, thighs. Still… “I think I have some T-shirts that would. And this skirt, maybe?” I grab one of my sleep shirts and pull the skirt from the back of the closet, a neon-green elastic-waist nightmare that goes all the way down to the floor. My aunt bought it for me a long time ago. I hesitate with the hanger in my hand. I don’t want Georgia to make fun of me for it. But when I turn around, she’s already standing in the doorway of the closet.

  “Oh, I love that,” Georgia says sincerely.

  “Really?” I say, surprised. I’ve never seen anyone at school wear anything like it, which is part of why I have never worn it in public.

  “Yeah, absolutely. What a great color.” She takes the clothes, folds them carefully, and holds them in a pile against her chest. “Towels in the bathroom?”

  “Yep, underneath the sink,” I say, and she steps into the bathroom and closes the door. I hear the fan cut on, and I lie down on my bed. A piano sonata begins on the radio downstairs. The pictures on my wall are split into light and shadow from the sunshine drifting in through the window.

  My parents bought me the bulletin board for my birthday the year I started middle school. It was a gigantic thing, well over three feet wide and almost as tall. It’s something every teenage girl should have, they said, even though I wasn’t a teenager yet. They said I’d need it for keeping up with homework and tests, so I could maintain a good GPA. At the time, I didn’t understand grades, and they didn’t yet know my middle school didn’t use GPAs, but it all made me feel awfully grown-up. They hung it on the wall beside my bed. They completed the gift with a box of pink and purple tacks and a calendar of beach pictures: blue water, white sand, green palms, twelve times over.

  I don’t like taking things down. It feels like I’m finalizing the end of something, and I don’t like thinking that way. So, over the years, I’ve pinned new memories over the old to-do lists and photos and ticket stubs. Now it’s mostly Jake: a photo booth strip that we got at the mall last year, pictures of us at the park and in his backyard, a card with a sketch of the sky he bought for me last Christmas that says I love you more than all the stars. There’s also the aquarium logo, which I tore out of their brochure when I got the gift shop job; a program from my end-of-year choir concert; and a postcard from my aunt from her trip to Italy earlier this year.

  Then there are the pictures of destinations. When I started pinning them up, Mom asked me what they were, and I told her they were places I wanted to go. Which was partially true.

  Really, they’re ideas for September. Whenever Jake and I talk about a place, I find a picture online and print it out. San Diego, yes, and Arizona, Texas, New Orleans, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York City. Places we’ve talked about visiting someday: Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, Paris. I’ve written airport codes in permanent marker over a picture of the Pacific.

  We talk about these things when we’re lying in bed together, waiting for my curfew to come. How after we settle down and earn some money for a couple of years, after we have our first baby, we’ll tour the world together: a little family of three. We’ll be travelers, washing windows to earn enough to get to the next place. We’ll stroll on boardwalks and dip our toes in foreign oceans. We will never talk to anyone else. We will only need each other.

  Georgia opens the bathroom door and releases a cloud of steam. She absently ties up her hair in an elastic band. The green skirt puddles around her feet and trails on the floor, and the T-shirt is tight across her chest.

  “So what is all this stuff?” she asks, sitting on the edge of the bed. “All these pictures? And that guy, is that your boyfriend?”

  “Yeah, that’s Jake,” I say. “And they’re nothing. Just ideas for…for after graduation, I guess.”

  “Good ideas,” she says softly, and we sit like that for a while, looking at visions of the future, until we get the call to come to dinner.

  * * *

  The next day, Thursday, Toby swings by the gift shop at lunchtime to tell me to come out for pizza. Later, Georgia helps me close, and when Dad texts me to tell me he’ll be late again—the bugs they found yesterday have mutated into different and more difficult bugs today—Georgia offers to drive me home.

  “You know,” she says as we get into her car, “your house is right on the way to mine, and my parents are almost always at work until late. So I can drive you any time.” We get into such a good conversation in the car, her telling me a story about an absurd swim meet trip last year, that it seems only natural to invite her in for dinner again. And then, in what seems like no time at all, it’s 10:00 p.m., and her parents are texting her to come home.

  I spend Friday night and the weekend with Jake and my family, and on Monday when I start to lock up the store, Georgia is waiting with her keys without me even having to ask.

  “I really appreciate this,” I tell her after texting Dad to let him know he can stay at work later. “My parents do too.”

  “No worries,” Georgia responds easily, then hesitates. “You know, I can just drop you off. I don’t have to stay for dinner tonight.”

  “No, I want you to,” I say. She doesn’t say anything, and I worry I’ve misinterpreted her. “I mean…if you want to,” I follow up quickly.

  “I
do,” she says, smiling at me, taking her eyes away from the road for a little too long. “There’s nothing going on at my house anyway.”

  “If you’re sure,” I say, but I’m glad. I feel at ease with her in a way I can’t explain, and the few evenings we’ve spent together were more fun than I’ve had in ages.

  In this way, the summer settles into a quiet rhythm that carries me through my days like a tide. Breakfast with my parents, ride to work, watch the store until lunch, when I cultivate my tan outside with Georgia and the counselors. I started bringing salads for lunch after Toby spent several days haranguing me about not eating pizza. My mom puts sliced-up fruit into the Tupperware with spinach and arugula, and I taste mango, strawberry, apple on my tongue as the sun warms the top of my head.

  At first, lunch with the counselors was more than a little overwhelming. They talk over each other constantly and are forever getting into playful arguments over nothing at all. But as I’ve started to get to know them a little better, I am beginning to feel as if I belong. Georgia and Toby go out of their way to welcome me. Matt barely stops talking long enough to take a breath, but he involves me in conversation as much as he does anyone. Serena doesn’t really speak to me, but then again, she rarely speaks to anyone. Dave and Devin remain as interchangeable as they were when I first met them, archetypal bros who seem more comfortable talking to Toby and Matt than me, Georgia, and Serena.

  After work on Tuesdays and Fridays and sometimes Mondays, Jake picks me up, and we go to his house. Wednesdays, Thursdays, and other Mondays, he has the late shift at the store. Then Georgia takes me home, and we lie on my bed or on towels on the porch, talking until dinner and after, until Mom gently pokes her head around the door frame to say, “Georgia, honey, don’t you think it’s about time to be getting home?” She jumps up, apologizing, and I spend the rest of the evening watching TV with my parents or lying in bed, staring at the brightness of Jake’s texts on my phone. When I close my eyes to sleep, all I can see is that square of light. It burns blue and purple on the backs of my eyelids.

  It’s a good and comfortable pattern, so when I got a text from Mom disrupting it one Wednesday during lunch, I am more disgruntled than I might be otherwise.

  hi caroline

  Ac is out @ home

  guy couldn’t come to fix until tomorrow

  “Ugh,” I groan, falling back onto the cement. Georgia peers over me, her head blocking out the sun.

  “What’s up?”

  “Our air conditioning stopped working, apparently.”

  “Fuck that,” Matt pronounces from the other side of Georgia. He takes a bite of pizza and speaks around it. “You know, if you need somewhere to cool off, the aquarium kiddie pool’s open to you. I mean, I know you don’t technically have a pool pass, but I’ll make a special exception. For, uh…” He waggles his eyebrows. “A favor.”

  “Absolutely not,” I say while at the same time Georgia says, “Ew.”

  “Offer’s on the table,” he counters, grinning. Matt’s one of those guys who’s always been the funniest guy in the room, but because of that, he’s not necessarily the nicest. He’s stocky and tan, with long, thin hair that balloons into impossible spikes after he comes out of the pool in the morning. I’ve never seen him without sunglasses.

  “Anyway,” I say, turning back to Georgia. “You probably shouldn’t come over tonight. The house is going to be miserable.”

  She makes a sympathetic face and is about to respond when my phone starts to ring. It’s my mom. I get up and move away from the crowd of counselors, scuffing the edge of my flip-flops into the dry dirt where concrete meets grass.

  “Caroline?”

  “Hey, Mom. I got your texts.”

  “Oh good. I never know if they sent or not.”

  “You can tell by if it says…never mind. Air conditioning’s out.”

  “Yes, well, so it is, and apparently it’s been nonfunctional since early this morning, so the house is really starting to heat up. I’m going over to Vivian’s house now, since her house is a reasonable temperature, and your father is going to join us for dinner. That way we’ll only have to come back here to sleep. I wanted to see if you’d like to come too.”

  “Can—”

  In the background, Toby’s voice explodes loud enough to make me turn around: “I swear on my fish’s grave, Devin, if you skip the end-of-the-summer Great Adventures trip to go on a family vacation, I will fucking end you.”

  “What?” Mom says. I shake my head.

  “Sorry. Can Georgia join us?” We have plans to hang out tonight, and I don’t want to abandon her.

  “Well…” She hesitates. “I would think so, but I’d have to talk to Vivian first. Can you—”

  “Hold on a sec,” I say in a flash of inspiration. I jog back over to the group and touch Georgia on the shoulder to get her attention. “Georgia, can we hang out at your house tonight?”

  Her expression is unreadable: not angry, but not quite happy either. But I really don’t want to spend the evening with Vivian. She is one of my parents’ oldest friends, a coleader with my mom at the Better Bonneville Group for years now. But she’s also the least interesting person I’ve ever met, and the most soft-spoken, so you always have to ask her to repeat her meaningless statements. “We don’t have to,” I tell Georgia, “but it would be fun, right? I’ve never met your parents. Or seen your house, even.”

  “Okay,” Georgia replies, and quickly adds, “tentatively, though. I gotta check with them first. But I think they’ll say yes.”

  “Yes, thank you. You have no idea what you’re saving me from.”

  I put the phone back up to my ear. “Mom, Georgia and I can go to her house. Would that be okay? I’d be back by ten.”

  “Oh, sure. That’s fine.” She actually sounds relieved. I do complain about Vivian a lot after every time we see her, so maybe she’s happy not to deal with it. “Will her parents be home?”

  I relay the question to Georgia, who shrugs. “Yeah,” I say, interpreting her gesture.

  “Good, then. But make sure to be home by—”

  “Ten, I know.”

  “There’s no need to interrupt.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ll set up some fans before I leave, and maybe it won’t be too hot by the time we all get back. I love you, Caroline.”

  “Love you too, Mom.”

  I hang up the phone and fall back beside Georgia, nudging her lightly with my knee. “Thanks,” I say.

  “Mm,” she replies, in the middle of a bite. She swallows. “My mom responded. She said it’s okay, as long as I can still be in bed by eleven. Also, she says she left us dinner, but it probably sucks so we’ll have to figure something out on our own. Also, she and my dad may not be there.”

  “Okay,” I say, a little taken aback. “I mean, is it actually all right? I kind of figured you come over to my house all the time, so it would be cool, but I can go hang out with my parents at their friend’s house if it’s going to be trouble.”

  She makes an unhappy harrumphing sound and leans on her elbow, turning to face me. “I’m sorry, it’s not a problem. They’re fine with it. It’s just, my parents…” She looks up and squints into the sky above me. “Well, they’re not like your mom and dad.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “You’ll see,” she says, sounding weary.

  It is at that moment that Toby yells, “Back to the work pits, scoundrels,” and I look at my phone and see I’m actually a minute late already.

  When I get back to the store, there are a couple of people in line, and Jenny behind the register stares daggers at me as I dash in. The rest of the day is busy enough that I don’t have time to dwell on Georgia’s weirdness. I do text with Jake in a few free moments, trying to figure out if he can get off work early so we can hook up in my empty house instead
of me apparently imposing on Georgia. But one of his coworkers started throwing up and had to go home, so there is no chance of him faking sick.

  Which means that when 6:00 p.m. rolls around, I grab my bag and meet Georgia in the parking lot, where she seems to be in better spirits.

  “Anything good happen today?” I ask as we climb into her car.

  “Oh, such a great afternoon,” she sighs, rolling down the windows. “There’s this girl, Olivia, who hasn’t really engaged with camp the entire time. Every single day, when her mom drops her off, she starts crying. For three weeks. It’s the saddest thing. And also, on a cynical level, pretty frustrating, because it requires a lot of time and effort, and we still never make her happy. We’ve gotten used to it, though, so it had kind of stopped bothering me.

  “But today,” she says as she pulls out of the parking lot, “we did an activity with clay, and she absolutely lit up. Hasn’t cared about painting. Or swimming. Or any of the animals. Or construction-paper masks or paper-bag puppets or anything. The clay, though, she loved. And she was good at it! I mean,” Georgia amends, “for a four-year-old. She made a very passable manta ray. So, all in all, a pretty great afternoon, despite us having to return to my house tonight.”

  “About that,” I say.

  She looks over at me as she turns, right instead of the left that would take us to my house. “Sorry about being weird earlier,” she says. “I really don’t mind. I mean, I come right home most nights you’re hanging out with Jake, obviously. It’s just…” Her eyes are fixed straight ahead now. The houses passing are getting bigger and fancier, set farther back from the street, all the cars parked in long driveways and the streets smooth and clean. “Your parents are so nice. They’re so welcoming.”

  “And yours aren’t?”

  “I mean, you probably won’t even see them.”

  We reach a cul-de-sac and Georgia turns into the driveway of an honest-to-God mansion. Three marble steps lead up to a pair of double doors edged by intricate stained glass. I can count at least nine windows in the front alone. The lawn is bright green, sprigs of white lilies lining the pathway to the door. My eyes must be popping out of my head because Georgia lightly taps my temple as she turns off the car.