Summer Unscripted

by Jen Klein

  The jolt of jealousy is sharp and hot and surprising. I already know something happened between Milo and Ella, so why the hell is it affecting me now? Probably because now that Milo has described it, I can see it. The bench. The empty wooden deck in the evening heat. The postshow exhaustion.

  I shake my head in an attempt to get rid of the image.

  I came here for Tuck, I came here for Tuck, I came here for Tuck.

  “What about the second time?” I ask in a level voice.

  “We were at McKay’s. A bunch of people were there in the afternoon before the show. Ella asked if I wanted to see the coolest graffiti in Olympus. I was just starting to get into photography, so I said ‘sure.’ ” Milo plucks the bandanna out from under his leg and twists it between his slender fingers. “Someone else was going to come too—I think it was Paul—so it didn’t feel like a thing. It wasn’t a big deal. But then suddenly I’m on the sidewalk with Ella and she tells me Paul’s not coming. Which is still fine, except then she takes my hand, like to pull me in the right direction. But when we start walking, she doesn’t let go. And I feel like I’m a jerk if I do, so I just keep walking with her, holding her hand.”

  The heat of my jealousy turns into shame. Shame on behalf of Ella, unable to read Milo’s cues. And on behalf of Milo…a little blind, a little spineless. “Then what happened?”

  “We went down this alley, saw this graffiti, and she kissed me. I should have stopped it, but I didn’t get what she was doing. I thought it was a hookup, like everyone hooks up all the time. Stupid, right? I mean, stupid of me.” He shakes his head, irritated. “It’s not like we were at a party. It was a deliberate decision to peel off alone together, and I just…didn’t get it. I didn’t think we had anything important between us, so nothing about it felt important.” Finally, his gaze floats back to mine. “Does that make sense?”

  “I don’t know.” I try to unspool the moments that made Ella think that she and Milo meant something more. “Some couples have lasted here, right? Some people stay together?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know.” Milo frowns, considering. “I mean…look, I’ve been coming here my entire life. Once I was old enough to know what I was actually seeing backstage, I started realizing it was the same thing every year. It’s a summer thing. It’s what you do when you’re here. Like a hobby.”

  “But that’s so…” I pause, trying to home in on what I don’t like about it. “It’s hopeless or something. Pointless.”

  “Or fun.” Milo shrugs. “Summer flings have been happening since the beginning of time, right? You kiss the person next to you, and you move on. They weren’t invented at Olympus.”

  I think back to what Tuck said about Gretchen. He was basically saying it wouldn’t last, right?

  “I should have had the conversation with Ella—I get that now.” Milo grazes my leg with one knuckle. “But I didn’t think it was important enough. Talking about how we kissed a couple times and I didn’t want to do it anymore? That seemed worse. For her, I mean.”

  All I can think is that if Ella could hear this conversation, it would be the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to her.

  “I didn’t cheat on her,” Milo continues. “At least, I didn’t think I did. She wasn’t my girlfriend. You can’t cheat on someone you’re not dating.”

  He’s not wrong.

  But he’s not totally right either. I’m not so horrified by either his behavior or Ella’s as much I am by the awareness of how appalled Ella would be if she heard any of this conversation. She’d be mortified to find out that Milo never considered her a girlfriend. Or, really, anything at all…

  But it does put everything into context.

  “When Ella said that thing at McKay’s, about me being her ex, it was a wake-up call.” Milo’s eyes rove over my face. “That’s why I wanted to talk to her about it.”

  I remember when I saw Milo hugging Ella backstage. So that’s what was going on. It was exactly what she told me: that he apologized to her about last summer.

  “You know what would make life easier?” I ask Milo. “If people were just freaking honest about things.” Like, if I had talked to Tuck about his stupid monologue in Dobbs, I would have known it didn’t have anything to do with me and I wouldn’t be in stupid Olympus having this stupid conversation right now. “Just say what you’re thinking when you think it. Then people’s feelings don’t get hurt.” Then it would never have gotten all muddy between Milo and Ella, which means it wouldn’t be all muddy between Milo and me right now.

  “Maybe.” He tilts his head a little to the side, like he’s sizing me up. “But there’s a case to be made for keeping some things on hold until the right time, don’t you think?”

  “Until the right time,” I repeat slowly.

  “Hidden symbols.” That grin again. “They’re only understood by the people who are supposed to find them.”

  I look at him—the angles of his cheekbones and the darkness of his eyes—and the air in the car goes still around us. It’s charged. Electric. Almost without my directing it to, my hand slides up my own leg, moving toward Milo’s hand where it’s still perched on his knee. I’m almost touching him when I realize his gaze has shifted past me again. I turn my head to see…

  Ella.

  She’s crouched on the wooden stairs, scrambling to grab what look like cans or bottles or boxes or…

  Groceries.

  Ella went to the store, and one of the bags ripped as she was almost back at our apartment. Now she’s trying to gather all the groceries before they fall between the slats in the stairs.

  In one motion, I undo my seat belt and open the door. Milo and I make eye contact for a brief second.

  “Do you want me to—” he says just as I answer him.

  “Go.” I jump out of the car and then poke my head back in. “Thanks. For…” I pause, not a hundred percent sure exactly what I’m thanking him for. “Just thanks.”

  “Thanks to you too.”

  I slam the door and go to help Ella pick up our fallen groceries.

  It’s Del Shelby’s last night at the theater. I guess he’s tweaked and changed and moved us around enough for his satisfaction, and now he will go away. I’m astounded that his job exists. It seems so…easy.

  I voice my thoughts to Milo as we stand around in the Greek forest. “That’s why Nikki’s here,” he tells me. “She gets to execute Del’s vision. She’s really the one with all the power.”

  “She could wait until he’s gone and then completely change the show.”

  “Yeah, it could become a…” He pauses. “Actually, I can’t think of anything weirder than a Greek musical tragicomedy.”

  I wave my carrot at him. “It could become an improv show.”

  “It already practically is.” Milo flaps his wings. “Were you paying attention last night during the battle? Paul dropped his sword and one of the cannons never went off. Tuck tripped when he was trying to kill me, and for a second I thought I was going to live.”

  A smile is trying to take over my face. “I did notice you nearly living.”

  “The Trojans almost lost. We were almost mythologically accurate.”

  Suddenly I notice we’re practically alone. The other woodland creatures are heading toward the wings as the stage goes dim. Upstage, Zeus is climbing onto Mount Olympus. We’ve missed our cue. Milo and I exchange startled wide-eyed looks and immediately bolt in opposite directions, me hopping and him flapping.

  As I charge offstage, I catch sight of Tuck waiting to go on for the next scene. He’s seen the way Milo and I were more focused on each other than the show, and…

  And he’s frowning.

  •••

  It’s Olympus Summer Festival, which I’m told is to commemorate the forty-third anniversary of the night a group of local drunken businessmen decided that a stock theater focusing on Greek mythology and set in the Appalachian Mountains seemed like a totally reasonable idea.

  A two-block stretch
of Nine Muses is cordoned off with orange cones so that street vendors can sell Olympus-themed food while adults wrangle their kids into participating in a contest to fashion togas out of toilet paper. It’s been a sticky heat all day, so when a late-afternoon rain shower starts up, everyone seems glad except the vendors, who rush to stash their Minotaur burgers and Gorgon fries and paper torches filled with popcorn. The kids don’t even seem to notice the rain. They keep frolicking as their togas clump and stick to their bodies. Ella and I watch from the hood of my car, where we’ve managed to find a parking spot on a side street adjacent to the craziness. We’ve both been sweating for hours, so when the rain starts, we’re bothered about as much as the kids are. After hurrying to toss our phones onto the car seats, we go back to the hood and stretch out on our backs. My car is warm beneath us as our clothes mold to our bodies under the steady onslaught of water. I’m still wearing sunglasses, but Ella has taken hers off. Her eyes are squeezed tightly shut.

  It’s stupid, but I’m happy. Tuck doesn’t matter. Milo doesn’t even matter. I’ve got nowhere I’m supposed to be, nothing I’m missing, no decisions I’m not currently making. “This is the life,” I tell Ella.

  She doesn’t say anything, so I’m not sure if she heard me through the rain and the kids’ squeals, but that’s okay. I was almost talking to myself, anyway. I raise my hands over my head, laying them back against the windshield. My right arm brushes against Ella’s left, and I feel her fingers enclose my hand and squeeze.

  It takes me a second, but then I squeeze back.

  •••

  That evening after the show, there are fireworks. Ella and I—and most of the other younger company members—trudged up a nearly vertical residential street near Nine Muses, finally huffing our way to a cul-de-sac where, in groups of three or four, we took turns cutting through a private yard and across a rocky outcropping to the grassy plateau beyond it. Now we’re all scattered across the area on blankets and pillows, waiting for the show to begin. Down below, Olympus is a fishbowl of twinkling lights amid the dark mountains. Up here, we’re lit by the moon and stars and the handful of assorted lanterns that someone set up.

  Many people have cans of beer or mystery flasks, but Ella and I take turns sipping from a thermos of hot chocolate. Annette had offered to make an adult purchase for us, but Ella made the very good point that we were already going to be trespassing, and it was probably better not to add underage drinking to our list of violations. Besides, now that the sun has been down for several hours, it’s chilly. I’m glad I brought the Olympus hoodie I bought last week at the office.

  Nearby, there’s a muffled giggle. I turn toward it, but Ella grabs my wrist. “Don’t,” she says.

  Of course I look anyway, and of course the sound came from Tuck and Gretchen, most of their bodies covered up by a quilt. Tuck has no business frowning about me talking to Milo if this is going on.

  “They’re not actually doing it right now, are they?” Ella asks.

  I peer through the murkiness at the wobbling lump that is my supposed crush and his girlfriend. “That would be so gross.”

  “What would be gross?” It’s Paul, plopping down between us. He holds up a plastic bag. “Want some Poseidon’s licorice?”

  “That name makes no sense,” I tell him as I accept one of the twisted ropes.

  “Yeah, you’d think they’d at least pair the sea god with something appropriate.” Ella shakes her head. “Like calamari.”

  Paul pulls out a lighter and flicks it to life. He holds it close to the bag so we can see the licorice inside. It’s blue.

  “Huh.” Ella shrugs. “I guess ocean-colored is a step in the right direction.”

  “Still tastes like cherries,” I inform her.

  From far away, we hear a hiss and a pop. A flare of orange light shoots up from a darkened spot that is apparently the theater’s parking lot. “No trees close enough to explode,” Milo had explained earlier in the day.

  Speaking of which…

  Milo lands on the other side of me, so now I’m flanked by him and Paul. “Hey.”

  “Emilio.” Paul holds the bag over my lap, but Milo waves it away, pointing to his mouth.

  “Gum.” He catches me staring at him. “What?”

  “Emilio?”

  “It’s a family name.” He grins and then reaches over both of us to poke Ella. “Hey there.”

  “Hi.” She gives him a fast smile but turns back to watch a cluster of fiery white blooms fading away.

  I shrug at Milo—she’s just being Ella—but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s still looking at her, thoughtful. Then he leans over my lap, planting an arm between Paul and me to support his weight, and reaches for Ella’s hand. She looks surprised but allows him to take it. He bats his eyes at her—super goofy—then kisses the back of her hand. “When I kiss you, I see fireworks.” He says it in a terrible accent that’s somewhere adjacent to British.

  Ella blinks at him. She pulls away. “Dumbass.” But she doesn’t look mad, and there’s a faint smile gracing her lips.

  Meanwhile, I’m having a hard time paying attention to anything about Ella, because I’m so aware of the warm weight of Milo’s torso stretched over me. Not to mention the smell of his hair or his laundry detergent or whatever it is that’s all fresh and soapy and is making me want to press my face against him.

  As Milo pulls back to a sitting position, Paul flutters a hand in his direction and Milo immediately grabs it. “When I kiss you—”

  But Paul yanks away. “Dude, I was kidding.”

  “Tease,” Milo tells him. He turns toward me, and I nearly lose my breath. Moonlight doesn’t generally make people less attractive, and Milo is no exception. His eyes are dark smudges against the glowing bronze of his skin. When he smiles, his teeth flash white. “Hand,” he demands, and I hold mine toward him without question. Milo pauses, then gently turns it over so my palm is facing up. He dips his head and presses his mouth against the inside of my wrist. His lips are warm and soft, but there’s a faint prickle around the edges, where he must have a touch of five-o’clock shadow. Above the parking lot, a triple crimson explosion lights up the sky. Milo lifts his head, and somehow I manage not to move my hand along with him, just to keep our skin still in contact. He looks into my eyes. “When I kiss you, I see fireworks.”

  This time he doesn’t use an accent. This time his voice is low and serious and makes my insides quiver.

  It’s too much.

  Especially with Ella sitting right there on the other side of Paul. Especially with Tuck and Gretchen mere yards away, making gross teenage love under their quilt. Especially with the way I make every wrong choice, every time.

  I yank away from Milo and fold my arms over my chest, tucking my hands beneath the edges of my hoodie. “Look, a blue one,” I say, focusing my gaze on the starburst display that is lighting up the town of Olympus.

  “Pretty,” Milo says, and after a second, I hear a rustling as he shifts his weight away from me. We don’t touch again, but it doesn’t matter. Poseidon’s entire ocean couldn’t cool the heat scorching through me.

  That Saturday, there’s a party (natch). Since it’s not at asshole Logan’s apartment, I agree to go with Ella, even though Gretchen is one of the hosts. While I’m onstage that night, helping create the waves of the Aegean Sea so that Paris and his army can sail across it, I hear Paul ask Milo in a whisper if he’s going to the party. Milo shakes his head, and I am filled with both disappointment and relief.

  When Ella and I arrive at Gretchen’s townhouse—I’ve heard her parents own it and let her live alone with roommates—she and Katrina and Finley are thrilled to see us. It’s not like we’re the first ones—at least a dozen people are already hanging around, drinking and snacking on pizza—but we’re greeted like we haven’t seen each other for a thousand years.

  “You’re here!” Gretchen squeals, throwing her arms around me as Katrina and Finley sandwich Ella in a similar embrace. “What do y
ou guys drink? Beer?” She steps back and looks me over from head to toe. “No, you’re classier than that. Wine girls? Come on, I’ll make something you’ll like.”

  I exchange glances with Ella as we follow Gretchen up the stairs from the landing and into the kitchen. I’m sure wine is the classy choice, but I’ve never had any that didn’t make my mouth pucker up. “Whatever,” I tell Gretchen, looking around for the obligatory cup in which to stuff some cash. “Where do we put donations?”

  “Stop it.” Gretchen waves off the question. “Our party, our treat.” She starts grabbing glasses and bottles from one of the marble counters. “Hand me that lime, will you?” A few minutes of stirring and pouring and slicing later, two goblets of sparkling amber liquid sit on the counter. I know ginger ale and vodka went into it, but I’m not sure what else. “You guys walked, right?”

  Since in fact we did walk here, and since Gretchen is so interested in making sure we’re going to have a good time, and especially since neither Milo nor Tuck is anywhere to be seen, I accept the drink. Ella does the same, and we clink the edges together gently. “God, she doesn’t even use plastic cups,” Ella whispers before taking a sip.

  I follow suit and…the drink is delicious. Like, stupid delicious.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  “Do you like it? My mom’s best friend made it up. Her name is Carol, so we call it ‘The Carol.’ ”

  Ella raises her goblet in response. “Inventive.”

  “I know, right?” Gretchen beams. Apparently sarcasm doesn’t have an effect on her. Kinda like how you can’t see vampires in mirrors.

  I take tiny sips of my drink because it would be way too easy to slam it back like a fool. Still, not long after the townhouse has filled with partygoers and the dance music is blasting and my head is fuzzy, I find Gretchen putting a second drink into my hand and then Ella’s. “You too, Ella-Bella.”

  The nickname must remind Ella of Gretchen’s boyfriend because she asks, “So where’s Tuck?” and Gretchen’s face freezes.