The Summer of Impossibilities

by Rachael Allen

  Skyler crawls into the loft with me (YESSS!!!), and I pass her the paper. It reminds me of those treasure maps Zakir and I used to make when we were little. We’d dye them with tea and rub dirt all over them, then get my mom to burn the edges. When we were done, we were positive they looked like 100 percent authentic pirate artifacts. Except this piece of paper looks actually old—it’s fragile, and the pink and blue lines of the notebook paper are faded, and it’s also kind of yellowed.

  The Southern Belle Drinking Club

  Rules:

  1. You must meet once a week to play poker and smoke cigars.

  2. You must drink Southern Comfort and Diet Coke.

  3. You must wear pearls.

  4. You must be 100%, no-holding-back, salt-in-the-wound honest.

  5. You must accomplish something impossible before the end of the summer.

  “This looks real,” she says.

  “Of course it’s real!” I say. I can’t believe I found it the very first night! It feels like a sign.

  “What’s real?” Scarlett calls from below.

  “If you came up into the loft, you’d know!” I say.

  “There’s not any room.”

  “We can totally fix that.” I push some boxes around so there’s room for all of us, if we don’t mind cramming and if we’re cool with getting covered in dust. Scarlett does not seem cool with it, particularly the part that involves getting a mean gray streak on her shorts. Amelia Grace climbs up after her. Their knees bump when they both try to sit cross-legged and Amelia Grace jumps like a cat.

  “So that’s it?” Scarlett asks. “It’s just that piece of paper?”

  She is not impressed, but I just make this big show of being mortally offended, like I’m in on the joke. “No. No, that is definitely not it. Look inside that little closet thing. It looks like the remains of a secret society.” I clasp my hands together. “I hope there were blood oaths.”

  Scarlett gives me a look like “You are so weird,” but even she is smiling a little. “Do you really think someone ran a secret society out of this carriage house? How would that even be possible?”

  I shrug nervously.

  “It must have been some girls who were staying here,” Skyler says. “We have a lot of people who come back every summer. And people who stay for weeks at a time.”

  “I’m sure that was it,” I say. I’m certain Scarlett won’t be up for it if she knows it’s our moms. Even now, she wrinkles her nose at the paper.

  “So, the point was . . . what? Drinking a lot while smoking cigars and being obnoxiously Southern?”

  I pop up on my knees. “No, it was so much more than that! The drinking and poker were just the details, but having a place where you can be honest, where you can try to do big things in the world and have other women supporting you? They were each other’s lifelines.” Scarlett raises her eyebrows. “I mean, that’s how I imagine it at least.”

  Skyler stand up and peers into the closet.

  “Sky?” says her sister.

  “I just wanna see. Ohhh.”

  I know how she feels. Eerie, that’s the best word to describe it. But there’s also something majestic about it. Something that speaks of secrets and history and magic, old magic.

  Amelia Grace and Scarlett cram in behind her so they can see too.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I ask.

  “That Pennywise and the little girl from The Ring probably have secret tea parties in this closet?” says Scarlett with a smirk.

  “Ugh. No. I was thinking that we should totally re-create this drinking club thing this summer.”

  Amelia Grace shakes her head. “Do you know how much trouble I would be in if my mom caught me doing some of the stuff on this list? More than I can fathom. And I can fathom quite a lot. I’m already on, like, razor-thin ice.”

  “I don’t think we have any cigars,” Skyler says.

  “Plus, smoking is super bad for you,” says Scarlett.

  “Smoking would totally jack with my ability to play tennis,” I concede. “Cool. So, we’re all in agreement on the smoking. Um, but the poker once a week, that could be cool.”

  I feel like I’m losing my grip on this thing. Like there’s no way the other girls are going to do it with me.

  “You know what?” Skyler says, looking at the rules again. “We definitely have some playing cards downstairs.”

  I smile. “Yeah?”

  “Sky, we’re not even—” begins Scarlett.

  “Be right back. I think I know where they are.”

  She gets the cards quickly, which is good, because it was starting to get awkward up here.

  “Awesome!” I say, just as she says, “I think I have pearls. Do you guys have pearls?”

  Amelia Grace: No.

  Scarlett: No.

  Me: Yes.

  “Scar, yes you do. Aunt Amy gave us matching earrings and pendants for our bat mitzvah.”

  “Oh. Well, I don’t have them here.”

  “I do!” I say. “Probably even enough for all of us.” I hurry down the ladder, trying not to flinch when Scarlett mutters, “Of course she does.”

  I return with the pearls—earrings for me, bracelets for Scarlett and Amelia Grace, and a necklace for Skyler. Scarlett wrinkles her nose, but she puts on the bracelet. I take it as a sign to plow ahead.

  “So, we’ll do the poker part but not the cigars part.”

  “What about the Southern Comfort part?” Scarlett asks.

  “Huh?” I ask.

  “Rule number two,” she says.

  I frown. “What even is that? I mean, like, besides alcohol?”

  “Whiskey?” Skyler says.

  “Bourbon?” says Amelia Grace.

  “Definitely something brown,” says Skyler.

  “I’m not going back over to that house and stealing anything else,” says Scarlett.

  “Um, well, we’ll just do wine for tonight. That’s just details. I think the important thing is the meeting together and the honesty. And this part here. Would you guys want to do it?”

  Skyler reads number five aloud. “You must accomplish something impossible before the end of the summer.” It gives me shivers just hearing it.

  Everyone goes quiet. But it’s not real silence. You can almost hear the thoughts pinging around in people’s heads. It makes me want to cup my hands over my ears like earmuffs. Keep all the secrets safely in place.

  I laugh nervously. “Heh-heh. No pressure, right?”

  “I’ll do it,” Skyler says.

  We all turn to stare at her.

  “Me too,” says Amelia Grace. “It could be cool.” The words flow out of her mouth so calmly, but there’s this look on her face, like now there’s more light in the world.

  Yes! This is totally happening! Mostly. There’s an awkward silence while we all wait to hear what Scarlett will say.

  She shrugs. Grudgingly.

  “Awesome!” I pop up so I’m sitting on my knees. “Now we just have to figure out the impossible.”

  Amelia Grace

  I’ve already thought of mine.

  I want to get reinstated as a junior youth minister by the end of the summer.

  But more than that. I want it to be on my own terms. I want it to be okay that I’m queer. I want my mom to go to bat for me. And maybe possibly even see what it would be like to have a girlfriend. No eithers and ors. Just me.

  And Scarlett. I wish it could be Scarlett. I can’t look anywhere near her right now. My cheeks feel so very hot.

  “Look at you, you totally have yours already.” Ellie pushes my shoulder. “And it is GOOD.”

  “What? No. I don’t know. Skip me for now.”

  If I could shrink to the size of a dust bunny and not have everyone staring at me right now, that would be excellent. It’s not that I don’t want to make a pact about impossible things—I can’t tell you how badly I want to do this. But telling them means coming out to Skyler and Ellie tonight. I don’t
know if I’m ready for that.

  Scarlett sits straight up beside me, breaking me from my thoughts. “I’ll go.”

  We all turn to stare at her.

  “You will?” asks Ellie.

  She laughs. “Sure.” She makes a big show of clearing her throat. Lowering her voice like she’s about to divulge state secrets. “This summer, I solemnly swear that I will”—she leans forward, and so do we—“get a tan.”

  “Oh, come on!” squeals Skyler.

  “Pretty sure that doesn’t count,” I say.

  “Why not?” Her eyes twinkle. I swear she can make them do that.

  “Getting a tan is not impossible,” says Ellie, who is apparently the commission on all things possible and not.

  Scarlett holds out a freckled arm. “Have you seen me? I have to wear SPF hundred or I go from ghost to tomato.”

  “Okay, cool. Mine is to eat the El Gigante meal at Los Lobos,” says Skyler.

  “Also doesn’t count,” says Ellie.

  “But it’s seven tacos!”

  “And I’m going to pet a giraffe,” I say.

  “You guys!” Ellie looks exactly like a frustrated kindergarten teacher. “We’re supposed to be sharing our secrets and stuff!”

  Scarlett makes that noise that sounds like half a cough and means Hell no. “Hi, we literally just met.”

  I give her the side-eye. “Um . . .?”

  “You know what I mean.” She makes a move like she’s going to get up. “I’m just feeling kind of weird about this. Some stuff is too personal. I’m sorry.”

  “Wait!” says Ellie. “What if we write them on paper? That way no one else can see?”

  Scarlett turns, but her frown doesn’t go away. “Right. Until someone sneaks up here and reads them all.”

  Skyler pokes her. “Someone’s paranoid.”

  But Ellie just grins. “I know what to do about that too.”

  She dances over to the recently discovered storage closet and after some rooting around and a sneeze that sounds like a kitten’s, she emerges with several candles and an old wooden crate. She flips the crate to form a makeshift table and arranges the candles. “Now I just need something to light them with.”

  She crawls down the ladder, and when she comes back, she has one of those long lighters and a large ceramic bowl with squirrels painted around the sides.

  “What’s the bowl for?” asks Scarlett.

  “So we don’t burn our fingers.” Ellie sets the bowl on the crate. Inside the bowl is a sheet of paper ripped from a notebook and four pens.

  She lights the candles and tears the paper into four pieces and passes them around. We all kind of look at each other, waiting for someone else to start writing first.

  “Do you think they really accomplished the impossible?” I ask. It feels significant, knowing someone else was able to do this first.

  “I really do,” says Ellie, giving me a soft smile. “Um, I’ll start.” She scribbles something down on her paper with her hand covering it and her back all hunched. Guess I’m not the only one with a secret. Then she folds it into quarters with tight creases. Her hand moves toward the flame.

  “Wait!” says Skyler.

  Ellie freezes. Scarlett and I raise our eyebrows in unison.

  “I just want to do something,” says Skyler.

  She reaches for the curtain and carefully pulls it closed across the loft so that the candles are our only light. I’m relieved, because the loft is completely visible from downstairs with the curtain open, and I don’t want Mom to come in here and catch me drinking. Then Skyler crawls over to the little window and, after struggling with the latch for a second, pushes the two halves of it out and open. A breeze much cooler than you’d expect for late May rolls in off the lake. I shiver. So does Scarlett. The candles flicker, but they don’t go out.

  “Sky, if Grandma comes to haunt us in the middle of the night, it is one hundred percent your fault.”

  We all start giggling, partly nervous, partly giddy, partly legitimately creeped out by the idea of impending dead grandmas.

  Then the loft goes silent.

  Solemn like a cemetery. Bright like a beginning.

  Ellie’s face glows in the candlelight as she leans forward. She touches her paper to the flame.

  It snaps up the paper faster than I expect, and she says, “Oh,” dropping it in the bowl where the edges turn black and curl in on themselves.

  She scoots back, proud and maybe a little relieved.

  Skyler goes next, writing slowly with her lip clenched between her teeth. She lights her paper without folding it and waits for the fire to creep from one side to the other before dropping it in the bowl with a huge grin.

  And then Scarlett.

  She smirks at her blank piece of paper.

  Skyler pokes her. “No cheating!”

  “I’m not cheating!”

  And the care with which she hides her writing lets me know she’s telling the truth. Her eyes dart from side to side, daring anyone to peek. Then she adds her tiny truth torch to the pile of ashes. And everyone looks at me.

  “Right,” I say.

  I write down the words: I want to get reinstated as a junior youth minister by the end of the summer.

  I’ve already thought them. I knew this was what I was going to write. But something about putting the words down on paper makes them feel final. More real. Like now there’s intent behind them. I’ve crossed the boundary from wishing to doing.

  I realize I’m taking forever, and the girls are waiting, so I fold over the paper real quick and shove it into the flames. I want to get reinstated as a junior youth minister by the end of the summer, I think as the paper catches fire. And I want to do it without losing any of my pieces. My eyes meet Scarlett’s and my breath catches, and I accidentally hold on for a second too long.

  “Ow, shit.” I drop the paper into the bowl.

  I feel . . . different. Braver. I look from Ellie to Skyler to Scarlett.

  “I think I want to tell you guys what I wrote.”

  Oh, wow, I really just said that.

  Okay, so I guess I’m doing this. I kind of can’t believe it, but you know what? Yeah. It feels right.

  “I want to get reinstated as a youth minister by the end of the summer.” I do not look at Scarlett. “And, uh, I want it to be okay that I like girls. I know that’s stupid because it’s not like that’s one hundred percent under my control to have other people accept me or whatever, but I just, I don’t know, I’ve always wanted to be a youth minister.”

  I wait for their reactions, stomach churning.

  “That’s awesome,” says Ellie. “It’s not a stupid goal at all.”

  Skyler agrees, but Scarlett still looks stunned.

  “That is really wonderful.” She says it like the words feel funny in her mouth. “I didn’t know. I mean—”

  “That I was out yet? I wasn’t two days ago.”

  “Ohhh.” She smiles like it finally makes sense. Touches my shoulder in a way that lets me know she’d be hugging me if we weren’t in a cramped attic.

  Ellie looks back and forth between us, biting her lip. “So, how come—?” she begins, but Scarlett interrupts her. “What’s yours?”

  Ellie blinks at her. “Huh?”

  “What did you write on your paper?”

  Ellie’s eyes go big and scared. “Um.”

  “I’ll go next!” Skyler jumps in.

  Ellie seems desperately relieved.

  “I’m—” Skyler’s voice seizes up, and she has to start again. “I’m going to play softball again.”

  Scarlett frowns. “I thought you were quitting so you could be with Mama this summer.”

  “It may also have had something to do with my medical stuff.”

  Scarlett may need to surgically reattach her jaw. “Holy shit, that’s really why you did it.”

  “What happened?” asks Ellie. “Like, to keep you from playing? If you don’t mind me asking.”

 
“Oh. I—Well, I had some issues with injury this past season, and I had to quit the team partway through.” Skyler doesn’t take her eyes off the floor. “I know it’ll be hard, rehabbing and getting back into it, but I really want to try.”

  “I can totally help you!” squeals Ellie. “I’ve had two elbow surgeries and a sprained knee from tennis, and I’ve been to like eighty billion hours of physical therapy. Do you—”

  “What was yours again?” Scarlett cuts her off.

  Ellie’s eyes dart around like she’s looking for an exit. “I don’t know . . .”

  “C’mon,” says Scarlett. “You swore to tell us the truth. This was your big idea to begin with, and everyone else is womaning up and sharing.”

  Ellie opens her mouth. And closes it. Opens. Closes. Opens. Closes. Oops, I think we broke her.

  “The truth is,” she finally says, “mine is kind of stupid. I’m embarrassed to tell you guys after you’ve all said such big important things. I need to think of something better. Maybe next time? We could still play poker though.”

  “Huh.” Scarlett shrugs her shoulders in a way that is effortlessly cool. “Well, I’m pretty beat,” she says. “I think I’m gonna go to bed. But you guys knock yourselves out.”

  Ellie’s face falls and the smile she covers it with makes me feel even sadder for her. “Well, sure. Maybe another night.”

  Scarlett crawls back down the ladder. I don’t realize until she gets to the bedroom that she didn’t share hers either.

  Scarlett

  My sister is the first person I think of when I wake up in the morning. It hasn’t always been this way. I mean, it probably was when we were little, and we had this thing where whoever woke up first would go pounce on the other person’s head. But now there’s a different reason.