Summer and July

by Paul Mosier

“It’s you, Betty. You make this the best ice cream shop ever.”

  The feeling is too much, Summer saying this wonderful thing about me, and the phone falls from my hand. I turn away from her, but she puts her hand on my shoulder and turns me back. She’s laughing. I move my sunglasses from my hair to my eyes.

  “Let me see!” she says. She reaches for the shades, takes them away. She searches my eyes, back and forth, like there’s something hidden behind them.

  I try to keep from smiling too much, but I’m smiling too much. And I try to keep from crying, because I don’t want her to know how happy I am. I try to keep from looking away, but I couldn’t turn from her now anyway, because I’m like a flower feasting on her radiance, even though that doesn’t sound like a very good poem, or at the very least it needs some work. But at least I’m not afraid of it for resembling a poem anymore.

  I want to say something back, but I can’t think of what. So I look from her eyes to her lips, because there’s a bit of whipped cream on the upper one.

  “Anyway,” she finally says, “maybe we could see a movie on the promenade tonight? Or we could drink tea and write postcards to each other?”

  But I feel paralyzed. Maybe worse, like the undertow is knocking me off my feet. Or I’ve gotten sucked into a rip current and I’m being pulled out to sea. To dangerous waters.

  She gives me a curious look. “Are you okay?”

  I can’t answer, but my face comes toward hers, in slow motion. I know my face is moving toward hers because her eyes are getting larger, and the bit of whipped cream is getting bigger, and whipped cream definitely doesn’t just grow under any circumstances I’m aware of. And I feel like I’m dreaming as the bit of whipped cream, which has begun melting against the backdrop of her upper lip, gets nearer my own mouth, until—noses bumping—I can taste it.

  The sound of a car alarm down the block wakes me from my trance. Then my face backs away from the lips where the whipped cream had been, and I see all of Summer. She has a look on her face I have not seen before.

  Surprise? Amusement?

  “What was that?”

  The dreamy feeling is gone. In its place is my hammering heart, a suffocating sense of dread.

  “I—because you had whipped cream on your lip?” It comes out like a question, like I’m presenting it as a theory.

  Summer laughs.

  Then I completely freak out. My cup of ice cream is knocked to the sidewalk as I bolt from the bench. I trip on some dog’s leash, I fall but get up and keep running. My knee burns from the sidewalk, my mind is in disarray as I run across Main Street on a red signal. Up the hill, hearing my feet slap the pavement, dragging my burning lungs, until I reach the sidewalk on Fourth Street and jump over Ignore Alien Orders and run inside our cottage and into my bedroom, and slam the window shut for I don’t know what reason, then lie with my face in my pillow and wonder what I’ve done.

  As my breathing slows, my eyes still pressed to the pillow, it occurs to me—she did not follow, she did not call after me, she did not run after me. She just let me go.

  It’s a relief.

  It’s heartbreaking.

  I don’t know what it is.

  26

  THE NEXT MORNING, I wake way too early. I don’t want to face the day, because I’m equally afraid of two possibilities. In the first scenario, I see Summer and she asks what the heck I meant by what I did. In the second, Summer avoids me and I’m left remorseful and wondering what the heck I meant by what I did.

  I sit in the living room, the light and the breeze filtering through the white blinds. I put the Beach Boys on to try to cheer myself, but instead it makes me sad.

  I sit and replay in my head what happened, to see if I can figure out what went wrong.

  It wasn’t the whipped cream. Whipped cream is never an ingredient of the apocalypse. Whipped cream is delicious, and even if it’s a little weird to take it from someone else’s lips with your own, there are stranger and worse things than that.

  It’s all because of my feet. My stupid feet carrying me away. My feet are supposed to do that when confronted with a giant tsunami, or a shark if a shark happens to appear on dry sand. My feet are supposed to act that way if I’m being chased by zombies, even though everyone acquainted with the genre knows zombies are never in much of a hurry.

  Summer might have believed me when I told her it wasn’t a kiss, but rather just a whipped-cream thing. But then my feet gave me away.

  My feet didn’t even give me a chance to think, or to tell Summer she’s the best friend ever, the best everything ever. But maybe there’s more to it than that. Like a secret I’ve been keeping even from myself.

  Sitting in the empty cottage, thinking these things a day too late, I hear a skateboard coming down the sidewalk, and my heart leaps. Da-duh, da-duh, da-duh. But it keeps on going. Da-duh, da-duh, da-duh. I run to the door, and out past the tall hedge to the sidewalk. Looking down Fourth Street, I see it’s just a guy on a skateboard with a sponge strapped to his back, making the turn to go down Ocean Park Boulevard.

  Coming back to the cottage, I see a postcard stuck in the screen door, and I run to it. I don’t know how I could have missed it when I came outside. I pull it from the screen—but it’s just a coupon for Gino’s Pizza. Dejected, I go inside and stare at cartoons on the TV while the Beach Boys play in the background.

  At five minutes to ten I walk outside to ignore alien orders. I feel like an idiot standing at this spot, because I feel sure she won’t be joining me. So I bend down to tie my shoes so I’ll look like I have a reason to be here. I unlace one, tie it, and begin doing the same with the other. As I do, I hear the sound of a man talking loudly. It’s a guy coming down the sidewalk, arguing with himself, shouting and waving his arms. I stand, then move quickly to the cottage, my one untied shoelace flapping beneath me. I duck behind the hedge, and watch and listen as he approaches.

  “The raccoons took my figs!” he shouts. “Shady-eyed devils!”

  Hiding behind the hedge, I see his suit coat and pants as he passes. He’s even wearing black shoes. But his suit is dusty and wrinkled, his face is sunburned, and his hair is greasy. He looks exactly the way people will look on day five after the apocalypse. The civilized world ends and they walk out of their offices, wearing the business attire they’ve put on for the last time, and hit the sidewalks. There are no pizzas to order, no running water. The toilets back up, the garbage gathers. They wander the sidewalks in their obsolete attire, getting dirtier and more sunburned until hunger or thirst or zombies—or raccoons—finish them off.

  It’s a one-man apocalypse for this guy, who looks like he just lost his mind. The rest of the world hasn’t ended yet, but it’s ended for this guy. All the hobos, all the homeless people, start this way. Someone waits for them to come home and they don’t. In a week they’re beyond recognition. From then on they sit at the bus stop, but when the bus comes they tell it to just keep going. From then on they’re fighting raccoons for their breakfast.

  I walk back out to the sidewalk and go the opposite direction from the guy in the apocalypse suit.

  This is day one of my apocalypse. This is how the end begins for me.

  At five after ten I walk past the place in the sidewalk, ignoring alien orders as I do, and glance at Summer’s house at the back of its lot as I go by. I don’t want to knock on her door because I’m afraid I’ll be unwelcome. If she wanted to see me, she’d be ignoring alien orders. I take a right on Hill Street, walk downhill for twenty steps, then turn around and come back like I’ve forgotten something. I casually glance at her house like it’s something I haven’t noticed before, like I’m not even aware of who lives there, and I ignore alien orders again, almost without thinking. Summer still isn’t there.

  I take a left at Ocean Park Boulevard and head down the hill. I slap the Third Street sign as I pass, angry at it for ever messing with me, angry at Mistress Scarfia for putting it in my head. Then I go into the library, walk through it,
smile at Joe the librarian, walk out. Down to Main Street, where I walk up and down, peeking in the doors of the boutiques, the bookstore. I catch sight of my reflection in the toy-store window, slowly raise my hand to my face. I’m decked out in full Goth regalia, from the dark curtains of my eyelashes to my black high-tops with skulls and crossbones. I have no recollection of applying the pale foundation, the ivory powder, the black eyeliner, the black eye shadow. I must have done it in a dream, or a nightmare. I must have done it to win Summer back, to win her like I did on day one. Or I did it because there is no hope of winning her back.

  I double back down the sidewalk and enter Pinkie Promise. Otis isn’t working. The owner, an old guy behind the counter, smiles. I tell him raccoons took my money. Then I leave.

  I go back up the hill and stop in the little market on Fourth Street where Summer and I sometimes go for waters or snacks. There are only two aisles, so it doesn’t take long to see she isn’t there. But the Big Kahuna is, standing in line at the register. His long hair is messy, he’s barefoot, his eyes are hidden behind shades. He nods at me with just the ghost of a smile. I smile back, but I don’t think it’s convincing. As I squeeze past, I note that he is buying rye bread and bananas and toilet paper, and one avocado.

  This isn’t how it’s supposed to end. But I guess this is the end I’ve been preparing for, the end where something stupid and entirely unnecessary ruins everything that was good and wonderful. Not a tsunami or a meteor or zombies digging themselves out of their graves. Instead, my own stupid feet carrying me away when I wanted to stay.

  In the afternoon I’m sitting in front of the cottage in the patio area when my phone lights up. It’s Dad, FaceTiming me. I’m too mad to talk to him, but I pick it up anyway.

  “Hello, Juillet!” He’s wearing a robe.

  “What’s on your face?”

  He puts his fingertip to his green cheek. “Oh, it’s a beauty mask. I’m getting ready for bed.”

  I smirk. “I’m glad you called, ’cause I wanted to tell you I’ve given up piano.”

  His smile disappears. “You have?”

  “Yeah. I’m gonna be a surfer instead.”

  “You learned to surf?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been crushing it out here in Dogtown. But don’t be disappointed I’m giving up piano. I mean, you’re in Switzerland with your child bride, so it’s not like you’d ever see me perform anyway.”

  His face hangs. The beauty mask cracks. “Juillet, I—”

  “I’m giving up piano because it reminds me of you. I’m so mad at you for what you did to me and Mom. You ruined our lives.”

  “I’m sorry, Juillet. I don’t know what happened, I—”

  “I wasn’t done needing you! You can’t just decide one day to stop being my dad!”

  I shout, “I hate you,” but I shout it after disconnecting. Because I don’t really hate him. I’m just so, so mad at him.

  After my shout I’m left with the quiet of birds chirping, and the breeze moving through the hedge. I glance at my phone, but Dad isn’t calling back.

  I walk inside and through the cottage to my bedroom, and I take the list from the drawer. I write DAD? with the little pencil. Then I cross it out with a thick line dragged across the middle.

  Mission accomplished. I told him how I feel, which is about all I can do. It’s not what I would wish for. It’s not him never doing what he did, or somehow everything being forgotten and going back to the way it was. But it’s all I can do.

  Mom gets home earlier than any day since we’ve been here, before it’s even dark. She immediately recognizes that I’m depressed—mainly because of the Goth makeup—but she guesses it’s because we’re leaving. Which is part of it, but mainly it’s because we’re leaving and everything is ending badly.

  Mom brought stir-fry from Main Street for dinner, and we eat it at the big table. It’s the last supper, the end of summer, and Summer isn’t here.

  I’m going to miss this table. I’m going to miss this town. I’m going to miss ignoring alien orders, and the girl who taught me how.

  The stir-fry looks like it hits all the right notes, but I cannot taste it.

  Finally I set my fork down. I look across the big table, across the vast stretch of wood, at my mother. “How old were you when you had your first kiss?”

  Mom looks up and wipes her mouth, her lips, with her napkin.

  “My first kiss?” She does the thing with her eyes that people do when they’re pretending that the answer is written on the ceiling. “In high school. Older than you.” She reaches for her wineglass. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious.” I pick up my fork.

  She takes a sip of her wine. “Did you meet a boy who makes you think of that?”

  I smile just a little, but keep my eyes on my plate. “No.”

  “Well, you will one day.”

  I spear a snow pea. “I met a girl.”

  She looks up, swallows her bite. “Oh?”

  “And we already did.”

  “Well.” She takes another sip of wine. A little spills on her chin.

  “Aren’t you gonna say anything?”

  She sits back, away from the table. “It’s a bit surprising.”

  “That it was a girl?”

  She doesn’t answer right away. I can tell she’s choosing her words carefully.

  “I suppose if I’d thought of you kissing someone, I would have imagined it being a boy. But that’s totally fine. I think mainly it’s just surprising that my baby girl has had her first kiss.”

  “It was Summer.”

  She smiles now, a small smile that looks like it wants to be a bigger smile. She takes another sip of wine, then clears her throat. “Well, Summer is a lovely, charming girl. I can’t imagine a better coconspirator for your first kiss.”

  I can’t believe I’ve told her this. I wasn’t even absolutely sure it was a kiss until I told her. It’s like I needed to tell Mom I kissed Summer to be sure that’s what I actually did. But I’m not gonna tell her that Summer wasn’t a coconspirator, that she didn’t kiss me back, that I ran away, that everything is ruined. And Mom can’t seem to guess that my being miserable is connected to what I’ve told her.

  “But,” she adds, with a hint of an authoritative tone, “maybe that’s enough for one summer.”

  It’s not enough for one summer, for this summer, but it’s all I’m gonna get of Summer.

  After dinner, after cleaning the dishes we used for July and putting them in the cupboard, we walk down the hill. Mom turns to look at me with curiosity as we pass through Third Street. She gets an espresso on Main Street, and then we drop in for one last scoop at Pinkie Promise. Otis grins behind the counter as we enter.

  “Good evening, ladies! Is this our good-bye?”

  I can’t seem to open my mouth, so Mom does. “Yes, we’re flying out tomorrow.”

  Otis looks to me hopefully. “Will we see you again next summer?”

  Everyone’s staring at me. Like it’s up to me to determine whether we’ll come back next year, and whether Summer will ever go out on the ocean with me if we do. Instead I have a question of my own. “Have you seen Summer?”

  Otis regards me for a second. “Have I seen Summer?” He smiles, then begins scooping my usual. “Well, I haven’t seen Summer today. But over the past month, right about since the day you arrived—decked out very much like you are again tonight—I’ve seen Summer looking more like the happy, carefree girl I remember knowing before Hank’s accident.” He leans across the counter, offering me a cup of pistachio, staring at my eyes accusingly. “That Summer was missing for so long. And it’s so good to have her back.”

  I smile back, but I’m sure I look like I’m gonna cry.

  “And that’s good news for the surfers of Ocean Park,” Otis continues. “Because Summer may not know it yet, but she’s the one. She’s got the special sauce.” He closes the case, comes around the front to wipe the counter with a rag. “Summer is the shaman
of tomorrow. The priestess of the waves.” He gets down on a knee, like he’s kneeling to royalty. His head bows, messy blond hair hanging down, hiding his face. “The Big Kahuna.”

  “Wow.” The whisper escapes my lips.

  Hearing Summer described this way—being reminded why I’ve felt so enchanted during the month of July—does not help keep my eyes dry while I’m hugging Otis good-bye. He hugs Mom, too. He makes me promise to keep practicing yoga, and to return next summer.

  At least I can keep one of those promises.

  When we get back to the cottage, I lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling in the room that soon won’t be mine. I hear Mom packing in hers, and the thought of doing that myself is more than I can bear. This place that I never wanted to know, the suitcase I never wanted to unpack.

  I drag myself off the bed and go to Mom’s room. Her big suitcase is open, half filled with clothes. She turns from folding and looks to me.

  “I tried so hard to learn to surf,” I say. “But I never caught a wave.”

  She gives a sympathetic smile. “Maybe one day you will.”

  “Summer got bitten by a shark, right here.” I turn to show her. “I’ve seen the scar. But she loves surfing so much she wanted to go right back out in the water.”

  “Really?”

  “That was up by San Francisco. There’s an old surfer guy called the Big Kahuna who keeps the sharks out of the Santa Monica Bay. He punches them in the nose.”

  She smiles bemusedly. “You don’t say?”

  “Yeah. He lives like three hundred feet from here. And you heard what Otis said. He says someday Summer will be the next Big Kahuna.”

  Mom stands with her barely used swimsuit in her hands. I stand with my arms at my sides.

  “I love this place.” Only after saying it do I feel it fully. “I don’t want to leave.”

  Mom drops her swimsuit into her suitcase. “If you like it so much, maybe we can come back for a holiday next year. And you can be pen pals with Summer.”

  I smile grimly, because it won’t be the same. It probably won’t be for a whole month, and the girl I hung out with doesn’t want to see me.