That Summer

by Michelle Flick

  “Jared,” he said extending his hand and giving what I knew to be his charming smile. She smiled back, but I didn’t get the feeling she was impressed. “This is Mark,” and then he wrapped his arm around me and patted my chest with his other hand, “This is my friend, Jack.”

  I reached out to take her hand. Her smooth skin was all I could think about. I wasn’t sure what she even said. My mind just focused on her hand in mine. I feel embarrassed because I think I hold it a little too long.

  “And your name?” Jared asked.

  “Remmington. I’m Matt Crawford’s granddaughter. It’s how I knew you guys were out here.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Crawford didn’t care when we partied out here as long as we cleaned it up. I didn’t know they had a granddaughter or one that looked like her.

  I heard Melissa’s voice ring through the crowd. “Nobody likes new comers.” This was an outright lie. Half of the people here were tourists or summer people. She did that because Remmington was by us.

  I looked at Remmington to see her reaction, if she heard. She tilted her head to the right, slightly, and arched an eyebrow in Melissa’s direction. She didn’t say anything, but continued to stare. Mark said something to get her attention. She gave a tight-lipped smile, and if it weren’t for the mischievous glint in her eye, I would have said she was being rude.

  I couldn’t tell her eye color by the firelight, but I could tell that they were constantly moving, noticing everything around her, briefly pausing on faces and moving on before they realized she took notice of them.

  “You keep staring I’m going to have to call you on it, ya know?” She looked at me.

  “It’s a price I’ll have to pay.”

  I was rewarded by a million dollar smile that reached her eyes and lit up her whole face. She was beautiful without the smile, but I found myself wanting her attention to stay on me. I didn’t know if I’ve ever thought a girl was beautiful before, but Remmington could be the first.

  “I heard her family doesn’t want her. I heard her grandparents didn’t really want her.”

  And the smile disappeared in an instant and her eyes narrowed. Melissa doesn’t back down either.

  “I’m gonna take my leave.” She gave Melissa a mock farewell salute and took two steps backwards, heading on down the beach, disappearing in the opposite direction she had come.

  “Just like your family. We don’t want you either.” Attracting everyone’s attention this time.

  She turned slowly. “Keep in mind, you’re all on my grandparents property. None of you belong here and none of you have permission to be drinking here. So you want to keep your spot for the summer, you might want to be nicer to me, and after tonight.” And then she announced to everyone, “If I see her here again, I’ll be talking to my grandpa about calling the cops. See if I don’t. You all have a good night.”

  I watched Remy’s back fade into the darkness and it doesn’t take me long to decide I wanted to follow her.

  I smiled at the memory. God, she was beautiful that night. I remember admiring her willingness to tell everyone off without flinching. I remember thinking her smile was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. But it was the teasing glint in her eyes that captured me, that sparked everything that happened after that night.

  I didn’t bother to hope the following summer, or the one after that. By then, Mr. and Mrs. Crawford were spending time at Remy’s parents. She had no need to come to South Shore. I waited three years for her and I moved on.

  Moved on is a funny word. Because I had. Eventually I had stopped waiting for her, and now I have a girlfriend of three years. And most nights, I don’t dream about her. But Jared tells me she’s back and pulling a shift at Joe’s, and it’s all I can do not to run to Joe’s to see if it’s true.

  That familiar hope sparks again and I want it to be true. So had I moved on? I wasn’t so certain.

  “Dude, did you hear me?”

  “What? Yeah. She’s back. She looks great. I heard ya,” I try and say as nonchalantly as I can.

  “So are you going down to Joe’s?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. I keep hammering.

  “No? You aren’t tempted just a little bit? You aren’t the least bit curious as to what she looks like now?”

  I know what she looks like. I see the nineteen-year-old version clearly in my mind. Deep green eyes, sun-bleached hair, freckles on her cheeks from the sun, and a smile. I don’t need to find out what she looks like. I know she hasn’t changed. Someone like her never does.

  “No.” I keep hammering.

  “You waited for that girl for three years, Jack.”

  “I did. And now I have Amber. I moved on.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Say what you want. I ain’t going to Joe’s.”

  “Maybe not tonight, but sometime you will and she’ll be working.”

  He doesn’t offer to help me finish the project I’m working late on for my dad’s company, Monroe Construction. He doesn’t stick around, either. I’m relieved. Remy being back in town didn’t only affect me, it affected Amber too. I thought of her blond hair, not as vibrant as Remy’s and I scold myself for comparing the two. We had been together for three years, almost four. She had been born in South Shore and understood the life. And while I wasn’t sure she got all of me, she was good to me. She was a good person and someone I was going to stay with.

  I can’t help but think of the last eight years, when I walked away from her on her grandmother’s porch, how I had waited for her to come back, how it hurt like hell to know I had to move on, to start working for my dad, to concede on starting to date, to meeting Amber, to moving in with her, to pushing Remmington Crawford out of my mind, as far as I could push her.

  It was so easy to sum up my life when I looked at it that way. So incredibly simple. And up until Jared’s arrival just a few minutes ago, I had been good with it. I was good with simplicity. Remy was the one who wasn’t. She complicated everything and here she was doing it again.

  I brought down my hammer again, making contact with the outer part of my thumb.

  “Son of a bitch!” I yell out. I grip my thumb. Even with a throbbing pain shooting up my arm and numbing my hand, it still can’t block out my mental turmoil. I was going to see her. I went to Joe’s on a pretty regular basis and with Amber. I could only avoid the place for so long before people knew why I was avoiding it, which would have them talking that there was a reason. That would hurt Amber. She knew about Remy and me, to a degree. But I had assured her that was my past and she is my future. I want to make her happy.

  But when I close my eyes, to try and block out the pain in a lame attempt. I see Remy instead.

  Chapter 3

  RC

  “You realize you have a bear in here, right?” Joe asks.

  I give him my best smile. “Her name’s Mia.”

  “So you want to explain why you have a bear in my bar?” He’s not buying it.

  “She’s not a bear, Joe. She’s an Italian mastiff,” I say, and add, “And she’s super friendly.”

  “Remy, I can’t have a dog in my bar.”

  “What if she stays in the office?” I’m not surprised by this edict. A dog in a bar had to be some sort of health code violation, but the office isn’t near the food and the office prevents her from kissing every patron Joe has that walks in this place.

  Joe’s not looking like he’s going to sway.

  “Why exactly do you want this,” he searches for the word to describe Mia, “dog in the bar?”

  I should tell him that my asshole of an ex could easily find me, take Mia, or be a royal pain in my ass, and that Mia was the only thing in this world that made me feel safe when Tom was around. I stay silent instead.

  I was lying there at the bottom of the steps. My entire body throbbed in single bursts of pain. Blood, my blood, was dripping down my eyes. I realized I must have a gash on my face somewhere.

  I heard barking and think of my puppy. I
focus on her little yelps and realize she’s at the top of the stairs.

  Where is Tom? I wondered.

  He left. I remembered. He threw me down the stairs and then left me here.

  I try to use my hands to push myself up, but my attempt is weak when my body sends out another throb of pain.

  “Remy, I just. I mean this dog is huge and in my bar.” He states the obvious, like they should have some bigger meaning than these two little facts.

  “Joe, I need her here.” He waits for me to elaborate. “She makes me feel safe.”

  “Girl, you know we have a security system. You know where the button is. If you don’t ever want to be in this bar by yourself, I can always have a bat back here for you, even on slow nights.”

  Mia leans her body weight into me, forcing me to take a step to the right, or fall down.

  “Joe,” I start again, not sure how to get this point across without telling him about Tom. I don’t want this story to be out in South Shore. I don’t need it to be. “I promise she won’t be in the way, won’t get into the kitchen, and I’ll only let her out when the bar is closed and the last person is out the door. Please, don’t keep her from me.”

  He scrutinizes me in that way, like he’s sifting through my words to find the hidden meaning behind them that I won’t share with him.

  “I’ll say yes, but know Remmington at any moment I can tell you that dog is not allowed and I don’t want to hear anything about it.”

  I say okay but don’t say that the moment she goes, I go. People who have never had their security taken away, simply don’t understand, or that it can come in the shape of a dog. We had been separated for two years and legally divorced for a little more than a year, but to this day, I wonder when he will come back in my life.

  I’m relieved and call for Mia to follow me to the office.

  “Remy,” Joe starts. “I have work to do in the office. I don’t need that dog in there.”

  “So? What do you want me to do with her?”

  He doesn’t know, but he just conceded I could keep her. I hope he doesn’t say take her home.

  “She stays behind the bar. She doesn’t move. You hear me or she goes straight home.”

  “Done,” I say and rub her ears. “Come on, Mia.”

  We head behind the bar and I start setting up for the day. It’s not easy in two feet of space with a one-thirty pound dog.

  “I heard this place has a great happy hour.”

  I look up to smile at Jared, who has been infrequently, but frequently enough visiting me, maybe three times in the last week and a half. I feel my smile falter slightly, when I see who is beside him.

  Jack’s sudden presence is a lot to take in. He’s older. Maybe he’s taller. He’s not as stocky as I remember; he’s more toned. His muscles fit snuggly in his shirt and I have to tell myself to pull it together.

  He’s hesitant when Jared walks up to sit at the bar. He pauses a moment, and I hope I have gained my composure by the time he takes a seat next to Jared. Of course, they would sit at the bar.

  I really want to throw up. This was not how I had thought I would have felt when first seeing him. I thought I would be overjoyed, big smile, rainbows and butterflies and that shit. This was not how I was feeling. I wanted to vomit everywhere.

  Jared smiles wide at me. I ignore him.

  “Hey ya, Sweetheart,” is all I can manage when he sits down at the bar with Jared. That might be the dumbest greeting I have ever given. I try to focus on both of them, but really it is too hard. I turn my attention to Jared. “What can I get you?”

  “I’ll have a beer,” he says with a mischievous smile.

  I grab a bottle without even asking what he prefers.

  “You?” I ask with a smile to Jack.

  Jack Monroe, I say in my mind.

  “The same,” he says easily. I know what he likes; I remember even eight years later. I wish he had asked for a mixed drink, one that asks for multiple steps like a Long Island or a Bloody Mary, something that would make me turn away from them, to right myself.

  I get him a beer.

  Jack goes to grab his wallet. “No, on me. Good to see you, Jack.”

  I move down the bar, thankful to be moving away from his proximity.

  I do catch Jared saying, “Well, if that wasn’t the most lackluster reunion I’ve ever seen. She was happier to see me.” I tune him out when he goes on about his looks and the effect he has on women.

  I want to yell at both of them. I want to tell Jack that I’ve been waiting for him to show up here, to run into him at the general store, to see him passing when I walk Mia. I had been here two weeks and every day I envisioned our reunion and no matter how I start the fantasy, it always ends the same, with him telling me how much he missed me.

  I grab a few drinks for a few customers who had just walked in.

  “Your pet?” Jared asks me.

  I look at him and realize he’s referring to the sleeping blockade.

  “Yeah. It’s my baby girl.”

  I take the moment to look at Jack as I have this small exchange with Jared. So just getting him a beer and walking away really let me down, but what to do? I’m a divorced, ex-girlfriend who doesn’t even know what the hell she is doing in this little town again.

  That’s a lie.

  I know why I’m here. I think Joe does too. I know for sure Jared knows; he’s far too perceptive. But Jack? I bet he would never suspect I came back here for him. That I want to feel like I did when I was nineteen and all I could see was him.

  Now all I can sense is him.

  JM

  “You’re really not going to even try and have a conversation with her?”

  “You already told me a lot,” I say nonchalantly and sip my beer.

  “Yeah, because she and I were so close that summer, that I’m the one she’s going to really talk to. I forgot that I was the one who rushed out of work every day to be with her, make out with her, bang her, missed her like crazy when she left you. Silly me.”

  “She went to college,” I say taking another sip. “She didn’t leave me. She had plans.”

  “Riiight,” he says and takes a drink.

  “I hate to tell you this, buddy, but we need to move.”

  I want to ask why. I want to talk to Remy and this was the easiest way for me to do it. Casual bartender-patron conversation, no strings.

  “Seriously, dude, Amber just walked in. We need to move because you may not be talking to her, but you are staring at her.”

  I feel myself physically and mentally snap to attention. Jared stands up and I follow his lead, trying not to let Amber know why I was really at Joe’s tonight – because I was guilty. She knew about Remy. She actually had been really patient for me as I got over everything. I wanted to see Remy and I didn’t want Amber to know.

  We turn toward a table and I see her at the door with three of her girlfriends. I thought they were going to the Compound tonight, not Joe’s. I wave at her. She waves back and plasters a smile on her face. I know why they are here now. She found out Remy is here and they are here to see what is going on. She isn’t a fool and neither am I. Neither one of us will admit why we are here though.

  She comes over and gives me a longer kiss, instead of a quick one, which is our norm. Her friends give us an approving look and then I know. Amber is proving that Remy’s appearance doesn’t affect her, us. It doesn’t, I tell myself.

  “No Compound tonight?” I ask.

  “We heard the band here was better,” Melissa says.

  Jared snorts. He’s figured it out, too.

  “Yeah, you don’t mind that we are here, do you?” Amber asks. She looks at me with her big, brown eyes, and in them I see her need for confirmation that Remy’s presence doesn’t affect us. She’ll tell her friends it doesn’t until she’s blue in the face, but she needs me to prove it to her.

  I do my best to ease her fear. I wrap my arm around her and kiss the side of her head, a sign of aff
ection, affection I don’t give in public. I feel her body relax in my embrace.

  This is where I should be.

  RC

  Not only was I aware of Jack in the bar, I was awkwardly aware of his girlfriend, staring at me. His arm around her had been the giveaway. How had I not thought about that? I mean, I had thought it was possible, but it was not a real possibility in the clear freaking delusion I had had about coming back here. I’m an idiot.

  I feel her watching me as I work. I want to look at her. Her arrival tonight is no coincidence. She is fully supported by her friends, too. One I was a little too familiar with. Melissa was that horrible girl from that summer who had despised my presence from the beginning. Of course, they would be friends. And of course, I’m sure Melissa had painted a great picture of me to this woman.

  I didn’t have to wonder if she knows who I am; it is clear she knows now by the way she watches me, by the way her friends are indifferent to me. I probably wouldn’t like me either.

  Jack hasn’t come back to the bar yet; Jared keeps coming up for the drinks. I think it is odd that Jack’s girlfriend and Jack aren’t sitting together. But I don’t know their relationship, and frankly, I don’t want to. It has been eight years. I had moved on; he had too. What a load of crap I tell myself.

  “Busy night,” Joe shouts with a smile over the bar.

  “I can still pack in a house,” I say with a wink. I pour him a bourbon and hand it over.

  “My bank account is happy to have you back, Girl.”

  One of Amber’s friends slams her glass at the end of the bar to get my attention. I ignore her and get someone else a drink. She slams the glass again.

  Everyone else has their drink.

  “I think someone is trying to get your attention,” Joe shouts again with a knowing smile. “And remember, you can’t throw drinks on anyone.” His smile widens at the memory.