I slide on to the couch and immediately feel uncomfortable. The couch was here the summer I was here, and probably had been here for a decade prior to my arrival. My grandparents weren’t loungers, so the sides were wood, or fake wood, whatever. They aren’t comfy.
“I could go furniture shopping,” I muse out loud.
I grab my keys and go in search of furniture and if there are no places to shop I would seek out the internet for it. I head for the jeep and drive into the town and find a place called Yokom’s Furniture. Clearly, this is where I’m to go. I roam the inventory and settle on a grey couch to cover up Mia’s hair, a dark coffee table to match the trim in the house, and grey-ish blue comfy chair. The chair is big and poofy and I imagine this is going to be my spot.
It’s when I’m checking out that the little bell on the door rings. The guy, Wayne is running my card, when we both look to see who it is. Small towns are nosey. I fit in. It’s Joe. I smile brightly at him, happy to see a friend.
“Just ran into the Carter kid.”
Crap. That’s what he is about to give me.
“Yeah,” I respond and go back to waiting on the guy to finish checking me out.
“Going on a date with him?”
“Yeah,” I say and listen to the guy tell me about when my stuff will be dropped off and the cleaning program I’ve purchased. Joe waits the entire time.
I check my phone for the time. I’ve killed an hour. I can’t even rush past Joe and say I need to get ready. And considering I’m seriously lacking friends, brushing him off isn’t really an option.
“You used to make fun of that guy. You called him a tool.”
“No,” I start.
“Yes, you did, Girl.”
“No, we called him a douche.”
“We being Jack.”
Wayne is avidly listening to our conversation, I realize, so I start to head out the door. Joe follows at his own pace and meets me on the street.
“I know what my opinion of him was. You think I’m being a hypocrite. I think I’m giving him a chance to prove to me he has changed.”
“He hasn’t.”
I roll my eyes. “Not my dad, Joe,”
“Someone needs to be.”
I smile, despite his serious tone. He means it. He had tried to be a father or an uncle, or some family member to me. There had been a lot of people who had tried to pick up the broken pieces.
“I come with a lot of trouble, Joe. You never had kids. I could give you a heart attack.”
He laughs.
“I’m hungry. Let’s go eat,” he says and starts to head up the sidewalk to a diner up the road.
At least he would kill the next hour for me.
***
I am trying to look a certain part of not too interested, but interested enough, and carefree. I am back in high school. Steve will be here soon to pick me up. He had just text me.
I turn in front of the mirror one more time, appraising my hair and making sure my outfit isn’t too much for a date out in South Shore. If I had picked out one of my dresses that I would have worn in New York, well I would have gotten some funny looks from people and definitely the look of “she’s trying too hard.”
I hear him pull up and start Plan Unpredictable: Step Two. Make him wait. I sit down on my bed and file my nails. Maybe bratty, but I have five minutes to kill.
I open the door and he’s not flustered by the wait. I really should have made him wait longer or sent Mia out to scare the crap out of him.
“You look great,” he says.
I respond with a “thank you” and don’t return the compliment. I should. He looks very handsome, but his head is big enough as it is.
“I thought we could grab dinner and then a movie on the beach theater.”
My stomach flips as I think about the first time I had gone to the ocean theater. It was with Jack, no surprise.
This is what I think about as we drive in to town. Steve asks dutifully what I’m thinking about again and I respond the same. This time it would be just really inappropriate of me to say my ex-boyfriend and how much I miss that summer. I can have tact when I need to.
Dinner is great.
We both are talkers, so we talk the entire time. I find I actually laugh, like deep belly laugh, and before we get to the movie, I realize I’m really having a great time. I don’t mind that Steve takes my hand as we sit in the beach chairs as the movie rolls. His hand absently, or maybe not so absently, rubs against the outside part of my hand.
I watch the movie and think how normal this is and I’m happy about it. It’s really surprising to me. I may even want to kiss him at the end of this date. I was sure he would make the move.
I go through an inner dialogue about this.
Yes.
No.
Kinda interested.
Interested.
Slutty.
Not from the fifties.
I’m going to kiss him.
The movie ends and he wants to go for a walk down the boardwalk.
I have to say, I thought he might put more effort into the romancing part, but I might give him more credit. We walk for maybe twenty feet, enough to be alone on a Wednesday night on the boardwalk at midnight, and he stops and pulls at my hand, turning me to face him. His hand comes easily to my face, like he’s practiced it and leans in for the kiss.
Kissing someone you aren’t super attracted to, is awkward. Like super awkward, especially when the dude seems to be really into it. But from what I know of his history, I’m betting he more enjoys women, not special attraction.
His hand is on my face; the other is on my waist applying pressure. And while my body isn’t screaming for him to take me. I like the kiss. But I feel bad because I’m not enthralled with him. I’m just curious.
He ends the kiss and I give him a smile. He looks pretty pleased.
“You just can’t keep your hands off the men from South Shore,” I hear from behind us.
I turn and say, “Excuse me?” before I know who it is. It’s Melissa, Amber’s friend. Go figure.
“You heard me.”
Oh, good grief.
“I didn’t realize the men from South Shore were all spoken for.”
She’s taken aback my reaction. It must be because I didn’t say anything to her at the bar the other night. Little did she know, I wanted to dowse her down with a mix drink, but refrained on the account of Amber. The situation was bad enough. But right now. I didn’t need to be polite.
“They are.”
Lame comeback. But this is annoying to me. I’m on a date. I’m trying to put my life back together and this brat wants to make it sound like I’m stealing boyfriends and dating everyone in South Shore.
“Would you prefer I go after Jack Monroe?” flies out of my mouth in anger. I’m sure I’ll pay for it later.
Her eyes widen. She’s surprised. Good.
“Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to continue kissing my date.” I turn, dismissing her before she can think of anything to say. “Come on,” I say with a smile and I see the amused look on Steve’s face.
I find his hand and we begin to walk to his truck.
“You haven’t changed much,” he says to me.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You never backed down from people as far as I could tell and man, you still say stuff to rile people up.”
“She had no right to say anything to us.”
I see a look flash across his face. Nonchalance. That’s it. But why?
“Oh, I get it.” The realization dawning on me.
“What?” he asks, innocently. Assuming I’ve made the wrong conclusion.
“You slept with her.”
“Remy-“
“Listen, Steve. We aren’t virgins. We aren’t in love. This is the first date. Don’t lie to me. Or there won’t be a second. I’m not an idiot.”
“Okay then. Yeah. I slept with her.”
“You burned her, didn’t ya?
”
He doesn’t want to say it and not because he’s embarrassed about how he treated her, but because he doesn’t want me to know he’s a player. Too late. Labeled.
“Listen. You’re not going to be the one who burns me. It will be me, if it comes to that.”
He laughs because he thinks I’m making a joke about the situation. I’m really just telling him how it will be. Steve is a distraction and after tonight, a fun one. I won’t mind going out with him again.
I just didn’t plan on sleeping with him anytime soon.
Chapter 8
RC
I’m wiping down the bar. Getting ready for my shift to start when Joe comes in. The regulars are here for Happy Hour and all greet him with a ‘hey’ or a nod. Joe nods in return and sits down in front of me. He doesn’t remark that Mia is behind the bar, lying down.
“Hi Joe.” I smile at him.
“Remy.”
I can see it in his face. I’ve done something. “Everything okay?”
“Anything you want to tell me?”
A sinking feeling swells up in my stomach. I feel my body start to sweat. What could Joe have possibly found out? He must have found out about Tom. But that would mean Tom was here in South Shore. There’s no way he would sway Joe against me though. He doesn’t want to bring that kind of trouble to his place.
“Why the sky is blue?” I try to keep my composure. But I can feel my face heating up.
“About this app?” He holds up his phone.
“What about it?” A wave of relief rushes through me. “Did it malfunction?”
“No. It’s great,” he says. “In fact, it’s so great, it’s in the top ten in the country. Over one million people have downloaded the app. One million people, Remy.”
I take a breath. There could be worse things he could have found out.
I go back to wiping down the bar and notice that the regulars are listening to the conversation. I don’t want to talk about this, but this is mild compared to Tom.
“You said it yourself, Joe, it’s a good app.”
“Remy, you don’t need to be working here.”
“Are you firing me because I have money?”
“No, but you don’t need to be doing this.”
“And why not? I like this bar.”
“Because one million times ten equals ten million.” And it was like a movie, everyone who is pretending to listen, turn their heads, shift their body weights, and make no bones about eavesdropping, now. Yeah, I’m a millionaire. I want to say: what about it? This town saw frequent wealth in the summer time.
“Your tact sucks, Joe.”
I use my eyes and a head nod to signal Joe to turn around. He turns to catch everyone looking. “Mind your own damn business.” He turns back to me. “Girl, I just-. I mean, you’re a millionaire. And you’re wiping down a bar.”
All the customers are still listening. I know within the hour it will be spread through this town like wildfire. I was hoping to have made it a few more months without people finding out, but it is a small town, it is going to happen. I just wish it hadn’t been so soon.
“I don’t want to be bored.”
“So take up scuba diving or something. Why are you working, Girl?”
“I said I don’t want to be bored, ” I state again. But both Joe and I know this isn’t it. If you had as much money as I did, you could find plenty of things to stay busy with.
Luckily, Joe got the message. It’s clear; by his leveled stare he doesn’t buy it. First my admission I was divorced, then Mia, and now this. Joe would be trying to figure out just why I wasn’t enjoying the life of a millionaire. I avoid his gaze and move down the bar to continue wiping it off. I get a few drinks for a few people, but it is clear that the ones who heard the story are watching me.
Of course, Jack would have to be in here today. And if he doesn’t say anything, Jared will. They typically are here at the start of my Friday shift, after Monroe Construction calls it quits. And just having him in here every Friday makes me feel like I was on pins and needles until he left, but I have no doubt he heard the exchange. He is just better at sipping on his beer bottle and looking like he hadn’t overheard anything than other people.
I serve drinks to people, I increase the volume on the speakers so no one will try and engage me further in a conversation, other than that they wanted a beer. Joe’s face eventually loses the tension in it, seeming to forget he has a mission to figure out why I’m content working for minimum wage and being hit on by all ages of men, instead of putting my feet up.
Having money is a nice thing. It had sped up my divorce. Granted that divorce cost me two million in a settlement, but it was money well spent if it kept Tom away. The money allows me to never stress about where I would live, how I would manage without another income, and the app was doing well. People would renew their subscriptions and money would come back in.
I thought of Steve. He was going to find out. I wonder how this will affect his pursuit of me. Would he become money hungry? I feared the fun, easy part of our dates was going to end.
So there were a few downfalls to having money. People wanted it.
I was lost in thought when a customer clicked his beer bottle on the bar to get my attention. I snap to and realize it is Jack.
“Hi.”
“Hey,” he says.
“Are you going to pretend you didn’t hear that?”
“Hear what?” he says with a smile.
“Yeah, yeah. Beer?”
He nods.
“Congrats on the money, Rem.”
It’s in the way he says it that I realize his opinion of me hasn’t altered because I have money. I wish I could tell him how much it means to me, but I can’t.
JM
I hope I put her at ease. Money isn’t new to this town. We have tons of tourists and summer people who come in with money. But they aren’t one of us. And while I’m not sure if Remy is one of us or would become one of us, I know by the look on everyone’s faces, they are going to be nosy about it and butt into her life. And if she wants to be part of South Shore, this is making her stand out.
But at the same time? A millionaire? It made a person stand out. She had really done it. She had done something big, like I knew she would. I’m impressed and wanted to talk to her about it. I want to know what the app is. I want to know how she made an actual app. I want to tell her how proud I am of her for doing what she said she was going to. She had found what she was looking for.
But I had heard through the grapevine – Joe to my dad – that Remy was divorced. She is twenty-seven and divorced already. We hadn’t ever talked about marriage though to say I hadn’t thought about marrying her would be a lie. I did know how she felt about her father’s infidelity and what it felt like for her as a child to be in a split home, so a divorce for Remy wasn’t something she was willing to do, but she had one.
I want to know who he was. Why had the divorce happened? I can’t imagine someone leaving her, and then I remember I had walked away. This Remy, who looks so much like my Remy, is different to me now. I don’t know her like I remembered her. If I had gone after her that day, I wouldn’t have let her go.
She is handing me the change when Marie, the waitress, drops a glass. The glass shatters to the ground and she flinches. Like honest to God, flinches back in fear. Her hand recoils from mine.
She rights herself so quickly that if a person looked at the glass, he wouldn’t have known, but I’m not looking at the glass. I should have looked away. I shouldn’t stare at her, but I want to communicate to her that I saw her reaction. She shoves the money into my hand. She grabs a rag and wipes down the bar and finally looks at me, quickly, but sees I am still looking at her. Her eyes connect with mine. And I hope she can still read my face the way she used to. I hope she can see that I’m concerned.
I take a seat with my dad, keeping an eye on Remy, for more clues. My dad can tell something is on my mind, but unlike my mom, he doesn’t
push. I like that about him; it’s what I remind myself to be like each time I want to dig into something I don’t know about it.
This is when I see Jared approach Remy. He’s going to say something about the money. She’s going to say something snappy back. Maybe it will be good for her.
He just sits down instead. I can’t hear his voice, and I can always hear him, he’s so loud. She shakes her head at him once. He stands and reaches for her arm, but doesn’t make contact. She pauses, and shakes her head. She looks so sad and it’s so unlike Jared not to cheer someone up.
I see her mouth the words, “Not here.” He nods his head once and this time, places his hand on hers. He gets up and moves to another table and resumes his loud self again.
My father and I sit there in amicable silence and when he starts a conversation with the neighboring table, friends of his, I go back to Remy. I remember the night she had finally brought up her parents to me. She wasn’t thrilled to be telling me about it. And truth be known, I had a hard time comprehending what she was saying. I grew up with a dad and mom who had always been faithful, who had never stayed mad at each other for more than a night, who had always put my sister and me first. Her story had bothered me. And I specifically remember her saying, if she ever got married, she would never divorce. So why did she? And what was that with Jared?
I ask him when my dad gets up for the bathroom and Jared’s returned to our table. “What did you say to Remy?”
“Nothing.”
“Jared, you said something. I was watching.”
“Listen, dude. I don’t want to lie to you. So just don’t ask me. It’s not my place. If she wants to tell you, she will.”
He gets up and moves before I can ask anything else.
My dad and I don’t stay long after that. I drop him off at home, wave at my mom, and head a mile up the road from them to my house.
That Summer Page 6