The Summer Without You

by Karen Swan

  ‘I guess so,’ Ro agreed. She’d been overdrawn since university and didn’t see a time she would ever climb her way out. Maintaining her current level of debt was the best she could seem to manage. She sat down on the stool and replaced the credit card in her purse. ‘So, did you all go out for dinner last night? I’m sorry I couldn’t wait up to meet Greg. I was beyond shattered.’

  ‘It was as well you didn’t. Something came up at the last minute and he had to stay in the office. He’s coming out this afternoon instead.’

  ‘Really? Is it worth coming all that way just for a day?’

  ‘I guess it is to him,’ Hump replied. ‘Did you get the bikes sorted?’ Hump had started reading from his screen, his eyes moving side to side rapidly.

  ‘Yes, they’re brilliant. Real old boneshakers, but so pretty! Bobbi’s is green. Mine’s yellow – like the Humper!’

  He looked up at her and winked. ‘Careful, I might brand you. You’ve got that beachy vibe going on already.’

  I do? Ro thought to herself, smiling and looking out through the open doors. Sharp sunlight cast crisp shadows on the grass and she could see some shoppers sipping on frappés and browsing in the expensive interiors boutique on the opposite side of the square. ‘Please come over. Oh, please come over,’ a voice in her head pleaded as she watched them examine some cushions and switch on a lamp.

  ‘What’s Bobbi up to today?’

  ‘She said something about hooking up with some friends on Main Beach. Red umbrella, if you need her.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Hump looked over at her, his eyes taking in her (well, Matt’s) navy chinos, tightly belted and bunched at the waist, her ankles peeping beneath the roll-ups, her white linen shirt pushed up her forearms and her hair pulled into a scruffy topknot. ‘You going to the beach later?’

  ‘No. I’ve got to work. I must start as I mean to go on. I can’t spend my summer on the beach, tempting though it is,’ she mumbled, her heart sinking as she saw the customers in the homewares store wander back out onto the pavement. Damn.

  Bobbi’s yoga class on the other side of town had been heaving this morning, and it had taken her and Bobbi almost twenty minutes to be served their coffees after getting the bikes, yet the studio was empty.

  She filled the small watering can in the bathroom off the back of the unit and watered the hydrangea on her new table, before going outside and doing the same to the flower boxes on the deck. Next door, in the yoga studio, she heard soporific chanting and she wandered over, peering through the windows at the still but seemingly alert bodies lying in the dark room. Unlike the almost ecstatic shouts in Bobbi’s class, this had a different quality to it altogether – it sounded almost monastic, Asiatic somehow – and she closed her eyes for a moment, letting the sound wrap round her like a shroud and take her to a different place, somewhere far away from here, the land of big trucks and good teeth. In the darkness of her own head – these sounds – she could let go of her sensory anchors and she felt herself transported to somewhere dark and ancient, the place where Matt was hidden from her view for the first time in over a decade, and she sensed somehow – though it was elusive as an angel’s kiss – his presence, as if he was right behind her.

  But he wasn’t. It was Hump, on another coffee run.

  ‘Filter?’ he called out, running across the grass before his next shift.

  She nodded and wandered back into the studio, replacing the watering can on the table. And taking a seat at her high stool, she waited for the customers to come.

  Chapter Eight

  Ro scuffed the surf lightly, watching it fly and dissipate before her eyes as she walked through the shallows. The sun was so low the sand seemed to glow pink, and Ro had lost track of time trying to capture it on film, before moving on to lying on her belly and training the camera on a hermit crab that was making its way down to the water, its pinprick footprints barely making an impression on the soft beach.

  She was supposed to have been back at the house forty minutes ago – Greg was due in on the 5 p.m. Jitney, and Hump was keen for them all to have drinks together on the porch before they headed out to Navy Beach for the night – but she couldn’t quite bring herself to make the journey home. The light on the water was too enticing for one thing, but that was just her alibi for being late. In truth, she just wasn’t looking forward to seeing Bobbi after the yoga horrors this morning, or to telling her frighteningly driven housemate that, yet again, not one person had stepped foot in the studio and she’d spent the afternoon – once Hump had left – playing solitaire on the computer. Throw in the thought of being jolly to another stranger she had to share a bathroom with and it was all slightly more than she could bear.

  She knew she was lucky to be somewhere like this – watching dancing water skitter upon sunset sands and feeling the breeze that had blown all the way from home across the Atlantic to her here – only, she hadn’t asked for it. Coming here hadn’t been her ambition in the way that Cambodia had been Matt’s. It had just been a proposition, a whim, a chance meeting with a twist, an opportunity for her to save face while her boyfriend freeze-framed her life for six months. She knew it could have been worse, as these things went. She could have found herself somewhere where the weather was bad or there was a language barrier, but just because it wasn’t terrible in any definition here didn’t mean it was a source of happiness for her either. The naivety of what she’d done was hitting home. She had uprooted her business, left behind her friends and planted herself in the midst of strangers, all so that she could say, ‘Me too,’ in the years to come, when she and Matt would tell their children about their half-year out and the adventures they’d each had.

  Grudgingly, Ro put the cap on her camera lens and turned her back to the ocean, walking up the dry sand in a wobbly gait. It was hard to get anywhere fast, and it was beyond her how all these fit New Yorkers – looking so vital as they jogged in the last of the sun’s rays – could get up any pace. Ahead, a woman in a straw hat was walking slowly with her dog, sporadically throwing things into the dunes, which were cordoned off by double-rowed wooden fences. Ro squinted as she began to catch her up. Was she littering?

  The woman was carrying a basket on one arm and Ro couldn’t help but stare in as she passed. Inside were hundreds of tiny chocolate truffles. What on earth . . . ?

  Ro stopped in astonishment at the sight, and the woman turned, as if sensing her.

  ‘Well, hello,’ she smiled, her grey eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘Did Nathan send you? Have you come to help?’

  ‘I-I . . .’ Ro stammered. ‘No, I was just passing, actually. I couldn’t help but notice that you were . . . throwing things.’

  ‘Indeed I am. Would you like to try one?’ She held the basket out and Ro hesitantly took one. They were heavier in her hand than she expected, and she put it to her mouth.

  ‘I wouldn’t!’ The woman smiled, and Ro’s hand paused – poised mid-air, her mouth open. ‘They’re not for eating. They’re seed bombs.’

  Ro’s hand dropped. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘They’re a combination of sand, clay, soil and dune-plant seeds: so, beach rose, golden rod, Atlantic panic grass, things like that . . . I make them myself.’

  ‘But why?’ Ro rolled the seed bomb in her hand.

  ‘Sandy.’ The woman paused, seeing Ro’s bewilderment. ‘You’re not from here, are you?’

  Ro shook her head.

  ‘Hurricane Sandy all but wiped out the beaches here last year. I’m trying to get an initiative going to revegetate the coastline.’

  ‘Oh. The hurricane, yes,’ Ro nodded. She’d seen the coverage of last winter’s super-storm on the news back home, although it had mainly focused on the damage to downtown Manhattan and the fact that Wall Street had had to be closed. Long Island’s destruction hadn’t made the headlines in the UK. ‘But . . . you’re not doing all that on your own, surely?’ Ro’s eyes tracked the unending miles of beach-fronted coastline.

  ‘Well, sometimes it feels
a little like that,’ the woman sighed with a smile. ‘But no. I distribute the seed bombs at food fairs, and I’ve done some workshops in the city. Volunteers take them to distribute along coastline they’re passing either on foot or by bike. There’s quite a few of us now. We call it guerrilla gardening.’ She raised an eyebrow at Ro. ‘Go on, just throw it, anywhere you like in the dune. It’s quite therapeutic, although I think I may have overdone it today. It’s bringing on my tennis elbow.’

  Ro threw the small ball into the protected area, watching as it disappeared among the grasses.

  ‘And it’ll take root, just like that? They don’t need to be dug in?’ Ro asked. ‘Don’t the birds go for them?’

  ‘Uh-uh. The clay creates a pod for the seeds till they’re strong enough to sprout; then they penetrate the sand.’

  ‘Cool,’ Ro murmured.

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ The woman smiled, holding out the basket again for Ro to help herself.

  Ro threw a few more and they fell naturally into step, walking side by side.

  ‘I’m Florence, by the way. And that’s Maisie, my daughter’s dog, there. I’m dog-sitting this week while she’s on vacation.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Rowena. Everyone calls me Ro.’

  ‘Ro and Flo, how funny,’ Florence laughed. Ro guessed she must be in her early sixties, but she was a tall, handsome woman, with grey – almost white – hair and deeply tanned skin that retained a rosy blush. She wasn’t dissimilarly dressed to Ro, wearing rolled-up cornflower-blue utility trousers and a white striped cotton blouse.

  ‘Would you care to throw a few more?’ Florence asked, holding out the basket.

  ‘I’d love to,’ Ro replied, carefully throwing the bombs into the bald patches of dune. Florence was right – it felt surprisingly good.

  ‘So, where are you from if not from here?’ Florence asked, her eyes on Maisie.

  ‘London. I’m just here for the summer.’ She threw some more bombs, watching as they skidded down the sandy slopes before juddering to a stop.

  ‘You have friends here?’

  ‘Kind of . . .’ Ro gave a shy laugh. ‘Actually, not really. Or . . . not yet, anyway.’

  Florence gave her an interested look. ‘So what brings you here?’

  Ro paused. ‘Showing my boyfriend he’s not the only one who can be unpredictable?’ She looked out to sea and took a deep breath – telling this story always required one, she’d found. ‘We’ve been together eleven years. Then, just over two months ago, he threw it on me that he’d decided to take a six-month sabbatical to go backpacking around Cambodia. I think he thinks he’s Jason Bourne or someone.’ She swallowed, trying to smile. ‘Anyway, he went two days later.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Mm.’ She shrugged her eyebrows, recognizing the pity that characterized everyone’s reaction when they heard this tale. ‘He wants to travel, feed orphans, commune with orang-utans, that kind of thing.’

  Florence chuckled.

  ‘So when I got an offer to spend the summer here, I just thought, well . . . Why not?’ She threw a few more bombs, harder this time.

  Florence held out the basket again and Ro took the entire thing, smiling gratefully and scattering the balls with abandon.

  ‘That’s rather brave – relocating yourself across the Atlantic when none of it was even your idea.’

  ‘I know. And now I’m slightly wondering if I haven’t . . . made a mistake.’ Her shoulders slumped. ‘My housemates are . . . They’re lovely, but a little terrifying. We don’t know each other well yet, and work isn’t taking off the way I’d hoped. I’m a photographer,’ she added. ‘At least back home, I had a full diary and complete control of the Sky remote.’

  They had reached the car park now and Ro looked down at the empty basket, suddenly embarrassed at having talked so openly to a stranger. Throwing the seed bombs had distracted her from the weight in her words. ‘Tch, listen to me prattling on. I’m sorry. I don’t usually burden complete strangers with my problems.’ She gave another embarrassed laugh before handing back the basket. ‘It was nice meeting you.’

  Florence regarded Ro carefully. ‘You know, I may just have a proposition for you.’

  Ro blinked, surprised.

  ‘I’m the town officer for the East Hampton Town Board. We need some photography for a regeneration programme we’re trying to initiate. How would you feel about doing it for us?’

  ‘Oh! Uh . . .’ Ro hesitated. ‘To be honest, I’m not really that sort of photographer. I mean, thank you for thinking of me, but I wouldn’t want to let you down.’

  ‘You wouldn’t.’ Florence watched her through keen, bright grey eyes and Ro was surprised – and flattered – by her certainty. ‘Let’s at least discuss it further. Why don’t you drop by my house tomorrow morning and we can talk about what it is we need? Mine’s the second house in on Middle Lane. Grey Mists.’ She gestured to the road leading off to the right.

  ‘OK,’ Ro nodded.

  ‘Shall we say eleven o’clock?’

  ‘OK. I’ll look forward to it.’

  ‘Good. Me too. Come along, Maisie,’ Florence said, flicking her lead and setting a brisk pace across the car park, the dog trotting at her heels.

  Guerrilla gardening . . . Ro mused as she unlocked her bike and began pedalling up the lane to home. She liked the sound of that.

  Bobbi and Hump were swinging on the love seat on the porch as she wheeled into sight of Sea Spray Cottage, a vast jug of Long Island iced tea on the table in front of them.

  ‘Well, there’s one housemate at least,’ Bobbi grumbled, as Ro glided towards them slowly till her front wheel nudged the bottom step. Bobbi was dressed in a slinky black dress that was split up the side, and looked ready for cocktails.

  ‘I was beginning to think you’d been abducted,’ Hump said, the word ‘again’ hovering, teasingly unspoken, at the end of the sentence.

  Ro narrowed her eyes at him in her signature ‘ha, ha’, unable to meet Bobbi’s gaze at all. Her morning humiliation felt as fresh as milk, and it didn’t help to be standing in front of her in baggy off-the-hip chinos while Bobbi looked ready to walk a runway. ‘I’m sorry. I lost track of time.’

  Hump’s eyes fell knowingly to the camera about her neck. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. Greg’s not here yet.’

  ‘What, still?’

  ‘I don’t get why we’re all hanging around waiting for him. If he can’t be bothered to get here on time . . .’ Bobbi said sulkily.

  ‘Trust me, you’re gonna love Greg. He looks like that guy from Grey’s, with manners like Gatsby. He’s a ladykiller, but he don’t even know it.’

  Bobbi made a ‘whatever’ sign with her fingers before looking back at Ro again. ‘Are you going to get changed?’ she asked, her eyes clearly making out the wide straps of Ro’s masonry bra through the linen shirt.

  ‘Why? I thought we were going to Navy Beach?’

  ‘So did I.’ Hump shrugged. ‘But Bobbi says there’s an LBD party at Cappelletti.’

  Ro wrinkled her nose. ‘It sounds like a cricketing convention.’

  Hump guffawed. ‘Little black dress party? Wear a little black dress and you get in for free.’

  ‘Oh.’ It sounded hellish. ‘Looks like I’m paying, then,’ Ro shrugged.

  ‘What? You don’t have one?’ Bobbi looked stunned. Ro may as well have said she had no lungs. Or broadband.

  ‘Well, I mean, I do have one. Just not here.’

  ‘You came all the way to the Hamptons without a party dress? Where did you think you were coming to, a kibbutz?’

  Ro opened her mouth to defend herself, but just then an engine rumbled round the corner and she turned to see a cab pulling over to the kerb.

  ‘Ah! The maestro,’ Hump grinned, draining his glass, getting up and leaning against the frame of the porch.

  They all watched as the taxi door opened and a man in a dark grey suit and red tie stepped out, carrying a briefcase and brown leather holda
ll. He was tall – at least six foot three – with the bearing of a soldier, his shoulders pressed back as he strode up the path to the house.

  ‘Yo, dude,’ Hump called, sounding more like a Harlem rapper than a one-time doctor with a pile in the Hamptons. Why was it that when men hung out together, they had to sound ‘street’? Matt did the same thing on the phone with his mates. ‘Thought you were gonna leave us hangin’.’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Greg replied, having the grace to look sheepish, his bright brown eyes scanning their group quickly, the first traces of five-o’clock shadow on his cheeks. Ladykiller was right. He was gorgeous. ‘I just couldn’t get away from the office.’

  ‘Yeah? That’s why you need to meet your new housemate. Bobbi here is about the only person I ever met as focused on her career as you.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Greg looked across at Bobbi – even standing on the top step, she was only barely higher than him. ‘Well then, I’m pleased to meet you, Bobbi,’ Greg said, dropping his bags by his feet and holding out a hand.

  ‘Hey,’ Bobbi smiled, leaning against the pillar and somehow managing to make it look as provocative as a dancing pole.

  ‘And this Brit chick here is Ro – as in “yo”,’ Hump grinned.

  ‘Short for Yowena?’ Greg asked, fixing his eyes upon her, amused already.

  ‘Yes, exactly!’ she laughed, determined not to move. Moving usually meant falling over for her.

  Picking up his bags again in one hand, Greg climbed the steps and fell into some sort of mason’s handshake – all thumb grips and shoulder bumps – with Hump.

  ‘It’s been too long, my man,’ Hump said, gripping Greg’s shoulder hard, and they exchanged stares that seemed weightier than their words.

  ‘You’ve been much missed.’

  Hump laughed. ‘Well, you’ll be glad to hear yours is the only room in the house that’s not covered in girls’ clothes,’ Hump said, sliding his eyes over to Bobbi, who already had hand-washed cashmere jumpers draped over every radiator in the house and tiny workout kit strewn on chair-backs and stair banisters.