The Summer Without You

by Karen Swan

  ‘Hey!’ Ro protested. She could hardly be accused of having shoes and dresses lying all about the place.

  ‘No, actually you’re right,’ Hump acknowledged. ‘Ro’s room is covered in her boyfriend’s clothes. Some sort of he-she thang going on there.’ He wrinkled his nose. Bobbi laughed, but Ro felt cloddish suddenly in her oversized gear. ‘Now go change out of that monkey suit and we can get this party started once and for all.’

  ‘Why wait?’ Greg asked, pulling off his tie and indicating to the cab that was sitting in idle still by the kerb. ‘I’m ready if you are. Summer’s begun, right?’

  ‘Hell, yeah! Ladies,’ Hump beamed, motioning for them to lead the way, ‘we are game on.’

  Ro sat in the booth, her finger idly skimming the rim of the glass, occasionally falling off. She was staring at it when Hump came back with the drinks, his fingers splayed wide as he held as many as was possible.

  ‘Hump! I think even my fingers are drunk,’ she half shouted, half slurred as he slunk in beside her.

  ‘Not drunk enough!’ Hump hollered back over the music, pushing a hi-ball towards her. ‘Try that.’

  ‘Uh-uh. That would break my drinking rules.’

  ‘Drinking rules? What are they?’ Hump asked, picking up the glass and angling the straw towards her lips. She sipped it greedily.

  ‘Well,’ she said, smacking her lips, ‘Matt did them for me because I’m, like, really rubbish: I should never mix wine and beer because it makes me sick; I should never drink tequila because it makes me sad; I should never drink beer because it makes me fat; and I should never drink anything with an umbrella in it because it’s déclassé.’

  Hump slapped his hand over his tummy and laughed, because he was really drunk too. ‘Well, what does he let you drink? OJ?’

  ‘Cava, because we can’t afford champagne, and gin and tonics – although they give me headaches, but don’t tell him that.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Hump agreed, shaking his head sombrely. He took the umbrella out of the glass. ‘There? How’s that, now? Classy enough?’

  Ro beamed. ‘Totally upper middle!’ And she sipped the cocktail through the straw happily, her eyes on Greg and Bobbi talking at the bar.

  They had spent most of the night so far head to head, talking intently. Early on, they had established they’d both been at Penn University at the same time and from that moment on neither Hump nor Ro had been able to get a word in edgeways as they reminisced over old bars and friends of friends they knew and how come they’d never met. Almost an hour ago now, they had gone to the bar to get refills, but on finding two stools there, they had sat down and basically not come back.

  ‘You don’t think I look like a man, do you?’ Ro pouted unhappily. What had happened at the door had been among the most embarrassing moments of her life.

  ‘Ro, the guy was a douchebag! First off, he clearly needs new glasses. You couldn’t look less like a guy. So what if you wear men’s clothes? You’re a gorgeous woman, absolutely gorgeous. Like . . .’ He looked up at the ceiling, trying to find inspiration in the colours and shapes thrown out by the lasers and glitter balls. ‘You’re like a bundle of pillows all stitched together.’

  ‘Hump!’ she shrieked. ‘That is not a compliment!’

  ‘What?’ he asked, open-mouthed with surprise. ‘It totally is! That’s what every guy wants – softness and comfort.’ He pulled a face. ‘These skinny girls, they just don’t get it,’ he said, swiping his hand through the air, just as a girl in a size-zero, very little black dress sashayed past, drawing his stare like it was magnetized.

  ‘Oh, really?’ Ro said crossly, sipping her drink harder. ‘Well, Greg obviously doesn’t think so.’

  They both watched as he leaned in to hear something Bobbi was saying.

  ‘Hump, look at his hand! Look! It’s resting on her bare thigh!’ Ro shrieked again, properly scandalized.

  ‘Oh no, I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all,’ Hump said, watching them with exaggeratedly slitted eyes, although it could just have been the dry ice. ‘If they hook up now and then break up . . .’ He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. ‘That wouldn’t make for a pretty summer.’

  ‘Well, it’d be fine as long as Bobbi got to do the dumping.’

  ‘Yeah, true. Greg’s a gent. He’d take it on the chin.’

  They watched as Greg and Bobbi stood up, making their way over to the dance floor, Bobbi looking sinuous as she shimmied gently like a quivering flower in front of Greg.

  ‘Come on, let’s join them. Can you dance to this?’

  ‘Can I dance?’ she laughed, sliding along the booth and standing up just as Eminem screamed his angry lyrics over a bass beat. ‘Can I dance? Hump, nobody does the mashed potato like me. Watch and learn, fella. Watch and learn.’

  Chapter Nine

  Bonding came at a price, Ro remembered, as she struggled to identify the alien sound that was pulling her from the comforting fug of her bed. She hadn’t drunk so much since university. The Long Island iced teas had segued into mojitos and dirty martinis (a filthy combination) before finally ending, lethally, with tequilas. Bad dancing had been involved – she was vaguely recalling a pole. A pole? Some bad singing too. She couldn’t exactly remember how they’d made their way home, but she was now on top of her bed, still in yesterday’s clothes.

  Her hands found her phone on the bedside table and she – in a misjudged, too-violent move – slapped it to her ear. ‘Ow! Yes?’ she groaned.

  There was no reply. It wasn’t on. The alien ringing was coming from somewhere else.

  She groaned again. There was nothing for it. She was going to have to open her eyes.

  She tried and light blasted at her like a cosmic glare, forcing her to shield her eyes with an arm. The room appeared to have grown its own centre of gravity overnight, spinning round her as she gripped the bed for balance.

  Ro sat up, groaning yet more. Why wouldn’t it stop? The spinning, the ringing . . .

  And then she realized!

  ‘Uuuh, uuuh,’ she grunted, clambering out of bed and trying to make her way to the laptop sitting on the chest of drawers.

  She pressed ‘answer’ and just like that Matt was in front of her, like a genie from a lamp, bid at her command, drawn from her dreams.

  His face fell as she materialized in front of him too. ‘What the hell’s happened to you?’ he asked, sounding genuinely worried.

  Ro pushed a tangle of hair back from her face. It moved as one solid form – and felt sticky.

  ‘Oh God, you look amazing,’ Ro wailed as she took in his tan, bright eyes and stubble, which was on the right side of sexy. She was vaguely aware that her mouth was hanging open, but keeping it closed was a reflex too far just now; her body had more than enough to deal with. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In Tuol Sleng.’

  Was . . . was he grimacing at her?

  ‘Tuol what?’

  ‘The genocide museum.’

  ‘I’m a bad person,’ she wailed again. ‘You’re . . . you’re off being noble and human and healthy, and I’m . . . I’m hung-over.’

  She ran her hands over her face, wanting to hide but wanting to see him too, to drink him in.

  ‘You’re having a good time, then?’

  ‘I got here three days ago. Why haven’t you called?’ she whined, her hands falling petulantly to her sides. Why was he all the way over there and not here, warm in bed and gently combing out her hair while she slept through this on his tummy?

  ‘Because we’ve been trekking for five days to get here and there was no Wi-Fi in the middle of the jungle.’ His features softened. ‘You know you’re green, right?’

  ‘And you’re so brown. Why do you have to look that good and be so far away?’ she whimpered. Her mouth had turned into an upside-down U.

  He put a hand to his chin. ‘Like the beard?’

  ‘Love it. Love it. You look gorgeous.’ She shook her head dejectedly, feeling like she might cry.
‘Are all the girls falling in love with you? I bet they are. They are, aren’t they?’

  ‘There aren’t any girls here. I’m staying in a monastery.’ He grinned. ‘And this reaction is exactly why I have to be so far away. You wouldn’t be reacting like this if you’d seen me yesterday.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No buts. I’m missing you too.’

  She blinked. ‘You are?’

  ‘I am. Even with you looking like the undead.’

  ‘Oh God, I’m disgusting!’ she wailed, pulling her hands down over her face, distorting her features like Munch’s Scream and not doing herself any favours.

  Matt laughed. ‘You are not disgusting. You are just very badly hung-over. Fumes are coming through the screen this end.’ He peered closer. ‘Have you shrunk?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Well, what are you wearing? You look like you’ve been dressed by giants.’

  She pouted. ‘They’re your clothes.’

  ‘Why are you wearing my clothes?’

  She sniffed. ‘Because they smell of you.’

  Matt cast her one of his stern looks as she started smelling the collar of his shirt – it smelt mainly of beer and cashew nuts now. ‘Still? Ro, you cannot wear my clothes the whole time I’m gone. At some point – really quite soon – you are going to have to wash them and then you’ll find you’re actually just wearing clothes that are way too big.’

  ‘Nooooo,’ Ro wailed, tipping her mouth back down into an upside-down U again.

  ‘Yes, Ro,’ he chuckled, amused by her dramatics. She never coped with hangovers well. ‘Wash them. Better yet, wear your own clothes. Mine swamp you.’

  She gave a sigh, too broken to argue further.

  ‘So how is it over there? Nice bunch?’ Matt’s eyes swivelled the screen, trying to take in her surroundings.

  Ro leaned closer, her nose scrunched up like she was smelling something bad. ‘We’re worried about Bobbi and Greg,’ she stage-whispered. ‘They’ve got a biology thing going on.’

  ‘Biology?’ Matt arched a quizzical eyebrow.

  ‘I mean chemistry. But Bobbi forgave me for blowing my nose on my face in yoga—’ she continued.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She said she’d been more distracted by the woman next to her who always farts in the tranquillity pose. She holds her breath in readiness, she said.’

  Matt blinked back at her, his mind racing, vague panic on his face. ‘Did you mix your drinks? You know champagne and wine destroys you.’

  ‘And Hump’s lovely. Such a pudding.’

  ‘A pudding? Well, I guess that’s something,’ Matt said with relief.

  Ro just nodded, her eyes fixed on his even though there were nearly 9,000 miles between them. The screen flickered, then froze for a moment and she knew the signal was going. Already?

  ‘How many days till you’re back?’ she whispered, her head tipped to the side.

  ‘One hundred and fourteen.’

  ‘One hundred and fourteen,’ she echoed.

  ‘You can do it.’

  ‘I can do it,’ she repeated, without conviction.

  ‘I love you, Ro.’

  Her eyes teared up instantly, knowing this was goodbye again. They only ever seemed to say goodbye these days. ‘I love you.’

  ‘We’re leaving for Bayon tomorrow – more jungle trekking – but I’ll call you as soon as I can, OK?’

  She nodded bleakly. One hundred and fourteen days.

  ‘Flash me your boobs as a parting gift.’ He winked.

  Ro chuckled, in spite of the tears, and pulled her (his) shirt over her head. She could hear him draw in his breath.

  ‘God, I miss you. Behave yourself, baby.’ His voice warped as the signal wavered again. ‘And remember to wash!’

  From beneath the cocktail-spattered linen shirt, she heard the connection between them break again and she fell back on the bed, closing her eyes and curling up into the foetal position. In under a minute, she had succumbed to oblivion and her brief call with Matt was as fleeting as a dream.

  ‘Try this,’ Florence said with knowing eyes, pushing a mug of green – green what? Algae? – towards Ro.

  Ro smiled quizzically, trying to look baffled by Florence’s concern. She thought she was doing an admirable job of passing herself off as bright and perky. ‘Really, it’s just the tail end of jet lag.’ She sipped the unidentified liquid while mastering her gag reflex and refusing to acknowledge that it had taken four attempts just to get her feet and the pedals working in unison on the twelve-minute bike ride over. (It should have taken three.) She had slept solidly for another four hours after Matt’s call – stoutly refusing to respond to Hump’s knocks on the door that she should go kayaking with him – and although she was far from well, she could at least keep her mouth closed for minutes at a time now, and her eyes were working together too. Bobbi had looked pleasingly broken as they’d passed on the landing, but Ro had no idea who the other brunette was emerging from Hump’s bedroom, her shoes in one hand as she’d tiptoed down the stairs. As for how Greg had fared on his morning after the night before – and, more importantly, in which bedroom he had slept – well, Ro couldn’t wait to get home for the lowdown.

  ‘Your home is beautiful. Have you lived here long?’

  She looked around at the kitchen she was sitting in. Glass-fronted pale blue cabinets were topped with a giant slab of rococo-cut white marble, the floor laid with white ceramic tiles. Blue gingham pelmeted curtains framed the many paned windows, with a large kitchen table running alongside them, and the window seats were upholstered with cushions in the same pretty check.

  From the island unit, where she was sitting on a tall white stool, she could look through the row of arched floor-to-ceiling windows to the terrace and the vast, steam-rolled lawn beyond that boasted densely planted beds on either side and was fringed at the far end by the dancing grasses on the beach dunes. An ocean view in East Hampton? Even Ro knew she was probably housed, right now, in $10 million.

  ‘It’ll be thirty-one years in November. My late husband, Bill, and I moved here from Manhattan when our daughters were born. We used to come down for weekends and holidays anyway, and it seemed the perfect place to raise a family. New York’s no place for children in my opinion. They need backyards and beaches to play and explore.’

  ‘Oh, I completely agree,’ Ro replied, aiming for all out jauntiness. ‘Most of the pools I’ve seen out here are bigger than my entire garden in London. Matt and I could maybe have one child where we are now, but we’d have to move before the second was born, and I honestly don’t know if we could afford to upsize in our area. Prices are just going through the roof again.’ She rolled her eyes in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture. ‘I imagine we’ll be moving out sooner rather than later.’

  ‘So you’re planning on getting married?’ Florence asked from her position by the sink. She was tending a row of kitchen herbs that released their aromas as the watering can nosed their leaves.

  ‘We’re getting engaged when he’s back.’ She closed her eyes for a second – one hundred and fourteen days. This time tomorrow, one hundred and thirteen . . .

  Florence seemed surprised. ‘How long did you say you’d been together?’

  Ro interlaced her fingers round the mug. ‘Since university.’

  Florence seemed even more surprised. ‘How lovely.’

  ‘He is.’

  A buzz on the intercom made them both turn, and Florence put down the watering can. ‘I wonder who that could be,’ she murmured to herself. ‘Excuse me, please.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She heard the sound of metallic voices in the hallway and, a moment later, saw a delivery van speeding up the drive. Ro looked down at the shallow trays on the worktop before her, with new batches of seed bombs rolled and ready to throw. She picked one up and rolled it in her palm absently. She had enjoyed her slice of ‘guerrilla gardening’ yesterday and she had a feeling a long, brisk walk into the wind after
this meeting was what her body needed. It wasn’t going to be enough to merely metabolize last night’s alcohol – she had tried sleeping it off; now she was going to need to work it off and have it blown out of her too.

  ‘It’s good to see some people still have manners – he brought up my mail from the gate too,’ Florence said, coming back through carrying a small box and a clutch of letters. ‘I’m really so glad you could come over this morning,’ she continued, opening the top letter with a steak knife she pulled from a drawer. ‘The seed bombs generate so much attention and support whenever I take a stand at the local food fairs, but it’s not enough. Long Island has a hundred miles of coastline, and almost all of it is at the mercy of the Atlantic. I can’t get enough people mobilized from food fairs alone, and we have got to get these dunes replanted as quickly as possible. The thicker, more established the dune vegetation, the more resilient the dunes are to coastal erosion and the safer we all are. Those hurricanes, they just blow their way across the water, getting stronger and stronger, and we’re the first thing they hit! The dunes down there were the only thing stopping this house from being five feet underwater.’

  Ro glanced down the garden, horrified by the image dancing in her mind.

  Florence, quickly reading the letter and putting it down on the worktop, looked at Ro and shook her head. ‘Others weren’t as lucky as us. Montauk was hit worst. They lost almost all their beachfront, and they had a dicky of a time trying to dredge the sand from the Sound before the April 30 cut-off. The channel had become almost completely blocked off.’

  ‘On 30 April? Why then?’ Ro asked, sipping the Green and watching as Florence opened the next letter with the steak knife.

  ‘That’s when the piped plovers come to nest in the dunes – yet another reason why the dunes are so important, you see. They’re severely endangered and protected by federal law. All beach conservation work has to be finished before they migrate here for the summer,’ Florence said, sipping on her own green smoothie.

  ‘So you want me to help you with dispersing the seeds?’ Ro asked, watching as Florence glanced at the letter before crumpling it in her hand and tossing it into a recycling bin.