Say Yes Summer

by Lindsey Roth Culli

  “Obviously,” I say with a smile. “I’m also folding my socks into origami swans.”

  “You can do mine next, how about.” She checks her watch. “Thrift store should be open for another couple of hours,” she reports. “Want to go do a drop, maybe get some ice cream at Moxie’s on the way back?”

  “I’ll have to check my very busy calendar,” I say. “Oh look. It’s wide open.”

  Mom smiles, but there’s this weird sadness behind it that I can’t tell if I’m imagining or not. I guess I can’t really blame her: After all, her seventeen-year-old daughter is spending her first Saturday night after high school graduation Marie Kondo-ing her bedroom. “Let me know when you’re ready to go,” is all she says.

  I was invited to a party tonight! I almost call down the hallway behind her. By Clayton Carville!

  I just…decided not to go.

  I turn back to my overstuffed bookshelves, keeping Emma Straub and Alice Walker and tossing a Jonathan Franzen that my ill-advised AP LitComp teacher tried to convince me I might enjoy, before reaching a yellowing paperback I don’t immediately recognize: A Season of Yes! by Dr. Paula Prescott. The cover shows a woman with feathered hair, blue eye shadow, and a pair of oversized turquoise glasses that scream 1982, blithely resting her chin on her hand.

  I pick it up, turning it over to peer at the back copy. Who in their right mind would ever take advice from this woman?

  Still, flipping through the first few pages, I see that entire paragraphs have been underlined and the margins are filled up with notes. “Trust the freedom!” is there in Nonna’s tight penmanship. Well, there’s my answer, I guess. I’m about to chuck it aside into the return-to-the-living-room pile when an underlined passage catches my eye: The freedom to say “Yes!” to your own life is also the freedom to embrace your true self. If you’re feeling stuck, if you’re feeling stagnant, if you’re feeling like your potential is being wasted, then this book is for you.

  Dr. Paula outlines a three-step plan for success with her process, but essentially it seems to boil down to this: We are, as Aristotle said, what we repeatedly do. Therefore, if we repeatedly say yes to opportunities, people, and experiences, we will become our truest, fullest selves.

  I think about that for a moment, sitting down on the edge of the mattress. About the last four years, and the thirteen that came before them. Sure, the process I adopted for myself of saying no to basically everything earned me the title of valedictorian and admission to my dream school. But it also got me…here.

  Alone.

  I fan through the pages with one thumb—breathing in the old-book smell of them, debating. What if Dr. Paula is right?

  What if just once I said…yes?

  I dig my phone out of my pocket and frown at the clock on the screen. It’s only seven now. I could go with my mom to the thrift store, get a scoop of double chocolate from Moxie’s, and settle in with my Syria documentary.

  Or I could take Clayton up on his invitation.

  Before I can talk myself out of it, I’m tugging a fleece over my head and smudging on some makeup, digging a flavored ChapStick I tossed twenty minutes ago out of the garbage and slicking it over my lips. I pause in front of the mirror in the hallway, twisting my reddish hair around my fingertips in the hopes of it looking more “effortlessly curly” and less “before picture in a Frizz Ease ad.”

  “Not getting any better than this,” I mutter, and thump down the stairs into the living room.

  My parents are sitting on the sofa watching a CSI rerun on cable, which is frankly exactly the kind of programming I might have joined them for on a normal evening. Nonna is parked in her easy chair, working a cross-stich that reads Smash the Patriarchy in precise, scrolling script. “You ready?” my mom asks, sliding her feet out of the slippers she’s wearing with her jeans and button-down and glancing around for her sneakers.

  I shake my head. “Can we rain-check for tomorrow?” I ask, suddenly embarrassed. “Turns out I actually…have plans.”

  “Of course.” She tilts her head to the side, curious. Nonna has looked up, interest written all over her face. “You going somewhere?”

  “Some people are hanging out,” I explain, trying to sound casual. “I thought I might stop by.”

  Mom stares at me for a long moment, like I just told her I was going to go hang gliding or model for a photoshoot involving bikinis and muscle cars. “Okay,” she says finally, remembering herself. “That sounds great. You need a ride somewhere?”

  I shake my head. “I can walk.”

  “Your phone is charged?”

  “Yup,” I promise.

  “And you’ll call us if anything—”

  “Mom!” I laugh a little. “I’m on the fence about this anyway, okay? Don’t make me rethink it any more than I already am.”

  “Go!” Nonna hollers, waving her cross-stitch at me like a flag at a drag race. “Be young. Have fun.”

  I wave goodbye, bounding out the door and down the front steps before I can talk myself out of it. I don’t have to look back to know both she and my mom are watching me from the front window. I try to ignore them, and the butterflies in my stomach, as I head down the street in the pink summer twilight—toward my first high school party, and whatever might be waiting for me there.

  I’m a little more than two blocks away from Spencer Thomas’s house when the doubt in my head gets loud enough to drown out even the cheeriest of Paula Prescott’s frothy affirmations. Holy crap, what am I doing? Am I really just about to stroll into this stranger’s house—completely solo—like I’m a person who belongs there in any capacity whatsoever? I might as well walk into freaking Mordor. I should just turn back now. If I hurry, I can still catch the end of CSI.

  But then I remember: Clayton invited me. And I’m a yes person now.

  I’m just rounding the corner onto Lilac Court when someone calls out behind me: “Yo, Jacobs!” I turn around to see Ethan Watson, another soccer player, trailing me onto the cul-de-sac. “Oh,” he says, cocking his head when he realizes it’s me instead. “Sorry. Thought you were someone else.” His gaze flicks to Spencer’s house, then back at me. “You going to Spence’s?”

  This is it. No turning back.

  “Um…yes?” I try.

  I’m fully expecting a weird look or even a flat-out “Why?” but Ethan only nods. “Sweet,” he says, falling into step beside me. He’s wearing khaki shorts and a University of Michigan hoodie, an immaculate pair of sneakers glowing almost blindingly white against his dark brown skin. “Hey, good job yesterday.”

  “Thanks,” I say, surprised.

  “I would have fully shat my pants if I had to get up and talk in front of all those people.” He opens the front door of Spencer’s house with easy authority, ushering me grandly inside. “After you.”

  I’ve actually been to Spencer’s house once before, to work on a group project sophomore year—a health class presentation on the dangers of smoking for which I put together a fifteen-minute PowerPoint that was, in retrospect, possibly a little overwrought. “You don’t think this is…a lot?” I remember Spencer asking, squinting at my laptop screen as Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” played mournfully over pictures of calcified lungs and regretful-looking emphysemics. But you know what? I got us all an A.

  In any case, the house is somehow even bigger than I remember it: new construction with a massive foyer and tons of windows, the rooms all flowing graciously into one another instead of crowding in at weird angles, like they do at my house. I stand awkwardly at the foot of the curving staircase for a moment, my eyes raking over the huge abstract paintings and the space-age chandelier. Ethan’s halfway into the dining room before he realizes I’m not behind him. “Yo,” he says again, pulling a six-pack of Bud Light out of his backpack. “You coming or what?”

  I blink. “Yes!” I repeat—it come
s out easier this time—and follow him toward the back of the house.

  Ethan leads me through the kitchen, which is straight out of a home renovation show, and down a carpeted staircase into the giant basement. I came here fully anticipating a rager, a hundred strangers doing kegstands and throwing up into potted plants like something out of the opening montage of a ’90s teen movie, but I’m surprised to find only about a dozen people scattered throughout the cavernous space, which boasts at least two bedrooms plus a living area with a leather sectional the size of an aircraft carrier and an entire second kitchen. Tricia Whitman and a couple of her friends cluster around the pool table, where Spencer and Trevor Cheng are arguing mildly over which one of them is cheating. Sierra Woodfolk and Joanna Green are making pizza rolls under the broiler while a couple of soccer bros play Warcraft on the big-screen TV.

  In theory, the whole scene should ease my raging anxiety—after all, isn’t a chill, mellow hangout easier to navigate than the alternative?—but instead I just feel like I’m sticking out way more than I would have at Bethany’s last night. These people are all friends with each other. And I’m…

  What, exactly?

  I glance around for Clayton—I’ve been glancing around for Clayton since the second I walked through the door—but I don’t see him. I’m wondering if maybe I should look upstairs, if maybe there’s another group of people around here somewhere, when James Chemaly ambles over in basketball shorts and a T-shirt, red plastic cup in one hand. “Yo, E!” he says to Ethan, his vowels just a little bit loose. He looks at me, squinting a little. “And…other girl.”

  “Rachel,” I introduce myself, even though we’ve definitely had at least three classes together over the course of our high school careers. He used to date Miriam Harris, but she’s a year older than us, and judging from the way she stopped showing up on his Snapchat around Christmas, I’m pretty sure they broke up when she went to college.

  James nods. “Cool,” he says blandly, then turns around to fix himself another drink.

  Oookay, then. I look back at Ethan, hoping for reinforcement, but he’s wandered across the basement to sit with the Warcraft guys, leaving me standing alone beside a mostly empty bag of Tostitos. I help myself to a couple of salty shards for lack of anything better to do, praying nobody notices me lurking alone like a giant loser and desperate for someone to talk to in equal amounts. Tricia Whitman lets out a cackle over by the pool table, loud and raucous—and oh God, is she laughing at me?

  These are not my people. And I do not belong here, not even a little bit. Remind me again why on earth I put myself through this?

  That’s when I spy Clayton through the open door of one of the bedrooms down the hall.

  He’s sitting with one knee up on the wrought-iron daybed, his fingers laced with Bethany’s, their heads tipped close together as they talk. He’s changed his clothes since this afternoon—he would have had to, I think bitterly, since some klutz spilled Italian soda all over the ones he was wearing—his gray Henley pushed to the elbows and an embroidery floss friendship bracelet looped around one tawny wrist. He’s looking at her as if she’s the only other person in the entire state of Michigan.

  He’s looking at her as if she’s the only other person in the world.

  Bethany shakes her head, raises her narrow shoulders like she’s pleading. “I don’t know what to do” is all I hear her say. I wonder if they’re fighting again, not that it matters.

  Not that any of this has anything to do with me at all.

  Clayton’s about to respond when Spencer raises his voice over by the pool table: “Dude, you’re full of shit!” he tells Trevor, neither of them playing around anymore. Bethany throws her hands up in exasperation at the noise—getting up and kicking the bedroom door closed, locking herself and Clayton away from the rest of the party.

  But in the second before it shuts, Clayton looks down the hallway—

  And sees me.

  Oh God. My stomach turns, the garlic knots I ate earlier threatening to repeat themselves all over Spencer’s parents’ tasteful Berber carpet. The idea of Clayton knowing I’m here—that I actually came, like his invitation was real and not the conversational equivalent of asking a grocery store cashier how her day is—is unbearable. It feels like my bones are made of sawdust. It feels like my skin is too tight. Who was I kidding? I am not a yes person. I am a no person. I have always been a no person. I will always be a no person.

  I take a deep breath—trying to focus on the task in front of me, same as I have in the face of every difficult exam or high-pressure presentation in the last four years. I can get out of here. All I have to do is backtrack across the basement as quickly as possible, find my way to the front door, and spend the rest of the summer pretending none of this ever happened. I’m nearly to the stairs when—

  “Rachel?”

  I turn around to see Carrie Whiting-Bryant sitting on the sectional with her bare feet up on the coffee table, holding a koozie-wrapped beer can in one brown hand. Carrie Whiting-Bryant, who used to be one of my very best friends. “What are you doing here?” she asks, surprised but not unfriendly. She stands up, wobbling once before righting herself and crossing the basement in my direction.

  “Oh…I…um…” I shake my head and press my lips together. I don’t know why the sight of her face of all things is what makes me feel like I might be about to burst into tears. “You know, I was just wondering the same thing.”

  “Fair enough.” Carrie looks at me, frowning a little—actually seeing me, I think, more than anyone has since I walked through the door. “You okay?”

  “Walls!” Ethan calls out before I can figure out how to answer, plucking darts from a dartboard on the other side of the room. “You’re still here.” He lines up and takes his shot, hitting the skinny part of a black rectangle. “I thought maybe you’d split already.”

  “Wait,” Carrie says, her long braids swinging as she looks back and forth between us. “You two came together?”

  “What?” Ethan and I answer in unison. “No.”

  “Just walked in at the same time,” he explains, then points to the dartboard. “So, ladies. Three-oh-one. Who’s playing?”

  I shake my head. “Not me,” I say firmly, glancing again toward the staircase. Once they’re distracted, nobody will notice me slipping out. “You guys have fun, though.”

  “Oh, come on,” Ethan says, holding three darts out in my direction. “This game’s got your name written all over it. It’s all math.”

  “Math, and making sure nobody is standing between you and the dartboard,” Carrie puts in. She smirks at Ethan. “Remember when Spence got one stuck in his—”

  “Nobody wants to remember that!” Spencer yells from across the room.

  “Walls,” Ethan says again, still holding the darts out like an offering. “Are you really going to leave a man hanging here?”

  I glance from the dartboard to Carrie, who’s arching her perfectly groomed eyebrows in invitation. On one hand, all I want is to slink home and lick my wounds in the comfort of my freshly decluttered bedroom.

  On the other: What would Dr. Paula do?

  “Okay,” I hear myself say. “How does it work, exactly?”

  We play for the next half hour or so, Carrie acting as referee and cheerleader. By the time Ethan heads off to find himself another drink, the worst of my horror and embarrassment has leached away. Still, I can’t help but steal a glance in the direction of the bedroom Bethany and Clayton are in. The door is still resolutely closed.

  “So,” Carrie says once it’s just the two of us, hopping up onto a barstool in one sleek movement like a cat climbing onto a windowsill, taking a delicate sip of her beer. “What’s new?”

  I hesitate, caught up weirdly short by the question. It feels like everything I might tell her is both too big and too small to mention, after all this
time. “Not much, I guess.”

  Carrie snorts. “Seriously?”

  “What?” I feel my spine straighten.

  “I mean, nothing,” she says, shrugging elegantly inside her silky black tank top. She was a ballet dancer back in middle school, but all her social media accounts are set to private so I’m not actually sure if she still does it or not. Something about the way she moves her body makes me think the answer is yes. “I mean, it’s literally been three and a half years since we had a conversation, but if ‘not much’ is the answer you want to go with, you do you I guess.”

  I huff a breath out, weirdly offended. I haven’t actually changed that much since then, I want to tell her. I think maybe that’s part of the problem.

  “I mean, I got my period finally,” I inform her imperiously. “If that’s the kind of update you’re after.”

  That makes her laugh—the kind of belly laugh that used to get us in trouble at sleepovers, one of her dads perpetually yelling up the stairs for us to pipe down and go to sleep. “Weirdo,” she says, but her tone makes it sound like an endearment, the kind of thing you’d say to someone you love. “I’m glad for you. Welcome to womanhood, et cetera.”

  I snort. “Thank you.”

  Carrie takes one last pull from her can and tugs it out of its koozie, hopping off her stool and holding the empty up in my direction. “I’m going to grab another,” she announces.

  “Oh,” I say, trying to hide my disappointment. I have missed her, I realize suddenly. Maybe more than I ever let myself think about. “Okay.”

  Carrie rolls her eyes, gesturing widely in the direction of the kitchen. “Do you want to come?”

  “Me?” My head snaps back in her direction.

  “No, the other lost-looking white girl at this party,” Carrie deadpans. “Yes, Rach. You.”

  I smile sheepishly and follow her across the basement, watching as the Warcraft bros scoot out of her way without her even having to ask. She fishes two cans of Coors out of the fridge before digging another koozie out of a kitchen drawer and handing it over. It’s startling to me how comfortable they all seem to be here: draped over the sectional, sprawled out on the rug. The only person whose kitchen drawers I ever would have dug through were…