Say Yes Summer

by Lindsey Roth Culli

  Clayton laughs. “I think between the two of us we can probably figure it out.” He turns to me, raises his eyebrows. “That work for you?”

  My heart is turning over in spite of itself, but I force a shrug. “Yeah,” I say, tucking my hands into my pockets and rocking back on the heels of my sneakers. It’s just a ride home, I remind myself firmly. It doesn’t mean anything. “That works for me.”

  Clayton drives the kind of giant, hulking SUV that announces to the world you’re a person who’s never needed to worry about gas money, the passenger seat so high it takes me a minute to clamber awkwardly inside. It’s way cleaner than I think of boys’ cars as being, with an air freshener clipped to the air vent and a plastic bag slung over the gear shift for collecting garbage. When he turns on the engine, the satellite radio is programmed to Prime Country, which surprises me; it’s the same corny station we’re always teasing my dad for liking, all George Strait and Alan Jackson songs from way back before I was born. “Sorry,” Clayton says, jabbing at the display screen until he gets to the Top 40 station. When I glance over at him in the greenish glow of the dashboard lights, I can see that he’s blushing. “Now you know my secret shame.”

  “Oh yeah, you’re a real deviant,” I tell him with a smile. “Next thing you’re going to tell me you’ve got a Trisha Yearwood poster hanging above your bed.”

  “See, you’re kidding right now, but I actually have every single episode of her cooking show saved on my DVR.”

  I snort, feeling myself relax a little. “You do not.”

  “No, I seriously do.”

  “Your celebrity crush is Trisha Yearwood?”

  “Trisha Yearwood is American royalty, Rachel.”

  “I apologize,” I say with a giggle that surprises me. “Obviously what you two have is very special.”

  “Thank you.” Clayton glances over at me, winking as we pull out of the fairgrounds and onto the service road that leads to the highway. This area is pretty rural, that thick Michigan blackness pressing in on all sides. “So,” he says after a moment, “I didn’t know you and Carrie were friends.”

  “Oh. Well, we used to be,” I say, glancing down and picking at a cuticle. “Until high school.”

  “Really? What happened?”

  I shrug. “Nothing, really. Sometimes people just change, you know?”

  “You or her?”

  “Both of us,” I lie.

  Clayton nods as we pull onto the highway. “Fair enough,” he murmurs, almost to himself. For a moment I wonder if maybe he’s not talking about me and Carrie at all. I think again of him and Bethany on the shore of the creek the other night, the resolute snick of the bedroom door at Spencer’s.

  “Anyway,” I continue, “we started talking again last night, and…” I trail off. I don’t want it to sound like I’m fishing, bringing up the party again, even if the reality is I’m dying to get back to whatever he was going to say before the Ejector cranked to terrifying life. What are you doing with me? I want to ask him. What do you even want?

  “About that, PS,” Clayton says, reaching out and turning the stereo down a click, “I think I probably owe you an apology.”

  “What, for last night?” I ask, playing dumb, which even I know is ridiculous. “Why?”

  “For, like, asking you to come and then being totally MIA the whole time.” He makes a face. “It’s complicated with Bethany, that’s all.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I tell him, wanting to play it off like I imagine a cool girl would. Who, me? I hardly even noticed you weren’t there, I was so busy being chill and popular! “Relationships are hard.”

  I think it’s a very mature thing to say, considering I have had exactly zero relationships in my life from which to draw such a sage conclusion, but right away Clayton shakes his head. “No no, it’s not like that,” he says, his tone definitive. “We’re not together.”

  My heart stops beating entirely, just for one second. “You’re not?”

  “I mean, we were,” he says, “obviously. Up until a couple months ago. But not anymore.”

  I dig my fingernails into my palms, barely holding back a flood of intrusive questions. What happened? I’m dying to ask him. What’s complicated about it? If you’re broken up, why are there still so many pictures of you guys together on Instagram? “That’s too bad” is all I say.

  “It’s not,” Clayton says flatly. “I love Bethany—she’s one of my best friends—but. Yeah. It’s for the best.” He rubs at his neck for a moment, like there’s a muscle bothering him there. “Anyway, I invited you last night because I wanted you to come.”

  I think of what Carrie said, about him not being the kind of person who does anything by accident. “You did?” I can’t help but ask.

  Clayton smiles at that, just faintly. “Yeah, Rach,” he says, and just for a second he sounds shyer than I’ve ever heard him. “I don’t know. You seem like the kind of person who’s worth putting in the work to get to know.”

  Holy shit. “Well, joke’s on you.” Even as the words come out I can hear Nonna telling me not to put myself down, but it’s like my brain can’t process the compliment, especially from someone like Clayton. “I’m actually super boring.”

  Clayton glances at me sidelong. “Somehow I doubt that.”

  “You really shouldn’t.”

  “Okay,” he concedes, laughing a little. “Fair enough. Boring like what, exactly? Your hobbies include watching paint dry and your favorite food is dry toast?”

  I think about that. “Boring like…I’ve basically spent the last four years in a holding pattern, I guess? Like I’ve been waiting for my life to actually, finally start. But what I’m starting to figure out is that all that time, there was all this stuff I was actually missing out on.”

  “Meaning…?”

  I try to think of a way to explain it that isn’t I badly want to make out with you. “Well, for example. My nonna got me a suitcase and a passport for my sixteenth birthday, and that year, I was supposed to go on the France trip at school. But my friend Ruoxi ended up getting mono and couldn’t go, so I backed out at the last minute. Because I didn’t want to go alone.”

  Clayton nods, glancing in the rearview mirror. “That was a good trip.”

  I elbow him across the gearshift. “Yes, thank you. I gathered that.” I followed it obsessively on Instagram and Snapchat, I remember, sitting in my room thousands of miles away as my classmates—as Clayton and Bethany—climbed the Eiffel Tower and mugged in front of the Mona Lisa and ate croissants on the banks of the Seine. “Anyway, here I am, almost two years later and I’ve still never been to France. I don’t even have a stamp in my passport yet.”

  “Okay,” Clayton says. “I hear you. For what it’s worth, though, I’d say you have your whole life to fill up with experiences. It’s not over yet.” He looks over and smiles at me then, easy and familiar and private. I shiver without being able to help it—the full-body thrill of being here alone in this car with him, being the object of his attention even if it’s only for a little while.

  “You cold?” Clayton asks.

  “Um, a little,” I lie, because it’s less embarrassing than the truth.

  “Here,” he says, reaching back with one hand and rooting around behind the passenger seat before coming up with a zip-up hoodie appliqued with some kind of bird.

  “Is that a…chicken?” I ask, sliding my arms into the sleeves. The cotton smells like him, a combination of dryer sheets, sunscreen, and citrus.

  Clayton laughs. “It’s the Hotspurs,” he explains.

  “I’m…going to pretend like I know what that means.”

  “It’s a football club,” he tells me. “Soccer, I mean. In Tottenham? London? They’re in the Premier League.”

  “Oh, right!” I exclaim a bit too excitedly. “Sports!”

 
“Possibly the only form of entertainment I care about more than Trisha Yearwood,” he says with a smile. “I’m guessing you’re not a sports person, huh?”

  “We all have our skill sets,” I say primly. “Athleticism is not one of mine.”

  “Soccer is mostly a game of strategy,” Clayton counters. “The thinking person’s sport. You might like it.”

  Oh, I’m fully going to go home and Google stats on every player until I know them better than my own family, I think. “Maybe I’ll give it a shot.”

  Clayton nods. “You should.”

  We’re pulling off the highway now, not far from my neighborhood; it feels like my time with him is running out. I want to put the work in to get to know you too, I want to tell him. I’ve wanted that for a long time.

  Instead I reach forward and press a finger to the screen on the dashboard as Clayton stops at a red light, flipping through the satellite stations until I get back to Prime Country. I’m hoping for Trisha Yearwood, but instead it’s a Brooks & Dunn song I don’t recognize. Still, Clayton looks over at me with an expression I don’t know him well enough to read, exactly. It is not, if I had to guess, the expression of a person who isn’t interested in seeing me again after tonight.

  He reaches forward and turns up the volume. Up above us, the stoplight turns green.

  Miles and I set out with the Cream Cart at noon the following day, the two of us parked on the boardwalk in our matching DiPasquale’s T-shirts as tourists sun themselves like lizards on the sand. Every summer, our small coastal Michigan town swells with tourists, most of them from Illinois and all of them vying for a spot on the ten miles of freshwater beachfront. A half hour into our shift we’ve already sold a third of our inventory, people lining up faster than Miles can scoop gelato. Dad’s idea really is genius.

  A cloud passes in front of the sun as the breeze lifts off the water, and I reach for Clayton’s hoodie even though it’s still way too warm. I realized after he dropped me off last night that I was still holding it—all right, I fully stole it right out of his car like a common thief—and I decided to bring it with me today in case I happened to see him around.

  You know, like a normal person would.

  Totally low key.

  OMG what! Ruoxi texts back after I tell her what happened. By all accounts she’s having an amazing time at Interlochen, sending me Snaps of her blistered fingers and her knee socks and Clarissa, the cello player from Westport she’s got a massive crush on. That’s amazing!

  I send her the upside-down smiling emoji, then tuck my phone back into the pocket of my shorts.

  “So,” Miles says, handing two Stracciatella Gondolas to a hassled-looking mom with a couple of whining kids hanging off her, “what’s up with the jacket?”

  “Huh?” I glance down, like I’ve hardly even noticed I’m wearing it. “Oh. It’s the Tottenham Hotspurs.”

  “Yes,” Miles says with a smirk, “I see that. Where’d you get it?”

  “I…borrowed it,” I tell him, which is technically not a lie. “From a friend.”

  Miles raises an eyebrow, wiping a smear of gelato from the tiny prep counter. “A friend who’s into soccer?”

  It’s his You have no usual crew voice, and I prickle. “How do you know the Hotspurs are a soccer team?”

  “I know plenty of things,” Miles says with a shrug. “I just don’t care about them.”

  “Oh, right, I forgot.” I smile cheerily at an old couple strolling by in matching fanny packs, then let it drop as soon as they’ve passed. “You’re too cool for any kind of enthusiasm.”

  He tilts his head, a lock of dark hair falling into his face. “I mean, I wouldn’t go that far,” he amends, his voice dripping with innuendo. “I can be very enthusiastic, when the situation demands it.”

  “Okay, okay.” I jam a handful of napkins into the dispenser. “It’s Clayton’s.”

  That surprises him. “Clayton Carville?”

  “Yup,” I say, popping the p like a chewing gum bubble and feeling extremely satisfied with myself. Is this what it’s like to be a popular person? The ability to walk around sticking it to your annoying childhood sidekick whenever you want?

  Miles certainly looks like my childhood sidekick all of a sudden, that’s for sure, all the smirking guile wiped right off his face. “Seriously?” he asks, his voice cracking like I haven’t heard it do since we were twelve. “You’re trading clothes with Clayton Carville.”

  “I mean, I don’t think he’s wearing any of mine,” I say snottily. Then I shrug. “It’s a new development.”

  Miles looks at me for a moment, an expression I don’t recognize passing across his face like a cloud. If it wasn’t totally demented to contemplate, I’d say he looks almost…wounded. Then he blinks, and just like that he’s himself again, his features twisting dismissively. “Well,” he says, “I hope you kids are very happy together.”

  Suddenly there’s a loud clanking noise, diverting our attention to the freezer. “What’s that?” I ask with a wince.

  Miles makes an I don’t know sound. He turns and flips the cooler switch on and then off again, the motor whizzing for a second before stalling out. He frowns at it for another moment, waves his hand over the hole of the freezing bin. “The cooling mechanism maybe?” he diagnoses finally. “I think it just shit the bed.”

  “Evocative,” I say drily. “Can you fix it?”

  “Do I look like an ice cream cart mechanic to you?” he deadpans. “We definitely can’t keep opening the container like this, though. The air won’t stay cold enough to keep the gelato from melting.”

  I bite my lip. This is not good. Business at DiPasquale’s is fine these days, but right now I can feel the anxiety of the precarious months right after we opened running through me, my parents bent worriedly over paperwork at the kitchen table and vendor invoices marked PAST DUE. We were on food stamps when I was a baby, a fact I know my mom thinks I don’t remember. Every item of clothing I owned came from Goodwill or Nonna until I was ten. Money isn’t a joke to me, and my dad spent a lot of it on this cream cart. The idea of it breaking down on literally the first day makes me feel like I can’t breathe. “Miles, we have to fix it.”

  I must look about two scoops short of a sundae, because Miles’s whole demeanor shifts when he glances over and sees the expression on my face. “Okay, okay,” he says, scratching the back of his neck and considering the cooler. “Easy. Let me think for a sec.”

  He taps the thing with his foot, flipping the switch a few more times. Now the fan doesn’t whirr at all. “Well, that didn’t do anything.” His gaze flicks from me to the line of customers that’s formed while we’ve been standing here debating, all of them beginning to murmur impatiently. “Folks, we have to take a quick break,” he announces, holding up a conciliatory hand to the beachgoers. “Technical difficulties.”

  I turn to stare at him, unable to keep the incredulous smile off my face in spite of the way my heart is pounding. “I’m sorry,” I tell him, “did you just say folks?”

  Miles ignores me. “Stay here,” he instructs, sounding more authoritative than I’ve ever heard him. “I’ll be back in a sec.”

  I scrawl a makeshift “gone fishing” sign on the chalkboard menu and plop down on the boardwalk beside the Cream Cart, picking at a loose thread on Clayton’s hoodie while I wait for Miles to return. I can’t help but wonder what his reaction was about earlier, how weird he seemed about the idea of me and Clayton hanging out. Yeah, Miles likes to torment me. But he doesn’t mean anything by it.

  Right?

  After another fifteen minutes, Miles reappears with a tool belt that definitely does not belong to him.

  “Where did you get that?” I ask, getting to my feet and brushing off the back of my shorts.

  “Tommy’s buddy Jon owed me a favor,” he explains, gesturing toward the bi
ke rental place a quarter mile up the beach. “I rebuilt his processor a year or so ago.”

  “Like his computer?” I ask, impressed in spite of myself. Miles acts like such a burnout sometimes that it’s easy to forget he could probably run NASA if he could be bothered to get out of bed before noon.

  “Yeah, like his computer.” Miles shrugs. “This isn’t the same thing, obviously, but I feel like it can’t be that different either. Most machines have a fan to keep them from overheating. I think if I can get that grate off and take a look inside, I can probably figure it out.”

  My eyes widen. “Really?”

  “Sure,” Miles says in a voice that suggests he’s less confident than he’s trying to convince me he is. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

  “I mean, you could make it worse.”

  “Well…true, technically.” Miles grins. “But I have a good feeling about this.”

  He gets to work, lying down on the boardwalk and wriggling underneath the Cream Cart, his lower body sticking out like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. His T-shirt has rucked up the tiniest bit, the elastic waistband of his Calvin Klein boxer-briefs just visible where it’s sticking out of his jeans. I turn away, looking out at the beach and trying not to wonder if his mom still buys his underwear or if he went into a store and purchased them himself. I wouldn’t have pegged him for a designer boxer-brief kind of guy.

  I mean, not that I spend a lot of time thinking about Miles’s underwear or anything.

  Because I don’t.

  He grunts a couple times, muttering unintelligibly to himself, and then finally I hear a clank. “Okay,” he calls, his voice muffled. “Now try the switch.”

  When I flip it, the machine whirrs to life, humming along like normal in a matter of seconds. “Holy crap,” I say, laughing in spite of myself. When he scoots out from underneath the Cream Cart, I hold out a hand to help him up. “That actually worked?”

  Miles snorts. “Try not to die from shock,” he says, brushing his hands off.