Say Yes Summer

by Lindsey Roth Culli

  That’s when he ducks his head and kisses me.

  No, no, no, I think, even as I feel myself leaning into him. Holy crap, this is a truly terrible idea. I’m supposed to be distracting him, then running away. But it’s like all my self-control—and all the uncertainty I’ve been feeling tonight—has totally dissolved with the hot press of Clayton’s mouth.

  Yes, I think.

  Yes, yes, yes.

  I wrap my arms around his neck, twisting to get even closer. Clayton’s fingertips ghost along the hem of my tank top, making me gasp. I’m so focused on the feel and smell and taste of him that I almost don’t hear the sound of the dock creaking as somebody else steps onto it: When I open my eyes, there’s Miles standing a couple yards away with his hands in his pockets, a look on his face like he’s died.

  “Yeah,” he says, and I will never in my life forget how quiet his voice is. “This seems right.”

  I scramble upright so fast I get dizzy, a splinter from the dock lodging itself in the meat of my palm. “Um,” I say, wobbling a little, righting myself again. “Hi.”

  Miles looks at me, then at Clayton, who’s getting belatedly to his feet, then back at me again. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asks.

  “Whoa.” Clayton’s eyes narrow, protective. “Take it easy, bro.”

  “I’m not your bro,” Miles says, dark eyes still locked on mine. “Are you kidding me?” His voice cracks a little here, rough and ragged. “Like, in all honesty—what the hell, Rachel?”

  “I—” I break off, utterly useless. After all, I have no excuse. I was kissing Clayton. I wanted to be kissing Clayton. If Miles hadn’t interrupted us, I would probably still be kissing Clayton.

  “What the hell did you bring me here for?” Miles continues. “What the hell was the point of any of this, if you just wanted to…I mean, if you were also—”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and it comes out like begging. “I’m so sorry. I was going to talk to you tonight. I just—”

  “Wait,” Clayton says. I watch his face change as it registers, the pieces finally clicking into place. “You guys came here together?”

  “Among other things,” Miles says, his voice cold. “Bro.”

  “Like, together-together?”

  “Is that so difficult to believe?” Miles snaps.

  “No, dude, I just—” Clayton shakes his head, looking at me. “Really?”

  Both of them are looking at me now, waiting for an explanation. There’s no getting out of this. I take a deep breath. “Yes.”

  Miles just shakes his head, but Clayton turns on me. “What the hell, Rachel? You’re on a date right now?”

  “I—” I scramble for a way to defend myself. “Look,” I manage, holding my hands up like I’m some kind of calm, reasonable third party here, “it’s not like either one of you is— I mean, guys do this all the time, right? Play the field or whatever?”

  “Oh, no fucking way,” Miles says immediately. “This is not, like, an issue of feminism.”

  Clayton shakes his head. “What was all that shit about me and Bethany?” he demands. “That whole time you were doing the exact same thing you got so mad at me for, except I wasn’t even actually doing it!”

  “I—” I break off one more time. They’re right; I know they’re right. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I never wanted anyone to get hurt. But I spent so long saying no to everything that when I started hanging out with both of them—when I liked both of them, and they both liked me back—I couldn’t bring myself to make a choice.

  It just all spiraled out of control.

  “I’m so sorry,” I tell them truthfully, swallowing down the threat of tears at the back of my throat. “If you can let me try to explain—”

  “Don’t bother,” Miles says flatly. Clayton just shakes his head.

  I feel all the air whoosh out of me then, a parachute collapsing. I know there’s no excuse for what I pulled here, and from looking at their faces, I know it’s all over. Miles gazes at me for another moment, then turns and heads back toward the party. Clayton hesitates half a beat longer. I reach for his arm to stop him but he shrugs my hand away and just like that he’s gone too, leaving me more alone than I’ve felt all summer.

  More alone than I’ve felt in my life.

  I plunk back down on the dock, digging at the splinter wedged deep in my palm and letting the tears come quick and overwhelming. I can’t believe this happened. I can’t believe I made such a freaking mess. It feels like I’m under an interrogation light, with everything I’ve been trying to keep hidden finally exposed for the entire world to see.

  No. Wait.

  I don’t just feel like it.

  I actually am caught in the beam of a spotlight.

  I blink, wiping my swollen eyes as the brightness washes over me, then the rest of the dock and up over the party, cutting through the darkness like a knife. A voice booms over a loudspeaker: “This is the police,” it announces officiously, echoing out over the water. “Everyone stay where you are.” Both the voice and the spotlight are coming from a boat on the lake.

  Suddenly, there are also a bunch of blue and red flashing lights coming from every direction—all across the water and up the single drive to the house. The police. Chaos erupts all around me as the people on the lawn, in the gazebo, and on the porch begin to scramble in every direction. “Run!” someone shouts.

  Run where? We’re basically on an island—surrounded now by police boats, plus three cars pulling into the driveway. There’s nowhere to go, unless I want to make a swim for it—which a few people actually do, careening past me and diving off the end of the dock, but they get caught in the spotlight of the boat cops pretty much immediately.

  “Get out of the water,” the voice booms.

  In the confusion, all around me people take off toward the house, but I can only stand there, dumbstruck. If we try to run, won’t we just get into more trouble? I look around everywhere for Carrie. Or Clayton. Or Miles. But I don’t see any of them. Instead, I see a bunch of really drunk and dazed-looking people all being herded to an area near the front drive, by the garage doors. Several are sopping wet and a few more are still scrambling from the various officers, trying to hide or get away however they can without much success.

  Suddenly a heavy hand comes down on my shoulder. I look up at the police officer it belongs to. “Come with me,” he says.

  Just when I thought this night couldn’t get any worse.

  Of all the ways I thought this night might end, getting arrested by boat cops was not even remotely on the list of possibilities.

  I lean my head against the backseat of my parents’ staid sedan, the silence thick as fog as I stare at nothing out the window. The police made every minor who wanted to leave Adam’s property either take a Breathalyzer test and blow a perfect 0.0, or come with them back to the station to be collected by their parents. Since both Miles and Clayton could blow 0, they were allowed to leave—which both of them did without even the slightest glance in my direction—but because I’d been the beer pong base runner, I knew I couldn’t pass the test.

  So here I am.

  Neither Mom nor Dad says anything the whole ride home, which is actually worse than if one or both of them had ripped me a new one. They’re so angry they can’t even speak. It feels like waiting for a storm cloud to break, knowing you’re about to be deluged. Realizing too late you left your umbrella at home.

  Once we get into the house, they steer me directly into the kitchen, parking me at the table before sitting down across from me. Neither of them has said a single word.

  My mom rakes her hands through her hair, looks at me for a moment. “What were you thinking?” she asks.

  And oh, here comes the rain.

  She goes on for a solid ten minutes about her disappointment a
nd the poor example I’m setting for Jackson. About how she doesn’t recognize me anymore. About how she’s worried that I’m going to go completely off the rails when I go away next month and throw away everything I’ve worked so hard for: “Am I going to get a call from the coroner in Evanston?” she finishes, her voice breaking. “To come identify your body?”

  My body? Even through my haze of guilt and shame and regret, that seems a little bit ridiculous and needlessly dramatic, though obviously I know better than to point that out. But it must be visible on my face, because Mom shakes her head. “One stupid move is all it takes, you know? You get drunk and fall into a pool and drown. The end.”

  “Mom,” I try, “I didn’t actually get drunk—”

  “I. Am. Not. Finished,” she says. It’s clipped and aggressive. Anger in staccato.

  I glance at my dad, who keeps his eyes trained on my mom. If I were expecting a sympathetic look, I won’t find it there. Not from him. And definitely not tonight.

  “I just don’t know what’s gotten into you.” She throws up her hands. “You can’t leave the house. Ever.”

  I bark an incredulous laugh; I can’t help it. Mom whirls on me like a lioness, but Dad lays a hand on her arm. “Let’s all just take a breath,” he begins.

  “I don’t want to take a breath!” my mom fires back, surprising me. “I don’t feel like being reasonable. I feel like keeping her safe. Protected.”

  I bite my lip and glance between Mom and Dad. It’s as if they’ve forgotten I’m here, witness to this conversation. All of a sudden, it feels like maybe this is about way more than me and tonight’s disaster; all at once it occurs to me that my mom and I have more in common than I ever thought. My fear was of rejection, of emotional pain, I think, not the fear of drowning or God only knows what dark thoughts Mom’s batting around in her head. But the point remains: We’ve both spent way too much time allowing ourselves to be directed by fear. “Mom—” I try again, but she cuts me off.

  “Don’t.” She shakes her head. “I mean it, Rachel.”

  “Don’t what?” I counter, anger flaring. “You’re just not going to let me talk at all ever again? That’s your new parenting strategy?”

  “Okay!” Dad holds up both hands like a referee. “Clearly we’re all feeling a little bit fraught here,” he says gently.

  “Do not patronize me,” Mom snaps, and I realize with a start that she’s on the verge of tears. “I don’t understand why I’m the only one who sees where this is headed. I lived through this already; don’t you two get that? My mother lived through this. And I will do whatever it takes to keep Rachel from…from…”

  “From what, exactly?” I ask, though of course I already know the answer. Of course I know the answer. She wants to keep me from making the same mistake she made.

  “From making a mistake like having me.”

  It never mattered how well I did in school, I realize suddenly. It never mattered how many rules I followed, how much I achieved. My mom was always going to be afraid I would end up just like her: a victim of the kind of dumb, impetuous choices that derailed her entire life.

  Already Mom is shaking her head, reaching her hand across the table: “That’s not what I meant,” she starts, but I can barely hear her over the roaring in my ears.

  “I’m not you,” I tell her, setting my jaw even as my eyes blur. Then I shake my head and rush out of the room.

  My mom makes a sound then, almost a whimper: “Rachel,” she starts, shoving her chair back and calling after me.

  But I’m already gone.

  I spend all night and most of the following day in the kind of miserable, restless not-sleep I associate with having a fever: all pounding head and muscle aches, the blankets tangled around my feet. I just keep replaying the events of last night over and over like some horrifying boomerang.

  Clayton hates me. Miles hates me. My mom probably hates me.

  And I don’t think I can fix it.

  Around two in the afternoon, there’s a knock on my bedroom door, and Nonna pokes her head in. “Can I come in?” she asks.

  I nod into my pillow.

  She walks in and sets a plate with a sandwich on my bedside table. I haven’t eaten all day, but I’m not hungry. Then she slides up next to me on the bed, the big spoon to my little, and I completely break down.

  “Patatina.” Nonna runs her fingers through my hair and gathers it off the nape of my neck like she used to when I was little, the citrus and juniper smell of her enough to have me crying even harder. “You know, I’ve been watching you this summer. You’ve been very unlike yourself lately.”

  “That was the point,” I tell her, my voice muffled into the pillows. “I wanted to be someone new.”

  “But why, sweetheart?” she asks. “Why do you think you need to change anything about yourself?”

  “Because I am a boring, friendless loser,” I manage to spit out between heaves.

  “Cazzate,” she says. Bullshit. I snort, and because of the tears it comes out much moister than I intend. I sound like an actual hog spluttering in its trough.

  “I mean it, my girl. Enough with the loser talk. I don’t care for it. You are a beautiful person, inside and out. Your heart is your best attribute, your brain a very close second.”

  I roll my eyes. “You’re my grandma. You have to say that.”

  I can feel her shake her head against my neck. “Nope. I don’t have to say anything. I’m old. I do what I want.”

  “You aren’t old.”

  “Well, I’ve never been one to hold my tongue, either.” She tightens her embrace around me. “So, do you want to tell me what exactly happened? The real story, not your parents’ version.”

  “You heard that one already, huh?”

  She laughs. “I’m pretty sure the entire neighborhood heard it.” Then she sighs. “Come on, my love. Out with it.”

  So I take a deep breath and tell her everything: about Miles and Clayton at the party, the look in their eyes when they figured it all out. About Spencer’s party and Dine Around and the wind in my hair on the drive up to Canada; about clearing the air with Carrie and listening to Bethany talk about her dad.

  About how scared I was of rejection, and what it felt like to realize that so is everyone else.

  “I felt like I spent all of high school saying no to stuff because I thought I already knew it would be terrible,” I explain, finally rolling over to face her. “So when I found your book, it seemed like a sign.”

  Nonna frowns. “What book?”

  I gesture to it on the nightstand. “That one. A Season of Yes!”

  “Huh.” She grabs the book, then sits up, turning Dr. Paula’s magnum opus over in her hands to examine it.

  I push myself up onto my elbows. She doesn’t remember the book? How could she not? She’s got notes scribbled in the margins; the pages are dog-eared. It looks like the sort of well-worn tome that must’ve meant something to her, that must have served as a guidebook that got her where she is today. Nonna flips through a few pages and then groans when the recognition finally hits. “Marone,” she says, “this book?”

  “Yes, this book. I’ve been applying Dr. Paula’s process to my life this summer.”

  “Saying yes to every opportunity?” she asks.

  I nod. “Pretty much.”

  “Oh, Patatina. Not this book.” She buries her face in her hands.

  What? What is she talking about? “But all of your notes? In the margins? You underlined so much!”

  “This book is how I lost my second husband, gained forty pounds, and almost lost my house.”

  What? My eyes widen and my heart races. “What do you mean? Why did you keep it, then?”

  “I don’t know, honestly. I like surrounding myself with books, I guess. I keep them all.” Nonna points to the picture of Dr.
Paula. “She should have said no to those glasses, I can tell you that much.” She laughs and tosses the book off the bed. “Listen to me, my love. Despite your protests, I am actually old. It’s not a dirty word! I embrace it, wrinkles and all, because it represents the life I’ve lived, the life I’ve loved. But, when I was young, I made mistakes and learned from them. Sometimes those mistakes were because of some idea I got in my head, some self-help book’s suggestion, or sometimes because I just plain goofed up.”

  She pulls me into her side and presses my head against her shoulder. “Oh, my girl, I want you to make mistakes, make a whole mess of them. Because getting yourself out of a pickle is how you will learn and grow. If everything always works out perfectly according to your plan every time, you’ll miss so many chances for surprise and adventure.” She gestures toward the book. “But clearly Dr. Paula Prescott has never heard of opportunity costs.”

  “Opportunity costs?”

  “In economics.” She pats my hand. “When you say yes to something, you are inherently saying no to almost everything else. Unless this Dr. Paula has also figured out how to be in two places at once and also taught you that skill?” I smile weakly and shake my head.

  “Every choice has embedded within it an opportunity cost. Saying yes isn’t free. When you said no to parties and to boys, you were saying yes to your family, and to your friends, and to your responsibilities. And sometimes that—learning when to say no and especially what to say no to—is just as important.”

  “Like to two boys?” I joke.

  Nonna nods. “Like I said, you’re allowed to be interested in more than one thing, in more than one person, but once the line blurs between casual and committed, especially if you know it’s blurred for someone else, you’ve got to be honest and up front. I mean, you can’t literally say yes to two spouses, right?”

  “God, Nonna! No one is talking about marriage.”

  “No, I know that. You’re not getting married for a decade. At least.” She narrows her eyes at me. “But eventually you have to say no to someone, right? Saying no to one person enables you to say yes to someone else. Eventually. Many, many, many years from now.” She shrugs. “I think balance is the key to finding out what you really, actually want. Not just what you’re forcing yourself to say yes to.”