Mystic Summer

by Hannah McKinnon

Horatio bends over in laughter and staggers to the door, where he turns and takes a dramatic bow to the room. Though a few nervous giggles escape the class, one look from me and no one dares applaud.

  In the hall we are met by a flushed-faced Anna Beth and the school nurse, followed by Dean Hartman, who happens to be coming up the hall from the other direction.

  “Where’s the injured student?” Mrs. Raines, the school nurse asks.

  Unable to speak, I point at Horatio.

  She frowns and does a complete inspection of both hands, while Horatio gamely cooperates. “What is this?” Mrs. Raines asks.

  “Ketchup,” I say between my teeth.

  Horatio pops his red finger in his mouth and licks it clean.

  “What’s going on?” John Hartman pulls up alongside us, his usual good-morning smile faltering.

  “Horatio has played a prank on the class,” I inform him. “He pretended to be bleeding and covered his finger in ketchup.”

  Horatio doesn’t miss a beat. “It was just a joke,” he says. “Miss Griffin is always so grumpy in the morning, I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

  Mrs. Raines shakes her head in disgust. “Well. I’ll leave this to your teacher.” I can’t tell if she’s disgusted by my inability to control my student or by what Horatio did.

  John looks from Horatio to me. “Would you like me to speak to Horatio?” he asks, calmly.

  Speak to Horatio? I’d like him to take Horatio outside and pull him up the flagpole by his underpants. I nod brusquely.

  “This was not an innocent prank,” I say. “Horatio accused me of injuring him. And he scared the entire class.” I refuse to admit in front of him that he scared me, too.

  “I see. Well, why don’t we have a talk, Horatio?” John motions for Horatio to follow, and they head down the hall.

  “That was so not funny. Horatio’s going to really get it,” Anna Beth whispers.

  I’d forgotten she was still there. I motion her back inside, where the kids pop back to attention and pretend to be writing in their journals. “Okay, class. Casualty averted. Take out your science logs, and meet me at the crayfish tank.”

  As I watch the group settle down I agree with half of what Anna Beth said. Horatio should get it, this time. But the sad truth is, I know he probably won’t.

  At lunch, I stop by the office to check my staff mailbox. Sharon comes in behind me. Have you two heard the news?” Mrs. Coates asks us both.

  The news is a yellow piece of paper in every box announcing a budget cut from the board of directors. “What does this mean?” Sharon asks, holding it up.

  Mrs. Coates glances nervously at Dean Hartman’s closed door. “We don’t know for sure yet,” she whispers. “But it looks like they’re cutting a teaching position. Or two.”

  Sharon and I exchange a look. “It’s not art again, is it?” I ask. Every budget year, it seems that the art and music programs are first to end up on the chopping block.

  “Enrollment is down,” Mrs. Coates says. “It could be any of us.”

  I hold my breath. Staff cuts are made by longevity. The kindergarten teacher, Melinda, is our most recent hire. But I’m next after her.

  Sharon looks at me. “Don’t worry! They say this every year to stir up donations.”

  Mrs. Coates shakes her head. “I hate budget season,” she whispers.

  Five

  Congratulations! You are the highest bidder.” The six best words a girl can hear after staying up late on a school night to monitor an auction on eBay. The bid in question cost me one hundred fifty dollars, a hit my bank account can’t really afford with rent due this week. But—I scored a sleek pair of patent Manolo Blahniks, the soles barely scuffed. A girl on a private-school income has to make it work. I don’t think of them as pre-owned. Certainly not used. Rather, I like to refer to them as new-to-me! Best of all, they’ll arrive just in time for the Darby Day School spring gala, which is this Saturday.

  “I won them!” I shriek to Erika, from my alcove.

  “Congrats,” she calls back. I find her kneeling on the living room floor, looking through a box of old pictures. She holds up two five-by-seven photos from high school. “What do you think? Should I include this graduation shot, or this one of the party afterward?” Erika is determined to make a photo board for the wedding reception that charts her and Trent’s early lives and culminates in their union. She’s spent hours organizing piles. So far her pile is significantly larger than Trent’s.

  Across the carpet her entire childhood is spread out, and mine right along with it. Birthday parties, Girl Scout camp. Her dog, Blue. I reach for the two pictures she’s holding up.

  “God, look how young we were.”

  The first is a group shot of us in our caps and gowns. There’re Jenny Potter and Alice Holmes on either side of us. And right in the center are Erika and me. Erika’s hair is long and blond, and neatly curled bangs peek out from beneath her graduation cap. I’m beside her, my dark hair permed beyond recognition into incongruous ringlets that are both ridiculous and impressive for someone with such stick-straight hair. “Why did I ever do that to my hair?”

  Erika smiles. “It took like three boxes of perm treatment from the pharmacy. Remember? My mother’s kitchen stunk for days.”

  I wrinkle my nose at the pungent memory. Erika had her hair done in the salon, but had insisted one particularly uneventful rainy Saturday afternoon that she could do the same thing for me. My mother had warned me that my hair was too fine, and that the chemicals would be too harsh. But we knew better. Erika’s mom, who was all about beauty and less about rules, did not think to check with my mom first. Nor did she question the mini-parlor we set up in her pink-tiled kitchen. She sat at the table drinking red wine and chatting about school friends as she watched us, never thinking to intervene after the first two treatments produced barely a kink in my stubbornly straight locks. By the third, I was a brunette version of Goldilocks. Unfortunately my hair was fried. It all broke off just below my ears about a week after graduation, leaving me with no choice but a sheered bob cut just in time for freshman orientation at college.

  “I like the party picture better,” Erika says. “We look tan in that one.” As though our darker complexions overshadowed the giant red plastic cups of beer in our hands.

  “Not sure that’s one for the wedding board,” I say, pointing this fact out.

  “But I’m scanning them all in black-and-white,” she insists.

  “In which case you only lose your tan. The giant plastic beer cup will still look like a giant plastic beer cup.”

  “Huh.” She shrugs. “I’ll find another.”

  Lured by memory lane, I set aside my laptop and join her on the rug. There are pictures of middle school, where we are awkward and angular. “Ech,” she says, glancing over my shoulder. “The ugly years.” Though, as usual, Erika looks adorable. Her ski-slope nose and giant white smile pop out more than any tiny blemish she may have had, while my own face is dotted with early acne and my teeth obliterated by the glare of silver braces. Erika’s slight frame looked petite, while my own is entirely geometric in its angles. It seemed like years before I developed even the hint of curves, though Jane assured me thirteen would be my year. Up until then, Erika and I used to sneak into Jane’s room and rummage around her underwear drawer to sneak a peek at her bras. Giggling, we’d hold one up against our shirts and dance around her bedroom. It was an object of mystery and allure, a representation of things we had to look forward to.

  “Find one where we look cute,” Erika tells me, handing me a pile from that painful and innocent era.

  “Please. You always looked cute.”

  “Did not,” she insists, though there is a small knowing smile on her face. She can’t help it.

  I hand her another photo. “Evidence A. The Middle School Pep Rally. Who is the girl with the blond ponytail and the pom-poms?” Erika squeals when I hand her the photo.

  “I begged you to join the squad,�
� she reminds me, as though that was the only thing standing between me and certain popularity.

  “Not my thing.”

  “You saved yourself for the spelling bee. And the science fair.” She holds up a picture of me with the eighth-grade science trophy. And no small amount of silver reflecting from my uncertain smile.

  “Okay, okay,” I say, plucking the photo from her grip. We both go quiet, looking through the pile of memories between us. A wave of nostalgia pours over me, along with a pang of the old uncertainty and awkwardness I used to feel.

  “I was so jealous of you,” Erika whispers suddenly.

  I look up. “What?”

  Her large blue eyes are bright. “Oh, come on, don’t pretend you don’t know.”

  “I honestly don’t.”

  She smiles softly. “You were always so sure of yourself, Mags. You’re the one who got the good grades. Who went to the good college. You were always the voice of reason to my crazy ideas.”

  I shake my head, listening in disbelief. “Erika, you’re just as smart as me.” What Erika may have lacked in a couple of IQ points she more than compensated for in ambition. And social prowess. “Look at you! You went to law school. You’re an attorney in a Boston firm, for God’s sake. And about to marry someone who thinks the world of you.”

  Erika nods her blond head solemnly. “I know. And I want all that. It’s just that sometimes things seem to be moving faster than I thought they would.” She sits back and sighs. “Trent’s mother is hinting about grandchildren again.”

  I have heard this with my own two ears. Trent is Trent Everett Mitchell III. His father, Trent II, is always referring to family whenever I see him at events. The family business. The seaside family “cottage” in Wellfleet. The family foundation that Trent’s grandmother started to bring art into the lives of inner-city kids. The Mitchell family name is an old New England one, in both their history and their holdings.

  Erika smiles sadly. “Sometimes I just wish we could slow down and hold on to a moment, you know?”

  I do know.

  But I also know this hesitation is more about Erika pulling overtime at her firm. The jerky male partners continually dump photocopying assignments on her desk or call her in on weekends when there’s a big case to research, while they play golf. But even with all that, I have no doubt she’ll work her way up to an associate someday, even if, for the moment, it means she copies transcripts for client meetings instead of leading them.

  I take a deep breath. “I’m worried, too. I’m worried that you guys are all moving on with your lives. And here I am, looking for yet another studio apartment. And maybe a new job.”

  She looks at me sympathetically. “That school would be crazy to let you go. But even if they did, we have all summer to find you another one.” I love that she said “we.”

  She pauses. “As far as the apartment goes, have you and Evan talked about maybe moving in together?”

  I shake my head. It is something I’ve wondered about. But it’s his first year on the new show, and he’s been so stressed with the irregular hours. Instead of feeling closer, lately I almost feel as if we’ve been drifting apart. “I want to. But then I think it’s too soon.”

  “Talk to him about it. Who knows, maybe he’s thinking the same thing.”

  “Maybe.” I don’t add that I have no idea what he’s thinking lately, with our opposite schedules.

  “He may surprise you.” She reaches for another photo and holds it up. “Look at this one. Senior party at the Seaport.”

  I grab the picture. “What were we, sophomores?”

  “I know I drove you crazy back then, dragging you to all those parties.”

  “I wouldn’t have gotten into them without you,” I tell her.

  “And you were the one who made me take honors art in high school, even though it was the only honors class I could get into.”

  We look at each other for a beat before tears prick our eyes.

  “We’ve made a lot of memories at home and here. No matter what happens this year, we’re going to be all right,” Erika says, scraping the pictures quickly into a pile. She holds up her pinky finger between us, the very gesture we have made together since third grade. “Promise?”

  “Promise,” I say. I lock my pinky finger around hers.

  Later, Erika says good night and takes the box of photos to her room. She doesn’t know that there’s one last picture I’ve held onto. Before bed, I prop it up against a pile of books on my bedside table. Cam and I are sitting at a campfire the night of our high school graduation party.

  Behind us the Mystic River glows orange beneath the sunset. I’m grinning at the camera, probably having been ordered to do so by Erika. But Cam’s not. Young and earnest, his gaze is as intense as his smile. I’ve never noticed it before: he’s staring right at me.

  Even though it’s getting late, I pick up the phone. Jane picks up on the first rings. “Did you know that Cameron Wilder moved back to Mystic? And that he has a baby?”

  Jane yawns. “Slow down. What are you talking about?”

  “Well, Mom certainly did. Of all the trivial local news Mom douses me with each time I call home, don’t you think this little tidbit is something she might have remembered to tell me?”

  “Well, I had no idea, I swear.” Jane is quick to thrust her innocence into the conversation. “Maybe Mom didn’t want to upset you.”

  “Upset me? Why would she think this would upset me?”

  Jane scoffs.

  “Fine. Maybe I sound upset, but I’m really just surprised.”

  “Well, whatever you choose to call it, why does it matter where Cameron lives or what he’s doing? I mean, we’ve all gone our own ways, right?”

  I hate when Jane forgets what it’s like for the rest of us on the other side of the picket fence. “It’s different for you, Jane. You’re married, living in the suburbs, with a family.”

  “Isn’t Cameron allowed to do the same?”

  “That’s the thing. There is no ‘family,’ just him and his daughter. The mother isn’t in the picture.” News that, when my mother finally told me, simultaneously intrigued and saddened me.

  I guess I never let go of the hope that one day Cameron and I would run into each other again. It didn’t matter how. Our gazes would collide across the picnic tables at Abbot’s. Or we’d bump into each other at Mystic Market: there’d be a bottle of wine tucked under my arm—he’d have just picked up a wedge of good Brie. It would just make sense, of course, that we’d then have to share them by the harbor and reminisce about old times. Never once did it occur to me that our greatest obstacle would be an unwieldy pink baby stroller parked between us.

  Jane sighs into the phone. “That’s rough, but isn’t it a good thing that he’s brought his baby back home and is making a new life?”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what exactly?”

  And though Jane’s response to my bewilderment is no different than Erika’s or my mother’s, I’m finally beginning to realize just why all of it bothers me so much. It’s not just that Cameron has a baby. It’s that if I ever did imagine him having a baby, I always thought he’d have a baby with me.

  An hour after turning out my light, I sit up in bed. Before I can change my mind, I’m dialing his old phone number.

  But as soon as it rings, I’m seized by a thought: what if I wake up his parents? Followed by a worse thought: What if the phone wakes up baby Emory? But it’s too late.

  “Hello?” Cam’s voice is throaty with sleep, but at once both comforting and familiar.

  “Cam? It’s me. Maggie.”

  There’s a pause. I rush to fill the silence, suddenly feeling the need to explain myself. “Did I wake you?” I picture him glancing at the clock and a rush of embarrassment fills me. “I’m sorry to call so late. Look, why don’t I call back in the morning?”

  I’m about to hang up when Cam clears his throat. “Hang on a second.”

  So
I do, my heart in my throat. I shouldn’t have called. Not at this hour. Not at all.

  “Griff.” He’s the only one who’s ever called me that.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’d hoped it was you.”

  Six

  Friday morning is a particularly steamy one for this early in June, and the crustacean tank positively reeks. The kids are rowdy and distracted. And I’ve got to figure out what to wear to the annual Darby Gala tomorrow night. But, even though a week has passed, my mind still wanders back to Mystic every time I recall my phone call with Cam.

  As soon as Cam said he’d been hoping it was me, all my qualms were stilled. I did not consider that I might be infringing on Cam’s privacy. Nor did I consider the years between us that had led us in such drastically different directions. Instead, we were right back at the Sea View Snack Bar in Mystic sitting on the hood of his Jeep Wrangler with a tray of fried clams.

  “It was a shock to bump into you at the pier,” Cam said. It seemed both an explanation and an apology for his strained silence of that first afternoon.

  “For me, too. Which is why I called,” I admitted.

  Talking to Cam had always been easy. I was relieved to find it was still the same. “So what’s new? Tell me everything,” he said.

  “I’m teaching,” I told him.

  “That doesn’t surprise me. You were such a natural all those summers at camp,” he said, then added, “Lucky kids. I bet they love you.”

  “Here’s something you’ll love: I have a tank full of crayfish in my classroom.”

  He laughed. “No way! That’s right up my alley. Marine biology in the flesh.”

  He asked me how I liked Boston, and teased me relentlessly about “converting” to the Red Sox. He’d always been a die-hard Yankee fan.

  I asked him if he’d surfed in California, like he used to in Narragansett Bay. Many of our college summer mornings I’d rise before the sun did and drive with him up the coast, a canister of coffee and a tide chart the only things between us. I could easily picture Cam living out on the West Coast. His easy nature around people, his tousled hair on a windy day at the beach as he assessed the surf. It fit.