The Square Root of Summer

by Harriet Reuter Hapgood

  As in, oh, my hair. I’d forgotten about the makeover.

  While Sof stares at me, I clamber on, rocking the boat—my movement makes all the leaves sway, even though there’s no breeze. Sof shakes her head, maybe in disbelief.

  “Hi, Mrs. Petrakis.” I wave, awkwardly.

  “Hello, stranger.” Her mum’s smile is warm, sending lines radiating out from her eyes. She puts the watering can down. “Darling, I’d give you a hug, but my hands are covered in compost. It’s only been four days since all the rain, but everything’s totally dried out. I expect your garden’s much the same?”

  She and Grey used to bond over mulch and leaf mold and compost, oh my. Her ideas are all throughout the diaries. It’s how Sof and I first became friends. Sof, who still hasn’t spoken.

  “It’s okay,” I fib. Has Sof told her how neglected the garden has become? I should invite her round to say hello to the plants. Ask her what we need to do to restore the garden to its former glory.

  “Let me get you a drink—coconut water?” Mrs. Petrakis smiles again, turning away and taking off her gardening gloves. She touches the back of her hand to Sof’s shoulder. “Don’t forget sunscreen.”

  Sof follows her inside to get it, and I try not to hate her for having a mum who remembers about sunscreen.

  “Wow,” Sof finally says when she returns, carrying bottles of water and a bag of dried apple slices.

  “You think it was a mistake?”

  “No, no…” Sof looks like she thinks it was a mistake. Her own hair is done up in giant Princess Leia buns as she stares at mine. “Turn around, let me get a better look at it.”

  I do a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spin, then sit down on the towel next to hers, sweating from the small exertion.

  It’s blazing hot. The air is still and smells of salt and sea lavender, with the kind of endless sky you only get here on the fens, where the land is so flat it could prove Ptolemy wrong, and the blue goes all the way to the edges. Not that I’ve been anywhere else to compare. Perhaps Ned sees similar skies all the time in London. Perhaps Thomas left behind a Canadian sky as big as this one.

  I want to see all the skies, not only the one I know. This is how you discover the universe.

  “Do you hate it?” I rub my hand over the bristles on my neck, still not used to it.

  Sof adjusts her lime sunglasses—they match her bikini—not looking at me as she croaks, “I don’t hate it. But I wish you’d told me about it first.”

  “So you could tell me not to do it?” I half joke. “I know it’s wonky, I think Thomas got peanut butter on our scissors…”

  Sof doesn’t answer, just stares out at the canal. The surface is a mirror: all that blue sky is underneath us too. We’re at the center of everything.

  “You and Thomas. I haven’t seen you in weeks, but he’s cutting your hair with you—”

  “I cut my hair. Thomas had nothing to do with it.”

  “He’s in your house. He’s getting peanut butter on your scissors, working at the Book Barn … You barely reply to my texts, you never said you cut your hair.”

  This isn’t fair. Sof’s abandoned me before to spend hours on the phone with girls she’s never met, going googoo-eyed over an Internet crush. Can’t she just be happy I’m happy? I don’t want to wade into a quagmire of conversation. I want to fast-forward through all the awkward like coming out of a wormhole, and emerge with us as friends and have everything be normal.

  “It looks like it did when I first met you,” Sof mutters. “How it would have been when Thomas lived here before.”

  “Thomas lives with us,” I say. “I can’t not see him. And didn’t you guys hang out in London with Meg?”

  “You and Thomas are friends,” she says, finally looking at me—or at least, pointing her sunglasses in my direction. “Me and Thomas are friendly. Where are you and me?”

  I stuff an apple slice in my mouth—it’s the texture of sea sponge—for something to do. When Grey died, Sof visited me every day, bringing magazines and chocolate and wide eyes full of question marks: are you okay, are you okay, are you okay? I started dreading the tap-tap-tap of her knock because I could feel her wanting—wanting me to talk to her, wanting me to let her in, wanting me to come to her. Wanting me to act a certain way. It was exhausting.

  What if friendship has a best-before date, and ours has gone off?

  “Bet they’d be a novelty one-hit band,” I say, nudging her. “Peanut Butter Scissors.”

  No response.

  “Surprise Haircut—quirky singer and a couple of nerds on keyboards.”

  Nothing from Sof.

  “Your Best Friend’s A Moron And She’s Sorry—me on Niall’s drums, scatting a song of apology.”

  Sof smirks. Only a little. And she quickly pretends she didn’t. But it’s a start.

  “My maybe-best-friend’s a dick. And it’s uneven at the back.”

  “Hey, Sof.” I nudge her. “Do you want to come over this Friday? You could help me even it up. And Thomas makes really good cake…”

  There’s a pause, then she asks “Gluten-free?” and I know I have her.

  “Certified fun-free, I promise.” I give it a second, then make my next offer. “Want to know a secret? Something Thomas doesn’t know.”

  “Depends.” She takes off her sunglasses and squints at me. Fondness fills me up as I think: I’m not ready for this friendship to be over. “Is it a good secret?”

  “I had sex with Jason.”

  Ned should be here to photograph the look on her face.

  This is how it would go if things were normal between us:

  “Wooowww.” Sof would scramble upright and wolf-howl into the air.

  She’d use up the world’s supply of vowels. I’d tell her about me and Jason, how he’d done it before and I, very obviously, hadn’t. But how quickly that turns out not to matter. We’d talk and eat licorice till our tongues turned black, go over every detail.

  There would be a thousand questions. Is that why you were reading Forever? Are you on the pill? Did I need her to talk me through the options? And Jason? Did he strike a pose halfway through? Sof’s head would go Exorcist, and I’d love her for all the reasons I couldn’t last summer: her enthusiasm, her exuberance, her nosiness, her put-on air of worldly wisdom. She’d peer at me over her poseur sunglasses and explain that there was no such thing as virginity and have I read Naomi Wolf and penetration is just a myth anyway and I know that, right?

  What actually happens: Sof picks her jaw off the floor and a piece of nail varnish from her toe before croaking, “When was this? He’s going out with Meg.”

  “This was before that.”

  I can’t tell her how long before. This is the trouble with secrets—you can’t just reveal them and hope for normality. Even when exposed, they leave ripples in the universe, like a stone skimmed on the canal.

  “You know he and Meg are going to be at Ned’s party.”

  Even though it’s happening at my house, there’s no question—it’s Ned’s party, not mine. Thirteen days and counting down.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” I say. “About Jason.”

  “Yeah, well.” Sof jams her sunglasses back on. “I don’t tell you all my secrets.”

  “About Jason,” I say, not any lighter for telling her. “You’re the only one who knows…”

  “And you want me not to tell Ned,” she says, standing up. Ever since the time capsule, Ned’s been popping up between me and Thomas like a jack-in-the-box. Lurking in front of the bathroom door and in the kitchen like a Roman centurion. Never leaving us alone. “Shall we swim?”

  The ferns sway as we walk silently to the prow of the boat. At the edge, we stand side by side, together but not.

  “Best summer ever?” I ask Sof. It’s so, so far from that, but that’s what I always used to say.

  And she always used to say the same thing back: Nah—next year will be better.

  This time, she doesn’t b
other to answer. Instead, ahead of me in everything like always, she dive-bombs into the mirror-smooth canal, shattering all that blue into a thousand pieces.

  Swimming with Sof—that was the plan. But by the time I jump in after her, the canal’s a wormhole.

  I let myself sink into the cool, clear water.

  * * *

  After I come bursting up for air, I turn onto my back, and float. Earlier, when we were kissing, Jason persuaded me to take my hair out of its topknot. Now it’s drifting out around me in the water. I’m a mermaid.

  I close my eyes as the sun washes over me, enjoying the contrast of warm on my stomach and cool underneath. When Jason calls my name, it sounds far away, as though we’re in two different places.

  It’s only after he says “Margot” for the third or fourth (hundredth) time, I bother opening my eyes. He’s upside down above me, leaning over the prow of Sof’s boat. Her whole family’s on vacation, and I’m on plant-watering duty. The canal is the perfect Ned-free and everyone-free zone.

  “Hi.” I crinkle my nose, wishing I could reach up and topple him into the water.

  “Hi, daydreamer.” He smiles down at me, love and sunglasses. “Are you ever planning to get out?”

  “Nope.” I splash with my hands a little, and he laughs. “You could get in…”

  “I didn’t bring my bikini,” he jokes.

  I close my eyes, because I don’t dare say this with them open: “So swim naked.”

  Shortly afterwards, there’s a splash. I tip myself upright, treading water, and Jason’s beside me. Wet hair flopping into his eyes, bare chest, warm eyes inky blue. And as he looks at me, I suddenly get it. This isn’t the Big Bang. It’s just summer. But it’s still love. It’s still something.

  “Now you,” he says, cocky. His arm slides around my waist, holding me steady, and we half swim to the side of the boat. Our gazes don’t break as I reach behind me to unhook my bikini top and fling it over the boat-rail, where it drips cool and steady into the canal next to us.

  When I shuffle off my bikini bottoms, they sink away from me. I don’t bother diving down to find them. Instead, I say to Jason: “Race you.” And kick my feet off the side of the boat, slicing through the water, turning circles, living in 3D.

  Every inch of me is electric. Without that polyester layer, I feel the water differently against my skin. The sun is hotter on my shoulders, Jason’s mouth when he catches up to me and kisses the back of my neck, it’s all just so much more. This is the most alive I’ve ever been.

  Monday 4 August

  [Minus three hundred and thirty-seven]

  It’s midnight, or thereabouts. A Cinderella time. The witching hour. The mood is magical: dark and starry, hot and close. And I’m wide awake. Ever since I burst out of the past, back into the canal, I’ve got superhero hypersense. It’s like someone cranked the world’s volume up and it’s all blazing color. No more wormholes—I’m here.

  It feels both better and worse than before: intense and alive, but farther from my grandfather than ever. Being here means letting him fade away. The diaries are just words on a page.

  The kitchen door is open, and the night jasmine drifting in from the garden mingles with the lemon drizzle cake Thomas has just put in the oven. It’s his first practice run for the gluten-free promise I made to Sof. Papa went to bed hours ago. Ned’s finally given up and left us alone. And every inch of my skin is alive. Tingling.

  “Here. It’s the best bit.” Thomas hands me a wooden spoon, the air stirring as he passes me on his way to the sink, our fingers fumbling.

  I lick the cake mixture from the spoon and try to focus on the paper in front of me. I’m plotting the wormholes. Each time and place I’ve gone back to, and each origin point, gets a dot. If the timelines are converging—I want to know what they’re converging on. It’s ten days till Ned’s party. Twenty-eight till the anniversary of Grey’s death. And a week after that, Ms. Adewunmi is expecting an essay in her inbox.

  Behind me, Thomas is washing up, the sink overflowing with bubbles. He hums over the rumble of our creaky plumbing, the ancient tap that I have to constantly tighten with a wrench. Bare feet tapping on tiles.

  I smile and turn back to my work, choosing a new felt-tip and charting all those Thomas anomalies, too. The numbers in the churchyard, the way the stars went out in the garden and the rainstorm in the tree. After a moment, I pick up an orange pen and add one last dot—April, in the kitchen. Umlaut.

  “Astronomy homework?” Thomas puts his chin on my shoulder.

  I look again. He’s right: the dots do look like stars. And not just any constellation—the one Thomas stuck to my ceiling that matches nothing in the galaxy.

  Where else will I find this pattern—the sprinkles on top of Thomas’s cupcakes? His freckles? The *Rs scattered in Grey’s diaries?

  “Come on,” I say, pushing back my chair. I don’t wait for him as I run out into the garden.

  Outside, the moon mingles with the light from the kitchen—illuminating the dandelions on the lawn. It’s the same pattern.

  I lie on the grass and look at the apple tree—imagine its branches twisting round each other like ribbons on a maypole, all the timelines coming together. Is the world converging on something, or laying everything to rest? Earth to earth, ashes to ashes. I don’t know that I’m ready to say goodbye.

  “Okay, G.” Thomas has finally followed me outside. He lies down next to me, scooching his arm so I can rest my head on his chest. “What are we looking at? The same stars you drew?”

  “Sure.” I burrow into him and let him point out constellations to me—“That right there is Big Burrito. Over here we have Ned on Guitar”—till his voice begins to blur.

  Then he yawns. It’s huge and Umlaut-y and breaks us apart. I want to wriggle back to how we were, tucked up for bed on the lawn. Then it dawns on me:

  “Wait.” I roll onto my side, grass tickling my cheek. “I thought you were jet-lagged?”

  “I was—a month ago,” he teases, rolling towards me. Sleepily. “Baking was a distraction. After the chocolate cake, I noticed your light was always on late. I figured, if you were awake, maybe you’d come back to the kitchen. I’ve been setting my alarm.”

  He yawns again, squeakily. Shakes it away and looks at me.

  “But why?” I whisper. All the creepy-crawlies in the garden hold their breath for the answer as Thomas’s hand finds mine.

  “I like you,” Thomas whispers. “I liked you when you were twelve and you told me to kiss you, all scientific about it. I liked you when I walked off the plane and into the Book Barn, and you were passed out and covered in blood. I like you then, and now, and probably forever.”

  We move slowly in the dark, finding each other. His hand moves up to touch my face; mine finds his heart. I feel its beat, steady underneath my palm, as he says, “Gottie.”

  When Thomas says my name, it sounds like a promise. And for that, and for the frog in the tree and the whiskey on the carpet, for the baking lesson, and for the stars on my ceiling, I take a quantum leap.

  I close the last atoms of space between us, and I kiss him.

  * * *

  It’s late, almost dawn. Witches and ghosts and goblins.

  We’re outside on the lawn again, the following night. Side by side under the apple tree. Thomas has his head on my shoulder, his watch balanced on his knee—inside, a new gluten-free cake is in the oven, hopefully less disastrous. The minutes are ticking away and, somehow, we’re talking about Grey.

  “This will sound stupid,” I whisper.

  “You’re talking to me, remember?” His blinks take longer and longer, slow-motion eyelashes, and his usual frenetic dialogue is playing at 33 rpm.

  I should be in my room, working on a telescope theory. Thomas should be asleep in Grey’s room, dreaming of superheroes. We have to wait for the cake. We could have baked it much earlier. But we did it like this, because some secrets are easier to tell in the dark.

  “I don�
��t think I did it right,” I confess. “When Grey died.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know they give you a leaflet, at the hospital? When somebody dies. A to-do list. Ned was getting ready to move to London, and Papa was—he sort of tuned out.” Papa drifted into rooms and stood there not moving for ten minutes at a time. He locked the keys in the car. He cried doing up his shoelaces and forgot how to be my daddy. “So I read it.”

  I pause. This is the most I’ve spoken about how it was, when my grandfather died. It’s the most I’ve spoken about anything. All those times Sof came tap-tap-tapping, and I told her I had homework. All those silent baked-potato-and dinners after Papa tuned back in, but I didn’t, till he stopped trying.

  When we went to Munich at Christmas, Oma and Opa gave us Glühwein and sang carols and quietly suggested to Papa that he could move back. Unspoken was their real meaning: there was no reason to stay in Norfolk, now that Grey was gone. There was no connection to my mum anymore. In response, I don’t think Ned knew what to do except get drunk. He smashed a glass in his hand and left blood in the sink, and I cleaned it up and didn’t mention it.

  “I did the things it said to do. I called the registry office and I wrote an announcement for the paper. I ordered flowers.” I tick off items on my fingers as I whisper the list. “I recorded a new message for the answering machine. I canceled his subscriptions. I cleaned his room. But Papa kept buying Marmite.” My whisper reaches hysteria pitch, and I take a deep breath. “Grey’s the only one who likes it. And Papa kept buying it. It’s not as though we’d ever run out—no one’s eating it—but every few weeks, I see it on the list on the blackboard and wipe it off. And he buys it anyway. We have thirty jars of Marmite.”

  “I’ll eat the Marmite.”

  “Thank you.” I sigh. “But it’s not that … It’s—I did everything the leaflet said! I talked to the funeral director. I chose the hymns.”

  “You did the rituals,” says Thomas. “You poured the whiskey.”

  My throat aches with uncried tears. Papa buys Marmite and Ned’s throwing a party, but I follow the instructions. I do the rituals. So how come I’m the one who’s haunted by wormholes?