Rules of Summer

by Joanna Philbin

  “Mikey,” the man said, bumping Mike’s fist with his own. “How’s your dad? How come he never comes by anymore?”

  “He’s been pretty busy this season,” Mike said. “But here’s someone else for you to meet. Buford, meet Isabel. Isabel, this is Buford Giles.”

  “Hello,” Isabel said, extending her hand.

  “He’s a softie, this one,” he said, pointing to Mike. “I know he doesn’t look it, but he is.”

  “All right, that’s enough,” Mike said, unlocking Isabel’s hand from Buford’s grip. “We’ll take two number eights with extra mayo and sweet-potato fries. And two virgin coladas,” he said with a wink.

  “You got it.” Buford winked back and disappeared behind the counter.

  “You really do come here a lot,” she said.

  A moment later, he handed them two foamy drinks with straws and tiny umbrellas. Isabel took a sip of hers. It was definitely not a virgin colada. The rum burned her throat.

  “Thanks, man,” he said to Buford, then grabbed her hand to take her around to the patio. “They’ll bring us the food,” he said. “Come on, let’s find a place to sit.”

  It was only about four o’clock, but almost every table was packed with surfers or people who looked like surfers, eating from baskets of fried clams and sipping tropical drinks. The smell of Malibu rum mingled with the tang of salt and grease. Reggae played over the PA. Everybody looked older than Isabel and Mike, but Mike moved across the patio like a celebrity, exchanging bro-shakes and high fives as people yelled out his name.

  “What are you, the mayor of Montauk?” Isabel asked as they sat down at the only open table.

  “I grew up out here,” he said, stirring the foam of his drink.

  “In Montauk?”

  “The North Fork.” He smiled. “You’ve heard of it?”

  “Of course I have.” She’d never actually met anyone from the North Fork before. She’d only been there a few times, usually to take the ferry to Block Island to see her aunt. Lots of farmland, small shingle homes, and homey seafood places near the harbor were all she remembered of it. “How does Buford know your dad?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “We have a vegetable farm and a stand near Wainscott,” he said. “He keeps Buford in corn and tomatoes all summer long.”

  “And he keeps you in piña coladas,” she said, picking up her cup.

  “You could say that.”

  “Do you work on the farm?” she asked, hoping that this didn’t sound offensive for some reason.

  “In the summers I do. During the rest of the year I go to Stony Brook.” Mike leaned back in his patio chair, slipped off his flip-flops, and propped his tan feet on the arms of an unused chair.

  “So what are you studying?” Isabel asked. It made sense that Mike would be in college, given his age, but she couldn’t quite picture him in school.

  “The usual stuff,” Mike said cryptically. “Nothing that interesting. Let’s talk about you. What were you trying so hard to get away from? The other day, out in the water?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “I just wanted to swim.”

  “Far, far away from your beach club. Which most people would do anything to belong to.”

  “Wait. Where are you going with this?”

  He laughed and leaned closer to her, so close that she could see a faint stripe of sand near his jawbone in the fading light. “I guess I just want to know why you’re out right now with a guy from the North Fork when you could be sunning yourself at the Georgica Club.”

  “Maybe I’m bored,” she said.

  “Maybe you are.”

  “And I could ask you the same question. What are you doing out with a girl who’s never been to Buford’s Lobster Shack?”

  Without taking his eyes off her, he picked up his drink and took a long sip. She’d never seen a guy who said so little and yet communicated so much at the same time. And right now his smile seemed to say, Because you are the sexiest girl I’ve ever seen, and I can’t wait to kiss you.

  The pause was broken by Buford delivering their food. “Here you go,” he said, setting the paper plates down on the table. “Two lobsters. Extra mayo. Enjoy.”

  As he walked away, Isabel looked down at the lobster roll nestled beside a mountain of salty sweet-potato fries. “This looks incredible.”

  “Yup. I’d say this would be my last meal.”

  She picked up the sandwich and took a messy bite. “Wow.”

  He nodded as if this was just what he’d expected to hear. “What’s your last meal?” he asked.

  “Maybe this.”

  “Last dessert, then?”

  “Oh, that’s easy. Strawberry shortcake.”

  He laughed.

  “What?” she asked. “Why is that funny?”

  “Strawberry shortcake?” he asked skeptically.

  “Have you ever had it?” she asked.

  “I think so.”

  “It’s amazing,” she said with conviction. “And I can make it.”

  “You can make it?” he asked.

  “Yeah. My mom doesn’t usually let me do stuff in the kitchen, but whenever I bake, I’m awesome.”

  He looked like he was trying hard not to laugh again. “Wait. Why doesn’t your mom let you do stuff in the kitchen?”

  “Because we have help. Why would my parents want me to cook?”

  “I don’t know, maybe to teach you how to take care of yourself?” he asked with a glint in his eye. He dipped a fry into the mayo. “You should make me some one day.”

  “Only if you’re really, really nice to me.” She pulled away from him and let some hair fall over one eye. “Now let me ask you something. How many girlfriends do you have?”

  “Have or had?”

  “Have. As in, right now.”

  The beat of the music changed and bloomed into something slow and sexy. A song she’d loved last summer.

  From the very first time I rest my eyes on you, girl

  My heart said follow through

  But I know now that I’m way down on your line

  But the waiting feel is fine

  The rum was starting to make her feel dizzy. She closed her eyes and swayed a little with the beat of the music, until she felt Mike’s fingers creep stealthily over her hand. She opened her eyes and saw that he was looking right at her.

  “Just one. But I’m still working on it.”

  Rory leaned against the mountain of bed pillows and looked at the cell phone in her hand. Three missed calls, all from Lana McShane. Her mom never did like to leave voice mails. Instead, she liked to call over and over again and hang up, which always succeeded in making Rory feel both guilty and panicked.

  At least tonight had been quiet. She’d eaten dinner with Fee, Bianca, and Erica, the new chef. Petite but strong, with a mass of light brown curls, Erica insisted on whipping up a separate dinner of pappardelle with spring vegetables and ricotta just for the four of them. The food was delicious, but Bianca barely touched it, as she was too engrossed in an episode of Downton Abbey to pay attention to any of them. Afterward Rory had taken a long bubble bath in the sunken marble tub, then wrapped herself in the silk and chenille bathrobe that hung on the back of her bathroom door and got into bed. It was nine forty-five and all she wanted to do was go to sleep. But if she didn’t call back, her mom would probably call again. Might as well get this over with, Rory thought as she dialed.

  Her mom answered after one ring. “Hullo?” It was only one word, but Rory could hear the wine in it.

  “Hey, Mom, it’s me. Sorry I missed your calls.”

  “Oh. Did I call you more than once?”

  “I think so. How’s it going?”

  “Not so good.” There was a muted sniffle. “I think Bryan and I broke up.”

  “Oh,” Rory said, feeling a twinge of guilt. She hadn’t seen that one coming—at least, not this soon. “I’m sorry.”

  “Honey, I need you,” h
er mom half pleaded, half ordered. “I need you to come home. Now.”

  “Mom, I can’t. I just got here.”

  “Rory, please. And they turned off the cable yesterday on top of everything, so I can’t even watch TV—”

  “I put the bill on the fridge. Didn’t you see it?”

  “I was just a little late with it,” her mom said, annoyed. “Tell Aunt Fee you’re very sorry but that I need you. She’ll understand.” There was another sniffle. “You’re all I’ve got, honey.”

  Rory squeezed one tiny blue-and-white-speckled throw pillow. She could feel the familiar vines of guilt creeping through the phone line and wrapping themselves around her, tighter and tighter. “I can’t,” she finally said. “I just got here. It would be really bad for me to leave right now. Just go to bed. Everything will be better tomorrow. I promise.”

  There was a click and then silence.

  “Hello? Mom?”

  She’d hung up. Rory looked at the dark face of her cell phone. Her mom had ended their phone conversations like this before, but Rory had never felt this annoyed by it. Screw you, she thought. She turned off the ringer and put the phone in the top drawer of the bedside table, where she wouldn’t even hear it vibrate. If her mom called back, she didn’t want to know.

  She pulled the covers up to her chin and sank into the plush mattress. Maybe coming to East Hampton hadn’t been such a mistake after all. Nursing her mom through her latest breakup was starting to get old. And her mom was an adult, as Sophie and Trish were always telling her. She could take care of herself. She wasn’t supposed to be the mom, they would tell her over and over again.

  But what if you don’t know anything else? she wondered.

  “Wait here,” Isabel said as they pulled up in front of the iron gates. “I need to punch in the code.”

  Slowly she let go of Mike’s hand—the one that had been holding hers all the way home from Buford’s—and got out of the car. She wavered for a moment, then put her hand on the door to keep her balance. The ground teetered up and down. Buford’s not-so-virgin coladas were exacting their revenge. Focus, she thought. She steadied herself, then walked around the front of the humming car and over to the intercom.

  So far, the entire day had been perfect, except for one thing: Mike hadn’t kissed her yet. She knew that he wanted to. At Buford’s they’d moved their plastic patio chairs closer and closer to each other while they talked, until their faces were so close together that once or twice she’d buried her head into his shoulder and laughed. Then they’d gotten into his car in the dark, still laughing (she more than he—she’d had half of a second piña colada; he’d had a Coke), and she’d leaned her head back and looked at him and thought, Okay, now. Now he has to do it. Now he has to kiss me. But all he’d done was turn on the car and take her hand and say “I should probably get you home.”

  “Okay,” she’d said, a little stunned. And it had only made her want him more.

  She leaned over the intercom box, trying to remember the code, when she heard Mike say, “Maybe I should just drop you off here.”

  She turned around. The ground teetered again. “Why?” she asked.

  “Because it’s a little late.”

  “Are you afraid of my parents?” she teased.

  Mike laughed and shook some hair out of his eyes. “This just might not be the best time to meet them.”

  Isabel looked past the gates, at the long, softly illuminated drive. She didn’t want to say good-bye to him here. She was already out of the car. How could he kiss her if she was out of the car? “Hold on,” she said. “I have a better idea.”

  Rory bunched the pillow up under her head and grabbed the remote control from the nightstand. The night before, she’d had no problem falling asleep, but tonight she was as wide awake and alert as if she’d had two mocha lattes after dinner. This was the last time she’d call home before bed. Dealing with her mom this late at night was guaranteed insomnia.

  A scratching noise sounded at the window. She looked up. Was it a raccoon? Did they have raccoons out in the Hamptons?

  The noise sounded again. She sat up. This time it wasn’t so much a scratching as it was a shuffling or a straining, hands grasping at the frame. Something—or someone—was trying to open the window.

  Finally the window came loose and rose with a loud squeak. As Rory sat in bed, too frightened to move, she watched a guy slowly climb into her room, one leg at a time.

  She screamed and turned on the light.

  “Sorry!” he yelled.

  It was the sexy guy she’d seen outside the house that morning. Except this time he didn’t look nearly as cool. “Sorry!” he whispered, both of his hands up as if he’d just been arrested. “Sorry!”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she yelled, pulling the covers up to her neck.

  The guy blinked and slowly put his hands down. “Isabel told me—”

  The doorknob turned, and as the guy scrambled back through the window, Bianca Vellum charged into the room, clutching a striped silk robe to her chest. “What is going on here?” she demanded, blinking at Rory in the light.

  Rory watched as Mike’s right flip-flop disappeared over the windowsill and into the night. “Nothing,” she said.

  Bianca glanced at the window and then looked back at Rory. From the irate look on her face, Rory knew she’d seen Mike’s foot, too.

  “That was—it’s not what it looks like—” Rory began.

  “I’m only going to say this once,” Bianca said, almost trembling with anger. “This is someone else’s home. Not yours. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes,” Rory breathed.

  Bianca wrapped her robe tighter around herself. “Good night,” she said with palpable disgust, and closed the door.

  Rory sat by herself in the empty room, feeling as if a hurricane had just swept through. This had to be Isabel’s doing. She’d told him to come in this way—she was sure of it. She seemed determined to get her kicked out of here. And at this rate, it would be a miracle if she didn’t.

  Upstairs, Isabel lay on her bed as the floor listed to the left and right in a nauseating way. She’d just heard what sounded like a scream in the room below, then the sound of Mike tearing across the lawn, followed by Bianca chewing somebody out. Somebody had caught Mike sneaking into the downstairs guest room, and it wasn’t Bianca. Who had it been?

  Rory. Rory had caught him.

  And by now she would have told Bianca that he was Isabel’s friend, and that would be it. In the past four years that she’d been house manager, Bianca had never missed an opportunity to bust Isabel for any and every little thing. She seemed to take pleasure in updating Lucy on all of Isabel’s misdeeds. By the time she woke up tomorrow, her mom would know all about her sneaking some guy into the house and she’d be lucky if she wasn’t grounded for the rest of the month. Oh well, she thought, closing her eyes. Let them ground her. She had no doubt that she would see him again. And next time, no matter what it took, she’d make sure he kissed her.

  The next morning, Rory woke up at dawn. Birds chirped madly in the trees as gray light filtered through the blinds. She stretched and yawned, taking her time to wake up, until the memory of last night came back to her. With a shot, she sat up in bed and clutched the sheets to her chest. This morning everyone would know some guy had tried to sneak into her room. The Rules would be furious. She had no explanation. Telling them it was Isabel’s new boyfriend wasn’t an option. She could handle the Rules being mad at her, but not Isabel. She was scary enough already.

  She finally got out of bed and into the shower. When she stepped into the hall in her favorite pair of jeans and her prettiest cotton tank, the house was still. Apparently Sunday was the one day that the Rules slept in.

  She walked down the hall and pushed open the swinging door. Thankfully, the only person in the kitchen was Fee, who was bent over the open dishwasher, unloading glasses.

  “Good morning,” Rory said as brightly as possib
le.

  Fee barely glanced at her as she wiped the glasses dry with a towel. “G’morning,” she said tersely. “How’d you sleep?”

  She knows, Rory thought. Of course she knows. “Fee, last night isn’t what you think,” she said. “In case you heard.”

  “You can’t be sneaking boys into your room,” Fee said slowly, still not looking at her. “That’s the one thing, Rory. You just can’t be having romances here.”

  Just tell her who’s really having a romance around here, she thought. But she couldn’t. She reached down and pulled a heavy painted platter from the dishwasher. “Do the Rules know?”

  “I begged Bianca not to say anything,” Fee said, taking the platter from Rory’s hands. “And she actually said she wouldn’t. Of course, now I’m obligated to the stuck-up cow, which is the last thing on earth I wanted.”

  “I’m sorry about that. But thank you for asking her not to say anything.”

  “I just don’t understand it,” Fee said. “I didn’t think you were like that.”

  I’m not, Rory was about to say when the kitchen door swung open. Rory turned around, expecting to see Bianca’s disapproving face, but instead Isabel staggered into the room, looking like she’d hardly slept. Her eyes were bloodshot, her skin looked sallow, and her hair hung in messy clumps around her face. Hangover, Rory thought. Big-time.

  “Is there any more of that green juice that Eduardo used to make?” she asked in a raspy voice.

  “I think some’s in here,” Fee said, opening the refrigerator and rummaging around. She seemed not to notice Isabel’s hangover. Or she was used to it.

  Rory took the opportunity to shoot Isabel a look, but Isabel staunchly avoided her eyes.

  “Here you go,” Fee said, handing an unmarked plastic bottle of green sludge to her. “You feeling okay?”

  “I think I might have the flu,” Isabel said.

  Flu? Rory thought, glaring at her. Puh-leeze.

  “Oh, well, in that case you better get right back to bed,” said Fee.

  “Thanks.” Isabel shuffled out, pushing the door with the tips of her fingers.

  “Something must be going around,” Fee murmured as she turned back to the dishwasher.