Someone Else's Summer

by Rachel Bateman

  “Come on, Anna.” His lips brush against mine, just barely. Soft enough to tickle, and then they’re gone. His breath caresses the side of my face. I turn toward it, hoping to find his lips there.

  Instead, I find that he’s rising off the bed. Without thinking, my arms shoot out and grab him, pulling him back down. Our lips crash.

  He comes out of the kiss laughing. “I knew I could get you up. Now, let’s go.” He jumps off the bed and slides into his flip-flops.

  “No fair,” I grumble, but I follow him, putting on my shoes.

  Cameron pulls the comforter from the bed and leads me out of the room. The house is dark, but I can hear faint clattering coming from downstairs—Nancy preparing breakfast, probably. There’s a trapdoor in the ceiling above us; Cameron pulls the cord and it opens, a white ladder sliding to the floor. We climb.

  The widow’s walk is small, just enough room for one Adirondack chair and a small table, which I can barely make out in the darkness. We pull up the ladder behind us, not wanting whoever is staying in the room across the hall to trip over it when they awake. Cameron sits, and I nestle onto his lap, draping the comforter around us.

  Stars are still visible, but the sky is lightening just at the horizon, a royal blue bleeding into the blackness. From the roof, we can see over the other houses all the way to the water. There’s just enough light now to make out silhouettes of boats in the marina. If I try hard enough, I can pretend to see the place we stood yesterday when Cameron told me he loves me.

  I lean my head against his shoulder. “I don’t think I’ve ever been up to see a sunrise.”

  “No?” He hugs me tightly. “I thought you girls always had to be up at ridiculous hours for cheer practice.”

  “Yeah, I guess we do, but I never pay attention. All I can think about is getting to school and getting practice over with.”

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “Yeah, I do like it,” I say a little too excitedly. “It’s just that practice is really early, and I hate getting out of bed.”

  “Yeah. Got that.”

  “And…” I turn in his lap, just enough so I can see his face. Since I joined the squad three years ago, I’ve been all cheer, all the time. We practice, we perform, and when we aren’t doing that, we hang out together. I’m with the squad always, and the girls on the team are my best friends. So I’ve never said aloud what I’m thinking—I’ve barely let myself think it.

  “And?” Cameron prompts.

  “And it sometimes seems a little pointless, you know?” I force the words out as fast as they can leave my mouth, knowing that if I don’t say them now, I never will. Once they’re out there, though, I slow down to explain. “I mean, you did the debate team and all that because you want to be a lawyer, and Storm took every science class she could get into so she’d be ready for college. You were both in the Key Club and did volunteer stuff, and what do I do with my time? I jump around and clap my hands and go to parties.”

  “But you like it, right?”

  I nod. “I do. I really, really do. But it’s pretty pointless.”

  He shrugs. “If you like it, then it’s not pointless.”

  “That’s crap.”

  “No, I mean it. I did Key Club because Storm asked me to and there’s no saying no to Storm. And the debate stuff? I’m a huge nerd—don’t bother denying it, because we both know the truth. I didn’t do debate because it gave me some greater meaning, though. I did it because I like to win.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “You’ve noticed, huh?”

  “Of course I’ve noticed. The whole world has noticed.” I sigh. “But that’s just the thing. You know what you want to do, and you do it. I don’t want to be a lifetime cheerleader. I do it because I don’t do anything else.”

  Cameron’s quiet for a moment before saying, “Well, do you have any idea what you want to do after school?”

  I shrug, not answering. I’d always thought I’d just follow Storm to the University of North Carolina. That’s how I’d lived my whole life, following in her footsteps, always eleven months later, and I figured college would be no different. She was so passionate about the ocean, and since I didn’t have my own passion, I told myself I was passionate about it, too. But now she’s gone, and I can’t follow her anymore. I have to make my own path, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

  The sunrise starts in earnest now, a blaze of orange peeking above the water and reflecting on the waves. We grow quiet, and I settle back into Cameron’s chest for the show.

  The sky shifts through myriad colors, blue to orange to the softest of pinks, and finally to yellow just before the sun breaks out from its nighttime prison. I blink against its sudden brightness.

  “Worth getting up so early?” Cameron asks.

  I nod. “It’s gorgeous. Where’s the camera?”

  “Oh crap.” He starts to stand, and I slip off his lap to the roof. “Double crap! I’m sorry.”

  I’m in a fit of giggles as he helps me to my feet. “Did you really just say ‘double crap’?”

  “Shut up! I swore in front of your mom once, and I seriously thought she was going to cut out my tongue. I don’t think I’ve said a curse word since.”

  “I think I remember that.”

  “You should. You’re the one I cussed at.” He smiles sheepishly. “Stay there. I’ll go get the camera.” He drops through the trapdoor, and I curl my feet under my butt in the chair and watch the light show.

  He’s back faster than seems possible, Polaroid in hand. Before I know what’s happening, he’s snapped a picture of me, the camera spitting the film out with a mechanical whir.

  “Thanks for the warning.” I run a hand over my head, trying to smooth down my bedhead.

  “You’re beautiful,” he says. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  “Charmer.”

  “You know it.” He hands me the camera, and I stand, taking one step to the railing. The marina is lighting up now, the sun glinting off hulls and mast tips. It’s coming alive down there, boats backing out of their slips, still more coming in from nighttime shifts. I hold the camera to my eye, putting the place I think we were standing yesterday in the center of the frame, and take a picture of the sunrise over the marina. It may not be the right place—it’s probably not—but every time I look at this picture, I know I’ll remember it as the place Cameron Andrews told me he loves me.

  “Well,” Cameron says, stepping behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist, “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Someone insisted we get up before the sun.”

  “Shut up,” I say, but I twist my neck around and kiss him.

  “Good morning, you two,” Nancy chirps as we make our way into the dining room. Unlike yesterday, this morning the room is packed. The bridal party left yesterday, and now the B&B is filled with mostly middle-aged couples. They stare at us when we walk in—eight pairs of eyes, six with glasses, appraising our pajamas and unruly hair. Maybe we should’ve showered before coming down.

  “Um, hi,” I manage as I scan the room for a seat. There are two empty chairs, an elderly couple separating them. I give Cameron’s hand a light squeeze then let it go and head to one of them. Cameron steps toward the other.

  “Oh,” Nancy cries, her fork halfway to her mouth, “wait, Cameron. You two can sit together. Harv, Jeanette, do you mind shifting down so Anna and Cameron can sit next to each other?”

  The man to my left smiles at me, his light blue eyes watery and cataract-clouded. “Of course,” he croaks and picks up his plate, circling around the back of his wife and sitting in the chair on the other side of her. She passes his coffee cup to him with a shaky hand.

  “Thank you, Harv,” Cameron says, patting Jeanette on the shoulder as he passes her to the recently vacated seat. Cheeks blazing, I take the chair next to him.

  “I’ll let Tom know you two are here,” Nancy says, rising from her seat. “He’ll have food out to you in just a minute.�
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  “Thanks.”

  Staring at the table, willing the blush to leave my cheeks, I reach for Cameron’s hand. My fingers intertwine with his, resting in his lap. With his other hand, he traces soft lines on my forearm, and I struggle not to laugh.

  “So, Anna and Cameron, is it? Why don’t you two tell us about yourselves,” the woman sitting across from me says. She looks to be in her midfifties, with tightly curled black hair and cat-eye glasses. Her voice is sweeter than honey.

  “Um, there’s not really much to tell,” I say.

  “Nonsense, dear. Everyone has a story.”

  “That’s the best part about Bed & Breakfasts, sweetie,” another woman chimes in. “We love traveling and getting to know other guests.”

  “Don’t know that we’ve met any quite as young as you two, though,” a man I assume to be her husband—a hulking man with a tiny, red face and very little hair—says. “Are you college students?”

  Cameron is oddly silent for once, so I say, “High school, actually. Well, I am for one more year. Cameron just graduated.”

  “Graduated?” the man bellows. “Congratulations, my boy. Where are you going to college?”

  Cameron’s ears are redder than red, but a tiny smile makes its way onto his face. “Yale,” he says, pride leaking into his voice.

  “Yale?” Jeanette perks up for the first time since we entered the room. Her voice sounds like it might shatter into a thousand pieces at any minute. “My Harv went to Yale.”

  “You did?” Cameron asks, turning to Harv.

  “A long, long time ago.” He laughs. “What are you planning to study?”

  Harv and Cameron settle into a comfortable conversation about classes and campus activities and the rich Yale traditions, Harv telling a few particularly colorful stories of his time there. At one point, Jeanette punches him playfully and tells him to hush.

  “How long have you two been married?” I ask them.

  Jeanette’s face is a mass of wrinkles, the skin folded over in so many ways it looks like a failed origami experiment. But the love in her eyes and the adoration she has for her husband shine through all of that, and she’s beautiful. “It’ll be sixty-two years next month,” she says.

  “That’s incredible,” I say, and the table joins in a round of congratulations.

  Harv kisses the side of Jeanette’s head, his lips loud and smacking, and she swats him off with a laugh. “This is our anniversary trip,” he says. “I have a surgery in a couple weeks, so we want to get it in before that. We try to take a small trip every year.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope?” The honey-voiced woman across from me asks.

  “Oh, no, no. It’s nothing serious.” Harv’s voice is lighthearted, but concern etches his features, and Jeanette’s eyes fill with tears. “So,” Harv says, clearing his throat and clapping Cameron on the shoulder, “what about you two? How long have you been together?”

  We look at each other, and I remember what Cameron told me just yesterday. Once it’s there, it’s like there’s never been anything else. Has it really been only four days since our first kiss? It feels like this is all there’s ever been—me and Cameron, together, as natural as breathing.

  “Uh…” Cameron laughs and then says, “a bit less than a week?”

  The woman across the table stares at us blankly. Her voice isn’t nearly as sweet when she says, “And you’re already on vacation together?” Her words drip with disapproval.

  “It’s not really like that,” Cameron says.

  “Well, what is it like then, young man?”

  I want to kick her under the table. Anger crawls beneath my skin, making me twitch and squirm in my chair. The way she looks at me, her judgment and scorn, makes me want to lash out. Cameron squeezes my hand, no doubt trying to remind me where we are, to force me to keep calm, but I can’t help myself.

  My voice is deathly calm as I say, “It’s like this: my sister, my best friend in the whole world, died. On graduation night. Here one minute, and gone the next, crushed to death in my car.” The table is silent, stares of horror coming from all the guests. Cameron is squeezing my hand so hard my fingers hurt, but I can’t stop. “Storm—that’s my sister, the dead one—she wanted to take this trip, but she can’t. And Cameron was her best friend since we were kids. So we came together. We did this trip because Storm can’t, because she’s dead. Is that explanation enough for you?”

  Just as I finish, Nancy breezes back into the room, a tall, balding man behind her, carrying plates of food. She falters at the stillness in the room. “Is everything okay?” she asks.

  Harv, who I’m learning is master of the poker face, breaks the silence for us. “Great, Nancy. Thank you for this wonderful breakfast.” Sound picks up at his words, forks and knives hitting plates as everyone remembers to eat.

  “Oh, don’t thank me, handsome. Tom did this one.”

  “My compliments to the chef.” Harv tips an invisible hat to Tom and winks at me. I mouth a thank-you.

  The woman across from me continues to stare in shock as her husband finishes his meal, and then they leave in a rush. As soon as they are out of the room, chatter builds back up, my outburst thankfully forgotten.

  Once we finish eating, Cameron stacks my plate on his and then asks Harv if he can take his.

  “Don’t worry about it, Cameron,” Nancy says. “It’s our—”

  “I know! It’s your job. But I feel weird not helping, so just let me, okay?”

  “If you insist,” Tom says. “You can put them in the sink, thanks.”

  Cameron takes a stack of too many plates to the kitchen, disappearing behind the door. As soon as he’s gone, Tom asks me, “What are you two going to do today?”

  “I don’t know, actually. I don’t think we have any plans.”

  “Have you checked out the trolley?”

  I shake my head. “What trolley?”

  “Hold on, dear.” Nancy rushes from the room, heels clacking on the hardwood floors, and comes back with a brochure in hand. “The trolley is a historic tour. It’ll take you through town and teach you a bit about the history of the buildings and stuff.”

  Tom butts in, “It sounds schmaltzy, but it’s actually pretty neat.”

  “Thanks,” I say as Cameron comes back into the room. “I think we’ll do it.”

  “Do what?” Cameron stands behind me, and I hand the brochure to him.

  “Tom and Nancy say it’s a pretty cool ride.”

  “Awesome. Thanks.” He squeezes my shoulder. “If we get ready now, we can catch the first tour.”

  We say our good-byes to Harv and Jeanette and make our way back upstairs. As soon as we enter the room, Cameron pulls me to a stop. “What happened down there?”

  “I don’t know. I just…”

  “Totally lost it?”

  “Yeah.” Anger creeps up my neck at the memory of the honey-voiced woman staring at me. “It was strange. It was like, if I didn’t say anything, I was going to explode.”

  “I think you did.”

  “I know.” I shrug. “But it’s done, and I can’t change it.”

  Cameron draws me into his arms and hugs me. “If you want to talk about it, you know I’m here.”

  “I know,” I whisper.

  “It might make it easier if we do. Talk about it, I mean.”

  “I know,” I say again. “But not now, okay? Now, I need to shower.”

  “Sounds good,” he says, smiling. “Go get clean, stinky.”

  Chapter 27

  The trolley picks us up three blocks from the B&B. It’s shiny blue and open to the air, modeled like the old railcars in San Francisco. We climb aboard and hand our money to the smiling driver then pick a seat near the middle. Cameron motions me to the window seat, climbing in after me and laying an arm over my shoulder.

  A small group of tourists joins us, filling up about three-quarters of the trolley, before the driver starts down the road, jingling the bell as we creep forward
.

  We learn the brief history of New Bern, spanning more than three hundred years since its founding. We pass the birthplace of Pepsi again, and I glimpse Walrus Man through the window. Over the intercom, the driver, Donny, explains much the same thing we read on the display card while we drank our sodas at the fountain yesterday.

  As we cruise through historic downtown, Donny tells us of the ghosts that supposedly haunt the old buildings. Apparently, the trolley company also runs a historic ghost tour at night.

  “We should do that,” I say.

  “The ghost thing?”

  “Yeah. I think it’d be cool.”

  “Maybe we will, if we have time,” Cameron murmurs against the side of my neck.

  “If we have time?” I twist to face him. “What else do we have to do while we’re stuck here?”

  “Oh, I dunno.” His hand slides up my thigh, and he leans into me. “Maybe this.”

  He kisses me, intense, right there on the crowded trolley. My mouth opens to him, automatically, his lips fitting there like they belong. My tongue flits across his, eliciting a soft moan deep in his throat.

  Someone in the seat behind us laughs, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything but Cameron’s lips on mine. I press my hand into his chest, and he shudders under my touch. His hand slips under my shirt, running along the skin there, barely brushing the edge of my tattoo, which is still tender.

  I’m hot, too hot. I can’t be close enough to him. I want every inch of him to touch every inch of me. I arch my back into him, press against him as tight as I can. He leans back, panting.

  “We gotta stop.”

  “No, we don’t.” I reach my lips to his again.

  The people behind us break into laughter again.

  “Yes, we do.” He moves back into the seat, folding his hands over his lap. The trolley brakes squeal as we stop at a red light.

  Pressing myself against his side, I pull Cameron’s earlobe into my mouth and give it a soft nibble. His breath catches, and he moans again, so, so softly.