Endless Summer

As the doorbell rang, I was dumping potato chips into a bowl. is was something one did when having one’s friends over for lunch. is was, in fact, the only thing I could think of that one did when hostessing a lunch.

At the sound of the bell, I glanced toward the door and tried to slow my pulse. It was not Adam, miraculously freed from the wrath of his parents (and my dad). It was Tammy and Rachel, who’d agreed to come over again today to help me figure out what to do. They were co

“Heeeey,” I wailed.

Tammy and Rachel made unfamiliar girly noises of sympathy and wrapped me in a group hug. “Oh, no!” Rachel exclaimed. “Have you been crying?”

“I’m all cried out.” My voice was muffled against Tammy’s T-shirt—which was safe from stains, because I never wore makeup to work. I wished I could have enjoyed the group hug and taken them up on the implicit invitation to cry my eyes out all over again. is was why they’d driven out here on my lunch break. is was what girls did.

But I really had depleted my store of tears, and probably lost five pounds of water weight in the process, while dusting the marina showroom with Sean this morning.

Plus, weird as it had been to show my emotional side to Sean, it would have been even stranger to cry in front of my brother, who would be back any second. Now that he and Tammy were together, I supposed he would listen in on all my girly confabs. Not that I’d ever had any of those before.

Plus, now that I’d rid myself of the initial hysteria at getting Adam in even more trouble, I couldn’t concentrate on crying. I was thinking too hard about my plan for getting us out of this mess.

e girls and I detangled ourselves from one another and stepped into the kitchen, shutting the door on the midday heat. “It’s so romantic,” Rachel said. “Like Romeo and Juliet!”

“Romantic, no,” I said. “Like Romeo and Juliet, yes, except that it’s real. With suckage.”

“Give us the scoop.” Tammy slid into a chair in front of the bread and sandwich meat I’d piled on the kitchen table. “Did your dad convince Adam’s parents to punish him?” She glanced around the kitchen as she said this. I knew she wasn’t as interested in the scoop on Adam as the scoop on my brother’s whereabouts.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “McGillicuddy’s supposed to be down at the gas pumps, finding out from Adam right now. I worked with Sean and Cameron this morning, but neither of them knew anything. They weren’t around when Adam got in trouble. They asked him later what happened, and he told them to screw off.”

“Poor thing.” Rachel, who was still standing next to me, slipped her arm around my waist.

I shot a sideways look at her. “Poor thing” was right. I felt awful for Adam. But I didn’t necessarily want Rachel feeling awful for him—not when she’d been dating him two weeks ago. I was not schooled enough in the arts of girls to know whether she was bullshitting me or not. I was about to call her on it when McGillicuddy walked in.

“Hi, Rachel,” he said. “Hi, Tammy,” he said in a different tone. He stepped over to the kitchen table and kissed her. At first I thought this was going to be a McGillicuddy-style peck. Historically he was not good with girls. But this turned into something more. They kissed quite deeply in the middle of the kitchen.

Rachel and I looked at each other. She removed her arm from around my waist. I walked to the table, picked up a fork, and dinged it on a glass. “Hello, no PDA in the business meeting. We are here to rescue my love life, not to advance yours.”

They broke apart, glaring at me. McGillicuddy was as pink as the sliced ham on the table.

We all sat down, and I passed around ingredients for them to make their own sandwiches. All three of them shot me strange looks every time I passed something new.

Perhaps other girls actually made lunch when they invited people over? en I followed their gazes to the jars on the table. I hadn’t been handing around condiments you’d usually put on a sandwich. I’d just cleared out the door of the refrigerator and plunked the contents on the table, thinking this stuff must be good for something, though I’d never seen anyone use it.

I picked up a Mason jar with green oozing down the sides and showed it to my brother. “Look, this is from five years ago when Frances was our na

“Sometimes it’s good to let go.”

With her finger wrapped safely in a napkin, Rachel eased the jar a few inches farther from her plate. “Could I have a knife?”

“I’m not sure even a knife will help you hack into that Mason jar,” I said. “It’s pretty ol—”

“For the mayo,” Rachel said.

Realizing I had supplied no utensils for the grand repast, I jumped up, crossed the kitchen, and opened what I thought was the knife drawer. Clearly I had not prepared food in a while. is was a drawer full of kitchen tools we had no use for when Frances was not around, such as the avocado slicer, the garlic press, and the melon baller. I’d had a lot of fun cooking with Frances back in the day. She thought she was teaching me to cook, which made her happy. I mashed food like it was Play-Doh and learned nothing, which made me equally happy.

I grabbed a few implements in case someone needed them, sat back down, and handed Rachel a butter knife. en I asked my brother, “What’d you find out about Adam?”

“Well,” he said between bites, “there’s some talk of military school.”

“What!” I shouted. “Adam would be the worst person in the world to go to military school.”

“I think that’s the idea,” my brother said. “You go into military school because you’re undisciplined and unmilitary. They make you toe the line.” I felt like my insides had been scooped out with the melon baller in front of me. Adam did not toe the line. at was why he was in so much trouble. But that was also one of the things I loved about him. A disciplined and military Adam would not be a new and improved Adam. It would not be Adam at all.

“But they’re not sending him yet,” McGillicuddy went on. “ey’ve talked about it before, and this latest problem”—he glanced at me, like I was the problem—“has brought up the discussion again. They won’t send him if he stays away from you.”

“They’re saying, ‘Stay away from your girlfriend or we’ll send you to military school’?” I asked. “That makes no sense.”

“It’s more like they’re saying, ‘We gave you simple instructions and you couldn’t follow them.’” I threw a potato chip at my brother. Rachel and Tammy ducked, as if people did not throw food at their tables. “You don’t have to act so smug about it,” I said. “You helped him polish the marks out of the boat faster. You sent him in my direction.”

“Isn’t the issue really that your parents are watching you all the time?” Tammy asked. “You could both quit the marina and get jobs at the same place somewhere else.” I frowned at her. I hadn’t thought of this. If I got a job on land, I might dry up. I couldn’t imagine a summer away from the lake. But to save Adam from military school, it would be more than worth it. I asked, “Like where?”

“You both have your lifeguard certification,” Tammy said. “You could work at the city pool or the country club.”

“Yeah!” I exclaimed. Work and water!

Rachel shook her head. “Adam wouldn’t be able to stay still in that lifeguard chair for more than five minutes.”

“Yeah,” I said. She knew this because she’d dated Adam. However, I did not want to be reminded of this at the present time. Waving away Tammy’s amateurish idea, I said, “I already wanted to talk to y’all about this, but military school makes it even more important. Adam won’t follow this order from his parents. ere’s my irresistible beauty and allure—”