Boys of Summer (20 page)

I stare at my little sister in astonishment. What are these words coming out of her mouth? When did she become the wise Zen master of the family? Does this have something to do with how different she seems?

Why have I not noticed it until now? Have I been
that
preoccupied with my own stupid problems?

She holds my gaze, challenging me to speak. To refute her statement.

“Some mistakes are too big to fix,” I mumble.

Whitney shrugs, like she really doesn't care one way or the other. “Fine.”

She walks over to me, dislodges a magazine from my death grip, and disappears back out the sliding glass door with her water.

I stand clutching the stack of mail in my hand, watching the supple white couch on the cover of the Pottery Barn catalog wrinkle and tear beneath my sweaty fingers.

She talked to Mom.

She took her call.

How could she do that? How could she just
forgive
so easily like that?

I don't care what Whitney says. Yes, I may have crashed that car myself. Yes, I may have overreacted. I may have jeopardized my own future. But what our mother did was
worse. She broke our family apart. She walked out on her responsibilities.

She quit.

Cartwrights don't quit. My father has been drilling that into my mind since the day I was born. Maybe even before that. Perseverance is baked right into my DNA.

And yet my mother just gave up. She just left.

We all make mistakes.

I shake my head and keep organizing. Stacking and restacking and arranging and rearranging.

Just when I think there's absolutely nothing else I can do, I catch sight of an envelope poking out from one of my meticulous stacks. I pull it out and read the handwritten note my father has scribbled on the front.

For Mike.

I open the envelope and withdraw a check. It's all made out. Pay-to line, date, signature. Only the amount is left blank.

My father must have wanted me to fill it in once we got the first invoice.

Then I remember what Mike told me on the phone today, and I scurry over to the front door. I open it to find, just as Mike promised, an envelope taped to the wood, with an invoice inside.

I study the number at the bottom of the invoice. The amount due for the first two weeks of work.

Eighteen hundred dollars.

I look at the check again. At the big empty box next to the dollar sign. It suddenly feels like a void. But unlike all the other voids in my life right now, this is one I can fill.

One I can fix.

Before I have a chance to change my mind, I grab a pen from the drawer in the kitchen and fill in the blank space.

Three thousand dollars.

I tell myself this has nothing to do with Harper. It has nothing to do with my own stupid mistakes. Mike said his dad was injured and they need extra cash. That's all this is. A friend helping out another friend.

Nothing more.

But as I slip the check into the envelope and secure it back to the outside of the door, I can't help but feel the weight on my chest lift just the slightest bit.

MIKE

S
imon says spin in a circle. Simon says jump up and down. Pull out your ears and make a fish face.”

I immediately tug at my ears and fashion my lips into a perfect trout pout. Twenty kids squeal and jump and dance and point at me. Like a chorus of adorable little chirping insects.

“What?” I ask them, feigning innocence as I continue to suck air in through my puckered lips.

“Simon didn't say!” they all shout in unison.

“He didn't?”

They shake their heads, and I let my fish face fall into a scowl. “You mean I lost
again
?”

Another fit of giggles.

“This game is too hard!” I grumble, giving Julie a wink. She beams back at me. Over the past hour we've managed to keep these kids thoroughly entertained through a strategy we developed without saying a single word to each other. She calls out the most embarrassing actions for me to possibly do, and I lose on purpose. We quickly discovered that a grown-up—or whatever I am—losing at Simon Says is funnier to these kids than anything Disney could animate.

“Okay, kids!” she calls, clapping her hands together once. “Let's all go inside for the Silent Movie game!”

They squeal again, until Julie puts a finger to her lips, and the entire group falls quiet. One of the other staffers leads the kids back into the clubhouse, and I watch in awe as they pretend to talk to each other without sound, moving their lips and pantomiming. I'm shocked to see Jasper and Jake playing along with the other kids. I didn't realize they even understood the word “silent.”

“What's the Silent Movie game?” I ask as I help Julie pick up the trash around the grass and deposit it into the bin.

“It's just a little game I invented to calm them down a bit. I showed them clips from a bunch of old silent movies and told them that the first person who talks loses the game. We play music just like in the films, and they all go around pantomiming.”

She picks up an ice chest that was once full of Popsicles and begins to carry it inside.

“Here,” I say, taking the chest from her. “I got this.”

“Thanks.”

I follow behind her into the day camp's main room, and nearly drop the ice chest on my feet when I see what has transpired inside. Soft piano music is streaming from a pair of speakers, and every single child that was, just five minutes ago, bouncing around and giggling like they were high on something is now either sitting quietly on the floor with a book or sleeping on one of the cots.

I search the room for Jasper and Jake, certain that they must be the only two rug rats still running around and kung-fu-ing the air like the maniacs that they are. But my mouth literally falls open when I find them curled up on the same cot together, sleeping soundly.

“You're a genius,” I whisper.

She giggles and directs me to put the ice chest in the small kitchen.

“Please tell me you drugged them.”

“I'm pretty sure I'd go to jail for that.” She grabs a bottle of cleaner from the cabinet above the sink and begins wiping the Popsicle residue from the inside of the chest. “Kids are a constant learning curve. I discovered really quickly that”—she lowers her voice to a mere whisper—“ ‘nap' is a dirty word. So I started to brainstorm other ways to get them quiet for a few minutes a day. And then I found that once they were quiet, most of them would just fall asleep.”

She tosses the used paper towel into the trash and slides the ice chest onto the top of the fridge.

“I am in awe of you,” I say, bowing slightly. “Teach me all of your secrets, wise master.”

Julie shoots me a coy look. “Learn them yourself, you must,” she says in the most perfect Yoda voice I've ever heard.

A smile bigger than the state of Texas spreads across my face.

Two hours later I've completely relinquished the role of tour guide. Julie has dragged me to every single tourist hot spot that I swore I would never step foot in as long as I live. At the Seashell Shack we eat overpriced burgers that are surprisingly good. We take the guided tour of the lighthouse, a building I've admittedly only seen from the outside. We even visit the tiny Winlock Harbor Basket Museum just like she wanted, which I haven't been to since our second-grade class took a field trip there. (When you grow up on an island the size of the Locks, your field trip options are extremely limited.) I remember the museum
being incredibly boring and tedious, but with Julie it's actually fun. She somehow manages to make a joke out of everything.

By the time we start heading back to the club so that I can take the boys home, I've laughed so much that my stomach muscles are sore. But I don't want to say good-bye to her yet. Everything about her—her personality, her smile, the way she sometimes hums to herself even when I'm walking right next to her—is infectious.

“So,” I begin anxiously, shoving my hands into my pockets. “I just have to take the twins home. Do you want to go for a walk on the beach or something later?”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize how nervous they make me. Even more so than I was earlier today.

“Actually, no,” she says with a frown.

My heart sinks to the pit of my stomach. “Oh. That's okay. Do you have plans or something?”

Of course she would have plans. I don't know how I could possibly be the only person on this island to recognize how awesome she is. I imagine she has a whole slew of dates lined up, one for every night of the week. How could she not?

“No, no plans. I just really had a horrible time with you today, so . . .”

My gaze darts to her face, and I immediately wilt in relief when I see the teasing smirk there. I let out a chuckle and try not to let show that I actually, for a split second, believed she was telling the truth. “Right. Of course. Me too. Terrible time. You are just the worst company.”

“Oh my gosh!” she exclaims. “You too? I'm so happy to hear you say that. I thought it was just me.”

I continue to play along even though I'm completely
unable to keep a straight face. “No. It definitely wasn't just you. I hated every single second of it.”

“I know. Totally,” she agrees wholeheartedly. “I spent the entire afternoon just thinking about things I'd rather be doing. Like getting teeth pulled. Pouring lemon juice into paper cuts.”

“Rubbing sandpaper on my sunburn.”

Now she breaks character and starts giggling. “You're just so . . . I don't know . . . boorish and impolite.”

“And you smell,” I put in.

She sniffs her armpits. “Yeah, sorry about that. I have a gland malfunction disease.”

“That's unfortunate.”

She's laughing really hard now. “Very unfortunate.”

We reach the front entrance of the beach club, and I pause next to the door. “So then, I guess I'll see you . . . what? Never?”

She pretends to contemplate the question. “Well, I mean, I don't really have any lemon juice in the house. Or sandpaper.”

“And the only dentist on the island is probably closed for the Fourth of July tomorrow.”

“Probably,” she agrees, screwing her mouth to the side and tilting her head from side to side. “So, if I promise to wear deodorant and you promise to stop acting like a brute, maybe we could keep hanging out?”

Despite my efforts I can't stop the ear-to-ear grin that covers my face. “I think I can manage that. So I'll meet you by the cottages in an hour?”

She looks at me like that's the most ludicrous idea I've had all day. “Don't be silly,” she says, pulling open the door and holding it for me. “I'll walk you boys home.”

IAN

T
his was a huge mistake.

I've spent the past hour on the beach behind the Cartwrights' house, wrestling with uncooperative wooden poles and wrinkled cotton sheets and pesky tea candles, erecting what the Romance Guru blog calls “The Ultimate Beach Love Hut.”