Next Summer (4 page)

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Summertime Love

Dear Beth,

Happy summer, girl. I’m having a great time here at Amherst. The campus is so green and gorgeous. And there’s a really cute town with vintage clothing shops and cafés. Everyone in the program is super-nice and really into writing. And the instructor is all kinds of hot. The way he talks about poetry makes my heart pound. It makes it hard to concentrate on my writing, but I’m managing…I think! I’ve been in and out of touch with that guy Scott from last summer, too, but it’s nothing serious with us.

I’m so jealous that everyone’s together in Pebble
Beach! I miss Uncle Carr and Aunt Claire, and the little cousins. And most of all, you, El, and Kels. I want to hear every last detail about what’s going on up there with you guys. Seriously: every boy who notices Kelsi (not that she’d notice them back, of course), every summer boy Ella toys with, and how you’re surviving without George. Nothing is too insignificant to keep from me. I want to feel like I’m up there—it’ll keep me from feeling Maine-sick. Write soon. Love, Jamie

Beth smiled at the computer screen and took a sip of coffee, missing her smart, bubbly cousin. Then she shrieked when she caught sight of someone lurking in her peripheral vision.

“Um, could you please avoid screaming?” Ella asked, shuffling into the room and collapsing on the sofa, clutching her head all the while.

“You scared me!” Beth collapsed back against the computer chair, and swiveled it around so she could look at her bedraggled cousin.

“Bethy, please. My poor head…” Ella held her head in her hands as if it were the size of a pumpkin and much more fragile. Beth suddenly noticed that Ella was still wearing her green tube-dress from the night before, only now she was barefoot and her hair was significantly less sleek. Beth’s jaw dropped.

“You slut!” Beth accused in a delighted whisper, on the
off-chance there were adults around somewhere. “You’re totally doing the Walk of Shame!”

Ella moaned, and didn’t raise her head.

“I saw you getting it on with that Benjamin Bratt clone before you guys disappeared into the night together.” Beth crossed her arms over her chest and made a
tsk-tsk
sound. “So much for that whole ‘resisting temptation’ thing.”

“I don’t know how it
happened
!” Ella groaned. “One minute I was sitting there, rejecting all boys, and the next minute…” She sighed. “Maybe it was the beer. Well, at least he was cute.”

“Are you seeing him again?” Beth asked.

Ella winced. “Unlikely. He barely speaks English.”

“So…” Beth laughed. “What? You spoke the
language of love
?” She realized that it was exactly the kind of thing George would have said, if he’d been there. She bit her lip.

“Stop. Inigo is an exchange student from Portugal,” Ella explained. “And it took about a half hour to get that across.”

“His name is
Inigo
?” Beth tried hard not to crack up.

“Well, I think so.” Ella shrugged, and a baffled look flitted across her face. “I’m not a hundred percent sure, though. Definitely something foreign.”

Beth cackled. “Poor baby,” she said. “Maybe you should have asked before you flitted off with him.”

Ella frowned and sat up. “I’m not doing this stuff anymore,” she said. “I know I said that last night, but I mean it now. It’s not worth it.” She looked over at Beth, and Beth
thought she looked very young all of a sudden. “I want what you have.”

“Um, what do I have?” Beth rolled her eyes. “A boyfriend who would rather paint dorms than be with me?”

That was unfair, and moreover, broke her rule about not being a big, fat ol’ downer. Beth sighed. What she really needed was something to divert her attention. She had to prove to herself that she could have a good time
without
George. Maybe surfing. She had done some last summer, but still had a way to go before she could ride the waves like that amazing girl who got her arm bitten off by a shark and then competed in some contest the next day.

“I’m serious, Bethy. No more one-night stands with sexy foreigners. I want someone like George,” Ella was saying sullenly. “A nice guy. A relationship guy. He’s, like, the perfect boyfriend. You’re so lucky.”

“Yeah, I know,” Beth said as tears suddenly sprung to her eyes. She really couldn’t believe how much she missed George. She had known it would be bad, but come on, actual
crying
? That wasn’t like her at all.

Beth stood and walked over to the window, trying to compose herself before Ella could notice how vulnerable she was.
Outside, their younger cousins, Jordan, Jessi, and Drew, tore around in a game of what looked like sudden-death badminton.

“Is it all right if I crash in your room?” Ella asked, blinking as if her headache had just doubled. “If I go out there, they’ll make me play with them and really, I think my head might explode.”

“Of course you can,” Beth said, keeping her back to Ella. “I’m going down to the beach to surf.”

Surfing actually did the trick. Beth spent that afternoon on her board, and all subsequent afternoons in much the same manner, improving her technique in between text-messaging George. But even after a week, Beth still felt slightly out of shape. Everything ached, and her soreness was really affecting her mojo. One afternoon at the end of June, after she wobbled and missed a completely easy ride, she decided it was time to take a break.

Beth dragged her board across the sand, weaving around the people littering the beach. She spotted noisy families, groups of girls, and packs of teenagers who looked like they might be on the prowl. Music blared from all sides. Beth always liked it when she could hear one song down at the water’s edge and follow it all the way to her towel on different radios, all of them tuned to the same station. Down near the pier, the sand was so packed, it was nearly impossible to pick a path through all the towels. Where the Tuttles set up camp, however, it was much less chaotic—just the lifeguard stand
down the beach and quiet couples who were dozing off underneath their bright umbrellas.

Beth collapsed on her towel and let the sun tease the cold from her limbs. A light breeze danced along the beach and carried faraway smells of flowers and the rich tang of seaweed. Her skin felt tight from the salt water and the chilly temperature of the ocean. It was still early in the summer, which meant the water was still recovering from the cold Maine winter. The warmest water would be in late August, right when they would have to leave.

Beth moved the fat Jennifer Weiner paperback she had read all of two chapters of so far, off her towel. She pulled her cell phone out of her beach bag and smiled when she saw that there were two text messages waiting for her in her inbox.

DEMAND YOU CALL ME NOW. MIT GEEK GIRLS HAVE ME SURROUNDED. REQUIRE GIRLFRIEND INTERVENTION, George had written.

Beth actually giggled out loud, and covered her mouth with embarrassment. George was the only guy she knew who sent text messages—and e-mails—in complete sentences, with all the words spelled out correctly. And in all caps, no less.

ARE YOU SURFING INSTEAD OF SAVING ME? the second message read.

BEAT THE GIRLS OFF W YOUR PAINTBRUSH. 2 WET 2 CALL. Beth wrote back, still grinning, and slipped the phone back into her bag.

Beth sat up, and pulled her wet blonde hair into a new, tighter ponytail. Last evening, she and Ella had sat out by the
picnic tables long after everyone else went to bed, talking about everything and nothing until the fog—the original peasoup kind Maine was famous for—came up out of nowhere and settled over the yard. But before they went to bed, Ella had been going on about how great it must be to fall in love. Beth had agreed at first, remembering how
inevitable
her and George’s coming-together had felt. And how awesome her junior year of high school had been with George there to kiss and cuddle with every afternoon.

But Beth also knew that love was only fun when you knew the outcome. When you were flailing around in the middle of it, it was just like falling off your surfboard every five minutes—it hurt like hell. And it also hurt when you couldn’t share all the stupid trivial things of life with the person you loved. Like yesterday, when she found the bluest seashell she’d ever seen. Or the day before, when she saw a five-year-old boy puke chocolate milk shake in front of the Twin Freeze. George was missing everything. And Beth felt like a part of her was missing it, too.

George
was
being wonderfully attentive—texts every hour on the hour, phone calls before they went to bed, and sappy e-mail poems on the weekends (which Beth promised not to forward on to Jamie for critical review). But it still didn’t seem to be enough. Beth wanted George there—his physical presence. She craved it. And that awful longing made being in love not so grand, after all.

Lying on her stomach, Beth paddled herself around and started back toward the beach. She’d only gone a few strokes when she realized, with a little shock, that she was much farther out than she’d meant to go.

She started to paddle harder, but the current was against her, and it seemed to keep sending her farther down shore. Beth wasn’t one to panic, but—
hello
—she and George had seen
Open Water
last fall. It was kind of hard not to get mildly freaked.

At first, Beth thought the buzzing sound was just in her head, and she had gone from panic straight to shock. She thought she was hallucinating, and one step shy from hyperventilating, and two steps shy of passing out and drowning.

Lucky for her, the buzzing sound was real.

The Jet Ski came out of nowhere and skidded around to a stop right in front of her. A young man sat astride it like he was floating on the back of a dolphin.

“Don’t worry,” the guy said. “I’ve got you.”

Beth was mesmerized by his regulation red shorts that had ADAM printed on the left leg, and the whistle around his neck. As it turned out, the lifeguards at Pebble Beach really did their job. She’d always thought they were around for show more than anything else.

Adam strapped her board to his Jet Ski, and then helped Beth climb up behind him. She was so not used to feeling like a damsel in distress, but she was too relieved to care.

“Just hold on,” he told her, and then he started the motor. Beth wrapped her arms around his waist.

Beth’s stomach lurched as the Jet Ski shot across the water. She had to shut her eyes against the wind, so the whole world narrowed down to the muscled back she was holding on to. Beth’s heart was still pounding, like she was still stranded out in the center of the ocean. But she wasn’t. She’d been saved.

When they got to the beach, Adam helped her get her board to the sand. Calmer now, Beth started to feel embarrassed.

“I’m usually much more careful,” she told him, trying not to blush.

He flashed her a big smile. “That current can knock anyone out.”

For the first time since he’d rescued her, Beth looked Adam full in the face. He had eyes to match the water and tousled, curly brown hair. He had muscular shoulders and a
narrow waist, and all of his skin was a golden bronze.
Not bad-looking,
Beth thought. If she were single, she might almost have a semi-crush on this guy.

“Thanks for saving my ass back there,” she said, and was surprised to hear her voice get a little breathy.
All that adrenaline.
“I think I scared myself silly.”

“You were in no real danger,” Adam told her. He jerked his chin out toward the water. “You eventually would’ve washed ashore, but over in the next town.”

Beth giggled. A girly, Ella giggle that, up until that moment, Beth hadn’t thought she was capable of. She had to recover, and fast.

“Well, then,” Beth said with a very straight, purposeful face. “Thank you for saving me a long walk home.”

“Anytime,” Adam replied with a crooked grin.

Beth hoisted up her board, which suddenly felt like it weighed two hundred pounds. She struggled to keep it level, but it just bobbled and ended up hitting her on the head with a loud thud.

“Are you okay?” Adam said with concern. “Do you want to just check in with the first-aid stand?”

“No, no. I’m cool,” Beth assured him, tucking the board under her trembling arm.
Just say good-bye and run like the wind,
she thought. “So I guess I’ll see you around. Like lifeguarding and stuff.” After that lame remark, Beth thought about getting back on her board and letting the current finish the job.