Reunited (7 page)

Back in eighth grade, Alice had been both confused and in awe as she’d watched Summer and Tiernan develop this new air of cool detachment, like they’d suddenly become above it all, no matter what “it” happened to be. At first Alice assumed the same thing would happen to her eventually, that she’d grow into it, the way some girls developed later than others. But that moment never came. She may have been the first to wear a bra, but Alice was the last to grow into this studied indifference. Try as she might to be guarded and apathetic, she was (and probably always would be) the type of girl who walked around with her heart on her sleeve.

It was especially bad during those first few months after the Winter Wonderland Dance. Alice did her best to hide the hurt expression on her face whenever she bumped into Summer in the halls or drove past Tiernan’s street, but whomever she was with only needed to take one look at her face before they would inevitably ask what was wrong. Just another example of
the many differences between the person Alice wanted to be and the one she actually was.

“Any final words?” Summer asked, opening her eyes.

But there would be no words for what happened next, as a paw, then two, then the squirrel’s entire gray furry head thrust its way through the earth. For what felt like a good ten seconds, nobody moved or spoke—the only sound came from the squirrel, whose twitchy black nose sniffed the air as its eyes darted from Alice to Summer to Tiernan, then back again, as if they were all stuck in some strange interspecies staring contest.

Even Tiernan was too stunned to utter a snarky remark.

For a creature that had just been buried alive, the squirrel looked surprisingly chipper, as if things like this happened to him every day. And before Alice’s brain could even begin to process what her eyes were seeing, the little rodent gave one final wriggle and freed himself from the hole—sending Alice, Summer, and Tiernan straight from their stupefied states into pee-in-their-pants hysteria.

By the time the squirrel had scampered off into the woods, all three of them were howling and crying and rolling around on the grass in a good old-fashioned laughing fit, just like they used to do, back in the day.

But as happy as Alice was to be sharing this hilarious moment with Summer and Tiernan, the shock of it all left her feeling strangely off-balance. When the squirrel was dead, the world was a place Alice was familiar with—a place of unwavering
certainties, where what was buried
stayed
buried, and what was done (like she’d said in her mantra) was most definitely done. But if a squirrel could rise from the dead, maybe the past had more power than Alice had previously given it credit for. Maybe the past was only the past until it decided to claw its way back to the present.

“THE COUNTDOWN”

THE ROCKET I BUILT

OUT OF PAPER AND GLUE

JUST BROKE APART IN THE ATMOSPHERE

OVER YOU.

AND NOW ALL THE PIECES

ARE FALLING TO EARTH

AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT,

WHAT AN AMAZING SIGHT.

—from Level3’s third CD,
Natural Causes

THEY WERE BARELY THROUGH THE TOLLS ON THE MASS TURNPIKE
and already Jace had called and texted twice. It was hard to say which annoyed Summer more—being stalked by the guy who just dumped her, or being forced to endure Alice and Tiernan’s not-so-subtle digs at her expense.

“Summer, I actually think you were right.” The sarcasm oozed from Tiernan’s voice. “I think it
was
dead, and the thing that crawled out of the grave was a zombie squirrel.”

“Either that, or maybe the rodent Jesus?” Alice joked, ever the faithful sidekick.

Somewhere between the “gravesite” and now, the ice that had been broken by their laugh had quickly refrozen again. Summer assumed things would be different after four years’ time. But apparently old habits (like Alice and Tiernan ganging up on her) died just about as easily as squirrels hit by vans.

So, she’d made a mistake.
Whatever
. It wasn’t as if either of those two rocket scientists could tell the different between an unconscious rodent and a dead one.

“Hey, Summer,” Tiernan called. “Maybe we should swing
by the cemetery and check on your grandma. Just in case.”

Summer didn’t even dignify that remark with a response. It was classic Tiernan. The girl never knew when to quit.

“Summer, what does your GPS say?” Alice asked, thankfully changing the subject. “I already mapped out our route on paper, but I’m a little confused about what we do when we get to Connecticut.”

After a little trial and error, Summer finally had the GPS up and running and she handed it up to Alice. “According to what this thing says, we don’t make a single turn for the next forty-five miles.”

“You never know,” Tiernan said gleefully. “A bird could fly into the windshield.”

Summer was about to respond when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Jace again. She didn’t much feel like talking to him, but given the conversation in the van, it seemed like the lesser of two evils.

“H-hey, it’s you.” Jace sounded surprised that she answered.

“What’s up?” Summer kept her voice all business.

“I’ve been trying to call you for the last half hour.”

Summer didn’t reply. Why was it any concern of his whether or not she answered her phone?

“S-S-Summer?” Jace stammered. “Are you still there?”

“Yes.” Summer kept her voice low. “I’m here.”

“Well, the reason I’ve been trying to call you”—Jace paused dramatically—“was to say that I made a mistake.”

Summer felt her blood rush down her neck and arms.

“I acted like a fool,” Jace continued. “And I’m calling to say I was wrong. I want us to be together again, Summer.”

Summer waited a good five seconds before she spoke.
Let him suffer.
“So, what happened between today and yesterday?” she whispered angrily. Up in the driver’s seat, she could see Alice trying her best to pretend she was concentrating on driving as opposed to, say, blatantly eavesdropping.

“Maz was talking trash about how I needed to be free my last summer before college,” Jace explained. “And I’m not
blaming
Maz. I know it’s not his fault. I’m the one who listened to him. But I just thought, well . . . your parents started dating in high school, and then they got married. And I started thinking that if the same thing happens to us, then we will have only been with each other, and, well, you know what I mean. . . .” Jace let his voice trail off.

Even right now, mad as she was, whenever Jace mentioned marriage, for some strange reason, Summer couldn’t help but smile. It was completely lame. Not to mention delusional. She hated the idea of people marrying their high school sweethearts. And it wasn’t like Summer ever took Jace’s talk of getting married seriously—
they were only eighteen, for God’s sake
. But something about it made her happy—knowing that he
wanted
to marry her, someday, even if she didn’t want to marry him.

“I know it was stupid, Summer.
I
was stupid. But I want you
to go to the Vineyard with me on Friday. I just want everything to be back to normal again.”

The thought of going to the Vineyard made Summer snap back to reality. On the one hand, at least Jace was admitting he’d made a mistake. But dumping her on graduation day just so he could spend his last high school summer hooking up with randoms? It was gross. Not to mention demeaning.

“Well, it can’t be normal again,” Summer hissed. “You humiliated me. Not to mention ruining my summer plans. You can’t just change your mind on a whim and expect me to come running back to you.”

“I love you,” Jace pleaded. “I said I was sorry.”

“I’m on a road trip right now,” Summer said coolly. “I’ll be home in ten days. We’ll talk then.” Jace had just started to speak when she snapped the phone shut.

Up in the driver’s seat, Alice whistled a Level3 tune, trying to act nonchalant. Proof that she and Tiernan had heard absolutely everything.

“Hey, you guys.” Alice kept her voice extra casual. “Remember how the van has electrical outlets? Well, if you want, we can plug in my iPod dock . . .”

Summer knew Alice was just trying to lighten the mood, but the last thing she wanted was Alice’s help.
Although . . .
if they cranked up the music loud enough, at least she’d be spared from Alice’s inevitable onslaught of probing questions about Jace.
Stupid Jace.
Summer had barely wrapped her head around
the idea of being without him, and now here he was, trying to pull her back in.

“Summer? Summer!” Alice was commanding her to do something, but she didn’t know what. “I said the iPod dock’s in the cabinet above your head if you want to go ahead and grab it.”

Summer nodded and did as she was told. It was strange to see such sleek audio gear in the Pea Pod when they used to listen to CDs from Alice’s crappy old boom box. Their technology may have been upgraded, but in that same amount of time, the people inside the van seemed to have hardly changed at all.

“Backseat gets to deejay,” Tiernan said, handing back her iPod. Of course, Summer was “allowed” to deejay, as long as the songs were from Tiernan’s music library.
Typical
.

Most of the bands Tiernan listened to, Summer had never even heard of. But it didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for. The only Level3 album on Tiernan’s iPod was their first, but it was just the hard-driving, angst-ridden music Summer wanted to hear. She pressed play and the baseline of “Jackie Needs New Glasses” filled the van.

NOW YOU’RE PROMOTING—YEAH, YEAH

PROTECTIVE-COATING—YEAH, YEAH

AND I’M JUST NOTING,

THAT IT MIGHT CHANGE THE VIEW.

Yesterday when Jace dumped her, Summer felt nothing but anger. But now that he wanted her back, it was all she could do to not break down and cry. Not that she’d ever let that happen in front of Tiernan and Alice.

Maybe Jace was right. Pretending like the whole thing never happened
would
be the easiest thing to do. Then again, Summer wasn’t exactly the type to forgive and forget. But what was there to forgive Jace for, really?
All
guys thought about being with other women. And there was a difference between thinking about something and actually doing it.

“Up ahead, take the motorway,” a British voice blasted out of nowhere, making Summer jump.

Alice put a hand on her heart. “That was a wake-up call.”

“In eight hundred yards, take the motorway.” The voice was coming from Summer’s GPS.

“Sheesh!” Tiernan snatched it off the dash, randomly prodding the touch screen with her finger. “How do you turn this thing down?”

“Give it to me,” Summer said.

“Turn right!” the GPS commanded from her hand. Just what Summer needed, one more voice in her life trying to tell her what to do.

“You know who that thing sounds like?” Tiernan asked.

Summer thought for a second. The voice
was
oddly familiar. “Coach Quigley!” she and Alice shouted simultaneously while Tiernan chuckled to herself.

The
real
Coach Quigley, their first soccer coach, was a former professional “football” player from Manchester, England, who had the rather unseemly habit of barking at the Walford Girls Age Eleven and Under as if they were playing Brazil in the final game of the World Cup.

“So, should I change the voice?” Summer asked. “It has other options.”

“No way!” Alice whined. “Coach Q was the best!”

From the backseat, Summer could only see Alice in profile, but it was enough to make out the self-satisfied expression on her face. Ever since she’d known her, Alice had been a sucker for nostalgia. None of them would be here right now if she weren’t.

“Look.” Tiernan pointed to a sign for 84
WEST—HARTFORD/NEW YORK CITY
. “You guys want to stop in the city for lunch? I know this place in the Village that makes a killer broccoli-garlic pizza.”

“Sounds good to me,” Summer said. She’d been to New York one other time, on their seventh-grade class field trip. But she’d only made it as far as the Statue of Liberty, never to Greenwich Village, once home to such greats as Allen Ginsberg, Maya Angelou, Dylan Thomas . . .

“We can’t,” Alice said matter-of-factly. “Manhattan has way too much traffic. By the time we get in and out, there’s no way we’d still be able to make it to West Virginia by tonight.”

“So?” Tiernan asked. “What’s the big hurry to get to West Virginia?”

“Well, for one thing, we already lost time this morning, and I don’t want to end up rushing to Austin at the last minute because we’ve wasted time in a city that’s not even four hours away from where we live . . .”