Second Chance Summer (27 page)

My mom smiled and smoothed down her hair. “Well, I don’t know about that,” she said. “But thank you. You’re okay watching the girls tonight?”

I nodded. “Sure. It’s fine.” Even though Warren would be home as well, I had the feeling he would disappear with his book at the first available opportunity. She lingered on the porch for a moment, twisting her hands together. In the silence that followed, I was aware of just how much I wished things were different. I wanted to be able to talk to her, and tell her how afraid I was of what was going to
happen, and have her tell me everything was going to be all right. But the way we’d always behaved stopped me, and all I could see were the barriers and walls I’d put up between me and my mother—casually, unthinkingly, not realizing that at some point I might want to take them down.

“Ready to hit the road?” My dad joined my mother on the porch, looking more like the version of himself that I had grown up with. He was wearing a blazer and a tie, and I tried not to see how big his clothes were on him, how he seemed to be disappearing in them. As they waved good-bye to me, my mother calling out last-minute instructions while I nodded, I realized that as they walked to the car in the slowly falling darkness, they could have been just any couple heading for a dinner out. They could have been just my parents, both of them healthy and whole, the way I’d always known them, and the way I had stupidly always assumed they’d stay.

Two hours later, I stuck my head into Gelsey’s room. “You guys okay?” I asked. I expected to see a typical slumber party unfolding—snacks (God knows we had enough popcorn), magazines, makeup, maybe a stolen trashy novel. But instead, Nora was sitting on the carpet, playing a game on her phone while Gelsey, on her bed, paged through a ballerina biography.

“We’re fine,” Gelsey said. Nora just gave me a nod without looking up from her phone.

“Okay,” I said. I looked at the scene for a moment longer before backing out into the hallway. “So… just call if you need something.”

“Sure,” Gelsey said. I closed the door and stood outside it for a moment, wondering if they’d just been quiet because I was there, waiting for the laughter and shrieking of a normal sleepover. But there was nothing but silence.

Without even thinking through what I was doing, I retrieved my cell from my bedroom and scrolled through my contacts until I found Lucy’s number, and pressed it before I could change my mind. She answered on the second ring.

“Hi, Taylor,” she said, her voice slightly wary. “What’s up?”

“Sorry to bother you,” I said as I walked down the hallway toward the kitchen. I pulled open the fridge door and saw that we had—in addition to a truly absurd number of bottles of chilled ketchup—cookie dough and Sprite. Perfect. “It’s just that my sister and a friend are having a sleepover.”

“Okay,” Lucy said, stretching out the word. “And?”

I thought back to what I had seen in Gelsey’s room, how sedate and utterly free from makeovers it had been. “And they’re doing it wrong.”

There was a pause. “How wrong?”

“They’re not talking. My sister’s reading and her friend is playing a video game.”

There was another pause. “That’s not good.”

“I know,” I said. “Clearly they don’t know what they’re doing. And I was just thinking back to our sleepovers….” I didn’t have to finish the sentence; I had a feeling Lucy would understand. Our slumber parties had been epic, and whenever I’d had sleepovers with friends back in Connecticut, I always found them wanting in comparison. I shifted the phone to my other ear and waited.

When Lucy came back on the line, her voice was brisk and businesslike, as though we’d had a previous arrangement all along. “What do you need me to bring? I’m not sure what kind of snacks we have here.”

I felt myself smile as I pulled open the kitchen cabinets. “We have more popcorn and chocolate than anyone could possibly want,” I said. “But maybe if you have any candy or chips?”

“Done and done,” she said. “Cookie dough?”

“Covered,” I assured her.

“Good,” she said. “All right. I’ll see you in ten.”

After we hung up, I excavated my makeup case from where it had been gathering dust on my dresser, since I hadn’t felt much need to wear any so far this summer. I had been expecting Lucy to drive or bike over, so it came as a shock when, not even ten minutes later, I got a text from her that read
Am here on dock need hlp w stuff
.

I hurried out through the screened-in porch and down the steps to the hill that led to the dock. Even though it was past eight, there was still some light left—it was one of those long summer twilights
that seem to go on forever, the light somehow tinged with blue. I could see Lucy climbing up on the dock and hauling a one-person kayak up with her.

“Hey,” I called as I stepped barefoot onto the dock. “I thought you’d be biking.”

“This is way faster,” she said. She dropped two overstuffed canvas tote bags on the dock and dragged the kayak over to the grass, the paddle resting inside it. “Plus, no traffic this way.”

“Were you able to see?” I asked, as I hoisted one of the bags over my shoulder. Lucy lifted up a flashlight from the kayak and turned the beam on and off once. “Gotcha,” I said.

She joined me on the dock and picked up the other bag, and we walked together toward the house. “Did you get in trouble the other night?” she asked, lowering her voice even though it was clearly just us in the backyard. “I didn’t think I woke anybody up when I left, but you never know.”

“You were fine,” I assured her. I had spent a somewhat anxious morning, worrying that someone had heard us, and that I would have some tricky explaining to do, but it appeared that we’d gotten away with it.

“Good,” she said, with a relieved smile. We reached the front door, and Lucy followed me inside. Warren was in the kitchen, attempting to juggle three of the popcorn balls. When he saw Lucy,
his jaw dropped open, and all three of the balls fell to the ground, one right after the other.

“No way,” he said, shaking his head. “Lucinda?”

Lucy shook her head. Warren had always insisted that her name just couldn’t be “Lucy,” but had to be short for something, and as a result, had called her as many permutations of this as he could find. “Hey there, rabbit Warren,” she said, and Warren turned red before bending down and picking up the popcorn balls. I had found the expression when I’d read
Watership Down
in sixth grade, and told Lucy about it, so that she could have some of her own ammo against him calling her Lucifer. “Long time no see.”

“Likewise,” he said. “Taylor mentioned that you were working together, but I didn’t know you were coming over tonight.” Warren shot me a questioning look, mostly, I suspected, because he didn’t want to have sole responsibility for the preteens.

“Lucy’s here for the slumber party,” I told him as I headed down the hallway, Lucy following behind. “You better not eat all the cookie dough!”

Two hours later, the slumber party had been salvaged. Gelsey’s hair had been teased out until it was twice its normal size and accessorized with glittery clips, and Nora’s was in two elaborate French braids. My hair had been worked on by both girls simultaneously,
and so I had a row of three ponytails on Nora’s side and a head full of mini-braids on Gelsey’s. And we were all sporting dramatic new makeup, thanks to Lucy. When she’d arrived, she’d pulled out a professional-grade tackle box that Fred would have most likely envied. But instead of lures and fishing line, it contained the largest assortment of makeup I had ever seen. Gelsey was now wearing so much makeup that I was already planning the explanation to my mother if she came home before I could get it off her. Nora’s eyes had been done in a cat-eye style. She’d shrugged it off as “okay,” but I couldn’t help notice that she was peeking into Lucy’s hand mirror every chance she got, looking at her reflection with a tiny smile on her face.

We’d turned Gelsey’s bedroom into a proper slumber party room—blankets on the floor, pillows arranged in a circle, the food, magazines, and makeup in the center. We’d eaten our way through an entire tin of the kettlecorn, had made Sprite floats with vanilla ice cream I’d uncovered in the freezer, and had devoured the entire bag of tortilla chips Lucy had brought. We’d read through the advice section of
Seventeen
(I’d hidden Lucy’s
Cosmo
when I saw Nora looking at it a bit too interestedly) and had taken all the quizzes. We’d had a very unsuccessful round of Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board—Lucy conceded that you really needed six people to do it properly—and now, we were playing Truth or Dare.

“Okay,” Nora said, crossing her legs, leaning forward, and
looking among the three of us. “Lucy,” she said, after a dramatic pause. “Truth or dare?”

Most of the dares so far that night had been pretty tame, and the majority of them had involved tormenting Warren. And so—maybe figuring that there was safety in numbers—Warren had taken the dog with him to the family room where, last I checked, he’d been sitting on the couch, back to the wall, book in his lap, protected against any further sneak attacks.

“Truth,” Lucy said. I shot her a slightly admonishing look, and she gave me one back that said,
Don’t worry about it.
It was surprising that after all the time apart, I could still read her. Almost as surprising as finding out that she could still read me. And she had picked up that I was nervous about just how truthful she was planning to be. Gelsey had always liked her—Lucy, an only child, had been willing to spend hours playing with my sister, and what’s more, seemed to enjoy it. But after seeing her makeup collection, and finding out she was captain of her gymnastics team back in New Jersey—something that had been news to me as well—I could see the girls moving into full-on idolization mode, and I didn’t want them hearing the full truth about Lucy’s exploits. After seeing her flirt with practically every guy who came to the snack bar, I had a feeling that she’d had a number of them.

“Okay,” Nora said. Gelsey motioned her over, and they had a whispered conference before Nora returned to her seat and fixed
Lucy with her direct gaze. “When did you have your first kiss? And who was it with?”

My mind immediately switched to my own answer, the one I’d given at so many other sleepovers.
When I was twelve. Henry Crosby.

“When I was thirteen,” Lucy said now, “with Henry Crosby.”

I stared at her, wondering if this was some kind of a joke, as Lucy helped herself to some of the jalapeño-flavored popcorn. “What do you mean?” I asked, feeling a jealous burn in my chest.

“Sorry, Taylor, but it’s Gelsey’s turn next,” said Nora, who had taken it upon herself to administer the rules of truth or dare.

Lucy looked at me and raised her eyebrow. “What?” she asked. “Did you never expect him to go out with anyone else, ever again?”

“No,” I spluttered, wishing I didn’t sound so defensive. “I just… didn’t know.” Lucy tossed back another handful of popcorn. “Did you two date or something?”

Nora and Gelsey were looking between the two of us, riveted, and I had a feeling this drama might turn out to be the highlight of the party.

Lucy shrugged. “For about a month. And we were
thirteen
. It wasn’t serious.”

I recognized the tone—it was the same one I had used when I’d laughed off my relationship with Henry. It was only in hearing it from someone else that I realized how untrue it was when I said it. Because even if I tried to make light of it, Henry hadn’t just been
some guy who didn’t matter, nothing but a story to tell about a random boy I dated when I was younger. He had mattered, and he still mattered—which explained why all of our interactions had been so charged. It was why I was suddenly feeling possessive and incredibly jealous of Lucy, who had already moved past this story and was continuing on with the game.

I was caught up in these thoughts until I heard Gelsey say something about getting to first base, and my attention snapped right back.

“What?” I asked, staring at my sister. She just stared back at me, her freckles showing though Lucy’s application of concealer and foundation. It wasn’t like we’d been close, or that she’d ever told me her secrets, but I still would have thought I would have known if something like this had happened. “When was this?”

“At the dance last year,” Gelsey said with a shrug. “With a couple of different guys.”

“What?”
I could hear my voice rising to the level of shrill, and Lucy shot me an alarmed look. I was suddenly regretting ever letting Gelsey put on makeup, and I was already planning in my head the conversation I was going to have with my mom when she got home.

“Just to clarify,” Lucy said, her voice serious. “Remind me. What’s first base again?”

“Holding hands,” said Nora and Gelsey in unison, and I could feel myself relax, hugely relieved that my sister hadn’t turned into
some kind of sixth-grade hussy. Lucy bit her lip, and I could see that she was trying not to laugh.

Nora may have picked up on this, because she shot Lucy a withering look. “You know, holding hands is a
really
big deal,” she said, and Gelsey nodded. “It
means
something. And you don’t hold hands with just anybody. You only do it with someone you really care about.”

Nora and Gelsey continued on about the importance of hand holding, but I tuned them out when I thought I heard the sound of tires crunching on gravel. Sure enough, a moment later, I heard the sound of the door opening and closing and my dad calling out, “Kids? We’re home!”

My mother did her patented two quick knocks before opening the door, and not actually giving you enough time to say “Come in” or “Stay out”—which, actually, may have been her intention. “Hi,” she said. Her gaze traveled around the room, her eyes widening when she saw the amount of makeup my sister was wearing, and then stopped on Lucy. “Oh, my goodness,” she said. “Lucy, is that you?”

“Hi, Mrs. Edwards,” Lucy said, scrambling to her feet. While my mom and Lucy made small talk, catching up over the last five years, Gelsey tossed Nora the now dog-eared
Seventeen
, and they bent their heads over it together, Gelsey bursting out laughing at something Nora pointed to. As I watched, I felt myself smile, and realized our work here was done.