After Summer (2 page)

Ella waded through the hordes of girls on her way to the bathroom mirror. The first coed assembly of the year began in a few short minutes, and the girls of St. Augustine’s were in a tizzy. They clustered around the mirrors in the bathroom, talking excitedly and trying desperately to adapt the St. Augustine’s uniform from frumpy disaster into Catholic schoolgirl-chic. A few girls sat huddled around the open window, passing around a lit cigarette and fanning the errant smoke away. Though Ella had officially quit smoking last month, at her boyfriend Jeremy’s request, a knot of craving blossomed inside her chest. She held her breath as she passed them and fought the urge to sneak a quick drag.

Then Ella bobbed and weaved through a pack of wide-eyed freshmen, nodding at a few sophomore girls she
recognized. She laughed softly at the look of intense concentration the girls all wore as they smoothed blouses and fluffed hair.

Once a week, the guys’ and girls’ sections of St. Augustine’s gathered as one in the big auditorium in the center of the private school campus. Most girls spent
hours
agonizing over these all-too-brief moments of coeducation. They worked hard to shine and sparkle every time there was the possibility of seeing the boys.

A goal Ella knew about personally, since she’d once been the queen of primping to impress.

Thank God I have Jeremy now,
she thought, rolling her eyes at a frenzied-looking senior girl who was completely overapplying her mascara.

With a happy little sigh, Ella performed a strategic dodge and claimed a position at the farthest mirror from the door. She smiled at her reflection.

She’d rolled the waistline of her plaid kilt up exactly twice, the better to show off her long legs, which were still nicely tan from her summer at the beach in Maine. Her wavy, sun-kissed blonde hair had that almost-tousled look that made the boys drool, while not being
quite
messy enough to incur the wrath of Sister Margaret Alice.

But Ella didn’t believe in working too hard for boys’ attention. She merely sauntered about and let the
boys
worry about impressing
her.
In the past, Ella had taken great pride
in being unable to choose between the numerous hot boys who vied for her attention. Ella had always loved the all-school assemblies. Because—and she’d be the first to admit it—Ella Tuttle loved boys.

St. Augustine’s boys were particularly delicious, with their navy blazers and ties. Ella thought so every September, when a summer at the beach had ended and she was back in New Canaan, Connecticut. They might not be summer boys—which meant that Ella had to be
slightly
more careful with them, since they didn’t conveniently disappear after a few months—but they had their own kind of appeal.

But this year, Ella couldn’t care less who checked her out. And her primping wasn’t for anyone at St. Augustine’s.

Ella Tuttle was actually involved in a long-distance relationship for the first time in her life. Jeremy had made the leap from Summer Boy to Official Boyfriend.

Ella thought of the IMs she’d exchanged with her cousins Beth and Jamie that morning before school, and smiled to herself. Her cousins, it seemed, knew her better than anyone—well, except for her older sister, Kelsi, who was busy settling into college life.

Beth had written:
Is it true, El? Are you still WITH Jeremy? You haven’t shed him like you did your Steve Madden platforms at the end of August?

And Jamie had chimed in:
Bethy, give El the benefit
of the doubt. She SO has it in her to be an awesome girlfriend.

And they both were right, Ella thought with a toss of her luxurious blonde curls. Snarkiness aside, Beth’s comment
had
hit the nail on the head, and Jamie’s typically sweet, hopeful tone confirmed what Ella had always suspected about herself: that she WAS capable of being true to one boy and one boy only.

And that boy happened to be Jeremy.

Things with Jeremy had been completely different from the start, Ella thought, smiling as she pictured her brown-haired, brown-eyed, Seth Cohen-y boyfriend. And it totally didn’t matter that he was a thousand miles away. Okay, not actually a thousand miles. However many miles there were between her mom’s house in New Canaan and his parents’ house outside Philadelphia, it was way too many. Over the summer they’d been able to walk in flip-flops to see each other.

It was funny to think how hard Ella had fallen for a boy who was relatively indifferent to her looks. Obviously, he thought she was gorgeous, and told her that on a regular basis, but Jeremy wasn’t the type of guy who wanted a girl to look like the airbrushed cover of a magazine 24-7. In fact, he even seemed to like the less glamorous side of her better.

At the tail end of last summer, she’d randomly come
down with a bad cold, and Jeremy had surprised her with a bag of Hershey’s Kisses and a bottle of Tylenol Cold & Sinus. Unfortunately, Ella was sneezing in front of the television in bleach-stained sweatpants and one of Kelsi’s formless and boxy T-shirts, her hair up in a greasy bun and her face without a stitch of makeup. She’d tried to run upstairs to change, but Jeremy had grabbed her and, ignoring the threat of germs, kissed her more passionately than ever before. He insisted that she stay just how she was and they cuddled on the couch together all afternoon.

Still, Ella knew Jeremy would fully appreciate the way she tucked her white oxford shirt tight into her waistband, the better to invite a closer inspection of her curves. She assured herself with a quick pat that her Body by Victoria bra kept the lushest of those curves luscious and high. And Jeremy would also be a big fan of the way her clear MAC lip gloss accentuated her lips, while not in outright—or any way visible—defiance of St. Augustine’s no makeup rules. She rubbed her lips together, and made a kissing face at herself. After all, he was still a boy.

Next, Ella slipped into the nearest stall for some privacy, pulled out her cell, and took a few pictures of herself.

When Ella was satisfied with her impromptu photo shoot, she fired off the results to Jeremy with a quick text:
BET U MISS ME
!

And then, the warning bell rang. The bathroom erupted into squeals and curses, and Ella joined the crowd of her classmates as they all raced outside and onto the quad. The autumn sunshine was bright, though there was a slight snap in the air.

Ella slowed down to enjoy the crispness of the morning. Everything felt and smelled new. She liked that she felt that way, too. It was going to be a great year, after an even better summer. She just knew it.

Ella ran across the quad and into the auditorium slightly ahead of a few other stragglers, making sure not to be dead last—which would definitely get her in trouble with the nuns. Ella could expect to be in enough trouble with the sisters simply because she was Ella Tuttle and a disappointment next to saintly, studious Kelsi Tuttle, which made Ella want to puke. But that was how it was. So she knew better than to invite extra attention.

Once inside, Ella slowed to her natural saunter and headed down the aisle. Ella couldn’t help smiling at all the girls licking their lips and tossing their hair, desperately trying to win some male attention. A number of male eyes skipped over some of her classmates and landed on her, and she wasn’t even trying.

Stifling her laughter, Ella slid into the place her friend Marilee had saved for her at the end of the senior girls’ row.

“Check out Eric Polski,” Marilee said at once. “Looks like he spent his summer channeling his inner hottie. Who knew?”

Marilee and Ella had shared a basic philosophy since they’d met in the fifth grade, which was: Most things in New Canaan, and particularly at St. Augustine’s, were very, very boring. If it was up to them to liven it all up…-well, they were both okay with rising to that challenge. Kelsi had called them Double Trouble, which Ella used to think was so incredibly stupid and annoying. Now that Kelsi had gone away to college, though, Ella kind of missed the nickname.

When she slid a look across the aisle to check out the sudden hotness of Eric Polski, her attention was caught instead by Jake, the captain of the lacrosse team. He was a square-jawed blond who’d been after Ella since middle school, and he was grinning in her direction.

“Gross. As if Jake isn’t totally with Cheryl Anderson,” Ella said in a murmur, rolling her eyes at Marilee.

“I heard he wants to dump her because she refuses to go past second base,” Marilee replied in a whisper.

“I heard that
she
doesn’t know it, though,” Ella replied. It was only the first week of school and already the gossip was at a fever pitch.

Cheryl Anderson’s not-for-long boyfriend gave Ella another smile. Ella turned her head.

“Too bad for him you’re totally in love with that boy from Philly.” Marilee elbowed Ella in the ribs. “Is it really true that no one at St. Augustine’s can hold a candle to this guy?”

Ella surreptitiously slid her cell phone out of her bag and checked her in-box. Sure enough, she had two new texts from Jeremy.

YOU’RE KILLING ME WITH THOSE PICTURES
, said the first.

SERIOUSLY, I THINK I DIED
, said the second.

She smiled at Marilee as she put her phone back in her bag quickly—because heaven would definitely have to intervene if Sister Margaret Alice caught her with a cell phone.

“No one even comes close,” she told Marilee.

“Then you can be my wingman!” Marilee whispered, delighted. “You may not be single, but I am. And I have big plans for this year, El.”

“You
always
have big plans,” Ella reminded her friend.

Marilee leaned close and jerked her chin across the aisle. “Yeah, well, my plan starts right there.”

Ella followed Marilee’s gaze. There was a new face sitting among the other senior boys, most of whom Ella had known for years. This guy was lounging on the wooden pew, all smoldering brown eyes and a mouth to die for. His collar was flipped high up, his striped tie knotted loose and askew, and his chocolate-brown hair was the very definition of
bed-head. Anyone could look like a rebel in a leather jacket and blue jeans, but it took a special guy to look badass in a school blazer and tie. Ella inched forward and squinted, picking out a set of tiny colorful band pins that the new boy used as cuff links.

“
That,
” Marilee murmured in Ella’s ear, “is Ryan Eastley. Completely drool-worthy. His parents weren’t psyched about his grades and excessive partying, so boom! St. Augustine’s. It could have been military school, right?”

“It wouldn’t suck to see him in a military uniform,” Ella observed. Not that she was
personally
interested.

“He plays lacrosse and doesn’t have a girlfriend,” Marilee continued. She shrugged. “Or anyway, not one he admits to.”

“I’ll bet,” Ella murmured.

Sister Anne pressed her wrinkled fingers on the organ keys, indicating that the assembly was about to begin. Everyone stood and tried to look angelic as the school choir struggled with the high notes of the hymn.

Ella glanced across the aisle again at Ryan, and instantly recognized the way he stood in the midst of his new classmates, like he expected them all to pay attention to him. Because Ella was good at it herself, she knew that if he kept up that easy, confident vibe, they all
would
pay attention to him. More than that, she liked his messy hair and the sexy smirk he wore when he looked up and caught her staring at him.

Other girls might have blushed or giggled. Which was why they weren’t Ella.

She just held his gaze.

His smirk kicked up a few notches, and only if Ella were dead would she not notice the heat he was sending her across the aisle. She had to respect that kind of bravado.

“Too bad you have a boyfriend,” Marilee whispered in her ear.

“Too bad for
him,
you mean,” Ella said with a wicked smile.

Marilee laughed. “It’s good news for
me,
” Marilee continued. “You can consider Ryan your first wingman test.”

Ella settled back against her seat and relished the fact that Marilee wanted her advice.

“A guy like Ryan is easy,” she whispered, knowing that she was right. “To get his attention, you have to act like you don’t want it. But not in an obnoxious way. In a totally confident, you’re-doing-your-own-thing way. Believe me, he’ll eat it up.”

“I feel like I should be taking notes,” Marilee said with a laugh.

Ella glanced across the aisle again, to find Ryan still watching her with a challenging expression on his face.

Ella knew that look. She’d given and received that look a million times. There were times when looks like that had made her burn right up.

But everything was different now.

Jeremy was different from every boy Ella had known before. Jeremy never bored her. He e-mailed her silly little surveys to fill out—ones he made up especially so the right answers spelled out JEREMY, and texted her whenever he had a free moment—walking to class, sitting at a red light, whenever. He liked hearing the details about the things she did—even if all she’d done that day was lounge around watching DVDs—as if the things she did were interesting simply because
she
did them.

Ella planned to hold on to Jeremy as long as she could.

Across the aisle, Ryan was ignoring Sister Bernadette and her welcoming remarks. He just kept staring at Ella with that same daring look.

The look Ella recognized. And could, therefore, use against him.

“Trust me,” Ella whispered to Marilee. “We’ll have this guy eating from the palm of your hand in no time.”

“Kelsi, seriously, enough with the e-mail!”

Kelsi closed the screen of her iBook and smiled up at her roommate, Taryn Gilmour.

Taryn danced in the middle of their prison-cell-sized dorm room to a techno song with French lyrics. She shimmied up and down the length of their full-length mirror, testing out her current outfit with what she called “simulated party action.” A pile of colorful wardrobe rejects covered most of the hardwood floor.

“It’s one of my cousins,” Kelsi explained. “Jamie started a new school and she’s feeling kind of weird, I think.”

“Jamie’s the fearless one?” Taryn asked, cocking her head to one side as if visualizing every branch of the Tuttle family tree.

“The fearless one is my sister, Ella,” Kelsi corrected her, smiling. “Jamie’s the creative one.”

In the month Kelsi and Taryn had been at school, during cafeteria snack runs, long walks across the quad, or marathon study sessions, they’d told each other every single detail of their previous lives. Taryn knew all about the Tuttle girls, although she was still connecting the names to different stories. In turn, Kelsi knew all about Taryn’s older brother, Bennett, who was a year older and went to Amherst. Kelsi hadn’t met him yet, but she knew he was a hipster—obsessed with Iron & Wine, screen-printed rock posters from boutique design studios, and early Death Cab for Cutie songs (before they sold out, an important distinction).

It was obvious that Taryn adored her brother. One of the ways Kelsi had known she and her new roommate were going to get along was the fact that Taryn understood what it was like to be close to family members. Some people didn’t get that.

“Unless your cousin is going to drive us over to U Mass tonight, she can wait. We’ve got a frat party to attend!” Taryn twirled again in front of the mirror, considering her reflection. After a moment, she peeled off her bleach-splattered tank and let out a frustrated sigh. “Ugh. I hate all my clothes.”

Clad in her black bra, denim mini, and fishnets, Taryn
walked over and helped herself to one of Kelsi’s cardigans. But instead of buttoning it closed, she wrapped it across her tiny frame and secured it with a vintage brooch.

“Go right ahead,” Kelsi said drily, but she was just teasing. Taryn was already like family.

“You know you want me to borrow your clothes,” Taryn said, making a face at Kelsi. “See? I’m immediately cuter. Your Anthropologie obsession helps both of us!”

“You were cute already,” Kelsi assured her, although the blue Anthropologie sweater Taryn had put on did suit her.

Taryn was one of those girls with the cheekbones to pull off short hair, which made Kelsi incredibly jealous. On Taryn, a pixie cut wasn’t harsh, because she left the top a little shaggy and playfully messy, twisting the longest pieces back with an arsenal of glitter-covered bobby pins. It was punky, feminine, and adventurous, all in one.

Next to her roommate, Kelsi looked the very definition of “Playing It Safe.” Her hair was a rich, nutty brown these days, falling just past her shoulders. She liked a casual bohemian look when she dressed—opting tonight for a pair of green cargo pants, a cocoa-brown camisole, a dark denim jacket, and a fuzzy angora scarf to ward off the bite in the air.

She might not be as funky as Taryn and her brother, but
that kind of thing didn’t bother Kelsi. She’d grown up in the same house as Ella, for God’s sake. If that hadn’t taught her how to be comfortable in her own skin, nothing would.

“We might as well go,” Taryn said. “I look like an anime character tonight and there’s nothing to be done about it. Oh, well—right? It’s only frat boys.” She put up a hand when she saw Kelsi’s expression. “Nice frat boys, yes. But still frat boys.”

It was a crucial difference, Kelsi mused as she locked their door behind them, and headed outside into the September night. They climbed into the car Taryn shared with her brother, and Kelsi gazed out the window as Taryn drove north along Route 9 toward the town of Amherst. Outside the window, dark and stormy-looking clouds raced by an oversized moon. It made the night seem epic.

Kelsi pointed that out to her roommate.

Taryn laughed. “More epic than a party with frat boys is likely to be, anyway,” she said.

“Here we go again,” Kelsi said with an exasperated sigh that was almost entirely for show. “You don’t have to go, you know.”

“I want to go!” Taryn cried. “What could be better than keggers and dumb jocks?”

“Ha-ha,” Kelsi said. “I used to agree with you, you know. But Tim is different.”

Before Tim, Kelsi had had a lot of preconceived notions
about guys who looked the way Tim looked. Good-looking jocks with easy smiles and their polo shirt collars flipped up had made her gag. Tim had changed all that, though, with his Heath Ledger-ish cuteness and that confident swagger of his. Not to mention his knee-weakening kisses.

“If you say so.” Taryn’s voice was noncommittal. “I just think you deserve a guy who you can hang out with in an intellectual sense, you know?”

“Tim
is
that guy,” Kelsi assured her. “You’ll see when you get to know him better.” Taryn had only met Tim briefly, during the few times he’d stopped by their room to pick up Kelsi.

Kelsi wasn’t surprised that Taryn was concerned with her intellectual health—they were both amazed daily by how exciting college was in that sense. The classes were awesome, and the other women totally smart and inspiring. Kelsi loved being a part of Smith’s history. She liked imagining all the women who had walked the campus paths before her, possibly thinking about the same poems or theories as she was, in the same crisp fall weather. Some of the girls in her high school class—and Ella, of course—had made fun of Kelsi for choosing one of the few all-female colleges left, but Kelsi had known since visiting Smith in her junior year that it was the place for her. The lack of boys at Smith was hardly noticeable, anyway, since Kelsi spent so much of her time ten miles away at U Mass with her gorgeous,
wonderful boyfriend, who made Kelsi’s head spin a little bit whenever she thought about him.

“Oh. My. God.” Taryn gasped. “Is this for real?”

Kelsi jolted back into reality and realized they had just pulled up to the frat house.

The blue-and-white building, emblazoned with three Greek letters, sat elevated on the side of a steep hill. A winding staircase leading up to the house was clogged with students trying to enter a foam pit, erected on the front lawn using various tarps and an enormous machine that expelled an endless river of sudsy bubbles. A DJ on the porch scratched a Beastie Boys record, while girls in mini-togas shook their stuff on top of the oversize speakers.

“I guess,” Kelsi said slowly. This was certainly a very typical-looking frat party for someone she believed was a very atypical pledge. “It’s their first party of the year,” Kelsi explained. “Tim said they have to prove themselves to all the other fraternities, or something.” As Taryn’s cell buzzed and she answered, Kelsi watched as a posse of frat boys, naked except for bathrobes and boxer shorts, handed out Jell-O shots and sprayed whipped cream into a line of open mouths.

“Shit!” Taryn said, flipping her cell phone closed. “I have to go pick up Bennett at Amherst. A local gallery had some extra space for their opening tomorrow, so they’ve agreed to show a few of his huge-ass paintings. But he’s got to get them over there and hung up tonight.”

“That’s great!” Kelsi said, trying to muster up some genuine excitement. But she secretly wanted an ally with whom to navigate this extremely foreign locale.

“Please, I wish I was staying with you,” Taryn said with a laugh. “Look at this party. It’s like the real live version of
Animal House
!”

“Next time,” Kelsi promised. “Good luck with your brother.” She leaned over to kiss Taryn on the cheek, and then climbed out of the car.

“Give me a buzz if you can’t get a ride back to campus!” Taryn shouted as she drove off. “And take plenty of pictures!”

Once Taryn pulled away, and Kelsi was alone, her smile slipped a little bit. It was one thing to talk up the frat scene to Taryn. On her own, Kelsi could admit to herself that shouting, drunken foolishness wasn’t at all on her list of preferred activities. Kelsi headed across the lawn toward the front door, trying to ignore the worst of the mayhem. When she was shoved by a particularly rowdy group chanting fight songs, she almost called Taryn to come rescue her.

But she took a deep breath and reminded herself not to judge anyone. Everyone around her was having fun. And why shouldn’t they?

She might not know why all these people seemed to think being so loud and drunk was delightful. What she did know was that she’d never felt anything as good as the heat
that flashed over her when she made it up the front steps and found Tim standing there, waiting for her.

He was so hot, it amazed Kelsi that he was actually hers. Those hazel eyes and his dirty-blond hair all worked together to give him that J. Crew model look that Kelsi adored. Except that he traded in his trademark oxford shirt for a ripped Hanes tee sloppily marked pledge with a black sharpie.

He smiled when he saw her. “Finally,” he said.

He reached out and pulled Kelsi close by hooking his hand around the nape of her neck. He kissed her long and hard, and was grinning wider when he pulled away.

“Hi,” Kelsi whispered. It had been two days since she’d last seen him, and they’d talked about fifty times in the interim. Even so, it had felt too long. He leaned close to kiss her again, and the chanting of a frat song faded far into the background.

“Isn’t this insane? The brothers said this isn’t even half the people who’ll show up here tonight. We have more than forty kegs!”

“Wow! That’s amazing!” Kelsi said, trying her best to sound genuinely impressed.

Tim led her away from the crowd to the side of the house. Her ears were already ringing from all the noise and she wasn’t even inside yet.

“Weren’t you gonna come with Taryn?”

“She had to bail. You might need to give me a ride back to school tonight.”

“My roommate took off for the weekend,” Tim said, high-fiving a bouncer who was guarding a quiet back staircase. “I’m telling you that with full and total respect for your feelings on the sex subject,” he added, flashing a grin at Kelsi. “But I thought you should know that Matt won’t be busting in if we want to have a nice, quiet sleepover. Or a loud, passionate sleepless sleepover.”

Kelsi couldn’t help but laugh. She loved fooling around with Tim, because, unlike guys she’d dated in the past, he never pressured her. While he made no secret of the fact he would love to have sex, he also never made her feel weird or awkward about saying no.

Whenever you’re ready is cool,
he always said with a kiss and that sweet smile that made her melt.

“But we can talk about that later.” Tim ran his hands through her dark hair. “Right now, there’s a ton of people I want you to meet.”

Kelsi cuddled underneath Tim’s arm, and followed him through the thick heat of the overcrowded rooms. While it wasn’t at all her scene, Kelsi still felt like she belonged.

Because she belonged with Tim.