Five Summers (15 page)

“Bye, seventeen!” Allie called as the older girls walked up the beach clutching their tablets and bottles of sunscreen. “Don’t forget to wait for that cute boy.” Meredith, lost in her texting, just raised a hand in a distracted wave.

Emma looked back out at the water. If she squinted, she thought she could see Adam’s Red Sox cap peeking out of a boat on the horizon.

She decided to give him one last chance. For old times’ sake.

“OKAY,” SKYLAR SAID, LEANING IN CONSPIRA- torially. “Say when.” They were sitting up in the barn loft during the afternoon free period, all four of them high on sugar from a one-pound bag of Skittles Jo had smuggled up in the pouch of her sweatshirt. As the rain whipped against the roof, they had painstakingly pooled them and divided them by color. Skylar liked the reds, Emma got the yellows, Jo took the purples, Maddie got the greens, and they saved the oranges—the communal least favorite—to play Skit-ball, a game they’d invented that involved flicking the candies off the edge of the loft and trying to hit beams on the other side of the barn. But Skit-ball could only be played once, since retrieving the playing pieces took so much effort, and so they’d moved on to MASH, which was more up Skylar’s alley. It was Emma’s turn, so Jo and Maddie had started a game of spit with the deck of cards they kept stashed under a box of extension cords. Emma closed her eyes and Skylar started drawing a spiral, around and around and around and around and—

“When!” Emma cried. Skylar counted out the rings.

“Nine,” she said, and started x-ing things off. “You’re not an actress,” she said apologetically.

“What a shocker.”

“But you have eighteen children!” Skylar giggled, picturing Emma surrounded by an army of mini-Emmas, as if Emma had asexually reproduced. Skylar knew it was weird to picture your best friend doing it, but with Emma, she couldn’t, even if she tried.

“Oooh,” Maddie said, not looking up from her rapid-fire card slapping. “You can have your own reality show. That’s even better than being an actress.”

“Who’s the baby-daddy?” Emma asked. She had listed Nate, Zeke, the Slotkin twins (you always had to put at least one bad pick in—those were Skylar’s MASH rules), and of course Adam. Skylar knew he was the answer Emma wanted, but the numbers didn’t add up.

“Zeke!” she said. “Ugh, I’m jealous.” Zeke Tanner was easily one of the hottest guys at camp.

“I guess I’ll live,” Emma joked.

“Spit!” Jo cried.

Skylar burst out laughing.

“What?” Emma demanded.

“You live . . .” Skylar announced with a dramatic pause, “on Sexy Island!”

“
Wexley
Island,” Jo corrected, reshuffling the deck.

“I heard it’s clothing optional, like a nudist colony,” Maddie said.

“That’s not true,” Jo said, rolling her eyes. “I’ve
been
there.”

“At night?”

“Well . . . no.”

“Then how do you know?” Maddie said. “No one wears clothes, and everything just sort of . . . hangs there.” She giggled. “And then if you want to do it, you just make a signal at the person. Like this.” She jumped to her feet and swung her hips forward like a dirty hula dancer. Emma cracked up.

“You are so full of it,” Jo sighed.

“Fine, but there’s one Sexy Island story I
know
is true,” Maddie said, “because I heard the counselors talking about it in the bathroom. Apparently one of the girl counselors and one of the boy counselors were secretly dating. And they had a date on Sexy Island and he rowed a
mattress
over there.” She paused for emphasis. “On a
canoe
!”

“That’s so romantic,” Emma sighed.

“Yeah, a moldy swamp mattress. Swoon!” Jo shook her head. “She probably got ticks in her hoo-ha.”

“
Hoo-ha
?” Maddie chortled. “Johannah Putnam, I never.”

“It sounds like a dirty Dr. Seuss rhyme,” Emma said. “
All the Whos down in Hoo-ha liked Christmas a lot . . .
”

“
But the Grinch who lived just north of Hoo-ha did
not!
” Skylar finished. They were beside themselves.

“Well, what do
you
call it?” Jo asked defensively.

“Nothing,” Emma said. “I guess I never thought about it.”

“My mom calls it
yoni
,” Skylar said. “She says it means
origin of life
in Sanskrit.” She decided not to mention that her parents also owned a copy of the Kama Sutra, which Skylar had paged through on more than one occasion.

“Your mom is such a hippie,” Jo said.

“Well, what does your mom tell you?” Skylar asked defensively.

“Nothing, we don’t talk about genitals.”

“You’ll have to someday.”

“I guess,” Jo said. “But that’s so far off.”

Except it wasn’t, Skylar thought. She couldn’t be the only one who thought about boys that way, could she? She wondered if it was perverted that she’d been aware of sex since she was eight, playing house with Jeremy Walling from across the street. They were pretending to be husband and wife, and lay down together at “nighttime” on a bed made of couch cushions. They’d barely been touching, but Jeremy had gotten . . . excited. She hadn’t known what was happening, she’d just known it was awkward by the look on Jeremy’s face. It had made Skylar feel kind of powerful to have that effect on him. For the next few months, she’d caught herself staring at the crotches of the boys in her class during gym, wondering if she could do it again.

“Didn’t you have to talk to her about it when you got your period?” Maddie asked.

Jo was silent. The others exchanged looks.

“It’s not like a race,” Jo finally said. “I don’t want it, anyway.”

“It’s a pain in the ass,” Skylar sighed. “I got mine when I was nine.” Her mother had taken her out for cupcakes and tried to explain human reproduction. But Skylar had been horrified to learn that she had eggs inside her, picturing the big, speckled brown ones her parents brought home from the organic food co-op.

“There should be another sign,” Emma said. “Some way to know when we stop being girls and turn into, you know, women.” Skylar smiled, resisting the urge to tell Emma she was inadvertently quoting a Britney Spears song.

“Like when you cross into a new state,” Maddie agreed. “Like, ‘Adulthood Welcomes You!’”

“Or ‘Curves Ahead!’” Jo said, pointing at Maddie’s chest.

“Hey, these are genetic,” Maddie laughed. “It doesn’t mean anything, just like MASH can’t really predict the future.” She stretched her arms and stood up, peering between the cracks in the old hay loft door. “It stopped raining,” she said. “I guess we should probably skedaddle before people start wandering around outside.”

Jo leaped to her feet and started packing up the cards while Maddie tossed the rope ladder down so that Emma could gather the fallen Skittles.

Skylar looked down at the make-believe future she held in her hands. It was just a series of X’s and circles, like a childhood game of tic-tac-toe. It was silly. Of course there was no way to tell when you would become a woman from a piece of paper. Growing up in that way seemed a lot more complicated than having a birthday or a period or a certain cup size or even sex; not just one thing, but a series, like dominos that kept falling down no matter how much you wanted them to stay standing . . . or, maybe, like a big round of MASH with the universe doing the counting for you.

No matter what it was, it was a game Skylar wasn’t sure she felt ready to play.

MADDIE LAY ON HER BACK GAZING UP AT THE SKY. The sun beating down on her face felt so good, she wasn’t even worried about the fact that she hadn’t put on any sunscreen yet, which meant that freckles would soon be spreading across her nose like a constellation of stars. They’d only been on the island for half an hour but had already walked all the way across and back in search of the perfect spot to drop their things—finally, maddeningly, Jo had settled on a patch of beach ten feet from where they’d started. Maddie felt winded, but the breeze was refreshing, and if she closed her eyes and listened to the birds and the soft lapping of the lake against the shore, she could almost take herself back to those days when she and Jo used to spend hours on the dock, without a care in the world except for—

“Attention! ATTENTION, PEOPLE.” Jo’s voice blared through the megaphone from five feet away. Maddie sat up and shook her head. She’d
told
Jo not to bring that thing.

“I just wanted to let you all know that we have approximately six hours on the island, so please synchronize your watches—”

“Who wears a watch anymore?” Skylar muttered grumpily from her towel, and Maddie shrugged wearily.

“—and meet back at the south shore at five p.m. for return boats!” Jo cleared her throat and placed one hand on her hip. “I
will
be checking names. So anyone with plans to stay on the island overnight can forget it.” A couple of people booed.

Maddie caught Jo’s eye and motioned frantically for her to put down the megaphone. “I think they get the point, Jo,” she said as kindly as she could manage. Jo reluctantly dropped it and started doing stretches, lunging down in the grass like a sprinter on the starting block and then standing up and windmilling her arms.

“What are you doing?” Skylar groused. “I’m getting tired just watching it.”

“Warming up,” Jo said breathlessly. “For our hike later.”

“
Dude.
We’ve been walking all over the place. Can’t we just sloth for one afternoon?”

“You can have a few minutes to rest,” Jo said, contorting into a back bend.

“Oh, yay,” Skylar said sarcastically and rolled onto her stomach.

Maddie tried to close her eyes again and unwind, but she couldn’t relax with Jo’s heavy breathing and joint-cracking happening inches from her ear.

“I’m gonna go look for Emma,” she said, getting up and putting on the wide-brimmed straw sun hat that she’d thankfully thought to stick in her carry-on. She didn’t actually care if she found anyone; she just needed some peace and quiet.

Maddie walked west along the beach, passing Sunny and her group lined up on towels, glistening with tanning oil like string-bikini-clad sardines, and a few older girls in sarongs reading Kindles and doing crossword puzzles. A bunch of guys had already started a game of football and some were wearing their shirts pulled up over their heads, which Maddie thought must be an impulse genetically coded into the Y-chromosome, since the only time she had ever done it was by accident in the dressing room at Forever 21. As she got closer to the woods, she could see Nate and Zeke and a few other guys her age hunched over a towel; upon closer inspection they were maneuvering little toy soldiers in formation, strategizing for capture the flag. Maddie smirked at the boys’ frowns of concentration and made a mental note to tell Jo, who would surely be pissed she hadn’t thought of it first.

She was looking out at the lake when she saw the cabin out of the corner of her eye. It sat in the distance on the island’s westernmost point, its skeletal roof beams peeking out from between the trees. Mack had intended it to be a safe house in case anyone was ever stuck out on Wexley overnight, but he had never gotten around to finishing it, so it was more like an open-air gazebo. Over the years, for obvious reasons, it had earned the nickname Virginity Point.

Maddie had forgotten all about the cabin and had even forgotten about Charlie for five minutes or so, but now the pain bloomed fresh in her chest. She sat down and took a deep breath. She was almost starting to feel better when a football collided with her left shoulder.

“What the hell?!” Maddie looked up to see a stocky guy with white-blond hair and a bright red sunburn jog over to retrieve the ball.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Hey!” Nate stood up from his spot in the makeshift war room. “Why don’t you guys move it up the beach where you won’t hit anyone?” Sunburned Guy looked over at his shirtless compatriots, who nodded.

“Sure, no problem, man,” he said. He looked down at Maddie sheepishly. “Sorry again.”

A few seconds later, Nate appeared at her side.

“You okay?” he asked. His dark blond hair was windblown from the boat, and with his muscular arms, threadbare tank top, and rolled-up cargo pants he looked to Maddie like a TV castaway, the kind who would grow sexy stubble but always look freshly showered.

“Yeah,” she said, massaging her shoulder. “Just a dent—mostly to my dignity.”

He sat down next to her and rested his arms on his knees.

“Everyone okay after last night?” he asked.

“Some hurt feelings, I think, and a slight hangover, but everyone’s fine,” she said. “You should put Adam on one of those leashes people use on toddlers at Disney World.”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “He’s pretty oblivious sometimes.”

Maddie examined her fingernails. She and Nate had never really had a conversation. She’d known him for seven years, but only as background color, kind of like the way she knew the table lamp that had always been in her living room.

“How’s the flag capturing going?” she asked, nodding back toward his group.

“Oh,” he blushed, embarrassed. “Fine. It’s stupid.”

“No, it’s okay. Some people I know take it really seriously, too.” Maddie nodded at Jo, who was doing athletic cartwheels down the beach, unwittingly kicking sand into Skylar’s face.

“Yeah, she’s really something.” He smiled and shielded his eyes from the sun.

“I know,” Maddie laughed. “She’s nuts.”

“But in a good way,” Nate said.

“Totally. She’s just so into camp.” Maddie thought for a second. “You know what, I have actually never seen her
not
at camp.”

“Maybe she lives here year-round,” Nate joked.

“I know, tunneling into the ground like a vole or something.”

“Only cuter.” He looked at Maddie cautiously. “I mean—”

“It’s okay, I won’t tell,” Maddie said.

Nate seemed relieved. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he sighed. “She barely knows I exist.”

“That is not true! You guys are joined at the hip.”

“I don’t know,” he said, tracing circles in the sand with one foot. “I just can’t seem to get her attention.”

“Have you tried a bullhorn?” Maddie suggested. She was only half joking.

Nate laughed. “No. But one time last summer I picked a bunch of wildflowers up in the north field and when I gave them to her she got mad at me for taking time away from my lawn-mowing shift.”

Maddie shook her head. That was Jo all right. But even someone as terrified of romantic abandon as Jo would have to be crazy not to notice the attention of a handsome, sweet guy like Nate.

“Did she at least keep them?” Maddie asked.

“They ended up in an empty mayonnaise jar on the pass-through window of the cafeteria,” Nate said. “I think some hash browns knocked them over.”

Maddie had the sudden urge to hug Nate. She also had the urge to smack Jo upside the head with her clipboard and tell her how crazy she was not to grab Nate before some other girl came to her senses and went after him.
This
was the kind of guy who should be someone’s first love. Someone who brought you flowers and refilled your water glass without your having to ask. Someone who watched you across crowded rooms just to make sure you were okay. Someone who loved you quietly from a distance, without pressuring you or wanting you to change.

“Well, I’m her best friend,” Maddie said, giving Nate a sympathetic smile. “And I know how tough and stubborn Jo can be. But I hope you won’t give up.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I feel like I’m being so obvious already.”

“It’s up to you, but I say give it another shot. At least a final Hail Mary. Because I think she needs a guy like you.”

Nate brightened. “Really?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Maddie said, adding silently in her head,
I think we all do
.

She felt better than she had in months. If for every Charlie in the world there was also a Nate, she thought, eventually probability would be on her side. Maybe, just maybe, there was hope for her after all.