Last Summer (14 page)

The back door opened, and Ella jerked upright, whirling around from the open refrigerator door.

“My God,” she said when her heart stopped pounding, “you scared me to death.”

Kelsi stood there, looking cold in her pajama bottoms and a Smith sweatshirt, her cheeks flushed pink. She held her cell phone in her hand, and Ella didn’t even know why she’d been so startled: She’d known Kelsi had gone off to take a phone call.

Staring at her sister in the pale fluorescent light in the kitchen, Ella marveled at how much had changed over the past two years. And in a weird way, Peter was to thank for a lot of it. He was why Ella had felt so guilty and had gone out of her way to be good to Kelsi two years ago. He was
why Ella and Kelsi had had that huge blowup last summer, which had been awful at the time, but which Ella thought had brought them even closer.

And he was responsible once again for what Ella had learned most recently: that it didn’t matter who Kelsi felt closer to—she and Ella were sisters, and that was just deeper. Ella had done some bad things to Kelsi over the years. If it were Kelsi’s turn to be a little less loving, well, Ella would just have to suck it up.

The phrasing of that was vintage Jeremy, of course, but the sentiment was true either way.

She didn’t realize that the moment had stretched out until Kelsi spoke into the silence between them.

“Okay,” Kelsi said, nodding. “You’re mad at me. I guess that’s understandable. I should have realized how upset you were.”

Ella stood up a little straighter, and found herself noticing random things, like the new wind chimes one of her aunts must have hung near the hammock, and the low tones the brass tubes sent spilling across the clearing outside and into the open windows, lulling them all into a false sense of security.

She also noticed that Kelsi wasn’t exactly apologizing.

Part of her wanted an apology. She’d been hurt, and she wanted Kelsi to acknowledge that—to feel guilty about it.

But if how angry she’d been about Taryn and Peter was any indication of how she’d felt about
herself
and Peter (which was what Jeremy kept saying), then maybe the fact that Kelsi couldn’t make her feel better was related to everything that had happened over the last few summers.

Ella still didn’t know why Kelsi had forgiven her for sleeping with Peter.

But she could, in a small way, return the favor.

“I’m not upset,” she said, looking at her older sister. “I was, but I’m fine. You, however, look kind of sad. I mean more than we all do tonight.”

Kelsi sighed and shrugged.

“It’s Bennett,” she said, and then she walked past Ella to collapse onto one of the kitchen chairs and let the whole story spill out.

How Bennett hadn’t even told her about his decision and just pretended everything was fine when they talked, no matter how much she’d pushed. How Taryn had been so furious with her, and had spent the week of rain only speaking to Kelsi if it related directly to the
Buffy
episode they were watching. How Kelsi had confronted Bennett, and how they’d decided that he would take the internship.

“Which means we won’t be together,” Kelsi said softly.

“Why can’t you be together?” Ella demanded, readjusting herself in the chair across from Kelsi.

“We can be together long-distance,” Kelsi said, “but that’s not the same as being together every day. We’ll have to adapt.”

“True. It’s all ticking clocks and having to leave,” Ella said, thinking of the year ahead. She didn’t really want to confront going back to that place with Jeremy. It was so much better when they could see each other all the time—when phone and e-mail weren’t their major forms of interaction. But Ella couldn’t let herself think too much about it tonight. She would get way too sad.

But it was kind of nice to share a knowing sort of smile with her sister, because now they both understood how hard long-distance love
was.

“The worst part,” Kelsi confessed after a moment, “is that there’s a really big part of me that wishes Taryn hadn’t told me what was happening. I kind of want to ignore it, so we can just all go back to school and be together again.”

“It’s okay to be a little mad at her,” Ella said. “It really wasn’t any of her business.”

“I know you don’t like her,” Kelsi said, looking up at her sister. She shrugged. “I just don’t know
why
you don’t. I thought you guys would love each other.”

Ella chose not to dig into that statement, which clearly indicated that Taryn didn’t like Ella very much, either.

“It’s not that I don’t like her.” Ella leaned forward so she
could be direct. “It’s that…she wears the same bikini I do, in, like, the same exact way.”

Kelsi blinked. “What?”

Ella raised one shoulder. “You know. If
you
wore the same bikini as me, there would be a whole different vibe. I like being the only person who wears
my
black bikini in
my
way.” She hoped she was explaining herself.

Kelsi actually laughed. “I kind of see your point,” she said.

“And I think that you can grow to tolerate and even appreciate someone who wears the same bikini,” Ella said, slowly, “but you’re never going to be BFF. You know?”

“I do know,” Kelsi said. Her brown eyes were warm when she looked over. “Just for the record, I only have one sister.”

Ella made a face, to hide the fact that she was ridiculously touched by Kelsi’s words. “I know how many sisters you have,” she assured her. “Believe me.”

“Okay, then,” Kelsi said. “Just so we’re clear.”

Ella could sense a difference in the air—an easing. The summer was over, Ella thought, and somehow she and Kelsi had found their way back to each other. She would try to remember that they always did.

“So,” she said casually. She smirked slightly and raised her eyebrows at Kelsi. “You’ve had sex.”

Kelsi flushed, and then shrugged. “It’s true,” she said. “I have.”

Ella could see the traces of wariness in her sister’s gaze. She felt a surge of protectiveness and love. She propped her chin on her hand and raised her brows.

“I don’t know what you’re waiting for,” she said lightly. “Tell me everything.”

The next morning, Beth woke up very early, jolting awake at her normal running time. She blinked in surprise to find herself trapped in a too-small bright blue sleeping bag she recognized as her aunt’s from, like, the seventies. She was also crammed into a corner of Kelsi’s floor between a gently snoring Ella and the wall.

First, she remembered Jimmy and the stuffed pig incident, and wondered again if she should keep in touch with him. She didn’t know how to go about processing that.

Then she thought about going for a run on her own this morning, since she was awake—and that was when she remembered the night before.

And next she remembered that she no longer had running shoes. Then everything else hit her. It was dizzying.

Beth crawled out of her little sleeping area, and shivered the moment her warm skin encountered the cold morning air. It was already getting chillier, and any day now there might even be frost on the ground despite the summer sun in the sky. Autumn came so much quicker in Maine.

Beth snuck over to the window shade that Kelsi had shut the night before, and pulled up a corner of it so she could let herself peek out. Part of her truly expected the fire to have been some kind of horrific nightmare. She would peel back the shade and see the cottage standing where it had always—

But no, the nightmare was real.

Beth inhaled a deep, shaky breath as she looked at the pile of charred rubble that stood where the cottage should have been. The first morning light was just sneaking into the clearing, illuminating the dew on the grass and the sickening wreck of Beth’s summers, which were now just so much dark ash.

Beth decided to crawl back into her sleeping bag, and pull the covers over her head. She couldn’t cry, exactly, but she let the heaviness weigh on her until she drifted back to sleep.

Later that morning, all the girls woke up together when Ella and Kelsi’s dad appeared in the doorway.

“Time to get moving, ladies,” he announced, making Ella groan from beneath her pillow.

And so the Tuttles set about packing up the summer a
whole week early. Beth didn’t like the idea of summer ending, but there was no use arguing about it. Beth’s family’s cottage was gone, and all the Tuttles were leaving Maine so that the landlord could decide what to do with the property.

Beth spent the first part of the morning realizing, as she observed the beautiful sunlight that illuminated the blackened remains of her cottage, that unlike her cousins, she had nothing to pack up. Talk about traveling light. She pulled on the jeans she’d been wearing the night before, and a T-shirt of Kelsi’s that had Janis Joplin on the front, and that was pretty much that.

At first she tried to make jokes about it, because she was getting in the way while her cousins wrestled clothes into duffel bags and gathered up towels and shampoo and the shoes they hadn’t worn since they arrived in June.

But it became a whole lot less funny the longer it went on, and Beth wandered out to the clearing to look at what was left. Her Uncle Carr was making trip after trip to his Jetta, packing boxes and bags, and he stopped when he saw Beth standing there.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I think so,” Beth said, and smiled so he’d believe it. But inside, she wasn’t sure. She was fine, of course. But she didn’t think she was the same.

And it made Beth’s heart hurt.

So she walked down to the beach, where she could look at the ocean. She whispered her final good-bye to the water, the way she did every year, and hated that this time it felt so much more final.

Everything changes,
she told herself. The trick was to concentrate on the good things. Like how lucky she was to even be here, looking at the ocean. It could all have been so much worse. She’d only lost
things.

Things could be replaced. It was people Beth knew she couldn’t do without. And she knew that to be true this morning in ways she couldn’t have imagined the night before.

After standing with her feet in the sand for a long time, she slid her flip-flops back on and walked back to the cottages to find her cousins sitting together in the clearing.

“There you are,” Ella said. “We were waiting for you.”

Beth slid onto the picnic table next to her, and the four Tuttle girls sat there in the quiet of the late morning, listening to the chimes in the wind and looking at the great mess of Beth’s cottage in front of them.

“What a weird summer,” Jamie said after a while, in a small, almost wistful voice.

“I think it’s going to be fine.” Ella’s voice was very sure. “I’m sure they’ll build a new cottage, right?”

“Even if they rebuild it, it won’t be the same,” Beth said then, with a sigh. “They can’t replace the board in the kitchen where my mom recorded our heights. Or the secret
place in the headboard of the bed in my bedroom. They can’t bring it back.”

“But on the upside,” Ella said with a wink, “they might install a shower with actual pressure, so you don’t have to keep using ours.”

“That’s what I love about you,” Beth replied with an eye roll. “Always practical.”

There was a long, quiet moment then. Seagulls wheeled in lazy circles far overhead, and the sun seemed sharp. Beth felt an ache in her chest, like crying, although she wasn’t. Not yet.

Next to her, Ella made a small noise. “You guys,” she said, as if she was trying to convince herself along with everyone else, “there will always be other summers. This one is just ending a little soon. That’s all.”

There was another small silence. Beth flexed her toes against the soles of her flip-flops and kept her eyes on the burned-down cottage. This felt like a bigger ending to her than just the last day of summer.

“I don’t know,” Kelsi said after a moment. She looked quickly at Ella, then at the pine needles carpeting the ground below her. “I’m not sure I’ll come up for the whole summer next year. Driving back and forth to the city wasn’t fun at all. If things work out with Bennett, I think I’ll probably just stay there with him.”

“I don’t think I’ll be back by next summer, either,” Jamie
chimed in with a guilty shrug of her shoulders. “Mark and I want to travel as long as possible. And then we’ll have to deal with culture shock and stuff before we go to school.”

“It’s nuts,” Beth said then, still staring at the burnt remains of her cottage. “I can’t imagine coming here and
not
staying in that cottage. A replacement cottage might be too much for me. Too depressing.”

“I’ve never heard such a load of crap in my life,” Ella scolded them, her voice outraged now. “This is Pebble Beach. This is where we come in the summer.
I
will be here with a smile on my face just as soon as I get the hell out of high school next summer. And I fully expect you to be here, too. Every summer.
Hello!
”

Kelsi rolled her eyes at her little sister, but her smile was affectionate. “You say that now, but just you wait,” she warned.

“I’m not talking about this anymore with any of you. You’re officially in trouble.” Ella glared at each of them in turn. “You can’t just abandon Pebble Beach!”

“Your boyfriend is three minutes away,” Kelsi pointed out. “If that changes, you might change your mind.”

“Things do change, El,” Jamie agreed, grinning. “Look at me. Look at you.”

“We are Tuttles. We belong in Pebble Beach,” Ella said very deliberately. When Beth opened her mouth to speak,
she waved her hand at her. “I don’t want to hear any more! This is blasphemy!”

Ella jumped off the table and, with another glare at everyone, turned on her heel and flounced toward her sunporch. Laughing, Kelsi and Jamie followed her.

But Beth stayed put.

She drew in a breath. The usual golden sunshine and pine smell was tainted with the smell of the fire, but she knew that wouldn’t last forever. Next summer, the woods would smell the way they were supposed to. The sun would be bright, the sky would stretch blue and clear above the green trees, and the water would smack against the shore.

It made her feel better to think of it that way, no matter where she might be at this time next year.

Beth stood in the dirt driveway to wave everybody off, which felt strange. Normally, Uncle Carr’s family was the last to go.

“We’ll see you at Thanksgiving,” Kelsi said, giving Beth a huge hug. Then she climbed into her car, where Taryn was already picking through CDs in the passenger seat.

“I’m going to have to do the college-visit thing this fall,” Ella reminded Beth with a knowing sort of look. “So, obviously, I’ll have to hit D.C. and we’ll party.”

“Anytime,” Beth said.

Ella got into the backseat, and leaned over the seat divider to give Kelsi bossy directions to Jeremy’s house.

“I know where he lives!” Kelsi snapped, and then the sisters made faces at each other.

Beth smiled and waved as they drove away.

She helped her aunts and uncles cram the last tennis rackets and wet bathing suits into their cars, and then hugged Jamie tight after she’d stowed away her backpack.

“You better keep in touch,” Beth told her fiercely.

“I’m going to keep a blog,” Jamie promised. “I swear. It’ll be like I’m just away at school.”

“I’ll see you,” Beth said softly.

And then her cousins were all gone and she was alone. The clearing felt empty without them, and so did Beth. And then she knew what she had to do.

While her parents sat down with the fire inspectors, Beth took her last walk of the summer.

She walked down the dirt road, and turned onto the coast road. She followed it all the way into town and stopped for a moment to watch the summer crowds on the pier. Out in the water, the rocky islands glittered in the sunlight, and far above, birds made lazy circles around and around before landing in the upper branches of the tall pines.

Taking a deep breath of the salty air, Beth turned away from the water and followed the street that wound a bit inland, passing the town library where Beth and her cousins
had spent many a rainy afternoon when they were kids. She found her way past cottages with bright flower boxes at the windows and bright white picket fences. She stopped at the farthest one before the woods and went around the house to the back.

George was packing up his car in the driveway behind the little house. When Beth came down the drive, he turned, looking surprised.

“Are you all right?” he asked. He closed the distance between them, his hands going out automatically and catching her shoulders.

For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.

And just like that, Beth knew.

A warmth of certainty rushed through her.

“I lost so much last night,” she told him in a rush. “I can’t lose you, too.”

George stared at her for a long moment, and Beth thought she could see the fire reflected in his eyes. But that didn’t make any sense. The fire had been out for a long time now.

It was her whole life hanging here, Beth thought, waiting for him to respond. Waiting for him, the way she thought she might always be. The way Jimmy thought George had been waiting himself.

He wasn’t just a guy, an ex. He was George. He was part of her.

“You have me, Bethy,” he said softly. “And you’ll always have me.”

A tidal wave of emotion swept over Beth, and she caved. She barely felt George’s arms as they went around her, barely heard whatever soothing things he whispered in her ear.

But she knew he was there.

And it meant everything.

After a while, Beth realized that he was holding her close, and she tipped her head up to look him in the eye. She loved the way his arms fit so perfectly around her. How their mouths were so close, almost touching, at the perfect angle. She loved that spark deep in his eyes, and she loved that she didn’t care what happened next. She just wanted to keep holding on to him.

Beth tilted her head up, and kissed him.

He felt new and wonderful, and like coming home.

The kiss was so sweet she felt tears crowd her eyes. She didn’t know what it meant—she was going to Georgetown and he was going to Pitt. They couldn’t really get back together now. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to. But something was there that they couldn’t deny. It would always be there. They both sighed, and then smiled at each other.

“I should go,” she told him, her smile fading. “My parents are waiting, and I just wanted to say good-bye.”

“It’s not good-bye, Bethy. Not for good.” He touched her face and for a moment, she held his hand and looked in
his eyes. There was so much history there, so much warmth and friendship and hope. Beth knew that no matter what, George would always be a part of her life.

“Bye, George,” Beth said, softly. She turned back up the drive, willing herself not to cry. As she walked through the shady pines, taking in her last deep breaths of the clean Maine air, Beth thought about George and about everything that had happened this summer.

In a way, Beth
had
lost everything. But as she took one last look at Dean packing up the car, she suddenly realized that there was a lot more to these summers in Maine than just, well, being in Maine.

For a few brief, glorious weeks, everyone important to her set aside the rest of their lives—work, stress, school—and just cared about one another. Beth realized that even if her family lost everything, they would still have one another and they would all still have that feeling of Maine. And she now knew that George was somehow included in that wonderful, unconditional pact.

Beth smiled as the sunlight broke through the trees and onto her face. She knew that she was moving on to her future. But that didn’t mean that she had to leave anything—or anyone—behind.