Second Chance Summer (30 page)

“Thanks,” I said. Nora took a sip of her soda and Gelsey opened the bag of chips, but neither of them made any effort to leave. “Was there something else?” I asked. We weren’t exactly besieged by customers, but apparently Fred didn’t like people just hanging out in front of the snack bar, as it discouraged the people who didn’t want to wait on line.

“Uh-huh,” Gelsey said, crunching down on a chip, then tilting the bag toward Nora, who pursed her lips and carefully selected one. “You need to pick up the dog from the groomer’s when you’re done with work.”

“You’re kidding.” I sighed. “Again?”

Both Gelsey and Nora nodded. “Again,” Nora confirmed. “Your brother has a problem.”

Last week, my mother, shocked at just how many squeaky toys Murphy had managed to accumulate in a very short time, had forbidden all of us (but specifically Warren, since he was the only one buying them) from getting the dog any more accessories. And so, Warren had been devising increasingly desperate and obvious excuses to go to Doggone It!, see Wendy the vet-in-training, and possibly get up the nerve to say more than hello. The first time he’d spilled something on the dog, we’d thought it was an accident. Warren claimed that he’d just been drinking some tomato juice when the dog had run into the kitchen. He took the dog to get groomed, and nobody thought anything of this until, two days later, Warren managed to spill grape juice on him. Back Murphy went to the groomer, and when I caught Warren stalking the dog with a bottle of ketchup (because the dog, no fool, had started to flee whenever he saw my brother approaching), I’d finally confronted him about it.

“You need to stop tormenting the dog,” I told Warren as I forcibly removed the ketchup from his hands and stuck it back in the fridge. “You’re going to give him some kind of skin rash or something. I don’t think dogs are supposed to be washed this often.”

“Want me to tell you about the dog that crossed over three
thousand miles to get back to its family?” Warren asked, clearly choosing to change the subject, rather than own up to the fact that he’d been attempting to douse the dog with ketchup.

“No,” I said, automatically. “But want me to tell you about the guy who traumatized his dog because he couldn’t ask a girl for a date?” Normally, I never would have said something like this to my brother. Maybe it was because I was so much more aware of what was happening in his social life now, in a way that I hadn’t ever been in Stanwich.

Warren blushed bright red. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, crossing his arms and then uncrossing them again.

“Just ask her out,” I said, as I knelt down to look under the table. Murphy was cowering there, shaking slightly, but when he saw that I wasn’t Warren—or wielding a liquid to throw at him—he seemed to relax slightly. I gestured for him to come, but the dog stayed put, clearly not sure if I was on Warren’s side or not. I straightened up to find my brother looking uncharacteristically confused.

“And, um,” he said, clearing his throat and then opening and closing the fridge for no reason whatsoever, “how exactly should I do that?”

“How should you ask her out?” I echoed. “You know. Just—” I stopped short when I saw the look on my brother’s face and realized that he might not, in fact, know how to do this. “Just strike up
a conversation,” I said. “And then steer it toward whatever you want the date to be.”

“Uh-huh,” my brother said, and he looked around the kitchen, his fingers resting on the legal pad we always kept by the phone. I had a feeling that he was on the verge of taking notes. “And can you give me an example of that?”

“Well,” I said. I had never asked anyone out directly, but I had certainly encouraged guys in the right direction. “Like, if you want to take her out to dinner, mention that you know a great pizza restaurant, or whatever. And then hopefully she’ll say she loves pizza, and then you ask if she wants to eat some with you.”

“Okay,” Warren said, nodding. He paused for a moment, then asked, “But what if she doesn’t like pizza?”

I let out a long breath. If I hadn’t known my brother had a near-genius level IQ, I certainly would never have believed it after this conversation. “That was just a hypothetical,” I said. “Pick anything you want. A movie, or miniature golf, or whatever.”

“Right,” Warren said, looking lost in thought. “Got it.” He headed out of the kitchen, then took a step back in and gave me a slightly embarrassed smile. “Thanks, Taylor.”

“Sure,” I’d said, and then tried to see if I could coax the dog out from under the table.

After that, the dog had gone unassaulted for a few days, so I
assumed that Warren had taken my advice, or at least abandoned this particular strategy. But it seemed that Murphy had to once again suffer the ineptitude of my brother’s flirting techniques.

I looked over the counter at Gelsey and Nora, who were now passing the bag of frozen M&Ms between them. “What was it this time?” I asked.

“Syrup,” Gelsey said. “Mom was really pissed.”

“I bet,” I said, thinking what a sticky mess that must have created.

“So she isn’t letting Warren pick him up. She wants you to do it. And then pick up some corn for dinner.”

“Got it,” I said, glancing back at the clock. I stretched my arms over my head, glad that I had only half an hour left on my shift.

“What’s wrong with your dog?” Elliot asked, apparently deciding to join this conversation.

Nora frowned at him. “Who are you?”

“Elliot,” he said, pointing to his name tag. “Taylor’s boss.”

I rolled my eyes at this. “No, you’re not.”

“Her superior, at any rate,” he amended, unfazed.

“Anything else?” I said, turning to the girls.

“Nope,” Gelsey said. She held out the bag of frozen M&Ms to me, and I shook three into my palm. Unlike Skittles, I didn’t care what color my M&Ms were. “See you later!”

“Bye,” I called as she and Nora walked away, heads bent toward each other, already deep in conversation.

“Your sister?” Elliot asked, pushing himself up to sit on the counter.

I nodded. “And next-door neighbor. They’re kind of a package deal these days.” I heard my phone beep with a text, and pulled it out of my back pocket. It was from Lucy, but instead of the message I’d been expecting, asking me to come back to our spot so we could keep talking, there was just one word:
FRED!!!

“Fred’s here,” I hissed to Elliot, as though Fred would somehow be able to hear me. Elliot hopped off the counter and I looked around for something that I could pretend to clean, when the side door opened and Fred, looking sunburned and grumpy, stepped in, with his tackle box and a large cardboard box that he dropped on the ground with a thump.

“Hello, Fred,” Elliot said, in a much-more-cheerful-than-usual voice. “How were the fish?”

Fred shook his head. “Not good. Haven’t gotten a bite in days. I swear, it’s like they all got a memo or something,” he said, taking off his hat. I blinked, then made myself look away. The top of his head—which was covered by his fishing hat—was a totally different color than the red below it, with almost a straight line dividing the two. I wondered if I should be the one to tell Fred about the magical
invention of sunblock. He looked around and frowned. “Where’s Lucy?”

“Right here!” she said as she pushed the door open. “I was just doing some inventory,” she said, not meeting my eye as she crossed the snack bar, wearing her best “responsible employee” expression.

“Uh-huh,” Fred said, clearly not buying it. He gestured down at the box at his feet. “I just picked up the posters for the movie night. I’ll expect you three to do your part and ask the local businesses to hang them up. Okay?”

“Sure,” I said, and Elliot gave Fred a thumbs-up.

“Are we all set for Friday?” he asked, speaking directly to me this time.

“Absolutely!” I said, trying to sound much more confident about the movie night than I actually was. This time around, I’d had more to organize. It was up to me to pick the movie, rent the screen and projector, and order the posters. I was pretty sure everything was taken care of—except my introduction. I was trying not to think about it too much, and hoping that if I felt as nervous as I had about the last one, Elliot or Lucy would step in and do it for me.

Fred left after that, and I tore open the cardboard box, holding up one of the posters and admiring it. When I’d looked at the beach’s collection of movies, and had seen the title printed on the side of the box, I’d known there was only one choice.

“What’s the movie?” Lucy asked, peering over my shoulder.

“
Casablanca
,” I said, scanning the poster quickly for spelling mistakes, feeling like I probably should have done this before I’d given the text to Jillian in the office.

“Never seen it,” Lucy said with a shrug as Elliot made scoffing noises.

“Me neither,” I said. I felt myself smile as I remembered what my father had said. “But I have a feeling it’s going to be great on the big screen.”

chapter twenty-five

I
LEFT WORK A LITTLE BIT EARLY, SO THAT
I
COULD COLLECT THE
dog, who was most likely thinking that he’d had it better when he’d been wandering free around the neighborhood. Life had probably been more restful, at any rate. I also had some posters with me, figuring that I could ask Wendy if Doggone It! could put one up, and maybe Henson’s Produce as well. I had just pedaled up Main Street and secured my bike, and was all set to head into the pet store when I looked across to the bakery. Without really thinking it through, I was walking across the street, posters in hand, my heart pounding hard.

I pushed open the door and stepped inside, glad that I was the only customer. Henry was leaning over the counter, reading a book, and he looked up. “Hey,” he said, looking surprised but not upset or angry, which I took as the evidence I needed to press forward.

“I think we should be friends,” I blurted, without thinking about it first.

“Oh,” Henry said, his eyebrows raising. “Um…” He clearly
didn’t know what to say after that, as nothing followed.

“I just,” I started, as I took another step into the store, “I think that it would be good. Bury the hatchet, and all that.”

“I didn’t know there was a hatchet,” he said, smiling faintly.

“You know what I mean,” I said. Even though every instinct I had was telling me to turn and go, just leave the store and keep on walking, I made myself cross the floor until I was standing in front of him at the counter. Which might not have been the best idea, because now I was close to him—close enough to see the freckles across his nose, and the smudge of flour on his cheek, and the confusion in his green eyes. I looked away, then took a breath and continued. “What I did was horrible,” I said. “Just leaving like that, with no explanation.”

“Taylor,” Henry said slowly, his brow furrowed. “Where is this coming from?”

I didn’t want to tell him about my conversation with Lucy or what I’d realized the night of the slumber party. But I couldn’t stop thinking about him. And if I was totally honest with myself, I hadn’t ever really stopped. That in a lot of ways, he’d been the only boy that had mattered in my romantic life so far. My first love, even if I hadn’t been able to admit it, before I even really knew what those words meant. “I just… miss you,” I said, wincing at the words even as I said them, hearing how lame they sounded. “And I’d really like to be friends. Just friends,” I amended, remembering the girl at the
ice-cream parlor, not wanting him to think I was hitting on him.

“Well,” Henry said, looking a little shell-shocked. “Anything else?”

“And I was wondering if you could put this up in your window,” I said, as I placed the stack of posters on the counter and slid one over to him. I kept my eyes on his face, trying to see what he thought about what I’d just said, incoherent as it had been.

“That I can do,” he said, taking the poster and looking at it. “
Casablanca
,” he said thoughtfully. “Nice pick.”

“My pick,” I interjected quickly.

He looked up from the poster and gave me a surprised smile. “You like it?” he asked.

I could feel my face start to get hot, though by now I was finally tan enough to hide it. I found myself wishing I hadn’t said anything, feeling like this was joining the long list of things that had gone wrong during the conversation. “No,” I said. “I’ve never seen it. I’ve just… heard good things.”

Henry looked down at the poster, like it might have the answer he was looking for. “I don’t know, Taylor,” he finally said. “A lot’s happened in the last five years.”

“I know,” I said, feeling all at once just how embarrassed I was, like there had been a time delay on it until that moment. “Sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have… I mean…” Whole sentences did not
appear to be forthcoming, and I had an almost palpable sense of relief that I would finally be able to give in to what my instincts had been screaming at me to do since I first stepped inside the store—that is, leave immediately. “Sorry,” I muttered again, turning away and heading quickly for the door. I had just reached for the handle when Henry spoke.

“Taylor,” he called. I turned, feeling a tiny flutter of hope in my chest. But he was just holding up my stack of posters. “You forgot these.”