Summer of Love (22 page)

“Ah, here we are,” Sadie announces in a perfect British accent. Arabella raises her eyebrows, impressed. “Magnificent Malibu colony…acres of land offset by this European-style villa.” Then she cuts the accent and shakes he head. “That’s my impression of the annoying realtor who’s trying to sell this hulking place.”

As we drive up the wide stone-inlayed path, I’m caught between gawking at the size of the house and asking what Sadie means. I go for the info, figuring the tour of trappings can continue once we’re out the car.

“Is this place for sale?” I ask and climb out of the car standing with my bag in one hand, my feet in a lame yet jaunty position like Julie Andrews before she goes into the Von Trapp’s estate in The Sound of Music.

“Yup, it’s on the market for some obscene amount of money,” Sadie says and presses a button that makes the double-sized front door open without a sound. Chase, who had clearly been here before though who knows in what context, follows Sadie inside and Arabella pauses with me on the stairs.

“Are you coming?” she asks.

My shoes feel cemented to the stone steps. My arms stuck in their pre-visit position. “She’s in there. How can I move?” I ask.

“Like this,” Arabella emphasizes putting one foot in front of the other.

“I can’t,” I say. “I’m freaking out!”

Chase sticks his surfer head out the door, calling to us. “You guys hitting the road or what?”

“We’ll be right in,” Arabella says back and then to me she adds, “Come on.”

I take a step and feel my knees shaking. Then my cell phone rings. I slide it from the pocket of my bag and check the number. “It’s Dad,” I say.

“Oh, check it out — you didn’t say ‘my dad’ you just said ‘dad’ — you’re becoming a Euro!”

“Or an affected Hadley Haller.” I neg the call and feel a little guilty, but the last thing I can deal with right now is telling my dad where I am and whom I’m about to meet. Then the phone rings again. “He’s calling again! It’s like he can’t understand the concept of waiting for me to…”

“Well, he has left a couple messages, right?” Bels says and motions for me to come inside.

“Okay — here I go,” I say and lug my bags up the steps and through the doorway in to my mother’s house — and prepare to see where she’s been all this time, what she looks like in person, find out why she did what she did, and check out the other side of my life, how it could have — but didn’t — turn out.

My tour of the house includes: not one but two gourmet kitchens with hand-painted tiles, hallways floored with imported French Beaumanire limestone, the pool with its jet fountains, spa, and glass steam room that looks like it could be the stage for a sexy romp or creepy movie scene, Sadie’s bedroom suite, and the lush landscaping with palms, cypress trees, fruit trees, and fountains. Impressive, yes, but what’s more interesting is what I learned on said tour.

Sadie’s parents are divorcing. Her dad’s some business guy who clearly has done well and her mom’s — um, my mom — is taking a break from the record industry. She’s also seemingly taking a break from being at home, though Sadie hasn’t said this — so every time we go to a new room or building I keep expecting her to introduce me.

“She’s burned out,” Sadie says and shrugs as she shows me Gala’s sound-proofed studio building.

“The view is awesome — in the true sense of the word,” I say. In front of us is a huge cliff, its rockside plunges into blue water, with steep steps down to a private beach.

“As opposed to the surfer sense, you mean?” Sadie grins.

“But can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Sadie says as we walk to one of the three infinity pools that seem to connect directly with the horizon. Sadie slips off her shoes and dips her feet into the water. I do the same and we sit there in silence until I ask, “The house is really…um, it’s really great but it doesn’t seem to have…” I can’t say it doesn’t have character, because that’d be too rude. Even though we’re genetically linked, we’ve only just met and I don’t want to offend Sadie.

“Anything in it?” she ventures.

Relief ensues. “Yeah — it’s like, there are no pictures and no old drawings from when you were little or — even…”

“I know,” Sadie says, overlapping me likes it’s totally normal that we click and flow so well. “She took out all the records covers and art and — well, supposedly when you’re selling a house you’re meant to make it devoid of personality.”

“Oh. That makes sense, I guess.” I lift my feet out of the water and then bring them back into the warmth of it. “It just felt weird…”

“It’s gotta feel weird on just so many levels, Love.” Sadie says. Then she puts her lips together, considering whether to say something. “Can I be honest with you?”

“Sure,” I say and feel my pulse jump. Maybe she doesn’t live here and she’s some psycho-liar and breaks into houses that are for sale and has a police record. “Is it bad?”

“That depends…” she starts and only stops when my cell phone rings. She peers over at the number and asks, “Are you going to pick up?”

I look and am surprised to find it’s not my dad and not Charlie and not Arabella from inside calling to tell me she’s using the indoor bowling alley or that she and Chase are plotting tonight’s plan for Martin Eisenstein’s party.

“I’m so sorry,” I say to Sadie. “Let me take this for one second. Stay here, though.” I don’t want her to leave me in the cool but creepy environs of the empty but stunning yard and I guess I kind of want her to know what’s happening in my life — the rest of my life — so I invite her to eavesdrop. Not that she’d necessarily care, but still…

“Hello?” I ask even though I know who’s on the other end of the call.

“Love,” the familiar voice sends my heart flopping despite my attempts at settling it down. “It’s Jacob.”

“Hey.” My voice sounds relatively normal considering I’m next to my new-found half-sister at my never-seen-before mother’s house as I talk to the guy whose grip on my heart and mind can’t seem to entirely fade.

“What’s up?”

“Not much,” I say totally lying or — if you want to spin it in a better way — totally glossing over the facts. “What’s up with you?” Inane, inane, inane.

Sadie nudges me and gives me the who is that gesture with her palms out and up. I shrug and then try to think of hoe I’d describe Jacob. I whisper to her, “That guy friend who you’re not supposed to feel anything for but…” she nods knowingly.

“Well — here’s the deal. I was in — well, you know I was in California, right?” he asks.

“Really?” I ask. “Did I know that?”

“I told you at Crescent Beach but maybe it was all kind of —”

“Yeah,” I say not wanting to tread over old territory of that morning when I thought he’d make a move and instead introduced me to his Euro-chick. “It’s been a pretty must summer for me so far, so it must have…”

“Um, so — I’m here. Now.” His words are choppy, telling me he’s nervous.

“You’re here?” I half look around and expect to se him pop put of the sculpted bushes — my life is so upside down right now, I wouldn’t be that shocked. I step out of the pool and let my feet leave sole marks on the pavement. Maybe somehow that’s what we do to people — leave soul marks. Okay, Love, get out of your head and into the moment. “So where are you exactly?” As soon as I ask him, I feel guilty. What if Charlie were having this same phone call some girl he used to like and maybe still harbors some feelings for? I’d feel like crap. So I make the executive decision that I won’t see Jacob, even if he’s inside the house or also happens to be heading to the party tonight. Or — no — I know why he’s here. “You’re interviewing at Stanford, right?” I ask. That wouldn’t be bad, if we just happened to look at the same school at the same time. That’s just coincidence.

“I already did,” Jacob says. “It’s a great place.”

“Yeah? It seems that way.”

“But it’s not the right place for me,” he says but doesn’t say why. “But so…then I got to thinking…”

Oh no — here we go. It’s never a simple what’s up phone call. There’s always an underneath. Sadie gives me the time signal, pointing to her watch and then plucking her clothes. “We have to get going if we’re going change and head up to the party,” she whisses — a whisper hiss combo. “I hear that the security for Eisenstein’s gala — heh — can takes an hour to clear.”

Sheer testament to the enormity of this day is the fact that a Hollywood glamfast seems blah in comparison to my life right now. I nod at Sadie and then say, “I’ll be in a sec,” loud enough for Jacob to hear. Not because I want him to necessarily know exactly where I am or what I’m doing — I don’t need him to be impressed with the fact that I’m spending the day before Independence Day being really and truly independent and going to one of Hollywood’s biggest bashes, but I guess I don’t want him to think I’m here by myself.

I always felt like I was the one who reached out to him, pulling him from his quiet boy status into the social realm, but the truth is, the tables flipped on me and now he’s the Hadley it guy and I’m — I’m whatever I am — and there’s no clear definition to our friendship.

“Where are you, anyway?” Jacob asks and exhales audibly. I can imagine the air leaving his lips, fanning his hair off his forehead. Then I picture Charlie and his smile, the way he kissed me in the lighthouse, and have one of those cartoon images of them in miniature, each sitting atop one of my shoulders.

“I am — at present — walking around one of those pools that blends seamlessly into the landscape, even though it’s completely artificial and man-made. Oops, semi-redundant.”

“Ah, you’re your own best editor,” Jacob says. “And where is this pool? In Edgartown or — what’s that other place — Katama?” He mispronounces the name.

“It’s Katama,” I say. “But I’m not in either of those towns. I’m in Malibu.”

“California?” Jacob sounds more surprised than he should. Or maybe he’s really shocked to find that I indeed have a life and that I, too, can go across country to look at schools — not that I’ve been exactly academic here yet. But my interview is in a mere two days…

“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” I ask, and hope my tone is friendly but not flirty. But it might be flirty. Just a little.

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with California as a state — or even as a state of mind. But for my purposed, it poses a definite obstacle…”

“Wait, what’re you saying?” I ask. And then my cell phone rings again. “Jacob, hang on for one sec, okay? I know it’s rude and I think we’ve even talked about the triage of call waiting and how annoying it is…but…”

“Fine, I’ll be here,” Jacob says as I click over.

“Hey, Charlie! I miss you!” I say before I’ve even had the chance to think about being over-emotive.

“Me, too. I just got back from…anyway, what’s it like there? Are you an instant surfer babe? Or more the red carpet vixen?”

“Um, let’s just say I’m neither — maybe in the middle of both.” As we talk, I’m reminded of why I don’t want to keep a summer thing going — why long-distance romance inevitable fails, just like it did with me and Asher. Not that one person necessarily betrays the other, but that you loose that daily insight, you wind up explaining your life rather than sharing it. With a jolt I remember Jacob’s on the other line. Now I have to choose to whom I want to continue speaking. I can’t. Quick pro and con — Charlie is in fact my boyfriend — and I miss him and want to hear about his planned announcement to his parents that I’ll miss tomorrow night. But Jacob is my friend — plus minus — and he’ll be at Hadley in the fall. But his intentions are dubious at best. “Charlie? Hang on a second — let me get rid of someone on the other line.”

Get rid of sounds a little more intense than what I mean to imply, but I click over to Jacob and find him singing to himself, so sweetly, so softly, that I have to steel myself for hanging up.

“Hey, Jacob, I have to go,” I say.

“A better offer on the other line?” he asks, his voice jocular, but potent.

“No — it’s not like that,” I say, though maybe it is just like that.

“Wait…” he heaves a sigh and launches into a quickly spewed speech. ‘I said I was just going to do this and now I’m…I have to go through with it. So — the reason why it’s too bad you’re on the west coast is that I’m back on the east coast.”

“You are?” I ask. “No Europe? No multi-city tour?”

“No, just here.”

“Here being…?” I ask. Arabella waves from inside the enormous wall of windows and her silly dance would make me crack up if I weren’t doing double-time on the cell.

“Here being on the Vineyard.”

A chill comes over me and I tilt my head up to the darkening sky, looking for answers or clouds or both. “Why are you on the Vineyard?”

“You once told me that life is about priorities, right? And I think I was angry at you a long time ago because you never — or I felt like I wasn’t your priority…”

“Hey,” I interject but Jacob cuts me off.

“Can I just finish, please? But then I got distracted and you…were away. And then, after Crescent it was just so obvious to me that…”

My phone blips at me, the tone seeming insistent and angry. “Hold on, Jacob. Wait. Hold that thought, Seriously.” I press the button and find that no one’s there but before I can go back to Jacob, Charlie calls n again.

“Look, do you want to talk now or what?” he asks.

“Don’t be angry — it’s just nuts here right now — you wouldn’t believe it if I told you…”

“Well I hope you will, tell me I mean…” he says.

Jacob is on the other line about to confess something and I feel like I have to get back to that, Arabella and Sadie and Chase are flailing inside, telling me to hurry up so we can go to this party that could result in a laugh or could result in a new career — or at least a voice-over deal like Martin Eisenstein suggested. And my mother could walk into her home at any moment. It’s all too much. I balance on a carved stone planter but my legs bristle against the scratchy leaves.

So this is what I look like from above: a red-haired cookie cut out of myself, lying flat on the dark stone slabs by the pool, flanked by glistening circles of water, and surrounded by mass confusion.

“Love,” Charlie says, “I need to tell you something.”