The Summer Remains (22 page)

“Point taken.”

As Cooper pushed me I tried to notice everything in the world, but mostly I just wanted to notice
him
. I liked noticing him. There was so much to notice, after all. The hint of swagger in his walk, his broad shoulders, the tendons and muscles in his forearms that flexed as he moved, his dark hair, and the way it shined gold in the sun. And as I sat there I said a silent little prayer that I would get to notice him for a lot longer.

As we walked (or wheeled, in my case), Cooper pointed out all these things I’d never known about the city, and his enthusiasm was adorable. “Oh, see that dormer window up there?” he asked, pointing at the slanted roof of an old wooden building. “They say the ghost of an old woman waits there every night, waiting for her soldier husband to come back from the Civil War. Needless to say, it’s been awhile.” He pointed down the street. “Oh, and see that Minorcan flag over on that porch? One of the original groups of settlers here were from a Mediterranean island called Minorca. I’m actually partly descended from them – that’s why I get so tan in the summer. And that old building at the end of the street down there? Most people call it the oldest school in America, but it’s actually only the oldest
wooden
school in America. Disappointing, eh?”

“I’m crushed, really.
So
unimpressive. Get me out of this dump.”

I tried to pay attention, but soon it became clear that my body wasn’t going to cooperate. I was cold even though the summer air was warm and wet, and I was getting so bony, it hurt to go over every little bump in the road.

“What’s wrong?” he asked half an hour into our journey, turning into an ice cream place called YE OLDE ICE CREAM SHOP. Where the plaster was chipping off the faux-aged walls, you could see Styrofoam underneath. “Getting warm?”

“No, I’m fine. Maybe just hungry. Could you push me to the bathroom, please?”

We squeezed by a group of women waiting in line to pay for their ice cream, and they apologized profusely for blocking the way to the bathroom while simultaneously not moving because they didn’t want to give up their spots, and soon the whole thing turned into a mini-spectacle. That’s the thing with wheelchairs: people go so out of their way to not turn your condition into a “thing,” they turn it into an even bigger “thing” than it was before. In the end, Cooper and I sort of got pushed into the bathroom together. I tried to reach down and grab a carton of Instamilk, but it hurt something in my abdomen, and I winced.

“I’ve got it,” Cooper said as he grabbed the milk. I reached up and tried to protest. “I’ve
got
it,” he said again. “Just relax.”

He filled the syringe with milk and then brought it over to my tube and started pumping it into me. I guessed he’d seen me do it enough times to know the basics. I was humiliated, but I let him continue. As he pumped, he brushed a strand of my thinning hair from my face and smiled down at me.

“You look great,” he said with a forced smile.

“So do you,” I said, doing my best to return it.

“Shall we?” he asked when the syringe was empty, echoing what he’d said to me that first night back at Joe’s Crab Shack, back when I was healthy and our future seemed brighter than this.

I smiled anyway. “We shall.”

We window shopped into the evening and then headed back to the hotel. We were scheduled to have dinner at some fancy Spanish restaurant called Columbia with absolutely legendary sangria, and so I put on my best dress and let Cooper push me all the way there, since he’d insisted. When we got to the big white restaurant with the blue tile roof right on St. George Street, however, we bypassed the main dining room and went down a side hallway.

“Where are we going?” I asked, but he kept pushing. He turned us into a dark, private room with oak-paneled walls, a rustic chandelier, and a single table with three chairs. Upon closer inspection, I saw that sand had been laid out under the table atop plastic sheeting, and little umbrellas decorated the tropically-hued drinks already adorning the table. Since we couldn’t go to the beach anymore, I guess he’d brought the beach to me. All this made that strange feeling rise up in me again, like I’d do anything in the world for him.

“This is amazing, but three plates?” I asked. “Who’s-”

That’s when Autumn came busting out of the shadows and wrapped me in the biggest hug ever.

“You little rats!” I said as Autumn pulled away and smiled down at me. “Awkward” wasn’t the word for what I felt around her for nearly wrecking my relationship with Cooper, but wine could fix that. “You know I can’t handle surprises.”

“Well get ready to handle more,” Cooper said, and then he pointed at the corner, where a girl with long brown hair sat on a wooden stool holding a guitar. He nodded at her, and she nodded back and started playing one of my favorite Saviour songs,
The Fall
.

“Obviously, Last Great Hope couldn’t afford Saviour,” Cooper said as her soft voice filled the room.
What’s done is done/you’ve fallen into me, I’ve come undone/two hearts now beat as one.
“I looked into it. Apparently she charges a quarter of a million just to leave her country, but they
could
afford a wonderful local cover artist to come in her place and play some of her songs while we ate, so…yeah. Compromise. Say hello to Fake Saviour!”

I almost cried like a bitch, but I stopped myself. “That is
so
cool, Cooper. And how did you get this loser to come?” I asked as I slapped Autumn on the leg a little too hard. “Besides with the promise of free food, I mean?”

“He called me,” she said as she darted away. “Turns out he can be
very
persuasive. Not that I needed persuading.”

“I know what you mean,” I said, trying not to focus on how obsessed with him she was, and together we all went to the table to eat. Or not eat, in my case.

Having Autumn around went surprisingly well, I guess because her presence gave us a break from all the death-pondering intensity of the past few days. The cover singer was actually very good, too, even if her voice lacked the same strange, slightly childlike quality that made Saviour so unique. But I was in heaven anyway. Autumn talked, mostly, regaling us with tales from the frontlines of her disastrous love life. I didn’t eat much, obviously, just swallowed bits of Sangria, but I enjoyed the company. By dessert, I was a little drunk. I just couldn’t believe I was sitting with Cooper, my best friend in the world, and a Saviour lookalike all in the same room. Cooper tried to pay attention, but I saw him drift off a few times. He had every right to be exhausted, though. Whenever he’d notice me watching he’d snap out of it, smile, and reach over to squeeze my knee under the table. At the end of dinner the cover artist played one of my very favorite Saviour songs,
Flower Crown Ruins:

Got flowers in my hair and ruins on my mind

Wondering what’d be left of me if you left to find

Someone new, someone who isn’t me

Since they all say you’re trouble, you’re bad news, you’ll set me free

(But fuck that)

The best souls I know are a little crazy

Something in their eyes a little hazy

So fuck all those normal ones, they scare me

Give me broken, God, give me crazy

In the end the only kids having any fun are the lost ones

Those fools out there in the real world, they slave away at the cost of their souls

So grab a PBR, boy, and pull up a stool

And tell me about your dreams and your monsters, you beautiful little fool

“Selfie time,” Autumn said, crouching behind us and whipping out her Android.

“No!” Cooper and I both cried at the same time, turning away and hiding our faces.

“What is wrong with you guys?” Autumn asked, gaping from me to him. “What’s wrong with a little selfie action? And by the way, you’re not even FBO. When is that going to change?”

“FBO?” Cooper asked.

“Facebook Official,” she said. “Summer’s profile is as barren of activity as it ever was. If I found a guy like you, I’d be shouting it so loud, they’d chop off my tongue.”

“And you haven’t seen what I can do with my tongue,” Cooper said, and I shoved him in the shoulder as Autumn got an expression like Jesus himself had descended from heaven.

“And thanks for the suggestion, but tonight was just between us three,” he continued, meeting my eye and smirking.

“I agree,” I said.

“But isn’t that why you wanted someone in the first place?” she asked me, and I raised my eyebrow to tell her to shut up and stop embarrassing me. “To show up the Facebook girls screaming about their stupid weddings, and whatever?”

I glanced over at Cooper, mystified. “I mean, yeah, maybe in the beginning I kind of did, but suddenly I don’t really care about all that anymore.” I winked at him. “Maybe some things are just better left unshared.”

We left Columbia and headed out for a nightcap. On the sidewalk along the bay, we passed some drunk-looking bar hoppers stumbling from one place to another, and I instantly smelled trouble along with whiskey. They gave us funny looks as they passed, and when they thought they were out of earshot they decided to share their brilliant analysis with one another.

“Hey, what was up with that hot dude pushing the wheelchair chick?” one of them laughed. Cooper stopped immediately.

“Yeah, that was totally weird,” the other one slurred. “Maybe I should become paralyzed, too, so I can get a boy that hot.”

I reached up and put my hand on his tense arm. I was somewhat familiar with wheelchairs, and I knew they were an even more visible form of disability than just my scar – people literally veered out of the way when they saw me now. If my scar was a barrier, the wheelchair was a force field, and ninety-nine percent of people were just too uncomfortable to pierce that force field and get to know the person behind it, for whatever reason. But rarely were they as outright rude as these bitches were being. And suddenly I wondered who was freer: me, wizened from the inside of the barrier, or them, ignorant on the outside of it. Everything to me was ugly and illuminating; everything to them was beautiful and empty. Maybe I
didn’t
have it so bad.

“Let it go, Cooper,” I said. “They’re stupid and drunk.”

“
And
they smelled like cheap Kmart body spray, so their opinions are invalid anyway,” Autumn added.

Cooper opened his mouth as he looked back at them, ready to rip them to shreds, but then he stuttered and closed it again. Finally he sighed and dropped his shoulders. “You know, ill-mannered young ladies like you two are exactly the reason I think spanking should’ve
never
been outlawed by America’s court system!” he called after them, loudly but politely. “A belt would’ve really done you two foul-mouthed troublemakers some good as children, in my humble opinion!”

They glanced back and kept laughing.

“And for the record,” he continued, “you should know that Summer Johnson is the sexiest ‘wheelchair chick’ to have ever traveled via wheelchair!
Period
!”

The girls laughed at each other again and stumbled across the street to a bar, totally ignoring the words coming out of my wonderful boyfriend’s mouth.

“Come on,” Autumn said in my ear as she grabbed my chair and started pushing me away. “If we don’t get out of here now, I’m gonna rape him
myself
.”

~

The next morning we woke to a brilliant blue sky. It was weirdly cool and breezy for July, and after Cooper got some coffee from the Starbucks in the lobby we decided to go antiquing. Getting ready had been quite the ordeal, and even though I’d felt super tired for some reason, I’d refused Cooper’s help in taking a shower. I was so weak that it took me almost an hour, but he’d waited in the room the whole time, playing on his iPad and trying to act like he wasn’t annoyed when clearly he was. And I didn’t blame him. He’d been dealing with a lot lately, mostly me and my problems.

We’d stayed out until about one the night before, and Autumn had rebuffed our repeated offers to stay in our extra room, choosing to drive back to Jax Beach instead. It was okay, though – I needed sleep, and I was gone from the moment Cooper transferred me from the wheelchair into bed. And sure, a hookup had been in the back of my mind, but what could I do? I wouldn’t want me, either, in this condition.

Cooper pushed me into the quieter part of town, where all the antique shops were. Old Victorian mansions stood on every block, their columns smothered in faded green ivy leaves, their front yards fat with rosebushes and hydrangea. We talked and shopped for a few hours, and soon I had a red scarf, some pretty cool old picture frames that would’ve made my hipster friends twitch their beards with jealousy, and this battered book from 1897 that was going to look pretty cool on my shelf back home. As the early afternoon heat started to creep up on us, we left one shop called Miss Jan’s Junk and crossed to the side of the road that was covered in shade from the oaks. I wrapped my giant grey sweater tight, suddenly freezing, and in the reflection of a parked car we passed, I saw him run his hand through his hair rather deliciously.