Last summer, p.8
Last Summer, page 8
“Oops,” Jeremy said with that lopsided grin Ella adored. He swiftly kissed her once more, then took her hand and kept walking.
Together, they wandered down Main Street, skirting the lines outside Ahoy and the Lighthouse. Ella had wanted to go out, but now, after that kiss, she was far more interested in returning to Jeremy’s place, where he basically had the house to himself. She could tell from the longing look in Jeremy’s eyes that he felt the same.
They were walking past the big group of bars and shops when Ella happened to glance over at a couple sitting on a bench near the little Chamber of Commerce shack. She didn’t know what caught her eye. Maybe it was the way the guy held himself with easy confidence that made him seem like a better person than she knew him to be.
But Ella thought that really, she’d noticed the girl. She was wearing a beat-up pair of Bermudas and a breathtakingly daring halter top, and she looked even more like Keira Knightley than usual.
Taryn. The Tote Bag.
And the guy she was making time with was none other than Peter.
Peter, who had broken Kelsi’s heart by sleeping with another girl three seconds after she’d dumped him.
That other girl being Ella herself.
All that pain and upset because of one midnight-eyed guy with smooth shoulders and a wicked grin, and Taryn was touching his arm and leaning in close like she didn’t know anything about it.
Except she did. Ella knew she did.
Ella felt a surge of rage, and something like triumph, too. It was dizzying and made her breathless.
If Kelsi had been upset about Ella getting with Peter, this was going to kill her.
Ella didn’t know if she wanted to race home and expose Taryn’s behavior to Kelsi immediately, or just run over to the bench right now and have it out with Taryn on Kelsi’s behalf.
Not to mention that she could think of a few things to say to Peter, too. Like, why had he texted her all last summer? After completely failing to call her the summer before?
Her stomach churned. Her head spun.
“What is it?” Jeremy asked, and Ella realized they’d stopped walking. Ella tugged his arm, and led him away from the scene of the crime before she knew what she wanted to do. “Is something wrong?” he asked, frowning down at her.
“Everything’s fine,” Ella lied, because she needed time to think. To plan out what she should do.
“Are you sure?” Jeremy asked. “You look kind of weird all of a sudden.”
“I’m fine,” Ella said.
She forced a smile, and eased her body against his to remind her of all that heat she’d been so excited to play with just a few moments before. It worked, too. Touching Jeremy always made everything better, and it gave her time to think.
“Come on,” Jeremy said then, holding her face with his hand. “I can think of better things to do than stand out here in the street.”
“That depends on what you’re doing while you’re standing in the street,” Ella teased him.
She would think about Taryn and Peter tomorrow, she thought as her boyfriend gave her a wicked grin, and led her toward his house.
Tomorrow she’d form a plan.
11
It was hard, Kelsi thought, stripping off her bathing suit and rummaging around for something dry to throw on. Her family was gearing up for one of their trademark barbecues, and all she felt like doing was curling up in a ball, missing Bennett, and sulking.
She missed him all the time. She missed his warm, easy presence when she woke up in the morning, and she missed the warmth of his hands on her skin. She missed him every time Taryn told her she was moping, which was about seven times a day. She missed him every time she wanted to tell him something, and had to decide whether it was worth bothering him at work to do so.
Kelsi had never been the clingy type. It was just that during the school year, she and Bennett had spent every possible second together. It felt so bizarre to be cut off from him now. At least it was just for the summer. Kelsi was practically counting the days until school started again, and things returned to the way they were supposed to be.
Checking the clock on the table between the two twin beds, Kelsi saw that it was six thirty P.M., and Bennett should be wrapping things up at the gallery. He usually had an hour or so to himself before Carlos’s various nighttime activities began. Quickly, she pulled out her phone and pressed his number.
“I’m so glad you called,” he said instead of a hello. His voice was warm and brimming with laughter. “You won’t believe what just happened.”
“Tell me,” Kelsi said, smiling. She lay down on her bed and let his voice flow over her.
“This horrible old woman came in, and was going on about the art she wanted to put on her wall. She wandered all over the gallery, and complained because—and I’m not exaggerating—she didn’t understand why Carlos couldn’t paint something pretty.” Bennett laughed. “Can you imagine?”
“That blue-and-cream piece in the entryway is pretty,” Kelsi said, trying to catalog in her head the different canvasses Bennett had shown her. They weren’t all experimental or particularly daring. Some of them really were pretty.
“Carlos’s work is a lot of things,” Bennett replied impatiently. “Important, maybe. Or evocative. But pretty? Please. She can go to Bed, Bath & Beyond and get a Monet water-lily print.”
Kelsi let that comment sit there for a moment. She felt kind of hurt, and she wasn’t sure why. It had something to do with that tone Bennett had used. Like she was as pedestrian as the still life he had described to Carlos over the phone.
“I just called to say hi,” she said eventually. “I was missing you.”
“I miss you, too,” Bennett said, back to his normal, sweet tone, but Kelsi still felt off-balance.
When she hung up a few minutes later—Bennett had a dinner party to attend and had to run—she felt a good deal more unsettled than she wanted to admit. She wondered if Bennett’s Art Snob persona maybe wasn’t such a joke to him anymore.
Shaking it off—because she could smell the grill firing up—she pulled on a pair of jeans and a high school sweatshirt, and headed outside into the cool evening.
Various Tuttles roamed around the grassy area in the center of the cottages as dusk fell all around them. The littler cousins chased lightning bugs in and out of the darkening woods, the aunts sat and sipped wine and ate cheese from a round wooden platter, while Kelsi’s dad was busily flipping burgers and telling lies to Kelsi’s uncles about his latest deep-sea fishing trip.
It was a perfect family scene, and Kelsi knew that she should enjoy being a part of it, but instead, she found herself feeling sort of empty. She wondered if it was the phone conversation—as if maybe she knew, deep down, that things with Bennett were changing.
Or maybe, she thought with a rueful smile at her own drama, she was just having a blood-sugar crash, and should get some dinner.
After coaxing her father to grill her a veggie burger, Kelsi headed toward the picnic tables. At one, Ella and Jeremy were talking animatedly with Beth, George, and a freckled, athletic-looking boy whom Kelsi didn’t recognize. Kelsi smiled at them as she passed, and then sat down at the next table with Jamie and Taryn.
“I know I’ve been in my own world since I got back from my last New York trip,” she said by way of a greeting, “but I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen that guy before. Have I?”
“His name is Jimmy, and he’s Beth’s new person,” Jamie explained, her green eyes dancing. “Apparently, they’ve been running in the mornings, which is like flowers and dinner dates in Beth’s world.” She leaned in close. “And George is here as an honorary Tuttle, thanks to Beth’s dad, who ran into him yesterday. Except Beth said that he’s not pining or anything because he met some chick who’s also going to school in Pittsburgh this fall, who seems nice, who she thinks he might be dating. Beth and George are moving on together, it seems.”
Finished with that involved summary, Jamie proudly sat back and popped a carrot into her mouth. Kelsi looked over to the other table.
Ella and Jeremy looked to be in high spirits, as Ella told some tale to Beth’s new guy, one that involved lots of hand gestures. But the new guy kept glancing over at Beth and George. They were talking to each other, with George tapping out points on the wooden table, like he was either drumming or giving a presentation.
“Yikes,” Kelsi murmured.
“Exactly,” Taryn agreed, snorting with laughter. The only other person who snorted when she laughed was Ella, Kelsi thought, which made her love the both of them even more.
“Maybe not yikes, exactly,” Jamie said, frowning slightly. She shrugged. “I’ve always loved George. I think it’s really cool that they’re trying so hard to be friends.”
“Has that ever worked, though?” Kelsi asked. She remembered how insanely in love George and Beth had been, and how badly they’d hurt each other. “In, like, all of human history?”
“I can’t even watch,” Taryn told Kelsi. “It makes my head hurt.”
Kelsi tore her gaze away from what she was certain was the impending catastrophe at the next table, and focused on Jamie instead.
“I’m so excited that you’re going to Amherst!” Kelsi told her cousin. “Bennett’s already promised to give you the full rundown on campus life. Taryn and I are always there, and we’ll get to hang out all the time. Next year is going to be amazing!”
“I love Northampton,” Taryn chimed in. “It’s this totally crunchy but hip little town, with zillions of bookstores and thrift shops and cafés. It’s such a great place to live. You’ll definitely love it.”
But Kelsi noticed Jamie didn’t respond. “I’m so hungry,” she said eventually. “I’m going to go grab some more of my mom’s Caesar salad. Do either of you want anything?”
Neither one of them did, because they were both stunned and staring at her, so Jamie got up and hurried away.
“Um, that was weird, right?” Taryn asked when Jamie was out of earshot. “She totally didn’t want to talk about school. I figured she’d be so excited about Northampton that she’d consider transferring to Smith, to be honest.”
“Yeah…” Kelsi frowned after her cousin. “I don’t know what’s up with her. She’s the most driven one of all of the cousins. She usually can’t shut up about how great Amherst is and how psyched she is to be going there.”
“Maybe she’s freaking out,” Taryn said with a shrug. “Remember how scared we were at the beginning of the year?” What Kelsi remembered was that she had felt terrified, while Taryn had seemed in her element, but she opted not to say anything.
“Yeah, but Jamie spent all last summer there,” Kelsi said instead. “There’s no fear of the unknown—she’s already done it!”
“Then, clearly, she’s just weird,” Taryn concluded with a wink, making them both crack up.
The night darkened around them, and they lit citronella candles in the center of the picnic table to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Kelsi loved the tangy smell of the candles, and she stared into the center of the flame, while above them the night sky was a dark blue fading to black.
“Did you talk to Bennett today?” Kelsi asked Taryn when they were picking at fresh berries and debating about making vegan s’mores over the fire.
Taryn shook her head. “He’s always so busy,” she said. “Running around for that guy. Why, what’s up?”
“Nothing.” Kelsi sighed. “I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like maybe New York isn’t the best thing that ever happened to him, after all.”
Taryn frowned. She looked impatient for a moment or maybe Kelsi just imagined it, because her face cleared.
“Are you kidding?” she asked. “Maybe he didn’t tell you this, but he’s been obsessed with Carlos Delgado since he was, like, nine. I mean, total hero worship. This is a fantasy come true for him.”
“I know, and I think it’s amazing for his career and his art,” Kelsi said quickly.
“This is his dream, Kelsi,” Taryn said. She looked confused, and taken aback. “I thought you understood that.”
“I do,” Kelsi said, feeling like the conversation had completely gotten away from her. “That’s not what I meant at all.”
But she didn’t know how to explain what she meant. She didn’t know how to talk about her boyfriend to her best friend, when the boyfriend in question was her best friend’s brother, and Taryn was clearly feeling protective. And Kelsi knew why: Taryn had confided that she had spent years running interference with high school girlfriends of Bennett’s who had tried to get to him through her. Kelsi understood.
But it made her feel so alone.
Taryn decided to get the stuff to make s’mores then, and Kelsi sat solo at the picnic table, inhaling citronella fumes and mentally kicking herself.
How was Taryn supposed to respond? Bennett was her brother. The fact that she and Kelsi were best friends just made moments like this incredibly awkward.
Because while Kelsi knew what a huge opportunity working with Carlos was for Bennett, she wasn’t sure it was the best thing for him. Like, for his character. Tonight wasn’t the first time she’d thought he was becoming kind of snobbish about art. She would have thought that the generous, enthusiastic guy she knew so well would have welcomed the opportunity to find something pretty for a nice old lady, instead of mocking her.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket, and she pulled it out. It was a text message from Bennett:
SORRY, BAD DAY, LOVE U.
And just like that, Kelsi’s entire mood lifted.
How pathetic, she thought. She should be ashamed of herself for being such a girl. But she couldn’t deny the flush of happiness that washed through her, altering the whole night around her. She couldn’t deny that just hearing from him when she didn’t expect to made everything seem better. So what if it was pathetic—it was also true.
She vowed to be more supportive and less judgmental.
It was only a summer, after all.
Only a summer, Kelsi thought, and it’s halfway over already.
“You better save me some marshmallows!” she called across the clearing to Taryn, and found she was all but skipping as she got up and headed toward her friend.
12
The first step was to make sure that what she thought was happening was really happening, Ella told herself. There was no point doing anything until she was sure.
After all, Peter was beautiful and smoldering, and he could lure any unsuspecting girl into his little web. Ella knew this better than anyone. It wasn’t so hard to imagine a scenario in which Taryn accidentally got involved with a hot guy one evening, only to discover later that it was the hot guy who’d treated Kelsi so badly way back when. In this imagined scenario, Ella found she could give Taryn the benefit of the doubt.
But she knew that was only because she didn’t believe it.
Taryn knew exactly who and what Peter was. Ella was certain of that.
And because Ella was certain, she wanted to be extra careful in proving it. Because she could tell that Kelsi wasn’t going to accept the ugly truth about her supposed best friend without a boatload of evidence.
This was how Ella convinced herself that her only option that Friday night was to follow Taryn.
Kelsi had gone down to New York again, a last-minute trip brought on because Bennett had to cancel coming up once again. Ella didn’t think it was too cool that he kept doing that to Kelsi. She happened to be an expert on the long-distance thing, having first failed at it, and then succeeded at it, all during this past year. With the same person, in fact. One thing she knew: You had to make time for the other person or you could forget about it.
But Kelsi’s long-distance relationship wasn’t really what was occupying her thoughts tonight.
She was determined that tonight she’d figure out what was really going on between Taryn and Peter.
Ella lounged around in the living room in her old Juicy sweats, yawning and reading Allure, looking like she planned to spend the night in. She waited until Taryn got the inevitable call on her cell phone. When Taryn started whispering and giggling, and then took the call to the bedroom, Ella moved herself to the sunporch and changed into something more appropriate for going out—in this case, a denim miniskirt, layered tank tops, and ropes of long beads.
It wasn’t that hard to slip out of the cottage and wait in the shadows by the side of the dirt road. By this point in the summer, Ella knew the whole stretch of that road like the contents of her closet. She could walk it with her eyes closed, which was a good thing, as it was usually far too dark to see anything, anyway.
Soon enough, Ella’s eyes adjusted enough so that when Taryn walked past, she could see her—or enough of her, anyway. Ella would know that saucy little walk anywhere, it annoyed her so much. It was easy enough to follow Taryn, keeping to the shadows and trailing her all the way into town. Ella was grateful her cork-soled wedges were silent on the pebbles.
Once in the village, there were other people around and Ella was able to draw closer to her prey. Taryn was dressed for a party. Her jeans were supertight and low, and her black tube top bared most of her abdomen and all of her shoulders. It was the sort of outfit that should have looked cheap and, Ella noted sourly, didn’t look anything but hot on Taryn.
It just made Ella all the more determined to bring her down.
Taryn walked with confidence up to the Lighthouse, the new-ish bar in town that Ella had so far been completely unable to do more than peer into.
Ella waited for the gigantic bouncers to do their job, and deny entry to underage Taryn, but she just flashed an ID and sauntered right in.
Ella gritted her teeth. Ugh. It had never occurred to her to get a fake ID. She’d always relied on her charm and the kindness of well-positioned boys.
Ella knew the bouncers were a lost cause, having tried to talk her way past them last summer, so she looked around for other possibilities. It didn’t take long. Around the back of the bar, a guy who looked like a bartender stood next to the propped-open back door, smoking a cigarette. It helped that he was cute, but it didn’t actually matter.
