Текст книги "It's Not Summer Without You"

Автор книги: Jenny Han

Соавторы: Jenny Han
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

chapter thirty-six

My mother was right. The shower helped. I tilted my face toward the shower head and let the hot water wash over me and I felt much, much better.

After my shower, I came back downstairs a new woman. My mother was wearing lipstick, and she and Conrad were talking in low voices.

They stopped talking when they saw me standing in the doorway. “Much better,” my mother said.

“Where’s Jeremiah?” I asked.

“Jeremiah went back to the store. He forgot the grapefruit,” she said.

The timer went off and my mother took muffins out of the oven with a dish towel. She accidentally touched the muffin tin with her bare hand and she yelped and dropped the tin on the floor, muffin side down. “Damn!”

Conrad asked if she was okay before I could. “I’m fine,” she said, running cold water over her hand.

Then she picked the tin back up and set it on the counter, on top of the towel. I sat down on one of the counter stools and watched my mother empty the muffin tin into a basket. “Our little secret,” she said.

The muffins were supposed to cool a little while before you took them out of the tin, but I didn’t tell her that. A few were smushed but they mostly looked okay.

“Have a muffin,” she said.

I took one, and it was burning hot and falling apart, but it was good. I ate it quickly.

When I was done, my mother said, “You and Conrad take the recycling out.”

Without a word, Conrad picked up two of the heavier bags and left me the half-empty one. I followed him outside to the trashcans at the end of the driveway.

“Did you call her?” he asked me.

“I guess I did.” I waited for him to call me a baby for calling my mommy the second things got scary.

He didn’t. Instead, he said, “Thanks.”

I stared at him. “Sometimes you surprise me,” I said.

He didn’t look at me when he said, “And you hardly ever surprise me. You’re still the same.”

I glared at him. “Thanks a lot.” I dumped my garbage bag in the bin and shut the lid a little too hard.

“No, I mean . . .”

I waited for him to say something, and it seemed like he might have, but then Jeremiah’s car came down the street. We both watched Jeremiah park and then bound out of the car with a plastic grocery bag. He strode up to us, his eyes bright. “Hey,” he said to me, his bag swinging.

“Hey,” I said. I couldn’t even look him in the eye. It had all come back to me when I was in the shower. Making Jeremiah dance with me, running away from Conrad, and him picking me up and dropping me in the sand. How humiliating. How awful that they saw me behave that way.

Then Jeremiah gave my hand a squeeze, and when I looked up at him, he said “thank you” so sweetly it hurt.

The three of us walked back to the house. The Police were singing “Message in a Bottle” and the stereo was very loud. Right away my head started pounding and all I wanted was to go back to bed.

“Can we turn down that music?” I asked, rubbing my temples.

“Nope,” my mother said, taking the bag from Jeremiah. She pulled out a big grapefruit and tossed it to Conrad. “Squeeze,” she said, pointing at the juicer. The juicer was Mr. Fisher’s, and it was huge and complicated, one of those Jack LaLanne ones from the late night infomercials.

Conrad snorted. “For him? I’m not squeezing his grapefruit.”

“Yes, you will.” To me, my mother said, “Mr. Fisher’s coming to breakfast.”

I squealed. I ran over to her and wrapped my arms around her waist. “It’s just breakfast,” she warned me. “Don’t go getting your hopes up.”

But it was too late. I knew she’d change his mind. I knew it. And so did Jeremiah and Conrad. They believed in my mother and so did I—never more so than when Conrad started cutting the grapefruit in half. My mother nodded at him like a drill sergeant. Then she said, “Jere, you set the table, and Belly, you do the eggs.”

I started cracking eggs into a bowl, and my mother fried bacon in Susannah’s cast iron skillet. She left the bacon grease for me to fry the eggs in. I stirred the eggs around, and the smell of the eggs and the grease made me want to gag. I held my breath as I stirred, and my mother tried to hide a smile as she watched me. “Feeling okay, Belly?” she asked.

I nodded, my teeth clenched.

“Ever planning on drinking again?” she asked conversationally.

I shook my head as hard as I could. “Never, ever again.”

When Mr. Fisher arrived half an hour later, we were ready for him. He walked in and looked at the table in amazement. “Wow,” he said. “This looks great, Laure. Thank you.”

He gave her a meaningful look, the adult co-conspiratorial kind of look.

My mother smiled a Mona Lisa kind of smile. Mr. Fisher wasn’t gonna know what hit him. “Let’s sit,” she said.

We all sat down then. My mother sat next to Mr. Fisher and Jeremiah across from him. I sat next to Conrad. “Dig in,” my mother said.

I watched Mr. Fisher pile a mound of eggs on his plate, and then four strips of bacon. He loved bacon, and he really loved it the way my mother made it—incinerated, almost burned to a crisp. I passed on the bacon and eggs and just took a muffin.

My mother poured Mr. Fisher a tall glass of grapefruit juice. “Fresh squeezed, courtesy of your eldest,” she said. He took it, a little suspiciously. I couldn’t blame him. The only person who had ever squeezed juice for Mr. Fisher was Susannah.

But Mr. Fisher rebounded quickly. He shoveled a forkful of eggs into his mouth and said, “Listen, thanks again for coming to help, Laurel. I really appreciate it.” He looked at us kids, smiling. “These guys weren’t too keen on listening to what I had to say. I’m glad to have a little backup.”

My mother smiled back at him just as pleasantly. “Oh, I’m not here to back you up, Adam. I’m here to back up Beck’s boys.”

His smile faded. He put down his fork. “Laure—”

“You can’t sell this house, Adam. You know that. It means too much to the kids. It would be a mistake.” My mother was calm, matter-of-fact.

Mr. Fisher looked at Conrad and Jeremiah and then back at my mother. “I’ve already made up my mind, Laurel. Don’t make me out to be the bad guy here.”

Taking a breath, my mother said, “I’m not making you out to be anything. I’m just trying help you.”

Us kids sat absolutely still as we waited for Mr. Fisher to speak. He was struggling to stay calm, but his face was turning red. “I appreciate that. But I’ve made up my mind. The house is for sale. And frankly, Laurel, you don’t get a vote in this. I’m sorry. I know Suze always made you feel like this house was part yours, but it’s not.”

I almost gasped. My eyes darted back to my mother, and I saw that she, too, was turning red. “Oh, I know that,” she said. “This house is pure Beck. It’s always been Beck. This was her favorite place. That’s why the boys should have it.”

Mr. Fisher stood up and pushed out his chair. “I’m not going to argue about this with you, Laurel.”

“Adam, sit down,” my mother said.

“No, I don’t think I will.”

My mother’s eyes were almost glowing. “I said, sit down , Adam.” He gaped at her—we all did. Then she said, “Kids, get out.”

Conrad opened his mouth to argue but he thought better of it, especially when he saw the look on my mother’s face and his dad sit back down. As for me, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. We all hustled out of the kitchen and sat at the top of the stairs, straining to hear.

We didn’t have to wait long. Mr. Fisher said, “What the hell, Laurel? Did you really think you could railroad me into changing my mind?”

“Excuse me, but fuck you.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth and Conrad’s eyes were shining and he was shaking his head in admiration. Jeremiah, though, he looked like he might cry. I reached out and grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze. When he tried to pull away, I held on tighter.

“This house meant everything to Beck. Can’t you get past your own grief and see what it means to the boys? They need this. They need this. I don’t want to believe that you’re this cruel, Adam.”

He didn’t answer her.

“This house is hers. It’s not yours. Don’t make me stop you, Adam. Because I will. I’ll do everything in my power to keep this house for Beck’s boys.”

Mr. Fisher said, “What will you do, Laure?” and he sounded so tired.

“I’ll do what I have to do.”

His voice was muffled when he said, “She’s everywhere here. She’s everywhere.”

He might have been crying. I almost felt sorry for him. I guess my mother did too, because her voice was nearly gentle when she said, “I know. But Adam? You were a sorry excuse for a husband. But she loved you. She really did. She took you back. I tried to talk her out of it, God knows I tried. But she wouldn’t listen, because when she sets her mind on someone, that’s it. And she set her mind on you, Adam. Earn that. Prove me wrong.”

He said something I couldn’t quite hear. And then my mother said, “You do this one last thing for her. Okay?”

I looked over at Conrad, and he said in a low voice, to no one in particular, “Laurel is amazing.”

I’d never heard anyone describe my mom that way, especially not Conrad. I’d never thought of her as “amazing.” But in that moment, she was. She truly was. I said, “Yeah, she is. So was Susannah.”

He looked at me for a minute and then he got up and went to his room without waiting to hear what else Mr. Fisher said. He didn’t need to. My mother had won. She had done it.

A little while later, when it seemed safe, Jeremiah and I went back downstairs. My mother and Mr. Fisher were drinking coffee the way grown-ups do. His eyes were red-rimmed but hers were the clear eyes of a victor. When he saw us, he said, “Where’s Conrad?”

How many times had I heard Mr. Fisher say, “Where’s Conrad?” Hundreds. Millions.

“He’s upstairs,” Jeremiah said.

“Go get him, will you, Jere?”

Jeremiah hesitated and then he looked at my mother, who nodded. He bounded up the stairs and a few minutes later, Conrad was with him. Conrad’s face was guarded, cautious.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Mr. Fisher said. This was the old Mr. Fisher, power broker, negotiator. He loved to make deals. He used to offer trades to us kids. Like, he’d drive us to the go-kart track if we swept the sand out of the garage. Or he’d take the boys fishing if they cleaned out all the tackle boxes.

Warily, Conrad said, “What do you want? My trust fund?”

Mr. Fisher’s jaw tightened. “No. I want you back at school tomorrow. I want you to finish your exams. If you do that, the house is yours. Yours and Jeremiah’s.”

Jeremiah whooped loudly. “Yes!” he shouted. He reached over and enveloped Mr. Fisher in a guy hug, and Mr. Fisher clapped him on the back.

“What’s the catch?” Conrad asked.

“No catch. But you have to make at least C s. No D s or F s.” Mr. Fisher had always prided himself on driving the hard bargain. “Do we have a deal?”

Conrad hesitated. I knew right away what was wrong. Conrad didn’t want to owe his dad anything. Even though this was what he wanted, even though it was why he had come here. He didn’t want to take anything from his dad.

“I haven’t studied,” he said. “I might not pass.”

He was testing him. Conrad had never “not passed.” He’d never gotten anything below a B, and even Bs were rare.

“Then no deal,” Mr. Fisher said. “Those are the terms.”

Urgently, Jeremiah said, “Con, just say yes, man. We’ll help you study. Won’t we, Belly?”

Conrad looked at me, and I looked at my mother. “Can I, Mom?”

My mother nodded. “You can stay, but you have to be home tomorrow.”

“Take the deal,” I told Conrad.

“All right,” he said at last.

“Shake on it like a man, then,” Mr. Fisher said, holding out his hand.

Reluctantly, Conrad extended his arm and they shook. My mother caught my eye and she mouthed, Shake on it like a man , and I knew she was thinking how sexist Mr. Fisher was. But it didn’t matter. We had won.

“Thanks, Dad,” Jeremiah said. “Really, thanks.”

He hugged his dad again and Mr. Fisher hugged him back, saying, “I need to get back to the city.” Then he nodded at me. “Thanks for helping Conrad, Belly.”

I said, “You’re welcome.” But I didn’t know what I was saying “you’re welcome” for, because I hadn’t really done anything. My mother had helped Conrad more in half an hour than I had in all my time of knowing him.

After Mr. Fisher left, my mother got up and started rinsing dishes. I joined her and loaded them into the dishwasher. I rested my head on her shoulder for a second. I said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You were a real badass, Mom.”

“Don’t cuss,” she said, the corners of her mouth turning up.

“You’re one to talk.”

Then we washed the dishes in silence, and my mother had that sad look on her face and I knew she was thinking of Susannah. And I wished there was something I could say to take that look away, but sometimes there just weren’t words.

The three of us walked her to the car. “You boys will get her home tomorrow?” she asked, throwing her bag onto the passenger seat.

“Definitely,” Jeremiah said.

Then Conrad said, “Laurel.” He hesitated. “You’re coming back, aren’t you?”

My mother turned to him, surprised. She was touched. “You want an old lady like me around?” she asked. “Sure, I’ll be back whenever you’ll have me.”

“When?” he asked. He looked so young, so vulnerable my heart ached a little.

I guessed my mother was feeling the same way, because she reached out and touched his cheek. My mother was not a cheek-touching kind of person. It just wasn’t her way. But it was Susannah’s. “Before the summer’s over, and I’ll come back to close the house up too.”

My mother got into the car then. She waved at us as she backed down the driveway, her sunglasses on, the window down. “See you soon,” she called out.

Jeremiah waved and Conrad said, “See you soon.”

My mother told me once that when Conrad was very young, he called her “his Laura.” “Where is my Laura?” he’d say, wandering around looking for her. She said he followed her everywhere; he’d even follow her into the bathroom. He called her his girlfriend and he would bring her sand crabs and seashells from the ocean and he would lay them at her feet. When she told me about it, I thought, What I wouldn’t give to have Conrad Fisher call me his girlfriend and bring me shells.

“I’m sure he doesn’t remember,” she’d said, smiling faintly.

“Why don’t you ask him if he does?” I’d said. I loved hearing stories about when Conrad was little. I loved to tease him, because the opportunity to tease Conrad came up so rarely.

She’d said, “No, that would embarrass him,” and I’d said, “So what? Isn’t that the point?”

And she’d said, “Conrad is sensitive. He has a lot of pride. Let him have that.”

The way she said that, I could tell that she really got him. Understood him in a way that I didn’t. I was jealous of that, of both of them.

“What was I like?” I’d asked.

“You? You were my baby.”

“But what was I like ?” I persisted.

“You used to chase after the boys. It was so cute the way you’d follow them around, trying to impress them.” My mother laughed. “They used to get you to dance around and do tricks.”

“Like a puppy?” I frowned at the thought.

She’d waved me off. “Oh, you were fine. You just liked to be included.”

chapter thirty-seven

jeremiah

The day Laurel came, the house was a wreck and I was in my boxers ironing my white button-down. I was already late for senior banquet and I was in a foul mood. My mom had barely said two words all day and even Nona couldn’t get her to talk.

I was supposed to pick up Mara, and she hated it when I was late. She’d get all pissy and she’d sit and sulk for about as long as I’d made her wait.

I had put down the iron for a second so I could turn the shirt over and I ended up burning the back of my arm. “Shit!” I yelled. It really freaking hurt.

That was when Laurel showed up. She walked through the front door and saw me standing in the living room in my boxers, holding the back of my arm.

“Run some cold water over it,” she told me. I ran to the kitchen and held my arm under the faucet for a few minutes, and when I came back, she had finished the shirt and gotten started on my khakis.

“Do you wear yours with a crease down the front?” she asked me.

“Uh, sure,” I said. “What are you doing here, Laurel? It’s a Tuesday.” Laurel usually came on weekends and stayed in the guest room.

“I just came to check on things,” she said, running the iron down the front of the pants. “I had a free afternoon.”

“My mom’s asleep already,” I told her. “With the new medicine she’s taking, she sleeps all the time.”

“That’s good,” Laurel said. “And what about you? Why are you getting all dressed up?”

I sat down on the couch and put my socks on. “I’ve got senior banquet tonight,” I told her.

Laurel handed me my shirt and pants. “What time does it start?”

I glanced at the grandfather clock in the foyer. “Ten minutes ago,” I said, stepping into my pants.

“You’d better get going.”

“Thanks for ironing my clothes,” I said.

I was grabbing my keys when I heard my mom call my name from her bedroom. I turned toward her doorway, and Laurel said, “Just go to your banquet, Jere. I’ve got it covered.”

I hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“A thousand percent. Beat it.”

I sped all the way to Mara’s house. She came out as soon as I pulled into her driveway. She was wearing that red dress I liked and she looked nice, and I was about to tell her so, but then she said, “You’re late.”

I shut my mouth. Mara didn’t speak to me for the rest of the night, not even when we won Cutest Couple. She didn’t feel like going to Patan’s party afterward and neither did I. The whole time we were out, I was thinking about my mom and feeling guilty for being gone so long.

When we got to Mara’s house, she didn’t get out right away, which was her signal that she wanted to talk. I shut off the engine.

“So, what’s up? Are you still mad at me for being late, Mar?”

She looked pained. “I just want to know if we’re going to stay together. Can you just tell me what you want to do, and then we’ll do it?”

“Honestly, I can’t really think about this kind of stuff right now.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“But if I was going to have to say whether or not I think we’ll be together when we’re at school in the fall, long distance—” I hesitated, and then I just said it. “I would probably say no.”

Mara started crying, and I felt like a real piece of shit. I should’ve just lied.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. Then she kissed me on the cheek and ran out of the car and into her house.

So that’s how we broke up. If I’m going to be completely honest, I’ll admit that it was a relief not to have to think about Mara anymore. The only person I had room in my head for was my mom.

When I got home, my mom and Laurel were still up playing cards and listening to music. For the first time in days, I heard my mom laugh.

Laurel didn’t leave the next day. She stayed all week. At the time, I didn’t wonder about her job, or all the other stuff she had going on at home. I was just grateful to have an adult around.

chapter thirty-eight

The three of us walked back to the house. The sun was hot on my back and I thought about how nice it would be to lay out on the beach for a while, to sleep the afternoon away and wake up tan. But there wasn’t any time for that, not when we needed to get Conrad ready for his midterms by tomorrow.

When we got inside, Conrad fell onto the couch and Jeremiah sprawled out on the floor. “So tired,” he moaned.

What my mother did for us, for me, was a gift. Now it was my turn to give one back. “Get up,” I said.

Neither of them moved. Conrad’s eyes were closed. So I threw a pillow at Conrad and jabbed Jeremiah in the stomach with my foot. “We have to start studying, you lazy bums. Now get up!”

Conrad opened his eyes. “I’m too tired to study. I need to take a power nap first.”

“Me too,” Jeremiah said.

Crossing my arms, I glared at them and said, “I’m tired too, you know. But look at the clock; it’s already one. We’re gonna have to work all night and leave really early tomorrow morning.”

Shrugging, Conrad said, “I work best under pressure.”

“But—”

“Seriously, Belly. I can’t work like this. Just let me sleep for an hour.”

Jeremiah was already falling asleep. I sighed. I couldn’t fight the both of them. “Fine. One hour. But that’s it.”

I stalked into the kitchen and poured myself a Coke. I was tempted to take a nap too, but that would be setting the wrong example.

While they slept, I kicked the plan into gear. I got Conrad’s books out of the car, brought his laptop downstairs, and set up the kitchen like a study room. I plugged in lamps, stacked books and binders according to subject, put out pens and paper. Last, I brewed a big pot of coffee, and even though I didn’t drink coffee, I knew mine was good, because I brewed a pot for my mother every morning. Then I took Jeremiah’s car and drove to McDonald’s to pick up cheeseburgers. They loved McDonald’s cheeseburgers. They used to have cheeseburger-eating contests and they’d stack them up like pancakes. Sometimes they let me play too. One time, I won. I ate nine cheeseburgers.

I let them sleep an extra half hour—but only because it took me that long to get things set up. Then I filled up Susannah’s spray bottle, the one she’d used to water her more delicate plants. I sprayed Conrad first, right in the eyes.

“Hey,” he said, waking up right away. He wiped his face with the bottom of his T-shirt, and I gave him another spray just because.

“Rise and shine,” I sang.

Then I walked over to Jeremiah and sprayed him, too. He didn’t wake up though. He had always been impossible to wake up. He could sleep through a tidal wave. I sprayed and sprayed and when he just rolled over, I unscrewed the top of the bottle and poured the water right down the back of his T-shirt.

He finally woke up and stretched his arms out, still lying down on the floor. He gave me a slow grin, like he was used to being woken up this way. “Morning,” he said. Jeremiah might have been hard to wake up, but he was never a grouch when he finally did.

“It’s not morning. It’s almost three o’clock in the afternoon. I let you guys sleep an extra half an hour so you better be grateful,” I snapped.

“I am,” Jeremiah said, reaching his arm out for me to help him up. I grudgingly gave him my hand and helped heft him up. “Come on,” I said.

They followed me into the kitchen.

“What the—,” Conrad said, looking around the room at all his things.

Jeremiah clapped his hands together and then he held one hand up for a high five, which I gave him. “You’re amazing,” he said. Then he sniffed and spotted the greasy white McDonald’s bag and lit up. “Yes! Mickey D’s cheeseburgers! I’d know that smell anywhere.”

I smacked his hand away. “Not yet. There is a reward system in place here. Conrad studies, and then he gets food.”

Jeremiah frowned. “What about me?”

“Conrad studies, and you get food.”

Conrad raised his eyebrows at me. “A reward system, huh? What else do I get?”

I flushed. “Just the cheeseburgers.”

His eyes flickered over me appraisingly, like he was trying to decide whether or not he wanted to buy a coat. I could feel my cheeks heat up as he looked at me. “As much as I like the sound of a reward system, I’m gonna pass,” he said at last.

“What are you talking about?” Jeremiah asked.

Conrad shrugged. “I study better on my own. I’ve got it covered. You guys can go.”

Jeremiah shook his head in disgust. “Just like always. You can’t handle asking for help. Well, sucks to be you, ’cause we’re staying.”

“What do you guys know about freshman psych?” Conrad said, crossing his arms.

Jeremiah sprang up. “We’ll figure it out.” He winked at me. “Bells, can we eat first? I need grease.”

I felt like I had won a prize. Like I was invincible. Reaching into the bag, I said, “One each. That’s it.”

When Conrad’s back was turned, as he was rummaging around the cupboard for Tabasco sauce, Jeremiah held his hand out for another high five. I slapped it silently and we grinned at each other. Jeremiah and I were a good team, always had been.

We ate our cheeseburgers in silence. As soon as we were done, I said, “How do you want to do this, Conrad?”

“Seeing as how I don’t want to do this at all, I’ll let you decide,” he said. He had mustard on his lower lip.

“Okay, then.” I was prepared for this. “You’ll read. I’ll work on note cards for psych. Jeremiah will highlight.”

“Jere doesn’t know how to highlight,” Conrad scoffed.

“Hey!” Jeremiah said. Then, turning to me, he said, “He’s right. I suck at highlighting. I just end up highlighting the whole page. I’ll do note cards and you highlight, Bells.”

I ripped open a pack of index cards and handed them to Jeremiah. Incredibly enough, Conrad listened. He picked his psych textbook out of the stack of books and he started to read.

Sitting at the table, studying with his forehead creased, he looked like the old Conrad. The one who cared about things like exams and ironed shirts and being on time. The irony of all this was that Jeremiah had never been much of a student. He hated to study; he hated grades. Learning was, had always been, Conrad’s thing. From the very start, he was the one with the chemistry set, thinking up experiments for us to do as his scientist’s assistants. I remembered when he’d discovered the word “absurd,” and he went around saying it all the time. “That’s absurd ,” he’d say. Or “numbskull,” his favorite insult—he said that a lot too. The summer he was ten, he tried to work his way through the Encyclopedia Britannica . When we came back the next summer, he was at Q.

I realized it suddenly. I missed him. All this time. When you got to the underneath of it, there it was. There it had always been. And even though he was sitting there only feet away, I missed him more than ever.

Underneath my lashes I watched him, and I thought, Come back. Be the you I love and remember.