Page 26 of The Summers of Us

If this was what being on a rollercoaster felt like, then maybe my mom was wrong. Still, I needed to be careful. I needed to listen to my stomach, mad at me for the cotton candy and corndogs, and maybe something else I wasn’t ready to admit just yet.

When we stopped spinning, a couple of kids ran to their parents who were hiding under the palm tree shade. The parents greeted their kids with open arms and mouths. They spoke words I couldn’t make out over all the Boardwalk whirs, but the sight alone made my stomach untwist and twist again.

I wanted to run back around and ride again, but I’d already broken too many pinky promises, so I peeled my sweaty thighs off the horse and followed Everett out of the shadowy wonderland. On the way back to Saray, we passed a trash can that smelled like vomit. It toyed with my stomach. The twins still weren’t done; they were back in line to ride Tsunami yet again.

Tsunami was easier to keep an eye on from this far away. The drop snarled when a train car rounded the curve. The wood looked beaten down from exposure to the elements, and you were supposed to trust that suffocating wood with your life.

Behind me, the carousel sang a lullaby. It was a twinkling sweet music box, the quintessential sound of sugar stomach aches and perfect days.

The two rides competed, yanking me in their impossible game of tug-of-war.

I looked at Everett. “You should join them.”

He chewed on his lip. “I’m okay. It looks pretty scary to me.”

“I’m glad someone agrees with me.”

Under the shade of an umbrella, we talked about everything. What made us tick, what ticked us off, what stories we told ourselves to fall asleep. His favorite movie genre was science fiction, but he watched Hallmark movies with his parents. I told him about home: Saturday morning tennis with my mom and ice cream for dinner when I got a good report card. I told him there was nothing more fun than summer at Piper Island. I challenged him to catch up on the Piper Island adventures he’d missed the past few summers, and he told me thatmathematically, he would catch up by the middle of February. I giggled and asked him if healsoearned ice cream for dinner when report cards rolledaround. He assured me he did get a food reward, only it was a Filipino dish calledpinakbet, cooked with his choice from the fresh seafood market. “King crab legs,” he said.

Everett pointed to a cluster of clouds in the sky. He spoke its shape into existence as an alien riding a UFO. I said it looked like spaghetti boiling in a pot. Saray agreed with him after some convincing. The wind that high up changed the clouds frequently enough to keep playing. The sky sent us a starfish. A cactus. A monkey wearing a Santa hat. A garden gnome.

The twins walked back with their clothes clung to them all wrong. They apologized for taking too long, but I didn’t mind.

I was enjoying my time.

The sun finally set,so now the Boardwalk made itself glow. Lights zigzagged all around us, lining food vendors, wrapping around palm trees, and canopying between lampposts. Everything untouched by light was a deep purple color that smoldered opposite the golden glow.

After dinner and a competitive frenzy in the arcade, the Rivera-Sanchezes got on the Ferris wheel for a better glimpse of that post-dinner Sapphire Beach sunset.

Everett and I sat across from each other on a picnic table. He toyed with a bouncy ball he won with his arcade tickets while I pulled away at a new bag of cotton candy I bought with the twenty Blair had given me. It felt right for such a sky, all pink and cotton candy-esque on the horizon. My stomach reeled from all the junk food.

And Everett, I was finally ready to admit.

“I can’t watch you eat that stuff.” Everett eyed the bag and grimaced.

“It’s one of my favorite things ever. It’s what summer would taste like if you could turn it into strings, spin it, and stuff it into a bag.” I rubbed the pink sugar between my fingertips.

“When you put it like that, it makes me almost want to like it.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Well, what does Dr. Bishop like?”

“Dr. Bishop’s a piña colada kind of guy. You have to admit, coconut is pretty summery too. If you could beat summer with a hammer and shred its insides to pieces, that’s what it would be.”

“Piña colada?” I wrinkled my nose. “It makes my jaw clench. Come on, just have a taste.” I held some cotton candy out for him, a fluffy cloud shaped like nothing but cotton candy. The sweat on my fingers melted it into a darker pink.

“That’s disgusting,” he said, but his voice sounded all light and dreamy like cotton candy.

Or piña colada, if you were weird like Everett Bishop.

July 4

The entire island has littered the shoreline for the Piper Island Fishing Pier fireworks show. The sand is nearly inhabitable at high tide, so people are squeezed together in the short stretch of sand. Distant laughter travels over the dunes.

Haven and I spent the day biking the island, then we dressed up in red, white, and blue and biked to the Bishops’ July Fourth cookout. It was a small affair. Hank grilled hot dogs for us, our families, and a few of his and Liezel’s friends. Blair was invited, but she decided to catch whatever backyard fireworks shows were visible from our front porch instead. She made me promise not to stay with her and promisedmeshe’d watch at least one show.

When night fell, Liezel passed out sparklers and let us light up the world orange. Tiny fireworks crackled from our hands in anticipation for the real ones. Hot sparks burned pin pricks on our hands. I wrote “Quinn” in cursive and wrapped it in a heart in the air. I ran to the edge of Everett’s driveway, leaving an orange streak behind me.

The memories of the day wash over me as I shiver in the breeze, standing with my elbows against the railing on the back deck. Mason and Holden dared to rub elbows with everyone on the sand, but Haven, Jorge, Everett, and I are on Everett’s back deck, watching the horizon like lighthouse keepers.

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