Page 14 of Summer Romance

I sure do. He must have known who I was all along. I thought he was going to kiss me and he was—what? Tricking me? I need to change the tone of this conversation so that I don’t burst into tears or break something.

“We met at the dog park. Ferris kind of picked Scooter, if you know what I mean.” I give Iris a look.

“Oh my God, Mom. Tell me Ferris didn’t pee on him,” says Greer.

“Yep, picked him out of the crowd. Soaked him down to his socks.” Maybe he deserved it.

Ethan is visibly uncomfortable. His brow is creased, his face is closed, and he looks like he wants to bolt. He turns to the lawn, where there’s a kids’ play tunnel and a bunch of dog toys. “So I’m trying to train Brenda to run through that tunnel,” he says to my kids. “Supposed to be good for her brain. Want to help me?”

“Yes!” says Cliffy, and runs toward the toys.

Ethan follows him.Coward, I think. Greer and Iris look at each other and then at me. “Go ahead,” I say. I really need to not be with my kids right now.

When they’ve run across the lawn, I say to Frannie, “Okay, so, weird about Scooter.”

“You mean about Scooter being weird?”

“No, about him growing up to be a full-sized man.”

“Happens to most boys, I think. But deep down, he’s still the same Scooter who got high and set fire to the basement rug.”

“Huh. I would never have recognized him. I thought—” I don’t know what it is that I want to say here. I thought I was going to run into him again this morning, which is why I hunted around the floor of my closet to find a pair of white jeans and a yellow linen top. As if wearing white jeans to the dog park is a totally rational thing to do. I thought maybe all that effort was going to lead to another date and an actual kiss. I am clearly delusional. “He doesn’t match my vague memory of an undersized kid on a skateboard.”

“We left for college when he was, what? Sixteen?”

“I guess. Wasn’t he kind of a weirdo? Like a skate rat?”

“He’s totally still a weirdo, and he still skateboards,” she says. “But then again, he probably remembers you in hard pants.”

“I was wearing hard pants when I met him, and you didn’t say anything about this.” I gesture to the tank top and skirt that I’m wearing. I wait for her to mention that the skirt has an elastic waist so it basically behaves like sweatpants.

“Progress,” she says.

We’re quiet for a bit, watching Iris crawl halfway into the tunnel to coax Brenda through while Ethan ceremoniously places a bucket hat on Cliffy’s head. Iris and Cliffy crawl through the tunnel, and Greer waves a stuffed bunny. Brenda doesn’t budge.

“It’s nice to see them having fun,” I say to change the subject.

“I was going to say that about Scooter.”

“He seems like the kind of guy who’s always having fun. Looking like that and skateboarding around.” Tricking single mothers into thinking he’s someone else. That’s next-level unreliable.

Frannie gives me a sideways glance. “He’s thirty-six years old and a lawyer, Ali. People even call him Ethan, if you can believe that.”

“Crazy,” I say. I’m watching him squat down and give Brenda a treat for doing absolutely nothing.

“He came because my parents summoned him, but I think mostly he had to get away for a bit.”

“Why?”

“Bad breakup.”

In addition to the tornado of emotions I’m trying to tamp down—anger, sadness, embarrassment—I hate this girlfriend who got to hold his hand whenever she wanted to. And I also feel sorry for her. Down by the pool, Cliffy and Iris chase poor Brenda through the garden. Greer and Ethan are watching and talking, and I would give anything to know what they’re talking about.

“Poor woman.” I can’t imagine having those eyes on you all the time and then not having them there at all. Well, actually, I can.

“I think she broke up with him.” I didn’t see this coming. What more could that woman possibly have been looking for? “She realized he’s not ready to be a grown-up.” Ah.

My kids giveup on Brenda and jump back into the pool, and Ethan joins us on the patio. “So,” he says, and grabs a beer from the cooler between us. I search his face for the remnants of the easygoing guy from last night, but he’s tense. As he should be.

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