Page 2 of Summer Romance

“I’m fine.”

“You let out a little sigh.”

“I must be getting old.”

“Stop with that, Ali. We’re thirty-eight. We could be having babies, starting medical school.”

“Why would you pick the two most exhausting things in the world as examples of things we still might get to do?” Frannie actually just had a baby last year, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing her down all that much. She handles it all seamlessly while also running the diner. She’s a different kind of person than I am, and certainly Marco is a different kind of husband.

“Spill it.” I can picture Frannie cradling the phone in her neck and wiping down the diner counters after the lunchtime rush.

“Instagram wore me down, and I bought a bunch of floating aromatherapy candles last night. Do you think I’m a mess?”

“For sure. Tell me what pants you’re wearing, and I’ll tell you exactly how much of a mess you are.”

I laugh. “No comment.” Frannie’s been trying to get me to start getting dressed since my mom died. I argue that, without my mom’s help, I don’t really have time for things as frivolous as an outfit. She argues that it takes just as long to put on a pair of jeans and a blouse as it does to pull on sweats and a T-shirt. I say, “For what?” She says, “For you.” And we agree to disagree.

I pull into Beechwood Elementary’s parking lot and get the last spot. “Okay, gotta go do hard time on the blacktop. Tell your parents congratulations and that I want photos.”

As I’m pressing the red button to end the call, she shouts the two words that she truly believes will change my life: “Hard pants!”

Before I get out of the car, I say, “Mom.” I rest my hands on the steering wheel, ten and two. “I’m so sick of being stuck. And I know I lean on you a lot, but can you work with me here? Like give me a sign?” She believed in signs more than I do, but I need help, so I ask. She doesn’t reply, but I hear her laugh. It’s her social laugh. The one that let people know she was amused. Not the body-racking, tear-inducing laugh she reserved for Will Ferrell movies and when Cliffy said “Massa-Cheez-Its” instead of“Massachusetts.” Or “baby soup” instead of “bathing suit.” She kept a tissue in the sleeve of her sweater in case something truly funny happened. You’ve got to love a person who leaves the house prepared to laugh.

Iris is on top of the jungle gym in conference with the A-one, top-dog alpha girls of the fifth grade. She’s easy to spot in a purple tank top, orange shorts, and her soccer socks pulled up over her knees. Iris has a thousand looks that don’t quite work, but she owns them completely. I pretend not to see Greer, who is sitting on a bench scrolling through her phone. She walks over from the middle school every day, to avoid the horror of being picked up by me. On the first day of sixth grade, I pulled up in front of the school, put down my window, and waved at her in front of her friends. So we don’t do that anymore.

I stand in front of the kindergarten exit to wait for Cliffy. His teacher is outside already talking with the other parents, but I’m not concerned. He’s always the last one out of the building. When he finally comes out, backpack secure over his SpongeBob T-shirt, he gives me the smile of a six-year-old boy who hasn’t seen his mom in over six hours. This smile could power a small city, and every day I wonder when it will end. I wonder when he’ll walk out of school, give me a nod, and then run off with his friends. I have never seen a forty-year-old man look at his mother this way.

Cliffy throws his arms around my waist and starts telling me about possums just as the clouds lower and the sky darkens. The girls spot us, and everyone runs for their cars. I grab Iris by the hand and laugh as the heavy drops of rain pelt my face. When we’re in the car, I take a moment behindthe steering wheel and smile at the rain pummeling my windshield. This is the sign I was asking for. A storm is a new beginning, and I want to stay in this moment. Greer, Iris, Cliffy, and me, cocooned in this car with the sound of rain filling our ears. We’re all together, we’re safe, and we’re going to be fine. I really do feel ten percent better today. Maybe it was the cookies, maybe it was the forward motion of throwing out one garbage bag of old food. Maybe it’s just time. Greer looks up from her phone and I can see a hint of the girl she was before things started to unravel.

My phone rings and Iris hands it to me with her I’m-still-eleven-and-don’t-hate-you-yet goodness. “It’s Dad,” she says.

“Hi, Pete,” I say with my phone to my ear. I never take Pete’s calls on speaker in front of the kids because I don’t want them to hear how casual he sounds when he cancels plans. “It’s pouring.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Listen, I didn’t want to text you. I mean, it’s been a year. I think we should go ahead and file for divorce.”

I guess Pete does remember special dates.

I say, in my most chipper voice, “Great! Text me the details!” as if he’s just invited me to a party.

When I hang up, Greer asks, “Why are you smiling?”

Because now I feel fifteen percent better. I’m going to make a real break from Pete. I’m going to figure out how to make my own money. I know exactly how many boxes of cornstarch I have now. “Fancy keeps sending me signs. We’re going to have a champagne summer.”

2

My mom and I used to celebrate the first day of summer by getting up before dawn to watch the sunrise on the water at the Beechwood Inn. My first memory of this is from when I was four, the year my parents divorced. We’d arrive in the dark, sneak around to the back deck, and sit on the steps while the sun rose over Long Island in the distance. While we waited, she’d ask, “What do you want this summer?” And I’d say into the dark: I want to learn to ride a bike, or I want to beat you in chess. I want to grow two inches. I want to be kissed. She’d keep saying, “What else?” as I tossed my summer wishes into the dark. There was no limit to the things I was allowed to want. After my last wish, she’d say, “You can have all of it,” and I believed her. And then, just as the sherbet sunrise was starting to erupt in the sky, she’d put her arm around me and squeeze my shoulder. “Here’s to a champagne summer,” she’d say.

Beechwood, New York, is a small suburban town, just north of Manhattan and just south of Connecticut, withmiles of coastline along the Long Island Sound. Our version of the beach is just the seashore where small waves splash your ankles and deliver crabs. The water view ends at Long Island in the distance, a finger of land that protects us from the Atlantic. Because of our geography, our town feels tucked away and drama-free. It’s a town where you know your mail carrier and your grocer by name, but if you want something exciting to happen, you should probably go someplace else.

We picked up my mom’s first-day-of-summer tradition again when I moved back to Beechwood, and, of course, we brought the kids along. She’d smile at the water as my kids shouted out their wishes. “What else?” we asked, over and over. It was Iris’s idea to start doing this on paddleboards after my mom died. I resisted the change because a tradition is a tradition. But I could tell that the girls were feeling more sad than nostalgic about it, and the change actually felt good. Today’s our second annual paddleboard sunrise, and we park at the inn and walk the length of the dock to the boathouse in the dark. My high school history teacher Mrs. Bronstein, who now manages the boats there and insists I call her Linda, gave me my own key years ago. We pull out three paddleboards and launch ourselves into the water. Greer is cautious, kneeling before she stands and staying very still. Iris pops up and promptly cartwheels right into the water. I straddle my board to keep it steady while Cliffy lies on his back, head in my lap, waiting for the sun.

Summer is always marked by something. The summer we moved to Beechwood. The summer Greer learned to swim. These past two summers have been marked by deathand separation, and I’m wondering what our memory of this one will be. Cliffy tells the darkness that he wants to build a footbridge across the creek in our yard. Iris wants to score three goals in a game. Greer mutters her wishes to herself. “What else?” I say over and over. I want to make a wish too, but they’re all jumbled in my head.

“Say something, Mom. Hurry up,” Cliffy says. The sky is starting to brighten, but we can’t see the sun yet. Iris is in a full handstand on her board. She is fearless and sure in a way that makes me wish she was a pill I could swallow. Greer paddles away, not too far, and then back again.

I haven’t had fun since this boulder of grief landed on my chest. I want to laugh and be spontaneous about something as impossible as Baked Alaska. I want to clean out one single closet. “I want everything to feel lighter,” I say as the sun appears and grants my wish.

“Here’s to a champagne summer!” we all shout at the sun. Cliffy laughs, because it’s funny to shout at the sun, but the girls and I are quiet, still a little unmoored out here.

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