eight
This Summer
I spend the first night in the house unnervingly aware of Everett in the room down the hall from mine. His presence is a mosquito
buzzing in my ear, disappearing for a few minutes at a time only to circle back around when whatever I’ve tried to distract
myself with wears off.
I left today free for settling into the house when Laurel and I planned the week—the re-creation of our usual itinerary starts
tomorrow—so in the morning, after a shower long enough to wash off the fact that I can’t seem to shut Everett completely out
of my mind no matter how hard I try, I tromp down the stairs and announce I’m going into town.
“Why?” Laurel asks, poking her head over the low back of the mid-century couch she’s lounging on, one of the many self-help
books she lugged with her on this vacation in her hands. Davi is sitting on a stool at the kitchen island, a mug of coffee
and his open laptop in front of him.
“I think we need more than chips and wine in the house,” I say. I put a hand to my stomach to drive home my point. “We can’t
eat pizza for breakfast all week.”
“That used to be your breakfast of choice in college,” Laurel says.
“Yeah, well,” I say. “We grow.”
“We become professional chefs,” Davi says.
“Hey, I’m a ramen girl most nights,” I point out. While I love cooking for people, testing recipes to share online, and spending
time in the kitchen making dinner for my friends, I usually find that cooking for just myself yields much less joy. If I could
have my own private chef after having to chef professionally all day, I’d be so happy.
“Well, I’m in,” Laurel says, tossing her book to the side and sitting up, stretching her arms over her head. “Let’s round
everyone up.”
“Oh, actually—” I say, trying to come up with some excuse. I’d been hoping this would be a chance to escape the pall hanging
over the house, get away from Everett for a couple hours. But one look at Laurel’s face—patient, none the wiser—stops me.
This week is about being here for her, after all. And who am I to deny anyone a grocery run? “Never mind.”
Laurel runs upstairs to change while Davi clicks away at his keyboard. I slump onto the stool next to him, squint at the screen.
“You’re working?” I ask. When he ignores me, I continue, “You know what Laurel said about work this week.”
Davi tilts his screen down, not fully closing his laptop. “Didn’t Laurel just tell you to go find Gabe and . . . who is it?”
He puts an index finger and thumb to his chin. “Your ex-lover?”
“Ha, ha,” I deadpan. I tug a bowl of cherries—the only fiber currently in the house and case in point that we need to go grocery
shopping, so we don’t totally regress to our twenty-two-year-old habits while we’re here—and grab out a handful. “You want
to do the job for me?”
“No,” Davi says. “But I’ll watch.”
I shove my shoulder against his. “Come on. You can’t egg us on. Everett and I are supposed to be getting along this week.”
“I’m not the one who needs to be reminded of that.” Davi grabs a cherry out of my palm and pops it in his mouth, tugs the
stem off. “You going to be on your best behavior at the store?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Pity,” Davi says around the cherry. “Watching you two bicker is so entertaining.”
I’m about to respond when the front door opens and Everett walks in. He’s clearly just back from surfing, wearing only a pair
of swim trunks with a towel slung over one tanned shoulder, his hair damp. He tosses his keys onto the table in the entryway
before he catches sight of us and nods, tugging the towel off of his shoulder to scrub at his hair as he walks over.
He looks up at me as he approaches, and I’m struck, yet again, by the exact shade of his eyes. I remember all the ways I used
to think about them: icy in a first-snow way, a cold blue sky alight with a fire’s glow. Weather hanging over a hot day, relief
when the rain finally breaks. But all of that is gone. Now, the blue-gray of his eyes is more akin to slush in the gutter,
getting sprayed on you on your way to the bus stop when a car speeds by.
“Morning,” he says to us, shaking me out of my irritated daydreaming.
“Good waves?” Davi asks.
“Not bad,” Everett says, grabbing a few cherries from the bowl. “Gabe wanted to go.”
“Did you forget him?” I ask, looking exaggeratedly at the empty foyer behind him.
Everett looks a half second away from an eye roll, but he abstains. “He’s FaceTiming Mia and the kids on the front porch.”
“Ah,” I say, eyeing Everett’s bare torso. “Had to wait until you were out of frame, huh?”
He narrows his eyes at me, juggling the handful of cherries between his fingers like he’s weighing his comeback options. “Why
would that be, Sutton?”
“I’m just saying, you couldn’t be bothered to put on a shirt between the beach and here?”
“Yes, Sutton. My chest is why Gabe decided to take the call outside.”
I hold up my hands. “Listen, I think it’s a little weird too.”
Everett turns his flat stare to Davi, who’s smiling tight-lipped at his computer screen. “What’s everyone up to?”
“Oh.” At this, Davi slams his laptop closed, looking far too pleased. “We’re all going into town. Sutton’s idea.”
Everett frowns as I stomp on Davi’s foot. “Was it.”
“Better get showered, salty boy,” Davi says. “We’re getting groceries.”
Everett looks like he’d like to ask more questions, but Laurel comes prancing down the stairs at that moment in a loose white
linen dress, hair piled on top of her head.
“Everett!” she sings, like we’re gearing up to go drinking instead of stocking up on food. “Get ready! It’s time for groceries!”
“Better hurry up,” I say when he glances back at me. A deep breath precedes a forced smile before he heads for the stairs.
I’m smiling triumphantly after him. If it were any other point in my life, I would probably be embarrassed by the pride I feel at winning whatever this exchange just was.
But this isn’t any other point in my life.
It’s now, and I’m annoyed by him. By the way he seems to always be watching me, waiting for some reaction.
By the fact that he’s someone who knows, or used to know me, so his comebacks manage to feel pointed every time, even when they aren’t.
By stupid things, like how the way the gray of his eyes makes every glare that much more intense, something I can’t imitate, or how he’s still as at ease in his body as he was back then, some cool-guy thing that makes something as mundane as walking toward the stairs an activity to watch.
Which I am, I realize, when Davi snorts so loudly it startles me. I glare at him, angry to have been caught.
“So entertaining,” he says on a laugh.
We drive by a farmers market we haven’t been to before on the way to the grocery store. I’m crammed into the back of the Bronco
between Davi and Gabe, so I have to lean between Laurel and Everett and shout over the wind for him to pull over. He almost
misses it but turns in at the last second, and I tell myself it was on purpose, grumbling when I slide out of the car after
Gabe.
Everett is waiting there, one hand on the door and the other stretched toward me.
“What was that?” he asks as I completely ignore it in favor of jumping out. It’s an awkward angle after sitting with my legs
scrunched up in the back, and I stumble a little on the landing.
Everett, unfortunately, is there to catch me, one hand grabbing the one I’m already throwing his direction as his other settles
on my back to steady me. “Easy there,” he says, voice in my ear. I hadn’t realized how close he was, warm chest pressed against
my arm as my heart batters against my ribs. He smells so familiar, vivid memories pricking with each inhale.
I push away and start down the street after the others, catching up to them just outside the entrance to the market. White
tents top the stalls, the scents of freshly baked bread and early summer tomatoes floating onto the sidewalk.
I pull the list I made in my room this morning out of my pocket, neat bullet points on the pale blue resort stationery.
“We have Friday set,” I say. Friday, Laurel is hosting the mysterious divorce party, what she’s calling her Breakup Blowout, at a bar in town.
We all received invitations a few weeks ago, as if we wouldn’t already be together.
As if it isn’t the capstone of this entire trip.
“I figured we’d probably get takeout one night,” I continue. “And then Saturday we’ll do our usual shop and final dinner.
But, Laurel, any requests?”
“I’m sure whatever you have planned is great,” she says, already distracted by a vendor selling wind chimes. “I’m just going
to stop here, but you tell me what you need me to grab!”
“I’ll do a coffee run,” Gabe says. “Orders?”
“I know them,” Davi says, ushering him down the sidewalk toward Fresh Ground, our favorite café.
I feel him behind me. The only one who has ever actually helped me at a market like this, not gotten distracted by something
else. In truth, even back then I would have easily and happily done it all by myself, but I used to enjoy his company, sending
him off to find things and perusing produce together when he returned to me.
“What’s on your list?” Everett asks, coming around to my side.
“It’s okay,” I say. “Go with Gabe and Davi.”
“Sutton.” He levels me with a gaze I find irritatingly mature, like he’s calling me on our collective bullshit. “Come on.
Let me help.”
I sigh but relent, not wanting to be the person who loses this argument by being petulantly stubborn. I examine the list for
a minute before tearing it in half and extending it toward him. He’s about to take it, fingers already gripping one corner,
when I snatch it back.