twenty-four
Fourth Summer
Laurel’s words echoed in my head all day. Through the drive back to the house, while I sat in the passenger seat of Everett’s
car and stared out the window, grateful that the wind whipping in was too loud to hear much of anything. Through stirring
orzo on the stove and turning on the ancient grill out back, waving off any help from him. Was I really someone who didn’t
want to find their person? Was I so afraid of disappointment that I wasn’t even trying?
The rest of the week felt different, like we were all out of step, moods sour and some of the fun sucked out of everything.
Laurel blamed it on Gabe not being there.
I scrambled to try to make it better. I suggested we go into town, get drinks at the cool new place Laurel had wanted to try
when we’d driven by it earlier in the week, but there was a line out the door, and when we ended up at our usual dive bar
she sat and twirled the base of her beer glass around in its circle of condensation, looking bored. I suggested pizza and
movies back at the cottage, but when we got there, the only movie we could find on TV was the second half of Ghost Rider and they’d given us the wrong pizza.
Laurel went back to the room we were still sharing and flopped onto the bed with her phone.
I caught Everett watching me eye the gap in the door. He sat in an armchair across from my spot on the couch, and I straightened,
trying to look bored.
“She’s okay,” he said softly. Even if he’d shouted it, I’m not sure Laurel would have heard. “She’s probably just sad about
the breakup.”
I nodded, glancing quickly in the direction of the room again.
The truth was, it wasn’t just this week. Laurel and I had been talking less all year. I’d written it off at first; we were
both so busy, it’s not like I was responding to every one of her texts either, and a few unanswered voicemails didn’t mean
that much. But after a few months I could feel it, some empty space in my life that she used to occupy. When we did talk it
was brief, about surface level things, and I told myself that was just life. Highs and lows. But I missed her. It was why
this week felt so important. It had gone from something to look forward to, to the only surefire way to maintain our connection.
Which struck me as odd, because I’d never felt that way about this trip and Everett.
“Come on,” he said, dragging me out of my head and back to him. I turned to face him, some sense of comfort washing over me
that I quickly tamped down, angry at myself for even going there. He had a girlfriend. I couldn’t feel things like that with
him this week. Yet another reason things were different.
Everett nodded toward the back door, the dark beach beyond. It had been a gray, muggy day, but the sun had finally broken
through in the evening, leaving the moon and stars bright. “Let’s sit outside for a while.”
The night air was warm, the edge of hotter days to come hanging in it.
We sat in the sand just a few feet outside the glowing sphere of the light coming from the back of the cottage, close enough for us to see inside but too far for Laurel and Davi to see.
And suddenly it was just us, somehow, like we were sitting under one of those rainbow parachutes from gym in elementary school.
The air would rush out eventually, but here was some vestige of our two days together, no need to pretend anymore.
I felt my shoulders relax, my racing thoughts about what was going on with Laurel momentarily quieting.
“Hey,” I said to Everett’s profile.
He smiled, turning to face me. “Hey.”
“Long time, no see,” I said, nudging my elbow against his. He laughed, eyes crinkling, and I felt it in my chest. “How you
been?”
“I’ve been good,” Everett said, glancing away as he said it. A muscle flickered in his jaw.
“I’m convinced,” I said, still watching him, still holding on to this bubble. The warm breeze played at his hair, and I couldn’t
be sure why I wanted to lean in a little closer to him. If it was because this felt like it was a solution to the gaps in
my life left by all of us drifting further and further apart. If it was because I’d missed him too.
Everett didn’t respond for a minute, eyes scanning the black horizon. He’d had a good year, as far as I could tell. Professional
and romantic success. At that thought, a tiny bit of air seeped out from under the sides of our parachute.
I looked away from him, swallowed. “Seems like you have a pretty cool girlfriend.”
“Maud is great,” Everett said, for roughly the twelfth time that week.
It was like a mantra, a response when Laurel asked about her, when she came up in idle conversation, as if he was trying to prove something.
If he said his girlfriend was great enough times, maybe we would all really believe it.
The trouble was, none of us had any reason to believe otherwise.
But then, he continued. Changed things. “My dad loves her.”
I glanced over at him, lips parted in surprise. “You introduced her to your dad?”
“Not exactly,” Everett said, something souring in his expression. “They met at an event a couple months back. Apparently,
he approached her and said, I believe you’re dating my son.”
“Worse opening lines to have, I guess,” I said.
“Yeah,” Everett said. He looked down at the sand between his legs. “Complicates things a little when his follow-up was Guess that means I have to wait my turn.”
“Okay, fuck your dad,” I said, without thinking. “Sorry.” But I glanced over at Everett to see him laughing softly.
“No, my thoughts exactly,” he said.
“What did Maud do?” I asked.
“Oh, she told me about it like it was funny. She actually said it was charming. Told me I shouldn’t be so worked up about
it.”
He’d dropped his gaze again, reached down and trailed his fingers through the sand before shaking them off and resting his
forearm on his bent knee again. I wanted to say something helpful, meaningful, but all I could think was your dad is an asshole. And while I was sure Everett agreed, I didn’t think it was the best comment at the moment.
We were quiet for a while until he said anything again, but when he did, his eyebrows tilted together, throat bobbing before
he asked his question. “What was your impression of Ben Astor? Before you knew me.”
“He seems . . .” I trailed off, not sure exactly what descriptor I was looking for.
Nothing quite seemed to sum up how Ben Astor appeared on the surface.
He was the kind of celebrity who was always just kind of there, ubiquitous in a way only a long and prolific career and early status as a heartthrob could create.
I might have said something else before I met Everett.
I finally settled on what I hoped was the most judicious, “He seems charismatic.”
Everett smirked at me. “He does know how to work a red carpet, doesn’t he?” he asked. I shrugged and Everett looked toward
the horizon, something like bitterness on his face.
I leaned in a little closer to him, hoping he might look up at me. When he didn’t, I still pressed forward, said what I thought
was important in the moment. “If he said something like that to me, I think I’d knee him in the groin.”
Everett chuckled. I wanted to ask him everything—what his relationship had been like with his dad growing up, why he didn’t
want to talk about him—but I knew I had to wait him out. Let him say it first.
“He was drunk, when he said it,” Everett said, mouth twisting as he shook his head resignedly. “Or I’m 90 percent sure he
had to be. Not—” he said severely, holding a hand up “—not that it excuses it at all. He’s a dick when he’s sober too. But
Maud didn’t really seem to care.”
“I’m sure she cared,” I said softly, uncertain if he’d even hear me.
“My dad is an alcoholic,” Everett told me. I watched the bob of his throat as he swallowed. “Though he’d never call himself
that. He’s an addict in every sense of the word, though. Drugs, sex, fucking . . . attention.” He shook his head, and I found myself wanting to slide my fingers between his or anchor them against the back of his neck
or use them to rub circles on his shoulder. “But he keeps it so well hidden, he’s so high functioning, no one would ever know.
I don’t think he even knows.
“He met my mom when she was sixteen,” he continued, and I found my hand snaking closer to his in the sand, not touching, just there, like if I did make contact he’d stop.
I didn’t want him to stop. I wanted to know everything.
“He was twenty-four. She was an extra on some movie he was in. She was pregnant with me by the time she was eighteen. I wasn’t his first kid, but I was the first he stuck around for.
For a few years, at least. Anyway, he left when I was four, and I already had another half sister by then.
Do you know he has eight kids, that he knows of?
Only two of them with the same woman. His PR team should win a fucking award.
” He said it like he was sharing something he read in a tabloid, gossip about some beloved celebrity, but I could see it there, the question in his eyes.
That’s fucked up, right? Tell me you think so too.
But before I could say anything, he was looking away again.
“Anyway,” he said, like he was shaking it off. “We’re all terrified of becoming our parents, right?”
Something twisted in my chest. Because I knew exactly how he felt, but also because of how he was lumping his experience in
with everything else, like it made it matter less, sweeping an arm across a table laden with all his experiences to clear
it.
“I don’t think so, Everett,” I said. “I don’t think everyone feels that way.” When he didn’t answer me, I tried for another
route. “What about your mom?”
His face changed at this, a smile just lifting one corner of his mouth. “She’s a makeup artist,” he said. “And she’s happy.
She got remarried when I was seventeen, and they have two kids together.” He gave me a wry look. “I have a lot of siblings.”
“Are you close with all of them?”