thirty-six
This Summer
“Think Ralph will have us arrested if he finds us out here?” Davi asks that night as we all huddle around the bonfire we’ve
built out back of Poppy Cottage.
After getting a weepy Laurel off the back deck, we went into town and wandered the market and the grocery store until we had
enough food for a feast tonight. It was easy to see that some dam had broken as we wandered the aisles of the overpriced corner
store, as Laurel tried every sample available at the market, as we sang along at the top of our lungs to The Police and Billy
Joel and Linda Ronstadt in the Bronco on the way back to the villa.
We cooked an elaborate meal and ate it out back as the sun went down, racing to fill the gaps that had been left this week.
Things we hadn’t done, things we hadn’t said. It felt like some part of my heart was mending as we sat around the table, a
piece that had been hanging on by a thread sewn back on.
Everett was close by all day, but never obviously so. We still had things to talk about, after all, and this last night was
about all of us. But I still let my hand brush against his, stood shoulder to shoulder with him at the kitchen island, let
my knee find his under the table.
When the sun went down, we drove back to Poppy Cottage, ducking under the caution tape strung between the rows of A-frames and out to the beach, back to where it all began.
“I don’t think he can technically arrest us for being on a public beach,” Gabe answers Davi, tipping his beer bottle back.
“Don’t underestimate Ralph,” Laurel says, raising her own bottle toward him.
Sparks dance off the fire and into the air, disappearing into the night sky. I’m in between Laurel and Everett, and I press
closer to her as she lays her head on my shoulder, while my fingers reach for Everett’s in the sand.
“Good week,” Davi says after a while, eyes fixed on the flames.
We all laugh, Davi grinning, but finally Gabe agrees with him. “Yeah,” he says. “Good week, after all.”
It’s quiet for a minute before Everett speaks up. “So are we going to do this?”
It’s a tradition that’s gotten a little muddied over the years, since we couldn’t all be here every summer. On top of that,
we’re out of practice. But Laurel smiles at the idea, and Gabe leans forward, ready. Davi is the first to speak up.
“I’m afraid I won’t get this promotion at work,” he says.
“You’ll get it,” Laurel says. She sighs. “I’m afraid ‘Laurel’s New Life’ is actually going to be a giant dumpster fire.”
“Well, with that attitude,” Davi says, and she laughs, kicking sand in his direction.
“It’s not going to be a dumpster fire,” I tell her, pressing my cheek to the top of her head. “It’s just one foot in front
of the other.”
“I’m worried about the kids starting school,” Gabe says. “I’m also worried that Mia wants to start trying for another this
year.”
“You, Greatest Dad in the World, afraid of that?” Everett asks jokingly.
“I’m worried about loving them as much as Riley and Chloe,” Gabe says. “How can that happen three times?”
“It’ll happen,” I say. “You’ve got nothing but room in that heart of yours, Gabe.” He smiles and nods at me, and I realize
that this has turned more into easing each other’s fears than just listing them. Maybe that was always the point. I take a
swig of my beer, set the base of the bottle in the sand. “I’m pretty afraid of starting off on this new path,” I say. “I always
knew what would happen at the restaurant.”
“It could have blown up,” Davi points out. “You could have been inside.”
“Jesus, Davi,” Laurel says, laughing. She sits up straight and looks at me. “I think this is a really good thing for you.
I think you’re going to be surprised how good it is.”
“Me too,” Everett says on my other side, and I have to blink, nudge him to go so I don’t get too emotional in front of everyone.
He meets my eyes. “I’m afraid of what happens after this week,” he says. He glances around at everyone, but I think what he
says next might mean more than one thing. “I’m afraid of what happens to us.”
We sit with it for a minute, the fire taking everything we’ve said up and away, a release somehow. Jobs, kids, new lives.
All of us. Things that we can only hold on to for so long until we have to let them go, trust that the care we’ve put into
them will carry them forward. Carry us forward.
“Funny,” Laurel says after a while. “I was going to say that what happens to all of us is the thing I’m most looking forward
to.”
I smile over at her, find her hand and squeeze it. “Me too.”
“Same,” Gabe says.
“I was going to say this wine bar opening down the street from me, but that too,” Davi says, Gabe knocking the end of his beer bottle against his knee as we all laugh.
I look over at Everett. “I think there’s a lot to look forward to when it comes to us,” I say. The fingers we’ve had resting
against each other in the sand press a little closer. “I don’t think we need to worry.”
He smiles before he lifts his water toward the fire. “To us, then,” he says, and we all follow suit, lifting our bottles in
a toast and echoing his words.
“To every good thing that hasn’t happened yet,” I add.
It’s as good an ending to this week as I think any of us could have hoped for. Better, even. The five of us, in the same place
where we started, still together after everything that’s happened. Older, with bigger lives that might take us away from each
other, but no less important. The reason we can survive apart, I think, is because we had each other. Because we still do.
We say goodbye to Wild Horse Villa in the morning, not knowing if it will be our last time there. Something tells me we’ll
come back to this place again someday, even if it’s in another ten, twenty years.
“You sure you don’t want me to come with you?” I ask Laurel as she slams the trunk of her car, the one I drove us here in.
She crosses her arms over her chest, nodding at where Everett is hugging Gabe goodbye. We floated the idea of Thanksgiving
in Denver together, but no plans are set in stone. One foot in front of the other, like I told Laurel. Figuring out what our
friendship looks like on the other side of this will take time, but I don’t feel as desperate to fix it as I used to, as I
did just six days ago. I’m not worried about it ending anymore. We’ll continue to shift, together.
“I think you still have some unfinished business here,” she says, as I follow her nod to Everett. “Besides, I need a solo drive to kick off my new life.”
“I thought the party was the start of that,” I say.
She shakes her head. “A party with a bunch of people I hardly know isn’t what I want things to look like. I needed last night
with my most important people.” At the look on my face, she draws me into her, making an aw sound. “You can’t cry, or I’ll cry,” she says into my shoulder, already sniffling herself.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just been so long since I’ve heard you say that.”
We all gather in a circle in the driveway, arms around each other in a little huddle, and while I’ve composed myself, it’s
now Laurel who’s crying, so we pull her into our center, wrap around her like a cocoon.
“Why do I feel like we’re graduating again?” Davi asks as we squeeze together, looking a little misty-eyed himself.
“That is what it feels like,” Gabe says. He’s right. It feels like something ending, and something beginning, and this is the last
moment of the space in between.
“I love you all,” I say, as Laurel lifts her head up and we move apart again, still in our circle but not squeezed so tight.
Everyone echoes it, and then it’s goodbye. Last looks and waves out the window, Gabe honking his horn as he and Davi disappear
around the corner, Laurel turning up her music. Over as quickly as it began. On to the next thing.
Everett and I stand side by side even after they’re out of sight, like they might come careening back around the corner, demanding
more. But the road stays silent.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he finally says. “But wasn’t that your ride that just left?”
I knock my elbow against his, laughing as we head back toward the house. “You going to ditch me, Bridges?”
“Never,” he says, smiling down at me.
It’s strange how quiet the house feels with everyone else gone. Everett and I pass our bags in the hallway and stop near the
kitchen, turning to look at each other.
“Fifteen minutes until Ralph comes knocking,” I say, glancing at the clock above the sink. “Think it’s enough time?”
Everett doesn’t need to ask what for. “I do,” he just says.
I rub my hands up and down my arms, suddenly a little nervous even if I’m certain of everything I still need to say, the final
pieces between us that have to be arranged. I think we both have a thousand things that still need to be said sitting just
behind our lips.
“Did you ever think about it?” I ask, finally. “About us.”
Everett’s hand floats up to my hip, settles there as he gazes intently at me. “You know I did,” he says. “That last summer—”
“No,” I cut in. “Not in the last five years. I mean before that.” I reach down and find his other hand, draw it up to press
it over the center of my chest. Everett looks at the spot, back up at me. “Did you ever think about me like this outside of
all our summers here?”
It’s not a fair question, but it’s the thing I’ve needed to know. That I’ve been so worried about. Because I’ve realized now
that I’ve been busy trying to put Everett out of my mind ever since that first summer, and I didn’t even think to consider
why. I just felt like I had to if I wanted to keep this thing between us alive.
The hard planes of his face soften, and I don’t know if it’s because he has a good answer, or he’s realized he has to let
me down easy.
“I thought about you,” he says, his fingers a gentle pressure against my sternum. “But not always in the way you’re asking.”
I nod, duck my head so he won’t see the disappointment on my face, but Everett’s fingers come up to catch my chin, guide my
gaze back to his. “I didn’t understand what was happening,” he says, “when you’d suddenly just be on my mind in the middle