The Summer Girlfriend

Prologue

Heart Beach, New Jersey

The ocean-gray house was two stories tall. The white paint on the window shutters, wraparound porch, and front steps chipped in various places. The top step sank in the middle and wood splintered at its center. The front lawn was unkept, and weeds swayed back and forth in the brisk March breeze.

The house didn’t look abandoned necessarily, just neglected. Momentarily forgotten. Especially in comparison with the other pristine homes lining either side of the street.

All in all, this particular house wasn’t anything special.

Not yet.

That yet was imperative to Jeremiah Smith I.

He had a talent for looking at something and sensing its hidden potential.

Believing in what could be and believing in himself and what he could do for his family were what had gotten him this far.

Keys in hand. A Sold sign planted in the front yard.

His wife, Minnie, by his side, their six-year-old daughter, Celeste, staring up at the timeworn house with curious, captivated eyes.

“This house is where Dr. Thomas vacationed with his wife every summer?” Minnie asked, voiced tinged with skepticism.

She wrapped her wool coat tighter around herself as another gust of wind blew down the street, bringing with it the salty smell of the Atlantic Ocean.

Minnie’s high-volume curls whipped about her face, and she fought to tame them into stillness.

She fastened Celeste’s knit hat tighter on her head and then she looked up at her husband and waited for his answer.

Jeremiah took a moment to admire his wife, which he did often.

With her thick hair, chocolate brown eyes, and smooth brown skin, in his opinion, she was more beautiful than Pat Cleveland, more alluring than Donna Summer.

Pretty Minnie had been her nickname growing up back in Florida.

He and Minnie met almost a decade ago at Riley University in northern New Jersey where Minnie had been a junior on a full-ride scholarship, working at the campus bookstore.

And Jeremiah, the same age as Minnie but not a college student, had been an evening-shift custodian.

Late-night chats among acquaintances had turned into friendship, then turned into romance.

When Minnie mentioned how much she missed the ocean, Jeremiah had driven her an hour and fifteen minutes to the Jersey shore in his battered Ford pickup.

Once they reached the beach, Minnie had kicked off her shoes and run toward the glistening waves.

Not knowing how to swim, Jeremiah had watched from the shoreline as Minnie dove into the ocean and glided through the water like a mermaid, or a siren.

He’d known then that he wanted to marry her. Known that he wanted to make her happy in every way possible and that he would work hard enough to make it so that she could swim in the ocean whenever she wanted.

Now that day was finally here.

“Jeremiah?” Minnie prompted, her brow arched. He still hadn’t answered her question.

“Dr. Thomas said he hasn’t been to the house in almost eight years,” Jeremiah replied. “Not since before Celeste was born.”

“Looks that way,” Minnie mused.

Dr. Thomas was Celeste’s pediatrician. He was an older, self-made Black man with his own medical practice, and Jeremiah admired him greatly.

When Jeremiah mentioned that he was looking to buy a summer home in a beach town that was friendly to Black folks, Dr. Thomas recommended Heart Beach, a barrier island along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in central New Jersey.

The small beach town was founded in 1911 by an affluent Black couple who purchased land and sold plots to others who faced discrimination while trying to purchase vacation homes or open businesses in other parts of the state.

Now, over sixty years later, the town had flourished into a thriving, tight-knit community.

Dr. Thomas had offered to sell his vacation home to Jeremiah—he hadn’t been to Heart Beach since his wife passed in ’65.

The house had been more for her enjoyment than his own.

Without children or other living relatives, Dr. Thomas had no one to leave his home to.

He hadn’t wanted to sell the house to just anyone. But Jeremiah wasn’t just anyone.

“I want you to have the house,” Dr. Thomas had said. “You can leave it to your daughter, and your daughter can leave it to her children, and so on. A house like that deserves to be kept in a family for generations.”

Now Jeremiah looked up at the house and tried to imagine the future Dr. Thomas spoke of. He glanced at his wife’s perturbed frown and smiled as he planted a soft kiss against her temple.

“Don’t worry, baby,” he said. “We’ve got at least three months to fix it up before summer. Come on, let’s take a look inside.”

Eager to finally explore the house, Celeste skipped up the walkway ahead of Jeremiah and Minnie.

“Be careful on that top step!” Minnie called. Celeste gingerly hopped over the broken wood and paused in front of the door. She spun around to face her parents and flashed a sweet smile, as darling as ever with her round cheeks. She was the spitting image of her mother.

Jeremiah winked at his daughter as he fit the key in the lock and turned the knob.

The floorboards creaked beneath their feet as they stepped inside.

The spacious foyer was empty. The entire house was empty, in fact.

Dust particles filtered through the air and sunlight slanted through the windows.

A wide staircase led to the bedrooms upstairs.

It was a big house, and there was much to explore.

But what caught their eyes immediately was the large bay window in the living room to their right.

The corners of Minnie’s mouth lifted in a smile as she walked toward the window with Celeste right on her heels.

Jeremiah followed and watched as his wife and daughter peered out the window onto the street.

He tried to picture their lives here during summers for years to come.

A feeling of warmth and rightness nestled in his chest.

Minnie looked over at him and let out a small laugh. “I can’t believe Mama’s recipes got us all the way here.”

Jeremiah grinned. After college, Minnie had worked as a teacher, and Jeremiah had continued his custodian work while taking night classes.

They got by, but they lived paycheck to paycheck in a one-bedroom apartment.

Neither he nor Minnie came from money, so they didn’t have a nest egg gifted to them by their parents.

Minnie was the second oldest of nine children and had grown up in poverty, and Jeremiah was the only son of a widowed mother who’d worked multiple jobs to keep a roof over their heads.

Jeremiah and Minnie knew how it felt to go to bed hungry, or to go without in general.

He was determined to figure out a way to spare them from struggle.

His answer arrived when Minnie became pregnant with Celeste.

In the evenings, like clockwork, Minnie craved something sweet.

But not just anything sweet. She craved one of her mother’s desserts that she used to bake whenever they had extra money.

Too tired and uncomfortable to stand and make the sweets herself, Minnie dictated the recipes to Jeremiah, who was all too willing to please her.

The first dessert that he baked for Minnie was a pound cake.

He made some instinctual alterations to the recipe, like adding an extra teaspoon of vanilla extract, adding one less teaspoon of lemon flavoring, and sprinkling in a bit of brown sugar.

He sent up a prayer that the cake would taste good.

An hour later when he pulled it out of the oven and Minnie took her first bite, she moaned, and her eyes rolled to the back of her head in bliss.

“Jeremiah, baby,” she said, mouth full. “Mama would probably slap me silly if she heard me say this, but this is the best pound cake I’ve ever tasted.”

“Really?” In disbelief, Jeremiah took a bite of the slice that Minnie held out to him. The fluffy, sugary texture touched his tongue, and as he chewed, he fully understood why Minnie’s immediate reaction was to moan. “Lord, this is good.”

Delighted, Minnie laughed and hurried to cut them each another slice.

Jeremiah baked whatever she wanted. Not just pound cakes, but 7 Up cake, pecan pie, and cinnamon apple pie.

Carrot cake, drop sugar cookies, classic chocolate chip.

It became a source of joy for Jeremiah, baking whatever his wife desired as their baby grew in her womb.

Minnie brought some of his desserts to work to share with her coworkers and students, and soon word got around town about Jeremiah’s baking.

Requests started pouring in. People wanted him to bake cakes and pies for their birthday parties and holiday gatherings.

Jeremiah quickly realized the business potential that they had on their hands.

Most evenings after work, he baked late into the night.

And after Celeste was born, Jeremiah kept her swaddled to his chest, whipping batter as Minnie bustled around the kitchen, helping to package his increasing orders.

They saved as much as they could, and within a couple years, they had enough money put aside to quit their jobs and rent a storefront and open their own bakery.

They coined it Smith’s Sweets. A year after that, they bought their very first home.

Now, a few years later, the Smiths had a place of their own to vacation in the summers. They’d come such a long way.

“Can we go see the beach, Daddy?” Celeste asked, tugging on Jeremiah’s coat sleeve.

He smiled down at his daughter. “Of course, sweetheart.”

The family of three huddled together against the wind as they walked the few short blocks toward the beach.

Because it wasn’t tourist season yet, the beach was mostly empty, save for the seagulls looking for food.

In a couple of months, almost every inch of sand would be overtaken with beach towels and umbrellas, and a tramcar would announce its coming and going as it navigated up and down the boardwalk.

But today, it was just the three Smiths walking across the beach, their eyes on the ocean in the distance.

They stopped walking before they reached the wet sand. Jeremiah lifted Celeste to sit on his shoulders, and Minnie leaned her head against his arm.

“It’s too cold to swim now, right, Daddy?” Celeste said.

“Yes, too cold today, sweetheart,” he answered. “But we’ll be back soon when it’s warm. And when we’re here, you can come to the beach every day if you want.”

“Every day?”

Jeremiah angled his head and glanced up, seeing the wonder in his daughter’s eyes.

This was what it was all for. All their sacrifice and late nights.

To see that awestruck expression on his daughter’s face as she looked at the ocean.

To witness his wife’s smile and hear her contented sigh.

To know that Celeste would never have to want for anything in life, that she wouldn’t know struggle the way that he and Minnie had.

“Yes, sweetheart,” Jeremiah said. “Every day.”

Jeremiah thought of Dr. Thomas’s wish to keep their new Heart Beach home in their family for generations to come. In that moment, he had no way of knowing that years later, Celeste would give birth to three children, including a son whom she’d name after her father.

As Jeremiah Smith I stood with his wife and daughter, feet from the ocean in Heart Beach on that cold March day, he felt completely warm inside.

This was only the beginning.