Feels Like Summertime (2 page)

I
n the truck
, Pop grumbles about the dog, about the air conditioning, and about the way I drive. “Are you trying to freeze me to death?” he asks as he turns a vent away from him.

I flip the air off and lower the window. The dog comes forward in the backseat and puts his face beside mine so he can get closer to the window. His breath smells like a decaying body, so I open the back window, he sticks his whole upper body out, and his big ears slap him in the face.

Before Pop left the hospital, they gave him a handful of prescriptions, so he sat in the truck with the dog while I had them filled. He’s been in a better mood. Maybe circa 1970. If he wasn’t grumbling about something, he wouldn’t be Pop. But today…today, he’s working hard to annoy me.

We pull up to the house and I cut the engine of my truck. I look over at Pop. “Can you get out by yourself?”

“I can manage,” he says. He ended up with no lasting effects from the stroke, except for some occasional one-sided weakness. They sent him home with a cane. It was a bad idea, because Pop will just try to hit people with it, I’d wager. “What are you going to do with that dog?”

I look back at the beast. “I have no idea.”

“You can’t bring it in the house until it has a bath,” he says on a heavy sigh. “Get some shampoo out of the bathroom and take him down to the lake.”

“You want me to get in that cold-ass water?” I jerk my thumb toward the lake. “What if he doesn’t
like
water?”

“He’s a dog. Who cares what he likes?” He shoots me a glare and I know I’m not going to win this one.

“I’ll give him a bath.”

“Now.”

“Yes, Pop. Now.”

“Right now.”

“Are you going to be a bundle of sunshine the whole time I’m here?” I ask as I get out and take the dog’s leash, letting him out the back door. He sticks close to my leg, glaring at Pop.

“Depends. How long are you staying?”

“As long as you need me to stay.”

“I’ll stick my bundle of sunshine straight up your ass,” he mutters. And he goes to the house and lets himself inside.

I look down at the dog and wonder how the heck I’m supposed to wash this thing. It’s bigger than me.

Dad comes back to the door and throws out a bottle of shampoo and a towel. Then he slams the door shut. “Fine, old man!” I bellow at him. “I’ll wash the damn dog!”

“You will if you want to come inside!” he bellows back after he cracks the door just long enough to let his words tumble out.

“You want to take a bath?” I ask the beast.

His tongue lolls out and he pants at me, but he doesn’t complain. Of course, that probably just means that he has no idea what I’m talking about. What with him being a dog and all. I scratch my head.

Suddenly, I hear happy screams coming from the lake and the sound of giggles. I follow the noise and come to a dead stop as I step onto the sand.

My heart starts to thump. “Katie?”

The girl turns to look at me over her shoulder. She looks just like Katie did eighteen years ago, with her long, narrow body, flat chest, and her long dark hair. How could that be?

“Mom,” the girl says, looking at a woman who’s sitting on the sand, and she points at me, her eyes wide and wary. “Who’s the strange man who’s calling your name?”

The woman who was sitting on the sand lumbers to her feet. “Katie?” I say again.

“Oh, my God… Jake? Is that really you?” She tugs the Army hat she’s wearing down lower over her forehead, and I have to bend over to look her in the eye.

“Katie?”

Then she’s moving across the sand toward me, and she’s in my arms. Immediately it’s like eighteen years disappears.
Poof
. Seems just like yesterday when I said goodbye to her and then never saw her again. We were sixteen years old and I thought I would die.

“Are you really here?” she asks, her voice breathy and wild.

“I can’t believe it,” I say. I still can’t catch my breath.

“I can’t either.” She motions toward the teenager who looks so much like her. “This is my daughter, Gabby.”

“God, she looks just like you,” I say. Gabby waves at me, her fingers slender and long, like a piano player. Just like Katie.

“She’s got some of her dad in her too,” Katie says, looking at her daughter, her gaze tender. Two smaller kids run up and Gabby wraps her arms around them like she needs to keep them safe. From me? Not hardly. “This is Alex, and this is Trixie.”

“When did you arrive?” I ask.

“This morning.” She scrubs at her eyes with her fists. “We drove all night.”

“I know the feeling. I had to pick Dad up and drove all night to get him.”

She grins. “Where is the old bear?”

“He’s at the house. Probably sitting there with his shotgun, waiting to blast me if I don’t wash the damn dog. I should have left his ass at the hospital.”

Her brow furrows.

“He said damn,” Alex says. He grins. “He sounds like Dad.”

I look around. “Is your husband here?”

She shakes her head. “No, he’s…not.” Her eyes avoid mine. What’s up with that? “Did you say you picked your dad up at the hospital? Is he all right?”

“He had a small stroke, but he’s going to be fine. You know him. He’s too mean to get sick.”

“I’m so sorry. I’ll have to go see him later.”

“He won’t be in a good mood,” I warn.

She snorts. “When was he ever?” Then she laughs, and it sinks into the center of me. It’s pure and clean and so unlike where I’ve been. It’s genuine.
She’s
genuine.

She points to my bottle of shampoo. “Are you taking a bath?”

I wince. “More like giving a bath.” I jerk my thumb toward the dog, who is sitting at attention by my hip. “He stinks.”

“He does,” she agrees with a nod of her head. “I smelled you guys coming down the path.”

Her little boy steps closer and holds up a hand as though I’m a teacher with a question and he has the answer.

“Yes, Alex,” she says gently.

“Can I help wash your dog?”

“Hell, you can do it,” I say.

The kid grins. I really should watch my mouth around the kids. I’ve just never been around many of them, at least not since I
was
one.

“Really?” he says. “Can I, Mom?”

“Does he bite?” she asks me.

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know?”

“I just got him yesterday. At the pound.” He came with a bunch of paperwork, so I know he has been vaccinated, dewormed, and he was temperament tested. But that’s the extent of my knowledge.

“What’s his name?” Alex asks.

“He doesn’t have one yet.”

Alex takes the leash from me and gives it a tug. The dog sits there like a lump.

“He’s not coming,” Alex says.

“Yeah, he doesn’t do much unless he wants to.”

Trixie walks over to the dog and looks him in the eye. They’re the same height. The dog looks over his shoulder at me as though asking me if this life is the one I intended for him. “Go on,” I say. Then he sticks out that big old tongue and slurps it up the side of Trixie’s face. She giggles, takes his leash, and leads him to the water. Alex holds out his hands and I toss him the bottle of shampoo, which he catches like a football.

I don’t think he’ll bite them. Or at least I hope he doesn’t. The dog walks right into the lake and sits down. Then he waits patiently as the kids pour shampoo all over him and lather him up. He looks at me and I would swear he grins at me.

Katie points at the dog. “Did he just smile?”

I nod and cross my arms over my chest. “I think so.”

“He needs a name.”

“Do you think your kids might give him one?”

She snorts again, and it makes me grin. “Try to stop them.” She gets quiet for a moment. Then she blurts out, “Do you remember the day we met?”

This time, it’s me who snorts. “Yeah, Katie. I remember.”

T
he first time
I ever saw Katie Higgins, she was standing on the dock with a Coke bottle–the glass kind–pressed to her lips. I watched her throat wobble as she swallowed, and I knew I had to meet her. I had to kiss her. I had to…

Oh, hell. I had to throw up.

That’s what happens when you steal a six-pack from your dad at the age of sixteen. You act stupid, puke your guts out, and thoroughly embarrass yourself. I was about to run for the bushes to heave up my guts when my buddy patted me on the back. “Who’s that?” he asked.

“That’s the squirrel I’m going to marry,” I said.

He laughed. “Squirrel?”

“Girl,” I corrected, but it came out on a belch. “I meant girl.”

“When did she get here?” Fred asked.

“Today, I guess. Cabin 114 got rented for the summer at the last minute.” My parents owned a bunch of cabins on a lake, and we lived in our year-round house next door to it. The people who visited the campground referred to our house as “the big house.”

From the end of May to the end of September, we catered to all sorts of people, from the rich to the poor, from those who slept in tents to those who drove in hundred thousand dollar luxury cars. Money never mattered when you were at the lake. The only thing that mattered was how much fun you could have, and I was having way too much fun.

“You need to throw up, man?” Fred asked.

I bit it back. “No, I’m good.” I shook my head, wishing like hell I hadn’t drunk that last beer. “I’m going to go talk to her.”

“You might want to wait until tomorrow,” he said, his brow furrowing. “You’re not in the best of shape.”

“I’ll be fined,” I said. “Fine,” I corrected. My tongue felt like it was too thick for my mouth.

“If you say so.” Fred took a step back so I could walk past him. He chuckled and shook his head, lifting his beer, which was wrapped in a coozie so his parents wouldn’t catch him, to his lips. “Have at it, man.”

I walked toward her and began to plan exactly what I’d say.
You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen
. No, that was lame. I could invite her for a walk. Or I could offer her a beer. Wait. No. I drank them all.
Looking at you makes me feel happy
. No, that was stupid.
Do you want to take a walk with me
? I scratched my head. Did I try that one already? I couldn’t remember.

As I stepped closer to her and her group of friends, I stopped to look up at the stars in the night sky. They winked at me and I did the only thing I knew to do. I winked back.

“Do you have something in your eye?” a voice said.

“What?” I looked down into the prettiest blue eyes I’d ever seen.

She pointed to my face. “Do you have something in your eye?” she asked again.

“I got my eye on you,” I said.

She giggled. “Have you been drinking?”

I held my finger and thumb an inch apart and stared through the opening. “Just a teeny tiny bit.”

She laughed. “I never would have known.”

“You’re really pretty.”

Her eyes opened wide. “Thank you.” She reached out to touch my arm. “Do you need to sit down?”

The dock started to tilt beneath my feet. She caught my elbow and gave me a push, kind of like the time somebody knocked the mailbox crooked and Pop shoved it with his palm until it stood up straight again.

Only that wasn’t what happened with me. There was no one to tamp the dirt around my shoes to hold me solid and straight. I didn’t stand up straight at all. I went crooked.

And right off the dock. Straight into the ice-cold water. And I took her with me.

I
laugh so
hard that I make myself snort, and then I laugh because I snorted, and it makes me laugh some more.

“Oh, my God, I’ve missed the sound of your laugh, Katie,” he says on a heavy sigh.

I’m still laughing so hard I can barely catch my breath. “You went ass-over-elbows into the lake.”

He nods, staring down at the pale white sand. Is he embarrassed? “And I took you with me.” He kicks at a stone with the tip of his shoe, a grin tugging at his lips. “It wasn’t my most shining moment.”

“It sobered you up pretty quick,” I remind him.

He shakes his head. “No, that was my dad staring down at us. That’s a boner killer if there ever was one.”

I drop my voice down so that it’ll sound like that of a man, imitating his father. “‘What the fuck are you doing in the lake, numbnuts?’” The giggles overtake me again. I wipe my eyes. “You called back, ‘I was trying to get in her pants.’”

Jake finally grins too. “And he yelled back, ‘Well, tossing her in the lake isn’t gonna make her want to spread her legs for you, son.’”

“‘That’s okay,’ you hollered back. ‘At least she knows I’m interested!’”

“‘She knows you’re a fucking idiot,’ he muttered and then he went to get the lifeguard hook so he could fish us out.”

I wipe my fingers beneath my eyes. “I had never heard so many f-bombs at one time. I was appalled.”

Jake looks into my eyes. “Then you climbed out behind me and I realized I could see through your shirt.”

Heat creeps up my cheeks. “And I wasn’t wearing a bra.”

“You didn’t need one,” he says. His eyes fall down to my boobs. “You didn’t have those back then.”

“I know, right?” I reply. “I got pregnant for the first time and suddenly there they were.” I shrug my shoulders.

“I liked them just fine back then, too,” he says. Then he grins at me.

“Oh, I remember how much you liked them.” My voice gets gruff and this is suddenly awkward.

“That was a good summer, Katie,” he says softly.

I smile at him. “Yeah, it was.”

“Where did you go after that?”

“I enlisted after I graduated.”

“In the
military?
”

“The Army. Yes.”

“Then you got married and started popping out kids.” He points to the three that are still working on his dog.

“Well, they didn’t just pop out. There was a considerable amount of pushing, if I remember correctly.”

“After three, I’d think they’d just walk out.”

“That would be nice, actually, compared to the real thing.”

He turns to face me. “Let’s talk about your vagina, shall we?”

I laugh again. “Why not? We already talked about my boobs.”

“Well, if I had a rack like that and nobody talked about them, I’d be sad. Just trying to keep up the morale here, Katie. Doing my job as a citizen of this great country.”

“If you start singing the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ at my boobs, I’ll deck you.”

“That was next on my to-do list.” He gets quiet for a second. “Your daughter looks just like you. I thought she was you standing there when I first walked up.”

“She’s natured like her dad, though.” Talking about him makes me smile. “Same drill sergeant personality.”

“Did you meet him in the military?”

I nod. “Yes. Love at first sight.” I take in a deep breath. “There’s no better feeling, is there?”

He says nothing, then he tosses a rock toward the still water of the lake.

I realize that I’ve been talking about myself. “What did you do with yourself, Jake? You said you don’t live in North Carolina anymore?”

“I’m a cop.”

“Wow. Really?”

He glares down his nose at me. “Why are you surprised?”

“Honestly?”

“No, lie to me,” he deadpans. “Of course I want honesty.”

“You were kind of famous for the amount of trouble you could get into.”

He laughs. “I vaguely remember you being right there with me when I got into a bunch of that trouble.”

The crunch of gravel sucks me out of my summer memories. They’re one of my favorite places to go when things go bad, which they have been for a while now. “Jake!” someone bellows.

Jake gets to his feet and shades his eyes with his hands. “That’s Pop,” he says.

The old man drives the red golf cart directly onto the sand. “I need your help with something,” he says to Jake.

“Can it wait a minute?”

“If it could wait a minute, I wouldn’t be coming to get you, would I?” the old man grumbles. He looks around Jake and his eyes fall on me. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“Hi, Mr. Jacobson,” I call out.

“You grew tits,” he replies.

I look down at my boobs. “Yes, I did.”

“Good job.”

“I do aim to please.”

“Pop,” Jake complains, “don’t talk about her tits.”

“Why not?” the old man crows. “Those are some impressive tits.”

“He’s got you there,” Jake says, leaning closer to me like he’s whispering.

“Cabin 112 has a leaky roof, Jake,” Jake’s dad says. “I need you to fix it.” He points to a toolbox on the back of the golf cart.

Jake points to the same box. “You think
I’m
going to fix a roof?”

“I just had a stroke, son. I’m not going to fix it myself.”

Jake sighs.

His dad looks around Jake to talk to me again. “I had a stroke and I still can’t get this boy to do anything.”

“I’ll do it, Pop,” Jake replies. “Can you wait a minute?”

“Why?” Mr. Jacobson barks. “You going to kiss her goodbye, or something? I’ve seen you do that before.” He motions for Jake to continue by rolling his finger. “Get on with it. You have work to do.”

“It was good to see you, Katie,” Jake says, his eyes intently staring into mine.

“You too, Jake,” I say softly. “It has been a long time.”

“Too long.”

Suddenly, Mr. Jacobson barks out, “What time is supper, Katie?”

“What?”

“Supper. What time should I arrive?”

I point to my chest. “You want
me
to make you supper?”

He scratches his belly. “A man’s got to eat.”

“I haven’t exactly been to the store yet,” I admit.

“No problem,” Mr. Jacobson says. “I’ll bring steaks.”

“Oh…well…okay.”

“You don’t have to, Katie,” Jake rushes to say. “I’ll cook your damn steak, old man.”

Mr. Jacobson grins. “Good. You can do it at Katie’s cabin. We’ll use her grill.” He revs the engine on the gas-powered golf cart. “The day isn’t going to get any longer, boy,” he says to Jake. “We’ll see you at six,” Mr. Jacobson calls out to me.

“See you then,” I call back. Jake hops on the golf cart with Mr. Jacobson and they start to drive away. Then suddenly the cart screeches to a halt, with sand and gravel flying.

“My dog!” Jake yells.

The dog is still covered in soap and my youngest daughter is laughing as she makes a cone of bubbles on the dog’s head. “You can get him later,” I yell back.

“Are you sure?”

I nod. “Positive.” They start to leave again. “Hey, Jake!” I yell.

He turns back and looks at me. I cup my hands around my mouth.

“Bring a salad! And some potatoes! Wrap them in tin foil! And a loaf of bread would be nice!”

Jake looks at me without saying a word for a beat longer than I’d expect. Then they drive away.

Gabby comes to sit next to me on the sand and dusts her hands together. “Was that old man talking about your boobs?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Cool.”

“They’re joining us for supper.”

“Okay.”

“What kind of dog is that?” I ask.

“A big one.”

“No joke.”

“His name is Sally.”

“Did Trixie name him?”

“Yep.”

I grin to myself. “Jake is going to love that name.”