Authors: Catherine Clark
I
turned to look at who was coming toward us, but the sun was in my eyes.
“You guys!” Heather Olsen cried. “It’s
me
.” She had on a pair of short shorts and a couple of layered tank tops. She ran up to us, and I gave her a big hug, squeezing her tightly.
“Yay, you’re here!” I said. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“I know. Isn’t it ridiculous, considering how close we live?” she replied.
I gave her another hug, because the last time we’d gotten together wasn’t for a vacation—it was for her dad’s memorial service nearly a year ago. We hadn’t visited much that
time, but we’d stayed in close touch throughout the past year with emails. Adam and Spencer hadn’t come to the service, only their parents had, because they now lived pretty far away—Adam and his family lived in Oregon, while Spencer’s was in Vermont. Heather and I were the ones still sort of near where everyone started out—Madison, Wisconsin, where they’d all moved and rented a house together
after
college and gone to grad school. We still lived in Madison, while Heather and her mom lived in Chicago, which was only about three hours away. Still, we were usually both so busy we didn’t see each other often enough.
“What are you—” Adam asked as Heather jumped on his back, like she wanted a piggyback ride. “I wasn’t sure you were coming,” he said when she dropped off his back and gave him a playful shove.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Heather stared at him, hands on her hips. “No. Only kidding. I know why. But the other guys put on the major hard sell, or maybe it was a guilt trip. Anyway, Mom
finally agreed. I told her I wanted to see you guys.”
“I’m really glad you came,” I told her. “It wouldn’t be the same, you know. Without you.” I felt myself tripping over my tongue. “Right, Adam?”
“Definitely.” Adam looked up at a few pelicans flying past. “It wouldn’t count as a reunion.”
“We have traditions,” I said. “You know. You and Spencer make fun of me and Heather until you run out of put-downs, then you resort to practical jokes.”
“Me?” Adam turned to me, not looking amused. “No, I don’t.”
“You do,” I said.
“It’s a good thing I’m here, because Emily couldn’t possibly defend herself on her own, right?” Heather said.
“What? I could too defend myself,” I said. I put up my fists, which aren’t all that impressive, actually, considering my arms have this certain resemblance to sticks. All the muscle tone I’d had from ballet over the years had started to
fizzle, like the deflating air mattress I’d been forced to sleep on the night before at my aunt and uncle’s, who live close to the airport.
“Yeah, but not
well.
” Heather punched Adam lightly on the arm, which was no longer an arm but a massive bicep. She rubbed her knuckles afterward and looked up at him. “Speaking of self-defense. Work out much?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “I just finished baseball season.”
“I thought they banned steroids in baseball,” Heather said.
Adam laughed, looking slightly embarrassed. “Shut up.”
“Fine. You know what? I’m starved. When do we eat? I think I saw some brats on the grill.”
“What else is new?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “Cheddar or beer style?”
“You can take my dad out of Wisconsin, but you can’t take his bratwurst away,” Adam said.
Heather started to run back up the stairs to the deck, then she stopped and looked over her
shoulder. “Well, come on, guys, I’m not going to eat by myself.”
“We’re coming,” I told her.
“I forgot how she is,” Adam commented as we walked over to the stairs together, me loving the feeling of digging my toes into the soft, warm sand. “I mean, maybe it’s a good thing she hasn’t changed, with everything that’s happened.”
“How is she?” I asked.
“Like, um, a whirling dervish,” Adam said. “Those things that spin around and around.”
“Whirling dervish? Wow, have you been taking vocab vitamins along with your steroids?” I asked.
“Shut up.” He gave me a playful—but still possibly bruising, with his strength—hip check as we headed up to the deck. “I don’t take steroids, okay? I mean, I know guys who’ve done it and it’s disgusting. So let’s not talk about that anymore,” Adam said in a more serious tone.
“Agreed,” I said. “I didn’t really think that, you know.” Although it had kind of crossed my mind, because I didn’t understand how
he’d transformed himself. If he’d changed that much…what would Spencer look like? “Anyway, let’s forget we ever said anything, and just eat.”
“Deal.” Adam picked up a paper plate and started loading it with food. I followed his lead, taking some of almost everything.
Heather and I sat next to each other on the deck. We both sat cross-legged, in a sort of yoga position. She’s tiny—about five feet tall—and used to do gymnastics at the same level I danced—we were both a little obsessed. She’d always been amazingly flexible, and I was, too, so we used to spend these vacations trying to out-bend each other doing splits, back bends, handstands, and anything else we could do to be pretzel-esque. Adam and Spencer had dubbed us the tumbling twins—or maybe it was the tumbling twits. I suddenly couldn’t remember.
Maybe there were some things about our last get-together that I’d purposely forgotten, like the look on Spencer’s face when I’d awkwardly tried to tell him how I felt—or the look of his back, rather, when he turned away, ignoring
me, as if I hadn’t said anything. A person can forget a lot in two years. But that? No. And if I hadn’t forgotten, I worried he hadn’t, either.
Maybe the Flanagans won’t come,
I thought, looking around at everyone else already gathered. Maybe they decided to stay home. Maybe their car broke down and they’d decided to just can it.
Oh, relax
, I told myself as I bit into a cob of buttery corn.
Spencer has moved on, and so have you. You’ve had tons of other guys in your life since then. Sure. There’s that tech guy at the Apple store…and the guy at the Starbucks drive-through you flirted with—once—and…um…
Adam sat down across from us. “What’s wrong with chairs, anyway? You guys against chairs? Wait, I know. You have to stretch. Isn’t that what you were always doing?”
“Before I quit gymnastics,” Heather said. “Actually, I just didn’t see enough chairs.”
“When did you quit gymnastics?” Adam asked, sounding genuinely surprised.
“After the accident,” she said. “I broke a few ribs, and…it hurt to breathe, never mind flip.
Plus I was just ready to make some changes.”
Adam nodded. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I mean…about everything. Must have been really hard.”
There was a long pause. I looked at Adam, then at Heather, then at my plate, wishing I could say something decent that didn’t sound completely clichéd.
“You know what?” Heather suddenly looked up at both of us and smiled. “We have to go out tonight.”
“We do?” I asked. I hadn’t pictured going out and partying as being in the cards, not with the proportion of parents to us. I mean, it was something I’d hoped to achieve, but only in a fantasy, which is the way most of my daring plans occur.
“We do. I mean, do you really want to sit around and listen to the guys all night? First they’ll talk about the place where they all lived, and who never washed the dishes, and who did, and who partied the most, and what girl they tried to date but who wasn’t interested in any of them—”
We all laughed, but I also couldn’t help but wonder if Heather was feeling a little uncomfortable listening to all the guys reminisce, when her dad wasn’t around to join in anymore. As much as hearing my dad’s stories over and over again annoyed me, at least I still had the chance to listen to them.
I stood up to get a little more food and took a serving of Mrs. Olsen’s famous marshmallow Jell-O salad, which she’s been making for every get-together since forever, and that I’ve been eating for about as long.
“When did your mom have time to make this?” I asked Heather, taking a bite.
“This afternoon. We got here earlier today, then went out shopping for new swimsuits,” Heather explained. “There are some
amazing
shops around here. Where were you guys when we got here?” she asked Adam.
“Tim and Tyler wanted to go to an amusement park. I think we went on about twelve kiddie pirate rides.”
“I can’t believe they’re already four,” I said. “Seems like they were just born, you know?”
“Ha! Maybe to
you
,” Adam said.
“I always kind of wanted siblings,” I said. “Someone to take the focus off of
me
.”
“I hear you,” added Heather with a nod.
There was a loud knock on the fence surrounding the pool area. “Anyone here?” a deep voice called through the fence.
“No!” everyone called back at once.
“Thought so. Let’s go, Spence,” I heard Mr. Flanagan say.
I kind of held my breath. After Adam, I couldn’t wait to see what Spencer looked like. Would he have changed that much, too? I was nervous, maybe even dreading it a little bit. What if he’d changed? What if he was even more handsome than he had been at sixteen? Or, potentially worse, even more conceited?
The gate opened—Mrs. Flanagan was towing a large suitcase, while Spencer and his dad carried a kayak over their heads, which they leaned against the fence.
“You kayaked here?” asked Mr. Thompson. “No wonder it took you so long.”
“Anything to save gas money,” Mrs.
Flanagan answered with a smile.
Spencer was wearing an orange UVM T-shirt and long khaki shorts. He was barefoot. I suddenly remembered how he liked to go barefoot all the time, and wondered how that worked out during the winters. I rarely saw him during the winter. Maybe he had a completely different look.
“You’re here!” Heather said, throwing her arms around Spencer.
Spencer stepped back with an awkward smile, escaping Heather’s grasp. “Hey.”
“Hey?” Heather repeated. “Is that all you’re going to say?”
He looked at her and lifted his eyebrows, like he was trying to think of something better to say, but he couldn’t. “Sorry about your dad,” he said.
“Thanks.” Heather hugged him again. “I appreciate that.” She let him go and looked up at him. “But I didn’t mean that.” There was an awkward pause. “Well? Are you going to hug Emily or not?”
Good question,
I thought. What was the
etiquette for this kind of situation? It was like Heather could see that things were awkward, but I’d never told her about my dumb confession of love—or was it
like
?—to Spencer two years ago.
He gazed at me for a second, rubbing his eyes, because clearly he’d just woken up after the extremely long car trip. “Emily. That you?” he asked, scratching the side of his face, which looked a little stubbly. He was turning into a grown-up. He had actual stubble.
I laughed. “Of course it’s me. Who else would it be? Hi.” I punched his arm a little awkwardly, but hit it harder than I meant to, and we sort of hugged, but sort of almost toppled over at the same time.
“Ouch. You’re tall,” he said.
“Me? No, I’m the same height I used to be,” I said, pulling a sticky strand of my hair off of my face.
“You have something in your hair,” Spencer said.
“Still?” I pulled at a few more hairs, then found a clump of mini-marshmallows. I could
feel myself blush as I attempted to pull them out. Fortunately, I have thickish hair—but unfortunately, it’s black, so every speck of marshmallow showed. This wasn’t exactly how I’d wanted my reunion with Spencer to go.
“It’s the Mello Jell-O,” Heather explained to him.
Spencer rubbed his forehead. “The what?”
“My mom’s famous mold dessert thingy.”
“Your mom serves mold?”
“No, stupid, it’s a mold, as in a shape. And it has fruit and marshmallows in it—”
“Oh, yeah. Now I remember. Well, I guess everyone has to be famous for
some
thing.”
Heather shoved him. “Are you dissing my mom?”
“No, just gelatin. So what happened? Did you dive into the bowl?” Spencer asked me.
No, I was eating it when you showed up, and I guess I got a little flustered, and my spoon ended up in my hair
. “Ha-ha,” I said in a deadpan tone. “It’s a styling product, okay?”
“Well…style away,” Spencer said, surveying the deck.
“Same old obnoxious Spencer,” Heather muttered under her breath as Spencer left us to get a burger.
It was true that he treated us like we were little kids, even though he was only a year older than us. He usually made a big effort to remind us that he was older. Heather, Adam, and I were just
so
immature. We were like
infants
, compared to him.
The three of us sat down to finish eating dinner, and Spencer joined us. As soon as Heather tossed her paper plate into the trash can, she stood up, looked at the three of us, and said, “What are you guys waiting for? Come on, let’s get out of here, go out somewhere fun.”
“Go out? But I just got here,” Spencer protested. “I don’t even know what room I’m in, or where my stuff should go.”
“We’ll figure it out when we get back. You can unpack later. You’ve got two weeks to unpack.” Heather pulled Spencer to his feet and guided him toward the deck steps.
“Technically, no, because I’ll have to unpack in order to change my clothes, like
tomorrow,” Spencer said. “Anyway, where are we going and what’s the rush?”
“I don’t know. We’ll find a place,” said Heather confidently, looping her arm through his.
I interrupted the parents for a second to tell them that the four of us were going for a walk. They barely paused talking long enough to hear what I had to say. Dad mumbled, “That’s great, honey,” then went back to some story about sophomore year and a football game they lost by one point.
Just before I went to join Spencer, Heather, and Adam, I stopped and took a picture of the three of them as they pushed and shoved each other on the stairs. A lot of things had changed since we first became friends when we were little, but some things hadn’t changed at all.
I was starting down the stairs when a Frisbee came sailing over the fence and nearly knocked me in the head. I reached up instinctively to shield my face and the Frisbee hit my hands and fell to the deck.