We'll Always Have Summer (13 page)

That was pretty much it for me. I had a few cousins on my dad’s side but none I was particularly close to.

Jeremiah had Conrad, three of his fraternity brothers like we agreed, his freshman-year roommate, and his dad. Last night Jere told me he could tell his dad was softening. He said Mr. Fisher asked about who was marrying us and how much we were planning on spending on this so-called wedding. Jere told him our budget. One thousand dollars. Mr. Fisher had snorted.

To me, a thousand dollars was a lot of money. Last year, it took me the whole summer to save that much waitressing at Behrs.

Our guest list would be under twenty people. With twenty people we could have a clambake and feed everyone, easy. We could get a few kegs and some cheap champagne. Since we’d be marrying on the beach, we wouldn’t even need decorations. Just some flowers for the picnic tables, or shells. Shells and flowers. I was on a roll with this wedding.

I was writing down my ideas as Jeremiah came up the steps. The sun blazed behind him, so bright it hurt my eyes. “Morning,” I said, squinting up at him. “Where’s Con?”

“He’s still out there.” Jeremiah sat down next to me.

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Grinning, he asked, “Aw, did you do all the work without me?” He was dripping wet. A drop of seawater splashed down on my notepad.

“You wish.” I wiped at the water. “Hey, what do you think about a clambake?”

“I like a good clambake,” he agreed.

“How many kegs do you think we’d need for twenty people?”

“If Peterson and Gomez are coming, that’s two already.”

I pointed my pen at his chest. “We said three brothers and that’s it. Right?”

He nodded, and then he leaned forward and kissed me. His lips tasted salty, and his face was cool against my warm one.

I nuzzled his cheek before I broke away. “If you get Taylor’s binder wet, she’ll kill you,” I warned, putting it behind me.

Jeremiah made a sad face, and then he took my arms and put them around his neck like we were slow dancing.

“I can’t wait to marry you,” he murmured into my neck.

I giggled. I was super ticklish on my neck, and he knew it. He knew almost everything about me and he still loved me.

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

He blew on my neck, and I burst out laughing. I tried we’ll always have summer · 149

to wriggle away from him, but he wouldn’t let me. Still giggling, I said, “Okay, I can’t wait to marry you either.”

Jere left later that afternoon. I walked him out to his car.

Conrad’s car wasn’t in the driveway; I didn’t know where he’d gone off to.

“Call me when you get home so I know you got there safe,” I said.

He nodded. He was being quiet, which was unlike him. I guessed he was sad to be leaving so soon. I wished he could stay longer too. I really did.

I got on my tiptoes and gave him a big hug. “See you in five days,” I said.

“See you in five days,” he repeated.

I watched him drive off, my thumbs hooked in the belt loops of my cutoffs. When I couldn’t see his car anymore, I headed back inside the house.

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That first week in Cousins, I steered clear of Conrad. I couldn’t deal with one more person telling me that I was making a mistake, especially judgy Conrad. He didn’t even have to say it with words; he could judge with his eyes. So I got up earlier than him and ate meals before he did. And when he watched TV in the living room, I stayed upstairs in my room addressing invitations and looking at wedding blogs that Taylor had bookmarked for me.

I doubt he even noticed. He was pretty busy too.

He surfed, he hung out with friends, he worked on the house. I’d never have known he was handy if I didn’t see it with my own two eyes—Conrad on a ladder checking the air-conditioning vents, Conrad repainting the mailbox. I saw it all from my bedroom window.

I was eating a strawberry Pop-Tart on the deck when he came jogging up the steps. He’d been out all morning.

His hair was sweaty, and he was wearing an old T-shirt from his high school football days and a pair of navy gym shorts.

“Hey,” I said. “Where are you coming from?

“The gym,” Conrad said, walking past me. Then he stopped short. “Is that what you’re eating for breakfast?”

I was munching around the edge of the Pop-Tart.

“Yeah, but it’s my last one. Sorry.”

He ignored me. “I left cereal out on the counter.

There’s fruit in the fruit bowl too.”

I shrugged. “I thought it was yours. I didn’t want to eat your stuff without asking.”

Impatiently, he said, “Then why didn’t you ask?”

I was taken aback. “How could I ask when I’ve barely even seen you?”

We scowled at each other for about three seconds before I saw a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Fair enough,” he said, and his trace of a smile was already gone. He started to slide the glass door open, and then he turned and said, “Whatever I buy, you can eat.”

“Same here,” I said.

That almost-smile again. “You can keep your Pop-Tarts and your Funyuns and your Kraft mac and cheese all to yourself.”

“Hey, I eat other stuff besides just junk,” I protested.

“Sure you do,” he said, and he went inside.

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The next morning, the cereal box was out on the counter again. This time, I helped myself to his cereal and to his skim milk, and I even cut up a banana to put on top. It wasn’t half bad.

Conrad was turning out to be a pretty good house-mate. He always put the seat back down on the toilet, he did his dishes right away, he even bought more paper towels when we ran out. I wouldn’t have expected any less, though. Conrad had always been neat. He was the exact opposite of Jeremiah in that way. Jeremiah never changed the roll of toilet paper. It would never occur to him to buy paper towels or to soak a greasy pan in hot water and dishwashing soap.

I went to the grocery store later that day and bought stuff for dinner. Spaghetti and sauce and lettuce and tomato for a salad. I cooked it around seven, thinking, ha!

This will show him how healthily I can eat. I ended up overcooking the pasta and not rinsing the lettuce thor-oughly enough, but it still tasted fine.

Conrad didn’t come home, though, so I ate it alone in front of the TV. I did put some leftovers on a plate for him, though, and I left it on the counter when I went up to bed.

The next morning, it was gone and the dish was washed.

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The next time we spoke to each other, it was the middle of the day and I was sitting at the kitchen table with my wedding binder. Now that we had our guest list, the next thing I needed to do was mail off our invitations. It almost seemed silly to bother with invitations when we had so few guests, but a mass e-mail didn’t feel quite right either.

I got the invitations from David’s Bridal. They were white with light turquoise shells, and all I had to do was run them through the printer. And poof, wedding invitations.

Conrad opened the sliding door and stepped into the kitchen. His gray T-shirt was soaked in sweat, so I guessed he’d gone for a run. “Good run?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he said, looking surprised. He looked at my stack of envelopes and asked, “Wedding invitations?”

“Yup. I just need to go get stamps.”

Pouring himself a glass of water, he said, “I need to go into town and get a new drill at the hardware store. The post office is on the way. I can get your stamps.”

It was my turn to look surprised. “Thanks,” I said, “but I want to go and see what kind of love stamps they have.”

He downed his water.

“Do you know what a love stamp is?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “It’s a stamp that says ‘love’ on it. People use them for weddings. I only know because Taylor told me I had to get them.”

Conrad half smiled and said, “We can take my car if you want. Save you a trip.”

“Sure,” I said.

“I’m gonna take a quick shower. Give me ten minutes,” he said, and ran up the stairs.

Conrad was back downstairs in ten minutes, just like he said. He grabbed his keys off the counter, I slid my invitations into my purse, and then we headed out to the driveway.

“We can take my car,” I offered.

“I don’t mind,” he said.

It felt sort of funny sitting in the passenger seat of Conrad’s car again. His car was clean; it still smelled the same.

“I can’t remember the last time I was in your car,” I said, turning on the radio.

Without missing a beat, he said, “Your prom.”

Oh, God.

Prom. The site of our breakup—us fighting in the we’ll always have summer · 155

parking lot in the rain. It was embarrassing to think of it now. How I had cried, how I had begged him not to go.

Not one of my finest moments.

There was an awkward silence between us, and I had a feeling we were both remembering the same thing.

To fill the silence I said brightly, “Gosh, that was, like, a million years ago, huh?”

This time he didn’t reply.

Conrad dropped me off in front of the post office and said he’d be back to pick me up in a few minutes. I hopped out of the car and ran inside.

The line moved quickly, and when it was my turn, I said, “Can I see your love stamp, please?”

The woman behind the counter rifled through her drawer and slid a sheet of stamps over to me. They had wedding bells on them and love was inscribed on a ribbon tying the bells together.

I set my stack of invitations on the counter and counted them quickly. “I’ll take a sheet,” I said.

Eyeing me, she asked, “Are those wedding invitations?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you want to hand cancel them?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you want to hand cancel them?” she repeated, and this time she sounded annoyed.

I panicked. What did “hand cancel” mean? I wanted to text Taylor and ask, but there was a line growing 156 · jenny han

behind me, so I said hastily, “No, thank you.”

After I paid for the stamps, I went outside, sat on the curb, and stamped all my invitations—one for my mother, too.

Just in case. She could still change her mind. There was still a chance. Conrad drove up as I was pushing them through the mail slot outside. This was really happening. I was really getting married. No turning back now, not that I wanted to.

Climbing into the car, I asked, “Did you get your new drill?”

“Yep,” he said. “Did you find your love stamps?”

“Yep,” I said. “Hey, what does it mean to hand cancel mail?”

“Canceling is when the post office marks the stamp so it can’t be used again. I guess hand canceling would be doing it by hand instead of machine.”

“How did you know that?” I asked, impressed.

“I used to collect stamps.”

That was right. He had collected stamps. I’d forgotten.

He kept them in a photo album his dad gave him.

“I totally forgot about that. Holy crap, you were so serious about your stamps. You wouldn’t even let us touch your book without permission. Remember how Jeremiah stole one and used it to send a postcard and you were so mad you cried?”

“Hey, that was my Abraham Lincoln stamp that my grandpa gave me,” Conrad said defensively. “That was a rare stamp.”

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I laughed, and then he did too. It was a nice sound.

When was the last time we’d laughed like this?

Shaking his head, he said, “I was such a little geek.”

“No, you weren’t!”

Conrad threw me a look. “Stamp collecting. Chemistry set. Encyclopedia obsession.”

“Yeah, but you made all of that seem cool,” I said. In my memory Conrad was no geek. He was older, smarter, interested in grownup things.

“You were gullible,” he said. And then, “When you were really little, you hated carrots. You wouldn’t eat them. But then I told you that if you ate carrots, you’d get X-ray vision. And you believed me. You used to believe everything I said.”

I did. I really did.

I believed him when he said that carrots could give me X-ray vision. I believed him when he told me that he’d never cared about me. And then, later that night, when he tried to take it back, I guess I believed him again. Now I didn’t know what to believe. I just knew I didn’t believe in him anymore.

I changed the subject. Abruptly, I asked, “Are you going to stay in California after you graduate?”

“It depends on med school,” he said.

“Are you … do you have a girlfriend?”

I saw him start. I saw him hesitate.

“No,” he said.

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Her name was Agnes. A lot of people called her Aggie, but I stuck with Agnes. She was in my chem class. On any other girl, a name like Agnes wouldn’t have worked. It was an old-lady name. Agnes had short dirty-blond hair, it was wavy, and she had it cut at her chin. Sometimes she wore glasses, and her skin was as pale as milk. When we were waiting for the lab to open up one day, she asked me out. I was so surprised, I said yes.

We started hanging out a lot. I liked being around her. She was smart, and her hair carried the smell of her shampoo not just fresh out of the shower but for a whole day. We spent most of our time together studying. Sometimes we’d go get pancakes or burgers after, sometimes we’d hook up in her room during a study break when her roommate wasn’t around. But it was all centered around both of us being premed. It wasn’t like I spent the night in her room or invited her to stay over in mine. I didn’t hang out with her and her friends or meet her parents, even though they lived nearby.

One day we were studying in the library. The semester was almost over. We’d been dating two, almost three, months.

Out of nowhere, she asked me, “Have you ever been in love?”

Not only was Agnes good at o chem, she was really good at catching me off guard. I looked around to see if anyone was listening. “Have you?”

“I asked you first,” she said.

“Then yes.”

“How many times?”

“Once.”

Agnes absorbed my answer as she chewed on her pencil. “On a scale of one to ten, how in love were you?”