The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls

  Gram pulls off her glasses and cleans them on her white linen pants. “I don’t know. I don’t trust her, Des.”

  “Then trust me,” Des says. “Please, Gram. This is important to me.”

  Gram puts her glasses back on and looks at Des for a long minute. “All right. And if you can get one of your sisters to work for you, you can have Thursday and Friday off. But they have their own responsibilities, honey. They might not be able to accommodate you last minute like this.”

  Des wants to remind Gram of all the times that Kat or Bea have flaked on their hours at Arden because they had rehearsal, or had too much homework, or had to work late at the paper, or wanted to see Erik’s tennis match. Des always covers for them. Always. Did they get lectures from Gram too? Why is Des’s time less valuable?

  She doesn’t say any of that. Not now. The timing isn’t right. Instead, she nods. “Thank you, Gram. I’ll work it out with Vi. You won’t regret this. I promise.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  BEA

  On Wednesday night, Bea’s team gathers at Sierra’s house. They always work on the raft in Sierra’s backyard; her dad has all the tools they need and a shed big enough to store the raft. Their design is pretty simple this year: logs tied together with rope and a plywood platform on top. Their theme is Star Wars, so they’re building BB-8 and R2-D2 to accompany them. They’ll all be dressed as Star Wars characters: Sierra as Rose, Drew and Faith as Han and Leia, Erik as Poe, Bea as Rey, and Chloe in a C-3PO dress with gold body paint. Erik had wanted him and Bea to be Han and Leia, but Bea had pointed out that her hair isn’t long enough for Leia’s iconic buns.

  Really, she doesn’t want to dress as a couple. It feels too much like a lie.

  Sierra, who knows her way around power tools like a boss, is working with the boys to assemble the raft. Faith and Chloe are attaching Styrofoam legs to a trashcan R2-D2 they’ve already painted silver and white. Yesterday Bea spray-painted an exercise ball white and attached a half sphere of Styrofoam as BB-8’s head. Now she’s trying to paint the droid’s distinctive orange and silver markings.

  She glances at the pictures she printed. She isn’t great at painting, and she doesn’t like doing things she isn’t good at. It’s her team’s fourth and probably final race. When they were freshmen, their Jurassic Park raft was a stylish disaster. It sank halfway through the race because they hadn’t properly accounted for the weight of their dinosaur props, but it won the Kitchen Sink Award for Most Impressive Failure. Sophomore year, they did a Captain America theme and won the Junior Cup for best raft with a crew mostly sixteen and under. Last year, their theme was Guardians of the Galaxy. Chloe dressed up as Gamora with green body paint, and they carried a stuffed raccoon and a Baby Groot. They blasted the soundtrack using Sierra’s waterproof speakers. And they won the coveted Tea Cup, the Best of Show. Bea is determined to win again this year. She can’t screw this up too. She dips her paintbrush in the orange paint can.

  A gray pickup rattles by in the crumbling brick alley behind Sierra’s backyard. Bea glances up and freezes, her heart plummeting to somewhere around her bare feet.

  It’s Gabe. He sees her, stops the truck, and leans out the window. “Hey!”

  Oh no. Oh shit.

  Bea dashes to the truck, trampling through Mrs. Alvarez’s pink and white impatiens. She still has the paintbrush in her hand; it’s dripping orange paint onto her bare knee.

  “Hi, Gabe!” She glances over her shoulder. Everyone is watching. Erik is watching.

  “Hey. What are you doing?” Gabe grins at her, pushing his sunglasses to the top of his head. “Is that going to be BB-8?”

  “Uh-huh. Yeah. The other one’s going to be R2-D2. It’s for the raft race on Sunday. Our theme is Star Wars. Obviously,” Bea explains.

  She’s been down at the marina, hanging out with Gabe, almost every night for the past week. There have been more kisses—a lot of kisses—but she’s stopped before things went further.

  It’s not just about kissing either. At least she doesn’t think so. They’ve talked about their families. Their lives. How he’s in his third year at Vanderbilt, studying musical arts and teacher education. How much he loves Nashville. Bea told him how her parents died. About her internship at the Gazette and how she wants to be a journalist. But she hasn’t told him about her team for the raft race. She hasn’t told him anything that involves Erik. She has left out huge, gaping swaths of her life.

  “What are you doing here?” It comes out sort of accusatory.

  “I was at Memaw’s place.” Of course. Miss Amelia’s backyard backs up to the alley too. “Uncle Matt and I took out the carpet in the living and dining rooms, and there was this gorgeous old hardwood underneath. You should come by and see it sometime.”

  Bea bites at her fingernail. “I’d like that.” She looks back at the others. Chloe and Faith have abandoned all pretense of attaching R2-D2’s second leg to stare at her and Gabe. Sierra is focused as always, attaching the plywood while Drew holds it steady. Erik’s hands are on the raft, but his eyes are on Bea.

  “This is cool. You didn’t tell me you were doing this.” The way he smiles at Bea makes her melt, but right now, she needs him to quit it. It’s not a just-friends smile. “You guys need any help? I’m pretty good with this stuff.”

  “No. We’re good. I mean, thank you.” Bea blushes. “This is kind of—our thing. Our team. This is our fourth year. We won last year, actually. Our theme was Guardians of the Galaxy.” She can’t stop talking. “I should probably get back to—”

  “Hey, Bea. What’s up?” Erik is suddenly next to her. Jesus, this is bad. This is so bad. She shifts away from him.

  “Hey, Erik. This, um. This is Gabe. You remember Miss Amelia? This is her grandson. He’s in town fixing up her old house. Gabe, I should get back to painting the—”

  “Hey. I’m Erik.” Erik reaches out to shake Gabe’s hand and slips his other arm around Bea’s waist. What is he, a fucking octopus? “I’m Bea’s boyfriend. Nice to meet you.”

  Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit.

  Bea wants to sink through the ground and disappear. She stares at Gabe, trying to apologize without words.

  “Oh.” Gabe looks—surprised. He shakes Erik’s hand quickly. “Hey.”

  He could say so many snarky, awful things right now. But he doesn’t.

  Unlike Bea, he is a good person.

  “I’ll let y’all get back to painting,” he says, sliding his sunglasses down over his eyes. Bea can’t tell what he’s thinking. Is he mad at her? He must be mad at her.

  She shrugs away from Erik, but he keeps his hand on the small of her back, possessive. He’s making it clear that she belongs to him. He might as well pee on her.

  Normally, this would infuriate her. Jealousy is stupid. If you can’t trust the person you’re with, why are you with them? Back in May, Kat got her heart broken by her first serious boyfriend. They could all see it coming a mile away. Bea tried to warn her that if she didn’t trust Adam, if she had to snoop through his phone, if she was that jealous when he was around other girls, maybe her gut was telling her something important.

  Right now, maybe Erik’s gut is telling him something important.

  Bea never, ever thought she would be this person.

  “Bye,” she says faintly after Gabe’s already driven off. She starts to walk back to BB-8.

  “How do you two know each other?” Erik asks.

  “We met at the Daily Grind,” Bea says. “I ran into him. Literally. Spilled coffee all over him.”

  “I think he likes you,” Erik says. He knows. He is not the irrationally jealous type.

  “What? No!” But her voice doesn’t sound believable even to her own ears.

  She can’t keep doing this. She’s lying. Not only by omission, but straight out lying to his face now. Yeah, Gabe likes her. And she likes h
im.

  How did she become this person—someone who is cheating on her boyfriend of five years because she’s too much of a coward to break up with him?

  But how can she break up with him before Sunday? She looks over at their friends. This is their last Tea Party. Chloe’s going to Penn, Sierra’s going to Villanova, Drew and Faith are going to Carnegie Mellon. Erik will be at Georgetown. Bea will be…

  Where? She doesn’t have a plan. She still doesn’t have a plan.

  Chloe must see her panicking. “Hey! Get back to work, you two! It’s going to get dark in an hour, and we still have a lot to do.”

  Bea kneels and dips her paintbrush back into the orange paint. Erik hesitates and then goes back to the raft.

  After she tells him the truth, he won’t want to see her. He won’t want to stay friends. He won’t want Bea on his team for anything, ever again.

  She’ll tell him after the race.

  • • •

  Sierra and the boys finish assembling the raft, and Faith starts painting the assembled R2-D2. Chloe takes pity on Bea and helps her with BB-8. When it gets dark, they haul everything into Sierra’s shed. Their life jackets and paddles from previous years are piled in a corner. Seeing them makes Bea’s chest ache.

  Once her friends find out, they won’t want her on their team anymore either. Drew and Faith have always been closer to Erik. Sierra will follow Faith’s lead because they’re best friends. Maybe Chloe will still be her friend. But Bea has no illusions that she’s anything besides the villain in this breakup story.

  She can’t stop thinking about the surprise that flitted across Gabe’s face.

  She owes him the truth too. Maybe he won’t want anything to do with her now. She wouldn’t blame him for that. She’s a damn mess. But she has to at least try to explain.

  Erik offers her a ride home, but she tells him she wants to walk. It’s a nice night. She and Chloe walk downtown together. When they part to go their separate ways, Chloe hesitates, flipping her dark braid over her shoulder.

  “Is there something going on with you and that guy?” she asks. “The one in the truck?”

  “No. What? No.” Bea is not a very good liar.

  Chloe rolls her eyes. “Bea. Come on. Breaking up with Erik, Georgetown—is this all about some other guy?”

  “No. I felt this way before Gabe. I just—I’m surer now.”

  “But not sure enough to break up with Erik?” Chloe asks. “I’m sorry, but—”

  Bea winces. “No, I deserve that. I’m going to break up with him on Sunday. After the race. After we win.”

  Chloe nods. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  Bea hesitates at the next corner. Turning right will lead her home. Going straight will take her down to the marina. She should go home. She shouldn’t see Gabe again until she’s broken up with Erik. It’s not fair to anybody.

  She goes to the marina anyway. The lantern is on inside the Stella Anne. If Gabe were really mad, he would have gone out, right? He had to know she’d come by. She steps onto the deck of the houseboat, hope buzzing along her skin.

  He meets her in the doorway, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans. He smells spicy, shower gel or cologne or something, and his hair is down around his shoulders, still wet. She’s never seen it down before. It hits her suddenly, how much she still doesn’t know about him. How much she wants to know.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he says.

  “I want to be here. I want to explain.”

  “Explain what? That you have a boyfriend?” Gabe shakes his head. “I got that.”

  “Can we go inside and talk? Please? I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Her voice breaks, and she blinks back tears. She won’t cry. She won’t use tears to make him feel sorry for her. That’s not fair.

  “Sorry that you were lying to me this whole time? Or sorry I found out?” His Tennessee twang gets more pronounced when he’s mad. “Nah. I’m done hiding. We can talk about this right here, out in the open.”

  “I’m sorry that I lied. Although—we never said we were exclusive. We never said what this was.” Bea knows that’s a weak argument. “You could be seeing someone else.” She imagines Savannah kissing him, and she wants to punch things.

  “I’m not, and you know it,” Gabe says. “I don’t operate like that. You’re right. We didn’t talk about it. Hell, I knew there was stuff you weren’t telling me. But I thought it was about Georgetown, not that there was somebody else.” He sighs. “I like you, Bea. I like you a lot. But I’m not going to be the guy you cheat with.”

  “I like you a lot too,” she says. He raises his eyebrows. “I do! This is just—it’s complicated, okay? Erik and I have been together since we were thirteen. We’re supposed to go to Georgetown together. That’s—it’s not what I want. It hasn’t been since before I met you. I know I haven’t been honest with you. But being here, with you—it’s the only time I don’t feel like I’m falling apart. I am such a damn mess right now. I don’t know how you can like me. I don’t like myself very much, honestly.”

  He rubs a hand over his stubbly chin. His shoulders relax a little. “You’re not so bad.”

  She looks at him, hopeful, and takes a step forward. “You think?”

  “Yeah.” He reaches out and then seems to rethink it. He takes a step back. Away from her. “But I can’t do this. Not till you figure out what you want.”

  “I want you.” Her answer is immediate, unhesitating. It feels like the only solid ground beneath her feet. “Erik and I had this whole plan; we had our future all mapped out. It wasn’t mine or his; it was ours. And I don’t want that future anymore, but I don’t have a new plan yet, and it’s really scary. I thought I had everything figured out, and I was so damn smug about it. Now I look at next week, at next month, at August when I’m supposed to be leaving for Georgetown, and it’s all a big question mark. And I don’t do uncertainty well. That’s…kind of an understatement, actually.” Bea takes a deep breath. “But I’m going to break up with him. I am. After the race on Sunday. I can’t do it till after the race, okay?”

  Gabe is quiet. She can hear the water lapping against the dock, against the boat.

  “Okay,” he says finally.

  “Yeah?” What does that mean? Does that mean he forgives her?

  Gabe takes another step back. “We’ll talk about it more on Sunday.”

  And then he goes back inside, and he shuts the door in her face.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  KAT

  On Thursday night, Kat is the first one in the rehearsal room. It’s rare that she’s early for anything. She prefers to make an entrance. But she’s been trying to be more responsible lately, to show people that they can count on her, and that includes being on time.

  Also, she was hoping Mase would be early too, and they would have a chance to talk.

  Things have changed between them since Brandon’s text. Mase called out sick the next day. He tried it the day after that too. Kat was ninety-nine percent sure he was avoiding her, but she went to the Kims’ house with chicken noodle soup, saltine crackers, and ginger ale like some kind of pissed off Little Red Riding Hood hedging her bets. When Mase answered the door looking rumpled but perfectly healthy, she shoved the basket at him and told him to get his ass back to work because she needed him.

  Kat is worried that she needs him.

  She waited downstairs while he changed out of his boxers and wrinkled T-shirt into jeans and a less wrinkled T-shirt. While he did his eyeliner and made his hair swoopy. The fauxhawk is growing out into more of a pompadour, which Kat really digs.

  Mase came back to work with her Friday, but he’s been strictly hands off unless people are watching. No holding hands. No cuddling. No flirting even. When they’re at rehearsal or at work, they’re an adorable couple. They’ve taken dozens of carefully curated selfies w
ith the cats. But now that the café’s reopened and Miss Lydia is there during the day, they’re almost never alone. Mase bolts the minute that work or rehearsal is over.

  And he hasn’t kissed her once.

  Kat’s slumped in one of the ugly, high-backed armchairs in the rehearsal room when the door opens and Pen, Jillian, and Hannah—who plays the fourth March sister, Beth—come clamoring in. All three girls have wet hair, and Jillian’s carrying a Vera Bradley beach bag stuffed with magazines. As Kat watches, Jillian paws through it and grabs a water bottle.

  “Swimming always makes me so thirsty,” she says.

  Hannah pokes at her pink forearm. “I think I got sunburned.”

  “I told you to wear sunscr—” Pen stops when she sees Kat peering out from behind the chair. “Hey, Kat.”

  It hits Kat like a slap in the face: They all went swimming at Pen’s. Without her.

  “Hi.” Kat unfolds her long flamingo legs and stands up, ready for battle. How could Pen do this to her? She’s been Kat’s best friend since kindergarten. How could she betray her like this?

  “Let’s go get sodas from the machine,” Hannah suggests, grabbing Jillian’s arm and towing her away.

  Pen rushes to fill the silence. “It was cast bonding. We’re supposed to be sisters, right?”

  “Last time I checked, there are four sisters,” Kat snaps.

  Pen grabs the whiteboard eraser and starts clearing notes from the French class that meets there every Thursday afternoon. “I invited you over. You said you had to work.”

  “The grand reopening is in two days. And you didn’t tell me it was a cast-bonding thing! I’m busy, so you decide to hang out with Jillian? Of all the people in the entire world, you had to pick her? There are easier ways to tell me you’re mad at me, Pen.”

  “The entire world doesn’t revolve around you, Kat!” Pen is still furiously erasing French.

  “What. The. Hell.” Kat shakes her head. “What’s going on with you?”