Page 4 of Summer After Summer

“I’m not the program director.”

“But you are.”

“Why don’t you take a tennis lesson?”

“One tennis freak in my entourage is enough.”

“I’m not a freak.”

“Uh-huh. That’s why you have a list of tournaments you want to win and the ages you want to win them at?”

“It’s bad to have goals?”

“It’s weird to basically already have a job when you’re not even sixteen.”

“But this is when I lay the foundation, I …” I glare at her. “You’re trying to push my buttons.”

“It’s so easy to do it!”

“Fine, fine. No tennis for Ash. Got it.” I think about it for a minute. “You could swim?”

Ashley puts her hand in front of her mouth and pats it in an exaggerated way. Her chunky highlighted hair flows to her narrow shoulders in beachy waves.

“I’m out of ideas,” I say, and scrunch down on my pool chair. My own hair is sun-bleached and pulled back in a high ponytail, still wet and smelling faintly of salt from my workout.

Unlike Ashley, I’m perfectly happy to sit around and do nothing in the hours I have to myself, which aren’t many. Every day is the same—three hours of tennis in the morning, starting at the crack of dawn, then an hour in the gym. Late afternoon is for piano lessons, which I want to give up. But it was my mom’s favorite thing, and since she died last year, it’s the only way I feel connected to her.

In between, I hang with Ashley at the club. It has ten fenced-off lawn tennis courts, a saltwater pool, and an old clubhouse with a gabled roof, weather-beaten cedar shingles, and a long wrap-around porch. It’s stuffy and exclusive, all the things my father loves and I kind of hate. But it’s where my tennis coach is in the summer, and my scholarship is attached to him.

“What about your birthday?” Ashley says.

“What about it?”

“Sweet sixteen and never been kissed.”

“I have too.”

“Spin the bottle doesn’t count.”

I turn over onto my stomach so she doesn’t see me blush. My sixteenth birthday is a week away, and I haven’t had a real kiss. I’m obviously pathetic. “Who has time for boys?”

“Uh, everyone.”

“The boys here are all dumb.”

“But are they cute? That’s all that matters for kissing.”

I rest my chin on my hands. I can hear my Aunt Tracy telling me to put sunscreen on my back, but I ignore her voice in my head. I love her, but when she tries too hard to mother me, it’s more than I can take. “Hmmm. Well, let’s put it on the list then.”

“Top ten goals for summer?”

“That’s the one.”

“Perfect.” Ashley reaches into her pastel beach bag and pulls out her bright pink day planner. She flips to a page that she’s marked with a Post-it: Ash and Olivia’s Top Ten Summer Goals. The words are surrounded by stars and fireworks, and she’s left slots one to three open. Number ten is Perfect tan. She puts Olivia gets kissed at number two.

“What are you saving number one for? Sex or car?”

Ashley’s been going back and forth on which one she wants more since yesterday. Even though it doesn’t make sense for a sixteen-year-old in Manhattan to have a car, she wants a BMW 3 series for the “status.” I’d poked a finger in my mouth and pretended to hurl when she said that, and she left the space blank.

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