Page 6 of Summer After Summer

“Ouch.”

“That wasn’t hard.”

“I wrenched my shoulder when I was playing this morning.”

“You should give that up.”

“The ticket to my future? No way.” Ashley doesn’t understand my passion for tennis, or why I work so hard at it. But she still has a trust fund, so I don’t blame her.

“Maybe you’re about to meet your future right now.”

“On Cooper’s Beach? I doubt it.”

“Come on, quick. Before Becky gets to him.”

She points to where Becky Johnson, a girl Ashley refers to as—no joke—her nemesis, is talking to the new guy and flipping her butter-yellow hair over her shoulder. She’s wearing a small bikini top and cut-off jean shorts.

Ash hustles me over the hard white sand, past multiple families with bickering children and babies in sagging diapers.

“Excuse me,” Ash says with a voice that’s strikingly like her mother’s. “We’d like to rent an umbrella.”

New Guy stands a little taller at the tone and picks up a clipboard while Becky shoots daggers at us. “Name?”

“It’s for my friend here.” Ashley nudges me forward.

Our eyes connect, mine and New Guy’s, and it’s not like in the books. There’s no jolt of attraction or thunderbolt or anything, but there is a warm feeling in my chest because this boy is very cute. His eyes are a deep blue—like the ocean after a storm, I can’t help but think, even though I feel silly, and he has a small trickle of freckles across his straight nose. He’s tall enough that I feel small next to him, which doesn’t happen often when you’re five eight and the boys haven’t finished growing yet. His name tag says “Fred.”

“Name?”

“Olivia Taylor.”

He writes it down with a black gel pen. “You want a lounger too?” He says the word in a way I haven’t heard before, the un sound elongated.

“Where are you from?”

“Boston. Here for the summer. You?”

“From here.”

“You’re the first person I’ve met from here.” He smiles at me, and maybe there is a jolt of something. Whether it’s Ashley’s elbow in my back or the annoyed stare I’m getting from Becky, I’m not sure. It could be Fred, though, which is … I don’t know what this is.

“We do exist.”

“Ha. Yes. I know. My aunt and uncle live here.”

“Where?”

He mentions a house and a street name, and I know exactly which one he’s talking about. An older couple without any children bought it during the winter, and for a week it was the talk of the town. The talk of my father anyway, who’s always extremely interested in the pedigree of anyone new who moves to Southampton.

“So, did you want the lounger?” Fred says, showing his accent again.

“Do we, Ash?”

“It’s ten dollars more.”

I blush at the mention of money. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that we’d have to pay, which is stupid. At the club, everything is paid for by chits that get collated once a month and mailed out to our parents. Or that’s how it works for Ash. I teach clinics three times a week to the younger kids, to work off what I spend on Diet Coke and burgers.

I can’t say any of this to Fred, so I pat myself down like I’ve seen my father do too many times when he’s “forgotten” his wallet at his favorite restaurant. When William does this, the maître d’ makes cooing noises and says he’ll add it to his tab, but that’s not going to work here.

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