Page 22 of Same Time Next Summer

“So, you helped bring the music festival to town?” I am trying for something in the category “Things a Friend Might Say.”

“Yes,” Wyatt says. “I know some of the people who recruit the bands.”

“Are you going to go? I heard you play this morning, you sounded good.” I am so awkward saying this, as if paying Wyatt a compliment is going to make me go up in flames.

Travis gets up from his lounge chair. “I’m going to need a beer for this.” He walks into the house.

“Thanks.” Wyatt smiles.

“So will you go?” I ask.

“Yeah, I’ll stop by a few of the events. To see how it all turned out.”

“This is how it happens,” Jack says. “Connections. Good for you.”

Travis is back with beers for just Wyatt and him. I ask, “So why did they decide to move the festival here?” Easy words, neutral conversation. I can totally do this.

“They didn’t really want to try anything new, but I pitched it to them anyway. The quaint small town, easy access from the city. Newport is hard to get to and expensive.” Wyatt sits down in a chair opposite us and his towel falls from his shoulders. Jack and I both stare nervously at those shoulders and Jack tosses him a bottle of sunscreen. Wyattgrabs his T-shirt instead and pulls it over his head. It’s his old Chicago Cubs T-shirt, which has now been washed within an inch of its life. It is paper-thin with a small rip along the neck where his left collarbone is exposed. He might as well be sitting there completely naked. I blink the image away.

Wyatt goes on. “I think what sold them was the fact that Skip Warren got married here. At the Old Sloop Inn actually. The guy in charge is a huge tennis fan, so that sort of legitimized the place.”

Jack leans forward in his chaise. “Skip Warren got married here?” And to me, “Did you know this?”

“I guess. We were kids, I think,” I say.

“You were fifteen,” Wyatt says, and smiles at me the tiniest bit.

“I can’t believe I didn’t know that. I mean, Skip Warren. He’s the whole reason I started playing tennis.” I don’t really have it in me to debunk this statement, but the whole reason Jack started playing tennis is that his whole family has played tennis since they were able to walk.

Travis raises his beer to Jack. “Well here’s to the Old Sloop Inn.”

26

“Absolutely not.” I can’t remember when I’ve been so emphatic with Jack. We’re in the garage apartment, which was my idea because I absolutely need to have sex with him to get my head back on straight. I need a fresh, successful sexual experience to wash the image of Wyatt in that T-shirt from my mind. Jack’s ruined the moment by telling me his parents want to visit tomorrow.

“Why not? They think it sounds like a nice place for the wedding, and they love the whole Skip Warren thing.”

“Skip Warren? Are there real people who care about Skip Warren?” I’m sitting on the nicely made bed while Jack carefully unbuttons his shirt like this is actually going to happen.

He stops halfway down. “I am one of those people. Plus my parents make three. Look, let them come for the day. We’ll see them for a walk around and dinner, that’s it.”

It’s too much. I put my head in my hands and try to think of something to say that will make Jack know how I feel. “It’s too much.”

“Wherever we get married, we’re going to have all of our family together. This is a mini version of it. And if they like it, maybe we will get married out here. Maybe everyone will be happy.”

Jack’s mom, Donna, is an office manager. She’s precise like Jack, and I have to guess that the books where she works are balanced and dust free. I love precise people; I’m marrying one, after all. I like the way she sends me a birthday card that arrives exactly the day before my birthday each year. I bet she renews her driver’s license online before it expires. Like Jack, she has a standing hair appointment to keep the edges razor sharp. People like this don’t blow up their families. People like this have long-term-care insurance and living wills.

My parents have met Jack’s twice in four years. Both times we met for dinner in the city, neutral territory. Jack’s dad, Glen, won my dad over with questions about aNew York Timesarticle he’d read aboutCurrent. Donna won my mom over by saying that I’m the daughter she’s always dreamed of. They are truly lovely people.

“Okay, fine,” I say.

“Good,” Jack says, pulling down the covers for me. “Because they’ll be here in the morning.”

I’m thrown by this, both the fact that they’re coming and the fact that it was a done deal before I even knew about it. I’m thrown by the prospect of Donna walking into my mother’s kitchen. But I look up at Jack, who is opening himself up to Oak Shore and my family, and I start to undress.

27

So much for leaving on Wednesday. Jack’s parents are arriving at noon, and I think I hear Jack tell my dad that we’re staying through the weekend. This can’t be right. Jack leaves for a morning at the gym, and Gracie challenges me to swim all the way down to the cove. We walk down to the water, and worries chase each other around in my head—the state of my job, what Jack’s parents are going to think of Mom’s driftwood collection, the possibility of running into Wyatt again when I’m half-dressed. The cold water tickles my feet and soon I am swimming alongside Gracie. The knots start to untangle. As I get into a rhythm and my stroke clicks in, I see things from a different perspective. I recognize it as the braver, lighter perspective of a younger me. I think about my job and how much I’ve learned there. If I’m fired, I have the skills to find another one. Maybe even one where there’s room for new ideas. I picture my mother making paper and think how impressed Donna might be by that. How many people know how to make paper? My what-ifs have lost their heaviness.

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