Page 40 of Same Time Next Summer

I turn to fight my way out of the crowd and he doesn’t notice. A rock band has replaced Wyatt, and they are warming up. Young people with plastic cups of beer let me pass without taking their eyes off the stage.

44

I hate this ridiculous white dress. I sit down on a barrel outside the barn, and I’m sure I’m getting rust stains or worse on the back of it. If I disappeared right now onto the beach, I’d be like the apparition of the dead bride in some Victorian novel. I think of all the times in my life I’ve been a cliché. Tomboy little sister. Lovesick teenager. Reluctant twelve-stepper. Right now I’m the runaway bride.

I google him. Wyatt Pope. He has a Wikipedia page. This makes my head spin. People should tell you right away.How are you?Answer:I have a Wikipedia page.It says a lot. I scroll through. The words “Billboard Top 20.” So many times. On-again, off-again relationship with Missy McGee. For seven years. My Wyatt—and he is my freakin’ Wyatt—has been dating the biggest pop star since Madonna.

I am a teenager. Not the teenager I was, carefree and reasonably happy in my skin. I am a teenager from TV, feeling embarrassed and like I’m trying too hard. I’ve been trying to sneak my old boyfriend back into my life, like I can carry him down the aisle with me, tucked under mybouquet with my tissue. That person, as it turns out, is too famous to sneak anywhere.

I text my dad: Can you pick me up? I’m at the Owl Barn.

My dad pulls up just as Wyatt walks out of the barn. He stands there in his pink shirt, looking at me and then the car, like he’s trying to figure out his next move.

“You going home?” he asks.

I walk to the car and open the passenger door. Wyatt walks around to the driver’s side, where my dad’s leaning out his open window. “Need a ride, son?”

“Yes, thank you,” he says, and gets in the backseat.

My dad asks, “So how was it? Music any good?”

“I hope so,” says Wyatt.

“Yeah, it was good,” I say. “And you know what else? Wyatt’s a big star and he didn’t tell us because maybe we couldn’t handle it.”

“Of course I didn’t think that,” says Wyatt.

My dad turns to me. “Big star?”

“Oh yeah, Wyatt who wanders around strumming his old guitar and tinkering with engines, he’s a big secret success.” I turn around to the backseat. “You were never going to tell me you wrote that song? And that you’re dating fucking Missy McGee?”

He’s quiet.

“I had to google you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Ah, you googled me. Finally.” He sits back and crosses his arms in satisfaction.

“Who googles people?” I ask.

“She was kind of in a twelve-step program,” my dad says. “Googling would have been a no-no.”

“Dad.” He concentrates on the road. I look out the window.

“Really, Sam, how could you have ever heard that song and not known it was about you?” Wyatt asks.

I don’t answer. Because I don’t know how that’s possible. Now that I know, I can’t unknow it, like when you find the hidden tortoise in theHighlightsmagazine and then it jumps out at you every time.

Wyatt leans forward so that his head is right between us. “I figured you’d reach out to me when you heard it. Like maybe it would count as an apology.”

“Ever try returning a text? It’s more reliable than sending a secret message out over the radio.”

My dad laughs, then turns to Wyatt. “Sorry.” Eyes back on the road.

“What about ‘Summer’s End’?”

“About you. They’re all about you, Sam.”

“Well I’m glad to have provided you with material.”

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