Page 1 of The End of Summer

PROLOGUE

Itook dance once. Don’t let this little nugget of information fool you, though. To clarify, I was like six years old. It was on Saturday mornings. My mom was teaching a painting class at Cape Cod Community College – one of those enrichment-type workshops that mostly appeal to retired folks looking to take up a new skill. My dad worked odd hours back then, steadfast in his resolve to climb the ranks in the Eastport Police Department, so on Saturdays Mom and I were a dynamic duo. We’d grab donuts from Hole In One and eat them as we drove the 25 miles down Route 6 to Hyannis, thankful that we didn’t have to contend with the kind of traffic that plagues the Cape’s only highway during tourist season. As powdered sugar left white streaks on my black dance tights, we’d chat about the changing leaves, the Brussels Sprout Festival in November, and the stuff I was learning in my big-girl-first-grade-class. Then she’d drop me off in the makeshift dance studio (a converted classroom with a portable sprung floor) so that she could teach the art of mixing watercolors to a roomful of grown-ups in an adjacent hallway.

Our group was called the Twinkle Toes. There were a dozen of us: eleven girls and one boy, all led by a nice,youngish teacher whose name I forget. Maybe I’ve blocked it out subconsciously. I guess that would make sense, given that the one thing Idorecall was not exactly my finest moment.

It was close to Halloween, and the Twinkle Toes had been informed that we could wear costumes to class to celebrate the holiday. I proudly donned a homemade unicorn costume which consisted of a bulky, thick pair of furry white footsie pajamas with a hood that my mom lovingly decorated with rainbow ribbons. She affixed a pointy cardboard cone to the top, hand painted and dipped in glitter by yours truly. Unfortunately, my feet didn’t fit into my dance shoes on account of the footsie part of the getup, so my teacher let me dance without shoes for the day.

Big mistake.

I was paired up with the boy. At the time, I didn’t know his name, because the teacher always referred to him as “Big Guy.” He was agreatdancer. He came dressed up as a cowboy. Flannel shirt, ten gallon hat, Levi’s jeans – he even had boots with little spurs on them. We were rehearsing a fairly simple two-step move, but facing each other it was tricky for me to reconcile right from left. The move wentright-left-right-STOMPto the bass line of Christina Milian’s “Dip it Low.” It’s a great song. To this day, I still love it, despite what happened next.

I was feeling it, I guess. I had my eyes closed, but only for a few seconds, because the STOMP happened just before the start of the chorus – my favorite part of the song. And that was the exact moment that the crushing weight of a cowboyboot forcefully smashed my directionally-challenged, shoeless toes beneath it.

“Ow!” I cried out and collapsed to the ground, tears instantly pricking at my eyes. The boy crouched down beside me. “Oh, my gosh!” he cried with a panicked expression. “Did I step on you?”

I couldn’t answer. I could only sob.

The teacher rushed over. “What happened?” she asked. “Are you okay? Point to where it hurts.”

My wailing intensified. The searing pain made me acutely aware of my pulse pounding in my foot. She wanted to see the damage but I guess she realized there was no getting me out of the costume, essentially a full-length zippered onesie, beneath which I was wearing only my underwear. She asked me if I could stand. When I shook my head no, she tried to locate the source of my agony through my PJs, only to be met with feral howling when she came near my toes. “Everyone stay put; I’ll be right back,” she commanded. Her voice was more serious than our six year-old selves were used to. As she ran down the hall to get my mom, I curled up in the fetal position howling to the soundtrack of Christina Milian, who unironically urged listeners to “pop that thing.”

Beside me, the boy pulled in his legs to sit criss-cross-applesauce and, visibly shook in his own right, took my tear-streaked free hand in his own. He ran his thumb back and forth along the edge of mine, in much the way my mother would have done. I was so stunned by the action that I stopped crying, surprised by the comfort I felt from his simple gesture.

“Don’t worry. You’ll be okay,” he hushed me, as tears formed on his lashes.

It was like the calm moment in the eye of a storm.

Next thing I knew, all hell broke loose as my mom and the dance teacher burst through the door with a random man wearing a painting smock. The man lifted me gently off the floor and carried me to the car while my mother jogged alongside us. Mom drove me straight to the emergency room at Cape Cod Hospital. Diagnosis? Three broken piggies: the one that had roast beef, the one that had none, and the one that criedwee, wee, weeall the way home. I got a neon pink cast and a hospital-issued little-kid wheelchair, since I was too young for crutches.

And that was the end of my dance career.

Or, in hindsight, I guess you could say it was the beginning.

CHAPTER ONE

GRETCHEN

“So, what exactly happened? Just run me through it so I can jot down some notes.”

I sigh. “Well, I suppose it started with the tray of appetizers I dropped in David Krumholtz’s lap.”

The note-taker – Brenda Dinghy, Employment Specialist, according to the nameplate on the desk – chokes on her cherry Fanta. Coughing into her elbow, she grabs the bottle of fluorescent red soda and I can’t help but notice the way it matches my current hair color as she takes a sip. She clears her throat. “I’m sorry, Gretchen. Did you say David Krumholtz? As in the actor?”

I nod. “Yep. He was in private dining.”

“You won’t believe this. Imethim once,” Brenda whispers. She wipes her brow with the back of her bare wrist, as if the coughing has suddenly catapulted her into a hot flash. “I had a massive crush on him when I was a kid.”

“Oh?” The question escapes my lips unintentionally. This is not the reaction I was expecting.

“Yes,” she seethes. “Did you ever seeThe Santa Clause? With Tim Allen? David Krumholtz played Bernard and it was the hottest reimagining of an elf I had ever seen to that point.”

To that point?I struggle not to laugh. “So, how’d you meet him?” I ask, indulging her.

“Well.” She straightens up in her chair. “It wasn’t until later. I was in college at UCLA, and when I found outThe Santa Clause 2was coming out, I stood outside the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on the day of the premiere. I nearly died when I saw him. Of course, he was more of a man by then and less of an elf.”

“Right.” I nod, choking back a giggle. “Of course.”

“Anyway. I screamed his name, and he was kind enough to come over and say hi.”

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