Second Chance Summer

My parents had gone to bed as soon as we’d gotten back and my mother had collected Gelsey from next door. I’d noticed that, as they made their way up to their bedroom, my mother was now walking slightly behind my father, watching him carefully, like she was worried that he might fall backward. And as I noticed for the first time how slowly my dad was taking every step, how heavily he was leaning on the railing, it seemed like this might have actually been necessary.

I’d gotten ready for bed, but felt far too keyed-up to even try to go to sleep. When I’d heard a car pull into our driveway, I’d walked out to the porch, where I saw Warren just sitting in the Land Cruiser, the engine off, looking straight ahead. When he saw me, he got out of the car and walked up to meet me on the porch steps. Technically, he walked. But there was something about him that made it seem more like floating.

“Taylor,” Warren said, smiling at me pleasantly, like I was someone he’d known, vaguely, many years before. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and trying not to grin. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” Warren said. He smiled again—that big, genuine smile that I was still getting used to. “Thanks so much for arranging it.”

“Sure,” I said, looking at him closely. I really wanted details, but this was so outside the realm of what my brother and I normally talked about that I had no idea how to even broach this subject. “Will you need me to arrange another one?”

My brother’s expression became slightly disdainful, and therefore much more familiar. “I don’t think so,” he said. “We’re going out tomorrow night. Miniature golfing.”

“Sounds fun,” I said, smiling, suddenly very impressed with Wendy and her ability to get my brother to do something that I knew, only a few days before, he would have scoffed at.

Warren started to head toward the door, then stopped and looked back at me. “Did you ever have a night that just… seemed to change everything?” he asked, sounding happy but a bit bewildered. “And everything is different afterward?” I didn’t, and Warren must have seen this on my expression, because he shook his head as he opened the door. “Never mind,” he said. “Forget it. ’Night, Taylor.”

“’Night,” I called to him. And even after he’d gone inside, I stayed out on the porch for a few minutes, looking up at the stars above me and turning over Warren’s words in my mind.

But for now, I was at work. It was a cloudy, overcast, humid day—the kind that threatened rain, but never quite delivered it. It was chilly to boot, which meant that we’d had approximately three customers that morning, all of whom had either wanted coffee or hot chocolate, and all of whom had wanted to complain about the fact that this wasn’t summer weather.

Lucy looked at me closely, clearly not ready to let me off the hook that easily. “Just because something didn’t happen with Henry,” she said, “doesn’t mean that you don’t want it to.”

I felt myself flush as I looked around for something to do and started straightening a stack of cups. “I don’t know,” I said. And I didn’t, even though thoughts of Henry had kept me awake most of the night before. I had no idea what he wanted, and was just getting used to the idea that we could be friends. The possibility of more made my stomach clench, in a good way, but also in a real and scary way.

“Don’t know what?” Lucy asked, pushing herself up to sit on the counter, looking at me, waiting for my answer.

The cups were as straight as they were ever going to be, and I shoved the stack away. “There’s a lot going on right now,” I said. I met her eyes and saw that she knew what I was talking about. “So I’m just not sure it’s the right time….”

Lucy shook her head. “There’s no such thing as a perfect moment,” she said with great authority. “Look at me and Brett.”

Brett was a new guy she had just started going out with, despite the fact that he was only in the Poconos for a week. I pushed myself up to sit on the counter and sat cross-legged facing her, increasing the number of health-code violations we were currently in violation of, glad that the topic had shifted away from me. “Maybe,” I said, in what I hoped was an offhand manner, “there’s someone here who already likes you and is going to be around for the whole summer. Possibly someone who likes card tricks?”

I watched her closely for her reaction, but Lucy just shook her head. “I get enough of that with Elliot,” she said. “No, thanks.”

“I don’t know,” I said as casually as I was able. “I don’t think Elliot’s so bad.”

Lucy shook her head. “He’s great,” she said, offhandedly. “But not exactly someone I want to date.”

“Why not?” I asked, and Lucy frowned for a second, as though considering this. But before she could answer, her phone beeped and she pulled it out of her pocket.

“Gotta go,” she said, smiling at the screen. “Are you okay here? Brett wants to hang out.”

I nodded as I slid off the counter, and Lucy followed suit. She slung her bag over her shoulder and was reaching for the door, when she stopped and looked back at me. “I’ll call you later,” she said. She looked around the deserted snack bar and added, “Think you can handle the crowd without me?”

I smiled at that. “I think I’ll be fine,” I said. “Have fun.” She waved and left, and I tried to fill the rest of the work shift by cleaning the ice machine and attempting to sort through what, exactly, I was feeling about Henry. I didn’t think I’d been imagining that something was going on last night, but in the cold light of day, I couldn’t be sure.

As soon as five rolled around, I locked up the snack bar and zipped a hooded sweatshirt over my cutoffs (I’d leaned my lesson as far as sweatshirts and overcast days went), feeling myself shiver. The wind had just started to pick up, tossing the tree branches violently. It was a truly miserable day, and I just hoped that there would be a fire going when I got home.

I biked to Henson’s to pick up some corn and tomatoes for dinner, per my mother’s request. At the register, I found myself hesitating over the bags of licorice. I’d been getting them for my dad whenever I’d gone in, even though he’d stopped asking for them. And when I’d gone in search of some chips the night before, I’d seen three of the licorice bags in the cabinet, shoved behind a box of saltines. But somehow not bringing a bag for my father seemed like an admission of defeat.