When Summer Ends Page 11

  But then I see the car parked along the street. I don’t have to see the out-of-state plates to know who it belongs to. It’s little and red, just like every car my mom has ever owned, except that this one is shiny and new, not dull and old like the others before. I’m floored my mother surfaced this quickly. It’s been just over twenty-four hours since the reporters showed up at River Depot. Prompt and punctual isn’t what I’m used to from my mother. I’m used to elementary school lunch bills so overdue that all the lunch ladies would give me was a stupid PB&J instead of hot lunch. Presents shipped three days after Christmas, sent straight from Amazon, unwrapped.

  I don’t want to go inside, but when I finally do, Aunt Sarah is standing in the kitchen, her back against the refrigerator. Across from her, my mom looks nothing like the woman I last saw three years ago. Her shirt is fitted and her shoes match, and she isn’t lugging around some weird patchwork satchel that looks like a street vendor stitched it together out of old t-shirts or something. A gray leather purse sits atop the little island, resting against her arm. She looks like a normal adult. The kind that doesn’t leave you at your Oma’s house when you’re seven and then doesn’t come back for six months. But she still sounds like my mom when she says, “Hey, kiddo.”

  Aunt Sarah pushes herself away from the counter like she may need to protect my mother from my response. “I invited your mom over, Liv.” She looks guilty as she says it. It’s ridiculous that she’d feel responsible for anything my mother does, but then I see the suitcase sitting a few feet away, in the living room.

  I don’t like where this might be going—or the size of that suitcase.

  “No.” I shake my head like I can will her out of the house. “No, no, no.”

  “Olivia.” Aunt Sarah draws my name out into an exasperated sigh.

  “You just won the lottery,” I huff. “You can afford a hotel, right?”

  My mother rolls her eyes but she doesn’t look amused. “Yes, Olivia—”

  “She can,” my aunt cuts in, “but my new job wants me to start earlier than I planned. I’m going to have to leave next week. So your mom’s staying here. Just to be safe.”

  My mother gives me a pained smile, like she’s trying to look enthused but can’t quite pull it off.

  “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  Aunt Sarah juts her hip out and crosses her arms. “What time did you get home last night, Liv?”

  Crap. “It was—I don’t know. It was late. But I told you I was going out with work friends,” I say.

  My mother laughs, almost imperceptibly, and I shoot her a hard look.

  “It’s a stopgap, Liv. You get to stay through the summer, and I’ll worry less.” Aunt Sarah sighs. “The house goes on the market soon. There are going to be showings, and inspections, and all sorts of things you can’t handle.”

  “Can she?” I mutter, a whisper I’m not sure anyone even heard.

  “Unless you want to go now?” Aunt Sarah looks a little panicked. “This would give me some time to settle in though. Find us someplace nice?” She glances at my mother and then at me. “The real estate market is brutal, it could take all summer to find something. They’ve got me in a hotel…”

  Aunt Sarah looks stressed, and I feel bad that I’ve put up such a fight about this. I know she can’t help it. I can survive with my mother for a while. I’ll be working mostly, anyway. And she’s never been much of a mother, so I find it hard to believe that she’ll start flexing her muscle now. This could be good practice; I’ll be prepared if I’m stuck with a less-than-stellar roommate when I go off to college. Still, I can’t help but let out a little huff of air.

  “It’s fine, we’ll be fine.” I put my hand on top of Aunt Sarah’s on the kitchen island. “Find us someplace nice.” I hate seeing her like this—anxious and off-kilter, and so … not herself.

  Aunt Sarah smiles and lets out a deep breath. “Joanie, you okay with the couch until I leave?”

  My mother nods. “Sounds good. I’ll just put my things in your room?”

  Aunt Sarah nods and starts down the hallway, waving her hand at my mother. “I’ll make you some closet space.”

  Aunt Sarah is halfway down the hallway and my mother is standing next to her suitcase. “Congrats on the big win, by the way.” I should stop myself there, but I can’t. “I bet it’s a huge relief to finally be independently wealthy.”

  Mom’s face falls. “Thanks. I was doing fine though.” She pushes the button on her suitcase that lets her pull up the long black handle. “I have a photography business. I do seniors and weddings, and I just started doing some corporate work.”

  Now it’s my turn to be hurt. When I imagine my mother in Tempe or Tampa or wherever it is she currently calls home, it’s usually in some sort of dire situation. I imagine it looking a lot like my childhood, the months at a time I would spend with my mother, when we thought things were finally turning around; past-due rent notices tacked to the door, a sparsely furnished apartment. Late nights working odd jobs, while she tries to find herself. Thinking that she’s just off living a normal life, somewhere that’s not here—that she’s taking photos of other kids my age, chatting with them and getting to know them, while she captures this pivotal time in their lives—that stings a lot more.

  Chapter

  Nine

  OLIVIA

  Today we’re going to ArtPrize, a big annual art contest in Grand Rapids, ninety minutes north of Riverton. At work, Aiden rambled on about how the whole city is filled with art—soaring murals painted on the sides of ordinary buildings, giant statues rising up out of the river that runs through the city, and pencil drawings as big as a wall of our gym. I didn’t realize he was wanting to go so soon, but it’s the last weekend of the three-week event, so it’s now or never. And we were both magically removed from the work schedule for the weekend after Aiden asked me to come with him. A perk of being the owner’s kid (and the owner’s kid’s driver), I guess. What did he do to lose his license?

  Aiden is standing against his garage door, looking at his phone, when I come up the driveway on my bike Saturday morning. Aiden’s car isn’t fancy—it’s just a plain black Honda Civic with some rust around the fender and a Riverton Baseball decal across the back window. We’re only five minutes from Aiden’s house, riding in silence, when he turns down the music. Ever since I told him I’m a writer, he has been obsessed with the idea that I must have some sort of latent artistic talent. “Writers have artistic eyes,” he’d said to me in the dunes, as we walked and talked on our way back to the beach. He’s going to be so disappointed.

  By the time we reach the tall gray parking garage in the center of downtown Grand Rapids, Aiden has managed to get me to share a lot of random personal stuff. We don’t know each other well enough to sit in silence for a ninety-minute drive, and at first it made my palms sweaty on the steering wheel, but mostly it was fun and easy.

  “Seriously. Not one?” Aiden was floored that I don’t follow any sports teams.

  “Overrated.”

  He shakes his head, his eyes on me. “But you come to the baseball games.”

  “Good eye.” I mimic what they always yell on the field as a wild pitch flies in, and force out a laugh. I really don’t want to talk about baseball or the reason I was there despite not being a fan.

  “Favorite color?” he asks.

  “Don’t have one.”

  “You have to,” he insists.

  “Nope. I don’t.” I think about telling him that my mom insists on giving me yellow things, and Emma wishes I liked pink. But bringing up my mom feels like too much, too soon. Especially after his front seat to my mama drama last week. “Yours is green.” I say it matter-of-factly, waiting for the reaction I know I’m about to get.

  “I told you.” Aiden’s hands excitedly thump the dash. “Art eyes.”

  Anyone who pays attention to Aiden at all could guess his favorite color. His shirt the other night was green, the messenger bag sitting between us
is a dark hunter green. The strap of his watch is lime. I’m a little unnerved by the fact that I’ve noticed this in just the few days I’ve been around him.

  We’re quiet the last five minutes of the drive, and it feels like the perfect transition into our day together. I’m still in a bit of denial that I’m spending an entire day with Aiden Emerson. But also, he doesn’t feel like that Aiden anymore. Emerson. He is—I know, under the art talk and the easy banter, he’s still that same guy I only ever saw from down the length of a hallway, or through a chain-link fence, when he was on display for anyone willing to look. But when I’m with him, he just feels like Aiden. Coworker. Friend (I think). Regular guy. Hot guy. And it’s clear that the rumors were just that—Aiden isn’t turning into some kind of delinquent. Maybe he’s just over baseball.

  When we exit the garage and step out into the street, there’s a sort of electricity in the air, like we’ve just walked into a carnival. Except that instead of spinning rides and clowns and games that cost too much money, there are three-story paintings, and sculptures leaping from the river, and a legion of food trucks lining the streets. Music seems to be coming from all directions, muddled and soft as it mixes between the tall buildings. The road we’re on is shut down, and there are lines of people pulsing in every direction.

  Aiden pulls out his phone and starts scrolling down the screen. “I’ve made us our own Top Twenty to check out.” He holds the phone screen up to me. “The really good stuff.”

  Aiden told me on the way here that normally the public votes on all of the exhibits—and there are thousands—but voting ended last week, and all of the winners have already been chosen. His list has everyone organized by medium, and as we walk to our first destination, he tells me everything he read about it. What inspired the project, and how the textile elements were all hand-woven from the artist’s and his children’s clothes, representing the bond of family. Before we even reach the exhibit, I have a vivid mental picture of what I’m about to see. “Wow, you’re a total art nerd.”

  Aiden smiles—his whole face lighting up like it’s a compliment—and jabs his head in the direction of a red brick building a block down. “This way.”

  AIDEN

  My plan was to take Olivia to everything on my list, but as we enter the first building I can already tell that it’s going to be a lost cause. I knew there was art all over the place, but I underestimated what that actually meant. As we push through the glass doors of our first location, it’s a sea of bodies. I look at my paper. “The massive pencil drawing of the Civil War soldiers is supposed to be this way.”

  “It’s ridiculous in here,” Olivia says, her voice muddled by the noise surrounding us.

  I smack the papers against my leg. “Should we wait?”

  Olivia shrugs. “Totally up to you.” She smiles. “I’m just the chauffeur.”

  I laugh. “I did promise you lots of cool stuff though.” I jab my head to the right, where I can see an elevator tucked into the corner. “Let’s see what else we can find.”

  We push through the bodies around us and make our way to the shiny silver doors. Four floors up, we’re deposited on a floor that’s quiet and open, with wood beams and metal crisscrossing overhead. I pull my phone out and load the artist notes for this building so I can check what’s on exhibit. As soon as she steps out of the elevator, Olivia is headed toward a giant wall of windows. I’m scrolling down my screen when I hear her. “Aiden!” She’s waving her hand behind her. “Check this out.”

  She’s looking out the window, down onto the street, and as I approach I just see the sides of buildings. But down below, in what I’m guessing is usually a parking lot, there’s an exhibit. I notice now that there’s a white sheet of paper attached to the window, with the exhibit name—“Aerial Splendor”—and artist listed. And in the lot is the biggest chalk drawing I’ve ever seen. It stretches from corner to corner of the parking lot, which is corded off. It features two giant horses, and even from this distance they’re insanely intricate. The scale is incredible. And for the first time in two months I’m not squinting to make out details, or to really see something the way it’s supposed to be seen. Maybe this is my problem. It’s not that art isn’t my thing, I just need a medium that isn’t compromised by my vision.

  “How do they even do that?” Olivia’s voice is full of awe.

  “I’m guessing the artist drew it small-scale first, and then transferred it using a grid.”

  “Wow, that’s crazy.”

  I nod, but I can’t take my eyes off of what lies below me. Maybe I need to think outside of my usual 16 × 20 paper. It’s so crazy, it just might work.

  OLIVIA

  This is crazy. I just walked through a maze of iridescent curtains. Thousands and thousands of tiny strings, fashioned with mirrored circles and iridescent squares, all hanging down around us like a pulsing, flowing current that we’re caught up in. I’ve never seen art like this—the kind that hangs over you, wraps around you, engulfs all of your senses, and burns itself into your brain. It’s intoxicating and transporting—I feel like we’re different people in a magical place. That seems to be the norm for places I go with Aiden.

  “The artist’s guide said to run,” Aiden says, and before the words have left his mouth he has me by the hand and the bejeweled pieces are streaking past us like stars outside a spaceship. When we reach the end we’re still holding hands, gazing at the iridescent tunnel behind us.

  “Sorry,” Aiden says, and he drops my hand.

  I’m not sure if he’s talking about the running or the hand-holding, but I tell him no problem, because it isn’t. That was amazing.

  “The artist’s notes are really important with this kind of art,” Aiden explains. “They tell you how to interact with it.”

  There’s a reverence in Aiden’s voice, and it makes me smile.

  The historic hotel we’re in has been filled with exhibits, and even though we came for one specific exhibit Aiden had picked out, we’ve roamed from room to room checking everything out. I shake my head as we push through the gilded revolving doors of the hotel. We’ve seen exhibits in cafés, museums, and Chinese restaurants. And in alleys and parking lots. The whole city is filled with art, tucked into every crack and corner, plastered on every wall. Even the river that winds through downtown hosts art, with a giant metal serpent plunging in and out of the water.

  As we walk down the sidewalk, Aiden’s head is tilted up, his eyes fixed on a colorful mural on the side of the building we’re approaching. It’s shades of orange and coral—rippled pieces that look like fish scales that wrap the entire side of the building—and as we pass it, I can see that it’s actually moving. The scales look to each be an individual piece of paper, blowing in the slight breeze.

  “I love that,” I say, more to myself than anything, because I really do.

  “What does it remind you of?”

  I think about it for a second, about the colors and the way everything bends and shifts.

  Aiden smiles. “There’s no wrong answer.”

  “A giant goldfish,” I say, and Aiden lets out a booming laugh that makes the person passing us on the sidewalk jump, which makes me laugh too. “Hey, you said no wrong answers. The colors remind me of those gigantic koi you see in the ponds in fancy gardens.”

  “That’s a good answer.” He smiles and we keep walking, crossing a big blue bridge stretching over the river. The metal lattice that crosses over us is smurf-blue and the city is on full display down the riverbank.

  “Your turn,” I say, nudging him with my elbow.

  “For?”

  “If I’m forced to analyze art, so are you.”

  “Okay.” He stops and turns back the way we came, looking up at the building behind us. From this distance it looks different. The individual pieces are all meshed together, and I can barely make out that there are a thousand little pieces making it up. “It reminds me of a sunset,” Aiden says, his voice thoughtful and almost a little sad. I thi
nk about the sunset the other night, the way it felt like the first time I had ever really seen one, how happy it had made me. Seeing the sunset that way feels a little like a present he gave me. “The way it’s beautiful, even though it’s an ending. It reminds me of oil pastels, the way it all meshes together, one color bleeding into the next.” He turns and smiles at me. “Or a goldfish. A massive, building-eating goldfish.”

  I poke my elbow into him again.

  “It’s like the Godzilla of goldfish, terrorizing the whole city.” He’s looking straight ahead, smiling.

  “I don’t care what you say. I love my city-eating goldfish.”

  He laughs and looks over at me. “Me too.”

  The bridge dumps us out onto a sidewalk that winds between office buildings and storefronts, and a block down we cross the street into a small parking lot filled with picnic tables and lined with food trucks.

  “You really don’t draw or anything?” he asks.

  “I really don’t. I’m not sure why that’s so surprising.”

  “Because you’re a writer. Writers are observers, and so are artists. You’ve got the perfect eye for art. I’m sure of it.” He adjusts the brim of his hat. “We just have to figure out what your thing is.”

  We stop in front of a bright red truck with a yellow awning and a giant white pig painted on one side. It smells like the ribs my grandpa made when I was little, and there’s nothing I want more than to sink my mouth into some gooey barbecue. Nothing except not making a fool of myself with Aiden. Because this may not be a date, but he’s still a hot guy. Way too hot to watch barbecue sauce drip down my face.