The Summer List

“‘Dear Casey, I’ve been thinking about our friendship a lot lately, and missing you. Would you mind if I came for a visit? I’ll be in town on...’”

I didn’t need to read any more.

“Your mom,” I said.

“I’m going to strangle her.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“Do you want to go?”

* * *

When Casey stomped to the refrigerator for the rosé she found it had been replaced by a six-pack of Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers with a fat manila envelope taped on top. Girls, it said on the outside, in Alex’s unmistakable curly handwriting.

Alex had even remembered our flavor preference from senior year. Junior year our favorite had been Snow Creek Berry, but by the fall of 1998 we’d transitioned to Peach Bellini, and that’s what she’d bought.

We sat on the sofa with our drinks, Alex’s envelope between us. Casey studied her bottle’s label, circling the round B&J logo with her index finger.

“Do you want to open it?” I said.

“You’re the guest, you should have the honor.”

“I need a minute.”

“She turned in a pretty goddamned good performance of acting surprised when I showed her the letter,” Casey said. She swigged her Peach Bellini, her grip on the bottle so tight her knuckles blanched. “I mean, Golden Globe–worthy.”

“She took that acting class in Pinecrest,” I said softly. When was it? Sophomore year? It didn’t matter, but it was all I could handle at the moment, that one fact, so I concentrated hard until I pulled it from my memory. Spring of sophomore year. Endless monologues from Uncle Vanya and Streetcar.

“Right. Then suddenly she said it would be better if she wasn’t here, if the two of us had ‘quality time’ together. And today she blew town with Elle.” Casey’s cheeks had reddened. Her angry clown look, Alex had always called it.

I could leave.

But Casey hadn’t kicked me out. She’d hot potato’d the question of what to do right back at me.

In the Stay column, at least Casey was sharing a piece of furniture with me.

In the Go column—she could not be farther away. The sofa had two big seat cushions, and while I sat in the middle of mine, Casey was so far away, wedged against the opposite arm, that she’d made her cushion lift up in the center of the sofa like she was raising a little padded drawbridge between us.

Another for the Go column—she was gripping her wine cooler so tight I could see the raised outline of the delicate center bone inside her wrist.

I sipped my sickly sweet peach drink.

Jett settled on the floor between us. Casey stretched her leg out so her heel could rub circles around Jett’s fluffy midsection. I put the fact that she was petting my dog in the Stay column. “Let’s at least open the letter.”

“You do it, I’m too pissed.” Casey took another swig of her drink and set it on the coffee table. She squeezed her left hand into a ball, then radiated her fingers out again like a magician in the “abracadabra” moment of the act. A de-stressing technique I used myself sometimes.

I set my bottle down a respectful distance from hers and tore open the envelope. Alex had taped a hundred-dollar bill to the top of a handwritten note. I carefully peeled off the cash and waved it.

“What’s that for?” Casey said.

I scanned the letter. It was all so perfectly, ridiculously Alex I couldn’t help smiling in spite of everything.

“What’s funny?” Casey said.

“You’re not going to like it.”

“The hundred’s a bribe? It’s not even a decent one.”

“It’s not a bribe, listen,” I said. “‘Girls. I know you must be a little angry, and...’”

“Ha. Just a little.”

“...‘and I don’t blame you. Okay, maybe you’re more than a little angry.’

“‘But remember you’re angry at me, not at each other. It was always that way, wasn’t it? I was to blame then, too. I was the adult.’”

Casey snorted.

“‘Correction. I was supposed to be the adult.’ Supposed to be is underlined...” I tried to meet Casey’s eyes but she wouldn’t look at me. She was staring at her bottle.

“‘So please see this for what it is: my attempt to make things right.’

“‘Or see it as one last scavenger hunt. They were fun, weren’t they? At least at first? I want this to be fun for you, too.’”

I waited for Casey’s comment.

“Fun. God, I’m going to kill her... Sorry, sorry.” Casey held up her free hand in apology. “Keep going.”

“‘I’ve made up a list.’” I fished out another piece of white paper, this one printed from a computer and folded in half. I held it up for Casey, who had inched closer. I didn’t open it. I set it between us, facedown, so it bridged our couch cushions.

“‘There are ten things. Five photos to take and five things to find, just like when you were in high school. I put a lot of thought into choosing the items. I couldn’t find the right film for the old Polaroids so I got you a new instant camera at the Sharper Image...’”

“Unreal.” Casey closed her eyes. “Doesn’t she realize we can take pictures with our phones now? Not that we’re going to be taking pictures anyway...”

“Wait, listen... ‘I realize you can take pictures with your phones now...’” I pointed at Casey and gave her a chance to get her sarcasm in. We had a nice rhythm going.

“Because that makes this totally reasonable,” she said.

“...‘but I thought it’d be more fun this way. More like old times, you know? The camera is in the top left drawer of my dresser. A couple of these clues will take you out of town (hint, hint) so the money is for gas and incidentals.’”

“My mom did not write incidentals. What is she, a corporate accountant all of a sudden?”

“She did write incidentals.” I tilted the letter so she could see.

“‘I’ll be monitoring your progress so no cheating. This will only work if you do it right.’

“‘When you’ve finished all ten things on the list I’ll trade you for something you’ve both wanted for a long time. Something I probably should have given you years ago.’

“‘Please trust me one last time. I know that’s a lot to ask. But you have to complete this game before I give you your prize. You’ll understand Sunday, I promise.’”

“That’s it?” Casey said.

“No. She signed it. ‘Love, Alex.’”

I unfolded the paper and skimmed the first few clues. They were written in rhymes, but didn’t seem too hard. Not by Alex’s old standards. “Want to know what’s on the list?”

“Let me guess. A syrup jug from the Creekside. The mayor’s watering can. A picture by the drinking fountain at school.”

“You’ve got the basic idea. A guided trip down memory lane. It’s all summer stuff.”

“Adorable.”

“So what do you think the prize is? Something we’ve both wanted for a long time.”

“Right now I want to throw a Sharper Image novelty Polaroid camera at her face. No, I want to punch her in the face.” Casey clenched and unclenched her fist again, as if imagining the satisfaction she’d get from delivering the blow.

She grabbed the list, crumpled it up without reading it, and tossed it, aiming for the wall opposite us. It barely cleared the coffee table. Jett bounded over and returned it to her, wagging her tail. “She even got your dog into the act.”

I patted my knees. “Give it, Jetty.”

I unfolded the damp paper on my lap. “She wrote the clues in rhymes. Five-line rhymes.”

“Those are called quintains. You missed the morbid poetry phase she got into after 9/11.”

“The clues seem pretty easy,” I said. “Listen to this one:

“‘Here you used to glide and spin

Young and swift and free

On hoofs of brown and orange you’d...’”

Casey interrupted. “The skating rink. Tough clue, Mom.”

“I don’t think she wants the clues to be hard. I don’t think that’s the point this time.”

Casey pressed her bright cheek against the side of her wine cooler. “She was good, I’ll give her that. Acting as surprised as me when your letter showed up. Talking me into how great it’d be if you came and I should at least give it a chance, how hard it must have been for you to reach out after all this time...” She broke off. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I picked up the sheet of blue stationery from the coffee table. Until half an hour ago Casey had thought I’d sent it. And I noticed something that I hadn’t the first time. “My” letter had a tracery of lines in it. Casey had crumpled it up, too. Maybe Alex even had to fish the balled-up letter from the garbage. I couldn’t blame Casey; I’d resisted, too. But it hurt.

“She outsmarted us,” I said.

“Those handwriting samples we did junior year...” Casey said.

“Sophomore year.”

“Was it? Anyway, I can’t even deal with that part right now, the idea of her holing up in her studio, plotting this twisted fiesta when I thought she was painting. She was up there copying our handwriting while I was down here reading Lemony Snicket with Elle, totally oblivious.”

“She thought we needed an activity,” I said. “Like toddlers.”

“This says it all.” Casey picked up the manila envelope and punched the word Girls, denting the paper.

I nodded, though I knew Casey was getting worked up for reasons that had nothing to do with being treated like a child.

The scavenger hunts Alex masterminded when we were in high school weren’t just party games to keep us entertained. Maybe they’d started off that way. But they’d become something else, and the final prize, for both of us, had been the end of our friendship. Alex couldn’t make that right with an apology and ten bad poems.

We sipped our drinks. Casey petted Jett with her foot and I read Alex’s list.

Most of the items were in town. Walking distance, even. The only item that would take some effort was the last one.

Not that we were doing it.

The grandfather clock struck eight and after the final, resounding bong it felt even quieter than before.

“So I get that she wants us to make up,” I said. “But why now?”

Casey shook her head, focusing on a spot in the air above my head. She whispered something.

I tapped her knee, then, startled by the familiarity of the gesture, pulled my hand back. “Did you say no?”

Casey cleared her throat. “I said, ‘I know.’” She shook her head as if to reset her thoughts. “I know why she’s doing it now.”

“Why?”

She smiled, but her eyes were glazed. Jett whimpered and snuffled into her lap.

“Because you have your little girl?” I said.

She shook her head.

“Then it’s...because we’re thirty-five? Or I am, and you will be in August. And thirty-five is, I don’t know, the age you miraculously become older and wiser and able to get over the past according to your mom?”

“No.”

“So tell me.”

Casey’s hand trembled as she set her drink down. She shook her head again. Then, so fast I hardly knew what was happening, she was gone. Out the front door. Barefoot, launching herself into the cold night.

I waited five minutes. Ten. Long enough to feel the cool air coming in through the open door. I reread Alex’s list, trying to find clues between the clues. Why now, Alex? The answer tried to burrow into my thoughts, but I couldn’t latch onto it.

Jett whimpered, her nose pointed at the front door.

“Should we go after her, Jetty?”

She thumped her tail, and then ran to the door, where I clipped on her leash. At the last second I returned for the clue list.

6

Messy

Even before I saw Casey’s green sweatshirt in the light of the gazebo, I knew that’s where she’d be.

We’d dreamed away so many hours under its rotting roof, every morning before school and after every party.

The bright gazebo looked like a stage in the shadowy park, which was otherwise lit only by one weak streetlamp. Casey sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the lower wall with her eyes closed. “Sorry about that,” she said, not opening them.

“It’s okay. Jett was worried, though.”

Casey held out her hand and let Jett snuffle into it. “I’m sorry, Jett. Your mom’s old friend is crazy.”

“No. It’s been a crazy day.”

I looked around. In my time the small park by Casey’s house had been scrubby and neglected, but now it was spruced up. The grass was groomed and there was a red play structure on one of those rubbery black surfaces that kept kids from breaking their arms when they plummeted off the monkey bars.

The gazebo had been fixed up, too, repaired and painted a glossy white.

The upper wall of the gazebo was plain white lattice, curving into a domed roof. But the lower wall had always been special, even when it was falling apart. I knelt so I could examine the mosaic running around the bottom. It was whole again, a fantastical lake scene for small children to enjoy, built at their eye level. Swimmers, fish, swaying underwater plants, and the imaginary friendly water creature everyone called Messy. Loch Ness had Nessie, Lake Tahoe had Tessie, and we had Messy.

I crawled along the floor, running my hand on the cold tiles. “They did a good job on this.”

“What? Oh, shit, I forgot. Are you okay being here?”

“Sure. It’s beautiful.”

A brass plaque by the steps stated that the gazebo was built in 1945 in memory of Lieutenant Rupert Collier II, who had died in Normandy during World War II. A shinier plaque below said the gazebo had been “restored in 2012 thanks to a generous gift from the Coeur-de-Lune Historical Society in honor of William T. Christie.”

My dad. I’d sent checks to the Historical Society on his birthday every year. I’d donated an extra-large sum on what would have been his eightieth, four years ago.

“They had an artist out of Truckee do it,” Casey said. “She spent months matching colors. So many tiles were missing.”

“I wonder why.”

“Some hooligans had been prying them off.”

“How terrible.”

She smiled, wiping her shiny cheek with her sleeve.

“Did you give her the tiles?” I said.

“I sneaked over in the dark and left them in a shoebox.”

“And she used them?”

“All fifty-seven.”

Fifty-seven blue tiles. Casey had counted them, and remembered.

Fifty-seven nights, sitting here in the dark, picking off loose tiles, talking over whatever we’d done that evening. As innocent and free and unaware of time as the creatures swimming in the mosaic.

“I want to see it in daylight,” I said.

“What?”

“I want to see the old tiles against the new, in daylight. So I can decide if this so-called artist matched them up right. My dad would’ve wanted me to make sure. Will you show me, tomorrow?”

“You mean it? You actually want to stay?”

I nodded. “I’m here. I’ll take your mom’s dare, for a while at least. I’m in if you are.”

“But you always picked Truth and I always picked Dare,” she said.

“I know. But say we did give it a try. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You know whatever my mom has planned for us at the end of this, this...whatever this is...is going to be nuts. She hasn’t changed.”

“I still want to try it.”

“Why, though? It’s not so you can see what they did with your donations.”

I shrugged, touching the cold, thin line of new grout between the restored tiles. “Jett likes the fresh air. And I need to check on the house.”

“Right.” Casey took a deep breath. “I’ll try it for now. Whatevs, as Elle says. On one condition.”

“Okay.”

“You can’t ask me why I’m doing it.”

“You asked me why. Not exactly fair.”

“Your answer was bullshit.”

I nodded, slowly. “Okay.”

“We’ll see how it goes.”

“Anyway we’re already doing it. Your mom’s psychic. Listen to Clue 1:

“‘This little lacy room was not

True shelter from a storm

But the perfect place to shade yourselves

On summer days so warm

Bring me one square of blue, it’s the least you can do.’”

I tapped the mosaic. “We’re supposed to pry a tile off and bring it to her.”

“My mother’s such a delinquent.”

“Unlike you. Anyway I paid for it. We can borrow one tile.”

“What was that line about ‘monitoring our progress’? You think she’s watching from the bushes with night-vision goggles?”

“Bought at the Sharper Image with the Polaroid.”

We stared out at the dark.

“We know you’re out there,” Casey called.

No answer except from the frogs. Casey walked down the steps, rooted in the bushes, and came back with a stick. She knelt and dug at the grout, trying to dislodge a tile near the base. “This grout is way stronger than the old stuff. I’m not making a dent.”

I commanded Jett to sit, and after a minute she settled enough so I could split the flimsy ring of her collar with my fingernail and pull off the rabies tag. I handed the thin silver medallion to Casey. “Try this.”

While Casey scraped I scooted to the center of the gazebo where the light was brightest. I pulled the hundred-dollar bill from my pocket. “We could make her pay for dinner. She owes us that, at least.”

“But what about our gas and incidentals? Dare we risk not having enough funds for the incidentals?”

“I’m starving.”

“Me, too.”

“What are the options these days? Josefina’s Pizza or the Creekside?”

“They’ll be madhouses. Tourists up for the weekend.”

“The Greek place?”

“Became a Taco Empire four years ago, then closed for health violations. We could do the skating rink clue and eat at the snack bar. Kill two birds with one stone. Except.”

“The food? I can handle fluorescent orange nachos for dinner. It actually sounds fantastic.”

“No. The food’s not bad these days. But...”

“But what?”

Casey stopped scraping and glanced over her shoulder. “He owns it now.”

“Who?” I examined the hundred. It was a 2008. Someone had carefully outlined the triangle above the pyramid, the one holding the eye, with blue pen.

I studied the bill, reading Latin over and over (Annuit cœptis, Novus ordo seclorum), but I could tell by Casey’s silence that I hadn’t fooled her. I knew who He was. She knew I knew who He was. There was only one He in Coeur-de-Lune, for me.

And it wasn’t the He worshipped in my mother’s old church.

I looked up from the bill. “So he’s been here this whole time?”

“He has a house in Red Pine.”

“You’ve been there? To the rink?”

“Elle loves it. We have every birthday party there.”

“She’s a good skater, then?”

Casey turned back to work on the tile, speaking to the mosaic wall as she scraped. “Is that really the question you want to ask me right now?”

Hardly. I could think of a dozen that interested me more than little Elle’s aptitude for gliding around on eight wheels—Is he married? What does he look like? Does he have kids?

Does he ever talk about me?

Casey answered only the question I’d spoken aloud. “She’s a good skater.” She paused, but couldn’t resist adding, “J.B. helped me teach her.”

Jett whimpered. I’d wound her leash around my wrist so tight she couldn’t move.

“Finally!” Casey stood and held out the small blue tile triumphantly. “A little chipped in one corner but it’ll work.”

As we walked back to Casey’s house, she said, “You’re sure you’re up for the rink? You don’t want to work up to it?”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Got it.”

“We’re all grown-ups.”

* * *

I drove us to the rink. If I’d been alone I would have done some serious primping in the rearview mirror first. Lip gloss, extra mascara. I would have taken my hair out of its twist and done a Level Three hair brushing, which required flipping my head upside down in pursuit of what my stylist called “volume at the crown.”

More than any of that, I wished I could try out reactions in the rearview mirror. Practice molding my face into various bland masks. Oh, hey, J.B., I’d say. Neutral, composed. Over it. A “no worries!” tone.

But I could only manage the lip gloss. I did it stealthily, transferring a dot to my finger, then my lips, while we were at a stoplight and Casey was calling Alex.

Casey put her phone on speaker. “Hey, it’s Alex! Sorry I missed you. Don’t take it personally.”

“Mom. You total sneak. We got your list, and we’re maybe going along with it. Maybe. But only so we can figure out how soon we need to check you into the asylum. So don’t think you’re not in trouble. Laura’s furious. I’m furious. Call.” A pause. “And don’t forget Elle’s multivitamins and calcium. One of the clear gummies and one of the opaque sugarcoated gummies a day. Goodbye, liar.”

I’d always envied the effortless way Casey talked to her mom, like they were girlfriends. Even when they were fighting, there was an easiness between them.

Casey sighed. “Elle worships her, naturally. It’s my mom who found her, at this place where she was volunteering.”

“An orphanage?”

“Tutoring center. She was born drug affected. But now she’s doing brilliantly. It’s the next turnoff.”

“I remember.”

* * *

Casey swung open the door to the Silver Skate ’n Lanes, unleashing a familiar mix of throbbing bass and arcade beeps. The rink smelled the same, too. Sweaty rental skates, overly sweet first perfumes, fake-butter popcorn.

“You’re sure about this?” she said.

“It’s no big deal. He wouldn’t recognize me anyway.”

Here’s where she was supposed to say, Of course he would, you look exactly the same. You look fabulous. But she was silent, walking ahead of me down the dark, carpeted hall to the counter. I lingered for a minute by the entrance, watching kids play with the gleaming metal marble run on the wall. It was all in perfect order.

The middle-aged cashier smiled at Casey. “You skating? No Elle?”

“We’re just getting a snack, Deb.”

“Session’s over soon. No charge.” She taped glow-in-the-dark bracelets around our wrists. “Disco night, God help us.”

We pushed through the turnstile to the rink. “Disco Duck” was blasting. The smiles on the faces whipping by said, Yes, we’re doing this silly thing, but isn’t it glorious? The wind, the hundreds of tiny near misses, the satisfaction of a graceful turn, the soothing repetition of it. The rink was as effective as any monk’s meditation labyrinth.

“Let’s see that clue again,” Casey said.

We read silently by disco light:

Here you used to glide and spin

Young and swift and free

On hoofs of brown and orange you’d win

A game, a heart, a key

Visit the ancient chest of tin, take a picture to bring to me

“Is it the same one?” I looked around for the silver treasure chest. Automatically, illogically, because he would be forty now, I searched for another gleam of silver: a metallic uniform T-shirt, and The Boy with black hair who wore it.

“Still over there by the DJ. The prizes haven’t changed, either.”

The chest held the prizes you could pick if you won the Dice Game or the Shoot the Duck contest or did the most impressive Hokey Pokey. Someone in silver would glide out and hand you your prize ticket with a picture of Digby the Duck holding a key. Digby the Pirate Duck: the rink’s unloved mascot. Tickets were redeemed for something in the snack bar or for a cheap carnival treasure. Cockeyed stuffed animals, paddleball games whose tethers broke on the second whomp of the ball, plastic glitter bracelets.

Casey asked the DJ, a stocky man in a Jimmy Cliff T-shirt named Mel, if he would take a picture of us in front of the treasure chest. “Sure, Case, I’m on autopilot ’til the next block of requests,” he said, stepping down from his elevated booth. “You want to wear the pirate hats? Want me to get the giant Digby? He’s in the storeroom, but I can—”