“Oh, we’re going to have a great time.” Josie stood up and wrapped a towel around her waist. “We’ll scope everything out, so when you show up, it will be instant party. You’ll be there on the second, right? Because my dad will kill me if you’re not there for July Fourth weekend.”
“Yep, the second,” I confirmed, glancing over at Luke.
“She’ll be there,” he echoed.
“Sun, sand, and summer!” Josie sang as she hugged me good-bye and pressed her cheek against mine. “We love you.”
“Love you, too,” I told her, because we’d been best friends forever, and because I really did.
• • •
“Where are you going?” I asked Luke when he missed the left turn toward my house.
His hair was still wet and I could see the waves of wrinkles on the pads of his fingertips as he held the steering wheel. Luke reached for my hand and set it on his leg while he drove.
“We have some time to spare. I thought we’d make a pit stop for old time’s sake.” He accelerated in the opposite direction. “I’m in the mood for a strawberry Fribble. You in?”
Was I in?
“Absolutely,” I told him, and squeezed his thigh.
When we pulled into the Friendly’s parking lot, Luke led me inside and ordered for both of us, something I hadn’t let him do the first time we came here. I wouldn’t even let him share my french fries back then, and he’d given me a confused look but also seemed slightly impressed, not because I was so stingy but because I wasn’t afraid to tell him I wanted to eat them all myself. It wasn’t some attempt to show Luke I wasn’t like other girls who pretend they aren’t hungry and then pick at a plate of fries while pushing a salad around with fork. No, I’d wanted those fries, but I’d also wanted something else: to be honest about what I wanted, to not pretend that I was okay with sharing. It was as much a test for me as it was for him—could I say what I really felt, and could Luke let me? We’d both passed the french fry test, and I think that was the first time I realized Luke was different than I’d expected, and his difference allowed me to be myself.
It was hard for me to believe that just a few months ago, when Josie had arranged for us both to meet here again, we’d been sitting in a booth against the wall, staring across the table at one another, not sure what would happen next. I’d truly doubted he’d be able to look at me and believe anything I said after what I’d done. But that day, we’d both ordered strawberry Fribbles, and over extra thick milkshakes, Luke had found a way to forgive me.
While we waited for our Fribbles at the takeout counter, Luke swept his hand in front of the refrigerated display case filled with frosted cakes and gallons of ice cream. “You better get used to this—it’s your future!”
“Not my future,” I corrected him. “My summer.”
“Well, every time you scoop strawberry ice cream, I hope you’ll be thinking of me.”
And vanilla, and chocolate, and every other flavor, I wanted to tell him.
“You know, this might be our last time here together.” I scanned the restaurant, taking in the vinyl booths, the hot fudge–stained floors, even the paper placemats and crayons intended to keep fussy kids busy. It wasn’t exactly the most romantic spot, but it still felt like the place where we’d started. And started over.
“Why do you have to be so morbid? Let’s just enjoy one last extra-large cup of strawberry goodness.” He leaned against the counter and I tried to smile.
Luke was right. I was getting way ahead of myself.
The server handed over our Fribbles in to go cups, and we took them outside with us as we walked across the parking lot to Luke’s car.
“How about this? Let’s just pick a date now.” Luke stopped and turned to face me. “That way we’re sure to come back even after we’re at school. No excuses.”
“How can we do that?” I asked. “We have no idea what’ll be going on.”
“I know that I have a short break in October. What about you?”
I took out my phone and Googled the academic calendar for the year. “Me, too. Saturday the eleventh through Tuesday the fourteenth.”
“Then it’s a plan, right here, Saturday the eleventh, exactly this time.” Luke glanced at his phone. “Two o’clock. We’ll come back and meet here, and then hang out for the long weekend, or we can go back to my dorm, which, now that I think about it, is actually a much better idea.”
Now I was smiling—a big, wide grin that I was sure matched his, except for the tiny spots of pink froth clinging to the corners of his lips.
I loved the idea. It was perfect.
I reached over and wiped the spots of strawberry from the corners of his mouth, swiping the ice cream across his lips until it disappeared.
“Deal. Let’s shake on it, so it’s official. No backing out, no changing plans, no matter what.” I held out my hand and waited him to seal the deal.
Luke reached for my hand and pulled me toward him until I was pressed up close against his chest. “A handshake? Really? I can do better than that.”
Luke’s lips were soft and cold, and as he kissed me, I could almost taste how much he loved me—because as far as I was concerned, Luke’s love tasted just like strawberry ice cream. I closed my eyes and inhaled the faint scent of chlorine still clinging to his skin and tasted his warm, sweet tongue.
“There,” he said, slipping our lips apart but keeping our faces close together so that the tips of our noses touched, like Eskimo kisses. He held my cheek in his empty hand and rested his forehead against mine so that we were looking straight into each other’s eyes, so close I could identify where each individual lash began before fanning out in a blur. “Now it’s official. I love you, Emily Abbott.”
I closed my eyes again.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” he asked.
I opened my eyes and tried to bring Luke into focus, the fringe of his eyelashes sweeping up and down as he blinked.
“You were right,” I agreed. “That sure beat a handshake.”
Little crinkles formed at the corners of his eyes as he laughed at me. “That’s it?”
No, that wasn’t it. There was more, so much more. “The Russian judge gives that a 9.9.”
“Damn. How can I get the extra point one?” he asked.
“I guess you have to keep practicing,” I told him.
Luke feigned exasperation. “Well, if I have to,” he lamented, his shoulders sagging in mock defeat. “I should probably start now.”
“If you think it will help,” I answered, knowing that a perfect ten was about to be achieved right there, standing in the middle of a parking lot, our extra thick milkshakes melting from the heat of the sun.
Long-Distance Relationship Tip #8:
Share your schedule. It’s helpful when figuring out when the other person is busy and when he is free, so that you can text or call. “Knowing a schedule” is not the same as calling repeatedly to find out where he is or logging into his FindMyPhone app. That’s stalking.
Three weeks. Twelve cities. 11,020 miles added to my frequent flier account. At the end of the day, not nearly enough to get me to Europe. Wish I’d done the math ahead of time.
By the time we arrived home, I never wanted to see my tastefully selected, neutral-colored stack of clothes designed to mix and match for optimal flexibility (my mother’s words) again. I was so tired of wearing the same rotation of skirts and tops and pants and shorts that it didn’t even matter that I hadn’t had to do laundry for three weeks thanks to an invisible staff of hotel miracle workers who picked up our bags of dirty laundry and returned them to our room smelling fresh and pressed to perfection. In fact, the whole experience inspired my mother to write a new book on how to bring the fabulous hotel vibe home with you, including how to form origami roses out of toilet paper (my mother explained to me that the toilet paper roses the staff created on the roll in our bathroom not only looked lovely, but also indicated that the room had been cleaned with care). Her
new book, Checking Out Without Checking In: A Guide to Hospitality at Home, will be available next year.
Unlike my mom, I did not have a book to sell to her editor after three weeks away from Luke, although I did bring the leather-bound journal along on my trip and managed to fill a bunch of pages with ideas that should work in theory. I say theory because even though I thought my tips sounded like they made completely practical sense, I can’t say they really helped me when I was sitting alone in an empty air-conditioned hotel room counting the number of shower caps I’d collected on my journey.
When my mom had suggested I wipe down the TV remote control with the sanitizing gel in her bag, and, out of boredom, I’d decided to kill time by Googling the other items in my room I should sanitize…bad idea. Basically, I’d learned that the cleanest place in my room was the desk, so the notes in my new leather-bound journal were really a result of germ avoidance, not an enlightened view of long-distance relationships. I’m not sure I learned much on my trip except that navigating time zones and missed calls with a boyfriend hundreds and, at times, thousands of miles away really sucked (and to use my elbows when hitting the light switch).
My mother’s tour mostly consisted of me waiting around while she was interviewed by journalists and TV and radio hosts who asked the same questions over and over again. I’d had no intention of creating another how-to guide, but the journal was in my bag and scribbling some thoughts down on its pages was infinitely more interesting than listening to my mom repeat her top five tips for social media etiquette. The truth was, though, even after three weeks away from Luke, I still had no idea how to stop thinking about the future and what would happen to us, even if I did have a leather-bound book with the beginning of what I thought I should do.
Fortunately, our three weeks on the road, or what my mother referred to as my internship, went faster than I anticipated, thanks to the mad dashes for the airports, the shuttling between TV and radio stations, the newspaper and magazine interviews conducted over lattes at Starbucks, and my mother’s insistence that we experience at least one piece of local culture in each city. This included lunch in a rotating restaurant 500 feet above Seattle, which taught me I am, in fact, not just afraid of heights, but also prone to throwing up a cheeseburger when taking in 360 degree views of my potential plunge to the Earth. There wasn’t time to think about everything I was missing at home, although there weren’t enough text messages in the world that could make up for not being there in person. It didn’t help that Lucy and Josie sent me at least six pictures a day of all the fun they were having on the Cape.
At first, it was nice to feel included, to see what I had waiting for me after sitting in the lobby of a Hyatt for two hours while my mom discussed the importance of maintaining correct grammatical structure when trimming down your thoughts to 280 characters or less. Toward the end of my trip, when I could recite the dos and don’ts of emojis in my sleep, the pictures of Lucy and Josie started to include people I didn’t even know—new friends they’d made at the Scoop Shack, or at the beach, or in town. I wasn’t sure where they were meeting all these new people, but I did know that it looked like they were having a great time without me.
After three weeks of playing where in the world is Emily Abbott, I’d become intimately familiar with the proper procedures for takeoff and landing, read the seatback safety card enough times to identify the nearest exit within three seconds of entering an aircraft, and memorized the SkyMall catalog from cover to cover. My personal favorites among the infinitely useless, and sometimes downright disturbing, catalog items were, in no specific order: the Human Slingshot, which involved four people slinging back and forth at one another inside a human-sized rubber band; decorative toilet flush handles for people who want to hold onto an elephant tail as they wash away evidence; and a talking dog collar with remote control, because having a human voice emanate from Fido’s throat isn’t creepy, right?
But this was my last flight, the final plane ride home. As the Boston skyline came into view, it was all I could do to keep from turning on my phone and calling Luke from the sky. But years of Polite Patty training had ingrained a certain adherence to rules that I couldn’t bring myself to disregard. Besides, I had visions of the bars on my phone going up just as the plane started going down, the little device in my hand wreaking havoc with the communications system designed to operate free and clear of mobile phone interruptions. I decided, in the interest of relying on the screens and buttons and satellite navigation systems in the cockpit to deliver me safely to the ground, I’d wait until I heard the squeal of rubber on the runway.
I powered up my phone and texted Luke as soon as the plane’s wheels touched down: Just landed, be over soon.
It took a few minutes for his reply to appear: Not home, call me.
I knew my mom would kill me if I actually dialed his number right then, with two hundred anxious passengers ready to trample over me to get to carousel six and reclaim their luggage. Public phone conversations were one of my mother’s pet peeves.
Instead, I texted: Can’t talk. When will you be home?
And this time, the reply was instantaneous: Not going home, on Martha’s Vineyard. Call you soon.
If it wasn’t for the line of passengers propelling my body down the aisle, I probably would have stayed planted in place, unable to move until the cleanup crew swept me away with the gum wrappers, empty water bottles, and wrinkled SkyMall catalogs.
Martha’s Vineyard? Luke was almost two hours away, if you counted the car ride and the ferry. I was finally here, and now he was there? Luke knew I was flying back today, and even knew the exact time I landed and my flight number (in case he wanted to track the plane online, which I thought was a cool idea). We’d been planning to see each other as soon as I got home, which would be in less than one hour, if traffic on the Mass Pike cooperated.
The flight attendant smiled at me as I approached the exit. “Thank you, have a great day!”
“Thank you! You, too,” I replied, because that’s what you do when you’ve spent three weeks on the road listening to an etiquette guru dispense her wisdom to the masses. You smile politely and pretend everything is perfect.
As my mom and I made our way to the baggage claim area, I continued to check my phone and waited for the screen to light up with another message from Luke. Instead, it remained dark.
“Glad to be back?” my mother asked as we stood at the carousel watching it go round and round with luggage that wasn’t ours.
I nodded.
“I know you can’t wait to see Luke.” She beamed at me, the daughter who had been such a good trooper for three weeks and who had finally returned home to the welcoming arms of her boyfriend. I almost got the feeling she was expecting Luke to be waiting for me in the baggage area with a hand-painted cardboard sign held over his head: “Welcome back, Emily!!” My mom was a big fan of grand gestures like that, even if I couldn’t remember one time when anyone had ever met us in an airport arrival area holding anything other than a grudge for having to suffer through traffic on their way to pick us up.
“I bet he’s on his way to our house right now to surprise you when we get there,” my mom continued, once it became apparent that there was no welcoming committee waiting to greet us.
“I bet he isn’t,” I mumbled, but my mom didn’t hear me because that’s when our luggage turned the corner of the carousel and came into view.
“What was that?” she asked, reaching for her bag and lifting it off the rotating belt before it passed us by.
“Nothing.” I walked up to my bag and snatched it from the moving conveyor.
There’s a saying: If you love someone, set them free, and if they come back, they’re yours. If they don’t, they never were. Makes sense, right? But what happens when you’re the one set free for three weeks and you come back? What if there’s nobody to welcome you home or even answer your call and tell you how much you were missed? They never came up with a pithy saying for that, probably
because the only lesson you can possibly learn from the experience is that it feels pretty crappy. Well, that and you’re stuck carrying your own luggage to the parking lot.
• • •
“Why aren’t you home?” I’d been staring at my phone for almost an hour by the time Luke’s name finally appeared, a photo of us from graduation lighting up my screen.
“It’s a long story,” he said, and then added, “I’m glad you’re back.”
“So am I, but I’d be even more glad if you were here.” Even I could tell my voice sounded a little whiney, which wasn’t how I wanted to sound at all. “What’s going on?” I asked, purposely changing my tone. “Is everything okay?”
“You’re not going to believe it.”
I threw myself on my bed and propped the pillow up behind my head. “Try me.”
“We came over to the island yesterday for the day. My mom wanted to visit her college roommate and I went along because I had nothing else to do and I’ve known her kids for, like, forever.”
Forever was a long time—so long that I wondered why I’d never heard of these very good family friends before.
“And you decided to stay?” I asked, attempting to remove all the disappointment from my voice.
“Long story short, we went bridge jumping. This other kid and I left the railing at the same time ,and I don’t know exactly how it happened, but we ended up colliding and the next thing I know I’m being pulled out of the water because my knee is all screwed up, and every time I go to move, it’s like an ice pick being jammed into my leg.”
“Did you go to the hospital? Is it serious? Did you break something?” I fired off questions one after the other without even doubting if Luke was exaggerating the pain. It had to be bad. There were days he walked off the lacrosse field with scrapes and bruises and crusted blood embedded in cuts, and he never complained, so if he was admitting how bad the pain was, it had to be horrible. “Are you okay?”