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  The Summertime I Turned Pretty

Jenny Han

To all the important sister women in my life and most especially Claire

acknowledgments

First and always, thank you to the Pippin women:

Emily van Beek. Holly McGhee, and Samantha

Cosentino. Thank yous to my editor extraordinaire

Emily Meehan, who supports me like no other, equally well every bit Courtney Bongiolatti. Luck Ruth Cummins and everyone at S&Due south. Many thanks to Jenna and Beverly and the Calhoun School for their continuous support of my writing life. Thanks to my writing grouping the

Longstockings, and ane Longstocking in particular, who has sat across from me every Monday and cheered

me on--Siobhan, I'grand looking at you lot. And thank y'all to

Gram, who inspired me to write well-nigh the forever kind of friendship, the kind that spans over boyfriends and beaches and children and lifetimes

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I say, "I can't believe you lot're really here."

He sounds almost shy when he says, "Me neither." And and then he hesitates. "Are you still coming with me?"

I can't believe he even has to inquire. I would get anywhere. "Yes," I tell him. It feels like zip else exists outside of that word, this moment. At that place's just us. Everything that happened this by summertime, and every summer before it, has all led up to this. To now.

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chapter one

Nosotros'd been driving for most seven m years. Or at least that'south how it felt. My blood brother, Steven, drove slower than our Granna. I sabbatum next to him in the passenger seat with my anxiety upwardly on the dashboard. Meanwhile, my female parent was passed out in the backseat. Even when she slept, she looked alert, like at any second she could wake upwards and direct traffic.

"Go faster," I urged Steven, poking him in the shoulder. "Allow's pass that kid on the bike."

Steven shrugged me off. "Never touch the driver," he said. "And take your dirty feet off my dashboard."

I wiggled my toes dorsum and forth. They looked pretty clean to me. "It'south not your dashboard. It's gonna be my car before long, you know."

"If you ever get your license," he scoffed. "People similar you shouldn't even exist allowed to bulldoze."

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"Hey, look," I said, pointing out the window. "That guy in a wheelchair just lapped us!"

Steven ignored me, and and then I started to fiddle with the radio. One of my favorite things about going to the beach was the radio stations. I was as familiar with them as I was with the ones back abode, and listening to Q94 fabricated me just really know within that I was there, at the beach.

I found my favorite station, the ane that played everything from popular to oldies to hip-hop. Tom Picayune was singing "Free Fallin'." I sang right along with him. "She's a good daughter, crazy 'bout Elvis. Loves horses and her fellow likewise."

Steven reached over to switch stations, and I slapped his hand away. "Abdomen, your vox makes me want to run this motorcar into the ocean." He pretended to swerve right.

I sang even louder, which woke up my mother, and she started to sing also. We both had terrible voices, and Steven shook his head in his disgusted Steven way. He hated existence outnumbered. Information technology was what bothered him most virtually our parents being divorced, being the lone guy, without our dad to take his side.

We drove through town slowly, and even though I'd just teased Steven nearly it, I didn't really mind. I loved this drive, this moment. Seeing the town again, Jimmy's Crab Shack, the Putt Putt, all the surf shops. It was like coming abode afterwards you'd been gone a long, long time. It held a million promises of summer and of what just might be.

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As we got closer and closer to the firm, I could feel that familiar flutter in my chest. We were almost there.

I rolled down the window and took information technology all in. The air tasted merely the same, smelled just the same. The air current making my hair feel mucilaginous, the salty ocean breeze, all of it felt just right. Like it had been waiting for me to go in that location.

Steven elbowed me. "Are you thinking near Conrad?" he asked mockingly.

For in one case the respond was no. "No," I snapped.

My female parent stuck her head in between our two seats. "Belly, do yous nevertheless like Conrad? From the looks of things terminal summer, I thought there might be something betwixt yous and Jeremiah."

"WHAT? Y'all and Jeremiah?" Steven looked sickened. "What happened with yous and Jeremiah?"

"Nothing," I told them both. I could feel the affluent rising upwards from my chest. I wished I had a tan already to cover it upwardly. "Mom, just because two people are good friends, information technology doesn't mean there's anything going on. Please never bring that up once more."

My mother leaned back into the backseat. "Washed," she said. Her vocalization had that annotation of finality that I knew Steven wouldn't be able to intermission through.

Because he was Steven, he tried anyhow. "What happened with y'all and Jeremiah? You can't say something similar that and not explain."

"Get over it," I told him. Telling Steven annihilation

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would simply give him ammunition to make fun of me. And anyway, there was nothing to tell. There had never been anything to tell, not really.

Conrad and Jeremiah were Beck'southward boys. Beck was Susannah Fisher, formerly Susannah Beck. My mother was the only 1 who called her Beck. They'd known each other since they were nine--blood sisters, they called each other. And they had the scars to show it-- identical marks on their wrists that looked similar hearts.

Susannah told me that when I was born, she knew I was destined for one of her boys. She said it was fate. My female parent, who didn't normally go in for that kind of affair, said it would be perfect, equally long as I'd had at least a few loves earlier I settled down. Actually, she said "lovers," but that word fabricated me cringe. Susannah put her hands on my cheeks and said, "Belly, you accept my unequivocal blessing. I'd hate to lose my boys to anyone else."

We'd been going to Susannah's beach house in Cousins Beach every summer since I was a infant, since before I was born even. For me, Cousins was less virtually the town and more about the firm. The house was my globe. Nosotros had our ain stretch of beach, all to ourselves. The summertime house was made up of lots of things. The wraparound porch we used to run around on, jugs of dominicus tea, the swimming pool at dark--only the boys, the boys well-nigh of all.

I always wondered what the boys looked like in

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December. I tried to motion picture them in cranberry-colored scarves and turtleneck sweaters, rosy-cheeked and continuing beside a Christmas tree, but the image always seemed faux. I did not know the winter Jeremiah or the winter Conrad, and I was jealous of anybody who did. I got flip-flops and sunburned noses and swim trunks and sand. Just what near those New England girls who had snowball fights with them in the woods? The ones who snuggled up to them while they waited for the car to heat up, the ones they gave their coats to when it was chilly outside. Well, Jeremiah, mayhap. Non Conrad. Conrad would never; it wasn't his manner. Either fashion, it didn't seem fair.

I'd sit next to the radiator in history form and wonder what they were doing, if they were warming their anxiety along the bottom of a radiator somewhere likewise. Counting the days until summer again. For me, information technology was almost like winter didn't count. Summer was what mattered. My whole life was measured in summers. Like I don't actually begin living until June, until I'm at that beach, in that house.

Conrad was the older one, by a year and a half. He was night, dark, dark. Completely unattainable, unavailable. He had a smirky kind of mouth, and I ever institute myself staring at it. Smirky mouths make yous desire to buss them, to smooth them out and buss the smirkiness away. Or possibly not away . . . but y'all want to control it somehow. Make information technology yours. It was exactly what I wanted to do with Conrad. Brand him mine.

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Jeremiah, though--he was my friend. He was nice to me. He was the kind of boy who even so hugged his mother, still wanted to hold her mitt even when he was technically too former for it. He wasn't embarrassed either. Jeremiah Fisher was too busy having fun to ever be embarrassed.

I bet Jeremiah was more popular than Conrad at schoolhouse. I bet the girls liked him improve. I bet that if it weren't for football, Conrad wouldn't be some big deal. He would but be quiet, moody Conrad, not a football god. And I liked that. I liked that Conrad preferred to be alone, playing his guitar. Like he was higher up all the stupid loftier school stuff. I liked to retrieve that if Conrad went to my school, he wouldn't play football, he'd exist on the lit mag, and he'd observe someone like me.

When we finally pulled up to the firm, Jeremiah and Conrad were sitting out on the front porch. I leaned over Steven and honked the horn twice, which in our summer linguistic communication meant, Come help with the bags, stat .

Conrad was eighteen at present. He'd but had a birthday. He was taller than last summer, if you can believe it. His pilus was cut short effectually his ears and was every bit night as ever. Unlike Jeremiah's, whose pilus had gotten longer, and so he looked a fiddling shaggy but in a expert way--like a 1970s tennis player. When he was younger, it was curly yellow, almost platinum in the summertime. Jeremiah hated his curls. For a while, Conrad had him convinced that crusts made

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your pilus curly, so Jeremiah had stopped eating sandwich crusts, and Conrad would smoothen them off. As Jeremiah got older, though, his hair was less and less curly and more wavy. I missed his curls. Susannah chosen him her little angel, and he used to look like one, with his rosy cheeks and yellow curls. He however had the rosy cheeks.

Jeremiah made a megaphone with his hands and yelled, "Steve-o!"

I sat in the machine and watched Steven amble up to them and hug the fashion guys practise. The air smelled salty and wet, like it might rain seawater whatever 2nd. I pretended to exist tying the laces on my sneakers, but really I just wanted a moment to look at them, at the firm for a picayune while, in individual. The business firm was large and greyness and white, and information technology looked similar most every other house on the road, simply better. It looked merely the way I thought a beach house should wait. It looked like habitation.

My mother got out of the car then too. "Hey, boys. Where's your mother?" she called out.

"Hey, Laurel. She's taking a nap," Jeremiah chosen back. Normally she came flying out of the firm the second our car pulled up.

My mother walked over to them in about 3 strides, and she hugged them both, tightly. My mother'southward hug was as house and solid as her handshake. She disappeared into the house with her sunglasses perched on the top of her caput.

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I got out of the auto and slung my bag over my shoulder. They didn't even observe me walk up at first. Simply then they did. They really did. Conrad gave me a quick glance-over the style boys do at the mall. He had never looked at me like that before in my whole life. Not in one case. I could feel my flush from the car return. Jeremiah, on the other hand, did a double take. He looked at me similar he didn't even recognize me. All of this happened in the span of most three seconds, but information technology felt much, much longer.

Conrad hugged me first, but a faraway kind of hug, careful not to get too close. He'd just gotten a haircut, and the skin around the nape of his neck looked pinkish and new, similar a babe'due south. He smelled like the ocean. He smelled similar Conrad. "I liked yous better with glasses," he said, his lips close to my ear.

That stung. I shoved him away and said, "Well, besides bad. My contacts are hither to stay."

He smiled at me, and that smile--he just gets in. His smiling did information technology every time. "I think you got a few new ones," he said, tapping me on the nose. He knew how self-conscious I was about my freckles and he still teased me every fourth dimension.

Then Jeremiah grabbed me next, and he virtually lifted me into the air. "Belly button's all growed up," he crowed.

I laughed. "Put me downwardly," I told him. "Y'all smell like BO." Jeremiah laughed loudly. "Same onetime Belly," he said, but he was staring at me similar he wasn't quite certain who I was.

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He artsy his head and said, "Something looks different about you lot, Belly."

I braced myself for the punch line. "What? I got contacts." I wasn't completely used to myself without spectacles either. My best friend Taylor had been trying to convince me to get contacts since the sixth course, and I'd finally listened.

He smiled. "It'south not that. You just look different."

I went back to the motorcar then, and the boys followed me. We unloaded the machine apace, and equally soon as nosotros were washed, I picked up my suitcase and my book bag and headed direct for my old sleeping accommodation. My room was Susannah'due south from when she was a child. It had faded calico wallpaper and a white bedroom set. In that location was a music box I loved. When you lot opened it, there was a twirling ballerina that danced to the theme song from Romeo and Juliet , the quondam-timey version. I kept my jewelry in it. Everything about my room was old and faded, merely I loved that about it. Information technology felt like in that location might be secrets in the walls, in the 4-poster bed, peculiarly in that music box.

Seeing Conrad again, having him wait at me that fashion, I felt like I needed a 2nd to breathe. I grabbed the stuffed polar bear on my dresser and hugged him close to my breast--his proper noun was Junior Mint, Junior for short. I sat down with Inferior on my twin bed. My heart was beating and then loudly I could hear it. Everything was the same simply not. They had looked at me similar I was a existent girl, not simply somebody'due south little sister.

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chapter two

AGE 12

The offset fourth dimension I ever had my heart broken was at this house. I was twelve.

Information technology was one of those really rare nights when the boys weren't all together--Steven and Jeremiah went on an overnight fishing trip with some boys they'd met at the arcade. Conrad said he didn't feel like going, and of grade I wasn't invited, so it was just me and him.

Well, non together, but in the same business firm.

I was reading a romance novel in my room with my feet on the wall when Conrad walked by. He stopped and said, "Belly, what are you doing tonight?"

I folded the cover of my book over speedily. "Nothing," I said. I tried to proceed my voice even, not likewise excited or eager. I had left my door open on purpose, hoping he'd cease by.

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"Want to get to the boardwalk with me?" he asked. He sounded casual, virtually likewise casual.

This was the moment I had been waiting for. This was it. I was finally old enough. Some part of me knew it also, information technology was ready. I glanced over at him, only as casual every bit he'd been. "Mayhap. I accept been craving a caramel apple."

"I'll buy one for you," he offered. "Merely bustle upwardly and put some wearing apparel on and we'll get. Our moms are going to the movies; they'll drop the states off on the way."

I sat upwardly and said, "Okay."

As soon as Conrad left, I closed my door and ran over to my mirror. I took my hair out of its braids and brushed it. It was long that summer, most to my waist. Then I changed out of my bathing accommodate and put on white shorts and my favorite gray shirt. My dad said it matched my eyes. I smeared some strawberry frosting lip gloss on my lips and tucked the tube into my pocket, for later. In case I needed to reapply.

In the car Susannah kept smiling at me in the rearview mirror. I gave her a look similar, Quit, please--but I wanted to smiling back. Conrad wasn't paying attention anyway. He was looking out the window the whole ride at that place.

"Have fun, kids," said Susannah, winking at me as I closed my door.

Conrad bought me a caramel apple showtime. He bought himself a soda, simply that was it--normally he ate at least an apple tree or ii, or a funnel cake. He seemed nervous, which made me feel less nervous.

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As we walked down the boardwalk, I let my arm hang loose-- in example. Merely he didn't reach for it. It was one of those perfect summer nights, the kind where there'due south a cool cakewalk and non i drop of pelting. There would be pelting tomorrow, just that night there were cool breezes and that was information technology.

I said, "Permit's sit down downwards then I can eat my apple tree," so we did. We sat on a bench that faced the embankment.

I scrap into my app

le, advisedly; I was worried I might get caramel all stuck in my teeth, and and then how would he buss me?

He sipped his Coke noisily, and then glanced down at his watch. "When you stop that, let's go to the band-toss."

He wanted to win me a stuffed animal! I already knew which one I'd option also--the polar bear with wire-frame glasses and a scarf. I'd had my heart on information technology all summer. I could already movie myself showing information technology off to Taylor. Oh, that? Conrad Fisher won information technology for me.

I wolfed down the rest of my apple in nearly two bites. '"Kay," I said, wiping my oral fissure with the back of my hand. "Let's become."

Conrad walked straight over to the ringtoss, and I had to walk superquick to keep upward. As usual, he wasn't talking much, so I talked even more to make up for information technology. "I think when nosotros get back, my mom might finally get cable. Steven and my dad and I take been trying to convince

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her for forever. She claims to be so against Boob tube, only and then she watches movies on A&E, similar, the whole time nosotros're here. It's so hypocritical," I said, and my voice trailed off when I saw that Conrad wasn't even listening. He was watching the girl who worked the ringtoss.

She looked about fourteen or fifteen. The first thing I noticed well-nigh her was her shorts. They were canary yellow, and they were really, really curt. The exact aforementioned kind of shorts that the boys had made fun of me for wearing two days before. I felt then good nearly buying those shorts with Susannah, and and so the boys had laughed at me for it. The shorts looked a whole lot ameliorate on her.

Her legs were skinny and freckled, so were her artillery. Everything virtually her was skinny, even her lips. Her pilus was long and wavy. Information technology was crimson, only information technology was then light it was nearly peach. I think it might have been the prettiest pilus I'd ever seen. She had information technology pulled over to the side, and it was and so long that she had to go on flicking it away as she handed people rings.

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