Page 62 of One Last Summer
It took me a minute to recognize exactly what it was: the sixth sense that came along with friendship, knowing everything without knowing anything at all. The realization made my heart swell with gratitude for her.
“We slept together last night, and then immediately got into some stupid fight,” I blurted out, unable to contain the words and feelings bubbling up inside of me. “It was amazing, I hate him again, the end.”
I tucked my hands under my chin and gave her the toothiest, most deranged smile I could muster, doing my best pageant queen pose.
“Oh, Clara,” she said sympathetically, drawing out every letter of my name so that it landed like a slow-moving bomb. “I want to be a good friend and ask if you want to talk about your fight, but I also really, really want to know how the sex was.”
I let out a loud laugh, and then dropped my head in my hands with a groan. “It was incredible. He’s ruined all future sex for me. Do you want details?”
“Are you kidding me right now?” she said, pressing a hand to her chest like I’d offended her. “I want explicit details. Drawings. Maybe a diorama of all the different positions? I have all day.”
“Well, we could go hang out in the art barn,” I said, peering up at her through my fingers. “I could build you a 3D model of our bodies out of Popsicle sticks.”
“Oh my god, yes,” Sam said with an ecstatic moan as she pushed herself up to stand slowly. “Can we meet in, like, half an hour? I need to call my mom first, and you definitely don’t need to overhear that conversation. She’s just going to lecture me about how I should come home immediately.”
“Your mom doesn’t want to hear about Mack going down on me on top of the counter in the boathouse? I could sit in on the call, give her all the deets.”
“No he didn’t!” Sam’s mouth dropped open into a Joker-like grin.
“Oh yeah.” I nodded, feeling better with every second that passed. “The Popsicle sticks won’t be able to do it justice, but I’ll try.”
“Okay, thirty minutes!” she said, twiddling her fingers together with childlike glee. “I’ll meet you in the art barn, where we’re going to play the entire Indigo Girls catalog on my phone—in order—and dig up all the finger paint and get weird and crafty.”
Weird. The word landed in my stomach like a punch, and I blinked back a reaction, forcing Mack out of my thoughts.
Sam clapped her hands together and bowed her head, clearly pleased with her plan.
“Honestly, that sounds just like old times,” I said, marveling at the way Sam seemed to glow, shining in the bright morning light. It hit me—deeper than it had any other time this week—just how much I’d missed her.
“I know,” she said, beaming back at me. “Aren’t you glad you came?”
“More than you know,” I said, suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to cry, even though I felt the exact opposite of sadness right now.
“Mom time.” She waved her phone at me, grimacing. “Wish me luck.”
“Remind her that you are a grown-up and you can make decisions for yourself!” I shouted behind her as she headed back out through the door, stopping to look at me with a cocked brow.
“Tell your boss the same thing when you email her!” she said as she disappeared back into the sunlight.
I plopped back down onto my bed and grabbed my phone. After a solid twenty minutes of polishing up the document, I cracked open my email.
Amaya, I wrote. I know I’m on my micro-sabbatical, but I had a bit of an epiphany for the Alewife creative and am sending over a detailed outline. Can’t wait to hear what you think.
And then I hit send.
27
IT WAS DARK outside when the reply landed in my inbox, short and to the point.
Clara—No work emails on micro-sabbatical. Amaya says you two can discuss next week.—Abe
Abe.
She’d had her assistant respond as if she couldn’t even be bothered to answer herself. My fists clenched with actual rage, fingers cracking as they dug into my palms.
Over my thirteen years working for her, I’d become masterful at deciphering Amaya’s moods simply based on her email sign-offs. Most of the time it was simply “Amaya,” but occasionally on a good day, or a weekend, I’d get a random “xx.” I always assumed those came after some sort of bottomless mimosa brunch. Ones signed with “—A” were sent when she was short on patience, on time, on giving a shit.
It was never good to get the “—A.” But for her to not even bother to reply herself felt like an incomparable insult. She was clearly trying to send some sort of message, and if her goal was to leave me seething, then she’d accomplished it.
