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When I was fifteen my mom died, turning my once colorful life gray and my dad into the shell of the man he’d once been. Figuring we could both use a break from the city and memories that lurked around every corner, the following summer, he moved us down to Elmhurst, Georgia for a short-term teaching gig at a private university.
Needing a distraction of her own after the passing of her husband, Saffron Butler stayed home from going to the beach that season as had been the tradition in her family for generations and enrolled in that same course.
The way my stepmom tells the story, she felt something come alive in her that first day when Professor Antonio Luis de la Cruz spoke about the way love was used in literature to explore societal indifference and self-discovery. She had to know more about the handsome professor with the wire rimmed glasses and sandy brown hair.
After writing her phone number on the top of her first assignment, my father waited for the class to end before asking Saffron out for coffee, and the rest is, as they say, history.
They dated the rest of the summer and long-distance throughout the fall, and by the following spring, the two were engaged and married. My dad and I moved to Elmhurst and I enrolled at the prep school of the same name that all the children in my new stepmom’s social circle attended, and life as I knew it changed.
While at first I believed moving from New York to Georgia was going to be the end of the world, it turned out to be a good thing. Saffron’s spacious brick mansion with the six columns and wrap-around porch had been my ticket into the kind ofprivilege not even the dark hair and olive skin I inherited from my mother could overlook.
Her circle was a who’s who of old money, and their kids, which were being groomed to become the next generation of businessmen and politicians, ran Elmhurst Prep with a kind of arrogance I loathed, but learned to ignore. When the rich shine their light on you, there is nothing you can do but sink or swim. So I looked past their privilege and money and swam like a motherfucker.
By the end of my first week there, I’d landed a spot on the school’s baseball team as their starting pitcher. My skills on the field made the guys want to befriend me, while my dark hair and blue eyes made the girls want to date me, and in a matter of weeks, I found myself at the top of the food chain among the homogenous sea of peaches and cream.
I embraced my new life because it was also at that time I realized how bogus the ethos of hard work equals success really was. The futures that had been mapped out for my classmates made it clear—who you were, and who you knew, was how you made it to the top and achieved your dreams. So I used my new world to pursue my own.
I loved baseball. From the moment I first slipped my hand inside a glove, I dreamed of playing at Yankee Stadium. The smell of fresh cut grass and rawhide stirred something in me nothing else did and I knew baseball would be a part of my future. I just didn’t think I would be discovered playing in the dirt diamond at my old high school back in New York, no matter how good an arm I had.
Elmhurst, on the other hand, was a favorite among Division One college scouts, and when I was recognized as an All American after my first year, coaches from D1 schools started calling. By the time I finished my senior year, I had offers from nearly a dozen schools to play college ball.
I wound up choosing Highland College, a university in Pennsylvania with a ball club that was undergoing a growth year. Given its history of being a favorite among pro ball scouts and the probability of seeing a lot of play as one of their starting pitchers, it was the perfect place to get noticed.
It was there I met Jake and our other two roommates, Cal and Marcus. With Jake at home plate, and Cal and Marcus at shortstop and third base, we ran a tight infield. Together, we drove the team to the playoffs our first year, and just a few weeks ago, to its first championship in six.
But Jake, Cal, Marcus and I were more than teammates. We’d become like brothers the past two years. Each of us had the same love of the game in our blood and dreams of going pro, and that’s why we’re here.
Pro ball clubs often plucked players out of college once they turned twenty-one, and with teams across the country already starting to put out feelers with each of us, our next year at Highland was looking like it may be our last not just as teammates, but college coeds. I couldn’t think of a better place to have one last summer together than Cherry Cove.
While the picturesque beach town was the wealthy’s respite during the day, an old-fashioned boardwalk came alive at night, offering a darker side to the sugary confection playland of southern society, and one hell of a party.
A giant clown face looking down over the entrance went from cheerful to macabre under the setting sun, and the locals that ran the rides and games—those who time and money had not favored—knew how to let loose. Every night music blared from a bandstand set up on the beach and when mixed in with the screams from the roller coasters that ran well into the night, it created an energy that was electric and infectious.
“I told you,” I say casually, finally answering Jake’s question. “I spent a couple of summers here in high school.”
“Uh huh,” Jake nods, “but I know you don’t like the south and fuck, this heat…now I know why.”
“I don’t,” I agree. “But trust me when I say this is the perfect place to follow Coach’s orders. Keep the muscles loose and warm, blow off some steam, and come back focused and ready to train. But…” I stop walking and look at Jake in warning. “Remember what I told you. Locals may rule the boardwalk at night, but old money runs this town. Keep it cool with the prep school kids, and the girls…be smart.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waves a dismissive hand with a roll of his eyes. “We may not be in Kansas anymore, but girls are girls everywhere. I know what they want and need.”
“Man…” I shake my head. “Listen to me. I’m telling you. They’re different down—”
“Bennett?” My stomach plummets as a voice I haven’t heard for two years stops me in my tracks. “Bennett Darcy de la Cruz, is that you?”
I turn around slowly, the smile on my face fading, as the past smacks into me, and pulls the air from my lungs.
Ellery Magnolia Butler. A real Georgia peach. With hair the color of honey and eyes as bright as emeralds, she’s a southern debutante, through and through. Only, she was the last time I saw her. Now, it appears she’s traded in miniskirts and polo shirts for cut off shorts and Doc Martens.
Born into privilege, she’d never been told no, a day in her life. Not that she would let it stop her if someone did. She’d do it anyway because she is just that determined, and her clothes, which are more grunge than debutante, stresses this better than the miniskirts she used to favor.
“Well, well, well.” She crosses her arms, pushing up tits that are almost too big for her frame. “Why didn’t you tell anyone you were coming here for the summer?”
“Didn’t tell anyone,” I reply as casually as I can, hoping tohell she can’t tell how seeing her again is affecting me.
“And why is that?” Her voice drips with southern charm. “Didn’t want the town to roll out the welcome mat?”
The snark that belies the sweetness in her response isn’t lost on me. She never did like how popular I was at Elmhurst, and with most of our classmates spending their summers in Cherry Cove, it carried into the time we were here.
