Page 11 of Summer Love

My throat tightens.

You’re here to sell and leave.

I set the mug carefully back in the rack and open a cabinet. Stacked dishes, mismatched glasses, empty jars. I open another. Dish towels neatly folded, placemats with seashell patterns. Everything’s clean. Well... everything was clean.

I turn to the fridge. The door’s buried under a jumble of kitschy magnets—a Statue of Liberty I brought back from New York, Hokusai’s Great Wave pinning a yellowed discount coupon for Star Park...

Wedged under a Coral Bay magnet in blue letters, a Polaroid hangs crooked. I straighten it without thinking. The photo’s faded, but I recognize them all—the gang, crowded around the lodge pool, the last summer we were all together. We’d asked Hana to take it. Miles, pink hair, sticks his tongue out at the lens. Luke, tanned to the tips of his ears, has an arm around Evan—Evan with his arms crossed, ramrod straight, even in swim trunks. Sierra sits at the edge of the pool in a bikini, feet in the water, a book on her knees. Noah, hanging back a little, his eyes too soft. And me, planted in the middle—seventeen, but a kid’s body. No chest, no hips, braces I’m trying to hide. A tanned, muscled arm is wrapped around my shoulders.

I put the Polaroid back before I can look any longer. Underneath, half-hidden by the Star Park coupon... a sea otter figurine.

I go still.

The Monterey aquarium. The gang killed an afternoon there. Miles played tour guide like he owned the place, unable to pass a single tank without explaining everything—habitat, diet, mating behavior—before capping it off with the Latin name, delivered with a professor’s seriousness. His dream was to be a marine biologist.

The sea otter figurine—someone else bought me that one, at the gift shop. He slipped it into my hand on the way out, without a word, like it was nothing. I stuck it on the fridge that same night.

I turn away and leave the room.

The living room is large, crowded with sheet-draped furniture. A big couch, a coffee table, shelves. The windows face the front, the ocean side, but the closed shutters block everything—light, sound, air.

I set my phone down and force open a shutter. It barely budges, then finally gives. Morning light floods the room and reveals the dust—thousands of particles hanging in the air, golden, almost beautiful.

I lift the sheet off the old floral couch. The cushions have sagged and the fabric’s faded, but I still recognize the round armrests, the too-deep seat, the dip in the middle where Grandpa always sat.

Trash. Along with the curtains, the doilies, and half the stuff down here.

How many days of work just to make it presentable?

Air it out, clean, repaint, sell.

I grab my phone and head upstairs. The steps creak under my feet—a low, familiar sound.

A steep staircase up to the attic, plus four doors. The bathroom, Dad’s childhood room, my grandparents’ room... and mine.

Ajar.

I move closer. The air coming out is warm, still, thick with dust.

Behind that door, there’s a bed, a ceiling I stared at for a whole night six years ago, my body burning, my head full of promises that weren’t. The most beautiful night of my life—and the stupidest.

I take a step back and head for the end of the hall.

My grandparents’ room is bigger, more neutral. A double bed under a checked bedspread, a dark wood wardrobe, a vanity with an oval mirror spotted with age. It smells like dried lavender—Grandma tucked sachets everywhere.

The window’s right in front of me.

I step forward, open the window, work the rusted latch that fights me a little, and push the shutters open.

The light hits like a slap. And with it, the sound.

First, a voice. A young man, singing. Not in English—long, open vowels. Hawaiian, maybe. The melody rises and falls, easy, carried on the wind.

Then the rest comes. The hiss of spraying water. The clack of a board set on a rack. Kids’ shouts—high, happy, the kind you hear from a long way off. I squint.

The Walker Surf School yard is right below. A hundred feet away, maybe less. Closer than I remember—or maybe the school’s grown, the clutter spread out.

The building is low, wood-sided, topped with a corrugated metal roof bleached by salt.