A Summer Romance Read Online Free PDF

gathered out of the conversation she needed some
new belts, some sort of pump, and something for the transmission.
None of that really made any sense to her, but what she did clearly
understand was the grand total of $2000.
    That was nearly all of the money that she
was being paid for the summer, there was no way she could spend
that much.
    Sam had offered her two options, she could
pay to fix the car or he would purchase it from her for scrap
parts. He offered her $500, which she thought was fair considering
the car didn’t run. It was a heart wrenching decision, but one she
knew she needed to make.
    Old Betty had been the first thing Maggie
had ever bought with her own money. She’d secretly worked at a
bookstore her senior year of high school to save up the money. Her
mother had believed that she was on the prom committee. It was an
acceptable cover, an extracurricular activity that her mother could
approve of that also offered enough after school time requirements
to hold down the part time job. Luckily for Maggie her mother
believed that it would take the entire school year to plan the
dance, so Maggie was able to use those after school hours to work
at her favorite little bookstore in town. It was also to Maggie’s
advantage that neither her mother, nor anyone from her mother’s
social circle, would ever have enough interest to step into the
shop where she worked.
    She’d secretly stowed away her small
earnings until she had enough to purchase Old Betty. She’d planned
it perfectly so that she could buy the car immediately after
graduation, the same week that she would be informing her mother
that she would be leaving for college rather than attending a
Finishing School in Switzerland. Maggie knew her mother’s
intentions were good, to groom her for a life of wealth and
privilege. It was the only way her mother knew. It didn’t matter
that it wasn’t the life that Maggie wanted.
    Her mother had been offended by Maggie’s
interest in science and discouraged it at every turn. In her
opinion a woman should not aspire to be a doctor, she should aspire
to marry one, but only a very wealthy and well-renowned doctor of
course. Maggie quietly disagreed.
    She eventually learned to stop trying to
talk to her mother about her true passions and instead participated
in the superficial socialite chatter that she preferred. She
attended cotillions and debutant balls. She paraded around in the
beautiful dresses that her mother bought for her and took lessons
in proper etiquette for high society. She jumped through every hoop
her mother put in front of her and did it with quiet grace. But she
never gave up on her dreams, secretly applying to universities in
Boston and planning the future she really wanted.
    Perhaps that was where she’d gone wrong.
Maybe if she’d stood up to her mother from the beginning and
insisted that she understand what she really wanted, then she might
not have been so shocked by the revelation that Maggie had been
accepted into Harvard University’s pre-med program. For most
parents learning that your child would be attending Harvard would
have been a moment of great pride. For Corrine Overton it was a
slap in the face. Every plan she’d ever had for her daughter had
shattered in that moment and she had been irate.
    It was the first time Maggie had ever seen
her mother lose her composure. Maggie had taken the berating with
silent grace as her father sat helplessly to the side rubbing his
temples. He’d never really participated much in his daughter’s life
and now would not be the time for him to step in. Maggie allowed
her mother to speak her piece, and then quietly and efficiently had
packed her few belongings into Old Betty and drove away. It had
been over six years since she’d last spoken to her mother.
    Letting go of Old Betty was both painful and
liberating. That car had carried Maggie from her childhood home to
Boston, where she’d once believed all her dreams would come true.
That same