Ann Brashares - The Last Summer (of You and Me) Read Online Free PDF
Author: Ann Brashares
sub tler frequencies of human interaction. She hadn't known what she'd be giving up.
The rest had been looking backward. Trying to remember what was true rather than seeking it. They were holy men divining the ancient book, judges interpreting their constitution. They heark ened back to a calmer, more just time.
But time went on, as it will, and the seasons changed. What did not accord with the covenant Paul did not tell Riley and Alice. The ambitions, the petty preoccupations, the sex he'd finally had with the laughing girl in his history class junior year. He went ahead and lived those seasons, all the while feeling that his real life lay here, on this beach in the summer, with Riley and Alice.
What was powerful at thirteen and even seventeen should have grown quaint by twenty-four, and yet the covenant, by its nature,
� 26 � The Last Summer (of You and Me)
had durability. It still existed between them. He could feel it even now. You could go away for months or years, but it was still here, bound to what you loved, binding you to it.
Alice kept it out of loyalty, he suspected. For Riley, it wasn't so much like a choice. And for him?
For him, what he'd had here on this island with Riley and Alice was the best and most lasting thing in his life.
� 27 � Three
Bottles and Stones
F or nine years Paul had not called her by her name. She had
been "Shorty" or "Kid" or "You" to him since she was twelve. It wasn't until her first night working as a waitress at the yacht club that Alice realized this.
It was a Friday night, so she was not stunned to see her parents turn up. Since the end of high school, Ethan and Judy had left the girls at the beach on the weekdays and come out on Friday's noisy and social sunset ferry. Ethan was a history teacher and coach at a private school in Manhattan during the school year and taught summer-school courses and tutored through July and most of August to boost his income. Her mother copyedited and proofread textbooks and pitched articles on child-rearing and related subjects to a handful of editors she knew. Judy talked about her articles a lot
� 28 � The Last Summer (of You and Me)
during the conceiving and pitching stage, but after that they often disappeared, uncommissioned and unwritten.
"I'll take the bacon burger. And what have you got on tap?"
Alice had her arms crossed, pen in her teeth, pad tucked into her armpit. It seemed typical of her life experience that her sole table on her first shift was taken by her parents.
"Dad, you know what they have," she said in an undertone. Within moments of being near them, she felt her eyeballs rolling skyward. Even if she kept her eyeballs still, she could hear the tone in her voice.
"Okay, make it a Bass."
Her father's hair was a mix of black and gray, and as full as a soap opera star's. Most people tread lightly over what they have and dwell heavily on what they have not, but in that sense her father was original. He thought as often about keeping his hair as balding people thought about losing theirs, and the extent of his pleasure easily matched the extent of their distress.
Her mother was blond. Though it was dyed blond, she felt as though she had a right to the color because she had once been blond. She spoke out against blondes who had no natural claim to it. "It really doesn't look right," she'd say.
Alice had inherited this blond hair, though a rustier, wavier ver sion, and the color was holding steady, though Alice suspected it would turn dark when she had to stop spending summers at the beach. Next summer, for example, when she'd be working at a law firm. And all the seasons after, when Riley would keep teaching her outdoor leadership courses during the year and lifeguarding
� 29 � Ann Brashares
through the summers, and Alice would be working endlessly at a law firm. Alice had begun to picture herself in the future with dark hair.
Though Riley spent most of her life outside, she
The rest had been looking backward. Trying to remember what was true rather than seeking it. They were holy men divining the ancient book, judges interpreting their constitution. They heark ened back to a calmer, more just time.
But time went on, as it will, and the seasons changed. What did not accord with the covenant Paul did not tell Riley and Alice. The ambitions, the petty preoccupations, the sex he'd finally had with the laughing girl in his history class junior year. He went ahead and lived those seasons, all the while feeling that his real life lay here, on this beach in the summer, with Riley and Alice.
What was powerful at thirteen and even seventeen should have grown quaint by twenty-four, and yet the covenant, by its nature,
� 26 � The Last Summer (of You and Me)
had durability. It still existed between them. He could feel it even now. You could go away for months or years, but it was still here, bound to what you loved, binding you to it.
Alice kept it out of loyalty, he suspected. For Riley, it wasn't so much like a choice. And for him?
For him, what he'd had here on this island with Riley and Alice was the best and most lasting thing in his life.
� 27 � Three
Bottles and Stones
F or nine years Paul had not called her by her name. She had
been "Shorty" or "Kid" or "You" to him since she was twelve. It wasn't until her first night working as a waitress at the yacht club that Alice realized this.
It was a Friday night, so she was not stunned to see her parents turn up. Since the end of high school, Ethan and Judy had left the girls at the beach on the weekdays and come out on Friday's noisy and social sunset ferry. Ethan was a history teacher and coach at a private school in Manhattan during the school year and taught summer-school courses and tutored through July and most of August to boost his income. Her mother copyedited and proofread textbooks and pitched articles on child-rearing and related subjects to a handful of editors she knew. Judy talked about her articles a lot
� 28 � The Last Summer (of You and Me)
during the conceiving and pitching stage, but after that they often disappeared, uncommissioned and unwritten.
"I'll take the bacon burger. And what have you got on tap?"
Alice had her arms crossed, pen in her teeth, pad tucked into her armpit. It seemed typical of her life experience that her sole table on her first shift was taken by her parents.
"Dad, you know what they have," she said in an undertone. Within moments of being near them, she felt her eyeballs rolling skyward. Even if she kept her eyeballs still, she could hear the tone in her voice.
"Okay, make it a Bass."
Her father's hair was a mix of black and gray, and as full as a soap opera star's. Most people tread lightly over what they have and dwell heavily on what they have not, but in that sense her father was original. He thought as often about keeping his hair as balding people thought about losing theirs, and the extent of his pleasure easily matched the extent of their distress.
Her mother was blond. Though it was dyed blond, she felt as though she had a right to the color because she had once been blond. She spoke out against blondes who had no natural claim to it. "It really doesn't look right," she'd say.
Alice had inherited this blond hair, though a rustier, wavier ver sion, and the color was holding steady, though Alice suspected it would turn dark when she had to stop spending summers at the beach. Next summer, for example, when she'd be working at a law firm. And all the seasons after, when Riley would keep teaching her outdoor leadership courses during the year and lifeguarding
� 29 � Ann Brashares
through the summers, and Alice would be working endlessly at a law firm. Alice had begun to picture herself in the future with dark hair.
Though Riley spent most of her life outside, she
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