Summer of Love Read Online Free PDF

miserable.
    Not that I expected a marching band to herald my arrival nor a chorus of well-wishers hailing me as the latest and greatest ferry transport, but a notice might be nice. Instead, all I get is a smile and cheers from Doug who looks robotic in his caffeine-charged cash registering, and nary a nod from Ula who gives off the emotional air of soured milk, until Arabella delivers a frozen mochachino to one customer, wipes up a spill with her trusty cloth, and then sashays over to me.
    “Fucking hell, Bukowski, it’s about time.”
    And just like that, summer has officially started.

Chapter Three
    A few minutes later, during a lull in the fairly steady stream of tourists and locals looking for an afternoon pick-up-up (AKA frozen lemonade or ice coffee), Arabella shows me up the narrow, creaky stairs in back of one of the storage closets to our small apartment. Each of the risers on the stairs is painted a different shade of blue.
    “Cool — it’s like walking up the ocean!” I say as we climb the steps — passing azure, sky blue, turquoise, indigo, navy, and every other blue that exists.
    “That’s exactly the look I was going for!” Arabella beams at me over her shoulder.
    “You did this?” I ask. “Isn’t this a summer lease?”
    “And your point is…”
    “Point being you’re not supposed to paint or permanently alter the place?” I say and take the last two steps at one time. “I mean, my dad and I don’t even move the furniture that much at home — since it’s like a long-term rental…” My voice trails off as I take a second to think about my dad — right now he’s tying up all those end of the academic year issues, dealing with Aunt Mable’s will and trying to get over his grief by plunging into a trip to Europe with his girlfriend, Louisa. I won’t see him until mid-August here when he visits for Illumination Night in Oak Bluffs, when the whole town is lighted up by lanterns — it looks so romantic in photos, but I haven’t seen it in person since I was little.
    Arabella pauses outside the plain white front door to the apartment and waves her hands like a supermodel selling skin crème. “Now — this…this is your new home — well, home for a while. But then, everything’s temporary, isn’t it?”
    “Thank you Lady Philosophy,” I say and lean against the wall while she unlocks the door. Once she does, she hands me the key.
    “Just so you know, I never lock the door. It just sticks and you have to use the key to unstick it.”
    “So basically you do lock it,” I say and nudge her butt with my knee so she’ll finally open the door and let me see inside.
    “Ta-da!” Arabella throws her arms open wide and reveals her current masterpiece: our new flat. “The theme is Endless Summer!”
    “Like that Beach boys’ album?”
    Arabella nods and rushes from a wall where she’s collaged Hawaiian prints and glued actually retro surfboards to a wicker cave-chair suspended from the ceiling by a chain. “I figured we needed to make this place a little glam — a sort of Beach Blanket Bingo retreat from the cappuccino chaos downstairs.”
    “It’s amazing,” I say and walk around like it’s a dream. Then I think of something. “Do you have any mugs?”
    “Sorry?” she asks and points me to a glass cabinet. Inside are rows of mismatching glasses form the sixties — hula girls, surfing guys, a set of shot glasses glued to matchbox cars. Arabella demonstrates one. “You drink and then race them!”
    “But no mugs?” I ask, just in case she’s got the missing red mug.
    “No — but you can grab one from downstairs.” She waits for me to react more to the flat. “Do you like it?”
    The small kitchen is part of the main room, but sectioned off with a low wall on top of which Arabella has placed lanterns and lights shaped like stars with diamond-shaped holes cut out — all in shades of blue. “The whole thing just works — forget acting, forget golf-putting, you should