Read Online Summer Nights by Caroline B. Cooney - Free Book Online

eager for details. “You’re not from Westerly? Where do you go to high school? Are you here for the summer? Did you just move here?”
    “Pick one,” he shouted over the roaring engine, “and maybe I’ll tell you.”
    “Name,” Beth yelled back.
    “Blaze.”
    “Really?”
    “Really. My parents are trendy.”
    “I like it.”
    She forgot to be nervous and leaned way forward to catch his words better. “Where from?” she yelled.
    “Arizona.”
    “What are you doing a thousand miles from home?”
    “You ever take geography? You have any idea where Arizona is? It’s an awful lot more than a thousand miles.”
    “Beth Rose,” she shouted.
    “Beth did what?”
    “No, no, not Beth stood up, Beth Rose, that’s my name, Beth Rose.”
    He cut the motor during her speech. Her last two words resounded across the entire river. People on shore glanced over at them and Blaze laughed at her. “Beth Rose” seemed to echo all around them.
    Beth blushed. “Would you like to drink some blueberry ice cream, Blaze? It’s homemade. The very best.”
    He picked up an entire gallon and peeled off the cardboard lid. “Don’t mind if I do, Miss Beth Rose.” He drank deep from the blueberry ice cream and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. This seemed incredibly funny to Beth and she took the gallon from him and had a swig herself. “That’s disgusting,” she said. “I never drank blueberry ice cream before.”
    “I’ll have your share. I liked it.”
    “What are you doing here, instead of being safely in Arizona?”
    “Having the most boring summer of my entire life.”
    They were sitting knee to knee now. She could stop shouting and didn’t have to lean close to hear, but she stayed close anyhow. “There’s nothing worse than being bored,” she sympathized. “Especially for a whole summer. You have to come to our party. You’ll meet everybody. We’re mostly just-graduated seniors. Are you? It’s bad timing, because this is the last Saturday of summer. But at least you can have one night that’s not boring.”
    “I’d like that,” the boy said. He nodded several times and took hold of the rip cord to start the motor again. Nothing happened. Not the second, not the third try. By the tenth he was gleaming with sweat. She wished she were a good swimmer. She would suggest a dive into the water for both of them.
    Blaze said ruefully, “I don’t think we’re going to catch up to the Duet very soon.”
    Beth could think of worse fates. “Well, here. Try drinking chocolate. That might go down even better than blueberry.”
    The party goers were throwing confetti over Con and Anne as if they were a bride and groom. Anne was sobbing, Con laughing. Anne was passing from hug to hug like a basketball in a close game.
    All that friendship.
    Molly had never been a part of anything like that. Friendship rode the boat like a passenger, larger than all rest.
    Confetti symbolized everything in Molly’s life for which she had had high hopes…and then nothing came of her hopes. New Year’s Eve, or Memorial Day parades—handfuls of confetti tossed high—beautiful aloft—paper rejoicing.
    But for Molly the confetti was always on the pavement, to be ground underfoot by people who did not care.
    Nobody hugged Molly. Gary sprang out to hug Anne like the rest, and wish her a fond farewell. Molly was left alone in the dark cabin, as the sun set and the wind strengthened.
    Molly’s jealousy grew, and became a thing as large and as real as the friendship she yearned for.
    Jeremiah Dunstan had taken all the film he reasonably could of these kids partying. Until something interesting occurred, he didn’t want to waste any more footage. How interesting would it be to look at them all milling around talking and eating?
    He sat on a seat by the rail, staring back at the wake. Smooth waves of high water spread behind them like a forked dragon’s tail. A small motorized dinghy came up toward them. Jere could make out a