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

without me!”
    “Lady,” shouted the driver behind her, “you’re blocking traffic. Get back in and drive.”
    She got in and drove desperately, finally pulling right up on the grass, crumpling the NO PARKING ON THE GRASS sign. The Duet pulled remorselessly away from the shore. She ripped open the door to carry her ice cream.
    “You can’t park here,” said a policeman.
    “I know, but I have the ice cream,” Beth said miserably, “and the boat—”
    “Is gone,” said the policeman sympathetically. “Now drive back across the main road and park in the commuter lot. You’ll have to hire a boat to catch up to them, if you really want them to have that ice cream.” He looked in the backseat. “Not that anybody will want it now.”
    There was no choice. She obeyed, parked across the road, and staggered across the stopped traffic with an armload of melting ice cream.
    The Duet was too far out in the river even to yell at.
    This is my life, thought Beth Rose. This is my entrance to adulthood. Kip goes to New York. Anne sees the world. Emily gets married. I sit on the dock with ice cream melting around my ankles.
    I have truly missed the boat.

Chapter 11
    J EREMIAH DUNSTAN SHOULDERED THE heavy movie camera and waited for the white convertible to appear. He had shot the arrival of each party guest and had a nice scene of them crouched down in various corners in the little boat. He was hot and tired and wished he could be a guest instead of a hired hand.
    Back last summer Jere and his father had taken (as they always did) day trips downriver with people who wanted to fish. They were mostly working men who could fit only a couple days of fishing into their lives each year. They wanted action. Unfortunately, fishing on the Westerly River was not a high-action item.
    Jere had been given a movie camera for his birthday, because at the time he insisted he would be a famous Hollywood director. It had turned out to be more work and less fun and a lot more expense than he had bargained for. Plus, who did you show these films to? You needed an awfully kind girlfriend and Jere hadn’t found one.
    Then on one of the fishing trips, Jere brought the movie camera along. He was hoping to get good river shots for a film he wanted to make about a runaway kid. The client of the day, who had caught a small insignificant fish, shouted, “Film me! Film me!” He spent the rest of the trip focusing in on Mr. Stein reeling in, Mr. Falkland eating another roast beef on rye, Mr. Swanzey pretending to dive over the side. At the end of the day, they asked Jere if they could buy the film.
    Jere was off and running. He advertised in four local papers and circulars, and had more work that summer than he could handle. Everybody wanted a movie of their wedding, Fourth of July party, or first baby’s christening.
    Jere was a year younger than most of the guests at the party on the Duet. They had graduated in June and he still had his senior year to go. Since Westerly was a huge high school, he knew this crowd only by sight and they did not know him at all.
    He hoisted the camera for the next quartet of guests. They would be immortalized together.
    Molly parked next to adorable old Gary, who dated every girl once and hardly any girl twice. Only Beth Rose. Molly had never figured that one out. She had a feeling even Gary had never figured that one out. “Hi, Gary,” she said sweetly.
    “Hey, Moll, how ya doin’, how’s summer been?” Gary sauntered on toward the dock. Molly fell in step with him.
    Mike (Kip’s old boyfriend) and Toby (nobody’s boyfriend ever, so far) hopped out of a car to join them. Nobody mentioned that it was odd for Molly to be part of this particular gathering; only girls would think of that. Boys were so nice and thick, thought Molly contentedly. You could count on a boy never to spot the things that mattered.
    She hooked her arm through Gary’s. Gary was pretty hard to surprise. He looked down at her arm and