Summer of Love by Emily Franklin Read Free Book Online Page B

be able to sleep in peace.
    Peace until, that is, there’s a knocking downstairs. I jump and say, “Ah!” like someone booed me from behind a corner.
    “Relax, Bukowski,” Arabella says and holds up her finger in the one minute position while she goes downstairs, her sexy shortie bathrobe (maroon, silk, quite revealing) balanced only by her clumpy green face. Two minutes later, Arabella emerges from the café and starts picking at her flaking face mask like nothing happened.
    “Um — hello?” I stand next to her in the bathroom as she squeezes out a wash cloth to finally rid her skin of its botanical beauty regime.
    “Oh — someone wanted a late coffee,” she says.
    I put my hands on my hips. “And did you give this person the last of the stale brew?”
    “First off, it’s not stale — you just made a fresh pot an hour ago. And second — I just told them to serve themselves.”
    I’m out the bathroom door by the time she finishes her sentence and I tell her, “It’s not a cafeteria, Arabella.” What I want to say is that Aunt Mable’s café isn’t open to the public at all hours. It isn’t her place to let post-bar strangers in to help themselves to the leftover croissants and coffee. Arabella’s so relaxed in such a debutante way sometimes that she doesn’t think about the practicality of the situation.
    “It’s no big deal,” she mumbles from under the wet washcloth.
    “Never mind,” I say and start down the stairs. “I’ll sort it out.”
    Of course I was so busy being quasi-critical of Arabella’s ease with the café and her lax attitude toward all things normal that I never bothered to ask her who had come a-knockin’ for that late night brew, but had I thought about it, I might have come to the conclusion that Chilton Pomroy, AKA Chili, would be perkily waiting for me downstairs.
    So when I take the stairs two at a time, arriving in the café with barely acceptable boxers, tee-shirt so worn it’s nearly see through, and no bra and see Charlie and his Hippie Girlfriend, I’m a awash in fast-reeling thoughts: why the hell and I in my pajamas, at least my hair is clean and that it’s down — I feel prettier when it’s down even though I think it looks neater when it’s back, glad I met the Hippie girlfriend before so she — if not Charlie — doesn’t think I parade around like this all the time. And note to self — or rather — note to Arabella: thanks for not telling me to don a sweatshirt. I cross my arms over my chest and look defiant for no reason, but it’s better than baring my breasts for the world.
    Admission — despite my desire to appear calm and cool at all times, I am in fact a flustered mess at present.
    “Did you get some hippy?” I ask and am horrified by my slip up so I talk really fast to try and cover it. “I mean, coffee? There’s lattes and mocha, if I can find the leftover hot chocolate — or maybe you’re more in the mood for frozen lemonade which is in the freezer — of course, I mean it’s frozen right?”
    Charlie — stunning in his navy blue tee-shirt — the kind that must feel like silk it’s so worn in — and his gorgeous girlfriend (in stable boots, a sleeveless cotton dress that looks like an antique slip, and an armful of thin, gold bangles) stare at me like I’m deranged.
    And I kind of am. Could I chalk it up (oh, school year imagery and it’s summer) to the late hour, the lack of sleep of late, the constant whir of the coffee machines and my ever-slurring thoughts of love, college, loss, and Aunt Mable’s treasure map? Sure. But only part of that would be true.
    I am a flustered mess because of the guy in front of me.
    Charlie does this to me whether I like it or not. Unlike that calm feeling I had with Henry this afternoon, or that connected feeling I had with Jacob, around Charlie I feel stereotypically weak-kneed and racy, blushed and beating fast. Thoroughly crushed out — not in a teenage movie kind of way where I notice