Postcards From Last Summer by Roz Bailey Page A

about eccentric customers, who were in bountiful supply in the Hamptons. But most of all, the downtime at the pizzeria had given us a chance to talk about more important things, things that mattered in our lives, like Bear’s dream to make it as a pro surfer and my secret wish to be a writer one day. Already our relationship had moved up a few notches from the easy camaraderie of two surfers waiting in the lineup. I was a little worried that asking him to the dinner party at Darcy’s would ruin everything. He’d ask if it was a date, and I’d say, well, yeah, and he’d freak out and read me the “I just want to be friends” speech that every boy was programmed with in seventh grade.
    â€œAny chance this storm will kick up the surf?” I asked.
    â€œNot according to the Weather Channel.” He flipped open the Newsday that Sal left on the counter each day. “What’s Ann Landers got to say today?”
    â€œAnn thinks a mother-in-law should mind her own beeswax,” I said with a midwestern twang.
    â€œAnd horoscopes. Let’s see. You’re supposed to start something new, and what’s this mean? Saturn is leaning on your midheaven?”
    â€œI think it means Sal’s working me too hard,” I said.
    â€œI heard that,” Sal called from the kitchen.
    As Bear read his horoscope and asked for my help figuring out the Jumble, I thought of how I loved this daily ritual with him. Sharing a Coke, discussing the news. Some nights Bear folded pizza boxes and stacked them to the ceiling in a space beside the pantry while I wiped down tables and vinyl booths, refilled dispensers, and counted out a drawer for the register, the way Sal had taught me. Tonight I needed to get the mop and wipe the floor by the door, where wet footprints stamped the concrete.
    â€œUm, these have the hauntingly familiar shape of large flip-flops,” I said.
    Bear looked down at his feet. “Guilty. But Sal has a rug in the back for nights like this. Can’t have some bony old Hamptons heiress falling on her way to grab a slice.”
    â€œHow did two poor kids like us end up out here?” I said, realizing that when it came to money I had more in common with Bear than I did with Darcy, corporate heiress from the land of opportunity, and Tara, whose strict parents sometimes made everyone forget that Mr. Washington was a famous trial attorney, known as much for his million-dollar retainers as the celebrity clients he defended. Aside from Hamptons summers, I lived in a modest brownstone in Brooklyn. Bear’s mother owned a small bungalow in Wading River, a quiet town on the North Shore that edged into the Long Island Sound, a stone-muddled, still body of water. His father, now remarried, had left New York, moving out to the Midwest.
    â€œSomebody’s gotta take care of the tourists.” He disappeared into the back room and returned with a nubby gray mat lined in black rubber. It fell into place in front of the door, and he was back on his stool, back where I loved having him watch as I wrote down orders, served slices at the counter, and made change at the register.
    â€œSo what are you doing for the Fourth?” he asked.
    â€œLet’s see . . . I’ll probably sleep in, then kick myself because I can’t drive through town because of the parade. When the tourists get tired of monopolizing the streets with their miniature flags and decorated wagons, I’ll drive to the beach. But then the surf will be too crowded with all the weekend warriors, so I’ll head out to Coney’s, where they’ll charge a cover to watch the fireworks on the beach. So I’ll head home and pull the covers up over my head and hope some jerk kid doesn’t blow the roof off the McCorkle house with his M-80 firecracker.”
    â€œFeeling cynical today?”
    â€œI hate the rain.”
    â€œI’ll give you that. But this is more than that. I’ve seen