My Summer of Pink & Green Read online

  As we’re walking in, I feel someone put their arms on my shoulders and when I turn around, I see that it’s Sunny. She reaches over to give me a hug. “I am so proud of you, Luce! You really did it. Oh, and when did your mom and grandma agree to the name? You never told me it was officially going to be called Pink and Green.”

  I’m distracted as I’m talking to her because I’m looking around at everyone who is coming in with us, especially keeping an eye on Yamir. But I try to focus. “Well, the official name is ‘Pink and Green: The Spa at Old Mill Pharmacy,’ but everyone liked just ‘Pink and Green’ by itself. My grandma was worried people wouldn’t know what it was, so she added that little bit at the end.”

  “Makes sense,” Sunny says, peering around a corner. We’ve separated from the rest of the tour, but it’s not like we really need to be with the group. I know my way around here. “That’s the makeup chair?” she asks, pointing to a huge chair covered in plastic in the corner.

  “Yup!” I walk over to it, and Sunny follows. “Isn’t it so amazing? We ordered it special from this beauty supplies catalog. It has all these different settings, so I can make it higher or lower depending on how tall the people are.”

  “Let’s unwrap it!” Sunny says.

  “No, we can’t. It’ll get all dusty from the construction,” I say. “But I promise you will be one of the first people to sit in it.”

  “Cool,” Sunny says, seeming bored all of a sudden. I look away from the chair and back at her and I notice she’s not even paying attention or seeming excited about the chair anymore. She’s looking down at her phone, reading a text message or something. Finally she looks up. “Oh, sorry. Evan was just texting me, asking if I wanted to go to the carnival at Old Mill Elementary later.”

  “I thought they had one a few months ago.”

  “They did, but they’re having another, and it’s a fundraiser. They need money for that new music wing.” She shrugs. “Should be fun, though.”

  Is Sunny really going to something and not inviting me? I don’t know what to say. I just stay quiet. It’ll come. She’ll say Do you want to come with us? any second now.

  But she doesn’t. It feels like an hour goes by without either of us saying anything.

  “Lucy, we need you,” Grandma calls. “This lovely woman wants to ask you some questions.”

  “OK, so I gotta go, Sunny,” I say, and give her one last chance to invite me.

  “See you later! Go be your important spa-owning self.” She smiles and blows me a kiss. But no invite.

  seem to go in slow motion. I expected everything to happen superfast as soon as Claudia was home and we had the ground breaking, but instead it feels like I’m just sitting around all the time.

  Every day I go to the pharmacy and help out with my usual stuff—the magazines, the hair products, keeping the Relaxation Room nice and neat—but I want to be doing stuff for the spa! I hang around the construction area and watch the workers handle the installations and the lighting and I page through spa catalogs, folding down corners.

  Right now Mom and Grandma are in the back office looking at the calendar trying to figure the best day for the grand opening of the spa. I don’t understand why they don’t know the perfect day right away. It’s so obvious.

  I’m glad my eavesdropping skills have improved so much and that I can hear them talking. I put the stack of magazines on the Relaxation Room table in a neat pile and run over to them.

  “Hey, Lucy,” Grandma says.

  “Hi.” I plop myself down on the office couch. “Whatcha talking about?” See, I can’t make it too obvious that I’m a master eavesdropper, because if I do, they won’t talk so loudly anymore and I’ll never be able to hear what’s going on.

  “Just trying to figure out scheduling,” my mom says, sounding worn out. “Ma, don’t forget I have that wedding in August.”

  “What wedding?” I ask.

  “Oh, a friend of Dad’s and mine from Yale—her name is Esme. She and her fiancé live on a commune in New Hampshire. They’re finally getting married,” Mom says. “She’s really crazy, but we—”

  “OK.” Grandma puts a hand on my mom’s shoulder. “We don’t need every single detail, Jane. Just remind me of the weekend.”

  “It’s the weekend before Labor Day weekend. So we can do the grand opening before or after.”

  “Are you guys serious?” I ask. They look at me, confused. “It’s ridiculously obvious that the grand opening of Pink and Green needs to be Labor Day weekend. Hello, Boat Fest!”

  Grandma raises her finger in the air like she’s so excited about what I said, and then she pats me on the back. “Genius! My granddaughter, she’s a genius.”

  I smile. “Well, how did you guys not think of that? I mean, all the fancy summer-home people are in town, lots of weddings go on over Labor Day weekend, and practically every single person in Connecticut is out and about that weekend!”

  “OK, so it’s settled!” Grandma declares. “Follow me.”

  We follow her over to the spa area. “Hey, Johnny,” Grandma yells out over the noise of the drill and the sander and the other tools they’re using. “Can we have everything ready to go by Labor Day?”

  He turns off the drill. “Our part should be done, yeah. But y’all need equipment, lighting consults, all that other jazz.”

  I look at Grandma. I wonder if she realizes this is what I’ve been saying all along, but she doesn’t look at me. She nods and Johnny turns the drill back on. We all cover our ears at the same time and leave the spa area.

  “OK, time to return Gary’s call,” Grandma says. “He came into town for the ground breaking, but we didn’t get a chance to chat. We need to make plans.”

  I look at my watch. Claudia was supposed to be here ten minutes ago to drive me to Earth Club. She’s late. Since Bean’s been here, she’s always late.

  “Ma, Gary’s just the investor,” Mom says to Grandma. “I don’t think you need to consult him about every little thing.” Mom’s still stuck on the fact that she was set up with Gary years and years ago. I’m sure Gary’s moved on and doesn’t even think about it anymore, but for some reason my mom gets all weird whenever Gary’s name comes up. Too bad for her, though, because Gary’s a huge investor in Pink & Green, and I have a feeling he’s going to be around a lot this summer.

  Grandma ignores her and gets Gary on the phone. “Gary, hi, it’s Doris.” She pauses and waits for him to talk. “Oh, that’s great,” she goes on. “OK, well, fabulous, that’s exactly what I was thinking. I’m glad you beat me to it.” She nods. “And you’re on top of compensation?” She’s writing something down in her little red notebook. “Got it. See you tomorrow.”

  Grandma hangs up and Mom and I just sit there staring at her, waiting for her to tell us what that was all about.

  “So, Gary’s hired a spa consultant to help us get up and running,” Grandma says, still writing stuff down in her notebook. “She’s coming tomorrow, so we’ll really start to get the ball rolling.”

  “But Grandma,” I say, kind of in shock. “I know what we need to order. We don’t need a consultant.”

  “Lucy,” Grandma says in her letting-me-down-easy tone that I really, really hate. “We talked about this.”

  I should tell her that we started to talk about it but never really finished because Bean interrupted us.

  Mom stands up and folds her arms across her chest. “Ma, who knows who this consultant is? She needs to know we’re doing this all green. We can’t just have any old person coming in here and telling us how to run the place.”

  “Relax, please. Both of you.” Grandma sighs. “It’s all going to be fine. Now, please excuse me so I can get back to the prescription counter. We are still a pharmacy, you know!”

  Grandma leaves the office and my mom and I just stare at each other.

  “Don’t worry, Luce,” my mom says. “You’ll still play a huge part in the opening of the spa.”

  “Uh-huh,” I grumb
le, then hear the car horn. “I gotta go to Earth Club. See you later.”

  I leave the pharmacy without saying good-bye to Grandma. She’s busy filling prescriptions for the new local news anchor anyway.

  Well, there’s nothing I can do about the fact that both Grandma and Gary feel that the spa needs some kind of consultant. But I’ll show them how much I can do. Let the consultant come. We can work together. She’ll be so impressed with me. Grandma and Mom will be even prouder of me than they were when we got the grant. I’m not threatened by this spa consultant. Not at all.

  “Hey,” I say to Claudia and Bean when I get in the car.

  “Hey, darlin’,” Bean says. “We got you a surprise.”

  Claudia hands me one of those giant gobstoppers wrapped in waxed paper. “You used to love these,” she says. “We saw them in a big bin at the mall, so we had to get one for you.”

  “That’s sweet,” I say, and crack up. “No pun intended.”

  I sit in the backseat and eat my gobstopper. I still can’t believe that we actually agreed to work on school projects during the summer, but I guess it’s OK because it’s something we feel is important.

  Today Earth Club is doing a beach cleanup. It’s not exactly lounging at the beach, but it is better than sitting inside somewhere.

  “Hey, you,” I hear someone say as I’m walking through the entrance to the beach. Usually this is the place where you pay, but since it’s a weekday before the height of the season, none of the guards are here.

  It’s Yamir. I could tell his voice anywhere, even with the sound of the ocean all around us.

  “Hi,” I say. “Waiting for Anthony?”

  “No, I was waiting for you. Dummy.” He hits his elbow against my arm.

  “Oh.” I smile. “That was nice.”

  “But now I have to wait for Anthony,” he says.

  I can’t tell if he’s serious or not, so I just wait to see what he does next. He sits back down on the bench. I’m actually a few minutes early to meet everyone by the lifeguard chair, so I sit with him.

  “So what’s new?” Yamir asks me.

  “Ugh, everyone’s annoying,” I start. “Claudia’s boyfriend is living with us for the summer and now Gary’s hired this spa consultant, and I don’t really have anything to do for the spa now, and no one cares about my ideas.”

  “Oh, boo-hoo, poor Lucy.” He rolls his eyes. “You complain a lot. Did you know that?”

  I stand up. “I’m going to find everyone now,” I say, and start walking away from him. “You know we’re here to clean, not just sit around, right?”

  He doesn’t respond.

  I know I like to complain, but I never realized other people noticed how often I do it. It’s not fun to have your bad habits pointed out. And I used to be such an optimistic person. It’s just that now it seems like no one even cares if I’m around. Claudia is busy with Bean, and Sunny and Evan are lovebirds who are just happy hanging out with each other. And Mom and Grandma don’t even really need my help around the pharmacy anymore. The grant led to all this awesome publicity, which led to business picking up, so they were able to hire our beloved pharmacy workers Tory and Charise back.

  I’m practically useless to everyone.

  “Lucy, what are you doing?” Mrs. Deleccio runs up to me. I decided to walk along the boardwalk for a few minutes before meeting up with everyone. I guess Mrs. Deleccio saw me and got worried. “We need you. There’s more beach littering than you’d think; we have a lot to do.”

  I nod. “OK, I’m coming.”

  “I was really impressed with that organic food supplier you found,” she says as we’re walking over to the rest of the group. “And it seems like you’re able to negotiate with them to get us a good rate, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Lucy, you know you’re an instrumental member of this club, right?” Mrs. Deleccio says when we’re a few feet from everyone else. “I hope you’ll still be able to give it your all even though you’ll be really busy with the spa opening.” She smiles at me. It’s like she read my mind or sensed how I was feeling, but she said exactly what I needed to hear. Sometimes teachers just know these things; it’s like they have psychic powers or something.

  But the thing is, I want to be instrumental in other areas of my life too. Earth Club is barely even meeting over the summer; it can’t be the only thing I work on. And maybe the pharmacy doesn’t need me anymore, and the spa work is above my head. But I can do something else. I know I can. I just have to figure out another project, somewhere else I’m needed.

  I walk over to the group, and Sunny and Evan are off to the side laughing about something.

  “Hey, guys,” I say.

  “Oh hey, Luce,” Sunny says. “Where’s Yamir? He said he was waiting for you.”

  “He was.” I pick up a shell and tell myself not to take any shells home, as much as I want to. I have so many shells at home already. “But then he said he had to wait for Anthony.”

  “Dummy.” Evan crinkles his brow. “Anthony’s not coming today. I just told him that. I bet he’s just too lazy to actually do the beach cleanup.”

  I shrug.

  “OK, Earth Club!” Mrs. Deleccio yells. It’s very windy, so she needs to be loud to get our attention. “We’re going to cover the strip of beach from this red flag to the one all the way down there.” She points to the red flag on the far end, near the snack bar. “Meet back here in about a half hour. I have garbage bags for each of you.” Mrs. Deleccio hands us each a garbage bag and I start walking toward the water to pick up trash that may have washed up during high tide. I look behind me to see if Evan and Sunny are close by, but they’re traipsing behind.

  “Are you guys coming?” I ask Evan and Sunny. They just keep cracking up. I have no idea what’s so funny. I stop for a second and wait for them to catch up.

  “Hello, I am Mr. Shell,” Evan says, holding a shell and talking to Sunny. He bursts out laughing. Sunny does too, like he just said the funniest thing she’s ever heard.

  Sunny’s holding up a shell too. “Hello, I am Mrs. Shell.”

  I don’t know why they find the silliest things funny. They’re acting like two little kids, and I really don’t get it. And they obviously don’t even care that I’m here.

  I walk away. I can collect litter on my own. Maybe a quiet walk along the beach by myself will be good to clear my head.

  Yamir comes down to the beach and catches up with me, with only about twenty minutes left before it’s time to go.

  “Sorry,” he says. “I was confused. Anthony’s actually not coming.” He walks along with me, but doesn’t get a garbage bag of his own. Instead, he puts whatever trash he finds in my bag.

  “Uh-huh.” I’m not really paying attention to him.

  “Anyway, do you want to go see that new Spielberg movie next week?”

  “What’s it about?” I try not to act too excited about the fact that Yamir’s asking me to hang out. It’s been forever since we hung out alone, and I didn’t even think he noticed.

  “Kids solving this mystery about this campground or something,” he says. “It looks freaky but not too scary.”

  I finally look at him. He looks so cute with his dark shaggy hair and his long eyelashes. “Sure, I’ll go.”

  “Cool. Movie times aren’t out yet, but I’ll let you know.”

  “Yamir, I notice you don’t have a garbage bag,” Mrs. Deleccio says, coming out of nowhere. “If you’re going to be here, I’d like you to participate.”

  “On it, Mrs. Deleccio.” He stands up and marches over to the box of garbage bags, and takes one.

  Mrs. Deleccio sighs.

  “Mr. Shell, do you like living at the beach?” Sunny asks in this fake British accent.

  I try to tune them out and focus on other things.

  Mrs. Deleccio said I’m an instrumental part of this club, and I try to believe her. I really care about this, and even if I’m not needed at the pharmacy, I am needed here.


  And Yamir asked me to go to the movies. Things aren’t so bad. Maybe a little bit of an optimistic attitude would go a long way.

  because I’m Jewish and my grandma told me once that Jews don’t knock on wood. But sometimes I feel like I need something to ward off bad luck. Like right now. I want to knock on wood because things seem like they’re working out, getting better even, and I feel like if I don’t knock on wood, I’m taking it for granted and they could fall apart again.

  Before we got the grant, I made this pact with God that if we got the grant and things worked out and we were able to open the eco-spa, then I wouldn’t complain again. Even when I was making the pact, I knew it was kind of ridiculous and that I wouldn’t be able to keep it because I sort of like to complain. Not to be annoying but to let off steam. But I made the pact anyway, hoping that just the fact that I made it would help keep me from complaining.

  Anyway, every time I get down about stuff, I try to remember the pact and I try to think about knocking on wood (but not actually knock on it) because, basically, I just don’t want to take any good things for granted.

  I’m having this deep conversation with myself as I’m getting dressed and ready to leave for the pharmacy to meet Gary and the new spa consultant.

  I remind myself about how nice it was for Claudia and Bean to think of me and get me the gobstopper and drive me around everywhere, and I’m also thinking about something else.

  Yamir asked me to the movies. It’s a big deal.

  He didn’t ask Sunny and Evan to come too. At least I don’t think he did, because Sunny didn’t mention it and she usually mentions these things immediately.

  He asked me. One on one. And it’s actually a movie I’m pretty interested in seeing, not something weird like aliens that creep into your brain or elevators that come alive and swallow you whole. That was the last movie he was obsessed with.

  “Lucy, five minutes and we’re going,” Grandma yells to me from downstairs.

  “OK!” I call back.

  I usually don’t take this long to get ready, but this fancy spa consultant person is coming from New York City and I bet she’s going to look all chic, and I can’t just stand there in my cutoff shorts and a pocket tee. I need her to take me seriously.