The Summer Without You Read online

  ‘You gotta show me what you brought,’ Bobbi said, her almost-black eyes shining with interest. ‘I showed you mine.’

  Ro hesitated – she sensed nobody said ‘no’ to Bobbi – then reached into her coat pocket. Sheepishly, she held up the jar of marmalade.

  ‘Is that . . . ? What is that?’ Hump frowned.

  ‘Marmalade.’

  ‘What?’ Bobbi asked, looking dubious.

  ‘It’s a big thing back home. You have it on toast.’

  ‘With a cup of tea?’ Hump suggested in a bad posh English accent.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘It looks home-made,’ Hump said, his eyes on the handwritten sticker on the octagonal jar as Bobbi took it from her.

  ‘People have been known to befriend me just to get on my annual list. My social diary goes mad in the run-up to navel-oranges season. I have to limit friends and family to just three jars each,’ Ro replied.

  ‘Power!’ Hump grinned.

  ‘It was all I could think of to bring. I always travel with a jar. I bring my own teabags too,’ she mumbled.

  ‘It’s cute,’ Bobbi proclaimed – if a little patronizingly – handing back the jar of marmalade. ‘You’re a nester, right?’

  Ro didn’t reply as she pocketed it again. A nester. It wasn’t the first time she’d been told that. Her friends at school had laughed as she’d hosted dinner parties at fifteen when all they’d wanted to do was try to get into the pub. Making a home took on an urgency those with families couldn’t ever understand.

  ‘So what about you? What did you bring?’ Bobbi asked, turning the tables on Hump.

  ‘Actually, I didn’t,’ he replied.

  ‘Well, that’s not fair!’ Bobbi said, instantly indignant. ‘Why should you—’ Then the penny dropped as her eyes fell back down to his flip-flops. The foam party really hadn’t been a surprise to him. ‘Oh. Oh, I get it. He’s a friend of yours. You just come here for the social element.’

  ‘Who? Who’s my friend?’ Hump asked, smiling even more broadly.

  Was he ever not amused? Ro wondered.

  ‘The guy behind all this, the one with the house! Humphrey Slater.’

  Another penny dropped. A bigger one.

  ‘You!’ Ro exclaimed.

  Hump shrugged. ‘Busted.’

  Ro watched Bobbi’s mouth opening and closing repeatedly as she trawled back over the insults she’d unwittingly hurled at their host in the past five minutes. She couldn’t have done a better job of doing herself out of the house share if she’d tried.

  ‘Well, I stand by everything I said,’ she said finally.

  ‘And I agree with all of it,’ Hump replied, making both girls frown. ‘That’s exactly why I do this.’

  Ro looked between the two of them. ‘Sorry, you’ve lost me. I’m English – we’re divided by a common language, remember,’ she said.

  Hump leaned back against the basin. ‘The house in East Hampton was my grandfather’s. I need the money the summer season generates for my new start-up—’

  ‘I thought you said you were a doctor?’ Bobbi interrupted.

  He pulled a grimace. ‘I was a doctor. It wasn’t for me. I gave it up last year.’

  ‘You’re saying you just walked away from all that schooling?’ Bobbi scowled, disbelieving. ‘Listen, buddy, I’m an architect and I’ve spent as long in school as you, give or take a few years. No one just walks away from that. What really happened? You failed, right? Got thrown out?’

  There was a slight pause. ‘I need to be my own boss.’

  Bobbi stared at him like he’d said he needed to be an amoeba.

  ‘So what do you do now, then?’ Ro interjected, saving him.

  ‘I’m an entrepreneur. Like you.’

  ‘Is that your way of saying “unemployed”?’ Bobbi demanded, and both Hump and Ro shot her annoyed looks. Ro had had comments like that too.

  Hump looked a little hurt. ‘I have some irons in the fire.’

  They all stared at each other suspiciously – three strangers locked in a bathroom, one with a patch, another with an attitude, another with no job.

  ‘So that’s your interview process,’ Bobbi said finally, jerking a thumb towards the party happening on the other side of the door.

  Hump shrugged. ‘Actually, this is.’

  Both girls looked back at him blankly. He sighed. ‘This is my fifth year of renting out the rooms. Initially, I needed the money for med school, so it seemed like the obvious thing to do, but I didn’t want the place wrecked, y’know? It’s my grandfather’s house, but it didn’t matter how much I tried to vet people, they’d ace the interviews and then turn into animals the second they got off the Jitney. That’s the local coach,’ he explained for Ro’s benefit. He frowned. ‘Finally, I figured the best thing to do was good old-fashioned reverse psychology – put people in the kind of environment they were telling me they didn’t want and then see who went for it – and who didn’t. And you didn’t.’

  Bobbi narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘Are you saying . . . ?’

  Hump shrugged. ‘I can’t pay you to stay there,’ he grinned, quoting her own words back to her. ‘I do need the capital for my next venture, but there are two rooms still free. They’re yours if you want them.’

  Bobbi didn’t hesitate. ‘We’d need to negotiate on the price. I work like a bitch and can’t guarantee I can get away every Friday.’ She folded her arms across her chest, unrepentant. ‘I don’t want to pay for something I can’t use. Every other weekend would suit me better.’

  Hump pulled a face. ‘I don’t know. That would mean half-rent and I do need to bring in a full season’s income.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a shame. It would have been nice to have you both, given that you’re already friends.’

  ‘Hang on a sec!’ Ro said hurriedly. ‘There’s been a misunderstanding. I’m not looking for a room.’

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ Hump laughed in genuine astonishment. ‘Both of you are turning me down? Do you know what those guys out there would do to be in your shoes?’

  ‘I think we’ve already established that,’ Bobbi said, not budging from her tough stance. ‘And I haven’t turned you down flat. We’re negotiating terms.’

  Hump looked across at Ro. ‘Why did you come to the party if you didn’t want a room?’

  Ro felt her cheeks flame. How could she admit she couldn’t bear to go another day without speaking to someone? ‘To give you these,’ she said, reaching into her pocket and handing him the photo-booth snapshots. ‘And because you invited me.’

  He glanced at the photo strip with a quick smile. ‘But you brought a gift that defined you,’ he said, looking back up.

  ‘To be polite.’

  ‘I don’t believe this. Who knew the Hamptons would be such a hard sell?’ Hump said to neither of them in particular, pocketing the photos. ‘Thanks for these, by the way. I was wondering how I could get hold of them.’

  Ro shrugged. ‘I don’t really get all this, to be honest. What are the Hamptons, anyway?’ she asked. ‘I mean, I’m getting that it’s a nice beachside resort, but seriously? Auditions? Reverse psychology?’

  Both Bobbi and Hump’s jaws dropped.

  ‘Are you shitting me?’ Bobbi whispered.

  ‘Where exactly is it?’ Ro continued.

  ‘It is a series of villages on Long Island.’

  ‘Long Island . . .’ Ro echoed sceptically.

  ‘Go over Brooklyn Bridge, hook a right and keep going for ninety miles till you drive into the Atlantic. It’s pretty much the single most exclusive enclave of beach villages in the whole of the entire US of A.’

  ‘Oh, right, I see.’

  ‘No. No, I really don’t think you do,’ Hump said, shaking his head. ‘Everyone who’s anyone holidays out there. Even the West Coasters – Steven Spielberg comes over, Puff Daddy, Martha Stewart, Gwyneth Paltrow, SJP . . . pretty much anyone who’s an aire.’

  Aire? As in millionaire? Billionaire? ‘Do you mean rich?�
�

  ‘I do.’

  Ro shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t get why you’d think I would want to come here for the summer. You already knew I was English.’

  ‘Yeah! With US citizenship!’ Hump laughed, holding his hands out in disbelief. ‘Why wouldn’t you use that? It’s like you won the jackpot and you don’t even know it.’

  ‘My jackpot’s coming in just over five months,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Huh?’ Bobbi asked, leaning in.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Hump stared at her. ‘Give me one good reason why you couldn’t spend the summer here.’

  ‘What?’ Ro laughed. ‘You mean beyond the fact that my entire life is across the Pond?’

  ‘Yeah. Beyond that. Why couldn’t you spend time here? You’re self-employed, right?’

  ‘Well, yes, but—’

  ‘You got sick parents that need you to stay there?’

  ‘Dead ones, actually. Car crash. When I was twelve. I lived with my aunt and uncle.’

  There was a stunned silence and she knew she’d said it too harshly, the words abrupt and cold as she rushed to get them out, knowing they’d come out sooner or later and wanting to control the situation. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘Didn’t mean to . . . throw that at you.’

  Bobbi was frowning at her – Ro wasn’t sure whether that was her version of sympathy. Hump rubbed her arm.

  ‘Well, you’re not married, I can see that,’ he said more gently, his eyes on her ringless finger.

  ‘Not yet, but—’

  ‘Or engaged,’ Bobbi said quickly.

  ‘Not yet, but—’

  ‘You said your boyfriend’s travelling,’ Hump smiled.

  ‘Yeah? Where?’ Bobbi interrupted.

  ‘Far East.’

  Bobbi’s eyebrows shot up. ‘For work?’

  ‘Pleasure.’ The word was out of her mouth before she could stop it. The sound of it stunned her momentarily, the simple truth of it a hard smack. He was out there for pleasure. He was having a great time. Without her. Because he wanted to.

  ‘When is he coming back?’ Hump’s expression had changed. Was that . . . pity she could see in his eyes now?

  ‘September. Listen, I can see where you’re going with this, but really I don’t have time to spend a summer gallivanting on American beaches. I’m in the middle of expanding my business.’

  ‘What d’you do, Ro?’ Bobbi asked, hoisting herself up onto the basin unit and crossing her ankles.

  ‘She’s a wedding photographer,’ Hump replied for her.

  ‘Family media, actually. I do weddings but as part of a bigger, longer-term project where I reconnect with the clients every year. Plus, I edit and organize digital videos into short films and photos into albums and books. People have literally thousands of pictures stored on their hard drives that they never even see – and more often than not, aren’t backed up. An entire life story can be lost with one spilt glass of water.’

  ‘Spilt water?’ Bobbi echoed, lost.

  ‘I’m just illustrating a disaster scenario.’

  ‘Oh. What’s your company called? I’ll look it up.’

  ‘Well, I’m in the middle of changing it, actually. I was thinking something like Tipton Family Media?’ She may as well road-test the name on them as anyone.

  ‘Too dull,’ Bobbi said decisively, shaking her head and crossing her arms.

  ‘Pedestrian, I was going to say,’ Hump agreed. ‘You can do better.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But isn’t it a great idea?’ Hump asked Bobbi, clocking Ro’s disappointment. ‘I bet you have tons of photos you never look at, right?’

  ‘Oh God, like you wouldn’t believe. You don’t even wanna go there.’ Bobbi rolled her eyes.

  ‘Ro’s right, though. There’s no way a business like that would translate over here. I mean, all those cash-rich, time-poor New York families – they totally wouldn’t be your target market.’ Hump’s voice was heavy with sarcasm, almost moronic. ‘And I mean, who would want to capitalize upon them all being in one place for the summer?’

  Bobbi guffawed next to him and Ro wondered when they’d suddenly become allies.

  ‘My life is in England.’

  ‘Your boyfriend isn’t.’

  Ro glared at him with her one eye.

  ‘You could have an adventure of your own too, you know. You’ve got a summer without him. Why should he have all the fun?’

  ‘It’s not like that.’

  No one said anything and Ro knew they thought it clearly was. She studied her trainers. It wasn’t that the idea was a bad one. If this place really was the summer playground for Manhattan’s elite, it could indeed be the perfect launch pad for her business. Why not start it here? Her US citizenship meant she could work in the States, and she’d already forecast to grow the business through franchises. Once she’d set it up here, she could sell it to a licensee and then concentrate on the UK market back home. It was back to front maybe, but—

  She stopped the thoughts abruptly. It was ridiculous even to think it.

  ‘It won’t work. If nothing else because it’s a weekend share you’re renting out. Where am I supposed to go during the week? I don’t have a place in New York.’

  Hump’s face fell. ‘Oh. Yeah.’ He sighed, looking towards the closed door. He was going to have to go back out there.

  Bobbi smacked him on the arm. ‘Unless . . . unless Ro stays at the Hamptons house full-time! That way, she can pay you extra and I can pay you less. Everyone’s a winner.’

  Ro narrowed her eyes, convinced only Bobbi would be the winner in this. She had that victorious sheen about her.

  ‘It’s the perfect solution: you get your full season’s income, I get the flexibility to do every other weekend, and Ro has a full-time base here.’

  ‘Wait,’ Ro protested again, trying to hold back this train of thought that was fast gathering momentum. ‘There’s no way I could afford to live there full-time. I have a mortgage back home.’

  ‘Couldn’t you rent it out?’ Bobbi asked simply.

  Ro was quiet. She could – easily: people regularly posted notes through their letterbox asking whether she and Matt would ever lease.

  She looked across at Hump. He was taking in her unruly neither-blonde-nor-brown curls and scruffy tomboy clothes . . . a socialite she wasn’t. In fact, she realized with a bit of a shock, she could have passed as his sister.

  He smiled broadly. ‘It seems to me the only barrier to this working is whether Ro thinks she could put up with me all day long . . . I’m out there for the summer too.’

  ‘Well, of course I could,’ Ro said politely.

  ‘So then, we’re agreed?’ Bobbi said quickly.

  Ro looked at Hump and Bobbi in panic. She hadn’t meant to imply she would, only that she theoretically could. This whole conversation was pie in the sky. She couldn’t just drop her life in London on a whim and hop over the Atlantic for the summer. That was madness. That was . . . That was exactly what Matt was doing.

  ‘I’m in!’

  The words were as much a surprise to her as the vehemence in them.

  ‘Great!’ Hump said, punching the air. ‘Wait here. I’ll get us some beers and we can celebrate.’

  ‘And you can tell those guys out there that they’re frolicking in foam for no good reason,’ Bobbi added.

  ‘What? And break up a perfectly good party?’ Hump grinned. ‘I may not want those guys living in my house, but your assessment of me wasn’t entirely wide of the mark.’ He winked and disappeared down the hall.

  Ro felt the butterflies take wing in her stomach. Oh God, what had she done? What had started as a desperate need to talk to someone, even to strangers, had become an agreement to live with them? A fizz of nerves surged up inside her as her mind began to process the news: she’d beaten off the sharp suits and champagne-bearing socialites to win a much-coveted summer share in the Hamptons! She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. She wanted to tell Matt. She could already im
agine his grin, the light in his eyes as he took in that she was doing this for him. She wouldn’t just wait; she’d be part of the adventure too. She’d be showing him that she was also capable of change, that she wasn’t stuck in a rut or old before her time. This was what he wanted her to do: live, explore, find adventure.

  ‘Well, I guess this means I’m going to get to try your famous jelly,’ Bobbi said.

  Jelly? Ro realized she meant the marmalade and her fingers found the jar in her pocket. ‘I’ll bring a box over. I’m a regular Paddington Bear.’

  ‘A who?’

  ‘Oh.’ Ro pulled a face, embarrassed again. ‘He’s a character from my childhood. It’s an English thing – a bear who travels from deepest, darkest Peru and ends up at Paddington Station with a note round his neck saying, “Please look after this bear.”’

  ‘“Please look after this bear”?’ Bobbi shook her head apologetically. ‘We had Sesame Street.’

  ‘Well, Paddington loves marmalade too,’ Ro added lamely. ‘That’s why I . . .’ Her voice trailed away. Why was she talking about Paddington Bear at a party in a penthouse with a girl who looked like she sprinkled gold dust on her cornflakes?

  They were quiet for a moment, the silence between them growing more awkward as they considered their new relationship: they’d gone from being strangers – hell, combatants – on the street to housemates in twenty minutes.

  ‘But the similarities end there, right?’ Bobbi asked. ‘With the bear, I mean. No . . . excess body hair issues I should know about? ’Cause if we’re sharing a bathroom . . .’

  Ro laughed. ‘No, it’s all good,’ she grinned, as Hump burst back in, a beer bottle wedged between each finger.

  But that wasn’t strictly true. There were distinct similarities between her and the famous bear – lots of them, in fact: she was on an adventure now too, relying on the kindness of strangers and with a jar of marmalade in her pocket. And if she had had a tag round her neck, it would have read almost identically: ‘Please look after this girl.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘Right. Just stay right,’ Ro muttered between gritted teeth, gripping the wheel a little harder as she drove beneath another green road sign that she was, again, past before she could understand. Oh God. Was 44E the junction or the road? she panicked, her eyes flicking down to the sheet of paper printed with map directions on the seat beside her, before the sharp hoot of the car to her right told her she was drifting across the lanes again. Dammit. Navigation really wasn’t her thing. It had already taken her four circuits of JFK Airport before she’d found her way out to the highway – she’d visited the DHL depot twice, much to the security guard’s chagrin – and she had no idea if she was heading towards Manhattan, Montauk or, frankly, the moon.