Second Chance: A Military Football Romance

This wasn’t a lie; I had to clean out my studio and then go back to my apartment and tidy up a little bit there, too. Freshman year of college, I thought that I could do the Airbnb thing—rent out my little Back Bay apartment to travelers, maybe to people on a budget or something, with Boston prices being so expensive—but my dad vetoed the idea the second he caught wind of it.

“You have no idea the sorts of people that might be living there,” he’d said, giving me one of his stern looks that still had the ability to make my throat go dry. “We’re not a charity, Chloe.”

What could I say to that? He was the one footing the bill for the apartment, so there wasn’t much arguing I could do. He and my mother already didn’t approve of me majoring in art; where was the money in that? That’s what they both wanted to know—neither of them saying, of course, that only the really talented or really lucky people ever made good money in art. Neither of which they thought I was, though they didn’t come out and say it.

But anyway. Tara. I had planned to give her a call a few days after I arrived on Cape Cod, to give myself a little bit of quiet time, because anyone who’d ever met her knew that Tara was anything but quiet. I figured I’d check out a few art galleries, treat myself to a latte and a new book, and spend a few mornings at the beach, zoning out to the sounds of the waves and the seagulls.

I’d only just pulled into the gravel driveway when my phone went off. It was Tara. I let it go to voicemail, only to get a text message a few seconds later:

Call me the second you arrive!

And just like that: instantaneous guilt. There was no reason for it, but I was already feeling bad for not calling her back. I turned the key in the ignition and sat there for a moment. Tara was just one of those people who was really good at getting what she wanted. She lived in New York, but our fathers had been playing golf together for about as long as we’d been alive. Her parents had a summer house a quarter mile from ours, and Tara and I had, by default, spent our summers growing up together.

If I didn’t call Tara back now, she’d probably end up driving by and seeing my car, or, she’d keep calling/texting. I sighed and picked up the phone. So much for a few days of quiet.

“Chloe!” she exclaimed. “Are you here?”

“Just got in,” I said. I got out of the car and went around to the trunk to get my suitcase. I could at least start unpacking while we talked.

“I’ve got impeccable timing!” I could practically hear her grin.

“Yeah, you do—I mean, I literally just pulled in.”

“Well, that’s perfect. That means you haven’t made any plans for tonight, right? Don’t let your mom talk you into going to that wine tasting tonight. My mom already tried to convince me that it would be exactly how I wanted to spend my Friday night, but honestly, that’s the last thing I feel like doing. And you’re 21 now! We can actually go to a bar or something.”

I’d turned 21 back in April, but I still hadn’t been to a bar. Pathetic, I know, but I’d been so busy with school that there just hadn’t been any time. And I knew Tara would be dragging me out to all the bars and clubs she could this summer—she’d had a fake ID since she was 18 and knew all the best places to go.

“What did you have in mind?”

I walked up to the side entrance and went inside. My parents’ summer house was the sort of place you’d expect to see in some sort of luxury magazine, and I’d always felt like something of an imposter when I was here, despite the fact that I’d been coming here most of my life. The house was spacious and airy, with big windows looking out onto Oyster Harbors. My mother didn’t work, but she did have an eye for interior decorating, and liked to say that if she were to ever enter the workforce, she’d be a design consultant. In the meantime, though, she was more than satisfied to tastefully furnish the summer home here and their apartment in New York.

“What did I have in mind?” Tara repeated. “Well, quite a lot, actually!”

“We do have the whole summer ahead of us—we don’t have to cram everything into one night,” I said, already feeling tired. She was one of those people who just seemed to have an endless supply of energy.

“I know we don’t have to do everything in one night, but we need our first night to be something spectacular, just to set the tone. Okay? And you better believe I’m going to get laid—I saw on Facebook Michael is still in Paris with that bitch, apparently still having the time of their lives. I need to meet a guy who’s even hotter than Michael and post a shitload of pictures so he can see that I’m completely over him and have moved on to better things.”

“Michael was an ass,” I said. “And you’re better off without him. And why are you Facebook-stalking him, anyway?” I’d never been so relieved to hear that someone had been broken up with as I was when Tara called to tell me Michael had dumped her. He’d spent part of the summer with her last year, and there was something incredibly unsettling about him, despite his refined manners and fashion model looks. He was the sort of guy my own parents hoped I’d end up with—a fact that they’d brought up endlessly last summer.

“I’m not stalking him,” Tara said, a hint of indignation in her voice. “The photos popped up on my feed and I checked them out. She’s hot, but not that hot. Anyway. You know how competitive Michael is; I just need to find someone better-looking than him and sleep with him and that’ll be that.” She sounded infinitely optimistic, like it would be no trouble at all. Actually, for her, it probably wouldn’t be. “Enough about him. You and I are going out tomorrow night. Don’t make any other plans. We’re going to properly celebrate your 21st.”

“I’ve been 21 for months now.”

“I know that, but I bet you didn’t even go out to a bar. Am I right?”

I sighed. “You are.”

“So, I’ll come get you around 7, okay? We’ll do dinner and then drinks and then go clubbing or something. Wear something cute. This is going to be the best summer ever; I just know it! See ya!” She hung up before I could respond, or remind her that I didn’t own anything that she’d categorize as “cute” for a night out on the town.

There was a note on the marble countertop in the kitchen, in my mom’s flowery cursive: At the yacht club. Your father’s golfing. Will be back later this afternoon. Alicia made some snacks that are in the fridge. Xo, Mom

I crumpled the note up and tossed it into the trash. No doubt the snacks that Alicia made were something totally decadent and delicious, but I’d always felt weird eating food that had been prepared for me. It sounded strange, considering that my parents had employed someone to cook our meals for most of my life, but if I were to open the fridge and start eating whatever snacks Alicia had made, I’d feel overwhelming guilt because—wasn’t I more than capable of preparing my own snack?

I left the kitchen without eating anything, though, and went up the stairs and down the long hallway to my bedroom. Tara liked to give me a hard time about feeling guilty over having wealthy parents and a privileged upbringing, but it was something that had bothered me for a long time. But I also knew enough not to talk about it, because no one wanted to hear that sort of thing, and people would just sort of roll their eyes and think, Oh, poor little rich girl, which was exactly the sort of sentiment that I was trying to avoid. And it wasn’t as though I felt guilty enough about it to take a vow of poverty or not accept my father’s offer to finance my apartment and tuition for college. In a way, I guess I was a hypocrite, and that was maybe worse than being from a wealthy family. Tara made no apologies for it, spent her parents’ money freely, and enjoyed every bit of being from the upper class. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that wished I could just be like that, too.

I left my suitcase at the foot of the bed and looked around my bedroom, which hadn’t changed much since I was a kid. The few decorations that adorned the eggshell-white walls had been chosen by my mother because they’d been timeless (so she said, and neither of us had changed them as I’d grown up). In a way, being in this room felt as though I were stuck in some sort of time capsule that 10-year-old me might have put together. There was the desk in the corner that I rarely sat at, and a four-poster bed with a canopy and a handmade quilt purchased from an artisan crafter at the county fair. The room could’ve been featured in Cape Cod Magazine or something; it was tasteful and pretty, but anonymous in that it lent no clues about the person who inhabited it.

I caught sight of myself in the mirror above the dresser. I thought about what Tara had said on the phone: This is going to be the best summer ever! She