Cruel Summer | ✓

chapter eight

It isn't dark yet when I arrive at Lou's cabin for the third time in as many days, in the sense that the sun hasn't set, but there is an ominousness about the sky. The gray clouds are heavy and low and it started raining a couple of hours ago. Nothing torrential, a pretty pathetic spitting really, but it's a sign of what's to come. I pull my shabby car in next to Lou's immaculate Toyota, a blue so dark it looks like midnight, so clean it looks like it's never been driven. Especially around here, where half the roads are little more than dirt tracks and the birds nesting in the trees are constantly dropping shit bombs.

It's seven o'clock on the dot when I knock on the door. From somewhere inside the house I hear the chime of a clock and then the shrill ring of an alarm and when Lou opens the door, there are wisps of orange hair sticking to her forehead, the rest scooped into a quick bun. Beneath her apron she's wearing jeans and a blouse and it hits me that I never checked if there was a dress code, dinner could mean anything. I'm wearing the playsuit she gave me with my nicest shoes, a pair of my mom's old Birkenstocks that I borrowed enough times that they molded to fit my feet and she told me to keep them.

"Charlotte, hi," she says, glancing at her watch as she ushers me in and gives me a one-armed hug. An oven glove hangs from her other hand.

"We did say seven, right?"

"God, yes, sorry, I'm just so used to my friends being chronically late. I tell Jules seven, she hears half past. Come in, come in."

The whole house smells incredible, the aroma of food building as I follow Lou into the kitchen. I slip my Birkenstocks off by the door, using my toe to nudge them into line, and I feel incredibly naked. All I'm wearing is the playsuit, which comes to halfway down my thighs, and having bare feet feels weird even though I painted my toenails especially for this.

"You don't have to take your shoes off," Lou says. She must sense my discomfort. "I just don't like wearing shoes in general, feel free to keep yours on. Or"—her eyes drop to my feet—"you could borrow some socks if you want?"

I slip my feet back into my sandals and perch on the edge of the window seat. "Can I help with anything?"

"Nope, it's under control. You just caught me right as I was putting the salmon in the oven."

"What is it? It smells divine."

"Divine, huh?" She chuckles. "Not a word I often hear when it comes to my cooking." Apron untied, she drapes it over the oven handle and pulls the tie out of her hair, shaking it out with her hands. "It's salmon in pomegranate molasses and lime juice, with couscous and quinoa and steamed vegetables. Red pepper, asparagus, and snap peas."

"Whoa. You told me you don't cook!"

"I don't like to cook when it's just me in the house," she corrects, twisting the screw cap off a bottle of white wine. "I love to cook for my friends." As she pours a glass for herself, she holds one out to me and asks, "Want a drink?"

"I'm all right, thanks. Not really a wine person." What I don't say is that I got so trashed on white wine at a party my sophomore year of college that I can't drink it anymore without being bombarded by memories of throwing up all night and wasting the entire following day sleeping it off.

Lou opens a cupboard and says, "I have vodka and lime soda, if you'd prefer that?"

"Now you're talking." I grin and join her on the other side of the kitchen island and when she sets the vodka and soda down in front of me, I see that neither is open. They're both brand new, there's a crack as she twists off each cap. "Did you get this in just for me?"

"You had, like, four of these the other night. I figured it's your drink of choice."

"Thank you. That's really thoughtful," I murmur, watching as she pours a generous amount of vodka into a tumblr and tops it up with soda, and a squeeze of fresh lime leftover from her recipe.