Rules of Summer

JULY

Traffic—avoiding it, driving around it, anticipating it—had become her job. Or, it would have been her job, had she been getting paid. But she wasn’t. And ever since the fiasco of movie night, there was no doubt in Rory’s mind that not asking for minimum wage had been a big mistake.

The traffic was there in the mornings, it was there in the afternoons, and it was there in the evenings. It was there when she went to Southampton to pick up another pair of needlepoint Stubbs & Wootton slippers for Mrs. Rule (size seven; style: Crest Techno), and it was there in the afternoons when she went to get heirloom tomatoes for five dollars a pound at the stand on Scuttle Hole Road. All day long she crawled east and west on Montauk Highway, and by the end of June she knew every fruit and vegetable stand, every bagel and coffee place, and every Pilates studio and beauty salon, on both sides of the highway. She also began to know the back roads. The Rules had a dog-eared copy of Jodi’s Shortcuts that she kept in the car at all times, and soon she knew to take Ocean Road and then a left on Sagaponack if the traffic was really terrible. A few minutes later, she’d be driving past open fields golden with fading light and the wind blowing through the open window.

Sometimes she’d pass groups of teenage girls walking down the street in Bridgehampton or coming out of the Candy Kitchen, laughing and talking and swinging shopping bags in their hands, and she’d think of Sophie and Trish. At first, the three of them had traded e-mails every day, but now the messages had tapered off to once a week. She could tell that they already had a million private jokes from working together at the campgrounds, jokes that she’d never get. But she couldn’t really explain this place to her friends, either. It was clear from their e-mails that they still didn’t understand her job or why she wasn’t getting paid. She wondered how things would be when she got home. She’d never spent a summer apart from her friends, and already it felt like this break might have lasting repercussions.

But little by little, she was getting to know Isabel Rule.

“So what do you and Mike have planned for the Fourth?” Rory asked one day, as Isabel drove them along the back roads of Sagaponack. After a couple of weeks of driving lessons she now stuck to the right side of the road, but every once in a while, the car would drift to the center.

“I don’t know,” Isabel said, fiddling with the iPod plugged into the dash. “There’s always a huge party at the Georgica, but that’s not really an option. At least, not with Mike.”

“Why can’t you bring him?”

Isabel gave her an incredulous glance. “You think I should take Mike to the Georgica?”

“Maybe if those girls met him, they’d see how cool he is.” Isabel had told her about the fight she’d had with Thayer and Darwin about Mike. Having seen their snarky side in person, Rory believed every word of it.

“Uh, no,” Isabel said as she turned on the wipers instead of her blinker. “You’ve met those girls.”

“Then what about bringing him over to the house so you can be at your own place for a change?” Rory asked, pulling down the visor against the setting sun. “He’s got to meet your friends and your parents sometime.”

“Are you high?” Isabel asked. “Do you want me to tell my parents that I’m dating a guy who works at a fruit and vegetable stand?”

“Well, yeah,” Rory said.

“The last thing I want is my parents involved in my love life,” Isabel said, accelerating. “They’d start making rules about that, too. And they’d never approve of him. Ever.”

“Really?”

“Never,” Isabel said emphatically. “Everyone belongs in their place, you know what I mean?”

Rory had suspected as much about the Rules, but hearing it directly from Isabel only confirmed it. They’d probably hate the idea of their son dating someone like her. Not that it was even an option, Rory reminded herself. “Well, doesn’t he want to meet your friends and family?” she asked.

Isabel shrugged. “I don’t know. We don’t talk about it.”

“You don’t?”

“No. I like the way things are right now. Everyone thinks I’m going over to Thayer’s, I go out with Mike, I come back, you let me into your room—it’s perfect.” She smiled and made a sudden left before they hit the beach. “What about Landon? Has he called?”

“No.”

“What the hell is wrong with him?” Isabel asked. “Just because you had to cancel? You should just call him.”

“Okay, no,” Rory said.

“Why not?”

“Because I really don’t care about going out with him,” Rory said.

“You have to get over this fear of guys,” Isabel said. “It’s not healthy.”

“I’m not afraid of guys.”

“Please,” Isabel said. “You so are.”

“Maybe I like someone else,” Rory heard herself say.

Isabel whipped her head around. “Who?” she demanded, just as Rory realized what she’d said.

“Nobody. Nobody you know.”

“I know everybody,” Isabel said. “Who is it? Where’d you meet him?”

“It’s nobody,” Rory said, praying that she wasn’t blushing.

She hadn’t been alone with Connor since movie night. Once in a while, he’d come into the kitchen and ask Erica for something, and Rory would allow herself just the barest glance at him, especially if Steve was in the room. But they hadn’t run into each other. He was usually out of the house by the time she got up, and after work he’d be in the pool, doing his laps. Sometimes at night she’d hear his Audi pull into the gravel drive, and it would take everything she had not to run to the window and watch him walk into the house. She wondered if he was avoiding her. By now she was almost positive that the flirtation between them had just been in her head.

“Why are you being so weird?” Isabel asked. “Just tell me.”

“It’s nobody, seriously. I just said that to get you off my back. That’s all. There’s nobody.”

Isabel narrowed her eyes as if she still didn’t quite believe her.

“Stay on the right side!” Rory yelled.

Isabel swerved back on the other side of the yellow line. “Oh, wait,” she said, gazing out of Rory’s window. “This is where our new house is gonna be.”

Rory reluctantly turned to look out the window. She saw acres of flat brown potato fields laid out under a pink and gold sky.

“All of this?” Rory asked.

“A piece of it,” Isabel explained. “Can you believe one guy owns all this, and he doesn’t want to sell to anyone?”

“Some people don’t care about money.” Rory shrugged.

“So if you were sitting on something that was worth twenty million bucks, you wouldn’t sell it?”

“Maybe not.”

“Oh, come on,” Isabel said. “Seriously?”

“Some things are more important than millions and millions of dollars.”

“Wow,” Isabel said, rolling her eyes. “I’ll make sure to tell my dad that.” Her phone chimed, and she looked down.

“No texting while driving,” Rory said by rote.

Isabel swerved over to the side of the road and read her phone. “That’s my mom. Connor’s at the Audi dealership in Southampton. We need to pick him up.”

Rory felt as if a bolt of electricity had just zapped her through the car seat.

“We should probably switch,” Isabel said, unclicking her seat belt. “He’ll freak if he sees me driving on the highway.”

Rory got back behind the wheel and tried to focus on the road. She wasn’t sure what made her more nervous—the idea of Connor sitting next to her in the shotgun seat, or Isabel figuring out Rory’s feelings for him.

When they pulled into the dealership, Connor was standing outside the front doors with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Sunlight glinted off his blond hair. God, he’s cute, Rory thought. So, so cute. She watched him head toward the car, her heart beating. Get in the front, she thought, staring at Isabel, hoping she might get out. Please please please get in the front.

Connor opened the backseat door. “I’ll get in back,” he offered.

Rory watched him slide into the backseat in the rearview mirror, trying to hide her disappointment.

“What’s wrong with your car?” Isabel asked.

“Everything,” he said. “Need to change the tires and replace the brakes. Guy says it’ll take at least a day.”

“Sucks for you,” Isabel said.

Rory pulled back onto the road, trying to concentrate on driving. She could feel Connor looking at her.

“Hey, Rory,” he said. “How’s it going?”

“Great,” she chirped, making eye contact with him in the rearview mirror. “How’s teaching?”

“Cool,” he said.

“We’re trying to find Rory a boyfriend out here,” Isabel said out of nowhere.

Rory gripped the steering wheel so hard that she almost forgot to turn onto the highway.

“Oh?” Connor asked.

Isabel nudged Rory in the arm. “I keep telling her that she needs to have a summer fling. But she won’t listen to me.”

Rory’s heart pounded. Shut up, Isabel, she thought. Shut the hell up.

“Yeah, well, sure,” Connor said wanly. “What about you, Iz? When are you going to admit that you have a new boyfriend?”

“His name is Mike,” Isabel said quickly. “He lives in Montauk.”

“How old?” Connor asked.

“Twenty-one.”

“That’s too old for you,” Connor said.

“Oh, please.”

“No, it is. Dad would not be psyched.”

“Well, Dad’s not going to know about it,” Isabel said testily. “And you better not tell him.” She twisted around in her seat. “I mean it. Don’t tell him.”

“I don’t think you need to say that,” Connor said.

“What about you?” Isabel asked in a teasing voice. “Are you still—”

“Iz, when there’s an update, you’ll hear about it,” he said, cutting her off.

Rory glanced in the rearview mirror. Connor looked the most irritated she’d ever seen him. So Isabel gets on his nerves, too, she thought. Another thing he and I have in common.

“So, Mom wants to throw Dad a surprise party. Have you heard about that?” Connor said.

“Ugh,” Isabel said. “Dad hates surprises.”

“That’s what I told her, but you know Mom, anything for a party.”

Rory drove quietly, trying to recover from one of the most awkward and embarrassing moments she could remember. But she wondered what Isabel had been talking about when she’d asked Connor for an update.

“Oh, I ran into the Knoxes a few days ago,” Isabel said. “They’re back from California.”

“I don’t think Mom and Dad talk to them anymore.”

Rory made eye contact with Connor in the rearview mirror once more.

“Then that’s why they looked so weird when I asked if they’d be coming over,” Isabel said as she gazed out the window. “My bad.”

When they reached the house, Rory took a long time turning off the ignition, just to give Connor plenty of time to get out of the car and make his way to the house. But when she stepped out of the car, he and Isabel were still standing and chatting on the gravel, and he gave her an expectant look as she slammed the car door closed. Almost as if he was waiting to talk to her. She walked toward them, listening as Isabel and Connor talked about their parents’ old friends.

“See you, guys,” she said when they entered the hall.

“What are you doing now?” Isabel asked her. “Do you want to watch TV with us?”

“I think I’m actually pretty tired.” She couldn’t look at Connor.

“Well, thanks for the driving lesson,” Isabel said.

“No problem,” Rory said.

She glanced at Connor, who seemed almost about to say something, but she turned and hurried to her room before he could.

She buried her face in the pile of pillows on her bed.

He thinks I’m some boy-crazy freak.

He thinks that I need help getting guys.

He thinks that I like someone else besides him.

So many worries, and each one of them made her gulp and press her face further into the bed linens. Maybe the right thing to do was tell Isabel the truth, so if the three of them were ever together again, at least she wouldn’t have to deal with this.

But something told her that would be much, much worse. The only thing she could do was avoid Connor Rule for the next few days. And pray that he would forget the entire conversation.