The Edge of Summer

by Erica George

Genres: Young Adult; YA Contemporary

Synopsis

Fans of Sarah Dessen and Morgan Matson will be swept away by this big-hearted story about one girl navigating first loss and first love during her summer on Cape Cod.



Saving the whales has been Coriander Cabot and her best friend Ella's dream since elementary school. But when tragedy strikes, Cor is left to complete the list of things they wanted to accomplish before college alone, including a marine biology internship on Cape Cod.



Cor's summer of healing and new beginnings turns complicated when she meets Mannix, a local lifeguard who completely takes her breath away. But she knows whatever she has with Mannix might not last, and that her focus should be on rescuing the humpback whales from entanglement. As the tide changes, Cor finds herself distracted and struggling with her priorities.



Can she follow her heart and keep her promise to the whales and her best friend?

Release date: June 14, 2022

Publisher: Poppy

Print pages: 321

Sample

It’s been 314 days since I last felt the rush of the sea clawing up the sand, weaving between smooth pebbles, grasping for my toes, my heels, my ankles. Now that I’m here, I don’t know why I stayed away so long.

I knew that whenever I returned, if I returned, the only memory the ocean would hold was the expression on her face just before I turned away. That look of utter disgust, like she didn’t even know me. Like we hadn’t spent the past ten years of our friendship attached at the hip, secretly passing notes between classes, sharing jokes with punch lines only we knew. That look that made me feel like a stranger. Maybe I was a stranger to the ocean, too. After all, the ocean is what took her from me. Where she must still be, considering they never found her body. It must be hard to find a body in the North Atlantic. The waves that batter Cape Cod’s shoreline, the murky blue-green sea.

What’s weird is that now that I’m here, ankle-deep in ice-cold water despite the sweltering June sun beating down on my pale, freckled shoulders, this is the only place I feel like myself. This is the only place that makes sense.

Carefully, I unfold the crumpled page of notebook paper I’ve been carrying with me since last September, since I went back to school without her. We made a list years ago. A comprehensive list of all the things we’d both accomplish before we went off to college. She knew she wanted to go to Stanford, and my dream school is Boston, and we’d at least be together until then. But the list feels so empty now, littered with half-filled goals.

1. Internship at Marine Research and Conservation Alliance on Cape Cod.

2. Whale tattoos.

3. See Harry Styles in concert.

4. Wear elaborate ball gowns to prom.

5. Real boyfriends. Not crushes.

6. Complete the pebble collection.

I cross the first two off. I got a whale tattoo in February, and I’m here now. I’m doing the internship. Even if I am by myself.

I lift my gaze from our scribbled words and back out to sea, almost willing her to tell me what it’s going to take to make things right. Or maybe to confirm that I’m going to feel like a piece of shit for the rest of my life. I’d take either at this point.

I turn from the ocean, and I pace to where I parked the Jeep on the side of the sandy, almost-paved road. The beach house we always stayed in is to my right. It looks empty, waiting, like my voice would echo if I chose to speak within its walls.

The dunes of Truro surround me. When I get to the top of the hill, I catch a peek of Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown in the distance.

In the back pocket of my jean shorts, my phone buzzes. “Uncle Jack,” I answer. “I’m maybe ten minutes away.”

“You should be here by now!”

“I’ll be there by noon. Love you.”

“Coriander!” he yelps, but I hang up in the middle of it. I can’t talk to him yet. Definitely not in the right headspace.

I sit in the driver’s seat of the Jeep, staring out at the thin line of blue that I can still distinguish as the ocean. I need some time to change my mindset. Push myself far away from girls lost in a swirling sea. This is my first day on Cape Cod. The first day of exactly seventy-seven that I’ll be spending in Uncle Jack’s house in Wellfleet.

I turn the key in the ignition and then shove the Jeep into drive, heading back toward Route 6 and then south. I pass little seafood shacks on either side, buildings that serve as a deli and a liquor store all in one, sided with cedar shake shingles, and the occasional advertisement for my uncle’s business: John Michael Sutton Realty. He prides himself on picking the most decrepit, pathetic houses on the Cape and then flipping them into million-dollar getaways. His name is synonymous with fancy.

I pull into his seashell driveway, catching a glimpse of a little cobblestone patio that rests against the side of the house, surrounded by blooming tangerine tiger lilies and bright blue hydrangeas, and shaded from the sun by an umbrella that matches the shutters.

“There you are,” says my uncle when he sees me heading up the driveway, burdened with my multiple pieces of luggage. He lounges under the umbrella, his legs crossed, a teacup and saucer in his hand. Across from him sits another man with dark, curly hair, but I don’t recognize him.

Jumping to assist me, Uncle Jack is the epitome of New England elegance, dressed in khaki pants and a loose-fitting white button-down shirt. His blond hair is short and shiny.

“What took you so long?” he asks, hugging me so tightly that I drop my bags. He smells like clean laundry with a hint of sandalwood.

“The traffic,” I manage to get out when my lungs are free to expand to their full capacity. I don’t feel like saying much more than that. Not yet, at least.

Uncle Jack clucks his tongue, willing to accept my response. “And it’s only beginning,” he says, bending down and lifting one of my duffel bags. “Before you know it, we’ll be inundated with tourists.”

I won’t take this personally, because I know he doesn’t mean me. I’m working my way through this summer like a local at the Marine Research and Conservation Alliance. Cleaning up beaches and saving whales. I follow Uncle Jack back toward the patio, where his companion waits for us.

“Cor, come here and meet my friend, Chad.”

“Chad, huh?” I reply. I lower my voice. “You know that anyone named Chad is inevitably a tool.”

“Watch your mouth,” Uncle Jack whispers harshly. “Oh, Chad!” he calls, waving his free hand.

We round the hydrangeas to the patio, and Chad stands.

“Cute,” I whisper.

“I know,” returns Uncle Jack. “Chad, I’d like you to meet my niece, Coriander.”

I cringe at the use of my full name. I can’t miss that Chad has practically the same reaction. Which I’m used to, of course. It’s been almost eighteen years of the same response when people hear my name. I try to pretend that it’s no big deal, but it takes a certain kind of person to go through life explaining to people why they’re named after a spice, and I’m not sure it’s me. I’d love it if just once, someone wouldn’t have any kind of reaction at all. I could take indifference.

“What a unique name,” croons Chad. He’s very English. “Is there a story behind it?”

“My sister is a bit of a free spirit,” Uncle Jack supplies. “When Cor was born, she said she wanted to name her something clean and fresh, but with bite, so Coriander was her choice.”

“You can call me Cor, though. Everyone does.”

Chad smiles and lifts his teacup to his mouth, taking a sip. Awkward silence ensues.

“Well, I’m going to help Cor get settled in her room, and I’ll be right back down,” says Uncle Jack.

He leads me in through a pair of French doors, and the air conditioning is refreshing after multiple hours driving in the sweltering summer sun.

“So, what do you think?” asks Uncle Jack.

“Of Chad?” I pinch the front of my shirt and flutter it back and forth in an effort to get some cool air up there.

He laughs. “No, of the house. It’s still a work in progress, but I think it’s coming along. I’d had my eye on it for such a long time.”

“When was it built?”

“It’s hard to say,” he replies. We begin to climb a narrow staircase hidden behind a door in the corner of a nautically themed parlor. “Legend has it that a famous whaling captain stayed in this house but went back to sea unexpectedly, leaving his fiancée here. He had promised to marry her, but he was killed by an enraged whale.”

That’s what you get for harpooning whales. “What happened to his fiancée?” I ask.

At the top of the stairs, we turn a sharp corner down a tiny hallway. It’s not wide enough for my uncle to walk with my bag at his side, so it trails behind him.

“She married his cousin, though she mourned her beloved for the rest of her life.” He finds another staircase behind a door. “Of course, I don’t know if the story’s true or not.”

“Where are we going?” I ask, maybe a little too quickly. I don’t like dwelling on this topic, this feeling of being left behind.

“The attic.”

I stop. “I’m sleeping in the attic?”

“It’s a finished attic,” he says as he opens my bedroom door. “You’ll like it.”

I cross the wide-planked floors to the wall of windows. We’re high enough that I’m supplied with a hint of a view of Cape Cod Bay. The sun glimmers off the surface of the waves. Turning around, I flop onto the fluffy pillows piled on my bed under a canopy of gauzy white muslin.

Uncle Jack reaches out and then retracts his hand. He covers his mouth. “Maybe,” he starts. “Maybe you could shower before you lie down on the bed? Because you’re sweaty? And I just made it? It’s so fresh.” Then he considers. “But you can’t use the one down the hall. I’m renovating it, so you’ll have to go downstairs.”

“Okay, I’ll go shower.”

“Oh, good.” He grins. “Listen, I have some houses to show this afternoon, so you have the place to yourself. Want to meet me in P-town for dinner later?”

“Sure,” I reply.

“Great! We’ll go to the Sea Ghost. It’s my new place.”

“Okay, text me the address.” I usher him to the door. “And go back downstairs and sit with your new boyfriend.”

“Well, I wouldn’t quite say boyfriend,” says Uncle Jack. “These things take finesse, you know.”

“Then go finesse your new boyfriend. I’ll be, like, twenty minutes.”

He pauses in the doorway. “That’s it?”

“Go away!”

He laughs down the stairs as he leaves. Leaning against the door after I close it, I reach into my pocket and pull my phone out. I search my contacts until I find Brent, my brain struggling to convince itself that it’s a perfectly healthy thing to text a guy who liked hooking up with you but never took you on actual dates.

We parted ways in May, unceremoniously. He said he didn’t want to keep whatever it was we had going considering he was off to college. I said I didn’t want to keep it going, period. But my thumb still hovers over his name in my contact list.

You wouldn’t really text him, would you? Ella asks me.

She lounges on the oversize chair in the corner, watching me as I deliberate whether or not I’m pathetic for even contemplating the act.

You know he doesn’t count as completing that part of our list. You might have gone out with him, but he wasn’t good enough to be your boyfriend. Or anyone’s boyfriend, really. Not when he’s so in love with himself.

I skip Brent Tompkins and scroll back up to Ella Ridgewood.

If I just sent her a text message, sometimes I think—I hope—she’d still be at the other end, on the edge of replying. I could ask her where she went. If there are whales in the afterlife. If she can swim with them.

I send her the text I always send her. The one she’s never read.

Cor (12:43 PM): I miss you. I’m sorry.

Provincetown hunches itself on the tip of the Cape, curling out into the bay and around the harbor. I crest the highest hill on Shore Road, and I push myself up as much as physically possible while still maintaining a firm grip on the steering wheel. The Jeep veers a little to the left.

I cruise down Commercial Street, passing the tourist traps, the T-shirt shops, the bakeries advertising their Portuguese fried dough, and practically every rainbow flag ever made. The colors of this town swirl around me, somehow combining with the scents of fried seafood and the salty breeze coming in from the pier.

I wonder where I’m supposed to park as I leave behind the buzz of downtown Commercial Street and begin passing little cottages tucked neatly into the corners of their fenced-in lawns, their porches hugged by huge, blooming hydrangea bushes.

On my left, I see the sign for the Sea Ghost, and the building doesn’t look like a restaurant. It looks like someone’s seaside retreat. Across the street, their lot is completely full, but I catch Uncle Jack, locking up the BMW, and I roll down my window.

“Want my spot?” he asks, placing his hand on the door.

“No, I’ll find something.”

Uncle Jack pauses to take in the Jeep. “Good lord, this thing is grotesque. Where the hell did you get it?”

“It’s Rhett’s,” I say. “But he’s on some kind of road trip with his roommates all summer, so I, you know, borrowed it.”

“Does your brother know you borrowed it?”

I clear my throat and dab at a mascara smudge under my eye in the rearview mirror. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

“Living life on the edge, I see.” He cranes his neck. “Go back the way you came, and there’s a lot on the right. You’ll have to pay.” He shoves a twenty into my hand. Summers with Uncle Jack are wonderful.

I park in the lot Uncle Jack referred to and then cross toward the street, holding my key high in the air to lock the Jeep, but the car doesn’t respond. “Dammit,” I mumble. I keep backing up, my hand over my head, trying to lock the car from every angle imaginable.

I step on an unseen foot behind me and ram into someone’s chest.

“Here, let me try,” says the owner of the foot and the chest, grabbing the keys from my hand.

“Hey!”

I glare up, and he grins down at me, holding the key higher than I ever could, and the Jeep beeps in response. He’s rather disarming, and I can feel the animosity melt from my face.

“There you go.”

I take a step back because I’m suddenly aware of our extremely close proximity. He drops the key into my waiting hand.

“Thanks,” I say.

“Anytime.”

My mouth parts because I want to keep talking to him. Maybe I can think of something ingenious to charm him with.

“Well, see you around,” I say, and keep walking. I grimace internally. See you around? I couldn’t flirt my way out of a hole.

“Something I said?” He has this ease to his presence, to everything he says, that makes me feel like I should answer.

I turn and examine him: his blue-green eyes squinting because of his shit-eating grin, his sandy-brown hair, golden at the tips, and his nose slightly sunburned.

“No,” I reply. Then I thumb toward the street. “I’m meeting someone, though.” I back up, like I’m really busy and I can’t waste any time.

He shoves his hands in the pockets of his dark gray shorts and takes a few steps forward. “Lucky someone.”

As it turns out, he’s not repulsed by my lack of flirtation. Intrigued, perhaps? Or is this weird.

We walk side by side in amiable silence, until finally I need to know. “Are you following me?”

“Nope,” he replies.

“Because we’re heading in the same direction.”

“Looks that way.” He stares down at me, his amusement hardly contained.

“Sure does,” I reply. He’s next to me, hands still secure in his pockets. I try to assess how old he is. Maybe my age. Maybe slightly older.

“I’m a little nervous,” he says quietly.

Fine, I’m hooked. “What are you nervous about?”

“New job,” he says.

“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say to a stranger (a cute stranger) who’s nervous about his new job and feels the need to confide in me. “I’m starting a new job, too.”

“Right now? Because that would be a coincidence.”

“No, this week.”

The Sea Ghost comes into view, and Uncle Jack stands at the end of the sidewalk, waiting for me.

“Here’s where I get off,” says my companion, turning down a side street.

“Oh.” I stop in the middle of the road and watch as he ambles past two Volvo SUVs parallel parked.

He gives me a little wave and then disappears around the side of a building.

“Who was that?” Uncle Jack asks once I arrive.

“I dunno, some guy from the parking lot. He needed to get some stress off his chest.” We head into the restaurant.

“I won’t even ask.”

We enter through what appears to be a front door and into a little sitting area, complete with a fireplace. After a turn down a snug hallway, the dining room opens up before us. Huge windows line the back wall, and the bay laps at the sandy shore.

“I want to sit there,” I tell Uncle Jack.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? Let me order my drink, and they’ll bring us to my table. I even have my own bartender. His name is Terry, and he makes my martini just right.” He ambles over to the shiny oak bar and taps the top. “Barkeep!” he calls.

I lift myself onto one of the stools and rest my elbows on the bar. A big man who I assume is Terry comes out and grins when he sees Uncle Jack. They exchange pleasantries, and Uncle Jack orders his martini.

“There you go,” says Terry once he’s done shaking. He pushes the frosted martini glass over to Uncle Jack, then looks back at me. “Are you gonna sit at the bar, or do you want a table?”

“My table, please,” Uncle Jack says. “By the windows.”

“Sure thing.” He grabs two menus and leads us to a table for two in the corner of the room. From here, we have a perfect view of the harbor, and farther out, the bay. A few ferries pull into their spots near the dock, and past the breakwater, a sailboat floats by.

Around us, groups of friends, couples, all enjoy cocktails and appetizers.

Uncle Jack settles into the seat across from me. “So update me,” he says.

I scan the menu. “Update you on what?” I ask without looking up.

“How’s the family?”

I chuckle a little to myself. Uncle Jack and my mom talk on the phone at least twice a week. Whatever updates he needs, he gets them from her.

“Everyone’s fine,” I say, closing my menu and pushing it away from me. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Terry talking to someone, but I can’t get a good glimpse of who. When he finally turns the corner, I see the guy from the parking lot, tall and tan from the sun. He wraps an apron around his waist. This must be his new job. I quickly divert my attention back to my uncle.

“What is it?” Uncle Jack asks.

“Nothing.”

“It’s something.”

“Just the guy from the parking lot obviously works here, and I think he was trying to flirt with me, but I’m bad at being cute when I can’t plan in advance, so now I’m embarrassed.”

Uncle Jack cranes his neck to see him better.

“Stop it!” I whisper, slapping his hand. He settles back down in his seat. “Ignore him. Keep talking.”

“All right, all right.” Turning back to me, Uncle Jack asks, “How’s the boyfriend?”

I blink. “Really? That’s how you change the conversation?”

“I’m doing my best, Coriander!”

I lean back, raking my fingers through my hair. “I don’t know if he was ever really my boyfriend, officially. But he’s going to college, and I’m busy, so yeah. We’re done now.”

Uncle Jack nods knowingly. “Well,” he says, leaning forward. “Then this is perfect, isn’t it? You have a whole summer to put you first. Your internship, your whales, your passion, your fun. It’s the summer of Coriander.”

Close, but I don’t feel like correcting him. He might be weirded out by the truth. That I have this list of all the things my best friend and I would have done before going to college, and I only have one year left. Doing this internship and spending my summer with the whales is at the top of that list. I’m not ready to be that open, even with Uncle Jack.

“I’m going to run to the restroom real quick,” he says, standing. “Be right back.”

I pull my braid over my shoulder, noticing how being in the sun makes the loose ends more coppery than my usual red, and pretend to study the menu, even though I already know what I want. The thing is, the guy from the parking lot is now across the room from me, spraying down empty tables and then wiping them clean with a white cloth.

I browse through appetizers, scallops wrapped in bacon, Caesar salad, clam chowder, oysters from the raw bar. I even make a study of the wine menu. But he’s at the table right next to mine, and if Uncle Jack were here, he’d be blocking this guy, and I wouldn’t have to think so hard about him or how well that T-shirt fits across his shoulders.

Finally, he finishes, and I lift the menu, now doing a thorough reading of the multiple ways the Sea Ghost prepares lobster. As he passes my table, he taps the top of the menu, leaving behind a folded piece of paper that looks like it’s been ripped from something bigger. I catch a glimpse of him, and he offers me an amused grin over his shoulder as he heads back to the bar.

Opening the scrap of paper, I see that there’s just a social media handle that reads @maybemannix.

Uncle Jack plops down in front of me again, and I jump.

“Oh, sorry,” he says. He lifts his martini and takes a sip. “I thought you saw me coming.”

“It’s okay, I was reading something.” I fold the piece of paper back up and I almost push it away, thinking of leaving it on the table. This summer isn’t about boys from parking lots. It’s about Ella because last summer wasn’t.

I glance back at the bar, watching him chat with a few patrons. Slowly, I inch my hand toward the paper near the salt and pepper. I lean forward, slipping it into my back pocket.



I spend more time than I’d like to admit sitting in the oversize chair by the window in my bedroom browsing his Instagram. Apparently, Mannix Reilly is also a lifeguard in Wellfleet. He looks remarkably good in red board shorts, and at Christmas, he wore an ugly sweater of a gaudy tree with flashing bulbs, then topped off the ensemble with a jingling reindeer antlers headband.

He laughs a lot, and his eyes squint up real tight when he does.

I almost put my phone away except that I notice he recently posted something from this morning. A picture of a few other lifeguards drinking coffee in a parking lot overlooking the ocean. Definitely not the parking lot for Cahoon Hollow, otherwise the Beachcomber restaurant would be in the background. Feels like the wrong shape for Newcomb Hollow. It might be White Crest. Before I can th. . .