Authors: Marta Brown
Tags: #dating, #beach, #young adult, #young love, #ebook, #dance, #college, #sweet, #summer, #first love, #beach read, #marthas vineyard, #nantucket, #summer romance, #all in, #marta brown
All In
All In
By Marta Brown
Copyright © 2013 by Marta
Brown
All Rights
Reserved
Published by VP Publishing
House
Image Copyright
©
Maridav
Smashwords Edition
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of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. All references
to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locals
are intended for authenticity to advance the fictional narrative.
All characters and events are fictitious. Any and all similarities
to real persons, living or dead are coincidental and are not
attended by the author.
For my mom
xoxo
Table of
Contents
Lane
And so it begins. The annual Memorial
Day weekend pilgrimage of the eastern seaboard’s most wealthy and
privileged families to Martha’s Vineyard. The summer stays, or
‘Stays’ as we locals call them, who swell my tiny seaside town from
barely fifteen thousand to an overwhelming hundred thousand
residents. Then, just like that, Labor Day weekend comes, and they
all migrate like birds flying south for the winter, back to their
uptown high-rises and gated communities on the mainland.
Thankfully.
The sudden influx of Stays does have
its perks though, like tips, big ones. And girls. Lots of them.
After going to school with the same hundred and fifty people since
kindergarten, the crowded beaches and pools are a welcome addition
to the summer, even if it means my quiet home town becomes a
tourist playground for a few months.
I wipe the sweat from my forehead then
slow my pace to a brisk jog to check the time. 11:00am. Crap. I’m
gonna be seriously late for work and Yale isn’t going to pay for
itself.
I glance up the already packed beach
and decide to skip the onslaught of families toting their French
nannies, bulky strollers, sticky kids and miniature sized dogs
along the boardwalk, and take a shortcut. I cut through the
manicured backyard of a multi-million dollar beachfront home and
hear some bubblegum pop song blaring from inside. I wouldn’t be
surprised if there’s a party still going on in full force from the
night before.
I hurry past the house and to my
parked car. I jump in, not bothering with the door because the
top’s down, then whip out of the parking spot and high-tail it up
the beach road that connects Edgartown to Oaks Bluff where I
live.
On the offseason Beach Bluff road is
practically desolate, so I’m trying to exercise extra patience with
the Stays coming in off the ferry and crowding the quiet two lane
seaside drive, but I can’t help pounding my fist against the
steering wheel impatiently.
A silver BMW M-5 directly ahead of me
continues to idle even though the traffic in front of him has
finally dispersed. “Damn, I’m gonna be so late.” I honk my horn to
hurry him up but I’m met with an indignant glance from him in his
rear-view mirror before he resumes what looks to be
texting
Seriously?
“Dude, let’s go,” I say, getting more
annoyed by the second. I honk again, this time a bit longer than
necessary, but I don’t care, I need to get home and change for
work. I can’t afford to be late and lose hours because some trust
fund kid’s too busy text messaging about whatever it is that fills
his time, except for a job.
Still, Mr. M-5 doesn’t bother to
acknowledge the sound of my horn, let alone the horns of the other
half dozen cars all stuck in the mini traffic jam behind
him.
Does this guy think he owns the damn
road? Although, I guess it is possible with all the old money in
this town, but right now he could be a freaking Kennedy for all I
care, I gotta go.
“Fine, you wanna play, Stay?” I crane
my neck to see past the M-5, and the road is clear for days. I
shift into first gear then press my foot on the gas without
releasing the clutch causing the car engine to rev so loud that
this time I get his full attention.
I give him a cocky smirk when I see
him glare at me in his rear-view mirror before I let up on the
clutch, pull the car sharply to the left and punch the accelerator
to the floor. The road is narrow on both sides, but I purposely
stay extra close as I pass him, just to piss him off. I hit sixty
on the speedometer in a matter of seconds then swerve back in front
of him, tossing a glance over my shoulder for his reaction. It’s
exactly what I’d hoped for. His arm sticks out the window flipping
me the bird as he lays on his own car horn.
Ha.
I throw my head back against the
headrest with a laugh and let the cool sea breeze rush over my face
before I hit my accelerator again, leaving him and the entire line
of summer stays in my rear-view mirror.
…
“Hey, Ma, you home?” I call, stepping
out of my sand covered shoes and knocking them together just
outside the laundry room door. Mom hates when I track sand all over
the house, but it’s kind of impossible not to, considering half the
island is beachfront.
“Yeah, sweetie, just getting ready to
go. You need something?”
“Nah, just checking. I gotta shower
then bail for work too. Hey, is Grandpa Frank home?” He’s gonna
love to hear about me smoking that Stay.
“Not right now. He and Irene went for
a walk, but they should be back soon. Oh, and there’s a letter from
Yale for you on the kitchen table. It’s from the financial aid
office.” She leans out of the kitchen doorway, her smile
contagious.
My shower can wait. I rush into the
kitchen. “Thanks, Ma.” I pick up the thin envelope and smile at the
big blue block letters across the top left corner. YALE. I shake my
head in disbelief that I’ll be the first in my family to go to
college and an Ivy League at that.
I’ve been waiting on the financial aid
letter for weeks now, but in our situation, qualifying for the rest
of the money I need for school shouldn’t be a problem. Money’s
tight, always has been at my house, but right now it’s even tighter
since Mom had to hire a full time nurse for Grandpa, leaving almost
no extra money at the end of every month.
I tear open the envelope. It’s not
quite as nerve-racking as when I opened my acceptance letter, but
it’s a close second.
I scan the letter and my hands start
to shake.
“Well?” Mom claps her
hands.
Impossible.
I take a deep breath and re-read the
letter, this time not skipping a single word. I even flip it over
to make sure I didn’t miss anything on the back. I didn’t. It’s
blank. Much like my mind at this very moment.
I look up at my mom and brace myself
for her smile to fall. “I didn’t qualify, Ma.” I drop the single
sheet of paper to the kitchen table.
“What? That can’t be.” She snaps up
the letter and reads it to herself, her hand rests over her heart
while her head shakes and tears fill her eyes. “Oh, Lane, I’m so
sorry,” she says as a tear spills over and runs down her
cheek.
I pull out a chair from beneath the
table, and the scraping sound it makes across the linoleum floor
causes my teeth to hurt. I slump into the seat and bury my hands in
my hair. How did I not qualify? How is that even
possible?
“I just don’t get it. How could they
say we make too much money to qualify?” I ask.
My mother paces our tiny yellow
kitchen, the letter gripped tight in her balled up fist, and it
makes me nauseous.
“It’s the fishing company. It’s got to
be,” she says, finally coming to a stop.
The fishing company? That doesn’t make
sense. Mom has been running Grandpa’s fishing company for a while
now, but she barely makes minimum wage for all her hard work. Not
to mention all four of us share a house so small I sleep on the
couch so Irene, Grandpa’s nurse, can have a room of her own, and
we’re lucky to have that. Martha’s Vineyard is no cheap place to
live.
I look at her confused. “But that’s
Grandpa Frank’s company. Why would it affect whether or not I
qualify for financial aid?”
“Well, honey, we had to transfer
ownership of the company into my name when Grandpa wasn’t able to
run it anymore because of his Alzheimer’s. He was forgetting too
much, like paying the vendors, and employees and even worse the
taxes. Sure, I guess on paper it looks profitable.” Mom shrugs then
looks again at the letter in her hand. “But after everyone is paid,
any extra money goes to paying for Irene.” Silent tears begin to
roll down her cheeks, and it breaks my heart. “I can’t believe
this. You’ve worked so hard.”
I get up despite my body feeling heavy
with disappointment and give her a hug.
“Mom, it’s okay.” I reassure her I’m
fine, but it’s hardly the truth. My mind spins in circles with
unanswered questions. What am I going to do? How am I going to
afford school now? Is my dream of going to Yale over?
I stuff down my own concerns when I
pull out of my mom’s hug and see the guilt in her eyes. This isn’t
her fault. She’s had to struggle way too hard as a single mom after
my father, who I’ve never met, got her pregnant and then took off,
to feel guilty about anything.
The jerk-off probably summers in the
Hamptons to avoid the local girl he knocked up and his bastard son
on Martha’s Vineyard all these years. Asshole. Life isn’t always
fair, and no one knows that better than my family.
I take the letter from her, glance it
over one last time then crumple it up and toss it in the
garbage.
“We can still make it work, honey,
maybe I can get a part time job at the Fish House to help out?”
Hope laces her tone.
“Ma, you’re not getting another job,
you’re busy enough as it is. It’ll be okay, I swear. I’ll figure
something out, but thank you,” I say, giving her another
hug.