The summer started out normally enough, I guess. I had just finished my second year of law school at Penn, and was lucky enough to secure a prestigious Summer Associate position at a Chicago law firm. At first I thought about finding a summer sublet for the ten weeks I would be in the Windy City, but in the end I decided that I would stay with my Aunt Paula and her family. It wasn't the most glamorous plan, but it would definitely save me money and the living arrangements themselves were actually probably nicer than anything I could have afforded on my own.
Paula, my mom's younger sister, lived with her husband Gary and their three daughters in the heart of Lincoln Park. Their house had an open-plan living room, dining room, and kitchen on the main floor; two bedrooms upstairs for Gary and Paula as well as their youngest daughter, Eve, who was around ten; and two more bedrooms in the finished basement for their older daughters. Melissa β or Missy, as most of us called her β graduated from high school a week before I arrived; her older sister, Kim, was spending her last summer of college bumming around Europe with friends, leaving me her room. There was a large hangout room downstairs with a large flat-screen TV and some overstuffed sofas, and our own bathroom.
As excited as I was about the job, I was also excited to spend the summer with my younger cousins, whom I hadn't seen since the last big family reunion five years ago (I wouldn't see Kim at all while I was in Chicago, but since she was studying at Bryn Mawr we saw each other pretty regularly in Philly). I figured a lot had changed, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw when Missy got home from her job as a counselor at a day camp.
The last time I saw her, Missy was suffering the worst of being thirteen years old: pimples, braces, bad hair β really bad hair, and an awkward body that was not quite a woman's but definitely no longer a girl's. I distinctly remember my deep sense of pity for what her life must have been like at the time, so when the door opened and a tanned, smiling, nicely-proportioned beauty breezed in, it took me a moment to recognize her. Missy's light-brown hair was just a little wavy and fell loosely around her shoulders; her green eyes sparkled as she smiled. It was hard to see her exact figure beneath the bright green t-shirt with the name of the camp written across the chest, but it seemed like she had filled out decently. Her legs, muscular and toned, extended down from her shorts. She had grown to 5'7", just a bit shorter than me.
"Jake!" she squealed when she saw me, running over to give me a big hug. "It's so great to have you here! We're going to have
the best
summer!"
I laughed. "You do realize I'm going to be working all the time, right?"
Missy made an exaggerated pout. "Weekends?"
I shrugged. "Who knows? I might end up sleeping under my desk!"
Now Missy laughed, and we headed into the kitchen to catch up over snacks.
*****
There's not a lot to report after that first day β my expectations were all too accurate, and I found that my regular schedule involved getting home well past midnight, throwing my clothes over the back of Kim's desk chair, and collapsing in bed for a few hours before dragging myself out of bed, into the shower, and back to the office.
Still, I managed to find time for family. Gary, Paula, and Eve I saw mostly on the weekends β Sunday brunch, barbecues, that kind of thing β but usually once or twice a week Missy was still awake when I got home at night and we'd sit on the basement couches or in one of our rooms and catch up. As late night conversations will, things got personal, so I wasn't surprised when, a few weeks after I moved in, Missy was waiting up for me when I got home.
"Hey, kid," I said with a smile, setting down my bag and shedding my tie and suit jacket. "What's happening?"
"I wanted your advice on something," Missy replied.
I flopped down on the far side of the couch. "Shoot."
"There's this guy, one of the other counselors at the day camp. He's a couple of years older β a sophomore at DePaul β and he asked me to go with him to a party on Friday night."
"So far, so good..."
"That's just the thing β I'm not sure if I want to go."
"Like not sure if you want to go at all? Not sure you want to go with him? Or you want to go out with him, but not to this party?"
"Like not sure what I'm not sure about. He's a nice enough guy, and good looking, but I don't know if I really want to hook up with him."
"So don't. Or do you think that's his expectation in bringing you to the party?"
"I'm not sure about that either. I wasn't like Kim in high school, I didn't really date much at all and I don't have a lot of confidence around this stuff."
"Have you done this kind of thing before?" I asked.
"Which kind of thing? Go with a guy to a party? Or hook up?"
"Either?"
"I didn't go to a lot of parties. Not my thing, I'd rather stay in with some girlfriends and a movie. And I didn't hook up so much, either, which is probably all related." I nodded.