Summer to Fall

By Nessa Burns

SUMMER TO FALL is a romance novel in the New Adult genre, set in the 1980s. A classical pianist and devoted student, Lara Czerny is preparing to leave her Manhattan home for college, and feeling disconnected after high school ends. Then Lara meets Bryan in Queens, and everything changes. A lonely NYC summer heats up with romance, beach days, wild nights, and live music. A girl who always followed the rules begins breaking them, spectacularly. College plans loom ahead and Lara strains to block them out, savoring every minute with the rock guitarist who loves her. Younger than she, Bryan seems wiser in many ways. They share a passion for music, a deep connection to their city, and challenging family lives. What they learn together is heartfelt, life-changing, and painfully fleeting. Contains some strong language, sexual themes, and scenes depicting alcohol consumption.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sunswick Media
• Release date: Aug 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9780692503584

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Summer to Fall

Summer to Fall

Nessa Burns

Summer to Fall

Copyright © 2015  by Nessa Burns Reifsnyder

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

First Sunswick Media digital publication: August 2015

ISBN: 978-0-692-50358-4

For more information, visit http://www.summertofall.com

To Mom and D.J.,

fellow travelers,

with love and gratitude

always;

and to Chris,

sworn friend

Love’s riddles are, that though thy heart depart,

It stays at home, and thou with losing savest it.

—John Donne

Once upon the 1980s…

The Graduation Party

Clutching diplomas, huddling under umbrellas with our families, rushing off in the rain or hailing taxis on Park Avenue, my high school class fell apart before we could say goodbye.

These early June days, I’m brooding at home. The air conditioner drones in our living-room window while soap operas throb on the TV screen. I’ve been eating as much junk food as I want (my school’s-out-for-summer ritual), but it doesn’t taste as good as I expect, and I’m bored with it fast. Sometimes I play piano, but classical music—which I usually love—only darkens my mood.

So it’s a week after Grad Night, and my best friend Meghan McShane is throwing a party tonight. A lot of people from St. Augustine’s Prep are coming, along with some friends from her neighborhood out in Queens. Thank God—this event is the most exciting thing on my horizon. For days, all I’ve worn are big old shorts and T-shirts with cracked and faded slogans.

I stand in front of the full-length mirror. Beige silk blouse, close-but-comfortable tan jeans, ankle boots. Shrug a floral vest over the blouse…okay, that brightens things up; it can stay. My hair’s long and straight, a shade somewhere between blonde and light brown. Sometimes I help it along with highlights; it’s still glowing from the touch-up done before my prom. (Come to think of it, prom was pretty disappointing, too. I went with a male friend who stayed a friend, all night long.)

How do I look? I ask the room. Mom’s not home, so no one answers. Nice clothes, hair in good shape, reasonably good figure...but nothing can change my pale complexion, my muddy hazel eyes. I smile hopefully at my reflection, but can’t hold the smile. It just feels fake.

∆∆

I’m not used to the subway ride from Manhattan to Meghan’s house, so I’ve gotten here too early. Meghan is flying around the kitchen making last-minute preparations; her frizzy perm resembles her energy level. I’m left to wander around. Listless again.

In the dining room, I pause in front of a shelf of family photos. Meghan and her younger sister Eileen are the last ones living at home; here’s pictures of them as button-nosed babies in pink bonnets, being held by older siblings while Mom and Dad smile tiredly. It’s like eavesdropping on someone else’s happier childhood. I look away.

Maybe a snack will help. A lace tablecloth covers the dark dining-room table, and huge bags of potato chips and pretzels are laying there, unopened. I don’t want to be the first one to open them…I can already hear that squeaky balloony noise they’ll make when I struggle with the overpuffed bag.

The table’s long, an extra leaf in it for the party. Looking down, I follow the tablecloth to the other end, and suddenly there’s a pair of legs, male, housed in faded jeans. Stunned, I’m stuck there for a moment, taking in the grainy blueness. Those are…nice. Now I have to complete my eyes’ movement—up to a face that stops me cold. Intense brown eyes, staring at me. His blank face mirrors my expression.

Suddenly Meghan’s at my elbow, jostling me along the table closer to him. Crashing the silence. Lara—this is my sister Eileen’s boyfriend, Bryan.

The pitch of his voice is soft. Hi. Wavy black hair, almost down to his shoulders. His shirt is striped cotton and collarless, and there’s a plain gold chain against his neck. Tanned arms wiry where the sleeves have been rolled up. The jeans again, shape of his legs...back to brown eyes. He smiles, but we don’t shake hands. Did he see me checking him out...?

"Where is Eileen?" I scan the room, turning my head with a jolt.

I haven’t seen her yet, Bryan answers, and our eyes lock again.

Nice to meet you, I manage—as if Eileen’s presence might have prevented my saying it. I smile through my daze as Meghan pulls me toward the kitchen to help her.

∆∆

The place gets crowded quickly, knocking my awkwardness aside. Speakers pound in the dining room and living room. Cans of beer are bobbing in a trash can of melting ice. I’ve managed to drink three beers while dancing nonstop with everyone else in the pitch-dark living room. Anonymm…, anomi—, anonymity. Yes, that. Feels goooood.

In the din of people milling around and shouted conversations with former schoolmates, brown-eyed Bryan seems to have disappeared. I wonder if he and Eileen left together. But then I stop wondering, because I’m getting fizzy beer-brain. It’s helping me get over the loss of my familiar way of life. I need this. Hands in the ay-air, wooooo!

When the song fades out, I shake my hair away from my face and take a breather on the concrete steps outside. An orange streetlight is illuminating the doorway. Can’t escape the dance beat, still thudding through the windows. A miracle someone hasn’t called the police.

Briefly, party sounds flare up and Justin bursts out the door, stumbling to a seat alongside me.

Lar, he states. He’s drunk too.

Just, I answer. ’S’up?

We’re outta that school! I’m sick of that place.

Yeah, me too, I lie. I take a long look at him. His blond hair’s skewed from the heat inside. His eyes are kind of blue and steely; you can never see inside them. But then Justin smiles, suddenly sweet.

Hold me, I start thinking. I want to feel you against me. I need somebody right now. Could you hold me? Drunk me lets the thought slide out.

Sure, Lara. He slings his arm around my back. Gonna miss you, kid.

I shake my head a little, ’cause that’s not what I expected, exactly. But I guess I’m glad. I don’t know.

Justin pulls himself upright after two sweaty minutes, or something…I can’t tell. We don’t say anything else, anyway. He reels back inside and I struggle to remember—what? Oh damn, Meghan wanted me to meet her friends from the neighborhood. I hurry in: too late—things have degenerated, and Meghan herself is nowhere to be found. Typical. So I fish my purse out of a pile of random people’s stuff, take a deep breath, and go back out to get a taxicab on the avenue. That happens with magic ease, the yellow car gliding right in front of me like a steed. I’m okay enough to rattle off my address, but the party’s still ringing in my head and I’m struggling to hold my upright balance in the slippery, dark expanse of the back seat. Shit, gotta hold it together so the cabbie doesn’t notice. Tumbling back to Manhattan. My big social night. That went fast.

Second Thoughts

Sunday morning’s here long before I’m ready. All that beer’s been pressing against my insides, forcing me to the bathroom. Now I’m stuck awake, remembering last night. Everybody was there, and we all danced and celebrated...but it still felt empty, even though we were together.

I only ever drink at parties, usually. Sometimes it’s like I get more depressed after the alcohol than I’d been before. That was definitely the case at Meg’s last night, and it sucked, frankly. My friends seem to get a lot out of partying, but the wildness doesn’t hang in for me. I usually gulp down beer because I’m thirsty from dancing or something. Gotta wonder if it’s worth it.

My digital clock flips to 10 a.m. I call Meghan from bed, still curled beneath my quilt.

Hey, Lara. She sounds a little tired. Did you have a good time, or what?

It was great, Meg. What else can I say? A real public service, giving us all a chance to see each other again. Well, that was sort of true.

Glad you liked it. Mom and Dad came home at two in the morning, and the house looked like an abandoned disco. They were, like, ‘Never again!’ I told them they had nothing to fear, since I’m going away in September anyway!

Pretty snappy response for a drunk person.

Hey—seeing them, I was instantly straight.

We blather about who was with whom and what everyone was wearing. I wait for my moment to sneak in: So, how long has Eileen been seeing Bryan?

Like, two months. They met in the drugstore around the corner—that’s how Eileen and I got our jobs, because Bryan works there.

I was wondering how they’d met. Her younger sister Eileen is a junior at our school, St. Augustine’s Prep in Manhattan. She looks like a more petite version of Meghan, blonder and shyer. Like Meghan, she doesn’t spend a lot of time around home in Queens.

Bryan’s sweet, Meghan’s saying. I wanted you to meet his friends—did you?

Nah, never got a chance. Might have danced with them, though. Who could tell?

We’ll set something up. These guys are hysterical. You know, Lara, I never hung out in my own neighborhood before—we always had so many things to do in the city. But this summer’s gonna be great. Anytime you want to come out here, let me know. We’ve got plenty of room!

That’s for sure. Their house is meant for a family of seven. After all the times you’ve crashed here, I tell her, you owe me. My apartment’s been a refuge for Meghan whenever school parties went too late and the subway ride home was daunting. And she slept over a couple of times during her first romance, actually staying out all night with her boyfriend, creeping into my room at dawn.

I doubt Meghan will ever be able to repay me that particular favor. Have to set my sights on college, I guess. The next three months are yawning ahead, endless.

∆∆

So here I am, at home. I’ve lived in the same apartment all my life, on the Upper East Side. It’s old, with chalky white walls and enormous high ceilings that make it feel empty. Emptier, now that Dad’s gone. He divorced Mom my sophomore year—actually left her for his secretary. I know…what a cliché. When my dad told us, I was truly repulsed. 

The divorce caused a real crisis of faith for Mom. She stopped going to church, feeling she’d failed somehow. Quietly, I stopped going too, even though I was still at St. Augustine’s. I’ve been left with a shell of religion: the rules and restrictions stay in my head, but the motivation’s gone.

I remember times when my parents would bicker (essentially, ripping their marriage to shreds) and I’d go to school the next day, still bearing the load. I wanted to stand up in the cafeteria and wail in pain, force all those lunching heads to look up and help me. My friends were sympathetic, but the ones whose parents had split up seemed removed somehow, as if my problems could revive their own.

Well, on the brighter side, Mom got a great settlement from Dad, so we’ve continued to live like we always did. And Dad moved to Denver, taking his software design company with him as he went. It’s called Czarware—they make games and utilities. (Comrade is the most popular game they make; DOS-Vedanya, a program Dad and his team developed, is their best-selling utility. I know…the Russian theme makes me eye-roll, too. Dad says it’s his way of thumbing his nose at the Soviets.) Thanks to his success, my PC has tons of pointless games and every writing program I could ever need.

Dad and I haven’t talked since graduation, actually. He cut out literally right after the ceremony (plane to catch...software expo in Atlanta…). Typical. At least his new wife, Rose, is trying hard—she sends cards and gifts for all the major occasions, even though I’ve only seen her a few times. You kind of have to feel sorry for her, dealing with Dad. The more successful Czarware gets, the more fitting its name seems to be.

Our last name would have been something far less pronounceable, but an immigration officer at Ellis Island confused my grandfather’s name with his hometown of Czernowitz...so we ended up with Czerny. Some people say Serny; others get it right: Cherny. Czernowitz is part of Ukraine today, but it used to be the capital of its own country: Bukovina. No one in our family knows firsthand what it was like there, but sometimes during the holidays, I’d come into a room while older relatives talked in low voices…what they left, how they left, why they left.

Mom’s family comes from Ohio, and they’ve been there a long time. They all look American, in old pictures. But Dad’s people are exotic: small-eyed, big noses and wide smiles. Old faces in the photo album, standing straight, starting their new lives. I look so much like them, right down to my wide grin. But I’m not a triumphant immigrant—I’m a prep-school kid from Manhattan. I just never look the part, and I can’t act it.

Case in point: in April, Mom and I toured Canterbury College, up in Westdale, Massachusetts. Canterbury’s music department is renowned, part of a solid liberal arts program. I think that’s the right choice for me—I’m not good enough for Juilliard, but I still want music to be an integral part of my studies. The day we visited, trees were sprouting all over the campus, and students were sprawled on the quadrangle lawn, deep in conversation. Other students veered around us, carrying loaded backpacks—they looked casual but purposeful. I felt overdressed in city-black, and clueless looking for the admissions office.

I don’t know...maybe I should have gone to NYU instead, Mom.

You belong here just like they do, Mom reassured me. You’re smart and talented, just like all of these kids. She waved a hand at the open quad.

Sometimes, Mom knows just what I need to hear. If only she could make me believe it.

∆∆

After lunch, it hits me like a lightning bolt. Bryan.

The way he’d stared at me…the way that I’d stared back, to memorize him. What was that? Just seeing his face again in my mind is making me smile. He’s slim but he looks strong. And the way he was dressed… comfortable, but different somehow…

Everyone I know is so label-conscious; even their casual clothes look forced. Tiny woven insignia on the left chest, collars popped...pretty silly. And everyone at St. Augustine’s is totally uptight about dating—when your school is as small as ours, everyone knows everything. Besides, as Meghan always points out, the guys in our class are like buddies. Who wants to get romantic with a buddy?

Well, I did, for awhile. Eliott Carver and I went out for six months my junior year. We used to walk to school together and talk about our problems: parents, schoolwork, lousy social lives. Then we started seeing each other on the weekends. We made out a lot—at the movies, mostly, or in our apartments when no one was there. But we always stopped before things went too far, breathing hard, looking away from each other, feeling guilty (not that we ever talked about it—romance sharply limited our vocabularies). Eliott’s cute, with a great brush cut (religiously maintained) and a sarcastic sense of humor. Even his glasses seem to spark when he’s making a crack about something. I loved laughing with him, making comments at movies, hanging out together. But Eliott is a power-tool when it comes to schoolwork. That basically ended things, when I became a threat to his potential college eligibility.

This dating thing doesn’t cut it, Meghan announced a few months ago. I need more.

Ditto.

Bryan.

That wavy hair, ebony. God, when he finally smiled, it was honest—real. I even caught the scent of his cologne, and now I can’t forget it.

Enough. I rake my hands into my hair to stop the images—the cravings. I’m just tired of being lonely, that’s all. Bryan is someone else’s. Anyway, a guy as attractive as he is probably wouldn’t give me a second thought. And when will I ever see him again, anyway.

Help Wanted

It’s Monday. I’m like a desert island prisoner, marking the days in the sand. After breakfast (Mom would say, "others call that lunch, Lara"), I raked through my CD collection for appropriate, lonely love songs. I own a lot of them, evidently, from the Beatles to REM. So today’s activity: standing near the stereo speakers and letting mournful music completely fill my ears. But, you know: Is this helpful?—I mean, really.

So, over to the piano…some Chopin preludes. (One of the romantic composers—damn, scratch that thought.) Back in freshman year, these short works were a focus of my lessons: finding the nuances, taking delicate steps along the keyboard followed by crashing, profound bass chords. Today, I’m extra-leaning on the bass, wrenching the mood. Prelude No. 11 is tripping me up, though, with happy vivace spirals of connected notes. Sigh and switch to Debussy’s gorgeous Clair de Lune, my favorite piece. I don’t even need sheet music for this. When my fingers touch the keys, some other force makes the music, and I’m just a pathway for it. I surrender to this feeling and