The Summer Girlfriend (Heart Beach, #1)(10)
“And what about your sister?” Celeste asked. “You don’t think it’s going to break her heart that you’re missing her birthday barbecue?”
“What birthday barbecue?” Jeremiah said, blinking. Amara was turning twenty-seven next week, and he’d planned to gift her an edition of her favorite novel, Dracula, that she didn’t already own. Then he’d take her to watch one of those weird indie horror films that she liked at the Angelika theater in the East Village. This birthday barbecue was news to him.
“We didn’t do anything for her twenty-sixth birthday last year,” Celeste said. Jeremiah was able to read between the lines as to what she wasn’t saying. That they’d all been too sad about their first summer without Pop to celebrate much of anything. “So I’ve decided we’ll have a big party to make up for it next weekend.”
“Does Amara know?” He’d last talked to his sister on the phone two days ago, and she hadn’t mentioned it.
“She knows now because I just told her before I told you.”
Jeremiah smirked, shaking his head at his mom. It was a classic Celeste move to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.
“There’s a lot going on with the company before I move,” Jeremiah said. “I just don’t know if I’ll be able to make it down before the gala in a few weeks.”
Once every summer, the family hosted the Smith Foundation fundraiser gala in Heart Beach. It was a black-tie affair, and all the proceeds went toward investing in Black businesses in New Jersey. They hadn’t hosted the gala last summer, mainly because it had been hard to imagine hosting the gala without Pop. But this year, they’d all mutually agreed that they couldn’t skip the gala again. Even though Jeremiah was avoiding the Heart Beach house, he couldn’t miss the gala. It was too important of an event for their family. Each Smith needed to be there to represent.
“That is my point exactly,” Celeste said. “This is going to be your last summer living on the East Coast. Heart Beach is only an hour-and-a-half drive from Jersey City. A six-hour flight from California will be a lot less convenient. At the very least, you can come down for Amara’s party and then come back again for the gala.”
Celeste was a formidable businesswoman. Jeremiah admired that quality in her. But it also meant that she was a relentless parent to bargain with. Celeste and Percy Sr., Jeremiah’s dad, had divorced not too long after Amara was born, and to this day, Jeremiah’s dad said that Celeste was the only person who could convince him to do anything that she wanted.
Jeremiah sighed again. “Mom.”
“Yes?”
But he didn’t respond, because he realized the time and quickly finished his coffee. He winced as the hot liquid burned his tongue and throat. He slipped his laptop into his satchel and slung it over his shoulder. He slid his feet into his loafers and grabbed his car keys off the kitchen island. According to Amara, his last apartment had looked like the typical bachelor pad from hell, so he’d hired an interior designer to decorate his new place. Most of his furniture was shades of oat and gray. He’d thought it was a pretty sophisticated look, but Amara said it now looked like he lived in a doctor’s office. He should probably stop asking his sister for her opinions on his living space. It didn’t matter anyway. His things would be packed up and shipped across the country in a couple months. And he didn’t host people at his apartment that often. Not like when he’d lived on the Lower East Side. He’d had people over all the time back then. It had been a different life.
He locked the door behind him and walked downstairs and outside.
“Is this about your new girlfriend again?” Celeste asked.
Jeremiah stopped short as he unlocked his car door.
Ah, yes. His stupid lie coming to bite him in the ass, as expected.
Back in May, before Memorial Day Weekend, Celeste had tried to persuade Jeremiah to come to Heart Beach. Unwilling to tell her the real reason he didn’t want to be in Heart Beach unless absolutely necessary, he’d blurted a lie about having plans with his new girlfriend. A girlfriend who didn’t actually exist. And because Celeste often made comments about how Jeremiah was pushing thirty but hadn’t yet met a nice girl to settle down with like Percy, she’d immediately dropped the Memorial Day Weekend questions, and instead had peppered him with questions about his “girlfriend.” Jeremiah had remained evasive, claiming that he didn’t want to share too much in case things didn’t work out. He’d promised to tell Celeste and everyone else more about his girlfriend once he was sure that she was the one. In reality, he hadn’t gone on a date in almost a year. All part of his grand plan to work on himself. But Celeste had been so relieved that he was finally seriously dating someone, she’d accepted his lie. And she’d accepted it again when he’d told her he couldn’t make it to Heart Beach for Juneteenth because he already had plans with his girlfriend.
He couldn’t tell his mom the truth. That the thought of being at the Heart Beach house was too painful. Jeremiah didn’t want any of his family to know that on the last night of Pop’s life, he’d come home drunk, and while everyone else had been sleeping, Pop had waited up for him and given him some tough love and encouraged him to get his life together. Instead of absorbing Pop’s words, Jeremiah had taken offense to them and stormed out mid-conversation, like he was some misunderstood victim who needed an escape from his charmed life. He’d planned to apologize to Pop in the morning, but sometime overnight, Pop had suffered a heart attack in his sleep.