Dear Summer

In the lives of teenagers, summer is a magical time. It's filled with lazy days and endless nights spent in the company of friends and constant entertainment. It's a time for kids to forget about the prospect of school, which seems to be looming so far away, and enjoy their days of freedom.

However, Abbey Eliades was feeling none of the free, happy feelings that summer usually brought to overworked high school students. Instead Abbey was nervous, stressed and sweating. The outside Manhattan weather was sweltering, and not only was Abbey fresh from the gym, but she was also carrying a multitude of shopping bags filled with things that she had been reminding herself to purchase for weeks.

While Abbey was currently in utter silence as she huffed her way back towards her building, the air was being filled with long rants from her best friend, Kinsley Dimera. "Abs! Are you even listening to me?" whined Kinsley as she shoved a chip into her mouth. Throughout Abbey's five mile run at the gym, Kinsley had lounged on a couch eating chips and providing weak encouragement. It had only taken her a mile worth of glares from Abbey to stop offering the Doritos to her friend.

"Of course I'm listening to you, Kinsley," Abbey insisted as she struggled to open the door of the building. Of course the doorman was absent from his post at the moment that Abbey actually needed help. Before Kinsley could even shoot Abbey a look of disbelief, Abbey continued, "You were talking about how stoked you are for this summer. And I promise I will share in the stoked-ness as soon as we get upstairs and I can have a glass of water."

"I offered you a sip of my Rockstar," pointed out Kinsley as Abbey pounded the button in the elevator that corresponded to her parents' apartment. Though it was on the thirty first floor at the very top of the building, the elevator bridged the space in a minute.

"Calories, Kinsley," Abbey argued as she stomped up the stairs to her bedroom. "Those five miles that I sweated out around pervy, body-building guys and desperate old ladies who would kill to look twenty five again are not going to be in vain."

Kinsley chuckled and dropped onto Abbey's bed as her friend deposited her shopping bags on the chaise lounge in her bedroom. "You haven't packed yet?" she demanded as Abbey began cutting the tags off of things.

"These are last minute things," argued Abbey as she dropped a new pair of sandals into the suitcase reserved for shoes. "And excuse me for not being packed for this since, like, April."

"I haven't been packed since April," retorted Kinsley weakly as she once again pulled a handful of chips from her crinkled Doritos bag.

The occasion in question was the main event of the summer following Abbey and Kinsley's senior year of high school. The girls had met in elementary school, as their last names placed them next to each other whenever alphabetical order was required, and since the day that Abbey offered Kinsley her sparkly purple jelly bracelet, the girls had been inseparable. This summer of adventure following the completion of high school had been an idea that they had concocted in the seventh grade and had subsequently been planning for ever since.

And as a matter of fact, Abbey was very aware that Kinsley had indeed been packing since April; she had seen the half filled suitcase in the closet when she had been looking for a pair of shoes that she had let Kinsley borrow.

Now that high school had come and gone, the separation that Abbey and Kinsley had always anticipated had arrived. In the fall Kinsley was leaving for UCLA to major in film and television while Abbey was going to medical school. She knew where she was going to go, but presently, she was having a hard time telling anyone else, especially Kinsley.

But at the moment college was a looming blur that Abbey couldn't visualize. She didn't want to picture it, she didn't want to dwell on it; all she wanted to do on this day was finish her packing so that she could be ready for dinner with her parents and the Dimeras, during which both Mr. and Mrs. Eliades and Kinsley's parents were going to present their daughters with all that they would need this summer.

In the case of Mr. Eliades, the gift was concert tickets to any show the girls wanted to go to that summer and several different dates of Warped Tour, courtesy of Sony Music, of which Mr. Eliades was an executive. In the case of Mr. Dimera, the gift was the bus, completely authentic. And in the case of their mothers, who were anxious about the girls being without their huge bathrooms and walk in closets, it was money for the best hotels they could find in the obscure places Abbey and Kinsley planned to visit.

Abbey shuddered as she thought of the bus. "Kins, are you sure the bus is the way to go?" she asked. She pulled her pony tail from her hair and ran her fingers through the damp tangle of long, wavy brown hair as she stared down Kinsley in the gilded mirror that hung on her wall.

"Of course!" Kinsley insisted as she sat up abruptly, scattering a few crumbs onto Abbey's bed. "Oops, sorry, Abs." She hastily wiped off the duvet before jumping to her feet and rushing to Abbey's side. "You're going to love it. It looks exactly like it just drove out of the 1960s."

"I already have enough remnants of the 1960s," countered Abbey as she frowned.

Kinsley giggled. "You know you love your name, Abs."

Abbey rolled her eyes. "I can't even imagine my parents being hippies now," she chortled as she pulled an outfit from her closet. "We're going to Balthazar for dinner, right?"

"I think that's where my dad said the reservations are," Kinsley nodded as she dropped back onto Abbey's bed and kicked her feet up on the headboard. Abbey wrinkled her nose, but resisted the urge to ask Kinsley to remove her feet.

"Good," Abbey smiled as she kicked her suitcase closed. "French sounds lovely tonight."

"What are we going to do when we have to find new restaurants this summer?" Kinsley inquired. "I mean, face it, Abs... We're awful at eating at new places."

Abbey laughed as she walked into her bathroom, in need of a quick shower to wash the salty sweat from her skin. "What are you going to do in California without me to decide where you should eat? You're going to starve," she called loudly over the running water.

"Not going to happen!" Kinsley countered, "Because I know you decided to go to Berkeley, even if you won't tell me!"

Their last exchange wiped the smile from Abbey's face, and she nervously knocked over her shampoo bottles as she suddenly became somewhat shaky. It was going to be a good summer, no matter what college she was going to. They had concerts, they had the ridiculous bus and when it was all said and done, they were going to have the most amazing summer of their lives.

So there were a few kinks they still needed to work out. Abbey was fairly positive that things were going to pan out. And if not... Well, at least it was going to be an interesting few months.

After what seemed like the shortest shower of her life, Abbey was throwing on her pale blue sundress, irritated to find that she and Kinsley were going to have to walk to Balthazar if they wanted to meet their parents on time. If they took a car, they were going to be stuck in traffic for at least twenty minutes. They only had ten available.

"How are we late?" Kinsley huffed as they emerged from the building. Abbey had adopted her New Yorker pace, something that Kinsley could normally keep up with though not after a bag of Doritos and a Rockstar. "Abbey, slow down, please."

"How is this fair?" Abbey demanded while fixing a glare at Kinsley. "I'm the one who exercises and actually watches what I eat, but you can inhale junk all day and still fit a size smaller than me."

"Ow! Side cramp!"

Abbey laughed in a patronizing fashion as she watched Kinsley clutch her side. "Never mind," she said, shaking her head, "I see the justice now." She pushed her wavy hair off of the back of her neck and fanned her face with her hand. Wherever they ended up this summer, as long as it was cooler than the burning sidewalks of Manhattan, she would be satisfied.

They arrived at the restaurant with two minutes to spare, despite Kinsley's side cramp. They were brought to their table immediately by their maî·tre d' and spent a minute greeting each other's parents, as well as their own.

After they were seated, their water glasses were filled and they were all lightly picking at their salads, Mr. Dimera asked, "Excited for this adventure of yours, girls? When are you leaving, a day?"

"Two," Abbey politely corrected. "And we're very grateful for the hotel arrangements that you've made, Mom, Mrs. Dimera."

"And the bus," Kinsley added, although she hadn't actually been given the bus yet.

Mr. Dimera fidgeted and glanced at his wife, who seemed uneasy as well.

"You know," Kinsley continued, "the VW bus that I asked for? The red, 1967 Volkswagon bus? My graduation bus? The thing that I've been begging for since I was sixteen?" Abbey chuckled into her napkin as she heard the pitch of Kinsley's voice increase in desperation. She had known Kinsley's parents long enough to know that they had to be joking.

"There was a bit of trouble finding the right model, Kins," Mr. Dimera began. He was cut off by the blaring of a loud horn, which wasn't entirely unnatural in New York. However, this horn had a different ring than those of the Lincoln town cars and Mercedes Benzes that usually zipped around the town.

The horn honked again, prompting Kinsley's mother to demand, "What is that horrible noise?"

"Probably just a taxi," Kinsley said, waving off the noise. "Now, my bus? What happened?"

The third honk came from outside that restaurant. "Maybe there's an accident," Mr. Dimera said, setting down his napkin. "Let's just go take a peek."

As both the Dimeras and the Eliades left the table, Kinsley was left to stare, horror-struck, at her best friend. "This isn't over, Dad!" she called as she dropped her napkin onto the table and pulled Abbey from her seat before rushing outside.

"Dad, I need this b—Bus!"

Abbey stood back and watched in amusement as Kinsley jumped up and down excitedly before giving her parents enormous hugs. "You all set for this trip, kiddo?" her own father asked as he slung an arm around her shoulders.

"Sure," she nodded, "Though I don't know how I'm going to survive that thing." She nodded her head at the red bus.

"I honestly couldn't believe that Kinsley would let you guys travel across the country in anything less ridiculous," her dad pointed out.

Abbey laughed and shook her head. "Of course not."

"Darling, don't forget that you girls are supposed to meet us in California on the fifth of August," her mother said. "We've found the most beautiful beach house to share with the Dimeras."

"Got it, Mom," Abbey nodded. "We'll be there. Don't worry."

Too much, she added in afterthought. After all, she was traveling with Kinsley in a frightening red beast. Who knew what was going to happen.