Our Last Summer

He has no front teeth. A nineteen year old boy with no front teeth.

He has no front teeth but he is grinning, and his satisfaction at submersion is greater than that of his adequately toothed companions. Beads of pond water cling to his shoulders, full of freckles, birthmarks, sun kiss. He shakes his rusty head and lets the drops fly, then lopes onto the shore to envelope me in a towel hug. I can feel the drops on his body soak into my t-shirt but I accept his hug because he has no teeth and he is laughing. The girls in their bikinis wave at him from across the pond, oblivious to his unappealing defect that is only evident on this side of the water. They might even be jealous of me- the girl in the company of this handsome boy. It is evening in late summer, and the trees beyond the water are full dark shadows against the dusty lavender sky. All of this will be a wasted dusk memory by tomorrow, a memory with my oldest friend, toothless and wet, trapped inside.

I’m glad I will remember him toothless. 29 days out of every month, he has a full, lovely grin of pure white porcelain teeth, but then the illusion ends and he gets new ones. New squares of glass to fill the deep black holes: the product of a mountain biking crash in the summer before fifth grade. We were young, and teeth were important, and each month on his toothless day we would eat popsicles on his porch. It was all he could manage to eat, but he was embarrassed that the shiny red treats could fit into his mouth without opening his jaw. I pretended not to notice. We sat on the roof of the elementary school playhouse and I told him stories. Once he wrote me a poem about a train. It rhymed but had no scheme.

During high school, he came to terms with his toothless day. He never knew what the moment would be- biting into an apple, gnawing on his pencil or simply running his tongue along the back of his teeth during a math test- when the two little porcelain blocks would slip out of place. But eventually, he learned to put them in his pocket and carry on. He even learned to laugh at his day long speech impediment, and entertained himself by calling me and seeing how many hissing “f” sounds and falling “l”s he could fit into a conversation before I noticed his toothless drawl.

I have spent this summer longing for the sticky oleander sublime of dry heat and desert wind. My feet don’t seem to fit into the cracked New England pavement any more. With each wind chime, I close my eyes and feel tumble weeds brushing my eyelids, and a red sun burning my eyes. I haven’t felt the comfort they all say the summer should bring, as this house with a new deck and my old posters feels like bookends around my present moment- my present home. I don’t live here anymore, and it has become more startlingly apparent with each rainy summer day. The guilt of my distance has been pounded into me with each thunder storm, each forced traditional adventure with my fake-toothed friend.

He does live here still. I doubt he will ever leave. And so I take his toothless grin with me in my pocket, as a token of the days when I felt at ease among the maples, walking my bike up the dirt road, popsicle dripping into sticky trails down my arm. Tomorrow, it will be windy and cold as it has been all summer, and he will drive me to the train station. He will pick me up after his trip to the dentist, and grin widely to show off his new pearly whites. We will walk side by side along the tracks while we wait, and he won’t be able to resist putting several pennies on the rails so that after my train screeches away, he can avoid missing me by collecting the shiny copper ovals hiding in the gravel. He still finds joy in this small wonder. I will watch him from my compartment window, as he waits anxiously for the last car to pass, and the envy of his belonging will burn my throat. I will remember his train poem, and recite it in my head as the distance between us grows and his silhouette disappears.

When I descend from the train at my familiar station, it will be too hot for my coat and hat, but I will leave them on. I will walk silently towards home- my new home, my new real home- and for the first time, be conscious of the empty space beside me. His absence will weigh on me like a gaping hole in my gums.