Summer Days and Summer Nights Read Online Free

didn’t really want.
    â€œWaiting for your friend?” Annalee asked, as she sifted through her newspaper for the crossword.
    â€œI’m just eating my fries.”
    When she saw Eli, Gracie felt an embarrassing rush of relief. He was taller, a lot taller, but just as skinny, and damp, and serious looking as ever. Gracie didn’t budge, her insides knotted up. Maybe he wouldn’t want to hang out again. That’s fine, she told herself. But he scanned the seats even before he went to the counter, and when he saw her, his pale face lit up like silver sparklers.
    Annalee’s laugh sounded suspiciously like a cackle.
    â€œHey!” he said, striding over. His legs seemed to reach all the way to his chin now. “I found something amazing. You want a Blizzard?”
    And just like that, it was summer all over again.
    SCALES
    The something amazing was a dusty room in the basement of the library, packed with old vinyl record albums, a turntable, and a pile of headphones tucked into a nest of curly black cords.
    â€œI’m so glad it’s still here,” Eli said. “I found it right before Labor Day, and I was afraid someone would finally get around to clearing it out over the winter.”
    Gracie felt a pang of guilt over not spending that last weekend with Eli, but she was also pleased he’d been waiting to show her this. “Does that thing work?” she asked, pointing to the column of stereo gear.
    Eli flipped a couple of switches and red lights blinked on. “We are go.”
    Gracie slid a record from the shelves and read the title: Jackie Gleason: Music, Martinis, and Memories . “What if I only want the music?”
    â€œWe could just listen to a third of it.”
    They made a stack of records, competing to find the one with the weirdest cover—flying toasters, men on fire, barbarian princesses in metal bikinis—and listened to all of them, lying on the floor, big black headphones hugging their ears. Most of the music was awful, but a few albums were really good. Bella Donna had Stevie Nicks on the cover dressed like an angel tree-topper and holding a cockatoo, but they listened to it all the way through, twice, and when “Edge of Seventeen” came on, Gracie imagined herself rising out of the lake in a long white dress, flying through the woods, hair like a black banner behind her.
    It wasn’t until she was pedaling home, stomach growling for dinner, singing Ooh baby ooh baby ooh, that Gracie realized she and Eli hadn’t talked about Idgy Pidgy once.
    *   *   *
    Though Gracie hadn’t exactly been keeping Eli a secret from Mosey and Lila, she hadn’t mentioned him, either. She just wasn’t sure they’d get him. But one afternoon, when she and Eli were eating at Rottie’s Red Hot, a horn blared from the lot, and when Gracie looked around, there was Mosey in her dad’s Corolla, with Lila in the passenger seat.
    â€œDon’t you only have a learner’s permit?” she asked, as Mosey and Lila squeezed in on the round benches.
    â€œMy parents don’t care, if I’m just coming down to Little Spindle. And it means they don’t have to drive me. Where have you been, anyway?” Mosey glanced pointedly at Eli.
    â€œNowhere. Youvenirs. The usual.”
    Eli said nothing, just carefully parceled out ketchup into a lopsided steeple by his fries.
    They ate. They talked about taking the train into the city to see a concert.
    â€œHow come your family doesn’t stay at Greater Spindle?” Mosey asked.
    Eli cocked his head to one side, giving the question his full consideration. “We’ve just always come here. I think they like the quiet.”
    â€œI like it, too,” said Lila. “Not the lake so much, but it’s nice in the summer, when Greater Spindle gets so crazy.”
    Mosey popped a fry in her mouth. “The lake is haunted.”
    â€œBy what?” asked