“To another great summer!”
“Here, here!”
That was the toast that Calvin Price’s father gave an hour ago. It capped off his family’s annual Labor Day barbecue, much to the praise of their relatives, neighbors, and friends. Many of them were still outside in the backyard of his suburban house, drinking whatever beer remained in the several coolers his Uncle Ronnie brought. He could still hear them laughing and chatting from his bedroom window.
In every previous year, Calvin – or Cal, as most people called him – would’ve been down there with them. He’d been at every one of these Labor Day parties since he was a kid. His father, a successful financial consultant and prominent community leader had been throwing them since before he and his two younger sisters were born. They acted as a definitive transition point, ending summer and everything with it.
That used to not bother Cal. He enjoyed a good barbecue as much as anyone. However, a lot had changed this past summer. A lot was going to change over the next nine months as he entered his senior year of high school. Looking out into yard from his bedroom, he contemplated the breadth of those changes.