An irish Lovestory - the summer of Life

Let's get it started

In the evening Luke goes back to Carlotta's room. "I'm sorry I caught you off guard earlier. It was a stupid idea and we don't have to do it if you don't want to!" But Carlotta says, "I've never been to Spain before. I'm looking forward to it. How are we going to get there anyway? I'm not hitchhiking! And I'm not allowed to go alone yet either." Luke grins at her and pulls a car key out of his pocket. Her eyes widen. Luke is not yet eighteen either. He won't be eighteen for another few weeks and until then he still has to drive accompanied. "We'll break all the rules, probably both lose our licences and be taken home by the Spanish police! Kind of exciting that we're breaking all the rules just to have the summer of our lives!" Luke laughs softly. "Who are you and what have you done with Carlotta?" he asks her with a grin. If she's always talking in quotes, now he gets to do the same. "Okay, pack your suitcase and we can go. After you smear yourself with this," he whispers in her ear and gives her a kiss on the forehead. Then he disappears into his room to pack a few more things himself.
So she puts some cream on and only afterwards sees that it was tanning cream. What a clever guy Luke is, she thinks and stifles a laugh. Carlotta tiptoes downstairs to the kitchen, where she meets Luke's mother. "Are you still hungry, Carlotta? You ate so little earlier, I was worried. But you've found your appetite again." For better or worse, Carlotta has to stuff some more pasta down her throat until she says, "Thank you, it was very tasty. Luke and I want to get up early tomorrow to see the sunrise. Do you mind if we take some more food with us? Because we want to stay out late." Luke's mother nods and smiles. She would never have thought that her son would get up voluntarily before sunrise and that because of a girl. But she quickly washes some apples, gets camping utensils from the cupboards and even a gas cooker. "Have fun, I'll put a few more things down for you, then you can pack them in the morning!" Carlotta thanks him and runs back upstairs where her travel backpack is. She quickly writes a note to Luke.
Be careful, your mother is in the kitchen! She gave me camping utensils and the cooker, you don't have to look for them anymore. I came up with a nice story and she didn't suspect a thing. Wait another half hour at least until you get the car out, then she won't notice!
So they both wait another three quarters of an hour before sneaking downstairs, packed with suitcases and rucksacks, and packing the Giesmas' little car. Before that, Carlotta has gone into the kitchen for a moment to get the rest of the things. When she comes out, the car is already in front of the door and Luke is leaning out of the window. He calls out to her softly: "Did you bring the coffee? I don't drive a car at night without coffee!" Fortunately, Carlotta has also thought of the coffee and so a short time later she is sitting next to Luke in the car, the coffee mug in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. Luke drives off and says, "I'm still driving in Germany, then as soon as we get to Switzerland you can drive a bit. We have a small holiday home in Italy, we can stop there and do some shopping. Then we'll take the ferry straight to Cadiz in Spain and then it's not far to our holiday home in Valdegrana." Carlotta smiles and smells the coffee. The smell makes her a little more alert, but she is still tired from the last day. "I'll wake you up as soon as we get to Switzerland! You can sleep for now!" whispers Luke as he looks into her tired eyes. He takes the cup and drinks a big gulp before driving onto the motorway and leaving the city behind. Carlotta protests quietly and says she is not tired, but less than five minutes later her head is on his shoulder and she is asleep. Luke drives on until dawn, stopping only briefly at a McDrive to get another coffee to-go. He takes one for Carlotta too, as she likes to have one when she is really tired. When Carlotta wakes up around half past ten, she blinks sleepily into the sunlight until she remembers what she and Luke are up to. "Where are we right now?" she asks him when she has got her bearings. He stifles a hearty yawn before answering her.

"Just before the Black Forest. You can sleep a little longer, we still need about three hours, especially as there's also a traffic jam just before Basel." He still suppresses a yawn, but Carlotta sees that and says, "At the next rest stop I'll get a coffee and a big bottle of Coke and you sleep for now! I'll drive the rest of the way, until just before the checkpoint, then you drive into Switzerland and we'll swap again there! No more words!" So Luke pulls into the next rest area and Carlotta goes "shopping" for a moment before sending Luke out of his seat and getting behind the wheel. They already chop up some rules either way, so this half year doesn't really matter now. Luke falls asleep relatively quickly by his standards and doesn't even notice how they are stuck in a traffic jam barely ten minutes later. Carlotta drives to just before the German-Swiss border and then wakes Luke up so he can drive her through the border control. He is not yet eighteen either, but these few weeks don't matter any more. He grumbles a little when she shakes him awake, but with the smell of fresh coffee she gets him awake too. They swap places and Luke drives to the border control.
"One driver's licence and vehicle registration, please," the inspector says in a Swiss dialect. Luke rummages around in his wallet and pulls out the driving licence. Carlotta pulls the vehicle documents out of the glove compartment and hands them to the inspector. After a quick glance at the car, he nods and lets them pass.
let her pass. As soon as he is out of sight Carlotta asks Luke, "How did you do that with the driving licence?" Luke presses the paper into her hand and taps the date of birth with a grin. Carlotta rolls her eyes. "If we're going to break so many rules, let's do it in style. And not forge the driving licence. That's boring." She grabs Luke's wallet and pulls out the real driving licence. For half an hour they drive in silence through the Swiss countryside until Luke's mobile phone rings. Carlotta sees that it is his mother, but at a stern look from Luke she keeps her hands off the mobile and ignores the call. His mother chats on the voicemail and asks them both what they want for dinner. If she knew where they were by now, she would surely go crazy and call the police immediately to look for them.
"What did you actually tell her last night in the kitchen?", Luke asks Carlotta. She answers: "I meant that we were going out early today to see the sunrise and that it was getting late. She believed me about that too." Luke nods thoughtfully, yawns again heartily and wants to reach for the coffee again, but Carlotta slaps him on the knuckles and thus lets him know that he should sleep and she will drive on. So he drives to the next rest area and they swap places again. Before they continue, however, they both go to the toilet and eat a snack from the McDrive. The likelihood that they will be able to do any reasonable shopping once it is dark is slim, so they enjoy the fries and burger for breakfast. Luke briefly takes out another number plate (Munich number plate) from the boot and (with Carlotta's help) mounts it on the car. If there is a search for the number plate, they have the wrong one and they can enjoy the holiday. Then Carlotta gets back behind the wheel and Luke rests. Here, the likelihood of them being stopped is much lower than in Germany, especially since he has also indicated the route via small villages and not the motorway all the time. So soon the little car is chugging along country roads and villages while Luke sleeps leaning against the window.
Only Carlotta's swearing as she gets lost again wakes Luke from a relatively peaceful sleep. "Where are we?" he asks sleepily. Carlotta answers curtly: "Just before Gurtnellen." Luke opens his eyes and rubs the sleep out of them for the time being. Then he sits up straight again and looks out of the window. "When did you actually learn to drive?" he asks her after a while. She curses briefly because the car in front of her is going so slowly, then she answers: "I got my driving licence when I was sixteen and a half and since then I've only driven short distances to go shopping or something. But on the Highway so far only with an instructor!" Luke grins and strokes her leg to calm her down, because she was about to open her mouth to swear again.
Luke turns on the radio to calm Carlotta down, but she only makes her dig her mobile phone out of her pocket, completely annoyed. She unlocks it with her fingerprint and hands it to Luke so he can pick out some good music. He scrolls through the playlists and has to smile. "So CaJo with two champagne glasses I can understand, but love(sgrief)? And then there are songs like Love me like you do in there. If I get my hands on the guy you were lovesick over, he's in for a treat!" Carlotta laughs and asks, "What do you want to do to yourself? The playlist was created two years ago, when we hardly had any contact and I had to fall asleep willy-nilly with pictures of you. I rarely listen to it now, but six months ago when my parents..." She breaks off in mid-sentence, but Luke knows what she's trying to say and just nods. He knows very well that Carlotta still doesn't like to talk about the accident, so he strokes her arm briefly and then turns on her and Johanna's playlist. Since he has set the playlist to shuffle, he doesn't know which song will come on first, so he has to grin when the first song is Rewrite the Stars from The Greatest Showman. "Do you know what happened a year ago today?" he asks Carlotta quietly. She shakes her head and turns her attention back to the car in front of her. Luke whispers in her ear: "One year ago today was the last day of shooting. And the day I decided to come to Ireland with you, even though I was terrible at English. That we're going this way right now is no coincidence.... It's fate!" "If you put it that way, then it must be true," she replies tersely. Her gaze remains fixed only on the road. Luke watches her silently for a while and then asks, "Is everything okay? You're so tense!" Carlotta looks at him annoyed, she can't stand it at all when someone talks the whole time she's driving. "I don't want to be rid of my driving licence again before I'm even allowed to drive on my own! And I hate it when someone talks the whole time I'm driving. Nothing against you, but it drives me crazy." He nods in understanding and shuts up. But since he can't stand it for three more hours, after a while he asks her to switch places and let him do the driving again. Carlotta is happy about this, because she can't drive any longer either without biting the steering wheel.
Barely three hours later they arrive at the small holiday cottage in Italy and get the most important things for the night out of the car before going to the beach and stretching their feet a bit.