Many Summers Ago At Innside-Out

Sam Ihle sat on the front porch of the Oldtown Brownstones, a cold bottle of ginger beer in one hand and a distant, nostalgic look in his bespectacled eyes. The early evening sun splashed the sidewalk in amber, and the scent of grilled onions wafted from a neighbor’s window. It was one of those golden June evenings where the past tiptoed in, warm and unexpected.

Inside, through the screen door, Jodie could be heard folding laundry and humming an old Dusty Springfield tune. The twins, Clark and Kara, were already down for their nap, and the silence that followed was a treasure in itself. But Sam was caught in a memory. A strange one. A beautiful one. A loud, ridiculous, borderline-disgraceful one.

Jodie stepped out, drying her hands on a tea towel. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” she said.

He gave a small smile. “Worse. I saw an astroturfed industrial garage with beach huts and RVs.”

Jodie raised her brows. “Innside-Out?”

Sam nodded. “Innside-Out.”

Jodie let out a breathless laugh and plopped down beside him, resting her head on his shoulder. “Oh man… I haven’t thought about that place in years.”

“Many summers ago,” he murmured, swirling the bottle in his hand, watching the bubbles fizz. “Before the Brownstones, before the Viking Watergate, before twins. Just us, Ryan, and Katherine.”

“And a weekend that got us almost banned from the entire town,” Jodie said, grinning.

They’d needed the break.

That summer, deadlines had come with barbed wire. Seabrook politics had taken a wild turn and Sam had been covering a serial arsonist. Jodie was navigating an exposé on city council corruption. And Ryan and Katherine—well, Ryan was just back from his embedded war correspondence tour in Eastern Europe, and Katherine had just published her second book.

Everyone was overworked, overtired, and running on caffeine and nerves.

Then Katherine sent the Airbnb listing.

INNSIDE-OUT: Stay in an indoor-outdoor fantasy world! Industrial garage meets glamping paradise!

The pictures were surreal—industrial garage walls covered in hanging plants, old campers retrofitted with fairy lights and vintage record players, and plastic flamingos in what looked like actual beach huts.

“I think this place gave the concept of ‘aesthetic’ an aneurysm,” Sam had said, squinting at the listing.

“Perfect,” Ryan declared. “We leave Friday.”

And they did.

The moment they pulled into the gravel lot, Sam had wondered if the GPS had betrayed them.

“It’s...a mechanic’s garage,” he’d said, frowning.

“No,” Jodie corrected, stepping out of the car and shielding her eyes. “It’s art.”

They’d walked in to be greeted by the scent of fresh cut fake grass and patchouli incense. A massive overhead garage door had been rolled up to let in the breeze. Inside, astroturf stretched from one oil-stained wall to the other. An old Airstream trailer was parked under a disco ball. Nearby, a Volkswagen bus painted with psychedelic mushrooms sat at a thirty-degree angle. And in the back corner, three thatched-roof beach huts stood proudly, complete with sandbox floors and plastic seagulls hanging from the ceiling.

“Oh my stars,” Katherine whispered in reverence. “This is glorious.”

They were greeted by the owners—a sweet couple in their fifties named Don and Myra, who looked like they’d once followed the Grateful Dead across the Midwest and had since settled into Airbnb entrepreneurship. Don wore a faded Bob Ross T-shirt and Birkenstocks. Myra had butterfly clips in her gray curls and offered them a tour with the enthusiasm of a child showing off a pillow fort.

They picked the orange camper with the lava lamp and a drawer full of novelty coasters that said things like Margaritaville Is Not a Place, It's a State of Mind.

Ryan and Katherine chose the Airstream, though neither planned on sleeping much, as it turned out.

The first night was dreamy. They took their shoes off and wiggled their toes in the sandbox huts. Sam and Ryan grilled veggie skewers on a hibachi Myra provided, and they toasted with canned wine under faux tiki torches. At some point, Katherine put on a 70s playlist and taught Jodie how to disco. Sam couldn’t stop laughing at Jodie’s dramatic spins. Ryan howled along to “Stayin’ Alive” like a karaoke werewolf.

“THIS is what vacation’s supposed to be,” Sam had shouted over the Bee Gees.

Then came the sounds.

At first, they thought a coyote had gotten into the air ducts. Or perhaps a rogue saxophonist had taken up residence in the ceiling tiles. But no, those were moans. Very human moans.

Jodie and Sam froze mid-dance.

“…Is that—?” Sam started.

“Oh no,” Jodie sighed, lowering her disco pose.

“Oh YES,” came the unmistakable voice of Katherine, from the Airstream.

There was a thump. A creak. A God-bless-it from Ryan.

And then came the noise complaints.

Don knocked politely an hour later. “Hey folks… we’re getting some...uh...feedback from the neighbors. The building’s not exactly soundproof, you know?”

Sam had opened the door, his glasses fogged from the indoor humidity. “Sorry. It’s been...a loud night.”

Jodie appeared beside him, brushing fake sand from her feet. “We’ll talk to them.”

“We’ll...try to muffle their enthusiasm,” Sam added.

Don chuckled and waved it off, “You all seem like good people. Just...maybe no Airstream Olympics after 10?”

That should’ve been the end of it.

It wasn’t.

The next night, Katherine brought out a bottle of plum wine she’d picked up from a trip to Osaka. Ryan found a speaker system in the orange camper that apparently still worked—and blasted it.

“You ever hear Hendrix in an industrial garage?” he’d asked, raising a brow. “Religious experience.”

They danced. They drank. They laughed until they cried. Then the “activity” resumed.

This time, in a beach hut.

Sand flew. Plastic flamingos fell. The “seagull” decorations began swinging like an exorcism was underway.

By the third complaint, Myra came in with tea and a kind but firm smile.

“Dearest ones,” she said. “We love love. We love freedom. But the HOA is not feeling the vibrations.”

Jodie was already dressed in her best Audrey-Hepburn-meets-barista outfit and stepped forward. “Please don’t kick us out. It’s been a hard year.”

Myra blinked. “You’re the one who wrote that article about the mayor’s offshore account, aren’t you?”

Jodie paused. “...Guilty?”

“And you—” she pointed at Sam, “—you’re the guy who cracked the arson case with the pen and notebook.”

Sam raised both hands. “All analog, baby.”

“Well,” Myra sighed, “we always said we’d never turn away journalists. You're the reason people like us have rights.”

Don added, “And you make us laugh. Even if your friends…make us blush.”

They were allowed to stay. But Ryan and Katherine were banished to a converted school bus in the farthest back corner.

The couple did not seem ashamed.

“Worth it,” Katherine declared, lighting incense in a window that wasn’t actually a window.

That last night, they all lay on the astroturf under a ceiling painted like a night sky. Sam lay with his head in Jodie’s lap, and Ryan played his harmonica softly, while Katherine braided Myra’s hair. Don brought out freeze pops for everyone.

They talked about nothing and everything. Favorite books. Weird dreams. Childhood camping trips. Ryan talked about the war in a way he usually never did, and Katherine held his hand the whole time. Jodie recited the lyrics to a song she’d once loved in college and made everyone guess it. Sam told a story about almost being bitten by a goose on a field assignment.

“I wish life felt like this more often,” Katherine whispered.

Jodie nodded. “It does. Just usually in hindsight.”

Now, on the porch years later, Jodie nudged him.

“You’re thinking about the beach hut, aren’t you?”

“Am trying not to,” he laughed. “But yes.”

“I still have sand from that sandbox in my old suitcase,” she said with a grin. “It won’t come out.”

“That sand saw things,” Sam muttered.

Jodie rested her chin on his shoulder. “We should take another trip someday.”

Sam looked down at her, glasses slipping down his nose. “You, me, Ryan, and Katherine again?”

“Why not?”

“Because they’ll get us actually banned this time.”

She snorted. “They have kids now. They’ve calmed down.”

“Oh no,” he said. “Now they have babysitters. Which means they double down.”

Jodie laughed again, rich and warm and unburdened. “We’ll bring earplugs.”

Sam smiled at the setting sun. “Deal.”

They sat there a moment longer, letting the golden haze wrap around them like a warm blanket. Sam leaned in, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.

“Many summers ago,” he murmured.

“Feels like yesterday,” she replied.

And just for a moment, the scent of fake grass and plum wine drifted in on the breeze.