Beach Blondes: June Dreams, July's Promise, August Magic (Summer) (10 page)

“The Merrick clan,” Adam said, noticing her awed expression. “There’s a set just like them in the New Hampshire house. All the dead Merrick men. Someday I’ll be there too, looking old and serious. That guy there?” He pointed. “That’s Aubrey Merrick. He used to import slaves, back in like 1795 or something. He didn’t
approve
of slavery, of course, but business was business.”

“Wow” was all Summer could think to say.

“And that guy, the guy with the whiskers, he was cool. He sort of made up for old Aubrey. That’s Josiah. He died with the Maine boys on Little Round Top at Gettysburg. Took three bullets and was still yelling and shooting rebels when he keeled over dead.”

“I saw that movie,” Summer said. Her eyes met Adam’s and they both laughed. It was a relief to laugh.

“Someday in the year 2090 or whatever, some young Merrick guy will be walking along with some girl he’s trying to impress and point to me. ‘That’s Adam Merrick. Never did a damned thing.’”

“Maybe you’ll do something,” Summer said.

Adam smirked. “Yeah, maybe. If they decide to hold another civil war, I’m there.”

“And then you’ll be in the new movie. Played by Josh Hartnett or someone.”

“Do you like Josh Hartnett?” Adam asked.

“Yeah. He’s cute, I guess. I mean, um, he’s a good actor.”

“You know, when you blush like that it makes me want to kiss you again,” Adam said.

“I thought you were showing me a bathroom.”

“Oh, right.” They reached the end of the hallway and entered a vast, open room, two floors high. Rough wood beams, each as big as a full-size tree, supported the ceiling. The walls were paneled in dark wood. The furniture, though there was a lot of it, seemed lost in the space. At one side of the room was a fireplace, fire roaring under a granite mantel that reminded Summer of pictures of Stonehenge.

“You must have the only fireplace in this state,” Summer said.

“Certainly the only one in use when it’s in the high eighties outside,” Adam agreed. “My dad likes fires. So the staff lights it every night, whether he’s here or not, no matter how hot it is outside.” He laughed. “Seems slightly absurd, right?”

“Maybe. But I’m starting to get the feeling that it takes an awful lot to seem absurd around this place.”

Adam laughed his easy laugh. “Ah, you’re starting to get the picture. See, I know what you mean. I guess New Hampshire is similar to Minnesota in a lot of ways. It makes you slightly schizo going back and forth between the ‘normal’ world and this island.”

“Seth said something kind of like that,” Summer said. She instantly regretted mentioning Seth.

Adam just rolled his eyes slightly. He pointed to a small door, almost invisible in the paneling. “There you go. At least I think that’s a bathroom.”

“How many are there in this house?”

“Twenty-one, I think. We have like twenty-six at the New Hampshire house. We thought that many would be too ostentatious for Florida, though.” He laughed to show that he was just kidding.

But somehow for Summer, the fact that this one family had a total of forty-seven bathrooms (possibly more because who knew if they owned other houses?) was deeply impressive. Forty-seven bathrooms. Forty-seven rolls of toilet paper. They must buy it in truckloads.

When she came back, she found Adam standing a few feet from the fire. It made a dark silhouette of his body, accentuating the heavy shoulders, the muscular torso. Even in silhouette he exuded easy confidence, something bred in him, something that announced to the world that here was a person without self-doubt, without awkwardness, without self-consciousness.

It drew Summer to him, and yet frightened her just a little. He was so different from other guys her own age. He could easily be twenty-five, or even forty.

Maybe being rich made it possible to just sort of glide by all the little tortures of teenagehood. After all, Summer realized, Adam didn’t worry about getting work, or getting accepted to college, or paying for college, or whether he could afford to buy cool clothes, or if his folks would get him a car. If he ever got a zit, they probably flew in a whole team of dermatologists to get rid of it.

He noticed her and turned. “Was it a bathroom?”

“No, it was a closet, but I went anyway,” she said, and he laughed. She wasn’t going to act all impressed and inferior with him. Just because he could probably buy her entire family with his weekly allowance.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked.

“I don’t drink very much,” Summer said.

“That’s probably good. Booze is our favorite family vice. I don’t drink because it makes me break out in hives.” He laughed. “Seriously. It’s not a pretty sight.”

“I guess I should get back outside and see what Marquez is doing,” Summer suggested.

“Marquez can take care of herself.” He shook his head slowly, amused. “She’s very cool. Just don’t ever make her mad. The girl has a temper. One of those ice-cold tempers, you know?”

“She’s been really nice to me,” Summer said. “Like bringing me here.”

“I’m very glad she did that,” Adam said.

Summer debated whether to ask the next question. It could ruin things instantly, and her impertinent questions had ruined other relationships before. “Do you try to pick up just any new girl that shows up around here?”

He looked startled. “You mean you think I’m trying to impress you and score with you so that I can add another notch to my belt?”

“I guess that’s what I mean,” Summer said. “Some guys
are
like that.” She could think of at least one by name.

“Maybe I should ask you a question. Are
you
trying to make it with me so that you can tell all your friends you dated Adam Merrick? Or perhaps even go to the
National Enquirer
and sell the story: ‘My Hot Affair with Boy Billionaire’?”

Summer recoiled. “Why would you think
that
?”

“It happens,” Adam said. “Just like it happens that some guys, whether or not they happen to come from a wealthy family, try to see how many girls they can pick up.”

“Oh. I guess you’re right. I guess that is true, isn’t it?”

“I’ll tell you the absolute truth, cross my heart and hope to die. I saw you sitting there, looking lost on that Jet Ski, and I instantly thought ‘What an idiot. How could she manage to get stuck out here like this?’”

“That’s very flattering.”

“Then I jumped in to help you—admittedly I was happy to have an excuse to put my arms around you, since we’re being honest here—and…” He made a wry face. “And something just happened. It felt like something I wanted to do again. And when you talked, it was this voice that I wanted to hear again. And when you spit seawater out of your mouth, it was a mouth I wanted to kiss. And then I did kiss you, and wanted to kiss you again. Like I do now.”

Summer swallowed once. Twice. “We’d better not,” she said. “It’s all kind of…tropical.”

“Tropical?”

“I mean, we haven’t even had a date or anything.”

Adam slapped his forehead. “I knew I’d forgotten something! Would you go out with me? Tomorrow? No, wait, day after tomorrow.” He took Summer’s hands in his. “Would you go out with me?”

“Yes,” Summer said, sounding weirdly stiff. “That would be excellent.”

It was about one in the morning when Marquez finally tired out. Half the people at the party had already left, and Marquez found Summer asleep, leaning back against a tree trunk with an empty Mountain Dew in her hand, her now dry but still misshapen dress laid over her like a blanket.

For a moment Marquez considered playing some prank on the gently snoring girl, but she was too weary to think of anything and besides, Summer wasn’t a person you could be mean to.

She knelt and shook Summer’s arm.

“What?”

“Time to wake up. We should get going. This guy I know with a truck said he’d give us a lift.”

“What?” Summer repeated. She was looking around with that confused where-am-I look.

Marquez took her hand and pulled her to her feet. They headed for the driveway, where a battered red pickup truck was idling. In the cab beside the driver were two other guys Marquez knew from school.

“You’re going to make us ride in the back?” Marquez asked. “What gentlemen.”

“James here is probably going to hurl,” the driver pointed out. “You’ll be safer in the back.”

“Don’t say ‘hurl,’” a voice groaned.

She and Summer climbed over the tailgate, and Marquez pounded twice on the roof of the truck, signaling the driver that he could go.

They took off down the winding, wooded path through the Merrick estate.

“I didn’t say good night to Adam,” Summer said.

“Too late now,” Marquez said. “Besides, I think he disappeared around midnight with a bunch of guys who said they were going to drive to some club down in Key West.”

“Oh.”

Marquez rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to hang around with Adam Merrick, you have to deal with the fact that he and his buds move kind of fast.”

“Oh,” Summer said again, nodding vaguely.

“So, you going to see him again?”

“I don’t know. I think so. I hope so. He said he’d like to take me out on a real date. You know, dinner and all that. Day after tomorrow.”

“You don’t sound totally psyched.”

“I’m just tired,” Summer said. “And it seems unreal, you know? This whole place. All of a sudden I meet a bunch of new people and go to a big party at a senator’s house and kiss this guy I barely even met.”

“Uh-huh. So, it was good, right?”

Summer giggled unexpectedly. “The first one was too quick, and I didn’t even know what was happening. Later we had a longer one. That was kind of nice.”

“Kind of nice?” Marquez made a face. “Don’t tell that to Adam. He thinks he’s the stud prince of planet earth.”

“It’s not that,” Summer said. “It’s just that I don’t have all that much to compare it to. I mean, half the time I was just scared that I would do something stupid, you know? Like burp or suddenly develop instazits. I’ve never kissed someone famous before.”

Marquez smiled. “But how did it make you
feel
?”

Summer nodded her head from side to side and scrunched her face up, struggling for some definition. “It made me feel slightly sick. Like maybe I was getting the flu. Or else like the time I visited my grandmother in Virginia and we went on a roller coaster at King’s Dominion. It was my first ever roller coaster, and I felt sick but also giddy and wobbly. It was fun, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on it again. Do you know what I mean?”

Marquez nodded knowingly. “You’ll go on it again.”

Hi, Jennifer. Sorry I’m whispering, but Diver is asleep up on the roof and I don’t want him to hear me. Yes, I know, I need to explain about that. I guess a lot’s been happening even though I feel like I just got here.

Anyway, it’s almost two o’clock in the morning, but I couldn’t fall asleep mostly because I’m kind of excited. I mean, I’m really excited, I guess. You know what happened tonight? This guy kissed me. This guy named Adam. Not Seth. Seth is the other one I told you about, the using creep with a girlfriend.

Forget him. This is Adam I’m talking about now. Totally different situation. I hope.

Now I’m going to tell you his last name, but you have to swear, absolutely swear, you won’t tell anyone, and I mean it. Okay. Did you swear?

Adam
Merrick.
You know, like the senator? His son. They have a house you would not believe. You’d faint if you saw it. It’s the size of a castle. Diana’s mom’s house is like one tenth the size. Anyway, we went to a party there, me and Marquez.

Wait, I haven’t told you about Marquez, either. Marquez is this girl I met here. She’s very cool and dances really well. Anyway, we’re going to this party at the Merrick estate, right? And we fall into the water. I mean,
I
fall into the water, being the klutzoid one. And Adam jumps in and gets me, not that I was drowning or anything, but he didn’t know that. So later he says I should let him kiss me because he rescued me, right? So, he did. Just a little kiss, only later we danced and then we ended up making out. For kind of a long time.

It was just like you told me it was with Blake, so now I guess we’re equal. Unless you’ve been doing something you shouldn’t, you bad girl. And if you have, you’d better tell me because I’m telling you
everything.

Except for Diver. Which is complicated. See, he kind of lives here. He’s very nice but a little strange. I mean, he thinks he can communicate with Frank, and Frank is a pelican.

I don’t know why I’m letting him stay here. He just comes in to use the kitchen or the bathroom, so it’s not like he’s really living here. Just do not ever tell Mom about this or I’ll kill you. I’m serious.

I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, Jennifer. It’s weird, almost, because it’s like I just get here and boom! I’m kissing this guy in a photo booth at the airport, and then boom! I have this other guy practically living in my house, and then boom! I’m at a party making out with Adam Merrick.

Seth said it’s an effect of the tropics.

Maybe he’s right, Jen. I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m any different, you know? Not inside. Maybe it’s just when you take your same, normal self to a new place and are around new people that everyone else sees you differently. That’s my theory, anyway. Or is it a hypothesis?

I know, you’re thinking: typical Summer, trying to analyze everything when she should just be enjoying it. But I have to think about it, at least a little. It’s like if I’m still me, why are people acting differently toward me? And if I’m
not
me, then…who am I?

And if I don’t know who I am, how am I supposed to know how I feel about things? I tell Seth to take a hike because he’s got a girlfriend already and because I’m not the kind of girl who goes out with guys who already have girlfriends. But who says I’m that kind of girl? Maybe I’m not. Or maybe in Minnesota I was, and here I’m not.

I am totally a mess. Lost and confused.

Or maybe I’m just sleepy.