Beach Blondes: June Dreams, July's Promise, August Magic (Summer) (15 page)

Summer realized that tears were coursing down her face.

Diver was looking at her, watching the tears. He nodded. “Frank was right about you. He said you were all right.”

Diana spotted Summer on the road to town, walking along in her work uniform as though she didn’t have a care in the world. Diana considered just driving on past, but as much as it made her uncomfortable to admit it, Summer had crossed a line of some sort yesterday.

You couldn’t just drive by and ignore someone you’d shopped with, could you?

Diana pulled the Jetta to a stop beside Summer. “Hey. Want a ride into town?”

“Sure.” Summer climbed in, careful not to crush her apron bow. She had a copy of the menu on her lap.

“Off to work, huh?”

“Yes. I think they’re going to let me have some tables on my own today.”

“Please don’t tell me that excites you,” Diana said.

“I have to make some money this summer,” Summer said. “I wish I didn’t, but I guess it will be good experience. When I go to college I’ll probably have to earn all of my spending money, even if I get a scholarship. I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t get a scholarship. Have you ever had a job?”

Diana shook her head. “Nope. Haven’t needed one, I guess.”

“Must be nice,” Summer said. “You’ll be able just to concentrate on classes when you go to college.”

“I don’t think I’m going,” Diana said.

“Oh.”

“It’s not my grades or anything,” Diana said, detecting what she thought was pity in Summer’s eyes. “I got accepted all over the place. Mallory forced me to apply. But she can’t force me to go.”

“I have to go. I mean, if I want to get a job.”

Diana smiled condescendingly. “What are you going to be when you grow up?”

“I don’t know. Lately I’ve been thinking I could be a TV reporter. Only, I don’t really enjoy having to be rude and ask people lots of questions. Where are you going?”

“I thought you didn’t like asking questions. I’m just going shopping.”

“I would have figured you were all shopped out after yesterday,” Summer said.

“Here we are,” Diana said, sidestepping the question. The institute was her own private place, not for anyone else to know about. Even her mother had no idea. She idled the car in front of the restaurant.

Summer climbed out. She hesitated, as if about to ask Diana something, then decided against it.

The manager gave Summer three tables. The first party went fine, with Marquez looking over her shoulder like a protective big sister. Then the place went wild. People seemed to be coming from everywhere, filling every table and standing ten deep at the hostess stand.

“One more piece of restaurant language you need to know,” Marquez said as she bustled past Summer, carrying a huge trayload of food.

“What?” Summer asked anxiously. She was trying desperately to make sense of the insanely beeping computer precheck machine.

“In the weeds,” Marquez said over her shoulder.

“What’s that?”

“That’s what we’re in right now,” Marquez said. “We are deep in the weeds.”

Fill waters. Fill bread basket. Carry away dirty dishes. Check kitchen for order. Punch in drink orders on the machine. Ladle soup into bowls. Clean soup off underliners. Get yelled at by Skeet for making a mess of the soup area. Find cocktail sauce. Stand around with a ten-pound tray looking for a tray stand. Nearly drop tray. Consider bursting into tears. Back to the kitchen to find cooks screaming your name at the top of their lungs. Realize you’ve forgotten to pick up drinks. Tray up food. Return to grab lemon. Avoid meeting the eyes of the people whose drinks you’d totally forgotten. Slip on a piece of lettuce. Pick up drinks. Wrong drinks. Return to bar. Pick up the right drinks. Answer questions from one table about where you were born while another table gives you death looks. Wait in line at the precheck while another new girl punches buttons randomly. Race to the kitchen, get yelled at by J.T. for not picking up orders. Definitely consider bursting into tears.

And suddenly it was over, and two hours had passed. The other waitresses were grinning and looking like the team that had won the Super Bowl. Everyone was drinking coffee and Pepsis. The smokers were sneaking forbidden cigarettes in the waitress station, waving the smoke away with menus.

Summer went to the kitchen. The cooks were cleaning up their stations and rocking out to Plain White T’s.

Summer went to Skeet. “I’m sorry about messing up the soup,” she said, practically sobbing.

Skeet looked amazed. “What?”

“And I’m sorry I didn’t pick up my orders in time,” Summer told J.T.

The cooks exchanged a look. Skeet said, “Aww, isn’t that sweet? J.T, you a-hole, you got her all upset.”

J.T. laughed, but not unkindly. “Come here.” He motioned her down to the end of the line. He leaned back against the walk-in refrigerator door and sucked on a huge iced tea. His white uniform was stained and greasy. But he had nice, light brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and an open, somewhat lopsided smile. Summer could see why Marquez had been attracted to him.

“Summer,” he said, “you don’t pay attention to what we all say when we’re in the weeds. When we’re weeded, we get cranky. We have to yell at someone, and the waitresses are the traditional people to abuse.”

“Oh. Who do
we
get to abuse?” J.T. laughed. “Right back at us. Now, Marquez, when she gets yelled at, she throws it right back. She can curse in two languages. Three sometimes.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a towel. “You did all right today, especially for it being only your second day.”

“Thanks. I was kind of panicky, really.”

He looked at her thoughtfully. “So I guess you and Marquez are hanging around together, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I really like her.”

He nodded and glanced across the room toward the dining room door. “I guess she told you about us?”

Summer tilted her head back and forth, an admission.

“Hope she didn’t tell you too much bad stuff. How is she, anyway?”

“Marquez? She’s great, I guess. She’s the most totally unique person I’ve ever met.”

His blue eyes were soft. “Yes, she is.” He laughed. “Have you seen her room yet?”

“Isn’t it great?”

“She created that room, and she thinks she’s going to be a lawyer someday,” J.T. said. “My name used to be up on her wall, bigger than anyone’s.”

“It still is. I saw it.”

He stood away from the walk-in. “It is?
My
name? I was sure she’d have painted it over.”

“She said that’s how it is, that she never paints over something.”

J.T. shook his head in amazement. “When she broke up with this guy named Juan, his name was gone under three coats of white enamel before he managed to walk home.” His eyes were bright. “J.T., right?”

“Big red letters,” Summer confirmed.

Skeet yelled something rude, suggesting that J.T. might want to help do some of the work. “I gotta get back. Just remember, don’t be sensitive around here. No one else is.”

Summer saluted solemnly. “No more sensitivity. Absolutely.”

Marquez was waiting for her as soon as she passed through the swinging doors to the dining room. She gave Summer a look and seemed about to ask a question, but stopped herself.

Summer suppressed a grin. Marquez wanted to know what she’d been discussing with J.T. That was obvious. And she didn’t want to have to ask. Well, too bad. She’d just see how long Marquez could hold out.

“What’s my side work?” Summer asked innocently.

Marquez glared at her through narrowed eyes. “You have sauces with me.”

They dragged big plastic jars of cocktail sauce and tartar sauce out of the walk-in to the waitress station, where they stood side by side dumping spoonfuls of each into small dishes.

“So. Tonight’s the big night,” Marquez said. “You and Adam.”

“Uh-huh. Actually…” Summer paused and looked around guiltily. Lianne was nowhere in sight. “Actually, after we do the beach thing I have to go run an errand with Seth.” She said it as casually as she could.

Marquez was nowhere near being fooled. “An
errand.
She’s running an
errand
with Mr. Moon. Did that picture of Diana’s have anything to do with this?” Marquez giggled gleefully.

“Why did I even tell you?” Summer fumed. She slopped more tartar sauce. “It’s not that, just for your information. It’s—” Again she looked over her shoulder. No Lianne. Summer lowered her voice. “Look, remember at Diana’s how I said there was this guy—”

“—that spent the night with you! That was
Seth
?”

“No, no. Keep it down, Marquez.”

“The kiss! The guy you kissed in a Laundromat who you didn’t even know.”

“It wasn’t a Laundromat. It was a photo booth. At the airport.” Summer sighed. There. She had told someone.

“How was it?” Marquez asked.

“The point is, Mar-
quez,
that I am just going with him to buy some tile this evening, after we go to the beach. That’s all. I’m meeting him at his house.”

“After we go to the beach and
before
you go out tonight with Adam. Summer, Summer, Summer. I used to think you were such a nice, sweet girl.” Marquez laughed. “I have to work a double shift, but I am coming over tonight after your date to get the complete story. So be prepared. This is not gossip that can wait.”

Summer was feeling sort of pleased with herself, enjoying her new image as maybe-
not
-totally-nice, when Lianne came around the corner into the waitress station. She seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

“Hi, you two,” Lianne said. “Did I hear something about gossip?”

“This is my first time actually lying out in the sun,” Summer said. “I figured when I came here I’d be spending every minute out on the beach. Look at me, I’m still white as snow.” Summer adjusted her top and pried open one eye. Even through the sunglasses, as dark as she could find, the sun was still too intense. Her skin was hot on her exposed front, her back only slightly cooler on the towel laid out over sand the color of powdered sugar.

“Everyone thinks that,” Marquez said, her voice slurred with sun sleep. Her reply came about two minutes late, as if the words had taken a long time to get to Summer, lying just a foot away. “I mean, when you’re here on vacation, sure. But when you live here, you have other stuff to do. Like work.”

Several minutes later Summer said, “Yeah.”

The beach spread down the western edge of Crab Claw Key, facing the Gulf of Mexico. The water was pure translucent green, and as warm as the air. Summer had gone in up to her knees, and now there was sand stuck to her calves. The rest of her was coated with Hawaiian Tropic.

“How does sunscreen work?” Summer asked. No answer. “I mean, how does it keep…light? How does it keep sunlight from…” She couldn’t think of the word. No point in wearing herself out thinking.

“Penetrating?” Marquez said eventually.

“Huh?”

“Penetrating. That’s the word you wanted.”

“Okay.” Summer heard Marquez rolling over. She rolled over herself. They were pointed with their heads toward the water, the theory being that they didn’t want to sunburn the bottoms of their feet as the sun crossed the line from east to west.

Summer opened her eyes again and looked out across the water. Far in the distance pillars of clouds rose, looking like fantastic islands of snow-covered peaks. It reminded her of watching the sunrise with Diver that morning.

Sunrise with Diver. Sunset would be with Adam. And in between, a little quality time with Seth. This vacation would be working out great if she could just lie back and enjoy it.

She must have been smiling, because Marquez said, “What’s that grin all about? That looked lecherous.”

“No, not lecherous,” Summer said.

“Adam?”

Summer made a “maybe” look.

“Seth?”

“We’re just shopping for floor tile.”

“Uh-huh. You know, you two just look right for each other,” Marquez said. “Like you could get married someday and have a bunch of wholesome children and a minivan.”

Summer made a face. “That’s how you see me, huh? A mommy with a bunch of kids?”

“Don’t get pissed off,” Marquez said. “It’s just that he’s a nice guy—not to mention the godlike body—and you’re a nice girl. Nice in a good way.”

“Maybe I don’t want to end up with a nice guy,” Summer said.

“Maybe you’d like a certain cute, very rich guy?” Marquez suggested.

“Maybe,” Summer said, drawling the word and wiggling her eyebrows in a parody of seductiveness. “Did I tell you about the woman on the plane? The woman who did tarot cards? She told me I was going to meet three guys.”

Marquez looked interested. “I don’t believe in any of that superstitious junk.”

“Me neither.”

“So? What did she say?”

“She said I’d meet three guys here. One would seem to be a mystery, one would seem to be dangerous, and one would seem right.”

“
Seem?
That’s kind of weasely, isn’t it?” Marquez asked. But she was looking thoughtful. “So far you’ve met Adam and Seth, right? Are they supposed to be two of the guys?”