Beach Blondes: June Dreams, July's Promise, August Magic (Summer) (18 page)

“Twenty-seven dollars even,” Marquez said. She had the money arranged in neat stacks on the counter in her room: two fives, a number of singles, quarters, dimes, and nickels.

“Thirty-four dollars and forty cents,” Summer reported. Her stack was mostly singles.

“You made more than me?” Marquez demanded. “On your first real day?”

“I guess so.”

Marquez shrugged. “Well, I was in a lousy mood. People may have picked up on that.”

“I wasn’t in a great mood either,” Summer said. “I told you about my little encounter with Lianne at work. She just kept apologizing, like it was all her fault, and
I’m
the one who was barging in on her.”

Marquez gave a noncommittal nod.

“And the day started out even worse,” Summer said. “Diana yelled at me this morning before I went to work.”

“Diana yelled?” Marquez asked sharply. “Why?”

“I don’t know. She said it was PMS. But I think she may be messed up over something. I mean,
real
messed up.”

Their eyes met. Summer could see that Marquez didn’t dismiss this possibility.

“She shouldn’t rag on you about it,” Marquez said. “You bring a suit?”

“In my bag,” Summer said. She began stripping off her uniform. “Maybe she had to take it out on someone. Her mom isn’t around for her. She doesn’t seem to have a lot of friends.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s
your
problem,”

Summer was looking at her thoughtfully.

“What?” Marquez demanded.

“I’m wondering if Diana’s PMS is catching.”

Marquez rolled her eyes but laughed. “I guess you heard about me and J.T. playing rock-’em sock-’em robots in the walk-in.”

Summer wasn’t sure how to answer that question. The gossip machine at the restaurant worked at the speed of light. “Skeet may have mentioned something about it.”

“Uh-huh. Skeet’s your friend now, huh? Don’t go leading her on.”

“Very funny.” Summer tied on her bathing suit top. She pulled the side of her suit bottom away an inch, hoping to see some evidence that a tan line was developing. There was none.

“I can’t believe how polite you are,” Marquez said. “You aren’t going to ask me what J.T. and I were fighting about?”

Summer batted her eyes. “I’m too polite.”

“It was the same stuff. He did apologize for what he said about wanting to see other girls. He said it was because I wasn’t supportive. Do you think I’m not supportive?”

“I don’t really know you all that well, Marquez,” Summer said, evading the question.

“Don’t give me that. You don’t think I’m supportive?” Marquez was standing with hands on hips, looking intense.

“I don’t know about supportive. I know you kind of intimidate people. At least me you do. Not that you
try
to intimidate, it’s just that you’re so—”

“So
what
?”

“You’re just so you. It’s like you always know who you are and what you’re doing. Some people aren’t that sure, I guess.
I’m
not.”

Marquez looked troubled. “I’m not
always
sure. Yeah, I know
who
I am, like you said, but everyone knows who they are.”

“No, they don’t,” Summer said. “Lots of times I don’t. Lots of times I’m like a cloud changing shapes with the wind. It’s like people look at me and some think I look like a rabbit or a squirrel, and others think, no, that cloud looks like a map of Australia.”

“Australia?”

Summer was beginning to feel foolish, but she wasn’t going to be cowed. “I’m just saying, how do you know what you are or who you are? I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.”

Marquez didn’t laugh. Instead her eyes drifted toward the big red letters that spelled out
J.T.

“Like if you suddenly found out your parents weren’t your parents,” Marquez said. “I guess that could make you confused about who you are.”

Summer decided against saying anything. She hadn’t said what she’d said in order to make Marquez feel bad.

“Ready to go?” Marquez said, suddenly switching on her cheerful voice.

“Ready. I’m not going to get tan hanging around in here.”

“Tourist.” Marquez laughed. “Come on, we’ll turn you nice and dark, little Minnesota person.” They went outside into the blistering sun and started toward the beach.

“By the way,” Marquez said, sounding a little too casual, “not to bring up unhappy things…I was just wondering, Summer. I mean…you have such a cool name and all.
Summer.
What was your brother’s name? I know you told me already, but I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t
Winter
, I guess? Or
Spring
.”

“No, it was Jonathan,” Summer said. Why did Marquez care?

“Jonathan,” Marquez repeated the name slowly. “Jonathan. Pretty common name. Not like Summer.”

“It is pretty common, yeah.”

“Good evening, Frank. How’s fishing?” Summer said when she arrived back at the stilt house. “I see you’ve started replacing the bird poop that was washed away.”

Frank spread his wings, startling her.

“Just a joke,” she said.

She opened the door of the house and gasped. The cheesy indoor/outdoor carpeting had been ripped up off the floor, which was now bare wood, studded with the protruding heads of nails. In the kitchen the linoleum was off the floor. It was off in the bathroom, too, revealing some unpleasant-looking wood subflooring. In one place she could look straight down through a crack widened by rot and see the water beneath the house.

She found the note from Seth resting on her table.

Sorry. Right.
Right.
He had made a total mess of the place. A
total
mess. “Don’t use the bathroom?” she muttered. It was hard not to suspect that Seth was being slightly spiteful.
Don’t use the bathroom.
Oh, sure, no problem.

She crumpled the note and threw it at the wastebasket. She missed, so she kicked it and missed again, banging her toe into the table leg.

She was cursing Seth when there was a knock at the hatch in the floor.

“Who is it?” she snapped.

“Adam. But I’m not coming in if you sound like that.”

She hobbled over to the hatch and raised it. “Sorry, I banged my toe.” She must have been cursing too loudly to notice the boat’s engine.

Adam stuck his head up through the floor and whistled. “Is Mr. Moon pissed at you or something?” He climbed the rest of the way up.

Summer tried to massage her toe and started to tip over. Adam grabbed her and steadied her. “You want me to kiss it and make it better?”

“My toe?” Summer laughed.

“How about this instead?” He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, lightly once, and then, when she stopped holding her toe, more deeply.

“That helped,” Summer said breathily.

“A definite mess,” Adam said, releasing her. “Good thing I’m here to take you away from all this. I just stopped by to see if you had anything planned for tonight.”

“We’re going out tomorrow, I thought.”

“Yeah, I know. But I couldn’t wait till then to see you again.”

“Really?” Summer asked, wanting to hear him say it again.

“Really. I was sitting around doing nothing, and I kept thinking ‘There she is, just across the bay.’”

“I just got home myself,” Summer said, feeling very pleased with herself. “Marquez and I went to the beach again, in search of the perfect tan. As you can see, I didn’t get it.”

“You don’t need a perfect tan. You are perfect.”

Summer felt warmth suffuse her body. But at the same time, she was acutely aware that she was wearing nothing but a bathing suit, and that his gaze was very attentive.

“I was, uh…” She completely forgot what she was going to say.

“Look, this place is trashed. Where are you going to stay tonight? You can’t stay here.”

“I guess I’ll go barge in on Diana,” Summer said. The thought wasn’t pleasant. Diana wasn’t exactly hospitable at the best of times. And judging by this morning, this was not the best of times. “She has all kinds of room there. I’d stay here, only Seth says I shouldn’t go into the bathroom.”

“That’s certainly convenient. Just hold it till tomorrow. Look, I know a place with lots and lots of bathrooms,” Adam said. Then, seeing her reaction, he hastened to add, “No, no, it’s not what you think. We have guests staying there all the time. We had the ambassador of France and his wife there, we’ve even had a bishop stay there. No wife, of course. But if it’s safe enough for a bishop…”

Summer could see a clear picture in her mind of Adam’s house. And an even clearer picture of the mess that Seth had left her. “It wouldn’t be like I was staying
with
you,” Summer began. “I mean—”

“I
know
what you mean,” Adam said. He pretended to be offended. “What kind of dog do you think I am?”

“Okay,” Summer said dubiously. It gave her some pleasure to think how annoyed Seth would be that by tearing up her house she would end up sleeping at Adam’s house. “Let me change and get my stuff. Which means you’d better wait down in your boat. I can’t go into the bathroom to change.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Adam said.

As Summer quickly changed out of her suit, two thoughts struck her with sudden force:

1. She had to let Diver know about the bathroom floor situation. What if he fell through?

2. She was spending the night at a guy’s house!

Her stomach did a quick turn. She hadn’t thought this through. She had barely hesitated. What was the matter with her? Was she crazy?

She was about to tell Adam she had reconsidered but stopped herself. Why should she? Adam’s house was as big as a hotel, wasn’t it? It wasn’t like they would be sharing a room. They would probably end up as far apart as two people at opposite ends of a football field.

“Are you coming?” Adam called up through the floor.

“Right there!” Summer yelled back.

Okay, a note to Diver. But where to leave it? On the floor by the hatch. That way he was sure to see it.

She grabbed a piece of paper and a felt-tip pen.

Now to sign it. Her pen was poised over the sheet. “Summer?” she asked herself. “Love, Summer?” No. Not love. He’d get the wrong idea. His
wa
might be disturbed.

“Sincerely?” Yeah, right. She’d said “dear.” Not that it meant anything because that was how you always started a letter.

Love, Summer

What if Diver didn’t see the note, but Seth did when he came in the morning?

She shook her head. Marquez was right. She
was
in trouble.

She rested the note beside the hatchway.
Love, Summer
was just the same as
Dear Diver.
No biggie. Forget it. And staying at Adam’s house was just like staying at a hotel. Also no biggie.

Oh, man.

By the time the sun set and darkness fell, Diana was tired of her bed. She had been there from sunrise to sunset. And now, suddenly, a restless nervous energy was rattling her legs, making her feel twitchy.

She had to get out. The house was too quiet. Too big and empty.

She showered, scrubbing almost violently at skin tattooed by the pressure of crumpled sheets. She shampooed her hair and left it wet and combed straight back. She avoided looking at herself in the mirror and dressed with feverish haste.

She was in her car, sitting in the driveway with the engine running, before it occurred to her that she really had no place to go. The kids at the institute would all be in bed. Besides, volunteers were asked not to disrupt the comforting regularity of the schedule there. Too many of the kids associated any change in routine with something bad.

She had no friends. Not anymore. The stores were mostly closed.

She could drive down to Key West. There were plenty of restaurants open there, places where she wasn’t likely to run into former friends.

She pulled out onto the road and headed toward town. Yes, some serious, speed-limit-busting highway driving. That’s what she needed to burn off some of this manic energy. Maybe she should have taken Mallory’s Mercedes. It was faster.

She was pulling through town when she saw him. She had stopped for the light. He was with two other guys, crossing the street, right in front of her.

Ross Merrick.

Diana stopped breathing. She’d guessed he was back in town. The six months in rehab had been up a while ago. The
second
six months in rehab.

Diana recognized the other two guys, both hangers-on, the kind of creeps who hung out at the fringes of the Merrick family, sucking up to Ross and Adam, looking for the free plane trips and meals and parties.

They were right in front of her. If he turned, he would see her.

Diana shrank behind the wheel. If only the light would change.

There was a muffled bang. Something had hit the car. Ross.

He turned slowly, eyes trying to focus.

The look sent a chill of terror through Diana. It was that same look. He was drunk. Drunk and with that same dangerous leer.

He waved her off, a bleary apology for staggering against her car. Then he stopped. He bent down to peer inside the car.

And then he grinned.

Their eyes met.

He looked at her and silently mouthed words that were all too easy to read.

The light turned green.

Ross and his toadies headed off down the street, hanging on to each other, swaggering and shouting into the night.

Diana gripped the wheel with white fingers. She waited there through the next cycle of the light, ignoring angry horns blowing behind her.

“It’s catching fire!” Adam warned.

Summer pulled the marshmallow from the fire but let it burn till the outside was crispy black, caramelized all over. It hissed as it burned, louder even than the crackle of the fire.

She raised the straightened coat hanger and held the burning marshmallow against the black sky overhead. “Look, it’s a comet,” she said.

“Yeah, but now you can’t eat it,” Adam said. He was toasting his own marshmallow more carefully, trying to get it an even brown all the way around.

“This is just how I like them.” Summer blew out the flaming marshmallow comet and gingerly drew it off the end of the hanger. She popped the whole sticky mess in her mouth.

“That’s disgusting, you realize,” Adam said. He pulled off his own marshmallow and scarfed it up.

“Itf perfek fis way,” Summer mumbled.

“Mime is beher,” Adam argued.

They were on the Merricks’ private beach, a neatly groomed stretch of sand bordered by palm trees. A pair of Hobie Cats were pulled up on the sand nearby. Just down the beach was a cabana and a barbecue grill.

As usual the gulf was calm, lapping in a restrained way, soft crashing noises followed by the rattle of a million tiny shells. Each foamy curl came a little closer to their small bonfire.

Summer set her marshmallow stick aside and leaned back against Adam. He cradled her head on his lap and looked down at her with eyes that reflected the fire’s light.

“This is just exactly the reason why I wanted to come here to Florida,” Summer said.

“What? You don’t have marshmallows in North Dakota?”

“You
know
it’s Minnesota,” Summer said complacently. “I meant this night. Stars and warm breezes and the sound of the water.”

“And?”

“And the sand and the bonfire.”

“And?” he insisted.

“Did I mention the stars?”

He playfully pushed her head away.

“Okay, okay,” she said, giggling and reclaiming her warm spot on his lap. “I did leave out the best thing of all.”

“Which is…”

“You know it’s
you
,” Summer said. “Although even in my best daydreams about how cool it would be, I didn’t imagine you.”

“You didn’t expect to meet guys?”

Guys, plural,
Summer thought. If only he knew. But she was putting that behind her. This was the time to feel very content to be here with Adam, to savor the way he looked at her, the hard muscles of his thigh under her neck, the way he rested his arm across her bare stomach.

She had made a decision. She’d made it without even knowing it. She couldn’t look back and point to the exact time. Maybe it had been at the moment when she agreed to spend the night at his house. Maybe it had just happened a moment ago.

He wanted to kiss her, she was certain of that. And she wanted to kiss him. Yet neither of them had since coming out to this perfect beach, and the tension over when they would was sweet and agonizing at the same time.

“How could I have expected to meet you?” Summer said, with wonder in her voice. “I didn’t even know guys like you existed. All the other guys I ever knew were so dorky and immature compared with you.” She grimaced. “
That
sounded dorky and immature, didn’t it? I just meant that you’re so different.”

“That’s because I’m really thirty,” Adam said. “Didn’t I mention that? People just think I’m eighteen.”

“You like much younger girls, huh? What are you, some kind of perv?”

“I just like one younger girl,” Adam said, and his voice was low with emotion.

He slipped his hand under her head and raised her slowly, ever so slowly, till her lips met his.

They kissed for what might have been minutes or hours. She felt his lips on hers, on her throat, on the back of her neck, making every hair on her head tingle. With his fingers he stroked her cheeks, and smoothed back her hair, and sometimes just touched her lips, as if he couldn’t believe they were real.

Her mind was firing away, thoughts flying back across time and forward to some imagined future. And through it all, the realization that she was feeling things she had never before felt with such intensity. Pleasure and fear and guilt and anticipation and desire. And a new emotion that was some blending of them all.

Love? Was this love? Or was it an illusion woven together out of gentle touches and slowly dying fires and bright clouds scudding swiftly across the moon and infinitely sweet kisses?

She heard a loud hiss, and the firelight was gone. A second later the warm foam covered her feet.

“Oops, tide coming in,” Adam said. “Stay here any longer and we’ll get swept out to sea.”

Summer sat up, reluctant to break the contact with him. Far out to sea there was a prolonged flash of lightning.

Adam helped her to her feet and took her in his arms again. “I guess we should go inside,” he said. “If the tide doesn’t get us, that storm out there will. It’s blowing this way.”

They walked slowly back to the house, following the beach, holding hands. Adam stopped at the cabana and hosed the sand off their feet.

“Manolo sees sand in the house, he threatens to quit,” Adam explained. “Although he’s off tonight, so I guess we could be brave and track in two or three grains.”

They held hands and laughed quietly all the way to the house and down the long, gloomy hallway of dead ancestors.

“Aww, isn’t that sweet?” A voice spoke from the darkness of the big common room. It was impossible to tell where it had come from in the maze of couches and chairs. The fireplace fire had been allowed to die down and was just embers now, like the fire they’d left on the beach.

Summer felt Adam’s muscles stiffen as he squeezed her hand.

“Home early, aren’t you, Ross?” Adam said.

Summer peered and could see a shadow. In this light he could have been Adam, the resemblance was so close.

“Bartender at the Pier actually had the guts to card me,” Ross said. “So I came home to raid the domestic stock.” He held up a glass. “Would you two lovebirds care to join me?”

“No, thanks,” Adam said evenly.

Ross came closer, holding himself up by resting against a couch back. He peered at Summer. “Do I know you?”

“Summer Smith,” Summer said. “We kind of met at the party.”

“What party? Never mind. It’s all the same party.” He took a longer look and then glanced at Adam. “You do have good taste, little brother,” he said.

Adam pulled Summer toward him. “Good night, Ross.”

“Where are
you
going?”

“To show Summer her room. She’s spending the night. Her house is having repairs done.”

Ross started to say something, looked at his brother, and decided to take another drink.

“Come on, Summer,” Adam said gently.

“Good night,” Summer said to Ross.

Ross said nothing, but as she walked away, Summer could feel his eyes on her.

It would have been impossible at that moment not to see Diana’s face in her mind’s eye. A sad, haunted-looking Diana saying, “Look out for Ross.”

Marquez was half asleep, staring blankly at Letterman’s Top Ten list on the TV, when she jumped at the sound of something rapping at her window.

“Madre de Dios!”

She seldom spoke Spanish unless cursing. She climbed out of bed and pulled back the edge of the curtain that blocked off the big shop display window.

“Seth? Diana?”
Diana? Here?

“Let us in,” Seth said tersely.

Marquez let the curtain fall back. Midnight, and suddenly Diana shows up with Seth?

It had to be bad news of some kind. She dug around in a pile of clothes, found a bathrobe, and let them in. Both were soaked through, clothing clinging to their skin, hair matted.

Seth was hovering at Diana’s side, too close, as if he were afraid for her. He kept glancing at her with worried, wary eyes, as if ready to spring to her side and prop her up.

But Diana didn’t look as if she were going to fall. She was nearly vibrating with electric energy. She pushed past Marquez into the room, looking around with quick, jerky little bird movements.

“Good evening to you, too,” Marquez said huffily. “You know it’s midnight?”

“Is Summer here?”

“No. What would Summer be doing here?”

“Do you know where she is? I banged on her door for about an hour and she’s not at home. I went in and I found a note on her floor.”

“What note? What are you talking about?”

“I found Diana wandering around in the rain downtown,” Seth said, speaking for the first time. “She said she was coming here, so I offered to take her.”

“Is she high or something?” Marquez asked Seth in a quiet aside.

He shrugged.

Diana had stopped pacing and was staring at her own name on Marquez’s wall. “We used to be friends, didn’t we, Marquez?” she said.

“Did we?” Marquez asked archly.

Diana was unaffected by the sarcasm. Marquez had never seen this side of Diana. If it wasn’t drugs, it was way too many cups of coffee.

“You know, I never wanted her to come here,” Diana said. She was picking through the CDs on the counter.

“What?”

“Summer. I never wanted her to come here.”

“I think we all kind of figured that out,” Marquez said.

“It’s not my job to take care of her,” Diana said.

“Diana, why don’t you sit down and tell me what’s going on?”

“I’m wet. I don’t want to get everything wet. I’ll go. I just was wondering if Summer was here. You don’t know where she is, do you?”

Marquez shrugged. “The only other person she knows around here is Adam.”

“Who’s the diver?” Diana asked suddenly.

“The diver?”

Diana shook a damp note in Marquez’s face. “She wrote a note to some Diver person. Told him to be careful because Seth had torn up the place.”

Seth winced.

“Seth tore up the place?” Marquez asked, arching an eyebrow at Seth.