Beach Blondes: June Dreams, July's Promise, August Magic (Summer) (9 page)

And then Summer was alone, the instant loser, the one on the fringe with no one to talk to. Except for Adam, who was still there, close by, though he was fielding a steady stream of hellos, hey dudes, and congratulations on the excellence of the party. But the last thing she wanted was to be Adam’s pity date, someone to be handed off at the earliest opportunity.

“Want to dance?” Adam asked.

The request shouldn’t have surprised her—this
was
a party—and yet it did.

Dance? In a wet two-piece bathing suit? With this guy she’d barely met? This guy she’d seen on the news once, standing in a group with his famous father? But what was the alternative to dancing? Standing around gaping at people?

“Sure,” Summer said, half-grateful, half-frightened. What were the chances that her bathing suit bottom would bunch up while she was dancing?

Adam took her hand and drew her to what Summer could now see was an actual dance floor: interlocked, polished wood planks laid out on the grass. Here and there portions were raised so that some dancers were elevated above the rest.

The Kanye West song came on, and Summer began to dance, intensely conscious of what she felt must be many alien eyes on her. Although each time she glanced around she never saw anyone staring at her, it was hard to shake the feeling that the eyes were there.

“So you’re Diana’s cousin,” Adam said, drawing close alongside her, shouting a little to be heard. He even danced well.

“Uh-huh.” Summer was concentrating, trying to remember the moves she’d seen girls doing on that MTV beach show, trying to stay in time with the beat.

“Just down here for the summer. For the summer, Summer?” He grinned. “I guess you’ve heard that joke about a million times.”

Summer smiled and shrugged. A mistake, since shrugging upset her carefully maintained rhythm, and her legs and arms and head now were each off doing different things, as if listening to three different songs.

“How do you like it so far?” Adam asked. “Crab Claw Key, I mean.”

“It’s beautiful,” Summer said. Was the tie on her bathing suit top coming loose? No. No, but she’d double the knot when she got the chance.

“Just beautiful?” Adam said, sounding disappointed.

“It’s…different. I mean, it’s like…it’s like there aren’t any real adults, you know? No one wears a suit or looks serious about anything.”

Adam laughed. “That’s exactly right. No adults. Even people seventy years old aren’t adults here.”

“Also I feel like people here are stranger, more out-there, you know?” Summer suggested, thinking of Diver—definitely strange. And Marquez—probably strange. And Seth, who was only strange if you thought putting a lip-lock on a total stranger in a photo booth was unusual.

“Everything is a little more extreme,” Adam agreed. “Back home I’m a totally different person.”

“Home? Don’t you live here?”

“No, this is mostly just a summer home. We’re from New Hampshire. I spend about a third of the year here between all the vacations, summer and spring and weekends.”

“Oh, that’s right, how stupid of me, duh. Your father is the senator from New Hampshire, obviously.”

Adam looked pained. “You’re not into politics, are you?”

“Not exactly,” Summer admitted. “I mean, I was secretary-treasurer of my tenth-grade class, but we never had any meetings and there wasn’t any money.” Is it even possible for me to sound like a bigger idiot? Secretary-treasurer of the tenth grade?

“You have a boyfriend?” Adam asked, suddenly shifting course. He smiled. The music assumed a slower, more sultry beat. Couples danced closer together.

“No, I don’t really have a boyfriend,” Summer admitted. Sure, I have this guy I make out with in airports who has a girlfriend, and this other guy who lives with me but doesn’t like girls, but no, no actual boyfriends.

They danced for a while, with Adam drawing closer, matching his rhythm to hers. He was a good dancer, graceful for a guy so large. Graceful and smooth and confident, and like some kind of a sun, so that she could feel the force of gravity drawing her toward him.

At least his bathing suit was normal, not like the little Speedos some of the guys were wearing. “Well, aren’t you going to ask
me
?” he said after a while.

“Ask you what?” Summer said, alarmed.

“Ask me if I have a girlfriend.”

“Um…”

“I don’t,” Adam said, grinning impishly.

“Oh,” Summer gulped. What was she supposed to say now? “I can’t believe you don’t have a girlfriend?” Or “Cool, can I be your girlfriend?” Or what? He seemed to think she should say
something.

“I’ve never really had a boyfriend,” Summer said. Instantly, even as the words were bubbling out of her mouth, she wished she could call them back. Too late. And now her brain became totally useless, because Adam was dancing
very
close, and the memory of his arms around her in the water was very clear in Summer’s mind. “I mean, not a real boyfriend, not that I don’t like guys because I do, it’s just that the guys who…I mean, the wrong guys and then the right guys were, you know, and…” She was in full babble mode now. Words totally unconnected to any sensible thought were spewing forth, unstoppable. Full babble. Total brain lock that shut down her mind and her body so that now her dancing had deteriorated into spasms of random muscle jerks.

She was dancing in a bikini with the very attractive son of a billionaire senator and doing her best impression of a moron having a seizure.

“Oh, man,” Adam said, peering over Summer’s head. “The butler’s calling to me.”

Thank God. Just go away and leave me to my humiliation.

“I have to go see what he wants,” Adam said.

He almost sounded like he was honestly regretful, Summer noted. Although clearly he was just grabbing the first excuse to escape her. Flee, Adam, flee! Run from the loser girl. Run before she can mention the Mall of America again. “Okay,” Summer said gratefully.

“Um, before I go, though…” Adam said. “There’s just one thing I wanted to clear up.”

“What? Um, what would you…what?”

“Well, around here we have this custom. When someone rescues someone, like I rescued you out on the bay, well, there’s this customary thing.”

“Okay,” Summer said cautiously.

“The rescuer gets to kiss the person he rescued.”

Before Summer had a chance to object—and she wasn’t sure whether she planned to—Adam had put his arm around her and drawn her close. There was a last split second when she could have said no, but then the split second was gone.

Adam’s lips met hers. Only for an instant. Then he pulled away, still keeping his hold on her. “Don’t disappear on me,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll be right back.”

“I saw that,” Marquez said, sounding almost accusatory. “I bring you to a party and the first thing you do is throw yourself at the host? Bad girl.
Bad
girl. Shame.” Then she broke up, laughing gaily at the horrified expression on Summer’s face.

“I didn’t throw myself at him. I hardly know him,” Summer protested anxiously. Kissing people she hardly knew was getting to be a habit.

“Whatever.” Marquez waved her hand. “So, how was it?”

“I didn’t even know it was happening.”

That really started Marquez giggling. “Well, I guess you’re off to a good start, huh? Practically your first night out and Adam Merrick is all over you.”

“I don’t think it meant anything,” Summer said doubtfully.

“He kissed you. That had to mean something. Adam isn’t a total dirtbag who runs around kissing girls. Unless he’s gotten worse since last summer. You know, someday he may be senator or governor. Or president.”

“He used to go out with my cousin,” Summer pointed out. The thought had just occurred to her, probably because her mind was just coming out of brain lock.

“Ancient history,” Marquez said. “Come on, you don’t want to hang around looking like you’re waiting for him.”

“I’m
not
waiting. I don’t even know him.”

“Yeah, yeah. Either way you don’t want to just stand here, do you?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Come on, let’s dance.”

“The two of us?”

“I have to dance,” Marquez said, as if that were obvious. “And I don’t see any guys asking either of us right this minute. Besides, they’re starting to play some better music. Rap is cool, but I feel like totally thrashing out with some serious rock.”

From the speakers the Ramones began roaring through “I Wanna Be Sedated.” For Marquez, the transition from standing around to dancing was instantaneous and total. It wasn’t about looking cool, it was about losing all contact with the normal world, going away to a place where her body and mind and the music were all the same thing.

It was impossible for Summer to resist. Impossible not to be drawn in. The night was hot, and Marquez was dancing like someone possessed, and Summer could still feel Adam’s lips on hers, could still recall the shock when his arm had gone around her in the water and the contact of flesh against flesh.

She had just been kissed by a guy. Kissed by a very cute guy, and she wanted to be kissed again.

As long as it didn’t turn out that Adam had his own Lianne hidden away somewhere.

The music throbbed through her as Marquez guided them toward the speakers like a moth drawn to a candle, louder and louder till the music wasn’t a sound anymore but something that came from inside her.

She’d been kissed by a complete stranger, and she had liked it. Held by a guy she didn’t know and had liked that too. And worst of all, it was the second time in less than a week. Ha! Try calling
that
“nice.”

The
nice
Summer Smith was dead and lying in her grave while the new, improved, bolder, wilder, goes-to-parties, kisses-guys-she-hardly-knows Summer Smith shoveled dirt over her.

Summer closed her eyes and danced.

When she opened her eyes again Adam was there, as if in answer to a wish. He smiled and she smiled back. She closed her eyes again, afraid that looking at him might cause her to feel the edge of self-awareness return, the sense of eyes following her, judging her.

With her eyes closed Summer had the feeling that she could dance like Marquez. She’d forgotten that she was surrounded by strangers and was dancing in a two-piece bathing suit. She felt drunk, though she’d had nothing to drink. She peeked from under narrowed lids as Adam danced closer, so that now she could reach out and touch him if she wanted to, touch his smooth chest.

The music slowed from its exhausting pace into a gentler but still intoxicating reggae song. This, at last, was the right music, she thought. The melody of sun-baked islands and warm nights and people who never, ever wore parkas.

Summer realized they were no longer on the floor. There was grass under her feet as she danced, and the music, though still loud, had softened a little. It was darker now, and Adam was closer. Inches separated them, and his eyes were focused on hers. She looked down, embarrassed, but this time she didn’t feel like being embarrassed, so she looked up and met his gaze.

The music paused between songs. Summer felt something rough at her back and leaned against the tree. Adam came closer.

“You are very, very beautiful,” Adam said. He made no attempt to hide the fact that his eyes were taking in her entire body. “Are you sure you don’t have a boyfriend?”

“I’m sure,” Summer said, her voice a distant, Minnie Mouse squeak.

Adam leaned first one hand and then the other against the tree, imprisoning her.

Now would be the time to say, “Hey, hold up, I barely know you,” Summer told herself. Yes, now would be the time. Right now, before he leaned any closer.

This time when he kissed her it wasn’t the quick, almost playful kiss she’d felt earlier. This time he really kissed her. And the music started up again, soft but insistent. He kissed her and to her utter amazement, Summer kissed him back.

Something hit Summer on her right side. She staggered and nearly tripped over a body.

“Whoa, sorry.” A guy scrambled up, standing awkwardly in the very small space between Summer and Adam. “I tripped. Over a root or something. Adam, dude, you ought to talk to your gardener about that. A guy could get killed.”

“You been drinking, Mr. Moon?” Adam asked, taking a step back.

Summer peered through the darkness. Yes, it
was
Seth.
Seth!
Possibly the last person on earth she wanted to see right at this moment. What was he doing here?

“Hey, it’s Summer,” Seth said. “Summer from Minnesota.”

“Hi. Again,” Summer said. For reasons she couldn’t immediately explain, she felt guilty. Feeling guilty just made her feel angry.

Seth smiled a little lopsidedly. “So, I see you’re getting to know people, making friends and all.” He rolled his eyes exaggeratedly at Adam.

“Good-bye, Seth,” Adam said tersely. “Great seeing you again, welcome anytime and so on.”

“I was just going to ask Summer to dance,” Seth said.

“She’s busy.”

“That’s very disappointing.” Seth shrugged.

Suddenly a new sound mixed in with the music, then rose louder still. Shouting, one voice loudly enraged and other voices trying to instill calm. Summer saw a disturbance on the far side of the dance floor.

“Sounds like Ross has gone off again,” Seth said, not unkindly.

Adam bit his lip and glanced uncertainly at Summer.

“Go on, deal with it,” Seth said to Adam. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to take her anywhere.”

The noise was beginning to sound like a fight, with shouts of encouragement from at least two sides.

Adam cursed. “I’ll be back. Don’t let Mr. Moon here give you any crap.”

“What’s happening?” Summer asked Seth.

Seth shrugged. “Oh, Ross is drunk and picking fights. Drunk or high, or maybe E: all of the above.”

“Adam’s brother?”

“Yeah. It happens.” Seth looked uncomfortable. “So, um, sorry if I broke anything up. Not real sorry, though.”

“I’m not sorry,” Summer said before she’d had a chance to think about it. “Not that…I mean…” She sighed. “Forget it.”

“Okay. Forgotten. So, you want to dance? It looks like the fight is getting under control. Besides, it’s way over there.”

“I don’t know if I should dance any more,” Summer said. She felt as if she were coming out of a trance. It was a disturbing feeling, like thinking you’d been talking in your sleep and wondering what people might have heard.

“Take it slow, Minnesota,” Seth said kindly. “You know, all this down here gets to people sometimes. Warm nights, ocean breezes in the palm trees, that whole tropical thing…you might just forget who you are. Forgetting who you are is the whole idea of Crab Claw Key.”

Summer blushed. “I did not forget who I was,” she said. She said it with extra conviction because it wasn’t true. “And unlike certain people, I don’t forget I have a girlfriend I’ve been going with for four years.”

Seth winced. “Look, what I told you was true—I
did
break up with Lianne. Only…I guess she doesn’t want to accept it.”

“Poor you,” Summer said sarcastically. “I guess she can’t give you up because you’re just so wonderful. And you say
I’m
the one who’s forgetting who they are?”

Seth nodded glumly. “Yeah, I guess I deserved that. Okay. Cool. I’m just saying look out for that tropical effect, that tropical rot. It eats away at everything, so that things here deteriorate faster, fall apart faster, and then it all grows back faster and wilder than before. The old stuff disappears.” He snapped his fingers. “And before you know it, something new has shot up overnight to take its place.”

“I’m a grown person,” Summer said sharply. “I think I can make my own decisions.”

Seth pulled off his cap and made an exaggerated bow. “I apologize. None of my business.”

“That’s right,
none
of your business,” Summer said.

He started to walk away, then he turned back. “Just for your information, I didn’t lie to you.”

Summer met his gaze, and suddenly she was back in the airport, with his mouth on hers, feeling a surge of something she’d never felt before that moment.

He looked as if he was telling the truth. His eyes didn’t waver or turn away.

Adam had asked her to wait for him. Seth was drawing her closer with just his gaze….

Suddenly there was a loud, feminine squeal. A look of confusion clouded Seth’s face, then was quickly replaced by dread or embarrassment or both.

“Sethie!” the voice squealed again.

“Lianne?” he said in a whisper.

A girl appeared, running joyfully, arms outstretched like something from a slow-motion movie. She was short, but with that uniquely petite perfection. Pale, almost translucent skin. Dark red hair that fell over her shoulders in a luxuriant wave. She was wearing shorts and a cropped top.

She leapt on Seth, wrapping her bare legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. He supported her minimal weight by linking his hands beneath her bottom.

“Are you surprised?” Lianne asked gleefully. “I decided to come down a few days early. I just couldn’t stand to be separated a minute longer.”

She kissed him, a peck on each cheek, then a long, slow kiss.

It may have been that Seth was trying to push her away. It may have been that he tried to avoid her kisses. But Summer had seen enough. She turned on her heel and walked away.

At a safe distance, from under the dark shadows of the trees, she looked back. Seth and Lianne were standing close, deep in conversation. Then Seth turned and walked a short distance. He hesitated. Summer saw his shoulders sag.

Lianne went to him and looked up at his face. A red lantern was just above them, and it cast a shadowy pink light on Lianne’s pretty features.

Lianne put her arms around Seth. His arms hung limp. And then, just barely tall enough to look over Seth’s shoulder, Lianne aimed her gaze directly at Summer. It was impossible at that distance to read her expression.

Summer shrank back against the nearest tree trunk. Lianne couldn’t possibly see her even there in the dark, could she?

And yet, for just a fleeting moment, despite the hot night, Summer felt a chill.

She spotted Seth a few times after that, drinking soda, talking to people, dancing a little with Lianne and other girls. But he said nothing to Summer.

And Summer said nothing to him. She didn’t care about Seth Warner. And now, she assured herself, she would be able to put the airport incident behind her for good.

She was wandering around on the steps leading up to the main door of the estate house, hoping for a clue to the nearest bathroom, when she ran into Adam.

“
There
you are,” Adam said, appearing at the bottom of the stone steps. He was wearing a shirt now, and he looked subdued.

“Hi,” she said.

“Were you looking for me?” Adam asked.

Summer hesitated and Adam laughed. “I guess not,” he said ruefully.

“I was sort of looking for a bathroom, but I’d rather find you,” she said hastily. She winced. “I don’t think that came out exactly the way I meant it.”

“You meant I was second runner-up behind a bathroom. That’s okay,” he said. “I can live with that. Come on.”

He trotted up the stairs and took her hand. He led her to the door and used a key to unlock it. “We usually just let the party guests use the bathrooms by the pool house. I have to keep the doors of the main house locked or Manolo will kill me. He’s the butler, all-around guy in charge of the house. He’s the
real
boss.”

They entered an arched atrium and set off down a long hallway. It was like stepping directly out of Florida and clear across time and space to nineteenth-century New England. The senator’s tastes obviously didn’t embrace the lighter, looser Florida look. The walls were lined with alternating gilt-framed floor-to-ceiling mirrors and paintings, all more or less gloomy portraits of stern-looking men.