No Strings Attached (26 page)

She did not.

Joss said, “You know the song he ends every concert with? ‘Under My Skin'? It was written for your mom. But you probably knew that.”

Harper had suspected as much. Without realizing she was doing it, she sang softly,
“You were always the one/Your laugh,
your eyes, your arms still/comfort me on rainy nights/You're under my skin/lady of my heart. …”

He hadn't brought his guitar to the beach, so when Joss came in on harmony, it was a cappella. Harper, her own harshest critic, liked what she heard. Their voices wound around each other, blended, like that night on another beach. Only better.

Maybe Harper would meet Jimi Jones one day. With or without Joss's help. But never without her mom's knowledge, and her blessing. That, she could not, would not, do.

Mitch kicked back, out of breath. All the jogging he did, he was still panting from dancing, singing, and laughing. The relief of just letting go, not having to be anywhere, do anything, or prove anything to anyone: This was as fine a feeling as he'd ever had.

He surveyed the scene. What a mess! Empty shells, from the lobsters, crabs, mussels, and oysters, lay everywhere, punctuated by beer bottles, corncobs, scattered napkins, and used utensils.

No matter, there'd be plenty of time for cleaning up later.

Now was the time for chilling, his lady at his side, his friends close by, and his belly full. He leaned back on his elbows and stared out to the sea. The sun seemed to be balancing on the water's surface, like a perfect sphere, reminding him of that
song his mother used to sing:
“And I think it's gonna be all right, Yeah, the worst is over now, the morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball.”

He thought of her now, long gone. And he suddenly knew how proud of him Dora Considine would be. Not because he'd achieved wealth or status, or had married—her expression—“some fancy, dancy” girl like Leonora, but because he'd escaped it. Long on the road from the prison of poverty to the lock-up of having to live by other people's standards, he'd found his own path. He could just be himself.

And that's all she'd really ever wanted.

Impulsively, he kissed Sarah's cheek. Causing her to turn just enough so their lips locked. Mmmm … lusty and luscious.

And so very unexpected.

Just like, he thought, grinning at his disparate housemates, the scraps. The scraps had really made it after all.

Ali sat cross-legged on her blanket, Mitch and Sarah on one side, Katie on the other. She'd partaken of everything: from the thick, creamy clam chowder, lobster tail, two ears of corn; she'd even let Joss show her how to properly devour oysters, giggling as Harper merrily ragged on them both. Oysters might never be Harper's thing, but Ali could see now she'd have to teach Jeremy to enjoy them.

Jeremy! Her heart soared when she thought about him. She'd return to school in Boston next week, leaving Jeremy behind. Not for long, and surely not for good. She hadn't thought about finding a boyfriend this summer. That was a sweet, surprising bonus. She was seeing him later tonight, after the clambake, and they'd already made weekend plans to see each other in September.

She'd miss him until then, but needed time to work on her parents, anyway.

The
rumspringa
—to borrow that Amish phrase, since she still had none of her own—had turned out to be everything she'd hoped, and a whole lot more. She'd tasted freedom, found it sweet
and
bitter. The harshness of the scorn aimed at her after the robbery, the mistake of throwing the party, Mandy's taunts, and even Katie's thinly veiled contempt at the beginning of the summer, was hard. But on balance? It didn't come close to the joy she felt now. Alefiya would certainly return to her parents' world, honor their traditions. She loved them deeply, after all. But she would declare botany, not premed biology, as her major at school; she would be her own person. She would be with Jeremy.

“How're you doing?” It was Harper, who'd come to sit beside her now.

“Never better,” Ali said. “The whole summer, the way everything turned out. I knew it'd be fun, but I didn't expect it
to be this awesome. You … Joss … Mitch … even Sarah. Everyone's just exactly as they should be.”

Harper put her arm around Ali, which started a chain reaction. Mitch and Sarah moved closer. Katie was squinched between Harper and Joss.

A snapshot from behind the group would show six friends sitting by the shoreline, close enough to touch, arms locked around each other's shoulders, silently watching the sun go down. Or, as Harper had poetically put it, watching the glorious array of yellows, oranges, and reds gradually fading into pinks, blues, and grays.

When it had just about set, Joss commanded, “Nobody move. I want to get something.”

He returned not with a camera, but with six shot glasses, a bottle of tequila—the worm authenticated it—lime wedges, and a shaker of salt. Carefully, he divvied everything up, took his spot next to Katie, and instructed: “On my count. One …” Glasses were hoisted. “Two …” Chins tipped up. “Three!”

Down the hatch they went, first the salt, then the shot, and finally the lime-sucking ritual. The group's rhythm was off, but no one noticed. When the laughing, and coughing (Katie and Harper) died down, Mitch said it: “So, same time next year?”

If I were to share a summer house, here's who my
ideal roomies would be: the brilliant Bethany Buck, who had the original idea for the series; Sangeeta Mehta, who took this book to the next level; the agents extraordinaire, Jodi Reamer, Rachel Sheedy, and Elizabeth Harding, who all, in a game of e-phone, helped me reach my old friend, actor/producer Ralph Macchio, who reconnected me to the brilliant S. E. Hinton, who graciously allowed me to reference her classic,
The Outsiders
.

Without the contributions of these people, this book would not have been half as much fun as it is.

Thank you all so very, very much.

Jared Larson tingled all over. He was high on, and in, the heady
hills of Hollywood. A wide smile of contentment spread across his classically chiseled face as he eased the Lexus convertible into the narrow driveway. The house it belonged to was empty and all his, all summer long. He planned to make excellent use of it. Rent out rooms, pocket a nice chunk of change, while spending the summer partying. Chicks, clubs, ka-
ching
—for a twenty-one-year-old free spirit, it doesn't get any better than that! Especially because his father would never find out. Ah, freedom: It's what this great country was built on.

Flipping his Oliver Peoples aviator shades atop his stylishly short hair, he glanced over at the familiar front door and grinned. Painted a garishly loud royal blue, it stood a few feet
behind a leaf-and-vine-covered gate. Shoulder-high hedges encircled the house.

It was
so
L.A., he thought. In this town, good shrubbery makes good (i.e,
envious
) neighbors. When you build a tall, dense fence around your crib, you force passersby to wonder: What's on the other side? Some crazy-amazing mansion? Who lives there? A star?

Jared chuckled as he started down the path of terra-cotta stepping-stones leading to the backyard. Amazing? This place? In the eyes of a stoner, maybe. The blinding blue front door was only one of the odd color choices—the entire exterior had been painted a screaming pumpkin-orange color. Good thing this area of L.A. was considered artsy.

The neighborhood, officially Lake Hollywood, was a maze of eclectic houses on steep narrow streets that zigged and zagged so randomly, the only things you could be sure of were hairpin turns and blind driveways. A bitch to drive around, especially at night.

The part about a star living in the orange and blue monstrosity, however, was sort of true. A quasi-celebrity owned this house, an actor audiences knew by sight, never by name. Jared knew him as Uncle Robert, a character actor in his forties who had, as one critic viciously sniped, “a great future behind him.”

Ouch. That'd hurt. Jared's uncle, the only relative he
actually liked being around,
had
weathered a long dry spell, career-wise. He'd taken roles in straight-to-DVD junk movies to pay the bills. But Rob's desert days were done, as over as yesterday's sushi craze. Robert Larson was currently making a killer comeback, in a career-defining movie. Already, there was buzz about a best supporting Oscar nomination for him. The movie was filming in Prague. When Uncle Rob packed up and left, Jared moved in.

So what if the bizarrely painted cottage wasn't like the spacious mansion Jared had grown up in?

It was funky.

“Rustic, cozy, tucked away, perched above the Sunset Strip” was the description Jared had put in the Roommates Wanted ad on Craigslist. From that posting he'd already netted a trio of roomies. Two guys, Nick and Eliot, were coming in later today from Michigan; tomorrow, a chick named Sara from Texas would arrive. The guys didn't know the chick, and he knew none of them. That was cool with Jared—as long as they knew how to pay the rent!

Seriously, Jared was positive the two guys and the girl would work out—he needed just one more summer-share tenant to fill that last bedroom. He was confident he'd snag one by week's end, if not sooner. After all, he was charging what was, for this area, a bargain-basement rent for an amazing location. He could afford to because he had no overhead; their
rent was his profit. So his dad had cut off his credit cards? Yo, every establishment he knew took cash. It was all good. Jared was born without a self-doubt gene.

He didn't need it. His father had enough doubt in Jared for both of them.

“Shabby” was the word Rusty Larson used to condescendingly describe this “shack” on “the wrong side of the hills.” Why his ne'er-do-well-enough brother insisted on living there was beyond him. Of course, anything outside the three-square-mile area that encompassed the Larson family compound in Bel Air, Dad's high-rise office in Beverly Hills, and the beach house in Malibu where his bimbette of the day was stashed, was “beyond” him. Rusty Larson rarely stepped out of his Jag if an anorexic palm tree wasn't swaying gently above.

Jared agreed with his old man on absolutely
nothing
, but as he turned the corner into the backyard, his eyes widened in surprise. “Shabby” would've been putting it kindly. Forget about manicured lawn or neat patch of green. Overgrown, never-mown grass, dotted with scratchy stalks of burned-out weeds, covered what was once a decent-looking backyard.

Lucky, thought Jared, it was only a small plot of land—just enough to surround the curvy natural rock swimming pool, abutting Jacuzzi, and barbecue pit. He strode over to the pool and gaped at what used to be sparkling blue, clean, welcoming. It was a sickening greenish hue. Dead bugs and other
unidentified objects floated lazily on the surface, as if they'd moved in. It was the thick coating of muck that really turned his stomach.

At least Uncle Rob's neglect could not screw up the home's most kick-ass and valuable asset. The one thing that was free, always there, and breathtaking.

The view.

“Viewtiful,” his horny teenage girlfriend used to call it. Even on a hot 'n' hazy Saturday in June, it was amazing. (Smog? What smog?)

Jared strode to the outer edge of the property and surveyed his summer fiefdom. Spread out before him, acres of lush, juicy Caliscape. The sky above, the valley below, the undulating dips and curves and turns and tiers of the hills were like surround sound, encircling everything. Ah, the famous hills of Hollywood.

His father was a shortsighted snob. There
was
no “wrong side.” Here was the heart and soul of the Southland: minimountains into which hundreds of homes neatly pressed. Some were on stilts, others carved into the rocks; all blended in with the terrain. And within eyeshot? Only the most famous of all landmarks, the
Hollywood
sign.

Below were broad boulevards named Sunset, Melrose, Wilshire, and Beverly. At night their ginormous billboards blinked and beckoned, their hot clubs called. Down there,
deals were waiting to be made, girls waiting to be flirted with, the pleasures of food and drink, all spread out before him like a never-ending smorgasbord. Ah, the possibilities. More than anyplace else on earth, Hollywood was about possibilities. They were as endless as the landscape.

This was where he belonged. This summer, he'd prove it.

Jared checked his sport Tag Heuer watch—it was nearly two. The roommates weren't due for several hours, but if the inside of the house were as wrecked as the yard, he'd have to deal—quickly.

He counted the stepping-stones, knelt next to the fourth from the right, and slipped his palm underneath the terra-cotta stone. Wedged between the stone and the dirt was exactly what he expected to be there. The front door key.

Once inside, Jared heaved a sigh of relief. Unlike the mess of the backyard, Uncle Rob had left the house in order. Just as Jared remembered it.

The large living room was warm, welcoming, and cluttered. It was, Jared often thought, the intersection of high-end and low-brow, where expensive and rare crisscrossed with junky, cheap, and marked-down everywhere. Hippie-meets-haute. Nothing matched, and everything worked.

Dark wood beams tented a vaulted ceiling, and a worn black leather couch abutted a blue-and-orange-striped sectional sofa.
A mirrored orange high-backed Moroccan wing chair and matching ottoman, which his uncle had shipped from overseas, sat by the brick fireplace.

A gallery of guitars (bass, electric, baritone, and acoustic) and other stringed instruments—sitars, mandolins, banjos, and violins—lined the pale tangerine walls, mounted like artful pieces of musical sculpture. CDs, vintage record albums, photos, and candles perched on shelves and bookcases tucked into random nooks and crannies. Between the albums, guitars, bongs, incense holders, aromatic candles, and bottles of Kabbalah water, the entire room was a hippie paradise.