Postcards From Last Summer (13 page)

Turning away from him, I bent down to help pick up the test tubes and suddenly wanted to cry. Revenge was a shallow thrill, especially when you just kicked the love of your life in the teeth.

I plunked the sand-coated test tubes into the tray, mumbling: “Stupid, stupid, stupid . . .” Yes, I deserved my own chapter in the Book of Stupid.

“H
ey, have you seen three girls who look like Charlie's Angels?” Elle asked a tall, dark-skinned man who'd been directing guests onto the estate.

“Yah, mon. Like . . . everywhere. We got Charlie's Angels, the Breakfast Club, and the gang from Cheers. Oh, and I just helped E.T. find a parking spot for his spaceship.” His deep, rich laughter boomed in the night.

Elle liked him immediately. His name tag said Mr. Fitzroy.

“Seriously?” A middle-aged man with a shaved head eyed Mr. Fitzroy intently. “Spielberg is here?”

“Did I say that?” Mr. Fitzroy clapped a hand against one cheek. “Not that I ever drop names, don't ya know.”

“Well, Mr. Fitz, you're no help at all, but you do make me smile. But I'm telling you, if the Angels swing back this way, tell them Elle is looking for them.”

“Okay, Elle. And what about the devils? You want me to help you find them, too?”

Elle shook her head, her long earrings jangling. “I've been fighting demons all my life.” As Mr. Fitzroy turned to greet another guest, Elle ventured onto the green lawn, feeling the Hamptons world open up in a way she hadn't experienced in all her years as Dr. DuBois's charge at the research center or the professor's daughter at academic functions. The jangling steel drum music, the huge lawn teeming with people lit by dancing torches, the laughter and salt air on the breeze . . .

This was an eye-opener indeed, well worth her return to the States.

After a cup of tea and a game of catch-up, Lindsay's mom had insisted that Elle head over to the designer's party to find the others. Good old Mary Grace—her second mom. She'd let out a squeal when the older woman had come to the porch door. Mrs. McCorkle had recognized Elle instantly, of course, and as soon as they got to talking the years melted away in a flash. Sitting in the old ladderback chair in the paneled dining room brought Elle back to countless days and nights lounging in the McCorkle house, playing cards or Monopoly, dreaming up moneymaking schemes, painting each other's toenails, making fudge or popcorn or both. When Mrs. Mick ordered her to go off and find “the young people” at the party, Elle didn't want to burst her bubble and point out that, aside from Lindsay, that group wasn't going to be so relieved to have “Trouble” back in town.

Although Elle had never met Anusa the designer, she'd crashed her fair share of parties and felt right at home strolling the grounds in her short, faded denim skirt and bikini top, a tropical print with a sea of aquamarine dotted with tiny yellow, pink, orange, and purple flowers.

Passing a buffet table loaded with fat shrimp on ice, cheeses, and crudités, she realized she was hungry and grabbed a plate. While she was munching a carrot, a woman with very large amber jewelry insisted she join their group, and she sat down, mostly listening as the guests talked about the soaring real-estate values in the Hamptons and the tight housing market. After that she waited in line at one of the little tents, hoping to have her fortune told. The two gentlemen in front of her in line, one as thin as a pencil with a shaved head, the other solid and well built, with silver hair, struck up a conversation, and she enjoyed talking with them, realizing from the conversation that they were gay and not trying to hit on her.

“I can't believe you don't remember Sag Harbor,” the silver-haired man, Frank, was telling her. “It's charming. A little port town with small, colonial architecture intertwined with eclectic homes.”

“She should come to one of our parties,” said his friend, Kirin.

The other man rolled his eyes. “My place is tiny. Two bedrooms, and Kirin has filled it with baubles. Antiques and shells and driftwood. I keep telling him one more piece of junk and I won't be able to move.”

Kirin shook his head. “Don't listen to him, it's lovely. You must come by.”

“Just yesterday I stubbed my toe on his latest monstrosity. Can you imagine a desk so small no one can sit at it?”

“It's from a little old schoolhouse, and the desk was never intended for flaming, overfed oafs who'd be happy shopping for furniture at Levitz.”

Although she found her head ping-ponging from one man to the other, Elle was entertained by their conversation and glad to meet them. Still, the line for the fortune teller moved slowly—“Someone in there must have issues!” Kirin remarked—and Elle decided she needed to move on and keep looking for her friends.

One more circle around the great lawn and she sensed that they just weren't here. The party was in full swing, but Elle was getting sick of wandering alone and decided to head back to the McCorkles' and unroll her sleeping bag in Lindsay's old attic room. She said good night to Mr. Fitz, then set off to the parking field in search of the minicar she'd rented.

On the way she passed a green van bearing the logo for Coney's, one of the Hamptons' most popular restaurants, which just happened to belong to the father of the one guy Darcy could never catch. What was his name? Kyle? Kurt? Whatever.

As she rounded the van she saw that the side door had been propped open and a pair of legs in washed-out denim dangled out over the running board.

A body? Hopefully just some dude sleeping it off or chilling in the parking lot. Elle glanced at the feet, now bare. As Elle considered whether she should move on or administer CPR, a torso joined the body, revealing a guy.

Spiked hair, tipped gold, maybe from the sun. Attractive in a Moondoggie sort of way. His silk shirt was unbuttoned, letting a shadow of tanned skin show through. Moving slow as a cat, he swung his head around and opened his eyes. “Am I a dick?”

Elle considered. Anyone who had to ask that question probably was. “I don't know you, but from where I stand, I'd say chances of escaping dickdom are slight.”

“So I'm a dick?” He crumpled, head against his chest. “Shit!”

Elle stepped up to the van and checked out the interior. Someone had poured pots of money into customizing it with a built-in television, sound system, couch, and surfboard rack, but it could use a good cleaning.

“Come on in.” He hoisted himself to his knees and staggered over to a cooler.

Elle climbed in, almost able to stand up straight without hitting the ceiling. She stepped over to the foam sofa and plopped down. “So, have you got a real name or are you sticking with Dick?”

“Kevin.” He swayed over a cooler, fished around inside, and returned with two cans of beer.

Setting aside the icky domestic beer he'd handed her, she let her eyes trace his thin lips and stern brow, a Kevin refresher course. “So you're the Kevin of Coney's fame.”

“Yeah.” His grin was cocky, proud. She liked his perfect Chiclet teeth and the way he touched his tongue to his bottom lip, as if he were about to taste her. “You heard of me?”

The name of the restaurant is on the side of the van, dummy,
she thought. But instead, she decided to do a little digging. “Aren't you Darcy Love's boyfriend?”

“That's what she thinks.” He launched into a string of expletives, mangled phrases mixed in with some story of how she always reeled him in close, then pushed him off to be with her friends. Considering Kevin's drunken state, the beer spraying as he cursed, Elle wasn't completely clear on the details, but it did resemble the Darcy she used to know, self-centered and manipulative.

“But you're not like that.” Kevin slid an arm around her and leaned into her, his face hanging suggestively close to her breasts. Either he was looking down at her cleavage or falling asleep. “You're different,” he snorted into her bikini top.

“You don't know me.” She didn't mind giving him a hard time, didn't have anything to lose at this point. “I'll bet you don't even remember my name.”

He lifted his head, his thin lips curving. “You think I'm drunk, but yo-ho, no. I know that's a trick. You never even told me your name.”

She laughed, a little relieved that Kevin McGowan didn't remember her, wasn't connecting her to the squirrelly thirteen-year-old that Darcy had labeled “Trouble” and “Looney Tunes” and “Elle MacWeirdson.” He didn't remember the girl whose junior high classmates had labeled her “most likely to set fire to the school” in the yearbook, the girl who'd been accused of setting trash-can fires in the beer garden of his father's restaurant back in the days when everyone in their crowd was too young to even sneak root beer, let alone the real stuff. Which meant that obviously she had grown from squirrel to elk, allowing her a chance to have a little fun with Kevin at Darcy's expense.

He lifted his head to guzzle the rest of his beer. “Hey, aren't you going to drink yours?”

She put her hand over it. “You don't need it, pal. You're about blown out of your shorts as it is.”

He grinned, letting his tongue sneak out to tease his bottom lip. “Nah. I'm just looking to get blown.”

His hand snuck around one breast, his fingertips swirling around a nipple erotically, and she laughed again at her good fortune, having stumbled into Darcy's disgruntled boyfriend and the perfect chance to sting the one girl who'd choked her with criticism, the girl who'd pushed her over the edge, almost literally. Although Darcy's fists had been at her side that gray day, it had been her goading, her relentless need to control and manipulate that had sent Elle clambering over the rocks of the jetty, sliding into the deep, black sea. Plummeting from the safe summer world she knew into a kaleidoscope of foreign places, brisk languages, alien cultures.

When Kevin pushed her gently onto the floor and started kissing her, she saw the jagged line of revenge materialize like a thunderbolt. How far did she want it to go? To devastation level, or just a walloping zing to let know that the power had swung to Elle's favor?

Kevin pressing against her, sort of dry-humping her leg, and Elle figured that if the two of them were here, they might as well rule out a game of solitaire. Besides, his body had that European look Elle had found so appealing, lean and comfortable in worn denim. She'd be willing to bet he wasn't wearing underwear under those jeans, which she loved.

He rolled off her slightly, giving himself an opening to reach under her short denim skirt. Even drunk, he managed to worship the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. He then raised her expectations a bit as he slid a few fingers under her thin panties and teased her to wetness. The way his fingers worked her clit, swirling it around with just the right amount of pressure, was so sweet. Maybe he wasn't as drunk as he seemed.

“This is nice,” he whispered, his breath hot on her neck. “So nice.”

“Yeah.” She sucked in a breath as his fingertips skimmed right down between her legs, driving her wild again. Elle had never been one to play coy or delicate, and she wasn't about to start now, especially when she could have a little pleasure and zing Darcy at the same time.

She popped open his button-fly jeans, reached inside, and cupped his hard balls. “Got a condom?”

A
s Darcy wove through cars parked haphazardly in the makeshift parking lot outside Anusa's home, she laughed out loud at the expression of embarrassment on Austin's face. Ha! Vain bastard! Served him right for being a rat to Lindsay.

Score one for Lindsay. Austin: zero.

Even the shot girl had been sympathetic. When Austin ran down to the beach to rinse off and soak his wounded ego, Darcy had handed her a hefty tip and tried to explain about Austin in a nutshell.

“You mean he's an asshole?” The waitress in the sarong thrust a bony hip bone out, taking a stand. “God knows, I've had my share of those. You don't have to pay for the shots.”

“But you deserve a tip for being such a good sport.” And then Lindsay apologized for dumping the test tubes onto the sand, and the sarong girl was cool with that, and in fact she got off work at eleven, and maybe Lindsay and Darcy would want to meet her? And the girl, whose name turned out to be Ruthie, loved Coney's, and the three girls headed back toward the stairway together.

Now, as her heels clicked on the walkway around Anusa's mansion, Darcy smiled, vaguely aware of the men watching her lithe, perfect body swagger past the patio lanterns. All in all, the party had turned out okay. Now . . . to reel in Kevin and straighten him out.

“You know, none of this would have happened if Bear just came back in time for your party,” Lindsay said. She was back in a minor funk again, freaked about the fact that Bear knew about Austin and her; however, Darcy knew that was a minor ripple that would smooth out in a day or two. The worst was over for Lindsay; Austin had burned her, but she had gotten back at him times seven, and revenge was sweet, even from an observer's point of view.

“Bear will get over it,” she told her friend. “Maybe this is the kick in the pants he needs. You guys can have it out and clear the air next time you see him at the pizza place. Kiss and make up.”

“Like we were ever a couple,” Lindsay muttered as she slid her single flat car key out of the pocket of her shorts. “Where is Kevin parked? Are you sure he didn't have an extra key? It would be just like him to drive drunk and leave you here.”

“I have a feeling he's sitting in the van, stewing. I'll be fine. Call you tomorrow.”

She backed away from Lindsay's dusty Saturn wagon, thinking it was sorely in need of detailing. Sighing, she realized she'd have to talk to her friend about paying a little more attention to maintaining a good appearance all around. The diet seemed to be working for her, but she was wearing last year's sandals, driving a dirty car, and letting her hair grow like a weed.
I'm going to help you pull it together, Linds,
she vowed as she cut down a path that led to a distant parking field.

Spotting his van from a distance, she could hear music blasting out through the open windows—confirmation that Kevin had found his way back and was waiting inside. By now his annoyance would have faded and he'd be putty in her hands, ready to make up and behave as a good boyfriend should.

Another couple passed her, laughing about something. She smiled at them, now picking up the sound of moaning voices. Oh, great, two losers were getting it on in the woods.

But as she got closer, her heels wobbling on the flattened grass, the moaning got louder and the van seemed to be moving.

The van was rocking, like something from a bad comedy film.

Wait a minute . . . was it Kevin's van?

She checked the side, and there was the logo for Coney's, bumping up and down . . . and that moaning! Too weird.

She felt a heavy weight in her chest as her fingertips closed on the door handle. This was a mistake. Maybe Kevin let one of his buddies use the van. She was going to whip open this door and find Fish inside, doing the nasty with some girl.

Well, okay. Not a pretty sight, but she could live with it.

She popped the door handle, slid it aside, and took in the fleshy view of her boyfriend's flat butt jutting forward and back. The gold-tipped ends of his hair touched his shoulders, reminding her that he needed a haircut.

A haircut. Such an odd thought when he was fucking someone else.

“Kevin!” she shrieked, peering around him to see the girl he was screwing, a petite thing who sat back on the couch with her legs limberly lifted to her shoulders like a player in Cirque de Soleil.

“Aw, man!” He pulled out and crumpled to the floor, holding his crotch.

The girl lowered her legs and tucked them casually to one side, sitting upright, looking perky and not at all embarrassed. “Darcy.” Her eyes narrowed, catlike. “You know, the last time I saw you, you had that same look. That fury.” She straightened, flicking an imaginary speck from the cup of her bikini top. “Have you ever thought about anger management?”

Elle!

The image of the girl blazed, bold and red, in Darcy's fury.

Elle was back.