Summer Boys (6 page)

At Ahoy Bar and Grill downtown, Beth, Ella, Kelsi, Peter, George, and Cara (the Diet Vanilla Coke girl from the beach) were standing near the bar waiting for a table big enough to hold them all. Finally, they were given a huge booth next to a table full of college guys.

Ella squeezed in beside Beth, just across from Kelsi and Peter, while George and Cara were stuck in the curved middle portion of the seat. The red vinyl cushions sank beneath Ella as she scooted over, bumping her knee against what felt like Peter’s. The fact that she couldn’t play footsie with him under the table made her absolutely miserable.

“Does anybody have money for the jukebox?” Ella asked, holding out her empty palm. “I only have a twenty.”

Kelsi fished in her pockets as Peter pulled out his wallet and extracted a five, laying it on Ella’s tiny hand.

Ella grinned at him. “Thanks.”

She squeezed out of the booth and sashayed past the table of
guys next to them. On a whim, she made a pit stop there and interrupted the conversation. Of course, she hoped Peter was watching.

“Hey, would one of you mind buying me a drink? I forgot my ID.” Lucky for Ella, she had her fake one tucked away in her purse, in case her charms were lost on these frat boys. But her cute little flirty smile almost always worked, and this time was no exception. At least three of them offered to get her a round.

“I’ll have a Jack and Coke,” she said, winking at the guy closest to her. “Don’t forget.”

She continued on to the jukebox, inserting the five-dollar bill. Instead of getting change, she chose fifteen of her favorite dance songs—everything from Missy Elliot and Justin Timberlake to 50 Cent and Beyoncé. On her way back, she picked up the Jack and Coke and gave the boy who’d bought it for her such a charming thank-you grin that he didn’t object when she kept on walking back to her own table.

Ella, Beth, George, and Cara split fried clams and a basket of fries with vinegar. Kelsi and Peter had lasagna and calamari, which they kept picking off each other’s plates. In an attempt to ignore them, Ella tried to start a game of finger football with Beth, but Beth kept turning around in her seat and asking George and Cara dumb small-talk questions like, “So you just bumped into each other again on the beach this morning? That’s lucky.” And “Are you in town for the whole summer, Cara?” Ella didn’t know what her cousin’s deal was.

Ella drummed her fingers against the table and tried to look anywhere but at Peter and Kelsi. Every few seconds, she heard kissing sounds coming from their direction, which was shocking
to Ella. After all, Kelsi was the poster girl for the anti-PDA movement. Hearing them kiss made Ella want to run screaming out of the bar. Her only consolation was the thought that kissing was probably
all
Kelsi and Peter ever did.

Some college kids had started congregating in an empty area of the room near the bar. They began to dance to the selection of tunes Ella had picked out. She couldn’t help but be proud of her stint as DJ. The people out on the floor were loving the music and seemed to be having so much fun that Ella wolfed down the last of her share of clams so that she could join in. She stood up and peered down at Cara and George.

“You guys wanna dance?”

“I’m kind of nursing this surfboard injury.” George shook his head and pointed to his left ankle. “Maybe later?”

Cara also declined the invitation very politely. “I don’t really ever dance on a full stomach.”

Ella rolled her eyes at both of them and let out an exasperated sigh. She slid out of the booth and stood at the end of the bench across from Beth. She started dancing and mouthing the words to a J.Lo song, then waggled a come-hither finger. Damn it, she was going to accomplish Mission Forget Peter. And she was going to have fun doing it.

She winked and made a goofy kissy face at Beth, sensing that the guys at the next table were watching her and hoping she’d give them a good show.

“Come on, sweet stuff,” she said to Beth, tossing her shiny mane of blonde hair back and forth as if she were in a shampoo commercial.

She stretched out her hand, and Beth finally accepted. They
moved toward the crowd and stood on the edge for a few seconds, then slowly started to move in when the moment felt right. Ella’s favorite thing in the universe (next to Dentyne Ice and boys) was dancing, so when the bass line really began to pulsate, she immediately picked up her pace. Dancing just made her body feel free.

In fact, Ella was so caught up in the fluid motion of the crowd that she hardly noticed when George and Cara drifted up to the edge of the makeshift dance floor. Her seductive moves were creating a lot of commotion around her. Practically every guy was coming up to Ella one by one, as if they’d all taken a number at the deli, dancing so close that they were almost touching her. Ella exchanged glances with Beth, and asked with her expression what she thought of each guy. Either Beth shook her head, or smirked and rolled her eyes, or missed it altogether because she was so busy watching George and Cara.

A hand tapped Ella on the shoulder. When she turned around, she was looking at a tall, blond guy, very hunky, with bright blue eyes that were focused only on her.

“Can I buy you another one of those?” he said, pointing at her glass, which only had a small splash of Jack and Coke lingering at the bottom.

He was perfect—just a little bit yuppie in his khaki pants and polo shirt, just a little bit rebel with his gelled hair and devilish grin. He was just what Ella had ordered.

“Definitely,” she said, with a sassy twist of her lips.

Ella could feel the knot in her stomach untying and her body filling with relief. She was in control of herself again. She only glanced at Kelsi and Peter once as she followed Perfect Guy to the
bar. Kelsi had her hands on Peter’s knees, and Peter’s fingers twirled her short, flat hair.

Ella didn’t care anymore. She really didn’t.

There was a new boy in town.

They burst out of Ahoy at 11:30, drenched in so much party sweat, it looked as if they’d been hosed down by the local fire department. They’d missed the fireworks, but nobody seemed to care.

Ella linked her arm through Beth’s for the hot, three-block walk back to the car. Perfect Guy, whose real name was Brad, had asked for her number, and she’d happily given it to him. She felt triumphant and giddy as the group made their way down the cobblestone street.

When they finally arrived at the car, everyone piled in like a bunch of circus clowns. George was driving, so Cara sat shotgun. Ella could have found another place to sit, but she plunked down on top of Peter’s lap, even though Kelsi was sitting right next to him. Sure, she was over him. Definitely over him. But still, there was nothing more satisfying to Ella than watching her older sister squirm a bit.

It was quiet on the way back. Everyone was exhausted from dancing, so each of them seemed to fall into their own little worlds. In the dark, Ella could feel the warmth of Peter’s legs under hers. For a brief moment, she tried to imagine what it would be like if she was really his girlfriend, and she was sitting on his lap back at his place.

Ella’s little fantasy was cut short when the plastic part of one
of the seatbelts kept brushing against her. She shifted and for a second it was gone, and then back again. How annoying. She looked down at her short pink cotton skirt, and realized that the plastic part of the seatbelt was actually Peter’s thumb pressed lightly against the side of her right thigh.

Uh, what the hell is going on?
screamed a voice inside Ella’s head.

Clearly, he didn’t know what he was doing. He had had some drinks at the bar and his judgment had obviously been severely affected.
That was the only rational explanation for this, right?
Ella thought frantically. Or perhaps this is what Peter had been wanting to do all along?

Ella felt her ears start to burn. She wondered if her skin was as hot as it suddenly felt, and if he could feel her body heat smoldering through his jeans. She was embarrassed that he might. How could he not? She tried to remember the Ella of a few minutes ago, who’d taken charge of her life, and forget that his hand was anywhere near her thigh.

She stole a glance to her left. Kelsi had nodded off to sleep, her right hand entwined with Peter’s left, which leaned lazily against the armrest. Kelsi looked so trusting, it made Ella feel even worse that she didn’t want Peter to take his hand away.

And he didn’t. Suddenly, Peter’s fingers started to move. They traced over her skin in a delicate pattern. The sensation brought Ella’s skin to almost unbearable heat. She could feel the roughness of his knuckles tickle every single nerve ending. Back and forth, back and forth.

It was a deliberate and stealthy rhythm, very much like the way he walked.

Jamie lay on her stomach, on the knotted pink quilt that covered her bed, listening to Jeff Buckley. Her back was covered with yellow slices where the sun peeked at her body through the blinds. “Lover, You Should Have Come Over” was on repeat on her stereo. It had played six times so far.

She was vaguely aware that the summer was passing her by. It was already mid-July. Her mother had come and gone once, floating in and out of Pebble Beach like a dust cloud and leaving Jamie hoards of Tupperware containers filled with various salads.

Jamie was also vaguely aware that the phone was ringing. Slowly, she reached down to the cordless receiver, which she’d stolen from the living room and held hostage in her bedroom for ten days. Lifting her head for a second, she could feel the places where the knots had dug into the skin of her face.

“Hello?”

“J, it’s me.” Ethan’s voice came over the line without a hint of
cellular static. He sounded wonderful. Jamie sat up and cleared her throat as her skin went clammy.

“Hi,” Jamie whispered.

“Hey, I know it’s been a while since we’ve talked. But I’m having a party tomorrow, and I wanted to know if you wanted to come. You could bring your cousins.”

Jamie nodded, and then remembered Ethan couldn’t see her. They were on a phone, not speaking to each other via satellite. “Ummm,” she said.

“I thought it’d be cool to hang out. I feel like I haven’t seen you in a year, J.”

“Um.” Jamie searched the far reaches of her brain for a coherent thought. She wanted to see him so badly, she was actually getting a physical pain in her chest.

“Are you sure you want me to come?” she managed to sputter.

“Of course I do,” he said cheerfully. “It’ll be fun.”

Jamie tugged at a knot on the quilt until she pulled it out, leaving a ragged little hole in the fabric. Her fingers were trembling.
Fun. Fun is good.

She managed to control her voice enough to get her question out. “Ethan, do you mean you want me to come as…just a friend?”

“Well, aren’t we friends?” Ethan asked in return.

Jamie was completely stumped. Were they?

“I guess,” she replied wistfully.

“Okay, then. Will you come to my party?”

Say no, say no.
Jamie knew she should refuse. The only thing that might be worse than not seeing Ethan, would be pretending that she was fine with being his friend. But even though that
reasonable part of Jamie was begging her not to cave, the need to see Ethan again was much bigger than her fear of falling apart when she did. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll come.”

“Great. See you then.”

Jamie swallowed the rest of the questions she wanted to ask. “See you. Bye.”

After she hung up, she slammed her cheek back onto the mattress. He’d called. She couldn’t believe it. Part of her really wanted to call him and tell him she’d changed her mind, but another part of her was excited that she was on
his
mind. He hadn’t forgotten about her.

Grabbing a pen and a piece of scrap paper from beside the phone, Jamie started sketching. She wanted to get all her feelings out on paper—she found this to be very therapeutic. She drew a cartoon Jamie with a fire poker stoking some flames burning beneath her rib cage. She drew a pair of hands squeezing the inside of her chest. She drew a rake scraping down the sidewalk.

Then she crumpled the paper and threw it at the picture of Ethan she’d jammed into the corner of her dresser mirror. She’d have to burn that soon. Once she got out of bed—if that ever, ever happened again.

There was a knock at the door. “Jamie?” It was Ella.

Jamie groaned and buried her face in the pillow.

“Jamie, let me in. I think you’re about to fall into the void.”

“Go away, all right, Ella?” Jamie said, feeling the tears well up now that somebody was around to hear her cry. She’d expected Ella to show up at some point. She could be selfish sometimes, but Ella was a mother hen at heart.

“You can’t stay in there forever,” Ella insisted.

“Why not?” Jamie rolled over and faced the window.

She could still hear Ella out there, sighing dramatically. “I’ll be back,” she said firmly, and her footsteps sounded down the hall.

There was no telling how long she’d been sleeping when Jamie woke to a scratching at the door. At first, dazed, she thought it was a cat. Then the doorknob turned, and Ella appeared in a pink tank top and gray Juicy sweatshorts, holding a bulging plastic bag in one hand and a bobby pin that she’d used to pick the lock in the other.

“We can do this the healthy way or the trashy way,” she said, walking up to the bed, dropping the bag beside Jamie, and tucking the bobby pin into her hair. “But we’re definitely doing it.”

Jamie couldn’t help feeling a little curious. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. A major head rush followed. She felt like she’d been run over by a bulldozer.

Ella was carefully extracting the items from her bag: a video (
Legally Blonde,
one of Ella’s favorites), a tube of Queen Helene’s Mint Julep facial mask, a cucumber, a tiny glass tub of Pink Pepper nail polish, a pack of minicigars, and what no feel-better care package would ever be complete without—a small bottle of tangerine-flavored Stoli vodka.

Jamie rubbed her face again. “I’m looking for the common thread here.”

Ella started separating the things into two piles. “I was thinking we could do a spa night—mask and makeovers and a movie…,” she said while spreading everything out onto the bed. “Or we can drink and smoke cigars and play poker.” She pulled out a pack of cards from her back pocket. Jamie recognized them from the trunk
of games in the living room. Ella held up the cards and the video, moving them up and down like they were on scales, her eyebrows high and questioning.

Jamie was surprised to feel her soul emerge from the darkness for a second. “Can’t we do both?”

Ella threw back her head and laughed. “Whatever you say.”

“Hey, where is everybody?”

Ella took a quick look at the clock. It was 4:35. “Down at the beach, where else? Then dinner at our house. So let’s get cracking. We don’t have all day!”

The afternoon sun was shining dimly through the blinds. Jamie swung her legs over the side of the bed, then stood up and pulled the cord for the fan. Then she locked the door again.

“I’ll take one of those cigars,” Jamie said, setting herself up against the headboard.

Ella smiled at her as she opened the window to let the smoke out. Jamie found the energy to smile back.

They hunkered down on the bed and took swigs straight from the bottle. Ella dealt the cards, but stopped halfway through to veto the Jeff Buckley CD.

“What
is
this shit?” she said, switching it off and turning the knob to radio. She surfed the channels until she found a Jay-Z song, then cranked up the volume to an eardrum-thumping level.

“What you gotta do is forget that loser,” Ella shouted above the music, crawling back onto the bed and dealing the rest of the cards. She fanned hers out in front of her eyes. Jamie tapped her cigar on a bowl on the nightstand.

“Forget him,” Jamie repeated hollowly.

“Yeah, there are plenty of guys out there that are way, way better than him. Did you ever notice how nasty his feet are? I did.”

The thought of being with anyone else was ludicrous to Jamie. But Ella’s spirit was contagious. She half laughed.

“He invited me to a party tomorrow. For some reason, he thinks we can be friends. I don’t know if maybe he still likes me, or something…” Jamie trailed off.

“Jamie,” Ella said, leveling a gaze over her cards. “It’s the classic guy maneuver. He wants to have you even when he doesn’t have you. He wants to be broken up, but he still wants you to be crazy over him.”

Jamie took a sip of Stoli. “Or maybe he still likes me.”

“Maybe,” Ella said sympathetically, as Jamie took a double swig. “So you’re going, huh?”

“I said I would. But I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t have.”

“Well, look, it’s hard to stay away. I get it. But if you’re gonna be around him, you’ve at least got to show him you don’t need him. You’ve got to show him you’re interested in other things. Guys are stupid like that. They love it when girls act like they don’t want them.” Ella nodded her head wisely.

Jamie tried to picture herself not wanting Ethan.

“Ella, I just feel like I can’t breathe,”she said as tears stung her eyes. She felt like such a baby, crying again.

Ella scooted over to comfort her, and rubbed Jamie’s back gently. “It sucks. I know, I know,” she said.

Jamie was kind of embarrassed that she was allowing Ella to see her like this, but the vodka had created a soothing warmth in her chest, and the back rub felt good. But what she appreciated most was that Ella was doing all she could to make Jamie feel as if
she was being understood. After all, Ella was a dumper, not a dumpee. She’d never had her heart broken in her life. Yet here she was, giving Jamie a sympathetic shoulder to cry on.

A few tears slipped out onto Jamie’s hands and dripped onto her shirt, leaving behind a little trail of misery. Her curly hair stuck to her face. When she lifted her head, Ella turned her toward the mirror near her bed.

“Nice mustache,” she said.

They both smiled weakly at Jamie’s reflection, then Jamie wiped the hair away and bit her lip.

“Ella, you don’t understand. It’s like I can’t see anything but him.” She realized how melodramatic she sounded. “I mean, have you ever felt that way about anyone?” Jamie looked at her hopefully, like a drowning person looking desperately for a life raft. Maybe there was some formula for surviving this, and only Ella had the answer.

Ella looked thoughtful and a little sad. “Nope. I mean I’ve been, like, infatuated. But I don’t think I’ve ever felt the real thing—you know, love.”

“I thought I had that with Ethan.…”

“I know. I’m sorry. Listen, I’ll give you a makeover for the party. You’ll look fabulous, and he’ll eat his heart out.”

Jamie swallowed, feeling shy all over again.

“But now you need another cigar,” Ella said winningly, holding out the box.

“Oh, God, no,” Jamie waved her away. She was already worried the room reeked. She picked up the vodka instead.

“Bottoms up,” Ella said with a lilt to her voice. “You only live once.”

They got good and drunk. At least Jamie did. Before this, she had only experienced a good buzz, and when she did, it was usually after 9:00
P.M.
But this was a special occasion.

Ella and Jamie played several hands of cards and then just talked, laughing over old stories. It was the best Jamie had felt in days. By the time it got dark, she and Ella had curled up in the bed and popped in the movie, and soon she began to sober up.

A couple of hours later, her aunt and uncle got home with the kids. She could hear them walking in the hall, tucking the kids in, and then making their way into the common room, where they turned on the TV. Ella was lying beside her, fast asleep, snoring in the blue glow of the TV as the tape went into automatic rewind mode. Watching her, Jamie noticed a thin thread of drool dangling from her cousin’s perfect mouth, and she snickered a bit. Still, the quiet laugh gave way to silence. In a full house, with her cousin in her bed, Jamie knew she was surrounded by people who cared about her. But she felt completely alone.