Tahoe Blues (32 page)

Poor Summer Sutton hadn’t known what to make of the request. She had come from Hawaii not some far off distant land, and since San Diego was part of the Pacific Rim, she didn’t understand why such a fuss was being made over her. She could hardly refuse a teacher on the first day, so she nodded her head and tried to come up with something. Summer had a passion for surfing, and thought about sharing her beloved handcrafted surfboard. But she knew there were just as many surfers in San Diego as in Hawaii, and since hauling the board around school all day would be a pain, she decided to bring her yearbook instead.

A storm rolled in the following day and the wet weather had everyone in the class fighting the doldrums. Being forced to sound excited over some dog-eared yearbook filled with a bunch of strangers did not help matters, but the all-girl choir dutifully passed around the book, keeping most of their complaints to themselves. Then one girl commented on how many cute guys there were in Hawaii. A contest erupted, and the girls huddled together as they gossiped and giggled their way through the senior class, who were deemed far superior to their lower classmen. By the end of the hour, Terence Javier had been declared, as one of the more experienced girls put it, ‘the one she would most likely do.’

Without knowing anything about him other than his name and how handsome he looked, Annie, Marissa and most of the other girls in the class, had become utterly captivated and obsessed with him.

Terence was hot, really hot. From then on, no boy at La Jolla High could measure up. The girls weren’t totally crazy. They still had lives to lead. They were teenagers. They were social beings. They couldn’t sit home weekends pining over some picture. That special time was reserved for the weekdays while they were supposed to be doing their homework.

The girls would gather at Marissa’s house after school, raid the refrigerator and spend hours imagining what Terence was like. One day he would be the bad boy, the next day kind and courteous, other days he would be a little of both. Their perception of him changed with the wind and they loved every minute of it.

Realizing exactly how goofy they were being, the girls made a sacred pact that only in Marissa’s kitchen would their hearts belong to their dark-haired deity with a salacious smile, and that Terence Javier would never be discussed outside those four walls.

The infatuation lasted for months, which was the exact amount of time Marissa’s father made a point of staying away from home between the hours of three and six. The silly chatter drove him crazy, but he was a patient man and he knew that as prom night approached, Terence Javier would be yesterday’s news and the girls would move on to dresses, makeup and shoes.

He was right. Although inferior to Terence Javier in almost every way, the boys at La Jolla possessed certain qualities which Terence did not. They were capable of renting tuxedos, stretch limousines, and making their prom night dreams come true. So the yearbook was packed away, and the practical young ladies left their unrequited love behind for something a bit more tangible.

“Who?” Annie teased, knowing it would drive Marissa to hysterics.

“Are you kidding me?” Marissa screeched in reply. “You know darn well who I’m talking about and don’t you dare try to make me feel silly. I’m already embarrassed enough. I barely made it through the day without drooling on him,” she paused and let out a dreamy sigh. “Annie, he is so beautiful, and his voice…” she sighed.

Annie pictured Marissa back in high school with her head thrown back in abandon, with her hands clutched to her breast as she swooned over their fantasy man.

“It’s so deep and sexy I almost wet myself,” Marissa continued. “I turned three shades of red when he helped me with my tank.”

A sharp laugh resonated through the phone and bashed into Annie’s ear. She jerked the phone away from her head, but as the pain subsided and she realized she was still capable of hearing, she took another sip of coffee and listened to her friend ramble on.

“David thought I had lost my mind. You should have seen his face when I told him I wanted to kiss Terence.”

Annie choked when she heard that newsflash and the hot brew slopped out all over her hand. The cup fell to the ground, and Annie watched the last of her liquid breakfast bounce off the expensive flagstone and splatter up onto her dry clean only trousers, but Annie smiled with joy. If Marissa kept this up, she and David would not see their eleventh wedding anniversary. Annie and David had never gotten along, and if he were out of the picture, so much the better.

“I bet he flipped,” Annie practically sang as she shook the hot liquid off her scalded fingers.

“At first, then he took it as a challenge,” Marissa dropped her voice and tried to sound like her husband. “Here I am on a romantic vacation with my wife and she wants to kiss another man. I must be doing something wrong.” She returned to her own voice but added a seductive inflection. “Then he showed me just how romantic and loving he could be.”

Annie cringed at the visual. “For future reference, that’s just way too much information.”

Marissa giggled. “But seriously, I think he’s okay. After all, it’s just one kiss to fulfill an old high school fantasy. It’s not like I’m running off with him or anything.”

Envy pulsated through Annie’s veins. She didn’t like David, but it was obvious he and Marissa were happy, and that they were in it for the long haul with their two terrific kids. Now, Marissa was talking about kissing the man of their dreams while she was stuck at home babysitting, and dealing with people like Mrs. Barrington. Why did Marissa always get the good stuff?

Feeling increasingly agitated, Annie paced back and forth across the courtyard. “I get it but does David? Won’t you be putting your marriage in jeopardy?” Annie rolled her eyes as she
spoke, even she knew one little kiss wasn’t capable of putting the tiniest dent in Marissa and David’s marriage armor. She wished she could be happy for her friend instead of… She hated to admit it, but the feeling was undeniably there. Annie was jealous.

“Wow, are you my friend or my mother? It’s just one kiss. If I wanted to kiss Bradley Cooper, or what’s-his-name that played Captain Kirk…”

Annie interrupted “Chris Pine.”

“What?”

“The guy who played Captain Kirk.”

“Whatever!” Annie heard nothing but complete and total frustration in her friend’s voice. “What I’m trying to say is that if I wanted to kiss a celebrity, no one would give it a second thought. This is virtually the same thing, and I’m going to do it tomorrow morning before Terence takes the boat out. And for the record, I was talking about William Shatner. I’d jump on his Enterprise any day!”

The sharp staccato of footsteps echoing off the flagstone made Annie jump. She spun around and saw a short stocky, middle-aged woman wearing a hairstyle more suited for a woman half her age, come clomping towards her. The veins bulging out of the sides of her neck confirmed that the woman was peeved.

“Marissa, I’ll have to call you back, but if you’re determined to ruin your marriage go ahead and kiss the guy.” She hit the end button on her phone and quickly tried to compose herself. She couldn’t let Mrs. Barrington see how upset she was. The woman could be downright mean. At the first sign of weakness she’d pounce and reduce a lesser person to tears. Annie was not about to fall victim to that, at least not today.

“Miss Harper, have you seen my living room? I can’t possibly live with that horrible color another moment!”

Annie plastered a calm expression on her face and smiled. “Mrs. Barrington, that’s just the first coat, sometimes it takes seven or eight to get the proper color saturation. In a day or two, you will positively adore it.” It wasn’t a lie exactly. Sometimes it did take that many coats to get the correct color saturation, just not in this instance. Nothing was going to improve that awful color.

Annie was usually honest with her clients but she had learned the hard way that with this particular woman, honesty usually caused more problems than it solved. By fudging the truth a bit, not only had she bought herself a little time to figure out how to try and fix this mess, but she had also weaseled in enough wiggle room for her to be able to keep her date tonight.

Danger Zone was in town for one night only, and her escort for this evening’s concert, besides being a fellow fan, was the painter on Mrs. Barrington’s project.

Alan was a wonder with a paintbrush and was considered an artist by his fellow tradesmen. Until Mrs. Barrington, he had never failed to please a client. The man had just pulled an all-nighter making Mrs. Barrington’s living room extremely ugly. A feat which Annie had paid double-time for.

With every pass of his roller, Alan must have known exactly how horrible it was going to look, and it probably pained him to finish. The man took pride in his work. He had to be exhausted and Annie was determined to let him sleep. He’d been put through enough torture for one twenty-four hour time period, and since she didn’t know which direction to go with this project, it was far more important for him to rest up for their big night than come back here and listen to more of Mrs. Barrington’s complaints.

The following morning Marissa was up and out of the honeymoon suite before the break of day while her husband still slumbered away. Marissa couldn’t face him. Her phone conversation with Annie the previous day had shaken her confidence. Then her best friend had failed to call her back. What was up with that? Annie was supposed to be on her side, especially where David was concerned.

It was hard for Marissa to imagine she could be that far off base believing her husband would not have a problem with her giving Terence one teeny tiny little kiss. David loved her, and she loved him. He would understand. It wasn’t a big deal.

But if that were true, then why had she snuck out this morning? Marissa knew the kiss meant nothing in the grand scope of their marriage, but did David? Would he truly understand? That nagging thought had kept her awake all night. The possibility that she was wrong and that she might hurt her husband had haunted her.

The short walk down to the marina gave her one last opportunity to rethink her decision. The closer she got, the more anxious she became. It was only a kiss, but more and more she felt torn. On one side of the coin, there was guilt. On the other side, there was outrage. Why should she
pass up the only opportunity she was ever going to have to kiss Terence Javier? She wasn’t cheating! She was simply fulfilling a high school dream that had nothing to do with David or their marriage.

The orange glow of the sun had just begun its trek skyward as she approached the slip that moored Terence’s vessel. In the early morning glow, Marissa saw two shadowy figures on the deck and froze.

Every once in a while a glimmer of light would reflect off the water and shine across Terence’s bare chest, but he was not alone, and the other figure was unmistakably female. The possibility that he could be involved with someone hadn’t occurred to her. “I can be pretty stupid sometimes,” Marissa muttered under her breath. She counted herself lucky to have ferreted out that information before she had foolishly barged aboard and tried to kiss her fantasy man.

She ducked behind a lamppost to watch Terence one last time before she let go of her high school dream, and returned to her husband and her everyday life.

Terence shook out a dark blue t-shirt, and his sculpted chest disappeared when he pulled it over his head. He stretched, and a pair of red checkered boxers inched slightly above his baggy jeans which rode low on his hips. He raked his fingers through his thick black hair and climbed into the cockpit.

A sense of sadness washed over Marissa. It would have been quite nice to kiss that man and to feel his skin beneath her fingers, but she was content. Her breathing had returned to normal, and her heart was once again beating comfortably within her chest. No matter how hard she had tried to justify it, she knew that kissing Terence Javier would have been wrong.

A moment later, the engines turned over and sputtered to life. While the boat idled, Terence got up and stowed a few items. Then he slid up beside his girlfriend, whispered something in her ear, and the woman laughed.

Marissa’s jaw dropped. She knew that laugh. That woman was not Terence’s girlfriend, it was Annie Harper!

Terence jumped back into the cockpit, and the boat chugged slowly away from the dock.

Horrified, Marissa ran down the harbor screaming Annie’s name. She crashed into a chain-link fence which sectioned off a deteriorating part of the dock, and her pursuit was brought to an abrupt halt.

Just before the boat was totally out of range, Annie looked over her shoulder, raised her hand, and waved.

Marissa could not believe what had just happened. She kicked herself for not noticing what was going on sooner. Annie’s auburn hair, slim body and over the top mannerisms were as familiar to her as anyone’s could possibly be. She was disgusted with herself. If she hadn’t been so busy going gaga over Terence, she would have had time to stop them. Annie’s actions were inexcusable and in that one pivotal moment, Marissa knew their relationship would never be the same.

With the boat a mere dot on the horizon, Marissa let out one piercing frustrated cry and pounded the air with her fists. Ignoring the stares of a few curious onlookers, Marissa turned and stormed back to the hotel.