“Duh,” Diver said. “He’s a bird. Like he’d live in here? This is ready. If you want some, you’d better get a plate.”
“Just answer me this,” Summer said. “Are you the dangerous kind of insane or the harmless kind?”
Suddenly Diver smiled, a slow, almost shy smile that all by itself answered the question. “I guess I’m more the harmless kind. Only I’m not crazy.”
Summer thought about that for a moment. “In Minnesota you’d be crazy.”
“This isn’t Minnesota,” Diver said.
Summer squeezed past him. She grabbed two plates down from the cupboard and two more or less clean forks from the drawer. Then she followed Diver to the small round table.
“I don’t need a plate or fork,” Diver said. “I’ll eat out of the pan.”
“Of course,” Summer said. “I should have known.”
“Shouldn’t use stuff you don’t need,” Diver explained. “Otherwise everything gets used up.”
“I agree with that,” Summer admitted.
She took a bite of the fish. “Whoa, this is excellent.”
“Gotta be fresh, that’s the important thing.”
Summer watched him eat, watched him use his fingers to gingerly break pieces from the fish in the pan and pop them in his mouth. He didn’t look dangerous. If he’d wanted to hurt her, he could have done it the night before. Or now.
Of course, he could still turn out to be nuts. Only…there was something about him. Something innocent. So innocent he made Summer feel old and sophisticated. He must have been at least her age, maybe a year or two older. But his eyes held no guile, no secret agenda. He was eating fish and happy doing just that. He believed he could communicate with a big, gray-brown, poop-producing bird.
“I guess you don’t have anywhere else to live, huh?” Summer asked him.
He shook his head. “Sometimes I sleep on the beach, but the cops don’t like that.”
“Is your family from around here?”
He shook his head and formed that embarrassed, shy smile. “I’m the whole family.”
“How can that be? You must have some kind of family somewhere.”
“I don’t know,” he mumbled around a piece of fish.
“Okay, let me ask you this. Do you have any clothes? I mean, besides your bathing suit?”
“I have this shirt…somewhere.” He glanced around as if it might be somewhere nearby.
Mom and Dad would kill you, Summer, if they knew what you were thinking.
Too bad. Mom and Dad were far away. Even Aunt Mallory wasn’t there, so it was kind of up to her. “Okay, look, you have to swear to me that you won’t get weird on me,” Summer said. “I mean, any more weird.”
His clear, simple gaze met hers. “Okay.”
“Swear.”
“I swear I won’t weird out.”
“Okay, then you can stay. We’ll have to make up some rules, I guess, but I don’t have time right now. I’m supposed to go to a party pretty soon. The only rule I have right now is that no one else can know about you, because if my aunt found out she’d probably ship me back to my parents, who would take turns killing me and grounding me until the middle of the next century.”
“Cool. If you come home late, try not to make a lot of noise, all right? It gets Frank all upset.”
“Frank.”
“Yeah.”
“Diver, can I ask you…why do you call him Frank?”
Diver shrugged. “It’s his name.”
Footsteps on the deck outside and a knock on the door.
Summer froze. Her first panicked thought had been that somehow, by some unknown psychic means, her parents had found out and been instantly transported down to Florida.
“Hey, you in there, Summer?”
Summer relaxed. Marquez. Then she unrelaxed. The party. Was it that late already?
“Coming!” she yelled. “That’s my friend—you have to hide,” she told Diver.
“No problem, I’m outta here.” In a flash he was down the hatchway.
Summer went to the door. Marquez was wearing skin-tight black shorts and a bright floral bikini top.
“Hey, girl,” Marquez said, looking around curiously.
“Hi. I didn’t realize it was so late,” Summer said. “Pretty impressive place, huh? All the mildew you’ll ever need.”
“It’s very unique,” Marquez said, sounding sincere. “I mean, I’ve seen this place before, of course, but I’ve never been inside. Are those Jet Skis downstairs?”
“Yes. Too bad I have no idea how to ride them. By the way, you want some fish? I, uh, cooked some.”
“I noticed, no offense,” Marquez said. “You get to use those Jet Skis?”
“I can if I want, only, like I said, I don’t know how.”
“Easy to learn. I’ll teach you.”
“That would be excellent, someday. I just have to brush my teeth real quick and then we can go,” Summer said.
“Uh-huh,” Marquez said. “You know, Summer…”
“What?” Summer answered from the bathroom.
“Well, I don’t have a car, my brother’s using it, and it’s kind of a long walk over to the Merrick estate; you have to go all the way around, it’s like two miles unless we get lucky and someone I know comes by.”
“That’s okay, I can use the exercise,” Summer said, trying to talk without dribbling toothpaste. Her mind was leaping back and forth from the impossible notion that she’d let a completely unknown guy practically share her house to the equally impossible concept that she was on her way to party at the Merrick estate.
“Of course, if we went by water across the bay, it would be much shorter.” Marquez laughed. “Shorter and a lot more exciting.”
Something about Marquez’s slightly evil laugh grabbed Summer’s attention. “Across the bay? How could we do that?”
“Of course I know how to ride a Jet Ski,” Marquez said. “I’ve lived here in the Keys all my life.”
Summer stood beside her on the little platform under the house. It was dark and a bit creepy, with the tar-coated pilings all around and the sense that the house, the entire house, might just decide to fall on their heads at any moment. She looked around, wondering where Diver had gone after running down here. He was nowhere to be seen.
“You don’t know how to ride them, do you?” Summer asked, not at all convinced.
“I’ve seen people ride them,” Marquez said. “And I know how to drive a car, right, so how different can it be?”
“Well, these go on water is one thing.”
Marquez knelt and pried up the seat on the first Jet Ski. Beneath it was a little waterproof locker. “See, just stick your purse and your dress in here, no problem.”
Summer pulled the other Jet Ski toward her, a move that involved leaning way out over the water, holding on to a greasy piling and hoping she didn’t fall in. The Jet Ski was tied loosely by two ropes and came easily within reach. Summer put her rolled-up dress and purse in the compartment under the seat. At Marquez’s insistence she had put on a bathing suit.
“Okay, now we just get on them,” Marquez said.
“Marquez, are we going to get ourselves killed?”
“Summer, you need to have more faith. I’ve seen total morons riding these things, and we’re not total morons.”
“Not total,” Summer admitted.
Marquez climbed gingerly onto her Jet Ski. She sat down and gripped the handlebars. “See?”
“Why am I letting you talk me into this?” Summer muttered.
“It will be fun. It’ll be cool. You’ll see.”
Summer climbed on the Jet Ski, which reacted to her weight by wallowing around and spinning slowly away from the platform. Her feet were in the water, but to her amazement the water was perfectly warm, almost hot.
“Okay, see this loop thing?” Marquez called out. “It’s just hanging there. You put the loop over your wrist and then you stick the pointy end in here.”
; “Why?”
“’Cause you need that to start it.”
“Why don’t they just use a key, like normal machines?”
“See, because this way if you were to fall off, the loop stays on your wrist and that pulls out the pin thing so the Jet Ski stops and doesn’t go running off out into the Gulf of Mexico and end up in Haiti.”
“Are you sure this is going to be fun?”
“Absolutely. Okay, now to start it, I think you push this button, this green button. And if you want it to go, you press on this red button with your thumb.”
Marquez pressed the starter button. The Jet Ski engine coughed and sputtered. She pressed it again, and the engine roared to life. “Nothing to it!” Marquez yelled.
Summer was beginning to get a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, the feeling she often got when she knew she was doing something not exactly intelligent. But Marquez was enthusiastic, gunning her engine loudly, and the enthusiasm was contagious.
Summer started her own engine, feeling the unfamiliar vibrations through the soles of her bare feet and up through her spine.
“Okay, it started!” she yelled to Marquez.
“Better go slow till we’re out from under here,” Marquez suggested. She pressed her throttle button and the Jet Ski moved forward. Then it stopped, straining against the rope.
“I think maybe you should untie your rope!” Summer shouted, grinning. Now she was getting caught up in it. They were going to arrive at the fabulous Merrick estate on roaring Jet Skis like a couple of modern mermaids. Much cooler than showing up on foot, all worn out from the walk.
Marquez cast off her rope, and Summer did likewise.
“Real slow, now,” Marquez cautioned. She eased her Jet Ski away, carefully guiding it through the pilings.
Summer pressed her own throttle button. The Jet Ski reared and plunged like an out-of-control horse, and then, in a blur, it was roaring through the narrow pilings.
Summer took her finger off the throttle. She was several dozen yards out in the water, well clear of the house. She realized she was shaking and trying very hard not to admit to herself that her head had missed a low beam by two inches at most.
“That’s what you call slow?” Marquez said, coming alongside.
“I think I pressed too hard. Now what?”
Marquez pointed across the bay. “Straight across to the other side. It’s only maybe half or a third of a mile.”
Summer grinned. Now that she had survived the first part, the rest felt like it would be easy. She pressed the throttle again, a bit more carefully, and aimed for the far shore. The Jet Ski roared off with Marquez close alongside.
It was the most exhilarating thing Summer had ever done. The Jet Ski seemed to fly, skimming over the surface of the water, hopping from ripple to ripple, sending up a shower of spray in all directions that soon had Summer drenched, hair flying in the hot breeze.
She glanced back and saw the stilt house silhouetted against a sky turned red by the setting sun.
This was why she had come to Crab Claw Key. This very moment. This sense of being in a new place, doing new things with new people. This overpowering, exhilarating feeling of perfect freedom in the middle of a perfect world.
Soon they were far out in the bay, and the tiny waves let the Jet Skis go airborne, taking off from the slopes of a swell, coming clear out of the water before slapping down again and surging forward.
Then the engine coughed. Speed fell away. The Jet Ski wallowed heavily, power gone. Marquez pulled alongside, idling her engine. She looked as exhilarated as Summer felt, her dark curly hair wild, her eyes lit up.
“What are you doing?”
Summer pushed the starter button. A rasping sound. “I don’t know. It just stopped.” She tried the starter again. More rasping, a sputter, a rasp.
“Try it again,” Marquez suggested.
“Oh no. Is this the gas gauge?” Summer tapped the glass on a small gauge. It read empty. It read less than empty.
Then Marquez’s engine sputtered and died. Sudden silence, except for the lapping of water against the Jet Skis. A very ominous silence, the silence of vast, open seas.
“Yep. That’s the gas gauge,” Marquez said. “Mine says empty.”
“Mine agrees,” Summer said.
10
Lifestyles of the Rich and Sexy
“Amazing sunset,” Summer said. And it was. High streaky clouds appeared in colors that looked too bright and intense to be real. The sun was a ball of brilliant orange-yellow, just peeking above the horizon, threatening to dive into the Gulf of Mexico at any moment. To the east the sky was already darkening. “Incredible,” Summer said. “I’m glad I got to experience it before I get washed out to sea and end up being eaten by sharks.”
“Someone is bound to see us,” Marquez said. “I mean, boats pass in and out of the bay all the time.”
“They do? All the time?”
“Well, not right now, this minute, but soon. Probably.”
They had tied the two Jet Skis together by looping the armholes of Summer’s dress over the two sets of handlebars. The dress was getting badly stretched in the process. Now, even if they did make it somehow, she would be arriving at a cool party at a billionaire’s estate dressed as clown girl.
The water was still warm, unnaturally warm, like bathwater after it sat for ten minutes. The current was definitely drawing them slowly out of the bay, out toward the open Gulf.
“Maybe we’d better just swim for it,” Marquez suggested.
“Great. And how do I explain to Diana and my aunt that on my second day here I brilliantly lost two Jet Skis?”
“Good point,” Marquez allowed. “Your aunt might not be happy about that.”
“Too bad I have to die this way,” Summer said philosophically. “I was just starting to think I might like it here.”
“You have a better way to die?’’ Marquez wondered, making conversation.
“Better would be about eighty years from now.”
“Yes. Okay.”
“My parents will be upset,” Summer said. “It took a lot for them to decide to let me come down here.”
“Oh. So they’re the very protective type, huh? Mine too.”
“I wouldn’t say they’re over protective or anything,” Summer said, not sure of how much she should tell Marquez. After all, they’d known each other barely half a day, and so far what Marquez had done was help her get a job, only to turn around and lure her to a watery grave. “They lost my little brother already,” Summer said at last. “I mean, I guess he’d be my big brother, but I never think of him that way.”
“Oh, man, Summer. I’m sorry to hear that,” Marquez said.
“It was a long time ago. I was still a fetus at the time, so naturally I don’t remember anything about him. He was two years old and disappeared. I’ve seen pictures of him. That’s all.”
“What do you mean, disappeared?”
Summer shrugged. She shouldn’t have brought it up. The situation they were in was depressing enough. “He was at day care, playing outside in the yard, and then, suddenly he wasn’t. They never found, you know, a body or anything, but after a long, long time my parents fmally gave up and accepted it. I don’t mean accepted. You know what I mean.”
“That’s very major, Summer. That’s horrible.” Marquez whistled softly in the dark. “I wouldn’t have thought you were someone with any kind of sadness in your life, you know? You seem so sweet and normal and all.”
For a while they were both silent, listening to the plop of fish jumping out of the water. It had been a long time since Summer had thought much about the brother she’d never known. When she was younger, the sadness of that one event had hung over every day. It was a sadness that had been there, waiting for her as she was born into the world.
“Summer, you’re not crying, are you? It’s so dark I can’t really see your face. I hate tears.”
“No,” Summer lied. “It was something that
happened before I was even born. You can’t be sad over things that happened before you were born.”
The sun had finally plunged below the horizon, taking the last of the optimism with it. Darkness moved swiftly toward them across the water. Over on the shore a few hundred yards away they could see the lights of the party, an impression of people moving back and forth under the trees, the headlights of cars pulling up.
“Hey, there’s a light,” Summer said, wiping away the tears that blurred her vision. It was a green pinpoint of light moving fast.
“It’s a boat,” Marquez said excitedly, confirming Summer’s faint hope.
“Hey!” Summer yelled. “Hey, boat! Help! Do you think he sees us?”
“Jeez, I hope so. I don’t want to die out here,” Marquez said.
“I thought you weren’t worried,” Summer accused.
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
“HELP!”
“HELP US! HELP, you blind—”
“He’s coming. I think.” Summer could hear the sound of the boat’s engines, deep and powerful and reassuring. The boat was definitely coming closer. In fact, it had just begun to occur to Summer that the boat might hit them. But then it slowed, inscribing a slow circle around them. A spotlight played across the dark water and illuminated them, two insanely waving figures.
“That you, Marquez?” a mocking voice called out.
“Adam?” Marquez yelled back. “What took you so long?”
“We saw you out here, but we didn’t believe it was possible for two Jet Skis to break down at the same exact time.”
“We ran out of gas,” Marquez said.
The boat, very long and very fast-looking with two big outboard engines, drifted alongside. There were two guys in the boat. Even in the darkness Summer could see the resemblance between them. They looked like brothers.
One dived over the side of the boat and surfaced between the two Jet Skis, spouting water and laughing. He was carrying a white nylon rope. “We’ll tow you in, ladies. Let me just tie this…” He fell silent, looking up at Summer, who was sitting on her Jet Ski in a damp pink bikini, feeling like the biggest dork in recorded history.
“Hi,” he said. He stuck a hand up to her. She shook it briefly, but he held on for an extra second, making contact. “I’m Adam Merrick. In the boat there is my brother, Ross.”
Beach Blondes Page 6
