“Pleased, et cetera,” said a voice from the boat. A voice that sounded as if it had been affected by a few beers.
“Thanks for rescuing us,” Summer said, her voice a little squeaky.
“What’s a nice girl like you doing with Marquez? I’ll bet you ten bucks this was all her idea, right?” Adam said.
“Hey,” Marquez said, pushing Adam underwater with her foot. “What makes you think it was my idea?”
“I know you, Marquez,” Adam said.
“This is Summer. She’s from Idaho or Michigan or one of those places,” Marquez said.
“Minnesota. Bloomington. You know, the Mall of America?” Excellent, Summer chided herself. Absolutely mention the Mall of America. That’s sure to impress a billionaire who has probably been all over the world ten times.
“Guess whose cousin she is?” Marquez asked.
“Cindy Crawford’s?” Adam suggested. He released Summer’s hand and began looping the rope to the towing rings in the front of each Jet Ski.
“Summer is Diana’s cousin,” Marquez said. “Diana Olan.”
Adam said nothing. From the boat came Ross’s unpleasant laugh. “Let’s leave her out here.”
“Shut up, Ross,” Adam snapped. He forced a smile for Summer. An apologetic and extraordinarily attractive smile. A movie star smile. “Come on, get in the boat.”
“Okay,” Summer said. Marquez made the jump easily from her Jet Ski to the boat, swinging over the side and brushing her hands together as if she’d just done a neat trick.
Summer stood up and reached for the side of the boat. But the Jet Ski slid away. She plunged into the water. It closed over her head, surprising her and frightening her a little. She wasn’t a great swimmer, though she could stay afloat. But this was open sea, and it was dark, and the music from Jaws had already been running through the back of her mind.
With a kick she headed for a surface dappled and rippling with reflected light.
Then there were powerful arms around her, holding her firmly. They broke the surface. Her face was inches from Adam’s, and the first thought that popped into her mind was that she probably didn’t look great right then, water streaming off her head, spitting out seawater. Whereas Adam definitely did look great, wet or not. Her hands felt hard muscle in his neck. Her breasts were pressed against his chest, close enough that she could feel his every breath.
“You okay?” Adam asked. She could feel the rumble of his voice.
“I’m fine. I can swim, you know.”
“That’s good. Swimming is important around here.”
“Yeah. You can, um, let me go now.”
“Do I have to?” Adam asked.
Marquez leaned over the side, offering Summer a hand. Summer took it and pulled hard but was unable to clear the drag of the water entirely. Then there were hands firmly planted on her behind, pushing her up.
She slid over the side of the boat and gasped out her embarrassed thanks. Adam pulled himself up and over, an almost effortless move. He sat beside her and leaned across her to reach a cabinet. He found two towels and handed one to her.
“Thanks,” Summer mumbled.
“My extreme pleasure,” Adam said. “It’s hot,” he added quickly, as if he realized he’d sounded slightly sleazy. “Too hot, and a dive in the water was just what I needed.”
He even seems sincere, Summer thought. But then again, he was from a political family. They probably had special genes that gave them the ability to sound sincere.
“All right, enough of playing Coast Guard, back to the party,” Ross said.
The boat moved along slowly, careful not to swamp the two Jet Skis bobbing along behind. If Ross was drunk, he still seemed able to pilot the boat, berthing it neatly alongside the dock.
“I’m not exactly dressed for a party anymore,” Summer pointed out, indicating her bathing suit. The dress she had planned to wear was a total loss.
“There’ll be plenty of girls wearing smaller bathing suits than that,” Adam assured her.
Marquez nodded, and Summer began to wonder whether this was the kind of party she wanted to attend. But Marquez gave her a reassuring wink and a little shake of the head that said, hey, don’t worry about it.
“Stay,” Adam said. “Please.”
Again he sounded as if he really wanted her to stay. As if she was supposed to believe that someone like Adam Merrick really cared one way or the other if some tourist from the home of the Mall of America went to his party.
“Okay, I guess. Thanks.” There was no polite way to get out of it. Not now. She didn’t even know the way home.
A neat, crushed-shell path led from the dock across a vast lawn toward the house. It was painful under Summer’s tender feet, so she walked onto the grass, as thick and spongy as a mattress.
The house was just two stories high, but it extended in every direction, looking as large as the main building of Summer’s high school. Some, if not most, of the windows were bright, revealing strangely positioned cupolas and parapets and sudden, capricious balconies.
But the party wasn’t in the house. The party was in front of the house, past the looping driveway crammed with cars, past the naked, spotlit flagpole. Summer could see a mass of bodies writhing under the reddish light of Japanese lamps hung from the trees, long hair flying in time with the music, arms randomly thrust into the air, smooth, tan female legs everywhere, protruding from shorts and minis and bathing suit bottoms. Hairy guy legs as well, looking stubby in big shorts or extremely long in little European bathing suits.
Ross disappeared into the throng, but Adam stayed close, following Summer onto the grass. As they reached the driveway he strode ahead, walking with an easy grace and absolute confidence. Nothing exaggerated or forced, no swagger, no attempt to impress anyone, just a walk that announced him as the guy in charge, at home and utterly sure of himself.
Summer was just behind him, feeling simultaneously invisible and horribly conspicuous, like a stagehand who had wandered into the star’s spotlight.
The sound system was playing 50 Cent, and when Summer glanced over her shoulder, she saw that Marquez was already dancing. The beat seemed to reach across the distance and grab control of Marquez’s body. She was dancing over the crushed shells, turning the gravel into her own muted rhythm section.
Around the fringes of the dancing little knots of people could be seen, here and there, faces appearing in the dim glow of a cigarette. Other groups were smaller, usually just two bodies pressed close, making out as they leaned against tree trunks or against the hoods of the nearest cars.
Summer had begun to feel increasingly nervous as she got closer to the party. The music was familiar; the dancing, too. Even the wafting smells of beer and smoke weren’t much different from parties back home. But usually when she went to parties, she knew at least half the people there. Knew whom she could hang out with, which guys she could dance with, how to say no to the various offers of one kind or another. Here she was a stranger. The only person she knew at all was Marquez, and Marquez seemed to have been possessed by the music.
Ross Merrick took Marquez by the arm and led her away into the melee. “Have fun,” Marquez called back to Summer.
And then Summer was alone, the instant loser, the one on the fringe with no one to talk to. Except for Adam, who was still there, close by, though he was fielding a steady stream of hellos, hey dudes, and congratulations on the excellence of the party. But the last thing she wanted was to be Adam’s pity date, someone to be handed off at the earliest opportunity.
“Want to dance?” Adam asked.
The request shouldn’t have surprised her—this was a party—and yet it did.
Dance? In a wet two-piece bathing suit? With this guy she’d barely met? This guy she’d seen on the news once, standing in a group with his famous father? But what was the alternative to dancing? Standing around gaping at people?
“Sure,” Summer said, half-grateful, half-frightened. What were the chances
that her bathing suit bottom would bunch up while she was dancing?
Adam took her hand and drew her to what Summer could now see was an actual dance floor: interlocked, polished wood planks laid out on the grass. Here and there portions were raised so that some dancers were elevated above the rest.
The Kanye West song came on, and Summer began to dance, intensely conscious of what she felt must be many alien eyes on her. Although each time she glanced around she never saw anyone staring at her, it was hard to shake the feeling that the eyes were there.
“So you’re Diana’s cousin,” Adam said, drawing close alongside her, shouting a little to be heard. He even danced well.
“Uh-huh.” Summer was concentrating, trying to remember the moves she’d seen girls doing on that MTV beach show, trying to stay in time with the beat.
“Just down here for the summer. For the summer, Summer?” He grinned. “I guess you’ve heard that joke about a million times.”
Summer smiled and shrugged. A mistake, since shrugging upset her carefully maintained rhythm, and her legs and arms and head now were each off doing different things, as if listening to three different songs.
“How do you like it so far?” Adam asked. “Crab Claw Key, I mean.”
“It’s beautiful,” Summer said. Was the tie on her bathing suit top coming loose? No. No, but she’d double the knot when she got the chance.
“Just beautiful?” Adam said, sounding disappointed.
“It’s…different. I mean, it’s like…it’s like there aren’t any real adults, you know? No one wears a suit or looks serious about anything.”
Adam laughed. “That’s exactly right. No adults. Even people seventy years old aren’t adults here.”
“Also I feel like people here are stranger, more out-there, you know?” Summer suggested, thinking of Diver—definitely strange. And Marquez—probably strange. And Seth, who was only strange if you thought putting a lip-lock on a total stranger in a photo booth was unusual.
“Everything is a little more extreme,” Adam agreed. “Back home I’m a totally different person.”
“Home? Don’t you live here?”
“No, this is mostly just a summer home. We’re from New Hampshire. I spend about a third of the year here between all the vacations, summer and spring and weekends.”
“Oh, that’s right, how stupid of me, duh. Your father is the senator from New Hampshire, obviously.”
Adam looked pained. “You’re not into politics, are you?”
“Not exactly,” Summer admitted. “I mean, I was secretary-treasurer of my tenth-grade class, but we never had any meetings and there wasn’t any money.” Is it even possible for me to sound like a bigger idiot? Secretary-treasurer of the tenth grade?
“You have a boyfriend?” Adam asked, suddenly shifting course. He smiled. The music assumed a slower, more sultry beat. Couples danced closer together.
“No, I don’t really have a boyfriend,” Summer admitted. Sure, I have this guy I make out with in airports who has a girlfriend, and this other guy who lives with me but doesn’t like girls, but no, no actual boyfriends.
They danced for a while, with Adam drawing closer, matching his rhythm to hers. He was a good dancer, graceful for a guy so large. Graceful and smooth and confident, and like some kind of a sun, so that she could feel the force of gravity drawing her toward him.
At least his bathing suit was normal, not like the little Speedos some of the guys were wearing. “Well, aren’t you going to ask me?” he said after a while.
“Ask you what?” Summer said, alarmed.
“Ask me if I have a girlfriend.”
“Um…”
“I don’t,” Adam said, grinning impishly.
“Oh,” Summer gulped. What was she supposed to say now? “I can’t believe you don’t have a girlfriend?” Or “Cool, can I be your girlfriend?” Or what? He seemed to think she should say something.
“I’ve never really had a boyfriend,” Summer said. Instantly, even as the words were bubbling out of her mouth, she wished she could call them back. Too late. And now her brain became totally useless, because Adam was dancing very close, and the memory of his arms around her in the water was very clear in Summer’s mind. “I mean, not a real boyfriend, not that I don’t like guys because I do, it’s just that the guys who…I mean, the wrong guys and then the right guys were, you know, and…” She was in full babble mode now. Words totally unconnected to any sensible thought were spewing forth, unstoppable. Full babble. Total brain lock that shut down her mind and her body so that now her dancing had deteriorated into spasms of random muscle jerks.
She was dancing in a bikini with the very attractive son of a billionaire senator and doing her best impression of a moron having a seizure.
“Oh, man,” Adam said, peering over Summer’s head. “The butler’s calling to me.”
Thank God. Just go away and leave me to my humiliation.
“I have to go see what he wants,” Adam said.
He almost sounded like he was honestly regretful, Summer noted. Although clearly he was just grabbing the first excuse to escape her. Flee, Adam, flee! Run from the loser girl. Run before she can mention the Mall of America again. “Okay,” Summer said gratefully.
“Um, before I go, though…” Adam said. “There’s just one thing I wanted to clear up.”
“What? Um, what would you…what?”
“Well, around here we have this custom. When someone rescues someone, like I rescued you out on the bay, well, there’s this customary thing.”
“Okay,” Summer said cautiously.
“The rescuer gets to kiss the person he rescued.”
Before Summer had a chance to object—and she wasn’t sure whether she planned to—Adam had put his arm around her and drawn her close. There was a last split second when she could have said no, but then the split second was gone.
Adam’s lips met hers. Only for an instant. Then he pulled away, still keeping his hold on her. “Don’t disappear on me,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll be right back.”
11
Hot Music and Sweaty Bodies, a Long Way from Minnesota
“I saw that,” Marquez said, sounding almost accusatory. “I bring you to a party and the first thing you do is throw yourself at the host? Bad girl. Bad girl. Shame.” Then she broke up, laughing gaily at the horrified expression on Summer’s face.
“I didn’t throw myself at him. I hardly know him,” Summer protested anxiously. Kissing people she hardly knew was getting to be a habit.
“Whatever.” Marquez waved her hand. “So, how was it?”
“I didn’t even know it was happening.”
That really started Marquez giggling. “Well, I guess you’re off to a good start, huh? Practically your first night out and Adam Merrick is all over you.”
“I don’t think it meant anything,” Summer said doubtfully.
“He kissed you. That had to mean something. Adam isn’t a total dirtbag who runs around kissing girls. Unless he’s gotten worse since last summer. You know, someday he may be senator or governor. Or president.”
“He used to go out with my cousin,” Summer pointed out. The thought had just occurred to her, probably because her mind was just coming out of brain lock.
“Ancient history,” Marquez said. “Come on, you don’t want to hang around looking like you’re waiting for him.”
“I’m not waiting. I don’t even know him.”
“Yeah, yeah. Either way you don’t want to just stand here, do you?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Come on, let’s dance.”
“The two of us?”
“I have to dance,” Marquez said, as if that were obvious. “And I don’t see any guys asking either of us right this minute. Besides, they’re starting to play some better music. Rap is cool, but I feel like totally thrashing out with some serious rock.”
From the speakers the Ramones began roaring through “I Wanna Be Sedated.” For M
arquez, the transition from standing around to dancing was instantaneous and total. It wasn’t about looking cool, it was about losing all contact with the normal world, going away to a place where her body and mind and the music were all the same thing.
It was impossible for Summer to resist. Impossible not to be drawn in. The night was hot, and Marquez was dancing like someone possessed, and Summer could still feel Adam’s lips on hers, could still recall the shock when his arm had gone around her in the water and the contact of flesh against flesh.
She had just been kissed by a guy. Kissed by a very cute guy, and she wanted to be kissed again.
As long as it didn’t turn out that Adam had his own Lianne hidden away somewhere.
The music throbbed through her as Marquez guided them toward the speakers like a moth drawn to a candle, louder and louder till the music wasn’t a sound anymore but something that came from inside her.
She’d been kissed by a complete stranger, and she had liked it. Held by a guy she didn’t know and had liked that too. And worst of all, it was the second time in less than a week. Ha! Try calling that “nice.”
The nice Summer Smith was dead and lying in her grave while the new, improved, bolder, wilder, goes-to-parties, kisses-guys-she-hardly-knows Summer Smith shoveled dirt over her.
Summer closed her eyes and danced.
When she opened her eyes again Adam was there, as if in answer to a wish. He smiled and she smiled back. She closed her eyes again, afraid that looking at him might cause her to feel the edge of self-awareness return, the sense of eyes following her, judging her.
With her eyes closed Summer had the feeling that she could dance like Marquez. She’d forgotten that she was surrounded by strangers and was dancing in a two-piece bathing suit. She felt drunk, though she’d had nothing to drink. She peeked from under narrowed lids as Adam danced closer, so that now she could reach out and touch him if she wanted to, touch his smooth chest.
The music slowed from its exhausting pace into a gentler but still intoxicating reggae song. This, at last, was the right music, she thought. The melody of sun-baked islands and warm nights and people who never, ever wore parkas.
Beach Blondes Page 7
