“I suppose Eau Claire and Bloomington aren’t very different,” Summer said. “More like each other than either of them is like Crab Claw Key. Not that people there are boring or all the same—they aren’t. But everything here is raised to a more extreme level.”
“That’s good and bad, I guess,” Seth said.
“I know. You have to watch out or you lose yourself here, right?” She gave Seth an affectionate smile. “I remember you telling me that. What was it? ‘Tropical rot’?”
Seth laughed. “Did I say that? Hmm, sounds like me, I have to admit.” He grew more serious. “I think that at the time I just wanted to find some way to keep you from falling for Adam Merrick.”
Summer’s smile faded. “I guess I’d have been better off if I’d listened to you.”
Seth kept his face immobile, but in his eyes there was a smug, satisfied look that annoyed Summer just a little.
“Go ahead. You want to say ‘I told you so,’” Summer said.
“No, I don’t,” Seth said. “I don’t want you to feel bad. I just want—”
“Yo, Summer, what are you doing in here? Trying to pretend you’re a tourist?”
They both looked up and saw J.T., wearing his usual cook’s whites. But there was something different, Summer realized—for once, his apron was clean.
J.T. noticed her dubious stare. “I can’t come out into the dining room looking like my usual disaster area,” he explained. “Seth, right?” He held out his hand to Seth.
Seth shook it. “Yeah, we met once, I guess, back last year when you and Marquez were…Um…Well, I stepped right in it, didn’t I?”
J.T. waved it off. “Forget it, man. Ancient history. I just came out to see if I can cook up something special for my favorite waitress.”
Just then Lianne walked up to the table, her order pad at the ready.
“I thought I was your favorite waitress, J.T,” she said, looking up at him with a look of near-adoration.
J.T. returned the intimate smile. “Well…”
Lianne looked coolly down at Seth and deliberately put her arm around J.T.’s waist. J.T. put his arm around Lianne.
Seth looked at Lianne. Then he looked at J.T. He was clearly trying not to react, but Lianne had been his girlfriend for years.
Lianne shot a triumphant look at Summer. A look that said, “See, you may have Seth now, but I’m not exactly crying myself to sleep every night.” Then Lianne turned a slow, cold smile on Seth.
J.T. glanced sheepishly at Summer, suffering the usual male embarrassment at any public display of affection. But he had forgotten the more important point—Seth was Lianne’s former boyfriend. Then, seeming to make the connection in his mind, his eyes widened and he looked a bit nervously at Seth.
Just to complete the circle of discomfort, Marquez sauntered up.
Marquez instantly spotted Lianne’s arm around J.T.’s waist. Her nostrils flared. Her lip tried to jerk itself into a sneer.
J.T. shifted uncomfortably, as though he suddenly wished Lianne’s arm was somewhere else. Or at least wished he was somewhere else.
Seth took a deep breath and prudently buried his face in his menu.
Marquez sent Lianne a look that could have frozen the sun. But Lianne returned the look with one of defiant spite.
“So,” Summer said brightly. “What’s good on the menu tonight?” This was dangerous. Diver had just blown off Marquez. This was not the time for her to be around J.T. and Lianne acting lovey-dovey.
“Maybe you should get back in the kitchen,” Marquez said to J.T. “Cooks aren’t supposed to be out here making the place look bad.”
“What are you, the manager now?” J.T. shot back.
“How about if you go back to the hostess stand,” Lianne said to Marquez. “This is my table. I’m their waitress. It’s my responsibility.”
Summer saw the flame light up in Marquez’s eyes. “Marquez, let’s all just—” Summer began. Too late.
“Then why don’t you act responsible instead of hanging all over the cook, practically feeling him up here in the middle of the restaurant. People are trying to eat.”
Lianne sucked in her breath sharply. “How is this any of your business, Marquez? You and J.T. are not together anymore. So get lost.”
“Only a sleazy lowlife would go after some guy who just broke up with his girlfriend,” Marquez said in a voice that carried clearly to several adjoining tables. “I mean, are you so desperate you’re going to jump all over J.T. when he and I just broke up a few weeks ago?”
Lianne lowered her voice to a silky, dangerous tone. “Is that so, Marquez? Then what about your friend Summer?”
Marquez looked blank. “What?”
“You may notice she’s here with Seth, even though Seth and I just broke up. If I’m a sleazy lowlife, then so is Summer.”
“That’s different,” Marquez said lamely. She sent Summer a quick shrug of apology.
“Lianne, why don’t you just leave me and Summer out of this,” Seth said quietly, emerging from his menu.
“Oh, perfect. Sethie doing his protective thing, as always,” Lianne sneered. “Sethie is so protective. Like an extra father.”
Summer glanced at Seth. He looked angry but calm. She felt embarrassed. It was pretty clear that J.T. felt the same way. Their eyes met. He shrugged helplessly.
“Look, how about if we—”
“Look, how about if we—”
Summer stopped and looked at J.T. in confusion. They had both said the same thing at the same moment.
“I was just going to say, how about if we all back off and start over again,” J.T. said.
Summer nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Let’s stop all this, okay, guys?” Her gaze met J.T.’s again. She saw her own troubled feelings reflected in his eyes.
To Summer’s surprise, Marquez was suddenly reasonable. “Summer’s right. Let’s try and act our ages.” To J.T. she added, “As opposed to our IQs.” And to Lianne, “Or our bra size.”
Well, as reasonable as Marquez ever was. J.T. looked sheepish. “How about if I just go back to my kitchen and Marquez goes back to the hostess stand, and, um, maybe we’ll just get someone else besides Lianne to wait on you.”
“Whatever you say, sweetheart,” Lianne said to J.T., adding extra emphasis to the sweetheart. “I’ll ask Tony to come over.”
When they were all gone, Summer and Seth looked at each other for a few seconds in complete silence.
It was Summer who cracked first. She grinned. “See? This kind of stuff never used to happen back in Bloomington.”
Seth chuckled. “Not in Eau Claire, either.”
“It’s that tropical rot,” Summer said. She began to giggle. “I think we should run for it.”
“Right behind you. I know a place where we can get some conch fritters. And then tomorrow we’ll spend the whole day underwater with nice, sensible fish.”
Marquez waited for an hour before she got the opportunity to corner J.T. She lurked around until she saw him go into the walk-in refrigerator. She glanced behind her, making sure that Lianne was nowhere in sight, then she swiftly followed him in. He had his back turned to her as he counted portions of fish in long steel trays.
She wasted no time on preliminaries. “I can’t believe you would replace me with that skinny little witch Lianne. I thought you had better taste than that.”
“Go away, Marquez. I have work to do.”
“You totally made a fool of yourself out there,” Marquez said. “I hope you’re satisfied.”
J.T. turned around. “I don’t get it, Marquez. What do you want from me?”
“Nothing. I don’t want anything from you,” she said.
“Yeah? Then why are you here?”
“I just wanted to tell you I can’t believe you’re seeing Lianne.”
“Why is it any of your business?”
“I have a right to have an opinion,” Marquez said. “And that’s my opinion. It’s a free country.”
“Like I said, I can’t believe you’re going with Lianne, that’s all. She’s only the witch of the universe. You know what she did to try to hang on to Seth? Did you hear about that? How she tried to make Summer think she was sleeping with Seth? That’s the kind of girl you want to go out with?”
To Marquez’s surprise, J.T. nodded. “Yes,” he said with perfect seriousness. “Maybe it is. So she went too far, trying to hold on to a relationship she cared about. At least she did care. At least she tried. Unlike some people who walk away as soon as things get a little difficult. Maybe that seems like a pretty good thing to me right now. I’d like to know what it’s like to have a girlfriend who cares enough to fight for me.”
The remark stung Marquez, and she struck back, harder than she’d intended. “Did you tell her all about your little fantasy that your parents aren’t your real parents? Did you tell her all about how nuts you went?”
“Yes, I did,” J.T. said softly. “I told her all of it. I told her it made me feel lost and confused. That I loved my parents, but I was worried about what it meant that I didn’t have a birth certificate or adoption papers.”
“You told her?”
“Yeah. And you know what? She didn’t run for the nearest exit. Unlike certain people. She didn’t just blow me off and tell me to get over it. Unlike certain people.”
Marquez could tell him, tell him right now what she suspected about him and Summer and a lost boy named Jonathan. It would probably devastate him. He would be upset. He would feel hurt. Maybe it would serve him right. At this moment, she wanted to hurt him.
And then he would run straight to Lianne, and Lianne would comfort him.
“I’m sure it was a very sweet, tender scene,” Marquez said, sneering as contemptuously as she could manage. But it wasn’t very convincing. She suddenly realized she felt an ache inside her chest. She felt hollow. Empty. The cold of the walk-in seemed very noticeable.
J.T. wasn’t just seeing Lianne to spite Marquez. That was a new and disturbing realization.
“It was something new for me,” J.T. said. “I felt bad, and she made me feel better. And she told me how bad she felt over Seth, and I guess I made her feel better. I understand that’s what relationships are like.”
“But you’re not…serious or anything,” Marquez said. “Not about Lianne?”
He shook his head, almost pityingly. “I have work to do.”
13
Video Blog
I don’t really have much time to do this, Jen, but I wanted to get in one last message before I post this. I just played back the part of the video with Seth and me on it. He’s usually more serious than he was being there.
Tomorrow morning Seth and I are going on a diving trip, now that I’m an official scuba diver, over to this island called Geiger Key. No one lives there, but the diving is supposed to be really cool. They have a sunken freighter and all these caves that are full of fish and stuff, and Seth says the tourists don’t go there much.
Listen to me—like I’m some kind of local.
Anyway, it’s going to be like an all-day thing. We won’t get back until late. He kind of suggested we could just camp out overnight, but I gave that a big N-O. Last time I stayed overnight somewhere was at Adam’s. Besides, if I said yes, Seth would just think it was a sign I was ready to make some big commitment, which I’m not.
I don’t even know why, Jen, it’s just this feeling I’ve had. I keep having the same dreams about Jonathan. I don’t know why. I never, ever used to dream about him. I think maybe it’s some kind of warning, you know, about losing someone you love. What else could it be?
Okay, yes, I know, it could be that I’m just having dreams and no big deal. Or else I’m eating pizza before I go to bed and it’s giving me nightmares. Only they aren’t nightmares. They’re tied up somehow with being down here. I don’t know, forget it, I’m babbling.
I have no time to babble. I have to get ready for this trip tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to it.
At least, I think I am. I really love diving now. And I really like spending time with Seth. Maybe that’s the problem: I like spending time with him too much. Oh well, things could be worse.
And look, look at this—tan line. Definite tan line. That puts my Florida tan ahead of your California tan, I believe. Anyway…I have to get to bed early, be rested and all. Long day tomorrow. And I’m really looking forward to it.
What I’m not looking forward to is falling asleep tonight and having that dream again.
14
Getting in Deeper and Deeper
It was a two-hour trip by boat, flying along over the light chop, skipping from wave to wave almost as fast as by car. Ten minutes into the trip Summer had felt a little seasick from the constant up-and-down movement, the series of small and large shocks, but then, after a while, her body adjusted. She managed not to hurl, which she considered a major accomplishment.
Seth had borrowed the boat from a friend. It was not as sleek as Adam’s boat, but it felt safe enough and was as fast as Summer could stand.
The morning had started gray and overcast with fog that had hidden the sun and turned the water dark and threatening. But by nine in the morning the fog had burned away, and soon after, the clouds blew away to the west. Now, as they neared the small, low island, the sun was at full midmorning intensity, climbing the blue sky, turning the water green and translucent, like an antique glass bottle.
“There it is, Geiger Key,” Seth yelled over the roar of the engines. “Either that or I’ve gone too far and it’s Cuba. In which case we can go visit Marquez’s relatives.” He throttled down, reducing speed.
“I don’t see any other boats,” Summer said, scanning with a hand over her eyes to block the sun. The island was little more than a stretch of beach some quarter-mile long, a boomerang-shaped sandbar with a decorative fringe of palm trees and some low bushes clumped around incongruous outcroppings of rock. It looked as if a few good waves could wash it away permanently. “Not much to it, is there?” Summer said. “I mean, somehow you expect to see some waterfront condos or a Marriott.”
“It’s not what’s above the water that counts, it’s what’s down below,” Seth said. He reduced speed still further, letting the boat creep along the shoreline, close enough to the beach so that Summer could have easily swum ashore. The sand was pure white and smooth—no human footprints, no tire tracks, just the tiny three-toed prints of shore birds.
A dozen or so tiny sanderlings scurried busily along the wet sand, evading the lapping edge of the surf. A snow-white egret stood nearby, looking superior and a little stupid on its tall, toothpick legs.
“How do you know when we’re in the right spot?” Summer wondered.
“See that big palm there? And that rocky outcropping there? I just line them up. Nothing to it, once you know where to look.”
Seth looked confident, but the isolation of the little island, in the middle of what looked like a million square miles of trackless Gulf water, was a little intimidating to Summer. They hadn’t seen another boat in the last half hour. And with the constant roar of the boat’s engines suddenly gone, it seemed to Summer that the world was vast and empty around them. Endless blue sky above, broken only by a few cotton ball clouds far off, the endless blue-green sea around them, and nothing to cling to in all that emptiness but this minuscule boat and a scarcely larger island.
“Quiet, isn’t it?” Seth whispered, grinning, as if he’d read her mind.
“It does kind of make you want to whisper, like being in a huge museum or church or something.”
“So, ready to suit up?” He climbed up onto the bow, freed the anchor, and threw it over the side.
“I guess so,” Summer said, still oppressed by the isolation.
“Okay, we have to pace ourselves, stay down a little while, then take a break
before we go down again. I thought maybe we’d have a picnic lunch on the beach after we work up an appetite. Eat those sandwiches you made.”
“Cool,” Summer said, trying to sound as nonchalant as he.
Since her first dive, Summer had grown competent at the ritual of suiting up—sliding into the tight rubber jacket, adjusting it to eliminate uncomfortable binding, carefully seating the straps of her tank, automatically checking her air hose and regulator, even spitting into her face mask like a professional.
Seth double-checked every step, watching over her protectively.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready.”
“Okay, now remember, keep clear of any sharp edges. There’s rusted steel down there, and you don’t want to slice your air hose. If you do and I’m right there, we’ll buddy breathe, right? Otherwise, make an ascent with the air you have. Just remember—”
“Never rise faster than the smallest bubble,” Summer said. “I’ll be good.”
“And of course, look out for old Stinker,” Seth said.
“Who—what—?”
“Oh, he’s the great white shark who hangs around here. Huge.” Seth spread his hands as far as they would go. “He’s got a mouth wider than this. They say he got fat on the bodies of all the guys who went down with the freighter, and he’s never lost his taste for human flesh.”
Summer turned pale.
“I’m kidding,” Seth said, terribly amused by his joke. “Kidding. Just a little diving humor.”
To show him he hadn’t scared her, Summer calmly sat down on the side of the boat, pulled down her mask, and rolled backward into the sea. Once under, she took a quick survey, just in case Seth hadn’t really been joking. There were no sharks, as far as she could see.
There was a depth-charge explosion as Seth dropped into the water above her. He paddled down and took a slow inspection tour around her, checking her gear one more time. Then, with a “follow me” wave, he was off.
Summer twisted to point in the same direction, then gave several hard kicks to catch up.
Beach Blondes Page 26
