by Jade Parker
I wandered over to the food court, knowing that I wouldn’t have much time to eat — - might not even have time to order anything. So many people were standing in line at Scavenger’s that I decided I’d just grab my lunch out of my locker.
Before I could turn to head back to my locker, I saw Sean stand up and wave at me. He was at a table with Whitney and Jake.
“Went ahead and ordered you a burger,” Sean said when I got there.
“Oh, geez, thanks, but —”
“I know. Meat, cheese, mustard only.”
“How did you know?”
“Come on, Robyn. You practically live at our house.”
He suddenly seemed embarrassed. Me, I was stunned that he’d noticed my eating habits. Granted, he’d been right about the ice cream. His mom did keep a carton with my name on it in their freezer. But how I liked my burger? We didn’t have burgers that often. When had he noticed?
I sat down and unwrapped it. Everyone else was almost finished eating.
“We didn’t think you’d have much time,” Whitney said, as though she was the one responsible for making sure I had food.
“Where’s Lisa?” I asked, just before biting into my burger.
“She wanted to get back to start setting up for the next set of parties,” Sean said.
“Is it just me or were these parties boring?” Whitney asked.
“They were kids’ parties,” I told her. How exciting could they be?
“Still. Balloon animals. That’s so …”
While she was trying to think of a word that I figured wouldn’t be flattering, I said, “I thought they were great.” I turned to Sean. “I didn’t even know you could do that.”
He grinned. “There’s a bunch of videos out on the Internet. You can pretty much learn anything out there.”
“We should do face painting,” Whitney said.
“It’d just come off when they went into the water,” I said.
“I guess.” She sighed. “These little birthday parties put me in the mood to have a real party.”
“Do they ever do anything here after the park closes?” Jake asked. “You know — can you rent it out or anything?”
She smiled at him. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure you can. Wouldn’t that be great — to have a party here?”
“Yeah, it would. You know, when I applied to work here, scooping ice cream wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Jake said.
Was anyone satisfied with their assignment? Caitlin was happy, I guess. I hadn’t really asked her. Now that she was actually doing it, maybe it wasn’t as great as it seemed.
“Well, we’d better head back,” Sean said.
“I gotta go refill the ice-cream tubs. I’ll meet you at the kiddie pavilion,” Jake said, and walked off in the opposite direction that we’d be heading.
“You know if I see one more kid unwrap a Transformer —” Whitney began.
“Hey, come on. They’re awesome,” Sean said.
“I guess you had some.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“But he never took them out of the box,” I said.
“They stay more valuable that way.”
“But you can’t transform them! So why get them?”
“I collect them.”
“You two sure know a lot about each other,” Whitney said.
It was weird to realize that we really did.
“Did you two date or something?” she asked.
“No!” we both said at the same time.
“Absolutely not,” I added.
Sean’s face was turning red. I could feel the heat on my cheeks.
“Time to get back to work,” he repeated.
He didn’t wait for us. Just picked up his trash and carted it to the trash can.
“Very interesting,” Whitney murmured.
“You must be easily bored,” I told her — if she found Sean and me interesting.
“I am,” she said grinning. “I really don’t want to do another set of parties.”
“Too bad. You asked for it,” I reminded her as I gathered up my trash and dumped it into the trash can.
“Yeah, I guess.”
We were walking back when she suddenly said, “What do you think of Jake?”
“He’s cute. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you like him?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really know him. It just seems like he looks at me a lot.”
“Maybe he likes you.”
“Yeah, right.”
Okay, that was a complete turnaround from a similar conversation we’d had where she agreed that he thought she was cute. Was she starting to let her guard down, starting to trust me? Or was she just messing with me?
“What? You don’t think a guy could like you?” I asked.
“I don’t know if I want a guy to like me.”
If we didn’t need to get back to the kiddie pavilion as quickly as possible, I would have stopped and stared at her. “Why not?”
She looked around as though someone might hear us. Then she shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Whitney, you can tell me.”
“Oh, sure. And then you’ll go tell everyone else. I know you don’t like me. No one likes me.”
“I like you.” Some, I added silently. “After all, you are adorable.”
She grinned. “Yeah, I guess I am. And you won’t tell anyone?”
I’d never not told Caitlin something. It felt like a betrayal. But still, I heard myself say, “I promise.”
She stopped walking. So did I.
“I’ve never had a boyfriend.” She groaned. “Who am I kidding? I’ve never even had a date.”
“That’s not so awful. Neither have I. Had a boyfriend, I mean. Or a date.”
“I really thought — you and Sean.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know. Y’all just seem to have this connection.”
“I spend a lot of time at his house and do things with his family — because of Caitlin, but that’s all.”
“If you say so.”
“Believe me, Sean and me, no way.” But even as I said it, I didn’t sound very convincing. Was I starting to think of him differently?
“Whatever,” Whitney said. “My problem is my dad. He is, like, so superprotective. I’m afraid he’d make any guy who was interested fill out an application, go through a security check, and pee in a bottle so he could do a drug test.”
“No way!” I said, laughing. We’d had to do a drug test to get this job. I’d been a little insulted that it was assumed I might be taking drugs. On the other hand, I figured they couldn’t afford to take a chance that someone would be high around water.
“Way. It’s kinda sad really.”
“It’s almost pathetic.” I wondered if my dad had hung around if he would have been protective, if he would have interrogated any potential boyfriends. And while I did agree that her dad was extreme, in a way, it was sort of nice that he paid that much attention.
“Anyway,” she said. “I’m sure I can get a boyfriend. I just have to set my mind to it.”
“Because you can have anything you want?”
“That’s right.”
But I was beginning to think maybe she couldn’t. And she knew it.
“So how was work?” Mom asked me later when I walked into the kitchen after Sean had dropped me off. She was at the counter chopping a tomato.
An empty jar of spaghetti sauce was on the counter — its former contents probably in the microwave — and a pot of noodles was on the stove. Mom wasn’t exactly a gourmet chef.
“It was insane. We had soooo many people.”
“That’s great,” she said. “Job security.”
“No kidding.” But it was also exhausting. As soon as I finished eating, I planned to crash.
“Will you grab the salad out of the fridge?” Mom asked.
Which meant grabbing a plastic bag of shredded lettuce. I pou
red some into bowls and Mom scraped the chopped tomato on top. I snatched up the bottle of Italian dressing, while Mom got the bowl of sauce out of the microwave and some garlic bread out of the oven.
When we had everything ready, we sat at the counter to eat. We weren’t big on eating at the table because that just meant something else to wipe down when we were finished. So we usually just ate in the kitchen.
Mom and I looked a lot alike. She had brown eyes and brown hair that brushed her shoulders. I had a few freckles across my nose. Mom didn’t have any but then she pretty much avoided the sun as much as possible. She had this thing about getting skin cancer. Not that I blamed her. It was a problem — which was the reason I slathered on sunblock several times during the day.
“So tell me about your insane day,” she said. “It has to be more entertaining than my battle with dust bunnies.”
That was Mom’s way of saying she’d spent the day cleaning the house — which made me really grateful that I’d had to work. Scrubbing toilets was so not my idea of fun.
I told Mom about the birthday parties. How the afternoon had been even crazier than the morning. Someone had made a mistake and written down the wrong age of the birthday boy.
“We thought we were hosting a party for a six-year-old,” I said. “And he was sixteen!”
Mom laughed. “He must have liked being in the kiddie area.”
“Oh, yeah. With balloon animals? I don’t think so. They found an available cabana and moved the party over there, gave them discounts to the souvenir shops.”
“Sounds like someone was thinking outside the box.”
Whitney. She suggested moving them to a cabana. We rented the cabanas out to guests and they got their own personal assistant who ran around getting things for them.
“We also had a party show up that hadn’t been written down. We scrambled to make a place for them. The mom was so upset,” I said, “you’d have thought we did it on purpose.”
“People get like that,” Mom said. “I think it’s great that you’re working so young. Gives you a chance to see that there are all kinds of people in the world.”
“Speaking of all kinds of people — there’s this one girl and I can’t decide if I like her.” Mom and I hadn’t really had a chance to talk much since I started work, mostly because I was so tired when I got home that all I wanted to do was relax. Even though I was more tired tonight, I also needed to talk, so I told her about Whitney.
“Sometimes she seems nice, seems like she wants to be friends — and then other times” — I growled — “she’s so annoying.”
“Maybe she’s just not comfortable in the situation, doesn’t really know how to act. You said her father’s making her work?”
“Yeah.”
“What does that mean exactly? Why is he doing that?”
I put my elbow on the table, and my chin in my palm. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask, but it’s weird. I mean everything about her looks … well, rich. It’s hard to explain. So maybe she just needs money to buy all the stuff she buys.”
“Or maybe she is rich and he’s trying to teach her the value of a dollar.”
I twirled my fork in the middle of the noodles. I wasn’t really hungry.
“Caitlin got mad at me because I didn’t have lunch with her.”
She hadn’t said much on the ride home, which was weird because she usually talked about all the different people she’d seen at the pool — some of the craziness that goes on. She couldn’t talk about Tanner, of course, because Sean was in the car and he’d give her a hard time if she talked about a guy. Or, at least, we thought he would. I was beginning to wonder if maybe Caitlin didn’t know her brother as well as I did.
“You can’t do everything together,” Mom said.
“Yeah, but we always have. I just couldn’t get to lunch because of helping out with the parties.”
“She should understand that.”
But I wasn’t sure she had. As soon as I finished helping Mom clean up the dishes, I was going to call Caitlin. Make sure we were okay.
“Actually, I think it’s good that you do some things without the other. You two have always had only each other — you need to expand your horizons.”
I felt a lecture coming on. Mom worried that I was too shy, that I didn’t know enough people. She was always prodding me to “Get out there! Experience life!” She’d been thrilled that I wanted to work this summer. Still, I didn’t want to discuss my limited social life.
After I helped Mom clean up, I went to my bedroom and called Caitlin.
“Sorry about the mix-up at lunch. I really didn’t do it on purpose,” I told her.
“I know. Sean was telling Mom and Dad about all the party craziness during dinner.”
Weird that we’d been having the same conversation in two different houses.
“So I know it was just too insane for you to get away. Sorry if I overreacted. But since we started working, it’s like the only time I really see you is while we’re in the car or during lunch. I mean, I’d hoped we’d be working in the same area, that we’d be spending time together — just working instead of playing. You know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I’ve actually been thinking about asking if I could transfer to Splash. How sick is that?”
“Pretty sick. You really don’t want to do that.”
“You’re right. If I moved, then I’d never see Tanner.”
“Did he talk to you again today?”
“Oh, yeah, he always comes over and asks how I’m doing, but that’s about it — - mostly because I’m usually on duty at the time so we could get into trouble if we’re caught yammering instead of ‘being watchful’ out there.”
“Listen, if you can change your lunchtime so it matches his instead of mine, don’t worry about me.”
“You’re such a great friend, Robyn.”
“I try.” And who knew? There might come a time when I wanted to change my lunchtime.
“So are you going with us to see the fireworks?” she asked.
Every year, the city put on a huge fireworks display for Memorial Day as a tribute to the troops. The high school band would play and the fireworks were choreographed to patriotic tunes. It didn’t start until nine thirty and since the water park closed at eight we’d have plenty of time to get there.
“You bet. Don’t I always?”
She laughed. “Yeah, some things never change.”
But I had a feeling that wasn’t going to be true for much longer. Seemed like some things were changing already. Maybe she just hadn’t really noticed yet.
“This is going to be so much fun!” Caitlin said.
It was Monday evening, Memorial Day. We’d finished with work. The day had been more insane than I’d ever imagined it could be. Thousands and thousands of people had descended on the water park. I was so glad that we’d be doing something tonight that would be calm. Instead of having Sean take me home and then have to come back by to get me, I’d packed some extra clothes that morning so that I could change at Caitlin’s. Her house was practically my house and vice versa.
We’d both taken quick showers, washed our hair. She was fluffing hers up, using some kind of gel or something to make it look windblown. I was wearing mine loose.
“Did you want to wear one of my headbands?” she asked.
She had several. They were all sparkly. And I’m just not really sparkly.
“No thanks.”
Caitlin was wearing shorts and a T-shirt with sequins on it that spelled out princess. It was part of a set that Sean had given her for her birthday. The other two read queen and diva. He was always buying her things that indicated he thought she was spoiled. Maybe she was. But then he probably was, too.
I was wearing a red tank top, denim shorts, and sandals. I fastened a seashell choker around my neck. I’d bought it in one of the Paradise Falls gift shops last year. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but Paradise Falls was the closest I’d c
ome to going to a beach. It was one of those things that I wanted to do someday.
Maybe that was one of the reasons that I really enjoyed Paradise Falls. Even though it was all pretend, it was like being on a tropical island away from it all. And sometimes I just wanted to be away from it all.
“Oh, uh, listen, I should probably tell you that I invited Tanner to join us,” Caitlin said.
I caught her gaze in the mirror. She was standing behind me looking guilty. I slowly turned around.
Before I could say anything, she shrugged. “He might not come. He probably won’t. I mean, I just told him that we were going to be at the baseball field, you know, in case he wanted to come watch the fireworks. Maybe we’d see each other.”
“What am I supposed to do if he shows up?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, won’t it be a little awkward?” Two is company, three is a crowd? That sort of thing?
“No, absolutely not. I just wanted to spend a little time with him. Get to know him better. This way, there’s no pressure. Just friends having fun, and who knows? Maybe we’ll get to know each other well enough that he might ask me out.”
But I couldn’t help but think that if he was there, I would really be alone. Caitlin would be giving all her attention to him. And Sean always went with us, but he never hung around with us. He usually ran into friends and would go off with them, and we’d always meet back up after the fireworks.
I guess what really surprised me was how bold Caitlin was being this summer — - trying to get a boyfriend. Or a date. Or at least that first kiss.
Me, I figured it would all happen when it would happen. I couldn’t force it.
Of course, Caitlin was in an area where there were a lot more guys — both lifeguards and guests. Me, kid city. Except for Nick. But he hadn’t really shown any interest in me. We just rotated our positions around the slide and when he and I were at the top together, he didn’t have much to say. Then there was Jake, but I really thought he was interested in Whitney.
“Anyway, I just wanted you to know so you wouldn’t do that deer-in-the-headlights thing you do,” Caitlin said.
