“I don’t care if they’ve started feeding little kids to the sharks. Janice and I came here to have fun.”
Chapter 3
The next day Margaret and Beverly went grocery shopping while Tracy and Janice worked on their tans. Chris joined them, but not even having Tracy lying next to him in a thong suit could keep him from getting restless after the first hour.
“I’m going for a swim to cool off,” he said. Both Tracy and Janice reacted with giggles.
Tracy turned to her side and propped her head up with her hand, her long blond hair curling around her wrist like a golden bracelet. The small triangle of bright red material designed to cover no more than half her breast slipped to the side. Another half inch and her nipple would be exposed. “Before you go would you do me a favor?”
He waited, his gaze locked on her face because he knew if he dared look anywhere else, he’d make a fool of himself. He expected her to ask him to go back to the house and get her and Janice something to drink, or to eat, or to listen to. Instead she handed him a tube of lotion.
“Rub this on my back?” She smiled sweetly and lay down again. “You’ll have to untie the straps first. I don’t want them to get oily.”
Chris could hardly breathe. He’d dreamed about taking Tracy’s clothes off, about running his hands over her body, but not like this. In his dreams they were alone and she was kissing him. And she always responded to his touch with deep-throated moans, then by pressing her body against his.
A flush burned his chest and neck and face. He was dead sure his thoughts were obvious to anyone who looked at him. It was everything he could do to stay where he was.
Jesus, he was getting a boner.
“Is something wrong?” Tracy asked. She started to roll to her side again.
“The cap’s stuck.” Chris put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down.
“It snaps open.”
His hands shaking, he untied the string that circled her chest. “Do you want the one around your neck undone, too?”
“Please.” She brought her hand up, caught her hair, and pulled it out of the way.
A gentle tug on the end of one string was all it took. He pictured her sitting up and turning to him, her eyes filled with desire.
“For crying out loud, Chris, what’s taking so long?”
Chris filled his hand with enough lotion for Tracy and Janice and half a dozen other people. He tried to put some back and wound up with the stuff coating the tube and dripping on his suit. Janice put her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh and turned to face the opposite direction.
He was such a loser. No wonder Tracy didn’t want to have anything to do with him.
Determined to get one thing right, Chris spread the lotion with strong, firm strokes, stopping just below her waist. She could reach the rest herself. He tossed the tube on the towel beside her and, with great effort, announced casually, “I’m going for a swim.”
Thankful he’d worn baggy trunks that day, Chris headed for the water. He was halfway there when he heard the sound of female laughter coming from behind him. His first instinct was to turn around, but at the same instant he understood something that was as pathetic as it was cowardly. If he didn’t look, he wouldn’t know if Tracy and Janice were laughing at him or at something else.
Tracy and Janice were gone when Chris came back from his swim. He halfheartedly looked for them before he picked up his towel and went back to the house to fix a roast beef sandwich.
Afterward he stood at the top of the stairs and scanned the beach for a long time, trying to convince himself he’d simply missed them when he’d looked before. But they were either gone or hiding.
He killed a couple of hours talking to a lifeguard he’d met that past summer. The lifeguard told Chris that he’d spent the year traveling up and down the state, putting in applications for work as a firefighter, and it looked as if he would have to leave the state to find work. Chris said he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
When the lifeguard changed shift and there was still no sign of Tracy or Janice, Chris took off to see if the volleyball game had started.
The following day turned out to be almost identical to the first except that Tracy asked Janice to put on her lotion and Janice went swimming with Chris. She lasted less than fifteen minutes in the cold water—as long as it took her to make an attempt at body surfing and to wind up with a mouth full of sand. This time the two of them disappeared when Chris went back to the house to use the bathroom.
That evening he stayed at the volleyball game until it ended. When he arrived back at the house he found a note from his mother on the kitchen table, telling him they’d gone out for Mexican food and that she had left his dinner in the refrigerator. She ended with the promise to bring him chips and salsa from the restaurant.
Chris warmed his dinner in the microwave and went outside on the deck to eat and watch the sunset. The wind and sea were calm, the beach nearly deserted. During the night the waves would erase the signs of human trespass, leaving the sand unmarked save for the early morning creatures that came to eat and to be eaten.
When Chris thought about what he wanted to do with his life it wasn’t the job that mattered, it was the money. He’d looked at one of those free real estate magazines that were all over the place, and an oceanfront bungalow not nearly as nice as the one they were renting cost over a million dollars. What was it going to be like in ten years when he’d be looking to buy a place of his own?
Unlike Tracy, he couldn’t imagine spending June anywhere but at the beach house. Harder yet was imagining a time when she wouldn’t be there with him. She was as much a part of what he loved about being here as the waves and sand.
Every year he told himself she couldn’t possibly be as beautiful as he remembered, that she couldn’t wear jeans and a sweatshirt and look better than his prom date had in a three-hundred-dollar dress. She was perfect—her skin, her hair, her eyes, her mouth, everything. Even her breasts were just the right size, not so big they hung over the top of her suit or so small they needed to be pushed and lifted into being something they weren’t.
He was out of his league with her. A part of him saw that as clearly and instinctively as he saw the weaknesses of his opponents on the wrestling mat. Why couldn’t he make the rest of him see it, too?
A man’s voice broke the silence. “Pretty spectacular, huh?”
Chris turned at the sound, spilling his iced tea.
“I’m sorry,” Eric said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I wasn’t expecting anyone.” He righted the glass and wiped the chair with a napkin. “Hey—aren’t you the guy staying at Andrew’s house?”
“Eric Lawson.”
“You want some iced tea?” Tossing the napkin in his empty plate, he added, “I think there’s some beer in the refrigerator.”
“No thanks. I was just on my way back from a walk and saw you sitting here. I figured it was time I stopped by to introduce myself.”
“My mom said you’re a writer.”
He leaned his shoulder against the pole that held the bird feeder. “I’m working at it.”
“What do you write?”
“Fiction.”
“What kind?”
“A medical thriller. At least that’s what my agent calls it.” Eric smiled. “Something tells me you’re a science fiction fan.”
“Yeah, but I like lots of other stuff, too.” Eric wasn’t what Chris had expected. For some reason he’d always pictured people who wrote for a living as a bit on the strange side. He was a little disappointed that Eric seemed so normal. “You a doctor?”
“Congratulations. You’re the first person to make the connection.”
“Seems to me it would be pretty hard to write about that kind of stuff and not know what you were talking about.” Doctors made a ton of money. Why would anyone give up something like that to write books?
“Actually I’ve discovered it’s just plain h
ard. If I hadn’t given up my medical practice, I’d probably be back there by now.”
Chris was beginning to like this Eric guy. He was straightforward and didn’t talk down to him the way a lot of adults automatically did because of his age. “You here for the summer?”
“I’m here for as long as it takes Andrew to sail around the world. Which he figured was about a year, or possibly two if he found places he wanted to stay a while.”
“I wish it was me.”
“Sailing?”
“Huh-uh, staying at the house. You can have the boat. It’s always been my dream to spend a winter here.”
“You wouldn’t recognize the place,” Eric said. “The beach is usually deserted except for a couple of crazy surfers and a few people like me. Us diehards are out here every day—fog, rain, sun, wind—nothing keeps us away.” He smiled. “Which is undoubtedly why I’m no further along on my book than I am.”
“Does it matter when you finish?”
He shifted position. “There’s nobody except my agent waiting for it, if that’s what you mean.”
“Still, I’ll bet you can’t wait to find out what other people think.” He sometimes felt that way when he’d worked especially hard on something for class, but that was nothing like writing a whole book.
“Occasionally,” he admitted. “Most of the time just thinking about it scares the hell out of me.”
“I’ll bet it’s great.”
Car lights swept past them. “Looks like your mom is back,” Eric said.
“They went out to dinner without me.” He considered what he’d said and how it must sound and added, “I got caught up in a volleyball game and came home late.”
Eric straightened and stretched. “I saw you play.”
He was surprised—and oddly pleased. “You did?”
“You’re really good. Is it your sport in school?”
“I’m on the wrestling team. I lettered in cross country, too, but the only reason I went out was to stay in shape for wrestling.”
“Are you any good? At wrestling, I mean.”
He was proud of the medals and championships he’d won but rarely talked about them. “I’m okay.”
“I have a feeling you’re better than just okay,” Eric said. “You going to be around next week?”
The question caught Chris by surprise. “Yeah, we’re here till the end of the month.”
“I have a friend stopping by for dinner. I think you might get a kick out of meeting him if you’re not doing anything else that night. His name is Charlie Stephens.”
It took a second for the name to register. “The Charlie Stephens?” He’d won more Olympic gold medals than any other American wrestler.
“I’ll call and ask him to bring his medals so you can see them. They’re really something. He normally hates that kind of thing, but I think I can talk him into it.”
The sliding glass door opened behind Chris. “There you are,” Margaret said. “I see you found your dinner.”
She smiled when she saw Eric. “How’s the book coming?”
“I’m four pages further along than this time yesterday.”
“Is that good?”
“Not as good as I’d like, but I’ve had worse days.”
“You haven’t met the rest of our group yet,” Margaret said. “We picked up a cake while we were out. I was just about to make a pot of coffee to go with it. Why don’t you join us?”
Eric held up his hand. “Maybe next time. I’ve already used up my break time. If I go back now, I might be able to get in another page or two before I call it a night.”
Margaret took the plate and glass from Chris. “Stop by anytime. I know the girls would love to meet a real writer.”
Eric chuckled. “Thanks. I appreciate the offer.” He waved to Chris. “I’ll let you know when Charlie gets here.”
“See ya later,” Chris said. When Eric was gone, Chris grabbed his mother’s arm. “You’re not going to believe what just happened.”
She gave him a wary look. “Please tell me it’s something good. I’ve just spent a miserable two hours listening to Tracy and Beverly fight about everything from whether tacos are real Mexican food to the effects of tanning booths.”
Chris took his mother’s other arm and made her sit down. When he finished telling her his news, he was convinced all over again that he had the coolest mother in the world. Not only was she excited about his getting a chance to meet Charlie Stephens, she actually knew who he was.
Chapter 4
Saturday morning during breakfast, Chris let it drop that he’d been invited to a party that night. While he waited for the news to sink in, he added a couple of pancakes to the stack already on his plate. For almost the first time ever, he could give Tracy something she wanted—some fun. For the entire week she’d done nothing but complain about how bored she was.
Fighting to keep his voice casual, he glanced at Tracy and said, “I asked, and the guys said it would be all right if you and Janice wanted to come, too.”
Tracy abruptly brightened, sat up straight, and pushed her plate away. “If you’re going out, that means Janice and I can go to the boardwalk—” She caught herself, gave Janice a “Did you hear what I almost said?” look, and put her hand to her mouth to hold in a grin.
The missing end to the sentence was obvious. She’d been about to add, “alone.” Chris wanted to die. Right there at the table. Tracy could have stuck her knife in his chest and it would have been a favor.
“I don’t know, a party might be kind of fun,” Janice said lamely. “Whose is it?”
“Just some guys I met.” He cut a wedge of pancake but left it on the plate. There was no way he could get anything down without having it come right back up again.
Margaret came out of the kitchen with a fresh supply of bacon at the same time Beverly came out of the bedroom. She was still wearing her bathrobe. “Morning.” She stifled a yawn. “I can’t remember the last time I slept this late.”
“You’re on vacation,” Margaret said. “You can—”
“Don’t plan on using the car tonight,” Tracy broke in. “Janice and I are going to need it.”
“What’s up?” Beverly asked.
“We’re going to the boardwalk.” She dipped her finger in her orange juice, then popped it in her mouth, as if that drop were the precise amount called for on her special diet. “I’m going to need money. Did you go by the ATM?”
Beverly looked at Chris. “Are you going, too?”
“He’s been invited to a party,” Tracy answered for him.
Margaret put the bacon on the table and sat down opposite Chris. “You have?”
“It’s no big deal,” Chris said. “A couple of the guys I play volleyball with have their girlfriends coming up for the weekend. Tony’s throwing a party for them at his place.”
Beverly poured herself a cup of coffee. “That sounds like fun,” she said to Tracy. “Maybe you could talk Chris into letting you come along.”
“Mother.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. Would you, Chris?”
There wasn’t a hint of doubt in her voice. She automatically assumed he would do whatever she asked. He felt like some goddamned mongrel dog—fetch, carry, sit, stay, but don’t expect to come in the house with the purebreds. He pushed his chair back and stood. “It’s up to Tracy.”
“Tracy?” Beverly prompted.
“I told you, we already made plans.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing that—”
Chris went outside. He didn’t want to hear the rest.
He headed for the beach, saw how crowded it was, and took off down the road. He was almost to the corner when he heard his mother calling him. She’d seen and heard everything and would know what he was thinking. Undoubtedly she believed she could say something that would make him feel better, but he didn’t want to hear it. He looked up and waved. After several seconds she waved back, letting him go.
He broke into a
loping jog, bypassing the parking lot for the public entrance to the beach, then cutting through a eucalyptus grove. Ten minutes later he was on the frontage road that led to the highway. He heard a car come up behind him and veered off the asphalt to the shoulder to let it pass. It was a Jeep, one of the fancy kind, painted black with gold trim. The driver went about fifty yards past Chris, stopped, and shifted into reverse.
Chris slowed as he came up to the Jeep, figuring the driver was lost and needed directions.
Tony leaned out the window and hollered, “Hey, kid, can’t you move any faster?”
Reaching the driver’s window, Chris said, “I thought you were working today.”
“I’m on my way there now. Wanna come?”
“You want me to go to work with you?” It seemed an odd invitation.
Tony shook his head in amazement. “You don’t have a clue who I am, do you?”
“Should I?”
He laughed. “My press agent thinks so.”
Finally Chris made the connection. “You’re an actor. You know, I thought I recognized you that first day on the beach. What are you doing here?”
“We’re on location—in Watsonville.” He looked at his watch. “And I’m running late. You coming or not?”
Since his father walked out, Chris rarely did things on impulse. Out of necessity his life had become structured, his responsibilities habitual. His first thought was that his mother might need him. But she’d made a point of insisting that this was his vacation, too. His second thought was that it would be rude to abandon Tracy and Janice, but they’d probably think he was doing them a favor.
“Yeah, sure. Why not?” He went around the Jeep and got in the passenger side.
The movie set was nothing like Chris had thought it would be. With lights, cameras, wires, scaffolding, and people all over the place, the filmmaking process seemed chaotic and unfocused one minute and like a perfectly organized and orchestrated machine the next. While everyone was friendly, they were dead serious about what they were doing, showing low tolerance for mistakes or excuses. Chris was mesmerized by everything from the man who rushed in to repair makeup between takes to the woman who seemingly effortlessly operated a camera almost as big as she was. In one scene, shot over and over again for reasons Chris never understood, a man’s sole job was to refill a beer bottle and supply a half-smoked cigarette to one of the actors.
The Beach House Page 7
