“Let it go, baby,” Dad said, patting my knee. “Not worth it.”
Pop surfaced from his haze long enough to agree with him. “Rise above,” he said, raising a fist.
“I know, I know.” And I did know, but knowing didn’t help ease my guilt. Instead of drawing attention away from them, like I usually managed to do, I’d drawn it to them. Unintentionally, but still. Ever since I was little, I’d felt a responsibility to shield them from that kind of thing. It wasn’t my job, I knew, and they’d been dealing with hate and intolerance long before I came along, but I still blamed myself when I failed to stop it from happening. They may have gotten used to the comments, but I never would.
To distract myself from Baldie, who’d wisely switched seats when he was through harassing the ref, I dug out my cell phone and opened my messages. Right away, my gaze zeroed in on last week’s texts with Emmett, preserved for all eternity in my phone. Or maybe not. My thumb hovered over the EDIT button as I debated whether or not to delete them for good. I wouldn’t have even bothered, but Dad’s words from Sunday night still weighed on me. In fact, I felt so uneasy about the idea of Emmett possibly liking me, I didn’t even consider inviting him to the game. I even thought about canceling our little caper later on, but my desire to teach Nate a lesson overrode any worries I may have had about potential awkwardness between Emmett and me.
Besides, maybe Dad had it all wrong. I hadn’t noticed Emmett watching me with any particular interest. Then again, maybe the reason I hadn’t noticed was because I always made a conscious effort not to watch him. Especially with Harper around.
God, I thought as I hit the BACK button, leaving the texts alone, I’m a horrible daughter and a horrible cousin. And friend, I added, thinking about Shay, who still hadn’t replied to the half a dozen emails I’d sent her since the day she supposedly blocked my texts. Obviously, one thoughtless mistake on my part had been enough to ruin our friendship beyond repair.
Sometimes I wished I could be more like Harper and Emmett and even Pop. They held back, observed quietly, considered each possible consequence before proceeding. Me, I tended to rush right in, vocal and impulsive, focusing only on what was right in front of me.
Despite the fact that I prided myself in being a rebel, I’d never actually sneaked out of the house before. For one, it wasn’t exactly easy to sneak out of a fourth-floor condo, and two, Pop was often awake at odd hours, writing. However, I was in a cottage with many viable exits, and both my dads were sound asleep by midnight.
At twelve-fifteen, I emerged from my room, tiptoed across the kitchen, and slipped silently out the sliding glass door to the deck. It was that simple. When I reached the yard, I paused and pulled on my shoes before continuing on to the road. I didn’t turn on my flashlight until I was entirely out of view of the cottage.
Emmett was in the exact place we’d agreed upon—next to the big spruce tree with the knot on its trunk that looked like a creepy old man face. Harper and I called him Walter. The tree was a great meeting place as it was near the road and about halfway between her cottage and mine. Currently, Walter’s weathered face was propping up Emmett.
“Kat?” he said, squinting against my flashlight’s glow.
“No, I’m a bear. Roar.”
“A bear with an extremely bright flashlight?” I heard a clicking noise and then his flashlight came on, blinding me. He lowered the beam from my face and aimed it on my body instead. “What on earth are you . . . oh.”
I looked down at myself. “What? You said to wear black.”
He clearly wasn’t aware that when it came to fashion, I rarely skimped. Black wasn’t a shade I wore often, but I had managed to rustle up some black leggings and a form-fitting black cami I usually only wore under sheer tops. Black flats and a sleek ponytail completed the undercover look I’d been going for. And red lipstick, of course, because it just seemed fitting.
“Yeah,” he said, his flashlight still trained below my neck. “I did say that.”
Good thing it was so dark because I was pretty sure we were both blushing.
I moved out of the light and started walking down the road. Emmett fell into step beside me. He was dressed in black too, and all I could make out were his teeth when he asked, “Sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.” Our flashlight beams danced together on the gravel ahead of us. “Did you bring all of them?”
He jiggled the backpack on his shoulders, producing a muffled clanging sound. “Pretty much cleaned out the Dollar Store in town. The only color I couldn’t find was purple.”
“That’s okay. We’ll just have to do without it.”
We turned off our flashlights before skulking up Nate’s driveway toward his cottage, which wasn’t as dark as I’d hoped. The porch light glowed, and muted blue light shimmered out from the living room window, indicating that the TV was on.
Emmett examined the lawn ahead of us, which was plenty big enough for what we had planned. “Do you think he’s still awake?” he asked as we crept closer.
“He’s home alone with his brothers,” I said. “If I had to guess, I’d say they drank beer all night and then passed out watching a movie.”
“I hope so.”
The porch light flicked off and I ducked, yanking Emmett down with me. We crawled across the grass to the side of the cottage, out of view of the windows. My heart raced, and I felt torn between laughing hysterically and hightailing it the hell out of there.
“Do you think he saw us?” I whispered, huddling against the siding. I wasn’t sure, but I thought we might have been crushing his mom’s herb garden.
“I don’t think so,” Emmett whispered back.
We were panting from adrenaline and exertion and his breath smelled minty, like he’d just brushed before he left his cottage. I’d brushed too, but I still wondered if I smelled garlicky from the homemade salsa Pop had made earlier in his food processor.
“Should we wait a few minutes?”
I listened hard but couldn’t hear anything besides crickets and the occasional rustling sound from the woods. “Yeah, but just a few. This is going to take a while to do.”
We stayed put for about five minutes, crouched low with our backs pressed against the side of the house. All seemed quiet at the McCurdy residence.
“Ready?” Emmett asked. When I nodded, he unhitched his backpack from his shoulders and unzipped it. I turned on my flashlight, aiming it at the opening. He reached inside the bag and pulled out dozens of transparent packages, each one containing forty-eight plastic forks. He’d done good.
It had been Emmett’s idea to “fork” Nate’s yard, which involved simply sticking a bunch of plastic forks, tine end up, into his lawn during the night. This was a common prank, apparently, one he and his brother had seen on TV when they were little and decided to recreate on their neighborhood bully’s front lawn. But for me, common was synonymous with boring, so I’d put my own spin on it. Hence the multi-colored forks I’d asked Emmett to buy. This “forking” was going to have some meaning.
Two hours later, we were finally finished and it looked even better than I’d envisioned in my head. A large patch of Nate’s lawn was now home to a fork portrait (forkrait?) that would surely give me away as the culprit, but it was worth it.
“Nice,” Emmett said as he took a picture with his phone.
I did the same, giggling uncontrollably at the image of Nate walking outside in the morning and finding this in his yard, visible to anyone who happened to drive by. It was the perfect revenge.
Saturday night at the carnival, after the Tilt-a-Whirl, when I’d asked Emmett to buy not regular white forks, but red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple ones instead, he’d immediately caught on to what I had in mind. A rainbow, at least four feet wide and blatantly unmistakable. The symbol of gay pride and diversity—that was what I wanted emblazoned on Nate McCurdy’s lawn. I probably would’ve been content with randomly-placed forks had he not made that crack about my dads making hi
m want to puke. And the incident at the soccer game earlier had only fueled me more.
Nate, and people like him, could do with a little dose of color in their lives.
Emmett and I took off for the road, tired and grass-stained and high on success. I so wished we could be there in the morning when Nate saw our creation, but our imaginations would have to do.
“I can’t believe we pulled that off,” Emmett said as we headed back to my cottage.
I grinned and raised my hand for a high-five, but he didn’t slap it like he was supposed to. Instead, he touched his palm to mine and held on.
“Emmett,” I said softly when our fingers entwined. This was bad. Really, really bad. In fact, holding hands on a dark road on a warm night when our blood still fizzed in our veins was possibly the worst idea in existence.
“What?”
I stopped walking and pulled my hand from his. He stood in front of me, mere inches away, his flashlight pointing toward the trees behind me.
“Harper really likes you,” I said in a choked voice. Why did he have to smell so damn good, like soap and toothpaste and shaving cream and something else, something uniquely him?
“Do you like me, Kat?” he asked in a silky tone I’d never heard him use before. One that made me shiver in response.
Yes, yes, yes, everything in me screamed. But my mouth formed the words, “It doesn’t matter if I do or not. Harper’s my cousin.”
“Yeah, I get it,” he said, sounding a little sad. Resigned. “Family is important, right?”
“Very important. To me. So we can’t . . . be like that. But you and Harper, you guys have so much in common. If you’d just try—”
He started walking again, cutting me off. I stood there for a moment and then hurried to catch up with him.
“Harper’s nice,” he said once I was by his side again. “But I can’t force myself to like her as more than a friend.” He looked over at me. “Sometimes people can’t help who they’re attracted to. I thought we both believed that.”
An image of our beautiful fork rainbow popped into my head. No, we couldn’t help who we were drawn to. But in our case we could deny it, if we had a good enough reason to. And we did. Family loyalty was the best reason of all.
chapter 15
A stream of humid air moved in on us overnight, and the next day turned out to be the hottest one yet. Harper and I spent most of the afternoon up to our necks in the lake, trying to keep cool. But after the almost-constant flow of warm weather we’d been having, the water temperature wasn’t any more refreshing than the air.
“We should’ve tried to get summer jobs,” Harper said as we floated on our backs a few yards out from my dock.
“Jobs? Here?” I turned my head to look at her. She’d been acting weird all day. Subdued.
“Yeah. At the ice cream shop or something.”
I let my body sink until my feet touched rocks. “Harper, if a summer person took a job away from a local, there would be riots in the streets.”
“I guess you’re right.” She twisted to the side and stood up straight. “I was just thinking about next year and college. All my friends back home are working right now, saving money. And here I am, relaxing at the lake like a lazy slob.”
“Like they wouldn’t be lazy slobs at the lake if they had the opportunity?” I said, splashing her. “It’s your last summer here, like, forever. You can work next year.”
“I know.” She brushed some water drops off her face. “It’s just I think I’ve outgrown this place.”
I felt a twinge of hurt. Outgrown it? But Millard Lake was ours, the one place where time stood still, where we could reconnect and act like kids again. Spending the summer with her was something I looked forward to all year, this year more than ever. What happened to Operation Best Summer? Had it died along with the old Goody’s and Nate’s last shred of decency?
Harper saw the hurt in my features. “I didn’t mean I’ve outgrown you, Kat. Just the lake.” She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe I just feel that way because of what happened with Nate and Emmett. Being here doesn’t feel as fun and carefree as I remember, that’s all.”
“Wait, what happened with Emmett?” Just saying his name caused a rush of warmth to spread out from my stomach.
She snorted. “Nothing. That’s the problem. He’ll never see me as more than a friend.”
“You don’t know that for sure, Harper.”
“Yes, I do,” she said, skimming her fingers along the water’s surface. “I tried flirting with him after our run this morning and nothing. Zilch. Either I’m really bad at it or he’s just not interested.”
“Your run?” Perhaps some lake water had seeped into my brain. Her words weren’t making much sense.
“I’ve joined him on his morning runs a few times,” she said, shrugging her sunburned shoulders. “It’s almost impossible to keep up with him, but what a workout.”
I wondered why I’d never heard about that. Obviously, Harper had a few secrets of her own. And Emmett hadn’t mentioned it either. Then again, why would he? He was open with me, sure, but he didn’t tell me everything.
“Anyway, I guess it makes sense that he’s not into me. He’s way out of my league.”
“Harper.” I hated it when she acted all self-deprecating and insecure, like she wasn’t good enough for someone cute and decent like Emmett. Whenever she put herself down or doubted her awesomeness, I wanted to kick her dickhead father’s ass. “That’s not true.”
“Sure it is. He’s smart and funny and gorgeous. He could have any girl he wants.”
Not any girl, I thought, remembering our long, tense walk back to my cottage last night after I’d shot him down. Things had felt so weird between us, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he avoided me for the rest of the summer. Maybe it would be better if he did.
“You’re all those things, too.” Building her up was another responsibility I’d taken on over the years, though my success rate was spotty at best. Her parents’ divorce had done too much damage.
“No, Kat,” she said, sunlight glinting off her Ray-Bans as she looked at me. “You are.”
My heart thudded in my chest. Did she suspect? Had Emmett told her? But no, her tone of voice was matter-of-fact, not angry. I was pretty sure she’d be angry if she knew how much I wished that I’d been the one to claim Emmett first.
That evening, Dad let me take his car to pick up some take-out at Goody’s. He rarely let me drive the BMW so I made sure to take the long way, detouring down several streets in town before popping back out on the main road. The icy cold air conditioning felt nice.
Finally, I pulled into Goody’s and parked in the deserted parking lot. Apparently, the renovations weren’t doing much to pull in extra customers.
“Hey, Kat,” Sherry said when I walked in. She was sitting at the counter, playing with her phone and looking bored.
“Hi.” I leaned against the counter. “I’m here to pick up an order.”
She glanced behind her at the kitchen. “Right. It’ll be ready in a minute.” Patting the stool beside her, she said, “Have a seat. Hot out there, isn’t it?”
“Brutal.” I sat down and scanned the empty diner. Even the tablecloths looked dejected. “Sherry, why don’t you bring the jukebox back at least?”
“Nah.” She waved her hand. “It wouldn’t fit with the new décor. Besides, I sold it.”
“To who?”
To whom, Pop corrected me in my head.
“Some guy from out of town who collects fifties memorabilia.”
I sighed. Perhaps Mr. Collector Guy could be persuaded to sell it back. The place was in desperate need of some livening up. Plus, it was the first summer I hadn’t pressed B6 for “Yakety Yak” even once.
“It’s probably the heat keeping people away,” Sherry said, nodding as if trying to convince herself as well as me. “Everyone’s at home grilling hotdogs or eating ice cream for dinner.”
Feeling so
rry for her, I smiled and lied. “Right.”
A bell dinged in the kitchen and Sherry jumped up. “Except for you and your dads, of course. Be right back with your food.”
The moment she left, the heavy wooden door swooshed open, letting in a blast of heat and Nate McCurdy.
Wonderful. I swiveled in my stool and let out a loud sigh.
“Well, look who it is,” he said, feigning surprise. “Hurricane Katrina.”
I proceeded to ignore him, concentrating instead on the salt and pepper shakers in front of me on the counter. The stool next to me made a squeaking sound, and a moment later I caught a whiff of deodorant and boy sweat.
When he spoke, his voice was close in my ear. “I ran into Sawyer Bray yesterday. He said you punched him in the face the other night at the carnival.”
I turned to look at him. His expression seemed doubtful, like he didn’t believe I had such violence in me. “I did.”
He smirked. “He also said that your father—the big, ripped one—showed up at the gas station while he was working and threatened him with bodily harm if he so much as looked at you again.”
“His name is Mark,” I said emphatically. “You know my fathers’ names, Nate.”
“Whatever.” He tapped his fingers on the counter. “Zoe says Sawyer takes steroids and that’s why he got so big so fast. But who knows . . . I always thought he was a douche.”
“Takes one to know one.”
Nate glowered at me and then leaned in closer, invading my personal space. “I know it was you who left that gay fork rainbow in my yard last night.”
I was still pissed at him, but I couldn’t help but laugh at his words. Gay fork rainbow sounded like the name of an indie band or something. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, blinking innocently at him.
Any Other Girl Page 11
