Chloe’s voice jolted Julianne out of her reverie. “Let’s talk more about your night!”
“Okay,” Julianne replied enthusiastically. “What haven’t we covered? So, the Fishtail was packed, the music was great, people were dancing. It was really fun.”
“The guys were cute?” Chloe reaffirmed.
“Definitely,” Julianne answered, though her thoughts centered around one cute guy in particular.
“I haven’t been out in for-ever,” Chloe enunciated. “All I do these days is work. I don’t think I’ve been to a party since Malibu.”
“Yeah…” Julianne trailed off noncommittally. She was realizing that her promise to go out with her sister next time around might not work if she wanted to see Remi, too.
“Can I ask you a question?” Chloe asked thoughtfully. Julianne felt her heart sink. She couldn’t have a heart-to-heart with Chloe right now. Not when there was something so big that she couldn’t share.
“Yup?” Julianne squeaked.
“How would you feel about having a little soiree next week?” Chloe suggested conspiratorially.
“While Dad is in New York?” Jules was hesitant—she already had way too many secrets in her life right now.
“You, my dear, are a mind reader. You know, like a bringing-down-the-house party?” Chloe pressed on, full steam ahead.
“A what?” Julianne had no idea what Chloe meant.
“A bringing-down-the-house party. You know, if the Moores are going to level our house anyway, then we ought to throw it quite the goodbye shindig.” Julianne felt her heart thud to her feet. Her pulse was racing.
“But wouldn’t Dad be pretty pissed off if we get to keep the house after all and there’s nothing left but a post-party pile of stones and beams?” Julianne focused on the mounds of sand she was still transferring from leg to leg.
“Fair enough,” Chloe answered thoughtfully. “I was halfway joking, anyway.”
Julianne rested her head against her sister’s shoulder. Her heart was still racing with the stress of being dishonest. “I know,” she said softly.
“So, tell me more about the Fishtail,” Chloe chirped. “Who was there, who was single?”
“Um, Hunter and Mitch,” Julianne began.
“Yeah, but you run with them. They don’t count. They’re too sibling-y to make out with. Who else?” Chloe pressed on.
“Oh, I don’t know. Some surfers. Some guys playing pool—Lucy was really into them.” Julianne wished this conversation would just stop, somehow.
“Hmm. Definite potential,” Chloe declared. “Anyone really catch your eye, though? Anyone special?”
This was becoming torturous. “No one new.” Julianne answered, choosing her words deliberately so that she wasn’t lying, exactly. She thought she and Chloe had covered all of this already.
“Well, just meeting new guys is half the battle,” Chloe said supportively. “I know it was tough for you to get over McMansion Jr., but I’m really glad you did. It’s good to see you going out and meeting new guys.”
Julianne was silent.
“Jules, you know I’m proud of you, right?” Chloe’s words were like salt in a huge cut on her sister’s heart.
“That painting was really amazing, you know,” Chloe said after a moment of silence.
Julianne smiled at her sister. “Thanks.”
“Have you given any thought to applying to schools yet?” Jules could tell that her sister, always the organizer and the achiever, was gearing up for a big Jules-goes-to-college push.
“Sure,” Julianne said. “I mean, you know, some. Nothing really serious. I’ve been sort of…occupied with other things this summer.”
“No, totally. I understand that.” Chloe nodded. “But you should really check out some art schools. You’re incredible—you’ll be beating off recruiters with a stick.”
“Oh yeah. That’s the best way to get a full ride to college, ya know,” Julianne teased. “I’ll definitely bring a stick along to all my campus interviews.”
Chloe giggled. “I think that’s what they mean by taking the college application process into your own hands. Beat them into submission and so on.”
“You never miss a beat, do you Chloe?” Julianne laughed at her own bad joke.
“Oh God, we really are related.” Chloe snorted. “Please tell me we don’t pun alike. I think we Kahn girls may be genetically not funny.”
“I’m afraid it’s true,” Jules agreed—but she couldn’t help but laugh.
Chapter Twenty
“Aw yeah!” Randy called as Julianne and Remi walked toward the staircase to the basement, tiles crammed into their tool belts, cement and spreaders in either hand. “If the bathroom’s a rockin’, don’t come a’knockin’.”
“Oh, stop!” Julianne laughed. “Remi and I are just going to lay some tile.”
“Well that’s a shame, darlin’,” Randy replied. As Julianne followed Remi downstairs, she heard Randy chuckling to himself.
Crammed into the tiny auxiliary bathroom in the basement of the eco-house, safely hidden from the torrential rains outside, Remi reached for a tile across Julianne’s lap and (maybe not so accidentally) brushed across her thigh.
Every time he got anywhere near her, Julianne felt like she’d just walked into a really pleasant bug zapper. Everything flashed blue and electric and she had to double check to make sure that she was still breathing. She pulled herself together long enough to raise a sly eyebrow and tease, “Excuse me, Mr. Moore. A responsible project manager keeps his hands to himself.” She laughed at her own mock-saucy voice.
Remi shot back a sexy, “Oh yeah?”
“Definitely.” She pulled the zipper of her gray hooded sweatshirt up to her tanned collarbones.
Somewhere around noon, Julianne reached for the cement. As she stretched across the tiny bathroom, trying to wrap her fingers around the handle of the cement bucket and grab the wooden stirrer, the edge of her hoodie got caught on a loose piece of cabinet that hadn’t been installed yet. She lost her balance and went tumbling into the bathtub, the cement from the stirrer splashing across Remi’s new button-down, and one lone drop landing on his nose. The bucket teetered dangerously on the ledge for a moment before mercifully settling back in place.
Cement-splattered, Remi spun around, nearly as surprised to see Julianne sprawled out in the newly installed bathtub as she was to be there. “Hey, lady, you better watch where you’re splashing that stuff!” Remi scolded in mock indignation.
“Or what?” Julianne shot back. “You’re going to rap my knuckles with your big bad T-square?” She burst into hysterical laughter as Remi tried to put on his best “I mean business” face.
“You know,” she managed to gasp between bouts of laughter, “it would be a lot easier to take you seriously if you didn’t have cement on your nose.” Remi groped around his face, trying to locate and remove the offending cement. “C’mere.” Julianne reached a hand out to Remi and pulled him into the bathtub on top of her. She licked one finger like a child’s grandmother in a shopping mall and started to scrub the cement off of his nose. Before Julianne could reach in for a second try, Remi caught her with a long kiss.
“I think I missed a spot,” Julianne breathed between kisses, tenderly reaching toward the remaining cement speckled on Remi’s nose.
“I think I can live with that,” Remi murmured back, winding his hand under Julianne’s tangle of curls and letting it rest on the warm nape of her neck. He pulled her face back to his again.
Julianne eased her lips apart, making room for Remi’s mouth on hers. Every time they kissed she only wanted to kiss more, kiss longer, and memorize the feeling of their lips meshing against each other. Reflexively, she felt her entire body relax and sink into Remi’s. She pressed her palms flat against his strong back and pulled herself even closer to him. He did the same.
The outline of his cheek and nose pressed under her ear made Julianne positively giddy. She leaned back and slid down a
long the bathtub’s flat floor, bringing Remi along with her. She felt free and powerful and so ridiculously alive, in a way that nothing other than making art had ever sparked in her before.
“Stop!” Julianne giggled. “Did you hear something?”
“Probably just the guys upstairs making fun of us for a change.” Remi shrugged before kissing her again. Before long, Julianne and Remi were too focused on making out to hear the bathroom door open.
Julianne heard a sickeningly familiar gasp. She froze under Remi, who took a few seconds to realize she’d stopped kissing him back. Julianne slowly sat up and pulled her hair out of her eyes. She thought she was hallucinating. Standing in front of the bathtub, slack-jawed in horror, her eyes filling with angry tears, was Chloe. Julianne zipped up her hoodie and leapt out of the bathtub in one motion.
“Chloe?! What are you doing here?” She was pretty sure her heart was beating louder than Randy’s hammer upstairs. This was actually what it felt like the second before the whole world ended. Oh. My. God.
“Well, I’m not making out with my archenemy in a bathtub.” Chloe was oddly matter-of-fact as she said it. All of the color had drained from her face and her hazel eyes looked like dull coins. “The living room flooded. Badly. Dad’s in New York and I need your help. I can’t do it by myself.”
Julianne looked at her robot sister and nodded dumbly. “Sure.” She heard the word hanging in the air before she realized that she had said it.
Chloe looked from Julianne to Remi and back again. Then she stormed out, her hot pink galoshes squealing through the basement. Julianne began to run after her, then stopped mid-stride and turned to Remi. His eyes widened, and he started to reach a hand out to her. “I can’t see you again,” she heard herself say blankly before chasing Chloe out to the car.
For most of the ride home the sisters sat in tense, awkward silence. Finally, Julianne couldn’t take it anymore. “Chloe, I’m so, so sor—” but Chloe dismissed her apology with a wave of her hand, restoring silence to the car. Julianne had never seen her sister like this before. She was terrified and completely overwhelmed with guilt.
Then it was like someone flipped Chloe’s on switch. All of the color came rushing back into her face, along with a lot of extra red. She went ballistic.
“I can’t believe you!” she bellowed at Julianne, before rapidly changing her mind and switching tactics. “No, I can’t believe him!” She ran her hands through her hair like she was on the verge of ripping it out in clumps. She flailed, and if she hadn’t been piloting a small car down a flooded highway, she probably would have started pacing. “It’s not enough that he knocks me over at the first party of the summer,” she continued. “It’s not enough that he and his yuppie, tacky-ass parents move in and build the largest, ugliest house in the history of the universe. It’s not enough that they’re trying to kick my family out of the home we’ve owned since before I was born to make more room for their McMansion, but now he goes and screws around with my baby sister?! Is he evil? Is that his deal? Is he actually a malicious person who gets his kicks out of harming others?”
If Julianne hadn’t been scared for her life, she would have made Chloe rewind all the way to “tacky-ass.” In any other situation it would have been hysterical that the phrase had even crossed her sister’s well-glossed lips. But she was scared for her life, so she just sat there, glued to the gray upholstery, stupefied as Chloe turned her rage away from Remi and back in Jules’s direction. “And you!” she shrieked at her. “I don’t think I can ever forgive you! How could you? How dare you? Julianne, if I can’t trust my own sister, who can I trust? The Moores are trying to take our house away—they are actively trying to make us homeless so they can install a freakin’ sauna—and you’re practically sleeping with their son? At work? Jules, who are you? You’ve totally betrayed our family. What would Mom think of this?”
Julianne sat there silently, almost numb, staring out the rain-streaked windshield with tears streaming down her face. She couldn’t think of anything to say in her own defense. Maybe Chloe was right. Maybe she was a traitor. She tried to quell the torrent of words spilling out of Chloe’s mouth. “Chloe, I never meant…Remi’s really—” she began.
Chloe cut her off before Julianne could figure out where her own thoughts were going. “Remi?!” she barked. “You trust him over me? Over Dad? Over every single solid thing we’ve seen happen this summer? Grow up, Jules—he’s probably using you to find out how much it would take for us to just sell outright to his parents! He’s probably a spy!”
It had never occurred to Julianne in all of her imaginary spy scenarios that she could be double-crossed. She felt cold all over. Remi was just using her. He had been spying on her for his father all along. Of course! How could she have been so stupid? Remi idolized his father. He was using Julianne to help his father make his architectural dreams come true. Jules forgot everything she had felt in that stupid bathtub, for the past month, and even the first time she had seen Remi at the bonfire party. It was like the anger accompanying Chloe’s words automatically made them true. Julianne couldn’t move. She sat in the passenger seat, tears silently staining her face until her dark curls hung limply against her cheekbones.
“I can’t believe you would compromise our position like this!” Chloe continued. “Did you know that we might have to sell the house? Did you even realize that? I can’t believe you would do this to us! As soon as Dad gets back to LA, you need to tell him about this, Julianne. If you don’t, I will.”
Julianne couldn’t argue. She spent the rest of the car ride in the same stunned silence.
When Julianne and Chloe got home, Julianne ran right into the living room to assess the damage. At the very least, she could be helpful. All told, the flooding wasn’t bad. The old ottoman was soaked through; it would need to be replaced. So would the rocking chair, but it had been slowly crumbling for years, anyway.
As Julianne scanned the room for additional damage, her heart caught in her chest. Last week when she’d given her mother’s painting to Dad and Chloe, they’d propped it up against the grate in front of the fireplace, to get an idea of how it would look above the mantel. Sure enough, her painting—her mom’s painting—that she’d worked so hard on all summer had been caught in the deluge. A border of about four inches of paint at the bottom of the canvas was totally distorted. She couldn’t even tell it was paint, let alone a picture of their beach.
It was completely ruined. Everything was completely ruined.
Chapter Twenty-one
For the next few days, Julianne walked around like a zombie. She called out sick from work, ignoring the obvious concern in Bill’s voice. She just couldn’t face Remi.
Chloe wouldn’t talk to her or even look at her.
She’d never known Chloe to hate another living soul in her entire life, and she never in a million years would have thought that she’d be the first. Julianne could barely even sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she had horrible nightmares about telling her father what she’d done. In one, he threw her out of the house, leaving her with nowhere to live but the beach—which wasn’t really an option, because the Moores had paved over the entire thing and built an amusement park. In another, Dad made Jules walk down to her mother’s grave to apologize in person for betraying her memory, only to find the epitaph had been changed to read, “I don’t forgive you.”
The flood damage in the living room was so intense that Julianne wasn’t sure how to tackle it, so she’d decided to start by cleaning the rest of the house first. As Julianne pedaled her bike toward Palisades Hardware for cleaning supplies, she looked at the clear sky and sparkling beaches and couldn’t believe that this was just a pocket in between miserable storms. The fronds of the palm trees were a lush green, and the beach looked smooth as stone. She pulled up in front of the store, checked her pocket for her shopping list, and pushed down her kickstand. Locking her bike, she headed inside.
Julianne was standing near the front of the sto
re, trying to figure out how much of what she needed would fit in her bike basket and her backpack, when she heard her name. Looking up, she saw Liz Moss, a girl from school who’d sat behind her in calculus last year.
“Julianne! How are you?” Liz asked with a hug. “You look upset. Are you okay?”
Julianne made a concerted effort to perk up. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just a little bit stressed. The storm hit us pretty hard. The entire living room is flooded and my dad’s out of town, so I’ve got lots to do.” Julianne gestured at the aisles of the store. “How has your summer been?”
“Oh, yuck. Sorry about your living room. My summer has been good.” Liz’s shaggy, blond hair bounced around her face. “I’ve been lifeguarding—the usual. It’s been really nice. But I promised my mom I’d help her stain the deck today, so here I am.”
“Well, have fun. It was great running into you.” Julianne gave Liz a hug goodbye.
“Yeah, good luck with the flooding stuff,” Liz said as she turned to go. “But I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Jules—if worse comes to worst, you can always move into that glass castle thing that’s growing next to your house!” Liz giggled and waved as she walked off to find her mother. Julianne sighed and headed in the opposite direction.
The last few days, she’d been getting out of bed in the middle of the night, cleaning and dusting and straightening the house. She was fixing the things she knew how to fix before Dad got home and everything else fell apart again.
When she got home from the hardware store, she beat out the rugs over the deck railing and sorted the wrapping paper in the living room drawer by color. Julianne couldn’t sit still, but she didn’t have any idea what to do with herself, either.
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