She walked into the living room. Everyone seemed to be there except for Polly and Lucas. “Anyone have any Advil?”
“I do,” April said, getting up. “I’ll get it for you.”
“Thanks,” Avery said, sitting down on the couch. She noticed Owen and Sabrina were sitting off to the side, near Polly’s room, one on either side of Polly’s door. They seemed to be getting along surprisingly well.
She was also surprised when Curt followed her out of the kitchen. “Hey, Owen, Sabrina, what did you think of the band?” he asked.
“It was fine, you guys looked good,” Sabrina said, avoiding his eyes.
“Your covers rocked!” Owen said with feigned, drunken enthusiasm.
“Thanks, but our original material bites,” Curt said, sinking into a chair and taking a slug of brew. “We’ve got to do something before the Battle of the Bands.”
Avery’s ears perked up excitedly. Curt hadn’t said anything about a battle of the bands before, but it was good news. Any chance the band had to be heard was good.
“You’re going to be in that?” Owen asked, not doing a very good job of hiding his astonishment.
“We just found out tonight,” Curt said.
“Before or after you played?” Avery heard Sabrina mutter under her breath.
“That’s awesome, honey,” Avery said quickly, hoping Curt hadn’t heard Sabrina. “And don’t worry about tonight. I know I enjoyed the concert.”
“You sure you had time to pay attention?” Curt asked. “Looked to me like you were pretty busy doing other things.”
Avery’s head was beginning to really pound. “You mean Anthony? I was trying to get him to hire STF for the Surfin’ Spot. He mentioned that this other band, Naked Mole Rats, is playing tomorrow night. Maybe we should go see them.”
“Oh, Anthony mentioned that, huh?” Curt said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “Well, if Anthony says so, then we should all just jump to it.”
The words stung. Avery had only been trying to help. “What is that supposed to mean?” she asked, too tired to play games with him.
“It means it seems like you’ll do anything Anthony says. I don’t like how you’re acting about this guy.”
Avery glanced uncomfortably at Owen and Sabrina. She hated public confrontations, but her head hurt too much to move. “You can’t be jealous of my boss. That’s pathetic.”
“You wanna know what’s pathetic?” Curt asked aggressively. “A girl who has a guy who loves her and all she can think about is messing around with some smug jerk who she works for.”
“Curt, you’re just angry about tonight,” Avery said. “There was nothing going on. You should know me better than that. He’s not even my type.”
“That’s right, he’s not, and you should remember that.”
“I can’t believe we’re fighting over this,” Avery groaned.
“So stop,” Owen interjected.
Curt and Avery scowled at him.
“All of you, pipe down. Polly’s got some guy in her room,” Sabrina hissed.
“Yeah, we’re trying to listen,” Owen added, pointing.
Suddenly Avery realized why Owen and Sabrina had positioned themselves near Polly’s door. They were both trying to get as close to the door as possible to listen.
“Polly’s got a guy in there?” Avery asked, pressing her hands to her temples.
“Yeah,” Owen said, slurring his words. “Came home with him a little while ago. His hands were all over her. Go, Polly, go!”
“We want to see if she’s got the guts to go all the way,” Sabrina added.
“Oh, yeah,” Owen said, raising his hand to give her a high five, but Sabrina pointedly refused.
“You guys are gross,” Avery said, completely repulsed. “What kind of people are you that you’re making a sport out of eavesdropping?”
“A sport, I like that,” Owen said. “I’ll get the scorecards.”
“It’s her business—you should keep your noses out of it,” April said, coming down the stairs and handing Avery two Advils. She quickly washed them down with her beer. Meanwhile, Curt got up and walked unsteadily toward the kitchen.
“Come on, don’t act all high and mighty,” Sabrina said.
“Yeah, admit it, your curiosity is killing you,” Owen chimed in.
Curt returned from the kitchen with another beer. For the first time all evening, his mood appeared to lift. To Avery’s chagrin, he joined Owen and Sabrina close to Polly’s room. Sometimes she really had to wonder about him.
• • •
April couldn’t believe how nasty Owen and Sabrina were, trying to listen in on Polly. “You guys are completely disgusting,” she said.
Owen took a gulp of beer and brought a quavering finger to his lips. “Hush, little girl, this is important.”
“Owen, you’re drunk,” April said.
“Am not,” he protested, despite the empty bottles in front of him on the coffee table.
“And you’re not an attractive drunk.”
“Really? That’s not what I hear—just ask Sabrina,” he said. Sabrina rolled her eyes and shook her head as if she wanted nothing to do with him.
Suddenly they heard a shout, and Polly let out a short, sharp shriek. Everyone got very quiet and still. Inside the room, the unpleasant noises continued. Outside the room, everyone began to look agitated.
“You little tease!” the guy inside Polly’s room grunted.
“Ow! Stop!” they heard Polly cry.
“We can’t let him hurt her,” April said desperately to the others.
For a second, no one else moved. Then they heard a slap, and Polly cried out again.
“Curt! You have to stop him,” Avery begged.
“Naw,” he said, and took a long pull on his beer. “Cool it. Maybe it’s not what you think.”
But April knew that was bull. Curt had turned pale. He was scared. “It is too what we think,” she said.
Sabrina turned to Owen. “How about you, hero? Man enough to take care of it?”
“Damn right.” Owen staggered to his feet and stood for a moment, wobbling back and forth. “No one does that to a woman under my roof,” he said, slurring his words. He took two steps, tripped on the leg of the coffee table, and crashed to the floor with a loud thud. It almost would have been funny had Polly not been crying in her room.
Sabrina bent over Owen and felt his face. “He’s out cold.”
“Ow! You’re hurting me!” Polly cried from inside her room again.
Shaking with anger, April took three quick steps toward Polly’s room and tried the doorknob. It was locked. Panic began to rise in her, and she pounded on the door. “Stop it!” she shouted.
The sounds coming from inside the room suddenly stopped. A second later the door swung open and a guy about three inches taller than April stared at her. His shirt was open, and he looked startled that so many people were in the living room. “What the—” he began to say.
Thunk! April grabbed him by the hair and slammed his skull into the doorjamb with a sharp crack. Then she yanked his head down so that it was eye level with hers. “Get out,” she growled.
Blood started trickling down the side of the guy’s face from a cut on his scalp. April let go and stood back, and he fled through the living room and out the front door, slamming it behind him.
Polly came out of her room, her eyes red with tears and her clothes disheveled. April hugged her. “Are you okay?”
“I . . . I think so,” Polly replied.
“Should we call the police?” Avery asked. “Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“Oh no, nothing like that,” Polly quickly answered.
“Come on.” April led her over to the couch and sat down. It seemed like more people were staring at her than at Polly.
“Wow, you’re like Wonder Woman or something,” Sabrina said, looking impressed.
“Men like that are pigs,” April said, her shoulders still trembling as she tr
ied to calm her breathing.
Avery stared at Owen, where he lay on the living room floor. He’d started snoring. But at least he’d made an effort to stop what was happening in Polly’s room. Why hadn’t Curt done something? Avery sat next to Polly and held her hand. She felt awful for the girl. Polly had wanted to meet a guy so badly and when she finally had, this had happened. It’s so unfair! “Not all guys are like that,” she said.
“Yeah,” Sabrina chimed in, actually looking sympathetic. “Most of them don’t hit.”
“I’m sorry I’ve caused so much trouble,” Polly said at last.
“Not at all,” Avery tried to soothe her.
“It wasn’t you who caused the trouble,” April said.
“It was a good thing April knew how to deal with that guy,” Sabrina said, shuddering slightly.
Yes, April knew what to do, Avery thought, trying not to glance at Curt. “I’m so glad you were here, April,” she said.
Before the other girl could respond, they heard the front doorknob turn. Avery stiffened, wondering if the creep had come back.
The door opened, and Lucas came in with Tara, the girl from the concert. Avery felt herself tense.
As soon as he entered the living room, Lucas stopped. Avery watched him take Tara’s hand and squeeze it as if to warn her that something was wrong. “What’s going on? What happened?”
“A guy got rough with Polly,” Sabrina said.
“Where?” Lucas asked.
“In her room,” Avery answered.
“What was he doing in her . . . ?” Lucas trailed off. Avery could see that he’d just noticed Owen passed out on the floor. “Not Owen.”
“No, someone else,” Sabrina said. “You should have seen it. April kicked his butt out of here.”
Lucas’s eyes went wide with concern. “You okay, Polly?” he asked, compassion in his voice.
Polly nodded, but didn’t say anything. Avery found herself wishing that Curt could have shown compassion or courage or anything rather than just sit there. Owen wanted to help. Everyone did. Everyone except Curt. She still couldn’t bring herself to look at her boyfriend. Her eyes drifted instead to Tara, and the knots in her stomach tightened. You have to stop comparing Lucas to Curt. This is so not good. Her head began to throb even harder.
Six
Avery stood at the water’s edge, staring out at the ocean as the waves lapped at her toes. She wore a red-and-white batik sarong around her hips covering the bottom half of her sky blue French-cut bikini. It was the fourteenth of July, almost a week since Polly had been pawed by that jerky guy.
The wind whipped her hair into her eyes, but Avery didn’t care. She was too wrapped up in thoughts to notice wind and sand and surf. She had made her way to the beach just as the sun was rising, shooting brilliant hues of orange and scarlet across the dark sky.
Now as she stared across the crashing waves she was watching an internal slide show, trying to remember moments with her mother. How she had looked when she was still alive, trying to forget how she had looked lying in her coffin. Tears began to slide down her cheeks.
“You okay?” a quiet voice asked, interrupting her thoughts.
She turned her head toward the speaker without bothering to wipe away her tears. It was Lucas in his wet suit, the morning sun glinting off the red surfboard under his arm.
She shook her head.
He put the surfboard down. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything,” she croaked. It wasn’t like her to be so honest about feeling bad. Normally she would have forced a smile and told him nothing was wrong, and that she was perfectly fine. She wasn’t sure if it was the concern in his eyes, or the roar of the ocean or the depth of her emotion that made her blurt out the truth, but she was relieved that she had.
He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve got time,” he said quietly.
She nearly began to sob at that, but held herself back. Curt never seemed to have the time. She wanted to talk, not just cry incoherently. “I’m still upset about what happened to Polly,” she said for starters. It wasn’t what was bothering her the most, but it seemed like a safe place to start.
“So am I,” Lucas said. “I wish I’d been there earlier. Maybe I could have done something to stop it.”
Avery nodded. She tried to stop what she said next, but it came pouring out of her in a rush. “I can’t believe that Curt just sat there and did nothing. Why? I mean, how could he just sit there?”
Lucas looked grim. “I don’t know. Maybe he wasn’t sure what to do. Maybe he just couldn’t deal.”
Could that really be what happened? she wondered. It seemed hard to believe, but Lucas looked so earnest, and being a guy, he would have better insight into the male psyche than she did. Maybe she should give him the benefit of the doubt. Still, a thought troubled her. “You wouldn’t have let fear or some kind of crazy denial stop you from doing something, would you?” she asked.
His jaw set, and she saw a fierce look in his eyes. “No,” he said quietly. “But that’s me.”
“That’s you,” she said. Curt had always seemed strong to her, but she was beginning to think that a lot of it was bluff and bravado. Looking at Lucas, she saw a different kind of strength. Lucas would never pick a fight or need to prove anything. He would most certainly end a fight, though, if he was in one.
She took a step backward and tried to control her breathing, which suddenly seemed out of control. She turned and stared out to the ocean. The early morning air was crisp and clear, and she could see all the way to the clear blue horizon.
“What is it?” Lucas asked gently.
Avery felt it rush out of her. “Today’s the anniversary of my mom’s death.”
The next thing she knew, he reached out and pulled her to him with strong arms. She clung to him for a moment, allowing the grief to wash over her before finally moving away.
“Thanks. It’s just hard, you know? I couldn’t sleep and so I got up early to come out here to try to remember her.”
“She must have been a wonderful woman to have raised a daughter like you,” Lucas said.
“I’m not so sure,” Avery protested.
“Come on,” he said. “You survived something most people couldn’t and managed to keep your sense of humor and decency.”
“Thanks,” she said, comforted by his words. “Every year I feel her slipping farther away from me. I’m even starting to have trouble remembering what she looked like.”
Lucas put his arm around her and rubbed her back. She closed her eyes and tried again to fix her mother’s face in her mind.
“You know what I do remember, though?” she asked, smiling through the pain. “My mom was crazy about anything French. My grandfather was, like, a quarter French and so she just grabbed on to that. It was the closest thing to an ethnic identity that she had.”
The memory made Avery feel warm inside, connected to her mom, somehow. “I guess it was kind of fitting she died on July fourteenth.”
“Bastille Day,” Lucas muttered. “That’s why you’re wearing the colors of the French flag.”
“Dumb, huh?”
“No, sweet.”
“So how did you know?” she asked.
“About?”
“Bastille Day.”
He grinned. “It’s French Independence Day. Like our Fourth of July. Everyone knows about it.”
“No, they really don’t. You’re the first person I’ve met aside from my mother who knew,” Avery said.
He dropped his eyes. “I probably heard something about it on the Discovery Channel.”
Avery nodded. The sun began to warm her skin. It was going to be a beautiful day and she was at the beach and she should have been happy. If only Curt had been the type of person who came to the defense of women, and knew what Bastille Day was.
Polly felt desperate. She’d come to Wildwood to have a great summer and meet a guy, and all she’d managed to do on her own is get assaulted by some cre
ep. She couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. Forget about letting a guy in her bedroom again. She never wanted to get close to another guy for as long as she lived. Once again, she’d made a mess of things. It seemed to be the only thing in life she was really good at.
She sighed and flipped over onto her back on her beach blanket and spread some more sunscreen on her shoulders before closing her eyes. The sun felt good as it pounded down on her skin, but she knew how quickly it could become an enemy. Just like the guy who hit me, she thought. She shook her head angrily. She had done everything she could to get that jerk out of her mind, and kept trying to remind herself that not all guys were like that. But right now it felt like they were.
“Don’t often see you this time of day,” a voice interrupted her thoughts.
She opened her eyes and squinted as Lucas sat down next to her on the sand, putting his board down gently. He pulled a bar of surf wax out of one of his pockets.
“It’s my day off,” Polly said, propping herself up on one elbow to look at him.
“Nice,” he said.
She watched while he applied wax to his surfboard in long strokes. His muscles rippled under his tan skin. He always seemed like a nice guy, polite. A guy like him wouldn’t hurt a girl. He’s so sweet, and I don’t think he even smokes pot. I haven’t seen that bong since the day we moved in. Maybe it really is art, or an image thing, or something.
She studied Lucas more closely, and then his surfboard. The nice thing was, she didn’t have to worry about him hitting on her. Well, if she wasn’t going to meet a guy that summer, maybe she could accomplish something else. “Is it hard to learn to surf?”
Lucas gave her a friendly smile. “Not really.”
“Would you give me a surfing lesson someday?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” he said. “It seems to be my calling lately. Two days ago I started teaching a couple of kids. If I can teach them, I can definitely teach you. What about right now?”
“Now?” Polly repeated uncertainly.
“Yeah, why not?” Lucas asked.
She could have come up with a million reasons. She’d just put on sunscreen. She wasn’t wearing the right bathing suit. Didn’t want to get her hair wet. But that was what she always did, wasn’t it? So why not just go ahead?
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