by M. H. Soars
When the guys noticed our approach, they immediately stopped talking. Matthew walked toward Alexia and held her in a bear hug. I watched them, feeling a little bit nostalgic, until Julian waved at me.
“Hi there,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve officially met. I’m Julian.” He offered me his hand.
“I’m Sam.” As I shook his hand, I felt a tiny current going from his hand to mine. Julian didn’t seem to notice. I dismissed it as some residual side effect from my earlier power surge.
“I know,” he said. I was taken aback. Not that I cared much that I had fallen on Julian’s radar but I was surprised nonetheless. I was about to reply when Matthew interrupted us.
“Shall we?” he asked me, ignoring Julian. It was like he couldn’t wait to get rid of him.
I noticed Julian’s frown and felt embarrassed for Matthew’s rude behavior. However, Julian chose to ignore the jab. “Who is your friend?” he asked as he pointed at Alexia.
“Oh, hi. I’m Alexia. Don’t mind Matt, he has terrible manners. I’m their cousin from Santa Fe,” she said as she shook his hand.
“It’s fine. I was just telling Matt about my party tomorrow. You should all come,” replied Julian. “Sean is DJing.”
He was talking to Alexia but kept glancing in my direction. If I was any other girl, I would be swooning by his presence alone, but Julian’s pedigree and good looks didn’t impress me that much.
“Oh, cool. Yeah, we would love to come.” Alexia replied, forgetting even to check with us to see if we hadn’t already made other plans.
Matthew didn’t look too happy about the development, but he just said, “We’ll see.”
Alexia and I said goodbye to Julian and followed Matthew. Two seconds later, Julian called my name. I turned to see what he wanted.
“Don’t forget to bring a swimsuit. People tend to get very wet at my parties.” He winked at me.
It was impossible to miss his innuendo, and I could feel my cheeks heating up. Maybe I wasn’t completely immune to Julian after all. Matthew grabbed my arm and dragged me with him. I pulled free from his grasp and gave him an angry stare. What did he think he was doing? I walked ahead, letting him sulk alone. As soon as we reached the car, he turned to me.
“What the hell was that?”
“Excuse me?” I asked, unable to disguise my indignation. “I should be asking you that same question.” I couldn’t believe he was pulling this crap now, in front of Alexia. What if he lost control again?
Alexia looked at us alarmed. “What's wrong, guys?”
Matthew was turning red, and his hands were shaking. I had to do something about it, and now. I tried to remember what I had done to him this morning. I walked over to him, grabbed his arms and stared right into his eyes. To my dismay, his eyes were glowing like molten gold. If Alexia looked close enough she would see it.
“Matt, look at me.” I didn’t want to cause a scene in front of Alexia, but I sensed I was losing him. “Stop it. Whatever it is you think I did, we’ll talk about it at home.” I tried to put as much emphasis on my words as I could. I didn’t feel any current of power going through me this time, but Matthew’s eyes returned to normal and I let go of him.
“We will,” he said, then turned to Alexia. “I’m sorry about that, Alexia. It’s just that Julian is not to be trusted, that's all.”
Alexia was looking at us in bewilderment. “Fine. No need to go postal. You two fight like an old married couple, you know?” She opened the passenger side door. “Let’s get out of here. I’m dying to see the rest of the gang.”
CHAPTER 5
Alexia
Notwithstanding the initial drama at the airport, I was glad to be back at La Maison Falafel. It never ceased to amaze me how peaceful I felt when I was here. There was just something about the house that made it the most welcoming place.
I’d been told the house had been constructed in the late 1920s and completely renovated around eighty years later. When Uncle Gary purchased it, he modernized it. It was a two-story house surrounded by lush, idyllic landscaping, with a spectacular ocean view over the Pacific. The spacious outdoor patio had a built-in BBQ and Jacuzzi spa, which overlooked the infinity pool and beyond.
The trip back from the airport had been a silent one, with both Matt and Sam sulking. Luckily, Zach and Sean were home when we got there, so I didn't have to continue dealing with Matt and Sam’s drama.
Matt’s reaction to Julian’s comment had been out-of-proportion, to say the least. And the way Sam had talked to him told me there was more going on than met the eyes. But I had decided to let it go, at least until the next day.
Our uncle came home later and decided to have a pizza contest to celebrate my arrival. My dad and uncle were also identical twins. I would have loved to have a twin of my own, but I guess I got the short straw on that one.
The pizza contest consisted of each of us creating the perfect pizza from scratch. Things were going great until Sean had the brilliant idea to dump flour on Sam’s head. It was immature, but funny nonetheless. Sean and I were the only ones laughing about it, and my amusement died when I realized everyone else was looking at Sam anxiously, like a bomb might go off.
His dad looked at Sean sternly. “Sean.” That was all he said, with a disapproving tone. I didn’t know what was weirder, the fact that no one was laughing, or that my uncle was actually disapproving of his son’s action. He was the joker of the family and probably Sean’s role model.
Uncle Gary was Sean and Zach’s father. Matt and Melanie were my dad’s oldest brother's kids, and Sam and Mia’s father was my dad’s youngest brother. They had all died years ago, along with their spouses and Uncle Gary’s wife, in a freaky boat accident. Our family was full of tragedy, but we tried not to dwell on it too much, and enjoyed our good times together.
I looked at Sam. She seemed to be shaking. Her eyes were closed and her hands were shut tight, like she was counting to ten in her head. When had everyone gotten so tense around here? She opened her eyes then but didn’t say a word, just stormed out of the kitchen.
In the old days, a dough fight would have ensued. But after Sam disappeared, no one seemed to be in the mood to make pizza anymore, except for Sean. Even I had lost the will, which left us with only his pizza to eat -- a weird combination of pineapple, beef jerky, peanut butter and M&Ms. We ended up ordering Chinese.
Everything seemed off. There wasn’t any laughter, everyone was anxious, and when I had asked what was wrong, they’d brushed my question off, giving me a fake smile that hadn’t quite reached their eyes.
One of the first surprises was Melanie’s absence. When I asked about her, Sam told me she had joined the cheerleading squad and she would spend most of the summer at cheer camp. At first I thought it was a joke. I couldn’t imagine Melanie joining such a conformist social group. Maybe if she had decided to join the Student Council I could have bought the story. She was a writer for her school’s newspaper, for crying out loud. But when Melanie didn’t come out from a hiding place and I didn’t see any signs that Sam was pulling my leg, it sunk in that things were indeed very different at La Maison Falafel.
For the first time in a week, I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night. I guess not having to see the hurt on Thomas’ face anymore helped big time. Sam had slept in my room, and we’d talked about it a little bit before going to bed. Like the best friend she was, she had refrained from telling me ‘I told you so.’ She just said I shouldn’t feel guilty anymore because I had tried my best to make things work. It wasn’t my fault that I didn’t love Thomas.
We’d also talked briefly about Matt, but she evaded my question about their earlier fight. I should feel hurt about it but I knew that Sam was just trying to keep me on neutral ground. She and Matt were my best friends, and it wasn’t easy for me to be stuck in the middle of their battle.
By the time I got up, she was already awake, unpacking my suitcase for me with a look of disgust on her face.
“W
hat are you doing?” I asked, trying to suppress a yawn. My brain was still foggy from sleep as I rolled on my side.
“What does it look like? Going through the clothes you brought and separating them into ‘I can work with this’ and ‘no way in hell’ piles.”
I sat up and strained my neck to see past the suitcase blocking my view. “I only see one pile at your feet.”
“I haven’t been able to find one ‘I can work with this’ piece of clothing yet.” She unfolded a white, cap-sleeve cotton blouse with a pattern of tiny yellow flowers and made a face, dumping it on the ever-growing pile of clothes at her feet.
“Hey! You gave me that!” I said as I got out of bed.
“Two summers ago! It’s outdated,” she replied, putting her hands on her hips.
I walked toward her and closed my suitcase, preventing Sam from continuing with her triage.
“Hey! I wasn’t done!” She tried to open my suitcase again. But I sat on it and wouldn’t budge.
Every summer was the same story: Sam would go through my stuff and deem everything I had brought unfit to be seen in public. At least something hadn’t changed.
“Fine!” She stomped across my room until she reached my bed and flopped on it. “Don’t come asking me for help when you can’t find an outfit to wear to Julian’s party tonight.”
“Are we really going?” I had figured that after what happened at the airport, we would be skipping the party altogether. Apparently, I had been wrong.
“Of course we're going!” Sam said as she sat up suddenly. “Since when does Matthew decide what we do or don’t? It’s going to be the party of the season. Sean’s words, not mine, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
A thought suddenly occurred to me. “Sam, how come you didn’t know Julian?”
Sam might not have been involved in any extracurricular activities at school, but I knew for a fact that most people knew who she was. How could they not?
“Huh? What do you mean?” She scrunched up her nose in surprise.
“Well, didn’t he introduce himself to you at the airport? A guy like him would have found a way to introduce himself to you long before.”
She put a finger on her lips, assuming a pensive air. Then she shrugged. “We were never in the same classes and I never made myself available, per se.”
“What do you mean?”
“A guy like Julian doesn’t chase after girls. Au contraire, dozens of girls throw themselves at him on a daily basis. He just has to pick.”
“Charming. You make it sound like Julian is the last guy on the face of the earth.”
“Hardly. Unfortunately, a lot of the girls at school have low self-esteem and need to validate their worth by dating a guy like Julian, gorgeous and popular. It’s quite sad, actually.”
“Well, regardless, he was chasing after you at the airport. That much was true.” I looked closely at her.
She waved me off. “Pfff, please! I could say he did the same thing with you.”
I laughed. “Me? You’re so funny sometimes, Sam, and clueless. The two seconds he spent talking to me he was looking at you.” Sam’s face turned red. Things were getting more interesting by the minute. “Look at you. You're blushing!”
Sam grabbed one of my pillows and threw it at me. “I’m not blushing!” she said, trying to look indignant, but I could see the corners of her mouth twitching.
I got up excitedly. “You like Julian! Sam and Julian sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G!” I started to sing and dance around her. That was payback for her messing with my clothes. She grabbed my other pillow and tried to smack me with it. I ran out of her reach and kept singing and laughing. She was laughing too as she kept telling me to quit.
“No wonder Matt was angry. He was probably jealous.” I didn’t know why I’d said that. Why would Matt be jealous? But my comment immediately erased the laughter from Sam’s face. She dropped the pillow on the floor and walked toward my dresser, keeping her hands busy with the little knick-knacks on it.
“You better get in the shower. I want to hit downtown before noon.” She turned around to look at me. “Or did you think we had forgotten about our summer tradition?”
I wanted to ask her why her mood had changed so abruptly, but her question threw me off. The mood had been so gloomy since yesterday that I really had forgotten about our summer tradition: ice cream for lunch – a Munroe girls only ritual.
I headed to the bathroom and emerged fifteen minutes later showered and wrapped in a towel. Sam was no longer in my room, but I saw a dress I didn’t own lying on my bed. I smiled. She was still trying to improve my wardrobe, even against my will.
Not wanting to spend the next thirty minutes of my day on a hopeless fight with Sam about fashion, I decided to wear what she had selected. I was sure Sam was going to try to convince me to buy something for the party, but this time I was going to resist. Or at least try my best.
I loved Santa Barbara’s downtown. It was our tradition to have ice cream for lunch on my first day here every summer. It would be the first time since we had started our little tradition that Melanie would be absent. I was still trying to wrap my mind around her motives for joining the cheerleading squad — or the “death squad,” as we liked to call it.
Before going to our favorite ice cream shop, Sam wanted to shop for a bikini. She wasn’t saying it, but I knew the only reason she wanted a new bikini was because there was a possibility she might need it tonight. It reinforced my suspicions that Julian had caught Sam’s attention, despite her reluctance to admit it.
Mia didn’t care for shopping, so she decided to take some pictures downtown while I helped Sam find her swimsuit. I didn’t mind shopping, but after Sam dragged me into the fifth store I was ready to strangle her.
“So, what do you think about this one?” she asked as she came out of the changing room.
“It looks fine. Just like the gazillion others you’ve tried on.” I answered without glancing up from the Tetris game I had going on my phone.
“I don’t know, I think it’s too small.” She was so focused on her stupid bikini hunt that she didn’t even notice me rolling my eyes at her as I put my phone down.
“Sam, they all looked good. Why are you spending so much time looking for a bikini? I know you have plenty at home, probably even brand new ones. If I didn’t know any better, I would say that you want to impress someone at the party.” I gave her a meaningful look.
She kept looking at her reflection on the mirror and didn’t take the bait. “Alexia, if you want to go, you can. You're not really helping, anyway.”
“Okay, fine! I confess that I’m super-bored. Can’t we just forget about shopping and go outside and enjoy the weather?”
She turned to look at me. I could tell she was annoyed. “And be covered in sweat in, like, five minutes? No thanks. I prefer to stay indoors where there’s A.C.” Her face softened when she added, “But you're right. I shouldn’t force you to shop with me when I know you don’t like it. How about I meet you and Mia in an hour at the ice cream place?”
“Are you sure? I didn’t mean to whine. I can keep you company.” I didn’t want to, but I kind of felt bad for wanting to bail on her on our first day together.
“I'll be fine. I’m bit off today, so it might take a while before I decide what to buy. Just go enjoy the day.” She motioned for me to leave before she went into the changing room again.
Santa Barbara downtown was great. It was like being in London or Barcelona but without the traffic and noisy, crowded streets. There was great food, great shopping, people watching and lots of culture. It reminded me a bit of Santa Fe, with its little cafes and art galleries. I didn’t care for art galleries, but they did add a certain air of je ne se quoi to cities.
I had been walking for about thirty minutes when I got really hot. I was in an area where there were only restaurants around. It would be too weird to enter one of them and not sit down and order something. My only other option was an ar
t gallery, and I grimaced. Well, it was that or the seven fires of hell.
The doorbell rang as I walked in and, not wanting to be too obvious, I started to browse around the gallery, pretending to admire the paintings. I couldn’t particularly say that I liked what I was seeing. I didn’t like paintings in general, but modern art had to be on the top of my list of dislikes. I really didn’t get it. It seemed that any three-year old could paint it.
“Pretty intriguing painting, isn’t it?” asked someone behind me. Great, I had been noticed by a salesperson. I thought they were supposed to have radar to spot a real customer. Couldn’t he see that I wasn’t someone who could afford to pay five grand for a painting?
“Not really,” I answered as I inclined my head to see if the painting would look better from a different angle. No, it still looked like a big old mess. I heard him chuckle, so I turned around to see who I was talking to.
“I like your honesty,” he replied, but my brain didn’t even register his words.
Something was happening to me. I was frozen in space and time, and nothing else mattered besides the guy in front of me. It wasn’t because of the way he looked, although subconsciously my brain registered that he was attractive. It was an odd sense of familiarity. Even though he was a complete stranger, it felt like I had known him my entire life.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.” He apologized, and brought me back from my daze.
“No, it’s okay. I shouldn’t have said anything.” I tried to think of something else to say, but my brain was still in a jam. I found myself staring at him again and quickly avoided his eyes.
“You’re not from here, are you?” I wasn’t looking at him anymore, but I could feel his gaze on me, scorching my skin, and I blushed.
“I’m from Santa Fe. I’m visiting my cousins and uncle.” I started to walk through the gallery just to have something to do.