“But what will keep you safe, then?” I asked, with real concern.
He grinned at me, a grin far too cocky and self-assured for a kid his age. “I don’t need a medal. I can take care of myself.”
I still have that necklace to this day. I imagined showing it to our children. But now, in light of the news about Allison, I see what a ridiculous, childish pipe dream that was. He’s getting ready to graduate and marry someone else. And now I get to spend an entire summer seeing what I’ve lost firsthand.
Ginny and I are just heading to the bar when James returns from a run. His shirt is off, revealing a long, lean torso covered in a fine sheen of sweat, and any reservations I had about the job or spending a summer around him are obscured in a sudden haze of lust. His hair is standing up a little in front, and he’s just the tiniest bit flushed, the lines of his jaw and cheekbones slightly sharpened. He doesn’t look like a normal guy after a hard run. He looks like a fitness model posing as a guy who’s just done a hard run. A single bead of sweat trails down his chest. I watch its progress, envious.
“Gross,” Ginny says, wrinkling her nose. “Poor Elle hasn’t been in the house long enough to be subjected to that.”
I am probably best off not seeing it, but not for the reasons Ginny thinks.
The Pink Pelican, my purported place of employment, is an open-air bar/restaurant a few long blocks from our house that does a decent lunch business and a massive Friday/Saturday drinking business.
Ginny introduces me to Brian, the manager, who tells me to take a seat at the bar. “We definitely have room for you,” he says, grinning in a way that makes me shudder. “Let me have you fill out some paperwork.”
“If he gives you an option,” whispers Kristy, a waitress working the bar area, “ask for a shirt at least one size up from what you’d normally wear. I think he buys them at a children’s clothing store.”
This is getting worse and worse. A, nothing is going to come of my crush on James, and B, I don’t really need to go from being hit on by one boss to being hit on by another. Particularly since I don’t really need a job at all—the unspoken agreement I have with my dad is a sizable allowance and an AmEx he pays off in exchange for me keeping my head down and doing what I’m supposed to do. And aside from the fact that my dad didn’t like Ryan, my ex, I’ve done just that. Although he seems to be holding the Edward thing against me a bit, so I guess I can tack that on to the list too.
“He’s not going to, uh, expect anything, is he?” I ask Ginny.
“Nah,” she says. “But the uniform is ridiculously skimpy, so just brace yourself for a fair amount of eye-fucking.”
“I can’t believe James is okay with that.” He was always very protective of her. Of both of us, actually.
Kristy laughs. “Ginny is the only one Brian doesn’t leer at. James must have scared the shit out of him.”
“Same way he did to every other guy within the city limits,” sighs Ginny.
“You have a boyfriend,” I remind her.
Ginny and her boyfriend, who’s in Spain for the summer, have been inseparable since the day they met back in high school. They’ve already named their children and discussed who will take leave when they have them.
“It’s just ridiculous,” she gripes. “I mean, he acts like these guys are in their 40s and I’m 10.”
“It’s kind of sweet, in a way.”
“Says the girl who can sleep with anyone she wants,” says Ginny.
Not anyone, apparently. But I keep this to myself.
Brian comes back with the paperwork and a T-shirt. “You look like a small,” he says, handing it to me. A pair of cut-off jean shorts and heels will round out the uniform. Classy.
Wearing this would be a trial for almost anyone, but it will be one in particular for me. I don’t mind looking like my mother, but I’ve always loathed the kind of cross-contamination that seems to accompany it. I’m not the girl whose picture hangs on a million bedroom walls, but sometimes it seems I’ll have to spend the rest of my life proving it. I’ve gone out of my way to dress conservatively, to tone things down. Though with the current media portrayal of me as some kind of teenage, Lolita-style seductress, it looks like I should have spared myself the trouble.
I put on my uniform at 5:00 that afternoon and squirm with discomfort as I look in the mirror. The shirt is, as predicted, way too tight. I have my mother’s long legs, and between the tiny shorts and the high heels, the effect is just…ridiculous. I’m embarrassed to even go downstairs to find Ginny, whom I’m supposed to shadow tonight.
I hear her on the back deck and reluctantly head that way. I suppose if I’m going to have to suffer the perusal of hundreds of strangers in this get-up, I can suffer the perusal of my roommates. Besides, Ginny’s dressed for work too. This can’t really be the big deal I’m making it.
She’s sitting with James and Max, who both stop talking and stare at me in surprise. This does not dramatically boost my confidence.
“You can’t wear that,” says James flatly.
“The hell she can’t,” counters Max. He looks at me approvingly. “You were made to wear that uniform.”
Ginny rolls her eyes. “James, you know what the uniform looks like. Why are you making her feel bad about it?”
“It doesn’t fit right,” he argues, his jaw grinding. “Just wear some jeans tonight and a white shirt, and I’ll talk to Brian.”
Ginny snorts. “There’s no chance Brian is going to let one girl wear jeans while the rest of us wear Daisy Dukes. And she has to wear the T-shirt. We all do. You’re going to get her fired on her first day.”
“Ignore your surrogate father over there,” says Max. “I, personally, would give you a very generous tip.”
James drives us over, though his shift begins an hour after ours. He marches directly to Brian’s office, and Ginny snickers as he goes.
“I’m sorry, but misery loves company,” she says. “Although this is overboard even for him.”
I hear raised voices coming from Brian’s office, and then James storms out. Brian follows, looking me over with a level of appreciation I find somewhat unsettling.
“She doesn’t look like a whore,” he tells James before walking away.
I barely trust myself to speak as I turn to James. “You told him I looked like a whore?”
“No,” he says hurriedly, catching the look on my face. “I just said I thought it made you feel like one. It seemed like the uniform was making you uncomfortable.”
I meet his eyes. “Well, now it is.”
He rubs the nape of his neck, looking away. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I never meant to make you feel bad. I’ve always objected to that uniform, especially once Ginny had to start wearing it, and you…just look…it fits you differently is all,” he concludes.
I didn’t know James was capable of awkwardness. I let his words settle over me, creating a small seed of warmth in my stomach. I could be misunderstanding him, but if I’m not, it’s possible that James Campbell has finally, after all this time, decided I’m attractive.
Chapter 5
JAMES
My father left me a voicemail last night during my shift, and I return his call in the morning. He doesn’t bring up the internship, thank God, perhaps correctly surmising that my mother and Ginny have run the subject into the ground.
Instead he brings up a topic that’s possibly even worse.
“I heard Elle is there,” he ventures. He says the words reluctantly. I’m guessing he wants to discuss this as little as I do.
“Yeah. Her parents want her to stay out of the spotlight. I guess you heard what happened with Edward Ferris?”
“I don’t know what he was thinking,” my dad says. “She’s a child.”
I know exactly what that anchor was thinking. It’s what pretty much every male in my house was thinking last night.
“The problem is she doesn’t look like a child,” I tell him.
“As I’m sure you can
imagine, your mother is not happy about this. It would be best for all of us if she’d just go back to DC.”
“You mean it would be best for you and Mom.”
“No, I meant all of us. I think you or Ginny should ask her to leave.”
I kind of expected this response, but find that I’m unwilling to execute it. “We aren’t doing that,” I say flatly. “She just drove all the way here, and she’s never done anything to either of you.”
“James, your mother...you know how she is. And she’s very, very disturbed by this.”
I’m sure she’s making his life hell, raving about the evil Graysons and all the ways they’ve extended their grubby reach into her household, and I know how he worries—how we all worry—when she gets upset. Everyone deals with stress in their own way, but my mother’s way is less healthy than most.
“Dad, I get that. But we are three states away, and Mom’s issues are not Elle’s problem.”
“Fine,” he says with an exasperated sigh. “But this is all on you. If anything goes wrong, I’m holding you responsible.”
My stomach sinks. They asked me to watch Ginny, and now it looks like I’ll be watching Elle too. Kind of a problem, given that the best thing I could do would be not look at her at all.
That night I get cut early and head home. I follow the sound of voices on the back deck to find Elle, golden and glowing, hair spilling around her shoulders—along with Ginny, Max, and our next-door neighbor, Martin, who’s too fucking old to be hanging out with a couple of teenage girls. Elle laughs that husky laugh of hers, and I don’t even have to look to know that douche is thinking about her in a way he should not. She sounds older than 19, and she looks older than 19, and what this means is I’m not just going to have to worry about college douchebags working here for summer, but perverts like Martin too.
He and Max both need to be reminded how young the girls are. I turn to Ginny. “I thought we’d already discussed the fact that you two aren’t old enough to drink?”
“Right,” says Ginny. “Like you didn’t drink when you were 19.”
“I did drink, and I acted like a fucking idiot, which is why it worries me, given that I’m tasked with babysitting you two all summer.”
“Babysitting?” Ginny demands. “Did you really say babysitting? I was just on my own for nearly a year!”
I pop open a beer. “You do realize that living in a dorm with a curfew where all of your meals are provided and your parents are paying for all your shit isn’t exactly on your own?”
Elle laughs. “James, aren’t your parents still paying for all your shit too?”
“Touché, Elle. The difference is that five years ago I was living in a foreign country alone while you were still writing Harry Potter fan fiction and arguing about which house the Hogwarts sorting hat would place you in.”
She laughs. Husky, again. I like the sound of it a little too much. “The fan fiction was necessary. It was just too painful to imagine Hermione ending up with Ron. In fact, it’s still too painful. I might just write some more.”
“Let me guess,” says Ginny. “Hermione is with Harry?”
Elle shakes her head. “Harry’s too predictable,” she says. “I kind of picture her with Ron’s twin brothers.” There’s the start of a smile around her mouth that almost looks...dirty. Like she could say a lot more about what she envisions than she is at the moment. The look alone is enough to require that I subtly readjust myself, and I’m probably not the only one.
If I intended to remind everyone here how young she is, I’ve failed miserably.
I’m even starting to forget it myself.
Chapter 6
ELLE
When James comes into the kitchen in the morning, he finds me scowling.
“This thing smells like ass,” I tell him, holding the coffee pot away from my face. “Are you using this as some kind of death chamber for rodents or something?”
He gives me a half-smile, which I think I like even better than his full smile. My reproductive parts like it better for sure.
“Max makes matcha in it. He says it’s healthier than coffee.”
“Max has enough weed in his possession to fund the militia of a small-to-moderately-sized country, but he’s going to quibble about the health benefits of matcha versus coffee?”
“Come on,” James says, with another grin. “There’s decent coffee down the street.”
I slip on flip flops and follow him out the door, taking a deep breath of humid air, thick with the smell of pine and sea myrtle. “I love the beach. When I’m here it feels like all the normal shit doesn’t matter.”
He glances at me. “What normal shit?”
“I don’t know. Worrying about everything. About how I’m perceived and how I look and whether someone thinks I’m doing something wrong.”
“Why would you worry about any of that?” he asks.
I shrug. “I don’t know. Looking like my mom...everyone assumes things. Every awful thing she does becomes my awful thing. That poster? It’s as if I’m the one who did it. She’s practically naked, which means every guy who’s ever seen that poster thinks he’s seen me naked too. Sometimes it feels like I have an evil twin out in the world, destroying everything, and leaving me to pick up the pieces.”
“She did that poster a long time ago,” he soothes. “No one is going to think it’s you.”
“But they assume things. Like, there are these rumors about her. Everyone knows she broke up my dad’s first marriage, and I guess she didn’t have the best reputation before that. People assume the worst about me because of her, so I’m always trying to go to the other extreme. But here, it’s like I don’t have to do that. I can be anything I want, and it just doesn’t matter. Like I’m invisible.”
He stops in front of the coffee shop, frowning. “You’re never going to be invisible, Elle.”
I sigh. “I just meant...it’s like no one cares. No one’s watching here.”
We get our coffee and nab a table outside, and he picks up the conversation where we left off.
“I guess I get what you meant earlier,” he says. “Not that I feel invisible, but when I’m here, it just feels like time stops. Like it’s not counting against me.”
“Why would any time count against you?”
“You know. You’re on a schedule. College, law school, work summers at the place you’ll end up for the rest of your life. Aside from being here, the only time I’ve ever felt like I’ve gotten a break from the whole thing was when I worked in France after undergrad. It’s just nice to be free of everyone’s expectations.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t just stay in France.”
His shoulders sag, and he runs a hand through his hair. “The expectations remain long-term, whether I’m in France or not. No matter where I go, I’m still going to be disappointing someone if I don’t eventually do it all exactly right.”
I think about that. In some ways, it’s a good problem to have. I wouldn’t mind having parents who cared so much about my outcome that they were actually paying attention to what I did. But at least this way I’m choosing a future for myself instead of letting someone else dictate it.
“If you’re not doing what you want, then you’ll always disappoint yourself. And if someone’s going to wind up disappointed, make sure it’s not you because you’re the one who has to live with the consequences.”
He raises a brow as he rises. “Yet you’re here hiding out instead of getting another internship because it’s what your parents wanted.”
He goes inside for a refill, and I remain in my seat, thinking how wrong he is. I’m not here hiding out because my parents told me to. I’m here because I want to be a reporter, but there’s another thing I’ve always wanted just as much.
In fact, I think, watching him hold the door for someone as he walks back out, I’m pretty sure I actually want him more.
When Edward calls that afternoon, I know for a fact that my obsession with James is eclips
ing everything else.
“Elle,” he says heavily when I pick up. “I’m glad I caught you. Are you home?”
He sounds so normal, so adult. It once again seems absolutely impossible that he was hitting on me, in spite of the way things look. I want to be angry at him, but I just don’t have it in me.
“No, I’m at the beach. My parents wanted me to make myself scarce while things settle down.”
“That’s excellent advice,” he says. “I’m sorry about this. I know how crazy it must seem to you.”
What I want to hear him say is that none of this is how it appears, and that he plans to tell everyone that, but of course that’s hoping too much. He’s going to wind up with some carefully crafted statement designed to minimize the impact on him, and I’m collateral damage.
“Give it a few days to blow over,” he says. “Once this dies away, I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”
I agree, hoping his plan to make it up to me doesn’t somehow involve his penis. But after we hang up, I realize I’m hoping it doesn’t work out.
Whether he’s marrying that girl or not, I’m not ready to give up on James just yet.
Chapter 7
JAMES
I’m working the bar, and no matter where I stand, all I seem to see are long legs and a perfect, pouty mouth. There is always a moment when I forget that this is Elle. Elle who is only 19, and who would be off limits no matter what her age. My physical reaction to her always comes first, followed far too late by the part of me that’s disgusted by it.
She did not have the easiest childhood. I wanted to protect her then, and that part of me still exists. That other thing—the part that shouldn’t be there—is something I’m praying will just go away.
She comes up to the bar needing a drink order. Her shorts are riding up along her inner thighs, and for a single moment I’m transfixed by the idea of it—the softness of her skin there, how it would feel like velvet under the pad of a single finger. My mouth pressing to her neck, her gasp against my ear as my hand rises.
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