A car engine sputtered into life, and Lindsay backed toward the door. The noise came from behind the house next door, and she imagined the two old guys were going out for a drive. She walked into the house through the den and dining room to the kitchen door. She opened it, but did not step outside. Instead, she leaned on the jamb, making sure she was hidden from the driver’s view.
She heard the car back out of the drive. Once she was certain it was far enough down the road, she poked her head out and saw the back of a long silver sedan. Sunlight glinted off its trunk as it rolled to the north. Satisfied that she could not be spotted, Lindsay walked onto the porch all the way to the rail.
On a whim, she walked to the side and looked over the rail down the length of the house to the window where she first saw the boy. From this angle, she couldn’t see anything.
Lindsay walked back inside and up the stairs. In her room, she went immediately to the window seat and pressed her face against the glass, looking down at the boy’s room.
And there he was.
He stood in the window. His head was lowered, looking at the band of sand separating his house from her uncle’s. Lindsay pulled the binoculars from under the green cushion and quickly put them to her eyes. It took way too long for her to adjust the lenses, but finally the boy came into focus.
Excited, she waited for him to look up from the sandy ground. When he did, her throat closed up tight and her heart raced.
He was hot. As she expected, he was only a little older than her. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. His black hair jutted in wild spikes from his head. His thin face, flawless and beautiful, wore a sad expression that made Lindsay’s heart flutter. His eyes were as blue as the sky. His frowning lips were full, and she suddenly wanted to kiss him, which was totally weird because she didn’t even know him. But she found herself thrilled by the wonderment of what his lips might taste like and feel like against her own.
Lindsay spun from the window, clutching the binoculars to her chest. What was she going to do now? It wasn’t like she could just go over to his house and say, “Hey, my parents dragged me out here from the city, and I got bored and was looking through my uncle’s binoculars and thought you were hot, so why don’t we date or something?”
She could sit in the window seat for a while and pretend to write on her laptop. He might see her, but then, he might not.
Her cell phone rang, yanking Lindsay from her thoughts. She checked the caller ID.
Kate.
“Perfect timing,” Lindsay said as she answered the phone.
“What? What’s going on?”
“Nine-one-one.”
“More scary umbrella men?”
“Noooo,” Lindsay said. “Jeez, live in the now. It’s male-related.”
“Beach hottie?”
“Way hottie. I mean, he’s staying in the house next door. I saw him through the window last night, and I thought he might be cute, but then I saw him again today, and he totally is. He’s at his window right now.”
“Is said hottie age-appropriate?” Kate asked.
“Duh.”
“Any sign of female interference?”
“What? Like a girlfriend? I don’t think so. The only other people I’ve seen at the house are a couple of old guys. I think they might be his parents.”
“Both of them? Like Rachel’s moms?”
“Pre-xactly like that. They’re both buff, full-on groomed, and wear matching outfits.”
“Sounds totally same-sex to me.”
“I know,” Lindsay said. “Progressive, right?”
“Do they really wear identical outfits? I mean, is it like they order from the same J. Crew catalogue or is it matching leather diapers or what?”
“Kate, come on.”
“Okay,” Kate said. “Is he still at the window?”
Lindsay leaned forward just enough to see the boy in the neighboring house. “Yes.”
“Well, what are you going to do?”
She thought about it for a moment and came up with a plan. It was simple and cool. It made her smile. “We’re going for a walk,” Lindsay said.
“I can’t,” Lindsay said, standing on the sand behind her uncle’s house.
“Well, I know I couldn’t, but you can,” Kate said. “You can do anything. Besides, it’s no crisis. You’re just talking on the phone, wandering around the yard. No big deal. You don’t even know he exists. It’s a total coincidence. Now, set to steppin’. I have a bazillion things to do before the party.”
“I’m so pissed I can’t be there.”
“I know,” Kate said. “It’s totally lame. There’s no way I can pull this off without you here. I mean, what if we run out of beer or something? Or what if Matt starts a fight? Crap. I should just cancel.”
“You can’t cancel. If you’re worried about the beer, just have Matt’s brother pick up a couple of extra cases. Put them in the bathroom off the kitchen, in the tub, and cover them with ice. As for Matt, he isn’t going to start a fight, because his mother threatened to yank him off the basketball team if he caused any more trouble. If he gets all weird, just remind him of that.”
“I will,” Kate said. “You’re right. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“I promise I’ll take a ton of pictures and post them on my website. It’ll be kind of like being there.”
“Uh-huh.” And watching the Oscars on television was kind of like being Colin Farrell’s date. “Now, I’m about to make contact.”
Lindsay shook out her free hand to relieve a bit of stress. She rolled her head on her neck and then stepped onto the band of sand between the two houses. Though she tried to resist, she threw a quick glance at the boy’s window. Catching herself, she looked away quickly before she could even tell if he was there. Instead she looked down and noticed for the first time that her uncle’s house didn’t rest on the ground. It stood three feet above the sand on wooden supports. In the shadows under the house, tufts of tall grasses grew.
“That’s weird,” she said.
“What? Is he gross close-up?”
“No,” Lindsay said. “We’ve come to my uncle’s a bunch of times before, and I never noticed that his house is built up off the ground.”
“Yeah, fascinating,” Kate said, her voice thick with sarcasm. “Architecture is hot. What’s the boy doing?”
“I haven’t looked over there yet. Should I?”
“Yeah, but let me say something funny first. That way, he’ll see you smiling.”
“Okay.”
“On the count of three,” Kate said. “Ready? One, two…”
Lindsay began to turn, hoping the boy would still be in his window when she completed the turn.
“Three,” Kate said. “Michael Chandler.”
Lindsay broke into a wide smile at the mention of the name. Last year, Brett Underhill had dragged Kate into the boy’s locker room as a prank, and she’d seen more than a couple of the boys undressed, including Michael Chandler. Chandler was a big mean jock who liked to beat up the younger kids, and Kate got a full monty look at him. In her words, his unit was like a pencil eraser in a nest of black thread. But Michael Chandler wasn’t the point. The point was, Lindsay completed her turn with a huge grin on her face.
And the boy was in his window, looking out at her. She froze, absolutely froze solid when she saw him.
“Did it work?” Kate asked. “Lindsay? Hey? Is he there?”
“Um…uhm-hmm.”
He was definitely there. The boy smiled back and lifted a hand in greeting.
Lindsay tried to return the wave, but her arm felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. He was just so good-looking. He looked like a movie star, only better because he was real and present and separated from her by nothing but a piece of dirty glass. Through the binoculars, she thought his eyes were the color of sky, but they were lighter than that, so light. So amazing.
“Lindsay? What is going on?”
“I’ll call you back.”
“What? Hold on—”
Lindsay killed the signal and put the phone in the pocket of her jeans. The boy next door lifted a finger in the air: one second. He disappeared for a minute, bending down like he was putting something away, then reappeared. He stood up. He was so tall. Lindsay noticed that like the men she saw in the yard that morning, he too wore a black T-shirt, but his was way too big on him. It hung like a tent from his shoulders. He was way too tight-bodied for such a mammoth shirt. Nervous, she looked up and down the band of sand, to the back of the houses and then to the front and the beach and ocean beyond. People were gathered on the sand in front of her uncle’s house. Towels and chairs sat beneath a dozen different people, but none of them mattered. Not now.
She looked back at him.
He was waving for her to come closer.
4
Todd Lombard was Lindsay’s first real boyfriend. He was a slender boy with short blond hair, green eyes, and too much brain for his own good. He was Einstein smart and would have been considered a total geek if he hadn’t been the star of her middle school’s soccer team. Todd was cute and fun, but he was also a little crazy, and not in the fun, let’s-raise-some-hell kind of way. Todd heard voices. They told him to do things. They told him jokes, causing Todd to burst out laughing in the middle of algebra or social sciences. Fortunately Lindsay broke it off six months before his parents sent him away to a school in the next county that was able to handle “special” kids like Todd.
Her second boyfriend was normal enough. Too normal. David Carter was also blond and also a soccer player, but he was as dull as a Josh Groban record. All he ever wanted to do was sit around playing video games. When they did go out, they went to movies, usually the ones inspired by video games.
And those two made up Lindsay’s romantic history. Neither were bad guys, but they weren’t exactly the stuff of great romances either. Still, she had felt an electric charge when they first asked her out. It started in her chest and spread out, shooting up to her scalp and down to her toes. She felt that kind of charge now, walking toward the boy’s window, but the voltage was cranked way up, and she didn’t know how she could stand this kind of feeling if it went on much longer.
The boy was still smiling at her. His eyes twinkled like he wanted to tell her a secret, but he did not move forward to open the window. She thought that was odd. He stood back from the wall, waving her closer but made no move to slide back the glass that separated them.
Maybe he’s sick, she thought. He could be contagious. He might even be dying. God, wouldn’t that suck? It would be kind of romantic, but in a completely awful way.
When she reached the closed window, she didn’t know what to do. She looked up at him, laughed a nervous laugh, and shrugged.
“Hello,” he called through the glass.
“Hey,” she said.
“What’s your name?” the boy asked.
“Lindsay.”
“Great name.”
“Thanks. What’s yours?”
“Mark,” he said.
“Hey, Mark.”
“Hey.”
She felt really stupid talking through the closed window and wondered why he didn’t open it.
As if reading her mind, he said, “Stupid window.”
“Is it broken?” she asked.
“No,” Mark said. “It’s hard to explain. You can open it if you want.”
Lindsay shrugged and reached out to grasp a thin strip of metal on the outer frame of the glass. As she pulled the window open, she noticed an odd metal bracket fixed in the corner of the window frame. It was made of iron and had a strange shape, swirls and lines in a circle with three points poking away from the center. They weren’t very pretty, but at least they were small, hardly bigger than a nickel. One point aimed up the wall, while the other was pointed across the sill. The third jutted toward the center of the window. She noticed another bracket affixed to the inside corner of the sill. In fact, all of the corners, inside and out, wore similar ornaments.
Lindsay stepped away from the open window. She looked inside and saw a small bed pushed against the far wall. A simple blanket lay over the top of it. To her left, on the same wall as the window, was a black upright piano with a narrow bench. (He’s a musician!) The walls were bare, but there was a desk in front of the window and a pile of clothes against the closet door.
Where is his PC?
“Thank you,” Mark said. “This is the first fresh air I’ve had in days.”
“Are you grounded or something?”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
“That blows.”
“Does it?” he asked. His face scrunched up like he was confused; then he smiled again and nodded his head. “Okay. I understand. Yeah. It definitely blows.”
“What did you do?”
“Things,” Mark said. “Little stuff mostly. A few plagues and a war or two. Nothing apocalyptic.”
Lindsay laughed. “So your parents totally over-react, too?”
“Oh yeah.”
“I saw a couple of guys outside this morning. Are they your dads?”
“They are…” Mark searched for the right word and decided on, “complicated. They’re my guardians, if that’s what you mean.”
“I guess. They look pretty harsh.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Doug—he’s the tall one—and Jack are seriously cold.” He chuckled a dry, humorless laugh and dropped his head. “So, how long have you lived next door? I haven’t noticed you before.”
“Well, maybe you haven’t been paying attention.”
“I think you’d get my attention pretty quick.”
Lindsay felt herself blush. She looked away from Mark, toward the beach where even more people had gathered in the few minutes since she last looked. When she returned her gaze to Mark, her heart was beating so fast she thought she might faint.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.
“We’re just visiting. It’s my uncle’s house. We got in yesterday.”
“Oh, okay. I’ve seen your uncle around, I think. Skinny guy? Always wearing a trucker cap?”
“That’s Uncle Lou.”
“How long are you staying?”
“Ten days.”
“That’s not very long,” Mark said. “I was kind of hoping you’d be here for the summer. Who knows, I might actually get out of here one of these days.”
“I wish we were staying longer, too,” Lindsay said.
Yesterday it would have been a lie, but right now she meant it.
“It gets a little lonely around here. I mean, Doug and Jack are less than entertaining.”
“I heard music last night,” Lindsay said, choosing her words carefully. “I haven’t heard anything like it before.”
“Oh man,” Mark said with a laugh. “Isn’t that the most awful crap you’ve ever heard?”
“Yes,” Lindsay agreed, thrilled to know it wasn’t Mark’s music. “It’s like a song for a bad yoga studio commercial.”
“Totally,” Mark said, really laughing now.
“Ugh,” Lindsay said.
She searched for something else to say about it, but her mind was blank. Mark kept looking at her with that amazing smile, and she could tell he wanted her to keep talking, but she didn’t have a clue what to say. Looking away from him, hoping that her mind would clear without the distraction of his face, Lindsay looked down at the sand, following its ridges and grooves with her eyes.
Say something, she thought, only she didn’t know if she meant it for herself or Mark. It didn’t really matter. She simply wanted the uncomfortable silence to pass. When Mark remained silent, she forced herself to say, “So, if you weren’t grounded, what kinds of stuff would you be doing?”
“Today?” Mark said. “I’d probably be surfing. It’s not a great day for it—only two-to four-foot swells. I mean, a couple days back when the storm was coming in, they were slammin’, but it’s kind of quiet. Still, it’s waves
and board. A hell of a lot better than walls and bed.”
“Cool,” Lindsay said. “I’d love to learn how to surf.”
“It’s great,” Mark said. “Other than that, I just kind of hang these days. I used to ski and play football and stuff, but that’s kind of over. Doug and Jack aren’t what you’d call athletic types.”
“They look pretty athletic.”
Mark made a phfft noise with his lips. “They lift weights and jog, but they aren’t into human sports, you know? They aren’t out in the world, sharing the slopes and the streets. I mean, there’s a world full of people, and if you aren’t among them, affecting them, enjoying them, you might as well not exist. It’s a total nonlife, and they embrace it because they’re afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” Lindsay asked.
“I don’t know. Just life,” Mark said. “Doug and Jack want everything to be controlled and perfect, and the only way to get that is to stay away from real people and real life. They don’t understand that chaos and control are the fuel mix that keeps the world spinning. It’s screwed up. They’re totally removed. Unfortunately, they decided to remove me, too.”
“And there’s no place else you could go?” she asked.
“Not now,” Mark said. His face grew serious, darkened. “Right now, I’m trapped.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. It’s a temporary situation, but it feels like it’s been going on forever.” Mark’s face brightened. “But now I’ve met you. You can visit and keep me company every now and then. I mean, when they aren’t home. They’d totally freak if they knew we were talking.”
“Well, then we won’t tell them, but maybe I’ll stop by again.”
Mark’s mouth spread into a wide, charming grin. The sight of it just erased Lindsay’s cool, and she felt like an excited child. Again she found herself in the middle of a long silence, her mind filled with too many thoughts to pick just one.
“So where do you go to school?” Mark asked.
“Baker High,” Lindsay said, then realized Mark would have no idea where that was. “It’s in Helensburgh, Pennsylvania.”
“I was in PA a couple of times. Philly mostly. It was okay.”
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