by Angel Lawson
I shake my head in disbelief. “My mother?”
“Yep. She and my mom were inseparable.”
“What’s your mother’s name?” I ask.
“Sugar.”
“Oh right, my mom mentioned her the other day. I had no idea.” Anita forehead furrows and a tiny frown tugs at her mouth when I say this, but she doesn’t respond. When the conversation turns to local gossip, I get out of my seat and head to the cooler for a drink. I open the can of soda and lean over the railing of the deck facing the ocean. It’s almost dark but I can see the white caps on the crashing waves. The wind picks up, and I shiver.
“Want my sweatshirt?”
I turn to find Justin leaning next to me. “No, I’m okay.”
He unzips his hoodie anyway and stands before me bare-chested. I eye the tattoo on his arm. I can now see that it’s kind of a combined sun and moon. “What does that mean?”
“Harmony. It’s how I feel when I’m out on the water.”
I snort.
He tilts his head. “What? You making fun of me?”
“No, I just wish I felt that way in the water. If anything, it’s the opposite. Pure, unadulterated fear.” A gust of wind blows past us and I shiver again.
“You’re freezing. Take it.”
“Now you’ll be freezing.” I want the jacket though. I want to smell it, to know what this beach boy smells like and if his scent is as delicious as everything else about him.
“I’m pretty hot-natured. Anyway, I’ve got another shirt in my car. Here,” he says placing it over my shoulders. “I mean, we’re like third cousins once removed, right?”
I make a covert attempt to sniff his jacket. I’m hit with the warm scent of laundry detergent and sunscreen. Better than I hoped for.
“Are we?” I ask trying to do the math of how illegal it would be for me to kiss him.
“Nah,” he laughs. “I don’t think so. Although, your mom does know my uncle Richard.”
“Oh, I met him. He’s nice. I mean, he tried to get me drunk. Not in a creepy way,” I promise. “It was a nice gesture. I was trapped.”
Justin tips his head back and laughs, flashing his teeth in the dark. They’re nice. White and only a little bit crooked. Why am I looking at his teeth? I shift my eyes to his lips. Then, his smooth shoulder blades…I look at the water.
“I suspect he was around during those late-night adventures Anita was talking about.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Definitely. There’s been whispers about the one that got away for years. It’s all starting to make sense.”
“Wow. I’m having a hard time believing that. About my mom, that is.”
“Really? Why’s that?” he asks.
“The last crazy thing my mother did was ditch the Junior League tea for a book club hosted by the mayor’s wife.”
He gives me a funny look. “Your mom lives in a shiny rocket ship trailer. Around here that definitely is crazy.”
“How is that crazy? All of you live in the same place—hers is just silver.”
He shrugs, his bare shoulders catching light. “Yeah, but we’ve all lived here forever. It’s not every day a best-selling author and her daughter move in. That’s big news.”
“I guess.”
“Well, Summer, what do you plan to do with your summer other than fight over campground water, sunburn yourself to peeling skin, and hanging around?” He reaches over and peels a strip of skin off my back. We both watch it flutter away in the breeze.
“Gross! And that water thing was your fault.”
“Maybe.”
“Completely.”
“So?” He’s still waiting for an answer. I remember what Anita said about his persistence.
I look out at the water and confess, “I’m not sure, I thought I’d just relax and have a little vacation but between Anita dragging me all over the place, my mom making me work and all the stuff I keep finding out about her; the family, the history. It’s like she’s been hiding all this from me and I never would have known if I hadn’t crashed her trip.”
“Maybe you tagging along was a good thing then.”
I glance up at the small smile playing on his lips and try to figure out his angle. I’m not convinced I want to know.
“I guess we’ll find out,” I say. He doesn’t respond but there’s that feeling in the air. The one where everything gets electric. I’m afraid of that feeling, so I just smile and walk away while I can.
* * *
We’re packing up when I overhear Maggie and Anita whisper-arguing about something. I hear the word “Summer” which could be my name or the season and I try to squash my paranoia, but it’s followed by other words like “Justin” and “The Pact,” and curiosity gets the best of me.
“What’s going on?” I ask, carrying two chairs back up to the deck. Maggie smiles and takes them from me.
Anita eyes me suspiciously. “What did you hear?”
“Not much. My name. Justin’s name.” My eyes dart to Ivy helping the guys. “I’m not into him, if that’s what you think.”
“Look, Summer,” Maggie says, “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to warn a girl off the Ocean Beach boys—”
“Then don’t,” Anita snaps, interrupting her.
Maggie rolls her eyes. “I know we’ve just met and there’s no reason for you to trust me, but those guys…they’re in their own world. They’ve got this deal between them, they call it ‘The Pact’.”
“The Pact? What kind of deal is it?” I glance over and watch the four of them douse the fire and pick up trash.
“It means they’re not dateable. Not for a nice girl like you.”
Nice girl.
If she only knew.
“Well the good news is that I don’t want to date any of them. I don’t want to date anybody.”
Maggie looks relieved. A sharp line creases Anita’s forehead but she doesn’t say anything.
“Good,” Maggie says. “They’re good friends but they do not make good boyfriends. Trust us on that.”
I nod, hearing the warning. The Ocean Beach Boys and whatever their Pact involves are off limits. I’ve got zero problem with that.
Chapter 8
I spend the next day traveling up and down the coast looking for Donald Gaskins’ kin. I had no idea what my mother planned to do if we found them. Regardless, I had already decided I would stay in the car and wait while she charmed them out of the traumatic details of their lives. The whole process felt intrusive.
“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” I ask.
“No,” my mother answers while leaning over the steering wheel to see the street signs. The pole at the corner of the street is bent halfway to the ground. “Can you tell if this is Hill Street?”
I look out the window and run my hand over the lock to make sure it’s secure. From the ramshackle houses to the junk cars in the yard, it’s obvious we aren’t in the best neighborhood. “Yeah, I think this is Hill Street.” I look again. “No, that one, that’s Hill.”
She turns the car and we slowly drive by a group of young guys hanging out on a brick wall in front of the house. They stare at us as we pass. I slide lower in my seat. “Could you pick it up a little, Mom?”
“There it is,” she says, pointing at a house with peeling green paint and a gray tarp covering half of the roof.
She parks the car on the street in front of the house. “Are you kidding me?” I ask. “Are you really going in there?”
She gives me a look like I’m an idiot or something. I give her one back. “This is what I do, Summer. I find family and friends and search records. One time I climbed in the dumpster behind an abandoned school looking for trashed records. A family of racoons lived there. I know it’s not glamorous but this is my job.”
“You climbed in a dumpster? Gross.” It’s not just gross, it’s a strange side of my mother I’ve never known before. I consider the stories Anita and the others told me at the beach. Maybe
she is capable of those things.
She ignores my protests and bends over to get her bag. “Are you coming?”
My plans to sit in the car alone vanished the minute we passed the corner hooligans, so I grab my purse, lock the car door, and follow her to the house. “Wait up,” I say, practically clinging to her arm. I’ve never been in a situation like this. I grew up in suburban Nashville. I was a student at Franklin Academy, a prestigious private school. Not that we were rich or anything, but this? I’ve never been around this.
I hover beside my mother as she knocks on the door and after a moment the door opens and we can see an older woman peering at us from behind the screen door. “Yes?” she asks.
My mother steps forward. “Good morning. I’m Julia Barnes and this is my daughter Summer.” I wave when she says my name. “I was hoping you could help me find someone I’m trying to locate—"
“Who ya looking for?” she interrupts. Her accent is thicker than Anita’s.
“Well, really, anyone that may be related to Donald Gaskins.”
The woman opens her mouth once but instead of speaking slams the door in our face.
“So, I guess we should go…” I start, but my mother is already knocking on the door. “I don’t think she wants to talk to us.”
Despite my argument, she knocks again. “Of course she doesn’t. She’s possibly related to the worst serial killer this part of South Carolina has ever seen. No one wants to talk about that.”
“Umm…then why are we here if she won’t talk to us?”
“Just because she won’t talk to us today, doesn’t mean she won’t when she’s ready.” She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a business card. She knocks again and then says in a loud voice, “I’m leaving my card on the door. It has my name and number, call me if you want to talk.” She tucks the card into the edge of the screen door. “Okay, let’s go.”
Like a child, I follow her back to the car with a sense of awe. We pass an older man, his face lined with age, and she smiles and says hello. Just like that. Like there is no difference between her and everyone else on this broken-down street. She has so much determination and I realize that this is a woman who knows how to get what she wants. A woman that doesn’t make stupid decisions or runs from them. She unlocks the car and when I slide in my seat I wonder, not for the first time, if I can ever be like her.
* * *
I wake the next morning to a loud banging on my metal camper door.
“I’m coming,” I shout, stumbling across the trailer to the door a couple of feet away. I peer through my swollen eyes. “Justin?”
“Morning,” he says through a wide grin. He’s wearing a T-shirt that says Ocean Marina across the chest, and a hat that says the same thing, cargo shorts and sneakers. He looks way too awake for this time of morning.
I start to let the door slam shut on its tight coiled springs but he stops it from closing with a quick hand. “Thought you might want to have some fun today?”
I pick up my phone from the table behind me and check it. “It’s 7 a.m.” I ignore the two messages from Mason overnight on the screen.
“I’ve been up for an hour,” he says and I notice his wet hair. “The waves were great this morning.” I feel his eyes traveling over my pajamas and I shift under his scrutiny.
“You’re not going to take me fishing or something.”
“What’s wrong with fishing?” he asks.
I shoot him a warning glare. “I’m going back to bed.”
“No fishing. Trust me.” His voice softens. “It’ll be fun. I promise.”
I think about Maggie’s warning. I think about those messages on the phone and how I’ll spend the day trying to ignore them. Just because I go with Justin doesn’t mean anything except that I’ll have things to think about other than ex-boyfriends and bad decisions.
“Ugh, let me get dressed.” He starts to step inside, but I hold my hand up. “While you wait. Outside.”
He flashes that grin and laughs. “Thought I’d give it a shot.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, slamming the door in his face.
* * *
It’s a good thing I didn’t want this to be a date because Pete’s lanky body is sprawled in the backseat when we get to the Jeep. Justin taps his head when we walk up and he jolts awake, rubbing his eyes. He smiles when he sees me.
“Morning, Summer.”
I grunt in reply.
“I promised her coffee before she had to be civil.”
“Good call.”
There’s no Starbucks in Ocean Beach but he stops at a tiny coffee shop next to the grocery store. The boys wait for me in the Jeep as I order. The barista peers out the window, glancing between me and the Jeep outside.
“Ice coffee, please. No sugar, just cream.”
“What’s your name?”
“Summer.”
“Got it.”
There’s no one else inside and it’s quiet as she makes my drink. Her name tag says Mindy and she looks a little younger than me. The awkward silence and pointed looks get to me and I say, “Do you live here year-round?”
“Yeah, born and raised.” She looks up at me. “You here on vacation?”
“For the whole season. My mom and I have family over at the campground and we’re staying there.”
“Oh, so that’s how you know the boys.”
I glance over my shoulder. Pete’s fallen back asleep and Justin fidgets with the radio. “Yeah, pretty much.”
She laughs. “I was wondering. I mean, not that I think there’s anything wrong with you but it’s a surprise to see them driving around with a girl. You know, other than Ivy or Maggie.”
“No? They don’t date much?”
She shrugs. “Maybe in college. I don’t know. They’ve always been completely focused on their jobs and family. Tight knit. It’s hard to break in. I had a friend that dated Whit for a while. She always felt like an outsider.” She hands me my drink. “But if you’ve got family down there then I can see that’s why they’ve brought you along.”
I’m not sure if that’s a backhanded compliment or not. It’s probably just truth. I had felt oddly accepted by this group of locals—or ‘townies.’ Maybe the fact I didn’t have a lot of family made it seem strange, where really it’s just how family operates. I thanked Mindy for the drink and left the shop.
I climb in the front seat. “Okay, what are we doing?”
“Going to work,” he says, turning left onto the beach road.
I almost spit my coffee all over the dash. “Are you kidding me? You made me get up to go hang out at your job?”
“Sure,” he says. “Why not? You don’t have anything else to do.”
I stare at the tattoo on his arm and wonder what else he thinks is fun. “You suck, you know that?”
“I don’t,” he laughs and keeps driving, turning down a small side road back toward the water. “Just wait, you’ll love it.”
I look to Pete for help but he just smiles, brushing his curly black hair out of his face.
Turns out Justin’s right, although I don’t tell him that. At the marina, I learn they spend the day prepping boats and readying them for clients who dry dock them when they aren’t in use. It’s not glamorous or anything but the marina stores a ton of boats, some of them enormous. I can see it’s a successful business. Personally, it’s a nice change from sunbathing and serial killer research.
“Can I try?” I ask. Justin’s behind the wheel of a massive forklift used to move the boats in and out of the three-story dock storage.
“Negative.”
“Why not?”
“Because this boat costs about sixty-thousand dollars and if you drop it I’m going to have to pay for it.” He shifts a lever, the muscles tensing in his forearm, and the lift runs down the side of a 20-foot-drop and into the water where Ivy waits below to guide the boat onto it. She works at the marina. I also saw Whit in the office when I used the bathroom.
“Does sh
e get to use the lift?” I ask, jerking my head in Ivy’s direction.
He doesn’t respond right away, busy with the levers and gears on the forklift. Biting his lip in concentration, he focuses on his job until the boat is securely on the lift. When he’s finished, he looks up and says, “Yeah. But she’s worked here since she was fifteen.”
“Of course,” I mutter, knowing I’m being lame. I’m jealous of a girl who’s been perfectly nice to me, because she gets to lift boats on a forklift and spend time with Justin, who, by the way, I’m spending time with right now.
I have a problem.
Justin drives the forklift into the huge warehouse used to store the boats. When he disappears around the corner, my phone buzzes, and without a second thought I answer.
“Hello?”
“Don’t hang up,” he says.
I consider hanging up.
“I know you’re mad, but I want you to reconsider,” Mason says.
I take a deep breath and say, “Reconsider what?”
“All of it,” he says. I hear the relief in his voice that I’ve finally responded. “Me. The trip. I miss you.”
I look out over the marina and spot a pelican swoop down over the water and scoop up a fish. The carefree feeling of being with the guys and working all day evaporates.
“Summer?”
Still, I say nothing. I don’t trust myself.
“Come on the trip,” he tries again. “I’ll stay away from you, if that’s what you want.”
I look across the parking lot and see Whit walking my way. His blond hair is tied at the neck. He spots me and winks. I turn and face the side of the building. “I can’t. You and I both know what went on between us is over. A trip to France is delaying the inevitable.”
“Come on, Summer,” he begs. “I got scared at the end of the year. So many people were around. The gossip and rumors started. I was afraid I’d lose my job.”
I notice he doesn’t say anything about being afraid I’d get hurt. Or afraid he’d lose me. Selfish prick.
“Mason, you know I didn’t want this to happen but I think it’s for the best. Having some time away is helping me realize that.”