by Ann Herrick
Just then a tall skinny man with thinning black hair emerged from behind the pizza oven and told Jake to get to work in the back room. I figured the man must be Bob.
I waited for Jason and Hailey to finish their root beers, then placed a tip on the counter for Jake before I paid for the sodas. As we walked back to our cottage, I thought about the dimple that formed near the side of Jake's mouth when he smiled at me. For a moment I wondered what it would have been like to have had a summer romance with him. Less confusing than the one I was having with Alex, that was for sure.
The rest of the morning we spent hunting and identifying shells on the beach. When we stumbled on a dead horseshoe crab, Jason and Hailey couldn't stop looking at it, even though Jason uttered several yeches and ughs. After lunch we all went in the water again. Because I was worried that my hair coloring might run, I didn't really swim but concentrated on helping Jason. He made a more prolonged attempt than he had the day before, but soon reverted to the dog paddle.
Before we all went to meet Alex at Little's, Hailey once again wanted to check the mailbox for her nature magazine. It was there, and since she wanted to put it in her room, we all trooped inside the Stedmans' cottage and went upstairs. While I was waiting for Hailey and Jason, I couldn't help peeking inside Alex's room. There was the pink envelope, now opened, laying on his dresser next to a snapshot of Nicole propped against the mirror. Her full lips were parted in an ethereal smile. I wished I hadn't seen that picture. Even more, I wished it hadn't been standing on the dresser right across from Alex's bed.
After we finished at the cottage and met Alex at the store, I tried to engage him in a conversation, which I hoped would give him a chance to explain about Nicole's picture and letter. Maybe he would say he meant to throw them away, but he just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Maybe he'd say he wished Nicole wouldn't write to him.
"Alex," I said casually, "Hailey showed me her room yesterday. It's so neat and tidy."
Alex laughed. "You should see her room at home. She puts all her toys in alphabetical order."
I waited for him to say more. I waited for him to tell me his room was not so neat, that he took forever to throw away junk he really didn't need. But he didn't. He didn't say anything about his room or Nicole's letter. I left for our cottage in despair.
But after supper my mood perked up when Alex arrived with Hailey, who was going to play with Jason. Jason had already set up cards for a game of Concentration.
"Let's walk farther down the beach tonight," Alex said. "I'd like to explore a little."
"Sure." I kept an eye out for the giggling girls. I hoped they'd appear so I'd have an excuse to do more than hold hands with Alex. "Hold it, Alex. I think it's starting to rain."
Alex held out his hand. "It's just sprinkling."
"All right," I said.
But the farther we walked, the harder it rained. Finally I had to speak up. "I'm getting wet and cold." I shivered. "M-maybe we should go back."
"I guess you're right—" Alex stopped. He stared at me.
I waved my hand in front of Alex's face. "Hey. What's wrong?"
"Your hair. It's ... it's ...." Alex shook his head.
"What's so unusual? It's just wet. You've seen me with wet hair before." I ran my fingers through my bangs. I looked at my hands. "Oh, no!" They were all red!
"What is it?"
"I-I put a red ... rinse on hair and now it's, um, washing out."
"Maybe that's why you looked different today." Alex grinned. "It was your hair." Tenderly, he wiped the drips away from my bangs.
"Guess so," I said sheepishly.
There was a crash of thunder. Alex grabbed my hand, and we started running for the cottage.
"We'd better get inside fast," he yelled through the now-pouring rain.
Just outside the cottage door, Alex stopped and pulled me into his arms. "Maybe one of these days," he whispered, "I'll be able to spend an entire evening alone with my favorite redhead."
"I hope so." I smiled as I savored the warmth of his arms around me. "For now we'll have to settle for a rousing game of cards with Jason and Hailey."
Chapter Six
I ran to the mailbox as soon as the mail truck passed by. It was Saturday, it was raining, and I was bored. The Stedmans had gone to Newport, Rhode Island, for the weekend and wouldn't be back until Sunday afternoon.
I pulled the mail out of the box, feeling around to make sure I didn't miss anything. Tucked in with two bills and an ad was a postcard. It was for me, from Samantha. I dashed into the cottage, tossed the rest of the mail onto the kitchen counter and ran upstairs to my room to read the postcard in privacy. Jason and my folks had gone into town but were due home any moment. I stretched out on my bed to read the postcard.
Hi, Katie!
Love my job at McDonald's. Meeting lots of cute guys! How's Chatfield? Saw Nicole Kendall with a blond hunk (turned out he's her brother, Logan)! Well, how's your love life???
Write soon.
Love,
Samantha
I wasted no time. I dug out my writing paper, sat cross-legged on my bed and wrote right back.
Dear Samantha,
My "love life" is interesting to say the least. I guess you haven't heard. The Stedmans are spending the summer in Chatfield—just a few doors down from us! So I really am having my trial run with a summer romance, only with Alex himself. Unfortunately, it's not as exciting as it might sound.
Actually, we are pretending to have a romance. (He's pretending, I should say, and I'm acting as though I'm pretending) in order to keep a determined group of ten-year-old girls out of his hair. They're not easy to discourage (luckily!). Anyway, the romance may be a fake (on his part), but the kisses are for real! Alex takes my breath away. Literally! However, I think I'm just a poor substitute for Nicole Kendall. He keeps her picture and letters on his dresser (I baby-sit for his sister and Jason, so I kind of know what’s happening at the Stedmans' cottage).
The phony romance was at my suggestion, of course, but sometimes I feel that I'm just a summer replacement for Nicole Kendall and that in the fall he'll simply drop me and renew his option with her. But I can't just turn off my feelings for him. I'm going to hang in there and see if I can turn all of this into the real thing. I'll show him I'm just as much of a woman as Nicole is!
Stay tuned for further adventures.
Love,
Katie
I wanted to mail my letter to Samantha right away. I thought I remembered seeing a mailbox in front of Bob's Beach Store and decided to go there. The exercise would be good for me and it would give me something to do.
I slipped on my old blue parka and walked to Bob's. Just as I was dropping my letter in the mailbox, I saw a familiar face peering out of a red parka.
"Hi, Katie." It was Jake.
"Hi." My gaze was drawn to Jake's dimpled smile. "Are you going to work?"
"I just got off." Jake looked down at the ground and scuffed his foot in the dirt. "Would you like to go for a walk or something?"
"A walk? I, uh, my parents aren't home, and I didn't leave them a note and I have to get back." What a crummy excuse! I wasn't handling it right at all. But it was so unexpected. I felt I should be true to Alex. But Jake was awfully cute and he seemed so nice.
"Oh, well." Jake shrugged. "I'll see you around."
"Yes. Sure." As Jake walked away I fought an impulse to run after him. What could I say to him, after all? That I really liked Alex, that we were pretending to go together, but Alex really liked Nicole, but I hoped I could make Alex like me, but I thought Jake was nice, but I would probably never see him again after the summer? At best, he'd think I was crazy.
It started to rain harder than ever. I trotted back to the cottage with torrents of rain pouring off the hood of my parka.
By the next morning it had stopped raining. I looked out my bedroom window to see the sun sparkling on the water. It was going to be a beautiful day.
In the bathroom mirr
or I could see that I was getting a good, even tan. I had to be careful in the sun and I knew I would never have a really dark tan like Alex, but compared to my white breasts and body, my face, arms and legs looked pretty brown. Being out in the sun had also brought out golden highlights in my hair. I thought I had a healthy, attractive glow—it must have been from all the fresh air and exercise.
When Alex popped by at four-thirty to see if I wanted to go swimming with him after supper, I knew I was radiating confidence. By the time he arrived to pick me up for our swim, I was feeling really good.
He was wearing black bathing trunks that were smaller and tighter than his red ones, and I was acutely aware of his body.
"Let's go for that walk down the beach. We really haven't seen much of it yet," he suggested.
"Sounds good to me."
The farther down the beach we walked, the more the terrain changed. We had to scramble over jetties and pick our way around large rocks. The cottages gave way to the houses with yards and trees, and soon we reached a spot where a twenty-foot-high cliff rose above the sand. At that point the house with the turret loomed over us. A wooden staircase led up to its yard. The beach there became a small cove strewn with boulders.
"Let's stop here," said Alex. "We'd either have to climb a lot of rocks or wait for low tide to make it around to the next part of the beach."
"Fine," I said. "We've walked pretty far. I could use a rest."
Alex spread his beach towel on the sand. "Sit down and catch your breath."
I settled back, enjoying the feel of Alex's arm around me, and listened to the waves gently slapping the shore. A sea gull cried out just before it swooped toward the water to catch a fish. I leaned closer to Alex. "Listen," I whispered. "What's that?"
Alex listened for a moment. "I don't hear anything."
"It's the sound of ten-year-old girls giggling. We'd better go into our act."
"It sounds like a whole herd of them. We'd better be convincing." He pushed me down on his towel, using my towel as a pillow for my head, then lay down beside me, propping himself up on one elbow.
I slid my arms around his neck. His lips were warm on mine, and I could feel his heart beating. Or was it mine? The pit of my stomach whooshed into a wild swirl.
That kiss was more exciting than any I could've imagined.
Then Alex rolled on top of me, kissing me harder. His weight cut off my circulation, not to mention my air supply. His lips were more persuasive than I cared to admit—but I need to breathe!
I couldn't move. I struggled for air. What had I gotten myself into? "Mmmmff." I tried to tell Alex to stop, but I couldn't as long as he kept kissing me. I tried to shout. "MMMMFF!"
Alex stopped kissing me. "What?" he gasped.
"You're crushing me!"
"Oh. Sorry." Alex slid off me. Then he started kissing me again.
For a moment I savored the velvet warmth of his kiss. My heart raced with a crazy mixture of pleasure and fear. "I-I think we'd better stop."
"Oh?" Alex looked deep into my eyes. "I thought this meant you really liked—" He cleared his throat. "Sorry I got the wrong idea. Guess you don’t really … you're not … as experienced as I thought."
"Uh ... guess not." I could feel myself turning crimson. I hated admitting that Alex was right, but what else could I say—that I had been making mad, passionate love for years and just wasn't in the mood now? Confusion paralyzed me. I liked the dizzying currents that raced through me when I kissed Alex. But it scared me, too. I was more than satisfied by hugging and kissing. But what about him? He seemed to want ... more.
I sat up and stared out at the water. I could just picture the good laugh at this Alex and his friends would have when he got back to Hartford. Against my will a tear slid down my cheek.
Alex wiped it away. "Hey, I'm not the kind of guy who would force himself on anyone." He paused, then put out his hand. "Still friends?"
I hesitated. There was a faint twinkle in Alex's eyes that I couldn't figure out, but his smile was open and friendly. I took Alex's hand and shook it. "Still friends," I said. I hoped it was true.
Chapter Seven
After our torrid evening on the beach, I limited Alex's and my kisses to friendly pecks strictly for the benefit of the giggling girls, who continued to lurk around Little's. I'd half expected that Alex would avoid me, but evidently he'd been sincere when he'd said that he wanted to still be friends. I enjoyed his company, and he seemed to enjoy mine. But then, who else was there for him to hang around?
I was surprised at how pleasantly the weeks rolled by. I was saving enough of my babysitting money to be able to buy myself some clothes in the fall and still have plenty left to put in my savings account for college, which was good, but it was more than that which made the summer so, well, gratifying.
Hailey and Jason, different as they were, at least got along, and babysitting was not the boring chore it usually had been for me. I was surprised to learn that, at times, I could enjoy a seven- and eight-year-old. In fact, I found myself planning their activities with enthusiasm and discovered that Hailey and Jason were receptive to my ideas. Jason worked at his swimming and was mastering the backstroke, while Hailey had started decorating a picture frame we had made out of cardboard with shells we had collected from the beach.
According to Alex that was not the sort of thing that usually interested Hailey. She'd never wanted to work on any sort of arts or crafts before. But every rainy day Hailey would sort through the shells, coat the chosen few with some of my clear nail polish and glue them onto the frame. She was quite particular about choosing her shells and arranging them on the frame, so I was sure it would take her the rest of the summer to finish, unless there was a prolonged rainy spell.
Hailey had the desired calming effect on Jason that I'd hoped she'd have. Oh, he didn't turn into a Mr. Cool, but he didn't flip out every time he got a little cut or scratch, and he learned to take turns, to let Hailey go first sometimes. Hailey picked up a few clues from Jason, too. She'd had a tendency to be stoic and unemotional, which is fine, but at times I think she carried it to extremes. For a while I'd been wondering if she ever did anything so brash as to shout with glee. But continual exposure to Jason's exuberance loosened her up a bit.
When I wasn't babysitting I saw a lot of Alex. I wanted to have a relationship with him that was somewhere between our red-hot night on the beach and the platonic state of affairs for which we seemed to be headed. But the camaraderie that was developing was a good base for the more romantic situation I still hoped to promote, as soon as I figured out a way to do it without blowing everything. However, the lazy, sunny summer days made it easy to postpone any plans to upgrade our easy-going friendship.
I forgot about trying to appear older to Alex. I relaxed and had fun and didn't worry about the kind of impression I was making. It was better, I decided, to keep things on a friendly basis, rather than risk getting carried away and having Alex think I was inviting him into a more intense physical relationship than I was ready for at the moment.
Alex and I went swimming and took long walks, often including Jason and Hailey in our plans. Once we rented a rowboat and spent an hour circling in the water, unable to coordinate any two people on the oars long enough to forge a straight line. Jason and Hailey refused to consider allowing any one person to attempt rowing, so laughing nonstop, we spun around hopelessly until Jason eventually complained of seasickness.
The only cloud on my horizon, and the one thing that dampened my notions of trying to rekindle Alex's romantic interest, however slowly, was the steadily growing stack of letters from Nicole piling up on Alex's dresser. Nicole's picture loomed larger every time I saw it, and my stomach churned the day it occurred to me that the frame Hailey was making would be just the right size for it. I couldn't stand the thought that my efforts might someday be part of a frame for Nicole's smiling face.
But I reminded myself that I was the one who was spending the summer with Alex, and no one c
ould take that away from me. I felt that we could at least remain friends, and, after all, it was not only better to have loved and lost, etc., but it was better to remain on good terms after we went back to Hartford in the fall, than be too embarrassed to even speak to each other because I had led Alex into a romance that he would want to end as soon as he had a chance to be with Nicole again.
I saw Jake almost every day, too, since I continued to take Jason and Hailey to Bob's Beach House for root beer. They acted deprived if I didn't suggest it. Jake was friendly, and I offered him encouraging smiles and chatter. But I was relieved that I didn't see him except when I was with Jason and Hailey. I wouldn't know what to do if he should ask me to go for a walk again. I wanted to spend my free time with Alex. I missed him when we weren't together and I found myself saving up things to tell him. I tried to live in a special summer world, pushing thoughts of life in Hartford and worries about Nicole and passion, desire and other symptoms of s-e-x from my mind whenever they surfaced. Maybe I wasn't exactly having a summer romance, but I was having a wonderful friendship and I didn't want it to end.
One evening after a marathon session of The Game of Life, Alex suggested a picnic. "Tomorrow we can pack a lunch, rent a rowboat and head for that little island that's only about a half-mile out." He shook his finger at Jason and Hailey. "And Katie and I will take turns doing the rowing!"
"Great idea," I said.
"Let's bring lots of sandwiches on this picnic," Jason said.
"And Katie's potato salad," added Hailey.
"Lemonade would be nice," I said. "And brownies."
"It all sounds great," said Alex. "Katie, why don't you take care of the lemonade and potato salad, and I'll worry about the sandwiches and brownies."
"Sure," I said. "What time do you want to go?"
"Ten tomorrow morning?"
"Fine. Meet us here?"
"Sure. Let's go, Hailey. We'll see you tomorrow."