“Nothing. What are you doing here?”
Jamie looked around the room at the other guys. One of them sat up, grabbed the remote from the coffee table, and paused the movie. Were they having some kind of guys-only thing? Her chest pinched a little as she looked back at Ethan.
“I just thought, well, last time we talked you said we’d have the house to ourselves,” Jamie said very softly so that Ethan’s friends wouldn’t hear her. Had she done something wrong? She racked her brain but she couldn’t think of anything.
She looked around the room again, wishing that the other boys would just vanish into thin air. That way, she could tell Ethan how much she longed to be next to him, how she desperately needed to have that feeling she experienced last summer—like their souls fit perfectly together. But Ethan’s friends didn’t look like they were going anywhere. In fact, it appeared to her that she might be the one on the way out.
“I just, you know, missed you,” she muttered again, low enough for only Ethan to hear. She gave him a tender smile, but he kept looking at his watch and glancing at the TV set.
Okay, she told herself,it’s a guy thing. Shouldn’t take this personally at all. But she could barely contain the tears that were welling up in her eyes.
“Well, I guess I should go,” Jamie said, trying not to lose her composure. She would never be able to forgive herself for breaking down in front of Ethan and his posse. But before she could say anything else, Ethan did something nice. He made her feel like a part of the gang.
“Hey, you haven’t met these guys yet, right? These are some of my best buddies.” Ethan waved a hand over his three friends. “Scott, Alex, Keith…this is my Jamie.”
My Jamie? Ethan had momentarily redeemed himself.
“Have a seat,” Scott said as he cleared a spot for her beside him on the couch. His foot grazed the miniature Millennium Falcon replica perched on the table.
“Careful,” Ethan said, leaning forward protectively. He’d built the model from an elaborate vintage kit last year. Jamie knew it was his one nerdy hobby, and that all his friends made fun of him for it. But she’d always thought the patience it must have taken was something else to love about him.
Finally, everyone was situated. “So, I hear you’re a writer, Jamie,” Scott said, ignoring the fact that the movie was still on pause. Scott was classic surfer guy material. His hair was brown and fuzzy, and he had wide-set hazel eyes. Jamie’s first thought was to introduce him to Ella—he was definitely cute enough.
“Aspiring,” she said humbly. She never liked talking about her writing with anyone except Ethan. “What about you?” She quickly checked on Ethan, who’d started the movie again on a low volume.
“Well, I’m not an aspiring anything,” he said. “I help my dad. He runs a business flying planes, you know the ones with the ads that fly over the beach?”
Jamie nodded, although she wasn’t really listening. Her thoughts were on Ethan and whether or not she had been giving him enough space over the past couple of weeks after all. Yesterday she’d dragged him to the beach and talked to him nonstop while he barely said a word. Sometimes she just couldn’t help herself—Ethan made her feel so comfortable that she oftentimes confided in him about things she had kept hidden from everyone else. But maybe that was too overwhelming for him.
Eventually, Scott stopped talking and Jamie’s attention returned to her surroundings. While everyone focused on the movie again, Jamie studied the Millennium Falcon, partly because it was blocking her view, but mostly because it never failed to impress her. It was such an elaborate piece of craftsmanship. She just couldn’t believe that Ethan was responsible for its creation.
Jamie stayed for the rest of the movie. When it was over, the boys remained seated. Jamie stood up and stretched her arms above her head as if she had been sitting down for days. It seemed she wasn’t going to get any private time with Ethan, so she decided to head out.
“Well, guys, I have some stuff to do, so I’ll catch you later,”she said.
“James, it’s been real,” Scott said and shot her a surfer hangten sign with his right hand.
“Absolutely,” she replied with an equally corny thumbs-up.
Ethan stood up and walked her to the downstairs door, which led onto the back deck that faced the ocean.
“Hey, thanks for not kicking me out earlier,”she said, trying to sound breezy and carefree.
“Sorry about the misunderstanding,” he replied, his hands in his pockets.
“Yeah, well, it happens,” Jamie said sweetly. She gave Ethan a peck on the cheek and walked onto the deck.
She wasn’t codependent or anything like that, she told herself. Maybe she’d go home and write, or draw, or swim. There were plenty of things she was happy to do alone.
But before she did, there was one thing she had to accomplish.
Without even really thinking about what she was about to do, she spun around.
“Hey, Ethan!” she called out. He turned around rather quickly as if she had startled him.
“Just wanted you to see what you missed,” she said.
She lifted up her peasant blouse and quickly flashed him the pink bra. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. Jamie lowered her shirt, waved, and walked off, happy that she hadn’t let him see her cry.
7
What Beth liked about the houses along Peachtree Road, other than that they were practically right on the beach, was that they were multicolored—soft pink, soft turquoise, white, beige, red. In the midday sun, the paints reflected even brighter, and to Beth, they looked like Fruity Pebbles.
“C’mon, George,” she called over her shoulder. He was straggling with the family’s lone surfboard, carrying it carefully, slowly picking his way along the road in his bare feet.
“I told you to wear sandals. I don’t know why you didn’t listen to me,” Beth reprimanded him sternly. George was on what he called a “personal journey,”meaning he was trying to achieve spiritual enlightenment by not wearing shoes for the entire summer. He’d gotten it from some friend who was into Buddhism.
“I’m fine. And stop talking to me like you’re my mother. It’s creepy. And annoying!” George said, hefting the board tighter under his arm. But Beth knew the pavement was hot and the soles of George’s feet were definitely burning up. She couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Speaking of your mom, what did she have to say when she called last night?” Beth asked.
“She said she doesn’t miss me.” He used his free arm to shoo a seagull that flew by him. “And she said she’s glad to know I have you to watch over me.” He smiled wryly.
Within minutes, George was several paces ahead. He was engaged in some sort of weird jog, lifting his feet in stiff little jerks and hurrying toward the grass that led to the beach. “Great balls of fire,” he exclaimed after he threw the board over his shoulder. Beth snorted as she followed him over the curb.
Up ahead, the Tuttles had set up camp in their usual spot. An orange umbrella announced their location, and the adults were clustered beneath it. Beth could see Kelsi and her new boyfriend playing Frisbee, and Ella lying on her towel. Not far from Ella a girl reclined on a lounge chair under an identical orange umbrella. Beth always thought lounge chairs and umbrellas were for wusses. For her, there was nothing better than splaying out on good oldfashioned sand smack dab in the middle of harmful UV rays.
She plopped herself down next to Ella, and George collapsed onto his knees on her left. He checked out the lounge chair girl for a few seconds (in the cursory way he checked out every girl) and then lay down on his stomach. He and Beth looked at each other with their cheeks pressed up against their forearms.
“Gotta get nice and hot first,” George said, which was exactly what Beth was thinking. There was a right way and a wrong way to enter the ocean, and the right way was after your body temperature reached a full-on I’m-as-roasted-as-a-Planters-peanut type of hot.
Suddenly, George lifted his head to look at the gir
l on the lounge chair, his chin on his knuckles. She was drinking a Diet Vanilla Coke, tilting her head back and gulping deeply, looking suspiciously like an advertisement.
“God, that’s enough to make a man switch to Diet Coke,” George murmured.
She was wearing a low-cut red bathing suit and two clips in her long, reddish-brown hair, ‘40s retro style. Beth had to admit, this girl was working it big-time.
“I have an extra one. Do you want it?” the sexy siren asked George, without noticing the suggestiveness of what she just said.
Beth and George both stared blankly at the girl. Did she have supersonic hearing? Or ESP? She leaned forward in her chair and pulled her sunglasses off. “Really, it’s getting warm, anyway.”
“I love warm soda,” George said, watching the girl as she rose from her seat and walked toward them. She knelt beside them and handed George the extra can of Diet Coke, then folded her hands over her knees.
“Do you guys surf?” She nodded her head at the surfboard.
“A little. We’re not great or anything,” Beth replied.
Last spring, she and George had rentedBlue Crush and ended up watching it four times in one weekend. They’d lain on George’s bed eating chips and drinking root beer and ended up with a pukey, dazed feeling that George later called “The Sickness.” When George had come to Maine last year, they’d taken surfing lessons as a tribute to the event.
“Personally, I’m pretty much a pro,” George said sarcastically.
The girl nodded, not seeming to get the joke. “I’d love to learn.”
“Really?” Beth studied the girl’s small frame, her perfect posture, and the way her hands were folded on her lap. This girl was not surfing material.
“Yeah. But I’m not supposed to because I might damage my hands.”
George and Beth both surveyed her hands at the same instant.
“What’s so great about your hands?” George asked honestly.
“Oh well, it’s not that my hands are great. It’s just that I play the violin, so breaking a wrist bone or something like that wouldn’t be such a good idea.” The girl ran her fingers through her long, straight, copper hair for emphasis, and adjusted a hair clip. Beth’s immediate thought was that nobody wants to break bones. Were violin hands really more important than everyone else’s?
“So, the violin, huh?” George was always a master conversationalist.
“Yeah, I’m in the music program at NYU.” Beth noted that the girl said it with a certain amount of pride and perfect diction.
“I’m Cara, by the way,” she said and reached out her hand formally. Beth shook it lightly.
“I’m Beth.”
“And I’m George. Such a pleasure to meet you,” he said as he dipped in a mock bow. Clearly, Cara thought he was funny because Beth never saw a girl laugh so hard. At George in a mean way, yes. At George in a flirty way, never.
“Are you good at it?” he asked.
Cara shrugged with a modest smile. “I hope. Supposedly my teacher thinks I have a lot of potential.”
“Wow,”Beth said, fairly impressed. Everyone said she had potential in athletics. But that didn’t seem as complex and intriguing as being a promising violinist.
George had turned to stare off longingly at the water.
“Why don’t you go in first, George?” Beth asked, nodding toward the surfboard.
Before she’d finished the sentence, he was up and pulling off his shirt, revealing his smooth, freckled chest.
“Later, dudettes.” George grabbed the surfboard and headed toward the ocean. Beth watched him trot down to the water. The backs of his legs were dusted with sand. George always looked funny carrying a surfboard—it always seemed way too big for him.
“How long have you guys been dating?” Cara asked Beth after a moment
“We’re not dating.” Beth noticed an ant crawling on her arm. She blew at it and it went flying off into the air. “We’re just friends.”
“Oh?” Cara looked surprised. “Really?”
“Yep. We’ve been for quite a while now.”
“Don’t you think he’s cute?”
Beth scrunched up her forehead at Cara. “You think?”
“Yes, without a doubt.” They both stared out at the water to determine who was right about George. Beth had never heard anybody describe him as cute before. Goofy, definitely. But cute? That was a first.
George was waist-deep in water and waiting for a wave. When one came, he crawled up onto his board. As he stood on the surfboard, his body moved smoothly. His feet were planted firmly but the rest of him was moving fluidly to balance himself. In another second, the board descended and he fell forward into the water.
Beth had to admit, when George wasn’t on land, he did have a certain grace. His curly dark head disappeared underwater and popped up again, and he blew some water out of his mouth and swiped his free hand at his face. Okay, maybe he was a small touch of cute.
Beth then stole a glance at Cara, who still had her eyes on George. She had glossy, penny-colored hair and those deep brown eyes. Beth felt like she had been cast under a dark shadow all of a sudden.
“Really cute,” Cara repeated herself and then sipped some more of her Coke. “Is he single?”
The question made something in Beth go haywire. There was a burning sensation in her chest. And her skin started to feel real itchy for some reason. She wanted to stop this conversation and head home to recover from this visitation of “The Sickness II,” but all she could do was smile and reply.
“Yes, he’s as available as they come.”
When George came back, he stood over Beth, one foot on either side of her waist, his cold ankles pressing against her thighs. He shook himself off, the water hitting her in fast droplets.
She grabbed his ankle to stop him, digging her nails gently into his skin. “Damn it, George.”
“Your turn,” he said, plopping down beside her and panting, not caring that he was covering himself with sand and her with water. His hair stood up in spikes. Beth smoothed them out for him with a swipe, then stood up and grabbed the board.
Out in the water, Beth took several deep breaths. She just loved the feeling of her lungs expanding. The water was cold. It was still June, and it hadn’t been hot enough for it to really warm up. She walked in up to her thighs and then dunked herself entirely. She jumped up and whipped her wet hair back from her face.
She crawled up on the board and paddled out much farther than George had. She didn’t want to be near any of the other swimmers—they always made her feel a bit more nervous when she was on the board, since she had to keep her eyes peeled to make sure that she didn’t topple over onto anyone if she wiped out. Beth treaded water while she waited for a wave to come. She felt a slight uneasiness in her stomach again, and she couldn’t figure out why. Okay, she did know why. She didn’t like Cara. There was something about her that just made Beth queasy. It was strange because Beth usually liked everyone.
Every once in a while, a minor ripple passed her, and she’d bob up and down rhythmically. Beth felt truly happy out in the ocean. She liked to feel her body at work as her own strength kept her afloat. When a wave swelled twenty yards away, she turned so that her back faced it and waited. Beth thought the waiting was almost as good as the surfing—the anticipation was a big part of the adrenaline rush. She waited to see how big the wave would get, waited for the little pinch of fear that came while she watched. Finally, it was just behind her, and Beth climbed onto the board, stood up, and glided.
When she trudged back onto shore about half an hour later, her legs and arms felt like marshmallows. She breathed heavily as she hoisted the board up and made her way across the sand, her feet sinking into thousands of tiny grains at every step, which made it very hard to walk without stumbling around like a toddler. When she got to the group of Tuttles, she sat down hard, pulled in her legs Indian style and leaned back on the palms of her hands.
George had his legs near
Cara’s, his toes almost touching her thigh. He flung his head back on his neck to look up at Beth. “So, how was it? Like a scene out ofBlue Crush, right?”
“Good, but notthat good,” she said through short-winded gasps. For some reason, she couldn’t take her eyes off the spot where George’s feet and Cara’s thigh were nearly touching. “Did you see that last one?” The wave had been enormous. She had been just about to give up and come in when it had barreled up behind her. But Beth hung in there and took it on like a pro.
“Nah,” George shook his head remorsefully. “We were talking about…what were we talking about?” He lowered his chin back to Cara.
“Doing shots.”
“Right. Butterscotch shots. Cara says she’s never had one. And I think we should get that remedied sometime soon. Before she gets all shriveled and old and it’s too late.”
Cara giggled. “You can buy me one later.”
“You can buyme one later,” George said.
Beth watched as George poked at Cara’s arm.Oh…my… God, she thought to herself.They are flirting!
It was just too much for her to handle—George and flirting and Cara and sun and waves and George again. Yes, she had to get out of there right away or she might suddenly combust from all the stress.
“Well, I’m gonna head home and shower,” Beth said, standing up and brushing herself off like a first-rate obsessive-compulsive. She was still wet, so no matter how much she kept trying to brush the sand away, it stuck to her arms and legs and white swimsuit like Krazy Glue. Nevertheless, she wouldn’t stop until each granule of the beach was wiped off her skin. Actually, she was acting so hyper, one might say she was turning into George.
Which may have been why George hopped up and came to the rescue.
“Yeah, I’m going to bail, too,” he said, handing Beth a towel. “Here, this might help you get the sand off.”
Beth managed to sweep all the sand to the ground and then wrapped the towel around her waist.
“George, it’s fine if you want to stay,” Beth said in an indifferent tone. This was so weird. Suddenly, she was painfully aware that she wanted him to come in spite of what she had said.
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