Star Shack

by Lila Castle

  It can’t just be the astrology, can it?

  Vanessa says it’s just typical jerk behavior. Since all guys are jerks, I shouldn’t be surprised. But Pete is not a jerk. I know this. At least I think I do.

  At least I know Pete gets coffee after his morning jog on the beach around eleven. I will be getting there right after he takes that first sip.

  The rain starts falling a little harder, and I put up my whale umbrella to protect my hair. I styled it back in a twist that makes my face look slim (at least I read somewhere it does), but I can feel curls leaking out already. I’m wearing my white lace halter top, the one Pete couldn’t take his eyes off last summer, and a short pink skirt. I put on real shoes, my black ballet flats, instead of flip-flops. Not that Pete cares so much about clothes, but when you’re on a mission, you give it everything you’ve got. I even put on a little makeup.

  I hear Jed belting out an aria as I walk into the Opera Café. He’s at the cappuccino machine, tending to a long line of customers. My heart pounds for a moment. Pete is sitting at the counter, nursing a white ceramic mug filled with the house blend. Why he keeps his coffee plain is beyond me. It should be foamy milk, sweet cinnamon, zesty peppermint, or gooey caramel. Coffee, like most things in life, should be fun. Right, Pete? I want to yell at him. Aren’t I right?

  If I keep my eyes off the little Red Sox insignia on his jersey, he looks perfect.

  Scott and Ben move up next to him as they wait for their coffee.

  “Hey,” I say, walking up to them.

  “Hey, sexy,” Scott says, without a trace of irony.

  “Looking good, Annabelle,” Ben adds, smirking a little.

  This is how the Gingerbread Beach boys (and most boys, come to think of it) talk to all breathing females, but it still feels good. Admiration is admiration, after all. Pete finally turns and offers a smile.

  “What’s up?” I say, trying to sit gracefully on the stool next to him but somehow losing my shoe as I settle.

  “You lost your shoe,” Pete says, chuckling.

  “Yes, I know. I planned it that way.” I shake off the other one, trying to look like I want to be barefoot on a cold, rainy day—in a café that is not swept nearly as much as it could be. We Leos can be neat freaks.

  “Trying to drive out the customers with a little foot odor?” Pete jokes.

  I try to raise an eyebrow but end up laughing.

  “What can I get you, love?” Jed asks, bustling over. He has coffee stains on his white apron, and he smells like beans.

  “How about a gingerbread latte?” I ask.

  “Touristy,” Pete tells me as Jed goes over to the coffee machine.

  “Classic,” I correct.

  “Speaking of which, you guys missed a classic party the other night,” Scott says, leaning his elbows on the counter.

  Jed sets my drink down, and I pick up the mug, losing myself in the scent for a moment.

  “Carl got so wasted he started imitating Jed singing opera,” Scott adds. “Jen recorded him on her phone and put it up on YouTube. You should totally check it out.”

  “Absolutely: I wouldn’t want to miss that,” Pete says, sounding very serious.

  “Me neither,” I agree. “It sounds…epic.”

  Pete pokes me in the side. Scott and Ben don’t notice because they are busy checking out the girl who just walked in.

  “Talk about hot,” Scott says in his most sleazy voice.

  “I’m loving that skirt,” Ben agrees.

  I look over at the girl in question. “Skirt” is too generous a description for the scrap of leather around her hips. She’d better be careful if she wants to sit down in that thing. She has a tattoo on her bicep and another on the back of her neck. Her dirty-blond hair is up in a sloppy knot on top of her head so you get full view of the rose complete with thorns etched just below her hairline.

  Scott shifts on his stool to get a better view of Tattoo Girl. His arm bumps Pete’s coffee.

  “Whoops! Sorry, dude,” Scott says, reaching for a napkin. The coffee is all over Pete’s hands; a little has splashed onto his jersey.

  “No problem,” Pete says, standing up. “I’ll just go rinse this out…”

  “While you’re at it, I think you should toss the whole thing,” I whisper.

  Pete snickers as he heads back to the bathroom.

  I take a sip of my latte, which is buttery smooth and rich, but then I almost choke when Tattoo Girl comes over and sits on Pete’s stool. I start to tell her that seat is taken, which should be obvious since there’s a mug of coffee sitting there and she witnessed the spillage, but she turns her back to me.

  “Sarah,” she says, reaching out to shake Scott’s hand.

  He practically purrs. “Scott, and it’s a true pleasure.”

  I can’t see Sarah’s face, but I imagine a smug look of satisfaction. I roll my eyes. I hate it when a girl ignores all fellow females in the vicinity. It doesn’t help that Scott and Ben are falling all over her like she’s some kind of goddess. Sure, she’s pretty (in a B-level, MTV-extra sort of way), but is that any reason to fawn all over her and completely forget that I exist? I mean, we were talking.

  “We’re having a party Saturday night,” Ben tells Sarah. “We have a keg lined up, and it’s going to be pretty wild.”

  Okay, obviously yes: it is enough for him to completely forget I exist because he doesn’t even include me in the party invite. Not that I am much for a “wild” time like Sarah with her tattoos obviously is, but Ben has known me since we were twelve. I have distinct memories of saving him from the wrath of Laser Tag Larry, in fact: memories which I’m sure would embarrass the hell out of him. You’d think Ben would at least look my way when talking about a party.

  “Good as new,” Pete says as he comes up, a huge wet spot on his jersey but all the coffee rinsed away. He reaches over, grabs his mug off the counter, and drains the last of it.

  Sarah turns, her eyes suddenly bright with interest.

  “How rude! I took your seat,” she says in a low voice that she clearly thinks is sexy. Really it just sounds like she has a sore throat. “I’m Sarah.”

  “Hey,” Pete says, wiping his arm across his mouth.

  “Are you here for the summer or just passing through?” she asks, leaning toward him. Scott and Ben are forgotten, and not once has she glanced my way. Spotlight: Pete! Seriously, it’s like he is suddenly the only person in the café. And can you get any cheesier in terms of a come-on? This girl is ridiculous.

  “Here for the summer,” Pete says.

  Sarah smiles. “Me too.”

  I suddenly feel prissy in my lacy white shirt that had seemed sexy. It makes me look like a nun next to Sarah and her low neckline.

  All of a sudden, Pete turns to me and holds out his hand. “Let’s go,” he says, lacing his fingers through mine.

  The anger melts away in an instant. I smile at Sarah. “I’m Annabelle. It’s so nice to meet you,” I say before I allow Pete to lead me out.

  Sarah smiles back and mumbles, “Hey,” but her eyes are burning. Ben and Scott resume falling all over her. It’s too funny. Besides, who cares about them? I’m leaving with the only guy who really matters. Sarah can have them—and any other guy she wants.

  We walk out into the rain, which has quieted back down to a drizzle. Pete is still holding my hand as we start walking up the boardwalk, passing Seashells and Sand Dollars, a tiny boutique that sells jewelry made from stuff on the beach, and the booth where Dan, an ancient artist, will do portraits and caricatures. A kid with a pointy nose is wiggling in the posing chair while his mom tries to hold him still so Dan can sketch him.

  “So what have you been up to?” I ask Pete. It feels so natural to have my hand tucked into his, so right.

  “Mostly just practicing for the SAT,” he says.

  My scores were good so I’m not going to be taking the exam again. Thank goodness—I hate standardized tests. Not that anyone in her right mind would like them
, but given that I’m a Leo, I don’t have the patience for mindless, tedious tasks.

  “You know how to live it up,” I say, and he laughs.

  “What were you up to besides checking out the fall schedule on Broadway?” he teases. He knows me too well.

  “One day it might be me starring there,” I say.

  He squeezes my hand, and the shivers run down my arm. “I’d bet on it,” he says in that way that makes me feel like I could do absolutely anything.

  “Right, and between shows I’ll come see you play ball,” I say, and I mean it. “Though I’ll be rooting for the Yanks even if it is you batting for Boston.”

  “You and Grandma Hillary,” he says.

  I laugh. We pass a group of moms with toddlers who are just out of the bouncy, blow-up tent with balls. You can tell by how the kids’ hair is flying every which way and how they are hopping around, as though they’re still walking on cushions.

  “I miss her,” I hear myself say. “They’re in Uzbekistan now, on some part of the Silk Road. It sounds amazing.”

  Pete drops my hand and wraps an arm around my shoulders. “I know she misses you too,” he says.

  How does he pull this off? How can he go from so jokey to so wonderful in the space of a breath? His words warm every part of me, and I’m all tingly from his arm snug around me. It’s like he has a sensor tuned into me and what I’m feeling and then knows exactly what to say. He gets it right every time; that’s how I know we were written in the stars.

  “So your Yankees went down last night,” he says as we pass the arcade. I hear bleeps and shouts coming from inside where the twelve-year-old club is hanging out. I feel a sudden wave of nostalgia.

  “It was a fluke,” I say airily. “Plus we’ll get hot when it counts.”

  “I hope you don’t lose the American League East waiting for that hot streak,” he says.

  “As a matter of fact, it looks like we’re due a serious winning streak in August,” I say without thinking.

  Pete’s arm falls off my shoulders, and his face is suddenly set in that distant mask that is starting to become alarmingly familiar. But I’m not doing this again. I didn’t mention astrology; isn’t that enough?

  “What?” I ask.

  He shrugs and then turns to look at the amusement park set up at the end of the boardwalk. I see him looking at the Ferris wheel where Silas dumped Vanessa last year.

  “Pete, we have to talk. No running off saying you have something urgent at home. I want to know what’s going on with you. Just tell me, okay?”

  He looks at the ocean, scuffs his sneaker on a loose board, and then rubs his face. I’m going to scream if he doesn’t start using actual words, but finally he opens his mouth. “It’s just the astrology stuff,” he says, avoiding eye contact.

  “That’s it?” I ask, confused. That can’t be the entire reason he’s been acting so aloof the past few months, why he suddenly turns on and off—can it?

  “I’m just not into it,” he says.

  “That’s fine, though I bet if I told you more about it, you might be,” I say, trying not to sound too eager. “Like did I tell you how I used it to win the Super Bowl pool in my drama club and I don’t even watch football?”

  “Yeah, you mentioned it like ten times,” he says in a flat voice.

  “Okay, whatever…I was excited!” I exclaim, even though I’m sulking inside. Like you don’t repeat things you care about, I add bitterly, in silence.

  “Just…you can keep it to yourself, right?” he asks awkwardly.

  “Wait, what? Are you telling me I can’t talk about astrology with you at all?” Bitterness morphs to outrage. I’d listen to him talk about anything he wants. Anything. Last year, he went on for hours about his athlete’s foot—and did I complain or tell him to stop, even when it got really gross? No, I did not.

  “Pretty much, yeah—at all,” he says, finally looking at me. “It’s weird…Don’t you see that?”

  I don’t like anything about what he’s just said to me. “It’s not weird,” I say coldly. “It’s an ancient science that has been around for centuries. Lots of brilliant people have used it, like Newton and Pythagoras.”

  “So maybe they were freaks in their spare time?” he asks in that familiar jokey voice he uses to talk about people like Laser Tag Larry, people who are so odd that they defy explanation—a voice that almost always makes me laugh.

  “Are you saying I’m a freak?” I demand.

  He lets out a loud sigh. Now he sounds like my father. “No, I don’t mean it like that. It’s just that anyone who would believe that looking up at the sky can tell you something about your life is one card shy of a full deck, you know?”

  “No, I do not know!” I am pissed now.

  “How can you take that stuff seriously?” His voice is getting louder too. “It’s ridiculous to think these things made of gas and energy billions of miles away have anything to do with us.”

  “So now I’m ridiculous and a freak?” I practically shout.

  He shrugs again, like it doesn’t matter. “I’m just saying what any reasonable person thinks: that stuff is for flakes who can’t handle the real world.”

  I take a deep breath so my voice won’t shake when I reply. “Then I guess I won’t be bothering you with my flaky ideas anymore.”

  I turn and stalk down the boardwalk, toward the beach and my house. I expect him to follow, to apologize for being a judgmental snob, to say he cares about me so much I can talk about paint drying on walls and he’ll listen. But there is no calling of my name, no running to catch up with me. He is letting me go.

  Sarah Sheldon

  Born November 29: Sagittarius

  Rising Sign: Scorpio

  You are the life of the party even though you love to flit from one event to the next, seeking excitement and fun above all else. Your enthusiasm for life charms others, though they can be taken aback at your willingness to speak the truth. Generally you like to see people united, but others best beware because this summer you are all about shaking things up—and not for the better.

  chapter 5

  Catch you later, dude,” Scott says, saluting me as he heads out of the teen pool hall. If “teen pool hall” sounds glamorous, allow me to clarify: it’s a tiny, rotting wooden building on the boardwalk with a bunch of pool tables crammed in, a ping-pong table in the back (no one ever plays, because the humidity has warped the surface), and a bar along one side where Margo, the grizzled owner (also warped from constant humidity and who-knows-what), serves supermarket-brand soda for inflated prices. But the pool is cheap, and that’s what I’m here for.

  Ben waves as he follows Scott out. Night is falling over Gingerbread Beach, and the rain has finally stopped—for now. I just finished beating them both, twice, so they don’t invite me to go with them wherever they’re going. But I don’t care. It’s not like I’d go with them anyway. I’m not in the mood for a party or “cruising chicks” (their words) at the Friday night dance at the rec hall.

  I only have one girl on my mind, and I doubt she’ll be there. I haven’t seen her anywhere the past few days, not that I’ve been looking. Much. I mean, looking for Annabelle would be stupid since there’s really nothing to say. She’s changed into a New Age stranger. I haven’t. That’s that.

  I just wish I could stop thinking about her.

  I rack the scratched-up colored balls and chalk up my cue. So, this is what my summer has come to: solo pool. It could be worse, I suppose. Not sure how, but…

  “Bet you a beer I can take this game,” a husky female voice says.

  I look up and see the girl from the Opera Café, the one with the tattoos. Today she’s wearing a black dress with no back, and I can’t help but zero in on a snake tattoo at the base of her spine as she sashays over to grab a cue stick. But sexy tattoo or no, I’m not in the mood for company.

  “I’m just messing around,” I say when she returns. “Maybe another time.”

  She smirks at
me from behind lowered lashes. She’s wearing too much black stuff on her eyes, but underneath it, I have to admit…she really is pretty.

  “What, are you scared I’ll beat you?” she asks. “I am good. Come on…one game. I dare you.”

  She said the magic words that can get me to do almost anything. I never, ever turn down a dare.

  “One game,” I say, but I realize she wasn’t even waiting for me to agree. She’s already pulled up the rack and is lining up her cue to break. I can tell by the smack of the cue ball against the others that she is for real. Good. I’m up for a challenge.

  She has four stripes in holes before I know it, and I have to work hard to match that. She smiles like a cat the whole time I’m doing it, her arms folded over her chest.

  “Not bad,” she tells me. “But this game is mine.” She proceeds to pocket the rest of her balls and then shoots me a wicked grin. “Eight in the top left,” she says, and moments later the black ball is flying in.

  I admit it; I’m impressed.

  “You owe me a beer,” she says, swinging her cue gently between two fingers.

  “Will you settle for a soda?” I ask. “Considering it’s all they serve here.”

  She tilts her head. “Really? I thought there was a secret handshake or something that could get you something more exciting.”

  I shake my head. “Excitement is definitely not what this place is about…”

  “Fine, I’ll take it, but you still owe me a proper beer,” she says. “I’ll have anything diet.”

  I can’t help smiling a little as I head up to the crowded bar and order two colas, one diet.

  “Who’s the smoking hot babe?” a guy named Walker asks. He’s part of the Scott and Ben crowd. He just graduated, and I’ve heard he’s off to Penn State on a football scholarship. Normally he wouldn’t bother with a guy like me, younger and not into parties or football, but right now he’s leaning forward eagerly.