Текст книги "My Life Next Door"

Автор книги: Huntley Fitzpatrick

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“Here I thought Sailor Supergirl could do anything.” Jase opens the door to the kitchen, motioning me in.

“Sadly, my powers are limited.”

“Can you make sure this Kyle Comstock is a good guy? That would be a useful power.”

“You’re telling me,” I say. “I could use that one with my mom’s boyfriend. But no.” Without saying anything further Jase heads for the stairs, and, snake-charmed again, I follow him up toward his room, to be met in the hallway by a very wide-eyed Duff. He has the family chestnut hair, slightly long, and round green eyes. He’s huskier than Jase, and a lot shorter.

“Voldemort has escaped,” he announces.

“Hell.” Jase sounds upset, which, considering that info about Harry Potter is old news, seems odd.

“Did you take him out of his cage?” Jase is at the door of his room in two strides.

“Just for a minute. To see if he was gonna shed his skin soon.”

“Duff, you know better.” Jase is on his knees, peering under the bed and the bureau.

“Voldemort is—?” I ask Duff.

“Jase’s corn snake. I named him.”

It takes all my self-control not to leap onto the bureau. Jase is rummaging in the closet now. “He likes shoes,” he explains over his shoulder.

Voldemort the corn snake with the shoe fetish. Wonderful.

“Should I get Mom?” Duff is poised in the doorway.

“Nope. Got him.” Jase emerges from the closet with the orange, white, and black snake twined around his arm. I back up several paces.

“He’s very shy, Samantha. Don’t worry. Completely harmless. Right, Duff?”

“It’s true.” Duff regards me seriously. “Corn snakes are really underrated as pets. They’re actually very gentle and intelligent. They just have a bad reputation. Like rats and wolves.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I mutter, watching Jase uncoil the snake and slip it into its cage, where it lies curled like a big, deadly-looking bracelet.

“I can print out something on it from the Internet, if you like,” Duff assures me. “The one thing you have to be careful with about corn snakes is that sometimes they defecate when they are stressed.”

“Duff. Please. Go,” Jase says.

Duff, face downcast, leaves. Then Joel stalks into the room, wearing a tight black T-shirt, tighter black jeans, and an irritated expression.

“I thought you got it working. I have to pick up Giselle in ten minutes.”

“It was working,” Jase says.

“Not now, bro. Take a look.”

Jase looks at me apologetically. “The motorcycle. Come with me while I check it.” Once again, it takes only a few minutes of Jase jiggling something and unscrewing and rescrewing something else for the motorcycle to purr to life. Joel hops on, says something that might be thanks but is impossible to hear over the motor, and speeds off.

“How did you get so good at everything?” I ask Jase as he wipes his greasy hands on a rag from his tool kit.

“At everything,” he repeats thoughtfully.

“Fixing things—” I gesture at the motorcycle, then at my house, implying the vacuum cleaner.

“My dad runs a hardware store. It gives me an unfair advantage.”

“He’s Joel’s dad too,” I point out. “But you’re the one fixing the motorcycle. And taking care of all those pets.”

Jase’s green eyes meet mine, then his lashes lower. “I guess I like things that take time and attention.

More worthwhile that way.”

I don’t know what it is about this that makes me blush, but something does.

Just then Harry comes charging up, saying, “Now you’ll teach me to back dive, right, Sailor Supergirl?

Right now. Right?”

“Harry, Samantha doesn’t have to—”

“I don’t mind,” I say quickly, happy to have something to do besides melt into a puddle on the driveway. “I’ll get my suit.”

Harry’s an enthusiastic student, although his front dives are still at the making-a-steeple-of-his-hands-and-belly-flopping-into-the-water stage. He keeps insisting I show him and show him again and again how to back dive, while Mrs. Garrett splashes in the shallow end with George and Patsy. Jase swims a few laps, then treads water, watching us. Alice and her Brad have evidently gone elsewhere.

“Did you know that killer whales don’t usually kill people?” George calls from the pool steps.

“I’d heard that, yes.”

“They don’t like the way we taste. And did you know that the deadliest sharks to people are great white, tiger, hammerheads, and bull sharks?”

“I did, George,” I say, holding my hand in the small of Harry’s back to get him at the proper angle.

“But there are none of those in this pool,” adds Jase.

“Jase, do you think we should all go to the Clam Shack for dinner, just to check on Andy?” Mrs. Garrett asks.

“She’d be completely humiliated, Mom.” Jase leans back against the side of the pool, elbows on the concrete surrounding it.

“I know, but honestly, fourteen and dating! Even Alice was fifteen.” He shuts his eyes. “Mom. You said no more babysitting for me this week. And Samantha’s not on the clock either.”

Mrs. Garrett wrinkles her forehead. “I know. But Andy’s just…very young for fourteen. I don’t know this Comstock boy at all.”

Jase sighs, shooting a glance at me.

“We could drop by the Clam Shack and check him out,” I offer. “Subtly. Would that work?” Mrs. Garrett beams at me.

“An espionage date?” Jase asks doubtfully. “I guess that could work. Do you have a uniform for that one, Samantha?”

I flick water at him, with a jolt of happiness that he’s calling it a date. Inside, I am no more suave than Andy.

“No Lara Croft look, if that’s what you’re after.”

“Too bad,” he says, and splashes back at me.

Chapter Thirteen

Kyle Comstock’s father, a tall handsome man with a long-suffering expression, pulls up in a black BMW

soon after this. Kyle gets out and walks into the backyard, looking for Andy. He’s cute, with brownish-blond curly hair and an infectious smile, undiluted by the braces.

Andy, in the red bathing suit with a navy terry cloth cover-up over it, hops into the car, after giving Jase and me a quick isn’t-he-something look.

When we get to the Clam Shack an hour later, it is, as usual, completely packed. The shack is a small, shabby building on Stony Bay Beach, approximately the size of my mom’s walk-in closet, and all summer long there’s a line outside. It’s the only eatery on the beach and Stony Bay is the biggest and best public one, wide and sandy. When we finally get in, we see Andy and Kyle over at a corner table. He’s talking earnestly, and she’s toying with her French fries, blushing as red as her bathing suit. Jase closes his eyes at the sight.

“Painful to watch when it’s your sister?” I ask.

“I don’t worry about Alice. She’s like one of those spiders that bites the guy’s head off when she’s done with him. But Andy’s different. Teenage heartbreak waiting to happen.” He looks around to see if there are any available seats, then asks, “Samantha, do you know that guy?” I look over to find Michael sitting alone at the counter, glaring moodily at us. Both ex-boyfriends in one day. Lucky me.

“He’s, um…we…um, went out for a little while.”

“I guess.” Jase seems amused. “He looks like he’s going to come up and challenge me to a duel.”

“No. But he will definitely write a hostile poem about you tonight,” I say.

There’s no place to sit, so we end up carrying Jase’s hamburger and my chowder outside and over to the breakwater. The sun’s still high and hot in the sky, but there’s a cool breeze. I pull on my jacket.

“So what happened with emo dude? Bad breakup?”

“In a way. High drama. That was Michael. It’s not like he was madly in love with me. At all. That was the thing with Michael.” I chew an oyster cracker, staring out at the water, the waves blue-black. “I was just sort of the girl in the poem, not myself. First I was the unattainable object, and then I was some golden girl who was supposed to save him from sorrow forever, or the siren who was luring him into having sex when he didn’t want to—”

Jase chokes on a French fry. “Um. Really?”

I can feel myself flush. “Not like that. He was just very Catholic. So he’d make a move and suffer over it for days.”

“Fun guy. We should hook him up with my ex Lindy.”

“Lindy the shoplifter?” I reach for one of his French fries, then snatch my hand back. He hands me the container.

“That’s the one. No conscience at all. Maybe they’d balance each other out.”

“Did you actually get arrested?” I ask.

“Escorted to the station in a police car, which was quite enough for me. I got a warning, but as it turned out, it was not Lindy’s first offense when we were caught, so she got a big fine, which she wanted me to pay half of, and community service.”

“Did you pay half?” I gobble another of Jase’s fries. I’m trying not to look at him. In the honeyed evening light, the green eyes and tan skin and the amused curl of his smile are all just a little much.

“I almost did because I felt like an ass. My dad talked me out of it, since I had no idea what Lindy was

doing. She could sweep a dozen things into her purse without blinking an eye. She’d practically cleaned out the makeup counter when the security guard came over.” He shakes his head.

“Michael wrote angry breakup poems, a few a day for three months, then mailed them to me, postage due.”

“Let’s definitely set them up. They deserve each other.” He stands up, crumpling the waxed paper from the hamburger and stuffing it into his pocket. “Want to walk out to the lighthouse?” I’m chilly, but I want to go anyway. The breakwater that leads to the lighthouse is strange—the rocks are perfectly flat and even until about halfway, then get jagged and off-kilter, so walking all the way out involves a certain amount of climbing and clinging. By the time we reach the lighthouse, the evening light has turned from golden to pinkly golden with the sunset. Jase folds his arms on the black pipe-metal railing and looks out at the ocean, still studded in the distance with tiny triangles of white sailboats headed home. It’s so picturesque that I half expect orchestral chords to swell in the background.

Tracy’s a pro at these things. She’d stumble and bump up against the boy, looking at him through her lashes. Or she’d shiver and press herself a little closer, as if unconsciously. She’d know exactly what to do to get someone to kiss her just when—and how—she wanted him to.

But I don’t have those skills. So I just stand next to Jase, leaning on the rail, watching the sailboats, feeling the heat of his arm resting next to mine. After a few minutes, he turns to look at me. That look of his, unhurried, thoughtful, scanning my face slowly. Are his eyes lingering on my eyes, my lips? I’m not sure. I want them to. Then he says, “Let’s get home. We’ll take the Bug and go somewhere. Alice owes me.”

As we clamber back over the rocks, I can’t stop wondering what just happened there. I could swear he was looking at me like he wanted to kiss me. What’s stopping him? Maybe he isn’t attracted to me at all. Maybe he just wants to be friends? I’m not sure I can pull off being just friends with someone whose clothes I want to rip off.

Oh God. Did I actually just think that? I steal another look at Jase in his jeans. Yes. Yes, I did.

We look in again at Andy and Kyle. Now she’s talking, and he’s taken one of her hands in his and is just looking at her. That seems promising.

When we get to the Garretts’ house, their van’s gone. We walk into the living room to find Alice and her Brad sprawled on the brown sectional couch, Brad rubbing Alice’s feet. George is fast asleep, naked, facedown, on the floor. Patsy is wandering around in purple terry cloth footie pajamas, plaintively saying,

“Boob.”

“Alice, Patsy should be in bed.” Jase scoops her up, her little purple bottom so small in his broad hand.

Alice seems surprised to find the baby still there, as though Patsy should have tucked herself in long ago.

Jase goes to the kitchen to get a bottle, and Alice sits up, looking at me through narrowed eyes, as though trying to place me. Her hair is now dark red, with some sort of shiny gell making it stick up every which way.

After eyeing me for several minutes she says, “You’re Tracy Reed’s sister, aren’t you? I know Tracy.” Her tone implies that, in this particular case, to know Tracy is not to love her.

“Yup, from next door.”

“You and Jase seeing each other?”

“Friends.”

“Don’t hurt him. He’s the nicest guy on the planet.”

Jase comes back into the room in time to hear this, and rolls his eyes at me privately. Then he scoops the sleeping George easily into his arms, looking around the room.

“Where’s Happy?”

Alice, who’s settled back into Brad’s lap, shrugs.

“Alice, if George wakes up and there’s no Happy, he’s gonna totally lose it.”

“Is Happy the plastic dinosaur?” Brad asks. “’Cause that’s in the bathtub.”

“No, Happy is the stuffed beagle.” Jase rummages around under the couch for a minute, emerging with Happy, who has evidently led a long and eventful life. “I’ll just be a sec.” He walks by me, letting one palm rest for a moment in the small of my back.

“I mean it,” Alice says flatly once he’s gone. “You screw with him, you deal with me.” She sounds fully capable of hiring a hit man if I make a wrong move. Yikes.

Opening the door to Alice’s car, an aged white VW Bug, Jase scoops up about fifty CDs from the passenger seat, then flips open the glove compartment to try to store them there. A lacy red bra falls out.

“Jesus,” he says, shoving it hastily back in and burying it in CDs.

“Not yours, I take it,” I say.

“I really need to get my own car,” he says. “Want to go to the lake?” Just as we start to pull out of the driveway, Mr. and Mrs. Garrett peel in and park, kissing like teenagers, her arms looped around his neck, his hands in her hair. Jase shakes his head as though a little embarrassed, but I stare at them.

“What’s it like?” I ask.

He’s backing up, his arm resting along the back of my seat.

“It?”

“Having happy parents. Together parents. Two parents.”

“You never had that?”

“Nope. I’ve never met my dad. I’m not even sure where he lives anymore.” Jase frowns at me. “No child support?”

“Nope. My mom has a trust fund. I think he tried to get some sort of settlement, but ditching her when she was pregnant counted against him.”

“I’d hope,” Jase mutters. “I’m sorry, Samantha. Having together parents is all I know. It’s like home base. I can’t imagine not having that.”

I shrug, wondering why I do this with Jase. I’ve never had a problem keeping stuff private. Something about Jase’s quiet watchfulness just makes me talk.

It takes about fifteen minutes to get to the lake, which is on the far side of town. I haven’t been here often. I know it’s sort of a public school hangout—there’s some rite of passage where a lot of the seniors jump in fully clothed on the last day of school. I expect the lake to be crowded with parked cars with steamy windows, but no one else is in the lot when we pull in. Jase reaches into the back of the VW, pulls out a towel, then takes my hand and we walk through the trees to the shore. It’s much warmer than it was at the beach, no ocean breeze.

“Race you to the float?” he says, pointing to a shape dimly visible in the gathering dark. I shake off my jacket and yank off my sundress, my bathing suit still underneath, then start to run for the water.

The lake is cool and silky, the water softer than ocean water. The eell grass beneath my feet stops me for a moment, as I try not to think of trout and snapping turtles lurking below. Jase is already swimming fast and I hurry to catch up.

He beats me anyway and is standing on the float to pull me up when I get there.

I look around at the quiet water, the distant shore, and I shiver as his hand closes on mine.

“What am I doing here with you?” I ask.

“What?”

“I hardly know you. You could be some serial killer, luring me out to a deserted lake.” Jase laughs and lies down on the dock on his back, folding his arms behind his head. “Nah, I’m not.

And you can tell.”

“How can I tell?” I smile at him, lying down beside him, our hips nearly touching. “The whole happy-family-Mr.-Nice-Guy bit could be a cover.”

“No, because of instinct. You can tell who to trust. People can, just like animals. We don’t listen as well as they do, always, but it’s still there. That prickling feeling when something’s not right. That calm feeling when it is.” His voice is low and husky in the darkness.

“Jase?”

“Mmm-hmm?” He lifts up on one elbow, his face barely visible in the twilight.

“You have to kiss me,” I find myself saying.

“Yeah.” He leans closer. “I do.”

His lips, warm and soft, touch my forehead, then slide down my cheek, moving sideways to my mouth.

His hand comes up to press the nape of my neck beneath my wet hair, just as mine slips to his back. His skin’s warm beneath the cool sheen of water, his muscles tight as he lies there, still balanced on one elbow. I curl in closer.

I’m not new to kissing. Or I thought I wasn’t, but it’s never been anything like this. I can’t get close enough. When Jase gently deepens the kiss, it feels right, no moment of startled hesitation like I’ve had before.

After a long time, we swim back to shore and stretch out for a while on our towels, kissing again.

Jase’s lips smiling under mine as I kiss all over his face. My hands tightening on his shoulders as he nuzzles my neck and softly nibbles my collarbone. It is as if everything else in the world stops as we lie here in the summer night.

“We should go home,” Jase whispers, his hands stroking my waist.

“No. Not yet. Not yet,” I say back, sliding my lips along the willing curve of his.

Chapter Fourteen

Punctual to a fault, I’ve never understood the expression “I lost track of time.” I’ve never lost track of anything, not my cell phone, not my homework, not my work schedule, certainly not time. But this night, I do. When we climb into the car it’s five of eleven. I try to quell the panic in my tone as I remind Jase of my curfew. He speeds up a little, but stays within the limit, reaching out a calming hand to touch my knee.

“I’ll come in with you,” he offers as we pull into the circular drive. “Explain that it was my fault.”

“No.” The headlights of the VW illuminate a Lexus parked in our driveway. Clay? One of those donors? As I fumble with the door latch, my hand is sticky with sweat. I’m scrambling for a plan, a Mom-acceptable excuse. She was not in the best of moods this morning. Unless the donors showered her with money, and probably even if they did, I’m in big trouble. I have to just go in the front door, because chances are my mother has already checked my bed.

“Good night, Jase,” I call hurriedly, and run without looking back. I start to open the door, but then it opens swiftly from inside and I practically fall in. Mom’s standing there, her face taut with fury.

“Samantha Christina Reed!” she begins. “Do you know what time it is?”

“After curfew. I know. I—”

She shakes the wineglass in her hand at me as if it’s a wand that will render me mute. “I’m not going through this with you too—do you hear me? I’ve done all the troubled-teenager parenting I have time for with your sister. I don’t need this, do you understand?”

“Mom, I’m only ten minutes late.”

“That’s not the point.” Her voice rises. “The point is that you don’t get to do it! I expect better from you. This summer, especially. You know I’m under a lot of pressure. This is not the time for your adolescent drama.”

I cannot help but wonder if any parents ever actually schedule in adolescent drama on their day planners. Looks like a slow week, Sarah. I guess I can pencil in your eating disorder.

“This isn’t drama,” I tell her, which rings so true to my ears. Mom is drama. Tim is drama. Sometimes even Nan is drama. Jase and the Garretts…they’re whatever the opposite of drama is. The tidal pool warm in the summer sun, full of exotic life, but no danger.

“Don’t contradict me, Samantha,” Mom snaps. “You’re grounded.”

“Mom!”

“What’s goin’ on, Grace?” asks a softly accented Southern voice, and Clay wanders out of the living room, sleeves rolled up, tie loose around his neck.

“I’m handling it,” Mom tells him sharply.

I half expect him to pull back as though she’s slapped him, which I want to do when she gets that tone, but his posture relaxes even more. He leans back against the doorway, flicks something off his shoulder, and says simply, “Seems like you could use my help.”

Mom’s so tightly wound, she’s practically vibrating. She’s always been private—would never yell at Tracy and me if we were even remotely in public—then we’d just get a terse whisper—“We will discuss this later.” But it’s Clay, and her hand shoots up to pat her hair in that silly, coy gesture I’ve only seen her use with him.

“Samantha’s late for curfew. She has no excuse for that.”

Well, she hasn’t exactly given me a chance to offer one, but, true, I don’t know what I’d say in my own defense.

Clay looks at his Rolex. “Curfew’s when, Gracie?”

“Eleven,” Mom says, her voice smaller now.

Clay lets out a rich, low laugh. “Eleven o’clock on a summer night? And she’s seventeen? Honey, that’s when we all miss curfew.” He walks over, reaches to squeeze the back of her neck lightly. “I know I did.

I’m sure you did.” His hand moves to her chin, edging it so she’s looking right at him. “Give a little here, sugar.”

Mom stares at his face. I’m holding my breath. I shoot a glance at my unlikely rescuer. He winks at me, giving Mom’s chin a nudge with his knuckles. In his eyes, there’s not a trace of guilt or—and I’m surprised at how relieved I feel—complicity about what he knows I saw.

“Maybe I overreacted,” she says finally, to him, not to me.

But I’m beginning to wonder the same thing. Maybe there’s an easy explanation for the brunette?

“We all do it, Gracie. Why don’t I get you some more wine?” He scoops the glass out of her unresisting fingers and heads off to the kitchen as though it’s his own.

Mom and I both stand there.

“Your hair’s wet,” she says at last. “You’d better shower with conditioner or it’ll dry tangly.” I nod, and turn to go up the stairs. Before I’ve gone far, I hear her behind me. But I act as though I don’t, proceeding into my room and flopping facedown on my bed, still wearing my wet bathing suit and damp sundress. The mattress dips as Mom sits down.

“Samantha…why would you provoke me like this?”

“I didn’t– It’s not about—”

She starts rubbing my back the way she did when I had nightmares when I was little. “Sweetie, you just don’t understand how hard it is to be a parent, much less a single one. I’ve been working without a map since you both were born. Never knowing if I’m making the right call. Look at Tracy and that shoplifting incident. And you and that Michael, who might have been doing drugs for all I know.”

“Mom. He didn’t do drugs. I’ve told you that before. He was just weird.”

“Be that as it may. This is the sort of thing I just can’t have going on during the campaign. I need to focus. I can’t have you distracting me with these antics.” Antics? Like I’ve returned stark naked in the wee hours of the morning, reeking of alcohol and pot.

She strokes my back a few more minutes, then frowns. “Why is your hair wet?” The lie slips out easily, though I’ve never lied to Mom before.

“I took a shower at Nan’s. We were trying on makeup and doing a conditioning treatment.”

“Ah.” Then, her voice low: “I’m keeping an eye on you, Samantha. You’ve always been my good girl.

Just…act like it, okay?”

I always have. And this is where I’ve wound up. Still, I whisper, “Okay,” and lie very still beneath her fingers. Finally she stands up, says good night, and leaves.

After about ten minutes, I hear a tapping at my window. I freeze, listening for evidence that Mom heard too. But all’s quiet downstairs. I open the window to find Jase crouching on my balcony.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Then, looking closely at my face: “Are you?”

“Wait a minute,” I tell him, practically shutting the window on his fingers. I hurry to my door, to the top of the stairs, and shout down, “I’m taking that shower now, Mom.”

“Use conditioner!” she calls back, sounding much more relaxed. I duck into the bathroom, turn the water on full blast, and return to open the window.

Jase seems perplexed. “Everything all right?”

“Mom’s a little protective.” I fling one leg, then the other out the window, and sit down next to Jase, who’s folded himself comfortably against the gable. The night breeze is sighing past us, and the stars are so bright.

“This was my fault. I was driving. Let me talk to your mom. I’ll tell her…” I imagine Jase being confronted by Mom. That I missed curfew for the first time while in the company of “One of Those Garretts” would confirm, for her, everything she’s ever said about them. I just know it.

“It wouldn’t help.”

He reaches out, folding my cold hand in his warm one. Apparently feeling the chill, his other palm closes on it too. “You sure you’re okay?”

I would be if I didn’t keep picturing Mom coming up to make sure I was using enough conditioner and finding me out here. I swallow. “I’m fine. See you tomorrow?” He leans forward, my hand still enclosed in his, moving his lips from the bridge of my nose down to my mouth, coaxing it open. I start to relax into him, then think I hear a knock.

“I’ve got to go. I—good night?”

He gives my hand a squeeze, then me a grin so dazzling it squeezes my heart even harder. “Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

Despite those kisses, I can’t relax. Ten minutes late in a lifetime and I’m an issue for the campaign?

Maybe Mom and the Masons can get a discount on military school if they ship me and Tim off together.

I stop the shower, slamming the frosted glass door loudly. In my room, I pick up my pillow, punching it into shape. I don’t know how I’ll sleep. My body’s tight. In this moment, if Charley Tyler made a pass at me, I’d go all the way, even knowing it meant nothing to him. If Michael actually were a drug addict and offered me instant oblivion, I’d take it, even though I hesitate before taking an aspirin. If Jase knocked on the window again and told me we were going to take a motorcycle trip to California right now, I’d go.

What’s the use of being the me I’ve always been when my mother is hardly recognizable?

Chapter Fifteen

The next time I babysit, Mrs. Garrett takes me grocery shopping, so I can entertain the kids and wrestle junk food out of their hands while she scans her stack of her coupons and expertly fields commentary.

“You certainly have your hands full.” She hears that one a lot.

“With good things,” she responds calmly, removing Count Chocula cereal from George’s eager grasp.

“You must be Catholic,” is another she gets time and time again.

“No, just fertile.” She peels Harry’s hands away from the latest Transformer action hero.

“That baby needs a hat,” lectures a severe-looking elderly woman in the freezer aisle.

“Thank you, but not really, she has several nice ones at home.” Mrs. Garrett picks up an economy-size box of frozen waffles and adds it to the cart.

I hand Patsy a bottle of juice, prompting a crunchy-granola-looking woman in Birkenstocks to say,

“That baby is much too old for a bottle. She should be on a sippy cup by now.” Who are these people, and why do they think their own opinions are the only right ones?

“Don’t you ever just want to kill them, or at least swear at them?” I ask in an undertone, steering the cart away from the crabby sippy-cup woman, with Harry and George clinging to either side like spider monkeys.

“Of course.” Mrs. Garrett shrugs. “But what kind of example would that be?” I’ve lost track of how many laps I’ve done, but I know it’s less than I used to be able to do, and I’m winded but invigorated when I climb the ladder, squeezing water from my hair. I’ve loved swimming ever since I can remember, ever since I was brave enough to follow Tim out of the safe shallows into the bigger waves. I’m going to get back on that team. I dash the towel across my face, check the clock—

fifteen minutes till the pool opens, which is usually accompanied by a surge of people through the gates.

My cell phone buzzes on my chair.

Take a break, Aqua girl! Nan’s texted me, from the B&T gift shop. Come C me.

Stony Bay is very proud of Stony Bay. The B&T’s gift shop, By the Bay Buys, is chockablock full of items advertising various town landmarks. As I walk in, Nan is already open for business, saying sweetly to a gentleman in pink plaid shorts, “As you can see, you could get this mouse pad of Main Street, and then these placemats with the aerial view of the river mouth, this little lamp that looks like our lighthouse, and these coasters with the view of the dock—and you wouldn’t need to go outside at all. You could see the whole town from your dining room.”

The man appears nonplussed, either by Nan’s soft-spoken sarcasm or by the idea of spending so much money. “I really only wanted these,” he says, holding up some napkins that say One martini, two martini, three martini, floor. “Can you put them on my club tab?” After Nan rings him up and he leaves, she crosses her eyes at me. “My first day on the job and I’m already regretting this. If all the Sanctification of Stony Bay stuff brainwashes me, and I tell you I need to join the Garden Club, you’ll get me deprogrammed, right?”

“I’ll be there for you, sister. Have you seen Tim? He was supposed to get here ten minutes early so I can show him his uniform and all that.”

Nan checks her watch. “He’s not officially late yet. Two more minutes. How did I get the most boring job with the longest hours in town? I only took it because Mrs. Gritzmocker, who does the buying, is married to Mr. Gritzmocker, the bio teacher who I want to write a recommendation for me.”

“This is the price of your ruthless ambition,” I say. “It’s not too late to repent and work for the greater good—like at Breakfast Ahoy.”

Nan grins at me, her hundreds of freckles already darkening with the summer sun. “Yeah, well, I’m saving my Naughty Sailorette costume for Halloween.” She glances out the window behind me. “Besides, it’s gonna take both of us to babysit my brother if he can get himself fired from a hot dog stand.”

“How exactly did he do that?” I ask, opening one of the sample lip glosses on the checkout counter, rubbing it on my finger and smelling it. Ick. Piña colada. I hate coconut.