Текст книги "The Summer I Turned Pretty"

Автор книги: Jenny Han

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"Yeah, everyone wanted to be Sextus too."

"Why?" I said. Immediately I regretted it. "Oh. Never mind."

Cam laughed. "Eighth-grade boy humor isn't very developed."

I laughed too. Then I said, "So do you stay in a house around here?"

"We're renting the house two blocks down. My mom sort of made me come," Cam said, rubbing the top of his head self-consciously.

"Oh." I wished I would stop saying "oh," but I couldn't think of anything else.

"What about you? Why'd you come, Isabel?"

I was startled when he used my real name. It just rolled right off his tongue. It felt like the first day of school. But I liked it. "I don't know," I said. "I guess because Clay invited me."

Everything that came out of my mouth sounded so generic. For some reason I wanted to impress this boy. I wanted him to like me. I could feel him judging me, judging the dumb things I said. I'm smart too, I wanted to tell him. I told myself it was fine, it didn't matter if he thought I was smart or not. But it did.

"I think I'm going to leave soon," he said, finishing his water. He didn't look at me when he said, "Do you need a ride?"

"No," I said. I tried to swallow my disappointment that he was leaving already. "I came with those guys over there." I pointed at Conrad and Jeremiah.

He nodded. "I figured, the way your brother kept looking over here."

I almost choked. "My brother? Who? Him?" I pointed at Conrad. He wasn't looking at us. He was looking at a blond girl in a Red Sox cap, and she was looking right back. He was laughing, and he never laughed.

"Yeah."

"He's not my brother. He tries to act like he is, but he's not," I said. "He thinks he's everybody's big brother. It's so patronizing. . . .Why are you leaving already anyway? You're gonna miss the fireworks."

He cleared his throat like he was embarrassed. "Um, I was actually gonna go home and study."

"Latin?" I covered my mouth with my hand to keep from giggling.

"No. I'm studying whales. I want to intern on a whale watching boat, and I have to take this whaling exam next month," he said, rubbing the top of his head again.

"Oh. That's cool," I said. I wished he wasn't leaving already. I didn't want him to go. He was nice. Standing next to him, I felt like Thumbelina, little and precious. He was that tall. If he left, I'd be all alone. "You know what, maybe I will get a ride. Wait here. I'll be right back."

I hurried over to Conrad, walking so fast I kicked up sand behind me. "Hey, I'm gonna get a ride," I said breathlessly.

The blond Red Sox girl looked me up and down. "Hello," she said.

Conrad said, "With who?" I pointed at Cam. "Him."

"You're not riding with someone you don't even know," he said flatly.

"I do so know him. He's Sextus."

He narrowed his eyes. "Sex what?"

"Never mind. His name is Cam, he's studying whales, and you don't get to decide who I ride home with. I was just letting you know, as a courtesy. I wasn't asking for your permission." I started to walk away, but he grabbed my elbow.

"I don't care what he's studying. It's not gonna happen," he said casually, but his grip was tight. "If you want to go, I'll take you."

I took a deep breath. I had to keep cool. I wasn't going to let him goad me into being a baby, not in front of all these people. "No, thanks," I said, trying to walk away again. But he didn't let go.

"I thought you already had a boyfriend?" His tone was mocking, and I knew he'd seen through my lie the night before.

I wanted so badly to throw a handful of sand in his face. I tried to twist out of his grip. "Let go of me! That hurts!"

He let go immediately, his face red. It didn't really hurt, but I wanted to embarrass him the way he was embarrassing me. I said loudly, "I'd rather ride with a stranger than with someone who's been drinking!"

"I've had one beer," he snapped. "I weigh a hundred and seventy-five pounds. Wait half an hour and I'll take you. Stop being such a brat."

I could feel tears starting to spark my eyelids. I looked over my shoulder to see if Cam was watching. He was. "You're an asshole," I said.

He looked me dead in the eyes and said, "And you're a four-year-old."

As I walked away, I heard the girl ask, "Is she your girlfriend?"

I whirled around, and we both said "No!" at the same time.

Confused, she said, "Well, is she your little sister?" like I wasn't standing right there. Her perfume was heavy.

It felt like it filled all the air around us, like we were breathing her in.

"No, I'm not his little sister." I hated this girl for being a witness to all this. It was humiliating. And she was pretty, in the same kind of way Taylor was pretty, which somehow made things worse.

Conrad said, "Her mom is best friends with my mom." So that was all I was to him? His mom's friend's daughter?

I took a deep breath, and without even thinking, I said to the girl, "I've known Conrad my whole life. So let me be the one to tell you you're barking up the wrong tree. Conrad will never love anyone as much as he loves himself, if you know what I mean–" I lifted up my hand and wiggled my fingers.

"Shut up, Belly," Conrad warned. The tops of his ears were turning bright red. It was a low blow, but I didn't care. He deserved it.

Red Sox girl frowned. "What is she talking about, Conrad?"

To her I blurted out, "Oh, I'm sorry, do you not know what the idiom 'barking up the wrong tree' means?"

Her pretty face twisted. "You little skank," she hissed.

I could feel myself shrinking. I wished I could take it back. I'd never gotten into a fight with a girl before, or with anyone for that matter.

Thankfully, Conrad broke in then and pointed to the bonfire. "Belly, go back over there, and wait for me to come get you," he said harshly.

That's when Jeremiah ambled over. "Hey, hey, what's going on?" he asked, smiling in his easy, goofy way.

"Your brother is a jerk," I said. "That's what's going

on.

Jeremiah put his arm around me. He smelled like beer. "You guys play nice, you hear?"

I shrugged out of his hold and said, "I am playing nice. Tell your brother to play nice."

"Wait, are you guys brother and sister too?" the girl asked.

Conrad said, "Don't even think about leaving with that guy."

"Con, chill out," Jeremiah said. "She's not leaving. Right, Belly?"

He looked at me, and I pursed my lips and nodded. Then I gave Conrad the dirtiest look I could muster, and I shot one at the girl, too, when I was far enough away that she wouldn't be able to reach out and grab me by the hair. I walked back to the bonfire, trying to keep my shoulders straight and high, when inside I felt like a kid who'd gotten yelled at at her own birthday party. It wasn't fair, to be treated like I was a kid when I wasn't. I bet me and that girl were the same age.

Cam said, "What was that all about?"

I was choking back tears as I said, "Let's just go."

He hesitated, glancing back over at Conrad. "I don't think that's such a good idea, Flavia. But I'll stay here with you and hang out for a while. The whales can wait."

I wanted to kiss him then. I wanted to forget I ever knew Conrad and just be there, existing in the bubble of that moment. The first firework went off, somewhere high above us. It sounded like a teakettle whistling loud and proud. It was gold, and it exploded into millions of gold flecks, like confetti over our heads.

We sat by the fire and he told me about whales and I told him about stupid things, like being secretary of French Club, and how my favorite food was pulled pork sandwiches. He said he was a vegetarian. We must have sat there for an hour. I could feel Conrad watching us the whole time, and I was so tempted to give him the finger–I hated it when he won.

When it started to get cold, I rubbed my arms, and Cam took off his hoodie and gave it to me. Which, was sort of my dream come true–getting cold and having a guy actually give you his hoodie instead of gloating over how smart he'd been to bring one.

Underneath, his T-shirt said STRAIGHT EDGE , with a picture of a razor blade, the kind a guy shaves with. "What does that mean?" I asked, zipping up his hoodie. It was warm and it smelled like boy, but in a good way.

"I'm straight edge," he said. "I don't drink or do drugs. I used to be hardcore, where you don't take over-the-counter medicine or drink caffeine, but I quit that."

"Why?"'

"Why was I hardcore straight edge or why did I quit?"

"Both."

"I don't believe in polluting your body with unnatural stuff," he said. "I quit because it was making my mom crazy. And I also just really missed Dr Pepper."

I liked Dr Pepper too. I was glad I hadn't been drinking. I didn't want him to think badly of me. I wanted him to think I was cool, like the kind of girl who didn't care what people thought, the kind of person he obviously was. I wanted to be his friend. I also wanted to kiss him.

Cam left when we left. He got up as soon as he saw Jeremiah coming over to get me. "So long, Flavia," he said.

I started to unzip his hoodie, and he said, "That's all right. You can give it to me later."

"Here, I'll give you my number," I said, holding my hand out for his phone. I'd never given a boy my phone number before. As I punched in my number, I felt really proud of myself for offering it to him.

Backing away, he put the phone into his pocket and said, "I would have found a way to get it back without your number. I'm smart, remember? First prize in oration."

I tried not to smile as he walked away. "You're not that smart," I called out. It felt like fate that we'd met. It felt like the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me, and it was.

I watched Conrad say good-bye to Red Sox girl. She gave him a hug, and he hugged her back, but not really. I was glad I had ruined his night, if only a little bit.

On the way to the car a girl stopped me. She wore her blondish-brown hair in two pigtails, and she had on a pink low-cut shirt. "Do you like Cam?" the girl asked me casually. I wondered how she knew him–I thought he'd been a nobody just like me.

"I barely even know him," I told her, and her face relaxed. She was relieved. I recognized that look in her eyes–dreamy and hopeful. It must have been the way I looked when I used to talk about Conrad, used to try to think of ways to insert his name into conversation. It made me sad for her, for me.

"I saw the way Nicole talked to you," she said abruptly. "Don't worry about her. She sucks as a person."

"Red Sox girl? Yeah, she kind of does suck at being a person," I agreed. Then I waved good-bye to her as Jeremiah and Conrad and I made our way to the car.

Conrad drove. He was completely sober, and I knew he had been all along. He checked out Cam's hoodie but he didn't say anything. We didn't speak to each other once. Jeremiah and I both sat in the backseat, and he tried to joke around, but nobody laughed. I was too busy thinking, remembering everything that had happened that night. I thought to myself, That might have been the best night of my life.

In my yearbook the year before, Sean Kirkpatrick wrote that I had "eyes so clear" he could "see right into my soul." Sean was a drama geek, but so what. It still made me feel good. Taylor snickered when I showed it to her. She said only Sean Kirkpatrick would notice the color of my eyes when the rest of the guys were too busy looking at my chest. But this wasn't Sean Kirkpatrick. This was Cam, a real guy who had noticed me even before I was pretty.

I was brushing my teeth in the upstairs bathroom when Jeremiah came in, shutting the door behind him. Reaching for his toothbrush, he said, "What's going on with you and Con? Why are you guys so mad at each other?" He hopped up onto the sink.

Jeremiah hated it when people fought. It was part of why he always played the clown. He took it upon himself to bring levity to any situation. It was sweet but also kind of annoying.

Through a mouthful of toothpaste I said, "Um, because he's a self-righteous neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie?"

We both laughed at that. It was one of our little inside jokes, a line from The Breakfast Club that we spent repeating to each other the summer I was eight and he was nine.

He cleared his throat. "Seriously, though, don't be so hard on him. He's going through some stuff."

This was news to me. "What? What stuff?" I demanded.

Jeremiah hesitated. "It's not up to me to tell you."

"Come on. We tell each other everything, Jere. No secrets, remember?"

He smiled. "I remember. But I still can't tell you. It's not my secret."

Frowning, I turned the faucet on and said, "You always take his side."

"I'm not taking his side. I'm just telling his side."

"Same thing."

He reached out and turned the corners of my mouth up. It was one of his oldest tricks; no matter what, it made me smile. "No pouting, Bells, remember?"

No Pouting was a rule Conrad and Steven had made up one summer. I think I was eight or nine. The thing was, it only applied to me. They even put a sign up on my bedroom door. I tore it down, of course, and I ran and told Susannah and my mother. That night I got seconds on dessert, I remember. Anytime I acted the slightest bit sad or unhappy, one of the boys would start yelling, "No pouting. No pouting." And, okay, maybe I did pout a lot, but it was the only way I could ever get my way. In some ways it was even harder being the only girl back then. In some ways not.

chapter twenty – two

That night I slept in Cam's hoodie. It was stupid and kind of sappy, but I didn't care. And the next day I wore it outside, even though it was blazing hot out. I loved how the sleeves were frayed, the way it felt lived in. It felt like a boy's.

Cam was the first boy to pay attention to me like that, to be up front about the fact that he actually wanted to hang out with me. And not be, like, embarrassed about it.

When I woke up, I realized that I had given him the house number. I didn't know why. I could have given him my cell phone number just as easily.

I kept waiting for the phone to ring. The phone never rang at the summer house. The only people who called the house phone were Susannah, trying to figure out what kind of fish we wanted for dinner, or my mother, calling to tell Steven to put the towels in the dryer, or to get the grill going.

I stayed on the deck, sunning and reading magazines with Cam's hoodie balled up in my lap like a stuffed animal. Since we kept the windows open, I knew I'd hear if the phone rang.

I slathered myself with sunscreen first, and then two layers of tanning oil. I didn't know if it was an oxymoron or what, but better safe than sorry was how I figured it. I set myself up with a little station of cherry Kool-Aid in an old water bottle, plus a radio, plus sunglasses, and magazines. The sunglasses were a pair that Susannah had bought me years ago. Susannah loved to buy presents. When she went off for errands, she'd come home with presents. Little things, like this pair of red heart sunglasses she said I just had to have. She knew just what I'd love, things I hadn't even thought of, had certainly never thought of buying. Things like lavender foot lotion, or a silk quilted pouch for tissues.

My mother and Susannah had left early that morning for one of their art gallery trips to Dyerstown, and Conrad, thank God, had left for work already. Jeremiah was still asleep. The house was mine.

The idea of tanning sounds so fun in theory. Laying out, soaking up sun and sipping on soda, falling asleep like a fat cat. But then the actual act of it is kind of tedious and boring. And hot. I would always rather be floating in an ocean, catching sun that way, than lying down sweating in the sun. They say you get tanner faster when you're wet, anyhow.

But that morning I had no choice. In case Cam called, I mean. So I lay there, sweating and sizzling like a piece of chicken on a grill. It was boring, but it was a necessity.

Just after ten, the phone rang. I sprang up and ran into the kitchen. "Hello?" I said breathlessly.

"Hi, Belly. It's Mr. Fisher."

"Oh, hi, Mr. Fisher," I said. I tried not to sound too disappointed.

He cleared his throat. "So, how's it going down there?"

"Pretty good. Susannah's not home, though. She and my mom went to Dyerstown to visit some galleries." "I see. ... How are the boys?"

"Good ..." I never knew what to say to Mr. Fisher. "Conrad's at work and Jeremiah's still asleep. Do you want me to wake him up?"

"No, no, that's all right."

There was this long pause, and I scrambled to think of something to say.

"Are you, um, coming down this weekend?" I asked.

"No, not this weekend," he said. His voice sounded really far away. "I'll just call back later. You have fun, Belly."

I hung up the phone. Mr. Fisher hadn't been down to Cousins once yet. He used to come the weekend after the Fourth, because it was easier getting away from work after the holiday. When he came, he'd fire up the barbecue all weekend long, and he'd wear his apron that said chef knows best . I wondered if Susannah would be sad he wasn't coming, if the boys would care.

I trudged back to my lounge chair, back to the sun. I fell asleep on my lounge chair, and I woke up to Jeremiah sprinkling Kool-Aid onto my stomach. "Quit it," I said grouchily, sitting up. I was thirsty from my extra sweet Kool-Aid (I always made it with double sugar), and I felt dehydrated and sweaty.

He laughed and sat down on my lounge chair. "Is this what you're doing all day?"

"Yes," I said, wiping off my stomach and then wiping my hand on his shorts.

"Don't be boring. Come do something with me," he ordered. "I don't have to work until tonight."

"I'm working on my tan," I told him.

"You're tan enough."

"Will you let me drive?"

He hesitated. "Fine," he said. "But you have to rinse off first. I don't want you getting my seat all oily."

I stood up, throwing my limp greasy hair into a high ponytail. "I'll go right now. Just wait," I said.

Jeremiah waited for me in the car, with the AC on full blast. He sat in the passenger seat. "Where are we going?" I asked, getting into the driver's seat. I felt like an old pro. "Tennessee? New Mexico? We have to go far so I can get good practice."

He closed his eyes and laid his head back. "Just take a left out of the driveway," he told me.

"Yessir," I said, turning off the AC and opening all four windows. It was so much better driving with the windows down. It felt like you were actually going somewhere.

He continued giving me directions, and then we pulled up to Go Kart City. "Are you serious?"

"We're gonna get you some driving practice," he said, grinning like crazy.

We waited in line for the cars, and when it was our turn, the guy told me to get in the blue one. I said, "Can I drive the red one instead?"

He winked at me and said, "You're so pretty, I'd let you drive my car."

I could feel myself blush, but I liked it. The guy was older than me, and he was actually paying me attention. It was kind of amazing. I'd seen him there the summer before, and he hadn't looked at me once.

Getting into the car next to me, Jeremiah muttered, "What a freaking cheeseball. He needs to get a real job."

"Like lifeguarding is a real job?" I countered.

Jeremiah scowled. "Just drive."

Every time my car came back around the track, the guy waved at me. The third time he did it, I waved back.

We rode around the track a bunch of times, until it was time for Jeremiah to go to work.

"I think you've had enough driving for today," Jeremiah said, rubbing his neck. "I'll drive us home."

I didn't argue with him. He drove home fast, and dropped me off at the curb and headed to work. I stepped back into the house feeling very tired and tan. And also satisfied.

"Someone named Cam called for you," my mother said. She was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the paper with her horn-rimmed reading glasses on. She didn't look up.

"He did?" I asked, covering my smile with the back of my hand. "Well, did he leave a number?"

"No," she said. "He said he'd call back."

"Why didn't you ask for it?" I said, and I hated the whininess in my voice, but when it came to my mother, it was like I couldn't help it.

That's when she looked at me, perplexed. "I don't know. He wasn't offering it. Who is he anyway?"

"Forget it," I told her, walking over to the refrigerator for some lemonade.

"Suit yourself," my mother said, going back to her paper.

She didn't press the issue. She never did. She at least could have gotten his number. If Susannah had been down here instead of her, she would have been singsongy and she would have teased and snooped until I told her everything. Which I would have, gladly.

"Mr. Fisher called this morning," I said.

My mother looked up again. "What did he say?"

"Nothing much. Just that he can't come this weekend."

She pursed her lips, but she didn't say anything.

"Where's Susannah?" I asked. "Is she in her room?"

"Yes, but she doesn't feel well. She's taking a nap," my mother said. In other words, Don't go up and bother her.

"What's wrong with her?"

"She has a summer cold," my mother said automatically.

My mother was a terrible liar. Susannah had been spending a lot of time in her room, and there was a sadness to her that hadn't been there before. I knew something was up. I just wasn't completely sure what.