Meet Me at the Boardwalk (7 page)

I
really did want to stay away from the punch. The only problem was that once Jade started…I don’t know. It seemed to me that whenever somebody wanted to communicate with someone in an altered state (as Lily-Ann might say) and God knew, I’d been having trouble communicating with Jade lately—the person would have to assume an altered state, too. So I drank the punch. I drank it because I wanted to talk to Jade. Really
talk
to her. She still hadn’t quite accepted my apology. I couldn’t blame her.

At first, the punch tasted gross, like drinking cough medicine. Lily-Ann justified the health hazard by saying, “Everyone has their vices. I mean, just ask Miles. My dad goes to his clam shack literally every afternoon. Do you know how bad those fried clams are for you?”

Halfway through the second cup, I began to feel pretty good. I found myself smiling at all the tourist girls, jigging around the Cohens’ tiny bungalow and the patio deck in their bikini tops. I found myself staring at Sean Edwards a few times, too. He was so much
cuter
now. Or was he? I mean, he’d let his chestnut-brown hair grow, and his necklace was dumb…but suddenly he was way more Seth Cohen than preteen boy-toy. And so far, things had been fine at the Roths’ house while I was cleaning. He was totally diligent about the gardening job. He stuck to the greenhouse. At first, I thought
it was because he was being rude and trying to avoid me…but I wondered if he was just being cool about it all.

He caught me staring at him. I waved, blushing. He walked over.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

“Yeah, I just want to know why you never come in to say hi when we work.”

“Because it’s work,” he said with a chuckle.

I peeked at his cup. The liquid in it was clear, not red.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Water.”

“Really?”

“Yup.” He glanced at some of the tourists, dancing around us—all with their hands in the air. “I thought about drinking some punch. But when I heard a couple of people say ‘Dude, this house is so ghetto!’ I decided not to.”

I gazed into his twinkling blue eyes. “When did you become so nice?”

“I don’t know,” he said in a dry voice. “Maybe after I decided that it wasn’t cool to be some tourist jerk who hits on local chicks. Hey, Megan, are you sure you’re okay?” He reached for my cup. “How about you have some water instead?”

I yanked the cup away from his hands. “No way, José.”

“José?” He laughed again. His long hair flopped in his eyes, the way Miles’s used to, before the accident. “Man. Jade’s dad goes away for the summer and suddenly everyone goes
completely—” He stopped in mid-sentence, staring over my shoulder.

“Completely?” I prodded.

“Nuts!” Jade shrieked behind me, poking me in the back.

I nearly dropped my drink. “Don’t do that! You scared me.”

“Sorry.”

She smiled at Sean. She’d lost her sundress. I’d never seen her so scantily clad in my life. Where did she get that bikini? But best not to ask. She looked hot, though…no doubt: small, tan, curvy, and perfect. Her hair was a little frizzy, but other than that—I noticed that Sean noticed, too. Of course, he did; he was a guy. I was almost mad. Jade was always ragging on me because she claimed I wasn’t as hot as
I
realized? I thought about dishing some of her own dirt back at her—but then I had a better idea.

“Hey, what’s the theme of this party again, Jade?” I asked.

“Abstinence,” she said.

I giggled and punched her arm. She giggled and punched back. To this day, I still won’t admit I was drunk. I couldn’t have been drunk. I was just mildly loopy.

“We were in a fight, but we made out,” Jade announced to Sean, as if this would somehow explain our psychotic behavior.

Sean tilted his head away from us. His eyes narrowed. “What did you just—”

“I mean we made
up,
” Jade groaned.

“Well, then why don’t you break the rules?” I asked. “Parties are made for breaking things, right? You did invite—yikes—
tourists.
”

“Like me, right?” Sean frowned between the two of us.

Jade and I both laughed again.

“Right on,” Jade said. “And speaking of which, why did you get a job working in the Roths’ greenhouse? What tourist
works
over the summer?”

He shook his head. “I wanted to…I don’t know. Do something for once. Be productive. Avoid my parents and their dumb parties.” He drained his cup, and then turned toward the door. “Thanks, Jade—”

“No, wait!” Jade held up her hands. “Sean, I’m sorry. Please stay. I really want to know why you got a job working in that greenhouse. I didn’t even know you were into gardening.”

He tossed the empty cup into the Cohens’ umbrella stand.

(To his credit, it was empty, so the stand looked like a garbage can. To Jade’s credit, she didn’t mention it. Or maybe she didn’t even see. Her eyes were glued to his, and besides, everyone had grabbed all the umbrellas, because it was starting to drizzle.)

“I am,” he said. “I’ve really gotten into plants recently. Well, just generally…I’ve gotten into conservation and environmentalism.”

“You have?” Jade murmured. “How come you never talk about it?”

“When do you and I talk, Jade?” he asked, grinning the way she would grin.

“Good point,” she said. “Meg, what was that movie you tried to make me watch after all the sheep escaped from Pete’s Petting Zoo? You know, the one where Brad Pitt looked crazy and ugly?
That
was about animals, too…wasn’t it? It was called
Twelve Something
.
Twelve Uglies
.”

Sean started to laugh.

“What?” Jade asked.

“The Roths just got that movie on Netflix,” he murmured. “
Twelve Monkeys
.”

“You guys should go watch it right now,” I said, without thinking. “The Roths are out to dinner with my mom. The wide-screen LCD would be all yours.”

My heart blossomed.
Then I can have Miles to myself
.
Maybe
.

Jade and Sean looked at each other. Then they smiled at the floor flirtatiously, as if they should be smiling at each other. I was the happiest I’d been all night.

“Well I kind of wanted to split anyway,” Sean said under his breath.

“Me, too!” Jade giggled, ran to the front hall closet, grabbed an old yellow raincoat, and slipped it over her bikini. “I mean, it’s raining, which is always bad for a party.”

Amen, Jade Cohen,
I thought—chuckling to myself as the door swung shut behind them.
Amen, indeed…because Sean is a very, very good kisser. Also, conveniently, Miles is still here. And now maybe I can finally figure out why you have both been acting so strangely.

“S
o, Miles, what really happened last summer?” Lily-Ann whispered. She’d taken my hand and had begun stroking my fingers with her thumb, very lightly, in an undeniably sexy way. “You were in some surfing accident?”

I couldn’t focus. “Yeah. It was…I…it was in the newspaper.”

I searched the kitchen for Megan, who’d been busy chatting up Sean Edwards in a kind of a sexy way, as well. I couldn’t see her anywhere. Jade was gone, too. Turquoise, on the other hand, in the spirit of her younger sister, had shed most of her clothing except for her bathing suit. She was waving a cup of punch, twirling around among a bunch of blonde tourists who bore an uncanny resemblance to Lily-Ann, only with straighter hair. I recognized a few of them from the boardwalk. But I also felt like I didn’t. They could have been cloned from the same gene pool. Maybe they had been. The tourists seemed to look more and more alike every year…it sounds awful, but at that moment, I
was
burning to get out of Seashell Point.

“I can’t believe he does that,” Lily-Ann said, squeezing my hand. “It is totally, totally inappropriate.”

“You can’t believe who does what?”

“That my dad swings by Sonny’s every afternoon to buy
clams, even though he’s gonna tear down the boardwalk. Guilt. He’s great at guilt.”

We’d been talking about that?

“Maybe he just likes the clams,” I murmured.

“Whatever. Totally inappropriate,” she repeated.

I grinned. “Inappropriate? That sounds like a word
my
dad would use.”

She laughed and set her cup down on the counter, then took my other hand. “You’re a total cutie-pie; you know that, right?”

“I’m a…what?”

“A cutie-pie. Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

A girlfriend?

Okay. As a guy? When a hot, smart, glamorous girl uses the words
cutie-pie
and
girlfriend
with you—in the interrogative—something happens. Your brain shuts down. I could think of a dozen different reasons why I didn’t have a girlfriend, mostly revolving around a complete lack of self–confidence after my accident/recovery/stupidity…but I decided to keep quiet instead.

“Why don’t we go outside?” Lily-Ann whispered. “I like swimming in the rain.”

“Mm-hmm,” I answered, my heart starting to pound.

All of a sudden, the music died.

A collective
“aww
” followed.

Turquoise barreled into the kitchen, an off-kilter grin on her lips. “Okay, people!” she shouted. “The pact party is officially over!”

“Why?” Lily-Ann asked, still clinging to both my hands. “Because it’s raining?”

“No, because I just caught Brian Ashe making out with Cindy…Cindy…” She tapped her lip and chuckled. “I don’t know. Cindy Tourist. The one from London? The point is: They were making out in my bed. So the party can go on, but the pact part is over. And the much more important part: STAY OUT OF MY FREAKING BEDROOM, UNLESS YOU WISH LIFETIMES OF FUTURE LITIGATION! I’M IN LAW SCHOOL, PEOPLE! I MEAN IT—”

The music blared back on at twice the volume. It drowned out Turquoise’s voice.

Everybody cheered.

Lily-Ann laughed. I had to laugh, too. She squeezed me against her, and I closed my eyes. My hands lingered on the small of her back. Her lips gently brushed my neck.

“Lily-Ann,” I started. “I…”

“What?” she breathed.

“I don’t think…I don’t think…” I wanted to add:
That this is a good idea. I think I want to find Megan.
I thought it, but I didn’t say it. I did want Lily-Ann after all. And the pact was over.

“I’m glad,” she murmured. She pulled me in closer, reaching her fingers under the back of my T-shirt. She kissed my neck again. Her curls tickled my shoulder. “I don’t think, either.”

I swallowed, remembering what Jade had said, even as I
began to kiss Lily-Ann’s neck. “
The last thing I want do this summer is think. No thinking at all.”

We stumbled outside together, heading for the pool. The rain was coming down in thick, cold drops. No one else was in the pool; a few kids were huddled under the awning, sipping punch and sharing cigarettes. I felt strange, surreal, myself, but not myself. Maybe this was the new Miles, the postaccident Miles. Sure, I’d kissed tourist girls in the past, but I’d always joked about it with Megan and Jade later. Now, this felt different.

The rain was freezing on my chest as I took off my T-shirt. Lily-Ann shed her miniskirt, revealing the teeny black bottom of her bikini.
Good Lord.

At the same time, we dove into the pool. I submerged and, for a split second, felt that small squeeze of fear, the fear of drowning that I’d never, ever had before the accident. Jade, Megan, and I were like little fish growing up, dipping and bobbing through the waves without a hint of worry. Maybe growing up is about learning to get scared.

And then I surfaced and Lily-Ann kissed me. For real. She hung her wet arms around my neck and put her mouth on mine, and I felt up and down her curves and kissed her hungrily as the rain poured down on us. Everything was wet. There were no thoughts. I kissed Lily-Ann’s throat, and she kissed my ear. I felt so good. And then, for no reason at all, I thought:
Megan.

I have no idea why. I suppose I should have thought of
Jade, since she was the last girl I had kissed. But all I could think of was Megan, her dark eyes, and her silence, and the way she wanted to be mayor of Seashell Point.

And then, just like that, there she was, standing at the entrance to the pool, soaking and shivering in her little bikini. Staring at me and Lily-Ann. Instinctively, I pulled away from Lily-Ann and I heard her make a confused, annoyed sound. But I could only look at Megan.

She had on her face the same shocked expression that Jade had worn when she first saw my twisted, swollen leg. And just like Jade had done that time, Megan turned and bolted.

I
swear I wasn’t really all that drunk. I mean I don’t even know what drunk
feels
like, because I’ve never been drunk before.

What I do know is this: About three minutes after we left, Sean Edwards remembered that he didn’t have the keys to the Roths’ house. Well, he had the keys to the
greenhouse
, but not the mansion. And if we were going to watch this movie, he needed said keys. What I also know: Sean Edwards wasn’t nearly the loser tourist I’d thought he was. Maybe it was the rain or his scruffy new look (he sure wore the whole bohemian thing
way
better than Turquoise), but he’d actually managed to charm me. Environmentalism? Conservation? A year ago, I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that the guy didn’t even know how to
spell
those words.

“We’ve got to get the keys from Megan or Lily-Ann,” he whispered.

“But how?” I asked.

“Well, I’m sure Megan will give them right up, because she was the one who said we should watch the movie in the first place on the Roths’ fat TV screen.”

He meant to say flat. We both cracked up.

I wrapped my arm around his waist as we tiptoed back to my house. The rain made his T-shirt cling to his chest; I could see his smooth chest and abs underneath. He definitely
had something going on. He might not have been a gorgeous rock star, but…

“Jade, are you sure you’re not drunk?” he asked out of the blue.

“Of course!” I cried. I led him around back, across the patchy lawn—where Miles’s skateboard still lay, now soaked by the rain—to the screen door that opened onto the beach. We stumbled a bit in the sand. His fingers interlocked with mine, tightening my hand on his hip.

Where the
hell
was this going?

I stopped short when we reached the screen door. Somebody had knocked it off track; it hung sideways like a picture that had fallen out of its frame. Not only that, somebody had blown out the bug-repelling candles in big scented buckets I’d strategically placed by the door (okay, maybe the rain had extinguished them, but still, I wanted to blame the tourist kids), so now there were flies buzzing into the house.

Dad would just love this.

The music thumped from inside. I heard shrieking and laughter and I didn’t recognize a single voice.

Sean let my hand go. “Wow,” he said. “I hope your place doesn’t get too trashed tonight. It was really cool of you to throw this party.”

“It’s Turkey’s party now.” I crept under the hanging door—and instantly spotted Megan’s white skirt in the mudroom, tossed haphazardly onto our old worn couch. There were a lot of skirts down here. Everyone must have been out by the pool. Or upstairs.

I glanced toward the ocean and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the sliding glass door. (At least
that
wasn’t broken.) It served as an unpleasant reminder that
I
was wearing a yellow overcoat and a bikini, one I’d swiped from Turquoise no less. My hair was plastered to my head from the rain.
Good Lord.
I looked like a serial killer. The only things missing were the night-vision goggles and cattle prod.

“Jade?” Sean whispered from outside. “Everything all right in there?”

“Yeah, yeah…let me just find…” I scurried over to Megan’s skirt and fished through the pocket for the keys. A big chain rattled. I scooped them up and dangled them in front of my face, chuckling—then ran back outside.

Sean was staring at something down the beach.

He pointed a finger through the rain. It was Megan. She was running toward her house, away from the boardwalk and the mansions. Or, at least, I assumed she was running toward her house. Beyond our little community of bungalows on the outskirts of Seashell Point, there isn’t much left, other than a dilapidated, out-of-service lighthouse, where people like Brian Ashe sniff glue or drink beer. I glanced at the keys again.

“Why is she leaving without her skirt and her top?” I asked. “She’s shivering. Look at her. She’s hugging herself. She looks freezing.” All I wanted to do was chase after her.

Sean shook his head. “Maybe she wanted to change into something dry?”

Two other shadowy figures appeared in her wake. They’d emerged from the back door on the other side, where the pool was. And they weren’t too hard to recognize. Nope. Even if there was a raging hurricane instead of a rainy, humid Seashell Point night, I could have recognized them: Lily-Ann and Miles. They were holding hands. They watched Megan as she disappeared into the rain…and then they turned to each other.

I held my breath.

They were
still
holding hands. Miles looked about a foot taller than she did—

Their lips met.

I kicked at the wet sand.

“What are you thinking?” Sean finally asked.

“Let’s go watch that movie,” I said.

Megan was right. Sean Edwards was a very good kisser. Not that he needed much encouragement to get the ball rolling.

We arrived at the beach entrance of the Roths’ house (several sliding glass doors, as opposed to one with a broken screen), and both whispered to each other, “
Shhhhh
,” fingers held to our mouths, staring at each other and laughing.

“You promise me you’re not drunk?” Sean demanded for the thousandth time. “Because I know that I’ve had this reputation of being this slimy tourist—”

To shut him up, I gave him a quick peck on the lips. He pecked back and lingered for a while. I fumbled for the keys.

Even in the darkness, it wasn’t hard to see that this place was a palace. It was a hell of a lot more luxurious than the Jupiter Bounce, and this mudroom was about twice as big as
ours.
Ironic: Dad and I called the room that led to the beach the mudroom because we always tracked wet sand in. It was where we kept our rattiest furniture, our oldest towels, and boxes of random unused crap, like Turquoise’s high school valedictorian trophy. But either Megan was a better housecleaner than I’d imagined, or the Roths were more anal, because a person could eat off this floor.

I glanced nervously at the antique furniture, a couch the size of my room, and lamps the size of trees. Instinctively, I ground my toes into the doormat.

Sean tiptoed over to a large cabinet, next to the flat-screen mounted on the wall.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Fixing us a drink.”

I giggled as he removed a large bottle of ginger ale and swished it in front of his face. “A-ha!” he exclaimed. “I knew it! Every tourist keeps a fully stocked liquor cabinet in the beach room. Just ask my parents. It even has caffeine—which is exactly what you need. You know, I think a lot of dumb things, and sometimes I’m right.” He took his shirt off. He was nicely built, to say the least. “Sorry, it’s just really wet, and I’m really cold from the rain.”

I shook my head. “Don’t apolo…apolo…”

He squinted at me. “Huh?”

“Put down the ginger ale, Sean.” I ran forward and dove onto the couch. “Come here.” I took off my raincoat and stretched across the pillows, grinning at him through the shadows. “I’m not thirsty.”

“What about the movie?” he breathed in a husky voice.

“How about we entertain each other?”

He placed the bottle on the countertop and slunk over.

“Are you sure you’re not—”

“Stop asking!”

I watched his chiseled, happy face get closer and closer, like a video close-up, until it filled my entire field of vision. I grabbed the back of his head and kissed him with all the pent-up desire that fueled my rock-star fantasies. Sean’s kisses made me oddly trembly. And it didn’t feel surreal, like when I’d kissed Miles last summer. It felt so right. Especially when he moved his hands along my collarbone, down to my belly button.

I couldn’t wait to tell Megan—

The lights flew on.

I blinked. Sean scooted out of my arms. It was suddenly
very
bright.

“What the hell is going on down here?” a thunderous voice demanded.

Mr. Roth stood at the bottom of the stairwell at the far end of the room.

He was wearing that same ridiculous seersucker-and-blue-button-down combo he’d worn the first day we’d spotted
him. I was tempted to giggle. Unfortunately, I was also tempted to pass out. He folded his arms across his chest, his jaw tightly set. “Sean, who is this girl, and why is she wearing a wet bikini on my couch? And why aren’t you wearing a shirt? And why is the liquor cabinet open? And what the hell makes you think you can treat my home like your own private bordello? You’re my
gardener
, for Christ’s sake! What will your parents say when I tell them?”

Sean opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

“How did you get in here?” Mr. Roth barked.

“Megan gave me the keys,” I answered on Sean’s behalf. The words were slurred. It sounded more like: “
Megah-gave-uh-me-da-keys,”
like a parody of an Italian accent. “I’m Jade, by the way. All this is my fault.”

“I see,” Mr. Roth snapped. “Interesting. Well, then, Megan Kim is fired.”

“What?” I shouted, sitting up straight. If I’d been even the slightest bit tipsy, I definitely wasn’t anymore. “She had nothing to do with this! She’s always been the responsible one! I’m the one who got fired for this exact same thing two summers ago! I just told you—”

“Jade? It’s Jade, correct?” Mr. Roth thrust his finger toward the sliding glass doors. “Young lady, I have no idea who you are or what you’re doing in my home, but I’d like both you and Mr. Edwards to leave. Otherwise, I’m calling the police.”

I snapped up my raincoat as Sean feverishly squirmed back into his damp T-shirt. But I couldn’t help but think,
This
isn’t your home, jerk. It’s a mansion you’re renting in MY town—a town you want to rebuild in your own image.
For once, though, I decided to bite my tongue and keep these astute observations to myself. Sean and I blushed at each other. He looked away. I yanked open the door, sprinting back out onto the rain-drenched beach.

“One more thing,” Mr. Roth called after us. “Mr. Edwards, just so we’re clear? You’re also fired. Stay away from my greenhouse.”

And he slid the door shut.