Party Summer (2 page)

“I'm sorry,” Cari said, finally snapping out of her trance. “Really, Jan. We didn't know. Your mom said you were up here.”

“That's right,” Eric said quickly, tugging at his short ponytail. “We asked her if it was okay to come up, and she said yes.”

A burst of wind lashed the house. The attic window rattled, and the tree limb slammed against it hard.

Startled by the sound, all four teenagers looked to the window.

When Cari peered at Jan again, she saw that her friend had gotten herself together. “I … I didn't hear you come up,” Jan said, pulling nervously at a strand of hair, curling it in a corkscrew around her finger.

“I don't know how you missed us. Those stairs creak like crazy,” Craig said.

“Yeah. We made a lot of noise,” Cari added. She moved off the step and moved toward Jan, ducking her head under the low eaves.

“I was concentrating,” Jan said, glancing down
at the smeared chalk pentacle on the floor and frowning.

“We won't tell anyone you've gone crazy,” Eric said, grinning.

“I
haven't
gone crazy,” Jan snapped, her anger returning. “It almost worked. It
would've
worked if you hadn't—”

“What almost worked?” Cari asked, lowering herself onto the cushioned window seat in front of the rattling attic window and tucking her slender legs under her.

“Never mind,” Jan muttered.

“No. Really,” Cari insisted. “What were you doing?”

“You just want to laugh at me,” Jan said, crossing her arms over her chest and staring out at the rain.

“We won't laugh. Promise,” Eric said, glancing at Craig.

“Promise,” Craig repeated obediently.

“I was summoning a ghost,” Jan told them.

Eric and Craig burst out laughing.

“Come on, guys!” Cari pleaded.

Jan ignored them and faced Cari. “So what are you three doing here anyway?”

“We came to tell you we can go,” Cari replied.

“To Piney Island?” Jan asked, her dark eyes glowing in the gray light from the window.

“Yeah,” Cari said. “Do you believe it? My parents actually agreed.”

“That's great!” Jan cried excitedly, momentarily forgetting her anger. “My aunt Rose will be so happy. I'll have to call and tell her right away.” She
turned back to the two boys on the stairs. “But maybe you shouldn't go.”

“Huh?” Craig asked.

“What do you mean?” Eric demanded, equally surprised.

“Well, those old New England inns are all haunted, you know,” Jan said.

“So?” Eric asked, leaning on Craig's shoulder.

“We don't believe in that stuff,” Craig said, grinning and staring down at the smeared remains of Jan's pentacle on the floor.

“That's what I mean,” Jan said, her expression almost threatening. “Ghosts in old inns usually have stories to tell. Violent stories. Bloody stories. And they don't like to be laughed at.”

Her eyes burned into Eric's as she said those words. He lowered his to stare at his shoes.

“You mean—” Craig started uncertainly.

“I mean you could get hurt,” Jan said heatedly. “If you laugh at them the way you laughed at me, you could get hurt.”

Cari shivered and jumped up from the window seat. Despite the steamy heat of the attic, something about Jan's tone made Cari feel cold all over.

C
ari couldn't believe the day had actually arrived.

It hadn't been easy to get her parents to agree to let her go away for the summer. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were overly protective of their daughter, at least that was what Cari believed.

“We just like to have you around,” her father said. “You brighten up the house.”

“Get real,” Cari replied, making a face.

He was always saying embarrassing things like that.

“Cari has eyes as blue as the ocean on a sunny day,” he would say. Or: “Cari's hair is as soft and golden as spring sunlight.”

“Dad—give me a break!” she would scream.

Why does he say such stupid things? she wondered. For, despite the fact that she was as willowy and beautiful as any model on the cover of
Sassy
or
Seventeen,
Cari wasn't terribly impressed with her looks.

I'm much too skinny, she sometimes thought. Or: My smile is crooked. Or: I'm so tired of wearing my hair straight back like this. I wish it wasn't so fine.

When guys at school made a fuss over her, or when they acted especially shy around her, Cari never thought it was because of her looks. She always thought it was because guys just acted that way. Basically like jerks.

Even though she was sixteen, she had never had a boyfriend, hadn't gone out on many dates without other kids around, had never even had a guy she was seriously interested in. A few crushes, that was all.

“The boys are afraid of you,” her father said, unable to suppress a proud smile. “You're too beautiful.”

“What planet are
you
from?” Cari had cracked, making an ugly face. She really wished he'd stop making comments like that.

Jan is the beautiful one, Cari thought. Her best friend was dark and mysterious looking, with cascading curly black hair, sparkling olive eyes, high cheekbones, full, dramatic lips, and a womanly body that made Cari feel like a stick.

Next to Jan, I'm so pale, so washed-out, I almost disappear, Cari thought. She quickly finished brushing her hair and stepped away from the mirror. She straightened her peach-colored, long-sleeved T-shirt, brushed off her white tennis shorts,
and was heading down the stairs when the front doorbell rang.

“They're here!” Cari's younger sister, Lauren, called.

“Where's your suitcase?” Mr. Taylor shouted. He passed her on the stairway, acting almost frantic. “Are you packed? Are you ready?”

Cari laughed. “Yes. I'm ready. Isn't anybody going to open the door?”

“Did you remember your toothbrush?” Her mother appeared at the bottom of the stairs, looking almost as frazzled as Mr. Taylor.

“The door!” Cari insisted. “Somebody open the door!”

She pushed past her father and beat her mother to the door; her sneakers squeaked on the tile floor as she pulled it open.

“Hi,” Jan said, giving Cari a look that said, “What's going on in there?”

“You must be Jan's Aunt Rose,” Cari said to the attractive, middle-aged woman next to Jan. She held the screen door open, and noticed that it was a bright, clear June day, so bright that even Fear Street looked summery and cheerful.

“Nice to finally meet you,” Rose said, stepping inside and shaking Cari's hand vigorously. She was wearing white slacks and a white, short-sleeved cotton sweater, which emphasized how tan she was. She had dark, curly hair like Jan's, only not as long.

“We've talked on the phone so much and Jan has told me so much about you, I feel I already know
you,” Rose said pleasantly. Then she added, “I just didn't know you were so beautiful!”

Cari felt herself start to blush. She didn't have a chance to reply. Her father had gotten her suitcase and was dragging it into the hallway. The whole family was excitedly talking at once.

“Only one suitcase?” Jan asked Cari, surprised. “I brought a suitcase that big for my makeup!”

Cari didn't laugh. Knowing Jan, that was probably not an exaggeration! Jan was wearing a chartreuse midriff top that really emphasized her figure and skintight, white spandex bicycle shorts.

Well, Jan was never the most subtle person in the world, Cari thought. But that was what Cari liked most about her. She was bold. She didn't hold back as Cari did.

Weeks before, when her aunt had first suggested that Jan and some friends go to work at Piney Island, Jan had immediately said what she thought the point of the summer would be—to meet great new guys and to party, party, party. “It's going to be a party summer.” That was Jan's phrase.

Then she invited Eric and Craig, her two oldest “boy” friends to come too, and the two guys picked up on her idea right away. “Party summer!” they repeated enthusiastically. Cari couldn't help but notice that Eric was staring at her when he said it.

The phrase had repeated itself in Cari's mind ever since.

Party summer …

And now she was actually leaving, after so many long arguments with her parents.

“Spend the summer working at a big New England resort hotel by yourself?” Mrs. Taylor had seemed absolutely shocked by the idea.

“I'll go too,” Lauren had quickly volunteered. “Then she won't be alone.”

“You keep out of it,” Mr. Taylor said sharply to Lauren.

“Uh-oh. Here we go again,” Cari said, frowning. “Family Argument Number 224 for the month!”

“You're keeping count?” Cari's mother cracked. “I didn't know you could count that high.” She had the same wry sense of humor as Cari, which, naturally, drove Cari crazy.

“It's not an argument. It's a discussion,” Mr. Taylor insisted.

“But I don't want to discuss it. I want to
do
it,” Cari said impatiently, her blue eyes flashing with anger.

“Me too!” Lauren declared.

“You weren't invited,” Mrs. Taylor said quietly. She turned to Cari. “Sit down, will you? Or if you're going to pace back and forth like that, carry a broom and sweep the floor. You know, make yourself useful.”

“Very funny, Mom.” Cari made a face, but pulled out a chair and joined them at the kitchen table.

“Now spell this out again,” Mrs. Taylor said, folding her hands in front of her on the yellow Formica table. “Who all is going?”

“Well,” said Cari, taking a deep breath and starting all over again, “Jan is going, and she's asked me, and Eric Bishop, and Craig Sethridge.”

“He's a nice boy,” Mrs. Taylor said quietly. “But isn't Eric the one with the ponytail?”

“Mom!” Cari groaned, rolling her eyes.

“And the four of you are going to work at this hotel on some island for the summer?” Mr. Taylor asked, sounding confused.

“It's not like we're going to Jupiter, Dad,” Cari snapped. “And we're not going alone. Jan's aunt Rose will be there. She's a writer and needs someplace quiet to finish her book. And if I get to go and work there, I can use the pool and the beach on my time off.”

“Your mother and I used to go to Cape Cod all the time,” Mr. Taylor said thoughtfully. “But I never heard of this hotel.”

“The Howling Wolf Inn,” Mrs. Taylor said, shaking her head. “What a name. Sounds like it's out of an old horror movie or something.”

“It's supposed to be really fancy and exclusive,” Cari said defensively. “I guess that's why you two never heard of it!”

“Score one for Daughter Number One,” said Mr. Taylor, laughing and making an invisible mark in the air.

“The inn is on a tiny, private island,” Cari continued. “Piney Island. There's nothing on the island but the hotel. And the only way to reach it is by boat from Provincetown once a day. Jan says her aunt showed her pictures of it, and it's beautiful. Pine trees grow almost all the way down to the beach.”

“Maybe we'll all go!” Mrs. Taylor joked.

Cari made a disgusted face.

“I want to go swimming!” Lauren cried.

“Lauren, can't you go play or something?” Cari snapped.

“No. I want to argue too,” Lauren insisted, rubbing a dirty finger across the Formica table and studying the smudge she made. “And I want to go swimming.”

“Not tonight,” Mrs. Taylor told Lauren. “It's almost your bedtime.”

“And this is really how you want to spend your summer, working and waiting on tables in a big, drafty old hotel?” Mr. Taylor asked Cari, scratching his head.

“Yes. And having fun,” Cari said, seeing that her parents were beginning to weaken. “And meeting new people. And learning new things. And swimming and vegging out on the beach. And being with my friends. And—”

“Sounds like that's what she wants,” Mrs. Taylor said to her husband. “I guess it does sound better than working at the Sizzler and going to the Shadyside Swim Club on weekends.”

“Well, let's give Jan's aunt a call and get the details,” Mr. Taylor said. He smiled at Cari. He liked giving in to her. He liked giving her everything she wanted.

She had counted on that.

Now here it was, four weeks later. And they were cramming Cari's bag in the back of Rose's station wagon. There were hugs all around. And a few tears, mainly from Cari's mother, who still didn't like the idea of Cari being away for so many weeks. And then more goodbyes. And finally more assurances
from Rose that she'd keep a close eye on them.

Then they were pulling Lauren out of the backseat of the station wagon. And then the weighted-down car was bumping down the Taylors' driveway. And Cari was waving to her family, saying a silent goodbye to them, to Fear Street, and to the boring summer she might have had.