Picture Perfect (4 page)

“Hm. You might have something there,” I agreed.

“You have perfect posture and positions, and like, no dates,” Heather said. “Am I right?”

“Well, you don’t have to make me sound that pathetic,” I replied with a laugh.

She laughed, too. “Hey, I’m only saying that because I know that’s how
I
was with
gymnastics. I spent every summer at gymnastics camp, every afternoon training…I loved it, but it puts some serious limits on your social life.”

“True.” I remembered wishing I didn’t have so many commitments, that I had time to just hang out at the mall and boy-shop with my friends.

“Anyway. This will be something short, just a fling. It’s not something that you’re going to continue, like a relationship or whatever. I mean, I guess if it worked out, and you didn’t live completely on other sides of the country—but be realistic. We’re going off to college and we’re not going to be tied down to some guy who isn’t even
there
.”

I stopped walking and looked at her. “Wow. You
have
thought about this a lot. Did you map out the whole thing, like what we say and when we say it?”
Because I can use that kind of help,
I thought. A sheet of instructions. No, a booklet. And a website with updates.

“Shut up, it was a long plane ride this morning. I had time,” she said. “So. We’ll get started
first thing tomorrow. What we need to do is meet some guys and—”

“I already met someone,” I admitted.

“Are you kidding?” She pushed me. “When?”

“Right when we were leaving tonight! I almost got my head cut off by a Frisbee, but it was worth it, because I met the guy next door. Really nice. He loaned me this sweatshirt.”

“So that’s where you got it,” she said, nodding. “
Really.
Well, this sounds promising! So what was his name?”

“Name? Well, um…”

“You didn’t get his
name
?” Heather demanded.

“I didn’t tell him my name, either, so—”

“And that makes it
right
?”

“He’s staying next door to us. We’ll see him again.”

“Still. You ask a guy’s name. It lets them know you’re interested. I mean, are you with me, or not?”

“Fine. I’ll get his name first thing tomorrow,” I promised.

I wasn’t planning to tell Heather how clueless I was about dating, but I didn’t think I’d need to. She could tell.

To tell the truth, I was starting to think that I’d head to college without ever having had a real boyfriend—and a date at the seventh-grade dance didn’t count.

That sounded so, so wrong. And so very, very likely.

But it wasn’t as if I’d
tried
to be single. Forever. It just worked out that way. And it wasn’t only the Spencer incident, where I’d failed miserably.

When I was a junior, there was this one British guy I totally loved named Gavin. He moved. To Arizona. I mean, what were his parents thinking, moving to Arizona, when he’s British? For some reason he belonged more in Wisconsin. Because of me, because I was there. Not that I ever managed to talk to him for more than ten minutes, and not that I ever had the nerve to ask him out. But still, I loved him. Deeply.

Then, on a more serious note, there was my
friend Terence, who lived down the block and who I used to spend all my time with. At one point senior year I realized that I loved him also. Like, in the way that you shouldn’t love a guy who’s essentially your best friend. I kept trying to tell him how I felt, but I couldn’t, and then he went out with my friend Shauna. Which wasn’t fair at all, because I knew him a lot longer than she did, and all of a sudden we weren’t allowed to hang out as much as we used to.

Anyway, the whole Terence and Shauna situation was over now—they’d broken up after only two months together—but I still have a heart scar from that.

Maybe a fling
was
the answer. A fling in which nobody got deeply involved and, therefore, nobody got hurt. And one in which I never had to tell a guy how I felt or how long I’d felt that way or hear him say sorry, but he didn’t have the same feelings for me.

I hated the word “feelings,” come to think of it.

“Define ‘fling,’” I said to Heather as we walked up the steps onto the deck at the back
of the house. “Because ‘fling’ is ‘feeling’ without the two
e
’s.”

“Actually any good fling should have a couple
e
’s in it. Like, ‘ee, this is fun, ee, he’s kidding me—’”

“
Kidding
me? That doesn’t sound fun,” I commented, laughing.

“
Kissing
me, I meant to say. Give me a break, I have jet lag,” Heather said. “You know, it’s a romantic evening. You hold hands. You gaze at each other.” She shrugged. “You act and feel goofy. You kiss. Dance, maybe.”

“That’s it?” I asked, climbing into a chair beside the pool.

“The rest is optional.” She sat down beside me in a chaise lounge chair. “Fun, but optional.”

We both laughed.

“
Have
you…? I mean, would you…?” I whispered.

“No. I’ve had the chance, but you know, the person—the timing—it wasn’t right. And I definitely don’t think it’s something you should do on, like, vacation. With some guy you don’t really know all that well.”

“Agreed,” I said.

“But you could make out.”

I leaned back and looked up at the sky. “Right.”

“And if you got carried away…”

“No.” I shook my head. “Still not. Too risky.” The whole thing sounded too risky, if you asked me. If I didn’t do well with guys I already knew, how would I handle things any better with strangers?

But I’d try to follow Heather’s lead, the way I did every time we were on vacation together. When we were about eight, she dared me to eat ten red-hot fireball candies in a row, so I did. That same trip, she dared me to jump off a tire swing into a lake, and I did that, too.

I ended up with a burning-hot mouth and a red stomach from belly-flopping. That was when I decided that maybe Heather wasn’t the best role model for me.

But maybe there were events worth following her in. And if Heather could find a guy to have an innocent—or fairly innocent—summer fling with, why couldn’t I?

Besides, I’d already met someone. For once, I was a step ahead of
her
.

“What are you guys so busy talking about?” Mrs. Olsen had walked out onto the deck, followed by my mom.

“You could have told us the bad news, Mom,” Heather said.

Mrs. Olsen looked a bit panicked for a second. “What bad news?”

“That Spencer’s following us to Linden.”

My mother laughed. “What? I, for one, think it’s wonderful news,” she said. “Don’t you think so, Emily?”

I thought that it was strange. Weird. Potentially nice, because it never hurts to know lots of people. And potentially very embarrassing, because sometimes it’s the wrong kind of people, the ones you’ll never, ever turn to because they’d mock you for it.

“Sure, Mom. It’s wonderful,” I murmured, glancing over at Spencer. Absolutely, positively, wonderfully
bizarre
.

Heather suddenly jumped up and grabbed hold of my hands. “Come on, Em, let’s go.”

“What?”

“We need to talk some more—in private,” she said under her breath as she pulled me by the wrist. “We need a plan of attack, don’t you think? We’re just going down to the beach, stick our toes in the water!” she announced over her shoulder to everyone.

“If you’re not back in fifteen minutes, I’m sending someone after you!” my mother called.

“Fine. Just send someone cute from next door,” Heather added and we laughed as we ran down the steps toward the ocean.

“E
mily! Emily!”

I turned my head and slid my sunglasses down my nose to see who was calling my name. I was lying in a bikini on the beach with an open book across my bare stomach—I guess I’d fallen asleep while I was reading.

When I could focus, I saw that it was the guy from next door. I couldn’t believe it. The same guy who’d loaned me his UNC sweatshirt, and before that, nearly decapitated me with a Frisbee. He was jogging down the beach toward me, wearing shorts, no shirt, with a striped beach towel slung around his neck, calling my name. “Em-i-ly! Em-i-ly!”

I quickly sat up, then jumped up from my
own striped beach towel and hurried toward him. I ran faster and faster, but my feet kept slipping in the sand. I looked down and realized I had my ballet slippers on, and then I realized I was late for a performance and not only that, I was wearing a bikini instead of my tutu. My trig teacher appeared out of nowhere, asking for my homework. I just ran past her and leaped into his arms.

“Hey.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and I put my arms around his strong shoulders and he pulled me closer. He lifted me in the air and tried to twirl me around, but unfortunately, something kept getting in the way. Something was wrapped all around my legs and I suddenly couldn’t move. Seaweed—monster-size seaweed—was about to strangle me.

I sat bolt upright.

I wasn’t on the beach.

I was in bed.

Alone. Very, very alone. And I was tangled up in my bedsheets. There was a magazine on my stomach, which I’d been reading the night before.

Well, at least I hadn’t failed trig or ended up onstage in a bikini.

It took me a second to figure out where I was. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a photographer or what, but it seems like I have the most vivid, visual—and unusual—dreams. Sometimes it can really freak me out because I can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t.

Unfortunately, the dream about next-door guy wasn’t real. The scene of me waking up wrapped like a mummy in my sheets—that was.

Shoot. No pun intended. I’d planned to get up early and photograph the sunrise. I glanced at the alarm clock and saw that I was about four hours late for that. What had happened? Then again, if I’d been having dreams like that, no wonder I stayed asleep.

I quickly got dressed, throwing on a pair of white shorts and a pink polka-dot bikini top. The temp outside seemed pretty hot when I opened a window to quickly check it. Besides, I wanted to meet guys, right? When in Rome, and when on the Outer Banks, and all that.

I left my room and walked out into the
fourth-floor hall. The house was four stories, with two large kitchens on the first and third floors. Each family had at least one room, or suite, with an attached bathroom—and some had two, like ours. It was sort of like being inside a hotel that was inside of a house. I was so happy that I didn’t have to share a room with my parents—I had a small bedroom with a miniature bathroom, sort of like a little attic afterthought. The only other person on the fourth floor, with a similar room, was Adam. His door was closed, and I wondered if he—and everyone else in the house—was already up, outside, and on my mom’s latest adventure.
Why hadn’t she woken me up?
I wondered. That wasn’t like her. Normally she’d pound on my door until I was up. Besides, she had Big Plans for this trip. Things we absolutely had to see.

I went to the third-floor kitchen, located the coffeemaker, and poured myself a mugful. Then I wandered over to the window to look out at the ocean (my bedroom faced the other way, toward the parking lot) and saw Adam’s little
brothers playing in the pool below, with the Thompsons and my mom and dad nearby. I wondered if the guy next door was up yet. Probably—everyone else seemed to be.

“Sleep much?” A voice behind me nearly made me jump through the window.

I struggled to keep from spilling my coffee. I turned to find Spencer, who I hadn’t noticed sitting on the sofa in the attached living room. “You scared me!”

He looked up from the book he was reading. “You scared
me
,” he replied. “Have you seen your hair?”

“Shut up.” I glanced at my reflection in the oven door and ruffled my hair a little to make it fall more neatly. I guess I hadn’t really paid much attention to it. “Heather and I stayed up late last night talking,” I explained.

“Really,” he said. “She’s already out playing volleyball.”

“With who?” I asked.

“Some guys. I think they live next door,” Spencer said. “Typical Neanderthals.”

“Do we have something against
Neanderthals?” I asked. “Do we have a complex or something?”

“Complex. Not usually a word I associate with Neanderthals,” Spencer mused.

I opened the sliding glass door and walked out onto the upper deck for some fresh air—and a better view. Down on the beach, Adam, Heather, and a couple of guys were playing against my platinum-blond friend and some other people.

So it’s true
, I thought.
The early bird catches the hot boy
. Or something like that. What was I thinking, sleeping in, when this was waiting for me on the beach?

I closed the door and ran upstairs to get my camera, then hurried back down, and out onto the lower-level deck. Before they noticed me, I managed to get a few quick shots of everyone. When Heather saw me, she stopped to wave, and the volleyball nearly nailed her in the face. My photo captured her sprawling to the ground, to get out of the way, but grabbing one of the guy’s arms as she fell. I didn’t know
whether it was intentional or not, but her move sure worked, and they laughed and fell onto the sand together.

“Hey! How’s it going?” my sweatshirt-lending friend called over to me.

“Hi!” I waved back to him. “Great shot!” I said, but the wind caught my hair and whipped it into my mouth, so it came out as more like “GWMFPT!”

“Game’s almost over!” he called back.

I wanted to take a picture of him. What could I tell him to get him to pose?
I’m taking pictures to make a calendar and I want you to be Mr. July?

I kept the lens trained on him, catching a few good action shots before the game was over and they stopped for a break. He jogged over to me, with Heather right beside him.

“Emily, this is Blake,” said Heather.

Was it me, or was it completely wrong that she was introducing me to the guy that
I’d
met?

Not that she wouldn’t have met him on her own, without me. But still. Just because
I hadn’t been clever or suave enough to find out his name—and wake up before ten in the morning—that didn’t mean they were supposed to be hanging around without me.

Blake introduced me to his friends, all of whom seemed to have Southern accents as well, from the hardly noticeable lilt to a heavy drawl.

“Oh, hold on a second—I have your sweatshirt.” I raced up to the deck to retrieve it. Unfortunately, the sweatshirt had fallen off onto the ground below, plus it had rained overnight, so it was sopping-wet, dirty, and covered with sand.

I wasn’t sure he’d want it back now, but I walked over to him, holding it out. “Here’s your sweatshirt.” I looked around, wondering where Heather had gone.

He frowned at me, then gradually his mouth turned upward into a smile. “Remind me never to give you my clothes again.”

I smiled, feeling my face turn warm, then hot, then scorching. “You know what? Why don’t I see if there’s a washer and dryer here—
I can clean it and get it dry and then bring it back to you,” I offered.

Blake shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just leave it here in the sun to dry. No problem.”

“You sure?” I asked.

“I’m sure.” He nodded with a nice smile. “Hey, before I forget—what are y’all doing tomorrow night?”

“Um, I—I don’t know yet,” I stammered. “Why?”

“We’re having a party. You should come!”

“Really?” I asked. “I mean, that sounds great. Cool.” There was a slight pause. “Uh, thanks. We’ll look forward to it.”

“Don’t expect too much. Just a casual, you know, thing. What are you up to this morning?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. My mom—she tends to plan everything to the hilt, so I’m sure there’s something,” I said.

We stood side by side, toes in the wet sand, the incoming waves washing over our feet. Where in the world was Heather? Did she
expect me to do this all by myself?

“So, where are you guys from?” asked Blake.

“All over, actually,” I said. “I’m from Wisconsin—”

“No kidding? I went there once.”

“Once?” I smiled. “Only once?”

“It was winter. I didn’t want to go back,” Blake said, and we both laughed. “I think it was a
high
of ten. I’m not cut out for that. I grew up in Savannah,” he said in his devastatingly cute Southern accent. “Y’all should move. Like, before winter.”

Another “y’all.”
I could kiss him just on the basis of how cute that sounded. Not that it was anything I’d ever done before, just randomly kiss someone, but hey—what was I waiting for?

“I’ve tried to convince them, believe me,” I told Blake. “I once had an entire lobbying plan to get us all to move to California. Everyone loved the idea, except, well, my mom and dad. My cat loved the idea.”

He smiled, picking up a shell and skipping it across the incoming wave. “So how do you survive and have fun?”

“You learn to wear layers. Sometimes you’re wearing so many layers you can’t move,” I explained. “So, um. Have you been here before? To this place?”

“Once before, when I was a little kid. Maybe six. And then my buddy Trevor—he’s the one with the long brown hair. His family has a house here—that house, I mean. We’re friends from UNC.”

“Cool,” I commented, sounding uncool.

“So, are you going to school anywhere warm, at least? Like, I don’t know. Alaska?” Blake teased me.

“Not quite. Northern Michigan,” I said.

“Ouch. Y’all
are
crazy.” He laughed. “Well, you can always transfer. You could be a Tarheel.”

“A what?”

“That’s what they call us at UNC. Tarheels.”

I peered down at his foot and saw that his ankle had a light black, slightly faded tattoo around it. I couldn’t see what shape it was, exactly. “I don’t see any tar,” I said. “Maybe you’re more of a sand heel?”

“Yo, Blake! Let’s move! Tee time in ten!”

“We’re going golfing. Hey, see y’all for beach volleyball later, all right?”

“Sure—sure thing,” I said, not that I played beach volleyball, or any kind of volleyball. But I’d try. “Sounds great!”

“Cool. Later, Em!” he called with a little wave over his shoulder.

Great. Sounds…great. Also?
Looks
great
, I thought as I watched him jog up the steps to his house’s deck, and that was the last I could see of him.

“Emily. Emily!” My mother suddenly appeared, waving a brochure in front of my face. “Earth to Emily! We’re going on a lighthouse tour this morning. Well, what’s left of the morning. Then we’ll go out for lunch, so why don’t you go get dressed?” she asked.

I glanced down at my clothes. “I am dressed.”

She cleared her throat. “
More
dressed.”

“Mom, it’s the beach, it’s vacation,” I argued. “Everyone here dresses really casually.”

“Yes, but where we’re going they might have the AC on. You’d freeze.” She flashed a tight-
lipped smile at me, and then pointed to the house. “Go change, or at least find another layer.”

As much as I loved my mom, I was really looking forward to
not
being told what to do all the time, come fall. I might be homesick, living away from home for the first time ever, but I could use a little freedom in my life. Plus, my mom had this image of me as a fourteen-year-old in her head that she could not seem to get out. I was perpetually fourteen, being driven to lessons or going to the city to watch performances or spending vacations at ballet camp, all arranged by her. Not that I had a problem with it at the time—but in retrospect? I’d have to say my life was a little one-sided back then. I’d missed junior prom to appear in a dance recital. Need I say more?

I was on the way to reconfigure my outfit when I saw Spencer staring out at the ocean from the upstairs deck, where he was standing, book in hand. “You going with us?” I called up to him.

“Going with you where?” he replied.

“Lighthouses,” I said. “Or at least one. Then lunch, I guess.”

“Do I have a choice?” Spencer asked.

“Not according to her.” I pointed to my mother. “
Everyone’s
going.”

“Then I’d hate to be left behind,” he said. “But, you know, if you’ve seen one lighthouse, you’ve seen ’em all. And I hate feeling like such a tourist.”

“So…don’t come, then,” I suggested.

“Why wouldn’t I come? I mean, just because I might hate every second, that’s no reason not to come along.”

I looked at him, wondering when he’d turned into such an antisocial being. “You’re weird. You realize that, don’t you?”

“Oh, sure. I’m very, very strange,” he said.

“Well, as long as you can admit it.” I hurried into the house. On the stairs, I ran into Heather, who had already changed out of her sand-covered clothes and was on her way down. “Did I see you talking to Blake out there?” she asked.

“Yeah. What happened to you?”

“I was too sticky—I had to change. So, how’d it go?”

“You know what? He’s really nice,” I said.

“Awesome. Did you get his number?”

“No,” I admitted. “Anyway, why do we need his number? He’s next door!”

“Emily. Are you completely clueless?” she asked. “You get a guy’s phone number. It tells him you’re interested.”

“Oh. Well, I got his name,” I said in self-defense, somewhat feebly, knowing she was right about the clueless aspect.

“No,
I
got his name,” Heather corrected me with a playful swat on my arm.

“Right.” I laughed. “Well, I did talk to him, and he invited me—us—to a party they’re having tomorrow night.”

“You’re kidding!” Heather said.

“Like, oh, my God!” Spencer squealed, coming up the stairs behind me.