So Inn Love (2 page)

“Really.”

“Really,” I said. “So tell me what you’ve been up to. It’s been a long time. I can’t wait to catch up. You know what’s weird, I haven’t been inside here for a couple of years. Wow—I just thought of something. Remember when we got kicked off the tennis court here? Oh my God, that was funny.”

“We did not.”

“We did, too!” I said. “Remember those cute guys we met on the beach, and we were supposed to meet them here, and then—”

“Well, see you around, Beth,” she interrupted me. Then she turned back to the group she’d been talking to when I first walked up, to
Zoe and her other friends.

She’s snobbing me,
I thought.
Caroline, of all people, is snobbing me.
If she was part of the “in crowd,” then maybe I didn’t want to be. “It’s
Liza
,” I said to her back.

“Hey, Liza. And don’t mind her, she’s not that nice to anyone.”

I turned and saw Hayden—the guy who’d arrived right after me—standing beside me. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “Caroline’s not exactly the person you send out on the welcome wagon.”

“Okay, but here’s the thing. Have you ever
seen
a welcome wagon? Like, what’s in it?”

“And who pulls it? Horses?” Claire added.

We all laughed, that kind of nervous laughter when you first meet someone.

“So you’re Liza. And you are?” Hayden asked.

“Claire. We’re new hires,” she explained. “You know, apparently the only two new people here?”

“Oh, come on, you’re not the
only
new ones,” Hayden said. “That guy, Josh, over there…and that other guy, what’s his name. There’re at
least five or six of you.”

“Someone over there just called us newbies,” Claire said. “I hate that phrase, or term, or whatever it is.”

“I know,” I said. “We can’t help it if we didn’t work here before.”

“So, non-newbies,” Hayden said. “Don’t get a complex. Hayden Overton. Nice to meet you.”

“Same here,” I said. At least one person in the so-called in crowd was being nice to us. And as I’d learned from moving, that was really all it took. If one person accepted you or decided you were cool—then everyone would.

“You know what? You want to get out of here?” Hayden said.

“Aren’t we supposed to go to the dorm?” Claire asked.

“The dorm can wait.
Believe
me,” Hayden said. “Especially since—” He stopped and looked at us for a second.

“Since what?” I wanted to know.

He shook his head. “Never mind. We’ve got half an hour before we need to meet up with Peach again. Come on, let’s hit the water.”

I looked at Claire. “I’m all for it. You?”

“Sure,” Claire said. “Sounds good.”

“You know what—I see someone I’ve got to say hi to. But I’ll be right down, okay?” Hayden told us.

“He seems nice,” Claire said as we walked outside onto the Inn’s back porch, which stretched almost the entire length of the building. It had tables and chairs for guests, and standing on it, we looked straight out at the Atlantic Ocean.

“Very,” I agreed. I stood on the steps for a few seconds, admiring the view. Then I stepped off onto the boardwalk and turned to look back up at the Inn. It was as gorgeous as I remembered. It was four stories tall, with white shutters and weather-beaten-looking blue-gray paint. Every room had two windows, and a few of them had small decks with big Adirondack chairs facing the ocean.

On the street side, there was a circular driveway, wide, welcoming steps, and a small open deck with wrought-iron tables and chairs under generous-size canvas umbrellas. The
parking lot was set back a bit from the Inn, so small golf-cart shuttles were used to ferry guests and their belongings from their cars.

I loved the salty ocean smell that hit my nose as soon as I turned onto the road toward the beach. It was the same, every year, from the time I was a toddler until now.

The real reason I’d been late for the meeting was that on the way in, I’d stopped the car to get out and just breathe the salt air. It sounds dumb, I know, and I’d probably never admit it to anyone in the room—especially Miss Crossley, who was too no-nonsense for that sort of thing—but it’s a ritual of mine.

It’s not as if we lived
so
far from the ocean, but I still didn’t get there very much, especially not during the school year. Every summer’s first trip to Rhode Island made my nose so happy.

My boyfriend back home had been really upset—no, mad—when I told him I was going away for the summer. He didn’t understand, but that was because he’d never been here, never seen how gorgeous it was. Anyway,
we were only talking about ten weeks. That whole time he’d be busy working the graveyard shift at his uncle’s boat factory, and we wouldn’t have seen each other even if I was around, working at my dad’s law office.

Anyway, it wasn’t that kind of relationship. We went out when it was convenient, and we had a good time together—but I wouldn’t die without him. I’d never had that kind of feeling for anyone. I didn’t think I was the type of person to die for love, anyway. I wasn’t into big drama.

“A private beach? This is incredible,” Claire said as we stepped off the wooden boardwalk.

I slipped off my sandals before I jumped off into the warm sand. Since the Inn wasn’t open for business yet, the beach was all ours. “I’ve never been on this part of the beach.” I pointed to a public beach across the breakwater. “That’s where we used to hang out. See how it’s all crowded?”

Claire laughed. “You and Caroline hung out over there? Hard to believe.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You don’t seem like…the same kind of people. To be friends, I mean.”

“No. Not anymore, I guess.”

I heard voices behind us and turned to see that everyone else had the same idea. They were all either walking—or sprinting—down to the ocean’s edge like us, ditching their shoes and sticking their toes into the ocean.

“So where are you from?” Claire asked.

“I was born in Iowa. But now we live in Connecticut,” I said. “Outside Hartford. How about you?”

“Boston,” Claire said.

“Cool,” I said. “I’ve only been there once, but I thought it was great.”

While we were talking, I was digging my toes into the sand, watching the water roll over my feet, which were sinking a little deeper with each wave and the undertow that followed. I loved that feeling; it was so relaxing.

Suddenly I felt someone’s hands on my shoulders.

“Are you ready for your initiation, newbies?”

I turned around and saw Hayden standing behind me. He squeezed my shoulders. “Initiation?” I asked. What was he talking about? This didn’t sound good. And here I’d thought he was being so nice to us. “What’s that?”

“It’s a rite of passage,” a guy named Richard said as he swooped up Claire in his arms, with one quick motion.

“Hey! Miss Crossley never mentioned this,” Claire said. “Put me down!” she protested.

“You’re not actually going to—” I started to say, as I struggled against Hayden. “You’re not serious. You think you can—”

“Yeah, I do.” He picked me up by the waist, sideways, as if I were a suitcase under his arm, and dragged me closer to the water.

“Since when is there initiation around here?” Claire demanded.

“Since now!” And Richard lifted her in the air and tossed her into the surf.

Before I could laugh at her, I found myself being lifted over Hayden’s head—and the next thing I knew I was underwater. It was freezing
cold and bubbling up all around me as a wave tumbled over my head. My feet were standing on sand and crushed shells. I surfaced and slicked back my hair, the salt water stinging my eyes. Around me I could hear a few other people complaining, and Claire was yelling at Richard. All the new people were in the water, including Josh. As he waded out, he looked at me and Claire and said, “So it’s us against them, huh?”

“I guess so.” I glanced back at shore and saw Hayden watching me.

What he didn’t know was that I didn’t really care if I got tossed in—I was dying for my first swim in the ocean, anyway. So it didn’t have to be in my clothes, but I didn’t care. What a great feeling.

I looked at my arm and saw my temporary tattoo dissolving in the choppy salt water, colors streaming off my arm. I felt something tugging at me and found a long thick piece of seaweed—the kelp kind that reminds me of lasagna noodles—wrapped around my right leg.

Hayden was smiling at me as I strode out of
the surf. “You actually
liked
that, didn’t you?”

I pulled the seaweed off my leg and threw it at him as I walked past. “Doesn’t everyone like swimming?” I asked him with a smile.

“W
hy do I get the feeling this room is reserved for the new people?”

Claire and I stood in the doorway of Room213.

“Thirteen equals unlucky,” she said.

“Also unfurnished,” I said.

Because our room was right next to the stairway, it had a strange, angled shape, like part of it had been chopped off.

“We get one dresser. Everyone else has two,” Claire complained. “Our closet is the size of an old telephone booth.”

I wandered around the room. It didn’t take long. “And look at this chair. There’s one arm missing, and stuffing’s poking through.”

Our room was at the end of the second-floor hall, near the stairs, and had an L-shape, with our beds near the windows. There was a built-in wooden dresser, a tiny closet, one desk for us to share, and one semicomfortable chair with strange orange upholstery. The walls were bare and painted white, but at least there were pretty sage-green curtains on the windows.

I tried to open the windows, but they were jammed. I pounded on the sides to get them to budge. When I finally got them open, a fresh ocean breeze came into the room. I looked out the window. The dorm was set back behind the Inn, down a path, so the ocean view was blocked, but we did have a nice view of the Inn.

“Well, maybe it’s small, but I still don’t think it’s that bad,” I said, turning around.

I didn’t plan on spending much time in the room anyway, when there was so much to see and do, being right on the ocean like we were. The room would be a place to crash at night, and that was about it.

“Wait until it gets hot in July,” Claire said. “No air conditioning, and we’re on the second
floor. I bet this place gets as humid as anything.”

“Yeah, but we’ll always have that breeze off the water, right?” I pointed out.

Claire narrowed her eyes. “You like getting thrown into the ocean, you like the smell of salt and fish, you don’t care that we have the worst room, and you don’t mind humidity…. You’re one of those glass-half-full kind of people, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” I said. “It depends on my mood. I can be really dark when I want to.” I smiled at her.

“Good. If you were going to be optimistic about everything, I’d go crazy,” Claire said. “My mom is like that and it drives me nuts. She’s always saying that thing about how when one door closes, another opens, or a window opens when a door gets slammed, or something.” She laughed.

“Well, in this place, if a door gets slammed? I think we’ll all hear it, whether or not the window’s open,” I said. From downstairs you could hear guys shouting to each other, while someone on our floor was blasting music.

The guys all lived on the first floor, and the girls on the second. I was still kind of surprised my parents finally let me go away to such an unsupervised place. Were they really aware of what I was getting into? A coed dorm? Did they not know, or did they know and not care? Were they just getting me prepared for what I’d encounter in college?

Maybe that was why they’d tried to talk me out of this plan at the beginning, even though my grandparents had supported it. They’d also tried to persuade me to go to an all-women’s college. That hadn’t worked, either.

“How did you end up here?” I asked Claire as I pulled a suitcase onto the bed. It sagged under the weight, which was pathetic considering it wasn’t that heavy a bag. The bed felt suspiciously like a cot, the kind that might be issued by the Red Cross during an emergency. Did everyone in the dorm have thin mattresses, I wondered, or just us?

“I needed to get away for the summer,” Claire said. She lifted a stack of perfectly folded T-shirts from her suitcase into the dresser.
“I’ll take the two bottom drawers, if you’ll take the top two, okay?”

“Sure,” I agreed. “You were saying…you needed to get away?” That was sort of intriguing, as an opening.

“Oh!” She laughed. “No big scandal—I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I just couldn’t stand another summer at home. Boredom. You know. Plus my older sister worked here a few summers ago and was always telling me how great it was,” she said. “And
she
heard about it from her college roommate, who got her in. When I told her I wanted to apply, she said the most important advice she was going to give me was to beware of hookups.”

“Beware of hookers? Really? Around
here
?” I tried to imagine a woman in a feather boa and short shorts, down by the boardwalk to the private beach.

“Hook
ups
,” Claire repeated with a laugh.

I laughed, too. “Oh! Well, that’s okay, I wasn’t really planning any.”

“Neither am I,” Claire said.

I didn’t want to completely rule out seeing
someone over the summer, though. I was only human, and who knew what might happen between me and my probably ex, Mark? If we were really over, then I’d be free to date someone else. I didn’t have a clue if I would, but I could. The beach would be the perfect romantic location, that was for sure.

“Anyway, my sister just said that this place can get really small, really fast, if you’re not careful,” Claire continued.

“Hm. Sort of like high school, then?” I asked with a smile.

“Yeah, exactly. God, I’m glad that’s over,” Claire said.

I nodded in agreement. I was glad to be moving on—and out—to college, too, but I didn’t
hate
high school, not after I’d settled in and made new friends. The way I saw it, high school was a lot like a very trendy haircut. Fun while it lasted.

High school could get boring if you were complacent, if you did the same thing over and over. Same with hair. I preferred coloring mine, streaks of blue or sometimes pink, going
platinum once or twice, and now, chestnut auburn brown, when I was naturally a blonde. (And no, I’m not going to beauty school. At least not until I flunk out of college.)

Claire unpacked several books, stacking them on the desk, making a bookshelf by using larger stacks at each end of the desk.

“Wow,” I said. “Are all those for fun, or…?”

“Reading ahead for freshman year at Columbia. Plus a few for fun.” She pulled out a couple of paperback chick-lit novels and grinned. “Chaucer’s okay, but…”

“Sometimes not so much,” I added.

“Exactly.”

“Miss Crossley made it sound like we’ll be working all the time. Do you think we’ll have time to read? And if we do, can I borrow
that
one? Not the Chaucer.”

Outside our window, a bullhorn sounded. “Come on, everyone, time to tour the Tides!” Miss Crossley’s voice boomed through a megaphone.

“She’s so high energy it’s painful. I meant to
wash my hair after the salt swim, but, oh well.” Claire sighed as she grabbed a ball cap from the desk and pulled it over her head.

“Good idea.” I grabbed my Tigers Volleyball cap.

When Claire and I walked outside, Miss Crossley met us with a look of disapproval. She was good at doing that. “Dress code rule number seventeen. No ball caps,” she said.

There’s a dress code?
I thought.
Why did no one tell me?
“Oh. Sorry—” I started to apologize.

“No ball caps, except these.” Miss Crossley opened a large plastic bag and handed us each an official Tides Inn cotton cap. They were different shades of sun-washed pastel, and the one I grabbed was a pale orange. I caught Hayden’s eye as I pulled it over my head. He was already wearing a white one.

“How do you guys like your room?” Caroline asked.

“Fine. Thanks.” I smiled at her. “It’s very scenic.”

“And spacious, don’t forget spacious,” Claire added.

“What’s wrong with your room?” Miss
Crossley asked as we assembled into a group outside the dorm.

“Oh, uh, nothing,” I said. “It’s fine.”

“Good. So, moving on. Today we’ll get the big overall picture,” Miss Crossley went on. “You all need to understand the complete workings of the Inn. In case you’re required to fill in for anyone, you should know a little about each other’s jobs.”

“Miss Crossley, do we really need to do this again? I mean, some of us were here last year, we know the drill,” Zoe said. “How about if we split up and—”

“Zoe, you know as well as I do that a refresher course is never a bad idea,” Miss Crossley interrupted.

Zoe didn’t look as if she knew that at all. She turned to Caroline and rolled her eyes. The two of them definitely acted as if they were too good to be bothered.

“Now, you guys should know the rules. Day One, we stick together. That’s our philosophy. Teamwork. Day Two, you focus on your particular area of responsibility.”

“Day Three, we run away,” Josh muttered,
beside me. Since he was new, I wondered if he had an equally crappy room on the first floor, beneath us.

“Day Three, we hit the beach, right?” another person added.

“Only if your job is lifeguarding,” Miss Crossley said sternly.

“No problem,” Hayden said.

So that was why he’d been cleaning up the beach. It was his turf.

It figured that he was a lifeguard, I thought. He had the body for it. He’d lifted me like I weighed nothing, plus he had broad shoulders, plus he had the kind of rock-hard abs people refer to as a six pack…

Hey. I’m just reporting what I saw when he picked me up to toss me into the surf, okay? Strictly a journalistic effort.

“Listen up!” Miss Crossley said, interrupting my happy memory. “Here is the most important area of the entire Inn. The entrance. What guests see here influences their entire stay with us.”

“So in other words, no hanging out by the
entrance, smoking?” Hayden joked.

“No smoking anywhere on hotel grounds,” Miss Crossley said. “Unless of course a guest requests that you step outside and offers you a cigar—”

“Then we
have
to smoke?” Claire interrupted.

“No, I was only joking. Though you should make sure he or she has a light!” Miss Crossley smiled.

“All right, Peach. Loosening up,” Hayden said.

“Don’t count on it,” she replied sternly.

“Lighting cigars for people? My sister didn’t mention the part about indentured servitude,” Claire said quietly to me as we all moved into the Inn.

“I’m guessing there’s a lot she left out,” I whispered back.

Once inside, I checked out the reception and lobby area—when I’d come through earlier, I’d been in such a rush that it had all been a blur. There were sofas, big, comfy dark-brown leather ones, wicker ones for those in wet swimsuits, tables with issues of current magazines, and
bookshelves from which guests could borrow any book they wanted. The reception desk was made of a rich, dark wood. Behind it were mailboxes for the rooms. An old-fashioned silver bell sat on the desk, beside the fountain pen guests would use to sign the Inn’s register. It was like something out of an old movie.

We used to come to the Inn’s restaurant for lunch when my grandparents rented a small cottage down the road. Only once a summer, though, because it was too pricey, according to my grandmother, who, to be fair, could cook up a lobster and clam dinner herself that was equally good, if not better.

Still, I used to look at the teen servers and wish I could work here, especially a couple of years ago when I was desperate for a summer job. I always wanted to stay here, too, but my parents pointed out that not only was it too expensive, it would be silly considering my grandparents rented a cottage so close by.

Now I was going to be working here, at the front desk. Life was so weird sometimes. I was grateful to whoever had dropped out of the staff to make room for me. “Claire, did I tell
you? This is where I’m going to be,” I started to tell her.

“Actually, Elizabeth, I need to talk to you about that,” Miss Crossley interrupted me.

Liza
, I wanted to say, but didn’t. “You do?”

“Yes. There have been some reassignments.”

“There have?” I asked.

“Yes. Even though you were hired to help in the guest reception area, we’ve decided to go with someone with more experience,” Miss Crossley explained. “Caroline pointed out that she has been here longer, and that it is a job she’s wanted all along. So we reassigned you, based on seniority.”

Or lack thereof
, I thought as I checked out the area where I wouldn’t be sitting, wouldn’t be answering the phone, and wouldn’t be greeting celebrities and other interesting people as they arrived.

Caroline looked at me and smiled. “It takes someone who knows the Inn inside and out. I’m
really
sorry, Beth,” she said, in a voice so obviously phony that I knew she wasn’t sorry at all. And if she knew the Inn so well, why hadn’t
she been the one who got the job in the first place?

“It’s Liza,” I reminded her. “And that’s okay,” I said, smiling at her. “I’m sure any job here is great, no matter what it is. So, what do you have for me then?” I asked Miss Crossley cheerfully. Stiff upper lip, glass half full, and all.

“Housekeeping,” she said.

My heart sank. I was in trouble. They really hadn’t read my application, had they? “Housekeeping” was ranked last on my list of desired positions. I was really terrible about cleaning my room at home. They should have asked my parents for references, because when it came to keeping a place neat and tidy? I had zero skills.

“Housekeeping,” I repeated slowly. “Well, okay. I can keep house with the best of them,” I lied.

“Happy to hear that,” Miss Crossley said. “This is a team effort, and we need team players.”

Okay,
I thought.
But do I have to be on the clean team?

I glanced at Caroline, who was smiling happily at her friend Zoe. Caroline had just gotten
upgraded from housekeeping to front desk; of course she was happy. But I had a feeling that any idea I had that Caroline and I might still be able to be friends was as dead in the water as my front-desk job.

It’s us against them
, Josh had said. Was it really going to be that bad?

I was back in my room, tucking the sheets under my thin mattress, when Claire walked in carrying a couple of sodas. “You’re not practicing, are you?” she asked.

I sank onto the bed with a sigh. “I know you don’t want to hear this, as my roommate, but I’m not the neatest person. Having a job where I’m supposed to clean up after people is like…completely against type.” Miss Crossley had given me a ten-minute seminar on “Ways to Remove Sand from a Carpet” that I’d already forgotten. Or blocked out. One of the two.