The Shore (27 page)

“I’m into pay-as-you-go,” Linley said. “That’s what keeps me interested.”

“You work at the college?” Claire asked Dean.

Dean shrugged. “Grad school,” he said.

Oblivious to everything, Jodi was writing on the back of a napkin. She shoved it across to Poppy. “Here’s the address. Move in anytime.”

“With a deposit,” Claire finally managed to croak.

That got everyone’s attention.

“A deposit? And after I promised to pay interest?” said Dean.

“Everyone has to pay a deposit,” said Claire. “To cover any unexpected bills or expenses.”

“Claire’s the house manager,” said Linley. “She’s very anal.”

“Anal,” said Dean.

“And we obey the house manager,” Linley added.

“Anything you want,” Dean said instantly.

Claire lifted her chin. “A deposit,” she said. “Equal to one month’s rent. And the first month’s rent. In cash. And then you can move in anytime.”

“Tomorrow,” said Dean.

And Claire wasn’t sure if it sounded like a promise—or a threat.

Three

“Cute,” said Dean.

“Oh, behave,” Poppy said. They both watched the Subaru double-back on its original U-turn and rocket out of sight.

“Not your type?” Dean said.

Poppy didn’t answer, and Dean smiled. He reached over and slid one finger along the inside of her wrist. She made a little sound, stood up. Stretched like a cat and began to walk away.

Still smiling, he slid money under a cup and followed.

“So you know Poppy from school?” Claire asked as she trailed Jodi and Linley back to the car.

“Yep. She’s an excellent artist. I told you about her, Linley—remember?” Jodi said.

“I seem to remember you mentioning her once or twice,” Linley said. She didn’t sound entirely pleased, Claire thought. Good.

“You just met Poppy, right, Linley?” Claire asked.

“Correct.”

“And Dean. Did anyone know Dean before?” Claire asked.

Jodi shrugged and threw open the car door. “I’ve probably seen him around.”

“Seen him around? Shouldn’t we get references. Or something?”

“Poppy’s a reference,” Jodi said impatiently.

“Linley . . . ,” Claire appealed to Linley. But it was useless.

“If Poppy says he’s okay, and Jodi says Poppy is okay, it must mean Dean is okay. Math equation, right?”

“Right,” Jodi cut in. “I’m very good at math, you know.” She’d managed to extricate them from the parking lot without damage and they were headed . . . where?

“Where . . . ,” Claire began.

“Look,” said Jodi. “Trust me, okay? Poppy’s great. They’ll be great. And he’s cute, right?”

“Cute isn’t high on my list of roomie qualifications,” Claire said.

“Hey, we’re all cute. Therefore, we should have cute roommates,” said Jodi. And floored it.

Claire fell back against the seat. After that, she got busy not watching where they were going. And, as far as she could tell, so was every driver in California, including Jodi.

And she’d thought drivers in Boston were bad.

So it really could happen. She could die a . . .

“Pretty boy,” said Linley. “Pretty girl.”

“You sound like a parrot. Or a parakeet. Some kind of pet
shop girl,” said Jodi. “Anyway, we’ve got two roommates. Only four at most to go. See how easy it is, Claire?” she added, glancing back at Claire, who had taken up the cower position on the backseat.

“Watch. The. Road,” Claire managed through clenched teeth.

Scenery of a non–New England style bathed in blinding sunlight raced by. Claire wondered why she had ever thought flying was dangerous. Large objects looming in a side window were much, much scarier to contemplate than the distant wrinkles of mountain ranges and water far below.

The car lurched, dipped, and spun. With a spray of dirt and gravel it bumped off the road and down a narrow track. Parts had to be falling off the Subaru, Claire thought, but a glance into the miasma of dust they’d left behind showed nothing but the dim outlines of ruts and flattened weeds.

They burst through a scraggle of trees to nothing but bright blue sky. A cliff. Claire opened her mouth to scream when Jodi jammed the car to a stop behind a pickup truck.

“We’re here,” Linley said cheerfully, and jumped out. Rubber-fingered, Claire plucked at her seat belt and managed to Jell-O her way out of the backseat.

They were in a dirt bowl in a small, haphazard circle of beat-to-hell cars and trucks. At the edge of the bowl, a path twisted down to another bowl, this one of sand and water. Pulling surfboards and gear from the car, Jodi said, “Perfect.”

“W-was this where you surfed this morning?” Claire asked. Good. Her voice sounded normal. She was pretty sure.

“No. We went closer to the house. More newbies, smaller waves,” said Linley. “Sort of a universal-donor spot.”

“What place is this?”

“I dunno. Everyone calls it Farmer,” said Jodi. She jerked one thumb over her shoulder. “I think that used to be a farmer’s field, y’know?”

“Let’s go,” Linley said impatiently, and led the way down the trail.

The sky was blue. The sand was golden. Waves roared into the curve of land. Dunes, echoing the set of the waves, marched up toward the sky. Claire made a mound of sand, then flattened it with her palm. Out beyond the breaking waves, figures drifted up and down the swells. Two of those figures were Linley and Jodi.

“We could teach you,” Jodi had offered halfheartedly after they’d dropped towels, clothes, and a cooler on the sand.

“I’ll just surf the beach here,” Claire had answered quickly. “I’ll pretend this towel is a surfboard.”

“Ha,” said Linley, stalking past with her board under her arm. “You wait. You’ll be begging for it before you know it.”

“You’re the one who begs for it,” retorted Claire.

“Ooooh,” said Linley. But her attention was already fixed on the water. She was looking at it the way she sized up a guy for
sex. Only now her look didn’t have the smug edge to it that said I always get what I want.

Claire dragged a hard lemonade out of the cooler and settled back. “Go play in the water,” she said. She took a long drink and watched the two of them plunge into the water with the synchronicity of long association.

Drinking slowly, Claire tried to sort out her thoughts. She wasn’t too happy with the whole roommate tip, but maybe Dean wasn’t an ax murderer. Just a garden variety perv. That, she could handle. Hadn’t she been dealing with boarding school teachers all her life?

Anyway, worrying about it wasn’t going to change things. Besides, it was probably against the law to worry in California while on a beach.

Or in a car, especially one driven by Jodi.

With a smile, Claire leaned back. She took a long chug of lemonade. She wouldn’t worry. Not on the beach. Not in the car. She closed her eyes and turned her face to the sun and chanted aloud to the rhythm of Green Eggs and Ham. “I will not do it in the car, I will not do it in the sand, I will not—” She had been going to finish “worry, Sam-I-am,” but someone said, “Do what?”

Claire jumped and spilled her drink across her bare stomach

“Aww!” she said in disgust. “Hell!”

“Do what?” the voice repeated patiently.

Dabbing at the sticky mess with the sandy corner of her
towel, turning her stomach into hard lemonade sandpaper, Claire said crossly, “What?”

“You said, ‘I will not do it in the car, I will not do it in the sand . . .’ It seems to me you’re eliminating a lot of good possibilities.”

Claire looked up into eyes of a gray that was almost silver. They were fringed with the sort of black lashes that guys seem to have and never appreciate.

And he was definitely a guy. From her angle, there was no mistake.

A quick glance up and down the beach revealed that it was still as empty as a few minutes before. So where had he come from?

Then she played his question back in her mind and felt the slow burn up her neck and cheeks. “Worry,” she said. “I was talking about worrying.”

“Disappointing,” he said. “Or maybe not.”

“So why are you standing here, exactly?” Claire swept her arm out, channeling her mother the banker in no-loans-for-you mode. “Big beach. Plenty of empty sand. And water.”

To her indignation, he sat down. Ragged dark hair almost brushed his shoulders. He was wearing jeans bleached of all color and missing quite a few threads. The T-shirt had once, she thought, been red.

He wasn’t that good to look at, she told herself, and made herself look away. Remembering her sunglasses, she pulled them down. There. Better.

The better to see you with, she thought. And then realized he looked familiar.

Hmm. Minor TV celeb? Relative of same?

“The view,” he said. He looked back out at the water. A slight figure with sleek, bleached hair dropped in on a wave and went for a ride.

“Jodi,” he said. “Better than ever.”

“You know Jodi?” asked Claire.

“Yeah. I know her stuff, too.” He motioned at the scatter of possessions across the three beach towels.

Jodi had painted or sewn big scarlet “J’s” on all of her gear.

And then something clicked. She’d seen his picture on Linley’s mirror. One of a hundred photos of a hundred parties that Linley continually updated with a hundred more pictures of a hundred more parties. But this picture, lower left corner, half-hidden, had never changed. He’d had his arm around her waist; she’d been bending forward laughing, generous cleavage in a half-zipped hoodie sweatshirt, the light of a beach fire behind them in the royal blue darkness. On his other side, arm hooked through his, Jodi stood, swallowed in an enormous man’s shirt, staring down at Linley. Linley’s head was half-turned toward the guy in the center. He’d been looking out, past the camera, past whoever had been taking the shot, a thousand-yard gaze.

A Linley ex, she thought. Or maybe, Jodi’s. But then why had Linley saved the photo? She had a couple of other
photos of Jodi and herself that she used as screen savers sometimes.

And Linley liked to throw things away. Traveling light, she called it.

But she hadn’t thrown this picture away. It had stayed in the rotation.

Definitely Linley’s ex.

Claire looked back out at the water. Jodi and Linley had both just dropped into a wave. They seemed to work together, dancing the boards in tandem over the face, crossing each other without getting in each other’s way. They finished gracefully, sinking into the water as the wave played out. Simultaneously, they began to paddle out again.

“The Two,” said the guy meditatively.

Still channeling her mother, Claire said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Claire. I go to school with Linley. Jodi and Linley and I are roommates this summer.”

She waited for him to say his name, but he was either dim or rude, or possibly both. He said, “I heard Linley was back for the summer. Where are you staying? At her uncle’s?”

“Yes.”

“Tolerant guy. Always was. But then it’s a big house.” His eyes had never left the water.

“He’s away for the summer,” Claire said.

“Nice,” said the guy. And that’s all he said.

Well, fine, Claire thought. She turned to watch the water, too.

Jodi was standing at the ocean’s edge, watching as Linley sank gracefully into the froth as she finished a final ride and headed for shore.

The two were laughing and talking as they ran up the sand.

It stopped abruptly as they reached Claire.

The roar of the surf made the cone of silence enveloping the four of them even more intense.

The guy stood up. “Linley, Jodi,” he said.

In one unselfconscious motion, Linley stripped off the top of her wet shirt and stood topless. Deliberately she reached down for a towel and began to dry her hair. “Max,” she said. Smiled. “Look at you.”

“Hi, Max,” said Jodi, her voice expressionless. She turned slightly away to pull off the wet suit and drop on her oversize T. Only then did she step out of the wet bottoms and into her shorts.

Linley began to rummage in her gear bag for a dry top. She took her time.

An ex, Claire thought. An ex for more than sex.

Still channeling her mother, this time as social-doyenne-in-difficult-situation mode, Claire pulled the cooler forward. “Anybody want a drink?” she asked brightly.

Holding her shirt in one hand, her eyes still on Max, Linley reached into ice and pulled out a beer. She tilted it up, arching her back.

“Good,” she said. She peered at Max over the rim of the bottle. “Want some?”

“I’ll get my own, thanks,” said Max, and bent to the cooler.

Linley smiled more broadly and finally put her shirt on.

Hardly knowing what she was doing, Claire opened a beer, too, and took a drink. She choked.

She hated beer.

“It’s been an almost perfect day, Jodi, don’t you think?” Linley asked. She sank down, yoga style, next to Claire.

“Sure,” agreed Jodi, who’d remained standing. “Um . . . Max, this is Claire. Claire, Max.”

“We’ve met,” said Max. “Just now. Claire was worried.” He smiled suddenly at Claire.

Don’t do that again, thought Claire. Definitely good for way more than sex, but she’d bet he’d been pretty damn good for sex, too. She could ask Linley. She might ask Linley.

“I wasn’t worried,” Claire retorted. “I believe that was my point.”

“Claire’s the official house worrier. Like, you know, the house mom. If she doesn’t approve, we all get grounded,” Linley said.

“House manager,” said Jodi. She scored a beer and settled onto the blanket. To Max, she said, “It’s a big house. Join us.”

Again with his smile, Claire thought. Then she realized what Jodi had offered.

“A room of my own? That would be nice,” Max said. “Well, Claire. May I? Do you approve?”

“She’ll get back to you on that,” Linley said quickly. Then,
reverting to her cat-with-cream purr, she said, “So, Max, what’re you doing here?”

Max took a long pull of beer. He turned his smile on Linley. “Well, I was looking for a place to live, actually.”

This time, his smile was only for Linley.

Four

Linley held up her hand. “How many fingers am I holding up?”