Beach Blondes: June Dreams, July's Promise, August Magic (Summer) (36 page)

Diana started to mouth the properly polite response, but then she laughed. “Diver, I can’t call anyone crazy. When it comes to crazy, I don’t think you’re even in my league.”

He said nothing, just waited.

“You know what I used to do? Every night?” Diana asked. “Right inside there, in my bed?”

“No.”

“I used to lie there and think about killing myself,” she said. “So how’s that for crazy?” She began tapping her fingers on the wooden railing. “I had these pills. I used to enjoy counting them, you know? As long as I had them, I felt safe, like in a way I could deal with everything because in the end—well, in the end, there was always the end.”

She waited for him to say something. And when he remained silent, she sighed. Brilliant, Diana. Wonderful. By all means, spill your guts to this near stranger. Right now he’s wondering how he got himself into this. Right now he’s hoping you don’t have a weapon.

“Maybe you’d better take off,” Diana said bitterly. Why had she done this? Why had she dragged her problems out for display?

“I don’t think that would be an end,” Diver said, surprising her.

“What?”

“I think that killing yourself isn’t a real end to whatever pain you have. I think…I guess I think you can’t look at life as having a neat beginning and middle and end, like a book. If you felt bad and killed yourself, those bad feelings would just go on to someone else—your mother, your friends. That’s not right. You have to take the bad things that happen to you and…I don’t know, change them. Turn them into something else.”

“How about turning them into revenge?” Diana asked. “That’s my present plan. Do to them what they did to you.”

Diver shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I guess I never got that chance.”

Diana looked at him closely. He was telling her something important about himself. She started to ask him, but stopped herself. “You know, if you ever wanted to tell anyone…talk to anyone…I mean, like I said, I’m not someone who can ever call anyone else crazy.”

Diver nodded.

“I wouldn’t disturb your
wa
or anything,” Diana said, trying to lighten the mood.

Diver bit his lip and looked away. “Yes, you would.” He faced her, solemn, even sad. He raised his hand and, with only the lightest touch, stroked her cheek.

“The other day, when I saw you…Afterward I went to Marquez’s house with her,” he said. “I thought maybe she would make me forget. She kissed me. But I didn’t forget. I was waiting for you tonight. Down in the bushes. Hoping you’d come out on the balcony. I was wishing you could just
know
that I was there. That I was calling you.”

Diana took his hand and held it pressed against her cheek. “I couldn’t sleep. I guess I heard you.” She closed her eyes and savored the touch of his hand.

“I have to go,” Diver said.

“Yes. Me too. Thanks for coming by.”

Diana let him leave, though breaking the contact caused an almost physical sensation of pain and loss. He’d revealed all he could for one night, Diana knew. And so had she.

“Hi, Mom, it’s me, Summer. Look, I have something very serious to tell you. Maybe you should sit down. This is going to be the biggest thing I have ever told you.”

Summer wiped the steam off the bathroom mirror and looked at her reflection. Her reflection made a dissatisfied face at her and slowly shook her head.

“If I tell Mom she should sit down, she’ll think I got pregnant or something,” she told her reflection. “She’ll reach through the phone and strangle me.”

Summer flipped on the blow-dryer, used it to evaporate the rest of the steam, and then started on her hair.

“Mom! Hey, guess what! You are never going to believe this. Jonathan isn’t dead or anything. He may be right here. He’s a cook.”

She rolled her eyes. “
He’s a cook?
Any other irrelevant information you’d like to include?”

She hung the dryer on the hook and went into the main room. Her gaze fell on the framed picture of her parents that she kept on her nightstand. She sat on the edge of her unmade bed and held the picture in her hands. “Mom, I have to tell you something, and it’s kind of major, so I’m just going to say it—Jonathan is alive, and I think I’ve found him.” She sighed. “At least,
maybe
I have. So
maybe
you should be happy.
Maybe
you should get all excited and call Daddy and tell him that sixteen years of being sad are over. Maybe.”

She replaced the picture on the nightstand.

“Yeah, right, Summer,” she muttered. “Why not also tell them that
maybe
they won the lottery so they should both quit their jobs? Maybe they should think Jonathan is alive and then find out he isn’t, so they can go through all that pain again.”

There was a discreet knock at the door. Quiet as it was, it made Summer jump.

“Yes?”

“It’s me.” Diver’s voice.

“Come in,” she said, relieved.

He stuck his head in. “I thought I heard you talking to someone. I was just going to make some breakfast.”

“No, I wasn’t talking to anyone,” Summer said. “Go ahead. Hey, I have some excellent juice in the fridge if you’d like some.”

“Cool.” He looked at her quizzically. “Talking to yourself, huh?”

“Yeah. I guess so.” She smiled at him. “I’m going to lie out on the beach with Marquez, so take your time here.”

“You’re okay, right?” Diver asked. He was searching for the juice in the refrigerator.

“Mmm. Yes,
I’m
okay,” she said thoughtfully. “I’m sort of like Typhoid Mary. You know, someone who has a disease, only it doesn’t affect them but they give it to whoever they touch? And then whoever they give it to is sick?”

Diver had found the juice. Now he withdrew his hand gingerly. “Um, what disease? You didn’t drink out of this bottle, right?”

Summer laughed softly. “Don’t worry, Diver. This disease won’t affect
you.
J.T., sure. And his parents, and my parents…”

She was silent for a moment while Diver poured and drank a glass of juice. She could just tell her parents what she knew, let them do all the checking. After all, they were parental units, and she was slightly too young to be taking on all the burdens of the world.

Only, it would devastate her parents. It would raise their hopes, and then, if it turned out not to be true, it would leave them feeling worse than ever.

Suddenly she jumped up. “No,” she said decisively. “As a matter of fact, it isn’t going to be
anyone’s
problem. Not until I’m completely sure. Thanks for working it through with me, Diver.”

“No problem,” he said.

It was a bright, sunny day. It almost always was in the Florida Keys. Which did not change the fact that bright was still bright, and sunny was still sunny, and the heat was just as real for being almost constant.

Summer and Marquez were heading for the beach, wearing sandals and sunglasses and bathing suits—as common an outfit on Crab Claw Key as a business suit was in Manhattan or a down parka in Minnesota. It was strange, Summer reflected, how quickly she had become inured to the idea of walking around in public half naked all the time. The other day she’d gone into Burger King dressed in a bathing suit—not a thing one did back where she was from.

“I have a question,” Summer said.

“What?”

“Is your butt painted green?”

Marquez stopped and twisted around to look. “Huh. Yes, it is.”

“Any particular reason?” Summer asked.

“I was painting. I guess when I cleaned up I missed a spot.” She resumed walking, but shot Summer a wicked grin. “Maybe later I’ll ask Diver if he can come over and help me clean it off.”

Summer wasn’t buying it. Marquez was just trying to distract her. “What were you painting?”

“Stuff,” Marquez said.

“Stuff like…
J.T.
?”

“Big deal. That doesn’t mean anything,” Marquez said unconvincingly. “I was just tired of that big, blank white spot on the wall.”

“Right. I completely and totally believe you, Marquez.”

“Oh, shut up,” Marquez grumbled. “Besides, he’s still seeing Lianne. It’s not as if we’re back together. And I need
someone
to go with me to the Bacch. J.T.’s with Lianne. Diver is with whatever weird, invisible spirit he’s with.”

“The what?”

“The Bacch. The McSween Bacchanal,” Marquez explained to Summer. “What, you don’t know about it? The party to end all parties? It’s in five days. Jeez, do you live in a cave? It’s this big street thing, like Mardi Gras, only no one speaks French. Lots of food, lots of drinks, lots of everything else you can think of. Music. Dancing. Vandalism. Guys peeing in alleyways. You know, pretty much the kind of good time you’re used to back home in Blimpyburg, Iowasota.”

“When are you going to stop making fun of Bloomington?” Summer asked grumpily. She hadn’t slept all that well, and now, out in the heat, she felt groggy. First had come the strange, disturbing dream. And Diver had kept her awake, which was unusual. He slept on her roof deck, unless it was raining. Most nights she never even knew he was there. But the previous night he’d been humming some song for an hour. Very un-Diver-like. And then she’d spent the morning deciding just how many lives she should throw into turmoil. “So what are you saying? This is like some kind of local Mardi Gras?”

“Yeah, it’s to celebrate the day when the guy who founded Crab Claw Key was hanged.”

“Excuse me?”

“This guy named John Bonner McSween was some kind of pirate, and he used to have his boat here. But then the British Navy caught up with him and hanged him. So I guess before they finished him off he made some big speech about how he hoped they’d all have themselves a big party celebrating the fact that they’d got him at last. Anyway, that’s the story. Every year it’s a big thing.”

“Like costumes and all?” Summer asked. They turned left, and the beach came into view at the end of a blessedly tree-shaded road. The trees framed a nice view at the far end of the street—a perfect, three-layered slice of crystal white sand, blue-green water, and pure, unclouded blue sky.

“It’s not quite that organized,” Marquez said. “Costumes would require actual planning. Mostly we’re talking bathing suits.”

“That’s all people ever wear around here. This has to be the only place on earth where people wear shorts and halter tops to church.”

“The important thing is, don’t let them make you work that night,” Marquez said. “They’re going to try to get you to. But only total losers and married people work the night of the McSween Bacchanal.”

“I guess I’ll ask Seth what he’s going to do,” Summer said.

Marquez rolled her eyes. “Oh, so now you need his permission?”

They had reached the beach and were hotfooting around, looking for the perfect spot to spread their blanket. For Marquez, a perfect spot was usually defined as one with an easy view of good-looking guys playing volleyball.

“I don’t need Seth’s permission, but he and I are kind of boyfriend and girlfriend now,” Summer said. “I mean, that’s sort of official. Look, just put the blanket down already.”

Marquez looked at her curiously as she unfolded the blanket. “What exactly went on between you two in that cave?”

Summer lay back and began spreading sunblock on her stomach. She had achieved a good tan and now didn’t want to carry it too far. On Crab Claw Key the sun was out almost every day, and if she wasn’t careful, she’d be a piece of leather by the time summer came to an end. Plus she didn’t have Marquez’s naturally dark skin.

“Nothing,” Summer said. “I just kind of realized that I was being silly, keeping Seth at a distance.”

“Uh-huh. So did you guys do it?”

“No!” Summer said, flustered, as she often was, by her friend’s directness.

“You didn’t?” Marquez seemed surprised. “You’re stuck in a cave with a cute guy and only a few hours to live and you didn’t even think to yourself, whoa, I don’t want to die a virgin?”

“It didn’t really come up,” Summer said, tossing a handful of sugar white sand on Marquez’s oiled back.

“Hey, stop that. Look, all I’m saying is that it would have been a pretty good excuse. Who’s going to say you shouldn’t just go for it under those circumstances?”

“The circumstances were that we were both scared and I hadn’t brushed my teeth since that morning.”

Marquez sighed. “Wait a minute. You’re on death’s doorstep, you’re trapped with a very cute guy—even if he is a little too wholesome for me—and you don’t do it because you think you might have bad breath?” She sighed again. “On second thought, maybe you
should
work the night of the Bacch.”

“You’re saying you would have done it?” Summer asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Have you ever done it? Or are you just talking big, as usual?” Summer asked. She felt a little forward asking the question, but Marquez had goaded her.

“I’ve never been trapped in a cave,” Marquez said defensively.

“Hah,” Summer said.

“Oh, shut up. So if you didn’t do it, why all this stuff about having to ask Seth’s permission to go to the Bacchanal?”

“Did I say I had to ask his permission? No.”

“But it’s the big
L,
huh?” Marquez asked. “I mean, the
L
word was spoken out loud by both parties?”

Summer laughed. “The
L
word may have been spoken.” She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the memory. Yes, the
L
word had definitely been mentioned.

Marquez gave an exaggerated shudder. “That’s too bad. Once the
L
word is out there, it’s hard to ever take it back. Believe me, I know.”

“Speaking of which…” Summer began.

“Let’s not change the subject. We’re discussing your messed-up love life, not mine,” Marquez said. “All I’m saying is this whole love thing is like…what’s that disease? The one you get from mosquitoes, and it keeps coming back?”

“Encephalitis?”

“No. The other one.”

“Malaria.”

“Like malaria, right. Once you have the fever it can just come back all of a sudden, making you hot and feverish and delirious.” Marquez panted theatrically. “Anyway, I’m just telling you, once you start saying the
L
word, it isn’t easy to take it back.”

“Maybe I don’t want to take it back,” Summer said. Everything was bright red beneath her closed eyes. She scrunched her eyelids tighter and got nice dark blue explosions. “I do love him.”

“Yeah? That’s what you think now,” Marquez said. “But I have one word for you. One very important word.”

Summer waited, but naturally Marquez outwaited her. “All right, what word?” Summer demanded, opening her eyes. “Jeez, make me beg already.”

“The word is…
August.
”

“August. Okay. That clears everything up,” Summer said dryly.

“Laugh all you want. People always forget August when they come down here for the summer. And you may have noticed that as of today, it’s August. And after August?”

“Call me crazy, but I have to say…September?”

“Exactly. June is fine. July is fine. But August is upon us, and you’re on the downside of summer, Summer. At the end of the month all you tourists fly off in different directions. You go back to Billybobtown, and Seth goes off to whatever pathetic, repressed Midwestern cemetery he’s from.”

“Eau Claire, Wisconsin,” Summer said automatically.

“Exactly. Ear Clean, Wisconosa. I knew that.” Marquez grinned, hugely amused by herself.

But Summer wasn’t. Billybobtown and Ear Clean were not a million miles apart. But they were not the same place, either. Not the same schools. Not the same lives.

And another thought had just appeared in Summer’s mind—Marquez was still in love with J.T. That wasn’t news. Summer had realized that long ago. But if J.T. really was Jonathan…

“Marquez?” she said. “Are you going to try to get back together with J.T.?”