No Strings Attached (24 page)

He felt like a total idiot. She confirmed it too. “Suddenly, you jerked up—probably in the middle of a nightmare—and you ran out there like your pants were on fire.”

His throat hurt when he laughed. “Remember the time my pants really were on fire?”

It'd been back in the bad old days. Mitch, Bev, and Mandy were walking home from junior high school. They turned a corner and saw black pillars of smoke coming from the Dorchester Housing Projects. Turned out some lunatic on the fourth floor of their building had decided to make a bonfire of his ex-wife's apartment. Mitch had broken into a run, terrified that his mom might be trapped inside the burning building. Luckily, she hadn't been home, but he'd exited the building spewing smoke and fanning flames off his behind.

Laughing transformed her, he thought, brought back the bright-eyed freckle-faced kid he'd known, and maybe crushed on. Just a little. “I was always trying to be the hero,” he admitted. “Old habits die hard.”

“Yeah well …” She cut her eyes away from him, out to the ocean. “Some of us appreciated it. Still do.”

It was a struggle, but Mitch pushed himself up on his elbows and grazed her fingertips with his. “I don't know what would've happened to me if you hadn't come.”

Mandy shot him a rueful grin. “Died, I suppose.”

Mitch grinned. She always did tell it like it was.

“I
told
you this was a bad idea,” Mandy chastised him. “You're a great guy, and a hero, too, but you're not Superman.”

“Cut me some slack, okay? I had no choice.”

Mandy's face clouded. “There's always a choice, Mitch. Someone real smart told me that once. Mighta even been you.”

Look where “real smart” has gotten me, he thought.

“Do you think,” she asked, “it's this sickness people like us have? This obsession to have money, be famous? Do any stupid thing just so people will look up at us, instead of look down—like they did when we were kids?”

Not so long ago, Mitch would've been righteously offended at the trite suggestion, and the comparison of “Mandy Starr” and her hackneyed pipe dreams with Mitch Considine and his lofty goals and worthy ambitions.

“We both made some real asinine moves this summer,” he conceded, “trying for a better life than the one we had. I never thought it would be this hard.”

She agreed, stroking his arm. “I worked like crazy to lose
all that weight. I thought just by being sexy, like in the magazines, I could be a winner, you know?”

He did know. All too well. He, too, thought he could lose the scruffy little outside-looking-in boy; if he worked tirelessly, he could launch himself right into another life. Leonora's life. With effort, he put his arm around Mandy's shoulders, and together, they lay back down, her head resting on his chest.

“I knew better than to go to that photo studio. I knew it was a sleazy setup. But a part of me believed it would turn out the way I dreamed. The pictures would like, dazzle 'em. I would be famous, special. You know?” She tipped her chin up so she could look into his eyes.

He had to close them. Otherwise she'd know exactly what he was thinking: You
are
someone special. You always were.

Much later, he and Mandy sat outside, on the deck, a six-pack of beer and a bag of chips on the little table between their chairs. Mandy had managed to talk Mitch's boss into believing she and Mitch had been kidding around and things got out of hand. That this lifeguard—how ridiculous!—hadn't nearly drowned. That Mitch shouldn't be fired.

Funny, he was no longer sure he still wanted the second job, or even the tennis gig anymore. He'd been so single-minded all summer—hell, all his life, really—that to not be
sure of something, to not have a goal, felt strange. And yet, it was less unsettling than he'd imagined.

He took a long slug of beer and eyed her. She'd put on an oversize football T-shirt and slipped into a pair of well-worn jeans. She was barefoot, and he noticed her toes; the sparkly pink polish reminded him of the first night at the share house.

He hadn't planned to ask, but couldn't help himself. “You didn't just ‘happen' to be sunbathing, did you? You were keeping an eye on me, making sure I was okay. Weren't you, Sarah?”

She smiled ruefully. “Like you didn't just happen to program your cell phone into mine that first day? You wanted a way to save me—if I needed it.”

Why this girl ever thought herself stupid was a mystery to him.

“Mitch?” Her voice was hesitant suddenly. “I
was
keeping an eye on you, but for more reasons than you thought. I knew taking on two jobs was gonna kill you. And”—she paused, uncharacteristically—“I was trying to find a way to show you that it wasn't worth it. That
she
”—another pause, pointed this time—“wasn't worth it.”

That's when Mandy broke the news, told him what everyone at 345 Cranberry Lane already knew but had been afraid to tell him. Mandy told Mitch the truth about Leonora, exactly what Harper had seen last month.

She'd gone to Chatham herself, Mandy informed Mitch,
sat in the grand foyer (she pronounced it foy-YAY) of the Quivvers mansion, told the maid she'd wait for Leonora to come home. “I had to confront her,” Mandy explained. “I was gonna make her confess. I was gonna punch the slut out for cheating on you.”

“But you didn't?” Mitch said quietly. He was hearing this from afar, it seemed, catching maybe every other word she said. It didn't matter. Mandy was to the point, and clear. She repeated exactly what Leonora had told her.

His sweetheart, his beloved, the woman he lived and almost died for, had been cheating on him all summer long. She felt guilty, sure, but not enough to stop! That's why she'd been so weird, so hard to get through to. Leonora had come to the share house that day to break it off, to tell him she was ending their relationship. But he hadn't let her get a word in edgewise, he'd been so busy showing her off, like his big trophy. And then she got so angry, she didn't want to talk to him at all!

It was right after that, Harper had caught her in bed with little Gracie's dad. That's when things got really complicated. Leonora had freaked out, didn't know what to do, or how to act. If Harper blabbed, her whole life would be ruined! The sad truth was that Mitch was only a small part of it. If Harper told, her parents would find out that their twenty-year-old daughter was having a sleazy affair with a married man—doing it in a
hotel room?! No one did that sort of thing. Or if you did, you certainly didn't get caught! She was fairly sure her parents would've booted her out of the country somewhere.

Leonora didn't know how to handle it. She'd spent every day trying to gauge Mitch, to guess what, if anything, Harper had told him. One minute, she'd be lavishing attention on him; the next, completely disengaged. Now Mitch knew why.

Yes, Lee admitted to Mandy, she did insist her father intervene with the cops, get Mitch off the hook so he wouldn't have an arrest record. At first, she'd truly thought the incident would serve to remind her how good she had it with wholesome, worthy Mitch Considine.

Just the opposite. It had only proved what Leonora had suspected: She was bored with Mitch, the knight in shining armor. She wanted out of the relationship, but didn't know how to end it.

Hours earlier, Mitch had been a drowning man. Now he was into a serious beer buzz. Finally, everything was crystal clear to him. It would not ever matter how much money he made, what kind of career he'd forge, how big the ring would be that he'd give her as an engagement gift: Leonora was never going to be his.

Mandy held him as he sobbed. When it was over, when his tears had been spent, he couldn't say if they'd been tears of rage, regret—or relief.

Hot, hot,
hot
! Katie was surprised the sand beneath her bare
feet still burned. It was, after all, the end of August, just before sunset. Carrying a pot full of just-cooked corn on the cob, she had to do this run-and-hop thing (how graceful!) from the backyard deck toward her beach blanket buddies—Mitch, Mandy, Harper, Joss, and Alefiya—who were all digging in for an end-of-summer big-ass clambake.

Mitch had said it was “tradition,” but Katie so doubted it. She suspected he wanted to start a new one.

As she neared the human hodge-podge she'd lodged with, she had to laugh. The hippie, the hussy, the prep, the slob, the slacker, and yeah, the princess (that'd be her)—they'd accused each other of all of the above—somehow, the whole crazy
quilt had worked. Today, the end of their last day living together, they'd celebrate the against-all-odds friendships—and love affairs, even—that had resulted.

In the middle of the clashing array of beach blankets, towels, flip-flops, T-shirts, and shorts tossed on the sand sat a ginormous steamer pot, courtesy of Clambakes-To-Go (no one wanted to risk Ali cooking: The house was clean!). The pot was full of orangey red lobsters, shrimp, clams, and oysters; next to it sat an uncharming plastic tub filled with clam chowder, and several smaller plastic containers with drawn butter, crackers, and horseradish-ketchup dip. A kid's beach pail was employed to hold nutcrackers, napkins, and paper cups—clambake accessories.

Ali had been put in charge of the music, and she'd toted speakers and an iPod to the party, which Katie was sure could be heard all the way to Chatham. Already, Ali was up and dancing, singing into a beer bottle-cum-microphone, “And I … yi … yi … yi … will always love … you-ou … ou … ou … ou!” Her Whitney impression was wanting, but Katie'd heard and seen much, much worse.

Mitch, working food patrol, was “Langostino-man”—so dubbed by Joss, who (naturally) had taken on bartending chores. Taken them very seriously! Beyond popping beer-bottle caps, Josh was tending to blenders full of frothy frozen margaritas and daquiris; the upended crate they'd been using as a coffee
table since the robbery now served as a bar counter, on which he'd lined up shot glasses as well. Impressive!

Katie trooped toward them, shouting, “Corn here! Getcha corn on the cob!” She set the pot and her rear end down on someone's SpongeBob blanket and buried her toes in the sand.

It'd been a head-spinning week. Lucky her day camp gig had ended the prior weekend; she'd needed the time to execute her new plan.

This one she'd dubbed Plan A—for Amends.

Katie had more than a few to make. In doing so, she began to feel like her old self again: The Kick, large 'n' in charge, doing what needed to be done. Her exceptionally stylish (always adorable) way.

The day Joss had delivered the news had turned the tide. That day, she should have been destroyed, debilitated, beyond consolation. Instead, she felt empowered. How weird was that?

Joss had come through, big-time, for her. He'd reached out to his own family, the deep-pocketed and deeply connected Sterling Organization. It hadn't taken them long to unearth the Charlesworth scandal secrets. They confirmed her worst suspicions. Richard Charlesworth would soon be charged with fraud. The FBI had been building a case, waiting to pounce until they had every last shred of evidence, an indictment assured. They'd allowed Richard and Vanessa to
go on their summer cruise; agents would be waiting when the ship docked back at Boston Harbor in another ten days.

Devastating as the details were, knowing
when
it would occur was a huge relief. It allowed Katie to let that boulder of doubt and fear roll off her shoulders.

Joss had gone completely above and beyond informant. He'd offered her money. “As much as you need, to get you through school, and after.”

She'd broken down and sobbed. Not for her parents—not yet, anyway—not for herself. In her life, Katie had not known that kind of generosity, and it touched her deeply. Joss didn't want anything from her.

Yet? She was going to do something for him all the same.

Later that day, she'd sought out Harper, lazily reclining on the living room floor. Harper'd propped a bed pillow up against the fireplace mantel, and, while she didn't look all that comfortable, she was less than thrilled to be interrupted from what Katie termed a marathon read-fest. To her knowledge, Harper had done no writing since the day Joss admitted his fling with Mandy. Lately, all Harper did was take long bike rides and read books. She must've gone through a dozen hardcovers in the last week.

“Do me a favor?” Katie had said. “Pick your head up from the world of fiction and listen to something real. You need to know what Joss just did.”

“I don't need to know, and I don't really want to either,” Harper corrected her. “I'm over it.”

“Too bad,” Katie replied, plopping down next to her and proceeding to fill her in on Joss's bighearted gesture. Harper pretended not to care, but Katie had learned to read her roomie well enough by now. Harper was calculating what it had cost Joss to help Katie.

“He's not Luke,” Katie kept repeating. “Joss is the real deal. They don't come around often. And”—Katie had put in before Harper could dismiss her—“he needs you.”

“Not.”

“You're not into his money—or his looks, even. You connect with him. The music thing—it's obviously what he's about. You get it. If he has to go back to Sterling, Inc., do you think anyone there will?”

Harper, stubborn as she could be, wasn't budging. At least not on the Joss topic. But, clearly, she was worried about Katie. “So it's really going down as soon as you get back to Boston? Before school starts?”

Katie nodded.

“If you want…,” Harper started, “I know I'm … what do you call me? Fringe! But if you want to stay at school, you can live with me and my mom. It's just an apartment, but it's big.”