Postcards From Last Summer (4 page)

Putting Tara's angry exit out of her mind, Darcy focused on what she had going for her tonight. The guy thing. She moved her slender body between two guys lined up at the bar, feeling a subtle thrill as one of them slid his hand down her firm backside and the other teased a glance at the tan line along her cleavage. All the guys liked the way she looked and responded to her easy way of moving a conversation along. A feeling of power burned bright inside her at the realization that she could probably have her pick of any guy in Coney's tonight. Any of these tan beach boys with six-pack abs would be happy to be her boyfriend.

But she was holding out for Kevin. And where the hell was he? His father, currently backing up the bartender, had told her he'd be here soon. She suspected that he was with his loser friends, Fish and David, but she didn't want to ask Mr. McGowan too many questions, didn't want to appear too desperate.

Licking the sugared rim of her red martini, she made her way down the bar in search of Kevin's gold-tinged, spiky hair, the shaggy beach-boy look that had won him a place in her heart years ago, her fourteenth summer. Somehow, even back then, she'd known that Kevin was the one. Although she'd started sexual experimentation at an early age, kissing boys and letting them feel her up in the darkness of movie theaters or the cover of the dunes, she knew enough to save the best for Kevin.

She still remembered that night when she was just fourteen, the party at the McCorkle house, the perfume she wore, and the packets of condoms she'd tucked into her bag for the right opportunity with Kevin. He'd been playing quarters on the screened-in porch and the smell of beer was heavy on his lips as she caught him leaving the bathroom.

“There's something up here I want to show you,” she'd told him, nodding her head toward the stairs. He'd followed her up, his mouth agape in curiosity as she led him into the master bedroom, once the sacred ground of Lindsay's grandparents, the current bedroom of her mother.

“Are we supposed to be in here?” Kevin had asked, looking up at the crucifix on the wall.

Darcy pushed the door closed behind her. “I just wanted to show you this.” The snaps of her blouse opened with a row of pops, and Kevin stared down at her lacy bra.

“Wow,” he'd said, sampling the mound of one breast as if he'd discovered gold.

She'd moved into his arms and kissed him hard, rubbing against him to feel the hard lump under his jeans. She'd never done this, not all the way, but she figured it was about time she became a woman, and doing it with Kevin would serve the double purpose of getting rid of the virginity badge and wrapping him up as her boyfriend.

When he pressed into her, it seemed like it couldn't happen. It hurt too much, the stinging pressure between her legs, and Darcy let out a yelp and pushed him away. They had to be doing something wrong for it to hurt this much.

“It's okay,” he whispered into her ear as he looked down at their joined crotches and pressed, hard.

“Ow!” She squeezed back tears, but he didn't seem to notice.

“It's smooth going from here,” he said. He started moving slowly then, in and out, in a rhythm that made Darcy wonder how many times he'd done this before. The thought of Kevin doing this with other girls brought on a pang of anger, but that quickly faded as he drove into her in easy rhythm, the gentle stroke of his body against hers reminding her that this was it—she and Kevin were finally together.

In the warmth that washed over her after that, she told him how she felt about him, how she'd always wanted to be his girlfriend. He'd seemed surprised that she'd given him her virginity, surprised that she was interested in him. When she mentioned being his girlfriend he told her he was “cool with that,” that he really liked her but couldn't really get tied down right now.

Not the response she'd anticipated, but she figured it was a start.

Since that summer seven years ago they had dated off and on, always over the summer, always at the whim of Kevin and his male buddies who, as far as Darcy was concerned, spent way too much time smoking pot and waiting for killer waves to roll in. One summer Darcy gave him an ultimatum: be a good boyfriend or lose her forever. Kevin had failed, and Darcy had tried to move on. But she found herself back in Kevin's arms, more specifically rocking in the back of his van, the first day of the very next summer. She knew her parents kept hoping she'd meet a more worthy man—a son of one of Dad's investors, a Great Egg millionaire's son, a Bennington boy with a strong moral code and a financially secure future. But that hadn't happened, and though she'd dated other guys and had good sex with enough of them to form some basis of comparison, Kevin was the one she always returned to, the boy who brought that electrical charge into the room, the guy she wanted to be connected with, the only guy who could save her from her family, and from herself.

Taking a sip of her drink, she checked the landing, where three guys paused on their way to the bar.

Fish, David, and Kevin.

Darcy felt sparks fly as his eyes met hers. Trite, yes, but undeniably true. There was a potent chemistry between them. She was glad he'd made it, glad he'd recovered from this morning so that he could get out and party on this important night, the sendoff into summer.

He swaggered over, his jeans low on his hips, his Billabong T-shirt torn at the shoulder. “Darcy . . .” He leaned over her, his curly gold-tipped bangs in his eyes as he pressed his tongue to his lower lip. That adorable lick-smacking thing, as if he couldn't wait to kiss her. “Hey, how's it going?”

She shrugged, trying to appear casual. “Okay, I guess. Another Hamptons summer.”

“I hear you.” He leaned closer, teetering a bit, and she smelled the burnt smoke of weed on him. “You look fucking great,” he whispered with a sly smile.

She grinned, loving his giddiness. “I know. And you look a lot better than you did this morning.”

“Yeah.” He swiped his hands over his face, as if rubbing away the memory. “You were there, right?”

“I drove you home.”

“Right, yeah. That was weird.”

Did he really not remember that she drove him home, or was that just part of his smooth cover-up? “Feel better now?”

“Definitely. And you look great, Darcy. Really.” His pink tongue peeked out, teasing his bottom lip.

“Yeah, I know,” she said, though his comment warmed her like a hot-stone massage. She leaned back, pleased at the way her hipbones jutted out in her DK linen skirt.

“Tell me, Darce. Are Mommy and Daddy home tonight?”

She smoothed the pencil-thin linen skirt over one hip, leaning away coyly. “Actually, I've got the whole house to myself tonight.”

“All alone in the Love Shack?” He leaned forward and cupped her butt, his hazel eyes sparkling. “Maybe I'd better keep you company.”

Darcy swallowed hard as feelings of love and desire tugged deep inside her. She nuzzled his ear, leaning into the strong line of his body. Although she hadn't seen him in months, she didn't mind that he cut through the formalities, pushing their relationship along. She reached around his waist, loving the lean feel of him as she sidled into his arms, her lips veering close to his. “So . . . let's get the hell out of here.”

W
ith one phone call Tara and I reconnected, catching up on events over the school year and sharing our various experiences with Darcy. That first night at the movies, Tara could barely contain her anger toward our former friend, but a few days later she sort of forgot about Darcy's bad karma. Tara's brother Wayne, a soldier stationed in Korea, flew home with a friend, a guy named Charlie Migglesteen, and the idea of lusting for a guy under the same roof had delicious possibilities. Tara choked over his last name the first time she told me as we biked past an open market on Main Street.

“Migglesteen. I can't believe I like a guy named Migglesteen.”

“And what's wrong with that?” I asked.

“It just makes me smile. He's Jewish, and very cute. Not too tall, but with chocolatey eyes and a really strong sense of himself. You should see him handle my parents. Manners that shut my mother right down.”

“Mr. Migglesteen sounds nice,” I said as we turned off Main Street onto a tree-lined avenue. “Are you thinking of changing your name to Mrs. Migglesteen?”

“Get outta town.” Tara leaned over the handlebars and coasted, looking trim and sporty in her hot pink shorts, black tank, and black helmet with matching pink stripes. “I'm not even sure he likes me.”

“I'll bet he does,” I told her. “But what about the parents? How are they handling it?” Although Tara had gotten involved with white boys before, nothing had ever developed to a level that her parents learned of the relationship, but this was right under their noses.

“I'm not sure how my parents would handle it,” Tara said thoughtfully. We were quiet as we passed tidy green lawns lined with flower beds of tall yellow tulips and lush red, purple, and orange impatiens with blossoms so thick they reached over the sidewalk. It was a sunny June afternoon, and the sleepy shingled colonial cottages of Southampton seemed not quite awake to the potential of full-blown summer yet.

“I'm not going to worry about it now,” Tara said. “If something develops, then I'll deal with it, but as it is, Wayne keeps pulling Charlie into these stupid Xbox competitions that go on all day long. And when Charlie manages to extract himself from my brother, there's Mama watching us like a hawk.” She sighed. “I gotta tell you, it's not easy falling for your big brother's friend.”

“Oh, please.” I tucked a clump of dark hair into my bike helmet. “Now you're preaching to the choir.”

 

Although I managed to stall for another week, by the beginning of June I was walking down Southampton's Main Street, past the quaint blue striped awnings of exclusive boutiques and gourmet shops, for my first day as a pizza girl. The smell of baking pizza, sweet tomato sauce, and melted cheese brought tears to my eyes as Sal Marino welcomed me to his shop.

“Come in, come in. You gotta duck behind the counter here.” Sal wore a tired smile, but his warmth seemed genuine as he wiped his hands on a white towel, telling me I looked just like my mother and grandmother. “So, Lindsay . . . grab an apron, wash your hands, and I'll show you how to use the register.”

Scrubbing my hands with astringent pink soap, I observed that the back room of Old Towne Pizza was surprisingly clean for a small hole-in-the-wall take-out joint—the only pizza parlor in Southampton, where a monopoly could mean a fortune during the short summer months. It was four-thirty, the lull between lunch and dinner, and the dining area was empty. But by dinnertime on a Friday like this, the place would be packed with people grabbing a slice or waiting to pick up pies.

Back in the kitchen, Sal was stacking round silver platters of uncooked dough into shelves of the fridge and calling out things like “Three cases of whole tomatoes” and “Ten pounds of semolina.” Biting his lip, Mickey nodded and scratched out a list.

Ironic that both pizza guys were thin. Skinny, even. Did it have anything to do with being near the ovens and sweating it off? Maybe I should have tried for a job in a Laundromat. As a red car flashed past the shop window, I imagined Darcy driving by and spotting me inside. Brakes squealing, she'd pop out and square off with me, hands on her skinny hips. “Whoa, girl! Don't you know pizza puts on the pounds?”

The bitch. Part of me hated her and part of me missed her like crazy. Schizoid, I know, but the summer was not going to be the same without her, even if I did manage to trim down on my fabulous new weight-loss plan. So far today I'd only eaten a peach, two boiled eggs and a slice of special fat-free toast—inspired by a celebrity diet I'd seen in
Glamour
magazine. Between the diet and the surfing, I figured that the pounds would eventually melt, right?

Smoothing a red and white checked apron over my khaki shorts, I stepped up to the register and found someone sitting at the counter, facing away. Okay, time to be a waitress. “May I help you?” I asked, aglow with professionalism.

Bear turned to face me. “Hey, squirt. I'm just waiting for the calls to start.”

Calls? I nodded as if I got it, though I didn't.

“Duh. I'm the delivery guy.”

“Oh.” So this was the night job that kept Bear on the beach all day this summer. “Does Sal pay enough to keep you in Sex Wax?”

He shrugged. “I'm working on getting something going. Real sponsors, so I can focus on the surfing, maybe get to the coast.”

“The West Coast?” This was news to me. “Did you like it out there?”

“It's different, but yeah. I'm talking to a guy who manufactures his own boards in Hawaii. If he comes through with the deal, I'll be surfing in the islands this winter.”

“Professional.” Bear was good enough; I just never thought he had the confidence to pursue his obsession.

“Lindsay?” Sal called from the back. “You want me to heat you a slice before the rush starts?”

A slice, hot from the oven. Crisp crust and bubbling cheese . . . My mouth watered profusely, but I swallowed it back, thinking:
Carbs are evil. Carbs are not your friend.
“No, thanks.” I choked on the words.

“I'll take one,” Bear called to the back.

“You?” Sal waved him off dramatically. “You, I know. Always. You'll eat me out of business one day. I should take it outta your salary.”

Bear stepped behind the counter for a cup, then filled it at the Coke dispenser as if he owned the place. “You'd better grab something now, squirt. Soon it'll be so busy in here, you won't have a chance.”

“I'm trying to cut down.” I tried to sound positive, keep the desperation out of my voice. “You know . . . the freshman five. Sophomore seven. Jumbo junior.”

He let out a short laugh, then his eyes moved over me as he took a sip. “Don't go anorexic on us. You look good to me.” As he spoke, he leaned around me, as if trying to get a better look at my butt.

With a squeal, I swatted him and ducked back behind the register.

“Hey, you two,” Sal called. “No roughhousing near the pizza ovens. Lindsay, if you will, the red pepper and oregano need to be refilled and put back on the tables.”

“I'm on it!” I called, gathering up a tray of glass shaker bottles.

I pretended to be all business as Sal came out and served Bear his slice. I acted like filling the green flecks of oregano to the top was of utmost importance, but my thoughts were on what Bear had said.

He didn't think I looked so bad. In fact, he thought I looked good, and it wasn't that dismissive “Oh, you look fine so stop complaining” crap.

My heart did a happy dance as I shook the red pepper shaker like a maraca.

Bear thought I looked good, and the sun just rose over my summer.