Seven Tears into the Sea (22 page)

“Almost,” I said, but then he took my cheeks between his hands and looked into my eyes.

“Now?” he asked, grinning, and I nodded.

There was a moment as we ran, feet beating hard wet sand, stretching taller as we neared the red-orange heart of the fire, that I thought we were either going down in flames or soaring together.

Before we counted
one, two, three,
as planned, we were flying through a veil of heat and golden sparks. Air whistled. Waves crashed around us. We went under, then bolted to our feet.

We whirled and splashed, exulting and entwined, until the crowd dragged us ashore for the crowning.

After that there was no time to think.

It took only minutes. Pagans aren't much for waiting, I guess.

No one had warned me the celebration ended with a kind of wedding. They gave us each a garland and told us what to say.

“I crown thee King of Summer,” I said, and the circlet of intertwined leaves and flowers I placed on Jesse's head slipped to one side on his wet black hair.

“I claim thee Queen of Summer,” he said.

I gazed through my wet ribbons and tangled hair as Red O'Malley played a jig on his fiddle, and Jesse kissed me.

There was more dancing around the bonfire, more congratulations and hugs. We toasted and were fed King Cakes.

Flushed with triumph and heat from the bonfire, I couldn't help thinking of the fertility rites linked with the solstice. Rolling in the dew. Staying up all night. And we'd just been crowned summer's last couple.

I looked past the Inn, past the highway to the dark, grassy hills beyond. You could pretty much guess where this had led in the old days.

But not tonight. Some people began drifting toward home. Quiet settled, and the big bonfires made
a crackling background for Nana's stories.

Red rubbed his eyes like a sleepy toddler, though Nana claimed he'd tend the bonfires till dawn. Jesse and I slipped past him to stare into the embers of the fire we considered ours.

Backs turned to the others, my arms circled Jesse's waist, and his locked around mine. We hadn't spoken for minutes. With my head leaned against his shoulder, I tried to figure out if it was my heartbeat or Jesse's that rocked me.

Then a voice sliced through the magic.

“Oh my God, will you look at Gwen!” A shrill laugh spiraled so that everyone on the beach heard it.

That quick, I felt stupid in my wet blouse, dripping ribbons, and cold feet. I unwound Jesse's arm from my waist and whipped the garland off my head. I shoved it toward Nana and went to meet Mandi and Jill.

My two worlds were colliding, and I wasn't sure what to do. One thing I couldn't do was leave Jesse behind. I forked my fingers through his, squeezed, then took a deep breath. I had the weirdest feeling that if I'd tried now, there was no way in the world I could have leapt over that fire.

“Is that one of your friends?” Jesse asked as he walked beside me.

For a minute I didn't want to claim her. Mandi had found the guy least likely to transform into a fairy-tale
prince. She meandered down the beach from Cook's Cottage with Zack.

“Yeah,” I managed.

“Does she know Zack?”

“I guess she does now.”

Both shaggy and blond, they clung to each other, making a bad job of walking on the sand. Zack wore ripped jeans and a T-shirt stained with wine. Even from here he smelled like weed.

Mandi, in a magenta tube top and jeans, had had her share to drink, too, but she held to him like a prize.

A few steps behind, Perch and Roscoe dodged at Jill's heels, hoping to get lucky. Jill made an impatient, shooing movement that said they were dreaming.

“Hey, hon, come give me a hug,” Jill called. Her arms dropped when I got within reach and she saw how soaked I was.

“Maybe not, I'm pretty wet,” I said, making the excuse for her. Besides, I didn't want to release Jesse's hand.

Jill studied the two of us, and it didn't take her long to figure out I hadn't been expecting her tonight. She made an apologetic grimace.

“I got off early and we stopped in—” She made a vague gesture.

“Siena Bay?” I guessed.

“Right. There was a band in the square, and Mandi got to dancing and stuff, and, well, you know how she never
forgets a face. She spotted the guy we saw in the green truck when we were driving through last weekend—”

Had it just been last weekend? Their lives had gone on as usual. Mine had spun out of control in a wonderful way. Except for Zack.

Even drunk, he was gloating. Watching me, he rubbed his hand along Mandi's hip, where her jeans were too low and her tube top too high.

If I said anything, the situation would only get worse. Besides, I noticed Jill was letting herself have a real eyeful of Jesse. His white shirt hung open at the throat, and his weight rested on one leg. With his garland askew, he looked like a disheveled Shakespearean actor. Clever and irresistible.

I was smiling when I glanced back at Jill.

Her eyebrows were arched up into her bangs. I had no idea what she was thinking.

“This is Jesse,” I introduced him.

“He is pretty cute,” Mandi said, shrugging from under Zack's arm. She hitched up her tube top as she approached.

Mandi was completely wasted. Everyone on the beach could see it.

As she leaned over, trying to get her toes back through the flip-flop on her right foot, she watched Jesse to see if he was checking out her cleavage.

Jesse wasn't looking. I knew, because he'd turned to
me instead. Just as he'd listened to my advice on wearing clothes, he was waiting for some tips on how to regard my drunken friend. This time I couldn't imagine what to tell him.

“So, like it's a lot more fun back in the village,” Mandi announced.

“A
lot
more fun,” Zack echoed, then bent her back-ward for a sloppy kiss.

Jill gave an eye roll of disgust. We needed to get Mandi out of here for her own good, but I didn't want to leave.

For her own good,
Mandi had better grow up.

“Made me dizzy,” Mandi complained. She pushed Zack away, rubbed her forehead, then looked me over. “Why don't you get dressed, and we'll go back to the village. That outfit is unbe—unbeliv—just too corny.”

Jesse didn't see it that way. “Gwennie looks beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Roscoe sneered, as Perch bugged his eyes out in the direction of my wet blouse.

In another place I might have flipped him off, but Jill's glance slipped past Jesse. I knew by the way she straightened her shoulders Nana was coming.

“Hello, Mrs. Cook,” Jill said. “It's great to see you again.”

“Thank you,” Nana said, then looking at me, she turned the garland around and around in her hands. “Gwen, you don't really have to watch the embers
down, if you'd like to take care of your friends.”

I wouldn't like to. I wanted to stay with Jesse.

But Nana looked pointedly at Mandi, whose expression had changed from pouty to ill.

“Are you all right, dear?” Nana asked, but I knew she didn't feel solicitous. My friends were embarrassing her.

I didn't know how Nana was going to smooth this over.

She didn't. To my amazement Nana went to join her friends and left mine with me.

“She needs to sit down,” Zack said, trying to get out of puking range.

Perhaps as a distraction, Mrs. Leoni began a flute solo. I felt the music curl through Jesse, and Jill must have noticed too, because when a couple of the Hobbit guys sang along to “Greensleeves,” so did she, looking right at Jesse.

Jill has an incredible voice. She's going to be big-time, really. She performs the national anthem
a cappella
at school assemblies and sings solos at graduation and foot-ball games.

Jesse was charmed, and I hated feeling jealous on top of everything else. The song seemed to last forever, but finally she got her applause and a load of new fans.

“That was wonderful,” Jesse told her, and I really hoped Jill's voice was what people remembered in the morning instead of Mandi's moan.

Sitting next to the bonfire, head between her knees,
Mandi said, “I think I'm going to be sick. I wanna go to bed now.”

No surprise, Zack and his crew were moving down the beach, away from us and toward the highway, without a good-bye.

I wasn't ready to leave. It was Midsummer's Eve, and I was the Queen!

“We're supposed to stay up all night,” I said, but my voice sounded weak.

“Stay with me,” Jesse whispered into my neck. My stomach flip-flopped and I shot Jill a pleading look.

“Your house was open,” Jill said at last. “C'mon, Mandi.”

Jill hauled Mandi up by her arm, but it was me Mandi reached toward.

“Gwen! God, you can see him later.” Her hot-pink lipstick was gooey, and her breasts were about to spill out of her top. I wanted to slap her. When she added, “We're only here for a little while, and we're your real friends,” I almost did.

“Shut up, Mandi,” I told her.

She started to cry, and Jill's eyebrows shot up. Jesse didn't say a word.

“Well look at her,” I tried to excuse my harshness. “She's—”

Jill held her hands up in surrender.

“I didn't say anything,” she told me, but I didn't
need Jesse to read her eyes for me.

They'd driven all the way up here to see me. What kind of friend would ignore them to be with a guy she'd only known for a few days?

Even if he cared more about me, even if we were the Summer King and Queen, even if I loved him.

“I'd better go,” I told him.

Alarm flared in his eyes.

“Jesse, what?” I whispered. Anger wouldn't have surprised me, or even sadness, but he looked as if I'd given up our very last night together.

“I'm not, am I?”

My god, I was asking him to read my mind. I was really losing it.

Jesse didn't answer. He looked down the beach the way Zack and his crew had gone, thinking, I supposed, that he didn't have to walk me home with them out of the way.

“I'll stay here,” he said, then squeezed my arm and returned to the bonfire, where Sadie Linnet was passing a platter of fresh shrimp.

“Is he mad at you?” Jill asked as we walked.

“I don't think so,” I told her. “He doesn't get mad.”

“Ha!” Mandi said, looking after him. “Don't you believe it. He's sizing up that bimbo right now.”

“He's not either,” Jill said in a singsong voice as we started up the beach toward my cottage.

Just the same, I couldn't help looking back to see if he was talking to that girl.

I recognized her then. It was Jade, from the dark side street, one of Zack's friends, and I was walking away, leaving her alone with Jesse.

At three thirty in the morning I was sprawled on my couch, eating pizza I didn't want, with guests I didn't welcome. Even Gumbo had found someplace to hide.

“It's your favorite,” Mandi said, rejuvenated by the pineapple and jalapeno cheese pizza. They'd brought it with them. “After all that codger food at the Inn, we knew you'd be dying for something from Rico's.”

There was no reason that should have made me mad, but it did. Nana and Thelma made great food. Gourmet food.

“You pretty crazy about that guy?” Mandi asked while she stared into my refrigerator. Looking for something else to settle her stomach, I guess.

“His name's Jesse,” I corrected her. I know I didn't snarl or anything, so why did they give each other that look?

“Sor-ree,” Mandi snapped.

Usually I would have apologized, but not this time.

“How long have you known him?” Jill asked.

What was this? She knew exactly how long I'd been at Mirage Beach. Less than a week.

My irritation must have shown, because she added, “I just meant, did you know him when you lived here before?”

I laughed. “Sort of, but not very well.”

“So, I guess things got intense in a hurry.”

“Yeah,” I said, but I really don't think she understood. Otherwise, wouldn't she have been happy for me?

“Hey!” Mandi said. She gulped a carton of orange juice and wiped her lips. “You know what we're gonna do?” Mandi crossed the room and pushed aside two sleeping bags she and Jill had piled in the corner. She unzipped a duffel bag. “I brought all my stuff to do a makeover on you, so tomorrow at your village festival thing, you'll look totally hot.”

“Mandi, I don't think Gwen feels like having a makeover in the middle of the night.”

Thank you,
I mouthed at her.

“Of course she does.” Mandi started piling white tubes, plastic gloves, and a clutter of brushes on my kitchen table. “Go wash your hair.”

I went because I was shivering and cold, and I really hoped they'd both be asleep when I got out of the shower. If they were, I'd sneak out and find Jesse.

I didn't close the bathroom door completely, in case they wanted to ask me where something was. To be fair, I was being as terrible a hostess as they were being bad guests.

I could hear them talking. Mostly Mandi, because even though she'd pulled herself together, she was still tipsy and talking too loud. Mad as I was, I was so glad I hadn't left her with Zack.

“You know, I always thought I'd be the one to fall in love at first sight,” she said.

Jill grumbled something sarcastic, but I guess that was the end of it, because Mandi began babbling about finding the right hairbrushes. I figured I wouldn't miss anything if I climbed into the shower, but I did feel ridiculously bad about sudsing the Midsummer Eve seawater out of my hair.

I was rubbing off with a towel when I heard Mandi again. “Do you think she got together with him so soon to give people something else to talk about?”

“Instead of that night?” Jill asked.