Summer Nights (9 page)

He isn’t interested, Beth thought. She slid the large serving spoon into the casserole, and steam rose from the cut in the noodles. I’m not going to be the only one left in Westerly; he’ll be here, too. But he didn’t mention that. I don’t think he thinks of it that way. High school is so far behind Gary he doesn’t even feel part of it. Whereas with me it was half an hour ago, it could start again in the morning. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if somebody asked me what the English assignment was.

“Careful,” Gary said, “you don’t want tomato sauce all over that yellow dress.”

“It’ll blend right in with the ice cream,” said Beth. “Did you know I missed the boat and melted the ice cream?”

“I knew you missed the boat, but I figured the sun melted the ice cream.”

Beth fell back in love with Gary again. Honestly, other girls seemed to have such solid reasons for loving a guy. All a boy had to do to win Beth was make a feeble joke and she was his. She kissed Gary suddenly and he looked up, surprised.

Con was a more vigorous dancer than Anne, who liked to be graceful in all things and didn’t get wild and crazy for hard rock numbers. But she would rather dance than talk tonight, considering the various pitfalls between herself and Con, so she danced.

After the fourth number there was a momentary musical pause. Susan and Lynda cornered them. “Anne, I’m
dying
for details,” moaned Susan. “I think all the time about what you’ll be doing, you lucky, lucky thing. Tell me
exactly
what happens, beginning with the morning.”

“Is it true that Ivory Glynn is going to be on David Letterman the first night you’re in New York?” asked Lynda.

“When I was in New York City, we couldn’t afford to stay in any of the spectacular hotels, like the Waldorf, but we walked into the lobbies. Will you be staying in places like that?”

Con stiffened. They wouldn’t bother to ask what
he
was doing. He was just another college freshman, indistinguishable from any other, taking freshman English, and going out for football, and probably not making it, what with the competition he faced.

Whereas Anne had gotten the job in a million without any effort at all. Con’s cheek muscles twitched.

Anne said, “Of course I won’t be on the show, but she will be a guest of David’s and I
will
be backstage with Miss Glynn, so who knows—I could meet almost anybody back there!”

Susan and Lynda sighed in happy envy.

Anne talked on and on. She might actually have been on a stage, with a spotlight. She already had fans, that was for sure. They did not tire of her stories and they did not rejoin the dancing.

Con shouted, “Dinner is served below!”

It was very late for most of them to be starting supper. There was a general stampede for the food. “Let’s go, Anne,” Con said sharply.

“We’ll be there in a minute,” Susan said, without looking back at him, and Anne kept right on talking and did not look at Con, either.

Talking about herself, Con thought, always about herself, never about me.

His cheek twitched painfully.

Kip had chosen cheese manicotti, and piled on salad and two rolls, and was balancing this while talking to Mike. She had cornered him carefully. She was not entirely sure what her own motives were. They couldn’t date again; too far apart, and she didn’t want Mike anyhow, she wanted somebody better. But she wanted to be friends again, or have Mike admit he would miss her, or at least get a real smile from him before they parted ways.

But it was as awkward as it had been since the day they split up. “Oh, come on,” she said, suddenly irritated. “We were so close for a while, don’t you want to—?”

“No.”

“I’m not asking for a date, Mike. I’ll be hundreds of miles away till next June. I just want us to be—”

“You have to keep bringing up where
you’re
going to school, huh, Kip? Just because some of us didn’t get accepted where we wanted, and ended up going to State with jocks like Con who can hardly even read.”

Kip choked on her manicotti. Con was standing right next to them. Con sucked in his breath. “Hi, Mike,” he said deliberately.

Mike’s lasagna fell off his fork. “Hey, Con. Just joking.”

“Uh-huh.” Con waved his plate of ravioli and one of the little squares flew off and made a tomato-plopping sound against the deck. “Kip bothering you, Mikey? Be a man, you can talk back.”

“Oh, the way you’ve figured out how to talk back to Anne?” Mike said.

Kip tried to be a peacemaker. “I’m trying to be friends with Mike again, Con, and he won’t cooperate. I don’t think I’m good enough for him.”

Con laughed. “You don’t think that at all, Kip. You figure
we’re
not good enough for
you. You
have to go all the way to New York City to find anybody worthy of
your
special talents.”

Kip lost her temper. “Yeah, well,
Anne
decided she’d have to cross the
ocean
to find anybody worthy, Con Winter.”

All the guests were eating quietly, listening to this argument as it boiled. Molly listened hardest. This will be fun, she thought. We’ll have a food fight. I’ve never had a really, truly food fight. And with Italian food, too. Now
that
will be a send-off for Anne!

C
ON WINTER WAS IN
a fighting mood. He couldn’t fight Anne. There was no football team here so he could legitimately fight quarterbacks and tight ends. He was ready to fight anybody at all.

He looked around, eyes passing Kip, which angered her, because she considered herself a worthy opponent for Con any day of the week. He skipped Gary, who was too amiable for fights, and Mike who wasn’t interested in his problems. His eyes landed on the new boy—Blaze.

Who was this Blaze, anyway? he thought. Somebody Beth dragged on board. “What kind of a name is Blaze?” demanded Con. “Sounds like something for a horse. A name a nine-year-old would pick out if he had a stable and a paddock.”

There was an astonished silence, while all the listeners tried to figure out what Blaze had done to bring that on, and while Blaze got to his feet and wondered what was going to happen next.

Molly was in the mood to keep the sparks flying. She slithered between the two angry boys and smiled up into Con’s face. “You have a rather interesting name, too, darling. Con, as in con artist.”

Con glared at her. “You’re the con artist, Molly. You have to be or you wouldn’t be on board. For sure nobody invited you. Who’d you con this time?”

Slowly, several feet off, Jeremiah Dunstan shouldered his movie camera again and inched up on the stairs for a better perspective. He needed more light, but putting on the hot beam from the camera would alert the subjects, so he filmed it in the shadows.

“Anne asked me,” Molly said.

“She did not,” Con said.

“Did so. Hey, Emily, wasn’t I over at Anne’s with you this afternoon?”

Emily had hardly been listening. She was gripping her bare left hand as if she thought she could make the ring materialize. “Yes, you were,” she said woodenly.

Molly laughed. “See, Con?” She stood before him, her legs spread for balance against the slight rocking of the boat. He held his plate of ravioli, and Molly held her soda. They might have been weapons for a duel, the way the two of them paused in hostility.

Jeremiah leaned far forward to get a better profile of Con in a rage. It was nice to know that Con actually had another expression other than Mr. Perfect Body with the Blow-Dry Hair.

But Con caught the movement. “We have another stupid name over here,” he said, pointing. “Jere. Rhymes with hair. What’s it stand for, little Jere?”

The boy lowered his camera. “Jeremiah.”

“Kind of a fat old name,” Con observed. “Beards and robes go with it. You’re the one who should be named Blaze. Blaze is a good name for somebody who actually thinks he can go straight from making stupid little backyard home movies to California and box office hits.”

Jere tried to remind himself the customer was always right. He tried to tell himself he liked earning money this way. He tried to tell himself he should make allowances for jerks like Con Winter.

Kip began wondering just what Con had in his glass. Would ginger ale have that effect? Was he really so jealous of Anne for taking off like a rocket that he had to attack his guests? Kip was glad Anne was still up on the top deck cornered by her fans. With any luck, poor Anne would never see this scene. Kip would smooth it over for her sake. “Now, now,” Kip said, “why don’t we all cool down? Here, Con, how about some more ginger ale?”

“You know what you can do with your ginger ale?” demanded Con. “It’s bad enough you bossed the whole high school for four years; don’t try to boss me at my own party.”

“Somebody should throw you in the river,” said Kip contemptuously. “That would cool you off.”

“Somebody should throw
you
in,” Con retorted. “You couldn’t boss the whole show from there.”

Kip’s temper was worse than Con’s any day. She lost it totally, and it was Kip who hurled the first food. Her glass of ginger ale went right in Con’s face and her half-full plate all over his shirt.

Jere lifted his camera again. A real food fight—what footage it would be!—worth all the insults!

The party guests stood frozen for a moment, as Con retaliated with his own ravioli. But Kip was not an athlete for nothing. She leaped out of the way, and the ravioli splattered red and tomato-y all over Blaze.

There was a horrified silence.

The food fight stopped before it began.

The new boy? The boy who had never met anybody in Westerly but them? The one Con had just insulted over his name?
He
was the one covered with food?

Several couples melted away. They didn’t want any part of it. They slid past Jere and his camera and filled the upper deck, dancing as if they had never left.

Blaze wiped tomato from his eyes and hair. “I was complaining that this was the most boring summer of my life. Guess I have to shelve that complaint. I am no longer bored. A little grubby, but right in the action.”

Even Con had to be impressed by that reaction. Con sagged a little and muttered half an apology. Kip was horrified by what she had done to both of them and, as always, did things to excess, apologizing left and right. “Okay, okay,” said Con wearily, “forget it, Kip. Just—”

But he stared down at himself, an absolute mess, and did not know what she or he should do next.

Molly walked right up and slid her arm through Blaze’s wet one. “Blaze, what kind of swimmer are you?”

“The best,” he told her.

“I’m pretty fair myself,” said Molly, grinning. “And the best place to get cleaned off is right there below us.” She pointed to the river.

Blaze laughed. He and Molly climbed up on the railing and jumped right into the water.

Beth Rose Chapman could not believe this. It would have been crummy but altogether reasonable to lose wonderful Blaze to wonderful Kip. But to lose Blaze to rotten Molly?

Molly and Blaze splashed and laughed and swam alongside the
Duet.
They were having more fun than anybody, which seemed the height of unfairness. Beth sat disconsolately on the step next to the boy with the movie camera. “You run with a strange crowd,” he observed.

“They run,” said Beth glumly. “I just sit.” Jere laughed. “Do you also dance? And if so, may I join you?”

The
Duet
chugged along. She was a tubby old thing, more a ferry than a speedboat. The black river was glossy in the moonlight and punctuated by laughter and splashing it seemed a lovely place to be. Kip was envious of Blaze and Molly.

Con wasn’t. “I hope they drown,” he said.

“Oh, Con, you do not.”

“Kip, for once in your life could you stop giving people orders? I know what I hope and you don’t.”

His voice was tired, and it hurt Kip far more than if he had been yelling at her.

She knew she liked to take charge, but she didn’t like to think of herself as bossy. What if I really don’t have a very nice personality? she thought. What if I get to college and nobody likes me? What if I really do have to come back here a failure?

“I feel like swimming, too,” Kip said.

They had both been swim team captains. Con’s team had come in second in regional competitions, Kip’s had not placed. The two teams, men and women, had not swum against each other. Kip had wanted to be first regionally just to swagger in front of the boys at the high school. Now she was ashamed of herself.

“Hey, pull us up, will you?” Blaze said.

Kip and Con were the only ones left by the rail. Everybody else was sitting down to eat, or back upstairs dancing. They pulled Blaze up first, and then Molly.

“Con, you still have ravioli all over you,” said Kip. “I’m really sorry. If you take off your shirt I’ll try to clean it off for you.”

He shrugged and left his shirt on.

He thought of his choices for the evening. He could rejoin Anne. Which would make him mad again. Refill his plate. He wasn’t hungry anymore. Find Gary and Mike. They’d laugh at him for the food fight with Kip.

He said, “Hey, Kippie, you always wanted to see if the women’s team could beat the men’s. I’ll race you. Let’s see who can dive off the boat, swim to Swallow Island, and get back to the boat first.”

B
LAZE WAS ENJOYING MOLLY
. She was a very funny person. The way she was willing to drip-dry in the evening breeze appealed to Blaze. None of this rushing off to find a blow-dryer for her hair, or scurrying to a mirror to check her mascara. Blaze hated girls who were preoccupied with their faces.

Blaze and Molly fixed themselves huge dishes of food and retreated to a dark corner. Two more nice things. She wasn’t going to claim she was on a diet, never touched fattening stuff, or had to worry about an extra ounce. And—this boat was full of dark corners.

He was sorry to find that Molly would be staying in Westerly and it was that bossy girl Kip who would be in college in New York at the same time he was. “Wish it could be the other way around,” he said to Molly.

Molly just smiled. She was fairly cynical about compliments from boys. But she was a good listener, and sat through long stories about his life in Arizona, his parental job-split situation, and his boring summer here in Westerly.