“Diana has outgrown everyone,” Marquez said.
Lianne put on a brave face and directed her smile at Summer. “Anyway, now I feel like I have a new friend. At least I hope we’ll be friends, Summer.”
“Sure,” Summer blurted.
“Well, happy happy, joy joy,” Marquez said dryly. She peered across the dining room and became more serious. “Okay, we have a party of two. We call that a deuce. Deuce, three-top, four-top, et cetera. Pour two glasses of water, Summer. Gossip time just ended.”
Marquez took off and Summer started after her. But then she felt a hand on her arm, holding her back.
Lianne pitched her voice low, so no one else would hear. “Summer, since we are going to be friends, I should just warn you about one thing. It’s Seth. I know he’s pretending like we broke up, but we didn’t. Seth has a little problem with the truth sometimes. And if you get in the middle, you’re just going to get hurt, because Seth really does love me.”
“I’m not in the middle of anything,” Summer said stiffly.
“Good,” Lianne said. She exhibited a brilliant smile that never reached her eyes. “Seth may not be perfect, but he’s all I have.”
14
The Mysteries of Paint
“My feet hurt.” Summer was practically limping through the town, across mostly empty streets baked by the terrifying late-afternoon sun.
Marquez had volunteered to take her shopping for a few necessities that the stilt house lacked, like towels and toilet paper and food. But first they had to change out of their uniforms, which smelled of cocktail sauce and cigarette smoke. That meant walking from the restaurant to Marquez’s house and then to Summer’s house, all on painful feet and pavement that was approximately the same temperature as the surface of the sun. Marquez said she might be able to borrow her parents’ car for the rest of the trip.
“My feet hurt too,” Marquez said, “but you’ll get used to it. At least it isn’t hot out.”
“It isn’t?”
Marquez grinned. “It’s only early June. Now, August…” She laughed an evil laugh. “August afternoons, I’ve seen people burst into flames.”
“You have not.”
“If you say so. All I’m saying is, don’t wear polyester—that burns too fast. Come on, we’re almost there.”
“There” turned out to be a genteelly seedy three-story building just off the main drag. The bottom floor had once been a store. It still had a huge plate-glass window with a faded, old-fashioned sign painted on it.
“Ice Cream Parlor?” Summer read.
“Yeah, it used to be an ice cream parlor, back like fifty years ago. Upstairs was offices. My dad bought the building after he got settled in this country.”
Marquez opened a side door that gave onto a narrow stairway. The entrance was made more narrow by the three bikes that were parked there. From up the stairs Summer could hear a TV or radio, the announcer speaking Spanish.
“My folks speak English too, but they like Spanish sometimes,” Marquez explained, not exactly self-consciously, but as if she were waiting to see how Summer would react.
“So do you speak Spanish?” Summer asked.
“Sure. A little, anyway, just so I can talk with my grandma. My older brothers still speak it pretty well because some of them were older when we left Cuba. Well, here goes.” Marquez opened a second door that led from the landing. “This is my room.”
Summer stepped through the door and gasped. Then she laughed. Then she just stared, mouth hanging open. “This is your room?”
“Yeah. Different, huh?”
The room was huge, a vast, open space. Most of one wall was mirrored, with gleaming chrome shelves where Coke glasses and banana split dishes had once been stacked. Now the shelves held folded T-shirts and sweaters and shorts. Panties spilled out of a former hot fudge warmer. A menu on the wall showed the price of hot fudge sundaes as fifteen cents.
Down the middle of the room was the Formica-topped, chrome-trimmed bar, fronted by half a dozen stools bolted in place and upholstered with red plastic. The bar was cluttered with a boom box and a disorderly mess of CDs and at least a dozen spray cans of paint.
But the most amazing thing about the room was the walls. They were bare brick—or had once been bare. Now they were coated an inch thick with wild graffiti, words a foot tall in places. There were strangely beautiful pictures, like murals, showing dazzling mountain scenes and rain forests and sunrises. In one corner of the room a palm tree had been painted all the way up the high wall, with fanned branches spreading out across a corner of the ceiling.
“You like my tree? Don’t even have to water it,” Marquez joked.
“Marquez. This. Is. The most amazing room I’ve ever seen. This is so excellent. This is so far past just being cool. This is a whole new planet of coolness.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Marquez said. “If you didn’t like it, we couldn’t be friends.”
“Like it? It’s a total work of art. You’re an artist.”
“No, it’s just playing-around art. I got this room because I’m the only girl,” Marquez said. “I have five brothers. My older brothers got rooms with views of the water, and my younger brothers share a room whenever my older brothers are around, which they are only sometimes.” She counted off on her fingers. “Tony is in the army and he’s in Germany. Miguel and Raoul are in college, only they’re home for the summer now. Ronnie is going into tenth grade and he’s a monster, and George is going to start eighth.”
“How come everyone got Spanish names except Ronnie and George?” Summer asked. “Is it okay if I ask that?” She was still walking around, head tilted back, taking in the amazing details.
“Sure, why not? Ronnie and George were the first ones born in this country. So they got named after, guess who? Ronald Reagan and George Bush.”
Summer smiled. “You guys sound so interesting. I mean, escaping from Cuba and this room and all. My family is so boring. Plus five brothers. I never had any siblings. You know, except for Jonathan, and like I said, I never knew him except from some pictures.”
“Have a seat on the bed,” Marquez said, nodding toward the king-size bed in front of the curtained shop window. “I just want to change out of this uniform and we can go.”
Summer sat and let her eyes wander over the walls. Much of the graffiti was names. Names of TV stars and musicians, names of fictional characters from books, names that could be anyone. And what could only be called thoughts or slogans.
“‘J.T.,’” Summer read out loud. “Is that the same J.T.?” The letters were about three feet tall, red and rimmed with black so they stood out as though they were three-dimensional.
“Yeah, that’s him.” Marquez was stripping off her uniform, showing none of the modesty Summer would have, even in front of another girl.
“I would have thought you’d paint over it.”
“No, that’s not the way it works. Once something goes on the wall, it never gets deliberately painted over. Maybe over time, months and months or whatever, a little gets covered here, and a little more there until it’s almost all gone. But you can’t just wipe out the past.”
Summer grinned. “Very deep.”
Marquez laughed. “You probably didn’t know I was so philosophical, right?”
Summer was about to ask whether she would eventually be invited to add her name to the wall. To be added and never deliberately erased or painted over. A strange kind of immortality, like something permanent left behind when she left Crab Claw Key.
“Ready?” Marquez asked. She had slipped on a tube top and shorts. “I’m ready to shop. Our car’s out front. Let me just run upstairs and see if we can take it.”
Diana saw them pull into the driveway in the Marquez family’s huge, aging Oldsmobile. She was upstairs assembling a pile of washcloths, towels, and sheets to carry down to the stilt house. It was a shame Summer was home so early. It would have been better to have everything done. Diana was prepared to comply
with her mother’s orders to make the stilt house comfortable. She just didn’t want to be seen acting generous.
Summer was wearing her absurd uniform. Marquez was dressed like a slut, as usual. As they got out of the car they both started giggling, sharing some joke.
Diana felt a stab of jealousy. At this moment Summer was already more a part of life on Crab Claw Key than Diana, though Diana had lived here most of her life. Summer had a job, a friend—probably a boyfriend, soon, if Adam really was interested in her.
Diana remembered when her own life had been more that way. When there had been friends, boyfriends, reasons to start giggling over nothing.
Diana headed down the stairs and caught up with them as they were heading down the lawn toward the stilt house.
“Hey, Summer,” Diana said.
Summer and Marquez turned.
“Hey, Di-Anne,” Marquez said.
“Hello, Maria,” Diana answered. She hated when people mispronounced her name. Almost as much as Marquez hated being called Maria. “So nice to see you again. I was afraid that now that I’ve graduated, I wouldn’t see you anymore. Terrified, in fact.”
“I’ve been thinking about you, Di-anne. See, I heard this guy was found dead over on the new side, right? And there were these two little holes in his neck, and all the blood had been drained out of him, so naturally, I thought of you right away.”
“Amusing as always, Maria. Those paint fumes in your room blurring your vision again? Or is there some other reason for the way you’re dressed?” Diana turned quickly to Summer before Marquez could come up with a reply. “I just wanted to tell you, before you go down to the stilt house, that someone’s there.”
Summer’s response was surprising. Her face went blank and her eyes grew wide. “No, there isn’t,” she said quickly.
“Yes, there is,” Diana said.
Summer shook her head almost violently. “There’s no one there that I know about, and I would know, right? If you found something there that looked like there was someone there, then maybe it was something of mine and just looked like somebody else’s.”
Diana looked at Marquez. “Did you understand that?”
Marquez shook her head, equally puzzled.
“Summer, let me try it more slowly this time.” Diana sighed. “Seth Warner is down at the stilt house. He’s doing some work on it, fixing it up.”
“Seth! Oh, Seth,” Summer said, looking inexplicably relieved. “Seth. Okay, Seth is down there. Not anyone else though, right?”
“Who were you expecting?” Diana asked sourly. “Adam?”
“No, I’m not supposed to be seeing him till tomorrow night.”
Summer and Marquez started again for the stilt house and Diana fell in step behind them, still carrying her gift of towels.
Summer found the house looking strange. Water was dripping from the eaves and from the railing and was puddling on the deck, though it hadn’t been raining. Plus, something was missing.
“The bird crap!” Summer said. “It’s gone.” The pelican was sitting on his usual corner but was looking disgruntled. “Frank, you okay?”
“Frank?” Diana asked.
“Um, well, that’s what I call him,” Summer said quickly. “You know, just a name I made up.”
Summer stepped over a toolbox and paint-splattered canvas drop cloth.
From inside the house there was the sound of a radio or stereo playing. The Breeders. And a male voice was singing along, changing the lyrics. “I’m just looking for the div-i-ne paintbrush. One div-i-ne paintbrush. I’d brush it all day….”
Instantly, as if on command, the three girls froze and fell silent. Marquez raised one eyebrow, playfully suggestive. She quietly opened the toolbox and extracted a hammer.
Stifling giggles, they tiptoed to the door.
“One divine paintbrush, one div-i-ine paintbrush…”
Diana opened the door. Seth was standing on a short ladder, his bare shoulders splattered with little drops of white paint, wearing shorts and work boots. He was using a roller to apply paint to the ceiling.
“We couldn’t find the divine paintbrush,” Diana said.
“But we have the divine hammer,” Marquez said, holding it up.
“That was just the DJ singing along,” Seth said lamely.
“Oh. I believe that,” Marquez said. “Don’t you believe that, Diana? Even though it’s a CD, not the radio.”
“I didn’t know Mr. Moon could sing,” Diana said. “I knew he had other attributes, but I didn’t know he could sing.”
Seth climbed down off the ladder and rested his roller in the paint pan. “Okay, I’ll ask you again, Diana, what will it take to get that picture from you? And the negative, too.”
Summer noticed the paint splats on his skin. Some had dried already, and the effect made the skin itself look soft and warm.
“I thought I’d give that picture to Summer,” Diana said. “She could hang it on these nice white walls.”
Summer blushed as badly as Seth did.
“The two of you, you’re both so sweet,” Marquez said. “Look at them blush.”
“So is white paint okay? It’s off-white, actually,” Seth said to Summer, clearly trying to change the subject.
“It looks great,” Summer said coolly. There had to be other people who could do this work. So why was Seth there?
“I did the walls earlier, so they’re almost dry. Then I hosed off the outside, and I figured I might as well start on the ceiling. And there’s the bed,” Seth said, pointing, as if a new double bed could somehow be invisible in the small room. He seemed to be trying very hard to act professional. “You want to get rid of the old one?”
Summer looked inquiringly at Diana. Had this repair and cleanup work been Diana’s idea?
Diana shrugged. “I thought since you insisted on staying down here instead of staying in the main house that at least we could improve things a little. So I called Mallory and asked her if I could have the place fixed up for you.”
“That was awfully nice of you,” Summer said dubiously. She wasn’t normally a skeptical person, but Diana’s story sounded slightly unlikely. That morning it had sounded as if Aunt Mallory was yelling at Diana on the phone.
Seth laughed. “Yeah, and then Diana’s mom called my grandfather long distance and said we should do the work regardless of what Diana said or did to stop us.”
“Must be the paint fumes, Seth,” Diana said without much sincerity. “You obviously misunderstood.”
“You’re getting a new paint job, bird crap removal, and some new flooring in the bathroom and the kitchen,” Seth told Summer. “You can come with me and pick out the tile after I get cleaned up. If you’d like. You don’t have to, but you could have your choice, and there’s lots of kinds of tile. Also we’re going to run cable down from the house.” He put a finger to his lips. “Only don’t tell anyone about that, because it isn’t exactly legal.”
From outside came the sound of a boat motor, loud at first, then gentling to an idle. A horn sounded.
“Anyone home?” a voice called.
“That sounds like Adam,” Summer said. Her heart began beating very fast.
Again she felt an inexplicable sense of guilt. As though there was something wrong in letting Seth know she was seeing Adam. Or the reverse.
“Is that Adam’s voice?” Marquez asked Diana, batting her eyes provocatively.
Diana said nothing. Summer opened the door and went outside. A large motorboat had nosed under the house. Behind it trailed the two Jet Skis, bobbing on the wake.
“Adam?” Summer called, but he was concealed from view beneath the house. She went back inside as the floor hatch opened and Adam climbed up, smiling his seductive, mocking, maximum-power smile, until his eyes fell on Diana. Something dark and unfathomable passed between Adam and Diana.
“Hi,” Adam said, in a general sort of way. Then, “Hi, Summer.”
Summer saw his eyes dart to Diana again and the
n away. Diana crossed her arms coolly. No matter what Diana said, there was something powerful between the two of them. Some potent, disturbing emotion that Summer couldn’t read.
“I was going to ask what had happened to the Jet Skis,” Diana said. “I noticed they were gone.”
“They left them at my place,” Adam said curtly. “Seth, my man, what’s up?”
“Just doing some work. You’ve heard of work, right?”
The two guys were eyeing each other warily, Summer noticed, but without hostility.
“I may have heard something about it,” Adam said, smiling good-naturedly at the sort of teasing he’d obviously heard many times before. “Work. Yes, I think one of the servants may have mentioned it once. Speaking of which, want to give me a hand getting those skis tied off?”
Seth headed below with Adam.
Marquez shook her head. “You are something, Summer,” she said.
“What? What do you mean?”
“You just breeze into town and already you’ve got two A-list guys interested in you,” Marquez said. “Not that either of them is my type, so what do I care.”
“No, your type would be more the slightly deranged, mentally unstable type, Maria,” Diana said with surprising intensity.
“I don’t think either of them is interested in me,” Summer protested weakly. “I know Seth isn’t,” she lied. “He has a girlfriend. Maybe Adam…Oh, you guys are just teasing me.”
“Are you blind?” Marquez demanded in a loud whisper. “Of course Seth is interested in you. Didn’t you see that little guy thing between him and Adam?”
“You’re crazy,” Summer said, a little too forcefully.
“Seth is a nice guy,” Diana said, almost to herself. She chewed a fingernail.
Marquez sent Summer a significant look. “Oh, Seth is a nice guy, huh? As opposed to Adam? Hmmmm.”
Diana narrowed her eyes and seemed to snap back to the present. “Shut up, Maria. It’s totally over between me and Adam. Just because you can’t get over J.T. doesn’t mean I have the same problem.”
“I repeat—hmmmm.”