And suddenly it was over, and two hours had passed. The other waitresses were grinning and looking like the team that had won the Super Bowl. Everyone was drinking coffee and Pepsis. The smokers were sneaking forbidden cigarettes in the waitress station, waving the smoke away with menus.
Summer went to the kitchen. The cooks were cleaning up their stations and rocking out to Plain White T’s.
Summer went to Skeet. “I’m sorry about messing up the soup,” she said, practically sobbing.
Skeet looked amazed. “What?”
“And I’m sorry I didn’t pick up my orders in time,” Summer told J.T.
The cooks exchanged a look. Skeet said, “Aww, isn’t that sweet? J.T, you a-hole, you got her all upset.”
J.T. laughed, but not unkindly. “Come here.” He motioned her down to the end of the line. He leaned back against the walk-in refrigerator door and sucked on a huge iced tea. His white uniform was stained and greasy. But he had nice, light brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and an open, somewhat lopsided smile. Summer could see why Marquez had been attracted to him.
“Summer,” he said, “you don’t pay attention to what we all say when we’re in the weeds. When we’re weeded, we get cranky. We have to yell at someone, and the waitresses are the traditional people to abuse.”
“Oh. Who do we get to abuse?” J.T. laughed. “Right back at us. Now, Marquez, when she gets yelled at, she throws it right back. She can curse in two languages. Three sometimes.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a towel. “You did all right today, especially for it being only your second day.”
“Thanks. I was kind of panicky, really.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “So I guess you and Marquez are hanging around together, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess so. I really like her.”
He nodded and glanced across the room toward the dining room door. “I guess she told you about us?”
Summer tilted her head back and forth, an admission.
“Hope she didn’t tell you too much bad stuff. How is she, anyway?”
“Marquez? She’s great, I guess. She’s the most totally unique person I’ve ever met.”
His blue eyes were soft. “Yes, she is.” He laughed. “Have you seen her room yet?”
“Isn’t it great?”
“She created that room, and she thinks she’s going to be a lawyer someday,” J.T. said. “My name used to be up on her wall, bigger than anyone’s.”
“It still is. I saw it.”
He stood away from the walk-in. “It is? My name? I was sure she’d have painted it over.”
“She said that’s how it is, that she never paints over something.”
J.T. shook his head in amazement. “When she broke up with this guy named Juan, his name was gone under three coats of white enamel before he managed to walk home.” His eyes were bright. “J.T., right?”
“Big red letters,” Summer confirmed.
Skeet yelled something rude, suggesting that J.T. might want to help do some of the work. “I gotta get back. Just remember, don’t be sensitive around here. No one else is.”
Summer saluted solemnly. “No more sensitivity. Absolutely.”
Marquez was waiting for her as soon as she passed through the swinging doors to the dining room. She gave Summer a look and seemed about to ask a question, but stopped herself.
Summer suppressed a grin. Marquez wanted to know what she’d been discussing with J.T. That was obvious. And she didn’t want to have to ask. Well, too bad. She’d just see how long Marquez could hold out.
“What’s my side work?” Summer asked innocently.
Marquez glared at her through narrowed eyes. “You have sauces with me.”
They dragged big plastic jars of cocktail sauce and tartar sauce out of the walk-in to the waitress station, where they stood side by side dumping spoonfuls of each into small dishes.
“So. Tonight’s the big night,” Marquez said. “You and Adam.”
“Uh-huh. Actually…” Summer paused and looked around guiltily. Lianne was nowhere in sight. “Actually, after we do the beach thing I have to go run an errand with Seth.” She said it as casually as she could.
Marquez was nowhere near being fooled. “An errand. She’s running an errand with Mr. Moon. Did that picture of Diana’s have anything to do with this?” Marquez giggled gleefully.
“Why did I even tell you?” Summer fumed. She slopped more tartar sauce. “It’s not that, just for your information. It’s—” Again she looked over her shoulder. No Lianne. Summer lowered her voice. “Look, remember at Diana’s how I said there was this guy—”
“—that spent the night with you! That was Seth?”
“No, no. Keep it down, Marquez.”
“The kiss! The guy you kissed in a Laundromat who you didn’t even know.”
“It wasn’t a Laundromat. It was a photo booth. At the airport.” Summer sighed. There. She had told someone.
“How was it?” Marquez asked.
“The point is, Mar-quez, that I am just going with him to buy some tile this evening, after we go to the beach. That’s all. I’m meeting him at his house.”
“After we go to the beach and before you go out tonight with Adam. Summer, Summer, Summer. I used to think you were such a nice, sweet girl.” Marquez laughed. “I have to work a double shift, but I am coming over tonight after your date to get the complete story. So be prepared. This is not gossip that can wait.”
Summer was feeling sort of pleased with herself, enjoying her new image as maybe-not-totally-nice, when Lianne came around the corner into the waitress station. She seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
“Hi, you two,” Lianne said. “Did I hear something about gossip?”
“This is my first time actually lying out in the sun,” Summer said. “I figured when I came here I’d be spending every minute out on the beach. Look at me, I’m still white as snow.” Summer adjusted her top and pried open one eye. Even through the sunglasses, as dark as she could find, the sun was still too intense. Her skin was hot on her exposed front, her back only slightly cooler on the towel laid out over sand the color of powdered sugar.
“Everyone thinks that,” Marquez said, her voice slurred with sun sleep. Her reply came about two minutes late, as if the words had taken a long time to get to Summer, lying just a foot away. “I mean, when you’re here on vacation, sure. But when you live here, you have other stuff to do. Like work.”
Several minutes later Summer said, “Yeah.”
The beach spread down the western edge of Crab Claw Key, facing the Gulf of Mexico. The water was pure translucent green, and as warm as the air. Summer had gone in up to her knees, and now there was sand stuck to her calves. The rest of her was coated with Hawaiian Tropic.
“How does sunscreen work?” Summer asked. No answer. “I mean, how does it keep…light? How does it keep sunlight from…” She couldn’t think of the word. No point in wearing herself out thinking.
“Penetrating?” Marquez said eventually.
“Huh?”
“Penetrating. That’s the word you wanted.”
“Okay.” Summer heard Marquez rolling over. She rolled over herself. They were pointed with their heads toward the water, the theory being that they didn’t want to sunburn the bottoms of their feet as the sun crossed the line from east to west.
Summer opened her eyes again and looked out across the water. Far in the distance pillars of clouds rose, looking like fantastic islands of snow-covered peaks. It reminded her of watching the sunrise with Diver that morning.
Sunrise with Diver. Sunset would be with Adam. And in between, a little quality time with Seth. This vacation would be working out great if she could just lie back and enjoy it.
She must have been smiling, because Marquez said, “What’s that grin all about? That looked lecherous.”
“No, not lecherous,” Summer said.
“Adam?”
Summer made a “maybe” look.
<
br /> “Seth?”
“We’re just shopping for floor tile.”
“Uh-huh. You know, you two just look right for each other,” Marquez said. “Like you could get married someday and have a bunch of wholesome children and a minivan.”
Summer made a face. “That’s how you see me, huh? A mommy with a bunch of kids?”
“Don’t get pissed off,” Marquez said. “It’s just that he’s a nice guy—not to mention the godlike body—and you’re a nice girl. Nice in a good way.”
“Maybe I don’t want to end up with a nice guy,” Summer said.
“Maybe you’d like a certain cute, very rich guy?” Marquez suggested.
“Maybe,” Summer said, drawling the word and wiggling her eyebrows in a parody of seductiveness. “Did I tell you about the woman on the plane? The woman who did tarot cards? She told me I was going to meet three guys.”
Marquez looked interested. “I don’t believe in any of that superstitious junk.”
“Me neither.”
“So? What did she say?”
“She said I’d meet three guys here. One would seem to be a mystery, one would seem to be dangerous, and one would seem right.”
“Seem? That’s kind of weasely, isn’t it?” Marquez asked. But she was looking thoughtful. “So far you’ve met Adam and Seth, right? Are they supposed to be two of the guys?”
“How am I supposed to know? Maybe. Not that I believe any of that stuff. I mean, cards? Puh-leeze.”
“You excited about seeing Adam tonight?” Marquez asked.
“As long as I can get a totally perfect tan between now and then I’ll be happy.” Summer twisted her head around to try and see the back of her legs. They looked pretty white. She was still an official chalk person.
“Where’s he taking you? Somewhere dangerous? Somewhere mysterious? Or somewhere just right?”
Summer shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t say. I asked and he said just to leave it to him.”
“Oh, the mighty macho man in control,” Marquez mocked.
Summer flicked sand at Marquez. “That kind of reminds me of something. Guess who I talked to.”
“Do I care?”
“I think you will,” Summer said cockily. “I think you’ve been wanting to ask me all afternoon.”
“I saw you,” Marquez said, sounding utterly bored. She pretended to yawn. “I saw you talking to J.T. I was wondering if you were going to bring it up.”
“He seemed very interested in you,” Summer said.
Marquez sighed dramatically. “Okay, you might as well tell me what he had to say.”
“I wouldn’t want to bore you. I can tell you’re not really interested.”
Marquez pointed. “See that guy down there? The big hairy old guy? If you don’t tell me exactly what J.T. said, I’m going to tell that guy you’re hot for him.”
Summer related the conversation with J.T. as accurately as she could.
When she was done, Marquez slapped Summer’s arm. “You weren’t supposed to tell him his name was still on my wall.”
“Oww. Why not?”
“He’ll think I still like him.”
“Do you?”
“Duh. I’ll tell you one thing—he’d better not be your third tarot card.”
“He’s cute,” Summer said. “But you know how sometimes a guy will be cute, but you don’t react in that way?”
“No. Absolutely not. Okay, sure, I know what you mean.”
“J.T. is cute, though,” Summer repeated. “And he seemed nice.”
“Yeah. He is cute. And he knows it. He has that Anglo, Nordic, blue-eyed thing going for him. Also, he’s excellent at kissing. The creep. The subhuman.” Marquez pounded the sand, but not so much in anger as in frustration. “He reminds me of you that way.”
“What, you mean I’m a subhuman? Or has someone told you I’m excellent at kissing?”
Marquez laughed. “No, I mean the blue-eyed Nordic Midwestern guy or girl next door thing. Speaking of which, we’d better get out of here before you get burned.” Marquez stood up and began brushing sand off her stomach.
“So how come you and J.T. don’t just make up?” Summer asked.
Marquez gave her a look that was cold as ice. “Because no guy ever gets to treat me like crap twice. Once. That’s the limit. I don’t hang with people who mess me up. I have more important things in my life, you know?”
The look surprised Summer. “More important than true love?”
“It isn’t about what happens now, Summer. I’m just having fun now, but my life is about succeeding and making something out of myself and making my parents and my brothers proud of me. I’m not going to waste my mental energy dealing with jerks.”
Summer stood looking at her.
“Sorry,” Marquez said, rolling her eyes. “Sometimes I get this sudden attack of seriousness.” She pointed up the beach. “See that point there? Up by the rocks?”
“Sure.”
“That’s the spot where my parents and my big brothers and little tiny Maria Marquez landed in this country.” Marquez measured with her hands how tall she was at the time. “My dad was three years in prison in Cuba for complaining about the government. When he got out, we left. We were in a rowboat at night, and a Cuban navy patrol boat passed by only about a hundred yards away. If they’d spotted us, my dad and mom would have been thrown into prison and all us kids would have been taken away from them. We got blown around in the sea. I mean, I can still remember it a little. My mom was trying to act like it was this big family picnic, right? So eventually we bang right into good old Crab Claw Key in the good old USA. We had the clothes we were wearing. That’s it. No money. My dad and mom couldn’t speak any English. Now my dad owns the gas station.” She made a self-deprecating face. “Big deal, right? A gas station.”
“Yes, a big deal,” Summer said softly.
“He loves it, I can tell you that. You’d think that one gas station was the whole Shell Oil Company.”
They began to cross the beach, feet sinking in the burning sand.
“Well, anyway, the thing is that I have to do better. Better than a gas station.”
Summer gave her a quizzical, skeptical look. “Wait, so you can’t forgive J.T. because you have to succeed?”
“That’s right,” Marquez said firmly. Then she made a sly grin. “You know, unless he begs. And crawls.” She nodded thoughtfully. “Crawling would be good.”
19
Finally—the Naked Truth
Lianne Greene watched from cool, air-conditioned comfort as Summer and Marquez made their way across the beach and paused at the low seawall to brush the sand from their legs.
She sat in the window of a small café, sipping an iced tea with mint. A raucous, Spanish-language game show was playing on the TV over the bar. Lianne had been there since the girls had arrived, having followed them from work to Marquez’s house and then to the beach. She didn’t mind waiting. It was boring, but she knew the next act in the little drama would make up for the long, dull wait.
Lianne left two dollars on the table and went outside. The heat seldom bothered her the way it did so many other people. It was all a trick of the mind, she believed. Stay calm and cool inside, and the sun couldn’t reach you.
She followed Summer and Marquez at a safe distance, not that they would have noticed her had they turned around. She was wearing big sunglasses and a white cap with the bill low over her forehead.
Several times Summer and Marquez would stop just to laugh or playfully slap at each other. They were having a fine time. Especially Summer. And why shouldn’t she be? She was on her way to pick up Seth.
A little knot of rage burned in Lianne’s stomach. Seth was just a fool to fall for a girl like that. But then, that was Seth all over. He was too kind and decent to realize how people used him. He was too sweet to understand what a two-faced little manipulator Summer Smith was. And it was so obvious. Lianne had recognized her type right from the start.
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They stopped at Marquez’s house again, presumably so Summer could change clothes. Good. Lianne had plenty of time.
She knew Seth’s house, inside and out. And she knew Seth better than anyone. That would make it all work. Then it would be bye-bye Summer.
And Seth would be right back where he belonged. Right where he would stay.
With her.
At four in the afternoon, the sun was still high and hot. The same clouds Summer had watched from the beach were darkening and building up over the water, threatening an afternoon thunderstorm.
Summer had showered quickly at Marquez’s house and changed clothes. Marquez had turned up her nose at the top Summer was wearing and convinced her to borrow one of hers instead. Now Summer was walking across Seth’s lawn, feeling conspicuous and worried that she was sending a message Seth might easily misinterpret.
“Yes,” Summer muttered under her breath, tugging at the tight top, “this is how I always dress when I go to hardware stores.”
Seth’s grandfather’s house was a low, flat-roofed bungalow, dwarfed by massive shade trees on all sides. One was a banyan, a tree that fascinated Summer. It looked like something from another planet, but its leaves defeated the sun and spread a welcome coolness.
There was a screened porch that went around two sides of the house. The screening was old and nearly opaque in the shade.
Summer was confused. There was a regular door on the left side and the screen door on the right. Which was the front door?
Then she heard a sound, the creak of springs, as if someone was sitting down in an old chair. The sound came from the porch. Summer headed toward the porch, still feeling ridiculous in the gaudy top Marquez had loaned her. Still feeling a quaking in her stomach, a feeling of uncertainty mingled with anticipation.
“Seth?” she said as she neared the screen door. No answer.
She climbed three stairs to the door. She cupped her hands around her face and pressed her nose against the screen to see inside. There was a rocking chair. Laid across the rocker, a pair of men’s jeans. And over the jeans, Summer saw a white lace bra.