“Yes,” he agreed patiently. “But that’s in Minnesota, not Wisconsin. Besides, the Brewers are so pathetic they need every fan they can get. The Twins have plenty of fans. They don’t need me the way the Brewers do. Especially this season, because they really, truly suck.”
“Isn’t there anything I can do to make you feel better?” Summer said, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.
“Hmm, I don’t know. You don’t happen to know any great unemployed pitchers, do you?”
“Fine, you had your chance.” She started to get up, but Seth caught her arm and pulled her back.
He put his arms around her, drawing her close, then closer, till her lips touched his. As always, his kisses started sweet and gentle. But each new contact was more intense, more urgent, until soon she was gasping for air, feeling that she wanted to devour him, to go beyond anything their lips could accomplish, to enter his soul and make one person out of two.
She withdrew, holding him away with a hand pressed against his mouth. Her breath was shuddery, her face burning hot. Her mind was a confusion of thoughts and images—none of which her mother would have approved of.
“I wish I had a couch,” she muttered.
“What’s wrong with the bed?” Seth said in a low voice.
“It’s a bed, that’s what’s wrong with it,” Summer said.
“You know I’d never ask you to do anything you don’t want to do,” he said, even sounding sincere. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a couch or a bed. All you have to do is say no.”
She buried her face in the hollow of his neck. “I know. That’s not the problem. Saying no is the problem.”
He lifted her head and kissed her again. His hand touched her chin, her throat. He moved it down a little farther and—
“No!” Summer said, pushing him away.
“Now, see? That wasn’t so hard,” he said, grinning. “You say no just fine. Unfortunately.”
“It’s so easy for guys,” Summer complained. “With you it’s like an on-off switch. You go till someone stops you, but it always ends up being the girl’s decision. We’re always the ones who have to have self-control.”
“That’s not true,” Seth protested. “I have to have self-control too. I mean, I wanted to start making out with you an hour ago, but no, I knew I wanted to see the game, so I controlled myself until it was over.”
Summer smiled at him affectionately. Then she hit him over the head with a pillow.
She got up and went to her tiny kitchen. On the way she turned on her radio. “You want something to eat?” she called over her shoulder.
“What do you have?”
“Um…” She opened her refrigerator. “Milk, yogurt, and wilted lettuce.” She checked her cupboard. “Cheerios. Instant grits. Sorry—I figured that since this is technically the South, I should try grits. Ah-hah! Pop-Tarts.”
“Pop-Tarts! All right,” he said enthusiastically. He came to join her as she loaded the toaster. “Life. It just doesn’t get any better than this. You and Pop-Tarts.”
“While they last,” Summer said. Instantly she regretted it, but the thought had popped into her head and straight out through her mouth.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “We’re low on Pop-Tarts?”
“Nothing,” she said. But suddenly she felt terribly sad. Probably just the result of coming down off the intense high of making out.
But Seth wasn’t going to let it go. “Summer, what’s the matter?”
“I really…really like this. Being with you. Being here. Being here with you,” she said. Tears were filling her eyes, and that annoyed her because she was ruining a perfectly good night.
The Pop-Tarts popped up from the toaster, but before she could grab them, Seth turned her around to face him. “Summer, talk to me. Look at you, you’re crying.”
“No, I’m not,” she said, wiping at her tears. “It’s just…the end of the summer.”
“What about the end of the summer?”
“It’s going to come soon, isn’t it? Then no more—” She swept her hand around the room. “No more any of this. I’ll be in school. In Bloomington. You’ll be in school in Eau Claire. I don’t even have a car,” she said.
“What does a car—”
“In case we ever wanted to see each other, duh. Or did you not even think about that? Are you just assuming we’ll never ever be able to see each other again, because I—” She began sobbing, and her words were swallowed up.
“What are you talking about?” he said. “Why are you worrying about the end of August? We have four weeks till then.”
“So I shouldn’t worry about what will happen because it’s a long way off?” she demanded, having brought her vocal cords under some control.
“We could…I don’t know, we could die tomorrow,” he said, looking beleaguered. “I could get crushed by a meteor or something. You could get run over by a bus.”
“A meteor?”
“Jeez, Summer, I’m just saying we’ve barely gotten together, so don’t start trying to figure out the whole future.” He was compulsively running his hand through his hair and shrugging, both of which were things he did when he was confused.
It wasn’t the answer she had been looking for. He sounded almost indifferent. No, that wasn’t fair—not indifferent, just puzzled, as if the problem had never occurred to him. He looked as if he’d just been asked to define the entire nature of the universe.
Summer took the Pop-Tarts out of the toaster and handed one to him. “Careful, they’re a little hot.”
“Summer, you know I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too,” she said in a voice choked by surging tears.
“So everything will work out.” He took a bite of his pastry.
But at that moment Summer had the clearest mental image, almost a vision—Seth kissing her one last time in the airport, with tears and promises to get together every chance they had. Slowly he would walk away. He would pause at the gate, turn, and mouth the words I love you, and she would mouth the same words back.
And the terrible thing would be that they would both mean them.
Marquez told herself at least a million times that she didn’t care. That the last thing she wanted was for J.T. to show up. He was with Lianne, and that was fine with her. He was trouble. Nothing but trouble and heartbreak.
He didn’t even respect her. Trying to tell her how she should live her life. Trying to tell her what she was and what she wasn’t.
Basically, he was a jerk. Basically, he could drop dead. Basically, he could disappear without a trace and she wouldn’t care, because there was absolutely no way that he could ever, conceivably, by the strangest fate she could imagine, ever, ever fit into the life she saw for herself.
Although she hated to think that Lianne was with him at that moment. Not that it was about Marquez wanting him. That wasn’t it. She just didn’t want Lianne to have the satisfaction. Calling Marquez a cold, selfish person with nothing inside—for that, Lianne deserved to be lying alone in her room thinking J.T. really had dumped her to be with Marquez.
Hah. That would show her.
Marquez fell asleep after a while, listening to a Damien Rice CD—haunting, wispy songs that were like some halfway station between waking and sleep.
She woke suddenly, eyes wide, with the realization that someone had just come into her room. “Who’s there?” she demanded of the darkness.
“Me,” he said.
She relaxed, sagging back against her pillows. “How did you get in?”
“Key. I remembered where you guys keep the esstra key.”
“I’ll have to remember to hide it somewhere new.”
His speech was slurred. Not extremely, but noticeably. He had been drinking. Marquez heard him fumbling around in the dark. Probably looking for the light switch.
“Don’t turn on the lights, I’m in bed,” she said.
“’Fraid I’ll see your jammies?”
“I don’t wear jam
mies,” she said coolly. She felt around in the pile of clothes near her bed for an oversize T-shirt and pulled it over her head. “J.T., why are you here?” She could barely make out the hint of his shape, still beside the door, probably leaning against the wall. Half ready to topple over and pass out. Wonderful.
“I wanted to see it,” he answered.
“See what?”
“The place where you painted out my name, erased me,” he said. “You tole me it was erased.”
“J.T., just go away,” Marquez said, alarmed now. She had told him she’d taken his name off the wall. Unfortunately she had, for reasons that escaped her now, painted him in again. If he saw that, he would get the wrong idea.
Suddenly the overhead lights snapped on. Marquez snatched at her sheets. J.T. was definitely drunk. He was swaying like a tree in a gale. He had on shorts and a T-shirt and, for some reason, a gray raincoat. His hair was a mess. He blinked like a mole in the light, shading his eyes with his hand.
“Jeez, that’s bright,” he said.
“It just seems that way because your pupils are probably twice their normal size,” Marquez said.
“I’ve been drinking. Beer. Also, I’ve been doing sad things. So don’t be all cranky with me, Marquez,” he said.
He pried himself away from the wall and walked to the middle of the room. For a long time he just stared. Stared and swayed. He swayed far enough that Marquez leaped out of bed to grab his arm and keep him from falling over.
“You said you painted over me,” he said.
“I did,” Marquez said. “But it was just this big, empty hole, so I had to put your name back in. Temporarily. Until I can think of something else.”
J.T. snorted. “You’re such a liar. You lie about everything. You lie about that.” He pointed to his name on the wall, huge, 3-D letters that made it the single biggest feature of the mural, bigger by far than it had originally been. “Plus, you lie about…everything.”
Marquez was tempted to let him go and watch him fall on his face. Instead she walked him over to the bed, lined him up, and with no unnecessary gentleness, pushed him straight back. He fell spread-eagled, faceup.
“I broke up with Lianne,” he said to the ceiling.
“Why did you do that?” Marquez demanded, There was a small refrigerator under the Formica and chrome counter. She retrieved a Coke and popped the top.
“She cried,” J.T. said, ignoring Marquez’s question. “Also cursed.”
“Well, you probably shouldn’t have broken up with her,” Marquez said, feeling guilty and vaguely triumphant, and then feeling guilty that she felt triumphant.
“Had to,” J.T. said. “She wanned to know if I was over you. Guess what the answer was?”
“Drink some of this,” Marquez said, sitting beside him and pressing the Coke into his hand. “A little caffeine. Sorry, I don’t have a coffee machine here.”
He sat up partway and took a long swig.
“I’m messed up,” he said sadly. “I don’t know what to do anymore. One minute all happy. The next…messed up.”
Marquez could not think of anything to say.
“I…I mean, I don’t even know who I am anymore. J.T.? Jonathan? I don’t know.”
“You’re whoever you always were,” Marquez said impatiently. “But you know, maybe you should see a shrink or something. Get some help.”
He nodded and smiled to himself over some secret joke. “Yeah, I need help. I need help. I need someone.”
“J.T., look, you know I’m not good at—”
“Not you,” J.T. sneered. “I don’t need you.”
“Then what the—”
“Her,” J.T. said. He swept the room with his hand, then pointed at the painted walls. “Her, that’s who I need. I need the girl who painted all this. Not you.”
Marquez swallowed hard. Typical J.T. He just had to make everything complicated when it could be so simple. He just had to pick at everything.
“Look, J.T., once and for all, I’m me, that’s me too, but I have a right to be whatever I choose. I’m not going to be some loser artsy-fartsy type selling crappy paintings to tourists on the boardwalk. So get off it.”
But he was looking at the wall, smiling and nodding, ignoring her. “That girl, she’s the one I love. She’s the one I can’t forget. I saw her once, dressed in this gown, this fancy dress, painting and…just gone, just not even part of the world anymore. Did you know that?” He focused his bleary gaze on her. His breath reeked of beer. “Did you know I was there and saw you that one time?”
“No,” Marquez lied. Why had she let him watch her?
To her amazement, since she would not have thought he could walk, he got up and went to the door. But he didn’t leave. He switched off the light. “There. Now I don’t have to see her. I better go.”
“J.T., you’re too drunk to make it home. You’ll fall in front of a truck and get run over.”
“I’ll bounce right off,” he said, giggling incongruously.
Marquez grabbed him rudely by the lapels of his raincoat and marched him back to the bed. She pulled the coat off and pushed him onto the bed.
Under the cover of darkness she unwrapped her sheet partway and spread it over both of them.
For a while she thought he might just have fallen asleep. But then he rolled closer and laid his arm across her stomach. And then, quite naturally, he kissed her.
It was not a great kiss. He was sloppy and smelly.
“I love you,” he said.
“Sleep it off,” she said roughly. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”
He held her. “I feel better now,” he said.
“J.T., let me just make this clear. I’m not going to make love to you,” she whispered.
“I don’t need you to make love,” he said. “Just love me.”
Marquez sighed. “Like I have a choice,” she said. “Jerk.”
He buried his face in her soft explosion of curls and whispered in her ear, “You’re not so tough. Just say it.”
“J.T., just go to sleep. You’re drunk, and you’re getting on my nerves,” Marquez said irascibly. She closed her eyes. “Okay. So I love you. Big deal. You make one wrong move, and I break your arm.”
11
Summer Lies to Herself, While Dolphins Tell the Truth
The woman on TV was telling a talk show host a complicated story having to do with marrying her husband’s best friend while she was still married to her husband. But it was okay, she said, because she’d only done it to get close to the live-in girlfriend of the second husband, because they shared an interest in alien abductions. Both of them had at one time been abducted love slaves of the Venusians, who, according to the woman, were really pretty nice people, once you got past the extra eye.
Summer was ironing her work uniform, messing up the annoying pleats because she was paying too much attention to the show. There were footsteps on the deck outside, and Summer found herself hoping it wasn’t Seth. Her hair was half done, she was wearing a ratty robe over a ratty T-shirt (having fallen behind on laundry), and besides, she wanted to learn more about the Venusians.
“Who is it?”
“Diana.”
“Diana?” Summer said under her breath. “Come in!” she yelled.
Diana was elegant, as always, dressed in a sarong skirt that seemed to be wrapped over a one-piece bathing suit. The striking thing, though, was the big blond wig. She looked like a cool Glamour model wearing Dolly Parton’s hair.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
“Sure. What’s up?” Summer asked, looking pointedly at the hair.
“What do you mean, what’s up? Don’t you watch TV?” Diana asked.
“We watched baseball last night.”
“Too bad. Should have watched The Last Word. Suddenly I’m famous, or infamous, or something.” She took off the wig and looked at it with amusement. “Nice, huh? It’s Mallory’s. There are six TV trucks parked out in the driveway. I thought they m
ight spot me coming down here.” She tossed the wig on Summer’s bed.
“Yeah, I noticed something going on out there. They must have run that tape you gave them, huh?” Summer said.
“Good guess,” Diana said dryly. “Now it’s like a sleaze convention in our driveway, and I have someplace I have to go—without them following me.”
“You think they’d actually follow you?”
“Mallory says I should count on it. I’m refusing to say anything more to anyone. She says that otherwise it will look as if I’m trying to exploit the situation.” Diana rolled her eyes expressively. “It turns out Mallory is pretty smart about this kind of stuff. I should have known.”
“Jeez, Diana,” Summer said, “isn’t this kind of weirding you out?”
Diana shrugged. “A little, I guess. But it’s been a weird year for me. It is gross, yes. Like now the entire country knows who I am, and that Ross tried to rape me. They disguised my face, you know, with one of those fuzzy spots, but that just increases the desire of these other creeps to get a picture.”
Summer felt a little overwhelmed. She pulled back her curtain and looked in the direction of the house. Of course, all she could see were the trees that always blocked the land view. Diana seemed cool and in control, but then, Diana had seemed perfectly cool and in control at a time when, Summer now knew, she was actively planning to commit suicide. Cool and in control didn’t necessarily mean anything.
“Jeez, Diana,” Summer said again, having thought of nothing better to say. This was a situation completely outside her experience.
Diana began unwrapping her skirt. “Anyway, look, I’ve got places to go, people to see. I want to use one of the Jet Skis under the house.”
“Well, they are yours,” Summer pointed out.
“As a matter of fact, I was going to say you’d better come with me. That is, if you’re going into work. Those guys will jump any warm body that appears, and you’d have to walk right through them. I mean, unless you want to get famous too.”
“No,” Summer said quickly, alarmed by the idea. She hadn’t told her parents about her own near run-in with Ross Merrick. It was just the first of an ever-expanding list of things she hadn’t told her parents in their weekly phone calls. She could only hope they hadn’t somehow accidentally watched any of the tabloid shows the night before.