Beach Blondes: June Dreams, July's Promise, August Magic (Summer) (7 page)

Summer left the main house and crossed the sloping lawn to the water’s edge. She walked along feeling thoughtful, enjoying the lush grass under her bare feet, wondering about Diana, about the way she had seemed almost panicked.

The little stilt house didn’t exactly look like home. Far from it. And yet Summer had a vague, almost affectionate feeling about the place. Not that she had forgotten the sagging bed or the pervasive smell of mildew, but already, after only one day, it felt as if it were hers somehow.

“Aren’t I lucky?” she said sardonically.

She crossed the walkway and stopped to slip on the sandals she’d been carrying, stepping over the little piles of bird poop. The pelican—the same pelican, she would have sworn—was sitting on the same corner of the railing, looking her over, its absurdly long beak tucked smugly down.

Summer opened the door and was surprised by the smell. Not the mildew, that was still there, but something new had been added. Fish? Yes, fish.

Fish that was frying in a cast iron skillet on her stove. The bathroom door opened, and out stepped Diver.

He’s real!
Summer realized in surprise. She’d pretty well convinced herself that Diver was a part of her strange dream the night before. But here he was, still wearing nothing but madras print trunks. Dry, this time. And his hair was dry as well, the ends just touching his broad, deeply tanned shoulders.

“Hey,” he said. “You want some fish? I have plenty. He was a big one, so we’d better be eating grouper for the next couple of days.”

“What are you doing here?” Summer squealed.

Diver looked nonplussed. “Cooking fish.”

“Excuse me, but didn’t I explain to you that
I
live here now?”

“I talked to Frank about it. He thinks we should just figure out a way to get along, you know?” Diver used a spatula to turn over first one, then another slab of fish.

“I don’t care what Frank said,” Summer insisted. “I don’t even know any Frank. Who’s Frank?”

“Frank. He’s outside. This was his place before either of us ever showed up.”

“Frank is outside? Where?”

“Out on the railing where he always is,” Diver said calmly. “I didn’t have anything to make a batter, so I’m just cooking this with some butter. I like it better batter fried, but fresh grouper’s good no matter how you cook it. And this boy is fresh. I speared it like an hour ago.”

Summer crossed the room to the window and looked outside. She could see most of the railing on that side of the house. The only thing out there was the pelican. Oh. No, that would be crazy, even for someone like Diver.

“Excuse me, but Frank isn’t, like, a bird, is he?”

“A brown pelican,” Diver confirmed.

Summer took a deep breath. “You’re crazy, aren’t you? I mean, no offense, I should probably say…sanity challenged or whatever.”

Diver looked at her severely. He was holding a spatula and was, Summer had to admit, the best-looking male she’d ever seen in real life. Insane, but devastating.

“
I’m
crazy?” Diver said, as if the idiocy of that statement was self-evident. “Frank’s been here since he was hatched, I’ve been crashing here for like six months, you just show up from Minnesota and tell me to go take a jump, and
I’m
the crazy one? How do you figure that?”

The answer was obvious, Summer knew, only she couldn’t think how to express it. “Because my aunt owns this place,” she said lamely.

Diver sneered derisively. “Yeah, right. Maybe you should go tell Frank that. Maybe
he’ll
care.”

“Frank is not the problem,” Summer said tersely. “Frank is out there, not in here.”

“Duh,” Diver said. “He’s a bird. Like he’d live in here? This is ready. If you want some, you’d better get a plate.”

“Just answer me this,” Summer said. “Are you the dangerous kind of insane or the harmless kind?”

Suddenly Diver smiled, a slow, almost shy smile that all by itself answered the question. “I guess I’m more the harmless kind. Only I’m not crazy.”

Summer thought about that for a moment. “In Minnesota you’d be crazy.”

“This isn’t Minnesota,” Diver said.

Summer squeezed past him. She grabbed two plates down from the cupboard and two more or less clean forks from the drawer. Then she followed Diver to the small round table.

“I don’t need a plate or fork,” Diver said. “I’ll eat out of the pan.”

“Of course,” Summer said. “I should have known.”

“Shouldn’t use stuff you don’t need,” Diver explained. “Otherwise everything gets used up.”

“I agree with that,” Summer admitted.

She took a bite of the fish. “Whoa, this is excellent.”

“Gotta be fresh, that’s the important thing.”

Summer watched him eat, watched him use his fingers to gingerly break pieces from the fish in the pan and pop them in his mouth. He didn’t look dangerous. If he’d wanted to hurt her, he could have done it the night before. Or now.

Of course, he could still turn out to be nuts. Only…there was something about him. Something innocent. So innocent he made Summer feel old and sophisticated. He must have been at least her age, maybe a year or two older. But his eyes held no guile, no secret agenda. He was eating fish and happy doing just that. He believed he could communicate with a big, gray-brown, poop-producing bird.

“I guess you don’t have anywhere else to live, huh?” Summer asked him.

He shook his head. “Sometimes I sleep on the beach, but the cops don’t like that.”

“Is your family from around here?”

He shook his head and formed that embarrassed, shy smile. “I’m the whole family.”

“How can that be? You must have some kind of family somewhere.”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled around a piece of fish.

“Okay, let me ask you this. Do you have any clothes? I mean, besides your bathing suit?”

“I have this shirt…somewhere.” He glanced around as if it might be somewhere nearby.

Mom and Dad would kill you, Summer, if they knew what you were thinking.

Too bad. Mom and Dad were far away. Even Aunt Mallory wasn’t there, so it was kind of up to her. “Okay, look, you have to swear to me that you won’t get weird on me,” Summer said. “I mean, any
more
weird.”

His clear, simple gaze met hers. “Okay.”

“Swear.”

“I swear I won’t weird out.”

“Okay, then you can stay. We’ll have to make up some rules, I guess, but I don’t have time right now. I’m supposed to go to a party pretty soon. The only rule I have right now is that no one else can know about you, because if my aunt found out she’d probably ship me back to my parents, who would take turns killing me and grounding me until the middle of the next century.”

“Cool. If you come home late, try not to make a lot of noise, all right? It gets Frank all upset.”

“Frank.”

“Yeah.”

“Diver, can I ask you…why do you call him Frank?”

Diver shrugged. “It’s his name.”

Footsteps on the deck outside and a knock on the door.

Summer froze. Her first panicked thought had been that somehow, by some unknown psychic means, her parents had found out and been instantly transported down to Florida.

“Hey, you in there, Summer?”

Summer relaxed. Marquez. Then she
un
relaxed. The party. Was it that late already?

“Coming!” she yelled. “That’s my friend—you have to hide,” she told Diver.

“No problem, I’m outta here.” In a flash he was down the hatchway.

Summer went to the door. Marquez was wearing skin-tight black shorts and a bright floral bikini top.

“Hey, girl,” Marquez said, looking around curiously.

“Hi. I didn’t realize it was so late,” Summer said. “Pretty impressive place, huh? All the mildew you’ll ever need.”

“It’s very unique,” Marquez said, sounding sincere. “I mean, I’ve seen this place before, of course, but I’ve never been inside. Are those Jet Skis downstairs?”

“Yes. Too bad I have no idea how to ride them. By the way, you want some fish? I, uh, cooked some.”

“I noticed, no offense,” Marquez said. “You get to use those Jet Skis?”

“I can if I want, only, like I said, I don’t know how.”

“Easy to learn. I’ll teach you.”

“That would be excellent, someday. I just have to brush my teeth real quick and then we can go,” Summer said.

“Uh-huh,” Marquez said. “You know, Summer…”

“What?” Summer answered from the bathroom.

“Well, I don’t have a car, my brother’s using it, and it’s kind of a long walk over to the Merrick estate; you have to go all the way around, it’s like two miles unless we get lucky and someone I know comes by.”

“That’s okay, I can use the exercise,” Summer said, trying to talk without dribbling toothpaste. Her mind was leaping back and forth from the impossible notion that she’d let a completely unknown guy practically share her house to the equally impossible concept that she was on her way to party at the Merrick estate.

“Of course, if we went by water across the bay, it would be much shorter.” Marquez laughed. “Shorter and a lot more exciting.”

Something about Marquez’s slightly evil laugh grabbed Summer’s attention. “Across the bay? How could we do that?”

“Of course I know how to ride a Jet Ski,” Marquez said. “I’ve lived here in the Keys all my life.”

Summer stood beside her on the little platform under the house. It was dark and a bit creepy, with the tar-coated pilings all around and the sense that the house, the entire house, might just decide to fall on their heads at any moment. She looked around, wondering where Diver had gone after running down here. He was nowhere to be seen.

“You don’t know how to ride them, do you?” Summer asked, not at all convinced.

“I’ve
seen
people ride them,” Marquez said. “And I know how to drive a car, right, so how different can it be?”

“Well, these go on water is one thing.”

Marquez knelt and pried up the seat on the first Jet Ski. Beneath it was a little waterproof locker. “See, just stick your purse and your dress in here, no problem.”

Summer pulled the other Jet Ski toward her, a move that involved leaning way out over the water, holding on to a greasy piling and hoping she didn’t fall in. The Jet Ski was tied loosely by two ropes and came easily within reach. Summer put her rolled-up dress and purse in the compartment under the seat. At Marquez’s insistence she had put on a bathing suit.

“Okay, now we just get on them,” Marquez said.

“Marquez, are we going to get ourselves killed?”

“Summer, you need to have more faith. I’ve seen total morons riding these things, and we’re not total morons.”

“Not
total,
” Summer admitted.

Marquez climbed gingerly onto her Jet Ski. She sat down and gripped the handlebars. “See?”

“Why am I letting you talk me into this?” Summer muttered.

“It will be fun. It’ll be cool. You’ll see.”

Summer climbed on the Jet Ski, which reacted to her weight by wallowing around and spinning slowly away from the platform. Her feet were in the water, but to her amazement the water was perfectly warm, almost hot.

“Okay, see this loop thing?” Marquez called out. “It’s just hanging there. You put the loop over your wrist and then you stick the pointy end in here.”

“Why?”

“’Cause you need that to start it.”

“Why don’t they just use a key, like normal machines?”

“See, because this way if you were to fall off, the loop stays on your wrist and that pulls out the pin thing so the Jet Ski stops and doesn’t go running off out into the Gulf of Mexico and end up in Haiti.”

“Are you sure this is going to be fun?”

“Absolutely. Okay, now to start it, I think you push this button, this green button. And if you want it to go, you press on this red button with your thumb.”

Marquez pressed the starter button. The Jet Ski engine coughed and sputtered. She pressed it again, and the engine roared to life. “Nothing to it!” Marquez yelled.

Summer was beginning to get a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, the feeling she often got when she knew she was doing something not exactly intelligent. But Marquez was enthusiastic, gunning her engine loudly, and the enthusiasm was contagious.

Summer started her own engine, feeling the unfamiliar vibrations through the soles of her bare feet and up through her spine.

“Okay, it started!” she yelled to Marquez.

“Better go slow till we’re out from under here,” Marquez suggested. She pressed her throttle button and the Jet Ski moved forward. Then it stopped, straining against the rope.

“I think maybe you should untie your rope!” Summer shouted, grinning. Now she was getting caught up in it. They were going to arrive at the fabulous Merrick estate on roaring Jet Skis like a couple of modern mermaids. Much cooler than showing up on foot, all worn out from the walk.