Girls in Love (5 page)

Jessica pulled the bedsheet up tightly over her body, and then, thirty seconds later, kicked it off again, flopping over onto her stomach and burying her face in her down pillow. After lying like that for a while, she realized that she was getting light-headed from lack of oxygen, and so she turned back onto her side.

Out the window she could see the moon dancing on the water. The reassuring sound of the surf filled the quiet room. But she was not reassured. She was awake and rest-less, thinking about Connor.

She sighed loudly and flopped over onto her other side.

“Good God,” cried Lara from the bunk bed below her.
“What’s your problem, Jess? It’s like trying to sleep underneath a wrestling match or something.”

From the double bed on the other side of the room (of course Greer had scored the double bed) came a snort of laughter. “It’s true,” Greer said, sounding sleepy herself. “You’ve been tossing and turning for an hour. What gives?”

Jessica stopped flopping around and lay still, staring up at the ceiling. She wasn’t sure how to talk to her cousins about what was going on—or, rather, what
wasn’t
going on—between her and Connor. Greer and Lara were so much more experienced with the physical stuff that Jessica felt embarrassed. She sighed again.

“Really, Jess,” Lara said. “Enough sighing. Out with it.”

“Fine,” Jessica huffed, sitting up in bed and letting her legs dangle down over the edge. “It’s about Connor.”

“Duh,” Lara cried, swatting at Jessica’s feet. “It’s not like we thought you were up there worrying about your lacrosse tryouts.”

“Yeah,” Greer added from the corner. “Though thank God you made varsity last year. You and Connor certainly practiced enough.” She paused, then went on slyly. “Though I always thought you should have been kissing him the
whole time rather than kicking his ass on the athletic field.” She giggled, and Jessica tossed one of her pillows at her.

“This is serious, you guys,” Jessica pleaded. She really needed their advice; otherwise she’d never sleep another moment in her life. She’d have to spend every night tossing and turning until Connor finally explained why he’d turned her down. She gathered her courage—it was so hard to talk about this stuff. “Remember how I told you that Connor and I had talked about…um…”

“About losing your virginities together,” Lara interjected helpfully.

Jessica nodded in the dark room, even though neither Lara nor Greer could see her. “Right. Well, I’m ready, and I thought he was, too. I mean, we talked about it, like, all year. But the other night, during the party, we were making out in this beautiful spot on the beach, and I thought we would, you know, go for it—or at least get
close
to it. But then he stopped me.”

Greer whistled in disbelief. “A red-blooded American male actually discouraging a girl from going all the way? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Are you sure he’s not some kind of alien, sent to study our strange human ways?”

Jessica heard Lara’s bright laugh bubble up from the bed beneath her. “Yeah. There’s obviously something deeply disturbed about a guy who doesn’t want to do it with a hottie like you.”

“Or maybe he’s a cyborg,” Greer offered thoughtfully, “or a robot like in that Bruce Willis movie.”

Jessica knew her cousins were just trying to lighten the mood, but their teasing made her feel worse. She stared at the dark ceiling. “Seriously, guys, I don’t get it. What do you think is going on? Do you think he doesn’t like me as much as he used to? Or if it’s not that, what’s the problem? Maybe he…” She could barely make herself say the words. “Maybe there’s…someone else.”

She waited while her cousins thought for a moment.

“Obviously he adores you,” Lara assured her from below, and Jessica felt instantly relieved. “Remember how he swept you up the moment he saw you? He wouldn’t change his mind that fast. No boy is capable of such quick thinking.”

Greer turned on her reading light and held up the copy of
Seventeen
magazine she’d been reading before they went to bed. She pointed to the cover. “It says in here that communication is the key to a great romance,” she commented. “Personally I think a set of six-pack abs is more crucial, but I’m not the expert they chose to consult for this article. The point is, maybe you should ask Connor what’s up.”

Jessica fell back into her bed. “I can’t,” she wailed. “I’m too embarrassed!”

Lara got up from her bed and padded over to the window overlooking the rocky, moonlit beach. “Look,”
she said, pointing to the black outlines of the trees sil-houetted against the sparkling water. “You’re in one of the most romantic places on earth. But even romance demands practicality.” She yawned and stretched sleepily. “So you need to plan a date night. A really, really great date night, where you dress up, you flirt, you share a little wine—”

“Then you seduce him!” Greer squealed.

Lara sighed. “Greer,” she said, her voice sounding tired, “be serious. We’re going for subtlety. Jessica tried throwing herself at him already and it didn’t work. Connor needs
wooing.
”

Greer folded her arms across her chest defiantly. “But I
was
being serious. You go on a great date—you know, eating dinner, watching the sun set, holding hands, all that—and then I guarantee you he’ll be trying to take your clothes off by ten
P.M.
”

Lara walked over and put her hand gently on Jessica’s ankle. “You’ll have to excuse Greer—she has the patience of a six-year-old.”

Greer harrumphed from her corner and flipped the pages of her magazine.

“But she has a point,” Lara went on, clambering back into her bunk. “If you don’t feel like you can talk to Connor about this stuff right now, then don’t. Instead you can just be sweet to him and enjoy a romantic evening together and
see where things lead. But I promise you it’s not about something you’ve done wrong, or some other girl he’s suddenly decided that he likes.”

Jessica let herself sigh one last time, and then she said, “Okay, you’re probably right.” She plumped up her pillow and pulled the jacquard comforter up to her chin. Her cousins were older and wiser, and she should trust them. “Thanks, guys. I think I feel a little better.”

“Anytime,” Lara said. “Now let’s pester Greer about her love life.”

At that, Greer dove down under the covers, prompting squeals from both Jessica and Lara.

“Tell, tell!” Jessica practically shrieked, immediately forgetting her woes. If cool-as-a-cucumber Greer was burying her head under the blankets, there must be a good reason for it. Or, more accurately, a hot-male reason for it.

After another few seconds, Greer reemerged with an embarrassed grin on her face. “Hunter Brown,” she said mysteriously, and then pretended to be absorbed in her
Seventeen
magazine again.

“Stop torturing us,” Lara cried, and Greer closed the magazine and looked up at them, blinking innocently.

“He’s my tennis coach,” Greer admitted after a moment, which sparked Lara to make a tsk-tsk sound. “Yeah,” she went on, rolling her eyes, “I’m hot for teacher. But the thing is, it’s not just that he’s my coach.” She gazed for a moment
at the wall of Lara’s movie posters and then went on. “It’s that we already hooked up at Chace’s party.”

“Whoa, Speedy Gonzales! You met him that night and hooked up with him?” Jessica asked incredulously. She couldn’t believe how fast her cousin moved. Were all New Yorkers as audacious as Greer?

“Arriba,”
Greer said drily, nodding as if it were no big deal. “Then I blew him off because he’s got ‘player’ written all over him. I mean, he might as well have it tattooed on his forehead.” A rueful smile appeared on her face and then quickly vanished. “He swears he’s a good guy, but I don’t buy it. He’s really cute, and he’s totally charming. But I saw him practically drool over some girl at the athletic club the other day. And he’s telling me I can trust him?”

“Wow,” Jessica said. She sympathized—she’d crushed out on a major player last summer (who also just happened to be Connor’s older brother, Liam), and even though nothing had come of it, the memory still stung. She snuggled farther down into her bed and thought about how glad she was that she and Connor were together, even if things weren’t particularly smooth between them at the moment.

From beneath her, Lara’s soft voice came out with another suggestion. “What if you test Hunter’s boyfriend potential, Greer?” she asked. “So you can find out if he means what he says, and see if his good-guy story holds up.” Lara was full of clever ideas tonight, it seemed.

Greer looked doubtful in the soft glow of her reading lamp. “I swore off games, too,” she said. “Even though I didn’t write that down on our list of goals.”

“Where is that list, by the way?” Jessica queried. “You’d better still have it.”

Greer bristled slightly. “Of course I do. Your little secrets are safe with me.”

Lara sighed and rolled over. “But back to the matter at hand, ladies. Greer, if you don’t test Hunter, you might never know if he’s angel or devil—”

Greer held up a manicured hand in surrender. “Fine, fine, you’re right. I’ll do it. I’ll figure something out.”

And Jessica, who always wanted to believe the best about people, added, “I’m sure you’ll find out he’s the perfect guy for you.”

“Maybe,” Greer said. But she sounded doubtful, and her expression was clouded.

Lara yawned loudly. “Okay, now that we’ve got everything settled, let’s go to sleep. I’ve got to work tomorrow, unlike you lazy layabouts.”

Greer and Jessica chuckled and then they all closed their eyes, though Jessica still tossed and turned a bit. This time, though, instead of worrying about Connor, she was planning the best date ever.

After nearly two weeks passed with no phone call from Marco, Lara began to regret giving him her number that day at Ahoy Grill. First her boyfriend (
ex-boyfriend
, the little voice in her head corrected her) had vanished into the Vermont woods, and then Marco had disappeared into the rocky coves of Pebble Beach. It was just one more blow to her ego. For all she knew, Marco had asked for her digits only so he could rope her into babysitting that crabby little sister of his. Lara was an only child—and glad of it—but somehow people always looked at her and thought “excellent babysitting material!” She couldn’t for the life of her figure out why.

So when her phone rang on a Thursday at five with a number she didn’t recognize, she almost ignored it. She was
deep into Jane Austen’s
Emma
, and was looking forward to a quiet night of reading and sipping iced tea on the patio. But then Greer walked by in some flowing beach-gown thing and said, “Please answer that. Your ringtone is really annoying.”

So Lara had obeyed her, only to find Marco on the other end of the line. Her heart flipped over and before she could think, he was asking her if she wanted to go on a picnic.

Asking her out!

Lara hesitated for a few beats while Marco whistled non-chalantly into her ear. “Go ahead and put me on hold while you think about it,” he teased. “I’ll pretend I’m calling the credit card company or something. Those people take forever.”

Lara laughed. What was the harm in a little picnic? “Sure,” she said. “I’d love to.”

Marco stopped whistling immediately. “Perfect. I’ll grab the goods and then I’ll be there in half an hour.”

She almost told him yes, that sounded great, but then she realized that she didn’t want to have to introduce him to any of the Tuttles—and especially not Jessica. Lara’s desire for secrecy made her feel deceptive, which was a sentiment she did not enjoy. After all, she considered herself a generally honest and trustworthy person.
And
, that annoying little voice in her head reminded her
, being sneaky is precisely the
opposite
of your summer goal.
“I want to stop keeping
secrets from people I love,” she’d said, and Greer had written it down in her terrible handwriting and then hidden the paper in her massive purse.

On the other end of the line, Marco cleared his throat. “Hello? Am I on hold again?”

Lara thought of his dark, laughing eyes, and his strong, tan shoulders. She remembered how he’d made her laugh that day at Ahoy with his silly pun about Chile.
Drew isn’t your boyfriend anymore
, she reminded herself.
He chose camp over you.

She took a deep breath. “How about I meet you at the pier?”

“Perfect,” Marco said.

They agreed to find each other at the far end, near where the old men fished, and Marco assured her that she didn’t need to bring anything but her pretty self. So Lara quickly slipped out of her tank top and cutoffs and put on a vintage sundress in a white and kelly green print, which she complemented with yellow flats and a big pair of white-framed sunglasses. She glanced at herself in the mirror as she nervously fluffed her short, black bob. She looked…what was the word? Gamine. A little Audrey Hepburn-ish, with a dash of flower child. The blue necklace Drew had given her for Christmas glittered in the hollow of her clavicle. (She liked it too much not to wear it just because she and its original purchaser were no longer speaking.)

She took one of the house bicycles and peddled slowly down the winding road to the pier, hoping the cool, salty breeze would ease the jitteriness she felt. As she passed by one of the picturesque white lighthouses that dotted the Maine coastline, she told herself that she wasn’t necessarily going on a date. Because she didn’t think she was quite ready for that yet. What she was ready for, though, was a big sandwich and a bag of chips, because it was nearly six o’clock and she was starving. Something about the ocean air made her ravenous.

Marco was leaning over the railing at the far end of the weathered pier, gazing down into the blue-green water. She went up to him and, striking up her courage, touched his shoulder warmly. He turned around, offering her a wide and welcoming smile.

“You look beautiful,” he said, and she ducked her head in happy embarrassment. He pointed to the row of old men who lined up along the pier’s edge, clutching fishing poles. “So I thought we could just grab one of the fish that these old dudes catch and fry him up down on the beach,” he said. “What do you think?”

She stared at him. Was he being serious? She really didn’t want to watch him gut some poor fish for her dinner.

But Marco reached out and laid his hand on her shoulder. “I’m kidding,” he reassured her, still smiling. “I brought
Caprese
sandwiches, deviled eggs, and a salad of mizuna greens and olives.”

“Whew!” Lara breathed. “I was worried there for a minute.” She loved the mozzarella, basil, and tomato of a
Caprese
sandwich, and though she wasn’t sure what mizuna greens were, she was prepared to like them.

Marco turned and led her back along the pier the way she’d come, holding the picnic basket in one hand and wheeling her bike chivalrously with the other. She locked the old Schwinn to a rack near the parking lot, and then they navigated down along giant dark rocks until they found themselves on the pebbly beach.

“I considered getting takeout from Ahoy Grill,” Marco admitted, “but then I decided you’d probably had your share of the blue plate special over there.”

Lara nodded vigorously. “It’s hardly even July and I’m already sick of the food there. I mean, it’s good and all, but there’s only so much of Earl’s cooking a person can take. He puts six tablespoons of butter into
everything.
”

“I feel that way about my dad’s cooking,” Marco said, carefully sidestepping a jellyfish that had washed onto the shore. “He thinks he’s a gourmet chef or something, just because he sprinkles freshly chopped herbs over things. I keep telling him that Hamburger Helper is Hamburger Helper no matter how much rosemary you add to it.”

Lara laughed knowingly—she could sympathize. “My mom’s not the greatest cook, either. She’s kind of a get-it-from-the-freezer-section-at-Trader-Joe’s-and-pop-it-in-the-oven person.” Her mother had gotten more interested in cooking since her marriage to Mike, who was himself quite skilled in the kitchen, but she still tended to cook out of boxes and cans more than she ought to. Lara and Mike had been trying to educate her, though; they’d finally convinced her that making her own tomato sauce for pasta was almost as easy as—and infinitely better than—sauce from a jar.

Marco’s dark eyes flashed with humor. “Well, it’s a good thing we didn’t have to rely on either of them for our picnic. Here, does this look like a nice spot?”

They’d come to a little cove where the water lapped gently at the shore. Little sandpipers dashed this way and that along the edge of the water, and above them the gulls wheeled and turned in the sky. Slender, white boats with multicolored sails sliced across the bay.

“It’s perfect,” Lara said, and she meant it. She sank down onto a large rock that was still warm from the sun. This was nothing like the summers she’d spent in Chicago, sweltering in the humidity and bored out of her mind. Here the air was clean and fresh and she felt truly, magically alive.

Marco spread out a soft, blue blanket and she abandoned her rock to sit cross-legged on it while he laid out their spread. Besides the food he’d told her about, there were also sliced fresh strawberries with mint, two bars of dark chocolate (her favorite), and a bottle of
vinho verde.

“
Vinho verde
—green wine?” Lara asked, reading the label.

Marco nodded. “It’s Portuguese. It’s a young wine, with a little bit of fizz. Very refreshing.” He paused. “Not to sound like some snooty wine guy or something. I like a good India Pale Ale myself, but I thought you looked like a wine drinker.”

“Very perceptive,” Lara acknowledged. “So are you going to pour me some already?”

Marco grinned and obeyed, and they clinked their plastic cups together. “Here’s to an excellent summer,” Marco said.

“Cheers,” Lara added, and they both took a sip.

As they ate, they complained about high school and shared war stories about bad after-school jobs. Lara was surprised to find that they had a lot in common: They shared a love for film noir, the novels of Graham Greene, and pizza with anchovies. They both hated extreme sports, the starchy sauces on Chinese food, and the band Fall Out Boy.

“Pete Wentz?” Lara asked. “Count me out!”

Marco shook his head vigorously. “He’s almost as bad as Ashlee Simpson-Wentz.”

The food Marco had packed was delicious, and the wine was sparkly and tart and delectable—like drinking champagne mixed with apple cider. Lara found herself draining her glass more quickly than she was used to, and pretty soon she felt pleasantly loopy.

She lay back on the blanket and stared at the slowly darkening sky. “There are so many stars here. In Chicago I can only see about ten, and that’s only if there’s no moon. What about you? What’s Albany like?”

Marco grimaced slightly; apparently his hometown was not one of his favorite places. “We’re only there because my mom is head of Latin American studies at the university. She’s hoping for a job at Bowdoin, or maybe Bates or Colby, so we can be back in Maine.” He popped the last deviled egg in his mouth. “We’re
all
hoping she gets one. We miss it here. We used to live here year-round, back when Marcela was a baby.”

Lara imagined a young Marco running up and down the beach chasing birds and hunting for seashells. The thought made her smile.

“What are you thinking about?” Marco asked softly.

Lara hesitated, and then answered honestly. “You,” she said.

Marco raised his eyebrows slightly, and he seemed
about to make a joke. But then he must have thought better of it, because he leaned toward her.

He’s going to kiss me
, Lara thought.
What should I do?
But before she could answer her own question, his lips were against hers. They were soft and warm and gentle, and she felt herself responding, almost against her will. An image of Drew flashed in her mind, but she closed her eyes more tightly until it vanished. As she opened her mouth and their tongues touched, she felt a surge, like an electric current, travel from her lips down through her body and all the way to her toes. She let herself fall into the kiss, and then after a few moments she reluctantly pulled away.

“Um,” she said.

Marco looked at her with his beautiful dark eyes. “Too fast?” he asked. “Should I have waited until after dessert to kiss you?”

Lara laughed shyly. “I just…Oh, I don’t know.” She didn’t want to tell him about her recent heartbreak, but the words were at the tip of her tongue.

Marco shrugged good-naturedly. “All right,” he said. “Let’s back up a bit. We were talking about Maine. And before that you were saying how you don’t approve of digital cameras because you feel that the impermanence of the digital image only contributes to the throwaway consumerist culture that we live in.”

Lara laughed and felt her cheeks turn red. “God, do I really sound like that?”

“
And
,” Marco went on, even though she held up her hands in protest, “you were also talking about how our consumerist system, which equates conspicuous consumption with personal well-being, economic progress, and social ful-fillment, is a recipe for social and ecological disaster.”

Lara put her hands over her ears. “Stop!” she cried. “Please stop.” It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in the truth of what she’d said—it was just that it sounded so…well,
pretentious
coming out of Marco’s mouth. “I blame my diatribe on your
vinho verde
,” she announced, folding her arms in defiance. But it was cute how much attention he’d paid to what she said.

“Oh, yeah,” Marco said. “
Vinho verde
often induces anti-capitalist fervor. It says so on the back of the bottle.” He pointed to the label.

She swatted his broad shoulder. “Shut up,” she giggled.

“All kidding aside, though,” he offered, “I do think you have a point. We waste way too much here in America.”

Lara sighed. It was true. But she didn’t want to talk about serious stuff anymore. She wanted to eat her dessert and then kiss Marco again. She glanced over at him, and found that he was gazing at her intently. By the look in his
eyes, she could tell that he didn’t care one bit about the dark chocolate he’d brought, or the fresh strawberries.

She smiled at him shyly, and then leaned a little toward him. And then Marco reached out and cupped her face with his hands. She slid her arms around his waist. After another minute, they were kissing again, hungrily. She felt his hands moving over her dress. She let out a little moan that was part pleasure, part protest. She felt like she shouldn’t be doing this—wasn’t a person supposed to wait a little while before hooking up with someone new?—but it felt so good. She shifted around to get more comfortable in the sand and Marco leaned over, pressing his body against hers.

Her fingers traced a line up his smooth back and then reached down to grasp his hips, pulling them against hers. She heard Marco’s breath in her ear.

But even with her arms around Marco, Lara still couldn’t quite shake the thought of Drew.
Who said anything about the rest of our lives?
he’d asked her.
No one did
, she thought fiercely.

Then Marco buried his face in her neck and kissed her collarbone and nibbled on her ear, and after that she thought only of him.

They lay like that for an hour, just kissing and touching each other, though to Lara it felt like only a few minutes. Then Marco reluctantly pulled himself away from her. “I
promised my folks I’d be home at eleven,” he said. “We’re heading out for a really early sail.”

Lara sat up and rearranged her dress, which had gotten very wrinkled in their make-out session. “It’s probably for the best,” she allowed. “This isn’t the most private place in the world.”