Meet Me at the Boardwalk (8 page)

T
hank God, Mom wasn’t home when I burst in, panting, dripping, nearly in tears, stinking of liquor—and, of course, wearing only my bathing suit. My head spun, but it wasn’t the punch. (No, on second thought, it
was
the punch.) I shook my hair furiously, like a wet dog. Water splattered all over the front hall. I flicked on the lights and ran to the bathroom to grab a towel.

The bad part about being drunk? It feels good for maybe the first fifteen minutes…and then it just feels confusing and miserable and sickly.

Stupid move,
I kept repeating to myself.
Stupid move to think I could actually trust and maybe even become friends with someone like Lily-Ann Roth.

And it had nothing to do with the fact that Lily-Ann made out with Miles in front of me. It was like Turquoise said: The pact party was a disaster, a failure, a bomb. Anything could go at the Cohen sisters’ party house, and it certainly had. No…what bothered me was that Lily-Ann swore to me that she hadn’t put “much” vodka in the punch. At least, that’s what I tried to convince myself was bothering me as I ran a towel through my hair and avoided looking at myself in the mirror.

As if I would even know how much was “much”? People wouldn’t be stripping otherwise, would they? It was a typical
manipulative, selfish, bubble-brained tourist move. Lily-Ann just hid her stupidity better than most. But, of course, she did. She’d made friends with her cleaning lady, because her cleaning lady happened to be best friends with the one boy-toy she
really
wanted, which wasn’t her greenhouse gardener—

The phone rang.

“Great,” I moaned.

I hurled the towel to the floor and stomped to my bedroom to pick it up. The caller ID read roth. At first I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or scream.

“Lily-Ann, it’s really not that big a deal,” I groaned, skipping the hello and cutting right to the chase. I flopped back in bed. “I just I wasn’t feeling well. The punch was stronger than you—”

“This isn’t Lily-Ann.”

I sat up. My eyes bulged. “Mr. Roth?” I whispered.

“Yes. I’m calling to tell you that you don’t need to bother showing up to clean my house tomorrow, or any time after. You’re fired. I’d also appreciate it if you stayed away from my daughter. Now will you please put your mother on?”

“I…I…” I stammered.

I wracked my brain for any plausible explanation as to why Mr. Roth would fire me. It didn’t make any sense. He’d always laughed whenever he talked to me, telling me how thrilled he was that I’d befriended his daughter.

All I could think of was this one time when I’d accidentally thrown his silk bathrobe in the washing machine. It
was hand-stitched, dry-clean only. But he’d even laughed about
that,
too. He’d said, “No worries; the shrinkage is in all the right places. I can wear it as a Hawaiian shirt now.
HAUGGH!”

“Megan, your mother?” he snapped.

I shook my head. “She isn’t here. I thought she was out to dinner with you. Look, this isn’t about the Hawaiian bathrobe, is it? Because I’ll totally buy you a new—”

“Megan, I’m home, which means I’m certain your mother is home, too.”

Sure enough, as if he’d pulled some psychic trigger, I heard the front door open.

“Listen, Mr. Roth,” I pleaded desperately. I jumped up and shut my bedroom door, cupping the phone around my hands and lowering my voice to a hiss. “I—”

“Megan,” he interrupted. “I just spent a very unpleasant few minutes watching your drunken friends as they fondled each other on my couch. Apparently, all thanks to you and your handy set of my house keys, which I
en-trust-ed
to you.” (He specially emphasized the “trust” part.) “NOW PUT YOUR MOTHER ON THE PHONE!”

I slammed the phone back down on the hook.

I couldn’t help it.

I stared at the receiver.

What did I just do?
Bad move. Jade was definitely right about one thing, this truly
was
the summer of no thinking.

“Megan, honey?” Mom called.

The phone began to ring again. I squeezed my eyes shut. But there was no point in postponing the inevitable. I steeled
my nerves, forced my lids open, and snatched up the receiver. “Mr. Roth, I—”

“Meg, it’s Jade.”

I frowned. “Jade?”

“Is your caller ID screwed up?” She was sniffling. Her voice sounded scratchy.

“I…um, no. I didn’t look. I guess I’m a little messed up tonight.”

“Oh,” she whispered.

Fear jabbed me. She was crying. “What’s wrong?”

“I am so, so sorry. But I have something to tell you.”

“You got me fired by making out with Sean Edwards in my boss’s house, after raiding his liquor cabinet?” I said. I’d out-Jaded Jade herself.

Mom knocked on the door. “Megan?”

“Mom, just give me a second! I’m on the phone with Jade, okay?”

“Okay, but we need to talk,” Mom answered. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Wonderful,
I thought.
This is shaping up to be the greatest night of my life.

Jade hadn’t uttered so much as a peep. Now she was out-Megging me.

“Jade?” I said. “I don’t have much time—”

“If it’s the last thing I ever do on this planet, I am going to make it up to you,” Jade sobbed. She drew in a deep shaky breath. “You can have every single cent I’ve ever made at the Jupiter Bounce. Not just this summer, either, but last
summer and the year before that. Dad made me put it all in a savings account.”

“Jade, I don’t want your summer job money.”

She sniffled again.

“Sorry, that came out wrong,” I muttered.

“What
do
you want? Anything. Just tell me.”

A vision of Miles drifted through my mind. A specific vision…the one I’d seen not too long ago: the way he’d swept Lily-Ann Roth into his arms and made out with her in the middle of the pool. In the rain.

But I didn’t think Jade would ever be able to give me Miles. And for that reason, I sort of hated my best friend then.

“H
ello?” I said, gripping my cell phone. I stared at the glowing numbers on the clock next to my bed. It was nearly two in the morning. I was confused, guilt-ridden, and cotton-mouthed. (I guess that means hungover.) My leg hurt, too. It always hurt when it rained. Not to mention that the last thing I remembered clearly was kissing Lily-Ann good night…which now, for some reason, made me feel even
more
ill.

“He’s doing it,” Megan finally said. I could barely hear her.

“Who’s doing what?” I asked. I remembered how stricken Megan had looked when she’d seen me kissing Lily-Ann.
Why
had she looked so upset? Because I’d broken the pact? Why did I
feel
so upset?

Unless—

“Mr. Roth is going to tear down the boardwalk, Miles.”

“When did you find out?” I cleared my throat.

“Tonight. A few hours ago.”

“He’s going to tear down the boardwalk to build a dock?”

She let out a long sigh. “Yes, Miles. I can tell you a fourth time, if you’d like.”

“But I just don’t…I mean don’t you understand what this means? If Arnold Roth tears down the boardwalk and
builds a dock, jutting right out of Main Street, it’ll completely ruin the surfing. It’ll split the tide from where the waves break. Surfing will be over in this town, seriously. Seashell Point will be just some lame beach town. I mean, isn’t that part of the draw for the tourists? The surfing? Your mom knows that. If that dock goes up, it’ll be too dangerous, unless we want to pull what they did in
Dogtown and Z-boys,
surfing under the piers—”

“What do you care so much about surfing anymore, anyway?” Megan demanded.

Ouch.
I scowled at the phone for a second.

Megan was acting totally un-Megan-like. It wasn’t just the hour—the latest she’d ever called in the past was at midnight, tops, right after
The Colbert Report
. But the surfing jab was plain cruel. It was even too cruel for Jade, who pushed the cruelty envelope much harder than Megan ever had.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, after I’d collected myself.

“You seem fine with skateboarding,” she said. “So did the kids in that documentary. A documentary you wouldn’t have seen if it weren’t for me, by the way.”

I scratched my wet, sandy scalp, desperately trying to get a grip on the conversation. “I never said I wouldn’t…Megan, why are you pissed at me right now?”
Other than the fact that I broke the pact right in front of you
.

“I’m not pissed at
you.
I’m pissed at the stupid Roth family.”

“Okay, okay.” I lowered my voice, just in case my parents woke up.

“I mean, come on, Miles. My mom comes home, marches into the kitchen, and tells me that there’s this crazy plan to tear down the boardwalk and build a dock that leads to a big ‘floating casino.’ ” She let out a bitter little laugh. “The best part? They’re gonna make the announcement at Clam-Fest. You should hear the name of the ship, too. It’s perfect.”

I held my breath. She kept quiet.

“Megan?”

“
The Royal We
,” she said.

I started cracking up. I couldn’t help it. “Are you serious?”

“That’s why we’re on the phone at two
A.M.
, isn’t it?”

My laughter stopped. “All right, I’m gonna say it now. You’re pissed because you saw me making out with Lily-Ann at the pact party, right? Well, I’m sorry, but honestly, it was just one of those things that kind of happened, like when you made out with Sean Edwards. I mean Turquoise came in, and said the pact was over, anyway. And, see, I get that Lily-Ann is the daughter of the guy who hires you to clean his house, and now he’s—”

“You don’t get anything.”

“What?”

“He’s not that guy anymore,” Megan said.

I knit my brow. I could hear her soft breathing on the other end. It sounded as if she were about to cry.

“He’s not the guy who hires me to clean his house. He fired me.”

“What?
Why?”

“Because I’m not the only one who made out with Sean Edwards. It seems Jade made out with Sean Edwards, too. Only,
she
poached my keys from my skirt—”

“MILES!”

My mom threw my door open, baggy-eyed, wearing a ridiculous pajama combo.

“Hi, Mom,” I whispered.

“Stop talking on your cell phone or we’re confiscating it,” she said.

“Okay.”

Luckily, Megan overheard this fascinating bit of conversation. I knew she had, because she hung up before we could talk any further.

I was actually relieved.

All I needed was sleep and to pretend that this night had never happened.

I
’d successfully spent Sunday in bed, pretending that I was
so
damaged from Lily-Ann Roth’s punch that I couldn’t possibly move (or help clean up).

Turquoise didn’t utter a single word of protest. She just busied herself in silence—turning our little bungalow back into the immaculate home it would have been if Dad were there to supervise. She’d even gone to Clement’s to pick up dish towels. But I couldn’t tell if she’d done that just to make me feel worse. I sort of doubted it. Like Sean, Turkey was suddenly
cool.
Why the hell wasn’t I? Her silence, in a way, was almost as disturbing to me as the fact that Megan hadn’t answered or returned the five phone calls I’d made, or the one final desperate text.

meg, sorry & luv u. please forgive me for ruining ur summer. if u can.

I regretted pressing send as soon as I’d…well, pressed send. Of all the things I am least a fan of, in no particular order: 1) Evil spiked punch home-brewed by Miles’s new tourist girlfriend, 2) Text shorthand, 3) Corniness, and 4) Lame apologies.

Sunday came and went without a peep from Megan.

Surprisingly, though, Sean Edwards called me. We’d said a stunned, awkward good-bye on Saturday night. But he
called on Sunday to see how I was doing, and the sound of his deep voice and easy laugh instantly comforted me. And I found myself thinking,
Sean lives year-round in D.C. That’s not so far. We could do weekends
…

Then I got a grip. I couldn’t date Sean, the tourist whom Megan had kissed. Things were feeling incestuous enough already.

When I got to the boardwalk on Monday morning, Miles was already there, tooling around on his skateboard. Aside from him, the boardwalk was deserted. I don’t think I’d ever seen the sky so bright blue at this hour in the summer. There was a post-rainstorm chill in the air, too. It felt a lot more like October than July…fitting, I suppose. There’s nothing like a little early fall depression to get the juices flowing. Miles wore a black Windbreaker and black wool cap, pulled so tightly over his blond hair that only a few wisps poked out from the back.

“Getting an early start on the day, are we?” I asked with big phony cheer. Dumb humor was about the only thing I could turn to at this point.

“Ha, ha.” He didn’t even look at me. He twirled once more on his board, and then kicked it up into his hands and turned toward the beach. The morning sun lit up his face like a giant golden spotlight.

“Okay, why are you so grumpy?” I asked. “You’re the one with the hot new girlfriend, right?”

He whirled around, his jaw twitching. “She’s not my
girlfriend. But I will say this: At least, we didn’t break into her dad’s mansion and have sex on their couch.”

My stomach plummeted. “I did not…I did not…”

“Have sexual relations with that person?” Miles said. “Please, Jade, you’re a lousy liar. Lying is not your specialty.”

“Miles, please, let me just explain—”

“Explain
what
?” he shouted. “You stole Megan’s keys and you hooked up with a lame tourist who you’ve been ragging on for your entire LIFE! And you got Megan fired in the process. Congratulations. I guess you really
do
hate this town.”

My eyes began to sting. My throat worked convulsively, but I couldn’t manage to swallow. “Miles,” I gasped. “I feel like crap for getting Meg fired. But I didn’t have sex with Sean Edwards. We made out a little, just like you made out with Lily-Ann. Also, Sean Edwards really isn’t all that lame. He’s a good guy. Really.”

Miles blinked at me.

“What else do you want me to say?” I asked. I’d cried, or come close to crying,
way
too many times in the last forty-eight hours. “Megan offered me the keys, just so you know. Not that it’s an excuse or makes anything better, but she told Sean and me to go to their house and watch
Twelve Apes
.”

Miles cracked a grin and stared back out at the ocean. “
Twelve Monkeys
.”

“Oh.” I almost smiled. “Well, we never got a chance to watch the movie.”

For a minute or two we were both silent. It actually could have been an hour, or it could have been fifteen seconds; whatever the length, it was excruciating. Then Miles let out a deep long sigh and tossed his skateboard back on wooden planks.

“You know, they really are tearing down this whole boardwalk,” he said so quietly that I could barely hear him. “They’re gonna build a dock that leads to a casino boat. They’re gonna ruin all the surfing, so people can gamble instead.”

I chewed my lip, resisting the temptation to reassure him that all this boardwalk stuff was just dumb gossip. “Is that what Lily-Ann said?” I asked.

“Megan. Last night on the phone. She said Roth was gonna make the announcement at Clam-Fest next month.”

“Oh.” A lone teardrop slipped down my cheek. I wasn’t crying, though. Absolutely not. It was just the wind and the unseasonable coldness. I quickly wiped it away before Miles could see. “She told you this on the phone, after…” Again, I resisted a serious temptation to add:
After you smooched Lily-Ann Roth good night?
“Miles, there really is something I have to ask you. Did you
ever
tell Megan that we—”

“I didn’t tell Megan anything. You know I wouldn’t.”

I nodded. “Got it.” Well, this conversation had gone on about long enough. So I reverted to my usual M.O. I turned and ran away—Sarah-and-the-Jupiter-Bounce be damned. Why care about work? As far as summer jobs went, I was
only good at getting myself or my best friends fired. Miles didn’t call after me. As my flip-flops slapped the boardwalk, I only prayed that Turkey would still be asleep, so I could crawl into my cozy little shell of a bed.

Turquoise was awake.

Of course, she was. She was slurping coffee at the kitchen table, glued to her laptop, with a bunch of thick law books strewn everywhere. She’d go blind if she kept staring at that screen eighteen hours a day. Which it seemed she already had, given her new penchant for hideous secondhand skirts and tie-dyed concert T-shirts.

“What are you doing home?” she asked. “Don’t you have work?”

I slumped into the chair across from her. “What’s the point of working?” I lay my head on the table, burying my face in the crook of my arm. “They’re gonna tear down the boardwalk, anyway. I figured I might as well say good-bye to the Jupiter Bounce now. Less painful that way.”

“Jade, are you okay?”

“Fine,” I mumbled.

“Jade, look at me.”

I lifted my head. “What?”

Turquoise shoved her laptop aside and gave me one of those annoying, smarter-older-sister stares. “What’s going on? I mean it. Something just happened. What is it?”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Because I am your sister,” she said simply, as if she’d read my mind.

For some stupid asinine reason, that made my throat tighten all over again. I resumed my ostrich-in-the-sand, head-in-arm slouch. “Miles and I got into a fight.”

“About the party? About breaking the pact?”

I wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. It
was
about all that, but in other ways, it wasn’t about that at all. It was about Miles and me, and how we had this secret that we were still keeping from Megan. “Sort of,” I mumbled. “I don’t even know. I got Meg fired, and he’s really pissed off about it.”

“Jade, you did not get Megan fired,” Turquoise soothed.

I raised my head again. “I broke into her employer’s home and made out with her gardener on their couch—oh, while under the influence of alcohol. Those are the facts, Turkey. You lawyers
do
have a keen eye for the facts.”

Turquoise laughed. “Those actually aren’t the facts. At least, not all of them.”

“You want to explain?” I asked, and I meant it. At this point, even a lecture from Turquoise would be tolerable, if only to ease my shattered conscience.

“Megan told you to take the keys. I heard her. Your going to the Roths’ was
her
idea.”

I hesitated for a moment. I tried to replay the series of events, but most of it was lost in the red haze of that punch. I guess I remembered, though, that Megan
had
said that Sean
and I should watch the movie (whatever it was called) at the Roths’ because the house was empty.

“Let me ask you something else,” Turquoise continued. “Creating the pact? Whose idea was that? It wasn’t yours, was it? It was Megan’s.”

I frowned. “Yeah. I guess so. She said she wanted all of us to spend the summer bonding, because it would be our last summer together before college.”

Turquoise reached across the table and laid a hand on my arm. “Jade, when was the last time Megan made a grand pronouncement like that?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She didn’t want Miles to hook up with anyone,” she whispered. “And I’m sure Miles didn’t want anyone to hook up with
her.
Why do you think she ran off like that on Saturday night? She saw Miles with Lily-Ann. It was too much.”

I leaned back in the kitchen chair, more baffled than I’d been all weekend. “Too much for what? Turkey, this isn’t an episode of
Law & Order.
Stop playing an attorney for once and just actually spell it out.”

“Fine.” She pursed her lips and stood to refill her coffee cup. “Megan is in love with Miles,” she said. She poured from the pot in the machine, and then blew on the steaming mug, studying it as if it held the secrets to the universe. “I don’t blame her. If I were five years younger…but whatever—the point is the only time Megan ever steps up is if Miles is
in danger of hooking up with someone. You’re competition, too, you know that? I bet you didn’t. That’s why she wanted you to leave with Sean Edwards. She and Miles are meant for each other. They always have been.”

I gaped at her. “Are you on drugs right now? Seriously. What’s in that coffee? Megan is
not
in love with Miles. Nobody is meant for ANYBODY.”

Turquoise just smiled in that extremely irritating, condescending way she has. And doubt started to creep in.

“Maybe,” I murmured.

“Oh, Jade?” she said.

“Yes?” I didn’t turn around.

“If you really did quit, you might want to use your spare time to clean up a little.”

“Clean up? This place looks like it’s been disinfected by a surgical team.” I marched toward my room. “Nice job, by the way,” I added grudgingly.

“You’re welcome. And I’m not saying you have to clean up right this second. I’m just saying in general over the next few days. Until Thursday.”

I paused in the narrow hallway. “Why? What happens Thursday?”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot to tell you since you were such a wreck yesterday…but Dad called. Nana’s coming up to visit for Clam-Fest. We’ll do the usual downtown dinner thing, but she’ll be spending all next weekend with us. At least, she’ll be able to stay in Dad’s room this time. I know
you get bummed when she stows her slips and bras in your drawers.”

Now
that
was a sexy image.

I slammed my door and crawled into bed, shutting my eyes. I deliberately avoided looking at all the dumb, goofy photos of Megan and Miles I’d taped to the wall or thumbtacked above my desk. This was supposed to be
our
summer. Where had it all gone wrong?