Beach Blondes: June Dreams, July's Promise, August Magic (Summer) (2 page)

Summer braced herself as she went in through the terminal doors, ready for the inevitable hug, the affectionate assault of “hello-how-are-you-how’s-your-dad-and-mom” questions.

But they didn’t come. All around her, people squealed and hugged and slapped each other’s backs. But no one was waiting for her.

Summer took a hopeful look around and shifted her bag from one shoulder to the other. The crowd broke up and wandered away. Summer began looking more closely at some of the people sitting nearby. She hadn’t seen her cousin Diana or her aunt Mallory in years. Not since Christmas four years ago when Diana had been thirteen and Summer had been twelve. Maybe they had changed, maybe they looked different. A lot different.

But no. They weren’t there. Maybe they’d forgotten her. Did she even have her aunt’s phone number? Sure. Somewhere. Probably. But wait, was she even here on the right day? Was this the right place?

“Don’t be a baby, Summer,” she ordered herself. Her aunt and cousin were just a little late. She should just go ahead and pick up her luggage. They’d get here eventually.

As she walked to the baggage claim area, she noticed an obvious fact: virtually everyone was more tan than she was. More tan with less clothing. Hers was the only pair of jeans. Hers were the only pants, period, aside from a pair on a security guard.

And the pair Seth wore. He was just a little way ahead, wearing well-worn Levi’s that were splotched here and there with white paint.

Summer felt odd, as if she were following him, although obviously they were just two people going in the same direction. And yet, if he suddenly turned around, he’d probably think she
was
following him. Which would be kind of embarrassing.

She came to three stainless steel carousels in a row. One was turning, and from time to time a piece of luggage would slide down the chute. Seth stood there waiting. Summer took a place a few feet away and looked nonchalant. He glanced at her with equal nonchalance.

Summer checked her watch and scanned the room. She put on a perplexed expression, doing a mime of a person waiting for someone who was late. She checked her watch again and frowned.

“You get stood up?”

Seth was suddenly directly beside her. “What? Oh, yes, I guess so. I mean, someone was supposed to pick me up. They aren’t here, though.” She smiled and then, idiotically, checked her watch again.

“Keep checking,” he advised. “You never know when another minute will zip by. By the way, you never told me your name.”

“Yes, I did. It’s Summer. Summer Smith.”

“Oh. Right. Excellent name,” he said seriously, as though he’d really thought it over. “Nice to meet you.”

He stuck out his hand. Summer took it. They shook hands solemnly. He had rough, strong hands, though he held hers gently. “Wisconsin, huh?” Summer asked.

“Eau Claire,” he said. “I’m a senior. I mean, I will be.”

“Me too.”

“I hope my aunt gets here,” Summer added, after trying for several minutes to think of something much cooler to say.

“I’m going to call my grandfather to come pick me up as soon as I grab my bag,” Seth said. “If your aunt doesn’t show, maybe we can give you a ride.” He took off his sunglasses and stuck them in his pocket.

Summer stole a quick sideways glance. Brown? He looked directly at her. She smiled, swallowed hard, and once again looked hard at her watch.

Yes, definitely brown. Warm, smiling brown eyes and a great smile and rough hands.

Seth leaned forward and snatched up a big canvas duffel bag. “That’s mine,” he said. “You need a hand with yours?”

“No, I can handle them,” Summer said.

“Cool. Well, I’ll go call my grandfather.”

“Okay. Bye.”

By the time Summer had retrieved her bags, Seth was over at a bank of phones. She left her mountain of luggage where it was, hoping no one would steal any of it, and went to the phones. She found her aunt’s number in her purse, dug a quarter out of her pocket, and dialed.

Three phones away, Seth hung up his receiver and rolled his eyes. His warm, deep brown eyes.

The phone rang in Summer’s ear. Four rings. Then an answering machine. “This is Summer. I’m at the airport,” she said after the beep. “Is anyone there? Um, okay. I guess you’re probably on the way here. I hope. So I’ll wait. Bye.”

When she looked up again, Seth was gone. Then she spotted him across the hallway standing by an automatic photo booth. He seemed to be trying to feed a dollar bill into a slot. The bill kept getting rejected. It wouldn’t hurt to go over, very casually, and just say hi again.

“Hi again,” Summer said. “I guess my aunt is on the way to pick me up. No one answered.”

“My grandfather isn’t home either,” Seth said. “It’s not his fault, though—I caught an earlier flight. Why won’t this thing take my money? It took the first dollar. Now it won’t take the second one.”

“You’re getting a picture taken?”

He tried again to shove the bill in the slot. “Trying to. I need to get a passport while I’m down here. I’m hoping to go to the Caymans, do some scuba diving down there.” He tried the dollar again.

“Here, try a new bill. Sometimes that works,” Summer said. She dug a bill out of her bag and slid it easily into the slot.

“Thanks. I should have taken care of this back home but, you know, distractions…” He sat on the little round stool and pulled the curtain closed.

Summer saw the light flash once, twice.

“Hey, I have four more shots,” Seth said. “You want them?”

“I guess so,” Summer said. “I can use them for before and after pictures.”

Seth slid open the curtain. Summer had been leaning against the booth, and now they were suddenly very near to each other.

“Before and after what?” Seth asked.

“Tan,” Summer explained. “You know, so I can say, look how white I was when I first got there and how tan I got. I’m so pale now and…”

For some reason, Seth was staring at her and not saying anything. He looked perplexed, or maybe a little sick. Summer began to feel uncomfortable herself. “You look…uh, not pale,” Seth said. “I mean, you have really pretty skin.”

Summer touched her face. A blush was creeping slowly up her throat. “My face is darker than the rest of me,” she said. “I mean, you should see the other parts, total whiteness.”

The blush grew rapidly worse.
You should see the other parts!
What?
What?
“What I meant was—”

“Go ahead,” he said quickly. “Take those other pictures—”

“I just meant my legs are like—”

“Here, just sit and then you make sure your face is—”

“I mean, they’re—I didn’t mean—”

He moved aside, and she tried to squeeze past him into the booth. They did a stammering little dance, him moving one way, her the other.

He took her shoulders, intending to trade places with her. She looked up at him, intending to make some joke about how uncoordinated they were.

Both of them froze. Seth’s eyes seemed to glaze over. He bent down. His face was so close to hers that when she turned her head, his mouth pressed sweetly against her cheek.

They separated in shock. Then, before she knew what was happening, Summer closed her eyes and his mouth met hers in an infinitely sweet, indescribably perfect kiss.

They separated in even greater shock. Summer was too dazed to know what she felt.

“I’m sorry,” Seth said quickly. “I didn’t mean to—”

Now Summer was beginning to feel something. Two somethings: ridiculous and embarrassed on the one hand, and very warm and idiotically happy on the other.

Seth turned away abruptly. “I’m really sorry,” he repeated. “Really. I mean, I don’t…I’m not like some jerk who would do this.”

“It’s okay,” Summer said. It was more than okay, but the way Seth was acting was starting to make her feel more embarrassed.

“I gotta go,” Seth said. “Call my grandfather. Anyway, bye.”

And to Summer’s utter amazement, he took off at a fast walk across the terminal.

Diana Olan sat slumped in the passenger seat of her mother’s car. She turned the volume dial on the CD player up high enough to allow Green Day’s lyrics to be heard by people halfway across the island. Through the dark-tinted windshield she saw the sign for the airport and sighed. She turned the volume knob up a little further still.

Diana’s mother reached across and punched the power button with her long, painted fingernail. The music stopped instantly.

“She’s going to get picked up by some pervert in that airport,” Mallory Olan said.

“I guess that would be bad, right?” Diana reached for the CD player.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and the flight will be late,” Mallory said.

“Maybe we’ll get really lucky and it will crash.” Diana turned the music back on but cranked the volume only halfway up.

They turned onto the approach road. A plane roared low over their heads.

“Maybe that’s her plane,” Mallory said. “We’d still get there before she could get off. I don’t want her wondering if she’s been abandoned, poor kid. I’ll bet that’s her plane.”

“Oh, goody,” Diana said. “Should I start jumping for joy now, or should I wait till I actually see little miss sweetness and light?”

“Diana, do we have to do this? You might try being civilized. Summer
is
your cousin, after all, and you’re practically the same age.”

“Then I guess everything will be perfect,” Diana said. “We’ll instantly become best friends. We’ll bake cookies together and giggle. And slowly but surely I’ll turn into Summer and be just like her. That
is
the plan, isn’t it?”

Mallory gave her a sour look. Then, with an effort, she forced a pleasant smile. “I kind of like this band. What’s their name?”

Diana instantly turned off the music.

Mallory parked the Mercedes in the lane where it said No Parking and checked her face in the mirror. “She’ll think I look old.”

“Can we just get this over with?” Diana suggested.

Mallory caught the eye of a skycap and pointed at two bags in the backseat. She checked her watch. “At least
I
won’t be late,” she muttered.

Diana followed her mother into the terminal. As usual Mallory moved at top speed, like a human express train, swaggering along with the confidence of a person who expects everyone else to clear a path.

“There she is!” Mallory pointed. “Come on, hurry up, Diana. The poor thing’s standing there looking like a waif.”

Diana slowed down, taking the opportunity to straighten her sarong skirt, which had gotten twisted around while she’d fidgeted in the car. She wore a faded tank top that rode up, revealing a tan, flat stomach. Her feet were bare. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a French braid, accentuating large, arresting gray eyes.

Diana saw Summer weaving her way through the passing crowd: a pretty blond girl with skin from a Noxema ad, carrying electric blue nylon zipper bags and wearing something bulky and purple. Summer was smiling like Miss America and looking depressingly wholesome.

Oh, it was going to be a long, long summer. Unless Diana could get rid of her cousin.

There was no question in Diana’s mind why Mallory—Diana had long ago stopped calling her “mother”—had invited Summer down for a visit. Summer was supposed to “normalize” Diana. Mallory had decided that Diana was getting depressed, not doing as well as she should in school, and becoming more private. And the solution? Fly in the happy squad. Bring on cousin Summer.

Then something else caught Diana’s eye. Seth Warner, standing by a bank of phones.

Seth glanced around blankly, then did a perfect double take as his gaze met Diana’s. She smiled wryly. He looked uncomfortable but gave a little wave before turning away to hide the fact that he was blushing.

Seth Warner. Well, not exactly a big surprise, given the strange phone call Diana had received that morning. His hair was a little shorter, and he’d grown a little more serious looking since the previous summer. Still, she’d recognize that face anywhere—even though it wasn’t exactly his face that stuck in her mind.

Summer was still rattled from the encounter in the photo booth, still trying to get her heart to slow down enough to let her catch her breath, when she spotted two familiar faces.

“Is that them?” Summer muttered under her breath. It looked like it might be them, but the airport terminal was full of people. She didn’t want to go running up to them and find out she was hugging the wrong people.

But it did look like them, and they were smiling at her. Or at least Aunt Mallory was. Diana was just looking casual and glancing off toward the baggage carousel. Casual in a totally beautiful
Glamour
magazine kind of way. She wasn’t even wearing shoes. In an airport. Way cool.

“Summer!” the woman yelled, holding out her arms in a big gimme-a-hug pose.

“Aunt Mallory!” Summer dropped her bag and ran up to her. Aunt Mallory had bigger hair than Summer remembered. Big, stiff hair. Maybe it was because Mallory was famous now, a best-selling romance novelist. Over her aunt’s shoulder she caught Diana’s eye. Diana made the smallest smile possible and let it linger for about one second.