Читать книгу Summer After Summer - Ann DeFee, Ann Defee - Страница 9

“Jazzy, is he as scrumptious as I heard?” Misty plopped down on the dock where I was sunbathing. “Can you believe that nerdy Petey has a cousin who looks like a movie star?”

She scooted to the edge of the dock and put her feet in the water. “And I was having dinner with my parents! Are you going to see him again and does he have any friends?”

Oh, yeah, he had friends. But I wasn’t planning to share that even with my good friend. Whether he told anyone or not was his business.

I glanced up from painting my toenails and gave a heartfelt sigh. “He was, uh—he was nice.” I shook my head, pondering the abominable luck I had with boys. That led me straight back to Charlie and my unrequited love. I hated that term. It sounded like something out of a Jane Austen novel.

Oh, Mr. Darcy, my love for you is unrequited.

“So, are you going to see him again? Is he coming back anytime soon?”

“Get a grip, Misty,” I snapped. Uh-oh, losing my cool was a big mistake, especially with our budding attorney. I was never grumpy, not even when it was that time of the month. Now Misty would definitely know something was up.

“What?” She had that crafty look I hated so much.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t you nothin’ me, girlie. You’re keeping a secret and I want to know what it is.”

“Hey, y’all.” Those dulcet tones came from Bunny.

I was saved by my bleached-blond friend. She strutted down to the dock in the shortest, tightest pair of cutoffs I’d ever seen. “Aren’t those uncomfortable?” I had to ask.

“Nope.” She slipped her sandals off and sat down on the dock. “Let’s go riding.”

Cruising was our favorite hobby. Of course, in Meadow Lake, cruising was one of the few things a kid could do for entertainment.

“Sounds good to me,” Misty said. “I don’t have to be home for dinner until seven.”

“And I don’t have to go to work until tomorrow.” In my summer gig as a lifeguard, I worked a couple of days a week. It was a hard job—yeah, right—but someone had to do it.

“Where’s Mary Alice?” Bunny asked.

“Her dad’s holding a revival meeting. She told me they’re going down to the river to do some baptizing,” Misty answered.

Bunny laughed. “I guess riding around with us is out, huh?”

“Yep.” Mary Alice missed quite a few things the rest of us called fun.

Even though it was hotter than hell, we had the convertible top down. We were willing to sacrifice anything in the name of being “cool,” and believe it or not, that included scorched thighs.

We circled the Pink Pig several times. At three o’clock in the afternoon the pickings were slim.

“I have an idea,” Bunny said.

It wasn’t so much what she said as how she said it. The way my skin prickled, I knew we were heading for a mess of trouble. But before my good sense could issue a stern warning, Misty piped up.

“What?” she asked.

Bunny wore her “we’re gonna be oh, so grounded if anyone catches us” grin.

“We’re going skinny-dipping in the park.”

“No!” I shouted, almost causing her to run into a stop sign.

“Why not?” Bunny put on her affronted act.

“Because my daddy’s the police chief and if we get caught I’ll be a hundred and ten years old before I’m allowed to leave the house again.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have everything under control.” She turned the car toward the park.

Misty didn’t say a word. She was probably wondering whether she could survive jumping from a moving vehicle, because if that girl got nabbed with her drawers down in a public place, her parents would hustle her off to a boarding school that would make Oliver Twist’s look plush.

Our friend batted away our objections as if they were pesky gnats. So off to the river we went, the three of us like lemmings to the sea.

The park had a long winding roadway between the golf course and the water. River Road was popular with the high-school crowd for a couple of reasons—most of which made my daddy cranky. The Indy 500 wannabes used it to hone their racing skills, and the “parkers” favored the secluded areas to do whatever it was lovers did, not that I was an expert on that, being a virgin and all.

For this particular exploit we had to have privacy. My bare butt was not appropriate viewing material.

Bunny pulled into the small lot adjacent to a picnic area at the end of the drive. At that time of day, in that heat, the chances of running into a family were pretty slight. Anyone with a lick of sense was inside enjoying the air-conditioning.

“You guys coming? You’ll love it.”

Bunny was out of the car and halfway down the hill before Misty and I could decide what to do. Darn it, she started flapping her arms up and down making clucking noises. Who could ignore a challenge like that?

“I hate being manipulated,” I muttered. And that’s what my friend was doing, in spades.

“Me, too,” Misty admitted. “But I can’t seem to resist.”

“Yeah,” I said as I unfolded my long legs from the backseat of the very small car. Please God, don’t let one of Daddy’s patrolmen do the park loop and check on Bunny’s car.

Okay, Bunny was right. Shucking your clothes and skinny-dipping was decadence at its best. It was a cross between being naughty and feeling liberated.

“This is nice. But I’m still worried about snakes,” I said as I rolled over to float on my back. The only way a cottonmouth water moccasin could bite you was to latch on to a small appendage, and I had two small appendages that I did not want bitten, and we weren’t talking about fingers.

I’d always thought floating was as close as you could get to being back in the womb. It was very quiet and it gave you a serene sense of weightlessness.

“Who’s that?” Misty hissed.

I felt my tranquility take a nosedive. I jackknifed in the water just in time to see my so-called friends swimming as fast as they could toward the other side of the river.

“Hey, you!” It was a male voice. An irritated male voice.

Oh, great! It was none other than Eddie Troyer, Daddy’s newest patrolman.

Fortunately, I was far enough out in the water that he probably didn’t recognize me. Unfortunately, he was standing next to our pile of clothes.

Darn it all!

When I trained as a lifeguard I did a lot of underwater swimming. With Patrolman Troyer hot on my tail, I was certainly glad I’d learned how to hold my breath for an extended period of time.

“What are we going to do?” Bunny asked.

The three of us were crouching in the bushes as we watched the cop prowl up and down the opposite bank.

“Oh, God,” I moaned. “He probably thinks we’ve drowned and he’s gonna call my daddy. They’ll bring a boat out and drag the river. We have to let them know we’re not dead.”

“No,” Misty whined.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Bunny seemed to be the only one whose brain was still working.

“He has to go back to his car to report this, right?”

“Yeah.” I could almost see where she was going with this.

“When he climbs back up the hill, we race across, grab our clothes and hide in the bushes downstream.”

“That might work.” And if it didn’t, the rookie was going to get an up-close and personal preview of my ass. But as repugnant as that seemed, I didn’t have a better idea.

“I’m in.”

“Me, too,” Misty reluctantly agreed.

She didn’t sound all that sure, but neither was I, so we were even.

The minute Eddie turned his back and trudged up the hill, we were in the water swimming like we’d jumped into a pool of piranhas.

Bunny was the first out of the water, first to grab her shorts and first to disappear into the bushes. I was right behind her. Panic and adrenaline made me very fast.

“What are we going to do about your car?” The vehicle question was something that had occurred to me the minute my brain started working. How could we explain the car? We certainly couldn’t drive past Patrolman Troyer, waving blithely on our way out.

We’d found sanctuary behind some wild grapevines. I had my underwear on, Bunny was already in her shorts and halter top, and all Misty could manage to do was sit there and moan.

“Not to worry. I have an idea,” Bunny announced—not for the first time.

It was a good thing she did; I was considering turning myself in and facing the consequences.

“You guys stay here while I sneak over to the parking lot,” Bunny instructed. “I’ll take that little cart path behind the eighteenth hole. As soon as he wanders off, I’ll hop in the car and sneak away. Then he won’t see me leave—and if he does, at least you guys won’t get caught.”

“So what do we do?” Misty asked.

“You guys walk back to the clubhouse and call someone dependable to come and get you. If anyone asks why my car was at the park, I’ll play dumb.”

“That might work.” It sounded half-baked to me but at least it was a plan. And that surpassed anything I could suggest.

“It’ll work. We just have to stick together. Skinny-dipping, are you kidding? We’re nice girls. That’s our story. Deal?” Bunny put out her hand.

“Deal.” I slapped my palm on top of hers. This was one of the benefits of sisterhood. All for one, and one for all.

“Do you think Bunny got away?” Misty whispered as we approached the clubhouse.

I’d lost my shoes somewhere, and even worse, Misty’s bra had vanished. Add that to the fact her T-shirt was wet, and we had a big problem.

“Before we go inside you need to pull your shirt out and fan yourself. Maybe it’ll dry a little.”

“Aargh!” Misty apparently hadn’t noticed the way the cotton was molded to her chest. “I can’t go in there, not like this.” She made wild waving motions with her hands.

“I agree. You hunker down over there in the lawn chair. I’ll see if they’ll let me use their phone.”

“Who are you going to call?”

That didn’t take much thought. I planned to call my best buddy. “Charlie will get us. He’s the only person I really trust.”

Wasn’t that annoying? The one person I felt I could turn to in a crisis was my good friend’s boyfriend.

“What have you girls gotten yourselves into now?” Charlie barely managed to control his chuckles when he asked the question.

All I’d had to tell him was that we needed a ride and he was on his way to retrieve us. No questions, no comments, just a “hang on, I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Thank goodness!

Misty’s wild red curls had dried into a mess that resembled a Bozo the Clown wig, and heaven knows what I looked like. The term “raccoon eyes” came to mind.

“Is this gonna burn up the grapevine?” he asked.

Misty and I answered simultaneously. Her answer was an emphatic no. I was a bit more circumspect with my “I hope not. God, I hope not.”

Our answers brought another round of laughter from our chauffeur.

“Here we are.” He pulled up behind Misty’s house. “Are you okay?”

“Yep. Jaz, I’ll call you. Thanks, Charlie,” she said before she dashed toward her back door.

Charlie turned to me, a serious expression on his face. “Is your daddy gonna meet us with one of those bad-cop looks?”

“Not if we’re lucky,” I said with fervor.

“Lord, you’re enough to give a guy gray hair.” He punctuated his assertion by rubbing the top of my head.

“Do you remember the time in the fourth grade when Hooter Thompson knocked me off the jungle gym and you gave him a black eye?” I’d wanted to ask that question for years. It was the defining moment, the moment I knew for certain that I was head over heels in love with Charlie, and my feelings hadn’t changed much in the intervening time.

He glanced at me and laughed. He was no doubt wondering why I’d brought up an event that occurred years before. “I remember. I was grounded for a week when the principal called my dad. Why are you asking?”

“No reason.”

Charlie hesitated, looking as if he was about to press the issue and then decided against it. “Okay,” he said before he started the car.

On the drive to my house, our conversation was strangely stilted. I was contemplating how he was always there for me and how much I loved being around him. He was probably thinking I was a major-league nitwit.

Charlie parked beside our guesthouse. “Let’s stroll down to the dock so you can tell me what happened. If I’m about to have another Hooter Thompson experience, I’d like to be prepared.”

He was out of the car and around to the passenger side before I could get my butt in gear.

“Come on, Sunshine. You’ve got some ’splaining to do.” He put his arm around me and for a brief moment I imagined what it would be like if we were a couple.

That would be my idea of heaven; too bad Charlie didn’t feel the same way.

A couple of days later, I was in the middle of one of my favorite fantasies when the star attraction pulled his boat up to the dock.

“Hey, Sunshine, you want to take a spin?”

Of course I did. I’d go to the moon with this guy.

I was halfway in the boat before I bothered to answer. “Sure. Where are we off to?”

He reached into the cooler and brought out an icy Coke. “I’m starving so I thought we’d head down to Slim Jim’s for a burger.”

“Good.” Slim’s had the best French fries north of the Rio Grande. It was the best of all possible worlds; I could enjoy something fattening and also spend a couple of hours with Charlie.

“Where’s Bunny?” Why did I have to ask that?

“I don’t know. I have a feeling there’s something going on, but she’s not talking to me about it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.” He paused, then grinned. “I guess you could say things are pretty dicey with us right now.”