Wavehouse Page 16

  Then I heard a voice from upstairs, muffled by the intervening ceiling and floorboards. Bounding up the basement stairs, I paused at the top as it suddenly occurred to me that I was trespassing. Quietly, I made my way slowly down a long hallway lined with photos; casual family portraits that featured—in the middle of every shot—Rusty’s blonde friend from Brinestellar’s. At first I couldn’t quite believe it. I thought, Why was that boozy chick in these classy photos hung in the hallway of this expensive house? I recognized her immediately. In some of these photos, she stood next to a skinnier, face-lifted version of herself, an older woman who wore glittery gowns and held little trophies and statuettes. Mother and daughter Ramelle, I thought.

  I heard the voice again, down the hallway—a man’s voice, low and nondescript. The hallway opened to a vast living room filled with tan leather couches, a glass coffee table covered with fancy art books, and pristine walls covered with abstract art. It was the camcorder, however, that drew my attention. It was set up on a tripod pointing down at the beach below. Another camera, with a telephoto lens, had been left on the side table—beside which, I saw two manila envelopes—both addressed to the Stella Surf Company, San Diego, California. At the bottom were scrawled the words: Attention: Publicity Department: Anna Dugan, a.k.a The Surfing Siren. And on the other: Ceekay and the Siren.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Inside one envelope, I found twenty close-up shots of me surfing, and in the other were as many shots of Chris and me kissing. One, I was horrified to see, showed Chris with his hand super close to my boob.

  When I heard Rusty Meyers’ he-man chuckles coming from beyond a set of double doors, my suspicions were confirmed. I gathered all the photos and stomped over just in time to hear him say, “Babe. I miss you, too. But we’ll make up for lost time when you get back in two weeks.” He was probably talking to the blonde, the Ramelle. Or maybe it was some other woman altogether. Who knew? This guy was out of control. I busted through the doors, desperately wanting to shout, “You asshole! Who the hell do you think you are?” But I couldn’t. I just stood there trembling.

  Rusty was leaning against a stainless steel refrigerator peeling an orange, with his iPhone wedged between his shoulder and ear. I noticed he had shaved off his hipster beard, and a Band-Aid decorated the tip of his pointy-evil chin. His jaw dropped—along with the orange—when he saw me. He recovered the jaw quickly and said to the person on the other end of the phone, “It’s nobody, Amelia. Just one of Ceekay’s little friends.”

  One of Ceekay’s little friends? Implying there was more than one. If I hadn’t been so angry, I might have crumbled in a heap on the beautifully tiled floor.

  “Gotta go. Love ya.” Rusty ended his call and stared at me with a smile as fake and sickeningly sweet as Redi-Whip. He started walking toward me and I bolted in the other direction, back toward the basement door.

  Rusty followed. That slimy dude was quick, grabbing me just as I got to the hallway. I shoved him off and felt rage boil up from within.

  I shook the photos at him. “So you are the Stella scout after all!” I said bitterly. “I had you pegged the first time I met you, you liar.” I ripped the photos to shreds and threw them at him in a cascade of confetti. “Don’t you ever, ever take my picture again. And don’t you ever, ever come anywhere near me or my mother again or I swear I will kill you.” I hoped my sudden surge of bravery lasted, at least until I was out of that house.

  “Anna, let me explain—”

  “Don’t bother. I don’t want to hear it!” Then I turned and raced down the stairs, through the basement and back along the wooded path. I managed to get to my bicycle but left both surfboard and backpack behind, scared that Rusty would be on my tail. At the main road, I pedaled furiously—barefoot, in board shorts and bathing suit—toward town. It was raining steadily now, which suited me fine. I wanted to lose myself in the raindrops and gray sky.

  There was only one person who would know how to help me, if she was still interested.

  I found Myra in the musty basement of the Kendall’s Watch Community Center. She and the biddies were sorting through donated clothes for the weekly Saturday rummage sale.

  “Jesus Christ, Anna!” Myra cried when she saw me. One of the biddies tsk-tsked her immediately. “Sorry, Mrs. Dougherty. I mean, uh…oy vey, Anna! You look like an orphaned baby seal. You’re sopping wet. Come on, let’s dry you off.”

  Myra pit-stopped at ‘Linens’ and grabbed an old beach towel, then pulled me into the women’s bathroom. “Take off your clothes before you freeze to death,” she instructed.

  “I can’t believe this. It’s like a bad dream,” I stuttered, shivering with cold as I rubbed myself with the towel as if it were sandpaper and I was a piece of burly wood. Then I told Myra everything.

  “Maybe there’s an explanation?” she tried.

  “Myra—”

  “Okay, okay. You’re right. This sucks. Rusty sucks. And Ceekay may suck also.”

  “Thank you,” I sniffled.

  “Anna, I really wish I could talk about this, and other stuff also, but I’ve gotta go supervise before one of the biddies has a coronary.”

  Other stuff. The stuff between us. “Okay. Later then?”

  “Yeah. Later. When do you need to be at the shop?”

  “Not until noon. I got Meghan to open.”

  “Okay, hold on. Stay here.” Myra left me in the bathroom. I looked at my woebegone expression in the filmy mirror over the sink and thought, Look at you. Look at the mess you’re in.

  When the bathroom door swung open five minutes later, I expected to see Myra. But instead, Gramma came waltzing in with a pile of pastel colored clothes in her arms.

  “Anna Marie!” she exclaimed with a big grin on her face. “Charlotte Dougherty said you were here and Myra tells me you’ve come to beat the Saturday crowds.”

  “Huh?” I said.

  Myra came up behind Gramma and shrugged, mouthing the word sorry.

  “I’m so happy you’re thinking of expanding your wardrobe,” Gramma said, then added conspiratorially: “You know, as volunteers, we get first dibs on the treasures in the women’s department.” Gramma deposited a pile of pink and turquoise clothes on the counter. “I chose these just for you. They’ll look fantastic with your complexion.”

  I forced myself to smile. “Thanks, Gramma.”

  Gramma patted my arm. “I’ve got to head back to ‘Bric-a-Brac’ and make sure Edna McNully keeps on track with the price tags, and doesn’t run off with some of the better pieces. Myra, you make sure she comes and shows me how she looks before she leaves, okay?”

  “For sure, Mrs. Dugan,” Myra said.

  I reluctantly dressed in the cotton candy button-down blouse and light blue capris.

  “You look like a clown who performs at children’s birthday parties in that outfit,” Myra giggled.

  “If you’re trying to lighten the mood, it’s not working,” I sighed.

  “Okay, I’m sorry. This whole Rusty-Meyers-Chris-photograph thing is really a bummer,” she said. “But right now I suggest you go back to my house. You need to have a good cry before going to the shop. Maybe get a bit of this out of your system. Plus you can change out of your clown costume.”

  “Okay. Good idea.”

  Myra gave me a set of instructions on how to have my very own pity party. “Call me if you need any other suggestions, or if you’re still totally bummed and wanna talk. I’ll see you back at my house tonight. Gotta get back to the biddies.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  According to Myra, the first step to a successful pity party was a bubble bath. I took a nice long one in the Berkowitzes’ double-sized tub. To intensify the mood and encourage tears, I set Myra’s ancient boom box on top of the toilet and blasted her recommended old-school collection of mopey love songs as I soaked. No crying, though. Not
even a dribble. But the long soak gave me plenty of time to think about the cast of characters messing me up over the last few days.

  Was there any chance that Sara knew what Rusty had been up to? If she had any knowledge of his creepy maneuvers, I swore I would legally emancipate myself, move in permanently with my grandparents, and leave her to fend for herself. But it seemed more likely that Sara had just been blinded by desire. Rusty had been conning us both.

  The worst part was that I could tell Sara had fallen hard for Rusty. I knew I had to tell her about all of this; I also knew it was going to suck big time.

  After the bath, I put on Myra’s ratty old bathrobe and scuffed bunny slippers—because Myra believed that one should never have a good cry in good clothes. Shuffling into the kitchen, I made myself a hot chocolate, and reheated a slice of pizza from the night before. Next pity party assignment was to watch a cheesy tearjerker while devouring cheesy pizza and drinking hot chocolate. Myra had recommended a movie featuring a jilted lover or a kid dying of an incurable, rare disease, but at 10 a.m. my choices were limited to home improvement makeovers, cooking shows, celebrity interviews, infomercials, Sponge Bob reruns, and Law and Orders from every possible city.

  And then—as luck would have it—I settled on exactly the wrong channel.

  A bald guy, leaning across his desk, smiled at the camera. “Hey there, and welcome to my world. Coming to you live from New York, it’s me, Larry Romanoff and this is Live with Larry!”

  The off-camera audience clapped and hooted, and the camera drew back to reveal Larry’s guest—Chris! Startled, I almost fell off the couch. Chris’s blond hair had been combed but it still sprang up rebelliously around his perfect ears. The gold hoop glistened under the TV studio lights. He was wearing the same clothes that he had worn on our first date.

  “So, Ceekay, you leave soon for Fiji, eh?” the bald guy asked.

  “Yeah, can’t wait. They say the waves are going to be really sweet this season.”

  Fiji, I thought. The other side of the earth. As far away from me as possible.

  “‘Sweet’ for you means what? Like the height of a two-story building?”

  Chris shrugged. “A little bigger would be okay.”

  The audience chuckled.

  “And after that?” the bald guy asked.

  “Indo, probably,” Chris shrugged. “For as long as the waves are good. I dunno. You’ll have to ask my manager, Rusty, for the itinerary. I just go where the waves are.”

  Rusty—his manager.

  “And what about you, Inga?”

  The camera swiveled over and there Inga sat—cross-legged and gorgeous in a green dress that had the same emerald sparkle as Inga’s saucer-big eyes. The dress was the size of a postage stamp. Inga’s waist-length red hair shimmered as she whipped it to one side. “Are you kidding?” Inga said breathlessly, as she reached over and put her hand on Chris’s thigh. I had touched that same thigh less than a day before. “I’m going with him. I can’t let this one out of my sight for a minute!”

  I stumbled out of my seat, shaking like a leaf.

  The show host turned to the studio audience and said, “Well, here they are, folks. America’s favorite young couple. Aren’t they adorable?”

  Chris and Inga sat holding hands; Chris looked a little uncomfortable, but Inga, smug and self-satisfied, looked like the cat who’d eaten the canary.

  “You can keep him!” I yelled at the TV. My heart pounded in my chest as if I’d just paddled across the Atlantic Ocean and back. I was so angry, I couldn’t cry. All I really wanted to do was go to bed, pull the covers up over my head, and pretend the last few days had never happened. But that was impossible. And I was too damn responsible to leave Meghan in the store by herself all day.

  Zombie-like, I trudged upstairs, found Myra’s surfer girl clothes and put them on. As I got ready to leave, I saw Chris’s love note on the dresser where I had left it. My heart sank further from its already low position in my gut to a spot somewhere south of my toes. This love stuff really hurt.

  I picked up the note, intending to rip it to shreds, but something stopped me. I folded the note into the pocket of Myra’s board shorts. If and when the time was right—and if I was brave enough—maybe I would call Chris and let him have it.

  The bike ride from Myra’s to The Shell Shop was usually a snap, a total downhill coast along Emerson to Main Street. Today, the wind was so intense that I had to pedal hard against it all the way to town. A bank of gray clouds loomed like a giant, moving mountain to the southeast. A storm was coming. If we were lucky it might take a northward curve before hitting land and heading out to sea; lucky, because “Slide along Storms”—as we surfers liked to call them—left bright sunshine and great waves in their wake. But feeling jilted, I glumly hoped the waves would suck for the rest of my life so that I would never have to make the decision to surf or not surf again.

  By the time I got to The Shell Shop, I felt as if I had just finished the Tour de France. Meghan, standing behind the cash register, was way too chipper. “Hey, Anna. It’s been so fun working together, huh?” she squeaked.

  “Yeah,” I grunted. The last thing I needed was a motor-

  mouth day with Meghan De’Errico. I was out of patience, and no longer a lovesick fool floating in a mirage of fake romantic bliss.

  “We haven’t worked together since we did that volcano project in sixth-grade science, remember?”

  How could I forget? Meghan had talked the entire time, and done next to nothing on the project. When it was our turn to present our project to the class, she dropped the volcano model, and baking soda and papier-mâché exploded in a riot all over the floor.

  “This shop is so cool,” Meghan babbled on. “Your grandfather started it, right? How are your grandparents, anyway? I haven’t seen them since I was, like, seven years old. Do they still live on Toilsome? I remember that birthday party you had at their house when we were in second grade. I thought it was so cool that your grandfather got dressed up like Santa—”

  “Meghan.” I interrupted her to save her life—if I allowed her to ramble on any longer, I would lose my mind and become homicidal. “Would you mind going through all the towels in the storeroom and making separate piles according to color?”

  “Sure! Cool! I can do that.” Meghan happily pranced to the back room. As long as I could drum up enough useless tasks for her to do, I might survive the day, and she might, too.

  The afternoon dragged on. Focusing on work proved impossible. An entire gang could have come in and stolen every item in the store and I wouldn’t have noticed. When I wasn’t stressing about how to break the Rusty news to Sara, I couldn’t stop wondering whether I should call Chris. My heart just wasn’t into selling lighthouse key chains and dangly shell earrings, so I let Meghan run the show. I moped behind the jewelry display, thinking about the photos I had ripped to shreds and how fitting it was that my life now felt the same way—torn up and wrecked. Then I really lost it when I realized that even though I had destroyed the prints in the envelopes, Rusty probably still had copies on his computer.

  I had to call Myra; she would know what to do. But the only phone in the shop was right next to the cash register, and in just about as public a spot as you could get. I didn’t want Meghan to catch any whiff, drift, or hint of what was going on in my private life, so unless I found a way to get rid of her, I wouldn’t be able to call Myra.

  A lull just after three brought the perfect opportunity “Hey, Meghan.” I took a ten from the cash register. “Can you go grab a copy of the Kendall’s Kalendar from Ronnie’s? I wanna check our ad placement this week.” Stacks of Kendall’s Kalendars were piled at Ronnie’s next to the register. Nabbing a spot in the first ten pages was the goal of every local business, but it was luck of the draw; no one could ever figure

  out how the editors decided on layout. “And I’m famished
.” Not quite true—even though I had not had lunch, the thought of eating made me sicker than sick. “Get me a banana strawberry smoothie and something for yourself too.”

  Meghan stopped untangling a mess of abalone encrusted eyeglass chains. “Are you sure that’s all you want? That’s not really enough, Anna. You should eat more than that. You know, you’re kind of on the skinny side—”

  I pulled an extra five out of the cash register and literally threw it at Meghan. “And a cheese and avocado wrap, okay? A smoothie and a wrap.”

  Meghan skipped out of the store. For real. Skip, skip, skip—like Goldilocks on her way to the Bears’ cottage in the woods. I had about fifteen minutes till she came back, maybe twenty if the to-go line at Ronnie’s was long. I dialed Myra and waited. It picked up after seven rings.

  “So, did it work? Did you cry? Are you feeling any better?” Myra asked. I could just imagine her rushing away from the chirpy seniors to some private corner of the mothballed basement of the Community Center.

  “No tears, but Myra, he’s still with Inga. I know it for sure now.” I told her about the show. “That’s why he had to leave. That was his promotional appearance.”

  “Oh shit,” Myra moaned.

  “Yeah, so your People Magazine isn’t so reliable after all. There’s more, and this is even worse. I just realized those photos Rusty took are probably digital, right? Who cares if I ripped up those prints? Rusty probably already sent them through the little internet fairies!”

  “Anna, relax.”

  “Relax?” I started pacing. “This is a potential disaster. I mean, The Surfing Siren YouTube thing is bad enough. I will die, I mean literally die, if there are photos posted on the internet of me doing…well, you know, with Chris.”

  She was quiet.