A taxi came the next day to take my dad to the airport.
“Now, don’t forget,” he told me, tossing his bag into the backseat, “starting tomorrow, you can watch me online.”
I shook my head. “Dad, we don’t have Internet. Remember?”
“Oh, that’s right. Too bad for you.” He grinned. “Well, sunshine, enjoy all this sunshine while you have it. If this hurricane maintains its trajectory, you’re going to be looking at substantial precipitation and gusts of up to thirty knots in, oh, about seventy-two hours.”
“Dad, can you not talk like a weatherman for once?” I groaned.
He laughed. “Okay. There’s a lot of wind and rain coming your way.”
“Thank you.” I looked up at the sky, which was as clear and blue as ever. There wasn’t even a cobweb of a cloud. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said, mostly because I knew that would drive my dad bonkers.
“Hey!” He held his hands out to the side. “Who’s the most trusted name in weather?”
I rolled my eyes. “Mack Macintosh.”
“You bet your weather vane,” he said.
“But we’re not going to get a real hurricane up here, are we?” I asked him.
“No, no, no,” he said. “It’ll just be a storm by the time it gets up here. If it was a real hurricane, they’d make you evacuate.” He looked at the old house behind us. “They might make you evacuate, anyway,” he joked.
“Not funny, Dad,” I said.
“Sorry.” He wrapped me up in a big hug. I thought of Juliette’s dad, and was so glad to have my own dad right there that I hugged him back even harder.
“I love you, Dad,” I said. “I’m really going to miss you.”
Mack Macintosh is not the most trusted name in weather for nothing. Did it rain, oh, about seventy-two hours after he left? Did it ever! Buckets. And barrels. Herds of cats and packs of dogs. And was it loud! Imagine the sound of marbles beating on the roof, and multiply that by two whole days! Then there was the wind, roaring like a train, spraying sand and water through every crack in the old house. I’d never been in a hurricane, and after a storm like that one, I never wanted to!
How could my dad go chasing them? I was pretty sure he was certifiably insane.
Thank goodness I suggested we get more flashlights and candles before it started raining, because it didn’t take long at all for the power to go out. With all the shutters battened down, the house was like a giant tomb: stuffy and stinky and as dark as dirt.
And where was Josh, the Boy Scout, while I was preparing us for the worst? Tying a key to our kite and running out to play Ben Franklin, of course. (Don’t worry. There wasn’t any lightning or thunder—yet. And my mom threatened to drive him straight to Grandma Macintosh’s if he didn’t come back inside right away.)
We spent a lot of our time running around with pails and buckets, pots and pans, and whatever else we could find, trying to catch all the leaks in the house’s lame excuse for a roof. The rest of the time we spent running around again, emptying them out.
“Too bad we didn’t get around to fixin’ the roof yet,” said Karen. Her tone was more nervous than I, personally, would have liked to hear. “Do you think it’s gonna hold?”
Jay wrapped her in his arms. “It’ll be fine,” he assured her. “Hakuna matata. Right, kids?”
“Er…right. If you say so,” I muttered.
But then came day two.
Then it wasn’t the roof that collapsed; it was us. You’d think that in a big, giant house, there’d be enough room for ten people. And maybe if two of them weren’t Josh and Brian, there would be. But we were not so lucky. After one day trapped in the house, Josh and Brian began to get bored. And when Josh and Brian got bored, it wasn’t pretty.
You couldn’t think about doing a puzzle, because they would “accidentally” knock into the table, messing up what you had done and losing half of the loose pieces.
You couldn’t think about playing a board game, because they would “accidentally” shoot Nerf rockets into your board, losing your place and ruining the whole thing.
You couldn’t think about playing Polly Pockets with Kiki, because they would “accidentally” run up and ask which one was you and which was Jeremy Ryan and where you were going on your “hot date” (when, in fact, it was Nick, and we were going to a movie, thank you very much).
You couldn’t think about playing hide-and-seek in what was very probably the best hide-and-seek house in the whole world, because Josh and Brian would grab your ankles when you ran by and drag you under the bed.
You couldn’t even think about trying to master “Under the Boardwalk” on the guitar with Jay, because Josh and Brian would walk by with their hands over their ears, wailing and moaning and pretending to be tortured. (If only I could have tortured them!)
And you couldn’t even go to your mom and say, “Mom! You have to do something about Josh. He’s driving me insane!” because your mom would say, “I’m sorry, Sam, but I think you kids are big enough to work this out yourselves. Can’t you see Jay and Karen and Jackie and I are in the middle of a game of hearts? Oh, and will you please empty that bucket?” And you wouldn’t even be able to interject, “My name is Samantha!” because you’d be so utterly, totally enraged.
And you couldn’t, as a last resort, go and sic Emery on them, because as soon as she got “Ruff-Ruff,” the stuffed carnival dog, she lost all desire to be a dog herself. Instead, she tied a jump rope around his neck like a leash and dragged him around like she was his master. Unleashing a stuffed dog on two boys had a limited effect.
You couldn’t even give up and just go to sleep, even though it was pitch-black all day long, because it was louder than a heavy-metal concert up there in the bedrooms, near the roof. (Rock on, Mother Nature!) Plus, if you closed your eyes, you’d keep wondering if the storm would whip through and blow you out to sea by the time you opened them again.
It seemed like day three would never come.
But it finally did.
The rain didn’t stop then, but it did fall much more gently, and the wind died down to a soft, steady whish. To everyone’s relief, we could open the shutters again. Who cared if the light that came in was gray and gloomy? It was fresh and cool, and felt almost like air-conditioning!
I was dying to go outside, but my mom said that if I went out for a walk, I had to take Josh and Brian with me.
“I’ll stay in,” I quickly said.
I figured I should wait for Juliette to get up, anyway, but by the time she woke up, it had started raining again—hard. It looked like another day of hiding Josh’s and Brian’s Nerf guns and playing Kiki’s Pretty Pretty Princess game.
“Okay, here’s the thing,” I patiently tried to explain to Emery when we sat down to play. “Only four people can play this game. And if Ruff-Ruff plays, then one of us”—I pointed to her, Kiki, Juliette, and me—“has to sit out.”
“I’ll sit out,” said Juliette.
I crossed my arms and flashed an oh-no-you-don’t look at her.
She smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll come back,” she said. “But I want to go call my dad.”
Why hadn’t I thought of that?
“Okay,” I said, “but hurry. I have to call my dad, too.”
She waved and skipped out of the Buoy Room.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” I said as soon as she was out of sight. “Let’s spin to see who goes first.”
The point of the game was to decorate yourself with matching plastic jewelry. There was a ring, earrings, a bracelet, a necklace, plus a tiara to top it all off. The only thing you didn’t want to get was the dreaded Black Ring—then you couldn’t win, according to the rules. (If you asked me, though, the Black Ring was the best part. I’d give anything for one of my own!)
Ruff-Ruff got off to a strong start, and soon he was one ring away from a win. Then I swooped in, like the princess that I am, and stole the crown from him.
“One more earring and I win!” I said.
Just as Kiki spun a four and started moving toward a bracelet, there was a sound.
Knock-knock-knock.
Someone was at the door.
Who could be out in this weather? I wondered. Had some beach patrolman driven by the house and decided it should be condemned? Or was it my dad surprising us by coming back earlier than he’d planned? Or was it Juliette’s dad, Dave? Had he changed his mind and come down to try to work things out with Jackie?
I jumped up. “I’ll be right back,” I told Emery and Kiki. “Go ahead and spin for me. I’ve got to see who’s knocking!”
I was practically holding my breath as I ran from the Buoy Room to the front hall and swung the front door open.
“Nick?” I gasped. To say I was surprised is putting it mildly.
He was wearing a bright orange lifeguard raincoat with the hood over his head, but his smile was as bright and white as ever. “Hi, yourself,” he said. His eyes drifted to the top of my head. “You look…very fancy. I feel a little underdressed.”
Huh? I thought. I looked down at the rumpled pajamas I’d been wearing for three days straight. I knew I hadn’t brushed my hair yet that day—or my teeth either. But then I spotted the pink plastic ring on my little finger. Oh no! My wrist. My neck. My ear. I still had all my princess jewelry on.
“Oh! These!” I said, reaching up and yanking off my one earring and the crown. “Ha. No! We were just playing this silly princess game, that’s all. You know how it is with kids around. Anyway, shouldn’t you be on the beach right now?”
He looked over his shoulder at the steady rain. “Not much of a beach day,” he said.
“Oh, right!” I winced. Embarrassing! “Of course the beach is closed! Who would be out on a day like this, right? Not me. Obviously. Because I’m here. Only I guess you are out…”
Meanwhile, inside I was thinking, Relax! Stop acting like such a dork! It’s just Nick. And he’s just at your house. That’s what friends do. It doesn’t mean that he likes you any more than that…necessarily. Or does it?!
“Uh, speaking of being out in the rain,” Nick interrupted my thoughts (thank goodness!). “Do you think I could come in?”
“Oh yeah! Of course.” It finally registered in my brain that even though he was on the porch, the rain was still blowing all over him…and me…and the whole hall. I jumped back and held the door open. “Come in,” I said.
I grabbed my Hershey Bar towel off the banister. “Here, stand on this,” I told him.
Then I tried—really hard—to pull myself together. I had to stop acting like I’d never had a sixteen-year-old lifeguard come to see me at my house before (even though I never had). I had to stop reading more into his visit than a friend dropping in on a friend.
“So,” I said finally.
He swept his wet hair back with one hand and smiled. “So,” he said.
“Have you been surfing?” I asked. There. That was better! Slowly but surely, my cool was returning. “How are the waves? Are you going out now? I was going to walk down if the rain let up later. But let me just run and change—and check with my mom—and I can go with you! Oh, and if you don’t mind, I’ll see if Juliette wants to go, too.”
I spun around quickly to run upstairs—but his “Uh, actually…” called me back.
“What?” I said.
“The wind’s pretty strong onshore,” Nick said. “I think the waves are too rough for surfing.”
“Aw…too bad,” I said. “Oh, well. So then what do you think we should do?”
“Well,” he said as his face got this new grin that I hadn’t seen before. It was a little more shy and sideways, and a little cuter, too. It washed over me like a wave. But then, as waves often do, it flipped me over and left me sputtering. Because what Nick went on to say was, “Actually, Samantha…I came to see Juliette.”
Excuse me?
“Is she here?” he said.
“Uh, I don’t know…” I stammered. Hang on. My brain whirred. Does this mean Nick isn’t here to see me?
Nick looked kind of puzzled, even a little sad. “You don’t know?” he asked. “Oh. I wondered if she wanted to, um, go to a movie. Could you check, do you think?”
Did I think? What I thought was that I suddenly felt awful. The whole Nick, Samantha, Juliette equation had just changed—and I had somehow been subtracted.
Okay, it was fine if he didn’t like like me. I could deal with that (and had before). But I wasn’t so sure I could deal with him liking Juliette. She was my friend—finally—on this vacation. And we had less than two weeks left!
Besides, Juliette needed a boyfriend like she needed a hole in the head. What she needed was a good friend like me to talk to, to help take her mind off her troubles. Boys only meant more trouble. Plus, she didn’t even like Nick—at least, she’d never said so to me. In fact, she’d told me several times how overrated boyfriends could be. Sending Nick away would be doing her a favor, I thought.
“I think…she’s out,” I told Nick finally. Then I looked at the floor. I didn’t trust myself to look at him.
“Oh, that’s too bad.” Nick sighed. “Well, will you tell her I stopped by? Here, I’ll give you my number. She can call me later, if she likes.” He took a pen out of his pocket. “Give me your hand.”
I kept my eyes down as he wrote his number on my palm. (Just the idea of it would have made me melt a few minutes earlier!) I looked at it glumly.
“Okay, well, I’ll see you later,” he said. “Hopefully, the sun‘ll be out tomorrow.”
A dark cloud, meanwhile, enveloped me. Oh, what was I thinking?
I had to admit, I wasn’t doing anyone—but me—a favor by sending Nick away. I could only imagine what Liza and Mina would say if I told them about this. I could just hear Liza: “You sneaky devil!” “You’d better not ever do that to me!” Mina would add.
I couldn’t not run and find Juliette and tell her that Nick wanted to take her to a movie, I realized. Besides, even if I did, that didn’t necessarily mean she would say yes…
I took a step forward. “No, wait,” I said. Nick’s eyes seemed more gray in the dim light of the stormy afternoon. “Maybe she is here,” I said. “I mean, this house is so big and all. Sometimes people come and go, and you never know. For all I know, she could be up in her room on the phone with her dad. So I should probably run and check.”
“Uh, okay.” He shrugged. “Thanks a lot, Samantha.”
I climbed the stairs and headed down the hall to Juliette’s room. Her door was closed, but I didn’t hear talking, so I knocked.
“Hey.” She opened the door. I was glad to see that she looked happy. Lately, she seemed to be having good conversations with her dad. “What’s up? I was just coming down.”
“Uh, good,” I said slowly, “because there’s…um…there’s someone here to see you.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Who?” she asked.
“Nick.” I tried to sound casual. “He said something about a movie…” I could see Juliette’s face get all pale and kind of nervous looking. “Oh, but don’t worry,” I assured her. “I told him I wasn’t even sure you were here.”
“You did?” she asked quietly.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “So if you want, I’ll just go back and tell him that you aren’t. I really don’t mind at all.” I turned to go.
“No!” cried Juliette.
I stopped.
“Don’t tell him I’m not here,” she said, quickly shaking her head. “Just tell him, um, that I’m in the middle of something.” She ran her fingers through her hair and looked down at her T-shirt and boxer-shorts pajamas. “I have to take a shower—I haven’t even brushed my teeth! Ask him if he can wait fifteen minutes. No, make that twenty. Wow, this is so weird!” She smiled and bit her lip.
By the time I got back to front door, Nick was no longer there. His coat was hanging on the doorknob, and I could hear his voice down the hall. “Yes, ma’am. I’d love some iced tea. Thank you.” I walked toward the kitchen, following the sound.
“Hey, Samantha, sugar,” said Karen. “I hope you found Juliette. Don’t tell me she went out in this weather.”
“Especially without telling me,” said Jackie, who sat between Jay and my mother. “That’s all I need.”
“No, she’s here,” I said. “She’ll be down in about twenty minutes.”
Then Nick gave me a smile so big, it was like the sun had come out again.
“Twenty minutes,” said Karen. “Well, I believe that’s just enough time for us to learn a little more about you, Nick.”
“Pull up a seat, my good man,” said Jay.
After dealing with those crazies for a while, I knew Nick was glad when Juliette finally appeared from upstairs. We all turned to see her walk in, looking basically amazing.
Nick stood up and knocked his chair over. “Oops…hi!” he said.
I shook my head.
“Nick here was just telling us the most wonderful things about himself,” said Karen.
“Seems like he had the idea to take you to a movie,” Jackie added.
Nick blushed and nodded.
And then Juliette said the last thing I expected to hear.
“Can Samantha come, too?” she asked.