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An eternity. It took an eternity for ten o’clock the next day to roll around, especially since I’d had to spend the previous evening with my mom and my brother. I made it worse by going to bed early to escape them, which caused me to wake up at seven. Seven was three whole hours until ten, three excruciatingly slow hours.
I dug my swim suit out finally and put it on, modeling a bit in the bathroom mirror. Then I donned my bathing suit cover up, grabbed a towel, and headed for the door. My mom stopped me. “You need to take Curtis.”
Yeah, fine. I’d take him. Not that he didn’t have the right to enjoy himself; it was his pseudo-vacation, too. But he couldn’t swim and so that’d limit me to the shallow end. I had no choice though. It was take him or don’t go. So I waved at the little beast to hurry it up and stomped out the door.
I didn’t actually wait on him in my walk toward the pool. The guesthouse sat on the western side of the property, about one hundred yards away. It wasn’t so far and there was no way to get lost.
I had a few minutes to spare, so I took my time. This was all for show anyhow, and I wanted to make it good. God-boy needed to sweat like I had yesterday.
I strolled across the pool deck, tossing my towel at the end of a lounge chair, the back door of the main house in my peripheral vision, and I poised myself for the right moment to remove my wrap.
A doubt crept in at the last moment, and instead of shoving it aside, I entertained it. Maybe I shouldn’t do this. Maybe the Adderlys wouldn’t appreciate a girl making a move on their son. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do. I in no way considered myself the prettiest female on the planet, so this was also kind of conceited.
But harmless, right? I couldn’t back out now, or I’d look foolish. I was only swimming in the pool, and we’d paid for two week’s stay. I couldn’t avoid the pool all that time, and it wasn’t really my fault he lived here. I was the guest.
All of this ran through my brain and the time slipped by. I heard the click of the door, and I knew it was now or never. Do or die. I grasped the end of my wrap and drew it over my head. Shaking my hair out, I dropped it beside the towel. I turned my vision toward what I assumed would be Apollo, gawking at me.
And looked right into the eyes of his dad.
Apollo overslept, like 10:15 A.M. overslept, and woke up in a complete panic, his first thought on whatever Lilac had planned out by the pool. He was ordinarily an early riser, but a combination of too much caffeinated soda and a late-night movie had kept him awake until almost two.
He hauled himself out of bed and to the bathroom, then back to get dressed, ignoring his grumbling stomach in his haste to reach the pool. There, groggy, rubbing sleep-encrusted eyes, he scanned the chairs and spotted one well-enshrouded female figure lying completely flat in the shade of a table umbrella.
He inhaled and crossed the distance between them.
She was wearing a straw hat, with the brim tilted over her eyes, and a pair of Jackie-O sunglasses. Somewhere beneath a large beach towel and her bathing suit cover up, he spotted the straps of a swimsuit.
If she heard him approach, she didn’t acknowledge his presence. Her face was a study in calm, not a muscle twitched, her lips were perfectly even, neither smiling nor frowning. As far as he could tell, she wasn’t awake.
He seated himself at her head and leaning over, took hold of her sunglasses on either side and gently removed them from her face. Her two wide brown eyes gazed back at him, but her expression didn’t change.
“You know ...” she said at last. “I completely deserved that.”
He winced.
“I know I’m overbearing, and I talk too much. Plus, I pushed you a lot yesterday, and it’s really childish of me to have even left the note. But ...”
“I overslept,” he said.
She never flinched and made no remark.
“I apologize,” he added.
“Yes, well, you’re forgiven, I suppose.”
But her body language didn’t agree with that. He might not be as perceptive as she was, but he wasn’t blind.
“Let me make it up to you,” he said. “We’ll go somewhere, anywhere you like.”
She blinked once. “Anywhere?”
“Within reason.”
She smiled. “A qualifier. You’re afraid of what I might suggest.”
“Terrified,” he replied, nodding.
She laughed, then her face settled. “You owe me big time. Big, huge big. Because I have suffered the ultimate humiliation and for a girl like me, it takes something really special to get over that.”
“Oh? My oversleeping was the ultimate humiliation?” That seemed far-fetched, even for her.
“No, sun-god, not your oversleeping, it’s the fact that ...” She paused and swallowed, her cheeks turning pink.
Heavens. What exactly had happened?
“Your father’s a nice man,” she said, switching gears.
Apollo wrinkled his forehead. His dad? What did he have to do with this?
“Very affable and talkative. Told me I could swim however often I like. Said he was so glad his son had a date Friday.”
Apollo’s blood drained from his face. “That’s ...”
“Embarrassing. There I was in my full glory staring right into the eyes of your dad.”
“Man, I am so sorry.” But sorry didn’t begin to cut it. She was right. He owed her big, huge, big, and he was definitely going to pay up. He inhaled deep. “You name it. We’ll do it. Forget the qualifier.”
A triumphant smile pasted itself to her face. “Good because I’ve given it all some thought. I no longer want to swim. I want to go one place and one place only, and you’re going to take me there.”
She pulled herself upright, towel, cover-up, and all somehow staying perfectly in place, and swung her legs over the side of the chair. He reversed and turned himself for a better view of her. She adjusted her hat and stuck out her hand for her sunglasses.
Sliding them back on her face, she stood to her feet. “Go ahead,” she said. “Ask me where that is.”
“Okay. Where am I going to take you?”
Her smile broadened and she licked her lips. “You, Pool Boy, are taking me to Grandma’s Gift Shop for Girls.
I only knew of the gift shop because my mom had mentioned it on the trip down. She’d said it was the biggest store of its kind in the area, and that alone had intrigued me. Yet add to that the idea of a shop strictly for girls, and I was hooked.
I loved trinkets, knickknacks, and baubles, especially if they were pink or purple and fluffy. I had a tremendous collection of stuff like that in my closet at home, and I could tell you exactly where I’d acquired each of them and the approximate date and cost.
Therefore, I entered those majestic double electronic doors my heart pattering reckless in my chest, thirty dollars given to me by my mom clenched in my hand, and a skip in my step.
Apollo, on the other hand, looked like he was walking toward his death, and I can’t say that I blamed him. No boy wanted to be seen in such a place. Despite this, there were husbands, brothers, and other males everywhere, all sporting the same doom and gloom expression.
However, his discomfort didn’t stop me from squealing inside. My hands clasped to the buggy, I raced down an aisle, leaving him to drag along. It was by far the most marvelous place I’d ever been, like something from a girl’s dreams. There was row upon row of gift items – stuffed animals, jewelry, hair accessories, purses, and the Holy Grail—shoes.
I had one of those heavenly moments where the sky opens, a bright light descends, and the angels sing. Never had I seen so many pairs of shoes: heels, flats, sandals, boots, and sneakers in every size and color and decoration. I spun along, changing my mind a thousand times then caught sight of Apollo in a mirror.
He was as out of place as a snowflake on the Fourth of July, and to put it short, miserable. I circled around, returning to where he stood. “You’ve eaten a rotten tomato,” I said, and I gave a soft laugh. “I promise you’ll like the ending.”
“The ending?” he asked. I think his brain had gone numb.
I nodded. “Uh huh.” I motioned wide. “The ending of this day.” I meant because we’d go swimming later, and he’d get to see me in a suit. I was going to capitalize on that, but his poor mind went another direction.
“We ... we’re here all day?”
I giggled like a young child. He really was being tragic. “No, we’re not here all day, but I figured I’d reward you for being such a good sport.”
“Is that what I’m being?” he asked.
And it came to me; he needed some of his manhood back. Something happens to males in those kinds of places, it’s like all their backbone leaches out and they’re left with nothing but a shell. I bet if I’d thumped him hard enough, he would have dissolved in front of me. So I cast in my mind for exactly what would return it to him, and an idea crept into my head.
It was so simple, and it went right back to his promise on day one. I released my buggy, leaving it midway down the aisle and taking hold of his arm, turned him around and walked to the end of the aisle. Really, he more trailed behind me, but in any case, standing there at the end of the aisle, I faced him and placed a hand on either side of his face.
He gave me a dazed look.
“Apollo,” I said, getting really close to him. “Nod if you can hear me.”
Listless, he nodded.
“Okay, good. Do you remember your promise to me?”
“My promise?”
“Mmhmm. By the pool, you said you pick up pretty houseguests.”
He blinked slow, the action reminiscent of a turtle poking its head from its shell.
“Yes, why?” he asked.
I jerked my head toward the front registers. “Now’s your chance. Paste me to your chest, Pool Boy.”
He stared back, benumbed, then a slow smile crept on his lips, the corners gradually curving upward and pulling back. A sparkle came in his eyes, and he stooped, swooping me off my feet.
I threw an arm around his neck and laid my head against his neck with a dramatic sigh. “I told you you’d get your chance.”
He laughed and carried me right out the door.
“I thought I was a goner,” Apollo said, dipping a fry in the ketchup on Lilac’s hamburger wrapper. He stuffed it in his mouth.
“You almost were,” she said.
He picked up two more, but halted without eating them. Instead, he turned them around and fed them to her. She tilted her head, chewing, and smiled.
He absentmindedly dusted salt from his fingertips. She was so pretty, yet he’d seen that yesterday, been overcome by it even. He dropped his hand to the table top.
She’d been right, too. He’d wanted to kiss her, still did in fact.
She wrinkled her nose and sipped her soda, ducking her eyes for a minute. “You ... you remember what you said? About if I ever needed to talk?”
He nodded, suddenly ashamed of his thoughts. Here he was thinking about kissing, and she was upset.
“I’m a good listener,” he said.
Her hands were in her lap, where she seemed to be wringing them, judging by the motion of her arms.
“This about your dad?” he ventured.
The smile she normally held faltered and fell. On impulse, he rose from his side of the booth and moved to hers. “Scoot,” he said. She slid left and he seated himself, but opened his arm and drew her in. “Here, sit right there.”
She laid her head against his neck.
“You know, I liked having you ‘pasted’ to my chest.”
She gave a light laugh.
“We fit. Don’t you think?”
“Do we?”
“Mmm.”
Her breath warmed the base of his throat, and her lashes fanned across his skin. She stretched an arm over his chest. “Did you ... sit like this with her?”
He mulled that over. Of course, she might wonder that. Perhaps your average girl might not ask though. “I can’t recall it. She was very standoffish. I should have seen through that, I think.”
“Did you kiss her?”
Well, sure he did, but there again ... anything between he and Christine had been remote. “A few times, though she never was too affectionate.”
Lilac quieted, and time ticked on. She seemed to change thoughts. “He left. Six months ago.”
Her dad. That was what she’d wanted to talk about.
“You were upset?” he asked.
She shook her head against his chest. “No. Glad. I hate him.”
Her statement startled him. Hate was such a strong word.
“I’ve hated him ever since Curtis.”
“Curtis?”
What did her brother have to do with this?
“Curtis was an accident,” she said. “Unplanned.”
That explained their obvious age difference.
“Mom was upset. She hadn’t wanted to have another. She loves Curtis now, but finding out, you know ...”
“Sure.”
“Thing is, Dad told her he was happy about it, but when Curtis was born, he wasn’t around.”
“Where was he?” This was the suggested next question in his mind, but not the direction Lilac was apparently headed.
“Meeting. Work. Something. He disappeared, and it became me, Mom, and Curtis. The little he was there, they argued. Over anything.”
“But why did Curtis make him stay away?”
Lilac fell silent again. Her hand had warmed on his side and her cheek to a patch of skin on his shoulder. He rested his head atop hers.
“Would you kiss me?” she asked.
Shocked she’d asked in the middle of the conversation, he pushed back and gazed down at her. “Why?”
She moistened her lips. “You wanted to.”
“Yes, but I need to know why first. Is this the houseguest asking, Lilac, or Liane?”
Her expression changed at the sound of her real name. “Liane. I like being called Lilac,” she added.
“I think of you that way, but Liane is the girl behind it all, the one who makes Lilac tick.”
“If I lived here, you’d date me. Right?”
He gave a crooked smile. “Yes, I would. I like you.” After yesterday’s declaration to his mom, this surprised even himself, but he meant it. They clicked somehow.
“You’d kiss me then.” She folded herself back against him.
“I guess so. But who are you kissing?” he asked. “The pool boy, the son of the Adderlys, or Apollo? Because the answer makes the difference. I want to kiss the girl in my arms and not the one who’s led me on for the last two days. I like that girl, mind you. But kissing is more serious. Therefore, I want you to kiss the right image of me as well.”
“I want to kiss Apollo. I ... I bet you don’t go around kissing houseguests.”
“No.”
“Don’t make me the first. Don’t kiss the houseguest. Kiss the girl you would have if you’d asked her out.”
He adjusted his grip on her, tightening it some. “Okay, but first answer my question. Why did Curtis make your dad stay away?”
His mind was supplying dozens of answers, an affair on the part of one parent or the other being the most obvious. But the answer again surprised him.
“Curtis is autistic.”
Autistic? That’d make her dad stay away?
“Dad called him names.”
“You call him names,” he said.
“Well, only because he annoys me sometimes. I’ve never called him what my dad did, nor have I ever walked away. But now he wants to play nice, to ‘apologize’ to both of us, but I don’t want to hear it.” She stuck her lip out in a well-defined pout.
“Don’t you owe him a chance?” Apollo asked.
Lilac pulled away, her eyes sparking. “He had his chance.”
“Okay.” Apollo raised his hands in surrender. “I’m not trying to get involved.” But in his thinking, at some point she’d gone off base. If her dad was sorry for his behavior, then it stood to reason, she should allow him to apologize. Evidently not, in Lilac’s mind.
“Let’s get out of here,” Apollo said. Exiting the booth, he toted the tray to the trashcan and waited for her.
She appeared beside him. “I never did get to spend my mom’s thirty dollars.”
“In that case, I know just the place, and one less scary.”
Lilac smiled. She made to walk forward, but he snagged her arm. Pulled short, she gazed back at him. He slid his fingers down to her hand and took it in his own. “Any girl I’m going to kiss, I can hold hands with.”
Her cheeks pinked, and it struck him this was the real Liane Arnoult, the doubtful girl who put on brashness to cover her pain, and though he liked that side of her—it was, after all, what had attracted him in the first place—it was nice to see she wasn’t that way all the time.
He folded their fingers together and headed for the door.