My Fake Summer Boyfriend (4 page)

"
Katie!" Mom sprang up from her chair. "We were just talking about you."

Mrs. Stedman also stood up and approached me. "Yes. We
'd like to ask you something."

"Oh?" I smiled nervously.

"Now you don't have to if you don't want to," Mom said.

"But of course we
'll both pay you if you agree," said Mrs. Stedman.

"Pay me? For what?" I glanced at
Alex.

"To babysit for Jason and
Hailey!" Mom exclaimed.

"You see,"
Mrs. Stedman said, "we've discovered that your folks and Mr. Stedman and I all love to play golf and tennis and bridge."

"We
'll each pay you the going rate, plus a little extra for snacks. What we'd like," said Mom, "is for you to baby-sit each weekday from nine until three, so we can have some free time. What do you say?"

"Well
...," I said hesitantly. I could always use the money and, since I wasn't sixteen yet, my prospects for finding anything better weren't very good. Also, I'd be working the same hours as Alex and have the same hours free. That would be convenient. I put up with Jason all year long, anyway. Why not get paid for it? "I'll take the job," I said finally. I liked the sound of the word "job." It sounded more important than "babysitting," which was not my favorite occupation.

"Oh, good!" Mrs. Stedman exclaimed.

"You will?" Mom sounded as though she couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. She knew, of course, that I didn't care much for babysitting, that I thought children—especially Jason—were essentially boring and useless.

"I can start tomorrow," I volunteered. "I
'll pick up Hailey at 8:50." I figured that was about when Alex would leave for work.

"We can drop her off,"
Mrs. Stedman said.

"I don
't mind," I said. "It will give you more time for golf or whatever you plan to do." I wouldn't have an excuse to see Alex if they dropped off Hailey!

"Fine," said Mrs. Stedman. She looked at her watch. "See you tomorrow morning. It
's late. We'd better be getting back to our cottage. Come on, everyone. We can't stay all night."

As Mr. Stedman and
Hailey said their good-byes and thank-yous, Alex drew me outside. He took my hand and led me back down by the water. He slipped his arms around my waist.

I looked up at him. There wasn
't enough moonlight to see the expression on his face.

"Wh-what are you doing?" I asked nervously.

"There are six people who are closely related to us standing just a few yards away. At least one of them is bound to be watching us. If you're supposed to be my girlfriend, I really should kiss you good-night."

"But—but we
're only trying to fool those girls."

"If we
're going to pull off a realistic act, I think we should try to convince everyone."

"Oh. Of course." My knees trembled. I was beginning to wonder if it was wise to have gotten myself involved in such a scheme, even if I was the one who originally suggested it. I cared too much for
Alex to have to pretend all the time that I was only pretending to like him!

Alex
leaned down, pressed his lips on mine and crushed himself against me. I locked myself into his embrace. His arms around me melted any doubts about having him as a  pretend boyfriend. But a minute later I pushed him away. "That's enough," I whispered. "This … this is only supposed to be a good-night kiss."

I felt light-headed and short of breath. I
'd only been kissed seven times since eighth-grade graduation, and none of those kisses had left me feeling the way Alex's had.

"I keep forgetting,"
Alex said, "that I'm seventeen and you're a mere child of fifteen. I'll try to keep myself in check from now on."

I couldn
't see Alex's face well enough to tell if he was teasing, but even if he was, I didn't need to be reminded of how young and inexperienced I was. Undoubtedly Nicole Kendall had no trouble handling Alex's kisses.

"
Alex," Mrs. Stedman called out. "We're leaving now."

"Be right there."
Alex draped one arm around my shoulders and walked me back to the cottage. "See you tomorrow, Katie." He squeezed my shoulder, then turned to leave.

"Good night." I watched until I couldn
't see Alex any longer, then went inside. Before I dashed upstairs, Mom shot me a funny look. I wondered if she'd seen Alex kiss me.

In my room I sat in front of the mirror, thinking. I
'd tried to put my best foot forward and wound up tripping over it. Maybe if I looked older Alex would take me more seriously. If only I could do something to measure up to Nicole Kendall! There wasn't much I could do about my figure, but maybe there was something I could do about my drab hair. I fingered a lock and curled it around my thumb.

Chapter Four

"Jason, will you stop picking the raisins out of your toast and just eat?" I paced around the table. "If you don't hurry, we'll be late!"

"Relax,
Katie." Mom spooned sugar into her coffee. "It's just past eight-thirty. It'll take only a couple minutes to walk to the Stedmans', and our golf date isn't until nine-thirty, so there's no need to rush, anyway."

"I don
't want to be late on the first day," I said. "Jason, I'm going upstairs to comb my hair. You'd better finish eating and brush your teeth before I'm ready to leave."

When I reached my room I took a few dollars out of the painted tin box on top of my dresser and stuffed it into my pocket. I figured that would be enough for some hair color to brighten my drab locks.

On my way back downstairs I heard Jason gargling in the bathroom. I winced. Probably the neighbors could hear him, too. "Come on, Jason. One. More. Minute."

"Okay." Jason gurgled and spit.

I went downstairs to wait.

"
Katie, there's plenty of food to fix for your lunches." Mom was peering into the refrigerator. "Hot dogs, milk, juice, carrot sticks, celery." She closed the refrigerator door and opened a cabinet door. "Bread, peanut butter, raisins—"

"I can find the food, Mom," I said. "We won
't starve."

"Yes, I know. I just—"

"I'm ready!" Jason jumped down the last three stairs, triumphantly raising his arms over his head as he landed on the floor.

"Good!" I grabbed his hand and led him out the door before there could be any more delays. When we got a few steps away from the cottage, I stopped and graspe
d Jason by the shoulders. "Jason, I want you to be on your best behavior. Understand?"

"Of course,"
Jason said, wide-eyed. Innocent.

"Fine." I took a step, then stopped again. I realized I didn
't even know where Alex's cottage was.

"Let'
s go." Jason tugged at my hand and led me off to the left. "Number seventy-six is this way."

"Duh," I said, as if I
'd known all along.

Dan’s
cottage looked pretty much like ours, except it had a trellis by the door where a tangle of roses grew. I knocked twice.

The door opened.
Hailey peeped out from behind it. "Won't you come in?"

"Hi," I said cheerily. "Are you all ready?"

"Oh, yes," Hailey answered. Her formality still un-nerved me a bit, but I was sort of getting used to it.

"
Katie," Mrs. Stedman said, "here's the key to the cottage, in case Hailey needs anything. Hailey, don't forget your snack." She handed Hailey a small plastic bag containing cheese cubes and green olives.

"Thanks."
Hailey kissed her mother good-bye.

"Oh," said Mrs. Stedman. "Here
's your bathing suit, too."

"I
'll take it," I said. I lingered in the doorway, waiting for Alex to appear. I wanted to walk to the store with him.

Suddenly he bounded down the stairs. "Ah. Is this my escort service?"

"Ready and waiting," I answered briskly.

"Let
's go, then," said Alex.

The four of us filed out the door.

"You two walk ahead of us," I said to Jason and Hailey. "This road's too narrow for us to walk four across."

Jason and
Hailey paired off, whispering solemnly. Occasionally Jason peeked over his shoulder at Alex and me and giggled.

It was a short walk, and soon we had to cross the street to the store. "Let
's all hold hands," I said to Jason and Hailey. I hoped Alex would take the hint. He did.

As soon as we
'd crossed the street I spotted the cluster of girls down the road on their way to the store. "See you later, Alex," I said in an extra loud voice. Then I stood on my toes and gave him a quick kiss. "That was for their benefit," I whispered, motioning toward the girls.

"See you back here at three o
'clock," Alex said, as soon as the girls got a little closer. He blew me a kiss before he stepped inside the store. I blushed, even though I knew the kiss was only for the sake of the giggling girls.

"Okay, you two," I said to Jason and
Hailey. "We're going for a walk." I tried not to smile as I walked past the girls, who were now giving me a thorough once-over.

"Where are we going?" Jason walked between me and
Hailey, holding our hands and swinging his arms.

"To Bob
's Beach Store," I said. "I thought it would be fun to see what they have there." I didn't mention that I hoped they had a good selection of hair coloring.

The walk to Bob
's Beach Store was longer than I had thought it would be—nearly a mile. But once we reached the section that had the trees and big houses the cool shade provided a pleasant change of atmosphere, which silenced the gripes Jason had just started making about having to walk so far. In the driveways of the houses I saw expensive cars. Some of the houses had tennis courts, and one even had a swimming pool. Then the trees thinned out and the houses looked a bit more rustic as we neared Bob's. There also appeared to be a knot of kids about my age. So far in my section of the beach I had seen families with small children or older couples. Alex and I seemed to be the only two between the ages of ten and twenty-five.

"Well, here we are," I said, as we arrived at Bob
's. I led Jason and Hailey through the open door of the store.

Jason immediately hopped up on one of the stools at the counter and spun himself around. "Whee!"

"Why don't you two have a soda. You must be thirsty after that walk." I saw a sign advertising root beer in frosted mugs. "How about a mug of root beer?" I wasn't so concerned about their thirst. I wanted to keep them busy for a few minutes.

"Yeah! Root beer!" Jason bounced on his stool.

"Yes, thank you." Hailey climbed up on to the stool next to Jason and folded her hands on the counter.

A cute blond
guy working behind the counter turned around and asked, "Three root beers?"

"Just two." I pointed to Jason and
Hailey. "I, uh, have to look for something." I didn't want an audience while I shopped, especially not a cute guy.

"Maybe I could tell you where to find it." The
blond guy took two frosty mugs from the freezer. "What are you looking for?"

"I
'll, er, just look for it." I could feel the red creeping up my face. "I want to browse anyway."

"Let me know if you need any help." The
blond guy filled the mugs with root beer from a tap and set them on the counter in front of Jason and Hailey. "It's no trouble." He flashed me a big smile.

"All right." I ducked my head to hide my blushing cheeks and scurried to the other side of the store to look around. I hunted through the shelves until I finally found a section with a limited selection of shampoos and conditioners. I searched through all the bottles twice but couldn
't find any hair color. I tried to think. Maybe I could use something else.

I moved over to the food aisle and checked the baking supplies. In the midst of flour, sugar and birthday candles I finally found some food coloring. If it would color food, why not hair? The worst that could happen would be that it wouldn
't work. It didn't cost much and, actually, it would be less embarrassing—and incriminating—than buying hair coloring. I could probably attribute a few red highlights to the sun. I took the bottle to the cash register and paid for it and the two root beers.

The
blond guy counted out my change and handed it to me. "Come again."

"Bye." I smiled at him. I wondered if I should mention that I had a boyfriend, but decided against it. It would be
kind of presumptuous, and I could be misinterpreting his friendliness. Besides, I wasn't sure if Alex wanted publicity of our "romance" to extend the length of the entire beach or if he only wanted to influence the girls at Little's.

While Jason,
Hailey and I walked back to our cottage, I thought about the arrangement I had made with Alex. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. But now I wondered if it might not backfire. If I didn't turn my fictional romance with Alex into a genuine one, I might miss an opportunity to at least have a summer fling. But then, a summer fling would end anyway, and Alex was going to be in Hartford when I got back. It would be best, I decided, to stick with my original plan to get Alex's attention for real.

Meanwhile, I had my work cut out for me. I had Jason and
Hailey to worry about. It was no ordinary babysitting job. It was six hours a day, five days a week. I couldn't just sit around and watch the kids, counting the hours until their parents got home, as I usually did when I babysat. I figured I'd better overcome my dislike for this sort of work and try to make it fun for the kids and worthwhile for myself. I wanted to be creative as well as reliable. I would start as soon as we got back to the cottage.

By the time we reached the cottage door, Jason was clamoring for a snack. I was about to remind him that he
'd just had a root beer, when Hailey announced that she was thirsty.

"All right," I said. "We
'll take a lemonade break."

Jason and
Hailey sat at the table while I poured their lemonade. Hailey placed her bag of cheese cubes and green olives in front of her. "Jason, would you like some cheese and olives?" She turned to me. "You may have some too, if you'd like."

"Thanks, but I
'm not hungry." I put the glasses of lemonade in front of Jason and Hailey and sat down with them.

"I
'll have some cheese and olives," Jason announced, "if Hailey will have some of my snack." He looked imploringly at me.

"Oh." I stood up. It was obvious that Jason wanted to have something to share with
Hailey. "Oh. Of course. How could I forget? Would you like some ... raisins?"

"Yes, please."
Hailey smiled eagerly.

Jason looked relieved.

I hunted around in the cabinets, looking for the raisins that Mom had mentioned this morning. I found them on an upper shelf. After I poured some into a bowl, I ceremoniously place them on the table.

"Have some?" Jason proudly offered
Hailey the bowl first.

I could hardly believe this was the same Jason I had always known and sometimes loved. Sharing was not his strong point. Not that he was selfish, really. It was just that ordinarily he was too excited about eating to remember to let someone else go first.

When the kids had finished eating, I cleared the table and washed the glasses. From the cupboard I got out some plastic bowls and old pans I figured Mom wouldn't mind me using. "Jason, get your pail and shovel and we'll go build sand castles now."

Jason ran upstairs and returned with a pail, two shovels and a sifter. I grabbed a blanket, then led the kids to a quiet spot on the beach. There seemed to be more people around than there had been yesterday. But still no one my age. I spread the blanket out by the water.

The three of us scooped and piled sand, forming a Gothic-looking sand castle. Hailey sculpted a turret, which reminded me of the house I'd seen in the ritzy section of the beach. As the sand castle expanded and wound its way across the beach, I pointed out the various shapes we were making with our buckets and bowls of sand. I discussed cubes and spheres and cones.

I noticed that
Hailey was slow and deliberate, packing the sand tightly into each container, taking her time as she calculated exactly where she should place each mound of sand. Her side of the castle looked as though it could stand for years. Jason, other the other hand, shoveled furiously, dumped carelessly and got as much sand on himself as he did on his side of the castle. I couldn't help sighing. If only there were a way I could get Jason to act more like Hailey. It would be nice to have a civilized sibling for a change.

When the water began eating away at the edge of the castle, I explained about high and low tides. I thought making the playtime sort of educational would mean I was doing a better job. Besides, it made the time pass quickly.

Before we knew it, it was noon. I took Jason and Hailey back to the cottage for lunch. I fixed hot dogs and carrot and celery sticks and made sure that they both had a glass of milk. When Jason clamored for dessert, I suggested we go to Little's later in the afternoon for ice-cream bars. I wanted to be sure to be there just when Alex got off work. Fortunately, my idea met with roaring approval from Jason and a smile and nod that probably represented enthusiasm from Hailey.

After lunch we changed into our bathing suits and went for a short walk on the beach before going for a swim. I demonstrated the sidestroke and backstroke.
Hailey mastered the sidestroke right away and did a fairly good job with the backstroke. Jason made a feeble attempt at both before announcing that the dog paddle was still his favorite way to swim.