My Fake Summer Boyfriend (5 page)

For a while I sat on the beach, watching
Hailey and Jason playing in the water while I slathered myself with suntan lotion. At quarter to three I called them in to dry off. "It's time to go to Little's for ice cream," I announced.

"Oh, boy!" said Jason.

"Could we stop at my cottage first?" Hailey asked. "I wanted to check our mailbox. I'm expecting my nature magazine."

"Sure," I said. "But let
's hurry." I didn't want to miss Alex at the store.

When
Hailey checked the Stedmans' mail she didn't find her magazine. There was only one envelope—a bright pink one bordered with white daisies. I couldn't help noticing the return address written in bold, red ink. It was from Nicole Kendall. I guess that one good thing about little-to-no cell phone service in this area was that at least she couldn’t call or text Alex here in Chatfield.

"This is for
Alex," Hailey said. "We should put it in his room."

"Good idea," I said. I certainly didn
't want to run into Little's waving a letter from Nicole at him. I unlocked the cottage door.

"Can I use the bathroom?" Jason asked. "It
's urgent."

"Of course,"
Hailey said. "It's upstairs." She headed up the stairs and Jason and I followed.

"There
's the bathroom." Hailey pointed to a door, and Jason rushed in. "I'll put this letter on Alex's dresser." She opened a door across the hall from the bathroom. "Excuse the mess," she said to me as she grabbed a pair of socks off the floor in Alex's room.

I stifled a laugh. I hardly thought of socks on the floor and a slightly rumpled bedspread as a mess, but obviously
Hailey did.

Hailey
propped the letter up on the bottle of English Leather on Alex's dresser, then turned to leave.

"Would you like to see my room?" she asked.

"Sure." I wasn't surprised to see that Hailey's bed was smoothly made, the top of her dresser was bare and there were no socks, or even a piece of lint, littering the floor. "It's a great room."

"Thank you."
Hailey beamed. "When Jason's done in the bathroom I can put these in the hamper." She made a face as she held up Alex's socks.

"I
'm ready!" Jason popped out of the bathroom.

Hailey
dashed in and tossed Alex's socks in the hamper.

"Now," I said, "let
's hurry."

We practically ran to the store, getting there just two minutes before three. The cluster of ten-year-old girls hovered outside the door, as if waiting to pounce on
Alex when he came out. The girls whispered behind their hands as Jason, Hailey and I went inside. Jason and Hailey headed for the ice-cream freezer. I stopped at the counter to talk to Alex.

"Hi." I tried to sound casual. "We thought we
'd walk you home. Your adoring fans are just outside."

"Really?"
Alex laughed. "I had to throw them out once today. They were fooling around, not buying anything, when Mr. Little walked in. He had a scowl on his face, so I shooed them outside. That seemed to pacify him."

"I see.
Hey, it's almost three o'clock. As soon as I pay for the ice cream, can you leave?" I didn't want to appear too eager, but I hoped I could get Alex to myself. Maybe we could go for a swim together.

"Don
't worry. Mr. Little's in back. He'll be out to take over right on the dot of three."

Jason skipped over to the counter and put down two ice-cream sandwiches.

I reached into my change purse and fumbled around for the money. I counted out the correct amount and handed it to Alex.

"Thanks." As
Alex put the money in the cash register, Mr. Little appeared from the back of the store.

"I
'll take over now," Mr. Little said. He looked at me with suspicion until he saw that Jason and Hailey had ice-cream sandwiches. "See you tomorrow, Alex."

"So long."
Alex cupped his hand on my elbow and guided me out of the store ahead of Jason and Hailey.

The girls all looked up as
Alex emerged. They looked disappointed when they saw that he was with me. I leaned close to Alex, and he slipped his arm around my waist. We walked down the street that way.

I giggled. "I think your devoted followers are just a little bit jealous."

"They should be." Alex kissed my cheek.

That kiss sent a joyous prickling sensation through me. I peeked over my shoulder. The girls were still watching us. I put my arm around
Alex. "I don't think they're going to be easily discouraged."

"We
'll just have to do whatever's necessary to dampen their enthusiasm." Alex grinned and gave me a squeeze.

A warm, happy feeling floated through my entire body. Jason and
Hailey were now walking ahead of Alex and me, oblivious to everything but their ice-cream sandwiches. Hailey delicately nibbled at hers, unwrapping it little by little as she ate. Jason had already disposed of his wrapper at the store and had to continually lick the edges of the ice-cream sandwich to keep it from dripping all over him.

We arrived at the Stedmans
’ cottage just as Mr. and Mrs. Stedman were getting out of their car. Mrs. Stedman paid me and asked how things went. I emphasized the educational nature of Hailey and Jason's playtime and their nutritious lunch. (I hoped it sounded nutritious, anyway.) Mrs. Stedman thanked me, and she and Mr. Stedman went inside looking as if they were going to collapse as a result of their golf game.

I pocketed my money, then turned to
Alex. "Hey, would you like to go swimming with me?" I tried to sound as if this was an afterthought.

"Well—"

"Oh, Alex," Hailey piped up. "I forgot. There's a letter for you. I put it on your dresser."

"A letter? Thanks,
Hailey. Umm, Katie, I'm kind of tired. Been on my feet all day. I think I'll pass on the swimming for now."

"Sure." I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice. "Maybe another time."

"Yeah," Alex said. "Maybe later. When I'm not so tired. See you."

"Bye."
Maybe later
. He was just trying to let me down easy before he rushed off to devour Nicole's letter. I was silent as Jason and I walked back to our cottage. It was clear that Alex was anxious to read his mail. Obviously he preferred Nicole's letter to my company.

Chapter Five

I hosed the sand off Jason, then had him change his clothes. As soon as Mom and Dad got home I went to my room to brood about Alex. I guess I was exhausted, because I promptly fell asleep. Next thing I knew, Jason was in my room shrieking that dinner was ready.

At dinner I almost nodded off again as Jason prattled on about root beer, the swimming, the sand castle. But I came to full attention when he mentioned
Alex's name.

"...
when Alex brings Hailey over to play with me." Jason spoke as if he was issuing a bulletin.

"
Alex is ... uh, Alex and Hailey are coming over?" I asked as nonchalantly as possible, considering that my mood had just swung from dreary to buoyant.

"Yes!
Hailey told me she was
sure
it would be okay!"

"Settle down, Jason."
Dad admonished him with a smile.

Just as I started to worry that it wasn
't definite that Alex was coming, there was a knock at the door. Jason ran to answer it and immediately whisked Hailey over to the card table and began setting up a game, leaving Alex alone in the doorway. He was wearing red bathing trunks and carrying a beach towel.

"I thought we could go swimming now, if you still want to." He flashed his super-white smile at me.

"Oh, I ... sure ... come on in ... I'll just ... please, sit down. I'll be right back." My heart sang as I dashed upstairs, changed into my bathing suit, grabbed a towel and hurried back downstairs.

"We
're going for a swim," I called to my parents.

"Be home before dark," Mom replied.

I ushered Alex out the door. "My mother's a total worrier. You'd think I was still three years old."

"No one would ever mistake you for a three-year-old."
Alex's gaze swept over the short line of cleavage extending from the top of my bathing suit. He put his arm around me, resting his hand on the lower part of my hip, perilously near the seat of my bathing suit.

"I—I thought to bring a towel this time," I said brightly.

"I brought a nice big one." Alex smiled at me, kind of suggestively I thought. Or maybe I was hoping. "Big enough for two."

"Oh. Well. Hmm
." A blush crept into my cheeks. "Hey, if we're going to go swimming, this is as good a spot as any." I dropped my towel on the sand and ran into the water up to my waist. Alex waded in after me. "Ooh, it's cold tonight." I shivered. "I've got goosebumps."

"You look good in goosebumps."
Alex rubbed my arms. "I'll help you get warm. You just need to get used to the water. My hands are wet. This will help you get used to it." He ran his hands up my arms, across my shoulders and down my back.

It was hard to remain coherent when
Alex's touch sent my senses spinning. But I managed to step back out of his reach and splash him. "This is a faster way to get used to the water!"

"Hey!" For a moment he looked angry. Then he laughed and splashed me, moving toward me.

I made one final splash, then dove underwater and swam until I could no longer hold my breath. Just as I surfaced a hand grabbed my ankle and pulled me under again. I swallowed a mouthful of saltwater and came up choking and coughing.

"Are you all right?"
Alex gently patted my back, his brow wrinkled.

I nodded as I coughed.

"I'm sorry." Alex waited until my coughing subsided. "That was a stupid thing for me to do. I guess I wasn't thinking."

"That
's, ah..." I cleared my throat. "That's okay. I'm all right now. I think I'll just sit down while I recuperate." Still gasping for air, I dragged myself onto the beach and picked up my towel.

"You dry off with that one,"
Alex said, "then sit on mine."

"What will you do?" I toweled myself dry.

"I can drip dry." Alex flicked a drop of water at me.

"If you say so." I sat on
Alex's towel, trying to catch my breath.

"You know," said
Alex. "I really shouldn't have pulled a stupid stunt like that. I've taken a lifesaving course—I'm supposed to know better."

"I
'm fine now."

"If you
're not," Alex said, kneeling in the sand beside me, "I'm qualified to give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation."

"I think I
'll pass on that." I coughed again.

"If you say so."
Alex grinned. "But you don't know what you're missing.

I offered him a small smile. "I
'd like to go back to the cottage," I said. "I don't feel like swimming anymore." I felt awkward, unsure what to say or do. I really didn't feel up to swimming, but I didn't want Alex to think I was mad at him. It was my own confusion that bothered me—my uncertain feelings about what Alex wanted from me and my mixed-up response to his touch. "I hope you don't mind," I added weakly.

"Whatever you say,"
Alex said. "Let's go back."

When we got back to the cottage I was feeling better and I invited
Alex in for a soda. Mom and Dad looked up from a card game to greet us.

"Hi!" Jason bounced in his chair. "You weren
't gone very long."

"The water was too cold,"
Alex said. "Have you started that game of Sorry yet?"

"We
've just started," said Hailey. "Would you and Katie like to play?"

"I thought you
'd never ask." Alex spread his towel over a chair and sat down.

I went to the kitchen and poured out sodas for all of us, then joined the others. I tried to study
Alex's face out of the corner of my eye. I wished I could read his true feelings in his face. Did he really like me, or was he just going along with my girlfriend suggestion for his own convenience? He seemed attracted to me, but that could be just physical. After our evening on the beach I wondered about my feelings for him. Was what I'd felt tonight love or chemistry? Or both? How could I tell?

"Your turn!" Jason
's high-pitched voice brought me out of my reverie.

"Okay." I rolled the dice, banishing my mixed feelings to a corner of my mind so I could concentrate on the game.

Eventually Hailey won the game.

"I expect a rematch,"
Alex said.

"Whenever you
're up to it," Hailey said.

"I need time to recover," said
Alex. "Besides, it's time to get home. We both have to be ready to go before 9:00 a.m."

"Okay."
Hailey neatly put away the pieces of the game and carried the empty soda glasses over to the kitchen sink.

After
Alex and Hailey said their good nights to the others, I walked them to the door.

Later in my room I pulled off my still-damp bathing suit. For a moment I stood in front of the dresser mirror, examining my figure. Unless he was just kidding me,
Alex seemed to like my figure. True my legs were thin and my hips and buttocks practically nonexistent. But I did have a small waist, and my breasts had grown since last summer. In fact, I was startled to realize that they no longer resembled grapes. They were now more like small peaches.

Still, my figure wasn
't as curvy as Nicole Kendall's. I couldn't help comparing myself to her. I wanted to measure up to Nicole. I wondered how she responded when Alex hugged and kissed her.

There had to be a simpler way to compete with
Nicole. As I rummaged through the top dresser drawer for my nightgown I ran across the bottle of food coloring from Bob's I'd placed there that afternoon.

I slipped into my nightgown and took the food coloring with me to the bathroom. I leaned over the sink and poured water over my hair and worked the red food coloring through it. It was too bad I hadn
't found any hair dye, but if I used enough food coloring it should at least add some dramatic red highlights to my hair. When I was finished, I wrapped the food-coloring bottle in toilet paper before throwing it in the wastebasket—to hide the evidence.

I didn
't see any difference in my hair while it was wet, so I dried it with my blow dryer. There was definitely a reddish tone to my hair. It wasn't the flaming red I'd hoped for. But it was a vast improvement.

When I saw Mom in the kitchen the first thing the next morning she didn
't say anything, but I thought I saw the corners of her mouth twitch. Maybe I was just being super sensitive. Dad and Jason didn't seem to notice the difference, but then they probably wouldn't notice if I dyed my hair green. I hurried Jason through breakfast and headed for Alex's as soon as possible. I wanted to see his reaction to my hair.

When I got to the Stedmans
' I noticed that Mrs. Stedman got a quizzical look on her face when she first said hello, but she was either too distracted or too reserved to say anything about my changed appearance.

"We
're going to be at the tennis club in Madison." Mrs. Stedman scribbled a telephone number on a scrap of paper. "You can reach us at this number from the pay phone at Little’s if you need us for anything."

"Thelma, let
's get going. We'll be late." Mr. Stedman waved a tennis racket at his wife.

"I
'm coming, Bill." Mrs. Stedman kissed Hailey. "See you this afternoon."

Just after they left,
Alex came running downstairs. "Is everybody ready to go?"

I nodded.

As soon as we were all outside, Alex grasped my arm. "Hold it," he said. "There's something different about you this morning?"

"Oh?"

"Yes. I'm not sure what it is." He looked me over.

"I can
't imagine what it is." I smiled to myself. It was amazing what coloring my hair could accomplish!

At Little
's I kissed Alex goodbye for the benefit of the ten-year-old girls clustered by the front door and, not so incidentally, for my own pleasure. I kind of had the feeling that Alex enjoyed it, too, but I couldn't be sure. Then I hustled Jason and Hailey to Bob's Beach Store for root beer, and this time I joined them. The cute blond boy was working behind the counter again.

"Oh, hi. You
're back." He smiled. "By the way, my name is Jake."

"Hi. I
'm Katie." No question, the hair coloring was working. "This is Jason and Hailey," I added, gesturing toward them.

Just then a tall skinny man with thinning black hair emerged from behind the pizza oven and told
Jake to get to work in the back room. I figured the man must be Bob.

I waited for Jason and
Hailey to finish their root beers, then placed a tip on the counter for Jake before I paid for the sodas. As we walked back to our cottage, I thought about the dimple that formed near the side of Jake's mouth when he smiled at me. For a moment I wondered what it would have been like to have had a summer romance with him. Less confusing than the one I was having with Alex, that was for sure.

The rest of the morning we spent hunting and identifying shells on the beach. When we stumbled on a dead horseshoe crab, Jason and
Hailey couldn't stop looking at it, even though Jason uttered several
yeches
and
ughs
. After lunch we all went in the water again. Because I was worried that my hair coloring might run, I didn't really swim but concentrated on helping Jason. He made a more prolonged attempt than he had the day before, but soon reverted to the dog paddle.

Before we all went to meet
Alex at Little's, Hailey once again wanted to check the mailbox for her nature magazine. It was there, and since she wanted to put it in her room, we all trooped inside the Stedmans' cottage and went upstairs. While I was waiting for Hailey and Jason, I couldn't help peeking inside Alex's room. There was the pink envelope, now opened, laying on his dresser next to a snapshot of Nicole propped against the mirror. Her full lips were parted in an ethereal smile. I wished I hadn't seen that picture. Even more, I wished it hadn't been standing on the dresser right across from Alex's bed.

After we finished at the cottage and met
Alex at the store, I tried to engage him in a conversation, which I hoped would give him a chance to explain about Nicole's picture and letter. Maybe he would say he meant to throw them away, but he just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Maybe he'd say he wished Nicole wouldn't write to him.

"
Alex," I said casually, "Hailey showed me her room yesterday. It's so neat and tidy."

Alex
laughed. "You should see her room at home. She puts all her toys in alphabetical order."

I waited for him to say more. I waited for him to tell me his room was not so neat, that he took forever to throw away junk he really didn
't need. But he didn't. He didn't say anything about his room or Nicole's letter. I left for our cottage in despair.