No Strings Attached (54 page)

“I can't,” said Claire.

Linley jumped to her feet. She put her hands on her hips and somehow made herself look taller.

Towering and glowering now, Linley said, “I'm actually considering murder at this moment.” Then she leaned forward and swatted Claire on the back of her head with the palm of her hand.

“OW! What was that for? Did your mother teach you nothing? Hitting is wrong. Bad Linley.” Claire leaned back in case Linley decided on a repeat.

“It's a dope slap,” said Linley. “I learned about it from listening to public radio.”

“You? Public radio? I doubt that,” Claire scoffed, still keeping a safe distance.

“
Car Talk
,” said Linley. “It's good for bonding with my dad. But that's beside the point. The point is, what
are
you, a Woman or a WASP? After I go to all this trouble to set up a perfect summer, this is what you say?” Linley pitched her voice into whine key. “I can't. Oooh, I'm afraid. Oh no, no, no, no.”

Amused and annoyed, Claire said, “Linley, you don't under—”

“No,” said Linley. “No words unless they start with ‘yes.'”

“But—”

“No …”

“My father has—”

“No.”

“The bank—”

“No …”

“Linley!”

“NO!”

They glared at each other. Claire looked away first. She thought of the cold, respectable corridors of the bank. One day, she would go into one of those vaults just as her sister and brother had, and never come out. But did she have to start now? Right this minute?

This summer?

Did people in banks have headbanging sex?

Not her father. Not her mother. She shuddered at the thought. Best not to think of that at all.

“California,” said Claire, almost dreamily.

Linley smiled triumphantly.

Then Claire remembered where California was.

She looked up at Linley, her eyes tragic.

“What?” said Linley. “Claire, what's wrong?”

“I hate flying,” said Claire. “I did it once. That was enough.”

The two girls stared at each other.

“Some suggest,” Linley said slowly, “that fear of flying is actually fear of sexual pleasure.”

“It's not
all
about sex. In this case, it's about being in a silver tube with stupid wings that don't even have feathers being driven by someone who maybe is having a bad day and might not see that mountain or, say, the other plane headed—”

“Stop,” said Linley. She considered a moment, then brightened. “Okay, drugs. No problem.”

“I don't do—”

“One little pill. Trust me. Now, what word are we looking for here?”

Claire looked at Linley. Linley the beautiful, Linley the spoiled, Linley the most fun person Claire had ever known. Life was never dull when Linley was around—dull, as in a summer spent in a bank under her father's eyes.

Claire looked at Linley, into eyes she thought might actually be the color of the Pacific Ocean. She took a deep breath.

What could it hurt, to spend a summer in California? She'd find a way to convince the 'rents.

“One word,” Linley prompted.

“Yes,” Claire answered.

“You'll like Jodi.” Linley had been talking ever since the plane had taxied into takeoff.

So far, Claire had neither shared the contents of her mostly empty stomach with the rest of the passengers nor passed out. In fact, she was pretty sure she'd loosened her grip on the seat arms. Fractionally.

“I've told you about Jodi, remember? We were the Two all through high school.” Linley held up two fingers and waggled them to demonstrate.

The plane leveled out. The fasten seat belt sign blinked off.

A flight attendant appeared and looked at Linley. Linley looked at her two fingers and grinned. “Vodka and cranberry, rocks,” she said.

Suddenly, absurdly, Claire felt like giggling. She raised one hand and fluttered her fingers. “Me, too,” she sang. It seemed like a very good idea. The ground was leaving the plane so very, very fast. No, wait—it was the plane leaving the ground.

“I'll need to see some I.D.,” said the flight attendant.

“I'm twenty-two,” said Linley, smiling her gazillionwatt
smile. “And no one ever believes me.” She flipped open her wallet, and the attendant glanced at the fake I.D. and nodded.

“But my friend isn't,” Linley went on. “She's only twenty. She'll have cranberry juice and soda.”

“What?” said Claire, trying to feel indignant. “I have I.D.I …”

Ignoring Claire, the attendant smiled and handed the wallet back to Linley. “Coming right up,” the attendant said.

The guy in the aisle seat said to the attendant, “Scotch, rocks, and let me take care of their drinks.”

“Thanks,” said Linley.

“I want a real drink, too,” said Claire.

“No, you don't,” said Linley. She lowered her voice. “Not with what you're flying on, you don't. That little pill is plenty all by itself.”

Claire giggled again. She couldn't help it.

“First time you've ever flown?” the guy said to Claire. But he only glanced at her. He was really talking to Linley.

“No,” said Claire.

“She had a terrible experience as a child,” Linley said.

“What?” Claire sputtered.

“Are you from California?” Linley asked him.

He laughed. He had those white square teeth that Claire had always thought weren't real outside of photo ops. “I wish,” he said.

The flight attendant returned. He was good-looking, Claire
noticed. Maybe it was the uniform. She wondered if Linley had noticed too.

“Massachusetts,” said Claire. “I'm from. …”

The guy said to Linley, “I'm a graduate student. Headed for a summer internship in San Diego.”

“Nice,” said Linley. She leaned closer, sliding a finger down his arm, her voice dropping.

To be a part of this conversation,
Claire thought crossly,
I'd have to sit in Linley's lap.

But then suddenly, she didn't mind. Peering out the window, she discovered that the earth had gone missing. Below were only clouds. Ahead, the sun was setting. Pretty.
Look at me, I'm flying into a postcard,
she thought.

She yawned.

Beside her the voices dropped to a murmur.

She was on her way to California. She, Claire Plimouth. All because of Linley.

Linley was a pain. Linley was insane. Linley was the kind of roommate Claire had avoided all her years in the best boarding schools of New England.

It hadn't been hard, avoiding those girls. They'd barely even known she'd existed.

But she was good with that. She figured someday she'd own the company that they—or their husbands—would work for.

When Linley had burst into her dorm room that first day of
college the previous fall, Claire had winced. Black clothes and pink shoes—what was
that
?

It was, as it turned out, two of Linley's favorite colors. She'd looked at Claire in her khaki and navy and said, “Wow, your eyes are the most amazing color. They're, like, golden!”

“Brown,” Claire had corrected. “Light brown.”

“No, golden,” Linley had corrected back.

And somehow, they'd become friends. Not all at once. Claire had tried to keep her distance. But Linley didn't seem to notice. She'd made Claire join her on what Linley called her “party rounds.” She'd dragged Claire shopping and talked her into “colors, for god's sake.”

And then made Claire wear the fuzzy cropped sweater Linley said was “Caribbean blue” to a party. Had included Claire in nighttime pizza attacks.

She had a sudden memory of a weekend in Vermont. The snow had been perfect powder. Linley, in electric pink and several other colors unknown in nature, had stared down at the snowboard strapped to her feet. She'd looked up at Claire. “What the hell,” she'd said, and taken off.

She hadn't made it. But she almost had. Claire had boarded down to check on her and found her laughing at the bottom of the hill.

“You okay?”

“Oh, better,” Linley said. “That was amazing. Awesome. The absolute second best thing in the universe.”

“The second best?” said Claire. “And the first?”

She'd expected Linley to say “sex,” but Linley had surprised her. “Surfing,” she'd said. “And I can tell by the way you board that you're going to love surfing too.”

“Right,” said Claire, thinking,
Like I'm ever going to get anywhere near a surfboard.

“You'll see,” Linley had promised, scrambling to her feet. “Now, teach me how to get down that hill.”

She'd asked Claire to show her—not some cute guy, not some instructor. That, Claire thought, was the day they'd become real friends, because she'd realized she had something to offer Linley in exchange for the excitement and color—literally—that Linley brought to life.

That night, hanging out in the ski lodge, they'd swapped snow and surf wipeout stories. Claire described learning to ski from her mother, who had, as far as Claire could tell, never fallen off her skis.

“Didn't you just want to push her?” Linley had said, and Claire, shocked, had said, “No!” and then, bursting out into laughter, “Yes!”

Linley had talked, a little bit, about growing up in San Francisco and going with friends to the beach and then discovering surfing. Had laughed at how her parents had tried to make her “respectable” and then finally given in and let her buy her first surfboard.

Many nights of many drinks and talks and pizzas and old
movies had cemented their friendship, but that had been the beginning, the real beginning.

And now Claire was on her way to California, where, Linley had promised, she was going to learn to surf.

Friends,
thought Claire.
That's a good thing.

First friends, then a boyfriend. How hard could that be? And then she'd no longer be …

Nope. She wouldn't think about that now.

From somewhere, she'd acquired a blanket. She hitched it up over her shoulders and settled back in her seat.
Sleep,
she thought.
That's a good thing, too. And when I wake up, I'll be in California.

As she fell asleep, she vaguely heard the guy asking for another round of drinks.

When Claire woke up, she wasn't in California. She was in the dark.

Not total darkness, but the hushed darkness of a plane where people were sleeping.

Claire squinted at her watch. Two hours had passed. She felt peculiar.

Her drink was gone, her drink tray folded away. But next to her, Linley's drink sat half-full on the tray. Linley had disappeared.

Claire reached out and took a sip of watery, slightly warm cranberry and vodka.

Her whole stomach did a flip.

Barf bag or bathroom,
Claire thought frantically, and staggered to her feet. Barely noticing the startled faces peering up from books held in tiny pools of light, or eyes turned toward her from the personal movie screens, Claire lurched down the aisle, one hand over her mouth, the other grabbing at anything she passed for balance.

A woman emerging from a row of seats took one look and jumped back.

Claire grabbed the bathroom door and fumbled it open. She barely got it closed behind her before she lost it.

She didn't know how long she was sick, but when she was finally able to bathe her face and rinse her mouth, the face she met in the mirror had gone all-American hag. The French braid had started to unravel, and wisps of dark hair stuck damply to her forehead and neck. Sleep marks hashed one cheek.

The only solution was to go back to her seat and pull the blanket over her head. Lurking in the toilet was not helping, anyway. Resolutely, Claire opened the bathroom door and stepped out.

She came face-to-face with Linley.

“Claire?” said Linley. Her face was as flushed as Claire's was pale. And she had what Claire would have called bed head hair at any other time.

“Hi, Linley,” Claire said, trying to sound normal.

Glancing back over her shoulder, Linley hastily pulled shut the bathroom door.

She frowned and peered at Claire. “Did you just get sick?”

“No,” said Claire. “I'm fine.”

“Right,” said Linley. She clamped her hand on Claire's arm. “If that's fine, I don't want to see you on a bad day. I'm walking you to your seat.”

“I'm fine,” Claire insisted, but she was too whipped to argue and she let Linley steer her back down the aisle. She kept her eyes lowered, trying not to look like I-just-barfed girl to the whole plane.

They reached their seats, and Claire half-fell into hers.

“I'll be right back,” said Linley. A moment later she sat down by Claire and pulled the blanket around Claire's shoulders. Then the guy in the seat next to Linley was there, handing Linley a plastic glass.

“Thanks,” Linley said to him, then to Claire, “Drink this.”

“Not thirsty,” Claire croaked.

“Seltzer,” said Linley soothingly. “That's all. It'll settle your stomach. And take this with it.”

“But—”

“Claire,” said Linley. “Do it. Or else.”

Or else what?
thought Claire. “Drug pimp,” she said to Linley.

“Whatever,” said Linley, and practically shoved the pill down Claire's throat. “Now, count to a hundred,” she ordered Claire.

“Bossy drug pimp,” muttered Claire.

“One hundred, ninety nine…,” Linley said.

“Ninety eight, ninety-seven…,” said Claire.

“How bad is she?” the guy whispered.

“Shhh!” ordered Linley. To Claire, she said, “Keep counting.”

Claire kept counting. But she was losing track. Whatever Linley had given her was pulling her under. Fast.