Swept Away (3 page)

There must have been a lull in the texting because Joanna pipes up, “Forget it, Patti. Why get involved with someone you'll leave at the end of the summer?”

“I think it would be romantic,” Cynthia says. I shoot her a look, and she quickly adds, “Not with Justin. I mean, he's a nice guy and everything, but he's like my big brother. Only better,” she adds, “since I don't have to share a bathroom with him.”

“Yeah, that does suck,” I say.

“You really think having a thing with someone who is here only for the summer is actually a good idea?” Joanna presses.

“Why not?” Cynthia says, studying her lobster roll. I know she's trying to decide if she can just pop the last of it into her mouth in one piece. “Sometimes knowing a thing is temporary makes it beautifully tragic.” She makes up her mind and in the sandwich goes.

“Ever the drama queen,” Joanna says.

“Well, I'm ready for something nice and simple, and a summer fling seems exactly in order,” says Patti.

“Forget Justin,” I tell Patti. “He's only here for a few days. Then he goes back to the University of Maine for a summer semester.”

“I'd imagine a two-day fling is too short for even the ever-­adventurous Patti,” Joanna teases.

“Two days would hardly qualify as a
romance
,” Patti scolds. “And it's romance that I'm after.”

They continue debating various definitions of romance as my mind wanders back to the dark-haired boy I saw earlier.

“Ready to buy some mismatched coffee mugs?” Cynthia interrupts my thoughts.

We turn away from the food booths and stroll along Water Street to Main. The Square, as everyone calls it, is the literal center of Rocky Point. The grassy plaza lies halfway between the
harbor and the bay. It's also midway between the pointy tip where Candy Cane stands to the south and the beginning of the woods to the north. Mom's library anchors the south side, the middle school the north. Our high school is a few blocks away from the library.

Today's flea market is set up in the parking lot of the middle school. That means we can check out the Artists and Artisans tent in the town square on our way there. We cruise by the shops with sale racks and tables outside.

People sprawl on the benches lining the Square. They're busy eating fried clams out of cheerful red-and-white-striped cardboard cartons from booths on the pier, or sandwiches from Taste To Go, the take-out place on Randolph Street. Kids drip ice cream and giggle or drop ice cream and wail. Mostly they're kept out of the Artists and Artisans area because no parent wants to be forced to buy hand-painted chiffon scarves covered in ice-cream fingerprints or historically accurate sailboat models with suddenly broken masts.

Cynthia and I breeze past the section where framed pictures hang on chicken-wire walls. Candy Cane is a favorite subject, though none of the paintings has the evocative feeling of the one on the postcard. Maybe because those displayed by the amateur artists all depict her (I always think of Candy Cane as a “her”) on a bright sunny day, and the painting on the postcard is of the lighthouse in the gloom. To me, that's a more accurate image. Rocky Point's sunny days are nowhere near as common as the rainy, foggy, or cloudy ones. The anonymous artist knew Rocky Point like a local.

“What do you think Brad Ainsley came up with this year?” Cynthia asks. We stroll past tables with handblown glass vases and goblets.

“Something bizarre, I'm sure.” Brad Ainsley lives up by the Canadian border and does the whole arts-festival circuit in Maine. The sculptures have some kind of theme each year that's only clear to him.

“Nautical,” Cynthia surmises as we study Brad Ainsley's latest creations.

“Ya think?” I deadpan. The sculptures appear to be in two categories: those whose stuck-together pieces create a ship shape, and those made of actual ship or fishing materials.

I lean forward, about to press a button placed on the shoulder of a figurehead, wondering what craziness it will unleash, when I let out a gasp and grab Cynthia's arm.

“What?” she asks. “Did something bite you?”

“No,” I squeak. I step in front of her, my back to Surfer Boy. I force myself to speak in a calm, low voice. “Don't look, but there's a boy over by the sculpture with the broken blue mast sticking out of the upside-down hull.”

Cynthia's eyes flick from mine to a spot over my shoulder. I know she spotted him when her jaw drops. “He's new.”

I nod. “I saw him before when I was in the pocket line.”

Her eyes return to mine, and she takes my hands. “We need a plan.”

My eyes open wide and my body goes cold, then hot, then cold again. It's some weird combination of fear, exhilaration, and anticipation.

Cynthia's eyebrows rise expectantly. But my usually overdrive brain is on strike. Total blank.

“Uh . . .” is all I can come up with.

Cynthia gives me a little shake. “Don't get stage fright now! This is our chance!”

“What if he's from up the coast and is only here for the festival?” I say weakly, disappointment washing through me as I realize this is the most likely scenario.

Cynthia grins. “Then we just have an awesome day of flirting!” She drops my hands and gives me a hip check. “We could use the practice.”

Her hip check jostles an idea loose. “I got it!” I declare. “Follow my lead.”

We edge our way around some of Brad Ainsley's more lethal sculptures as our target moves to the last one in the row. I hoped we could position ourselves opposite him, but he's standing right where the tent is tethered to the ground. We'll have to settle for sidling up beside him. Which we do.

Surfer Boy doesn't even look up. He's intensely focused on a piece that I can only describe as Ship-nado. Dozens of small model boats—dinghies, canoes, schooners—swirl around in a chicken-wire funnel.

My plan is to start talking about super-interesting things so that he can't help but check us out. Only now I can't speak. Complete mental freeze.

My eyes flick to Surfer Boy. He's kneeling and peering up inside Ship-nado. I wonder if that's how Brad Ainsley wants us to view his work.

Cynthia keeps nodding her head toward him in sharp little jerks and widening her already wide-open eyes in strange rhythmic bursts, like reverse blinking.

I clutch her hands. “Ask me something,” I whisper hoarsely. “Something interesting. It will make him look.”

She stops blinking, tilts her head the way she does when she's thinking, then gives a sharp nod. She clears her throat and says loudly, “I think it's wonderful that you're helping the very important Historical Preservation Society with one of its most prized landmarks.”

I'm about to give her an “are you kidding me?” glare but then realize if he's from away, he might actually be interested in our little lighthouse. So I quickly turn my glare into an approving “good one” expression.

“Oh yes, Candy Ca— I mean, the Rocky Point Lighthouse is such a great—”

I break off as our target stands up, brushes the gravel from his knees, and strolls away.

Cynthia and I stare at his back. “Can you believe that?” Cynthia fumes. “It was as if we weren't even here!”

My brow furrows. “You know, I think he really didn't have any idea that there were humans around. He was so into this sculpture.” I peer at it again. Now that I'm up close, I can see that the ships aren't empty. Teeny-tiny people are inside. It's kind of great and kind of creepy at the same time.

Cynthia shrugs. “Probably just a Summer Snob.”

Summer Snobs are a subgroup of Regulars who come here every year but don't want anything to do with the locals. They
give parties for each other, browse the art galleries, and visit the antique stores and the weekly farmers' market, but wouldn't be caught dead at Louie's Lobster Pound eating a shredder with their bare hands—even though everybody knows that's the best way to eat your lobster. If you like lobster, of course.

I watch Surfer Boy approach a table of antiques. Once again he's mesmerized. He strikes up a conversation with the woman at the table. I give him one last look as Cynthia and I leave the tent to head for the flea market behind the school. We gave him a chance to talk to us, and he didn't jump at it. Cynthia always says that if a guy doesn't take a little hint, don't bother giving him a bigger one.

I shake off my disappointment and get into my flea market groove. I love flea markets. Not only are the items in my price range, but it's fun to poke through other people's stuff. It's like sneaking into their house and spying on how they live.

I know it's silly, but there's a little part of me that feels bad for the odds and ends, and I always hope they'll find new owners to appreciate them. Sometimes I buy things that I figure will never get bought. Mom just sighs when I show her my latest “pity purchase” and then says, “Well, at least these are the only kinds of strays you bring home.” Mom has a strict “no pets” rule.

“Snob sighting just to starboard,” Cynthia murmurs.

I look up from the chipped pig-shaped mug that is going to join my wacky mugs collection. Two tables over Surfer Boy gazes intently at a pile of lobster traps. Then he does the same thing at a table selling knot art and handmade fishing lures.

“You know, I don't think he's a Summer Snob,” I tell Cynthia,
formulating a theory. “I think he's an alien from a planet where no one fishes.”

“If the aliens all look like him, you should move there,” Cynthia teases. “You'd get to avoid all seafood
and
be surrounded by hunks.”

“Definitely not from Maine, that's for sure.” It's not just the tan and sandals. His curiosity about pretty much everything on sale at the flea market tells me these are things he's never seen up close before. Things that are part of daily life here.

Then the unthinkable happens.

Blue eyes—yes, they are definitely blue, not green—suddenly meet mine.

And I can't do anything but look back.

I'm as mesmerized by those eyes as he was a moment ago by a tiny ship-in-a-bottle. The weird thing is, I don't do any of the things I thought I would when confronted by the steady beam of a handsome boy's gaze. I don't blush; I don't giggle; I don't faint; I don't anything.

I don't even move.

But weirder? Neither does he.

I have no idea how long we stand like this, both frozen. It feels like forever, until I realize that Cynthia has only just finished paying for her floppy sun hat. In the time it took for Cynthia to pull out her wallet, count out the bills, and hand them over to the ninth-grade algebra teacher, Suzanna Hughes, who's manning the table, something shifted in me. Or rather,
not
shifted. It felt as if I was caught in a fishing net, unable to move, but not wanting to try.

Maybe thirty seconds at most.

Then it's over. Cynthia says something to me, something distracts Surfer Boy, and our eyes drop. Life picks back up, and we each return to our separate worlds.

“You okay?” Cynthia asks, adjusting the hat so that the brim doesn't make it impossible for her to see.

“He looked at me,” I whisper.

Cynthia's head swivels, and she spots Surfer Boy down the row. Now he's studying an old sailor's manual.

“And when I say
looked
,” I continue, “I mean took in every detail, almost as if he could—” I'm about to say “see into my soul” but luckily realize before the words come out how ridiculous they'd sound.

“As if he could . . . ?” Cynthia prompts.

“As if he had X-ray vision and was checking to see if my brain was still in my skull.”

Cynthia laughs. “Well, is it?”

“Not so much,” I admit.

Cynthia tips her head back so she can examine my face from under her floppy brim. “Wow. Boy made an impact, did he?”

“He did.”

“And you're saying he actually made eye contact.”

“And held it,” I confirm. “Unless he has such super vision that he was actually trying to see the price tag on the ironing board for sale behind me.”

“Well, that bowling shirt
could
use a quick pressing . . . ,” Cynthia jokes. She knocks into me with her shoulder. “So . . . go get him.”

“I—I . . .” I slump and look down at my feet. One of my sneak
ers is untied, and I have a big splotch of blueberry on the other one. That's in addition to the blueberry trail down my shirt. I
thought
that pocket was a little understuffed. Now I see where some of the filling had gotten to. “For all I know he wasn't looking at me because he's interested. He could have been staring at my blueberry stains. Or thinking how weird I am for buying a pig mug.”

“Hang on.” Cynthia grips my arm.

The sudden change in her tone makes my head instantly pop back up. She's openly staring in Surfer Boy's direction, and she looks seriously stunned. I glance over and my jaw drops.

“What is he doing talking to old Freaky Framingham?” I gasp. “And Freaky Framingham is talking back!”

“It's hard enough to wrap my brain around Freaky Framingham being here at all,” Cynthia says. “I think my head's going to explode, putting him and Hottie McHottie together.”

Freaky Framingham has lived in Rocky Point as long as I can remember. He's that guy whose house you avoid, which isn't hard to do, since it's in a deeply wooded area. The path to his house from the road is just a narrow strip of dirt without a sign to mark it. But everyone in Rocky Point knows exactly where it is. Each year on Halloween kids dare one another to knock on his door.

There are rare Freaky Framingham sightings. He'd usually be in his battered blue pickup. But he'd never wave to pedestrians or other drivers at our few stoplights, like everyone else. He just keeps his hands firmly on his wheel. Though his face is hard to see behind the cracked windshield, we all assume his expression conveys how much he hates everything and everyone. He'd be at Main Street Goods, picking up groceries, and someone would
greet him and he'd just grunt. Or he'd mutter under his breath and stalk out.