The Shore (29 page)

Then the smile was gone and Dean leaned back, seeming to lose all interest in the conversation—although he didn’t quite yawn.

Somehow annoyed at being so rudely dismissed, Claire narrowed her eyes at Dean. She didn’t like him any better for the conversation, but now she was . . . intrigued.

Giving herself a mental shake, she pushed open the door.

Dean’s voice stopped her again.

“And you. Out looking too?”

“I found a job,” said Claire.

“I’m sure you did. You know, though, that you easily could have had a job at Banger’s. Banger listens to me.”

“Thanks, but . . . but . . .” Claire stopped. But what? I didn’t want to owe you one? Spend one extra minute with you? I don’t trust you? Like you?

“No, no, don’t thank me. Where did you say you’re now employed?”

Mute with embarrassment, Claire held up the T-shirt.

“The Stacked!” Dean laughed, but this time the display of
teeth didn’t look predatory. “It’s an institution. You’ll have fun. I congratulate you.”

Claire eyed him suspiciously.

“No, really. It’s the meeting point for every surf bum in the universe, and has been forever. A perfect welcome-to-California job. And Joseph treats his employees well—apart from the fashion abuse.” Dean indicated the T-shirt.

Without meaning to, Claire laughed. “He told me to wear it with a skirt. A short one,” she added with an attempt at Joseph’s accent. “I have a wrap skirt that goes over my bicycle shorts. It’ll have to do.”

“Wear the shorts, too,” Dean advised. He added, “And, of course, you can always pick up some extra shifts, and money, at Banger’s.”

“Thanks,” said Claire, surprised.

He waved his hand, dismissing her again. This time, instead of being annoyed, Claire was amused. Maybe he wouldn’t be such a bad house-mate after all. Except for his questionable taste in swimwear.

Dean’s voice followed her. “Rent’s on the kitchen table. And the deposit. Cash. Naturally.”

Jodi studied herself in the mirror of the cramped but relatively clean staff-only bathroom at Banger’s. The stall door slammed back, and a thin boy emerged and nodded.

“Busy night,” he said.

“Not too bad,” she said. Mark? Marcus. That was his name. “Decent tips, anyway.”

“You’ve waited before,” he observed, leaning over to inspect his own face in the mirror. “Girl, look at these bags.”

“Cucumbers,” said Jodi automatically. “Slices, you know. Draws off the puffiness.”

“They say,” he said cynically. “Sleep would work too. Or at least some horizontal time.”

“Truth,” agreed Jodi, although she wasn’t really tired. But horizontal time, that was different.

It had been a long year and a careful one, living under her stepfather’s BB pellet–size eyes. He wasn’t a churchgoing man, but he was fond of calling on religion to support him in the rules he made. “My house, my rules,” he said, and it was plain he didn’t see much difference between himself and the Almighty.

Jodi wanted to point out that the house was only half his, at least in the state of California. The other half belonged to her mother. But her mother, never the strongest force for justice in the universe, would have breathed, “Oh, no, Jodi,” and Jodi would have been grounded.

In college. With a job. Grounded. Confined to her room when she wasn’t at class or at work, just as if she were still in high school.

And he charged her rent.

It was creepy, too. He patrolled the house at night, pushing
open her door to look in. She’d caught him at it more than once. Raised her head and said, “Mom, is that you?”

He’d withdrawn swiftly and without speaking, but it hadn’t put an end to the nocturnal peeping. She’d learned to lie still, body tense, eyes slitted, waiting for him to go.

He always had.

She was devoutly thankful her mother hadn’t married the Steppervert until Jodi was in high school and capable of defending herself, if needed. And that she was an only child and didn’t have a younger sister—or brother—to worry about leaving behind in the Steppervert’s power.

“See you later,” said Marcus, cutting across her fond family memories.

“Same time, same place,” agreed Jodi.

Maybe that’s why she’d been so shut down. Living in close proximity with the Steppervert was enough to make anyone’s sexual instincts hibernate. How her mother stood to let him touch her—ugh.

But the idea of people that age doing the nasty was ugh-worthy any way you looked at it.

Doing it.

It had been a while. A few times around that guy’s apartment over Christmas break, but that had been more about staying out of the house than pleasure. And Andrew—Andrew? She was terrible with names—he hadn’t wanted to talk about art, except of course his own, which didn’t seem to involve the art of sex.

Before that, those times in high school, especially . . . no, she wouldn’t think about it. Only two people knew about that, and if you didn’t think about it, it would go live and die quietly somewhere in her id, or subconscious, or whatever it was.

But she was restless. Hungry. She needed skin on skin.

Easy enough to find, especially with the setup she had for the summer. Except she needed a second job if she was going to make “Leaving Home and the Steppervert” stick.

The bathroom door slammed back. “Jodi! C’mon. I don’t want to be here all night!”

“Coming, Linley.”

Jodi sighed and added another layer of lip gloss, even if it was only for the ride home with Linley.

Six

By the second day at Stacked Snack Shack, or the Stacked, as everyone called it, Claire had the routine down. It was a small place and no one seemed too particular, and she and Jan, a classically perky type who said she worked at the Stacked to support her body board habit, quickly developed their own cheerful rhythm.

Joseph worked the counter, the register, and the grill with another short-order cook he called Fry. Fry never spoke, and in spite of the health laws, he could be seen from time to time framed in the pass-through with a cigarette dangling from his lips.

Claire decided that as long as no ash hit the food and no one complained, she wasn’t going to think about it. Once, when Fry leaned forward with an order and a particularly gnarly silver cylinder of ash, Claire’s and Jan’s eyes met.

They both smiled and shrugged. Old pros at work.

He came in at the end of the first week. He strolled in
through the open doors with a medium-size red and white dog that had a tail like a raccoon following on his heels and sat down at the counter.

Given the cigarette situation in the back, Claire figured Joseph wasn’t going to say anything about the dog. So instead of saying, “No Dogs by Order of the Health Department except on that rickety stretch of boards we call the deck,” she’d asked instead, “What’s your dog’s name?”

He’d glanced over and smiled, not at her, but at the dog. “Barrel,” he said. “His name is Barrel.”

The dog waved his tail gently in acknowledgment.

“He’s beautiful,” she said sincerely. She liked dogs. Her family always had a pile of Labradors lying around, snoring and farting and waiting to go swimming and play fetch or clean plates. She loved them all, and mourned the ones that had died . . . thought of them often still.

A secret sentimental weakness, she told herself.

“Yes, he is,” the guy said simply. He looked at her then, with a slight smile that was easy and without hidden meanings. She smiled back and took his order and later saw that one of the two sandwiches was being handed down on the coffee saucer to Barrel.

Barrel was much more polite than the Labs. He waited until the plate was on the floor before inhaling the sandwich.

On the next order, she made a detour through the cooler and swiped a piece of cheese and passed it over to the guy. “For Barrel,” she said, and went to pour coffee.

He was still there when her shift ended and she began totaling out her day’s checks. Joseph was working the daily paper’s crossword puzzle at the end of the bar, and Jan, who was pulling a double shift, was just sitting on a stool, staring out at the passing crowd on the boardwalk.

“From around here?” asked Claire, and laughed inwardly because she sounded like a local.

He shrugged. “I give surfing lessons over at the Belle Azure,” he said, referring to one of the upmarket mega hotels farther down the beach.

“Room and board?” she asked, and would later remember that.

“Freelance,” he said. He grinned. “I’m good at it.” He seemed to find this funny, and added, “My mom always wanted me to be a teacher.”

“As a matter of fact,” he went on, “Barrel and I are looking for a place for the summer. Living in the van now, but no way is that a long-term plan. But with a dog, y’know . . .” His voice trailed off.

And Claire the careful, Claire the cautious, said, for no other reason than she liked Barrel, “We have a room. We have a house.”

“That’d be cool,” he said. “Far from here?”

“A short skate away,” Claire said, and it was true. She’d hiked a few blocks to the boardwalk with her in-line skates on her shoulder and cruised on down to work that day.

“Well, I can give you wheels home when you’re through,” he offered.

Claire punched one more button on the register, then wound the receipt around the checks. She stuck that in one of Joseph’s many drawers behind the counter. She hung up her apron and retrieved her pack from a cabinet and said, “I’m through for the day.”

“Cool enough,” he said, and she followed what could have been an ax murderer, for all she knew, out into the sun and into his van.

Only as she left the Stacked did she even think about caution. “Joseph,” she said.

Joseph glanced up.

“This, ah, I’m getting a ride home with . . .” She let her voice trail off.

“Finn,” the possible ax murderer with the nice dog, said. “Everybody calls me Finn.”

“Right,” said Joseph, without interest, and went back to his puzzle.

Great, thought Claire. When they came to question Joseph about her missing body and the stranger she’d left the Stacked with, he’d probably give the word for 8 across, 9 letters, meaning “unconscious in winter.”

Barrel looked up at her and gave her canine grin, and she thought, Well, if I do make it home, I’ve brought another guy to the house.

Only this one is not for Linley.

• • •

But Linley didn’t seem that interested in Finn. She was just getting up, and her face above the coffee mug had that dark, thwarted look of an unsuccessful night and a painful morning after.

“Men,” she declared bitterly as Claire came back downstairs after giving Finn and Barrel a choice of the last two rooms.

A mental review told Claire that she could have been referring to Max, who had joined the house quietly and then seemed to absent himself from it. Although he had only been there a few days, he’d seldom been around when Linley was.

Or possibly Dean, except that Dean had seemed more than willing to enter into whatever Linley had suggested, which for once had made Linley less interested.

Settling on what she hoped was a neutral topic, Claire said, “Where’s Jodi? Does she work tonight?”

“No. Party. Oh yeah, the house is invited.” Linley flicked at a piece of notebook paper lying on the counter.

Claire picked it up to read the time and directions. “You going?”

“Working,” said Linley.

“You could probably switch with somebody,” Claire suggested.

“You have to choose your parties,” Linley said cryptically. “Jodi’s over at the loft, or gallery or whatever, helping.” Linley raised a finger to a nostril and pretended to snort.

“Poppy’s having a party?” Claire said, linking gallery with art with Poppy.

“Friend of Poppy’s. An artist. Naturally.” Linley’s tone expressed her opinion of artists.

“You don’t like Poppy?” Claire said, surprised.

Linley shrugged. “I don’t know Poppy, do I? I just met her when you did. She’ll make the rent, and that’s what matters.”

“You really don’t like her,” Claire said.

“Whatever,” Linley said, sounding annoyed.

“What about Dean?”

“You’re the one who doesn’t like Dean,” Linley pointed out.

“What do we know about him? He works at Banger’s, he’s a friend of Poppy’s, and he moved out of his apartment just like that when he heard about this share.”

“He liked the way we looked. He liked the setup. Big deal,” said Linley.

“He’s sketchy,” said Claire.

“Makes him interesting, don’t you think?”

Exasperated, Claire said, “Fine. Maybe I’ll see if Finn wants to go to this thing. You think that’d be cool?”

Cool? An hour in Finn’s company and she was talking like him.

If Linley noticed the Claire conversational aberration, she didn’t let on. “Sure,” she said. “Max is going. Your boy Dean’s probably already there.”

“Oh,” said Claire. Definite bitterness factor in Linley’s voice.

“Max hasn’t even come to Banger’s to say hi,” Linley went on. “Not that I care.”

“Well, he does live with you. In the house, I mean.”

Linley gave her a look. Then she stood up, went over to the cabinet, extracted a bottle of vodka and a bottle of Kahlúa, and returned to doctor her coffee.

“Better,” she said, after generously dosing her cup.

“Yuk,” said Claire. The first time she’d ever gotten drunk had involved old school White Russians, and she’d never been the same around Kahlúa since.

Linley, who knew the story, said with the first hint of humor that day, “Weak.”

“I prefer to think of it as developing more sophisticated tastes,” retorted Claire.

That got her the Linley Look again.

“I thought Max was an ex,” said Claire. “So what difference does it make that he hasn’t come to see you?”

In answer, Linley picked up her cup and marched across the room and out through the French doors onto the deck. Claire followed. The afternoon sun had begun to cast long shadows with the promise of another fabulous sunset. Below on the sand two joggers sped enthusiastically by, both wearing headphones and both talking, either to each other or singing in time with whatever they were playing inside their heads.