Any Other Girl (5 page)

“We're looking forward to meeting him,” Harper said, the corners of her mouth twitching. “Aren't we, Kat?”

My mind flashed on those blue, blue eyes, burning with anger and aimed directly at me. I swallowed. “Yeah. Can't wait.”

chapter 5

“H
e probably won't even recognize you,” Harper assured me that evening while we were in my yard, batting around the soccer ball. “You're, like, covered head-to-toe when you ride.”

“True,” I said, gently tapping the ball with the inside of my foot and then flicking it toward her. “But he did see my eyes, and they aren't exactly a common color.”

She stopped the ball with her knee and then kicked it back almost simultaneously, making me run for it. Once upon a time, Harper and I had been pretty evenly matched during these casual scrimmages. But I'd quit playing at twelve while she continued on. She was hoping to play for her college next year. Still, I'd never really lost my competitive spirit.

“Getting kind of rusty there, Henley,” Harper taunted me as I ran, out of breath, back to my position.

“Shut it, Griggs.”

The game was
on
when we started calling each other by our last names. Laughing, I hauled my foot back and booted the ball as hard as I could, sending it flying over her head and down the green wooden stairs to the lake. A moment later, we heard a dull splash.

I looked back at my cousin. “Rusty, you say?”

She stuck her tongue out at me and then went to retrieve the ball. The second she was out of sight, I collapsed on the grass, exhausted. I
was
rusty. Feeling forgotten muscles throb from disuse made me miss soccer all the more. As usual, the longing came with a side dish of resentment when I thought back to the reason I'd quit in the first place.

Before we got our condo in the city, we'd lived in a small town called Oakfield, about twenty minutes away. My dads had left their cramped apartment downtown and moved us to suburbia because they figured that was what a kid needed—a regular house and grass and yard sales and good, safe schools. But one thing Oakfield didn't have was a lot of diversity in its residents. The town mostly consisted of traditional families, moms and dads and kids. We were the only “dads and kid” family in the entire town, and eventually I started noticing. Not only were we different, but some people
treated
us like we were different. It made my dads sad.

When I was around four or five, I figured out a way to help. Whenever I saw someone staring or heard someone make a hurtful comment, I'd do whatever I could to divert their attention off my dads and onto me. I'd start dancing, or singing, or faking an injury, or pretending to be a horse. Anything to turn their heads my way. As time went on, I started seeking attention even when my dads
weren't
getting stared at. Like during my soccer games, for example. I'd monopolize the ball and act aggressive toward my teammates, which usually resulted in the coach kicking me off the field for a time-out. It was during one of those time-outs that I overheard Mrs. Jolley say to Mrs. Fiedler, “Someone needs a lesson on how to act like a proper young lady.”

“Two fathers and no mother,” Mrs. Fiedler replied with a tsk. “No wonder she's so rough with the other kids.”

That was my last season on the team. I quit sports, developed an interest in my looks, and started emulating the refined, elegant women I saw in Dad's black-and-white classics. Like Lauren Bacall, whom I'd adopted as my personal icon. I became the consummate girly girl, and no one called me rough or boyish or claimed I needed a maternal influence ever again. My dads were more than capable of raising a “proper young lady,” and I was proof.

Summer, though, was different. At the cottage, surrounded by the people who'd known me all my life, I let that rough little tomboy punch her way through.

“Hey,” Harper said, startling me as I lay half-comatose in the grass. “On your feet, Henley. It's go time.”

I groaned. “Shouldn't we start getting ready for McTurdy's bonfire?”

“I am ready,” she said, looking down at her black Nike shorts and tank top. Fitness wear. She was hopeless.

“Come on.” I hoisted my body into its upright position and brushed grass off my butt. “Let's at least change into something less sweaty.”

I sent her to her cottage to shower and I did the same, changing into a short, white sundress with spaghetti straps. Attempting one of my vintage hairstyles in the humidity was pointless, so I brushed my hair smooth, letting it flip up on the ends, and added a thick white ribbon to match my dress. The entire ensemble made me look innocent in a slightly naughty way, just like I'd hoped. Satisfied, I headed over to Harper's.

When I entered the cottage, my dads and aunt all turned away from their cribbage game to stare at me.

“Oh Kat,” Aunt Carrie said, clapping excitedly. “You look like Natalie Wood in
West Side Story
.”

“Stay away from the water,” Dad said with a snicker. When I gave him a blank look, he added, “Natalie Wood drowned.”

“Okay then,” I said. Clearly, they'd gotten into the wine already. “Where's Harper?”

“Hiding from you,” Pop told me, placing his cards face down on the table. “She thinks you're going to make her wear a dress.”

Aunt Carrie laughed. “Harper doesn't even
own
a dress.”

My cousin emerged from her room then, wearing black denim shorts and a slightly dressier tank top than the Nike one she'd had on earlier. It was a start.

“Midnight curfew, Noodle,” Pop said as we got set to leave.

“You too, Harper,” Aunt Carrie chimed in, and they went back to their crib board.

Outside on the deck, Harper rolled her eyes. Sometimes our parents forgot that we were seventeen and eighteen, practically full-grown adults. It didn't help that Pop still called me
Noodle
, a pet name he'd christened me with when I was a baby for reasons even he'd forgotten. Oh well, I much preferred being called after a pasta than a catastrophic hurricane.

We walked to the McCurdys' via the road instead of going the beach way like earlier. As we passed their cottage on our way to the lake, we could see Mrs. McCurdy through the kitchen window, busy with something at the counter. Probably assembling the ingredients for s'mores. Nate's father was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn't unusual. He was an obstetrician and worked nonstop. The odd time he
did
have a day off, he spent it fishing. Due to this lack of help, Mrs. McCurdy was overwhelmed to the point of indifference, which meant Nate and his three younger brothers regularly got away with murder. And underage drinking.

When Harper and I stepped into the clearing a few yards to the right of Nate's dock, the bonfire was blazing and he had already passed around cans of beer from his not-so-secret stash in their cottage's crawl space. The only person who didn't have one in hand was Nate's eleven-year-old brother, Keaton, who was still innocent enough to be content with roasting marshmallows and lighting sparklers in the fire. He was currently doing a combination of both.

“Ladies,” Nate bellowed when he saw us. “It's about time. Come on over! I saved a spot on my log just for you.”

Finn and Declan, his fifteen-year-old twin brothers, chortled appreciatively. Nate was a horrible influence on his siblings. Keaton was the only sweet one left, and it was only a matter of time before he ended up corrupted, too.

I moved toward the log on the other side of the bonfire, messing up Nate's blond, perfectly-gelled hair on the way. Harper followed, and we sat down next to Zoe and Gabriella, two local girls who'd been hanging around the past couple of summers. They didn't like Harper and me because we were “summer people” and not true Erwin dwellers. Nate and his brothers were summer people, too, but they got away with it because they were male and cute.

The pissed-off dude from earlier—Emmett—wasn't there. My body lightened in relief. I wasn't eager to test Harper's “he won't even recognize you” theory.

Keaton came over to say hello and show off his clever innovation—a marshmallow stuck on the end of a sparkler. That could only end messily.

“Hey, Buster, how was fifth grade?” I asked him.

He grinned. He loved it when I called him Buster. He thought it sounded tough, but it was actually a reference to Buster Keaton, the silent film star. “It was fun,” he said, sticking the marshmallow sparkler in the fire. “But I'd rather be here.”

I nodded and looked out at the calm, inky water in front of me. The small island situated in the middle of the lake looked like a smudge of gray against the dark sky. All along the shore, fragments of light peeked through the thickets of trees, the only indication of the various cottages nestled in their midst. I took a deep breath, inhaling the aromas of spruce and pine and mud and wood smoke. “Me too,” I told Keaton.

As I spoke, footsteps sounded on the rocks and angry Emmett appeared. Only he didn't look angry as he stood there in the clearing, hands stuffed in the pockets of his shorts. He looked self-conscious. Unsure. Like he wanted to jump into the lake and swim far, far away.

“Hey, man,” Nate said, gesturing for him to join him and the twins on their log. When he did, Nate reached into the cooler next to him and handed him a can of beer. The way we were seated around the fire made me think of a gymnasium during a sixth-grade dance—boys on one side and girls on the other . . . only with a fire between us instead of a buffed floor.

Like a proper little host, Nate introduced Emmett to his brothers and then to Zoe and Gabriella, who subtly nudged each other and exchanged
Ooh, fresh meat
smiles. Then his gaze landed on Harper and me. “And this,” he said with an exaggerated flourish, “is Harper and her cousin, Hurricane Katrina.”

“Kat,” I corrected, and Emmett nodded with barely a glance in my direction. I felt another wave of relief. Clearly, he hadn't made the connection between the girl sitting in front of him in the flouncy white dress and the helmeted psycho on the ATV who'd almost mowed him down that morning. Maybe I
had
been sufficiently disguised.

I glanced over at Harper, expecting to see a look of smug victory on her face, but she wasn't even looking at me. Her eyes darted between the fire and Emmett, one of which was causing her cheeks to turn uncharacteristically pink. My guess was the latter, as bonfires didn't usually make her fidget like she was wishing she'd taken more care with her hair and makeup. It appeared she was suffering from an acute case of lust-at-first-sight.

“So, Emmett, where you from?” Zoe asked, rearranging her legs so that her micro-shorts slid up higher. Apparently, the lust bunny had bitten her, too.

He mumbled, “Hyde Creek,” which was a medium-sized town about halfway between my home city of Weldon and Erwin.

“Cool,” Gabriella said brightly as if the news was just so fascinating. As if she didn't constantly rant about outsiders and how they rolled through Erwin in their fancy cars and acted like they owned the place all summer.

“So what was with the hardcore running in the woods this morning, dude?” Nate asked, reaching for the marshmallow bag and popping one in his mouth. “You on a track team or something?”

“No,” Emmett replied. He rolled his still-unopened beer can back and forth between his palms. “Cross-country.”

“What's the difference?” Finn asked.

“It just means I run on natural terrain instead of on a flat track.”

“That sounds hard,” Gabriella said as her gaze devoured the contours of his toned runner's body.

Emmett shifted uncomfortably, as if her blatant ogling bothered him. Figuring I owed him one for the ATV incident, I swiftly diverted everyone's attention away from him and onto me.

“What does a girl have to do to get some s'mores around here?” I said, standing up and craning my neck in the direction of the dock as if waiting for Mrs. McCurdy to appear with her boxes of graham crackers and chocolate—which I kind of was.

“Oh, yeah,” Nate said. “I think Mom forgot to buy the stuff.”

“She
forgot
?” I cried. Mrs. McCurdy
always
provided s'mores for our bonfires. What was going on? First Goody's, and now this. What else had changed without my knowledge?

“So, Emmett,” Gabriella said, twirling one of her dark brown curls around her finger. “How do you like Millard Lake so far? Are you here with your parents?”

Emmett, who'd been looking at me during my s'mores outburst, dropped his gaze to the fire again. “Yeah. It's a nice spot.”

“What does your dad do?” Zoe asked. Sometimes she and Gabriella acted like it was the eighteen hundreds and their parents wanted them to find a suitable mate and marry into a well-off family.

“He's in accounting,” Emmett said, and then all of a sudden he stood up and handed his unopened beer to Nate. “I'm gonna take off now. There are some things I need to do.”

“But you just got here,” Gabriella said, pouting.

Emmett glanced around the clearing, his gaze never quite landing on any of us. “Uh, it was nice to meet you all,” he said before turning around and loping easily over the rocks to the dock, where he disappeared into the night.

“Was it something we said?” Zoe asked in the awkward silence that followed.

Nate shrugged and took another gulp of beer, Keaton lit another sparkler, the twins went back to staring at Zoe and Gabriella, and I looked over at my cousin, who hadn't said a word in the past twenty minutes. She blinked at me like she'd just gotten whacked in the head with a bat and then let out a long, dreamy sigh.

Yep, it was official. My shy, sporty little Harper had just entered the beginning stages of a sweet summer crush.