Caitlin (4 page)

“Call him tomorrow,” Romeo said. “We’re usually booked for the Fourth by now. Well, actually, we were but, like I told you when we talked this afternoon, we had a cancellation.”

This
was what they’d been talking about when Whitney went over to the lounge chairs during lunch? Why hadn’t she just told me that? Did everything with her have to be so mysterious?

“Tell him we want it,” Whitney said.

“Okay.” He grinned. I didn’t like that I noticed how nice his grin was. “But don’t you need to check with management or —”

“We’ll take care of it and if they say no” — - she shrugged — “maybe I’ll throw my own party. Either way, I want a light show.”

“Okay then.”

“This is my team,” Whitney said. “You know Caitlin already.”

“Yeah, I know Caitlin.” His voice got low, teasing, and I knew he was thinking about all our silly, and not so silly, encounters. Not to mention the whole false alarm thing. At least he didn’t mention it. I was so tired of all the jokes about it.

“This is her brother, Sean, and Robyn. Everyone, this is Michael.”

I wasn’t very good at hiding my surprise. “I thought your name was Romeo,” I said.

He was grinning again. “Michael Romeo, but most people just call me Romeo. I don’t know why. They seem to like the name. Between you and me, it’s a little embarrassing.” He took a step back. “Anyway, I have to help pack up the equipment, but I’ll let Dad know and we’ll set up a meeting.”

When he was out of earshot, I turned on Whitney, angry, hurt, and humiliated. “Why didn’t you tell me that he was part of this light show idea you had?”

“Why? What difference does it make?”

“You knew I didn’t like him, that’s he’s the reason I made a fool of myself today, clearing the pool.”

“Noooo. I knew you didn’t want to
talk
to him. But that doesn’t necessarily translate to not liking.”

Of course it did. What planet did she come from?

“And I didn’t know he was behind the pool clearing.”

“They called out his name —”

“So? They call out a lot of names. I don’t pay attention to announcements. What’s your problem anyway?” she asked.

“I don’t want to work with him.”

“Why not?”

Because he made my heart do these strange somersaults. It was weird. Felt funny. I didn’t like it. Not one bit. This hadn’t happened with Tanner. I didn’t know what it meant.

“I just don’t.”

“Fine. Then don’t be on my committee. I can find someone else.”

It was strange, but her words hurt. I was expendable to everyone. Tanner. Whitney. Even Robyn, in a way.

My dad had always said it was as though Robyn and I were joined at the hip because we did everything together. And now, she was standing off to the side, holding my brother’s hand.

Which left me standing alone.

I didn’t say anything in the limo on the ride back to the Paradise Falls parking lot. I didn’t say anything in the car as Sean drove Robyn home. When he pulled up in front of her house, he got out and walked her to the door.

I knew why. He wanted to kiss her good night.

I felt like such a third wheel. I moved to the front seat. I couldn’t wait until I was sixteen and could drive myself around. One year to go. It was going to be the longest year of my life.

I knew I’d overreacted to the whole Romeo thing. It was kind of funny, because now that I knew his name was Michael — - well, Romeo did seem to fit better. Although I didn’t think I’d ever be able to call him that without thinking of lines from Shakespeare. We’d studied his works last year in English class.

And it was an interesting last name — - Italian maybe. Mine was pretty boring. Morgan. Caitlin Morgan.

I wondered if Michael helped his dad with the light show. Made sense that he did. Otherwise, why was he there tonight? I wondered if Whitney liked him — in a
like
-like kind of way. It was hard to tell with her sometimes. Okay, it was hard to tell with her most of the time. True friends hung out together, shared secrets. Every now and then I did something with Whitney, but we didn’t really hang out together. And we sure didn’t share secrets.

How could she not know how I felt about Romeo? Did Robyn get it?

The driver’s-side door suddenly opened and I jumped. Why was I so skittish?

Sean had left the car running because it was so hot outside. Not very environment friendly. Normally, I’d give him a hard time about that and we’d get into an argument since he’s convinced that global warming is a myth.

“Want to talk about it?” he asked as he pulled away from the curb.

Okay, maybe an alien had taken possession of his body, because he never asked questions like that.

“It?” I asked. “Do you even know what
it
is?”

“Not really. But I know you’re bummed out about something.”

We only lived a couple of blocks from Robyn’s. No way did I have time to go into everything that was upsetting me.

“I’m fine,” I told him. I peered over at him in the darkness. It wasn’t often that we actually had a dialogue. “So, what do you know about Whitney?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were the one who wanted Robyn to be friends with her. How come?”

“She just seemed like she needed a friend.”

“Robyn or Whitney?”

“What kind of question is that? Robyn had you as a friend.”

“
Has
me as a friend,” I said as he pulled into the driveway.

He put the car in park. “That’s right.
Has
you as a friend. That’s not going to change just because I’m seeing her. Is that what’s bothering you?”

“I don’t know. Things are just different this summer. Different from past summers. Different from what I thought they’d be.”

“So what’s with this Michael Romeo guy?”

“You know as much as I do.”

I opened the car door and got out. I wasn’t going to ask my brother for advice on guys. Plus, I really didn’t want to talk about Michael Romeo.

But that night after I went to sleep, I dreamed about him. We were in Tsunami and I was sitting on his shoulders. He had really nice shoulders. Then he tossed me off. I screamed his name as I hit the water.

When I swam to the surface, he was standing there. He leaned in —

And then I woke up.

My heart was hammering. Why was I even dreaming about him kissing me?

I’d thought that Tanner would kiss me — that he’d be the first. Instead he’d kissed someone else. And the problem was: I’d really wanted him to kiss me.

So I didn’t want to think about Michael kissing me, because with a name like Romeo, he’d probably kiss someone else, too.

*  *  *

The next morning I was walking toward my lifeguard station, enjoying the peacefulness. The park hadn’t opened yet. No screams or yells or laughter filled the air. It was really like being on a tropical island. Or at least what I thought being on an island
would be like. I’d never actually left the mainland. Living in north Texas, we didn’t have a lot of islands around us.

A slight breeze wafted around me, and the sun glinted off the water. Other employees were taking care of business or heading to their stations. Those of us who worked around water — as lifeguards or ride attendants — wore the red bathing suits. Those who took care of other aspects of the park — - food vendors, kiosk clerks, souvenir-shop employees, cleanup crew — wore red shorts and white polo shirts with the Paradise Falls logo on it. We all wore red visors. And almost everyone wore sunglasses.

I loved being part of the team. Being a lifeguard was the job I had wanted most. It had been a shock to learn from Robyn that Sean had pulled some strings to get me the position I wanted. I guess I really needed to adjust my thinking where he was concerned.

Last night had been really weird — - his offering to talk to me about what was
bothering me. For all of my life — or at least all that I could remember — Sean and I had simply irritated each other, as though that’s what brothers and sisters were supposed to do. It was strange to have him trying to be there for me.

“Hey, Caitlin!”

I swung around at the sound of Whitney’s voice. She was hurrying toward me. When she caught up with me, she was a little out of breath, her blond hair swinging around her shoulders. It caught the sunlight just like the pool did.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“We’re having a team meeting at one o’clock so just bring your lunch to the conference room.”

I released a little laugh. “Didn’t you get it last night? I don’t want to do this.”

“Come on, Caitlin. I need you.”

Shaking my head, I rolled my eyes. I didn’t think Whitney needed anyone. “Yeah, right.”

“Seriously. Mr. T wants the entire park to be involved — or at least representatives of each area. You represent the pools.”

The park was divided into various zones: the kiddie zone where Robyn worked; the pools, which included Tsunami and the other pools throughout the park; the slides outside of the kiddie zone; and the shops, which included all the kiosks around the park.

“Whitney —”

“Come on. Robyn is representing the kiddie zone so the three of us can have some fun. Plus, we’ll always be in the majority so we can push through our agenda.”

I laughed. “We have an agenda?”

“I don’t know. It’s something I hear my dad saying sometimes before he goes into business meetings — that he has an agenda he wants to push through. Who knows what it really means? We’ll just have fun and make this the best Fourth of July extravaganza ever.”

“Is Romeo going to be there?”

“Romeo? Oh, you mean Michael. Yeah. The Powers-That-Be approved the light show.”

I know my eyes rounded. “Already?”

“Well, yeah. They thought it was a great idea so it was easy to convince them, and the Fourth is almost here so it’s not like we have time to mess around. We need to get all the details worked out quickly.”

“Hey, y’all, what’s going on? Secret meeting?” Robyn asked as she walked over.

“I’m trying to convince Caitlin to be part of the team.”

“Oh, I thought she already was.”

“Working with Michael freaks her out.”

“He doesn’t freak me out.” Okay, he made me a little nervous, but it was only because of the way he made my heart flutter and the fact that I seemed to do stupid things when he was around. That was dangerous.

“I thought he was nice,” Robyn said.

But then, she thought my brother was nice, so I wasn’t sure I could trust her opinion.

“Come on, it’ll be fun planning a gigantic party,” Robyn continued. “Otherwise, you’ll have to eat lunch alone and I know you hate doing that.”

She was right. I really didn’t like doing things alone. And it probably would be fun. Whitney was a little quirky. And Robyn was my BFF.

“Okay,” I said, surprised that I actually sounded excited about it. Robyn and Whitney were right. It might be interesting. And it was something different, something to occupy my mind, something to think about — other than Tanner.

“Great! I’ll see you later,” Whitney said. She left to begin preparing for the day’s birthday parties.

“She gets so excited about things,” Robyn said. “I’m glad you’ll be part of the team.” She headed to Mini Falls, where she’d spend the morning watching little kids hurtling down slides.

I strolled over to Tsunami. Soon it would be all madness, but I had a few minutes. I
sat down on a lounge chair and absorbed the peacefulness into my system. If mermaids really existed, I’d be one. I loved the water.

“Whatcha doing? Shouldn’t you be working?”

I jerked at the familiar voice. Tanner. I glanced over at him. “I’ve got a couple of minutes.”

Other lifeguards were mingling around. We had three stations along each side of the pool and two guards would stand in the shallow end. Shallow water is as dangerous as deep water.

Tanner crouched down, balancing on the balls of his feet. “So, I hear they’ve got big plans for the Fourth.”

“Yep.” I didn’t think it was a secret, but I really wasn’t in the mood to yammer with him either.

“You working that night?”

“Isn’t everyone?”

He ducked his head, rubbed his thumb over the face of his watch. Then he looked back up at me. “I totally blew it, didn’t I?”

Was he talking about with me? And why was he even over here talking to me at all?

“Totally,” I said, taking some satisfaction in the fact that I sounded so like I didn’t care.

“I really like you, Caitlin. Can’t you have some pity for a dumb jock?”

“I don’t think you’re that dumb. So what happened with you and the girl from the gift shop?”

“You mean Jasmine?” He said it as if he wasn’t sure that was her name.

I shrugged. “I guess. I mean, I don’t know who she is. I’ve just seen her working in the gift shop when I walked by.”

“Oh, yeah, well, her name was Jasmine.”

“
Was?
It’s not anymore?”

He laughed. “I’d forgotten how funny you were. Nah, I’m sure her name is still Jasmine, it’s just that she and me” — he waved his hand like a magician who was about to say abracadabra and pull a rabbit out of his hat — “you know.”

Actually, I didn’t. Maybe he was trying to say that she and he were no more. Did it matter to me? At all? I didn’t think it did. As much as I’d liked him, it seemed as though it should have mattered. Maybe I hadn’t liked him as much as I thought. Or maybe Michael Romeo made me realize that other guys — interesting guys — were out there.

“Hey, Morgan, up top, let’s go!”

I was startled by my supervisor’s voice. Trent was in college and he had a really deep voice. And he just looked mean, probably because he always looked as though he needed to shave. I jumped up and hurried to my post. Of course, I had to pass right by him. He had his hands on his hips and he didn’t look happy. I mumbled, “Sorry,” as I rushed past him.

“You know better than to flirt,” he said.

I swung around. “It wasn’t me.”

He looked at me over the top of his sunglasses. Why do people think that makes
them look intimidating? Maybe because it does.

“It wasn’t,” I insisted.

I was tempted to tell him to get after Tanner, but instead I just spun on my heel and hurried to my tower. I climbed up the ladder and got into position.

All I’d wanted was a few minutes of peace and instead I’d managed to get myself in trouble.

The clanging bells that sounded like buoys that rocked in the ocean announced the official opening of the park for the day. It was always madness first thing in the morning as hordes of people began rushing into the park to claim their favorite spots before getting in line for the more popular slides.

While I waited for people to reach our pool, I looked over at Tanner standing in the shallow water. He waved at me.

I felt my cheeks grow warm. I’d liked him once. I didn’t know if I could let mself like him again.