So Inn Love (9 page)

“W
e should have more days off,” Josh said as we pulled back into the parking lot.

“Yeah, and more money to do things with on our days off,” Claire added.

Miraculously my car had worked well that day, starting after only a few attempts, and it hadn’t stranded us on the side of the road. We’d taken a trip to see Newport, and it was kind of funny to see my beaten-up, rusted, dented old car parked among the expensive BMWs and Mercedes.

“Can you believe some of those mansions?” Josh asked. “I mean, if you lived there, you wouldn’t even ever see your family.”

“No,” Claire said, “just the butler, maid, and any other servants—”

“Who all come from the scullery,” Josh added, and we all laughed as we climbed out of the car. “Like us.”

Caroline was walking out of the dorm, and she stopped in the small parking lot. “Where have
you
been?” She looked at my car as if it might contaminate her air space.

“Newport. You know, slumming. The
new
people have to go to
New
port,” Josh said to Caroline.

“Ha ha,” she said. “Very funny.”

Josh threw a bag over his shoulder. “I thought so.”

“Me too,” I added. “So, what did we miss around here?”

“Miss Crossley’s been looking for you. All over the place,” Caroline said.

I sighed. Couldn’t that woman hire another gofer or something? I wasn’t the only person who could fill in at the last minute, was I? Wait. Maybe I was. “But it’s my day off. She told me I was off on Mondays, because it’s the slowest day here.”

“She needed you anyway.” Caroline made it sound like a desperate situation. “Didn’t you
take your pager with you?”

“No. If I’m not working, then I’m not working. It wouldn’t do her any good to page me if I’m in Newport.” I hadn’t brought my cell phone, either, but that was because I’d forgotten it.

“If you say so. But I think you have some notes on your door. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Caroline headed off down the path in the direction of the Inn.

“Ooh. Intriguing,” Josh commented.

“Josh, notes from Miss Crossley aren’t intriguing,” I said. “They’re annoying.”

Claire and I headed upstairs to our room. We had a small bulletin board on our door, and there was a big yellow Post-it that said, “LIZA MCKENZIE,” on it. As if there were other Lizas in this room that might be confused. I turned the note over and read Miss Crossley’s note: “Ignore all earlier messages. Problem solved!” And there was a little smiley face drawn at the bottom.

“A smiley face? Since when is Miss Crossley a smiley-face type of person?” I asked Claire.

I plowed through the other notes from her.
It was amazing how many times she’d come by in the six or seven hours we’d been gone.

The last note was in different handwriting that I didn’t recognize, and jotted on an old envelope instead of a Post-it.

“I can’t believe he changed his pen brand. How crazy is that?” Hayden asked.

We were walking on the beach. Our jeans were rolled up at the bottom and we walked barefoot on the hard sand just above where the waves washed ashore. It was a cool evening, and kind of breezy.

We’d taken guests with us to the train, and brought new ones back as well, so Hayden and I hadn’t really had a chance to visit during the shuttle ride. For once, the train had been on time, so I’d sprinted to the office store and back.

“I guess writers will try anything when they’re stuck,” I said.

“How many nights has he been staying at the Inn already?”

“A week or two, at least.”

“I’d use about
one
pen in that time. What does he do, use one per day?” Hayden asked.

“Yeah, he’s tough on the pens. Wears ’em right out. By not writing with them. Go figure.” I explained how Mr. Wallace had told me about his writer’s block, which I guessed must have been disappearing, since he was sticking around and ordering more pens.

“I thought writers wrote on computers, anyway,” Hayden said.

“He uses both, I guess. Hey, if he and Miss Crossley want to send me on these missions, and I get to hang with you, and get a tip from him? It’s cool with me.”

“Yeah, but what will we do when he checks out? I mean, what’s going to be our excuse?” Hayden asked.

“Excuse?”

“To hang, like you said.”

“Oh.” I smiled nervously. “Maybe another slightly eccentric person with no car and an
urgent need for office supplies will check in.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Hayden said. “Should we count on that, though?”

We walked side by side down the beach. Did we really need an excuse, I wondered, or could we just do this because we wanted to?

Hayden seemed to have slipped into a melancholy mood, so I took his arm and linked it through mine. “Everything okay?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“No.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Just thinking about stuff. My family. I talked to my mom today. And, see, she and my dad…my parents are getting separated,” Hayden said. “They just announced this like right before I was leaving for the summer.”

“Oh, no. I’m sorry. That’s hard.”

“Yeah, it is. And my little sister—she’s gone goth or something to protest.”

“That’s not the end of the world,” I said.

“Yeah. But you don’t know my sister. She was always really into girly girl stuff. Anyway,
she
called me today, begging me to come home for the summer because she hates both Mom and Dad,” Hayden said. “Which I can’t do, but I wish I could for her sake.”

“Maybe she could come here to visit,” I suggested.

“Maybe, but she wouldn’t want to hang out with either my mom or dad long enough to drive here,” Hayden said with a laugh. “She used to love it here. But now she hates the beach, the sun, anything not goth.”

“It’s a phase. Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “Hey, even I was goth once.”

“You?”

“Sure. I wore all black, I wore dark lipstick, dyed my hair black…”

“And what happened?”

“I got bored. I kind of get bored quickly,” I said. “Especially with hair. So when did you start vacationing here? What’s your connection to this place?”

“Well, we used to come to the Inn when I was a little kid—like, very little.”

“You were little once? No.”

Hayden pushed me toward the surf, and my ankles got wet. “You’re pretty tall yourself. How tall?”

“Five eight and a half,” I said. “So tell me about your family some more. You have a little sister—any other siblings?”

“I have an older brother. He worked here for three summers, and that’s how I got in,” Hayden explained. “That’s my connection. How about you?”

“This is kind of funny, but my grandfather knows Mr. Talbot Senior, from way back when. But even so, I got hired at the last minute,” I explained. “And I tried to get hired last year, too.”

“Don’t take it personally. Everyone wants to come back, so there are only like five or six new slots a summer. And if you factor in all the people the Talbots know personally, or owe favors to…and then there are the people like me, whose siblings worked here, and unless
they
royally screwed up, then the Talbots reward them by giving a spot to their brother or sister.”

“Yeah. Claire’s sister worked here,” I told him.

“So I’m guessing you don’t have an older sister to get you in.”

“Why? Did you want to meet her?” I teased him.

“
No
, I’m just trying to ask about your family,” Hayden said.

“I’m an only child. I was one of those extremely difficult babies, so my parents decided to stop after me.”

“No, come on. You’re not
that
difficult.”

“What? Shut up.” I pushed him up the beach, and he stumbled on a couple of shells.

“Ow,” he said, brushing a sharp piece off his foot. “Maybe you are.” He looked up at the sky for a second, and I stopped walking to stand beside him. “We should probably turn around and go back,” Hayden said.

“Probably,” I said.

“It’s getting late. We’re lucky the moon is so bright tonight, or we wouldn’t be able to see a thing.”

I gazed at the moon, which wasn’t exactly
full, but was close. There was something really romantic about only seeing by the light of the moon, while letting the ocean’s water roll over your feet.

“Feel like swimming?” Hayden asked.

“No, not tonight. It’s kind of chilly for that,” I said.

“Then let’s sit down for a second and just listen to the water,” he said.

“You like doing that, too? I used to drive my parents crazy by insisting on doing that. Plus I used to make them open all the car windows or else stop the car when we got within range of salt air, just so I could inhale it.”

“But…weren’t you coming toward the ocean?” Hayden sounded confused.

“Yes.”

“So you’d be smelling the salt air for days, wouldn’t you?” Hayden asked.

“Right. Sure, but that’s nothing like the first
breaths
of it,” I argued.

“Clearly you need to move.”

“Clearly.”

Hayden folded up his sweatshirt and made
a pillow for both of us, and we lay back in the sand, next to each other.

“You should be a travel agent,” Hayden said. “Or wait—no, you should be in advertising. You should write about this stuff.”

“You think?” I asked.

It felt so natural to be with him like this, but at the same time it also felt wrong because I hadn’t been completely honest.
You have to tell him about Mark,
I thought. But why did I have to? Mark was a nonissue. Though I could just see him saying, “You called me a ‘nonissue’? Thanks a lot!”

“What do you want to do, you know, with your life?” Hayden asked.

“I’m not sure. Isn’t that terrible? I should know. I’m going to college, you know?” I said. “What about you?”

“College sophomore.”

“So, what’s your major then?” I asked.

“I started in business. Hated it. Then I switched to chemistry. Hated it. So I don’t know.” He laughed. “I guess I can fall back on lifeguarding, until I’m like twenty-five. After that it won’t be cool anymore.”

“Yeah, gray hair and lifeguards don’t really match,” I said.

“No?” Hayden turned over onto his side to face me. He started to play with my hair, and I stared up at the stars above us. I really, really wanted to turn toward him and kiss him, but now that I’d thought of Mark, I knew that I couldn’t, not until I was honest with Hayden.

“Listen, there’s something I have to tell you,” I said.

“Uh oh. That sounds bad.”

“No, it’s not bad. It’s just—remember when you asked if I was seeing someone? And I said, no, because I’m not. But I did have a boyfriend before I came here.”

“Stashed under the bed, like I said.”

I laughed. “No, more like working at a factory making boat parts. We’re on a break for the summer. Probably longer, actually.”

“Summer break, huh? I haven’t heard of that. Well, did you guys agree that you can see other people?”

“The way we left it, we weren’t all that…clear. Or mature.” I laughed. “It was more like an argument. He said that if I came here I could
forget about him for the summer. And I said fine, done, and I packed up and here I am. And we haven’t spoken since. I mean, how could he be against anyone wanting to come here? It’s like heaven here, you know?”

“You miss him?”

“Not yet. Not really at all, actually.” Now that I thought about it, that was kind of strange. I guessed maybe we’d been ready to move on for a while, if I was willing to leave him for the summer and he was willing to let me go. “Anyway, it’s pretty much over,” I said. “But we haven’t had that final conversation, so it’s not over, over.”

“I used to order my eggs like that. Over over,” Hayden said.

I smiled. “Thanks for having a sense of humor about this.” This conversation could have gone much, much worse, I thought, considering I could have—and probably should have—shared this with him days ago.

Hayden held up his watch and pressed a button to light its face. 11:54. “It really is late—we should go.”

We had a basic, but not all that enforced,
curfew of midnight. We both got to our feet and jogged back the way we’d come, without talking much. When we got back to the Inn, Hayden turned to head that way instead of up the path to the dorm.

“You know what? I left some stuff at the Inn I need to grab,” he said.

“I can wait for you,” I offered.

“No, it’s okay—you go ahead. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

I let him go and didn’t argue the point. I didn’t want the night to end, but okay, maybe things were moving a little too quickly for both of us, especially considering I’d just sort of dropped a bombshell.

We didn’t kiss good night, which was okay because I was still feeling weird about doing something with someone else without talking to Mark first.

“Where were you?” Claire asked when I walked into our room. She was sitting up in bed, reading one of the nonfun books she’d brought along. “You almost missed curfew.”

“I was with Hayden,” I said softly. I didn’t want Zoe and especially Caroline next door
to hear. I didn’t want anyone else to figure out what was going on until I had at least figured it out for myself. I could picture Caroline with her ear pressed to the wall, just praying for some good gossip.

“What did you guys do? Or shouldn’t I ask?” Claire said.

“Nothing. We went for a walk and we just talked about…everything,” I said.

“Really. But it’s past midnight,” she said.

“I know. But I’m completely serious. Nothing happened.”

“Remember, this place will get really small if you and Hayden…you know.”

“I know,” I said.

But the truth was, I could handle whatever came at me. I wasn’t scared. Maybe I should have been, but I wasn’t.

Or maybe some things were worth being scared to death about—and following through anyway.

T
he next night, there was a party at Crandall’s Point. It was sort of impromptu in that no one told me and Claire about it. So, according to us, impromptu now meant “last minute, and you’re not invited.”

“The dorm is so quiet tonight. What’s up with that?” Claire had asked me around 8:00.

“It’s like everyone went somewhere, without us,” I commented.

Then she vaguely remembered Josh saying something about a party. But why hadn’t Hayden?

We headed out to Crandall’s Point, and when we came over the crest of a sand dune, I saw two figures standing off to the side, behind everyone else. It looked like a guy and girl, so
I was wondering who had hooked up—they were standing really close.

As we got nearer to them, I realized: It was Hayden. And Zoe. They were sort of huddled together against a big rock, as if they were shielding themselves from the wind. But there was no wind. Still, I felt a cold ripple down the back of my neck when I saw them. They had this look as if they were conspiring. They didn’t even see us, so I slunk away feeling like I’d intruded on a private moment.

If Hayden and Zoe were still “close,” as Caroline had so nicely phrased it, why hadn’t he told me the night before, when I’d come clean about Mark? It wasn’t like he hadn’t had the perfect opportunity.

Did he not tell me about the party because he knew Zoe would be there? But that didn’t make sense—they could be around each other tons, back at the Inn or the dorm. They didn’t need a secret party to get together. Besides, she was seeing Brandon. Wasn’t she?

Claire tugged at my arm to make me keep walking, because I was a little frozen in place,
reluctant to proceed. “It’s probably just one of those post-breakup talks you have to have,” she suggested.

“What are those?” I asked.

Claire shrugged. “How would I know? I’ve never had one. I’ve never dated anyone more than once.”

“Once? What do you mean?”

“To a movie or a party or whatever.” Claire grabbed a soda from a cooler and opened it. “Just never seemed worth it before now.”

“Before now?”

“Before we go to college, I mean. Because you’ll change so much. My sister said high school guys aren’t worth it, anyway.”

I looked at her for a few seconds. “I think you need to stop getting all your guy advice from your big sister. She sounds a little jaded.”

Claire laughed. “You have a point.”

“What took you guys so long?” Josh asked when we sat down beside him. “I was wondering where you were.”

“You were?” Claire asked, sounding surprised.

“Well, yeah.”

“We didn’t know this was where everyone was,” I said.
Because certain people didn’t share information with certain other people. Because they are off having deep discussions with their supposedly ex-girlfriends.

“Well, where else would we be?” Caroline said. “It’s not like there are multiple hangouts to choose from.”

“Sure there are,” I said. “You just haven’t thought of them all. You’re stuck in a rut.”

Just then, I noticed Hayden walking over to the group. Zoe wasn’t with him, which seemed strange. What had happened? He sat across the fire from us. I thought he might sit next to me, or at least maybe make a point of saying hi, but he didn’t. I tried to catch his eye and wave at him, but it was like he was deliberately avoiding me. What had I done? Was this all about the Mark thing?

“Did Zoe take off?” Caroline asked him.

Leave it to her to find out the dirt, but this time I was grateful—she saved me from asking the question and looking desperate.

“Brandon picked her up,” Hayden said.

“Didn’t you hear his Harley? We heard this loud exhaust roar out on the street, and she bolted.”

Bolted because she was about to be caught with you?
I wondered.
Or bolted, in general, because she’s skittish, like a horse?

Except she wasn’t skittish, at all.

“The neighbors freaked. The Crandalls will be down momentarily to kick us all off their point,” Hayden joked. “They’re taking back their rocks.”

“Is there a law against Harleys?” Josh asked.

“There should be,” Caroline said with a frown.

“Don’t you approve of Brandon?” Claire asked her.

“No, but I mean, it’s not up to me.” Caroline shrugged.

“And thank you, Caroline,” Hayden said. “I’m sure Zoe appreciates you butting out of her life.”

Caroline gave him a very huffy look. “I think she could do better, and so do her parents, but whatever.”

I glanced across the bonfire ring at Hayden,
but he didn’t make eye contact. What was he doing, exactly? Were he and Zoe friends, or weren’t they?

Everyone including Caroline knew that they went off to talk privately, and they didn’t think that was weird. So everyone from last summer must know they still had some sort of connection
this
summer.

So what did that make me, for spending so much time with Hayden and thinking we might have a “thing”? A fool, right?

I was starting to wish we’d never found this supposed party. I definitely didn’t feel like sticking around. “I’m going to take off,” I said to Claire, who was laughing with Josh about something.

“Want me to go, too?” she asked, looking up at me as I got to my feet.

“No, you stay—I’m exhausted,” I said. Which was one word for it. Some others were
confused
,
hurt
,
surprised
,
shocked
, and
baffled
. And I didn’t even have a thesaurus with me.

I walked back the way I’d come, picking my way between rocks until I got to the flat
sand, and then I moved faster. I almost felt like running, but if I did, and I got back to the dorm too soon, what would I do for the rest of the night? Or should I head to the Inn and look for a guest who needed someone to play backgammon with?

Yes, that was pathetic. But maybe I was pathetic, going after a guy who wasn’t really interested if his former girlfriend was around and available. But she was with Brandon, wasn’t she? It was really bothering me that I couldn’t figure this all out, that the “inn crowd” seemed to know more than I did. The one person who might explain it to me was Caroline, but I couldn’t ask her.

I was nearly back to the Inn when I heard footsteps slapping on the sand behind me.

He waited long enough,
I thought as I turned around and saw Hayden.

“I have a surprise,” he said.

Yeah. I think I already experienced that,
I thought. “Really,” I said.

“Come on, let’s go to the top deck.”

“We can’t get up there,” I said.
Never mind
the fact that I don’t know if I’m even talking to you
.

The deck was connected to the Inn’s biggest and best room, the honeymoon suite, and could only be used by guests who were staying there or for private parties. I’d never even seen it, not on our tour, because Miss Crossley said it was off-limits.

“The room’s not rented tonight. I have a pass key,” Hayden said.

I considered my options as we neared the Inn’s front entrance. I liked the idea of an adventure with Hayden. I wouldn’t mind seeing this famous deck. Plus, if we were going to argue, it would be very private up there—privacy wasn’t something we’d have back at the dorm or out here on the porch.

“Okay, sure,” I said.

We went inside and pressed the call button for the elevator. When it came, we stepped inside and looked awkwardly at each other. Unfortunately we were the only ones in there. Fortunately it was only four floors to the top. Hayden inserted a special electronic key card that made the elevator stop at the fourth floor.
Once we stepped out, there was a hallway.

There were two doors when we got to the top: one for the honeymoon suite and one for the deck.

“You want to see the suite first?” Hayden asked.

“Not right now,” I said. The last place I wanted to be with him was in a romantic room with a giant bed. I’d probably hit him over the head with a flower vase.

I walked outside and went around the edge of the deck, checking out the view. I could hear glasses clinking and people laughing on the front porch of the Inn. One male guest had a really loud, obnoxious laugh—an actual guffaw—and when I heard it, I glanced back over my shoulder at Hayden and we both laughed. I was grateful to the guy for laughing like that, because it broke the tension. Which wasn’t to say there wasn’t still tension, and a couple of things I wanted to clear up.

“So, when we were back at Crandall’s Point?” I began.

“Yeah?” Hayden asked.

“The way you acted toward me, it was like we’d never hung out the night before—or ever,” I said.

“What? No, it wasn’t,” Hayden protested.

“Yeah, it
was
.”

“Look. If you want someone who’s into PDA, that’s not me.”

“Well, I’m not into PDR,” I said.

“PDR?” Hayden asked.

“Public displays of rejection,” I said.

Hayden started to laugh. “That’s really a term?”

“Sure,” I said.

“It’s just awkward, that’s all,” Hayden said. “People like to talk, and I don’t like being talked about.”

“What are you so afraid of?” I asked.

“Truthfully? I don’t know. Let’s talk about something else. I’m starting to sound paranoid.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. I was ready for whatever he had to tell me. “Can we talk about the Zoe thing?”

Hayden looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not the jealous type. Really. Honestly
I’m not. But tonight you guys were off having this totally…I don’t know—”

“That? That was just family stuff. From home. I’ll tell you about it sometime. But we’re friends, that’s all,” Hayden said.

I wasn’t sure whether I believed him yet.

“I mean,
you
know how it is, after you date someone. You’re still a—a close friend, sort of. Aren’t you and what’s-his-name still friends?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t talked,” I said. “So probably no. But okay, I take your point, I guess.”

“So can we officially move on?” he asked.

I couldn’t see why not, even if it felt a little strange. “Sure.”

“Good.” Hayden put his arms around my waist. “Isn’t it great up here?”

“Yeah.” I leaned back against him, enjoying the feeling of being close to him. We fit together perfectly. From the upstairs deck you could see everything around the Inn, the entire property, from the dorm to the tennis court to the sailing pond to the ocean beach.

“So how did you end up with a key?” I asked. “Wait, don’t tell me. Miss Crossley gave
it to you, like the key to the bike shed. You have your special privileges.”

“No, actually I just sort of borrowed it for tonight, from the front desk.”

“The front
desk
?” I pretended to gasp. “Was Caroline there?”

“She was fawning all over some California dude checking in,” Hayden said. “She never even saw me.”

I laughed. “You know what? I like this side of you.”

“Which side is that?” Hayden let go of me and turned around, stopping to pose and flexing his biceps. “Front side, back side…”

I swatted him on the butt. “The daredevil side.”

“Yeah. We’ll have to be quiet though. If we get busted, we’re in big trouble.”

“Okay, so we’ll quietly listen to the surf,” I said.

“Very quietly.”

“Definitely.” I nodded. We stood there for a few minutes, me leaning back against him again, both of us watching the ocean. I closed my eyes for a while and just listened to the
water, the rhythmic rolling sound of the waves.

Hayden gently took my shoulders and turned me so that I was facing him.

“Wasn’t I being quiet enough?” I asked in a whisper.

“Too quiet.” He traced my cheekbones with his fingers. “I thought maybe you fell asleep.”

“No. Not exactly,” I said as I looked into his eyes. “You have the coolest eyes. You know that? They’re sort of blue, but then they’re sort of gray—”

Hayden interrupted me by leaning down to kiss me. I wrapped my arms around his waist, and he pulled me in tight. We must have been kissing for a while, and I was totally lost in the moment. I completely forgot where I was.

Then the outside deck lights came on.