Susan's Summer (2 page)

I shook my head. “My mom didn’t think they were a big deal,” I said. “I’m sure it’s fine.” I tried to keep the hope out of my voice, but I failed.

Just then a beer glass went flying past us, and I looked at two women who were about to start a fight.
We should probably get out of here soon,
I thought, but I wasn’t quite ready yet. I turned my attention back to my friend.

Mae shook her head. We had had this conversation many times and it always went the same way. Neither of us knew how to break the pattern.

“My stuff was destroyed in the flood,” I said. “My parents weren’t the most practical people. All I can think was that there were more records that got destroyed, but that maybe they had told other people. That’s what I have to find out.”

“What do you mean?” Mae asked.

“I mean, my parents’ friends. They told Mrs. Winthrop, so maybe there were other friends they told.”

“If other people knew,” said Mae, “if this really happened, why haven’t they come forward? Your aunt didn’t know. You asked her even before. . . .”

Of course we had gone there. Every time I was with other Fairies, they went there.

I shook my head, trying to tell Mae it was okay, but we both knew it wasn’t. Holt was dead and there was nothing else to say about it. The dull ache returned. Sometimes, for very brief moments, I was able to forget he had died—sometimes. But even then, the respite from pain was brief.

“I am going to find this person, and I am going to marry him. It’s what my parents would have wanted. Me, happy. I’m going to be happy!”

Another glass went flying past us, perilously close to our heads, almost as if a drunk person was using us for target practice.

“Yeah,” said Mae dryly. “You look thrilled.”

Mae’s dark eyes were troubled, and she ran her fingers through her short hair distractedly. She knew I wasn’t okay. She had grieved over Holt’s death too, but she had never been close to him like I had, although she was a member of the Roth Court too. She hadn’t lost both her parents—like I had. She had never really lost anyone.

It had been years since my parents had died, and the drowning feeling I once had when I thought of them had subsided to bearable. I had come to accept what had happened, and I had even found love with a new family, the Roths. Holt, like an older brother, had taken me under his wing, and we had spent our summers together, becoming close. I was content, if not always happy. I loved beautiful things and tried to surround myself with them. It helped me forget old pains.

Then Holt had died.

It had been sudden.

And brutal.

Logan, his younger brother, had been blamed. There was nothing I could think of that would have been worse.

The music around us blared louder, but it didn’t break through the cave my mind had disappeared into. A hundred times a day I thought of Holt’s death. He had been my rock, the one who stayed positive for me through thick and thin, and now he was gone, ripped from me and leaving nothing behind but grief.

One of the long-running jokes we had had was about my future husband. Holt was sure that he would never approve of anyone I might care about. For a long time I had had a crush on Samuel, but of course that was never going to work out. Now Samuel was with Autumn, and though I was in touch with both of them, they had decided that for at least a while it was best if they kept a low profile.

I, meanwhile, was adrift. Like the Roths, I didn’t want to be in Castleton, which was where I normally spent the summer.

I didn’t have a home of my own. I always just stayed with family or at school. I had been in Castleton at the Roths’ summer home for the past couple of weeks, but I hadn’t been able to take it. There were too many memories of Holt there.

My solution had been this road trip. Mae had offered to let me stay with her and her family, but I just didn’t think I could be around other Fairies. I had tried several times already and failed miserably. I knew I was in trouble when I broke down in hacking sobs at the movie “The Wedding Crashers.” None of that was cry-worthy, but I was crying at everything. Mae had told me to stop the waterworks, and I had, barely.

“You know I totally support this road trip idea, right?” Mae told me anxiously. “I just don’t support the bit where you cry all the time.”

I glared at her. “It’s not all the time. I am keeping a handle on it.” Kind of? Ish. Maybe. Well, I was trying.

Mae rolled her eyes. “So, don’t look now, but I think you have an admirer.”

I tensed. I had avoided guys—well, everyone—since the Ceremony of Vines, the Fairy equivalent of a funeral; even members of the Supreme Council had attended, since it was an heir to the throne who had died. Now that I was intent on finding my betrothed I didn’t want any distractions.

I shrugged. “They’ll go away. They always go away.”

Mae’s shoulders slumped. She didn’t say anything, but the look of tension didn’t leave her face.

When enough time had passed so that it wouldn’t be obvious, I glanced over my shoulder. Something inside me still tugged to see who was staring.

The guy was at the end of the bar, at the other side of the room from Mae’s and my table. The bar was low and occupied exclusively by drunk men with beards, except for this one. Everyone seemed to give him a little space, like he was known and respected. His eyes were too far away to see properly, but it was obvious that they were locked on my table. His hair was a perfectly tousled dirty blond and he had broad shoulders and a wide mouth. He wore a white t-shirt and jeans. There was a power emanating from him that surprised me. I glanced away quickly, but judging by the way his face was breaking into a smile, he had noticed me checking him out. There had been a time when I didn’t mind it if a cute guy noticed me looking at him, but this guy was different. Somehow, I felt like I knew him, but of course I didn’t. I would have remembered a guy like that anywhere, and I felt sure I had never seen him before. And yet. . . .

“I think he saw that,” Mae murmured devilishly.

“As long as he doesn’t come over here,” I muttered. “I don’t have time for fun.”

“Yeah,” said Mae dryly. “We’re SO busy.”

Just then a waitress, a woman who looked like she spent too many hours on her feet, appeared at our table. Her hair was a mousy brown and her smile was tired.

“The gentleman at the bar sent this over,” she said, her gum making a smacking noise.

I glanced at the bar. The good-looking guy—scratch that, the gorgeous-looking guy—was nowhere to be seen.

“I don’t want it,” I said crossly, folding my arms over my chest.

The waitress smacked her gum louder. “Does it look like I care?” She put the two beers on the table and sidled away.

Mae stared at the beers. “But if we accept them does that mean we have to, like, go talk to him?” She had a wicked grin on her face.

“We do not,” I said, scowling. “Just because he wants something doesn’t mean he can have it.”

“Exactly,” said Mae, glancing at the bar. “Why would he buy us drinks and then leave?”

“Who cares?” I said. Without another thought I grabbed the beer. I wasn’t going to let it go to waste. Mae made a face and left hers untouched. “You’re a whole lot of bluster and not much action, you know that? Someday you’ll remember that you’re the sweetest and most thoughtful person I’ve ever met.”

Ignoring her, I drank my beer and hers. If I hadn’t already had another drink I might have been okay, but as on so many other nights I lost track of time and myself.

Before Holt died I never touched alcohol; I was underage and he would never have approved. But with him gone I just didn’t care anymore.

“All right,” Mae finally said. “We’ve barely started this road trip and you’re already making a mess of things. Let’s get out of here.”

“No,” I mumbled. “I need to find my husband. My future husband. Wouldn’t you be thrilled if you found out you were going to marry me? Yeah, exactly.”

“Which one of these guys are you planning on making the lucky fella?” asked Mae, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

I looked around. If anything, the prospects in the bar had gone downhill. There were motorcycle jackets, scraggly beards and flannel everywhere. Not that those things were necessarily bad on their own, but combined with drinking and the general lack of anyone having taken a shower, they made a deadly combination.

“Come on,” she said, hoisting me up by the arm. “There are two beds at a bed and breakfast calling our name.”

“They’re calling your name,” I said, continuing to mumble. “What they are saying about me is that they would like to throw me back.”

“They wouldn’t say that if you would drink less,” Mae said. “What’s it going to help anyway? You’re just going to cry harder.”

I tried to glare at my friend, but it was hard when I couldn’t walk a straight line. If I had thought about it I would have known we’d never make it out of the bar, but I was far beyond rational thinking. What neither Mae nor I had understood was that it wasn’t the cute guy sitting at the bar who had bought us the drink, it was the two unsavory characters next to him, and they now wanted something for their trouble.

I felt like I was forgetting something. I clutched the letter more tightly to my body as two men stepped in front of us, blocking our exit.

They were around Holt’s age
, I thought sadly. Young twenties, only not nearly as attractive as my cousin. One had scruffy hair that might be brown but was covered in something that looked like dust. He had several days’ worth of beard that only served to make his scruffiness more obvious. He was also big—like, really big.

The other was smaller, but more compact. He was built solidly and had a lot of fight in him. Mae halted instantly. She knew something was very wrong, but I had no idea. I just tried to push through them.

“Not so fast,” the taller one said. He stepped in front of me and I rocked back on my heels.

“This here is Kid and I’m Larry. We are the fine young men who bought you drinks.” He gave a toothy smile that wasn’t at all comforting. The smaller one, Kid, took a menacing step forward. He reeked of alcohol.

“What?” I asked stupidly. “We need to leave,” I told Mae, like she didn’t already know.

“We’re trying to,” she muttered. “Look,” she said to the two guys. “We don’t want trouble.” Larry and Kid looked like they didn’t care.

“Come on now, two pretty girls like you? What else would you come here for but a bit of fun?” Cue toothy grin from Kid. Some guys you could say that if they cleaned themselves up, put on a new shirt and brushed their teeth, they might be cute, kind of attractive even. No one would ever say that about Kid. He was all weird angles and smushed nose.

“If only you knew,” said Mae. She couldn’t really explain that we were Fairies and in mourning. People tended to laugh or run away screaming. Lydia and Leslie Cheshire told people for fun; they liked the shock value. Mae preferred to keep a low profile.

“We should go,” I said again, glancing at my friend, who was shrinking in on herself. Like me, she hated confrontation. “Apparently the waitress uses the term ‘gentleman’ loosely.”

“You aren’t going anywhere till you’ve had some drinks with us,” said the small one. “Come on. It will be fun.”

I tried to push past the guys, but they closed ranks, so I looked around. There was only one exit. It was starting to dawn on me that we were in serious trouble. No one in the bar looked interested in helping us, and it wasn’t like we could get around two big guys on our own.

“Come on, want another beer?” the small one cajoled.

“Actually,” I said, brightening a little, “I’ve already had several.”

That drew a laugh from the guys and a look of despair from Mae. “One more can’t hurt. You lead the way,” I continued. I wasn’t so drunk that I didn’t understand that Mae and I couldn’t stay there. I didn’t even want to stay. All I wanted was my own bed and a nice comfy pillow to tuck my letter under. In my addled state, I thought I could fool these guys into getting out of our way.

“Oh no,” said Kid. “You lead the way. Wouldn’t want you running away from us now, would we?”

“Actually, I would like that very much,” I said. I could have used my Glamour if necessary, but that would have been one big mess, and when other Fairies heard that I had drunkenly gotten myself into so much trouble that I was forced to risk exposure by using my powers, they would not have been happy. I flinched at the thought and looked at Mae. Her eyes were wide and she was biting her lip. I didn’t want her to be scared because of me, but it looked like it was too late.

“You aren’t moving very fast,” said Larry, raising a dirty eyebrow and looking me up and down. Slowly.

“Sorry,” I said, and then I did the only thing I could think of. I kicked him in the shin. Hard. I had heard that that wasn’t the best place to kick a guy if you wanted the full effect, but I didn’t dare kick him anywhere else. I probably wasn’t strong enough to make an impact anyway.

“Arrgghh,” Larry roared. What I hadn’t realized was that everyone else in the bar was watching us, and at Larry’s cry of pain everything was thrown into chaos.

Mae tried to dart away, but Kid grabbed her and held on. She started screaming, which only added to the noise Larry was making. Well, I wouldn’t want Kid touching me either.

Larry was hopping wildly around on one foot, but that didn’t stop him from trying to grab me. I dodged around him, desperate to avoid his grasping hands. I would have thought that other people in the bar would have come to help, but they just laughed and pointed. No help at all.