The Secrets of Boys (13 page)

“I’m going dancing at 14 Below tonight. The band is supposed to be really hot. Maybe I’ll see you there?” She directed her last comment straight at Eric, but he just shrugged and slung his arm over Cassidy’s shoulders.

“I dunno, Dee,” he said. “We might show up, but I doubt it.” He gave Cassidy a squeeze and a private smile.

Dee sighed, picked up her surfboard, and trudged up the beach, her shoulders drooping like a beagle’s ears.

“So what
do
you want to do?” Cassidy asked, almost disappointed that they weren’t going to 14 Below. She’d been there a couple of times and liked the upbeat atmosphere. In fact, the live rock bands usually performed at such loud volumes, so if she went there with Eric she wouldn’t be able to say much to him. And the less they talked, she thought, the less likely she’d be to blurt out what had happened with Zach.

“I don’t care,” Eric said, taking her hand and swinging it back and forth as they strolled toward the wooden shed where the surfers stored their equipment. “I’m just happy to be spending time with you.”

“Yeah?” Cassidy said cagily. Was he implying that she’d been “spending time” with someone else, or was she just being paranoid?

Most likely paranoid to the hundredth degree.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Eric said emphatically.

He swung open the door to the shed, and Cassidy breathed in the scent of surf wax and moldering rubber suits hung out to dry. She’d always imagined the shack was haunted, and had several sketches in her notebook of ghostly surfers emerging from it at midnight to ride the waves they’d lost their lives to. When she’d showed it to Eric, he’d patted her on the head and told her it was cute. Now she was contemplating what Zach would say if she showed him her sketchbook. Her heart began to float when she imagined him critiquing her work and asking her questions. The thought of it gave her the kind of adrenaline rush that Eric probably got when he surfed.

The door banged shut behind them, and Cassidy watched the muscles in Eric’s back flex in the dim light as he carefully placed his board on a set of pegs drilled into the wall, nestling it among its fellow boards for the night. He ran his hand reverently along the smooth underside before turning to Cassidy and staring at her with the same affection. She couldn’t help but think in that moment that maybe they were just on different wavelengths.

“What?” she asked. He’d been looking at her for too long, and she was starting to get creeped out. Was he trying to read the guilt in her face? Maybe he could see right through her.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head as if coming out of a trance. “It’s just that you’re so beautiful, it still catches me off guard sometimes.”

Cassidy forced a smile. She used to love hearing Eric tell her how she was beautiful, but now it felt like she didn’t deserve the compliment.

“Seriously.” Eric stepped toward her and took her face in his hands, lowering his head to kiss her gently on the lips. Cassidy begged herself to respond, but her lips felt like they’d been injected with novocaine, and she could barely manage to wrap her arms around his back.

It didn’t take long for Eric to get the hint and back off.

“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” He pulled away and leaned against one of the sawhorses the surfers used to wax their boards.

She began to protest, but he wouldn’t let her continue.

“I don’t blame you,” he said, lowering his head and fingering a stray thread that was coming loose from the waistband of his colorful shorts. “I’ve been a real dick lately. I’m sorry.”

“No, you haven’t!”
She
was the dick, not him!

“It’s okay, I know I have,” Eric said. “About the Joe thing and stuff like that. I’ve been thinking about it, and I realized I was just being paranoid. It’s just that sometimes I get scared I’m going to lose you, you know?”

Cassidy’s heart clenched. She could actually feel it squeezing inside her chest, growing smaller as she stared at a crack in the wall to avoid looking at Eric. It was exactly like Joe had said.

“Anyway, I’m really sorry,” he continued. “I just …

really care about you.”

“You’re not going to lose me,” she said quietly, feeling her heart sink as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She tried desperately not to admit, even to herself, that Eric had probably lost her already. But it was too late.

She could feel that most of her was already gone.

July 27

Hi Joe,

Thanks so much for your last letter. It was really
sweet—exactly what I needed with how chaotic everything has been here. Not that it’s so bad compared to
how you have it, though. Those kids in your bunk
sound nuts! Next time they try and force you to do
silly impressions, let them know there’s a five-foot-five spunky brunette back in Malibu just waiting to
kick their butts.

On the other hand, maybe you shouldn’t. Who
knows what the repercussions might be?

Anyway, things are fine. Actually, that’s a total
lie. I’m just so confused about everything. Tonight is
my two-year anniversary with Eric and I’m pretty
sure he has something really special planned, and I
can’t figure out why I’m dreading it so much. Except
that it might be because I think I’m starting to like
someone else. I don’t know. It’s really freaky. It’s like
for the past two years, I’ve always thought Eric was
The One, and now that it’s coming time to prove it,
I’m not sure that’s how I feel anymore. Isn’t that
messed up? I keep thinking I’ll wake up some morning and everything will be like it used to be. Or
maybe I’m just going through some stage that all
girls go through after they’ve been dating someone for
two years. Maybe it’s a secret that my fellow girls
forgot to tell me about.

But I’ve blabbed on long enough. Larissa actually managed to clear a couple of hours in her schedule for her so-called best friend, and I can hear her
car in the driveway right this moment.

Hope you haven’t starved to death or gotten
hooked on crack by the time you get this!

Speak to you soon,

C

Cassidy quickly folded the note in thirds, slipped it into an envelope, and scribbled the address of Camp Crackhead on the outside. She slid it between the pages of her sketchbook just as Larissa barged into her room, hair frizzing up around her head from the slight summer humidity and cheeks pink with excitement.

Cassidy had never been so glad to see her best friend.

For the past week or so, Larissa had been harder to reach than the Pope. Thankfully, she carved out some time to help Cassidy get ready for her “big night o’

love” with Eric.

“Hey, girlie!” she cried, throwing her arms around Cassidy and wrapping her in a hug. “Are you ready to get beautified?”

“Sure.” Cassidy grinned. “Just as long as you’re not planning any Powerpuff stuff for my eyes.”

“Please,” Larissa huffed. “That metallic shadow is so last month. I gave mine to the twins next door for dress-up. This summer is all about a light, natural look—paired with a few funky accents, of course.”

“Light and natural sounds about right, but hold the funky accents,” Cassidy said. “I don’t think the punk pixie look is quite right for the occasion.”

“Punk pixie!” Larissa squealed. “Oh, Cass, that’s brilliant. I wish you were working at Seersucker this summer. You’d be able to add so many good ideas to the fashion show.”

“Wow, it took you five whole minutes to mention Seersucker,” Cassidy joked. “That’s like a record for this summer.”

“What do you mean?” Larissa asked, sounding genuinely confused.

Cassidy wondered how to go about telling Larissa that all the fashion talk was getting increasingly annoy-ing, especially because they had such limited time together. “You just talk about it …
a lot
.”

Larissa frowned. “I’m sorry, it must be hard for you since you can’t be there.”

Cassidy felt like Larissa had completely missed the point. But it was so nice just having her around that Cassidy decided to drop it. “It’s fine, really.”

Larissa started digging through her Isabella Fiore paisley hobo bag. “So tonight you’re going to finally open your legs and let lover man inside. You nervous?”

“Larissa!” Cassidy protested, her cheeks turning scarlet.

“Come on, it’s now or never,” she said. “Good thing I brought wax.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a small square box of Jolen sensitive skin sugar wax. “You up for a Brazilian? I’ve become an expert at it.”

“No!” Cassidy said, instinctively putting her hands in front of her crotch. “There are some places hot wax just should not go.”

“Hey, it’s up to you.” Larissa shrugged. “But seriously, Cass. Do you think it will happen?”

It was practically all she’d been thinking about, and normally Cassidy would have spilled every fear she had.

But something stopped her just as the words were about to tumble out, and she found herself simply smiling her

“I’ve got a secret” smile instead.

“I knew it!” Larissa squealed. “You and Eric are totally going to do it. Do you have lubricated spermici-dal ribbed-for-her-pleasure condoms? I brought a few just in case.”

She began rummaging in her bag again, but Cassidy stopped her. “I’m all set, thanks.”

“Woo-hoo!” Larissa hooted. “What about your parents? You can use me as a cover story and say you’re sleeping over at my house.”

“Good, because that’s what I already told them.”

Larissa grinned. “Cassidy Jones, gettin’ freaky at last.

So can I interest you in a pedicure at least?”

“That sounds better,” Cassidy said. “As long as I get to pick the color.”

“You can pick the color if I can pick the music,”

Larissa offered, already heading for Cassidy’s iPod.

“Ooh, is this the new Ashanti?”

“Yeah, go for it,” Cassidy said as the seductive thump of bass began to fill the room. She glanced at the bottles of nail polish in her makeup drawer and chose a shade called Precious Pearl.

“Is this even a color?” Larissa joked as she filled a bak-ing tin with warm, salty water and began rubbing Cassidy’s foot with a pumice stone. “It just looks clear to me.”

Cassidy glanced at Larissa’s glittering purple toenails. “I thought you said light, natural tones were in this season.”

“Well … I kind of go for the funky accents.”

As they were waiting for the polish to dry, Cassidy was relieved to see that they could fall back into their normal friendship groove. Larissa started talking about all her boy prospects—there was that guy she was hot for at Bar Copa (Cassidy still couldn’t picture him or recall his name) and some other FB (short for “foreign babe”) named Chico, whom she met at a photo shoot for a Seersucker ad campaign.

Cassidy tried to get up enough courage to tell Larissa about her own boy problems, but she was talking at the speed of light. Did Cassidy knew that even if Larissa would let her talk for more than sixty seconds, she probably wouldn’t mention how she was feeling about Zach.

Not that Larissa would judge her or anything—her best friend’s motto was certainly something akin to “If you can’t have sex with the one you love, then do the one you’re with.” Larissa would probably just say it was a slipup and to forget about it. But that was the thing—she couldn’t forget about it
at all
. She thought about Zach a billion times a day, and although she wanted to find a way to express all of this to Larissa, she was unable to. The only thing Cassidy mentioned was how Zach was grading her quizzes and she was doing pretty well so far, to which Larissa replied: “He totally wants you.”

Cassidy just ignored the comment and grabbed a
People
magazine that was on the floor near Larissa’s bright pink-and-yellow Puma sneakers. But Larissa got Cassidy’s attention once she pulled a tube out of her bag and began squeezing green goop into her palm.

Cassidy eyed the goop warily. “What the hell is that?”

“Avocado mask,” Larissa said confidently. “To condition and prevent dryness while adding tone and luminosity to the skin.”

“You’re putting that on my face?”

“Can you think of somewhere better?”

“I don’t know, maybe in a salad? I’m not a big fan of this food-in-places-that-aren’t-my-stomach stuff.”

“Trust me,” Larissa urged. “Dina swears by this. If your skin doesn’t look amazing, you can beat
her
up.”

She squeezed the rest of the goop into her palm and tossed the tube in the trash before leaning over Cassidy to pat the green stuff onto her face. Cassidy wrinkled her nose. It smelled like a vegetarian restaurant and felt weird and sticky on her skin.

“So where’s he taking you?” Larissa asked.

“No idea. It’s all a big surprise. He just told me to be ready for him at eight and to wear something nice.”

“Sounds fancy.” Larissa put a cucumber slice over each of Cassidy’s eyes as her cell phone began to ring.

“Hold on, let me get this.”

Cassidy swallowed a sigh.

“Fumiko!” Larissa squealed into the receiver. “Oh my God, what’s up?” Cassidy could hear her padding into the next room. Was the fashion show really
so
top secret that Larissa couldn’t even discuss it with her in the same room?

Cassidy was left with nothing to do but worry about the upcoming evening with Eric. It seemed like a million things could go wrong. What if he guessed what had happened with Zach? She’d been trying to be on her best behavior over the past few weeks, dutifully avoiding Zach and attempting to banish thoughts of him from her mind whenever they appeared, which was like every ten seconds, so it wasn’t like she had an easy time of it.

Still, whenever she started to daydream about the kiss in the Hidden Jungle, she would conjure up an image of Eric on his surfboard, his chest rippling in the sunlight. It worked for a little while. Originally she’d thought she could convince herself that all she needed was a steamy night with her boyfriend to forget that Zach even existed. But that theory went kaput within days. Even when she’d felt like she’d cemented Eric’s picture firmly in her mind, it seemed like the tiniest thing would remind her of Zach: a chance French word or the smell of an open book.