"Charming," Beau mumbles.
They look alike. They have similar features now that I see them standing side by side. Not to mention the same confidence, shoulders back. Feisty grins, though hers is painted pink. An air of strangeness, as though they both carry secrets around in their pockets like pennies.
"I'm Charlotte," she says.
I somehow hate her and want to be her at the same time.
"And you are Willow, of course," she continues.
"Hey, Charlotte." Grant smiles nervously. "You look nice. Haven't talked to you in a while."
She sighs and picks at her nails, as though bored. He waits for a response, but she doesn't bother.
"What have you been up to?" Grant shifts from foot to foot, seemingly out of his element.
"None of your business." There is no masking the annoyance in her tone. "And the reason you haven't talked to me in a while is because you are too nervous to get up the guts to ask me what you want to."
This time, when she looks up from her nails, she's smiling something evil.
"Go ahead." She motions with her hand for him to hurry. "Ask what it is you want to."
Grant fidgets, running a hand through his hair and over the back of his beet-red neck.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Yes, you do," she practically purrs. "You want to ask me out."
I feel bad for Grant. He swallows roughly, his head bobbing up and down in confirmation.
Charlotte reaches for Grant's shirt, running a finger slowly down it.
"I don't date my brother's friends," she whispers so close to his face that she could kiss him. "And especially not ones who don't have the courage to ask me themselves."
Her eyes dart to mine long enough for me to notice the mischief dancing in them.
"Maybe if you'd asked me outright, I'd reconsider. But probably not. You should save yourself time and ask out another girl." Her finger leaves Grant's shirt. "Word of advice? When you do ask someone out, make sure she's meek enough to accept your offer. Someone like … Willow, perhaps. She seems more the type of girl who would go for you."
I gasp, too shocked to form a reply. Her obvious insult is unprovoked and unnecessary. What does she have against me? Or Grant, for that matter?
"Charlotte." Beau's tone is edged with a warning.
She glances at her brother, holding his gaze, and then yawns. "Well, this party has been lovely, but I have better things to do. Later."
And I thought Beau was sometimes callous. I guess I now know it could be so much worse.
…
A rumored cause of death for seventeen-year-old Nicole Samantha Star is something I didn't expect to hear while lounging on a Saturday afternoon.
Heart attack.
How could a young girl like her have a heart attack in the middle of a bog with bruises stamped into her body?
Police stick to their guns that something foul happened, especially since the toxicology came back inconclusive. She definitely didn't pass due to natural causes. According to a source quoted by the anchorwoman, the heart attack stemmed from attempted asphyxiation.
Otherwise known as murder.
Jorie sits in my living room with me, watching the static-broken news across the television. Both of us listen in stunned silence.
The anchorwoman poses questions:
Did young Samantha have dangerous enemies?
Was she involved in something sinister?
Drugs?
What kind of monster did this?
It's all anybody can talk about. I shut off the TV and stand up fast-like.
"Let's go outside," I say.
Gran is sleeping. Mom and Dad are at the library writing the dictionary on every single known living and dead variation of bird, or something equally as boring.
We open the screen door and step into hell. Everything blazes. The beginning of autumn in the swamp sticks to our skin like sap. Sucks the air from our lungs. Makes me want to chop off all my hair, hoping for a breeze.
Jorie pops her gum and walks beside me.
"Where should we go?" she asks as I send my parents a quick text to notify them that I'm in the bog with Jorie.
Marshy ground slurps at our boots. A funnel cloud of white gnats swarms, making me hold my breath and squint until we make it through.
"We could go for a walk," I say.
Twenty steps into our stroll and we both sit down under the shade of a tree, agreeing that a walk will surely kill us now. We can hardly keep our skin from melting off as it is.
"What about the mall?" I suggest, but I'm not into it.
I try to think of other places with air-conditioning.
"Or the movies," I say. "Or maybe the pizza place?"
"What about swimming?" Jorie asks.
Submerging myself in icy waters to cool off?
"A swim sounds perfect, actually," I reply.
It will take thirty minutes to drive to the public pool, but it's well worth it. We make our way back up the steps. I knock on Gran's bedroom door. No answer. I write her a note instead.
Gone to the pool with Jorie.
The simple truth. I know Gran. She won't be angry that I took off. She'll just be glad that Beau wasn't a part of my plan.
"Do you need to call your parents?" Jorie asks.
"No," I answer. "I'll probably be back before them. They live for their bird discoveries and the process of recording them. Which means long hours away. I'll just send a quick text saying that we decided on the pool instead of the swamp."
"Do you mind if I call mine, then?"
I show Jorie to the phone, which, thank the stars, Dad replaced when Gran wasn't looking. So now we have one piece of modern technology on the bottom floor.
Jorie calls her parents for approval while I send mine a quick message, get dressed in a suit, and throw a romper over it. I wedge sandal thongs between my toes and pull my hair into a high ponytail. I have my license but not my own car. My only option of transportation lies in swiping Mom's car keys from the counter, since she rode in Dad's truck. I check that the tank has enough to get us there. It does.
Jorie meets me outside. "Ready?"
I nod and open the car door just as Beau steps onto his porch.
"My parents are cool with me going, so we can stop by my house to grab my suit and some towels before … " Jorie trails off. "Girl, what are you staring at so hard?"
She doesn't have to ask twice. I don't even have to answer. Because just then, she sees, too.
"Good Lord. How does that boy get hotter every day?" Jorie fans herself.
She stares. I stare. The sun and the reptiles and the trees stare.
"Beats me," I reply.
Beau smiles, and I die right there in the grass.
He crooks a finger and signals for me to join him.
Something heats in my belly. I attempt to act relaxed, as though I see a thousand Beaus every day. No big deal.
"Be back in a second," I tell Jorie.
I walk to him.
"Hey," I say.
My voice is traitorous. Breathless.
"Hey." He winks.
I shudder. Suck in a breath. Try not to let a pool of heat overflow in my belly.
When he leans forward, I have an image of him kissing me, though he stops himself just a bit shy of actually doing so. As much as I've wished he would, he hasn't yet. He's been too distracted looking for a killer. On the few occasions I've seen him, we've done a lot of things …
Sailed through the mire.
Walked through the woods.
Talked under moss-eaten branches.
Never kissed.
But since I'm a lying liar, that's not entirely true. He has tried to kiss me. Twice. Both times, I've turned away. Don't ask me why. Perhaps I'm crazy. Or maybe I'm waiting for the right moment. Which doesn't happen to be in front of his house with no privacy. While his sister watches out the window and Jorie stands at my back.
"Where are you going?" he asks.
I look into his depthless eyes.
"The pool."
He knows which one. There's only one public pool. Everyone is bound to be there on this muggy Saturday.
Beau waits like he expects an invite. But he'll be waiting until he's nothing but bones because I'm not the type of girl who ditches her friend for a guy, no matter how hot he is. Or the type who makes her friend feel like a third wheel.
"Well," I say, placing a hand against the thin fabric of Beau's shirt, directly over his hard stomach, "guess I'll be going."
His sister smiles in the window.
"See you later, Beau."
"Maybe sooner than you think," he replies.
He saunters into the house like the bobcats that saunter through the swamp, giving me one last departing look.
"Come on." Jorie hops in the car. "I'll show you the way."
There are too many bends in the road-too many turns and streets with no names-for me to ever remember how to get to Jorie's house by heart. Her description includes "turn at the knobby tree, another left at the bush that looks like an arrow, over the creek, ten streets past the red house with a green roof." The directions only get more obscure the farther out of the woods we go.
We've long been off the main road-there's only one here, all others are dirt or pebbled-when we come to an especially bumpy road. The car knocks along stones and broken rocks. The shoulder is soft, and I worry about getting the tires stuck in mud, but we make it.