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“He wouldn’t,” she said softly, looking up at the sky. “Not about me.”
I got the feeling this was the real Tiffany. That her bravado was a front for some insecurities that probably came from her dad. She needed someone in her corner. “You really think that?”
“We don’t get along so well,” she said. “In case you didn’t pick that up.”
I was beginning to. “That’s a shame.”
“Look how pretty the stars are,” she said.
Even though the shift in topic was sudden, it didn’t stop a lump from forming in my throat. I kept my eyes forward. The fucking stars. That was a place reserved for Maddy. I wasn’t willing to go there. “What’s pretty about them?”
She looked at me funny. “What kind of a question is that? They twinkle. They’re . . .” She couldn’t come up with anything else. “They’re just pretty. Did you look?”
“I’ve seen them.”
“So if you’re going to drop me off early . . . when will I see you again?”
I didn’t have an answer. I stretched my arm along the back of the seat. She took it as an invitation to move into my side. “I’ll be back on the lot Monday.”
“I don’t mean like that. I was hoping we could, you know, go out.”
I knew what she’d meant. I could just say no. I didn’t want to lead her on. But there was no reason, not one, that I should ever see Lake again if her sister wasn’t around.
As the wheel took us around, silence stretched between us.
I didn’t tell Tiffany I’d see her again.
I didn’t tell her I wouldn’t, either.
6
Lake
Standing under the Ferris wheel, watching it go round and round, made me ill. I did it until I lost track of Manning and Tiffany, then crossed the pathway and sat on a step eating tufts of cotton candy while I waited.
A pair of ripped blue jeans stepped in front of me. “Hey.”
I looked up into sharp, crystal blue eyes that were a trademark of the very good-looking, very popular Swenson brothers, Cane, Corey, and the one blocking my view, Corbin. Blond hair curled out from under a Billabong hat that sat low on his head, its rigid bill almost shadowing his face.
Corbin was closest to my age. He stood with a skateboard behind his head, propped lengthwise on his shoulders, wheels out. He’d covered the underbelly in stickers. “Don’t you go to my high school?” he asked.
Even though I was fairly sure he thought I was someone else, I nodded.
He tapped his chin. “You have, uh, stuff . . .”
Quickly, I wiped my face with my sleeve. “Thanks.”
“And your tongue is blue.” He grinned. “Why aren’t you at that party on Marigold?”
I sat up a little. “Why aren’t you? I’m sure all your friends are there.”
“I was. It’s no big deal.” Absentmindedly, he spun one of the skateboard’s wheels with a long finger. A cartoon sticker of a naked woman peeled at one corner. “So you know who I am?”
I blinked back to his face. “Corbin.”
“What’s your name?”
“Lake.”
“Cool. You skate?”
I ate more of my cotton candy. “No.”
“Surf?”
Tiffany and I had gone to a few surf camps over the years. I could barely stand. Tiffany was better, but she preferred dry land for sunbathing with her Walkman and magazines.
I figured I’d surfed more than the average teenager, so I shrugged. “Kind of.”
“You should come out with me and my brothers sometime. We could use some chicks in the lineup.”
“Maybe.”
“You here by yourself?”
I still wasn’t sure if he thought he was talking to someone else. I hadn’t seen Corbin with any specific girl I could remember, but guys like him always had a girlfriend. “With my sister.”
“Who’s your sister?”
“Tiffany.”
“Kaplan?” He swung his skateboard in front of his legs and laughed. “Yeah. Makes sense. I see the resemblance now.”
I had no idea why that was funny. It happened a lot, people finding out we were sisters and mentioning “the resemblance.” Whether or not it was just something people said, I usually took it as a compliment. With Corbin, I wasn’t so sure. “How do you know Tiffany?”
“From school. And she’s friends with my older brother.”
“I’m a year below you.”
“I know.”
Only then did my heart skip a beat, once I realized the most popular guy in school really was talking to me. Corbin had noticed me. Our high school wasn’t that big, but there were hundreds of students.
“I’ve seen you around,” he added with a smile. It was a nice smile, too—since he was so tan, his teeth looked unnaturally white. Everyone knew who the Swensons were. Their dad worked with mine, so the name even came up a time or two at the dinner table. I could see why girls liked the brothers with their perpetual surfer tans, their tall and lean muscular bodies. If I’d thought much about talking to Corbin, I would’ve guessed it’d be a bumbling, muttering, stomach-butterflies kind of thing, but it wasn’t. I liked him, and I liked that he didn’t make nervous.
