The Shore Read online

  “Are you kidding? Local college, living at home? I think there’s a law against it, somewhere.” Jodi sucked on her diet soda. “Hated every minute of it, let me tell you.”

  “Parents much?” asked Claire. She wasn’t sure what she was trying to say.

  But Jodi seemed to understand. “Parent. Mother, with stepfather.”

  “Right. Linley. Told me.” Claire tried for sympathetic sounds of one syllable.

  “I can’t believe she married him . . . he’s . . . creepy. . . .” Jodi’s voice trailed off. Then she took a deep breath. “Anyway, I’m outta there. I’m going to work two jobs this summer, and I’m up for a full scholarship next year at a real art school and . . . it’s going to get better.”

  “It will,” agreed Claire. “It is already. Could’ve been a bank for the summer. I mean—in a bank.”

  Jodi made a face. “And living at home?”

  “And living at home. Parents. My sister has her own place, and my brother is married and working on the family thing.”

  “Are they nice?”

  “Mm?”

  “Your parents. Your family. Nice?” Jodi repeated.

  “Uh . . . yeah.” Not something Claire had thought much about.

  Jodi sighed. “My mom’s nice, but she’s not what you’d call the independent type.” Another sigh.

  “So, you and Linley—both only kids,” Claire said, swerving slightly off subject. “You think that’s one of the reasons you’re friends?”

  “Maybe.” Jodi sounded doubtful.

  “And Linley and I . . . hey! Our parents are still married to each other,” Claire said. “We have that in common.”

  “I guess.” Jodi gave Claire an odd look. “But I think the reason Linley and I got to be friends is she was the only person I met at our stupid high school who was willing to do anything. I mean, she is totally fearless. Without fear. The first time we surfed together, I knew we were solid.”

  “Right,” agreed Claire. She thought a little longer. “And Max. About Max?”

  “Max is the ex-love of Linley’s life. Old story,” Jodi said flatly.

  “’s cute,” Claire slurred.

  “Color me overcautious,” Jodi’s tone remained flat. “But I wouldn’t look in that direction. He may be history, but I’ve got a feeling he’s still not in her past.”

  “Right,” Claire said. “Well. Anyway, thanks to Linley—no bank.”

  “Thanks to Linley,” Jodi said. “Yes. Linley makes things happen. But . . .”

  “But ...?”

  “But wait for the end of the summer before you thank her for it.” Jodi flicked the rest of her soda over the deck railing. “I know some people who’ll give us a ride,” she announced. “Let’s go.”

  “What about Linley?” Claire asked.

  “Linley,” said Jodi, “can find her own way home.”

  Five

  “You’re twenty-one?” asked the burly guy with the round baby blue eyes behind the counter. He’d introduced himself as Joseph, and Claire was discovering that the ferocious scowl was probably an illusion caused by thick, jutting eyebrows that almost met over the bridge of what looked like a once-broken nose. He wiped the same place in the counter over and over again with a rag that might have also been used for oil changes. Claire couldn’t be sure.

  “Twenty-two,” corrected Claire, following Linley’s rule that if you’re going to lie, lie big.

  He looked at her a moment, his blue eyes blank.

  She wondered if the massive hangover from the all-nighter at Banger’s made her look older, or just skeezy. She was grateful for the interior gloom. It cut down on the wince factor.

  “I.D.?”

  It was a phony I.D., but since it was from Massachusetts, she figured he might not spot it. She flipped open her wallet.

  His eyes flicked over the license.

  “No experience.” His eyes flicked across Claire: chest, face, chest. Then he made a pretense of studying the employment application that she had filled in.

  “None,” said Claire. In so many ways.

  “Well, you could add some class to the joint. You don’t need to be no rocket scientist.” That made him laugh. “Start tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow’s fine,” Claire said primly.

  “Good,” he said. “Be here by ten a.m. You’ll start with lunches. We’re sandwiches and beer; lunches are our bread and butter.” That made him laugh again. He pulled open a drawer, folded the application, and crammed it in. “Jan—she’s who you’ll be working with most—can show you the ropes.” From another drawer he withdrew a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of the place. “Your uniform. Wear it with a skirt. A short skirt.”

  The shirt looked small. Very small. The words stacked snack shack spread across the chest. It did not in any way fit Claire’s definition of class, but who was she to argue?

  “Great,” she said. “Uh, why ‘Stacked Snack Shack’?”

  “Sandwiches,” uttered Joseph, as if this made all things plain.

  Claire shook her head.

  He elaborated. “What’s a sandwich? A stacked item. A piled-up meal. A stacked snack? Get it? I didn’t just want to call this the Sandwich Shack. I mean, it says it all, but it doesn’t say it memorably, y’know?”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Joseph bared his teeth in a terrifying way that Claire was pretty sure was a friendly smile. “So Stacked Snack Shack. Has an edge, y’see?”

  “Definitely. It’s . . . it’s brilliant.”

  More of the large, terrifying teeth were exposed. “Yeah, thanks. I’m good with words, y’know?”

  “Clearly. Well, see you tomorrow.”

  “Right,” Joseph said.

  She had a summer job. And it was most definitely not in her father’s bank.

  And not, a small voice in her mind pointed out, at Banger’s, either. She might have to share a house with Dean, but she didn’t have to see him on the job, too.

  But she was definitely sharing a house with him. He was the first person she met when she got home, stretched out on a deck chair wearing a banana hammock bathing suit and dark glasses, a forgotten joint in one hand sending up a last curl of sweet dying smoke.

  Claire stopped.

  “Welcome home,” he said.

  “You’re here,” she said.

  “All moved in,” he agreed.

  “So I see,” she retorted.

  “Please don’t tell me you’re a drug-free house,” he said. “I join the rest of the world in looking down on those who view drugs as more than purely recreational, but you have to admit the right pharmaceutical choice can add so much to the moment.”

  The ironic flow of words made Claire blink.

  He looked around, picked up the joint, toked it back to life, and extended it to Claire. “Care to join me in the moment?”

  “No thanks,” she said. “And we have a no-smoking-in-the-house rule. From Linley’s uncle.”

  Exhaling lazily, Dean said, “Yes, ma’am. I do like a woman who likes to be on top . . . of things.”

  “Linley or Jodi around?” asked Claire.

  “Out on the job trail,” he said. “At this very moment, they are, I believe, talking to the pathetic control freak who runs the business end of Banger’s.”

  “Banger?”

  “No, sadly. Darling Banger is the whipped slave of the vile Vickie. He’s the sweetness-and-light front man, she’s the penny-pinching numbers whore lurking in the caves of avarice—in the back, fortunately for business. And fortunately, after the initial interview, you work mainly with Banger. Except to run a sharp eye over the paycheck, because she will short you, even if it’s only pennies. She makes cheap look like an all-night spending binge.”

  “Nice,” said Claire, turning to go in the house.

  “And Poppy is, of course, at her gallery. Art is life, you know,” he said.

  “I thought life imitated art,” said Claire, in spite of herself.

  “Ah, you know Wilde.
Good for you,” Dean said, flashing a smile. His teeth were just as terrifying as Joseph’s, but in a different way. Joseph really was smiling, after all. Dean looked as if he were preparing to take a sample bite.

  Then the smile was gone and Dean leaned back, seeming to lose all interest in the conversation—although he didn’t quite yawn.

  Somehow annoyed at being so rudely dismissed, Claire narrowed her eyes at Dean. She didn’t like him any better for the conversation, but now she was . . . intrigued.

  Giving herself a mental shake, she pushed open the door.

  Dean’s voice stopped her again.

  “And you. Out looking too?”

  “I found a job,” said Claire.

  “I’m sure you did. You know, though, that you easily could have had a job at Banger’s. Banger listens to me.”

  “Thanks, but . . . but . . .” Claire stopped. But what? I didn’t want to owe you one? Spend one extra minute with you? I don’t trust you? Like you?

  “No, no, don’t thank me. Where did you say you’re now employed?”

  Mute with embarrassment, Claire held up the T-shirt.

  “The Stacked!” Dean laughed, but this time the display of teeth didn’t look predatory. “It’s an institution. You’ll have fun. I congratulate you.”

  Claire eyed him suspiciously.

  “No, really. It’s the meeting point for every surf bum in the universe, and has been forever. A perfect welcome-to-California job. And Joseph treats his employees well—apart from the fashion abuse.” Dean indicated the T-shirt.

  Without meaning to, Claire laughed. “He told me to wear it with a skirt. A short one,” she added with an attempt at Joseph’s accent. “I have a wrap skirt that goes over my bicycle shorts. It’ll have to do.”

  “Wear the shorts, too,” Dean advised. He added, “And, of course, you can always pick up some extra shifts, and money, at Banger’s.”

  “Thanks,” said Claire, surprised.

  He waved his hand, dismissing her again. This time, instead of being annoyed, Claire was amused. Maybe he wouldn’t be such a bad house-mate after all. Except for his questionable taste in swimwear.

  Dean’s voice followed her. “Rent’s on the kitchen table. And the deposit. Cash. Naturally.”

  Jodi studied herself in the mirror of the cramped but relatively clean staff-only bathroom at Banger’s. The stall door slammed back, and a thin boy emerged and nodded.

  “Busy night,” he said.

  “Not too bad,” she said. Mark? Marcus. That was his name. “Decent tips, anyway.”

  “You’ve waited before,” he observed, leaning over to inspect his own face in the mirror. “Girl, look at these bags.”

  “Cucumbers,” said Jodi automatically. “Slices, you know. Draws off the puffiness.”

  “They say,” he said cynically. “Sleep would work too. Or at least some horizontal time.”

  “Truth,” agreed Jodi, although she wasn’t really tired. But horizontal time, that was different.

  It had been a long year and a careful one, living under her stepfather’s BB pellet–size eyes. He wasn’t a churchgoing man, but he was fond of calling on religion to support him in the rules he made. “My house, my rules,” he said, and it was plain he didn’t see much difference between himself and the Almighty.

  Jodi wanted to point out that the house was only half his, at least in the state of California. The other half belonged to her mother. But her mother, never the strongest force for justice in the universe, would have breathed, “Oh, no, Jodi,” and Jodi would have been grounded.

  In college. With a job. Grounded. Confined to her room when she wasn’t at class or at work, just as if she were still in high school.

  And he charged her rent.

  It was creepy, too. He patrolled the house at night, pushing open her door to look in. She’d caught him at it more than once. Raised her head and said, “Mom, is that you?”

  He’d withdrawn swiftly and without speaking, but it hadn’t put an end to the nocturnal peeping. She’d learned to lie still, body tense, eyes slitted, waiting for him to go.

  He always had.

  She was devoutly thankful her mother hadn’t married the Steppervert until Jodi was in high school and capable of defending herself, if needed. And that she was an only child and didn’t have a younger sister—or brother—to worry about leaving behind in the Steppervert’s power.

  “See you later,” said Marcus, cutting across her fond family memories.

  “Same time, same place,” agreed Jodi.

  Maybe that’s why she’d been so shut down. Living in close proximity with the Steppervert was enough to make anyone’s sexual instincts hibernate. How her mother stood to let him touch her—ugh.

  But the idea of people that age doing the nasty was ugh-worthy any way you looked at it.

  Doing it.

  It had been a while. A few times around that guy’s apartment over Christmas break, but that had been more about staying out of the house than pleasure. And Andrew—Andrew? She was terrible with names—he hadn’t wanted to talk about art, except of course his own, which didn’t seem to involve the art of sex.

  Before that, those times in high school, especially . . . no, she wouldn’t think about it. Only two people knew about that, and if you didn’t think about it, it would go live and die quietly somewhere in her id, or subconscious, or whatever it was.

  But she was restless. Hungry. She needed skin on skin.

  Easy enough to find, especially with the setup she had for the summer. Except she needed a second job if she was going to make “Leaving Home and the Steppervert” stick.

  The bathroom door slammed back. “Jodi! C’mon. I don’t want to be here all night!”

  “Coming, Linley.”

  Jodi sighed and added another layer of lip gloss, even if it was only for the ride home with Linley.

  Six

  By the second day at Stacked Snack Shack, or the Stacked, as everyone called it, Claire had the routine down. It was a small place and no one seemed too particular, and she and Jan, a classically perky type who said she worked at the Stacked to support her body board habit, quickly developed their own cheerful rhythm.

  Joseph worked the counter, the register, and the grill with another short-order cook he called Fry. Fry never spoke, and in spite of the health laws, he could be seen from time to time framed in the pass-through with a cigarette dangling from his lips.

  Claire decided that as long as no ash hit the food and no one complained, she wasn’t going to think about it. Once, when Fry leaned forward with an order and a particularly gnarly silver cylinder of ash, Claire’s and Jan’s eyes met.

  They both smiled and shrugged. Old pros at work.

  He came in at the end of the first week. He strolled in through the open doors with a medium-size red and white dog that had a tail like a raccoon following on his heels and sat down at the counter.

  Given the cigarette situation in the back, Claire figured Joseph wasn’t going to say anything about the dog. So instead of saying, “No Dogs by Order of the Health Department except on that rickety stretch of boards we call the deck,” she’d asked instead, “What’s your dog’s name?”

  He’d glanced over and smiled, not at her, but at the dog. “Barrel,” he said. “His name is Barrel.”

  The dog waved his tail gently in acknowledgment.

  “He’s beautiful,” she said sincerely. She liked dogs. Her family always had a pile of Labradors lying around, snoring and farting and waiting to go swimming and play fetch or clean plates. She loved them all, and mourned the ones that had died . . . thought of them often still.

  A secret sentimental weakness, she told herself.

  “Yes, he is,” the guy said simply. He looked at her then, with a slight smile that was easy and without hidden meanings. She smiled back and took his order and later saw that one of the two sandwiches was being handed down on the coffee saucer to Barrel.

  Barrel was much more polite than the
Labs. He waited until the plate was on the floor before inhaling the sandwich.

  On the next order, she made a detour through the cooler and swiped a piece of cheese and passed it over to the guy. “For Barrel,” she said, and went to pour coffee.

  He was still there when her shift ended and she began totaling out her day’s checks. Joseph was working the daily paper’s crossword puzzle at the end of the bar, and Jan, who was pulling a double shift, was just sitting on a stool, staring out at the passing crowd on the boardwalk.

  “From around here?” asked Claire, and laughed inwardly because she sounded like a local.

  He shrugged. “I give surfing lessons over at the Belle Azure,” he said, referring to one of the upmarket mega hotels farther down the beach.

  “Room and board?” she asked, and would later remember that.

  “Freelance,” he said. He grinned. “I’m good at it.” He seemed to find this funny, and added, “My mom always wanted me to be a teacher.”

  “As a matter of fact,” he went on, “Barrel and I are looking for a place for the summer. Living in the van now, but no way is that a long-term plan. But with a dog, y’know . . .” His voice trailed off.

  And Claire the careful, Claire the cautious, said, for no other reason than she liked Barrel, “We have a room. We have a house.”

  “That’d be cool,” he said. “Far from here?”

  “A short skate away,” Claire said, and it was true. She’d hiked a few blocks to the boardwalk with her in-line skates on her shoulder and cruised on down to work that day.

  “Well, I can give you wheels home when you’re through,” he offered.

  Claire punched one more button on the register, then wound the receipt around the checks. She stuck that in one of Joseph’s many drawers behind the counter. She hung up her apron and retrieved her pack from a cabinet and said, “I’m through for the day.”

  “Cool enough,” he said, and she followed what could have been an ax murderer, for all she knew, out into the sun and into his van.

  Only as she left the Stacked did she even think about caution. “Joseph,” she said.

  Joseph glanced up.