Anyone But You Part 1

Anyone but You.

Lara M. Zeises.

For M & M, with much love and grat.i.tude.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Since ninety percent of writing is rewriting, I'd pretty much be lost without the guidance of my brilliant editor, Jodi Kreitzman, who challenges me in ways an author can only hope to be challenged, and whose love and pa.s.sion for the written word are apparent in everything she does. Jodi, you make me better, and you make it fun.

Many, many thanks to everyone at Random House Children's Books, including Beverly Horowitz, Kathy Dunn, Adrienne Weintraub, Angela Carlino, and Jennifer Edwards. Also to my agent, George Nicholson, without whom this project might not exist, and Paul Rodeen, who helped keep me sane even when I was half a block from crazy.

As always, I have to give mad props to the Emerson Four: Tea Benduhn, Steven Goldman, Kim Ablon Whitney, and especially Laurie Faria Stolarz, who's always right there when you need her, no matter what. More props to Oakland L. Childers and Lisa Whitaker, who gave me a crash course in skateboarding (no pun intended), and to Jeannie Vandover, who helped school me in All Things Rod.

I'd also like to recognize the generous support I've received from librarians, educators, and booksellers, especially those from my home state of Delaware. You've taken such good care of me, and I can't thank you enough.

Finally, I am extremely indebted to my family and friends (aka the people who manage to love me even when I morph into the Extremely Crabby Author Girl in Desperate Need of More Caffeine). Also to Christopher-when it comes to you, I can't even find the words. The best part about you, Chris, is that I don't have to, because you already know.

seattle.

Stoopid.

We were sweating out the summer on a concrete stoop, me and Critter and sometimes Jesse, swigging bottles of c.o.ke, or maybe Bud Lights, if Layla's supply was plentiful enough that she wouldn't notice a few were missing. The central air-conditioning had broken in late May, during the first of a seemingly never-ending string of heat waves, and we were saving up to get it fixed. By "we" I mean Nurse Layla, my pseudomom, who pulled fourteen-hour s.h.i.+fts at the hospital, sometimes during the day and sometimes at night, because night s.h.i.+fts meant more money, and more money meant we'd sleep in cool rooms before September.

Jesse helped, giving Layla half the cash he earned jockeying Slushees at the Sip-n-Stop down by the Movie King. Me and Critter were supposed to pick up part-time jobs, too, but when Critter failed English (again) and I scored my own F in biology, it was no-go. For one thing, summer school started right after the Fourth of July, and no one would hire us for the few weeks we had off before our Loser Kid cla.s.ses. For another, Layla wanted us studying 24/7. Getting educated, she insisted, was our real job, and if we didn't start cracking down, she'd have to start cracking skulls.

I'd thought I'd spend all my time before scholastic prison perfecting my blunt fakies at the Newport Skate Park, but another heat wave rolled into New Castle on our last day at Haley High. It was the kind of thick, wet heat that stuck to your skin like Saran Wrap and made the air wrinkle up by nine a.m. Between the extreme humidity and the hot hot sun, I was barely able to crank out a kickflip on my board before wanting to pa.s.s out.

So, we became stoop sitters. Critter, in a pair of baggy jeans that dipped low enough to show off the elastic on his optimistically large boxer briefs, and me, also in long pants of some sort, too shallow to show the neighbors the whiter-than-whiteness of my chunkedout thighs. As soon as school ended, Critter decided it was way too hot for the rumpled, smelly T-s.h.i.+rts he usually wore and started going s.h.i.+rtless, his pale, hairless chicken chest slowly browning to the color of Mc-Nuggets. As for me, I stuck with my tank tops, even though the once-loose fabric was starting to cling to my expanding b.o.o.bage.

To amuse ourselves we played whacked-out hair-stylist. Critter had me paint blond streaks into his light brown hair using Q-tips and a bottle of peroxide. Then he gelled the whole mess into bedhead spikes a la his hero, aging pop icon and legendary ladies' man Rod Stewart (no joke). We soaked my colorless hair in a vat of concentrated Berry Blue Kool-Aid, cut it chin-length, and matted the chunks into my Suburban White Girl take on dreadlocks, a feat made achievable with the aid of some unflavored gelatin we found in the pantry one day when we were raiding it for snacks.

Our days started around noon and lasted well beyond Conan O'Brien. In the mornings we'd take turns showering and breakfasting, and by the time that was all through, it was too hot to be inside and we'd land back on the stoop. If we were feeling particularly adventurous, we'd haul a.s.s down to the Sip-n-Stop and scrounge cigarettes and Slushees off Jesse, who was convinced that we were going to get him fired, and who kicked us out after only a few minutes of air-conditioned ecstasy every single time. So we'd go next door to the Movie King, to see if Sh.e.l.li was working, because she had this thing for Critter and would give us free rentals. Sometimes, if Sh.e.l.li's cousin was working the same s.h.i.+ft and could cover, Sh.e.l.li would let Critter drag her behind the counter and into the back room for an impromptu groping session. He can be such the pig.

And this was pretty much the routine, until stupid me suggested that Critter use his talents to charm one of the pretty lifeguards who worked the pool at this ritzed-out condo complex across town. We'd gotten guest pa.s.ses there once the summer before, when a property-developer patient of Layla's thought he could get her to go out with him if he romanced her kids first. But Layla had been like a nun since my dad walked out on us six years ago, leaving her with a broken heart, a defaulted mortgage, severe credit card debt, and a then nine-year-old almost-stepdaughter (me). The property developer tried harder than most-Layla was a total babe, even when she didn't wear makeup-but ultimately bailed before we could snag more pa.s.ses.

So. The pool. I'd have called it Olympic-sized but I didn't know how big an Olympic-sized pool really was. It was big, though. The shallow end alone was bigger than my bedroom. The cool blue water sloped from three to ten feet deep, where it formed the top of a T. There were two separate diving boards, the higher of which was almost twice as tall as Critter, who stood nearly six feet. You weren't allowed to jump off it unless you'd pa.s.sed a diving test, and you couldn't take the diving test until you'd pa.s.sed the swimming test that gave you access to the deep end. So most of our one and only visit was spent test-taking. But I didn't mind. I loved the way my body felt in water, freed from the bonds of gravity I was so conscious of when I skated. In the pool, I was like an underwater airplane, my limbs cutting through liquid like propellers.

That was pretty much all I was thinking about when I goaded Critter into seeing if he could make nice with one of the female lifeguards. That and how beautifully cold the water would be on my fry-cooker skin. I thought Critter's crooked smile could be our all-access pa.s.s to chlorinated bliss. I thought it would be fake, like with Sh.e.l.li. I didn't think he'd fall in actual love.

I certainly never thought he'd fall in love with someone like her.

Boredom Is the Mother of Invention.

We were closing in on the third week of June. Two weeks of vacation gone, just like that, and only two and a half more before we had to report to summer school. The day it hit 101 degrees, Critter and I spent the entire afternoon sitting on the kitchen floor, rubbing ice cubes over our pulse points and drinking enough water to fill one of those inflatable kiddie pools. It was this observation, which I made out loud to Critter, that gave me the idea of bluffing our way into that big mama pool from the summer before.

"No way," he said. "We'd have to take, like, four buses. And even then there's no guarantee we'd get in."

"Yes, but think how good it would feel if we did," I urged.

"Uh-uh. No."

Only once I got thinking about that pool, I couldn't stop. So I bugged Critter for twelve hours straight, until he got so fed up with my nagging that he finally caved and agreed to go the following morning. I immediately started to work on Jesse-there was always strength in threes-but he refused to take the day off from work just to follow us on what he thought was a totally hare-brained scheme.

"Dude, where's your sense of adventure?" I groaned as he slipped on his Sip-n-Stop vest that sweltering morning.

"Dude," he mocked. "Some of us aren't allergic to responsibility and have actual jobs."

Jesse was fifteen-the same age as me-but I swore he acted like an old man. When he wasn't at work, he was usually at the homestead, cleaning. Not like straightening up, but vacuuming and mopping floors and polis.h.i.+ng our furniture with orange-scented stuff. He claimed it was therapeutic, said it gave him time to think-but think about what, I don't know. Jesse kind of lived inside his own head, maybe to compensate for Critter having diarrhea of the mouth and verbalizing every single thought that crossed his hormonally charged seventeen-year-old brain.

Even though there was a bus stop a block from our house, Critter and I walked with Jesse down to the Sip-n-Stop, all loaded up with our swim stuff. While I distracted Jesse, Critter lifted us a couple of Gatorades. He tried to get Jesse to give us some smokes, too, but Jess was all, "Get a job, Christopher." To which Critter replied, "Later, Jessica." Jesse just shook his head, because after all these years, Critter still thought it was super insulting to call his little brother by a girl's name.

We walked down Route 273 a bit and waited for the number 47 bus. Fifty minutes and two transfers later, we got dumped off about half a mile from the ritzy pool place. We had to hoof it the rest of the way, which was sort of brutal, as it was all uphill and we were pretty loaded down with various bits of gear: two Walkmans, an a.s.sortment of mix tapes, tanning lotion, beach towels, PB&Js. But finally we arrived, even though we were all gross and sticky with sweat. All the more reason my body itched to plunge itself right into that clear, cold blue.

"So what's the plan again?" Critter asked as we headed toward the fence surrounding the pool.

I stopped dead. "What do you mean, 'What's the plan again?' Critter-you're the plan. Remember? You."

"Yeah, I know that," he said. "But what am I supposed to do exactly? Go up to her and be like, 'Hey, baby, mind if we take a dip in your pool?' "

I sighed loudly. "No, stupid. You're supposed to charm her."

"What if it's not a her? Dudes lifeguard, too."

"Then lie! Tell whoever about the guy who gave us the pa.s.ses and make up something about us being allowed to come here whenever."

"That sounds lame."

"You got a better idea?"

Critter stroked this imaginary patch of facial hair he kept trying to grow on his chin. "We could go to the lobby, pick a name off a mailbox, and then make like they're our grandparents or something."

"Look," I said impatiently. "Let's just stick to the original plan. We'll walk in like we own the place, and you'll tell anyone who questions us that Layla's dating that Wilson guy, and that he said we could swim here whenever. Odds are, the guard's going to be too lazy to actually check out our story, but even if she-or he- does, we've got one blissful swim day ahead of us. Deal?"

"Yeah, okay," he conceded. "Deal."

Swimming with the Enemy.

I hated her the moment I laid eyes on her. She was everything I wasn't: long legged, lithe, poised. Her smallish b.o.o.bs formed two perfect little mounds in the top of her regulation blue Speedo one-piece, the bottom of which was concealed by an artfully tied flowerprint sarong. She was very tan, with the kind of smooth, even tone that comes from careful sun baking, never from a spray or one of those freaky "we'll microwave your skin for you" salons. And the hair. Shoulder-length, light brown with sun-kissed streaks of blond, flawlessly straight and topped with a perfectly chic fringe of bangs that blew around in the wind.

When we walked through the gate, we found her scooping stray leaves off the surface of the water with one of those enormous nets. For some unknown reason, the pool was completely deserted, and I think we surprised her a bit. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"We're just here for a swim, thanks," Critter said.

"Can I see your badges?" She asked this plainly, like "I'm not a b.i.t.c.h, just doing my job," but the sweet tang of her voice made me dislike her even more.

"Badges?" Critter asked, staring blankly at Ms. Pool G.o.ddess.

I elbowed Critter, but there seemed to be a breakdown between his brain and his mouth. Where was his inner snake charmer? He gave me a sheepish shrug. Disgusted, I stepped in. "The guy who developed this place? He's our mom's fiance. He said we could swim here whenever we want."

"That's weird," she said. "The guy who developed this place happens to be the father of my boyfriend, and I know for a fact that he's happily married already."

I could feel sharp claws trying to poke out my fingertips, even as my stomach began churning like I'd just chugged rancid b.u.t.termilk.

"Busted!" Critter laughed heartily. "Look, here's the deal. The guy we're talking about-Paul Wilson?-he had this thing for our mom last year and gave us some guest pa.s.ses. They broke up, but she"-he thrust his thumb in my direction-"fell in love with this place. So we thought we'd try to come back for a day or two. You know, just until this heat wave breaks."

She dropped her big net on the concrete and walked closer to us, wiping her hands on her floralprint b.u.t.t. Then she extended one to Critter. "I'm Sarah," she said in a soft but steady tone. "I know Paulie. He's my boyfriend's uncle-the younger brother of the developer. Doesn't surprise me he'd try to use this pool as leverage. It's fantastic."

"I like to swim," I said, out of nowhere. My cheeks flamed from embarra.s.sment.

"Yeah?" Sarah said. "Me too."

Critter cut in, smooth as sandpaper: "So should we leave or what?"

Sarah sucked on her bottom lip. "I don't know," she said. "Some of the people who live here are just waiting for a reason to start screaming at management. But the pool's been so abandoned lately-it's mostly old folks, and this weather's too much for them. Anyway, I don't see why you guys couldn't stay for a little while."

She smiled at me, sort of shyly, and held out her hand. I noticed immediately that her fingernails were perfect, too-a half inch long, clean, and coated with a pink and white French manicure. Her little pearl-shaped toenails, visible through her flip-flops, were painted to match.

"I'm Seattle," I said crisply. "And this dumb-a.s.s to my right is my almost-brother Critter. It's okay, then? We can just dive right in?"

Sarah nodded. "Yeah, go ahead."

Critter c.o.c.ked his head. "So how long have you been working here?"

"Just this summer," she replied. "Since Memorial Day."

"Cool, cool."

He started asking her more questions, like where did she live (Penn Acres) and where did she go to school (New Castle Baptist, which sits about two hundred yards from our own Haley High). As I unloaded my bag onto one of the lounge chairs, I tried to figure out if he was solidifying a summer pa.s.s for us or if he really wanted to know what this chick was all about. I was hoping-praying-it was the former, because, man, out of all the girls Critter could snag, this would be the one I could stomach the least. I mean, even Sh.e.l.li would be better than this babe.

By the time I'd gotten all situated and stripped down to my suit-a black old-lady one-piece that covered as much skin as possible without making me look like a prude-Critter and Miss Thang were firmly entrenched in conversation. So I just marched up to the high dive-half stomping, actually-took a few practice bounces, and then jumped, arching my body the way my dad had taught me years ago, when he was still interested in being a dad. My arms broke the water in a clean slice, and I didn't even mind the bracing cold. I pushed myself to the bottom, touched with one hand, then shot back to the surface. Critter was clapping when my head emerged. "Way to be, way to be!"

"Yeah," Sarah said. "That was awesome."

Ignoring her, I shouted to Critter, "Are you getting in or what?"

"In a minute."

I splashed away from them and decided to do some laps. I was never great at the crawl, so I mostly breast-stroked my way back and forth, breaking into brief stints of the b.u.t.terfly every now and then, just to show off a bit. My fingers were all pruney by the time Critter did a running cannonball into the deep end, sending splatters of water across the hot dry concrete. Sarah giggled before retreating to her lifeguard chair. I treaded water as I watched her pull a bottle of Coppertone from her L.L. Bean backpack, hunter green with her initials st.i.tched along the top flap. Slowly, carefully, she squirted the white cream in a line down her long leg and very deliberately began rubbing it into her skin in small circles. I wouldn't have thought twice about this, except that she was staring at Critter the whole d.a.m.ned time. I wondered how long it would be before she asked him to rub the lotion on her back.

Just then I was yanked underwater-Critter's signal that he was finally ready to play. Only I wasn't quite prepared, so my nose and mouth filled up with chlorine, leaving me sputtering and breathless once I made my way back to the surface.

"Wuss!" Critter yelled, slamming his arms into the water to send tidal waves my way.

"You're dead!" I screamed. I dove back into the water and ran into his stomach so hard that we ended up pressed against the side of the pool. When I came up for air, I could see that Sarah was frowning at how close Critter and I were to each other. I wanted to mess with her, so I threw my arms around his neck, and my legs around his waist, and shouted, "Reverse piggyback!" Critter, oblivious to my little power play, obliged me, hulking around the pool with me firmly attached to his front, my d.a.m.ned b.o.o.bs bouncing around like two Lycra-coated buoys.

When I caught another glimpse of her, I saw that Sarah was still spreading lotion over her naked limbs, and the next thing I knew, Critter had this enormous hard-on. It startled me so much that I immediately let go of him and turned to swim away. In my haste I smacked into the water, snorting more chlorine through my nose.

As I dragged my body up the concrete steps, all I could think was What the h.e.l.l? Critter and I wrestled all the time and not once had his boy parts tried to get freaky-friendly with my girl ones. Then a voice said, This is Critter we're talking about. The walking hormone. The boy who once professed to getting a b.o.n.e.r while watching Martha Stewart oil an antique coatrack. He was probably all juiced from watching the princess grease herself up. I did my best to shrug off the weirdness, grabbed my towel, and began to dry off.

Critter swam to the ledge by me and said, "What's the matter? You okay?"

"I'm tired," I lied. "I need a break."

He nodded like he had expected me to say something to that effect. Then he dove under and swam to Sarah's side of the pool.

I spread my ratty Mr. Bubble beach towel over the length of a vinyl chaise and lay on it at a 170-degree angle-low enough to be comfortable, but high enough that I could keep an eye on Critter. My tummy bulged out a bit, so I grabbed my T-s.h.i.+rt and arranged it over the mound and the tops of my marshmallow thighs. I couldn't hear what Critter and Sarah were talking about, but whatever he was saying was making her laugh and toss her hair. I tried to focus on the possibility of season pool pa.s.ses to get my mind off the other stuff-Sarah and her French-manicured toenails, Critter and his unexpected hard-on, Jesse and his G.o.dd.a.m.ned morals. If he had come with us, Critter would've behaved himself better. Jess had that kind of effect on people.

The moisture on my skin shrunk into tiny tight beads before evaporating altogether. I closed my eyes, felt the fireball sun roasting my lids. The sound of my breathing mixed with the hum of the pool filter, and before I knew it, I was out cold.

critter.

Hot Legs.

The girl was fine. She was finer than fine-she was slamming, banging, busting, hott with-two-t's supafine. I wasn't sure which I liked more, the long honey hair or the long honey legs. Everything about her made me think of beach sand in the late afternoon, and man, I wanted to sink right in.

"So you got a boyfriend." A statement, not a question, since she'd already mentioned him four times in the brief hour we'd known each other.

Sarah nodded. "Duncan Mackenzie? He goes to Haley-maybe you know him?"

I wanted to laugh. Sure, I knew Duncan. Knew of him, at least. He was one of those guys who walked the halls like they were G.o.ds-like everyone else on the planet existed solely to make them look good, even their fellow jock boys, who always walked half a step behind. In school I tried to steer clear of guys like that, Abercrombie wannabes who used "partay" as a verb and spent their weekends drinking themselves stupid.