Мэг Кэбот: Pants on Fire

But everyone had always sort of just assumed that what had happened with Tommy — and the outside of the new Eastport Middle School gymnasium wall — was a large part of why they left.

So why had he come back? It’s true his grandparents still live here — we see them sometimes when Mom and Dad make us eat at the yacht club, which they belong to not because we own a yacht (Dad’s boat is strictly for fishing; it doesn’t even have a bathroom on it. Which isn’t the only reason I won’t get on it, but it’s one of them) but because it’s good for schmoozing if you’re in the real estate business, like they are.

And okay, I suppose Tommy must come visit his grandparents sometimes…although, truthfully, it never occurred to me before. Why wouldn’t they just go to see him in Westchester? I mean, Eastport could hardly have good memories for him. Why would he want to comehere?

But even if he just happened to be here because he was visiting his grandparents, why would he go to Duckpin Lanes, which is where every guy in town hangs out? That would be the LAST place you’d think someone as universally despised as Tommy Sullivan would go.

“Katie?”

I looked up and saw Seth grinning down at me, all melting brown eyes and sleek biceps, clearly fresh from a workout.

“What are you doing here?” he wanted to know. “You never come to the Y.”

Which isn’t strictly true. The Y is where I took my first photography class, the one that got me into cameras in the first place, even though the instructor — crabby Mr. Bird, proprietor of Eastport Old Towne Photo — had hardly been encouraging.

But I let that slide, because, hello, hot guy. Who happens to be my boyfriend. Well, one of them, anyway.

“Oh, I just came by to see how Liam’s doing,” I said as Seth slipped an arm around my waist and gave me a kiss. Which made me glad I’d put my mascara on. It was bad enough I still had bedhead.

Naturally, I didn’t mentionwhy I’d come to see Liam. In my long and varied career as a liar — which began at approximately the same time that Tommy Sullivan left town — I’ve learned that sometimes it’s kinder to lie to people than to tell them the truth. Especially when the truth could hurt them. Seth can’t even stand to hear Tommy’s name uttered. He gets all quiet and moody whenever the subject comes up…even though his brother seems perfectly happy to be working for their dad.

Although probably not as happy as he would have been playing college ball.

So I’ve found it better, over the years, simply to keep mum on the Tommy front where Seth is concerned.

“I’ve been trying to call you all morning,” Seth said. “Don’t you have your cell on?”

Oops. I’d managed to snap all the pieces of my cell phone back together, and had plugged it in to charge. But I’d forgotten to turn it on. I pulled it out of the pocket of my shorts and pressed POWER. A second later, I saw my screensaver — a picture of Seth looking dreamily at me over an order of quahog fritters.

“My brainiac,” Seth said fondly. Because, even though I consistently rank top of our class, I am always doing things like forgetting to turn my cell phone on.

A second later, it rang.

“What happened to you last night?” Sidney asked. “We got disconnected. I tried to call you back a million times and just got your voice mail.”

“Right,” I said. “Dropped my phone and it exploded. I had to recharge it.”

“Oh. So. Who was it?”

“Who was what?”

“Who’d your brother see at Duckpin Lanes?” Sidney wanted to know.

“Oh,” I said, thinking fast, watching as Seth started to show Liam how to use another nearby machine, while the Tiffanys and Brittanys gathered round, looking more worshipful than ever. Because, hello, Jake Turner’s little brother. I couldn’t blame them. I’d felt the same way about him, back when I started ninth grade. Still do. Well, sort of. “That…it was nobody. Just this guy Liam knew from football camp.”

“Why would he think you’d care aboutthat?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Because he’s let this Quahog thing go completely to his head, maybe?”

“Oh, right. Well, where are you?”

“The Y,” I said. “With Seth.” I didn’t mention the whole part about having come to the Y to see my brother, not Seth, let alone the thing about Tommy Sullivan being back in town. I mean, it’s not like I can tellanybody that. Any of my friends, I mean. They’ve all managed to forget that I ever even used to consort with Tommy Sullivan. I don’t want to do anything to remind them of that fact.

“Oh, good,” Sidney said. “Grab Seth and go home and get your swimsuit. The wind’s up, so Dave wants to kitesurf. We’re going to The Point.”

The Point is the private beach that belongs to the Eastport Yacht Club. Nobody in Eastport goes to the public beaches, because of not wanting to hang around with a bunch of tourists. Also, in the paper they’re always reporting finding traces ofe. coli in the water down at the public beach (caused by tourists with RVs, illegally emptying their toilets into the water).

Still, given the whole Tommy thing, I wasn’t exactly in the mood for the beach.

“I don’t know,” I hemmed. “I was sort of thinking of going home and practicing—”

“For the pageant?” Sidney sounded disgusted. “Oh, whatever.”

“—and I’ve got the dinner shift at the Gulp tonight.”

“So? Bring your work clothes. You can change at the club. You need to work on your tan more than you need to work on that gherkin thing—”

“Gershwin,” I corrected her. “It’s ‘I’ve Got Rhythm,’ by George Gershwin.” I love Sidney, and all, but really — gherkin?

“Whatever,” Sidney said again. “Get your stuff and get to the club.”

Which is why, later that afternoon, I was stretched out on a blue-and-white Eastport Yacht Club beach towel, listening to the water lapping the shore (I wouldn’t want to mislead anyone by saying I was listening to the sound of waves, because of course there are no waves on the Long Island Sound) and watching my boyfriend and Dave Hollingsworth struggle to get a kite-sail into the air.

“Hottie alert,” Sidney, stretched out beside me, said in a desultory voice, as a yacht club waiter staggered by through the hot sand, holding a tray of drinks for some rowdy young moms sitting under a beach umbrella while they watched their kids build sand castles.

I barely lifted my head. Sid was right. I really do need to work on my tan. Compared to her, I look positively cadaverous.

Sidney was also right about spending the day at the beach. It was gorgeous out — seventy-five degrees with a cool breeze coming in off the water, cloudless sky, and achingly hot sun. The sound sparkled in front of us like a blue-green sapphire. We wouldn’t have many days like this left. School would start in a couple of weeks, and then it would all be over.

It helped that Seth, when he’d seen me in my bikini, had purred approvingly, “Hey, hot stuff.”

Oh, yeah. I’m all about the beach today. Who cares what Tommy Sullivan was doing at Duckpin Lanes last night? Who cares why he was asking about me? He was probably just in town to visit his grandparents. He was probably asking Liam about me for old times’ sake, nothing more. I mean, whyelse would he be asking about me?

“I’mover the waiters here,” I said, in response to Sidney’s hottie alert. “Did you hear about that guy Travis? He was giving regular Coke to everyone who ordered diet. Shaniqua told me he was bragging about it down at the Sea Grape. That’s so wrong.”

“Not the waiter, doofus,” Sidney said. “That hottie over there.”

I turned my head to look where she was pointing. It seemed as if there were guys everywhere — hot ones, and some not-so-hot ones — in their baggy swim trunks, struggling to lift windsails, or tossing around a football, or playing killer Frisbee. That’s the thing about guys, I’ve noticed. They are completely incapable of sitting still. Unlike me. I could lay in one position and not move for hours.