Chapter One
Conner Halsey, dipstick that he was, stood on the diving board yelling cannonball at the top of his lungs.
“Cannonbaaaaall!” he screamed for the third time.
Instead of jumping in the pool, Conner stayed planted on the diving board, eyes glued to the five foot hedge at the far end of the yard.
We were in my best friend, Alan’s backyard. The Feinmans lived in the biggest home on the block. They didn’t own the home. They were renters. The Feinmans once owned a large home three blocks from here, but when the stock market took that humongous nosedive several years ago, Alan’s stockbroker father’s fortunes plummeted along with the market. While the stock market returned to form a few years later, Alan’s father’s fortunes never did.
The hedge that had taken hold of Conner’s attention that morning was at the property line separating the Feinman home from the home next door. The home next door was occupied by a new family—the Duprees, and somewhere on the other side of that hedge, we all knew (or hoped) was a sixteen year-old raven-haired beauty. Alexia Dupree.
Alexia had lived next door to Alan for just three weeks, and during the course of those three weeks, Alan, Conner, and I had each developed serious crushes on her, despite the fact we’d barely uttered a word in her presence. In fact, you could have crammed every word the three of us had ever said to Alexia Dupree into one sentence—a very short sentence.
“Jump, already,” I called. “Cannonball should be followed by a splash that sounds like a cannonball.”
“Fuck off, Buttface,” Conner called back.
The “Buttface” remark was a play on my last name—Butters. Josh Butters. I’d been enduring insults on my name since grade school. Some days it was Buttbreath, or Buttstink, or Butt-of-the-joke. One kid back in the eighth grade came up with my favorite, the very imaginative, Mrs. Butterworth. As embarrassing as it was, that one made me laugh.
“Hey! No cursing. My mother hears you curse, she’ll kick us all out,” Alan warned.
“That’s all right with me,” Conner replied with fake bravado. “Yours’ is not the only swimming pool in Beverly Hills.”
I started to say: It’s the only swimming pool in Beverly Hills next door to Alexia Dupree, but that would have worked against us all, since not one of us was willing to admit that Alexia was the reason we were gathered around Alan’s pool at ten a.m. on a summer morning rather than catching up on our beauty sleep. We were keeping our crushes on Alexia secret. It was the worst kept secret in all of Beverly Hills.
“Just jump, already,” I called.
“That’s what I’m fixin ta do,” Conner replied, his eyes still on the hedge.
Lately, Conner had been fixin’ ta do this and fixin’ ta do that, as if his roots were in the deep South instead of Minnetonka, Minnesota.
We all knew it was because during Conner’s summer drama workshop, word had leaked out that the fall play was going to be To Kill a Mockingbird, and Conner was making silent claim to the role of Atticus Finch.
“What are you waitin’ for then?” came a small and, dare I say, delightful voice from the other side of the hedge, followed by a giggle.
“Huh?” said Conner, and nearly fell off the diving board.
“Some of us are trying to read over here, and I suppose we’re not going to get anything close to quiet until you’re finished with your cannonballing,” replied the as of yet unseen, Alexia.
“So, what are you waitin’ for?” asked a second, softer voice, the one belonging to the giggle.
The fact that there were two young ladies on the other side of that hedge got us all excited, the sound of that second voice kicking our imaginations into high gear. If the possessor of that second voice looked anything like Alexia, we’d hit the jackpot.
That’s when the music started to play, a lilting tune being played on a harp, or maybe a sitar. I’m not up on my ancient musical instruments.
“What is that weird music your mother just put on?” I asked, my gaze moving to the sliding glass door.
“What music?” asked Alan. He glared at me for an annoyed nanosecond before his gaze ventured back to the hedge.
“The belly dancing music. Is your mom taking belly dancing classes, because if she is, Dude, that’s embarrassing?”
Alan shot me another annoyed look, making it clear the beauties on the other side of the hedge were far more interesting than any belly dancing music.
“Who all’s over there?” Conner called, dipping back into his version of a southern accent. He stood on his tip-toes, trying to a clear view of Alexia’s backyard.
“Jump in, and maybe you’ll find out,” the mystery voice called back.
That was enough for Conner.
“Cannonbaaaall!” he hollered for the fourth time, then he bounced up on the board, tucked his legs, and entered the water with the most ungraceful buttflop imaginable, producing a tremendous splash that sent half the water sloshing out of the pool on entry.
I had to hand it to him. It was a good one—a perfect cannonball. Alan and I were left completely drenched by its wake, but we didn’t care. We were staring at the hedge, drenched in pool water, grinning back, waiting for two lovely faces to appear. After a few moments, we were rewarded when Alexia Dupree peeked over.
She was every bit as beautiful as I remembered. Her eyes sparkled with mischief.
“Now maybe we can get back to reading,” she said. Her green bathing suit top set off the iridescent blue of her eyes. She hit us with what I can only describe as a sly grin, as if she were a spider, toying with a couple of flies before swallowing them whole.
The sound of her voice, the blue of her eyes, the slyness of that smile, along with the sheen created by the sun on her raven hair got my heart beating faster. I imagine the same was happening with Alan as neither of us said a word.
“Whatcha readin’,” I finally managed. Two more words added to the lexicon of language we three had uttered to Alexia in the three weeks since she lived next door.
“A book.” Alexia’s grin widened as she danced along her web, toying with her flies.
“I like books.”
That was Alan. In the nearly one minute since Alexia had appeared, that was the best he could manage. I like books?
Alan was at his verbal best when he thought he sounded like an old school action hero. He was smart enough to realize that I’ll be back or Say hello to my little friend wouldn’t win him much favor with the likes of Alexia. So, I like books would have to do.
“He’s under awfully long, don’tcha think?” Alexia said, her smile fading.
Our collective attentions moved back to the pool. Since Alexia had appeared on the other side of the hedge, Conner had been totally forgotten. Now, we three were staring at large air bubbles making their way to the surface of the water.
He had been down a bit long for a cannonball, and it looked as though he were struggling beneath the surface. In a flash, Alan tore off his tee shirt and dove in.
I didn’t move. I looked back over at Alexia and shot her a weak smile. “He’s probably just messin’ around,” I said in an attempt to reassure her.
If the word loser could actually appear on someone’s eyeballs, it would have appeared right then on both of Alexia’s. “Sure,” she said dryly, and then her eyes were again on the water.
When I looked back, Conner was being dragged to the edge of the pool, but not by Alan. A girl had pushed Conner up to the edge of the pool. Where the hell did she come from? Alan helped Conner out of the water and onto the deck.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Conner said, slapping at Alan’s hands on him. “I was just messin’ around,” he said, embarrassed that a girl had maybe saved his life.
“Are you sure?” the girl asked. I recognized the voice as being on the other side of the hedge along with Alexia Dupree moments earlier.
“Heck, yeah! I was just trying to get you over here,” Conner said. “Looks like my plan worked,” he added with a grin
. “What’s your name?” he said in an attempt to spit some game.
“Lara,” she replied, her voice going soft and tremulous like an Ellie Golding song. She seemed shy.
You’ve gotta hand it to girls for humility. If I’d just pulled a hundred and eighty pound dude from a swimming pool, I’d have been pounding my chest as if I’d just kicked the winning goal in the World Cup.
Lara wasn’t the raving beauty Alexia was. Her beauty was understated. Quiet beauty. She wasn’t the girl guys hollered at from moving cars, or tried to pick up at bus stops. She was small, under five feet, with an athletic build, shoulders like a gymnast. Her blond hair was cut short, and right now the pool water had slicked it back against her head. She was wearing shorty shorts and a white tee that made her the first ever entrant into the Alan Feinnman wet tee shirt contest.
With no makeup, she affected the look of a young boy. Her eyes were deep green, and brooding. She was the girl who mostly went unseen, but on that July morning in Alan’s yard, I saw her, and when I did, a switch inside me clicked on.
Alexia Dupree came trotting up the back walkway. “Maybe we should take him to the hospital,” she called, her voice ringing out in alarm.
“Stop it, will ya! All I was fixin’ ta do was get you both over here,” Conner said. He was trying his best to smirk, but I could tell he was embarrassed.
“You’re bleeding,” Alexia said as she arrived poolside.
I had yet to move from my lounge chair. Alexia shot a quick glance at me as she hurried past. It wasn’t the dismissive glance I was expecting. She seemed troubled. Yeah, I know, my friend is on the pool deck nearly drowned, of course she’s troubled, but the look on her face implied something other than that, something guarded, and secret.
It would be the first, but not last time I got the feeling there was something strange going on with these girls.
Speaking of girls, I still couldn’t figure out where Lara had come from, how she got from the other side of a five foot hedge and into Alan’s pool without anyone seeing her, least of all, the guy who still hadn’t moved from his lounge chair.
I finally got off my butt, and trailed Alexia over to where Conner was sitting on the pool deck.
There were three jagged crimson scratches trailing along Conner’s right calf. Blood flowed freely from the wounds.
“Sorry. I must’ve scratched you when I pulled you out,” Lara said, again with the soft, tremulous voice.
“I’m going inside to get the first aid kit. If my mother comes out here while I’m gone, pretend nothing happened,” Alan announced, then he exited into the house through the sliding glass door.
“Umm, yeah. No problem,” said Conner, then he rolled his calf to the side, hiding it from view. “So, Alexia, welcome to our humble abode.”
“You don’t live here.”
“I see you’ve been keeping tabs on me,” Conner replied, a grin widening across his face.
“Who are you?” I blurted. I was staring at Lara. Yeah, I know it was blunt of me to call her out like that, but I was curious about her, even if no one else was.
“She’s my cousin, Lara,” Alexia said. “She lives nearby.”
I was staring at Lara, who hadn’t said a word, and didn’t seem inclined to. I noticed she had a small, jagged scratch on her face.
“Looks like you scratched yourself as well,” I said, pointing.
Lara touched the scratch on her cheek. She looked at the blood on her finger tips, her eyes widening ever so slightly.
“When Alan comes back with the first aid kit, he should tend to you first,” Conner said to Lara. Then, he smiled over at Alexia. The perfect southern gentleman.
“I didn’t see you come over the hedge,” I said. “I didn’t see you come up the walkway, either.” I know I should have dropped the line of questioning, or at least waited until everyone’s wounds had been treated, but for some reason, I couldn’t. Something deep inside was pushing me, pushing me like I’d never been pushed before to confront the girl. “You must be pretty fast to—”
“I better go,” Lara blurted, and sprang to her feet. She shot Alexia a withering glance, and started toward the walkway that ran alongside the house.
“What the F, Dude!” Conner exclaimed.
“What? What did I do?” I didn’t see her come over the hedge. Did you?”
“I was under the water, Dipstick!” His eyes quickly moved to Alexia. “Pretending, of course.”
Just then, Alan trotted from the house concealing the first aid kit under an armload of beach towels. He looked around.
“What happened to Lara?”
As if they were members of a well-oiled synchronized swim team, both Conner and Alexia turned and looked at me.
I jogged up the walkway, past my bike lying next to Conner’s on the lawn, and out to the street. The bike was going to stay on the lawn. I was two weeks away from my sixteenth birthday, and figured when I rolled up on a cute girl like Lara for the first time it needed to be in a car, and not on a two wheeler like some middle school kid. Half my class was already driving. No way was I going after her on a bicycle.
I looked down the quiet, tree lined street, past the small but meticulously manicured lawns, toward Gregory Way. A gardener a few doors down was loading his lawn mowing equipment back onto his truck. Aside from the gardener, the street was empty. I turned and gazed in the opposite direction, up toward Charleville Boulevard. I spotted her, walking quickly, wrapped in the beach towel she’d plucked from a deck chair before heading out.
I began trotting after her, trying to come up with what I’d say when I caught up to her. Knowing I’d have to string at least a few long sentences together, a lump formed in my throat.
Hey, Lara, why don’t we go to The Coffee Bean and talk this misunderstanding through over an ice-blended dark chocolate. That’s what my older brother, Troy, would’ve said, and then he’d’ve winked at her, and flashed his winning smile. Troy got all the smooth genes in our family—every single one.
At least I couldn’t say he got all the looks since we looked so much alike: same curly brown hair, same brown eyes. No way you wouldn’t think we were brothers. Unfortunately, our similarities ended with looks.
What I lacked in smoothness, however, I made up for in… nothingness. There was absolutely nothing that could make up for the fact I had no game. This was made even sadder when I considered my two best friends, Alan and Conner. As pathetic as their rap games were, theirs were head and shoulders above mine.
Just then, the music started again—the same music I’d heard earlier in Alan’s backyard, the same ancient song. It was a haunting melody, strange yet familiar, like something from an old Star Trek episode.
I began looking around for a car. A BMW convertible rolled by bumping some serous hip hop. No, that’s not it. I looked toward the beautiful yet modest homes that lined the street. They looked back in silence.
Then it dawned on me. The music wasn’t coming from a car radio, or a neighbor’s backyard. The music was inside my head.