Suddenly the family vacation was looking a lot better.
At dinner Lindsay was in better spirits. She ate and joked with her mom and dad. As parents went, Lindsay knew she had it good. Her mom and dad were still married, still in love. They still had sex way too much, and she soooo didn’t want to think about that. But at least they hadn’t split like so many of her friends’ parents had, and despite having dragged her on this vacation, they usually let her do her own thing and didn’t gripe too much. They rarely yelled at her and didn’t pull cheap stunts like snagging her cell phone as punishment (an art Kate’s mother had perfected).
“Your mom wants to go flea marketing tomorrow,” her dad said, before raising a fork full of corn to his mouth. He chewed and drank some wine. Then he said “You feel like coming along, or do you want to check out the beach?”
Winnie the Pooh, Lindsay thought. Her dad looked like Winnie the Pooh. He had a round face, and when he smiled his cheeks pooched out. His eyebrows were really thin and neat, but the rest of his face was rounded and blunt. Pooh had been her favorite cartoon character when she was a little girl. Strange that she’d never noticed the resemblance before.
He had his eyebrows arched and grinned like he was waiting for the punch line of a joke. Lindsay almost laughed at the expression.
“I’m going to hang here,” she said. Her dad’s smile faded into disappointment. “I’m going to be on panic alert with Kate until her party is over. She’s kind of counting on the long distance help. I’ll just hang and explore the beach or something. You guys have fun.”
“We won’t be out long,” her mom said.
“Cool,” Lindsay said. “If the weather is still crappy, I can watch the box.”
“It’s supposed to be clear and warm,” her dad said. “I’ll bet the beach will be swarming with kids.”
“Well, they better stay on the beach,” her mom said. “I don’t want you bringing strangers into your uncle’s house unless we’re here to meet them.”
Lindsay rolled her eyes and put her fork down. “Right, because I want a bunch of slack-jawed mouth breathers to know where I’m staying.” She smiled widely to show her parents she was just playing.
“You might be surprised,” her dad said. “I told you the real estate market has been booming in this area. A lot of new people have moved in, and a lot of tourists are renting houses for the summer. Your uncle told me it’s quite the resort town these days.”
Sure, Lindsay thought. It’s Cancún and Ibiza all rolled into one. That’s why there’s a trailer park half a mile up the beach.
Still, she realized it was better than she’d thought. There had been new shops downtown, and some of the houses were new and cool. And of course the bit of eye candy next door didn’t hurt.
Though she’d only caught a glimpse of him, she thought about the boy, wondered if he were visiting or if his parents owned the house. She reminded herself that she hadn’t seen him very well. Close-up he might look like Freddy Krueger, or he might be old, like twenty-five or something. But she didn’t think so. He might be a couple years older than her, and maybe he wasn’t a total CW throbber, but he could be.
“Did Uncle Lou say who owned the house next door?” Lindsay asked, making sure she sounded really casual.
“No,” her dad said. “I know he was pretty upset when Don and Judy sold the place, but that was over a year ago. He hasn’t said a word about the new owners.”
“And what’s so interesting about the house next door?” her mom asked.
Lindsay knew she couldn’t say anything about the boy without enduring her mom’s goofy jokes about romance, so she didn’t. “Someone needs to introduce them to Total House Makeover,” she said.
“It could use a bit of renovation,” her dad agreed. “I noticed the porch was missing a couple of boards when we were unloading the car. It’s a shame. The structure looks pretty solid. The place could be real nice with a little work.”
“Maybe a bulldozer would help,” Lindsay joked.
“Be nice. It’s not that bad,” her mom said.
“I have exacting standards and exquisite taste. As such I can’t help but notice how much most things blow.”
Her dad laughed loudly, and her mom smiled.
“That’s my girl,” her dad announced, and jabbed his fork into a piece of chicken.
She found the binoculars on the windowsill in the den. Lindsay certainly wasn’t looking for them, but there they were. After dinner she’d wandered into the room, wanting to see more of the ocean. She picked the glasses up and lifted them to her eyes. The metal casing was heavy and cold against her soft skin. Looking through the lenses, she adjusted the focus until the distant ocean waves came to her crisp and clear, though still terribly gray from the storm. Breakers rose and crashed and foamed. It looked cool, if depressing. She swept the glasses over the horizon and down the beach, where she again adjusted the focus, bringing a new object into view.
“Jeez,” Lindsay yelped, tearing the glasses from her eyes. There was something hideous and unbelievable out there. It looked like a baby, buried in the sand.
She looked through the binoculars again and relaxed. It was a doll. The plastic head was crushed and most of the body was buried in wet sand, but its sad and mangled face was clear enough. One of the eyes was open, while the other was covered with the broken eyelid, which drooped askance against the doll’s cheek. The plastic fibers that once looked like hair fanned over the sand, dirty and wet.
Farther along, she saw the side of a distant house and then a window. Lindsay adjusted the focus yet again, and nearly dropped the binoculars when the image cleared.
A woman, maybe her mom’s age but totally beautiful, walked through the upstairs bedroom of the house. She wore a brightly colored piece of fabric knotted around her waist. Its lovely purple and crimson swirls draped to the woman’s knees. Besides the loose skirt, the woman was naked.
Embarrassed, Lindsay put the binoculars back on the sill and stepped away. It occurred to her that the half-naked woman was the exact reason her uncle Lou kept the binoculars on the sill, and she shuddered at the idea.
Still, she might be able to use the binoculars.
She wouldn’t watch the boy next door, wouldn’t spy on him or anything. But at least she could get a good look at him. More than likely he’d turn out to be just another guy, and that would be that. Though if he was cute…
The thing was, Lindsay had to take something good back from this trip, even if it was just a story about the hot guy next door. Her parents had dragged her away from the party of the year. That’s all anyone would talk about when she got home, and Lindsay would feel like a complete shadow if she didn’t have an equally cool—no, cooler—story to tell. She needed an adventure or a summer romance, something none of the other kids would have. She couldn’t go home with stories about flea markets or rubbing suntan lotion on her mom’s back.
Lindsay left the binoculars on the windowsill and walked through the dining room to the kitchen door. Wanting to make sure her parents were busy before she lifted the binoculars, Lindsay pushed open the swinging door and froze.
Her stomach knotted up, and she reared back a step. Her parents were making out against the kitchen counter.
They weren’t just kissing either. That was gross enough, but they were really lip-locked, and her mom had her hand inside her dad’s shirt, rubbing his stomach. She didn’t even want to think about where her dad’s hands were.
At least they’d be busy for a while.