he gave the bottle back to Shiner. He rubbed his slick hands on his swimsuit. Then he lay down on his side, facing her.
“Do you need the sunglasses?” she asked. “I like it better when I can see your eyes.”
Jeremy felt a flutter of alarm. Had she noticed the way he’d inspected her?
He took the glasses off.
She smiled. “You’ve got neat eyes.”
“Thanks. So do you.”
For a long time they stared into each other’s eyes. Hers were so blue that even their whites seemed to be tinted with the color. Her face was so close to him that apparently she couldn’t focus on both his eyes at once. Her gaze flicked slightly from side to side. He supposed that his did too.
It felt very strange to be staring at each other this way. It felt good, but strange. Nothing like this had ever happened to Jeremy before. It made him feel shaky inside.
It was as if she were looking into him.
And I’m looking into her, he thought.
He found it hard to believe that this was the same girl who had kicked the troll last night. The toughness didn’t seem to be there now. He saw only softness, and a bewildering mixture of joy and sorrow, knowledge and curiosity and hope.
He wished he knew what she was thinking.
Maybe she’s wondering what I’m thinking.
Maybe she’s waiting for me to kiss her.
“I wish all these people weren’t around,” Shiner said.
“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “Me too.”
“Why?” Shiner asked.
He smiled. “Hey, that’s no fair. You’re the one who said you wished we were alone.”
“But you agreed.”
“Well, sure.”
“What would you do if nobody else was around?”
“What would you do?”
Shiner reached out and stroked the side of his face. “I think I might want to kiss you,” she said. “Is that what you were thinking too?”
“Yeah.”
She twisted onto her stomach, held herself up on her elbows, and looked around at him. “Not with other people around, though. That’s why I wished we were alone. It’s supposed to be a private thing, you know? Don’t you think so?”
“Yeah.”
“I think it’s disgusting when I see people making out on the beach in broad daylight in front of everyone. It just shows they don’t have any self-control.”
“Or self-respect,” Jeremy added, staring at Shiner’s back.
Which was bare except for two straps that crossed between her shoulder blades, and a triangle of shiny black fabric that started just below her waist and looked as if it were glued to her buttocks. Her skin was about the same shade as a marshmallow after it has been heated over a fire to a mellow golden tan.
He wondered is she would ask him to put suntan oil on her back.
“Where did you move here from?” she asked.
“Bakersfield.”
“Did you have a girlfriend?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean, ‘not exactly’?”
“There was nobody I actually went out with. Just some girls in school who were okay.”
“They don’t have any boys in my school.”
“Really?”
“I go to St. Anne’s. It’s all girls.”
“So you haven’t had any boyfriends?”
She smiled and shrugged one shoulder a little. “I’ve had some. Nobody I really cared much about, though. And I never got to see much of them, not with my mother the way she is. She has a way of scaring them off.”
“Sounds like my mother.”
Shiner rolled over and folded her hands under her head.
There went my chance to oil her back, Jeremy thought.
“They’re so protective,” she said, one eye shut against the sun, the other squinting at him.
“Yeah, that’s for sure. I got the third degree when I told my mom I was meeting a girl here.”
“Probably shouldn’t have told.”
“I know. What a goof. Now she wants to meet you.”
“She does, huh? She afraid I’ll corrupt you?”
“Yeah.”
Shiner raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sunlight, and stared at Jeremy. “Maybe she’s right.”
“I hope so.”
She laughed. “If you want to get corrupted, you’ll have better luck with someone else. Like Heather.”
“Give me a break.”
She put the hand down again and shut her eyes.
Her elbow was near Jeremy’s eye. The underside of her arm, though turned upward, had almost no tan at all. The hollow of her armpit looked smooth and white and soft.
“I’ll meet your mother if you want me to,” she said, keeping her eyes shut.
“You don’t have to.”
“No, it’s all right. If it’ll make things easier for you.”
“Okay. I’ll meet yours too.”
“When hell freezes over. Forget about mine. That’d be the last I’d ever see of you.”
“She can’t be that bad.”
“Believe it.” Shiner rolled onto her side. “How about tonight?”