Second Star Read online

  “Fee, you know what my parents are like. They’d never let me go off alone, not after John and Michael…” I trail off.

  “I don’t like lying to them,” Fiona says, sitting up so straight that I imagine someone’s placed an invisible ruler along her spine. I think suddenly of the time in sixth grade when I saw a test on our teacher’s desk a few days before we were supposed to take it and told Fiona the questions. She was so excited—a guaranteed A! It wasn’t really cheating, she said, since I saw the test by accident and we were still going to have to study the answers to those questions. I played along for a while, but the morning of the test I found myself standing at the teacher’s desk, begging to be given different questions. Now, I almost smile at the role reversal.

  “I know,” I say. “And I can explain everything to them when I get back, I promise. I just can’t deal with their worry right now.”

  Fiona nods knowingly. “I’ll do it,” she says finally. “If they call me, I’ll say you’re in the shower or drying your hair or whatever.”

  I smile and lean forward, placing my hand over hers. “Thank you.”

  Later, Fiona walks me to my car.

  She pulls me into a hug, and I squeeze her tightly, sorry for lying; sorrier still that I can’t tell her the truth.

  The scent of eucalyptus is replaced by salt water as I drive from Fiona’s neighborhood down to the ocean. This time, I drive straight past the lookout parking lot and up a curving road to the cliffs above, where the houses sit.

  The road winds around the rocks, like whoever built it was trying to disturb as little of nature as possible. When I finally reach the top of the cliffs, there’s only one house in sight, and it’s not Pete’s. I step on the brake and let the car idle. I must have made a wrong turn. But how can I have made a wrong turn? There was only one road.

  The house in front of me looks a lot like Pete’s. It’s the same house—the same design—except for the fact that it’s not quite so run-down. Someone must have repainted it recently; this near the ocean, exposed to the salty air, homes aren’t usually so smooth and bright. There’s a car in the driveway, a navy blue truck, the bottom half of which is covered in sand. Looking at this house, I’m certain that in its backyard is a pool filled with gleaming blue water. I can almost taste the chlorine.

  Suddenly, the garage door begins to open. I pull right into the driveway, along the passenger side of the truck. I just need directions down to the beach from here. I open my door, careful not to hit the side of the truck. It’s obvious that the person who owns it takes good care of it.

  I can hear some whistling on the other side of the truck, hosing the sand off from the driver’s side.

  I see his feet first; bare and dark tan. They grip the concrete driveway the way a surfer’s feet grip a board.

  “Excuse me?” The guy stops whistling and steps out from behind the truck. He’s young and startlingly handsome; his eyes are bright blue, and his dark hair is still wet from this morning’s surf. He’s wearing only board shorts, damp with spray from the hose.

  “You headed for the beach?” he asks.

  I nod. “Yeah. I thought I was turning into the lookout, but I ended up here.”

  “You surf?” he asks, glancing at the boards sticking out of my car. He smiles, his eyes as clear as a Siberian husky’s.

  I shake my head. I’ve always thought that you could tell just by looking at me: I’m not a surfer.

  “Not really,” I answer. “Not like you,” I add, gesturing to the collection in his garage. It’s big enough to fit at least two cars inside, but instead it’s filled to capacity with surfboards. I’ve never seen so many surfboards in my life: stand-up paddleboards that seem three times my height, shorter boards that look kind of like water skis or snowboards, with salt-stained foot straps and sharp fins that I’ll learn later are for tow-in big-wave surfing. There is even one hydrofoil board, something I’ve only ever seen pictures of in my brothers’ magazines, plus a beat-up Jet Ski painted camouflage green. And there are dozens of traditional surfboards, ranging from about six to nine feet.

  He breaks his gaze with me long enough to glance behind him at his collection. “Those,” he says, shrugging. “Haven’t used most of those in a long time.”

  He bends down, picking up the hose and turning it back on, turning back to his truck. He uses the hose to point. “You can take the stairs down to the beach if you follow that road.”

  I look over my shoulder in the direction he’s pointing. You’d never know there was a road if someone didn’t point it out.

  “Not much of a road,” I say.

  He shrugs. “Yeah. Nowadays no one much drives in that direction, so the reeds kind of took over. You’ll make it though,” he says, gesturing to my SUV.

  “Right,” I say, opening my car door. Before I pull away, I roll my window down.

  “Thanks,” I shout to him.

  “What for?”

  “For pointing me in the right direction.”

  He shrugs and smiles easily. “You’ll have to let me know whether it turns out to be the right direction or not.”

  11

  The road leads to Pete’s driveway. Technically, it leads to the stairs, but the stairs up the cliffs snake up behind Pete’s house, so I find myself parking just outside his driveway. I could have pulled all the way into the garage; the door is wide open and the room is empty, the complete opposite of the house I just left behind.

  I consider knocking on Pete’s door. Maybe he can help me. I shake my head, get out of my car, and head for the stairs, climbing down to the beach, bringing my notebook with the photo from my brothers’ room with me.

  Once on the beach I can see that there’s no denying it: the photo is an exact match. Standing on the beach, in front of the wooden stairs, I hold up the photo. I compare the stairs in the picture to the stairs I’ve just descended. They’re identical. My brothers were here.

  “Whatcha looking at?” says a voice I already recognize. I spin around and see Pete, soaking wet, emerging from the ocean, his board balanced on top of his head. He grins at me; he seems actually excited to see me. I guess Belle didn’t tell him that I stopped by the other night, that I know all about them.

  I slip the picture back into the pages of my notebook. “Nothing important,” I say carefully.

  “Want to head out?” Pete asks, gesturing toward the water. “The waves are amazing today.”

  I look out at the ocean. The waves do look amazing; perfect, just like my brothers said. My heart starts to pound, adrenaline swirls around my belly. I do want to head out there. Badly. But I can’t. Not now. Not with Pete. Not after he lied to me. And not when I finally know where to start the search for John and Michael.

  “I didn’t come back here to see you, Pete.”

  Pete’s grin vanishes.

  “I know you lied to me,” I add.

  Shock creeps up his face like a rash. It’s strange to see him looking so rattled, this boy who seems so constantly at ease.

  “Wendy, I can explain.”

  “Explain what? Belle already told me.”

  “Belle told you?” He sounds genuinely panicked.

  “Why did you kiss me the other night when you have a girlfriend?”

  Pete’s face falls. He hesitates for a split second before he says, “I didn’t—”

  “Don’t try to deny it.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re a liar, Pete.” I spit the word out like it tastes sour.

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “Seriously?” Can he really still be trying to deny it?

  “I mean—I’m sorry. I can explain about Belle.” He steps closer to me, shadows darkening the planes of his face in the late afternoon sun. He reaches out and takes my hand in his. I try to ignore the electric shock that thrums through my body at his touch. “Please let me explain.”

  I wrench my hand away. “I don’t feel like listening to any apologies right now.”

  �
�I’m not sorry,” Pete says.

  “What?”

  “I’m not sorry I did it. Things between Belle and me—they’re complicated, but the truth is, we were together for all the wrong reasons.”

  I press my hands together, trying to rub away the memory of his touch. “Were together?”

  Pete nods. “Yeah. I broke up with her.”

  I swallow. “Look, I don’t want to be a home wrecker…”

  Pete smiles, and suddenly I’m furious.

  “Is this just some kind of joke to you? Am I a joke?”

  “Of course not,” Pete says quickly. “It’s just funny to think of you as a home wrecker. You probably have a nicer home than any of us.”

  I don’t say anything.

  Pete shakes his head. “Look. You’re not breaking up anything. Things went wrong with me and Belle a long time ago. But maybe it took meeting you for me to finally face it.”

  I take a deep breath, trying to ignore the warmth that creeps up from my belly at his words. “It doesn’t matter,” I say softly. “You’re not the reason I came back here.”

  “Why did you come back here?”

  “My brothers.”

  Pete shakes his head. “Wendy, I told you—”

  “I know, I know. You don’t know them. But they were here.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I found a picture of Kensington in their room,” I say proudly. “Perfect waves. They surfed this beach.”

  “Just because they were here once doesn’t mean—”

  I cut him off. “Someone here might remember them.”

  I think he’s about to contradict me, but instead he says, “Okay. Let me help you.”

  I’m surprised by his offer, but despite everything I’m not about to turn it down, either. After all, he’s the only person I know in Kensington, and I have to start somewhere. “How can you help?”

  “Well, for starters, I can give you a place to stay here in Kensington.”

  “What, at your house?”

  “Were you planning on camping out down here at the beach?”

  I shake my head, but the truth is, I haven’t planned much of anything at all.

  Pete smiles when he realizes I’m considering it. “There’s plenty of room,” he says, heading in the direction of the stairs. I can’t think of a better idea, so I follow him.

  “Just one thing, Wendy,” Pete says.

  “What’s that?”

  “We’ll have to make sure it’s cool with everyone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see.”

  On top of the cliffs, I get in my car, and this time I drive right into Pete’s driveway. He lifts my duffel bag from the backseat, where it’s wedged beneath John’s and Michael’s surfboards.

  In Pete’s living room, sitting on a beat-up couch, are three boys I recognize from the bonfire my first night here, their hair soaked from the sea, surfboards strewn on the floor around them. Perched on top of the kitchen counter off to the side of the room is Belle, her board lying flat beside her. It’s at least twice as tall as she is.

  Pete and I have barely stepped inside the front door when Belle says, “What’s she doing here?” The other boys look from Belle to Pete to me, waiting for an explanation.

  Before Pete can say a word, I begin speaking.

  “I’m Wendy,” I say, avoiding the angry look in Belle’s steely gray eyes. “I’m— I’m just looking for a place to crash.” I haven’t forgotten what Pete told me the day we met: his friends won’t exactly warm to me if I show up and start peppering them with questions. Maybe if they know me first, if they think I’m here for my own reasons, they’ll begin to trust me.

  “Why?” Belle says. “You look like you’ve got a nice plush home to crash in somewhere.”

  I nod. “I do. My parents’ house down the coast. But I just can’t take being around them right now. It’s been a really rough year at home. My parents—they’re in a bad place, and I’m…” I pause. “I am, too, I guess. I just needed to come somewhere a little bit…” I bite my lip, looking out the window at the setting sun. “To get away, I guess.”

  I take a deep breath, before I add, “And I want to learn to surf.”

  The three boys glance at one another, then at Belle. Finally, one of them asks, “Why do you want to learn to surf?”

  I smile. “Because I took a wave the other day, and now it’s all I can think about. I even dreamed about it.”

  The boy breaks out in a grin. “I’m Hughie,” he says.

  “Nice to meet you, Hughie,” I answer.

  Beside me, Pete speaks up. “Listen, guys, I think we should let her stay.”

  “Of course you do,” Belle mutters.

  “It’s not like that,” Pete says, and much to my surprise, Belle stays quiet. “We all came to Kensie because we needed to get away from something. Or find something.”

  Across the room, the boys are shrugging as they get up from the couch to welcome me. I look at Pete, smiling.

  “Whatever, man,” says a boy whose name I’ll later learn is Matt. “As long as she doesn’t take my room.”

  “I’ll sleep on the floor,” I say quickly.

  Pete shakes his head. “No need,” he says, smiling. “Like I said, we’ve got plenty of room.”

  12

  I wake up covered in sweat and shivering. In my dream, it was John and Michael who didn’t want me staying in this house, John and Michael surrounded by surfboards as they ordered me to leave. John and Michael insisting that I didn’t belong here. Nothing Pete said would convince them to let me stay.

  I stand up and look out the window. Pete put me in a small bedroom with a view of the ocean. The bed is just a mattress on the floor, the pillow is a bunch of beach towels stuffed into a case. The ocean is covered in fog, waiting for the sun to burn it off. I pick up my phone to check the time, but my battery is dead. Stupidly, I take my power cord from my bag and plug it into a socket in the wall, but nothing happens. What did I think, that someone around here pays bills to the electric company?

  If I were home, Nana would be sleeping on the edge of my bed. She would have heard me wake up and would have curled up next to me, the same way she’s done every time I’ve had a bad dream since I was ten years old.

  But here, there is no one to comfort me. In fact, the house seems strangely still, not as though I’m the only one awake at this hour, but as though I’m the only one here at all. The only sound is the roar of the ocean in the distance. I count the waves, wishing that I could tell time by their steady beat. I pull out my notebook to write down every detail of what’s happened since I got here to Kensington. The name of every boy in Pete’s crew, the look in Belle’s eyes when they agreed I could stay, even the number of surfboards I saw in that guy’s house on the other side of the cliffs. (Well, the approximate number. I didn’t exactly have time to count.) I want to get it all down before I forget. You never know when a useless detail might turn out to be meaningful.

  I fill up page after page until my hand starts to hurt. The milky morning light is making me restless, so I stuff my notebook back into my bag, turn the doorknob, and step into the hall. I don’t know why I’m bothering to tiptoe. The white tile floors are cold beneath my feet and gleam in the darkness as though they’ve been freshly polished, but I think the chances of that are about as slim as someone paying the electric bill.

  All the bedroom doors are open; I glance into the rooms and see more mattresses piled on floors, more towels used as pillows and blankets, but no sign of Pete or anyone else. I can’t help noticing that every other room has multiple mattresses in it—mine was the only room with only one bed. I wonder where Belle sleeps.

  I walk down the stairs, my footsteps sounding like slaps against the porcelain. At once, my footsteps are replaced by the sound of a girl’s laughter, bright but hoarse, as though she’s coming down with a cold.

  Or swallowed too much salt water, I correct myself as Belle slides o
pen the glass door leading out to the back porch and steps inside the house. Pete is only a few steps behind her, balancing two surfboards on top of his head. Both of them are dripping wet.

  “Hi,” I say. “Morning.”

  Belle turns, fixing her intense eyes on me. I imagine she looks at a wave the same way, once she decides that’s the one she’s going to ride, and begins her paddle out to conquer it. I drop my gaze.

  “Morning, Wendy,” Pete says cheerfully, either oblivious to or just ignoring his ex-girlfriend’s stare. “Sleep well?”

  “Sure,” I say noncommittally, not wanting to think about my dream. “Actually, I’m pretty hungry,” I add mostly to change to subject.”

  Belle rolls her eyes, finally breaking her gaze. “You’re out of luck there, Newport. There’s nothing in the house.”

  Pete shrugs. “Not to worry,” he says, “We’re going out to snag supplies.”

  “The house on Brentway?” Belle says eagerly as a couple more boys come through the sliding door.

  Pete ignores her and turns back to me. “We’ll be back with food later. Think you can make it till then?”

  “I’m fine,” I say. “I can make it till we go over there.”

  “You’re not coming,” Belle says. “Wouldn’t want to risk messing up your perfect record, would we?”

  Understanding crashes over me like a wave; they’re going to rob a house.

  “I have cash,” I say weakly, thinking of the bills in my duffel bag. “I could buy us some food.”

  Pete shakes his head. “Save your cash. This house is huge. Believe me, these people can afford to lose whatever we take.”

  “Isn’t it dangerous?”

  “Not with the right crew,” Pete says, gesturing at the boy—Hughie—brushing sand off of his legs behind him. He adds, “And Belle can pick locks like a cat burglar.”

  Of course she can, I think. “I’m going,” I say suddenly.

  Pete shakes his head. “You don’t have to come with us, Wendy. Really. We won’t be gone long, and you’ll be better off staying here at the house.”

  I shake my head. “I’m going,” I repeat, louder this time.