Summer After Summer. Ann DeFee

maximum darkness—read the middle of the night—so we all had to sneak out. I felt like a cat burglar in reverse as I crept out of my house and met Bunny down the road.

      I was afraid Mary Alice would chicken out, but there she was, standing on the corner with Misty.

      “Good grief,” Misty exclaimed, batting the toilet paper out of the way. “Where did you get this junk?”

      “I liberated it.”

      “You stole it,” Mary Alice squeaked.

      “No, you ninny. I’ll eventually inherit Daddy’s business, so in essence I own everything in that building. Toilet paper and all.”

      Even I realized that was a bit of a stretch. But who was I to criticize? I was in the process of giving Daddy gray hair. Thank goodness Bucky was working as a camp counselor. Brother dearest was the biggest tattletale in the world, and Daddy really didn’t need to hear about this stunt.

      We cruised past the Hargroves’ house several times before we came up with a definitive game plan. We didn’t have a ladder—which was probably just as well—so we’d have to make do with papering the bushes.

      Total silence was a necessity for successfully completing our mission, and pulling that off would require a miracle. When Mary Alice got in a bind she turned into a giggle box. That wasn’t good when you were committing a misdemeanor. Misdemeanor or felony, it wouldn’t make a whit of difference to Daddy—breaking the law was breaking the law.

      The alley was dark, the town was silent, and other than the odd insomniac and the night clerk at the 7-Eleven, we were the only people up and out. Mary Alice gave another maniacal giggle, managing to wake a dog in the process.

      “Stop that,” Bunny hissed as she crept into our potential victim’s yard. “I have an idea. We can do this tree.” She indicated a small mimosa. “Jazzy, since you’re so tall, Misty can get on your shoulders and she can throw the toilet paper at least halfway up the tree.”

      That stopped me in my tracks. “What’s this ‘we,’ kemo sabe? Looks to me like Misty and I will be doing all the work.”

      Bunny waved her hand in the air. Sometimes that girl really annoyed me.

      “Come on, let’s do it.” Misty dragged me through the hedge and headed straight to our target—a poor, innocent tree.

      “Kneel down and I’ll get on. Then you can stand up,” she instructed me.

      “Sure, I bench-press a hundred and ten pounds all the time!”

      “Come on, don’t be a spoilsport,” Bunny said. “I’m too short to do this and so is Mary Alice. We have to finish up and get out of here.” She had a roll of toilet paper in each hand.

      It was nice of her to remind me I was the only Amazon in a bevy of petites. Uh-huh!

      I got down on my knees and allowed Misty to straddle my shoulders. The tricky part would be getting up.

      “Hey, you guys, give me a hand,” I hissed to my coconspirators.

      We were making more noise than a Ringling Brothers circus. I was positive someone had already called the cops, so when Misty fell off my shoulders and we landed in a heap of arms and legs, I knew we were busted. It didn’t come as a surprise when the front porch light went on.

      “Beat feet,” Bunny yelled, dropping the incriminating paper.

      Running sounded like one of the best ideas I’d ever heard; too bad Misty was sprawled across me.

      “Get up,” I demanded. Then I pushed her off and scrambled toward the hedge. Yay for adrenaline and the flight response! I was well hidden in the leafy foliage before my compatriots made it halfway to safety.

      By the time we tumbled into Bunny’s car, every dog in the neighborhood was barking. The Bennett family must’ve had some larcenous genes lurking in the background. The way she pulled her car out of the alley, sans lights, was pure genius.

      “I about busted a gut.” Mary Alice lapsed into a fit of giggles. “I can’t believe we did that.”

      Neither could I. Had I totally taken leave of my senses? Oh right, this was the goody-two-shoes club’s summer of mischief—innocent, of course. And if I could talk Daddy into buying that one, I was shoo-in for an Academy Award.

      “Where are we going?” Misty asked. She’d obviously recovered her sense of speech. From the moment I pushed her away, until we were well out of the danger zone, moaning had been her only form of communication.

      “We’re going to the truck stop,” Bunny answered, whizzing down Main Street.

      The only place in town that was open twenty-four hours a day was the truck-stop restaurant on the interstate.

      “I’m hungry for some pecan waffles,” the princess of our misadventure informed us before she launched into a boisterous sing-along with Carole King.

      “Running from the law makes you hungry, huh?” I asked. My pesky sarcasm reared its ugly head again. I was beginning to doubt our friendship, and that made me sad.

      “Yes, ma’am,” she said, gracing me with the dimples that had turned boys all over the county into slobbering idiots.

      

      Bunny was drowning her waffles with syrup. “Are you over your snit?” Her question was directed at me.

      “Beg your pardon?” I asked, emphasizing the question with my famous arched eyebrow. Bucky taught me that trick, and I had to admit it made an effective statement.

      “So, how does Charlie feel about you going back East to school?” Although Mary Alice, the inveterate peacemaker, was attempting to head off a spat, her choice of questions left a lot to be desired.

      “Charlie has nothing to do with where I go to school. I haven’t discussed it with him. And it’s really none of his business.” Bunny punctuated her assertion with a hair flip.

      Sometimes that girl was a real bitch. As I watched her, I tried to remember why we were friends. To be totally honest, it was one of those situations where you intellectually acknowledge a person’s faults, but for some reason you choose to ignore her shortcomings.

      But when it came to her cavalier attitude toward Charlie, she pushed all my buttons. In all probability it was a good thing we were about to scatter to the four winds.

      College would be a new beginning for all of us, and I wasn’t sure our friendships would survive.

      Chapter 6

      I think I mentioned I was employed—sort of. That is, if you called sitting by a pool sipping Tab and watching kids play Marco Polo a job. At any rate, every other afternoon and on Saturday mornings, I was a lifeguard at the Meadow Lake Resort where Charlie and Colton gave ski lessons to the debutantes from Houston whose parents owned summer mansions. I referred to those airheads as Bimbos in Bikinis—not that I was jealous of their bosoms or anything.

      The days I worked were high on my “look forward to” list, because I could hang out with Charlie. Every so often Colton would join us. Although they were twins, they were physically as different as night and day. Charlie had the looks of a blond surfer boy while Colton resembled a young Clint Eastwood.

      They were both handsome guys, but there was something about Charlie I found irresistible. What’s it about sexual chemistry? People through the millennia have asked that question and the answer’s always eluded them.

      So I continued to pal around with Charlie. We’d talk for hours. At times it felt like we were on a date. On other occasions, it seemed more like a therapy session, especially when he lapsed into a discussion of Bunny.

      There was obviously more than a little trouble in paradise; in other words, they were fighting like cats and dogs. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I wasn’t surprised, but I really didn’t want Bunny to be hurt.