“What’s going on?” I ask, carrying two chairs back up to the deck. Maggie smiles and takes them from me.
Anita eyes me suspiciously. “What did you hear?”
“Not much. My name. Justin’s name.” My eyes dart to Ivy helping the guys. “I’m not into him, if that’s what you think.”
“Look, Summer,” Maggie says, “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to warn a girl off the Ocean Beach boys—”
“Then don’t,” Anita snaps, interrupting her.
Maggie rolls her eyes. “I know we’ve just met and there’s no reason for you to trust me, but those guys…they’re in their own world. They’ve got this deal between them, they call it ‘The Pact’.”
“The Pact? What kind of deal is it?” I glance over and watch the four of them douse the fire and pick up trash.
“It means they’re not dateable. Not for a nice girl like you.”
Nice girl.
If she only knew.
“Well the good news is that I don’t want to date any of them. I don’t want to date anybody.”
Maggie looks relieved. A sharp line creases Anita’s forehead but she doesn’t say anything.
“Good,” Maggie says. “They’re good friends but they do not make good boyfriends. Trust us on that.”
I nod, hearing the warning. The Ocean Beach Boys and whatever their Pact involves are off limits. I’ve got zero problem with that.
Chapter 8
I spend the next day traveling up and down the coast looking for Donald Gaskins’ kin. I had no idea what my mother planned to do if we found them. Regardless, I had already decided I would stay in the car and wait while she charmed them out of the traumatic details of their lives. The whole process felt intrusive.
“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” I ask.
“No,” my mother answers while leaning over the steering wheel to see the street signs. The pole at the corner of the street is bent halfway to the ground. “Can you tell if this is Hill Street?”
I look out the window and run my hand over the lock to make sure it’s secure. From the ramshackle houses to the junk cars in the yard, it’s obvious we aren’t in the best neighborhood. “Yeah, I think this is Hill Street.” I look again. “No, that one, that’s Hill.”
She turns the car and we slowly drive by a group of young guys hanging out on a brick wall in front of the house. They stare at us as we pass. I slide lower in my seat. “Could you pick it up a little, Mom?”
“There it is,” she says, pointing at a house with peeling green paint and a gray tarp covering half of the roof.
She parks the car on the street in front of the house. “Are you kidding me?” I ask. “Are you really going in there?”
She gives me a look like I’m an idiot or something. I give her one back. “This is what I do, Summer. I find family and friends and search records. One time I climbed in the dumpster behind an abandoned school looking for trashed records. A family of racoons lived there. I know it’s not glamorous but this is my job.”
“You climbed in a dumpster? Gross.” It’s not just gross, it’s a strange side of my mother I’ve never known before. I consider the stories Anita and the others told me at the beach. Maybe
she is capable of those things.
She ignores my protests and bends over to get her bag. “Are you coming?”
My plans to sit in the car alone vanished the minute we passed the corner hooligans, so I grab my purse, lock the car door, and follow her to the house. “Wait up,” I say, practically clinging to her arm. I’ve never been in a situation like this. I grew up in suburban Nashville. I was a student at Franklin Academy, a prestigious private school. Not that we were rich or anything, but this? I’ve never been around this.
I hover beside my mother as she knocks on the door and after a moment the door opens and we can see an older woman peering at us from behind the screen door. “Yes?” she asks.
My mother steps forward. “Good morning. I’m Julia Barnes and this is my daughter Summer.” I wave when she says my name. “I was hoping you could help me find someone I’m trying to locate—"
“Who ya looking for?” she interrupts. Her accent is thicker than Anita’s.