Lies I Told(50)

“Hey!” Rachel held up the vodka and stepped into the light cast by the fire. “We heard there was a party here. Did we come to the right place?”

The guy with the guitar set it aside and took a joint from the muscle head next to him. “What’s the password?” he asked on the inhale.

“Um . . .” Rachel looked around, her eyes landing on the bottle in her hand. “Vodka?”

The long-haired guy stood up, opening his arms expansively as a smile lit his face. “How’d you know?”

Laughter and a few halfhearted cheers went up around the fire as everyone introduced themselves. The long-haired guy was Waldo (after Ralph Waldo Emerson, he claimed when Rachel laughed), but I was too busy processing the scene, trying to detect possible problems, to remember all the other names thrown my way.

They offered us beer from the cooler—Selena and I passed—and we found seats on the sand and in a smattering of beach chairs around the fire. Everyone was nice, lubricated by copious amounts of weed and no small amount of beer. They were all friends from Malibu High, and I listened as they compared it to Playa Hermosa, seeming to find some kind of rich-kid kinship with Rachel, Olivia, and Harper.

An hour later, Olivia was deep in conversation with a jock wearing a Malibu High jacket and Selena was talking about summer-abroad programs with the olive-skinned brunette sitting next to her. Rachel stood, linking hands with Waldo, the guitar-playing stoner. They walked off, disappearing into the darkness beyond the fire.

I turned to Harper. “Is she seriously going to make out with Waldo?”

Harper turned her eyes to the fire, something wary settling over her delicate features. “Rachel’s different when she’s not in Playa Hermosa.”

“Different how?”

She leveled her gaze at me, her eyes cold. “You don’t really think she’s the Rachel she shows to everyone at home, do you?” I noticed the same angry edge to her voice I’d heard that first night at the Cove. “Rachel would never be seen with someone like Waldo in front of Logan, in front of her parents.”


“What are you saying?” I asked. “She’s two-faced?”

Harper’s laugh was brittle. “That’s a nice way of putting it.”

I turned back to the fire. I didn’t believe for a minute that Rachel was trapped in some kind of rich-girl wonderland, forced to be someone she wasn’t by the expectations of her family. There was something too gleeful in the way she switched roles. The way she kept everyone off-balance. Like a high-strung toddler who got some kind of subconscious pleasure from keeping everyone on edge, wondering what she’d do next.

“Hey, Grace, let me have your keys?”

I looked up, surprised to see Rachel standing over me with Waldo. “My keys?”

“We’re going on a beer run,” she said. “And since you insisted on driving, I need your keys.”

“Um . . . I don’t think my parents would like it if someone else drove my car.” I stood up. “Besides, you’ve been drinking. I’ll drive.”

She sighed. “I had half a beer an hour ago. I’m completely sober. Don’t be a baby. Just give me your keys.”

The conversation had grown quiet around us as everyone watched our exchange. I felt suddenly self-conscious, like the goody-goody in a group of delinquents.

“The sooner you give me the keys, the sooner I’ll be back,” she said, extending her hand.

She wasn’t going to let it drop. I could either give her the keys or draw even more attention to us by continuing to argue with her in full view of everyone on the beach.

Reluctantly, I reached into my pocket and withdrew the keys. I put them in her hand. “If you wreck my car, Parker will kill you.”

Her laugh echoed off the water. “Whatever, Grace.”

She skipped off toward the stairs, red hair streaming behind her like a brightly colored banner, with Waldo in tow.

“Did you seriously just give her the keys to your car?” Selena hissed.

“I didn’t know what else to do.”

“It’s fine,” Olivia said, dropping next to me onto the sand. “She’ll be back.”

A girl with short, dark hair had picked up Waldo’s guitar. We listened as she strummed, the notes soft and slightly melancholy. It was cold, and I hunched down into my jacket, trying to calm my nerves, telling myself that Olivia was right; Rachel would be back. It’s not like she was a car thief. I didn’t know how much time had passed when I noticed the faint cast of blue and red near the stairs.

“What the . . . ?”

“Cops!” someone shouted.

A police cruiser was parked on the road near the stairs, and two uniformed figures were descending to the beach.

I jumped to my feet amid a flurry of activity: blankets thrown over shoulders, half-smoked joints and beer bottles buried in the sand as everyone dispersed, heading away from the stairs toward some unknown exit.

“What do we do?” Selena asked, her eyes a little wild.

Olivia shrugged. “Nothing we can do without a car.” She eyed the cops heading our way across the sand. “Just play it cool.”

I watched the police officers—one tall and stocky, the other small and wiry—get closer. They stopped in front of us, the little one surveying us with shrewd blue eyes.