Page 2 of Even After Sunset

“We love you!” Meryl and Richard call in unison. “Be safe!”

They keep waving like a couple of bobble-heads in my side mirror as I coax Trudy’s clunky gearshift into drive. I steer her out of the driveway—just one party away from a solo summer on the open road.

Scarlett’s cedar-shingled mansion is perched along the waterfront on Ocean Drive, just a few miles from the touristy historic district of Sandy Haven, Connecticut. The house is all lit up, glimmering like a beacon along the ragged cliff,and a deep base echoes across the evening sky. As I get closer, I spot clumps of kids scattered across the terraced front lawn, laughing and drinking and hollering. I can’t even imagine how many people there must be out back.

I eventually find a spot to park on the far side of the house where the property butts up against a forested area. Trudy stands out gloriously among the rows of sleek sports cars and jeeps and shiny SUV’s lining the driveway that curves up to the house. She’s like a smiling garden gnome in the middle of a fancy, manicured garden.

I jump down and scoot around the side of the five-car garage, and through the hidden gap in the hedge border that Scarlett and I discovered when we were playing hide-and-seek back in sixth grade. In the days before she became too judgey and cold to hang out with more than a couple times a year.

“Jackieeeeeeeeee!!!!” A guy’s voice bellows over the pounding music and chatter from at least sixty people mingling on the backyard pool terrace. I jog down the hill and crack a grin when I spot Sebastian Murdoch perched on the roof of the pool house wearing nothing but jeans and a backward ball cap.

Sebastian’s been at boarding school on a football scholarship since grade nine somewhere off in Massachusetts, so these days we only see him when he’s home on breaks. He’s kind of a legend in Sandy Haven. The guy has zero boundaries. As in, he’s up for anything—no matter how crazy or how dangerous. He’s seriously hot and really sweet, but none of that detracts from the fact that he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. And that’s being kind. Rumor is that he failed this past school year, but just hasn’t told anyone here yet.

“Murdoch is back in town, bitches!” someone hollers. “Shit is about to get craaayzeeee!”

I laugh, shaking my head. Then my attention is drawn lower down to Scarlett’s dog, Cromwell: a miniature white fur ball who acts like he’s hopped up on cocaine even on a normal day. Right now he’s weaving like a wind-up toy between bodies and furniture, his tail working double-time and his tongue hanging out like his end-goal might be the drinks bar beside the barbeque area. And not far behind, Scarlett sashays toward me in designer flip-flops, with apastel yellow solo cup in each hand. No standard-issue red cups anywhere in sight at a Scarlett Thiels party.

“You came.” She manages to give me a hug without spilling a drop from either of the drinks. I tell her how awesome the place looks. And it really does: she’s hung hundreds of fairy lights around the pool area and even in some of the trees dotting the sloped lawn. It’s honestly stunning.

“Thanks,” Scarlett glances around. “I think it turned out really good.” She looks around the back yard, admiring her vision. She doesn’t really do smiles, but the corner of her lips tip up slightly, which is the closest I’ll get from her. She glances down at the drinks in her hands.

“Oh,I got you a drink.” She offers me one of the cups. It’s filled with a frothy white drink. “It’s a non-alcoholic piña-colada,” she explains. Then she adds, “You know, because you’re hitting the road after this.”

I raise my eyebrows in surprise, accepting the drink. See, that’s the thing about Scarlett: she can be… well, kind of a bitch a lot of the time—but then there are times like this, when there are glimpses of the old Scarlett; sweet and super thoughtful.

“Thanks.” I raise my cup. “To the end of Junior Year!”

“Cheers!” she says and knocks the side of her cup against mine. We both take a sip of our drinks and I decide that virgin piña-coladas are my new favorite drink.

Scarlett flips her auburn hair over one shoulder and her expression turns serious. “So, you’re really doing it? The whole food truck road trip thing?”

I nod. “Yup. I’m doing it.”

“I thought you loved that job at the museum.”

I did love that job. I’ve worked at the small but awesome Sandy Haven museum for three years, now: two weekends a month during the school year and five days a week in the summer. I’ve helped organize more than a dozen weirdly epic exhibits: everything from “Slasher Comic Book Art” to “The Early Days of Submarine Building”. But that job was just handed to me—just like everything else. It fell in my lap because my art teacher knew I was interested in that kind of stuff and passed my name on to her friend who’s the curator at the museum.

I shrug. “Yeah, the museum gig was awesome. I just wanted to try something on my own, you know?”

“Yeah. For sure.” Scarlett says. But her expression tells me she doesn’t get it at all. And to be honest, I’m pretty surenoneof my friends get it. Most of them didn’t believe I would actually go through with it when I told them about my plan until I pulled into the school parking lot three weeks ago, driving Trudy.

Except for my good friend, Xavier. He gets it. Because it’s exactly the kind of thinghewould do. Only he’d probably sell cookies out of a tent instead of a camper.

Suddenly there’s a deafeningsplasshhhh!!!behind us. We both turn just as everyone cheers—as if Sebastian just performed some elaborate stunt instead of a cannon-ball that soaked everybody within a fifteen-foot radius. The party kicks up a notch, then—because any gathering where someone jumps off a roof into a pool is bound to go down in the history books.

“Come on,” Scarlett motions to the pool with her chin and kicks off her flip flops. Then she settles down on the edge with her feet dangling in the water as she takes a long sip of her drink. I sit next to her and Seb wades over to us across the shallow end.

“You guys coming in?” he asks, glancing back for a second when a tall blond I don’t recognize pops up behind him and drapes her arms around his shoulders.

“Nope, just dipping my feet,” I tell him, swaying them back and forth through the water. “I’m leaving pretty soon, so I want to stay dry.”

“Hair,” Scarr says, tossing her auburn waves over her shoulder; the one word apparently her full explanation for not going in the water.

“Okay. You’re safe,” Seb tells me. Then he takes a step closer to Scarr, his dimpled grin full of mischief as he wraps both arms around her waist. “You’re not,” he warns, then in one swift move, lifts her as if she weighs nothing and throws her in the pool with a loudsplash!

Scarr comes up sputtering and scowling. “You’re so dead, Murdoch,” she calls, raking her dripping hair off her face. Seb just dips his head back and laughs. He has an awesome laugh that is insanely infectious. “Bring it on, baby,” he winks. Then he turns his attention back to the blond beside him, who’sadjusting one of her bikini straps. A couple seconds later, he’s making out with her, and Scarlett has pulled herself out of the water. She sits next to me, leaving enough distance that she doesn’t drip all over me.

“I hope you get Herpes!” Scarr calls over to him, and he turns his head and grins at her without even breaking the lip-lock he’s got with his flavor of the moment. He and Scarlett are best friends, so he knows she’s all bite, no bark.

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