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flicking a particularly round grape at Chloe’s head.
“Now there’s something to worry about,” he declared before the table broke out into an all-out grape-shooting gallery.
Julianne shook her head, grinning, and reached for her camera just in time to catch a few great shots of her crazy family in action.
“No, here’s something to worry about—the invasion of the hot summer guys! It looks like our Jules is already halfway to being beamed up.” Chloe giggled.
“Not even a little,” Julianne fibbed gamely. “It’s only June. A girl needs to keep her summer options open until the Fourth of July, at least.” She enjoyed keeping the excitement of a new romance quiet for a little while—
it made it even more special.
“I like that rule.” Chloe nodded thoughtfully.
“Saving your fireworks until after the fireworks. Very classy. Besides, you’re going to be working at cute-guy headquarters this summer. And you’re going to be the only girl there. We’ll need some sort of complex rating system to sort through all your options.”
“My little girls are growing up. I don’t think I like this,” Dad muttered pitifully. “One day it’s tea parties and art classes, the next it’s boys, boys, and more boys.”
“Oh, Daaad!” Julianne and Chloe groaned in unison, rolling their eyes.
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“Jules, sweetie, I don’t know how you’re going to hold down a job if you’re in the habit of sleeping until noon,” Dad teased.
“I wouldn’t say that sleeping in once constitutes a habit,” Julianne protested.
“Not a habit, per se.” Chloe smirked. “At least not yet. Wait until you run into that guy again; then we can start predicting recurrences.”
“Thank you, Captain Statistical Analysis,” Julianne shot back. “After that, maybe you can set up a formal experiment. I can be your very own live-in lab rat.
Anyway, I’m going to be spending the entire summer number one, painting, and number two, surrounded by the aforementioned hot guys. I think I’ll find it in my heart to pull myself out of bed and get to work somehow.” Julianne pulled her oversize sunglasses down her nose and cast a dramatic look at her older sister.
“Point taken,” Chloe admitted, laughing. “Honestly, Jules, I can’t think of anyone else who could make working on a construction site sound so . . . appealing.”
“Are you kidding me? It’s going to be fantastic!
Sunshine, boys, making things and then painting them?
I can’t wait to start!” Jules gushed.
“And I,” Chloe cut in, not-so-subtly redirecting the conversation, “can’t wait to hear more about this guy you met last night. Tell me everything already!” Julianne felt her cheeks turning red, in a physical 30
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flashback to the night before.
“Chloe, stop picking on your sister,” Dad interceded halfheartedly.
“Daaaaa-aad!” Chloe practically squealed. “Don’t even!
You know you want to know almost as much as I do!” Chuckling, their father admitted, “You know, I’m not sure that’s true. It’s just that I’ll lose my parenting license if I don’t tell you to cut it out at least twice a day. Carry on, then.” He smiled, picked up his plate, and headed back into the house.
Chloe lazily swatted at a seagull that was flying per-ilously close to her plate. His bird buddies squawked overhead, egging him on to fight. Glad of the distraction, Julianne reached under her seat and came back up with her camera—a huge old Nikon SLR. She loved adjusting the lenses and checking the light meter. She snapped away as Chloe took off a flip-flop and threatened to bat at the renegade bird, muttering, “Rats with wings. They’re just big rats with wings.” As the seagulls scattered, Chloe turned her attention back to the still-blushing Julianne. “Are you going to spill or not?”
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Julianne replied tartly, putting her camera down and lobbing a look of wide-eyed innocence at her sister.
“Oh my God. You’re totally gone for this guy!” Chloe was now in full squealing mode. “Jules has a boyfriend!
Jules has a boyfriend!”
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“Um, excuse me?” Jules interjected. “Which one of us has the hot dinner date with her hot lab partner tonight?
Boyfriend, what?”
“Seriously, though, Jules. Things looked pretty intense last night. I haven’t seen you click with a guy like that in . . . welll. . . ever,” Chloe prompted, her voice more serious.
Julianne smiled to herself, remembering the electrified kiss on the beach, and gave up being vague. “I know.
It’s true. Talking to him just seemed so natural, Chloe.
Like everything fit.”
“He was pretty cute.” Chloe nodded, popping another grape into her mouth.
“And not just that,” Julianne continued, her pace quickening. “He was completely hilarious and nice and smart. He was just . . .” Her voice trailed off as she searched for the words. “He was perfect.” Chloe slid her sunglasses off of her face and smiled, her eyes twinkling as she lifted her lemonade glass in a toast. “Well, then, here’s to a perfect summer.”
“Here, here!” Julianne chimed in.
32
Chapter Three
!
Julianne felt like she was being baked alive. The three o’clock sun was beating down, and she could feel it sizzling behind her dark curls. Even with her hair back in a messy bun, tied away from her face with a bandana, she could feel the heat sinking into her skull. She fanned herself with her hand and waited for a burst of cool breeze to come up off the ocean. Two feet away, her black Reef flip-flops lay messily where she had kicked them off, and she sank her toes farther into the sand. She had been out on the beach painting for the last hour, and still had a couple hours to go. Her mother had come out to the beach every day in the summers from two to five—at least until she got too sick to leave the house—to catch the sun on its way back down from 33
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the middle of the sky. Hannah Kahn had always said that her greatest pleasure as an artist was to catch the sun on its descent toward the horizon. The shadows were better. There was more depth, more variation. She never wore sunglasses when she painted, because she wanted to see the light in as pure a way as possible. Despite their many similarities, today Jules was definitely not feeling her mom’s artistic process. It was a gorgeous day, and all she could think about was getting in the water.
Usually, making art chilled Julianne out, but today she was surprisingly distracted. The anniversary of her mother’s death was coming up, and Julianne really wanted to have this painting finished by the time it rolled around. It was a challenge for her to paint in her mother’s lush, representational style, though. Julianne’s work was generally more abstract. She usually loved working in mixed media, but she felt compelled to do this painting her mom’s way—to experience the way her mom ticked as an artist. Trying to channel her mom’s method was a huge struggle for her, but Julianne desperately wanted to make this painting work.
Today, however, as sweat beaded across her forehead and Lily Allen’s voice bounced out of her iPod, Jules felt like she was fighting a losing battle. She just couldn’t focus. Her mind kept floating across the beach. When the breeze came up off the water, she was in heaven. She stuck the end of her paintbrush in her messy bun for 34
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safekeeping and walked around the canvas, first clockwise, then counterclockwise. She picked up her easel and shuffled a few feet to the left, then to the right again.
Julianne wiped her paint-covered hands on the front of her Bermuda shorts and sighed. It felt so much more natural to just take a photo—everything was captured instantly, beautifully, looking exactly like what it was, only better. The water looked perfectly crisp and invit-ing, and the surfer guys dotting the waves didn’t look half bad either. Julianne quickly pulled off her shorts and tank top, revealing her new green Betsey Johnson bikini. She tossed her clothes and bandana on top of her Reefs, set her paintbrush down on her easel, and ran for the water.