Vienna Beach: Paradise

Lucy’s P.O.V~

That was some serious magic. Looking over at Bay…it seemed surreal. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me?

“Lucy, baby?” my mother called, snapping out of my thoughts.

I blinked my eyes and smiled, tilting my head up towards the waiter. It was Zach Tariff, Vienna High’s biggest loser. Well wasn’t this a sight for confused eyes. “Hey, Zach.”

“Uh, hi, Lucy,” he rambled, “w-what can I get you?”

The poor thing. I was so going to blog about this later. “I’ll have a salad—no croutons, the last thing I need is a carb overload, got it?”

“G-got it,” he stammered, quickly scrabbling the order down. Once he had it down he turned his attention towards Bay, his eyes instantly lighting up. “What about you, miss?”

She smiled? “Oh, my name’s Bay.”

“Are you new here?” Zach asked, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Barf. I can’t believe no one noticed what was going on.

“No,” Bay shook her head, her little blonde curls bouncing off her shoulders. “I moved a couple years ago when my parent’s studies broke out.”

“And now you’re back?” Zach questioned. “Did something go wrong?”

Bay giggled and said, “Well, if you consider early retirement gone wrong, then yeah, I guess so.”

Early retirement?

Zach’s eyes widened. “Wait, you’re parents are—”

“—David and Marie Shades, world’s most famous Marine Biologists!’” Bay said with a sigh. “Yup, that’s them.”

“But, why would they want to just retire? They’ve come so far.”

Bay rolled her eyes. “Oh no, my parents could never just give up science. Right now they’re going to
continue studies down at Greenpark Aquarium.”

“That makes since.” Zach nodded.

Bay grinned. “Yeah, I’m just glad to be back. It’s hard to…settle after years of traveling coast to coast, you know?”

“I know what you mean,” Zach admitted. “My mom and dad were both in the military the first half of my life. We spent every two years going base to base—sometimes I would only have one parent during fractions of the year.”

“What led you here?” Bay asked. “Vienna isn’t close to a military base, I mean; I think the palm trees and lounge chairs aren’t army material. Personally, at least.”

“Well my mom passed when I was eleven, killed in battle.” Zach stated. “After that my dad moved me and my sister, Summer, down here to live with our grandmother while he went to find work. It worked for a year or so until she got diagnosed with breast cancer, gone before my dad could get a job out in the city.”

“Oh, I am so sorry,” Bay said, laying a hand on his arm. “Is everything okay now?”

He nodded. “Yeah, we moved into a tiny cot farther down the town. It’s not big like all the other houses, but it works. Whoever lived in the house before us must have loved it as much as we do.”

A small cot down the town. Where had I seen something like that?

“Wait,” Bay stopped, her eyes going cloudy with thought, “you don’t happen to live on White Crest Street, do you?”

Zach smiled. “How did you know?”

“Because I used to live there,” Bay said. “Does the water—”

“—still drip in the winter?” Zach asked, laughing. “Yup. Even with my dad working maintenance, we still can’t figure out why it does that.”

“Neither could my super genius parents,” Bay giggled. “My brother and I used to cover the pipes in rainbow duct tape. It stopped the leaks, but then the tape would melt in the summer because of the heat.”

“I’ll have to try that,” Zach said. “Accept maybe I’ll actually remember to pull it off in the spring, save the tape from getting the runs,”

“You know, I bet that would have helped,” Bay realized.

“I bet that if you—”

“I hate to interrupt,” I cut in, “but there are a bunch of others at the table that haven’t placed their
orders, so, Zach, if you would go ahead and do your job…”

“Oh, right.” Zach said. “Hey, Bay, I never got your order, what would you like?”

She simply shrugged. “Surprise me.”

Oh yeah, something wasn’t right with Bay.
__________

Zach’s P.O.V~

Why was she being so nice to me? I asked myself as I tacked the orders on the line. And what was I going to order her?

“Zach, whatcha doing screwing around with the tables order?” Will questioned. “You know if the Warden catches you you’ll lose your job.”

“I wasn’t screwing with the order, Will,” I confessed, “one of the girls at the table wanted me to order for her.”

“Which one?” Will asked, poking his head out. “Oh, is it the brunette, she looks bitchy. I say you give her something spicy—like the chili! We can add extra salt, that girl looks like she’s strict on her diets.”

“No it’s not her,” I told him, biting back a smile. Will was right about Lucy though. “It’s the blonde.”

Will whistled. “Wowza, man, she’s gorgeous.”

“I know,” I admitted. “And she’s really sweet too.”

“Oh, does Zachy Pooh have a crush on the new girl?”

I shook my head. “Nah, Bay’s not new, she lived here a few years ago, back down where I live now.”
Suddenly Will dropped his spatula. “That’s Bay Shades?”

“You know her?”

“Dude, that can’t be Bay Shades,” Will told me. “She was, no offense to her, but she was huge and ugly and a kid!”

I shrugged, trying not to look surprised. “Well that’s the name she gave me.”

Will blinked a few times. “Okay, maybe she changed in the past six years—hey, is her eyes still that light grayish color.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

“Her parents are rich now, man. They live on the mansion down on Fisher Street. Parents with that kind of money, and reputation, would want the perfect kids. Do you get what I’m saying?” When I said no he sighed. “It means she’s probably not real. I mean, look who she’s eating lunch with!”

I moved away from him, writing down her order and heading to back to the main dining room. “Will, have you ever thought that she did it all on her own? Because she seemed to be the only real person
I’ve met in this dumb town.”

“What makes her so real then, her boobs?”

“No, the fact that she saw me, and even after she saw me and got who I was, she smiled.”
__________

Bay’s P.O.V~

“Take it from me, Bay, and just ignore him; he’s bad news.” Lucy told me, rapping her sparkly pink nails against the table.

“He didn’t act like bad news,” I said, “he actually sounded pretty sweet.”

Lucy snorted and stuck her finger down her throat, making noises of gagging. “You’re kidding right? Puh-lease, that boy is sketchy.”

“Oh.” I was astounded. Zach didn’t seem like an awful person, then again, why was I even listening to the advice Lucy was dishing? I was better than this, smarter than this.

“Hah, yeah.”

“You’re lunch, miladies,” a waiter said, placing out Lucy’s dish and a plate of something I wasn’t quite sure what it was.

Lucy smiled and said, more like purred, “Thanks, Will.”

“No problem. Oh, and Zach decided with coconut shrimp, is that okay?”

I nodded, a grin plastered upon my face. “Perfect, tell him thank you.”

“I will.” Will said, nodding his head to us before heading back into the kitchen.

I watched Lucy’s face twist into something ugly. “Ew, why would he want to order you something like that? Talk about a calorie overload.”

I just shrugged. “I like shrimp.”

“Yeah, so do I but not deep fried and dosed in sugar.” She said, rolling her eyes. “That’s not something you should eat if you’re trying to watch your weight.”

Ouch, she actually hit a nerve. Weight was not something I thought would come out of her mouth.

“You know what, Lucy, I don’t care.”

And then I took the biggest bite of coconut shrimp I had ever dared, devouring it whole.

I watched Lucy shift in her chair, obviously uncomfortable with the situation. Whatever, I could care less about skinny hoes like her going around talking trash about people like Zach. It was girls like her who gave women a bad rep in the first place.

“So, Bay, um…” Lucy cleared her throat, looking down at my empty dish. I sighed, pushing the plate away.

I locked eyes with her. “Yes?”

“Well, I don’t know if you remember, but the first week of summer, right after graduation, we always do the Summer Kickoff Bonfire. I was wondering if you were going,” Lucy said, sounding very wary. Did she want me there?

I shook the thought out of my head. “I don’t think they did those when I was around,”

Lucy’s eyes perked up. “Oh my goodness, Bay, then you have to go! It’s this Friday. Will you be able to come?”

I was about to say no, but then I realized that this was my opportunity to meet other people besides Lucy. Maybe Zach could go with me. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Great!” She said, pulling out a tube of lip gloss, recoating her perfectly full lips. “Do you need to go shopping for clothes to wear?”

“Nah,” I said, “I think I can find something to wear. There’s no point in wasting money on one outfit.”

Lucy laughed like she heard a joke. “Oh, Bay, that’s hilarious. Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I confirmed, “but thanks for the offer. Maybe another time.”

She shrugged, “Yeah, totally. You know me, when it comes to shopping I’ll be free in a heartbeat.”

Lucy and I were able to keep “conversation”—me listening to Lucy drone on and on about all the guys she dated or the “so in tops that are on sale!”—for the remainder of lunch. It was torture to my
poor ears.

“What did you think of lunch?” Mother asked me on the ride home. “It was so nice to see the Watsons’s, don’t you think, kids?”

“Oh yeah, a complete blast.” Reed spat.

Even though I had to talk to Lucy the entire time, I felt bad for Reed. He had no one but the parents to associate with during lunch.

“I’m glad you had fun, son, because they invited us to Lucy’s graduation this Thursday.”
__________

“I don’t think I can take much more of the Watsons’s,” I whispered to my brother later that evening. We were both sitting Indian-style on the roofs shingles trying to put as much distance from us and the house as possible.

“Neither can I,” Reed agreed, “they’re like a leech, sucking all the life out of me.”

I snorted. “Yeah, well at least you aren’t stuck with Lucy.”

“Oh no,” Reed started, “I would trade you all the parents for Lucy in a heartbeat.”

“Of course you would,” I reminded him, “because Lucy is super gorgeous and super single. You of all people would kill for something like that.”

Reed shook his head, “No. Not because of that. Bay, I remember what happened to you six years ago. Even Lucy Watson and her über hotness couldn’t change that.”

I stare up at my brother in disbelief. I had no idea Reed had that much…depth.

“Seriously?” I blinked a few times, trying to wrap my brain around what he just said.

“Duh, Bay.” Reed clarified, his voice sounding flat. “Do you remember when we were up in Chatham and I was taking extra AP classes?”

I nodded. “Yeah, English right?”

“No.” Reed told me. “I was—I was seeing…someone.”

“Wait,” I paused, trying to suppress a giggle, “do you mean ‘seeing’ as in dating? You know there is a name for that, not ‘seeing’.”

“Jesus, Bay, will you let me finish,” he fired, silencing me with a glare. “No, I wasn’t dating anyone, for your information. I was trying to say I was seeing a doctor. A therapist.”

I could feel my eyes bulge. “Why?”

“It was because of that,” he hissed. “That day. Even though everything…got better it was like the guilt was eating me alive. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, Bay, I was running on fuel exhausts. My grades were falling, my competitions started to falter…”

I placed my hand on his. It was small and fragile looking compared to his but I squeezed it anyway. “What did the doctor say?”

“Not much. All he said was what everyone else was saying, ‘Oh, Reed, it’s not your fault, anything could have happened, you can’t control Mother Nature!’, but—I knew it was. Whatever those asses
said…they bought it. They all did.”

“Reed,” I sounded small, “have you ever thought to let go, about that?”

The look he gave me was unforgettable. “How could you say that? Do you even remember it?”

I slowly moved my head side to side. “N-not as much as you,”

“Then that’s why.” He got to his feet. “Trust me, Bay, if you just saw it, what happened, you…you would understand.”

I opened my mouth to say something but I found myself at a loss of words. Reed noticed. “I’m not blaming you, B, I’m just saying; let me do this my way.”

“Ok. I will.”

“I love you,” he said, kissed my cheek, and headed for the window.

“You too,” I replied.

But he was already gone.
…