"That"s what I mean. It"s perfect! NO ties, no commitment, no big deal. Aren"t you tired of being a virgin?"
"Sometimes. But I"ve waited this long, I want to at least start out with someone I care about."
"What"s not to care about?" said Sam, watching Jack"s body as he and Buddy approached. "Any- way, he"s really nice."
"We are going to Savannah-today," Emma said firmly.
After lunch, Sam and Jack decided to walk down the beach. Emma and Buddy stayed behind and talked. Buddy was from Miami, and his mother was Cuban. So that"s where he gets that exotic allure, thought Emma. He and Jack were both at the University of Florida in Miami, and had come north to Daytona to enjoy the hedonism of spring break in a collegiate hot spot.
"I wish you"d think of staying over," Buddy said, grasping Emma"s hand and running his thumb softly over her knuckles, "You won"t be in Savannah in time to see anything, anyway."
"We have other people depending on us to keep to our schedule, though," said Emma, giving his hand a quick squeeze before releasing it to delve into her bag. She couldn"t deny that his touch had sent a shiver of desire through her, but it re- minded her of Kurt, awaiting her arrival on Sunset Island.
Emma found her watch and was distressed to see that it was almost two o"clock. Where was Sam?
"If you change your mind, I"d be happy to take you to dinner," Buddy offered. "I thought you were beautiful the first moment I laid eyes on you yesterday." He looked her straight in the eye.
"Oh Buddy, that"s so sweet, but . . . look- there they are!"
Emma had spied Sam and Jack strolling unhur- riedly near the water. They had their arms around each other, and as Emma watched, they kissed languidly. Right out in public-that Sam!
Feeling like a small yapping dog trying to herd some sheep, Emma finally managed to get Sam and their beach gear up to the car, with Buddy and Jack in tow. Emma allowed Buddy a brief kiss, then swung into the driver"s seat, and jangled the keys until Sam broke off her pa.s.sionate embrace with Jack and hopped in the pa.s.senger side.
Emma steeled herself for criticism, but Sam was uncharacteristically quiet as they wheeled toward the interstate.
"Thanks, Emma," Sam finally said serenely.
"Nothing Jack and I could have done would have been as romantic as that walk on the beach before driving off into the sunset."
"You"re not mad?" Emma asked.
"Nope. He was actually too nice a guy to love and leave. Guess I"m getting addicted to unful- filled prophecy."
Emma tuned in a cla.s.sical station, and before long, Sam was snoozing as Brahms took them north in the waning light.
Carrie braced herself against the wall of the toilet stall and stared wonderingly into the vortex of the emptying bowl. The back of her throat was burning, and her eyes stung with tears. But the sky hadn"t opened, thunder hadn"t rolled, and lightning hadn"t struck her down. She got control of her breathing, wiped her eyes, and hurried from the stall.
I don"t ever have to do this again, she thought, but oddly, she felt a sense of accomplishment- she hadn"t thought she could do it at all.
She was toweling off her face at the sink when the door opened and Sarah Lovett breezed in.
Sarah gave her a knowing smile, and Carrie felt that she and the willowy girl had a shared secret.
She returned to her room feeling like a different person from the one who"d left only a few minutes ago. I"m definitely not going to make a habit of this, she a.s.sured herself. But she had to admit she took satisfaction in throwing the donut box into the trash, knowing all that grease and sugar were no longer in her body.
Her mind groped for an exact word to express the feeling, and finally settled on powerful.
Sam didn"t wake up until they stopped for gas.
She offered to drive, but Emma said she felt up to it, and Savannah was only another hour away.
They spent the time speculating on how Carrie was doing, and tossing around ideas for the big party they"d been planning since Christmas.
In Savannah they stopped for directions to the D"Urbanville, a grand old Southern hotel where Emma knew her mother"s friends stayed when they were in town. She figured she and Sam deserved some luxury at least every other night.
The hotel had a gracious circular drive, with a canopy and a uniformed doorman. Azaleas bloomed profusely in every direction, their bril- liant magenta accentuated by the hotel"s subtle lighting. Emma left the car to be unloaded by the bellman and parked by the valet. With Sam rubbernecking at her heels, she made her way through the richly appointed lobby to negotiate a room with the desk clerk.
"We"d like a suite if you have one available- with a hot tub, if possible."
"Certainly. Will you be paying by credit card?"
"Yes, please," said Emma, turning to Sam.
"Sam, you have the card."
"No, I don"t." There was a moment of stunned silence before Sam blubbered, "Didn"t you pick it up when you signed us out this morning?"
"You left it at the desk last night?" Emma intoned incredulously.
"Well, how should I know? I"ve never had a credit card."
The clerk was now regarding them somewhat doubtfully.
Emma reached into her purse and said crisply, "I do have another card."
The clerk set to making their arrangements as Emma fumed in silence and Sam stood by deject- edly.
"I"m really, really sorry, Emma. I feel so stupid."
"It wouldn"t be so bad if it weren"t my father"s card," Emma admitted. "The last thing I want is to have to call him about this."
As the clerk handed over their receipt and keys, Emma"s eyes scanned the lobby.
"Come on," she said, grabbing Sam by the arm.
"We can think this through in the bar. I don"t know about you, but I need a gla.s.s of wine."
Sam snuggled her shoulders deeper into the hotel"s voluptuous pillows and tried to concen- trate on her book. She hadn"t been able to get into the acting book Danny had loaned her, something called The Method, but had thought this gothic romance would surely whisk her into dreamland, or at least fantasyland. But her thoughts kept returning to Emma. Emma wasn"t acting like Emma. Didn"t she know it was Sam who was supposed to do crazy things?
The credit card crisis had been resolved when Emma found she had the receipt from the motel, and therefore the card number. She"d used the phone in the bar to dial the toll-free number for reporting lost or stolen cards. They"d both been relieved when there had been no need to get in touch with Brent Cresswell after all.
But the incident had gotten Emma back on the subject of her screwed-up family. She had or- dered a gla.s.s of wine in the bar, and a second to take with her into the dining room, where she"d barely touched the small Caesar salad she"d or- dered for dinner. Sam, who had pigged out as usual, had opted for an after-dinner walk through the hotel gardens, saying she"d meet Emma upstairs for a dip in the hot tub.
The gardens were beautiful, and Sam had lingered there. When she"d returned to the suite, she made straight for the tiled solarium, where she could hear the soft bubbling of the steaming tub. She had found Emma climbing groggily out of the tub.
"So how"s the water?" Sam had inquired gaily just as Emma slid to a sitting position on the bench outside the tub, then leaned forward to let her head rest on her knees.
"Oh Sam, I don"t feel so good," had come Emma"s weak and m.u.f.fled voice.
Sam had placed a hand on Emma"s shoulder, which burned to the touch.
"You"re overheated!" she had cried. "Wait right here."
Sam knew from dance rehearsals that heat exhaustion could make you feel faint, dizzy, and nauseated. She also recalled hearing that it wasn"t a good idea to sit in a hot tub after drinking alcohol; you might doze off and not realize you were getting dangerously overheated.
Sam had flown to the kitchenette and filled a large gla.s.s with water, then raced back to find that Emma had pulled herself to a sitting posi- tion. Sam had grabbed a towel from the nearby stack and placed it lightly over Emma"s shoul- ders.
"You need to cool off, but not too fast," Sam had counseled. "And you need water. Here, drink this."
Emma had done as she was told, then let Sam lead her to her bed.
"I"m fine now, Sam, really. Just a little woozy,"
she had said, propping herself against the quilted headboard. She"d attempted a smile, but wasn"t very successful. Her cheeks still burned too brightly. "I was just trying to relax and forget about my family for a while."
Sam had sat down at the foot of Emma"s bed.
"Look, Emma, I don"t want to get on your case about this, but, well, you"re letting your parents drive you crazy!"
"Yeah, you"re right," Emma had agreed. "I"ve just got to forget all about them."
"That"s the spirit!" Sam had said.
"I can"t let them ruin my vacation," Emma had said vehemently.
And mine, Sam had added in her mind.
So, Sam thought as she stretched in the enor- mous hotel bed, everything would be okay. But something was nagging at Sam. It felt like Emma was saying the right things, but she didn"t really mean them. Also, Sam had never seen Emma drink like she"d been doing over the last couple of days. It all seemed really weird.
Sam closed her book and set it aside. The romance novel couldn"t help with this dilemma.
But the plantation-style furnishings of the room brought to mind one of her favorite literary quotes of all time, a well-known Scarlett O"Hara line from Gone With The Wind. I can"t think about this right now, she reasoned. I"ll think about this . . . tomorrow.
With that, she fluffed the pillows, turned out the light, and settled in to rest up for a new day.
"Open up! Police!"
In this dream, Sam was in a queen-size four- poster bed with a canopy. She couldn"t figure out where the police came into the story.
An insistent pounding brought her fully to her senses, and she realized this wasn"t a dream at all. She was in her room in the suite they"d rented at the D"Urbanville, and as near as she could figure, the police were just outside the door.
The pounding came again. "Open up in there!"
Sam felt a twinge of panic. Surely the police wouldn"t be at her door unless she"d done some- thing wrong, but what could it be? It had to be the wrong room, that was all. She was trying to find her voice and remember where she"d tossed her robe, when she heard the loud jangle of keys on the other side of the suite"s door.
"We"re coming in!" said the same authoritative voice. A moment later the door opened, and footsteps crossed the suite"s living room. Sud- denly Sam"s bedroom door was flung open.
As Sam clutched the bedclothes to her chest a flashlight beam slid across the room and centered on her face. Blinded by the intense light, she managed to sputter, "It"s just me!"
"Emma Cresswell?" inquired the voice behind the light.
"Samantha Bridges," squeaked Sam, amazed at how pitiful her own name could sound. "Emma"s in the other bedroom. I can get her for you," she added lamely.
"We"ll wait out here," said the voice.
The flashlight flicked off, the door swung closed, and Sam stumbled from the bed to grope for her robe on the nearby chair. Finding the robe and belting it snugly around her waist, she turned on the bedside lamp with a shaking hand. The .
antique-looking clock on the dresser said two- thirty. The police coming for Emma in the middle of the night could mean only one thing: somebody had died.
Gulping hard, Sam opened the door to find two men standing outside in the living room.
"I"m terribly sorry to disturb you, Miss Bridges.
I"m Arthur Conland, the night manager, and this is Officer Peterson."
"Jimmy Peterson," said the policeman, giving Sam an apologetic smile. Jimmy Peterson was young, with a square, clean-shaven face, short blond hair, and sincere blue eyes.
"As I said, we"re sorry," repeated Conland, "but evidently the police received a message of great urgency from the governor"s office in At- lanta. I"m afraid we"ll need to see Miss Cress- well."
"I"ll have to wake her up," said Sam, her teeth practically chattering with fear. "S-sit down."
Oh my G.o.d, poor Emma, Sam thought as the men settled onto a sofa in the suite"s s.p.a.cious living area. Her knees felt weak. This was really happening! The police showing up in the middle of the night! She nearly stumbled climbing the three short steps to Emma"s room.
Sam pushed open the door. The room was awash with the blue-white glow of the television and the sound of an old shoot-"em-up western.
Emma slept soundly, looking like a child in her sleep.
After muting the sound on the TV, Sam gave Emma"s shoulder a gentle shake.
"Emma."
Emma c.o.c.ked open one eye.
"Emma, the police are here."
The eye closed. Emma turned on her side, mumbling sleepily, "Sam, that isn"t funny."
"They really are. I mean it."
It took Sam a couple more tries to convince Emma she had to get out of bed. Finally, with a ragged sigh of exasperation, Emma pulled on her robe and marched into the living room.
"What"s the problem, officer?" she asked re- gally.
"Miss Emma Cresswell?"
"I"m Emma Cresswell."
"Could I see some identification, please, Miss Cresswell?"