Part 1 (1/2)
Bennett, Cherie.
Sunset Island.
Sunset Secrets.
one.
”I am about to fall madly in love,” Sam Bridges announced meaningfully over the phone to her two best friends, Emma Cresswell and Carrie Alden.
”Who?” Emma asked with surprise.
”Yeah, who?” Carrie echoed.
It was a natural question. The last time the three of them had been together was Christmas vacation, three months earlier. Emma, Sam, and Carrie had taken a trip to Miami. And although Sam had had an almost serious encounter with a hot young rock star, to Emma and Carrie's knowledge all that was in the past. So who had Sam met, they wondered, that she hadn't even mentioned in all their long-distance conference calls between Towson, Maryland (where Emma was a freshman at elite Goucher College), Or- lando, Florida (where Sam was a dancer at Disney World), and New Haven, Connecticut (where Carrie was a freshman at Yale)?
”Is it Goofy?” Carrie asked, referring to Sam's friend Danny Franklin, who played Goofy at Disney World.
”Hey, he may be Goofy, but he's my Goofy,”
Sam quipped. ”Anyway, it isn't Danny. Goofy and I are, as the saying goes, just friends,” she said.
”So who then?” Emma asked.
”Details are not important,” Sam replied breez- ily. ”It's the intent that counts.”
”Yes, but who is the intended?” Carrie pressed.
”I don't exactly know,” Sam admitted, ”but that's the best part!”
”I think the translation of that is that she isn't exactly seeing anyone,” Emma told Carrie with a laugh.
”Hey, that only applies to right now,” Sam pointed out. ”I could meet the guy of my dreams during the Rockin' Fifties Revue this afternoon.
He could be watching me from the front row, thinking I'm the most gorgeous and talented babe he's ever seen. We'd make eye contact right before I go into my cartwheel. Fifteen minutes later we could be swapping spit right under Mickey and Minnie's noses.”
”As long as it's not Goofy's nose,” Carrie said.
”I have a feeling he'd like to be much more to you than just a friend.”
”No, Danny's okay about it,” Sam said. ”He'd be happy to shake hands with my Romeo Man.”
”Romeo Man?” Emma laughed.
”I like to throw in the occasional quaint expres- sion,” Sam said.
”Oh, it's quaint, all right,” Carrie agreed.
”Hey, my motto is, live on the edge of possibil- ity,” Sam decreed blithely. ”Knowing Mr. Tall, Dark, and Rich could walk into my life at any moment sort of keeps me going through my ten zillionth high kick at the Wonderful World of Disney. Sometimes I don't think I can stand it another millisecond,” Sam said.
”It was your choice,” Carrie pointed out. ”You're the one who wanted to drop out of college to take a job dancing there.”
”Right,” Emma agreed. ”You could quit if you wanted to, and go back to school.”
”Pardonnez-moi, but some of us have to work to pay the bills,” Sam told Emma huffily, ”though I realize this is not a concept to which you can relate.”
Emma's money was a sore point with Sam, and sometimes Sam pounced on Emma's most inno- cent remarks. Emma was rich. Sam was not.
Actually, different as all three of them were in background and personality, it still amazed them that they had become friends at all, much less best friends.
Emma was a Cresswell of the Boston Cress- wells, one of the wealthiest families in the country.
She had never had to do a day of work in her life.
In fact, she'd shocked her parents the summer before, when she'd taken a job as an au pair on Sunset Island. Emma had been educated in Europe, spoke five languages, and was on a first-name basis with royalty. She longed to escape from the hypocritical, narrow confines, of the life prescribed for her-maybe even to join the Peace Corps one day-but so far she hadn't been able to get up the nerve to confront her overbearing mother with her decision. Instead she just continued along as a French major at her mother's alma mater, snooty Goucher College, trying to decide what she really wanted to do and hoping that she hadn't been a pampered rich girl for so long that she no longer had what it would take to follow through with her dreams.
Carrie Alden came from an upper-middle-cla.s.s family in New Jersey, where both her parents were pediatricians. Level-headed Carrie, who had always been an excellent student, was thrilled to be at Yale studying photography. If anything, Carrie tended to be too perfect, trying too hard to be everything to everyone.
And then there was Sam-irrepressible, one- of-a-kind Samantha Bridges. Much to Sam's cha- grin, up until a few months ago she had lived her entire life in the tiny town of Junction, Kansas. It was home, she said, to a few cows and acres and acres of cornfields. A few weeks after starting college on a dance scholars.h.i.+p at Kansas State, Sam had auditioned for a job dancing at Disney World. She'd gotten it and had dropped out of college without even telling her parents. Of course they had had a fit when they found out. But Sam felt certain that college was not for her, and dancing at Disney World was just a step to bigger and better things. She aspired to fame and for- tune, with the emphasis on fortune. How she would achieve it, she didn't know. All she knew was that she wished she could be there already.
”Hey, I thought this phone call was to talk about the party,” Carrie reminded them, smoothly changing subjects. She was used to being a buffer between Sam and Emma.
”It's going to be fabulous, incredible, and out- rageous,” Sam enthused, already forgetting her momentary pique with Emma. ”It is so nice of Graham and Claudia to offer their house for a spring-break bash.”
”I agree,” Emma said, willing to forget Sam's barbed comment. ”Can you believe it's been over seven months since we were on Sunset Island?”
Sunset Island was where the three girls had become best friends the previous summer, and it was to Sunset Island they were about to return over spring break for the party of the year.
All three of them thought back to the past spring, when they had met at the National Au Pair Society convention in New York City. They'd come to like one another during the three days of cla.s.ses and interviews, and had been really happy to find out they'd all been hired to work for the summer on fabulous Sunset Island, a resort island off the coast of Maine. Each girl had lived with the family that hired her, taking care of their kids and being a general helper, in return for room, and board, and a small salary. The best part was that Sunset Island was famous not only for its spectacular beaches and breathtaking sun- sets, but for its parties with the rich, wild, and sometimes famous. All three girls had been ready for a summer of adventure before the realities of college took over their lives, and all three of them had found it.
”What you mean, Emma, is can we believe that it's been over seven months since you've seen Kurt?” Carrie teased.
The Kurt Carrie referred to was Kurt Acker- man, the first guy Emma had ever fallen in love with. Kurt had grown up on Sunset Island, and Emma had met him when she'd taken her three- year-old charge, Katie, for swimming lessons at the Sunset Country Club. Kurt was the head swimming instructor. Between that summer job and driving a taxi at night, he was putting himself through college at the University of Maine. Emma and Kurt had vowed that her being rich and his being poor wouldn't affect their relations.h.i.+p, but it had anyway. There had been so many misunderstandings and recriminations that Emma had finally broken up with Kurt at the end of the summer. The final straw had come when Kurt had started dating Emma's worst enemy, Diana De Witt. Their relations.h.i.+p had not been platonic. Emma had felt as if she'd been stabbed in the back-she didn't feel that she could ever trust Kurt again.
And yet she couldn't seem to change what was in her heart. She knew she'd made mistakes, too, and perhaps they both had rushed into a relation- s.h.i.+p they weren't really ready for. After a couple of months, Emma had written a letter to Kurt, but Kurt had never answered it. Then, just when Emma had begun to tell herself she had to give up on Kurt, even if it broke her heart, she'd received a long, heartfelt response. Emma's tears had fallen on the pages as she read that Kurt, too, couldn't stop thinking about her, that he still loved her, that the only reason he hadn't an- swered sooner was that it was so important to him to get down on paper exactly how he felt.
He'd said he was scared, but more than anything else he wanted a second chance. Emma had written back that she felt the same way, that they both would learn from their mistakes of the summer. Now that the girls were planning this reunion party, Emma would soon see Kurt again.
Just the thought of being with him again, of being wrapped in his arms, made Emma s.h.i.+ver all over. It definitely made concentrating on French literature difficult, if not impossible.
”I always told you the guy loves you,” Sam said. ”I'm really glad you're going to get back together.”
”We're going to try, anyway,” Emma said cautiously.
”Oh, please,” Sam scoffed. ”Five minutes after we hit Sunset Island you two will be in the dunes teaming off each other's clothes.”
”Oh well, I guess that means I don't need to help plan this party, then, since I wont be there,”