Meet Me at the Boardwalk by Erin Haft Read Free Book Online

nothing will change that, Miles.”
    Miles’s eyes darkened.
    “You’re so stubborn.”
    “My house, my rules.”
    I bit my lip. Okay, that was unfair. I felt a twinge of guilt—and I was almost about to apologize, when Miles’s face suddenly brightened.
    “What?”
    He nodded down the boardwalk, toward the south side. “Speak of the devil.”
    “Turkey?” I whirled around…and froze.
    It wasn’t my sister. It was Megan and Lily-Ann Roth.
    Walking side by side. Chatting. Smiling.
    Megan waved.
    My mouth hung open.
    Megan never talked to the tourists.
    But…
    “Hey, guys,” she said. She threw her arm around the new girl’s shoulder. “I want you to meet my friend, Lily-Ann.”

Megan
    N either Miles nor Jade said anything at first. I couldn’t blame them. If Jade had walked up and pulled the same stunt with me, I would have been speechless, too. Obviously. I would have never seen it coming.
    But the very first words out of Lily-Ann’s mouth, in the ten minutes it took for us to walk from her mansion to Amusement Alley, were: “You know what would piss my dad off more than anything? Being best friends with the hired help who cleans up after me.”
    I didn’t answer.
    “I’m sorry, that was really rude,” she said.
    “No worries.”
    “Really?”
    “I’ve heard worse. You should have heard what Mr. Madison said two years ago when he fired Jade…Never mind.” I shook my head, keeping my eyes on the planks as we plodded up the boardwalk steps from the beach. “But, uh, if that’s the case, why did he ask me to show you around town? He expects me to be friendly, right?”
    She snorted in a way that reminded me of Jade. “He just wanted to get rid of us so he could talk to your mom about his big plans for your town. Whenever he laughs a lot, it means he’s not really there. His mind is on a hundreddifferent things. And he was exercising before, so the endorphins were flowing. He was in an altered state.”
    Jeez. I could barely understand her. “What are his big plans?” I asked.
    “I’d tell you if I knew,” she said with a sigh, flinging her blonde hair over one shoulder. “But the last thing I want to do is find out about his business. Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.” She waved her hand at the long, weathered expanse of wood ahead of us—still relatively deserted at this hour, just some toddlers in strollers and young moms, and seagulls cawing and circling overhead. The salty wind was light enough so we could hear the creaking under our flip-flops. Hers were bejeweled, naturally. “I do know that he wants to tear this thing down and put something else in its place. What, I don’t know. He’s mostly built hotels, so I bet it’s something like that.”
    My stomach squeezed. Jade was wrong; it wasn’t gossip. It was real.
    I tried to imagine what the beach would look like without the boardwalk. It would look like Boca Raton, where Jade’s grandma lived. In other words: cheesy, bland, modern. Different. I tried to shake the thought from my mind. Once the boardwalk was gone, Miles and Jade wouldn’t be able to meet me at the same spot, and nobody would be able to notice a surfer in trouble—except from a hotel room balcony.
    “So, you’re going to Williams in the fall, huh?” I asked. “That’s awesome.”
    “I’m glad somebody thinks so.” She snorted again.
    I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. “What do you mean?”
    “My dad thinks I should have gone to Harvard. He went to Harvard. Unfortunately, I didn’t get into Harvard. So I’m not going to Harvard.” Each time she said Harvard , she pronounced it with just a little more venom. “My mother’s generous contribution to Williams seems to have had a much bigger impact than my dad’s lack of contributions to his alma mater. So I’m going to Williams.”
    “Well, maybe Williams will be more fun?” I offered lamely.
    “What would be more fun is not going to college at all.”
    I laughed. “You