Summer In Mexico
Chapter OneWhen Naomie Matthews stepped off the plane at the Oaxaca airport, a wide smile spread across her face. The bright blue sky was dotted with a few marshmallowy clouds, and the midafternoon sun lit up the lush hillsides surrounding the small airport with an effervescent green. She had gotten on the plane in an overcast, drizzly Boston, and gotten off in a tropical Mexican paradise. She had two months of freedom ahead of her in this postcard-perfect place! Even when she saw a donkey, standing happily on the dirt runway, watching passengers deboard the puddle jumper, she laughed with delight. The donkey was the first real sign that she was in a foreign country, and it sank in that she was finally here. It couldn't get much better than this.
But it could. Because just then she spotted Hinata, her truest, dearest, best friend of years and years waving maniacally from the airport doorway. Naomie grinned and waved back excitedly, but then froze when she saw that, standing next to Hinata, holding her hand was… a boy. Wait a minute… a boy? Naomie blinked in surprise. But then she recognized the telltale glow in Hinata's smile, and the sidelong glances of adoration she was casting at the tall, muscular, black-haired hottie beside her. She'd seen that look on Hinata's face too many times to keep track.
Naomie shook her head, laughing. True, she hadn't expected this so soon into their summer, but this was so tipically Hinata. She'd probably met the guy on the plane, or maybe even in the terminal once she landed. It never took her long to find a new crush. She went through boys like they were chewing gum-five minutes and the flavor was gone. Naomie had always felt sorry for the poor guys who fell hard for Hinata and were devastated when she broke it off. This guy, cute as he was, was in for the same heartbreak, Naomie was sure. It was just a matter of time. In all likelihood, Hinata would be over him by the third date, and then she and Naomie could get this summer started for real.
In every one of their nightly OM sessions and the dozens of e-mails and phone calls they'd swapped since Naomie had moved from Scottsdale, Arizona, to Boston, all she and Hinata had talked about was making this trip together for the summer study abroad program. It was supposed to be a summer of girl bonding. A summer for Naomie to forget how the rest of her old friendships had been lost with her move, the e-mails and calls from the diving team buds and classmates petering off into a pathetic dribble.
Hinata's was the only friendship that had survived, and as long as Naomie had Hinata to talk to, her old life in Scottsdale wasn't gone forever. This summer, Hinata had promised to get Naomie up to speed on everything she'd missed in Scottsdale, and Naomie had vowed to perfect her Spanish, a language she loved. That, and her desperate desire to escape her new family and new home.
As if her mom's whirlwind romance with Ted Starling hadn't been bad enough, she had to go and marry the guy! After dating for only tree months! Naomie had hoped she would've been more cautious after one failed marriage, but there was no accounting for adults… especially those on the rebound from a messy divorce. And to torture her even more, tow months into the spring semester in Scottsdale, her mom and Ted forced her to say good-bye to her high school, her friends, and her home of sixteen years to move to a northeastern metropolis she'd never even visited before. Faced with the possibility of spending a miserable summer in Boston, Naomie had, with Hinata's help, developed a master plan for escape.
But a boy had never been included in their master plan. Still, here he was, so Naomie would make the best of it. Hinata might go through boys at the speed of light, but she'd never forgotten about Naomie in the process, so Naomie would just deal. Besides, he wouldn't last long anyway.
Naomie shifted her carry-on onto her shoulder and waked toward Hinata and her new man.
"Nin!" Hinata waved, jumping up and down in her classic hyperdrive fashion from the other side of the tarmac. "Naomie! Over here!"
"Easy, sweets," Naomie heard the boy say to Hinata. "I think she sees you. You've gotten the attention of the whole airport."
Hinata ran over to Naomie, almost knocking her over with a hug.
"Hola, mi amiga!" she cried. "Bienvenida a Mexico! Omigod, it's so great to see you!" She held Naomie at arm's length, looking her over.
Naomie noticed Hinata looked like her eco-friendly self as usual, her long legs set off in a dye-free hemp skirt. From the linen scarf she'd tied in her hair to the sage-green espadrilles, she looked like she was ready to take one the jungle in style.
"Where have the parentals been keeping you in Boston?" Hinata said. "A dungeon? What happened to your tan?"
"It disappeared as soon as I left Arizona," Naomie said, laughing. "Now I live in a state where the sun never shines. It's tough to tan in nonstop rain and snow."
Hinata laughed, then motioned to her guy-of-the-hour, who easily slipped his arm around her waist. She beamed, giving him a peck on the cheek.
"Naomie," she said, her voice rising with excitement, "this is Sauske… my boyfriend."
Boyfriend!?! Naomie barely managed to keep her jaw from dropping. When had this happened? Hinata didn't give any guy that title. She always used safer, noncommittal words like "crush" or "date" or even just plain "friend." Still, even if he was Hinata's "boyfriend," they couldn't have been dating for more than-what?-a nanosecond? Otherwise, Hinata would have told her about him already in one of their daily chat sessions. They must have met recently, and Hinata just hadn't had a chance to tell her yet in all the chaos of getting ready for this summer. That had to be the explanation. And what did Naomie care anyway? In two or three days, Sauske would be history.
Naomie smiled, already feeling a touch of sympathy for him at the thought of his soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend status. "Nice to meet you, Sauske," she said "I've…" Her voice died. She'd been about to say, "I've heard so much about you," until she realized she hadn't.
Luckily, Sauske jumped right in with, "Nice to meet you, too." He smiled, showing gleaming white, perfectly straight teeth worthy of any J. Crew ad. "Hinata never told me her best friend was so good-looking."
Hinata playfully slapped his arm. "Don't get any ideas, Sauske. You're all mine."
Naomie laughed politely while she fought a battle with her eyes to keep them from rolling. Well, Hinata picked a charmer this time. Naomie didn't know how the compliment could have come across as any less genuine. Unlike Hinata, who always looked like she had stepped out of an environmentally friendly fashion magazine, Naomie kept her blond hair in a no-messy, no-fuss pixie cut, and she favored a comfy cotton cami and lounge pants over skirts and heels any day. Her guy friends in Scottsdale had always seen her as the low-maintenance type, never afraid to break a nail of get a little dirty-perfect to pay flag football with, but not to date. Not the kind of girl guys pegged as pretty right away, especially guys like Sauske. But, to give him the benefit of the doubt, this was probably an awkward moment for him, too.
As Naomie watched the two of them, Sauske leaned over and nuzzled Hinata's neck, making her giggle. Okay, so maybe he wasn't feeling quite awkward as Naomie was, after all.
"Well ladies," he said, sliding Naomie's carry-on off her shoulder and onto his own, where he already had his and Hinata's. "Should we see about the rest of our luggage?"
"Sounds good," Naomie said. But as walked ahead of them, she gave Hinata a wink. It was their long-practiced signal for an emergency one-on-one chat session.
Hinata read it immediately and grabbed Sauske's arm. "Sauske, could you keep an eye out for Naomie's stuff?" she asked him. "It's a Scottsdale Diving Club duffel bag… you can't miss it. We're going to go and find the restroom."
That made Naomie happy. So Hinata still remembered that she always packed her stuff in her favorite diving duffel. Back in Arizona, she'd used it to carry her suit, chamois, and other gear for diving meets. But since the move to Boston, the bag had been sitting unused, collecting dust in her closet, until she'd pulled it out for this trip.
"No prob," Sauske said. "I'll meet you at the baggage claim. Then we can find the program bus."
Hinata playfully latched onto Naomie's arm, dragged her into the ladies' room, as Sauske walked away. "I can't believe you're here!" she said. "I missed you so much."
"I missed you, too." Naomie smiled. "So… when did this whole thing with Sauske happen? You haven't even been here a full day, Hinata! This might be a record, even for you." She slapped her lightly on the arm. "Was he on your plane or something? Details… now!"
Hinata blushed. "Actually, it was before that…" She grinned sheepishly. "I was dying to tell you about him." She pulled a brush from her purse and ran it through her wavy auburn hair. "But it all happened so fast, and then I didn't know how to tell you over the phone."
"Wait… How long have you been dating?" Naomie asked, suddenly feeling like maybe she had missed out on a little more than she thought.
"We met a couple of weeks after you moved," Hinta said hesitantly.
"Three whole months ago?" Naomie cried. So she'd missed out on everything, then.
"I know I should've told you," Hinata said. "But you're mot mad, are you?" Worry flickered across her face. "You sounded so down in Boston, and I didn't want to make you feel worse. And then I thought I'd surprise you when you got here! Isn't he great?"
Naomie let out a small sigh, but even as she did she could not help smiling as Hinata's giddy grin. She knew how to play this role by heart. "He dose seem nice," she managed. It was kind of an unspoken rule between them: when Sabrina was crushing on a guy, it was Naomie's job to humor her, and when Naomie was dealing with family crapola, it was Hinta's job to help her forget about it. "Is he more Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, or Some Kind of Wonderful?"
"Well," Hinata giggled. " He looks like Eric Stoltz in Some Kind of Wonderful, don't you think? But he's way more like Jake in Sixteen Candles."
"I always thought Jake was your type," Naomie teased.
Ever since they first met, bunking in the same cabin at summer camp back in fifth grade, she and Hinata had shared a love and sometimes a total obsession, for the movies John Hughes had directed in the 1980s. Hinata had smuggled the older sister's videos of The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles into camp for a midnight movie marathon, and she and Naomie had kept up the tradition by having a John Hughes marathon after their midterms and finals each year after that. This was the first year they'd broken the tradition.
"So," Naomie said, " how did you and Sauske meet?"
Hinata dabbed on her Nature's Kiss lip gloss (the only kind she ever used… totally organic). "We met at the Trivalley studentbody president at Cougar Canyon High."
"You're dating the president of Scottsdale's rival school?" Naomie said. Hinata, who wanted to be a lawyer someday, had jumped right into school politics and community-service organizations in high school and had been elected class president at Scottsdale High. "Isn't there a school code forbidding romance across enemy lines?"
"You forget I help make the codes." Hinata giggled. "Anyway, on one of out first sates, I mentioned Helping Hands EDU and how you and I were going through the S.A.S.S. program this summer. When I told him about the hands-on conservation studies and community service, Sauske got hyped and applied through Cougar Canyon. He's thinking of going the prelaw track in college next year, and he says he wants to get in as much community service as he can. We just have so much in common!" She smiled. "And, Naomie, I've felt this way about a guy before. You know how I normally get."
"What, you mean breaking the heart of nearly every datable guy in Scottsdale?" Naomie laughed. "Don't you remind me. I'm the one who wiped away their tears, remember.?"
"Come on, I'm not that bad," Hinata said with a mock hurt. "I just like to have fun, and those guys got too serious too fast. This time, with Sauske, it's different."
"Uh-huh," Naomie said. "I'll believe it when I see it."
"No, really," Hinata said seriously. "I think I'm in love with him."
Naomie studied Hinata's sober face. This was different. Hinata had never used the word "love" with any guys in the past. She'd always said that she wanted to save it for someone really special, and now she was uttering the word with complete sincerity.
"Wow," Naomie said. "that's big news, Hinata. Congrats."
Hinata Giggled. "And I haven't even told you what a fantastic kisser he is yet."
"Better than Kiba last semester?
"Ugh, don't remind me of that traumatic experience." Hinata grimaced. "There should be a law against tongue piercings."
"My guess is most piercings don't end in chipped teeth." Naomie laughed. "It was a freak accident."
"Yeah, that cost my parents a couple hundred dollars in dental bills," Hinata said. "Remember the lie you came up with to explain what happened? My parents actually believed that I'd let you drag me onto the three-meter high dive to teach me that double-back-flip thingy. And that you'd managed to miraculously cure my fear of heights."
"Yeah, well, it was better than having to tell them you broke curfew, snuck out your window, and headed to Research Park for a midnight make-out session with Kiba," Naomie said, laughing. "If I hadn't covered for you that night, you'd probably be grounded till college, at least. And then you'd have no more dates to break curfew with."
"Shh." Hinata Giggled. "It's bad luck to even say thing like that out loud. And you could definitely benefit from a little wild-child behavior yourself."
"I'm not here five minutes and you're already trying to fix my social life." Naomie laughed. "It's like not a day has passed since Scottsdale." She'd always been less of a socialite than Hinata, enjoying spending one-on-one time with her over the parties Hinata begged her to come along to. She was a sun baby instead, loving anything and everything outdoors, especially the Olympic-size swimming pool at the Scottsdale Diving Club where, in her former happy life, she'd spent hour after hour practicing her diving. But Naomie had to learned to enjoy the occasional party as well as the art of makeup application from Hinata, and Hinata had learned to water-ski and in-line skate from Naomie-things neither of them would ever have trued on their own. For all their differences, they'd always been each other's system of checks and balances.
"We are going to have an amazing summer!" Hinata gave Naomie another hug as they made their way out of the bathroom and toward the baggage claim. "Just think… this is our first chance to make a difference helping people and raise our environmental consciousness."
"Recycling just doesn't do it for you, huh?" Naomie laughed. She'd never forget the half-hour lecture she-d brought on by throwing a soda can into a trash can in front of Hinata. Hinata was an overachiever, sure, but it was because she was passionate about the world. She wasn't just accumulating massive amounts of community-service activates to bulk up her resume. Nope… She actually believed she could achieve world peace, heal the holes in the ozone, and save the rain forests all in the next decade.
"Don't get me wrong. This summer won't be all work and no play." She grinned. "Beaches, siestas, fiestas, a boyfriend for me"-she winked-"and maybe one for you, too?"
"No pressuring me, now." Naomie smiled, elbowing Hinata. "I'm suffering from postdivorce dating stress syndrome anyway. I have no desire to lay my heart out on the table so that some seemingly nice guy can come along and dissect it… piece boy piece. You saw what happened to my mom. My dad cared more about his job than her. Why should I set myself up to get hurt like that when I'm perfectly happy on my own?"
"The divorce was two years ago, Naomie," Hinata said.
"Yeah, but the trauma could last a lifetime," Naomie countered, to which Hinata just laughed and rolled her eyes. Hinata knew more about the divorce than the rest of Naomie's friends. It was Hinata who had cheered along side Naomie's mom at all of Naomie's diving meets when her dad was away traveling. It was Hinata who spirited Naomie out of her house when Naomie's parents were fighting. Naomie's dad was never home much, since he traveled about eight of nine months of the year for his international business consultant job. When he was home, he and her mom fought about his never being there. Her mom wanted a full-time husband, but her dad had other ideas, not ever ready (or willing) to cut back on his job travel. Finally, he decided to stop coming home at all between trips.
While part of Naomie was relieved when her dad filed for the divorce, another was devastated, and furious, to see him moving out permanently. In the months after the divorce, whenever Naomie showed up at Hinata's house after school in tears, Hinata dropped everything to listen. Hinata's mom always kept Naomie's favorite Trader Joe's cheesecake stocked in the fridge as emergency comfort food, and the girls knew how to put it to good use. Naomie would vent between platefuls, and before she knew it, she'd be feeling better. She'd always have Hinata to thank for that.
Hinata's sagas with guys proved a great distraction for Naomie during the divorce, too. Hinata would ramble on and on about he latest crush, recounting a horrific date she'd had or how her mom caught her making out on the couch, and soon enough, Naomie would be smiling again. When she was at Hinata's house, she was in a world filled with normal problems-crushes, dates from hell, clothing crises. She'd liked being Hinata's confidante about boys back then. And she could do it now, too, for as long as this latest crush of hers lasted (she was thinking breakup by next Friday, tops).
"At least I don't have to listen to my parents' fights anymore," Naomie admitted to Hinata. "But now I have to deal with my mom's current delirium instead. I don't believe this whole love-at-first-sight song and dance she's been giving me about Ted.
"Whoa, someone's been listening to a little too much 'Rage Against the Machine' lately, hasn't she?" Hinata laughed. "I'm telling you, that music's going to make you a cynic forever. It's time to give the iPod a rest."
"Never. I wouldn't survive the withdrawal." Naomie laughed.
"You need a diversion, or you're in danger of becoming a complete love-a-phobic." Hinata grinned, and Naomie could practically see her matchmaking wheels turning. "You know what the perfect remedy is? A full-on, spontaneous make-out session. Yup. And I guarantee there's going to be some hot guys in our program this summer you won't be able to resist."
"Look, just because you parents got divorced doesn't mean all relationships end badly," Hinata said. "Not every guy is a workaholic like your dad is. And speaking of the Amazing Disappearing Man, have you talked to him lately?"
"Oh, we've talked," Naomie said. "We just never say much of anything important to each other." She'd only recently started to make a real effort to talk to her dad again. Ha was the only one who'd pushed for the divorce and left her mom and her, and she hadn't quite gotten over that yet. "He called me a couple days ago, from New Zealand. Or at least I think he said New Zealand." Naomie sighed. "He travels so much, I can't keep track of where he is."
"At least you're on speaking terms again," Hinata said. "That's something. And now your mom's totally happy with her new hubby, right?"
"Delirious id more like it," Naomie said flatly. "If I'd had to watch them be all lovey-dovey for one more day, I was going to call child protective services. It's abuse." She grimaced. "And I still can't believe Ted accepted that tenure position at North Harbor U and made us move. Who cares if their history department is 'magnifique' or whatever he called it? And he's the cause of my mom's plunge into insanity, too. I mean, what kind of mother marries a guy she barely knows! He could be a serial killer. This is the type of stuff they're supposed to lecture us about!"
"Somehow, I doubt that Ted's a serial killer." Hinata giggled.
"Probably not, but he's weird," Naomie said. "He's home every night, and that alone thrills my mom. But he doesn't say much. Mom says he'd a deep thinker, not a big talker." She shrugged. "Oh, and I've discovered another freakish thing about him. When we went out for breakfast last week, he cut his doughnuts into pieces and ate them with a knife and fork. Mom says he doesn't like getting sugar glaze all over his fingers."
"I don't blame him," Hinata said. "I wouldn't touch a doughnut either. Dou you know how many toxins are in fried food like that?" She giggled. "Okay, so maybe Ted's a bit weird. But he's nice, with a little touch of metrosexual thrown in for good measure. I'd like to see him shop. I bet the man's got good taste."
"come to think about it," Naomie said. "Mom teases him sometimes about how much time he spends in the bathroom fixing his hair, and he loves Banana Republic."
The two looked at each other and burs out laughing, and suddenly Naomie felt like only a day had passed since she last saw Hinata, instead of months. She and Hinata could still laugh together, just like they used to. And even with Sauske in the picture, Naomie had a feeling that this summer was the cure for her Boston blues. She was a thousands of miles away from that city and from Ted, and just to the thought of not having to face either one of them for a whole two months was enough to keep her smiling.
Once Naomie and Hinata found Sauske at the baggage claim, it only took a few minutes with customs officials before they made their way outside. The blue-and-yellow Helping Hands bus was easy to spot, especially since there was only a handful of a car scattered around the airport parking lot. A man about 25-26, with silver hair, wearing a black mask, black fedora hat and cargo pants, stood next too the bus, waving them over.
"Buenos tardes," he said, shaking hands with each of them. "Me llamo Kakashea. I'm the program coordinator for Helping Hands. Welcome to Mexico." He a put their suitcases under the bus and handed each of them a yellow canvas bag.
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