TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
Jules couldn’t believe it—just when she’d thought things couldn’t get any worse! She stood with Chloe at the window, rubbing her sister’s back and muttering,
“Those rats, those little rats. Those complete and total dirtbags.”
Chloe, whose breathing was finally slowing to normal, managed to squeak out, “What? Who?”
“The Moores, who else?” Julianne practically spat the name out. The orange gates looked offensive and menacing, even against the baby blue afternoon sky. It was like they were living in a biohazard zone or a bombed-out shell of a city. The gates themselves were aggressively orange—like they were there specifically to tell every other part of the color wheel to go to hell.
Their father, who had been working down the hall in his studio, ambled into the room.
“Girls, what’s going on in here?” He stopped short when he saw their eyes fixed on the orange fences. “Oh, yeah, that.”
“Had you already seen this?” Chloe yelped. Their father was always mellow, but they expected more of a reaction when their home had just been surrounded by what appeared to be giant, Day-Glo riot gear. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It’s not worth discussing,” Dad replied, turning from the window. “It’s just a show. It’s just supposed to scare people away. If they were really planning on doing something, they wouldn’t need to make such a big spec-tacle about it. They’d just do it.” Chloe and Julianne both nodded. It might have been cold comfort, but he definitely had a point. “Don’t worry, girls. It’s going to be fine. We’ll figure something out.” He sounded so certain, so sincere, that Julianne couldn’t help but relax a bit.
“Okay, I need to shower. I’m covered in dust from work. But I think I’ll go for a quick run first.” Jules turned toward the stairs. She got as far as the doorway before the vision of the glaring orange gates compelled her to spin around toward the window for one last look.
Dad was sitting on the window seat, his face tilted slightly away from the beach view, his fingertips lightly touching the glass. For the first time, Julianne saw something behind his eyes that hadn’t been there before. For all of his mild-mannered, easygoing confidence, their father was scared.
✦ ✦ ✦
After her run, Julianne took the steps two by two on her way back to her room. Her sneakers were still caked with a little bit of sand, but, for the first time all day, her head was clear. She held on to the banister outside of Chloe’s room, stretching her calves and quads, and listened to the ebb and flow of her sister’s voice as she chatted on the phone. She was obviously catching up with one of her Kappa Delta sisters, so Jules decided to leave her be until after she’d showered.
Twenty minutes later, Kelly Clarkson was blasting from Chloe’s Bose iPod dock and the girls were shouting along at the top of their lungs. “Since you been gone, I can breathe for the first time …” Chloe was up on the bed in full-on rock-star air-guitar mode, her hair flying wildly around her, while Julianne was sprawled out on her back on the floor, her bare feet propped up on Chloe’s bed. When the song ended, Chloe flopped down on the bed, laughing, and straightened her flowered pajama bottoms and shell-pink tank top.
“Why do I love that song so much?” she asked Julianne. “It’s already a few years old.”
“Yeah, but it’s definitely a classic.” Jules laughed.
“Which must be why they still play it on the radio, like, constantly.”
Chloe shrugged. “I told Dad we’d handle dinner tonight. What are you in the mood for? Fish? Pasta? Or maybe just a big salad?”
Julianne really wasn’t sure what she wanted. Not in terms of dinner, not in terms of anything. Her fabulous summer job was going to be tainted with special guest appearances by Remi Moore. Her special tribute painting to her mom was getting more difficult by the day.
And the construction and the gates on the beach certainly weren’t helping anything. Her photography was better than ever this summer, but nothing she did made her painting seem any more polished. Julianne pulled her feet off of Chloe’s bed and tugged her body up from the floor. “Do you mind if I check MySpace?” she asked.
“Kat promised she’d post some pictures of Madrid.”
“Sure, it’s on,” Chloe tossed back. “Just make sure I’m logged out.”
Julianne sat down in Chloe’s gigantic rolling chair and piloted it into the computer cove of Chloe’s white wicker desk. She ran her fingers over the touch mouse to turn off the screen saver (a rotating photo slide show of Chloe with her sorority sisters, Chloe with her premed friends, Chloe volunteering, and Chloe crossing a bunch of 5k finish lines. Damn—her sister’s life looked exhausting!) and logged into MySpace—her current go-to method of procrastination.
Julianne looked at the familiar blue banner spread across the top of the screen and checked her “bulletin space” for news from her friends who were away for the summer. She tried to ignore her disappointment that Kat’s photos still weren’t up, and she skipped over to her own photo collection. Mitch had taken a picture of her in a hard hat this morning and promised he would post it.
“Whatcha’ looking at?” Chloe asked, coming up behind her sister to peek at the screen.
“Not much,” Julianne said, flipping through her photo album at a rapid pace. She wasn’t really amused by MySpace at the moment.
“Ooh, I like that one,” Chloe piped up, pointing to a picture of Julianne sitting on a cooler at a beach bonfire.
Her hair was blowing everywhere in the beach breeze, and her face was lit orange by
