Free Dockside by Susan Wiggs

all those other flirtations. This was the guy. The prize. The one she knew she’d write about in her diary and dream about at night. The one who made her want to go further than second base. A lot further.
    “So, Nina, are you busy tonight?” Greg asked her.
    “Depends,” she said playfully. “What did you have in mind?”
    He stared straight at her mouth when he said, “Everything.”
    She felt as though she’d caught on fire from the inside out. “Sounds good to me.”
    “Excuse me.” Something very tall and very shapely sidled up to Greg. It was another camp counselor, looking like a Bond girl in camp clothes. “Oh, good,” she said, helping herself to Greg’s plate of pie. “You saved me a piece.” She aimed a dazzling smile straight at him. “Thank you, Greggy. I owe you one.”
    Greggy? thought Nina. Greggy? Okay, I’m going to barf.
    “Binkie, this is Nina,” he said.
    The towering bombshell turned, offering the kind of smile that could freeze an enemy at twenty paces. “Nina. Now, where have I heard that name before? Oh, yes. You must be Mrs. Romano’s little girl.”
    Nina was watching Greg, not Binkie. It was kind of amazing to see her image being dismantled before her very eyes.
    “You know, Mrs. Romano,” Binkie reminded him. “The camp cook.”
    In the space of a few seconds, Greg went from flirting and making a date with Nina to staring at her as though she had sprouted horns and a tail.
    “Right,” he said, turning red to the tips of his ears. “I need to get back to work.” He glared at Nina. “See you around, kid.”
    Binkie offered a chilly smile. “Nice to meet you, honey.”
    Nina stood unmoving, having been put in her place so decisively that she felt as though she’d been rooted to the spot forever. Everything was boiling inside her—thwarted lust, resentment, yearning, shame and injured pride.
    “You coming?” Jenny asked, returning from what had probably been a more age-appropriate conversation with Rourke and Joey. She seemed oblivious to Nina’s turmoil. “Gramp’s ready to head back to town.”
    “Sure,” Nina heard herself say. She thought Greg Bellamy might be watching her as she left the dining hall. She refused to look back, though. He was a mistake she was only too happy to leave behind.
    As she was beating a retreat, she was horrified to feel the hot press of tears threatening to spill. Fighting back, she paused, pretending to study the bulletin board, a patchwork of announcements for the camp staff. Someone had lost a pair of sunglasses. Someone else had two tickets to the new hit musical Miss Saigon, for sale. Everything was a blur, but then a bright yellow flier resolved itself before her eyes. Welcome Cadets! Community Mixer at Avalon Meadows Country Club. Each year, the new crop of West Point cadets was treated to a pre-enlistment party, their final hurrah before stepping into the rarified world of rigors that was the United States Military Academy. 18 and Over Required.
    At the bottom of the flier was a fringe of phone numbers for the RSVP. Nina already knew one appointee—Laurence Jeffries, from Kingston. She’d flirted with him at football and baseball games, and he had no clue how old she was. He’d be the one to get her into the country club. She defiantly ripped off an RSVP number and stuck it in her pocket.
    She glanced over her shoulder at Greg Bellamy. If he’d been nicer to her, she’d still be in the dining hall, eating pie. So really, if she got in trouble, it would all be Greg’s fault.

    Nina never had any trouble passing herself off as an eighteen-year-old. She and her sisters all looked alike. At church and catechism, people always mixed them up. On any given Sunday, Nina had been called Loretta, Giuliana, Maria and even Vicki—their mother. Nina had learned everything she knew from her pretty, popular sisters. She eavesdropped on their giggling conversations about boys and sex. She’d sat with them late at night, listening to