Endless Summer

“No, not exactly—”

“Like an arranged marriage,” Adam interrupted. “That’s very forward thinking.”

“No, not like that. Mom knew what was best for me, and if she were still around, she would have taught me how to get it. She’s not around, so I have to figure this out for myself. I’m transforming myself from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. ere’s much preening to be done. It’s actually pretty time-consuming. I have to run my beak down every single feather to distribute the oill evenly and make myself waterproof.”

“Lori—”

“And I’ve almost perfected my Holly/Beige imitation. At least, I thought I had, until the mud riding started.”

“You think going out with Sean will turn you into Beige Dupree?”

“Sort of. If I hooked up with Sean, everyone would treat me differently. Everyone loves Sean. If Sean chose me, they’d think they’d always overlooked something special in me. Then maybe I really could become that girl. I know you hate Sean, but you understand why everyone else loves him, right?” I took Adam’s stony silence as a yes.

“Girlfriend/boyfriend love is totally different from brotherly love. But the effect would be the same. Like standing in his aura. Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like if Sean loved and valued you as a person?”

“I’d know Armageddon was coming. I’d brace myself for the locusts.”

“I’m serious. If he just looked at you the right way, that alone could probably carry you through for a month. But if he loved you…” Adam shifted on the bench. I thought he was standing up to stalk away, disgusted. Instead, he placed his arm around my shoulders. Lightly his finger stroked valentines on my arm, which gave me the shivers all over again.

“Every word out of Sean’s mouth is meant to hurt me,” he said. “And it’s always been like that. Cameron says Sean changed after I was born. When I was a baby and Mom wasn’t looking, Sean threw blocks at my crib.”

I almost laughed. The idea was so ridiculous. It was even more ridiculous for Adam to be angry about something like that when he was sixteen years old.

I managed not to laugh. I believed him. I knew Sean.

“But that’s you,” I said. “I’m sorry he treats you that way, but I’m the one who’s going to get together with him, and he doesn’t treat me that way.”

“He will,” Adam said. “If you ever let him get close to you, he will.” e valentines he traced on my arm had turned to shapes with lots of sharp points, like in comic books when the superhero punches the villain. Ker-POW!

e tractor arrived then to pull the pink truck out of the mud. Adam took his hands off me—which I regretted more than I should have. He leaned forward to watch and make sure the driver didn’t attach the chain to the loose side of the front bumper.

“Why does it have to be Rachel?” I asked.

“It just does,” he said without taking his eyes off the truck.

“You might feel better if you talked about it.”

“I doubt it.”

“What do you like so much about her?”

When he turned to me, he seemed alarmed, as he had at the te

“That’s no fair. I gave you a straight answer about Sean.”

The tractor started forward. The chain to the pink truck pulled tighter and tighter and broke. One end of it flew over the tractor, barely missing the driver.

“She’s cute,” Adam said. “She has a nice ass. I don’t know.”

Now I understood. Talking about her hurt him too much. It was easier for him to pretend the ADHD had kicked in.

After two more chains and a rope, the tractor liberated the pink truck, and Adam bought the driver a doughnut. Adam and I drove through the mud field for another hour and a half, taking turns. Mostly we managed to forget Sean and Rachel.

en we drove into town and hit all the teenage haunts: the arcade parking lot, the bowling alley parking lot, of course the movie theater parking lot. In theory this is exactly what I wanted. I was being seen out with Adam, in Adam’s truck. In practice, Adam had purposefully besmirched Sean’s pink truck with mud. It was like he wanted to be seen around town in it for that reason.

We rolled home at two minutes before my curfew. I’d figured he’d park the truck at his house, and I’d walk home. I was thrilled that he drove over to my driveway to drop me off. Sean wasn’t home yet to see us, but maybe someone in the Vaders’ house would watch across the yard and mention it to Sean later.

And then, as I was turning to Adam to thank him for teaching me to drive and allowing me to foam at the mouth about my mom, he bailed out the driver’s side door.

He walked around the front of the truck. I think he would have opened my door, a gentleman on a date, if I hadn’t opened it first. It was too strange. I jumped to the ground, forgetting I was wearing my heels again. He caught me just before I pitched over onto the gravel.

“I’ll—walk—you—to—the—door,” he said slowly and clearly, like talking to someone who didn’t speak English. Or didn’t go out with girls much, or, like, ever. He took my hand. We walked toward the lights slanting through the shadows of pine trunks. Tree frogs screamed in the night, and the air was wet. I shivered.

We climbed the steps to the porch. Dad hadn’t turned on the overhead light there, thank God. Adam stood close to me in the darkness, over me, expecting something. I expected something, too. I couldn’t have stood the disappointment if we’d done all we’d done that day, hugging and giving each other smoldering looks and all, without something to show for it at the end, even if we were just friends. But my head felt too heavy to raise my chin.

“Hey.” He put his hand under my chin and gently raised it for me. “If one of us were in love with the other, if it were uneven in some way, that would be bad.” He gave me a long look I couldn’t really see. The shadows on the porch were too deep. His eyes only glittered a little in the starlight.

I tried to give the look right back to him. “But we’re not,” I said, and what was that damned high squeakiness in my voice on not? I cleared my throat.

“But we’re not,” he agreed. “We have nothing to worry about. We can do whatever we feel like.”

“Right,” I said, and meant it.

e kiss was simple. He bent down and pressed his lips to mine. We stood still except for his pressure on my lips. But inside, every cell in my body turned a back flip to blind.

“Good night, Lori,” he whispered. He bounced back to the pink truck, cranked the engine, drove one hundred feet to his own driveway, waved to me, and went inside his house.

I stood on my porch and stared at his house for a long time, telling myself that I did not like Adam that way because I liked Sean and Adam liked Rachel and I did not like Adam. It was just that Adam was very smart, and was second only to Sean at making confusing things sound simple and death-defying stunts seem like a good idea.

Monday night, Dad insisted that Adam come over for di

Tuesday night was much more comfy. Sean was over at Rachel’s and Cameron was out with his girlfriend, so Adam and I had the Vaders’ living room to ourselves to watch a DVD. At least, that’s what we did for about thirty minutes. en we played CDs in his room, experimented with his drum set, and made milkshakes in the kitchen. Without anyone else around to show off for, we could just be ourselves. Friends.