Endless Summer

As I stood there, considering whether to ring the doorbell or just walk on inside like I owned the place, or like they’d installed a dog door, I heard Adam holler, “anks, Sean.”

“No problem,” Sean said more quietly, because he was too courteous to yell in Rachel’s ear.

I felt a flash of panic. ey weren’t being sarcastic. Adam was genuinely thanking Sean for getting him out of spending an evening with me. is was called a negative self-concept. I had learned about it in health class (tenth grade). Having a negative self-concept made me think people were making fun of me, on top of the times when they really were making fun of me, which I seemed to miss completely.

en footsteps pounded up the stairs inside. Adam’s bedroom light flicked on. He put his hands on the window-sill and pressed his forehead to the glass, looking for me, but he couldn’t see out because of the glare.

Adam wouldn’t double-cross me.

Would he?

Friday I had gas. This was fine with me. I spent most of the morning by myself on the dock, soaking up rays and feeling mentally diseased.

I didn’t think I could stand a lunch hour in the office, eating Mrs. Vader’s chicken salad sandwich, on edge, expecting Sean to sneak in or Adam to burst in or both. I told Mrs. Vader I was treating myself to a nice lunch out.

“Oh,” she said, nodding. “Something happened between ‘you and Adam’?” She moved her fingers in quotation marks.

Yeah, I didn’t have the energy to argue with her this time. That was Adam’s problem. I walked over to my family’s dock and launched the canoe.

The open water was choppy with wind and wakes from passing speedboats. I didn’t get T-boned. It was a little early for anyone to be drunk.

e wind blew me off course. I reached the far bank and needed to backtrack along the shore to the Harbargers’ house. Here in the shallows, protected by overhanging trees, the water was clear and calm. Miniature whirlpools stirred around my oar. I dragged my hand in the warm water, and mi

I docked at the Harbargers’ and ran up to the house. It was such a relief to feel the grass on my bare feet! Every toe had a blister from a different pair of high-heeled sandals. I slid open the glass door and stepped into the den.

Frances and the kids looked up. ey were sitting on the floor around the coffee table. Frances didn’t sit on furniture if there was a floor available. A copy of Mother Earth News lay open in front of her. She had stuck lengths of uncooked spaghetti into balls of Play-Doh. e kidlets were busy sliding Froot Loops onto the spaghetti, sorting by color. I couldn’t believe they’d fallen for that old trick. Frances could convince children anything was a game, for about five minutes. Obviously some children were more gullible than others.

I walked into the kitchen and looked in the refrigerator. No surprises there. e meat loaf was made with tofu. Frances’s strong points as a na

Between bites I asked, “What did you mean when you said mine wasn’t the only plot?”

Without looking up from the magazine on the coffee table, Frances said, “I told you. I don’t know.”

“What would be the metaphorical firecracker in the metaphorical homemade cheese?”

She shrugged.

“Like, Sean dared Adam to hook up with me because I’m so oafish and dog-looking?”

“You are not dog-looking,” Frances said sternly. “Besides, a plot like that would involve a high level of organization. They would have to think it through carefully. None of you do that. Except Bill, of course, who thinks things through so carefully that he can’t take action. Like his father.” My spoon stopped in my mouth at the mention of my dad, who’d been the farthest person from my mind. I swallowed and shouted, “en what the hell kind of plot are you talking about?”

Frances didn’t even react when I cussed in front of her charges. She reasoned that making a big deal out of curse words drew attention to them and caused children to use them more. So she ignored them. I’m not sure this ploy worked, but then, she’d had an uphill battle with McGillicuddy and me. We lived next door to Mr. Vader, who could have written a dictionary of filth. She asked, calm as ever, “Have you thought Adam might really like you?” The hair on my arms stood up, just as if Adam were sitting behind me with his hand on my shoulder.

“No, I haven’t.” at would be seven kinds of awful, if Adam had agreed to pretend to get together with me because he really wanted to get together with me. My ploy to get Sean would be ruined. I might finally land Sean, like in my dreams. But knowing I’d broken Adam’s heart would be a downer and a distraction. Like making out in the movie theater, knowing the pink truck in the parking lot was on fire. My mother wanted me to be with Sean, but didn’t she want me to be happy?

Frances turned the page. “Open your eyes. And watch out for those boys.”

Wakeboarding that afternoon, I watched the boys until my eyeballs hurt from the sun glinting off the water. I could have sworn there was nothing to watch out for. Sean was a little warmer to me than usual—the way he always acted after he’d insulted me, like some friendliness here could make up for a lack of friendliness elsewhere.

Adam was very warm to me. While Sean drove, my brother wakeboarded, and Cameron spotted, Adam pulled me into his lap in the bow. He set his chin on my shoulder and rubbed his hands up and down my thighs. e best part of this, for the purpose of making Sean’s blood boil, was that Adam did it without comment, without expecting me to comment, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to act like my boyfriend.

e worst part of this, for the purpose of watching out for those boys, was that if my eyelids had been duct-taped open to my eyebrows, I still wouldn’t have been able to tell whether Adam liked me, or pretended to like me, or liked me but pretended he was only pretending.

e five of us pitched the wakeboards and life vests from the boat back into the warehouse. e Friday night party would start soon, so Sean, Cameron, and my brother headed for the houses. I ought to have been right behind them. I needed plenty of time to shower and primp and change clothes twenty times like girls were supposed to do before parties.

But I took Adam’s hand and held him back from the others. I whispered what had been bugging me all day. “Frances thinks you have a plot, other than the plot with me to make Sean and Rachel jealous.”

His eyes flew wide open, and the rest of him seemed to shrink back a bit. en he stood up straighter, and his brow went down. “Frances? I haven’t spoken to Frances in years. Plus she’s creepy.”

“Only because she’s always right,” I said. “And last night, something you said to Sean… Do you have a plot against me? Are you double-crossing me? He dared you to go out with the dog next door, and if you did, he’d give you your cute little girlfriend back?” He snorted, then seemed to have a hard time huffing out laughter, almost as if he were relieved. He snatched me to his ta

Right. I knew what he meant. Beautiful on the inside. I had saved a baby sparrow or two in my time. I was not someone he would want to hook up with, but a beautiful person. Hooray.

“Don’t ever let Sean convince you you’re not.” He glanced in the direction Sean had gone. “Let’s go for a sailboat ride.” I loved sailing. But if we went now, we’d be late for the party. “Can’t we do it tomorrow?”