Endless Summer

But as I looked into his eyes, I saw he was already gone, glancing up the stairs to the marina. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’d been flirting with me. I knew better. He treated all girls this way.

He slid out of my grasp. He may have had to shake one hand violently to extricate it from my friendly vise-like grip. “See you later, Junior,” he threw over his shoulder at me as he climbed the steps to the marina.

When we were kids, he’d started calling my brother McGillicuddy because he thought our last name was such a riot. It caught on with the other Vader boys, and Cameron had told everyone at school. I’m not sure anyone in town knew my brother as Bill. ankfully, everyone in town knew me as Lori. e names Sean had made up for me were too long to be practical nicknames: McGillicuddy Junior, McGillicuddy the Younger, McGillicuddy Part Deux, McGillicuddy Returns, McGillicuddy Strikes Back, McGillicuddy’s Buddy.

You see what I was up against? Obviously he still saw me as my brother’s little sister. I sighed, watching him climb the steps, muscles moving underneath the tan skin of his legs. He was immune to the delicious temptation of my pink tank top. But I had another trick up my sleeve, or lack thereof. Later that afternoon, when we went wakeboarding, I would initiate Stage Two: Bikini.

e dock dipped again as Adam jumped from the boat. I turned to greet him. We did our secret handshake, which we’d been adding to for years: the basic shake (first grade), upside down (second grade), with a twist (fourth grade), high five (fifth grade), low five (seventh grade), pinky swear (eighth grade), elbows touching (ninth grade).

We’d been known to do the secret handshake when we passed in the halls at school, and on the sidelines during Adam’s football games.

Everybody on the girls’ te

But Adam had gotten together with Rachel a month before. Ever since I’d heard a rumor that she didn’t want her boyfriend doing the secret handshake with “that ‘ho next door,” I’d tried to cool it in public. I mean, if I’d had a boyfriend, I wouldn’t have wanted him doing a secret handshake with anybody but me, especially if he looked like Adam.

Because Adam looked basically like Sean. Up close and in daylight, you’d never mistake them for each other, especially now that they were older. eir facial features were different. At a distance or in the dark, all bets were off.

Adam’s hair was longer than Sean’s and always in his eyes, but you couldn’t tell this when they were both windblown in the extreme, like now. If you happened to be watching them from your bedroom window as they got in a fight and beat the crap out of each other at the edge of their yard where their mom couldn’t see them from their house—not that I would ever do such a thing—you could tell them apart only because Sean was more filled out and a little taller, since he was two years older. Also, they walked differently: Sean cruised suavely, while Adam bounced like the ball that got away from you and led you into the street after it.

But what I always looked for to tell them apart instantly, when I could see it, was Adam’s skull-and-crossbones pendant on a leather cord. I’d bought the pendant from a bubble gum machine when we were twelve. In one of my many failed attempts over the years to become more girl-like, I’d been trying for a Miley Cyrus pendant for myself. The last thing I wanted was a skull and crossbones. I’d given it to Adam because it was made for him.

Suddenly I realized I was standing on the hot wood of the dock, still touching elbows with Adam, staring at the skull-and-crossbones pendant. And when I looked up into his light blue eyes, I saw that he was staring at my neck. No. Down lower.

“What’cha staring at?” I asked.

He cleared his throat. “Tank top or what?” is was his seal of approval, as in, Last day of school or what? or, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders or what? Hooray! He wasn’t Sean, but he was built of the same material. This was a good sign.

I pumped him for more info, to make sure. “What about my tank top?”

“You’re wearing it.” He looked out across the lake, showing me his profile. His cheek had turned bright red under his tan. I had embarrassed the wrong boy. Damn, it was back to the football T-shirt for me.

No it wasn’t, either. I couldn’t abandon my plan. I had a fish to catch.

“Look,” I told Adam, as if he hadn’t already looked. “Sean’s leaving at the end of the summer. Yeah, yeah, he’ll be back next summer, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to compete once he’s had a taste of college life and sorority girls. It’s now or never, and desperate times call for desperate tank tops.” Adam opened his mouth to say something. I shut him up by raising my hand. Imitating his deep boy-voice, I said, “I don’t know why you want to hook up with that jerk.” We’d had this conversation whenever we saw each other lately. I said in my normal voice, “I just do, okay? Let me do it, and don’t get in my way. Stay out of my net, little dolphin.” I bumped his hip with my hip. Or tried to, but he was a lot taller than me. I actually hit somewhere around his mid-thigh.

He folded his arms, stared me down, and pressed his lips together. He tried to look grim. I could tell he was struggling not to laugh. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?”

“Dolphins don’t live in the lake,” he said matter-of-factly, as if this were the real reason. e real reason was that the man-child within him did not want to be called

“little” anything. Boys were like that.

I shrugged. “Fine, little brim. Little bass.”

He walked toward the stairs.

“Little striper.”

He turned. “What if Sean actually asked you out?”

I didn’t want to be teased about this. It could happen! “You act like it’s the most remote poss—”

“He has to ride around with the sunroof open just so he can fit his big head in the truck. Where would you sit?”

“In his lap?”

A look of disgust flashed across Adam’s face before he jogged up the stairs, his weight making the weathered planks creak with every step. I wasn’t really worried he would ruin things for me and Sean, though. Adam and I had always gotten along great. When the older boys picked on us, we stood up for each other as best we could. e idea of me hooking up with Sean bothered him simply because he hated Sean with the white heat of a thousand suns, and the feeling was mutual.

A few minutes later, just as I was helping the clueless captain of a ski boat shove off, I heard footsteps on the stairs behind me. Sean alert! Sensory overload! But no, I saw from the skull-and-crossbones pendant that it was Adam.

On cue, Sean puttered past us in a powerful boat, blasting Crossfade instead of Nickelback for a little variety, looking so powerful himself in cool sunglasses, his ta

I’d forgotten all about Adam behind me until he tickled my ribs. In fact, I was so startled, I would have fallen in the lake if he hadn’t caught me. is was the second time ever a boy had touched my bare tummy, and something of an anticlimax.

Don’t get me wrong—the attention and his fingers on my skin were very pleasant. But he was just being friendly, brotherly. He was totally devoted to Rachel, and he knew I was totally devoted to Sean. It was like craving a doughnut and getting french fries. You were left with an odd taste in your mouth, and you still wanted that doughnut afterward.