Endless Summer

Dad grasped my hand in both of his. “Lori. Oh, my Lori.” He started to cry softly.

“Dad, I’m okay.” I patted his arm: there there.

“Trevor,” said Frances. Her hand was on Dad’s back. “Deep breaths.”

Dad sniffed a deep breath through his nose while Frances held his gaze and moved her hands in circles in the air in front of her, encouraging him to breathe therapeutically. e way they were acting, people at the hospital who didn’t know them might mistake them for a couple. A very odd couple, with Frances in her tie-dyed hippie costume and Dad in his lawyer costume from the office.

“Here,” I said, easing off the bed. “Lie down, Dad.”

He switched places with me, never loosening his grip on my hand. “I don’t want you to be scared because of this.”

“She won’t,” Frances said.

“I won’t,” I said.

“I want you out there wakeboarding again tomorrow,” he sobbed.

“I can’t, Dad. The doc said I’m not supposed to go swimming until my stitches come out in a few days.”

“Then I want you wakeboarding the day they come out. And do exactly what you were doing when you got hurt.” I thought about this. “It would be difficult to replicate.”

“Do you understand me?” he said, still crying.

“Shhh,” Frances said, patting his shoulder.

“Yeah, Dad,” I said, looking toward McGillicuddy in the doorway. He munched his Pop-Tart. I twirled my finger beside my ear: crazy. McGillicuddy nodded. At least I wasn’t the only sane person around here.

A nurse brought me some pills, which I took gladly because I didn’t want my brain to hurt like that again, ever. ey weren’t supposed to be strong enough to put me to sleep, but they did. Or it was the medicine combined with the adrenaline draining away. e fatigue from nearly drowning, touching bryozoa, being sobbed over by a couple of he-men, etc. I’d had such a busy day.

All I knew for sure was that I stretched out on the backseat of Dad’s car and slept on the way home. When we got there, I wasn’t moving. ey prodded me, but I could not see myself climbing the stairs to my room. I did not see why they couldn’t let me sleep in the car parked in the garage. The backseat felt delicious.

McGillicuddy carried me up the stairs, and Dad tucked me into bed. Ahhhhhhh, bed had never been such a relief. Dad and McGillicuddy spoke softly in the doorway.

Dad: “She didn’t even wake up. You be sure and come get her if there’s a fire.”

McGillicuddy: “A fire. Right, Dad.”

I laughed myself back to sleep. A fire. Really! In the last twenty-four hours, I’d been through everything bad I could imagine. What else could possibly happen?

“Lori, when we’re old enough, I want you to be my girlfriend.” Sean kissed me. With his mouth still on my mouth, he pulled me off the bow seat and down into the floorboard of the boat, out of the wind.

I broke the kiss to say, “I guess this means we’re old enou—”

He cut me off by kissing me. His tongue circled deep inside my mouth, and I opened for more. When I got bored with this (the idea of getting bored with making out still caused me to laugh, ho ho), I lifted my chin so he could kiss my neck. en I turned my head so he could kiss my ear. Wow, this was the best dream ever, and so long!

Suddenly anxious, I peered into the back of the boat to see whether the other boys were watching us. The boat was empty.

“Who’s driving?” I gasped.

“You are,” Sean said.

“Oh.” This made me a little nervous, but not nervous enough to wake up or anything. I turned my head so he could kiss my other ear.

“Listen,” he breathed. “What’s that?”

“The boat motor,” I murmured without thinking. “And Nickelback.”

He propped himself up on his forearms and cocked his head to hear better. “Actually, I think it’s JoJo.” The skull and crossbones dangled above my eyes.

“Adam!” I cried, sitting bolt upright in my bed. I peered over at the clock blaring “Too Little, Too Late.” No wonder the dream had lasted so long! My alarm had gone off, but I’d slept right through fifteen minutes of radio. e photo of my mother lay flat on the bedside table. McGillicuddy must have knocked it over by accident last night when he put me in bed.

“Stupid subconscious!” I slapped myself in the back of the head. “Ow!” e shock of the slap rippled through my brain and into the gash on my forehead. I cupped my hand over the stitches.

A soft knock sounded at the door. McGillicuddy leaned in without waiting for an answer. He glanced at the clock, then at me. “Breakfast is being served to the psych ward in the dining hall. You want me to send up an orderly to help you get out of bed?”

I stuck out my tongue at him. I didn’t mind psych ward jokes from McGillicuddy. He was the only one who understood. Except—

“Adam came to see you.”

I took in a sharp breath. “When?”

“Last night, and again this morning.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” I wailed.

“Because any other time in the history of your life, you would have snuck in my room and rearranged my sock drawer in revenge for waking you up. You know I need the argyles in the front.”

“Well, what’d he say?”

McGillicuddy gathered a year’s worth of wakeboarding mags and his copy of The Right Stuff and stacked them neatly on the floor so he could sit on the edge of my bed.

“Last night he was just checking on you. This morning he came over to say he’s taking the day off work. But he wanted you to know, he’s through.”

“He’s through? With what?” With Sean? Fighting with Sean?

“With you.”

Of course he was through with me. He’d told me as much while I bled in his lap yesterday. As long as I heard it with my own ears, I could hope I’d misread the whole situation. Hearing it from McGillicuddy made it real. Almost. “Are you making this up?”

“No. He’s really mad at you. I’ve never seen him this mad. Not even at Sean.” McGillicuddy thumbed through e Right Stuff to make sure I hadn’t gotten marshmallow on it. “But I want you to know some good will come out of your crash. It’s inspired me to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”

“Remove your own appendix?”

“Ask Tammy out.”

My head hurt. “Tammy? Why?”

“I think she’s been coming to the Vaders’ parties to see me. I know, I know, this seems as impossible to me as it does to you, but I really think she likes me.” I grunted a little with the increasing pain in my head. I didn’t want to tell him this, but it might save him some humiliation later. “McGillicuddy, you’re wrong. She’s been coming to the Vaders’ parties to see me. We’re friends.”

He squinted at me. “Why do you think so?”

“She told me so.”

“Couldn’t it be one of those schemes, like you and Adam are pulling on Sean? She’s pretending to be your friend so she can see me without admitting that’s why she’s at the party.”

“Tammy wouldn’t do that to me,” I said. My pulse began to race, and my head throbbed harder with every heartbeat. “What do you mean, one of those schemes like Adam and I are pulling on Sean?”

“I figure if you can brain yourself on a pontoon boat just to get a boy to ask you out, I can ask a girl out and brave a little rejection.” Now I winced against the throbbing in my head. “Adam told you I crashed just to get Sean to ask me out?”

“Yeah. He told me you’ve faked going out from the begi