Endless Summer

However, as I had not, I found the question interesting. Empowering, even. People didn’t consider me a child anymore, or a tomboy. ey considered me Trouble in High Heels (or, at the moment, flip-flops—but I did own heels now). Maybe being an underage sex goddess wasn’t so bad. I fought the urge to pat my boobs underneath my bikini and test whether they’d grown.

“Adam told Mom you didn’t do it,” Cameron prompted me.

I blinked, realizing Cameron and I had paused on the stairs, facing each other. I galloped down them again, asking him over my shoulder, “Why’s your mom so mad, then?”

“Mom never believes Adam,” Cameron said. “And Adam didn’t make it easier on himself.” We’d reached the bottom of the steps. He nodded to the speedboat the boys used as a chaser when they made deliveries. “You drive the fifteen-thousand-dollar boat and I’ll drive the fifty-thousand-dollar, brand-new one. Sound okay?”

“Fine,” I muttered, stepping into the chaser boat. I did need to practice driving, even if it was a boat rather than a car. Every bit helped. I wanted to take my driving test this week—as soon as I could get off work for a few hours, drag a licensed driver with me, and convince someone to trust me with their insured vehicle. Adam and I had intended that licensed driver to be him and that insured vehicle to be his truck, but it looked like we’d blown any chance of that.

Or he had. As I puttered through the wharf behind Cameron’s boat, I felt bitter that I couldn’t grin and wave to a hot Adam at the gas pump. Hot as in obscenely good-looking with his shirt off, and hot as in an air temperature of eighty degrees at seven thirty in the morning. I couldn’t risk his mom seeing me flirting with him—not that he himself seemed to comprehend such concepts as subtlety and tactics.

At least I didn’t have to stare at the highway bridge all day like he did, with LORI LOVES ADAM freshly painted among the other graffiti of love. Last night it had seemed daring and romantic. Now I wished the words weren’t there to taunt Adam—in red, no less—or to irk our parents further.

I throttled up to keep pace with Cameron as he arced to the right, or left, or whatever. Upstream. Away from the highway bridge. And I pondered what Cameron had said: Adam didn’t make it easier on himself. What had Adam done?

I couldn’t ask Cameron about this at the house where we delivered the boat. We had to make nice with the customer. We made nice so well that Cameron came away with money, which he pocketed. en he saw me watching him and guiltily handed me a five without showing me what the other bills were. To determine whether I was being cheated (highly likely), I would consult with Adam later on the etiquette of sharing these tips. If I was ever allowed to speak to him again.

I couldn’t ask Cameron what had transpired this morning between Mrs. Vader and Adam when we launched the chaser boat either, because the motor was too loud. And when we idled it back to the wharf, Mrs. Vader stood in the office door, motioning to me with both hands above her head and phone message slips between her fingers.

“You worried a lot of people last night,” she said as she handed me the slips and walked into the show-room, leaving me alone in the office. I examined the messages.

For: Junior

Taken by: Sean

Time: 8-ish

From: Tammy

Message: I was at your house with Bill last night when you didn’t show up. I take it you’re still alive or Bill would have called me. Are we still on for this afternoon?

at slip was scrawled as if Sean couldn’t care less whether I could read it (surprise). e next message, however, he’d taken neatly, as if afraid of offending his ex-girlfriend when I didn’t get the gist.

For: Junior

Taken by: Sean

Time: 8:16 a.m.

From: Rachel

Message: Girlfriend, your dad called me last night looking for you and woke me up! I was worried about you! Tammy is still bringing me over to wakeboard this afternoon and I will kill Adam for you if you want me to! Your dad is whack!!!

I called both chicks back to confirm our wakeboarding date and let them know I was alive. Hanging up quickly so I didn’t get run off the phone by Mrs. Vader before my break time was up, I turned my attention to the message that really mattered.

For: Lori

Taken by: D. Vader

Time: 8:30 a.m.

From: Frances

Message: Call me.

Frances answered the phone just as the machine picked up. She sounded out of breath. “Harbargers’ residence.”

“You’ve got to talk Dad down for me,” I whispered into the phone.

“I don’t think I can do that, Lori. Excuse me.” More faintly, with her mouth away from the receiver, she called, “Alvin, not on the cat. No, sir. Let kitty go.” A thump sounded loud enough that I held the phone away from my ear, and even at that distance I could hear horrific cat noises.

en she came back, but after I heard what she had to say, I wished she hadn’t. “Your father was terribly upset last night, Lori, and rightly so. He thinks you and Adam aren’t mature enough to handle the responsibility of being alone together, and I support him in that decision.”

“What’s the matter with you?” I demanded. “You sound like some kind of authority figure. Is someone making you say these things? Are you being held against your will? Tap once on the receiver for kidnappers and twice for spies.”

“This is no laughing matter.”

“It sure the hell isn’t. Any other time you would have talked some sense into Dad for me, but now you refuse because you’re sleeping with the enemy.”

“Lori!” she exclaimed, sounding genuinely appalled at my jab at her for going on a date with my dad yesterday. Not much appalled Frances—not that she let on, anyway

—so I actually squirmed in the office chair as she scolded me. “That is a completely inappropriate comment.”

“No, Sleeping with the Enemy is a 1990s Julia Roberts movie,” I backtracked. I’d never seen it the whole way through, but during puberty Sean had been very fond of the bathtub scene and had subjected the rest of us to it over and over. “Your role as my na

“We have no such thing,” she said haughtily, like an ex-na

“Wait,” I said. “What do you mean, Adam needs to—”

Frances hung up.

I stared at the phone in my hand. A boat horn honked outside. Cameron idled a sparkling new boat around the chaser boat. I galloped down the steps to the wharf and leaped into the driver’s seat of the chaser. Before switching on the engine, I shouted through cupped hands to Cameron, “What did you mean when you said Adam didn’t make it easier on himself this morning?”

Cameron shrugged. “For starters, when he first came in this morning, he said to my mom, ‘You’re up early.’ is time we’re going to the left.” I could have sworn he pointed to the right as he said this, and he roared off.

Over the course of the day, I was able to drag more information out of Cameron and piece together the rest of Adam’s defiant act, full of sassy one-liners he would not have uttered if he were trying to get out of trouble. He’d even said [cuss word you never, ever say in front of your mother]!

Cameron shared this last tidbit late in the day as we idled into the wharf after making our final delivery. Down on the floating dock, Adam finished topping off a boater’s tank and straightened with the gas nozzle in his hand in time to watch us pass.