Endless Summer

Suddenly I realized how tense I was, leaning forward and gripping the edge of the metal desk with both hands. I leaned back in the chair. is didn’t relax me any. I found myself staring up at the bulletin board over the desk. Tacked to it were business cards for boat sales reps, a diagram of an F/A-18 Hornet that Cameron had drawn when he was about ten (and I thought he was so impossibly old), the schedule for everybody who worked at the marina (Lori was under Sean, I noticed with a

I’d told Lori’s dad he couldn’t keep me from seeing Lori because I lived next door. When he’d said, “Not for long,” that’s what he must have meant. at’s what he was talking to my parents about right now.

They wouldn’t do that to me. Would they?

No, they wouldn’t. Not yet. Not just because Lori’s dad told them to.

But the threat was there. Last year when I was flunking chemistry, my mom started investigating schools. She’d asked Lori’s dad about it because he had a fraternity brother who’d gone to one, and who might be able to get me into a good one for those of us with ADHD, instead of one full of actual juvenile delinquents. is was my mother’s fear—that if she sent me away to clean up my act, I’d actually become more corrupted and learn to pick locks better. It was all the same to me. Prison was prison.

I’d brought up my chemistry grade by the end of the semester, though. I hadn’t improved my test scores, but the longer the class went on, the more our grade was based on lab. I was excellent at lab. Unlike every nerdy girl in the class and half the guys, I was not afraid of the Bunsen burner.

I’d worked my ass off for that C, all for nothing.

This office had no windows.

I jumped up from the tiny chair, kicked open the door, and escaped from my cell.

Around the side of the warehouse, I fished my football out of the bushes. I jogged about ten yards up the boat ramp, aimed carefully, and fired a pass at one of the huge metal doors.

BANG.

Bull’s-eye. I ran after the ball and stopped it before it rolled into the yard and down the hill into the lake. I jogged back up the ramp with it and let another pass fly.

BANG.

If Lori’s dad had found my parents in the warehouse and they were looking for me now, the noise would notify them of my whereabouts. I didn’t care. e more passes I threw, the better I felt.

BANG.

“Adam!” my dad roared. e sun was setting now. From where I stood on the ramp, the corner of the warehouse appeared to cut the huge orange sun exactly in half. My dad walked toward me out of that orange glow, like the devil. He hiked up the ramp and stopped near me, stroking his beard.

I can’t repeat in mixed company any of what he said to me. However, I can convey the general import of the message by replacing the word I shouldn’t have said in front of my mother with the word “monkey.” I hate monkeys.

“Son,” he said, “you monkeyed up.”

“I know.” I put off the rest of this conversation by ru

“Now, I’m not going to send you to military school just because Trevor McGillicuddy has his panties in a wad.”

“Thanks,” I said.

BANG.

He raised his voice. “But the reason I will send you is the reason your mama and I were discussing it in the first place. You have absolutely no monkeying self-control.

None.”

“Thanks for nothing.” I ran down the ramp to retrieve my football.

“at’s a prime monkeying example,” he shouted after me. “You’re in trouble and you’re still talking back. People like you end up in jail, son. Nobody is going to help you out then. Trevor’s already so mad at you he could spit, and I’m not wasting my boat money paying for a lawyer to defend you for a crime you’re likely guilty of anyway.”

I walked back up the ramp, tossing the football from hand to hand. I tucked it under one arm and slapped my dad on the back. “Your confidence in me is heartwarming.

Makes me want to return all the money I stole from the little old ladies and kick the heroin.” He gave me the same look he’d sent my way that morning in the kitchen. I had gone too far.

I raised both hands and one football. I had no defense and nothing else to say.

“Why can’t you stay the monkey away from her?” he burst.

“Because.” This was impossible to explain. I didn’t understand it myself. I put my hands down in defeat. “It’s Lori.”

“I know,” he said. Shockingly, he sounded halfway sympathetic.

“And she’s beautiful,” I went on.

He nodded.

I pointed the football through the trees, toward her house. “And she’s right there!”

“I know, son, and it’s going to earn you a tour through the ass end of the South’s finest secondary schools for monkey-ups.” I bounced the football on the side of my head in frustration. “What do you want me to do?” He pursed his lips and eyed me in the dusk. “Show me you have one iota of self-restraint.”

“I will,” I said quickly.

“Stay away from her.”

“Okay.”

“Keep your hands off her.”

“I’ll try.”

He scowled at me.

“I will,” I said.

He wiggled his fingers at me. “And it might help public relations with Lori’s pop if you put on a shirt and quit walking around here like sex on a stick.” I rolled my eyes. He did make me feel self-conscious about my bare chest, though. I wanted to fold my arms. Instead, I threw the football as hard as I could at the warehouse door.

BANG.

“Nice arm,” Dad called after me as I chased the football. “Ever thought about throwing against the rock wall of the house? You’re making a dent in my door.”

at was the point. I liked making a dent. I liked watching it grow bigger with every throw. I didn’t say this, though. As I walked toward him, spi

I batted his hand away. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” I yanked his beard.

He feinted toward me.

I bounced the football off his chest and caught it again. “I could so take you, old man.”

He chuckled and headed past me, up to the house. “You do what I said,” he called over his shoulder.

“I will.”

“I would hate to see you go.”

I watched him walk all the way up the yard, hands on his knees when he got to the steepest part, until he disappeared into the house.

en I looked toward Lori’s house again. It was big, but all I could see between the thick tree trunks was wooden corners and white lights. It looked exactly like it always had from over here, but I felt so much different about it now.

In my earliest memory it was a scary place, because Lori and McGillicuddy’s mother had died. Later it was a mysterious and wonderful place, like the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I didn’t go to their house often, but when I did, McGillicuddy’s room was full of model airplanes still intact because he had no older brothers to break them on purpose, and Lori was liable to pop around the corner, treating me to a little thrill.

Lately I’d hardly dared go over there because I was sure Lori would know I liked her. When I did have an excuse to visit McGillicuddy, I walked through the halls holding my breath. e little thrill had grown into something much stronger, something that made me want to steal Lori away from McGillicuddy and get her alone. And now…

Now I just hoped she hadn’t gotten in too much trouble.

Keep my hands off her. Right. I waved fireflies away from my face and threw the football at the warehouse as hard as I could.

BANG.