Endless Summer

“Oh, God,” Lori said without looking at me, “what are they thinking, leaving the two of us alone out here on the dock together? We might talk or something.”

“That would be awful,” I said. “I might give you a hickey.”

She laughed, still watching for Cameron’s start instead of looking at me. “Just by talking to me?”

“I can talk really dirty. You’d be surprised.”

She turned red. I hoped her dad couldn’t see her blush from that distance. My mom had cracked open a bottle of champagne to celebrate him finally asking out Frances.

Maybe that would put him in a better mood about the hood next door making his daughter blush.

“How do you like Frances dating your dad?” I asked.

“I was excited about the possibility of getting a new mother, until she started acting like one.”

“Oh.”

“Speaking of bizarre dates,” Lori said, “I’ve been meaning to tell you something all week.” She was done with me. She was dating someone else. Maybe that’s why I’d turned shy around her the past few days. I’d been afraid of this, and I didn’t want to hear it.

Before she could spill to me, I said, “Here he comes.” Cameron barreled down the grassy hill. He leaped over the big cooler. Lori gripped the trigger on the hose and released the pressure that had been building up, catching him in the side of the face with a hard stream even from thirty feet away. He put up both hands to block the water and tripped over his own feet, nearly falling as the grass gave way to the sandy beach.

“Good shot,” I told her.

“Tomorrow night I’m going out with Parker Buchanan.”

Cameron jumped onto the rope. His momentum carried him far out over the lake. My stomach felt like it was going with him, swinging over a bottomless pit.

I waited until the precise moment to power the football out to him. He let go of the rope at the apex of his swing just as the ball hit him in the chest. He reached his arms around it a fraction of a second too late. The ball bounced off him and plopped into the lake at the same time he did.

Everyone made disappointed noises. Only Frances clapped for him, and when he surfaced, she called through cupped hands, “Good try, Cameron.” Frances had always employed positive reinforcement with kids, which is why my family found her so weird.

I took advantage of the commotion. Still watching Cameron floundering in the water, I asked Lori, “You’re breaking up with me?” If I’d been looking into her green eyes as I asked this, I probably would have broken down. As it was, only my voice broke. I hoped the splashing covered it up.

“No, of course not!” She moved her hand toward me like she would touch me, but she stopped herself in time. Her hand stayed there in the hot air between us. “I’m going ahead with my plan to date boys more insidious than you.” Her hand flexed, fingers splayed, hoping I would hold off until she finished. I wondered what she thought I would do.

“I figured Parker wasn’t as bad as Kevin Ye,” she went on, “because he has not been to jail. Yet.” Cameron waded out of the water and tossed the ball back to me. I dried it on my shirt. Ever since my dad made the “sex on a stick” comment, I’d been careful not to expose my chest, even when boarding and swimming. Sean told me I was getting a farmer’s tan.

I realized too late that I was exposing my belly as I dried my shirt. Lori watched. I glanced toward the oak tree, but her dad was leaning forward, talking to Frances with his hand on her knee. We had fallen into a parallel universe where people who never touched each other were suddenly in love, and people who were in love weren’t allowed to touch each other.

Nobody paid attention to Lori and me anyway. McGillicuddy ran down the hill. He was so big and gained so much momentum that he almost didn’t leave the ground in time to jump over the cooler. His toes grazed it as he leaped. Lori squeezed the trigger on the hose. He’d turned away so the water didn’t catch him in the face. She sprayed him in the back of the neck, droplets of water shooting out in all directions like an explosion. He ran that way with his face averted until he hit the beach, then caught the rope and swung out over the water, a lot farther than Cameron had gone.

I waited until the perfect moment to fire the ball at him. We made it look easy. He caught it and dropped into the water in an enormous ca

Everyone cheered for him. He surfaced triumphantly and tossed the wet ball back to me.

“Great arm!” my dad yelled. He toasted me with his champagne flute.

“ere’s no way they’ll start him on the varsity team,” Sean called as he moved from the shade of the tree up the hill to take his turn. “Adam won’t remember the plays.

He won’t remember what team they’re playing. You can’t have a quarterback with ADHD.”

“We’ll see,” I yelled back. You asshole, I thought. Then I turned to Lori. “I can’t believe you’re going ahead with this plan after I asked you not to.”

“Face forward and do not look at me.”

I didn’t like people telling me what to do, even Lori. But in this case, she was right. I faced forward and stared out over the lake. In the hot evening with most boats docked for the night, the surface was glassy, reflecting the sunset. No one would have suspected millions of critters lived underneath, churning the water with their complex lives. Just like no one would have looked at Lori and me then, standing side by side on the dock with a football and a garden hose, and thought we were discussing our whole future together.

“is is exactly why I’m going ahead with the plan,” she said. “We’ve hardly exchanged two words since Sunday night. Now it’s Friday and we have no indication that my dad will give in any time soon. Your parents have threatened you with military school. We have to do something. So I asked out Parker for tomorrow night. He knows it’s a favor. We’re only going to the movies. I’ll pick him up at his grandparents’ house around six thirty—”

“You’re picking him up?” I asked. “In what, a boat?”

“No, silly, in my dad’s Beamer. I got my license.”

“You did?” I couldn’t help exclaiming.

My dad looked up from his conversation with my mom and eyed me.

“Yes!” Lori said. “I’m sorry I forgot to tell you, with everything else going on. Actually I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t allowed to speak to you. Whatever.” I should have felt happy for her for getting her license. e day I got my license a month ago was one of the happiest days of my life, second only to Lori’s birthday a week ago, when we’d gotten together. On my own birthday, I’d dumped my dad out of my truck at the marina and driven all over town for hours by myself.

But I didn’t feel happy for her. I felt jealous. “I wanted to be the one to take you to get your license.” She nodded. “I know. I’m sorry. I would have loved to take my street test in your pink truck, but I didn’t know when my dad would let me see you again, and I didn’t want to wait forever. Sean drove me.”

I looked at her. I knew my dad was watching us, and I didn’t care. A soft breeze blew the white-blonde hair around her face into her eyes. With both hands she gathered all her hair into a ponytail in back, twisted it, and pulled it forward over one shoulder. I wished she would magically produce a clip from her bikini bottoms and pin it up.

All of this would have been so much easier if I had an ugly girlfriend.

I knew she felt guilty when she went on. “My dad had a big case this week, and of course Frances was keeping the Harbarger kidlets. I begged your mom to let somebody off from the marina—anybody. Finally she said Sean could take me because he was just hanging around the showroom and hitting on the customers anyway.” I thought, Better them than you. I looked angrily toward Sean.

He stood on the grass with his hands on his hips, surveying the course. He didn’t want McGillicuddy to show him up. “McGillicuddy and Cameron wet the grass when they came out of the lake,” he complained. “It will be slippery.”