Endless Summer

“Well, maybe he just can’t read Spanish.” Adam tracked Reggie’s path until he was looking at me again. “Miniskirt or what?” He did not sound appreciative as he said this. He sounded bitter.

“Or what?” I exclaimed. “In case you missed this when I explained it very carefully last night, I am pretending to be on a date with Parker, and I am dressed accordingly.”

“Oh, yeah? You never wore a miniskirt when you went out on a date with me.”

“I never went out on a date with you!”

“What do you call last Saturday night? You wore flipflops and my jean cutoffs.”

I huffed out my exasperation. “I call that hanging out all day at the festival on the lake, then spray painting our names on the bridge. Miniskirts are not appropriate attire for crawling around public structures. Somebody could look up my skirt and see my sexy panties.”

“If you tell me you are wearing sexy panties right now, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” I wasn’t challenging him. I was reminding him that his anger did not match anything he was actually going to do, and his own mouth was his biggest enemy.

He glared at me for a few seconds as my words sank in. en he sat back against the seat, let out a huge sigh, and fished in his pocket. He brought out his lighter and flicked it, watching the flame. “You didn’t even wear a miniskirt for that couple of weeks when you were pretending to date me.”

“That’s because you were taking me mud riding!” I pointed out. “Besides, I did wear a miniskirt for the first Vader party of the year.” It was even the same miniskirt I was wearing now, the only one I owned. It was my go-to outfit for intrigue.

He nodded. “You didn’t wear it to the party for my sake. You were trying to hook up with Sean.” I banged my head against the driver’s side window—on purpose, to emphasize my frustration, but a little harder than I’d intended. “Again with the Sean,” I said.

“Again with the Sean,” he agreed self-righteously.

Without raising my head from its resting place against the window, I said, “You’re not supposed to be jealous of Sean right now, Adam. You’re supposed to be jealous of Parker.”

“Oh, go ahead and make an ADHD joke,” he said. “Go ahead.”

“Adam!” I shouted. “I do not make ADHD jokes about you. Sean does that. I am your friend.” He looked out the passenger side window. “Is that what you are now?” he said to the glass.

“I don’t know what to say to you, Adam,” I told his back and his golden brown curls, which were getting longer and looked like he was grooming them about as often as he was shaving, i.e., never. “You’re determined to be mad at me no matter what.”

His shoulders rose and fell slowly with a deep breath. Still looking out the window, he said, “Tell me about your panties.” I was going to tell him the sexy panties were a joke. en it occurred to me that sexy panties were my friend. e whole thing might backfire on me if he believed I wore this mysterious lingerie for Parker. But I was hoping I’d made him feel sheepish enough about the ridiculous hand-up-the-skirt scenario. All that was left was to get Adam back in my corner. I did this by waving imaginary sexy panties at him.

“ey are red lace,” I said. “See-through. ey are those boy shorts, do you know what I mean? ey cut across my butt. ey’re kind of uncomfortable to sit on, actually.” I made this up based on my last glance into the window of the lingerie shop as I walked toward the sporting goods store. In reality I was wearing Powerpuff Girls panties I’d had since I was twelve.

Adam totally bought my story, though. He turned toward me with his eyes wide, but little frown lines remained between his brows. He flicked his lighter and held his thumb on the button so the flame burned steadily. He dipped his head to examine my thighs sticking out of my miniskirt. He was imagining the phantom panties. His gaze traveled up to my Slinky Cleavage-Revealing Top. Finally his eyes met mine. ey did not look friendly, exactly. I would not have asked him to borrow twenty dollars just then. They looked… lustful?

Yes, this was a lustful look, I was pretty sure, judging from the way my body answered. is look lit fuses in my heart and left trails of gunpowder down my limbs for the fire to burn along.

I wiggled on the seat, emphasizing that my imaginary lace boy shorts were cutting into my butt cheeks.

Adam’s mouth dropped open.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. I jumped, sure that my heart knocking against my chest in response to Adam’s lustful thoughts was going to kill me.

But it was only McGillicuddy, still sitting on the truck, knocking on the hood. en he twirled his finger in the air: Wrap it up. He was sweet to signal us without looking at us, so he could still tell Dad truthfully (sort of ) that he hadn’t seen us together. I would have felt overwhelmed with sisterly love for him at that moment if he hadn’t been disobeying my direct order to help me change Dad’s mind. He was guarding my fake date like a prisoner of war.

“Are you still mad at me?” I asked Adam.

He worked his jaw, still staring a hole through me, but he didn’t say a word. He flicked his lighter again.

“Fine.” I opened the driver’s door and slid out of the cab very, very slowly, letting my skirt ride up waaaaaaay too high to escape the notice of the parking lot. I calculated the precise height at which it would reveal the super-sexiness of Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup and stopped there, so that my phantom sex panties remained forever my secret.

“Lori—,” Adam growled.

I jumped down from the cab and slammed the door. Ha! Try that teen soap-opera business on me, would he? I was way ahead of him. I had stepped up my MTV intake for precisely this reason.

As I passed McGillicuddy, I called, “You and I are going to have a talk when we get home, young man.” He glared at me. “Are you sure you want to ride home with Parker after what he did?”

“He didn’t do anything, as Adam will tell you. Both of you were taken in by a ru

“Parker, I am so sorry,” I gushed as soon as I’d closed us safely inside the car and locked the doors. “I know you’ve met them both before at some point, but in case you’ve forgotten, that’s my boyfriend, Adam, whom we’re trying to get me back together with, and that’s my brother. ey know about the plan, but their friend told them that you—” I took a deep breath. I’d just been boasting about my panties to Adam, but I couldn’t even bring myself to tell Parker what the ruckus was about. It was so embarrassing, not to mention far-fetched.

Or was it? According to the rumors, the old hand-up-the-skirt ploy wouldn’t have been new to Parker. However, it definitely didn’t go with the vibe I’d gotten from him since I picked him up for this date. He’d put his arm around me when I’d asked him to in the theater, yes, but he hadn’t tried to go down my shirt, which was standard eighth grade fare in the back row of the movie theater (or so I gathered—not that I knew this from personal experience), and which I wouldn’t have put past him. I’d been willing to take the risk in the name of getting Adam back.

Parker said in a small voice, “Could you get me out of here?”

I looked over at him, his dark hair gelled just so, his shoulders broad in a preppy pink shirt that no male in town would have been caught dead in but that somehow worked on the Birmingham boy. A lot of girls said he had a mesmerizing stare that made them want to take their bras off, but to me it had always looked a lot like bug eyes, and right now he was staring bug-eyed at Adam and McGillicuddy way up in the cab of the truck. They glared right back down at him.