Endless Summer

That was okay. I wakeboarded the whole way over, which helped me get out some aggression. Cameron was driving. He kept trying to run me into shore or over big logs floating in the lake. If I were ten, I would have crashed. But I was sixteen, and I had his number. The lake was mine.

e girl was not. At Rachel’s we swam, and we boarded, and we ate, and it would have been a lot of fun if I hadn’t been watching Lori the whole time, trying to look like I wasn’t watching her, wishing I could get her alone.

Rachel’s grandmother already liked me. But she liked Sean more, because he complimented her on her peach cobbler (which was awesome, almost as good as my mom’s, but it never would have occurred to me to compliment an old lady on her peach cobbler) and then insisted on helping her clean up the kitchen. He was really turning on the charm with her, but not with Rachel. us Rachel’s grandmother would ask her a million times a day, Why don’t you date that nice boy Sean? and Rachel would not want to admit that she had in fact broken up with Sean, and Sean had not asked her out again. I knew how Sean worked.

Late in the afternoon, the other guys went inside to watch the Braves game on TV with Rachel’s granddad. I should have been there, and I would catch flak from them later for not being there. However, I was not going to miss a chance to get Lori alone. I lay with her, Rachel, and Tammy on the pier, catching the steeply angled rays of the sun.

Rachel let out a satisfied sigh. “I’m so glad Adam called me and told me to have y’all over.” Lori looked over at Rachel. Lori had her shades on, but I could imagine the shocked look in her eyes.

Rachel wore shades too. However, she was sitting next to me, because we weren’t ba

Lori didn’t say a word. She turned and gazed out over the broad lake. But I knew she was wondering how deep my relationship with Rachel went behind the scenes. is moved me a long way toward letting go of my anger at Lori about Parker. Now she had some idea how I felt.

After a pause, she gestured offshore. “I am going to swim out to that island. Adam is going to swim out to that island also.”

“I am?” I didn’t like being told what to do. But of course I would have swum across the Atlantic to see her. I pulled off my T-shirt, the first time my chest had been bare in a week.

She did the smallest double take but quickly looked away from me again, toward the girls, and pretended to ignore me. “is is all purely for calisthenics, you understand.”

“Of course,” Rachel and Tammy said.

“So I do not want you to look around, see us missing, and sound the alarm that we have been eaten by bryozoa.”

“Bryozoa eats plankton and microscopic stuff in the water,” Rachel pointed out.

“Clearly you did not watch the same space-alien movies I watched growing up.” Lori pointed at Tammy. “And as for you, missy?”

“Yes?” Tammy asked drily. It sounded like she was almost as used to Lori’s plans as I was.

“I can’t trust my brother to keep his mouth shut about this,” Lori said. “We have to make sure he doesn’t see me.”

“I have an idea,” Tammy said in the halting speech and overenthusiastic delivery of someone reading from a cue card. “Why don’t I entice your brother into a dark corner and make out with him to distract him?”

“That is a great idea,” Lori said in the same tone.

Tammy stood and dashed up the dock toward the house. At least some people didn’t have to be dragged into helping Lori with her plans.

“That leaves me with Sean,” Rachel said doubtfully, but I could tell she was trying not to smile.

“And Cameron!” Lori reminded her. “Knock yourself out. Or… I guess you want to get rid of them. I know exactly how to make them forget you exist, if they haven’t already with the Braves game on. Give them a bowl of Fritos and some dip. Always works for me.”

“Wow, it’s that easy? anks, Lori.” Rachel got up and walked toward the house more slowly than Tammy had, watching the windows, undoubtedly hoping Sean would appear, looking for her. No such luck. I knew she held out hope Sean would throw her a bone, and I knew he wouldn’t. I knew exactly how she felt.

“Race ya,” Lori said. Before I could respond, she was gone. She splashed into the water and crawled at a good clip toward the tiny island three hundred yards from the dock.

I dove in after her, caught up with her in a few strokes, passed her, turned over, and did the backstroke right in front of her, kicking up big splashes in her face just to piss her off. I righted myself, treading water, looking for her.

She wasn’t there.

“Sucker!” came from a long way off. I saw her wet blonde head halfway to the island already. She must have passed me by swimming underwater. Now she sank under the surface again.

I swam as fast as I could after her. As I moved nearer to the island, I saw what a genius Lori was and how brilliant a choice the island was for a place to slip away from McGillicuddy. It was possibly even more masterful than my secret make-out hideout. Rachel’s grandparents’ house was at the end of their neighborhood. Beyond it, the shore stretched around endless bends of red mud cliffs and pine trees, with not a soul in sight. e island sat in front of those cliffs, at the edge of the busy river cha

I touched bottom and walked through the sand, stirring up bits of mica that glittered like stars in the water. Looking back toward Rachel’s grandparents’ house and their pier, I watched both disappear behind the trees on the island. Now Lori and I couldn’t be seen unless somebody came looking for us.

Lori sat on the sandy, glittery beach of the island, directly in front of the DANGER sign, waiting for me. I waded toward her.

“Why have you been ignoring me all week?” she called. Her voice sounded a

“I haven’t been ignoring you,” I said. “I’ve been obeying my parents.”

“ere’s a first time for everything, I guess.” She squinted at me and put up one hand to shield her eyes. A shadow covered half her face. e sun was peeking around my back and blinding her.

I held my ground, squishing my toes in the glittering sand, and made small movements back and forth, just to bug her. e sun was hidden by my body. en it hit her full force in the eyes. Then it went into hiding again.

She closed one eye. “I don’t buy it. You’ve been avoiding me. You’re still punishing me for going out with Parker. And that doesn’t make any sense to me, because I sent McGillicuddy over to tell you the Parker thing did not work with my dad at all. McGillicuddy came back and said you just shrugged!” I shrugged again. “How could you and I have talked about it without somebody seeing us?”

“You managed our trip into the woods okay.”

“And we got busted.” Since her eyes were watering, I figured she’d had enough of my game with the sun. I sank down in the water in front of her and leaned back on my hands in the sand.

“I guess I’ve been expecting more out of Mr. Daredevil, Mr. Devil-May-Care.” She sat up straight and looked me dead in the eye. “I’m so glad you finally called Rachel and arranged this excuse for us to see each other today.”