Twenty Boy Summer (10 page)

fourteen

As Frankie drifts in and out of an afternoon sun-nap on the blanket beside me, I read the same paragraph in my book about a hundred times, absorbing nothing. I will myself to think about something else.
My book has three hundred and one pages. Where will we go for dinner? Wow, sand is sparkly!
But Sam invades my thoughts -- thoughts that have become dangerous and need little encouragement toward misbehavior.

His smile.
Stop it, Anna!

His green eyes.
Focus, focus!

The way he says, "Anna Abby from New Yawk."

Do they have strawberry banana smoothies at the smoothie shop? I bet he's got that tan all year. Does he have a girlfriend? Maybe. Maybe one from every state. A collection of virgin tourists just waiting for it to be special.

I think about the girl in the mirror from when Frankie and I went bathing-suit shopping. When I agreed to the contest, I was half joking, all for Frankie's benefit. Besides, I can't get involved with anyone out here. Attached. All those words and feelings and intentions tangling into something more wild and confused than my windblown hair --
no,
thank you. The last boy who got me tangled up that way died.

The thought of Matt squeezes my insides again. I rub my eyes and stare at the water in front of our secluded, off-limits beach where sharks, undercurrents, and boys may or may not be waiting to drag us out to sea.

Shhh, ahhh. Shhh, ahhh.

I concentrate. I clear my head. I am the master of my thoughts. My head is empty. I am floating. I am a masterful, empty-headed, floating feather on the wind.

Shhh, ahhh.

Did Sam say we should come by for smoothies tonight, or tomorrow?

I give up.

I need to get off this beach, back to the quiet cool of the house. I shove my book back into the bag and wake up Frankie.

"Let's go back. I'm hungry." I rub her shoulder gently, feeling heat rise fast from her pink skin. "Frank, wake up. You're really hot."

She stirs and reaches up to tie her top. "I know," she says. "I think this suit was the best idea I had all year."

"No, I mean, you're
really
hot. Your skin is burning up."

When she sits up, her back looks spray-painted hot pink.

"Didn't you put on sunblock before we left the house?" I ask.

"Mom made me do it yesterday. But why would I want to block out the sun two days in a row?" She twists back and forth like a fish on the shore to get a look at her back. "I need to get a base going so I don't burn later in the week."

"You're already burned," I say. "I can't believe you're not in pain."

"I'm fine." She stands to shake the sand from our blanket. "Quit being so paranoid. You could use a little color yourself, Casper."

We walk the beach back to the house, taking a few videos of the sights and vendors closer to the property in case Red and Jayne want to see more.

They're reading on the back porch when we get back. "Tough day?" Red asks as we drop our stuff on the floor and kick off our flip-flops. "I didn't expect you guys back until --
Frankie,
what did you do to yourself?"

"I fell asleep," she says, shrugging. "But I'm totally fine. Just tired." She flops on the couch and closes her eyes before Jayne can fully inspect the damage and regurgitate another sun safety lecture.

"It's the same thing every year," Jayne says, shaking her head. "Anna, I'm putting this lidocaine gel in the fridge. She won't ask me, but you can give it to her later when she can't even get into her pajamas." Jayne holds up a family-size bottle of blue goo.

"Should we cancel our reservations and eat at home tonight?" Red asks. But Jayne says Frankie wouldn't pass up lobster for anything, so we spend an hour playing cards in the kitchen before waking her up for dinner.

Frankie's clearly suffering but, as Jayne predicted, unwilling to miss out on lobster. She can barely walk but somehow manages a cold shower and an hour of makeup and hair. She can't show anyone how much it hurts, fearing Red and Jayne will forbid her from leaving the house without long sleeves and pants for the rest of the trip. If I were a better friend, I'd probably sympathize and offer to carry her purse or something, but watching the drama queen try to hide every wince is just too amusing.

She does okay with the physical fakery, but she's cranky and short-tempered the entire evening, whining about nonsensical things in place of the real issue of tenth-degree burns all over her back and legs.

"How long do we have to wait for a table, Dad? This is taking forever." And...

"How can a place be out of ginger ale? How can you run a restaurant and not have enough ginger ale?" And...

"Our waiter seems like he's in training. Who doesn't know how to describe the mahimahi sauce?" And...

"It's so hot in here. What kind of place doesn't have the air conditioner on in the middle of summer?" And...

"I
said
I don't want any water, thank you." At this, she holds up her hand to the busboy pouring ice water from his plastic pitcher. Whether it's Frankie's looks, her sunburn, or her attitude,
something
distracts him. He drops the entire pitcher in her lap, fumbling in slow motion to stop the force of gravity from taking that water to its final destination down her shirt and into her lap.

Frankie squeals and shoots up from the table, soaked from the middle down. The poor busboy jumps into awkward action, grabbing at cloth napkins from the unseated table behind us and attempting to blot at the air in front of her without actually touching her body, lest he cause any more of a scene. Red, Jayne, and I are stunned, each of us holding back a flood of well-deserved laughter. One wrong move and we'll lose it, I know we will. The busboy, probably fearing for his life, excuses himself to find the manager.

"I'm so sorry, sir," the manager says. "Your family's dinner will be on the house tonight. Dessert, too."

"Don't worry about it," Red says, blotting at his face with his napkin to hide a smile. "She was just saying how hot she was. Perfect timing."

With that, Jayne and I can no longer contain ourselves. Our laughter confuses the manager, who pretends to have a sudden culinary emergency and implores us to call on him if there's anything else he can do to enhance our dining experience.

Frankie pushes away from the table and storms toward the ladies' room like an angry tornado.

I'd much rather stay at the table with Red and Jayne and enjoy the whipped-cream-topped strawberry daiquiris (nonalcoholic, of course) the waiter brought (on the house, of course), but after ten minutes, I'm compelled to check on our angry diva.

In the ladies' room, she's standing at the sink, blotting her face with a wet paper towel.

"Come on, Frankie," I say. "Come back to the table -- they brought us strawberry daiquiris."

She ignores me and tosses out the paper towel.

"You have to admit it was kinda funny," I say.

"Great. I'll ask the busboy to come by and drop a gallon of ice water on
you,
then we'll see if it's still funny."

"Frankie, you were complaining about the heat. It's kind of like an answer from the universe."

She tries to act offended, but I can see a smile creeping onto her face.

"You look great, anyway," I say, appealing to her most susceptible side. "That's probably why he dropped the water. He was stunned into clumsiness by your ravishing beauty. Technically, you should take it as a compliment."

"True." She shrugs her shoulders and wipes some stray eyeliner from her lower lids.

"Let's go back," I say. "Your dad ordered the lobsters."

She pushes open the door. "Perfect. More jokes at my expense." Back at the table, Red and Jayne apologize for laughing at Frankie and offer to take us miniature golfing after dinner.

After gorging ourselves on seafood and decadent desserts, not to mention those daiquiris, we waddle down to Moonlight Boulevard in search of the best mini golf, which turns out to be a themed place called Pirate's Cove. The course is packed with old people who move too slowly and actually keep score, kids who abandon their clubs and stuff the balls into the holes with their sticky little hands, and people like Frankie and me, who would much rather be at Sam's smoothie shop than spending quality time with parents.

Frankie is practically limping from her sunburn, but Red and Jayne are so excited that it would be cruel to bail early on them. Besides, it's nice to see them laughing so much.

"Hole in one!" Red pumps his club in the air after putting his ball successfully off the plank into the mouth of a plastic crocodile. "Write that down on the card, honey. One shot. It's the score to beat!"

Red and Jayne move on to the sunken treasure chest as Frankie tees up for the crocodile. As she's lining up her shot, I spot the boys from our first day on the pier paying for a game up front.

"Frankie, look." I nod in their direction. "Your boyfriends from Caroline's."

She turns to look, then ducks behind me. "I thought you were kidding. Hide!"

"The other day you were practically posing for them."

"Anna, I don't want anyone to see me like this."

"So you're actually admitting that you look like a fried lobster?" I hobble ahead of her, imitating her slow-motion sunburn limp.

"For the last time, this is just a base! I'm talking about being seen with
them.
" She nods toward Red and Jayne, high-fiving each other under a black skull-and-crossbones flag two holes ahead.

"Come on, yeh scalawags!" Red shouts at us, eliciting sympathetic looks from the patrons at holes five through seven. "Catch up, or it's off the plank with yeh."

Okay, Frankie has a point. I grab her hand and lead us to the second-to-last hole, far away from the pirate parents we arrived with and, more importantly, the guys from Caroline's. Upon further examination, they're not so bad. Still. Sam is way better.

Anna! You were on a roll. Almost ten whole minutes without thinking about him!

We finish out the last two holes with little effort and return our equipment, waiting at the snack bar for Red and Jayne to complete the course in their own pirate revelry.

"What are we doing after?" I ask.

Frankie hovers over an iron bench, trying to lower herself without causing additional pain to her burned backside. "Probably nothing," she says. "You know Mom and Dad are early people. Why?"

"I'm kind of craving a smoothie."

* * *

"I don't get you," I say, back at the house. "You're the one trying to get me to drop the A.A., and you don't even want to meet them tonight? They totally invited us!"

It's after ten, Red and Jayne have long since gone to bed, and I'm trying to convince Frankie to sneak out.
Me.
Trying to convince
her.
In just three days, I barely recognize myself.

"God, Anna. You'd think you never hooked up with a boy before. Oh, that's right, you haven't!" Frankie throws a pillow in my general direction.

"Oh, shut up." It's lame, but I can't exactly correct her. "Go if you want," she says. "But I'm staying right here." She winces as she crawls between the cool of her sheets.

"Admit it." I sit on the edge of her bed. "Admit that you're embarrassed about this stupid sunburn, and that's the only reason you won't go."

"Anna, I just don't feel like breaking the rules, okay?" She looks at me with feigned severity, starting a chain reaction of hysterical laughter. I lean over her, palms outstretched, and threaten a good slap to the tender skin on the back of her arms if she doesn't relent.

"Okay, you win!" she says, still laughing. "It burns! It burns!"

"And?" I say, looming closer with my stinging hand. "And I look like a tourist!"

Satisfied with Frankie's newfound humility, I fetch the giant blue bottle of lidocaine from the fridge, granting her temporary relief from her own stupidity.

Later, after we've settled into bed and accepted our fate as wholesome, rule-abiding beach community citizens for at least one more night, Frankie advises me to play it cool with Sam.

"Sam and Jake are only four and five on the list. We don't want them to think we're actually
interested,
Anna," she says, probably scanning her memory for another Johan reference with which to demonstrate her sexual expertise.

"Right," I say. "Because I'm not. Interested, I mean. I'm just saying, is all."

fifteen

Thanks to Frankie's ultraviolet oversight, we're forced to hole up inside the house playing card games and eating ice cream out of the carton the entire next day. Even Uncle Red and Aunt Jayne are having more fun than us, running in the morning, swimming in the afternoon, sitting out back and reading in the last hours of sunlight. I'm going a little stir-crazy.

I don't want to mention it to Frankie again, lest she accuse me of being overeager, but I can't stop thinking about Sam (who by now has probably found some other tourist girlfriend who doesn't blow off his invitations for surf lessons and smoothies. Mental note: if Frankie survives tenth-degree sunburn, kill her).

Frankie finally announces her triumphant return to civilization at eight the following morning, waking me up to begin the long and painful process of primping for a dip in the ocean.

Maybe it's the sunshine, or the salty ocean air, or the laid-backness of California, or thoughts of winning Sam back from the beautiful new beach princess he probably found in my absence yesterday, but this time, I'm all Frankie's. I check my regular self at the door and let her work her voodoo magic. I pay attention. I watch and listen and ask questions on her hair-blowing and makeup-mixing techniques as though my entire future depends on it. I let her gel me and tease me and color me up until I look at least ten years older. We paint our nails, select our sandals carefully, and even coordinate our beach bags with our blanket. No mortal boy can resist coordination and cuteness like
this
!

We practice our strut up and down the back deck until Red and Jayne leave for a day of
real
golf, promising to meet back at the house for a late lunch together.

"Remember, Anna," Frankie says as we cross the yard to the stairs and the beach below. "Shoulders back, stomach in, boobs out." I do as she instructs, sucking and pulling and contorting the right parts at the right times as I follow her down to the alcove and pray to the God of Most Embarrassing Moments that I don't trip.

As we approach the curve in the shore that curls around to our spot, I'm momentarily relieved to see two guys goofing around in the water. But as we get closer, I realize our spot in the alcove has been completely overrun with other tourists, Sam and Jake not among them.

"I knew it," I say, dropping my bag before we get close. "They gave up on us."

Frankie picks up my bag and hands it back to me. "Come on, Anna. It was one guy. Get over yourself."

But even she can't hide her disappointment as she scans the water and shore for her beloved California blond.

"Should we go back?" I ask, trying hard not to sound too deflated. I know we only just met them, but still.

"I guess."

"Wait!" I practically shout. "Maybe they're at the smoothie place? Sam said it's not far from here. We could --"

"You and your smoothies!" Frankie laughs. "I thought you weren't interested."

"I'm not. I just -- I mean -- don't you want to learn how to surf?"

She looks hard at me, trying to gauge the lameness of my thinly disguised argument. Then, laughing, she grabs up the rest of her beach stuff and leads us onward, past the alcove, farther than we've ventured before.

"Operation Smoothie in full force," she announces, digging out her camera. "Let the lost albatross countdown begin."

We walk side by side, weaving our way through increasingly dense crowds of oiled-up tourists, keeping a running commentary for the video. Just when I've seen all the pasty old men in Speedos I can handle, Frankie spots the sign for Smoothie Shack.

We charge up the sand, energy and hopes renewed by the fading wooden sign with its chipped green-and-yellow lettering. Sam is standing behind the counter and he smiles when he sees us, making the entire hike totally worth it.

"I'm done in ten," he shouts across the counter. "Hang out, okay?"

Frankie stashes the camera in her bag and we find a booth near the counter. After the long walk through all the pasty people and soggy-diapered little kids, we'll camp out here all night if we have to.

Ten minutes later, Sam joins us with three banana coconut something-or-others -- his favorite. He sets down the drinks and slides into the booth next to me.

"Hey. What did you do to your -- I mean, you look different." My cheeks go immediately hot. Not that your average onlooker can tell, given all the makeup I'm wearing. "Frankie and I were just messing around this morning."

"Oh," he says, tying the paper from his straw into little knots. "It looks nice, I mean. I just can't see you, that's all."

I make a mental note to ditch the makeup tomorrow.

Then I get mad at myself for letting some boy that I just met dictate what I do with my own face.