Twenty Boy Summer (9 page)

thirteen

The next morning has all the makings of our first day in California, but this time I'm prepared. While Frankie takes her shower, I get dressed and throw on just enough sparkle and bling to shut her up before our grueling death march to the deserted other side of the beach.

"If you want to meet guys," I ask as we shake out our blanket for day two, "why are we out here like a couple of wandering nomads?" If yesterday was any indication of the caliber of boys available, I don't want to meet more of them. I just feel safer in a crowd -- especially after our encounter with Harold the Milk Shake Man.

"Anna," she says, reconfiguring herself on the blanket like yesterday, "only the tourists hang out in the crowded part. This is where the locals come."

"Suit yourself," I say. "But I'm swimming, not sunning."

I unwrap my pale body from the sarong, still not used to showing so much skin in public. I apply another layer of sunscreen just to be safe and hope no one is watching as I plod down to the water.

It doesn't feel as warm as yesterday, but my feet adjust quickly, allowing me to inch in up to my waist. In the distance, vacationing families move up and down the shore from the water to the beach and back again, their laughter weaving softly through the moist air.

I look over my shoulder to check on Frankie. She smiles and waves, repositioning herself on the blanket so she can reach the trail mix without sitting up. "Stay where I can see you," she shouts. "I need to get some shots of this."

The alcove is quiet today. As the water moves back and forth over my thighs, my mind drifts to my conversation with Aunt Jayne the night we made sand angels. How much does she actually know? Did he ever tell
her
about us? Did she see us kissing over a sink full of dishes when we thought no one was watching? Did she just figure it out? And what did she mean when she said he got the same look in his eyes when he talked about me? Matt and I spent so much time talking about when and how and what he was going to tell Frankie -- we never got to the part about telling anyone else.

A new wave of butterflies flutters in my chest as I consider this, and I have to close my eyes to beat them down.
Matt's gone, remember?
Those butterflies have nowhere to go but darkness, beating and tangling their tiny wings until they break.

"Hey,
virgin
!"

The appellation is so sharp and unexpected that it takes me several seconds to realize it's aimed at me. I whip around to find Frankie giggling on her blanket in the shadow of two tanned guys with stubby-looking surfboards -- the perfect California cliché.

"Virgin, right?" the voice asks again. It comes from the tall one with white-blond hair falling into his eyes. Frankie is still giggling, and my entire body goes hot and red, despite the chill in the water. If Frankie thinks she's just going to auction me off, well... I don't know. It's kind of hard to be witty when you're trying to call forth a giant sea squid to swallow you up and drag you down to the depths of the ocean floor, never to be seen, heard from, or mocked again.

I drop down so the water covers my chest. "Excuse me?"

"Um, you guys have never boarded before?" Blondie sort of asks-says, holding out his arms like he's expecting applause for his cleverness.

"Come back, Anna!" Frankie waves me in. "Meet our new friends."

I look behind me to confirm that the aforementioned giant sea squid has ignored my telepathic plea, then refocus, willing my sarong to float itself over to the shore and drape around my body as I emerge from the surf. When that doesn't work, I think about faking a cramp and quickly decide against it, reasoning that if I look like I'm drowning, one of them might jump in and put his hands on me. Probably not Blondie, though. He's too busy cataloging Frankie's measurements with his eyes.

I trudge up to the shore, which looks really sexy other than that whole middle part when you've cleared your upper body and have to pick up and plunk down your legs like pistons to cut through the water. The giant squid may not be interested in
me,
but I'll make sure Frankie looks nice and juicy when I drag her out of bed tonight and sacrifice her to the sea gods.

"Hey," I say, trying to sound casual as I yank my towel from beneath Frankie's firm and purposely placed elbows. "I'm Anna." Towel secured tightly around my waist, I hold my hand out to Blondie, whose name is Jake.

"Why, Anna Abigail, you're so proper," Frankie teases with a slightly off-key southern accent. I am still angry at her for going along with the whole virgin joke, and wonder briefly if a more appropriate, less proper greeting would be for me to whip off my bikini top and twirl it around my head like a lasso. Before I can respond, Frankie's on her feet, dusting sand off her butt in slow motion. Jake stares. The other one -- Sam, I learn -- shakes his head and smiles at me.

"Forgive my mannerless cousin," he says, and his smile makes me momentarily forget how annoyed I am.

"So, where are you from?" Jake asks.

"New York," Frankie announces, not bothering to clarify that it's the lame, upstate part.

"Seriously?" Jake asks. "That's so cool."

"It's all right," she says, examining her nails and wearing that New York thing like a badge she never earned.

"What's it like in the summer?" Jake asks.

"Oh, you know," Frankie says. "Never a dull moment. That's why we came to Cali -- to relax." She takes a sip of water and licks her lips, looking out over the ocean. Jake looks in awe at his new-found woman of mystery and intrigue: Frankie, New York heiress, dining with the stars, hobnobbing with the rich and famous, risking her life every day on the hardened streets. In reality, before coming to California two days ago, our summer activities included such exciting adventures as lying out in the sun doing
Cosmo
quizzes, making mock interviews with Frankie's camera, experimenting with facials made of oatmeal and mayonnaise, and going with Mom and Dad to a food festival where we made five-dollar bets trying to guess which of our crazy neighbors dressed as the ketchup and mustard combo.

"What about you guys?" she asks.

"We live here," Jake says. "Not, like, on the beach, but in town. Nothing like New York. That's awesome." I think about our neighbors zipping themselves into their giant condiment costumes. Awesome. Totally.

Ready to move on from our getting-to-know-you conversation, Jake turns to the water and announces loudly in Frankie's direction that it's "time to get wet." She lets out an "Oh, yeah!" that's over-blown, even for her, and repositions the triangle of her bikini bottom, letting go with a sexy snap before following Jake into the water.

Sam turns to me and smiles. For a few seconds we do that awkward conversational tango where we're both trying to talk at the same time and just end up laughing and not saying anything at all. Frankie squeals from the water, and Sam shrugs, looking at me.

Despite my chilly demeanor on the subject of twenty boys yesterday, something about Sam gets me. With messy, dirty-blond hair streaked from the sun and green eyes, he's definitely good-looking. Backne-free. No creepy old man vibes. Seems smart.

In other words, totally wrong for me.

"All right, Anna Abby from New Yawk," he says, nodding at his board. "You wanna try?"

I must have said yes, because I drop my towel and follow him out to the water, paying absolutely no attention whatsoever to the way his well-defined muscles move down his back, the jagged white scar on the left side above his hip, or the weird feeling I have in my stomach when he looks over his shoulder and smiles at me.

Absolutely
no
attention. What. So. Ever.

In the water, Frankie's lying facedown on Jake's board, paddling with her arms as he explains the basics.

"This alcove is great for learning because the water's pretty calm," Jake says, his hand resting in the small of her back as though it's the only thing keeping her attached to the board. "Once you get into the public beach part, it gets crowded and choppy.

"Now, the first thing you want to do is get a feel for the weight of the board, and how it reacts to your body." His teaching skills seem so expert that I wonder if the two of them walk the length of the beach every day, body boards in tow for just such a girl-impressing occasion.

"He teaches," Sam tells me.
Oh, no! Did I say that out loud?
"He's actually a great teacher, despite the ego."

"Sam," Jake says, raising his eyebrows, "let's not confuse ego with confidence in one's abilities."

"Please, continue," Sam says with an exaggerated wave.

"As I was saying. You wanna get into a tight crawl, knees against the board with your body as close to it as possible, like you're gonna kiss it." He guides Frankie into position, moving his hands along her body like a sculptor.

Jake continues his lesson while Sam steadies his board for me. When I move around to climb on, my leg brushes his in the water, bare skin on the wet fabric of his board shorts, and I feel a jolt from my head down.

It just surprised me, that's all. I wasn't expecting his leg to be there. I thought it was a shark. Or something.

"You okay?" he asks as I navigate the wobbly board.

"I'm good." The part of my leg that touched him still tingles. Sam is not as versed in teaching as Jake, and his hands kind of hover over me, waiting for my permission to proceed through each step. When I almost topple the board, he gently grabs my arm to balance me, and I have to look away, pretending he's my overweight, middle-aged,
female
gym teacher giving me a swimming lesson.

We spend an hour with them in the water, learning body-board basics, watching Jake show off, talking about high school's inherent lameness. They're a year older than us and getting ready for their senior year. They pass most of their free time on the beach. Jake teaches swimming and surfing to summer renters, and Sam works at Smoothie Shack, their older cousin's place on the next tourist beach, another half mile past the alcove.

"So do you guys just carry these boards around looking for girls?" Frankie asks as if she doesn't care.

"You found us out!" Jake pushes her off his board.

"Actually, Jake was going to show me some new tricks," Sam says. "People don't usually hang out in the alcove. What were you guys doing here, anyway? It says No Swimming."

"Please," Frankie says. "I've been coming here my whole life. I've been all over this beach, and I swim where I want to swim."

"How come we've never seen you before?" Jake asks.

"You weren't paying attention." She shrugs, leaving out the part about how she probably wasn't wearing a bikini and didn't have anything to hold it up, anyway. "Or I was busy talking to someone else."

Apparently, apathy is today's modus operandi. Act cute and flirtatious at first, then when they're hooked, turn down the temperature a bit, feigning indifference. Voodoo magic. It works every time.

"You wouldn't be talking to someone else if
I
was there," Jake says. "Who can resist this hair, this body?" Frankie splashes him. He tells her she's hot. I think she's in love. Again.

Meanwhile, back on the plane of reality, Sam has to go to work. "Stop by later if you want," he says. "If you like smoothies, I'm your hookup."

"What about our lesson?" Frankie asks. "We didn't get to do anything."

"That was one-oh-one," Jake says. "Two-oh-one starts tomorrow, same place, same time."

"We might have other plans," she says, but we don't. Not only will we be here fifteen minutes prior to the appointed time, but we'll spend two hours beforehand picking out Frankie's wardrobe and rehearsing her lines.

"Let's go, dude," Sam says to Jake. "I'm gonna be late."

We trudge through the water back to our blanket. Frankie hugs Jake, but Sam just smiles at me with a barely perceptible raise of the eyebrows --
hopeful? Curious? Clueless?

"See you later, Anna Abby from New Yawk," he says, turning and disappearing down the beach with Jake.

"Oh. My. God," Frankie says, flopping on the blanket. "They are
so
hot!"

"Frank, it's only day two and a half. We're not going to get to twenty if you run off and get married tomorrow." I drape my towel over my head like a veil. "Do you? I do! Do you? I do! Oh, Jake! You must tell me who does your highlights!"

Frankie laughs and snaps her towel at me. "Oh, okay, Miss 'Sam, hold the board for me! Sam, how do you do that? Sam, I want to see you naked.' "

"Oh, God, stop," I say, laughing with Frankie. "What about poor RodTodd? Aren't you going to call him?"

"Are you kidding me? That guy was gross."

"Why did you kiss him?"

"That wasn't kissing!"

"Um,
right.
So why did you give him your number?"

"Anna, I swear, sometimes you can be so -- so
chartreuse.
"

"Did you give him a fake -- wait, what did you call me?"

"Chartreuse. You know, dense. What?"

"Frankie, you just called me a shade of green. I think you mean
obtuse.
"

"Well, you
are
looking a little pale."

I shake my head and laugh. "It's called sunscreen. Try some."

"No, thanks. At least we met some decent guys today," she says, flipping over on her stomach and untying her top. "And we both want separate ones."

I put on my sunglasses and rest my hand on my leg -- the part that touched Sam's in the water. The part that's still tingling. "I don't want anyone."

"What's
wrong
with you?" she asks, as though she's a doctor who can't diagnose my weird combination of unlikely symptoms. "Sam was totally checking you out. And it looked like you were having fun."

I shrug, suddenly intent on digging through my bag for a book. There are probably a million different things I can say to her to get her to shut up. He's not cute enough. I don't like his hair. I saw someone else closer to the house I want to check out. But none of these things is true. The truth is the one thing I
can't
say -- that if I can be interested in Sam, I'm forgetting about Matt.