“Out-of-what?”
“I think that’s what they’re called.”
“If you say so.”
Janis capped the sunblock and searched her sister’s face. She was wading into the paranormal, which wasn’t exactly her thing and was much less her sister’s. Margaret had given Twilight Zone: The Movie a thumbs-down last year, not because some parts were wet-your-pants scary but because it was “too implausible.” Ditto with Poltergeist the year before. But with the experiences happening almost nightly now, Janis needed to confide in someone, even if that someone was Margaret.
“Anyways, in these dreams, these experiences, I’m suddenly awake, and I’m standing in the backyard. And there’s this strange energy all around me: whoosh-whoosh-whoosh. Like the wind’s blowing but deeper and… rougher, I guess.”
Janis waved her hands around her head in demonstration, but Margaret was on her back again, the sun shining along her slender legs and glinting off toenails painted red to match her bikini.
“How can you be awake if you’re asleep?”
“That’s just it. When it happens, I’m as awake as I am now. But my body’s still in bed. I mean, I can’t feel my body, but I know I’m not actually standing out in the backyard.”
“Maybe you’re sleepwalking. Mom says I used to sleepwalk.”
“Wouldn’t I wake up in the morning with crud on my feet if—”
“People do strange things when they sleepwalk. I read about this guy from California who mowed his entire lawn, front and back. And he didn’t remember a thing when he woke up.”
“What does that have to do with—”
“Only found out because his neighbors called the police. You know, the noise of the mower.”
“Margaret!”
“Oh,” she cut in again, “and he was buck naked.”
Janis snort-laughed. Margaret joined her, her own laughter illuminating the backward tilt of her face, her smooth, arcing neck. Disney couldn’t have animated a more perfect laugh. The only things missing were the little woodland creatures. But Janis only half begrudged Margaret her laugh, especially since her sister didn’t seem to let it out often enough.
“All right.” Margaret cleared her throat and retucked her bun beneath her head. “I’ll give you that you’re somehow awake in the backyard while asleep in bed. But what does that have to do with being watched?”
“I…” Janis began, then pressed a loose strand of hair to her nose. That’s where things got tricky.
She didn’t always remember the out-of-body experiences — not in detail, anyway. A dream would often intrude then another and another, such that by morning, she could only dimly remember the experience. All that remained were whatever impressions still lingered in her memory, faint and ghostly. And that’s what Janis felt at that moment, what she had been feeling all day: a spine-needling impression that someone had been watching.
And hadn’t there been a smell? Cigarette smoke?
Or maybe she was confusing last night’s experience with the present. The approaching surfer took a final pull on his cigarette stub, then flicked it away, not looking where it landed. A blue tattoo stained his upper arm, a dagger piercing a heart. The surfer behind him was sharp faced and darkly freckled, his nose coated in silver zinc. Janis peeked toward Margaret and began drawing her legs in.
The surfers swaggered toward the blanket as though meaning to trample over it. They stopped at the last moment, propping their boards on end. Tattoo glanced along Janis’s legs then turned his gaze back on Margaret. He tossed his slick, sandy hair to the side, his stubbly cheeks swelling around a pair of hard dimples. Locals, Janis guessed.
Margaret raised her Wayfarers a half inch, then lowered them.
“Move along, boys,” she said.
The surfers’ smiles faltered. It was the way she had said it: no nonsense, her tone sounding older than her seventeen years. Freckles whispered something near Tattoo’s ear, drawing a stupid leer.
Janis suddenly felt naked in her two-piece and turned onto her side, pulling her knees in even more. The xylophonic beats of Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer” popped from the boom box, but there was no fun in them. Janis peered toward the ocean, wishing Margaret’s friends were crowding the blanket again, giggles and all. Figures. Now that they’re needed, they’re nowhere to be found.
“Whoa, babe,” Tattoo said. His ragged wetsuit was peeled below his navel, and the neoprene arms flopped around his thighs as he gave his hair another toss. “What’s that all about? Can’t a dude admire the scenery?”
His friend sniggered, and the two of them edged closer. Tattoo could have been cute, but there was a crudeness in his manner, in the way they were both standing, hips thrust forward. Janis imagined it would only take a few beers for them to become dangerous. The tip of Tattoo’s board dripped water near Margaret’s feet as he staggered a step nearer.
They’d probably already had a few.
“Admire it somewhere else,” Margaret said, still on her back. Then added, “Dude.”
“Or what? Gonna choke us with those fine legs?”
Their laughter landed like blades in Janis’s stomach. Margaret rose onto her elbows. She raised her sunglasses again, propping them over her teased bangs. Her sea-green eyes studied the surfers like a school principal weighing the appropriate punishment.
“Oooh,” Tattoo said, waggling his fingers in feigned fear. “A man-eater.”
Freckles sniggered, the oily silver glistening along the blade of his nose.
Margaret’s eyes didn’t flinch.
“Oh, c’mon, baby. Don’t be like that.” Tattoo pushed his board toward Freckles and planted a sand-caked foot on the blanket. “I’m just trying to make some conversation.” It came out convershashum.
When Janis looked up, Freckles was grinning down at her. The tip of his tongue emerged, worm-like, and ran across his mottled lips. Janis edged toward her sister. But now Tattoo was planting his hand like he meant to lower himself between them, the muscles bunching across his upper back. Margaret didn’t shrink from him. Neither did her gaze waver from his face.
“I said move along.”
Janis imagined herself lifting the red Igloo cooler behind them, using her knee to help boost it higher, the dozen-odd cans of Tab slish-sloshing in the melting ice. She imagined dropping — no, slamming — it on the side of Tattoo’s head.
But as Janis tensed to move, the muscles across Tattoo’s back softened.
“…the hell?” he muttered.
Like a movie reel being played in reverse, he rose from his three-point stance to his knees, to his feet, and shuffled backward until he was beside Freckles again. His jaw hung to one side, as though he was uncertain of what he was doing.
Freckles’s tongue crawled back into his mouth.
Janis followed their squinting gazes toward Margaret. Her no-nonsense expression hadn’t changed… except for her eyes. A deeper shade of green grew inside them, seeming to hold Tattoo. Freckles, too.
Ten seconds passed. Twenty. A dry click sounded from Tattoo’s throat. Freckles shivered. The two of them had diminished, their boards no longer penetrating the space above the blanket, their hard arms deflated. Or maybe it only seemed that way because Janis could sense how badly they wanted to leave. They were just waiting for the excuse, waiting for Margaret to release them.
Freckles glanced down at Janis, his expression the plea of a lost child.
Janis looked around, the shouts from a volleyball game, the crash of the surf — Bananarama, even — sounding hard to her, raw. She hadn’t even wanted to come to the beach that day. She’d originally planned to spend the morning in goalie gloves and a practice jersey, beaming a soccer ball off the garage door. (“So bring your ball,” Margaret had told her. “Problem solved.”) Now, trapped between Margaret and the surfers, her stomach twisting into knots, Janis tried to imagine herself seventy miles inland, the driveway at her feet, the woods at her back, slinging the soccer ball toward the garage d
oor, gathering the rebound…
Margaret gave a small sigh and lowered her shades.
“My sister and I were talking.” She pronounced every syllable as though explaining the concept to a pair of slow children. “You know, having a con-ver-sa-tion. And you interrupted us. May we finish now?”
“Uh, yeah… whatever,” Tattoo said hoarsely, already turning. His board collided into Freckles’s as the two of them wheeled in opposite directions.
A small part of Janis wanted to laugh. She cringed and curled her toes instead.
The surfers straightened themselves out and made for the boardwalk, Freckles stammering an apology over his shoulder. Margaret adjusted her top and lay back down, frowning as though the whole episode had been nothing more than a minor irritation.
“How do you do that?” Janis asked.
“Do what?”
“That. Getting people to do whatever you want?”
Margaret shrugged. “I just tell them.”
Janis watched the surfers disappear beyond the dunes separating the beach from the public restrooms. It was true. Margaret always told people what she wanted, and nine times out of ten, she seemed to get it: an A in the few cases where she’d earned a B+, a speeding warning instead of a hefty fine and points, another curfew extension from Dad. And her job. Even though she was the youngest salesperson at the JC Penney in the mall, she earned the fattest commissions by far, more than double anyone else’s. She’d already been promised a management position after graduation, a position she declined, thanks but no thanks. Pre-law called.
But what just happened? What was that?
“Don’t worry about them,” Margaret said. Janis caught herself staring at the place where the surfers had disappeared. “They were jerks. Worse than jerks. Pigs. And they did interrupt us. You were telling me about a dream?”
Janis felt herself nod, but before she could reassemble her thoughts, Margaret’s friends burst onto the blanket: “Did you, like, see that girl’s hair?” “What a total disaster.” “It’s like she set it with a waffle maker!”
Margaret rose and brushed her legs off, scolding the girls for tracking sand onto the blanket. At five foot ten, she stood a full head taller than her friends, completing her role as mother hen to them in stature as well as manner. When she got them settled, she drew several quarters from her canvas bag and announced she was going up to the pay phones to call her boyfriend, Kevin. She set off through the patchwork maze of beach towels and glistening sunbathers, the girls looking after her like baby chicks fretful of abandonment.
Janis couldn’t help but smile a little… until Heather swiveled toward her. “Feather Heather,” Janis still thought of her, because of her blonde Farrah Fawcett. She’d trimmed it shorter over the years, but the neat center part, highlights, and flipped out sides had never quite gone away.
Heather plucked up the book at Janis’s hip and held it at arm’s length. “Eww,” she said, making a face. “Summer reading?”
Janis started to shake her head, then stopped. She had been assigned summer reading, but this wasn’t 1984. It was The Outsiders, a book she’d already read twice but grabbed off her bookshelf anyway. There was something in the urban edginess that captivated her, something in the idea of kids her age — Ponyboy and Johnny — having to go it alone in that kind of world while somehow managing to “stay golden.” It wasn’t Sweet Valley High, that was for sure.
It also wasn’t something Heather would ever understand.
“Yeah,” Janis said. “Summer reading.”
“Who’s your English teacher?”
“It’s not Mr. Adams, is it?” Tina asked hopefully. She had pulled a Flashdance-style workout shirt over her blue bikini and begun fumigating her dark, voluminous hair with Aqua Net. Janis squinted and held her breath as the mist blew past, the chemical tang finding the back of her mouth anyway.
“Tina had, like, the biggest crush on Mr. Adams,” Heather explained.
“You thought he was hot, too!”
Janis cleared her throat. “Fern,” she said. “Mrs. Fern.”
“She’s totally weird,” Tina said.
“Weird?” Janis asked. “How so?”
“Like, forget the teachers.” Heather waved her hand. “They’re all weird.”
“For sure,” Tina said. “The important question is…”
Janis’s face began to burn. She knew what was coming.
“…do you have a boyfriend yet?”
Kelly’s crimped hair shook as she giggled.
“Well, no… I mean…” Janis hoped her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. “I play a lot of sports, so I don’t really have time…”
The girls pressed nearer. Janis winced, trying her best to endure their close company. They were Margaret’s friends, after all, and seniors. But the truth was, she would have traded them for her fellow summer-league outfielders in an instant. At least she could communicate with them, especially Samantha, her best friend. Samantha would be starting Thirteenth Street High tomorrow too, but bummer of bummers, wasn’t going to be in any of her classes.
“So, like, listen,” Heather said, turning a serious face on her. “If you’re going to start out on the right foot, there are a few groups of guys you totally need to know about. First, avoid the losers.”
“Losers?”
“Yeah,” Tina said. “The ones in black. Heavy metal shirts. Commando pants. Gross, stringy hair.”
“Pizza-faced burnouts,” Kelly added with a giggle.
“They park on Titan Terrace behind the school and smoke cloves,” Heather said, “among other things. Get mixed up with that crew, and you can, like, kiss your reputation goodbye.”
“Forever,” Tina added gravely.
Janis looked around for Margaret.
“So right, forget about them,” Heather said, taking Janis’s arm. “The group you totally want to start with are the preps. They’re clean, well-dressed, have money, so you’re, like, guaranteed a good date. Not some cheap park-and-grope.”
“Janis said she’s into sports.” Tina pronounced it as though it was a foreign word. “She’d probably have better luck with the jocks.”
Janis tuned the girls out as they went back and forth on whether she was better suited for a prep, a jock, or some hybrid of the two. She looked past them to the surf, where the heads of swimmers bobbed like buoys and waves frothed toward shore, some carrying surfers. Farther out, the water had turned the color of gunmetal. Black clouds churned against the horizon. From deep inside one mass, lightening flashed. Janis squinted, trying to gauge whether or not the clouds were moving inland.
“Whatever!” Heather relented with a loud sigh and took Janis’s arm again. “The point is, preps are for sure where you want to start. And there are preps among the jocks.” She shot a narrow look at Tina. “Nice ones, too.”
“Anyway, after preps and jocks, the pickings are pretty slim,” Tina said. “Though it doesn’t hurt to flirt with the nerds now and again.”
“Why would you do that?” Janis asked.
“To get help with your math.”
The others nodded wisely. It took Janis a second to realize they were serious and another to decide that the last five minutes had been a complete waste of her life. She found herself wishing again that she’d stayed home.
“What kind of nonsense are you filling my sister’s head with?”
The girls spun from her so abruptly that Janis felt like she was being dropped. It was a relief, though. She had been getting that prickly, pressed-in feeling she sometimes got around large crowds. She squinted up at Margaret, who stood over them looking toward the ocean.
Margaret clapped her hands briskly. “We’ve got about ten minutes to pack it in, girls. A storm’s coming.”
~*~
Janis slept most of the ride home, her sluggish rest textured by the grit of salt and dreams of black thunderheads. She awakened when Feather Heather, their last drop-off, hugged Margaret through the window and jogged up
her parents’ walkway.
“See you tomorrow,” Heather called over her shoulder.
Janis yawned and looked over her ruddy arms, which stung when she stretched them. SPF 20 or no, the sun had done a number on them.
“Did you have a good time?” Margaret asked as she swung back onto Sixteenth Avenue from Heather’s neighborhood. They had beaten the storm inland, and now the setting sun filtered through the canopy of oak trees, flashing the car with golden light. Margaret smiled and squeezed Janis’s knee, not waiting for her answer. “My little sister. I can’t believe you’re going to be a Thirteenth Street Titan tomorrow.”
Janis winced, watching the blanched spots on her knee turn red again. Her legs had fared little better than her arms. “Yeah, me neither.”
“Don’t worry about whatever Heather and the others told you.” Margaret sighed and shook her head. “They’re boy crazy, so I can only guess. Take care of yourself first, and the boy thing will take care of itself. Just look at me and Kevin…”
When Janis peered over, she found her sister’s gaze lingering on the rearview mirror.
“So it was him,” Margaret said.
“Who? Kevin?” Janis asked, turning.
“No, no, I saw his car in the parking lot when I went to call Kevin. It was parked a little down from ours. He’s been behind us most of the way home.” Margaret returned her gaze to the road. “Never struck me as the beach type.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Leonard.”
“Leonard?” Janis echoed.
“Yeah, from the neighborhood.”
And now Janis could see the bug-eyed Datsun some three or four cars back. A cold queasiness besieged her and she faced forward again, slumping down. Sweat broke around her throat.
“Is something the matter?” Margaret asked.
“Nuh-uh,” Janis answered quickly.
Then why are you losing it? She pressed her hand to her chest as if that could suppress the escalating thuds. Her body was reacting to his name, to the fact that he was behind them. But why? It wasn’t like her to freak out. If she were alone, she might have slapped herself.
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