Alice swipes her forehead with the back of her hand, which aims the hose directly at me.
“Hey!”
She jumps, whips around. Sees me soaking. Smiles so wide, I think I might die right there. Happy. She covers the end of the hose with her thumb and slowly flicks the spray up and down, so now I’m drenched. I look around for another weapon—tossing the entire water bucket over her seems brutal. But before I can seize the Super Soaker from the lawn, she lifts her hands in surrender, which, since she’s still holding the hose, does the job for me, getting her totally wet.
“Always asking for trouble, Tim.”
“You started it. Trouble pretty much finds me without having to ask directions.”
We stand there dripping. Droplets on her long eyelashes and this fine mist in her hair.
It’s crazy quiet, except for the shhh of the water still draining from the hose.
“Where the hell is everyone?”
“First day of school,” Alice says.
The bus earlier. Right. First day of school.
I swallow. Not for me. For the first September since I turned five, I’m not walking through any school doors.
“So, you’re saying that as of today, I’m officially a high school dropout.”
Alice wipes her wet hands on a towel, hoops it around her neck, scans me over, lingering on my eyes. She pulls her lower lip between her teeth, and squints at me, then nods like she’s come to some decision. “Change clothes and meet me here in five, okay?”
When I do, she’s now in a yellow bikini top and this orange skirt that technically covers her ass. But I can trace the outline of the rest of the bikini through it. As if she’s reading those thoughts, she almost touches the nic patch, now on my side, a square bump under my T-shirt. “How’re you doing with everything, Tim?”
Yeah, about that everything. Got some news. I open my mouth, but only a slice of the truth comes out. “Well, shitty. Basically.”
She studies me for a sec, then turns and walks toward the Bug. “Come on. Let’s just . . . go.”
Anywhere.
I slide into the passenger seat. Those cars? Your legs are, like, right there. So I accidentally brush against Alice’s smooth, tanned thigh with the back of my knuckles as I’m fastening the seat belt. Drum my fingers on my knee. Close my eyes. Deep gulp of air. Salt, sea, sun, sand.
Alice.
ALICE
The Bug has shrunk. Tim seems to be taking up more space—more air—than his fair share. He adjusts his long legs, knees bumping the dash, hand grazing my leg. I grind the gears as I shift into reverse. Look over quickly to see if he’s giving me that annoying cocky smile, but he’s tipped his head partly out the window, resting his chin on the heel of the hand propped on the sill, eyes closed, hair whipping around like a dark red hurricane.
The only other time we’ve been in this car together he was passed out cold in the backseat after a suicidal joyride with Samantha and his jumpy sister. We had to carry him into his house, he was so wasted. That was barely three months ago.
No time at all, really.
I open my mouth to say Let’s go back, not a good idea, but then the breeze shifts, I smell the tarry open road and the sparkling clean air and Tim’s shampoo.
We’ve passed the Reeds’ old house, wind through downtown, past the building and loan, away from everything.
Just for right now. This once.
We hit the intersection of Old Town Road and Route 17. I smooth my thumbs against the worn plastic of the steering wheel, hesitate over the turn signal.
Tim angles his hip, pulls something out of his pocket. “Let’s play Flip It,” he says, and hands me a quarter. “Every time we get to an intersection, we flip the coin. Heads are right, tails are left.”
I toss the coin to him and he whips it out of the air, quick as a seagull, and slaps it onto the back of his hand, then points left, leans over, flicks the turn signal.
“Let’s wait a few exits to flip it again. Not much adventure in Stony Bay.”
“So it’s adventure you’re looking for today, Alice?”
I shrug. Tim resettles his legs again, rubs the side of one thigh, makes a face.
“Leg cramp? Navy Seal workout getting to you?”
“Pain is weakness leaving the body,” Tim says solemnly. “Also nicotine. The coin says take this right.”
Right, and flip left, and finally we wind up at McNair Beach, three towns away, but still a destination beach because it’s a lot less rocky than the ones close by.
“Just so you know,” Tim says as I park in the empty lot, “I cheated. I wanted the beach. Shame not to get that bikini wet.”
He grins at me, unabashedly checking me out. I straighten, pull my shoulders back, smile sideways at him. Then freeze. I’ve made those moves a thousand times and can translate them, even if Tim can’t. Go ahead. Look. I want you to. What the hell am I thinking, pulling this with him? There should be sky-writing, a billboard, a Jumbotron: You know better. And I do. And still.
TIM
Alice flicks off her flip-flops, tosses them into the backseat without saying a word. Then strides off like she’s leading a charge. I trail after her, hands crammed in my pockets.
Still without talking, we walk down the path lined with sea grass, onto the wide beach, the ragged, stony breakwater, toward the boarded-up hot dog and burger stand. She’s still a length ahead and it occurs to me that I’m trailing after her like Brad or any of her lame-ass boytoys.
I catch up to her easy—longer legs and all that. “I’m not some lapdog, like your Cro-Magnons,” I tell her. “You don’t get to call all the shots.”
She stops, shading her eyes to look up at me. “No, you’re not a lapdog, Tim. I know that.”
“Just so we’re clear,” I say, my eyes straying to her belly ring, which is winking in the late-morning sun.
“You’re too big to be a lapdog. An Irish setter maybe.” Then she turns and starts to run down the beach.
I laugh. So I’m, like, the sample workout buddy in this scenario? Cramping quad muscle and all, it takes me a minute to catch up to her this time. At least I’m not gasping like a landed trout. I tag her on the shoulder.
She whips around but doesn’t realize how near I am, so she winds up smack against me. Smile fading, she steps back, folds her arms tight against the bare brown skin of her stomach, exactly where I want to reach out and set my fingers, nudge my thumb against that little silver belly ring.
“Let’s . . . let’s . . .”
“Yeah?” I say, and step closer. Because Alice, fierce Alice, who always meets my eyes square on, doesn’t seem to know where to look.
“Let’s just . . .”
I close my eyes, blood pounding in my ears.
Let’s just lie down in the sand.
Please.
Let me just . . .
Have this.
She looks up at me through her lashes for a second, lips parted just a little.
Then . . . “God.” She shields her eyes, staring out at the tossing waves, then down the beach. “It’s really over. Summer. So fast.”
“Naaah.” I point. “The Shore Shack cart’s still here. Always summer in the land of frozen dairy products in colors not seen in nature. C’mon. I’ll buy you something.” I shove my hand back into my pocket, jingle the change and crumpled bills I stuffed in there on my way out the door. “As long as it doesn’t cost me more than four bucks and twenty-seven cents.”
“Big spender.”
“Hey, eternal youth doesn’t come cheap.” I start to set my hand on her back to steer her toward the cart but can’t because there’s no end to what I want to touch when it comes to Alice. I’m almost as wheredoyouputyourhands as Andy.
We have a brief argument over which flavors are the most immature. “Neapolitan,” Alice insists. “Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry. The basics. It’s the first ice cream babies get to eat.”
Cal.
Don’t think about it.
I want to pull this day out of time and space the way a magician snatches a quarter from thin air.
“That’s just a sneaky way of using up all that strawberry,” I argue, “because who the hell likes that shit?”
“You’re overthinking this.”
“I specialize in that.”
“Live in the moment, Tim.” Her tone’s cheerful, even a little goofy, and hell yeah.
In the end she gets Cake Batter, which is pink and has little strips of frosting mixed into it. I get electric-blue Bubble Gum, complete with waxy little gum balls. Watching Alice lick her cone makes me happy in all sorts of non-little-kid ways. I bite the bottom of my cone off.
“I knew you’d be that guy,” she says, polishing off her own.
“What guy?” I slurp down the last bits of ice cream, discarding one of the hard, stale-tasting gumballs, a perfect basket into the rusting iron trash barrel.
“The one who just has to do it the wrong way.”
The fact of Calvin, successfully shoved out of my head for a good two minutes, smacks me in the face again like a cold wave.
But.
I take a breath.
Live in the moment.
Cal’s not here at this moment, and I am, and Alice is.
ALICE
Nobody looks mature eating ice cream, and Tim, with a streak of blue on his right cheekbone, is no exception.
He would be in high school right now if he hadn’t taken the wrong exit.
I’m only one year out, it’s true, but it feels longer. So much longer. Field hockey and band and Spirit Day and dances . . . some other girl’s life.
Tim lobs the last of his cone toward the trash, grabs the back of his shirt and pulls it off, wipes his face.
There’s suddenly a lot of bare skin in front of me.
I point at the sand. “Lie down.”
His mouth drops open for a second. “Uh . . . what?”
“Lie down,” I repeat.
“Do I get a biscuit if I obey?” But he does, he lies down, falling on his back in the sand as I drop to my knees next to his hip. I start scooping sand onto him, beginning with his chest.
“Only if you’re very good. Stop moving, Tim, I can’t cover you up if you keep moving.”
His hand shoots out, grabs my wrist. “You’ll leave a hole for oxygen, right?”
“I—I—” His thumb presses in a little harder, right where my pulse jumps. I yank my hand away, keep piling on the sand. “When I did this to Andy, I always sculpted a mermaid tail out of sand over her legs.”
“Yeah, and you won’t be doing that this time.”
I’m just starting to smooth down around his thighs when he erupts out, scattering sand, in my hair, down my suit, everywhere.
He shakes his head, whipping more sand onto me. Then crouches, hands on his knees, breathing like he’s been sprinting—barefoot—instead of lying flat under my moving hands.
TIM
Cold water.
Now.
“Now we have to swim,” Alice says to me, like she’s reading my mind. Or, you know, body.
“Race you to the buoy line?”
“Pffft,” I say. “Kids’ stuff. Gotta head for the breakwater, if you’re going for a challenge.”
“Isn’t kid’s stuff what we’re doing? Besides, the breakwater is out of bounds for swimmers.”
I point to the empty lifeguard chairs. “Come on. Take a chance, Alice.”
“Stretch out that right leg first,” she advises.
“You forgot to say ‘Simon says.’”
She flushes, looks down and readjusts her halter strap. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that you don’t get to be the boss of me.”
She shakes her head. Like she wants my words and this weird push-pull between us to flip away with the breeze.
“I wasn’t saying that. I wasn’t doing that.”
“No?”
“No.” All brisk and practical now. “You’re still favoring one leg when you run. That’s probably why the other one is cramping up. I do that when I don’t pay attention, because of this broken ankle I had a few years ago. Ever break anything?”
“Other than curfew and the speed limit? A few hearts here and there.”
Total bullshit, the last. I wait for her to call me on it, to know that no one ever got that close. Instead she squares her shoulders, widens her stance, hands on hips. Like a dare.
“No worries. I’m pretty heartless.”
That’s bullshit too, but I don’t say so. “So how do I fix it? The favoring-the-leg thing?”
“Try a few lunges.” She demonstrates, one toned, tanned thigh balanced, bending smoothly at the knee, jaw fixed, looking out over the water, strong chin, full lips, these two little dimples inset neatly at the base of her spine.
Oh Alice.
Trying not to lunge, thank you very much.
ALICE
No sign of Tim anywhere. I’m bobbing in the cool water beyond the slimy swim line that connects the buoys and he was right there, yards ahead of me, and now there’s nothing. No splash, no streak of arms against the waves, nothing but a seagull shrilling and plunging in the air overhead.
Nothing at all.
Panic flickers at the edge of my vision, almost visibly, like someone flipping white lights on and off in a dark room. A wave slaps me in the face. I can’t catch my breath.
Not one of these.
Not here.
Not now.
And not him. Where is he?
I shield my eyes, sweep a look one direction, the other. A head, rusty hair nearly the same color as the buoys, bobs up.
Laughing, damn it.
“Where the hell were you?”
“To the breakwater—and back. Underwater. I win.”
“I thought you’d drowned.”
He cocks his head at me. “Seriously? I was on the swim team.”
“How would I know that? I thought you’d gone under.” My voice is trembling. “Which is the last thing I need, I mean, we need—I mean, what would happen if you drowned? If you got hurt or died while I was watching you?”
“Watching me? You’re not babysitting me,” he says, then flushes.
“I didn’t mean that. I just meant—you could have hit your head on a rock or come across a riptide or—”
“The really bad riptide is at Stony Bay Beach,” he interrupts. “Not here. Besides, I know how to get out of it. I’m a big boy, Alice. And not your problem.”
“I didn’t mean that. But you—” I stop, not even sure what I’m so angry about.
He purses his lips, studying me, moving up and down in the waves, so close, his feet whirl the water around me as he treads, red hair dark and glinting. “I don’t fuck up everything, Alice.”
The sound is that clear, sea-glass green it often turns in the fall, though it’s still summer-warm. His eyes are also a clear grayish blue, nothing shielded.
“I know that.” Some things you say automatically and then, inside, feel a quiet little nod. The hitch in my breath, the knot in my chest, they untangle and wash away as I look back at him, waves slapping around us.
TIM
“Hot fake leather! Hot fake leather! I forgot to leave a towel on the seat,” Alice says after sliding into the driver’s side. “Holy! I never forget to do that.”
“You were probably distracted by my hard, manly body.” I stretch into the backseat for a towel and toss it to her. She misses the catch, fumbles for it, crams it beneath her. Then turns to face me. Presses her lips together, sets her jaw, bracing herself. I wait for her to blast me for something—scaring her in the water, that she already knows about the kid, that she can read my mind and knows every little nook and cranny it’s gone to in the last two hours.
“What?”
Pucker between her brows now. Her eyes move over my face.
“What?” I ask again, reaching up to rub my chin self-consciously. I haven’t shaved.
Still frowning,
she rests her index finger between my eyebrows, brushes away the worry lines.
Then she wraps one arm around my waist, sets her fingers at the back of my neck to pull my head down. She touches her tongue to my bottom lip, and then opens her mouth. Tastes like salty ocean and sweet birthday cake and everything I’ve ever blown out candles and wished for.
I kiss her back, skim one thumb slowly down her spine, the other hand hesitating at her waist for only one inhale before I press my palm hard against her soft skin, turn her to face me more fully, pull her all the way into my lap, bend all I have into all of her.
We’re in a Volkswagen and I’m six three. The fine German engineering of the People’s Car was not engineered for this. Still, there’s no freaking way I’m gonna stop and request a more comfortable situation. Even if my legs are wedged under the glove compartment and my rib cage is about to be cracked by the gearshift.
“What am I doing with you?” Alice whispers, sliding her hands up my back. “This is crazy,” she says, shifting her hips to accommodate me. “You’re a kid.”
“I’m no kid. And you know it.” I move my lips behind her ear, along her throat, her neck, lower. Then slip one hand very slowly, tips of my fingers, edge of my thumb under the triangle of her suit.
God, God, God.
There we are in a tiny car with the windows down in a public parking lot and you’d think sanity would stop us, but nothing does.
I pluck the strap of her halter top to the side.
Drop my mouth to her collarbone where the strap has left a small red indentation.
Her hands on me, my lips on her, her fingers tightening, my breath catching.
Hers coming in these little puffs of air, hot against me.
I edge one hand down to touch the lever to recline the seat back and instead it folds around this thing, this loop of plastic and squish of rubber that I don’t immediately identify until I get it—a pacifier. For a baby.
In this case, Patsy, but . . .
Alice will hate herself, and me. Why did this have to happen now?
“This is . . . probably not a good idea.”
“Hmm?” She’s kissing my collarbone, her palm flat against my chest, over my heart.
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