by Sarah Ockler
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.
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. Shh
h, 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.