The Big Summer

by Jamie B Laurie

  In those first three weeks in Seaside City, I posted six more videos of songs by The Fuzzy Sweaters. Each got a few thousand views and a decent number of comments. I had a group of loyal followers.

  I felt … validated.

  Though, I began to grow wary of the Internet when a frequent viewer of my videos private messaged me a photograph of himself. Needless to say, the picture proudly displayed his abundance of gray body hair.

  9. Make music

  10. Exercise more!

  13. Get a tan

  Chapter 15

  My Adventures in Athleticism

  To fulfill number fourteen on the List (“learn something new”), Daniel had offered to teach me how to surf. I had reached roughly the midway point in The Big Summer. And every night when I saw the List on my wall, all the objectives I had yet to complete leaped out at me. The sand in the hourglass was dripping away, and every day on the calendar was another day closer to The End.

  I tried not to think about what would happen when the weather started to grow cooler and school supply advertisements were impossible to evade. I suppose it wasn’t a very smart/responsible/mature way of looking at things. I knew deep down that the pain of leaving my new friends behind would be all that much harder if I wasn’t prepared for it, but in the moment, I was okay with that. I filed thoughts of a looming September away in a locked drawer in my mind. I would enjoy the rest of my summer one day at a time.

  That is precisely why I found myself in the back of Rose Clark’s car. She had agreed to drive Daniel and me to the beach on her way into Atlantic City, because Daniel told me that it was best to learn how to surf without too many people around. The Seaside City beach, therefore, was a no-go; I would end up impaling someone on the surfboard and wind up with a huge, gory mess in the water that would surely attract millions of man-eating sharks.

  We didn’t want that to happen, so Daniel was going to teach me at a smaller beach about thirty minutes away. He told me that hardly anybody went there because it didn’t have a boardwalk or bathrooms or restaurants.

  The surfboard that I was determined to master that day was strapped down to the roof of the car. My daypack was in the back with me, containing sunscreen, water, a towel, a change of clothes, my lunch … and that trusty condom, still in my duct tape wallet, because you just never know.

  Daniel sat up front next to his mom, with his arm hanging out the open window. Just as the sun burst through the thinning layer of clouds in the sky, I caught his eyes in the side mirror, and he waved at me and smiled. Then he flipped down his reflective aviator sunglasses, playing it super cool.

  “Nervous?” he asked.

  “Um, a little bit?”

  He grinned. “Awesome.”

  Rose smiled at me in the rearview mirror. “You’ll be in good hands with Daniel. He knows what he’s doing.”

  “I trust him,” I replied confidently. “Oh, and thanks for the lift, by the way.”

  “Not a problem, Will,” she answered. “You know, Daniel was so excited about today, it’s the least I could do.”

  Daniel groaned embarrassedly in the front seat, “Mom.”

  I laughed. “I was excited too. It’ll be cool to learn how to do something at least a little athletic.”

  “Sports aren’t really your thing?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “Not really.”

  “You run, Will,” Daniel reminded me.

  I agreed. “Yeah, I run.”

  “It’s not for everyone, I guess,” Rose said cheerily. “Hannah’s not into that stuff, either. Daniel plays on some of his school’s teams, don’t you, sweetheart?”

  “Yeah. Just soccer, rugby, basketball, and swimming,” he said, shrugging.

  “Well, excuse me, Mr. Olympics.” I chuckled. “How exactly do you fit in schoolwork?”

  “Uh, there are different seasons,” he explained, running a hand through his hair. “It’s not that big of a deal really.”

  Rose boasted, “And you still manage excellent grades, honey.”

  “Mom,” he groaned, “if you brought a copy of my report to show to another friend, I swear to God—”

  “Don’t be silly,” Rose scoffed, winking at her son. “I keep that in my other purse.”

  “Come on,” I bugged Daniel, “your mom’s just proud of you. Mrs. Clark, do you have any baby pictures handy of Daniel and his little bum?”

  He started laughing so hard that he started to cough. Rose didn’t seem to find it as amusing. She frowned at her son. “Is it so wrong for a mother to take pride in her son?”

  “Will, has my mother told you yet that I made Honor Roll at school twice this past year?” Daniel teased.

  I made an impressed face. “No, she didn’t. But congratulations.”

  “Oh, and then how about the time that my English essay got put into the bimonthly newsletter? Or how I’m coeditor of the school paper? Or that my debating club took home a second-place trophy from the statewide championship?” Daniel rambled on and on. I had a hand clasped to my mouth to stop myself from cackling.

  Rose caught my gaze in the mirror, and her eyes gleamed mischievously. “I think I also forgot to mention that Daniel starred in the school musical, didn’t I?”

  “No, Mom … you mentioned that, I think, and—”

  “What?” I screeched, thankful for the seatbelt keeping me from keeling over. “You did what?”

  “Tin Man,” he mumbled. “Wizard of Oz.”

  “You sang in the school musical?” I gasped.

  Rose nodded. “Very nicely, I might add.”

  “Do you have the DVD of that?”

  “I’ll make you a copy,” she promised.

  Daniel slipped a bit lower in his seat.

  “As soon as possible, if you don’t mind,” I told her.

  “Mom, Will actually sings really well. He put some videos online, and they have a ton of views and likes and stuff. And he’s really smart in school. And he knows about some really cool bands, and he teaches himself to play their songs on the piano. And he reads a lot and watches good movies. So there you go,” Daniel said in a rush, rattling out my accomplishments and interests like a machine gun.

  Rose nodded. “Very nice, Will. You’ll have to let Arthur and I hear some of your songs.”

  “Oh, well—”

  “I’ll show you some of them after, Mom,” Daniel told her, looking back to stick his tongue out at me. “Right after you give Will that copy of my award-winning performance as the heartless toothpaste tube.”

  The threats hanging in the air for the next few minutes, Mrs. Clark pulled off the highway, and we headed back to the coast. Eventually, a parking lot with an unassuming sign cropped up, and she steered the car off the main road.

  “Here we are, boys,” Rose said, shutting off the engine and pulling up on the handbrake.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Daniel said, pecking her on the cheek.

  “Yeah, thanks, Mrs. Clark.”

  “You have your phone, Daniel?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Is it charged?”

  He checked it. “Uh, negative.”

  “It’s okay. I have mine,” I told her.

  “All right,” she said. “You boys call when you’re finished, okay?”

  We got out of the car, and I shouldered my backpack. I admired the way that Daniel made quick work of the straps tethering down the surfboard, his fingers nimbly undoing the knots. He was a professional, through and through.

  “Do you need help with that?” I asked as he tossed the straps onto the front seat of the car and pulled down the surfboard.

  “Nope.” He grunted, pulling it from the roof. His taut arm muscles swelled, his tank top putting them on display. He stowed the surfboard under his arm. “Just grab my bag, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure.”<
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  Daniel started off in the direction of the water and waved over his shoulder at his mother. I picked up his backpack and followed him. The car vroomed to life and zoomed away.

  “And now we can be in peace,” Daniel said. “Sorry about all that, by the way. I’m not as awesome as she made me seem.”

  I caught up to him. “I don’t know. You’re pretty awesome.”

  “Thanks.” He chuckled.

  “I mean, obviously you can’t hold a candle when compared with my supreme awesomeness,” I teased.

  He knocked into me. “Of course not.”

  The path led down to a short length of boardwalk, old and brittle-looking and crusted with salt. It sunk into the sand toward the end, as if it were a project that had been abandoned halfway through.

  “Perfect,” Daniel said, cracking an easy smile. “There’s nobody else here.”

  It truly seemed like some lost place. A small crescent of sand littered with seashell shards, lapped at by the fairly sizeable waves churned up in the small, private bay. The beach was guarded from the prying eyes of the highway commuters by a line of trees. A paradise but for the smoggy air and the lack of turquoise water, snowy white sand, and palm trees.

  “Cool.” I gulped.

  All. Alone.

  “Well, it’s not going to get any prettier than it already isn’t,” Daniel said cheerily.

  He took the tall step off of the weathered wooden planks and started across the beach. I leaped down after him.

  Daniel speared the surfboard into the sand smack dab in the middle of the short stretch of beach. I felt like we were European explorers, newly arrived to conquer land in the name of our king … or something really important like that.

  I handed him his backpack and knelt down on the sand to unzip my own. Pulling out my fantastically stylish beach towel (it was covered in smiley faces), I spread it out.

  “So much space,” I muttered, grateful for not having a rude vacationer breathing down my neck.

  “Space, glorious space,” Daniel added. He had his own towel out and had his arm in his backpack to the shoulder, rummaging around for something. A moment later, he pulled out what looked like a bar of soap. “Aha!”

  “What, pray tell, is that?”

  “This,” he told me, reaching out and pressing it into my palm, “is surfboard wax. You rub it on the deck of the board to make your feet stick.”

  “I see,” I mumbled, observing it wearily. “And what, pray tell, is the deck of the board?”

  “It’s the top.” He laughed and shook his head. “Newbie.”

  “Can I … can I put it on?” I asked. If I was going to learn to mount the infernal thing, I certainly wasn’t going to half-ass it.

  “Sure.”

  Gently, I tugged the board from the sand’s loose grip and set it down. I leaned over the surfboard like a doctor about to perform open-heart surgery and wielded the wax in my hand with burning intensity.

  Childishly, I used the wax as a crayon and the board’s deck as my fresh sheet of construction paper. I rubbed the bar furiously across the surface.

  Daniel was prudent enough to stop me before I snapped the board in half. “Uh, no.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  Daniel knelt at my side, leaning over me, and took my hand in his. He guided my hand in small, slow circles as we worked our way over the board.

  My breath rattled.

  “You see?” he said softly, turning to look at me.

  I nodded, but he didn’t let go of my hand.

  “Now we’re going to go over the rails.”

  “The what?”

  I could hear the grin in his voice. “The edges of the board. So when you hold on them, your hands don’t slip.”

  “All right.”

  Once the job was done, he said, “Great job.”

  I handed the wax back over and gave a gracious flourish of my hand. “Thanks.”

  He stood up then, brushed off his knees, and extended a hand to pull me up. “We’re going to do a dry run now, okay?”

  “You’re the boss.”

  He dimple-smiled. “I like the sound of that.”

  Daniel reached for the bottom of his striped tank top and pulled it over his head, dropping it on top of his bag. My hands felt detached from me, ghostly, as I tugged off my own shirt. I didn’t think to be self-conscious. And while I was secretively ogling him, I half-noted the way that his eyes flickered over to me.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  He carried the surfboard closer to the water, kicking off his flip-flops next to his towel and carefully navigating the cracked shells that looked as dangerous as broken glass.

  “This is Surfing 101. Watch what I’m about to do closely, because then you’re going to try it.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Daniel took his place at the bottom end (I think?) of the surfboard. He cracked his knuckles for dramatic effect and stretched his arms over his head.

  “Any day now,” I told him, tapping my foot.

  He smiled and then dropped into the starting position of a pushup over the board. Lowering himself down (bicep alert!), he simulated paddling with his arms.

  “Okay, so first you have to get out to the waves.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “When you get there, you do this.” He gripped the rails, pushed up, and then hopped forward so that his feet were directly underneath his body. Then he stood up, holding his arms out for fake balance.

  From the dumb expression on my face, he must have thought I didn’t get it.

  “Should I do it again to—”

  “Yes,” I said. “Please.”

  “Make sure you watch the whole thing, okay?”

  I nodded. I was definitely going to watch the whole thing. He went through the motion again, and I managed to pull myself together enough to grunt out that I had understood.

  “Now it’s your turn,” he told me.

  I felt like every nonexistent person on the beach was staring at me as I stepped up to the board. I adopted the position he had showed me and started paddling for my life, ready to catch the monster wave.

  “Okay, now stand up.”

  That little hop that he made look so easy was actually hard for someone without an affinity for flexibility, such as myself. I wobbled a bit and tried to stand up too quickly, and I started to fall, and Daniel put out a hand to catch me, and he ended up with his hand on my stomach, and it scorched a flaming hole of erotic passion into my skin.

  “Try it again,” he encouraged.

  I did. And I fell again (totally not on purpose), and he saved me for the second time.

  “Again.”

  Wouldn’t you know it, clumsy old me needed assistance again. But by the fourth time, I nailed it. That time, Daniel wrapped an arm around my shoulder and squeezed proudly. “Good job.”

  I wanted to show him that I could do it again so I could get a second hug, but he was already picking up the board.

  “I’m not ready,” I protested, running behind him.

  He shrugged. “Probably not.”

  “Is your plan to drown me then?”

  “No, I promise I don’t want to drown you. But you have to learn it in the water now.”

  I frowned. “Meh.”

  “Let’s start by getting into the water first,” he said. “Then we can worry about the board.”

  “Baby steps,” I muttered.

  Now, the thing you should know about New Jersey ocean water is that it’s not like a hot tub, or a bath, or even a kiddie pool left out in the sun for a while. It’s cold. Like, skin-prickling-and-wee-wee-shrinking cold.

  We moved in slowly, each step a small internal battle of willpower. I was perfectly happy taking my own sweet time, but clearly Daniel had other ideas
. The cheeky bastard that he is, he cupped his hands under the water and splashed me.

  The spray of water burned like corrosive acid, and I let out a pterodactyl screech. I sought to retaliate, but Daniel only winked at me before diving forward into a short wave.

  He emerged, glittering, his hair dark and limp, all smiles. I tried to remain calm, but resistance was futile. I let out a bellow and charged after him, sloshing water all around with my labored steps (because walking through water is like performing an elaborate dance routine while submerged in pudding).

  Daniel laughed and darted away. “Oh, shit!”

  I jumped on him, taking him down with me, and I flailed my arms around, trying to get him wetter than he already was.

  “It’s … cold!” I yelled, but we were both laughing. And we continued being dumb and splashing each other until the beads of water that trailed down our bodies also had smaller beads of water that ran down them.

  “Surfing 101,” he told me.

  “I’m so happy I took this class.”

  He chuckled. “Okay, let me go get the board.”

  I watched as he dashed through the waves, shaking out my hair and wiping the stinging saltwater from my eyes. I followed the narrowing of his back and the lines of his shoulder blades. Wow, I was hopeless!

  He returned with the board under his arm, jumping agilely over the foaming waves. I equated the ease with which he moved through water to Jesus’s ability to walk on it; he was that good.

  “Okay, time to put on the leash,” he told me.

  I waggled my eyebrows. “Wow, we’re getting kinky.”

  “It’s to stop the board from getting away from you, doofus.” He chuckled and rolled his eyes.

  “I knew that,” I replied.

  Shaking his head in amusement, he pulled open the Velcro strap and handed it over.

  “Just below the knee,” he instructed.

  “Okay.” I secured it tightly.

  “Great,” he told me. “Now we’re going to practice what we did out on the beach over here in the shallow water first.”