"He couldn't get a furlough to go to homecoming with you?" Keke asked.
"Not funny!" Lila told her.
"He never even mentioned it to me again," I said. "I went to homecoming with somebody else, and Doug came back from juvie angry at me. Or maybe he was angry at the world, but it felt like me. Y'all don't remember this, but before juvie, Doug wasn't prickly like he is now. Juvie made him prickly."
"I always thought his mother dying made him prickly," Lila said.
I had not forgotten Doug's mother had died in a car accident when we were in eighth grade. It was part of what kept girls staring at him longingly after he snapped at them. With tragedy in his past, they thought he must be vulnerable.
And come to think of it . . . maybe despite all the reasons Doug had to dislike me, he would honor my father's demand that he keep to himself what my mother had done, because he empathized with me. Perhaps I'd misread him at the emergency room--not surprising, considering my state of mind. When he'd started toward me, he hadn't intended to make a snide comment. He'd understood. This interpretation didn't jive with the way Doug had been acting for the past few years. But it did make sense when I thought of him in ninth grade, hanging onto the cement wall in the lane next to me during junior varsity swim practice, making a joke about our awful uniform bathing suits emblazoned with the ugliest dog mascot either of us had ever seen, and asking me to homecoming. His voice was soft and his smile was kind.
"No," I told Keke, "he wasn't prickly before juvie."
"There's something to this," Keke told Lila. "Doug rolls his eyes at everybody, but he has a special eye-roll whenever Zoey opens her mouth. Like this."
Her imitation was shockingly accurate. I laughed and slapped my hand over my mouth in horror at the same time.
"That is so true!" Lila exclaimed. "But I thought he did that because Zoey is cute." She turned to me. "Doug doesn't do cute."
Lila was right. Doug sympathizing with me rather than taking the opportunity to bring the rich girl down--that was wishful thinking, and no genie had granted me any wishes. I would have used them on something else.
"I wonder why he came looking for me here," I mused. "If he's come to these parties all summer, he knows I haven't been to one."
"He definitely thought you would be here." Lila shrugged. "Why are you here? How's your mom?"
"My mom," I said slowly, "is good for the rest of the night." In my mind I was back in her bedroom again. I straightened the covers on her bed and tucked her in more tightly, because she looked cold.
I'd come to the party to escape thoughts like this. Now that they'd chased me here, I might as well be home with my dad and Ashley. I felt like I was about to jump out of my skin, and I couldn't stand it.
"Zoey."
We jerked our heads toward the beach at the sound of a boy's voice, and all three of us relaxed our shoulders when we saw it wasn't Doug.
It was Brandon. One of the Slide with Clyde employees who wasn't on the swim team, he was the star of our school's football team and looked it, big, blond, and clean-cut like a cartoon superhero. He wasn't a lifeguard either. He sold ice cream and lifted things that were heavy. I'd asked him about this a few times because lifeguards got paid more than the workers at the concession stands. I could have gotten him promoted. He always brushed me off with a joke about staying out of the sun and preserving his complexion.
His lungs were another story. He cupped both hands around his cigarette to take a puff and keep it lit in the wind off the surf. Exhaling smoke, he said, "I heard you were here. I have to talk to you."
"Come into the water." Playfully I kicked a little splash at him.
"Come out of the water," he called. "I have to talk to you alone."
Lila leaned in and whispered, "Do you want us to distract him? He's had a lot of beer, and he's dangerous with that cigarette. He might light you on fire."
"Thanks, but it's okay," I whispered back. I was sure he needed solace about his latest conquest gone sour--and if I could help him, at least I had helped someone tonight.
I waded out of the ocean with my arms out for him. "Sure," I told him as I hugged him in greeting. "We can talk alone. Let's go to . . ."
I glanced toward the water. I felt better just touching it. Keke, Lila, and the rest of the swim team had headed up the beach, toward the beer. Brandon and I could talk in the water now and have the ocean to ourselves.
His muscled arm curved around my waist.
I looked up at him. He gazed down at me earnestly, his too-handsome comic-book hero features softened by the starlight.
His hand stroked my back. I did not think he was touching me in a flirtatious way. I thought he was having a balance problem and teetering a bit.
But I wanted him to flirt with me. He was a muscle-bound football player and a playboy, but I knew him to be a softie, and in that dark moment I wanted more. This was crazy. I felt tingles of attraction for Brandon all the time. Who wouldn't? But I never acted on them. This time the thoughts of my mother and the pressure from Doug seemed to push me out of the surf and against Brandon's broad chest. I had come to this party desperately needing something I couldn't name. Now I knew what it was.
I stroked my hand across his. "Could we go to your Buick?"
I HAD DATED A LOT OF nice boys in the past few years. I'd never gotten serious with anyone, and that had been okay with me. I was only seventeen. I was willing to wait for the good stuff.
But something happened to me in June when my dad told my mom about Ashley. I couldn't stop thinking about sex, my dad having sex, Ashley having sex, everyone at Slide with Clyde having sex, everyone having sex except my mom and me.
Y might think my job as a lifeguard was sexy. But I spent most of my time on a platform with sunglasses on and a whistle in my mouth, poised to
ou prevent tragedy. The tourists accepted me as part of the scenery, like the cement mountains spewing waterfalls piped in from hoses, or the stacked crates with labels I'd stenciled another summer: BANANAS BY THE BUNCH and DANGER: ANACONDA!
The tourists didn't notice me, so I observed them unabashedly. While the little kids splashed in the fountains and peed in the pools, their parents eyed each other and spread each other with oil. No question what they did in the hotel room after Junior went to sleep.
The teenage tourists didn't have a place to do it. Unlike the locals, they didn't know about the city beach for parking. But it was clear what they wanted. The dance clubs in Panama City looked like Sunday school compared to what Slide with Clyde brought out in people. A few pi�a coladas bought by college kids and slipped to underage teenagers for fun. Cool rushing water. Hot bare skin and lots of it. Whether you got any or not, Slide with Clyde sold sex.