Summer Love - 3. Chapter 3

Summer Love
Part 3

It was Sunday, which meant church, for Aunt Edie at least. For me, it was a choice of being trapped in church, or trapped in her house.

“Fine, you can stay here if you don't want to go to church. Don't leave the house! I don't want my house left empty and open for burglars.” With that, Aunt Edie left, walking up the street to her church.

I closed the door and plodded back into the living room, turning and flopping backwards onto the still-extended sofabed. Three hours with myself and my thoughts. I really needed to figure out what was going on in my head. I mean, sure almost all my friends were boys, but I had girl friends too, right? I really wasn't .. that .. if I had girl friends. Even if I kept remembering that one time I saw my best friend Jeff with only a towel on... Nuh uh, I didn't want to think about this stuff any more, so I went and grabbed the next Xanth book and proceeded to lose myself in it for a while.

I was startled out of my skin when Aunt Edie stomped in and slammed the door shut. With the usual great timing of adults everywhere, I'd just gotten to the middle of the big climactic battle when she gave me that minor little jolt. “Geeze, Aunt Edie, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”

She waved her finger at me, glaring as she scolded, “Don't you dare take the Lord's name in vain, especially not on this day! Now get up and put my sofa back together while I make lunch, and then you can run off and leave me in peace.”

“Okay,” I answered with a long sigh, looking longingly at the propped-open book before grabbing it and marking my place with some scrap paper. I dropped it on the floor, then pulled the bedding apart and pushed the sofabed back into the base, with my usual grunting and groaning along the way. Maybe I really did need more exercise.

I grabbed my book and started putting my backpack together for the day. I decided to bring my binoculars and camera, just in case there were some nice, um, sights to see. Yeah. I refused to think about why I was really bringing 'em. Looking up as Aunt Edie came back into the room with my sandwich, I accepted it, thanked her, shoved it into the pack, and headed out to the beach.

I decided I couldn't wait before I even got a block away from Aunt Edie's house, so I stopped to grab the book out of my pack, and proceeded the rest of the way with my nose buried in the pages, only looking up to cross the streets. The sidewalks were really crowded, and I got jostled a few times, but I was used to that anyway. Unfortunately, I was also used to hearing things like the “Hey look, it's the geek” that came from behind, just before I went sprawling along the sidewalk.

I got back to my feet with the help of a passerby, who continued on her beeline to the beach after commenting that I should watch my step more carefully. “Yeah,” I thought to myself, “I need to be more careful and not walk around people who hate me. Oh wait, that's just about everyone.”

By the time I crossed the street to the pier entrance, I was back into the book, and kept following the crowd without noticing where I was going. When I noticed that there weren't many people around me anymore, I was already halfway down the length of the pier; the only stuff farther down the pier were the pay-to-look telescopes and a couple of shacks selling stuff to the people who fished off the end of the pier. Glancing down that way, I counted a dozen or so fishermen. I started to turn around, then looked out to the ocean, and realized that the end of the pier was a perfect place to watch the surfers from.

I grinned and crouched to pull my backpack off. Tucking the book back inside it, I pulled out my binoculars (actually my dad's, but he let me borrow 'em whenever I wanted) and the old 110 camera I'd been using for a few years now. I stood once more, swung the pack onto my back, and set off at a jog for the end of the pier, eager to see if I could catch a picture of the surfers, or maybe one in particular.

I slumped against the railing at the side of the pier, disappointment draining me of all the eager energy I'd had. The surfers were out in force, but if David was out there, I couldn't see him. Halfheartedly, I scanned the binoculars out to the open ocean, figuring maybe at least I'd see some whales or something.

A tap on my shoulder and his voice asking, “Hey, book dude, see anything exciting out there?” gave me my second heart attack of the day. I jumped back from the railing, the binoculars fell from my open hand to swing heavily against my heaving chest, and I looked at him with a glare and laughter both fighting on my face.

“David! Geeze, man, don't do that to people!” I exclaimed.

He was obviously holding back laughter as he said, “Sorry, dude, I just had to...” Then his laughter won out, and that killed my glare; I leaned over and joined him, propping my hands on my knees as we both laughed our heads off.

I finally straightened back out, still snickering, and grinned at him. It was then that I noticed for the first time that he was actually a bit shorter than I was. I'd gotten used to being one of the taller kids in my classes at school, but you always expect surfers to be these tall lanky guys, and here David was, like two inches shorter than me, wearing a t-shirt so tight it looked like it was glued on and cut off bluejeans shorts that were really short...

I shook my head to stop from staring at him again, lifted my gaze to his grinning face, and hurriedly asked, “What're you doin' up here, instead of surfing out there?”

He shrugged, answering, “I work here, c'mon, I'll show ya. I just ran out here to say hi, I gotta get back anyway.” He grabbed my arm the same way he did yesterday and started off; this time, I was more than willing to follow him.

He led me to the side door of one of the bait and tackle shops and pulled me inside. With the door closed, there was barely room in the small shop for David, me, and the old guy relaxing in the folding chair behind the counter.

“It's about time you got back, brat. Customers've been lined up six deep!” The old guy grinned, showing gaps between cigarette-stained teeth, then pushed himself to his feet. “Now git to work, I gotta smoke.”

“Yeah, Mr. R, it's, like, soooo busy here,” David shot back, grinning wide as he pulled me against the counter to let Mr. R go by. When the door shut behind him, David smiled at me. “Mr. R is a cool dude. Anyway, this's it, 's what I do to make the dough to get my surfin' junk and books and stuff.”

I was still looking around the shop, peeking into the plastic buckets (and recoiling from a few). I gave the all-purpose answer, “Cool,” and turned just in time to see a worried look on his face disappear under that bright grin of his.

“You wanna hang around, or you gonna go back and stare at the surfers s'more?” he asked, his grin getting even bigger as my cheeks flushed.

“Was not!” I replied (yes, ever so witty, that's me), giving his shoulder a shove. “Anyways, won't I get in the way?” There really wasn't that much room; we'd be bumping into each other whenever we moved. Of course, then my mind zeroed in on the idea of bumping into him, and I had to derail that train of thought real quick. “What is this stuff, anyway?”

So much for that derailment. He came over and stood next to me, close enough that his arm rubbed under mine every time he pointed at something to say what it was. I don't really remember anything he pointed out, since I was concentrating on ignoring the feel of his arm against mine. It took a few moments to register when he stopped talking, and I quickly turned to face him as he started giggling.

“I looked exactly like that when Mr. R told me the names of everything too, dude,” he said in between his giggles. He nodded his head towards the chair vacated by Mr. R and continued, “Why dontcha kick back, read whatever ya brought, whatever. I got this covered.”

Then he was sliding past me, close enough that the back of his spikey hair tickled my nose. I sucked in my breath, then practically lept into the chair, dropping the backpack into my lap. My thoughts raced in circles, then damped when I realized, no matter what was going on with me, I couldn't let him know; I couldn't bear to lose the only friend I had around here.

The ringing of the counter bell brought me back to my senses, and I fumbled the book out of my pack while I watched David out of the corner of my eye. I had to grin as I listened to him talk to the customer; he sounded so completely different from “surfer-dude David”. I stopped watching pretty quick when he started scooping out live wiggling things from the buckets, tho. Eww, with his bare hands, too.

By the time he was finished with that customer, and the two more who'd come up in the mean time, I was lost again, deep in the last chapter of the book. As I got to the end of the story, I gradually realized that David was on his knees on the floor next to me, leaning one arm along my leg and peering down at the book. “Pretty cool book, huh?” he asked, grinning, as I jerked my head up to look at him.

I guess my expression wasn't that inviting; he stood up suddenly, his grin fading a bit, and brushed his hand down his chest. “Sorry, man, I just... um, hadn't read it in a while, and guess I wanted to see how it went again.”

Before I could even figure out how to respond to that, the shop door opened again and Mr. R came in. “Okay, brat, git out, you're done fer the day.”

David looked back at Mr. R quickly, then turned back to me and said, “Well, see ya later, I guess.” I was struggling to get my backpack put back together, and by the time I got out of the chair, I could see David's back disappearing in the afternoon crowds of the pier.

I turned to look at Mr. R, who just raised one eyebrow, then swept his arms towards the door. I nodded silently back to him and stepped out into the hot California sun, not feeling a bit of it. Without another look around, eyes glued to the planks of the pier, I headed home, wondering what had happened and what I was gonna screw up next.

Last update: 2008-06-30 20:10:59 PDT