When I came up to the surface, I smiled and said, "You guys are ten-year-olds."
"For life," Steven said smugly. His smuggy face made me want to splash him and soak him and his precious Hugo Boss sunglasses that he worked for three weeks to pay for.
Then I said, "I think you twisted my ankle, Conrad." I pretended to have trouble swimming over to them.
He walked over to the edge of the pool. "I'm pretty sure you'll live," he said, smirking.
"At least help me out," I demanded.
He squatted and gave me his hand, which I took.
"Thanks," I said giddily. Then I gripped tight and pulled his arm as hard as I could. He stumbled, fell forward, and landed in the pool with a splash even bigger than mine. I think I laughed harder right then than I've laughed in my whole life. So did Jeremiah and Steven. I think maybe all of Cousins Beach heard us laughing.
Conrad's head bobbed up quickly, and he swam over to me in about two strokes. I worried he might be mad, but he wasn't, not completely. He was smiling but in a threatening kind of way. I dodged away from him. "Can't catch me," I said gleefully. "Too slow!"
Every time he came close, I swam -away. "Marco," I called out, giggling.
Jeremiah and Steven, who were headed back to the house, said, "Polo!"
Which made me laugh, which made me slow to swim away, and Conrad caught my foot. "Let go," I gasped, still laughing.
Conrad shook his head. "I thought I was too slow," he said, treading water closer to me. We were in the diving well. His white T-shirt was soaked through, and I could see the pinky gold of his skin.
There was this weird stillness between us all of a sudden. He still held on to my foot, and I was trying to stay afloat. For a second I wished Jeremiah and Steven were still there. I didn't know why.
"Let go," I said again.
He pulled on my foot, drawing me closer. Being this close to him was making me feel dizzy and nervous. I said it again, one last time, even though I didn't mean it. "Conrad, let go of me."
He did. And then he dunked me. It didn't matter. I was already holding my breath.
Chapter four
Susannah came down from her nap a little while after we put on dry clothes, apologizing for missing our big homecoming. She still looked sleepy and her hair was all feathery on one side like a kid's. She and my mother hugged first, fierce and long. My mother looked so happy to see her that she was teary, and my mother was never teary.
Then it was my turn. Susannah swept me in for a hug, the close kind that's long enough to make you wonder how long it's going to last, who'll pull away first.
"You look thin," I told her, partly because it was true and partly because I knew she loved to hear it. She was always on a diet, always watching what she ate. To me, she was perfect.
"Thanks, honey," Susannah said, finally letting me go, looking at me from arm's length. She shook her head and said, "When did you go and grow up? When did you turn into this phenomenal woman?"
I smiled self-consciously, glad that the boys were upstairs and not around to hear this. "I look pretty much the same."
"You've always been lovely, but oh honey, look at you." She shook her head like she was in awe of me. "You're so pretty. So pretty. You're going to have an amazing, amazing summer. It'll be a summer you'll never forget." Susannah always spoke in absolutes like that--and when she did, it sounded like a proclamation, like it would come true because she said so.
The thing is, Susannah was right. It was a summer I'd never, ever forget. It was the summer everything began. It was the summer I turned pretty. Because for the first time, I felt it. Pretty, I mean. Every summer up to this one, I believed it'd be different. Life would be different. And that summer, it finally was. I was.
Chapter five
Dinner the first night was always the same: a big pot of spicy bouillabaisse that Susannah cooked up while she waited for us to arrive. Lots of shrimp and crab legs and squid--she knew I loved squid. Even when I was little, I would pick out the squid and save it for last. Susannah put the pot in the middle of the table, along with a few crusty loaves of French bread from the bakery nearby. Each of us would get a bowl, and we'd help ourselves to the pot all throughout dinner, dipping the ladle back into the pot. Susannah and my mother always had red wine, and us kids had grape Fanta, but on that night there were wineglasses for everyone.
"I think we're all old enough to partake now, don't you, Laur?" Susannah said as we sat down.
"I don't know about that," my mother began, but then she stopped. "Oh, all right. Fine. I'm being provincial, isn't that right, Beck?"
Susannah laughed and uncorked the bottle. "You? Never," she said, pouring a little wine for each of us. "It's a special night. It's the first night of summer."
Conrad drank his wine in about two gulps. He drank it like he was used to drinking it. I guess a lot can happen over the course of a year. He said, "It's not the first night of summer, Mom."
"Oh, yes it is. Summer doesn't start until our friends get here," Susannah said, reaching across the table and touching my hand, and Conrad's, too.
He jerked away from her, almost by accident. Susannah didn't seem to notice, but I did. I always noticed Conrad.
Jeremiah must have seen it too, because he changed the subject. "Belly, check out my latest scar," he said, pulling up his shirt. "I scored three field goals that night." Jeremiah played football. He was proud of all of his battle scars.
I leaned in next to him to get a good look. It was a long scar that was just beginning to fade, right across the bottom of his stomach. Clearly, he'd been working out. His stomach was flat and hard, and it hadn't looked like that last summer even. He looked bigger than Conrad now. "Wow," I said.
Conrad snorted. "Jere just wants to show off his two-pack," he said, breaking off a piece of bread and dipping it
into his bowl. "Why don't you show all of us, and not just Belly?"
"Yeah, show us, Jere," Steven said, grinning.
Jeremiah grinned right back. To Conrad he said, "You're just jealous because you quit." Conrad had quit football? That was news to me.
"Conrad, you quit, man?" Steven asked. I guessed it was news to him, too. Conrad was really good; Susannah used to mail us his newspaper clippings. He and Jeremiah had been on the team together these last two years, but it was Conrad who'd been the star.
Conrad shrugged indifferently. His hair was still wet from the pool, and so was mine. "It got boring," he said.