Summer of Seventeen (2 page)

Julia didn’t iron, so my clothes were wrinkled most of the time. Although she made an exception for Mom’s funeral, even though she was crying all over my shirt while she did it. I don’t know, maybe ironing made her cry. That’s a joke.

But right now my Tony Hawk was stuck tight, and I didn’t want to pull too hard in case I bent the truck or chipped the deck. So I was up to my armpits in dust bunnies, trying to work around the crap that had congealed under my bed, when the phone rang.

Only official people called on that line, like the School Board or the hospital, so it was weird to hear it ring now. My friends called my cell, and Julia didn’t have friends, only Ben. I don’t know if he called her, but he’d just show up most evenings.

Mom always hated the way I answered the phone; she’d yell at me to be polite. But Mom was dead, so I just picked up the phone and said, “Yeah?”

“Hi. You the guy with a room to rent? I saw it on Craigslist.”

Wow, that was quick.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Okay, cool. Can I come by later and see the room? Is it furnished or unfurnished? The listing didn’t say.”

I knew there was a sofa in the den, but if this guy wanted to rent the space, he’d probably want a bed, right? So I didn’t know whether to tell him that the room was furnished or not.

“I don’t really know. My sister placed the ad. She’ll be back about six.”

“Okay, thanks man. What’s the address?”

Our neighborhood was okay. Quiet, boring. Ours was the smallest house on a street that realtors described as a cul-de-sac of sixties cottages. But anyone else would call it a dead-end, where our house was definitely the most rundown. I think we were the only ones without a pool, but I didn’t need one because it was only a three minute skate to the ocean, and you don’t have to pay a pool guy.

So I rattled off the address and then went back upstairs to dig out my Tony Hawk. I forgot about the guy. Or maybe I didn’t want to remember him, because my stomach got tight at the thought of a stranger sleeping in our den. Because Mom used to sit there to watch her soaps. Because it was her bedroom at night. Because neither me or Julia ever went in there now.

Anyway, he said he was coming over later, so I didn’t need to think about it at all.

It would take me just over ten minutes to skate the two miles to the pier. All the high school kids who surfed hung out there—it was kind of our place. It was chill, pretty much like school. Maybe that’s because of all the stoners. Even when the school floods, which it does a lot in hurricane season, there’s no drama. A lot of grads stay home and go to Broward community college, so it’s no surprise when they party with guys who are still in high school.

The pier picked up a good swell, and had mellow rideable waves, especially with an offshore breeze. It was kind of annoying because we all know that if it’s good in Cocoa Beach, it’s smokin’ somewhere else. But at least I didn’t have to bum a ride to get to the waves. Surfing was a huge part of my life. I was a goofy foot, but I’d taught myself to ride natural too, because I thought it was cool to do both. And it was useful for skateboarding.

Lately, only the paddleboarders were seeing any action because it had been flat for over a week now.

I thought Sean and Rob might be down at the pier, even though it was where all the tourists went. We didn’t go on the pier as much as under it. In fact the last time I’d walked to the fishing hut end was over a year ago. I’d taken a date, but Erin was real picky and didn’t want to walk on the sand because she was wearing some stupid, strappy sandals with high heels. To the beach. Yeah, she was pretty, but not all that smart, I guess. She didn’t even wear those round-toed flat shoes that girls have when they’re not wearing flip-flops. And I could tell that her feet were killing her at the lame party we went to after the beach.

I didn’t ask her out again, but she still hung around by my locker forever, just staring at me. It got a bit creepy after a while. She backed off when I started dating Yansi.

That sounds bad. I mean it wasn’t the reason I started dating her. She’d transferred in towards the end of our Sophomore year and all the guys thought she was hot. She had thick brown hair that hung in ripples to her waist, and eyes that were so dark and deep they seemed black. She had a banging body too, but it was her sass that made her different. Most girls would get all dumb and giggly when you talked to them, but Yansi didn’t take shit from anyone and nobody dared talk trash to her. I think some of the guys were kind of afraid of her.

I asked her out right away, but she said her dad wouldn’t let her date until she was 17, so I had to wait until halfway through Junior year. But it was worth it. We’d started going out nearly four months ago and it never got old. Her dad was still pretty strict and he wasn’t real happy about her dating an Anglo who wasn’t even a Catholic, but he hadn’t told her no either.

Today, she was babysitting her brother and little sisters, and since I wasn’t allowed to be alone in the house with her, I wouldn’t be able to see her until tomorrow, which sucked. So instead of spending the first day of summer vacation with my girlfriend, I’d celebrated by sleeping till lunchtime, then lounging around my house.

I skated down to the pier, feeling the faint breeze that always tasted of salt, and made sunglasses hazy. The air was growing heavy as the temperature hit the low nineties, the humidity making my t-shirt cling to my chest. I ripped it off and stuck it into the back of my boardshorts, still weaving slowly down Ocean Boulevard, avoiding potholes in the road and tourists who didn’t seem to know the difference between a street and a sidewalk.

I wondered if it was worth asking ‘Oh Shucks’ again if they were hiring. It was a seafood place where all the tourists went, and I’d heard that tips were really good. I should have been bussing tables there this summer, but I hadn’t returned their calls when Mom was sick so they’d given the job to someone else. Maybe they’d change their minds, or maybe I could hit up a couple of surf and skate shops in town to see if they were hiring.

Some of the kids in my class hated living in a small town. Everyone worried what would happen now that the Shuttle program had ended and people lost their jobs. NASA said that it was still the Space Coast, but I knew guys where both parents worked at the visitor center, and the fear that it would close was like a shadow that followed them around. A lot of kids in school talked about going to live in Orlando or NYC one day. Not me. I liked it here. I didn’t want to imagine living somewhere I couldn’t see the ocean.

Some of last year’s seniors were hanging out when I walked down to the shore. They were all surfers so they nodded at me, but there was no sign of Sean or Rob. I stayed for a while, listening to them bitch about the high pressure system that was sitting over us like swamp gas, sucking the life out of the ocean, reducing it to a glassy pond. Low pressure means good waves, but all the tourist shops like high pressure, because that means sunshine.

My cell buzzed with a message, and I smiled when I saw what Yansi had written.

* Four hours of Doc McStuffins and Peppa freakin Pig. My brain will never be the same. Miss you. Want to come for supper? We’re having Sancocho x *

Yansi’s house was so different from mine. It always smelled of cooking, and was full of color and noise. Her brother, Mateo, was 10 and happy if you played catch with him. Her little sisters Pilau and Beatriz were kind of annoying, but cute as hell, following me around and chatting away in Spanish. I’d gotten an A in every Spanish test since I’d started dating Yansi. Her parents could speak English, although her mom not as well, but in their home it was always Spanish.

Mr. Alfaro had a weird Tom Selleck mustache, but he was quiet and reserved, and what he said was law. I didn’t know people lived like that anymore. Mom had guy friends sometimes, but none of them lived with us or told us what to do. I could see that it bugged Yansi, and sometimes she said she felt like she was more American than Panamanian, even though she hadn’t been born here.

I liked it there because it was different and because they always fed me, but it was hard to be around Yansi and not be able to touch her. I think I’d have ended up face down in Banana River if I’d tried and Mr. Alfaro saw me. Well, maybe not, but I was allowed inside their house for now and I didn’t want to fuck that up.

She complained about not having any privacy and having to share a room with her sisters. They caught us once and told their mom. We weren’t really doing anything, just kissing, but after that Yansi got hit with the rule about not having me in the house without her parents being there. There was no way we could sneak around without the kids knowing, and I didn’t want Mr. Alfaro telling Yansi that she couldn’t see me at all. Sometimes she managed to come over to my house by saying that she was studying at the library. Those were the only times I ever cleaned up my room. I didn’t want her to think I was a pig. Somehow when she was there, I could forget everything. She had a way of making it okay.

Sean was always asking me if we’d done it yet, and the truth was that we hadn’t. I was ready. I was
so
ready, but Yansi wasn’t. I could wait. I hoped. But it was none of Sean’s business, and he only kept on asking because I wouldn’t tell him anything and because he knew it pissed me off.

Sean liked to talk shit about girls, but I think that’s because he didn’t have any sisters. He wasn’t really into dating, just hooking up. It was one of the reasons he was always bitching about me seeing Yansi, saying that we acted like an old married couple. I think he was kind of jealous because she was so hot and really smart.

I headed home by way of ‘Oh Shucks’ just in case. The manager looked embarrassed and apologized, but said they didn’t have any jobs. I tried ‘Ron Jons’ too, but they’d already taken on all the summer help they needed.

I stopped by a couple of other places on the way home, but they all said the same thing. I even looked at the ads posted on the community board at Publix. But it was just people looking for nannies and babysitters. It was easier for girls—they could always get jobs looking after kids or walking dogs. I wouldn’t have minded doing that, pet sitting or whatever. I liked dogs, but adults thought girls were more responsible or something.

I was batting zero when it came to earning any money this summer. I would have liked just being a beach bum, but there was no way Julia would give me anything, not that I’d ask anyway, and I hated being broke.

I took a quick shower when I got home, but I’d left my wet towel in my bedroom a couple of days ago and it smelled rank, so I borrowed Julia’s. She wouldn’t mind. So long as she didn’t know.

Then I heard her yelling my name.

Busted
.

“Nicky!”

The whole neighborhood could have heard her. Seismometers probably measured something on the Richter scale. If they ever needed a Godzilla at Disney World, she could nail it. Probably wouldn’t need a costume either.

“WHAT?” I yelled back, because I knew that would annoy her. If she wanted to treat me like a kid, that’s what she was going to get.

“Get down here!”

Yeah, not happening. She only wanted to yell at me some more. I took my time getting dressed, hoping that if I was slow enough she’d change her mind about wanting to see me. That worked sometimes.

I could hear the low rumble of voices from the den, which probably meant that the dude had arrived to see the room. I could tell that Julia was being all nicey-nice, like she was a princess or something. She wasn’t a princess—she screamed when Ben was fucking her, words that I didn’t know she knew.

I walked downstairs slowly and watched her while I leaned against the doorjamb. I never used to notice stuff before. Now I noticed everything, even when it made no sense.

I’ve been like that since Mom died. I don’t know how to describe it—it was kinda like I was looking for the clue, the sign that would tell me,
this person is going to die on Tuesday
. Like Mom. Shouldn’t I have known? Shouldn’t there have been some sign the day before, something that told us to say everything we needed to say? To say goodbye?

But it doesn’t work like that.

Right now Julia had this super sweet smile on her face that made me want to hurl, and she kept tucking her hair behind her ear and twirling it like Zoe Ward did in eighth grade when she wanted me to notice her.

Then Julia saw me.

“Why didn’t you tell me that we had someone coming over to see the room?”

“You weren’t here.”

Her eyes narrowed and her lips got all thin. “You couldn’t leave a note?” she asked, her voice rising too sharply.

That made me hide a smile because I could tell she wanted to yell some more but not in front of the guy.

“This is Nicky,” Julia said to him, rolling her eyes in that chick way.

“Nick,” I said, and pushed my hands in my pockets.

The guy looked at me, like really looked at me, and then held out his hand.

“Hi, I’m Marcus. We spoke on the phone. How you doin’, man?”

“Yeah, okay.”

I shook his hand. Julia was smiling again now and totally eye-fucking him. He was a lot like the kind of guys she used to have pictures of on her bedroom wall before she started dating Ben. I could tell that this dude worked out a lot. I was pretty toned and had the kind of long, lean muscles that you get from surfing, but this guy was built. Funny thing was, he looked like me, but with gray eyes instead of blue, and I guessed he was maybe ten years older. I looked a whole lot more like him than I did Julia—yeah, me and Marcus could have been brothers.

“Nicky is my
little brother
, who I am going to strangle for not telling me you were coming,” she said to the guy, like I hadn’t spoken.

I hated it when she did that. She knew it, too.

“I can come back later?”

“No, it’s fine.”

Fine?
So why was she making like I’d committed a crime by not telling her about him?

“How many rooms do you rent out?”

Julia’s eyes flickered to mine, and I wondered if she really was planning on renting out my room.