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of fake drowners back to the shore. It was my fifth summer in the camp. I'd passed my certification test long ago, and there wasn't much more for me to learn, but I liked the routine of running into the ocean on foggy mornings. Besides, my mother worked long hours at the health clinic, and I liked having someplace to go.

Next year I'd be sixteen, which meant I could get a job as a junior guard, helping teach some of the younger kids about water safety. Until then, I had to make do with the money I earned from babysitting. Thanks to my mother's endless referrals, I was booked practically every Saturday night. Not all of the kids were as well behaved as my mother made them out to be, but she spared me the biters and the bed wetters, at least.

The girl was sitting on a towel in front of what Beanie and I called the Ice Cube House. It was all gray concrete and tinted glass, boxy and ugly in a big-money kind of way. Next to the girl, two little blond boys, dressed in identical orange swim trunks, dug in the sand.

The girl was wearing one of those three-triangle bikinis: two tiny triangles on top, one slightly larger one on the bottom. The suit was chocolate brown with silver and turquoise beads on the straps. I tried to imagine swimming in something like that. One good wave, and that bathing suit would be on its way to South America.

She leaned back on her elbows, legs together, pretty knees bent in front of her. Her toenails were painted hot pink. A fly buzzed around her slender feet. Her tummy was perfectly flat, her legs almost unnaturally long. Her blond hair was thick and streaky--probably out of a bottle.

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Next to me, Beanie tugged at the bottom of her bathing suit, which had a habit of riding up. Like me, Beanie had spent the entire summer in the ocean. She'd hoped to lose some weight, to fit into smaller-size jeans, at least, but all she had to show for her effort was an extra inch or two around her shoulders. Beanie's mother says she should have gone to fat camp, like last year. Beanie's mother has big, big hair. I think she wears it that way to hide her horns.

As for me, my mother says I have a "beautiful, strong body." It's strong, all right, and not fat at all--but beautiful? Not really. Sturdy is more like it. My shoulders are too wide, my bust too small. I have a flat butt and virtually no waist. Mine is the ideal V-shaped swimmer's body, which is totally hot--if you're a guy.

Beanie and I smiled at the girl and said hi--because that's what you do in Sandyland when you pass someone on the beach. Her eyes flickered toward us and then out to sea while the little boys continued to play at her feet. She said nothing.

Beanie and I continued along the beach. We were quiet for a short while, feeling weirdly hurt. Then I said, "She didn't mean to be rude. She's just upset because she lost her tiara in the sand."

Beanie hooted. Beanie has one of those laughs, loud and musical, that makes everyone around her laugh even harder. "Or maybe she's lonely," she whooped. "Maybe Ken stood her up."

"Maybe Ken ran off with one of the Bratz dolls," I said. "Maybe Ken likes the babes with the big heads."

We laughed until our stomachs hurt.

I am not a total tomboy. When I was little, I had Barbies just like everybody else. My Barbies' hair was always ratty, though,

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because I used to take them into the bathtub and pretend they were racing in an Olympic-size pool. Also, I bent all their knees the wrong way--just to see what would happen. After that, they didn't kick very well.

Beanie and I walked until we ran out of beach, the surf slamming into the rock wall. We turned around and headed back, staring at the massive houses rather than the ocean. "I'll take one of those," I said, pointing to a gray shingled house with a copper chimney shaped like a lighthouse.

"I'll buy the one next to you, then," Beanie said, gesturing toward a brown A-frame. The blinds were all shut. Most of these houses were barely even used.

When we passed the Ice Cube House on the way back, we were disappointed to see that the girl had left the beach. We were all set to say, "Hey! How are you? Are you just visiting, or is this your house?" and pretty much just keep talking until she was forced to acknowledge our existence. But she had moved up to the lawn. She lay on a lounge chair, eyes closed, facing the sun, while the little boys scampered around her, tossing fistfuls of goldfish crackers at each other.

"Babysitting for rich people," I muttered. "Nice summer job."

"Yeah, really," Beanie said.

By the time we reached the public beach, we'd forgotten all about her.

Beanie and I have known each other since we were five years old. We had no choice, really. There's only one elementary school in town, with one class per grade, so everybody knows everybody,

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often better than we'd like. Until last year, we were never really friends, though. Beanie was always nice to me, but I didn't think much of it because she was always nice to everybody. Back then, if I'd had to think of one word to describe Beanie, that word would've been
jolly,
and I didn't do jolly. Then there was her name, which seemed so goofy. I mean--Beanie? It made me think of jelly beans and beanbag animals and stupid little hats. Beanie's real name is Bernice, so you can't exactly blame her for going with a nickname. I just thought she could have come up with something a little more dignified.

Up until eighth grade I was best friends with Avon (which, for some reason, I didn't think was a stupid name). Avon and I were nothing alike. She was all about manicures and movie stars, while I loved swimming and animals. But Avon and I were born two hours apart--in the same hospital, no less--so our friendship seemed inevitable. Beanie was born only ten days later, but until a couple of years ago her birthday seemed insignificant.

The next time we saw the girl was a few days later. Even though sea-guard camp was over, Beanie and I were at the beach because there was no place else to go, and besides, we never got sick of the beach no matter how much time we spent there. Beanie and I wore our regular bathing suits instead of the red guard ones. Mine was a blue-and-purple tie-dyed tank with a racer back. Beanie wore board shorts over her one-piece because she hates her thighs.

We were sitting in front of the lifeguard stand. There was no lifeguard down by the rocks; the rich people just had to know

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how to swim. In front of us, out a way, a yellow swim float bobbed in the waves. It was covered with seagulls, which meant that later, when all of us kids swam out to it, it would be covered with bird crap.

The girl was at the beach, but I didn't see her at first. All I saw was Nate Jameson.

"Nate alert," I whispered to Beanie, who was sitting on a towel next to me, rubbing suntan lotion onto her arms.

"Where?"

"Snack shack."

We gazed out to sea for a long moment. Beanie closed her lotion with a snap and dropped the bottle in the sand.

"I could really go for some onion rings right about now," she said. "You?"

I pretended to think about it. "It's a little early for onion rings. But maybe a shake."

We stood up, brushed the sand off our legs, and sauntered over to the parking lot. Nate stood to the side of the snack shack, waiting for an order. The snack shack is white wood and boxy, with bright blue trim. It's been here since before I was born, and the grease they use to cook the fries and onion rings may well be older than me. Not that I'd let that stop me. Food safety is for wimps.

Beanie and I pretended to be deep in conversation. Actually, we
were
deep in conversation:

Me
:
Does my hair look all right?

Beanie: Your hair looks cute.

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Me
:
I shouldn't have gone swimming. My hair would look better if I hadn't gone swimming.

Beanie: Nate has seen you with swim-hair a million times. A billion times.

Me: Maybe that's the problem. Maybe if Nate saw me with dry hair, he'd think of me in a whole new way.

I was out of my league with Nate. I knew that. Nate was a year older than me. He'd been the junior lifeguard in my camp group--what you'd call a junior counselor if the camp were on land. Next week he'd be starting eleventh grade at Sandyland High.

Nate was the strongest swimmer in the guard program. He was the best freestyler on the high-school swim team. And he was the most drop-dead gorgeous creature I'd ever seen, with blond curls that got lighter and curlier as the summer went on, green eyes that went from wide to crinkly when he smiled, and a nose that would be absolutely straight if not for a fight he'd gotten into with Ryan Kenner in the fourth grade.

None of that would matter if Nate weren't so perfectly good, so perfectly nice. He noticed when I refined my butterfly stroke. He cheered as I hauled Beanie--in her dramatic role as a drowning tourist--out of the surf. ("I lost my diamonds in the waves!" she'd shrieked. "We must go back for my diamonds!") He gave me advice about sophomore teachers: which ones gave the most homework, which ones could be convinced to talk about themselves for the entire class when they should have been teaching algebra.

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Nate liked me: I knew that. He liked me--and here we approach the most dreaded phrase in the English language--as a friend.

As we got closer to the snack shack, I noticed that Ryan Kenner was behind the counter. Ryan had reigned in his aggressive impulses since breaking Nate's nose (rumor has it he went to counseling), but he was still a nasty dweeb who was too tall and too skinny, with a sharp nose and a perpetual meanish grin. He had shaggy reddish-blondish hair and skin that didn't tan. Mostly, he looked right through me, which was just fine. Beanie said I was too hard on him. She liked Ryan, even though she recognized that it might be because she associated Ryan with fried food and she really, really loved fried food.

Behind Ryan, Alexei was working the grill. Alexei had come over on a special summer work permit from Russia or one of those other Russian-ish countries. He had yellowish hair and a red face--but probably anyone who spent all of his days alternating between a grill and a fryer would be flushed. He was short but powerful. I say I'm strong, but trust me: Alexei could snap me in two. He wouldn't, though. He's completely and totally kind, and not just because he lacks the vocabulary to be rotten. When he says, "Is nice day, yah? Is sunny, yah?" you just know he's being sincere.

Beanie is in love with Alexei, which kind of makes sense and kind of doesn't. It make sense because he's so sweet and kind of cute, but it doesn't because Beanie is so witty and charming, most of which is lost on Alexei and his fifty-word vocabulary.

According to Beanie, that's the whole point: "It takes the

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pressure off, you know? I never have to worry about being funny, about saying the right thing. I can say, 'Hey, Lex, is it hot back there?' every time--and every time, he'll laugh and smile because he's just so happy to understand me."

Anyway, Beanie and I stood a few feet away from the counter, squinting at the giant, hand-painted menu posted over the order window. This was for effect. We knew exactly what was on the menu, which had been the same for as long as we could remember: hamburgers, hot dogs, fried clams, breakfast burritos, fish-and-chips, milk shakes, fries. And onion rings, of course.

"Hey," Nate called out. I looked over, wide-eyed with fake surprise, and blinked a few times, finally allowing my face to register recognition. He was wearing faded, navy blue swim trunks that hung low on his waist, a slightly damp white T-shirt that was tight at his shoulders and loose around his stomach, and a shell necklace. His feet were bare and sandy.

He sauntered over, grinning. He reached out his arm and made a fist. "Dude," he said.

"Dude," I responded, holding up my fist and tapping his knuckles. A chill ran down my arm.

Beanie and I have discussed Nate's whole "dude" thing. I like it, but it does kind of seem, well, guy-ish. Beanie insists it's a gender-neutral term and a sign of affection.

"Catch any waves today?" I asked.

Nate laughed and ran a hand through his damp blond curls. "Oh, yeah--major crush." This is a running joke between us. (Beanie says that running jokes are another sign of a deep and potentially lasting affection.) Sandyland bills itself as the

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"World's Safest Beach," but it could just as easily advertise itself as the "World's Crappiest Surf Spot." I know how to surf--most of us do--but there are only a few days every summer when the waves are big enough to justify taking out the board.

The sunlight caught Nate's green eyes, making them almost luminescent. "You're going out for the swim team again, aren't you?" he asked. "Time trials are the second day of school."

"Well, yeah," I said. "Though I've spent so much time ocean swimming, I'm kind of out of practice on my strokes."

"You'll do great," Nate said. "Your butterfly's just amazing."

And then his expression changed, softened. His eyes widened. His smile faded--not from disappointment but with something that looked like awe. For an instant, I thought it was because of me, because of my flawless butterfly stroke. Maybe I was like a butterfly myself, just crawling out of my chrysalis, newly transformed.

My entire body grew warm. The world was suddenly more beautiful, more golden. It was like the last moment of a glorious dream, when you believe--honestly know--that you can fly. Or that you've won a gold medal in the Olympics. Or that you know your father's name.

And then you wake up and you realize it was all just a dream, and all you want to do is cry.

That's how it felt when I realized Nate wasn't looking at me at all. He was looking behind me.

She was wearing the brown bathing suit again, the one with all the strings and beads. There were even beads between the two tiny triangles that (barely) covered her breasts. She had a towel