Read Online Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sarah Ockler
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turn my head to see.
"Guys. In the baseball hats. Over there. I said don't look! They are totally checking us out. Are my teeth okay?" She flashes a quick grin so I can confirm that all evidence of lunch and ice cream is gone.
I nod and chance a casual glance at the boys in question, waiting for my heart to skip or my palms to sweat or my tongue to become hopelessly tied. But all bodily functions remain intact. They look just like all the boys at home, only tanner.
"What's the big deal?" I ask, thinking that if this is as good as it gets, I'll be lugging around the old albatross for quite a while.
"The big deal, Anna, is that they're totally staring at us. And we aren't even done up or anything."
I look at her eyelashes and the fresh coat of glitter mascara she applied in the restroom at Breeze. "Mmm-hmm."
"I'm just saying. We've been here an hour and already there are prospects. We'll get to twenty easily. Maybe we should up it to thirty."
" Maybe we should introduce your new boyfriends to your parents," I say, "because here they come."
eight
Frankie immediately switches back to the Good Daughter, stowing the Seductress for a more appropriate, i.e., parent-free, time. The boys across the pier must have sensed her personality change -- or the danger of an approaching father -- as they're nowhere to be found when Red and Jayne reach us.
"Find something you like?" Red asks.
"Huh?" Frankie almost chokes on her ice cream.
"Mom and I got cookies-'n'-cream," he says, holding up his cone.
"Oh -- right. We got cherry chocolate something."
"So when are we heading to the house?" I jump in to prevent an awkward situation from getting much worse. Because Red and Jayne have become relatively lax in their discipline of Frankie, she's less careful with her secrets than the laws of parent-child relations dictate. I don't think she'd say something really awful, like, "I just lost my virginity with the foreign exchange student, please pass the salt." But I don't want to take any chances with our contest and risk getting sent home on the first day. How embarrassing. What would Red and Jayne think if they knew their daughter and her best friend staged a manhunt -- rather, a twenty manhunt -- on the family vacation?
"We have to pick up a few basics for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow," Red says. "Then we'll go. House is about five miles up the hill from here."
From the main road out of town past the grocery store, we can only see the top of the house, the roof rising like the tip of a wooden iceberg. It sits on a long ridge overlooking the ocean, not too close to the other houses nearby.
Uncle Red and Aunt Jayne are silent as we make our way along the dirt side road to the top. As we wind around a grove of palm trees and crest the hill, the house appears all at once as though it had been waiting behind the trees to jump out at us.
"Wow," I whisper. There is nothing else I can say. The sight of it, live and up close, hushes me. It isn't gigantic or ultramodern or anything, but it's breathtaking to me -- a fairy tale that lived in hundreds of photographs and stories finally coming to life. It's all wood and windows top to bottom. In the bright oranges of the sun, it looks like it's on fire, a giant glass triangle burning against the blue sky.
From the dirt road, we turn into the driveway on the north side of the house, the backyard facing west over the beach and the ocean and the wide-open sky beyond.
"Wow," I say again. "I can't believe I'm here."
"Welcome to our second favorite spot in the world." Uncle Red cuts the engine and squeezes Aunt Jayne's hand.
We all sit in the car for a few minutes, not saying anything.
"I'm gonna check out the view from the backyard," I say, extracting myself from the car and the silence.
"We'll be right behind you," Aunt Jayne says.
I head up the gradual hill to the backyard, looking down at the silver pod of the car from the top. The three of them are frozen, afraid to move. I can't
"Guys. In the baseball hats. Over there. I said don't look! They are totally checking us out. Are my teeth okay?" She flashes a quick grin so I can confirm that all evidence of lunch and ice cream is gone.
I nod and chance a casual glance at the boys in question, waiting for my heart to skip or my palms to sweat or my tongue to become hopelessly tied. But all bodily functions remain intact. They look just like all the boys at home, only tanner.
"What's the big deal?" I ask, thinking that if this is as good as it gets, I'll be lugging around the old albatross for quite a while.
"The big deal, Anna, is that they're totally staring at us. And we aren't even done up or anything."
I look at her eyelashes and the fresh coat of glitter mascara she applied in the restroom at Breeze. "Mmm-hmm."
"I'm just saying. We've been here an hour and already there are prospects. We'll get to twenty easily. Maybe we should up it to thirty."
" Maybe we should introduce your new boyfriends to your parents," I say, "because here they come."
eight
Frankie immediately switches back to the Good Daughter, stowing the Seductress for a more appropriate, i.e., parent-free, time. The boys across the pier must have sensed her personality change -- or the danger of an approaching father -- as they're nowhere to be found when Red and Jayne reach us.
"Find something you like?" Red asks.
"Huh?" Frankie almost chokes on her ice cream.
"Mom and I got cookies-'n'-cream," he says, holding up his cone.
"Oh -- right. We got cherry chocolate something."
"So when are we heading to the house?" I jump in to prevent an awkward situation from getting much worse. Because Red and Jayne have become relatively lax in their discipline of Frankie, she's less careful with her secrets than the laws of parent-child relations dictate. I don't think she'd say something really awful, like, "I just lost my virginity with the foreign exchange student, please pass the salt." But I don't want to take any chances with our contest and risk getting sent home on the first day. How embarrassing. What would Red and Jayne think if they knew their daughter and her best friend staged a manhunt -- rather, a twenty manhunt -- on the family vacation?
"We have to pick up a few basics for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow," Red says. "Then we'll go. House is about five miles up the hill from here."
From the main road out of town past the grocery store, we can only see the top of the house, the roof rising like the tip of a wooden iceberg. It sits on a long ridge overlooking the ocean, not too close to the other houses nearby.
Uncle Red and Aunt Jayne are silent as we make our way along the dirt side road to the top. As we wind around a grove of palm trees and crest the hill, the house appears all at once as though it had been waiting behind the trees to jump out at us.
"Wow," I whisper. There is nothing else I can say. The sight of it, live and up close, hushes me. It isn't gigantic or ultramodern or anything, but it's breathtaking to me -- a fairy tale that lived in hundreds of photographs and stories finally coming to life. It's all wood and windows top to bottom. In the bright oranges of the sun, it looks like it's on fire, a giant glass triangle burning against the blue sky.
From the dirt road, we turn into the driveway on the north side of the house, the backyard facing west over the beach and the ocean and the wide-open sky beyond.
"Wow," I say again. "I can't believe I'm here."
"Welcome to our second favorite spot in the world." Uncle Red cuts the engine and squeezes Aunt Jayne's hand.
We all sit in the car for a few minutes, not saying anything.
"I'm gonna check out the view from the backyard," I say, extracting myself from the car and the silence.
"We'll be right behind you," Aunt Jayne says.
I head up the gradual hill to the backyard, looking down at the silver pod of the car from the top. The three of them are frozen, afraid to move. I can't
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