Chapter 7: Underdog

I had a dream last night, a vivid dream of getting an intense blow job. I couldn’t see anything, only darkness, but I was feeling warm lips wrapped around me and I could hear those small, but distinct slurping sounds. Wet, warm lips sliding all over my rock-solid cock, whoever it is was, was sucking quite vigorously. I don’t remember cumming in my dream, just that it felt absolutely amazing...

“I know Kyle, but I still feel bad we had to change the dates.”

“It’s okay Mom, this will be my summer vacation this year.”

Mom is helping me pack for my trip with Renee to Seney Lake. My family had our summer vacation planned for early August to go to the Smokey Mountains, but something came up at Dad’s work and they had to reschedule the trip for late August. I’ll be up at Northbrook at by then and Mom feels bad about me missing-out.

“Don’t forget to pack your toothbrush, deodorant and all that sort of stuff, there’s an overnight bag in the hall closet.”

“I will, Mom.”

She ruffles through in my dresser drawer, pulling out sleep-pants and underwear. After a slight pause, I hear, “What are all these?” she’s holding up a handful of condom boxes I had hidden in there, the very ones Dirk paid for a couple of months ago at Rite Aid.

“Oh, geez, Mom, really?” I hold my embarrassed face in my hand. “Dirk bought ‘em for me.”

“Dirk? The same Dirk that beat you up and vandalized your Jeep is buying you condoms?”

“It’s a long story...” I sigh, “Can you just put them back ... please?”

My mother mutters something I couldn’t quite make out, it’s probably for the best anyway.

Later that afternoon my dad pops his head into my room, “So tomorrow your heading up with the Moore’s?”

“Yeah, Renee said she’ll pick me up at 7:00.”

“You get along with Renee Moore pretty well, huh.”

“She’s cool, we have fun working together.”

“And, are her parents going to this summer place as well?” I have a feeling my dad suspects.

“I think so. Maybe later in the week?”

“Uh huh,” he nods, rolling his eyes. Yeah, I he knows. “Well, have a good time and be safe, okay?”

“I will Dad.”

He quietly adds, “And, Son?”

“Yeah, Dad?”

“Keep it in the pants.”

Now I roll my eyes, “Oh, come on Dad, it’s not like-”

He holds his hand up, “Kyle, it may not seem like it, but I was your age once.” He follows with that look that I’m not fooling anyone, not him at least.

It’s kind of funny in a way, for once in my life my mother is not clamping down on me for being around a girl with the possibility of sex. Mom did say she likes Renee, she must assume that because Renee is 4 years older than me and we work together, that we really are just friends, nothing more. Dad, on the other hand, has his suspicions. He did tell me once that he can’t forbid me from sexual activity, just for me to be smart about it.

I can imagine it’s hard for parents when their sons and daughters get to this age of transition from child to adult and start to become sexually active. I wonder how I will deal with it when I have kids?

At 7:10 am Renee arrives to pick me up. My parents have already left for work, I’m ready to go with my duffle bag packed. I let Luke know I’m leaving, he nods, rolls over and goes right back to sleep.

Renee pops her head in the back door, “Hey, Sport! You ready?”

“Yup, let’s hit it.”

Northbound and out of town we go, we hit the freeway and are on our way.

“Did you eat yet?” she asks.

“I had a little cereal, but that’s it.”

“Do you wanna stop somewhere for breakfast in about an hour? I haven’t eaten anything yet, I’ve never very hungry when I first wake up.”

“Sure, sounds good to me.”

Renee is flipping through satellite radio stations, “What do you want to listen to?”

“Anything really. I’ve been getting into the Ramones lately.”

“The Ramones? Are they new?”

“No actually, they were a punk band from way back. Eric and I are going to see a cover/tribute group at the Engine Room next week.”

“Do you have them on your iPod or phone?”

“Yeah, my dad gave me a bunch of their songs.”

“Plug it in, let’s hear ‘em.”

We listen to several of their songs, they are all similar sounding in nature, simple three-chord, 2-minute jams. Even though it’s pretty basic stuff, their music does have a certain something, a certain appeal that makes you want to bop your head in tune. When the opening chant at the beginning of “Blitzkrieg Bop” comes on, Renee shouts, “Oh! I know this one! I’ve heard it lots of times, I never knew who sang it.”

“That’s what I thought too.”

“That should be a fun concert. Just watch yourself around Eric though, as you already know, he can really pound the beer and get a little crazy.”

“Yeah, I know. The only way I could go was to promise my parents that I would drive myself and not drink.”

About an hour into our trip, we get off the freeway and find a quaint, little diner called Mama Rose’s Kitchen. The place looks like it was a farmhouse at one time and is now converted to a homey restaurant. I will say, Mama Rose sure knows how to serve up a beautiful big breakfast, everything is great.

With our tummies full, we’re soon back on the freeway. We are getting into Northern Michigan now, the hills are getting bigger, we see less farm land and more wooded areas. I always loved “going up-north”, as we Michiganders call it. Even the air has that clean piney, forest scent to it.

Renee tells me, “I was looking at the map on my phone the other day. When you’re at Northbrook and I’m back at Central, we will only be an hour apart.”

“I won’t have my vehicle though. Would probably be an 8-hour bike ride for me to go see you.”

“I’ll have my car, Smartass!” she flicks her hand on my shoulder. “I could always come get you and we could hang-out sometime.”

“Sounds great. You’ll be my nearest friend, I don’t know of anyone I went to school with that is going to Northbrook.”

“You’ll make friends fast. Most freshmen are leaving everyone they knew when they go off to college.”

“Are you in sorority?”

“No, I pledged to one once, the Sigma Alphas, but it wasn’t for me. I don’t know, just not my thing.”

“I was wondering if I should look at joining a fraternity?”

“I would say go for it, definitely. You never know, you might really like it.”

“I’m just nervous about the hazing, I’ve heard that can be really bad sometimes.”

“Do your research on the frats, ask around, some aren’t bad. The jock frats are notoriously the worst for that kind of thing.”

“Well, I don’t see myself joining a jock frat anytime soon.”

She laughs, “You never were into football, were you?”

“No,” I shake my head, “Not really...”

“I still think you should try out for Track though, it’s not quite as ... jock-ish.”

“I might, would help keep me in shape.”

“Yeah, it will.”

“Do you live in a dorm?” I ask.

“I used to live in the dorms for my first 2-years, now I share an apartment with a roommate.”

“The one that doesn’t like cum?” I laugh.

“Yeah, Claire, is her name. I told her about when I tried it with you. Remember last year, when you were helping me fix toilets?”

“Yeah, I remember...”

“I let her know it wasn’t that bad, she still got all like, Yuck! No way! We get along well enough, but she can be such a prude sometimes.”

“You could always tell her to have her guy eat a pineapple first.”

“Yeah, pineapple,” she laughs.

“And how about a pile of fried onions?” I ask, playfully looking for trouble.

“No! No more onions for you! I swear, if I see you eat another onion...” she holds her fist up like she’ll pop me one if she so much as sees me in the same room with an onion. I hold my hands up in surrender.

About an hour later, we get off the freeway and winding, 2-lane roads will take us the rest of the way. It really is beautiful country here.

Around 10:00 am we crest a hill and I see it, the beautiful blue expanse of Seney Lake in the distance. We approach from the south side and come to the town of Willow River, a quaint, touristy town. The Main Street passes alongside the waterfront, lined with parks and swimming beaches. The colorful store-fronts are on the opposite side of the road, facing the lake. There are gift shops, art stores, restaurants, a bar, a pottery shop, a homemade soap store, you name it.

Renee points out the places she likes to visit. I can see they are getting things set up for tomorrow’s opening of their “Seney Lake Days Festival”. A travelling carnival is assembling rides and a midway at the far end of town in a large open area.

Seney Lake is pretty big, looks to be at least couple of miles across. I can see summer homes lining all the shores. People are playing and swimming at the beach, boats and jet-skis are zipping around further out, this is going to be a fun few days here.

Once we pass through the town, Renee turns onto a smaller road that leads around the lake. All the lake houses are accessed from this road.

“Our place is on the northeast side of the lake,” she tells me.

“It’s really nice here, looks like a fun place to live,” I tell her.

“In the summer, sure. But in the winter, this place is as dead as a doornail.”

“It is?” I ask.

“Yeah, all these houses on the lake? They’re summer get-a-ways for people from other places. A lot are from the Detroit area, Lansing, even Chicago.”

“Chicago? That seems like a long way to get here.”

“They come across Lake Michigan on the ferry at Ludington.”

There is quite a mix of houses lining the shoreline, some are huge 2 and 3-story mansions and others are smaller, simpler cottages.

“Look at that one!” I point out a huge Victorian with pointy turrets, a wrap-around porch and all decked out with ornate woodwork.

“Oh yeah, there’s some big-money up here.”

I notice signs at the driveways, the lot of the people give cutesy names to their summer homes like, “Lazy Days Manor”, “Three Day Weekend”, “Just Chillin’”, “Home Port” and “Life’s a Beach”.

“Does your place have a name?” I ask.

“Fairlawn Depot,” she laughs, “Cheesy, I know, it was my mom’s idea.”

Before we get to “Fairlawn Depot”, Renee pulls into the gravel lot of Gus’s Market, a small grocery mart. “Let’s stock up on some food and drinks.” We pick up some essentials, bread, buns, hot dogs, hamburger, sliced ham, pop, a case of beer, munchies, eggs and, of course, a couple of pineapples for me.

The Moore’s place is very nice, it’s a white Cape Cod style with a grayish/brown cedar shingle roof. Everything looks well kept up. She parks in front of the attached garage, “Come on, Sport. I’ll give you the tour.”

The place is of modest size, not super huge, but very nice. On the main floor, there is a nice living room with a fireplace on the back wall and large windows facing the lake. A door leads to a porch that runs the length of the house.

Next, Renee shows me the dining room. Off the dining room is a bathroom and the Master Bedroom, “This is my parent’s room.”

From the dining room, she shows me the kitchen. There is a small laundry room past the kitchen, which has a door that leads to the garage.

Upstairs, there are two more bedrooms, one to the right and one to the left with a full bathroom in between. The walls angle in because of the roof and there are dormer windows that poke out. Renee leads me to the bedroom on the left, “This is my bedroom, we’ll sleep here, and the other is a spare.”

She takes my hand, pulls me back downstairs. We go out the door in the living room to the porch overlooking the lake. The backyard gently slopes to a small swimming beach. I notice a fire pit area with wooden chairs around it. To the right side of the property, there is a small inlet where they keep their boat. It’s lifted out of the water on an electric hoist when not in use.

“It must have been a lot of fun growing up with this place to come to.” I tell her as we walk down to the water.

“Yeah, I always loved coming up here as a kid.”

The house to the left is one of those massive, three-story jobs. “Who lives there?” I ask.

“The Penningtons, big money from North Chicago. When I was little, they had a place like ours, but they tore it down and had that house built about 7 or 8 years ago.”

“Seems a bit much, if you ask me. If I had a lake house, I think I would rather have something like you guys have, it just seems cozier, not so big and imposing.”

Renee shrugs, “Come on, let’s unload the car.”

Once we bring all our clothes and groceries inside, I help Renee open the place up to let the summer breeze blow in. With every window now open, we flop down on the couch. Renee asks me, “So, what would you like to do first?”

“Can we take that boat out?”

“You got it!”

Before heading out on the boat, we go upstairs to change into our bathing suits. The little pervert in me steals a peak, or two, or three ... at her undressing. I notice her nonchalantly glancing my way when I drop my shorts and underwear. I guess, deep down, we’re both a couple of perverts, and that’s okay with me.

Renee wants to make a picnic lunch before we leave, she knows of a perfect spot to eat. We pack ham sandwiches, chips and pop. As I carve up one of the pineapples, Renee looks at me and nods, “Good boy.”

“I really do like pineapple,” I shrug.

“What you really like is what I do when you eat pineapple,” she giggles.

“Yeah ... That too,” I nod.

With the boat launched, we’re soon under way. I see square swim rafts anchored a few hundred feet off-shore at regular intervals. Renee points them out and tells me, “The Seney Lake Home Owners Association puts those out every Spring and then pulls them in the Fall. We have to go slow with the boat until we are clear of them.”

A few hundred feet past the rafts, Renee opens the throttle and off we go. This is great, I haven’t been on a speed boat since I was kid. I love the rush of an open boat travelling fast. Bouncing on the water feels good, I’m sure glad I don’t get seasick. That little pervert in me re-appears when I catch myself staring at Renee’s boobs, beautifully bouncing as we hit each of the waves.

She takes me on a complete tour around Seney Lake, pointing out the places of people she knows. The houses on this lake aren’t all jammed up super-close and piled on top of one another like they are on the lakes back home. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of houses, they just seem to have a little more space in between them. We cruise by a marina full of small sailboats, the beachy shores of Willow River, the local Yacht Club and other landmarks of interest.

When I recognize the Moore’s place in the distance, I know that we have made a complete lap around the lake. Instead of sailing towards home, Renee steers us on a heading towards a small island in the middle. It has sandy beaches with an outcropping of trees and brush in the center.

“Remember I told you about a perfect spot for us to have lunch?” she asks.

“Yeah, I do.”

“That’s Porter’s Island. The story goes that Porter was the name of some farmer’s pig, he wandered out when the lake was frozen one winter. No one knew he was there and he became trapped in the spring thaw. Apparently, Porter lived happily on his own, foraging for his own food on the island for several years.”

We slow our approach and Renee has me drop the anchor in the shallow water. Once the boat is secure, we grab our stuff and go ashore. She explains, “These days, the island is more known as a wild party-spot, kind of like our Fucker’s Pond back home.”

“Can we skinny-dip?” I jokingly ask.

“Sure, if you want, anything goes out here.”

I give it a second thought, “Maybe not today...”

“Aww, don’t you want to run around naked with me?” she teases.

“Back in the house, sure.”

I busy myself spreading out the blanket we brought to have our picnic on. While I am bent over, Renee sneaks up from behind me and yanks my swim suit all the way down. This startles me and I try take a step forward, but being that my trunks are now around my ankles, this cause me to trip and fall forward onto the blanket. Renee capitalizes on this opportunity to yank them from my feet and run.

“Hey! Bring those back!” I holler.

She screams with laughter and races to the water. I get up and chase after her completely nude. Have you ever sprinted naked before? Me neither. I am surprised by how much my uncontained cock flops and slaps all over the place; god, I hope no one is watching.

Renee gets to the water and swims out, I follow her in. Here I am skinny dipping again, I should have kept my mouth shut about the subject. Now that I’m swimming and not showing the world everything I’ve got, I feel that fun flow of water rushing past my privates, it really does feel good in its own way.

Renee stops and lets me catch up. She’s still laughing. “Oh Sport, that was priceless! I was just going to pull your pants down, but then you fell over. I couldn’t resist taking them and running.”

“Second time this summer I’ve had my swim suit taken and left naked.”

She reaches down, grabs me and playfully pulls on my penis. Okay ... maybe this isn’t such a bad thing after all, I like this! Renee keeps stroking and grins, she must feel me getting hard in her hand. Just this little bit of fondling has making me quite horny. It’s been over a week since Renee and I have been together and I’ve held off masturbating figuring these days will be filled with plenty of sex.

“Are you going to get naked with me?” I ask, reaching inside her swimsuit to finger her pussy. Even in the water, I can feel her getting slippery.

“Sure! Let’s go over to the boat and we’ll put our clothes in there.”

We start to swim towards the boat, but before we get there, Renee spots something and stops. She points out another approaching boat that’s slowing down. It looks like it has a family with kids onboard. Well, damn, I wanted to try doing it in the water...

“Do you think they seen me?” I ask.

“I don’t think so, but you better put this back on,” she hands me my suit. “We can skinny-dip later, let’s just do it after dark and back at the house. Okay?”

The family sets up down the beach from us, I don’t see them looking over at us, so I’m guessing they didn’t see my cock-flapping, naked-sprint across beach. We eat our sandwiches and chips, and drink our pop. To help the food settle before getting in the water, we take a walk to explore the little island. I see evidence of the parties she was telling me about, campfire pits and few empty beer bottles left around, but overall not too much litter. Back at our part of the beach, we play in the water and swim for a couple of hours. When we’ve had enough, we pack up and decide to head out.

“Have you ever driven a boat, Sport?”

“No.”

“I’ll show you, it’s easy once you get the hang of it.”

We hoist the anchor and point the bow to the open lake, away from the island. Renee lets me take the wheel and get comfortable with how the boat handles. It doesn’t take me long to get the feel of it.

I increase the speed a little at a time, as I feel comfortable with, driving this boat is really cool. We enjoy the warm wind in our faces and the occasional cooling spray of water over the bow. I love this. We take another lap around the entire lake, this time with me at the wheel.

Back at the house, we secure the boat in the small slip, no need to hoist it out of the water until we leave to go home.

That afternoon, we grill hot dogs and built a fire in the pit. This is nice to have a few beers, relax and watch the sun set on the far side of the lake. For just our first day, it has been quite a day. It’s hard to believe we started from home this morning. We are both feeling whipped and I see Renee starting to doze-off. We decide to call it a night and go to bed, we want to get plenty of sleep for tomorrow.

Renee and I lay and cuddle together, we’re both too exhausted for anything more. I can still feel the lulling motion of being on the water, it’s very calming as I drift off. I can hear the crickets chirp their mating calls as the Summer evening breeze gently sways the sheer curtains of her second-floor bedroom. We kiss, snuggle up close and soon fall sound asleep in each other’s arms.

I have the dream again, that very vivid, oral sexual dream. It’s totally dark and I can’t see, could it be that I’m blindfolded? I’m on my back and once again there’s those distinct suckling/slurping sounds. I can feel warm, wet lips wrapped tightly around my throbbing cock. The wet lips are vigorously working my length, sucking hard, sucking long and sucking with determination.

What I’m feeling is exceptionally intense. I’m in that state of super-high arousal that I normally experience just before I shoot my cum. For some reason though, I’m never quite reaching that point of full-on eruption. This is driving me absolutely crazy, I wanna blow my load so fucking bad and I wanna blow it right now!

But at the same time, this surreal, prolonged hanging at the very edge of ejaculating feels so insanely good...

I feel gentle nudging me, I open my eyes and the room is awash in morning light. “Hey Sport,” Renee whispers and kisses me.

“Hey...” I mumble, still mostly asleep.

“I’m getting up and going downstairs. I’ll start breakfast in a little while.”

“Do you want me to come too?”

“No, go ahead and sleep some more. Come down whenever you want,” she smiles.

“ ... okay...” I murmur and roll over.

I immediately drift back off to sleep. My mind wants to go back into that dream, I want to finish, if you know what I mean. But, it never seems to work that way, does it? Once you leave a dream, rarely, if ever, do you get to return to it.

I don’t know how long I slept, but it still looks like morning, judging by the light in the room. I rub my face and sit up, I feel rested, that was a good sleep. I lift the covers and look down at my cock, it’s poking straight up and looking back at me. Yup, my typical morning-wood, or maybe I really did go back into my dream and just don’t remember?

Today we are going to Willow River to check out the festival, should be a fun day. I can hear pots and pans clinking down in the kitchen, I’m guessing Renee is making breakfast. I’ll get up now, take a quick shower and join her.

While I’m in the shower, I start replaying that dream in my head again, thinking about it is getting me aroused. Maybe after we eat, Renee and I can have a quickie to help me to relieve of this little situation before we leave.

No sense putting clothes on just to take them off again, I wrap a towel around my waist and go downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs, I ‘round the corner, and walk into the kitchen. Renee looks up from setting out plates on the table, her face lights up when she sees me, “Perfect timing, breakfast is ready.”

Only it’s not just Renee in the kitchen, there is also some tall dude that I’ve never seen before. “Oh, I didn’t know you had company. I’ll go get dressed,” I turn to go back up.

“Oh, you’re fine, come join us,” she waves me over.

The unknown guy reaches out to shake my hand. Renee induces us, “Kyle meet Jasper, Jasper meet Kyle.”

“Jasper Pennington III, pleased to meet you,” he says. I keep my left hand secured on the towel around me and reach out with my right.

“Jasper’s place is next door, I invited him to stay for breakfast.”

“Yeah, I seen a car in the driveway and thought I should come by to see who’s here,” he explains.

We take a seat and I comb my fingers through my wet, messed-up hair to try to make myself, at least, a little presentable. Jasper looks to be in his mid-20s, a well-groomed guy of about 6’-2” with light brown hair. He has the whole typical, “I’m a rich-guy” look going on.

“Jasper and I grew up together. Well kind of, as kids, we would hang out all the time when we were both up here.”

“It seemed you and I were the only two kids the same age,” he adds.

“We had so much fun together back then,” Renee reminisces. “Do you remember that time you ripped your swimsuit and would not leave the raft? I had to swim all the way back, explain to your mother what happened and she sent me back with another pair.”

“Oh, yes, yes, I was so embarrassed that happened with you around, but I was also very happy you helped me.”

“It wasn’t even that big of a big rip, you could have swum back and I wouldn’t have even noticed.”

“Oh, but it was a big deal to me, at the time. Having that happen when I was with a pretty girl...”

“Oh Jasper, we were kids.”

“Even as kids, you were always as sweet as a peach to me. You still are.”

Renee blushes, “Oh, stop it,” she gently slaps his arm.

Jasper adds, “Or, how about that time we went for that hike up Norman’s Hill and you got stung by a bee?”

“On my butt! Of all places!”

“That’s right ... I forgot about that part.”

“Flew right up the back of my shorts and stung me on the left ass-cheek. I was so embarrassed...”

“‘Oh Renee, we were just kids,’” he mimics Renee’s earlier words.

“I cried the whole way home.”

I watch the two of them talk while I eat my scrambled eggs and bacon. Jasper is staring into Renee’s eyes and Renee is staring into his eyes. It’s clear these two have quite a history together.

“How long are you up here for, Renee?” he asks.

“We’re going back on Thursday.”

“Let me guess, you’re up for the festival?”

“Yeah, Kyle and I are going into town today, as a matter-of-fact. Would you like to join us?”

“Well, that would be wonderful, I would be happy to. Thank you for inviting me.”

“Absolutely, we’ll have fun and get caught up.” she says.

My little selfish side is not really thrilled about this guy tagging along, but he is a friend of hers. I’ll put on a smile and make the best of it. I guess my plans for some morning-sex will have to wait.

We finish breakfast and put our plates in the sink. Jasper says, “Come over when you’re ready, you can ride with me.”

“Okay, sounds great.” Renee waves as he turns to leave.

Before he’s steps out, he remembers that I was in the room. He reaches his hand out to shake once more, “Oh, and it was a pleasure to meet you, Karl.”

“It’s Kyle.” I say under my breath. He looks at me confused, so I say louder, “Kyle, my name is Kyle.”

“Ah yes, Kyle ... My bad,” he waves his hand like mistaking my name is nothing that important anyway. “See you soon,” he says to Renee and leaves.

I’ve only just met this guy and I try not to judge on first impressions, but something about him irks me, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for now. I’m probably just feeling a little put-out because my sex plans got canned.

Renee is beaming, “I haven’t seen Jasper in years, I’m so happy he stopped by.”

“Yeah...” I sigh and start to go upstairs, “I’m gonna go put some clothes on now.”

Renee and I walk next door and see Jasper putting the top down on his silver/grey BMW 4-Series convertible. “Ah, there you are, Beautiful. Are you ready?”

“We are,” she tells him.

Jasper opens the passenger door for Renee and motions her in. I open the driver’s side and climb into the backseat. While I am climbing in, my shoe clumsily bumps the rear quarter-panel. Jasper scowls, “Whoa! Watch the paint job there, Buddy.”

“Sorry.”

On our way to town, I try to be nice, I offer, “Nice ride you have here.”

Jasper looks back and says, “I’m happy you like it.” He quickly turns his attention back to driving and talking to Renee. So much for trying to start a conversation...

With the top down and wind noise, it’s kind of hard to hear what Renee and Jasper are talking about, but I can hear just enough. Jasper flips his thumb in my direction and asks, “So, is he your little cousin?”

“No, Kyle is my friend, we work together.”

I don’t have to see Jasper’s facial expressions to know he is probably rolling his eyes.

Speeding down the road, Jasper makes sure to take the curves with extra bursts of speed to show-off how well his car handles. It is a nice car and I’m sure the price tag was hefty.

We park a few blocks from the hub of activity in town. Noticing that it will be quite a walk, Renee asks, “We’re parking way out here?”

“Of course. The spots near town will fill up soon and the last thing I need is the townsfolk dinging up my doors.”

“Good thinking, we certainly wouldn’t want that to happen,” I say, with just a tiny hint of sarcasm.

Jasper shoots me a quick scowl, then nods in agreement. “See, Cal here, agrees.”

Cal? Really? I just told him my name a half an hour ago ... Whatever ... it’s not worth getting worked up about.

All the trendy stores have displays set up in the sidewalks, luring passerby to come in and check out what they have. We spend an hour or so going through them. In a clothing store, Renee finds a cool t-shirt with an image of silhouetted sailboats on a lake, “What do you think? Do you like it?”