Chapter 1

The Final Beach Day Molly Malloy walked up to the gaggle of giggling girls sitting on the beach. Beginning the morning of 15 July, Molly had been walking her beach post nude. Grease pencil markings, like the kind used for triathletes to mark their numbers, read GUARD on the outside of her left arm and right leg.

“Hi, kids. How is the last week of vacation going? Remember, school starts on Monday,” Molly smiled at Tad, Brad, and Ronnie, who were lounging on the beach and waiting for their friend, Waif, to come back to the shore from the break line of waves she was riding along with Loretta and Hank, the two junior lifeguards. With them were five other girls, all from sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.

“Miss Molly, we are more than ready. We have book reports for our summer reading, and Waif has been showing us algebra and geometry, so I think we are more than over the two-month brain drain of summer.” Ronnie told the teacher. “I guess it is Miss Malloy again and not Molly, right?”

“None of you are my students, so Molly is fine, Ronnie. I was actually looking for Amy and Tammie. Have you seen them today?”

“They are off someplace with their other grandmother, their father’s mother, Miss Fiona. There is a big stink going on with the two grammas. Gramma Andrews has convinced her granddaughters to go to school in the NIS program. Gramma Farrell is against the idea and has taken action to remove the twins from their mother’s care, claiming she is unfit. She dragged the kids off to see a counselor today.” Ronnie reported, and then she added, “Waif is legally an adult so can determine her own fate, but the girls are being used as pawns in a battle of wills between two distinct lifestyles.”

“Not your words, are they, Ronnie?”

“Nope, Molly, they are Waif’s, and I just remember what she says. She told me that when she was sick and always in the hospital, the family played this same game over her treatment. Her father’s mother was against her mom and dad having another kid to try and cure Waif. Gramma Farrell believed God’s will was for Waif to be strong, suffer unto death, and reap her reward in Heaven. Gramma Andrews convinced her daughter and son-in-law to go ahead and have a second child. Turns out they were the twins. The stem cell therapy worked, then the bone marrow therapy worked, and now there are three grandchildren. Fiona Farrell still resents the science and medicine that intervened in what she sees as the true plan. Now that she is well, Waif says she is in remission, but we all pray she is well. The families are warring over how the twins shall be raised.” Ronnie reported, “Me, I’m happy it’s just my mom and me. She makes good money writing her articles for the newspaper and magazine, and I’ve never met my father or either set of grandparents, so no one fights over how I’m being raised.”

“Yes, we know wolves are raising you, wild thing,” Brad teased. “Look at you no modesty whatsoever, sitting there sprawled open for everyone to look at.”

Ronnie blushed and changed her position, then came back at her tormentor, “Hate what you see, Bradley? You sure are taking good long looks; maybe you need a camera to take pictures that will last longer? Hmmm, Mr. Happy doesn’t look like he hates what he sees, either!”

Molly Malloy ended this with, “What were you taught about respect, the two of you? Boundaries must be maintained. If this happens in school, public paddling is the consequence; you both know that.”

A joint, “Yes, ma’am,” came from Ronnie and Brad. Molly Malloy continued her walk down the beach, smiling and wondering to herself how long it would take the two twelve-year-olds that they actually loved each other.

Molly spotted Waif, riding in a small swell on her hot pink short board, thirty yards further along the beach, and waited while the girl bounced out of the surf with the board tucked under her arm.

The teacher-lifeguard and the eighteen-year-old underdeveloped young woman had formed a bond in the last 2+ months they had known each other. The two spoke freely on every topic and Waif considered Molly both a mentor and a friend. She was the go-to adult in Waif’s life when none of the other adults made any sense.

“Hey, Moll got a minute, or do you have to watch your water?” Waif called to the guard on shore as she bounced out of the literal backwash.

“I can talk, walk, and watch at the same time, Waif, it is mostly your surf crowd in the water with school starting Monday.” Surfers know the water, watch for each other, and can use their boards as floatation devices if necessary, they were much less a rescue risk than the average middle-aged male down for the weekend going in the surf line too deeply while showing off for his small children playing on the beach.

“Okay, then, I spotted you and the grade sixers talking before, while I waited for that wave. I suppose she who knows all and must speak the same, told you about the twins?” Waif shook her wet hair and spiked her board into the sand, kicking up enough sand around the tail to keep the board upright.

“Briefly, yes,” Molly laughed, “The child has a future as a CIA listening post. She quoted you word for word.”

“She remembers everything important to her, apparently math is not one of those things. Of the eight girls and boys I have been tutoring, she is the poorest of the students. However; no one will ever be able to fault her empathy. From the day we met, she has been totally involved with me, my illness, and my life. I love her like the middle sister I never had and the twins adore her as well.” Waif ran her fingers through the tangled curls of her hair. She looked at her adult friend and asked, “Does it itch?”

Molly had, unconsciously, been scratching at her left armpit. “Not so badly now, the pubic hair when it started growing back out; now, that itched like crazy, but this isn’t too bad.” The NEA had passed an N.I.S. ruling for teachers who would be instructing their classes nude, that all teachers should, when possible, allow their body hair to grow back fully to demonstrate the ‘natural look’ of the body.”

“How many women who have lasered off their body hair will not be able to comply with that ruling?” Waif laughed. “Hey, if I decide to be a teacher, what do I do, wear a wig?” This set both of the women off in a fit of laughter.

“Waif, sometimes you make me laugh so hard that tears run down my leg,” Molly blurted between chuckles. This, of course, set the two off again. A few minutes of quiet ended with, “You know the possibility exists, sweetie, that when the twins go through puberty, your body, with their stem cells floating in it might also transform fully into womanhood. I saw the research online and it suggests that one in three kids who received stem cells and marrow from pre-pubescent siblings will undergo at least partial pubescence when the siblings do so.”

“So, at age twenty-three or so you are telling me I could actually, possibly, become a woman? By then every guy my age who may have been interested in me will be taken. What do I tell a potential husband? Marry me now and maybe in five years we can have sex. See Paul out there carving waves? Molly, I really like him and I know he likes me but I’m not girlfriend material, just a surrogate little sister. I am not the kind of girl a guy wants. At least not in the way I want to be wanted.”