Chapter 14

The storms of late July gave way to an unbearable heatwave. Among Nicole’s duties as head lifeguard was posting lake and pool water temperatures on a sandwich board sign in the main lobby for guests to consult when deliberating whether to go swimming. That week, the lake was setting new records each day going back to the 1960s, according to Uncle Mitch.

Union electricians from the city were called up to hastily bolster the electric systems against failure as the block of air conditioning units on the roof ran at peak capacity. Guests were advised not to stay out in the sun for too long and come inside if they felt weak, dizzy, or got an unexplained headache. Nicole told the group that Uncle Mitch was worried one of the old fogies would die of heatstroke.

Everyone in the group but Lacey worked outside, more or less. Lacey said the old people in her restaurant were tipping worse with the summer heat though, even inside the air-conditioned restaurant they were still crotchety. Abby and Nicole didn’t mind the heat, but they got to sit under the shade of massive umbrellas and usually spent their shifts sedentary, occasionally blowing their whistle on kids or fending off small-talk from an oldster.

Esmie wished she could wear a bathing suit to work at the concession stand. The cinder block shack had two big box fans, but with all the cookers and grills, and all those workers crammed in the little building, and with the constantly open order windows in front, it felt hotter than if they were outside. She hated her job anyway but it was especially bad this week, as she was manning the grill making burgers and hot dogs. She’d almost prefer to go back to those awful stinky salads. At least lettuce doesn’t emit heat.

Her brother Nick had the best job of any teenager at Summer Lake, albeit not the coolest. He got paid like an adult and his boss Laura Ballard had to trust him to do all his complicated wiring and equipment wrangling since she certainly couldn’t do it herself, and she left him to work at his own pace as long as he kept pulling off all the concerts and conventions. Esmie had to begrudgingly admit that her brother was no dummy, he found a way to make himself irreplaceable and was reaping the rewards this summer. Unlike Esmie who was under the thumb of her idiot boss always telling her to go faster, to smile wider, and considering her a lousy employee even when she was actually trying.

Nick still managed to complain about his job though. The weekend before he’d had to do sound for that old crooner, who’d brought his own custom microphones that Nick had to make work. “I should be getting paid thirty bucks an hour,” Nick complained, “I made that guy sound like he wasn’t a frog, and with just an hour to do it before the first show. I’m a proper sound engineer at this point, and they treat me like the summer help.”

Of course, Nick would always complain, it was his nature. He complained about Esmie too. She was too impulsive and she didn’t work hard enough. He’d done two years in maintenance before he got a good job at Summer Lake, why couldn’t she suffer two years in concessions then become a lifeguard? This chafed at her, working a nasty sweaty job was harder for girls, and lifeguards were always conventionally beautiful white girls or at least incredibly strong swimmers like Abby. Esmie doubted they’d ever make a brown-skinned girl a lifeguard at Summer Lake no matter how many summers she spent making salads.

She worked her job, though. She was here for the summer, getting fired and having to go back early would have been an incredible disgrace, and probably Nick would have had to pay for her bus ticket. Going back to her hard-working parents and saying that she’d been lazy and gotten fired from a job that was ten times easier than what they did year-round to put food on the table? She could never do that. Her father worked so hard at the chicken plant, he got bone fragments stuck under his fingernails and her mother had to get them out with tweezers at night after she herself worked ten hours that day without a break on her knees scrubbing floors. Esmie almost cried just thinking about what her parents went through to give her and Nick a decent life. Still, when she worked, she just did enough to not get fired. She felt bad about that, but at Summer Lake it seemed like she’d be treated the same anyway no matter how hard she worked. She wasn’t a genius like her brother.

That Friday she lucked into a morning and early afternoon shift so she had time to take a shower and get dolled up before her boyfriend got off work at five. She went to the elevator landing area and waited for Eric. Unlike everyone else in the group, Eric didn’t complain about his job, even though by Esmie’s estimation he had the hardest one out there doing physical work in the sun, mowing lawns, trimming bushes, whacking weeds. He’d even had to shovel mulch and plant flowers for a week when some bigwig in the front office decided the grand flagpole circle out front needed fancy new landscaping.

“Planting flowers is a girl’s job!” Esmie had teased when she heard of that assignment. “You should get them to hire me on loan from concessions, so we can work together.”

“Oh that would be nice,” Eric said, “But I don’t think they do loans like that. I don’t mind planting flowers, it’s a landscaping job and there’s no girls on landscaping.”

“There had better not be!” Esmie said, “Then you might flirt with them at work!”

Eric had just laughed and assured her he’d never flirt with any other girl. Even though he wasn’t suave like the handsome lifeguard boys, he always knew what to say to make her feel good.

The landing area on the employee level was so cheap with its red indoor/outdoor carpet, plastic couches and those elevator doors with the gold paint all chipped halfway off, since maintenance didn’t bother painting and polishing them every year down here like they did for the guest floors upstairs. There were some tired old planters with fake plastic plants as décor. There were no windows anywhere, but plenty of fluorescent lights overhead making the place annoyingly bright.

Some girls were at one of the tables watching MTV. This area served as something of a second lounge, one where people weren’t always cooking something, so Esmie definitely understood wanting to hang out where one wouldn’t be assaulted by nasty aromas. On the TV, Aerosmith was singing about how “Janie’s Got a Gun”. Even though it was hard rock, Esmie thought it was a pretty good song. Eric sure loved it and made her listen to it on the radio whenever it came on.

She was sitting on the other side of the room from the girls, who were friends of her roommate on housekeeping. She regretted not being friends with her roommate but the girl was so shy and mousy, she refused all of Esmie’s invitations to hang out in the first week of summer, so Esmie took the hint and stopped offering. The girl hung out with other pretty girls like her who were excluded from the lifeguard clique. They were all white girls and Esmie hadn’t been invited. Only Abby’s group seemed to not give a damn if somebody was Mexican. Summer Lake was so snobby.

Eric walked out of the fire stairs just then. Esmie had forgotten he actually followed the rules for staff; she had been waiting for him by the elevator. He saw her and started walking over, but had to go through the gaggle of girls camped out at the television. They saw him coming and literally held their noses and one of them said “Ewww landscaping boy wear some deodorant!”

Esmie wanted to go rip her tongue out, especially when saw the ashamed look on Eric’s face as he made his way to her. She hugged Eric even though he was quite sweaty from work, and objectively, he did smell bad. But how was he supposed to avoid it working in the sun for eight hours?

“Hello baby,” she said, not caring if the girls overheard, “Ignore those hens. Come on.”

She took his hand and lead him down the hallway toward his room. It was a Friday night so Nick was off setting up for an event. His schedule was quite conducive to Eric and Esmie using the room for their own fun.

Esmie closed the door behind them and flipped on the lights. She was pleased to see that beds were both made. They were so tidy for boys, but she thought that was more Nick’s doing than her boyfriend’s.

She turned and saw Eric was standing at the door still, looking sullen.

“Aww baby don’t let those girls get you down,” she said, “I’m the only girl whose opinion you have to worry about, and I know you can’t help stinking after a day of hard work.”

“I know, Queen,” he said, and she smiled at the use of her pet name. “I just don’t like to be hideous, you know? A big smelly oaf...”

She hugged him closely despite the sweat. “You’re not hideous to me,” she said, “Any girl should appreciate a strong man who works hard. They’re just a bunch of trolls.”

“Okay,” Eric said, his voice perking up a little. “I’m gonna take a shower now though, okay?”

“Of course,” she said, breaking the embrace. “So the heat was pretty bad huh?”

“Yeah,” Eric said, “We finished up the flagpole circle job though, we put in the sod today. It looks pretty good and will look even better once the sod settles in.”

“I’ll go look at it later,” she said, watching as he peeled off his clothes. She started gathering them up to put in the hamper. He was naked now, and she loved how casual they’d gotten about this sort of thing, like a married couple almost.

“So what are the plans for tonight?” he asked as he walked into the bathroom, leaving the door open. She got his clothes put away then followed him in, neither of them saying a word about how cramped it was in the tiny space as he got the water going for his shower.

“I dunno,” she said, “Nick said the act this weekend is some comedian who tells jokes for old people. Like about how rotten kids are today and how TV used to be better in the fifties. He said we shouldn’t even bother coming.”

“Yeah that sounds awful,” Eric said. “Wanna go to town?”

“Not really, unless you do baby,” she said, and he shrugged as he got into the water. “How about we cook dinner and have it in here? Nick will be busy all evening. Then we can see the group tonight.”

“Sounds good,” Eric said. He was so tall that the spray of the shower hit him in the stomach. His curly red chest hair was so cute to Esmie’s eyes, and even though he was a big guy, he wasn’t exactly fat, he was athletic. His body turned her on. “Wanna join me?” he asked as he soaped himself.

She giggled. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I’ve already had a shower though. We’ll have plenty of fun later, baby.”

“Okay Queen,” he said contentedly.

She made him scrub everywhere like she was his mother, but he didn’t object. Then she dried him off with a big towel, giving him what she meant to be a playful tug through the blue cotton. She’d intended to make him wait until after dinner, but she found herself horny now. She’d always been raised where girls weren’t supposed to get horny, and instead were supposed to fend off horny boys, but now that she had an attractive and faithful man, she found it hard to resist getting excited when they were alone.

She stood behind him and to the side slightly, looking in the mirror as she reached around and stroked her boyfriend to get him hard. He felt so good in her soft hand. She knew it was naughty to jerk off her boyfriend, to say nothing of everything else she did with him, but half the girls at Summer Lake were hooking up. Esmie’s man was actually worth it though, she thought, he loved her and would stay true to her. Most guys here would bang anything that stood still long enough without any emotional attachment whatsoever.

“Okay you smell good now,” she said softly, “Come to the bed with me. Lock the door first.”

She went back into the room and undressed quickly. Eric sat on the bed and watched her as she peeled off her blue summer dress, then took off her cotton bra and panties and stood naked for him to see. She was short, even for a girl, with brown skin and black hair, a curvy build and nice breasts.

“You’re so beautiful Esmie,” he said, and she smiled.

“Lay on the bed,” she said, and he got on his back. She straddled him.

“We’re out of uh, condoms,” he said. “We don’t have to...”

“It’s okay, shhhh,” she said. He’d only gotten six condoms and they’d already had sex without them before. She should feel bad for having had so much sex, but she just couldn’t see why this was wrong with a man she loved. It always felt so right.

She scooted forward, taking him inside of her easily now. She liked to be on top, where she was totally in control, and Eric never objected. She moved up and down slowly, setting the pace, and he reached up to play with her breasts.

“Oh Esmie, Queen,” he said, catching himself, but she didn’t really mind.

“I love you, Eric,” she said softly.

“I love you, Queen,” he said. She rose and fell, taking him deep inside her, feeling his pubic hair tickling up against hers when she took him deep. His penis was inside her, she could feel it totally, and it felt so right.

“I’m going to um, soon...” he said, too shy to actually say ‘come’.

“It’s okay,” she said, “It’s not my time. You can come inside me.”

She reached down to finger herself, needing just this last little feathering of her clit to make herself orgasm as she moaned and leaned down for Eric to kiss her lips. Then he started to groan, eagerly cumming inside her. If he did this so easily, she thought, he must be fully committed like she was, right?

She let him go soft in her then rolled off and went to the bathroom to wipe up.

After a while she walked out naked and said, “I’m hungry ... let’s get dressed and go make dinner.”

Eric, naked on the bed still and clearly enjoying the relaxation after his long day of work, smiled as he looked at her naked body. “Okay, Queen. Anything you say.”

Eric and Esmie had to cook dinner with other people using the kitchen since it was after six and everyone was getting hungry by then. Eric did his gruff act to get people to leave them alone and it worked well enough. Ever since the confrontation on the hiking trail and Nicole’s friends had found out she joined the outcast group, the dirty looks and outright bullying had been getting worse.

The popular clique of lifeguards, assistant managers and front office summer employees – the cool kids – were obviously incensed that Nicole had “betrayed” them and was hanging out with the outcasts now. They actually called it a betrayal, as if the girl was obligated to be their friend because they were so cool. What surprised Eric was that most of the lesser cliques that had formed over the course of the summer took the side of the popular clique and was being nasty to Nicole and the group as well. It all seemed very childish, but like the housekeeping girls making a big show of how stinky Eric was, he couldn’t help feeling hurt by it sometimes. And he was the most “bully proof” of anyone in the group. Unless a bunch of lifeguards jumped him, the only thing he was likely to have hurt was his feelings.

He tried not to think all of that as they made chicken parmesan. Esmie knew a recipe and he was happy to follow her directions. She had done proper Mexican cooking for him, as well as some Texmex he was more familiar with, and he thought it was wonderful, but she didn’t like cooking those kind of dishes with a crowded kitchen, since inevitably someone would say something racist. Eric wanted her to cook what she wanted, but he knew the comments would upset him too and if it was a guy who dared to say it, he’d have to handle it, which could derail the whole evening. So they made Chicken Parm and other than a few dirty looks, they were able to cook in peace and head back to his room.

Esmie set up trays and they watched more MTV. It was easy to agree on, especially in summer when everything was in reruns, and Esmie liked it because they could easily talk over the videos.

“So um, how are you doing about your sister?”

“What do you mean?” he asked. New Kids on the Block had a video on, not one of her favorites.

“You know, with her being the sort of woman who’d get more turned on watching a Sinead O’Connor video than New Kids.”

Eric laughed. “Ummmm well, like I’ve said, she’s my sister and I’d support her no matter what. But it’s still a sin ... I do believe in the bible and everything even if I’m not super religious.”

“I guess I’m the same way,” Esmie said, “I mean I’m a Catholic and you know how that is. But what you and me do is a sin too, according to that.”

Eric swallowed and took a big drink of the Pepsi he was having with dinner. “Hmmm yeah I guess that’s true, but we can get married one day.”

There was an awkward pause, and she felt like he’d just blurted that out about marriage without thinking. That was way too far ahead to seriously consider, of course.

“What they’re doing can’t hurt anyone, at least. You know that AIDS isn’t really a thing for lesbians, right? And it’s not like they can get each other pregnant.”

Eric cracked up laughing.

“You’re so funny, Esmie,” he said, “Yeah, I know. I guess I’m okay with lesbians, alright? I just worry it will get her in trouble eventually. We already have so much against us in the world.”

They finished eating and Eric went to wash the dishes in the kitchen. When he came back, Esmie was standing by her brother’s sound system and hit play on the cassette deck. Nothing Compares 2 U began to play over the speakers. She’d decided this was “their” song and Eric was completely okay with that. It felt so good to have a song, and even if he’d never particularly cared for this one previously, it felt incredible to share it with Esmie. It perfectly described how he felt about her.

She had turned off the overhead fluorescent lights so just the two dimmer lamps were lit, providing a nice ambiance. She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward her and then they were dancing.

“How do you know how to dance so good Eric?” she asked, “You said you never had a girlfriend before me. Was that not true?”

“No!” he said defensively, “I mean, yes, it was true. Ummm, you know, I’m athletic, I’ve got good balance for a big guy. But um, I did practice before.”

“Oh,” she said, “With like a neighbor girl?”

“N-no,” he said awkwardly, “With Abby. You know, to practice for school dances, not that either of us ever ended up dancing at them, we were wallflowers.”

Esmie cackled. “Oh, I can totally see that,” Esmie said, “You are such a good brother to Abby, even closer than I am with Nick. I’d certainly never dance with him!”

Eric laughed and then they danced slowly, leaning into each other. “Thank you for helping me accept Abby being, you know, a lesbian,” he said, “I totally should be there for her, even for this.”

They danced quietly now, slowly swaying back and forth, barely even moving their feet as the song reached its emotional peak.

“Eric,” Esmie said eventually, “Do you still want to stay with me, even after this summer?”

“Yes,” Eric said quietly, but firmly.

“Good,” she said, “We’re definitely going to do it then.”

The song slowly faded out. Eric heard Esmie crying softly, but he knew the tears were from happiness. He held her tightly.

Nicole sat atop the lifeguard chair as the evening wore on, sweating into her swimsuit in the muggy evening. She looked across the Olympic-sized pool to see Crystal working the other chair. They had never liked each other even when they were supposedly friends, but now the hate was palpable.

Crystal was, Nicole supposed, the new queen of Summer Lake’s staff social scene now that everyone hated Nicole. The position amounted to having all the lifeguards kiss her ass and she could go out with Brian now if she wanted to. As far as Nicole was concerned, Crystal was welcome to all of it. The admiration of the lifeguards was hollow, and Brian was a would-be rapist behind a respectable, clean-cut facade. Lacey had told Nicole about the incident in town, but she’d already suspected that Brian felt entitled to sex and would take it by force when he thought he could get away with it.

Ever since the incident on the trail, things had been so different for Nicole. She didn’t regret suddenly being an outcast, but it hurt her to find out just how nasty a place Summer Lake truly was. Co-workers were late to relieve her and during her shifts they made her do all the work. They ignored her when she corrected them about workplace rules, which was her duty as head lifeguard. Someone broke into her work locker threw all her stuff on the wet changing room floor. Crystal had even taken to calling her a loser lately, which seemed so upsetting. All she was doing was hanging out with people she actually liked.