Chapter 8

The swim meet ended and the private coach buses departed from Summer Lake’s parking lot. Now in his second summer at the resort, Nick was used to its ebbs and flows through the summer vacation season. Every single room would be booked for the weekend events, the lines at the concession stand were maddeningly long and the swimming pool and lake swimming area were overflowing with old people and grandkids, but by Monday the place felt like a ghost town with not even half the rooms occupied. Little was going on except games of shuffleboard on the terrace and elderly people holding court in the lobby and restaurants, sitting for hours with their old friends talking over last night’s Murder She Wrote and complaining about kids these days.

Conversely, though, weekdays were the best time for staff. Aside from landscaping and maintenance workers, most staffers were busy with work all weekend, dealing with all those entitled guests, but during the mid-week lull, they got days off and had time to spend with their friends.

This weekend would be the last before the big Fourth of July celebration at Summer Lake. Nick had a convention coming up for devotees of old-time radio, from back before television was mainstream and the whole family huddled around a big old-fashioned radio in the living room. While this sort of convention was hilariously stereotypical of the sort of moldy events Summer Lake hosted these days, as it concerned a form of entertainment that had been dead for 40 years, Nick actually thought it was one of the more interesting ones. He certainly was looking forward to it more than Polka-palooza. Those old radios used vacuum tubes, not modern transistors. While the technology was obsolete, Nick liked them because the user could repair their radio or modify it to their own specifications. A modern-day Sony Walkman was impressive, but if the sound stopped working, you pretty much had to buy a new one. There was something to be said for equipment you could take apart and fix as good as new if you had the know-how. Nick was looking forward to seeing all those old radios that the geezers brought and hoped to even get to work on some.

He’d told Abby about this and she’d never thought about it, and she was pretty loyal to her Walkman, but she understood what he was saying and thought it was cool. They hung out in his room a lot that week since Nick’s roommate Eric had one of the few jobs that was actually busiest on weekdays, getting all that noisy landscaping done before the weekend crowd rolled in. Nick had his record player set up just right, with the equalizer adjusted and speakers positioned for the geometry of the little room. She liked almost everything he played. She knew all the modern music he liked but she hadn’t heard much of the older stuff – prog rock, art rock, krautrock, Canterbury Scene, British psychedelia, post-bop, Fusion – the spoils of scouring the secondhand record stores of Alabama where few people like him were hunting for the albums they read about in music magazines targeted at discriminating listeners.

Abby drew the line at Jethro Tull. “Oh yes, that was the best flute solo I’ve ever heard,” she quipped, sounding like her brother in dismissing great music with a joke, but for the most part, she liked what he played and wasn’t just humoring him. She was learning about the vast history of great popular (and not-so-popular) music and he was happy to teach her.

She’d lay on his bed as he shuffled about queuing up his favorite songs, then she’d let him sit there and stroke her hair with her head in his lap. It was almost everything Nick ever wanted in a relationship. She shut him down when he tried to go past kissing, but that made him feel bad about his own horniness rather than blame her. It was good that she stood up for herself and what she wanted. He figured they had all summer, and she might feel more comfortable around him once he made the perfect compilation tape for her.

Compilation tapes seemed like a fairly normal thing to Nick. Even popular kids who weren’t music and audio nerds like him made them. Often it was pure utilitarian cheapness – a legit album cost ten bucks in a record store, but your buddy could record you a bootleg one for the cost of a blank cassette tape Those weren’t always even intended as compilation tapes, but they often ended up as such, there would be 15 minutes of tape left over so they’d add a few other songs they thought you’d like.

Proper compilation tapes were composed in much the same spirit of wanting to give a friend music for free. Sometimes the songs were carefully selected and sequenced, but as often as not they were just the current hits and other songs the tape maker had access to and thought were decent (making tapes from retail cassettes or CDs was preferred, but since those cost money, the source was quite often just the radio with the first five or ten seconds missing and the disk jockey talking over the start and end of the song).

Nick had an extensive library of cassettes and records to work with. He wasn’t a big fan of CDs, although he did concede that most of the audio concerns were overblown or due to people using low-quality CD players bought on sale at a JC Penney’s. And the CDs themselves were simply too expensive for Nick, so he had to work with records and tapes which he could buy second-hand.

He only wished Abby hadn’t found out that he’d given tapes to girls the previous summer. It had only been three, despite Nicole Ballard’s lies, and he had developed strong crushes on each one. In hindsight it was pathetic and hopeless to think random girls at Summer Lake would go out with a Mexican nerd. Even if they weren’t racist themselves, they’d get a lot of grief from the racists. But he couldn’t even blame it on racism alone. He was a short, whiny nerd. Girls here were looking for a breezy summer romance, not someone to lecture them about how great the Velvet Underground was.

At any rate, all of the girls rejected him. It had been foolish to even try, but he was so lonely. He knew his soulmate was out there, the woman who enjoyed music, books, and movies as he did, with whom he could have such deep and meaningful conversations. He imagined she’d love going on wacky adventures and feel fulfilled by being with him, and him by her. She’d complete him. But after the previous summer’s embarrassing failures, and no better luck back home over the school year, he was starting to think the pursuit of a soulmate was hopeless.

And then he’d met Abby. She was smart and sophisticated. Unlike what felt like every other girl at Summer Lake, Abby had read books beyond the generic assigned novels for English class. She was funny, she had good taste in music. What’s more, she was heroic. There was no other word to describe her. She was climbing metal towers, jumping off cliffs, fighting back against bullies, and setting records at swim meets. She had endless energy and capability. If there was such a thing as a soulmate, he couldn’t ask for more than Abby, right? It would be like a man finding million dollars buried in the woods and complaining that it wasn’t two million.

He knew it was lousy, but he still couldn’t help feeling like something was missing. She called him her boyfriend, she came and hung out with him, she included him in everything the group did, and yet if he had to say what their relationship felt like, it wasn’t boyfriend and girlfriend, much less soulmates. They were just friends. They listened to music, played cards, talked about their shared friends and Summer Lake goings-on, cooked meals in the staff kitchen, and watched TV next to each other on his bed as they ate dinner. She had endless energy for that sort of association with him, but when he tried to kiss her she kept it to pecks on the lips, nothing with the least bit of passion. He knew that girls were more reserved than boys and didn’t want to rush to sex, but he was starting to fear this was something different.

He’d asked Eric about this, lacking anyone else to go to for advice. Eric’s only source of experience was Nick’s own sister, it was so awkward, but Eric had said he didn’t experience this issue with Esmie at all. He’d hoped for some reassurance, some confirmation that the guy had to deftly build up the girl’s arousal, but Eric said “Whenever we get alone and can cuddle I can feel her heart thumping so hard in her little chest, and she’s breathing heavily, she’s more excited than I am, we’re both trying to hold ourselves back from...” Eric had explained, then hastily added, “Of course, we always control ourselves!” Nick wished he hadn’t asked.

But Nick worried too much. He was always overthinking things and creating problems where there weren’t any. If there was an issue, he figured it was his own fault for not being enough of the boyfriend Abby needed. He needed to the right things to make her feel passion.

And he planned to start that night. Esmie had set it all up, which was an embarrassing start, but he’d take what help he could get. His sister was making Eric take her out to the one-stoplight town nearest Summer Lake, which passed as a Saturday night date destination. That freed things up so Nick could cook dinner for Abby and have the room to himself for the evening with no interruptions.

Esmie had picked out the meal, tomato soup, and grilled cheese, which Eric said Abby would love. Nick was rather skeptical of cooking such a mundane thing for a romantic dinner but Esmie insisted Abby would like it much better than something fancy, which was Nick’s inclination.

He timed it well and was carrying a bowl in each hand with a plate stacked atop it as Abby came down the hall. It was just after eight and she had gotten off duty from her lifeguard shift.

“Oh just in time, can you open the door?”

“Sure, chef,” Abby said, jangling her key ring and finding the key to his room. Eric had seen fit to give his sister a spare key he’d duplicated. “Oh wow, you made us grilled cheese?”

“And tomato soup,” he said.

“Perfect. I’m getting so sick of my training diet, I want to eat real food for a once. Eric and I make this kind of stuff for each other all the time.”

“Yeah, to be honest, Esmie asked him what you’d like.”

Abby laughed. “Well, at least you’re honest.” They went into the room and he put the bowls and plates down on the tray tables he’d already set out in front of his bed. “I guess they’re on their big date.”

“Oh, yeah,” Nick said, “Did you want to go to town, actually?”

“No, not really,” she said as he went to the room’s tiny fridge and got out two bottles of soda and sat down next to her. “It’s just a hick town right?”

“Pretty much,” Nick said. “I didn’t know they had rednecks so far north. Is Milwaukee redneck too?”

“Oh yeah,” Abby said, “Well like rust belt rednecks. They work at a brewery or the car plant and listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd, I don’t know. We have an orchestra and ballet ... but our school’s pretty trashy.”

“Hey I’m from Alabama so it sounds like an enlightened place to me.”

Abby turned on the television and flipped the channel to Jeopardy, then sat down with him. Nick thought eating grilled cheese and watching Jeopardy on his bed still wasn’t much of a date. He supposed this was about the only way it could be with him and Abby though, it’s not like they were normal people.

“This feels good,” Abby said, “I love comfort food. This is like having dinner with Eric back home after a rough day at school. We’ve moved around so much he’s my only real friend.”

Nick shrugged. “Well, as pathetic as it is, Esmie’s probably my best friend too,” he said, “I guess I have a few nerdy friends but it’s mostly people I study and do group projects with. The four other people in my school who are going to college.”

“Yeah they wouldn’t fret about making sure your date went right, like Esmie, right?”

“Hey!” Nick said, “I guess it’s pathetic to get her help...”

“No way,” Abby said, “I think it’s cute that you’re so close to your sister. Believe me, if anyone appreciates a good brother and sister relationship it’s me. Eric’s kept me sane, growing up in my ridiculous body in public schools.”

“I never thought about it until I saw you and Eric, but yeah, there is something sweet about a brother and sister helping each other through life,” he said, “I always figured Esmie and I had to look out for each other since our life’s tough, but now that I think about it, Mexican siblings usually are as shitty to each other as any kind of siblings.”

They watched Jeopardy, calling out answers as they knew them.

“You should go on Teen Jeopardy,” she said during the commercial before Final Jeopardy.

“You too,” he said, “We really are quite the nerdy couple huh?”

“Yeah,” Abby said, not sounding ashamed.

Final Jeopardy was about the only American woman to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1938.

“I’m gonna guess Pearl Buck,” Nick said.

“That’s probably right,” Abby said, “I wasn’t thinking of that because her book was about a Chinese village. Her famous one at least.”

“Yeah they love tricky questions,” Nick said.

“You mean answers, this is Jeopardy,” Abby teased.

“Ugh I hate that bullshit,” Nick said. He was right though, it was Pearl Buck.

“You’re so smart,” Abby said. Nick wondered if he had seemed like he was showing off. He was always coming off as conceited, but that wasn’t his intention.

He turned off the television as Abby put their dishes by the door and cleared away the tray tables. He put on a tape he’d made for the night specifically of music that would set a romantic mood without being lame love songs. Time of the Season by the Zombies began playing over the hi-fi.

“Oh good, I was afraid it would be I Want to Know What Love Is,” Abby said in her usual smart-aleck way.

“Foreigner?? Give me some credit,” Nick said, walking over on nervous feet and sitting on the bed next to her. “I only play that crap when I’m working for hire.”

“Okay fair point,” Abby said, “Is this my tape?”

“Er no,” Nick said, “I was going to give it to you later but...”

“I just ruined it, huh?” she said.

“No it’s fine,” he reached over to the nightstand drawer and pulled out a cassette tape in a plastic case, putting it in her hands. “Uh, don’t look at it till later.”

“Okay,” Abby said, putting the tape in her pocket.

“It’s nothing that special but I tried to pick music you probably haven’t heard of but might like. It’s mostly older stuff, some French art rock...”

“No Foreigner huh? Well I’m sure I will, you do have great taste in music, Nick,” she said. “I’ll listen to it tonight when I get back to my room.”

Well, there was nice music playing, they’d finished dinner, the TV was off, it was their Saturday night date, it was now or never. The air conditioner kicked on and pleasant air blew over them. He put his arm around Abby slowly. She leaned into him, the pleasant sounds of the Summer of Love wafted through the room.

Abby felt as cold as Summer Lake in February. Maybe it was her athletic training, he thought, she could swim for hours if she had to, maybe that meant her heart didn’t get to thumping as easily as his lazy sister’s. He thought maybe he just needed to arouse Abby sufficiently, although he wasn’t sure how to accomplish that exactly.

He leaned in and kissed her on the lips. She didn’t stop him, so he guided her onto her back and he was on top of her. He was very turned on, there was no doubt about that. She closed her eyes and breathed heavily. By now the tape was playing Alison by Elvis Costello. He put his hand on her shirt just above her breast and started to rub slowly. He tried to push his tongue into her mouth, then he felt her hand against his chest.

But she wasn’t touching him sensuously, she was pushing him back. He pulled away. She didn’t move at all. He turned away from her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s my fault,” he said, frustration oozing into his voice, “I’m not doing it right. There’s a certain sequence of things a guy’s supposed to do...”

“I don’t think so,” Abby said, “Quite the opposite really. It’s just supposed to click if it’s working.”

“Great, so I’m just fundamentally defective then,” he said, leaning over and putting his head in his hands.

“Don’t talk like that,” she said, sitting up. “You’re great, Nick. I should be into you. I’m the one who’s ... defective ... I’m just, not responding like I should be.”

He looked over now and realized she was crying softly.

“You’re right, it should just click,” he said. “And it’s not. So I guess we’re not meant to be.”

She sighed. “Well it’s not your fault,” she said, then hesitated, “Look, Nick ... you don’t deserve this. You should have a wonderful girlfriend. I just can’t be that for you.”

Well, they were definitely over, Nick thought. The whole summer was over. If he and Abby broke up and she wanted nothing to do with him, he pretty much lost all his friends. Even his sister would assume Nick had done something awful.

He felt her hand on his back, but she was just trying to comfort him now.

“Nick, believe me, this is about me, not you,” she said. He could hear her crying softly. “Do I have to say it?”

“I think you do,” he said, “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“I’m ... not into boys, okay?”

“Oh...” Nick said, shocked. He had never even thought about that as the issue, he assumed he was the problem. “Because of me?” he blurted out.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, “I worried about this before I even came here. If anything you were such a great guy that it gave me a chance to confirm that I just wasn’t going to feel a spark with a guy no matter what.”

“Well this is a really elaborate way to get dumped,” Nick said bitterly, “But thanks for being creative I guess.”

“Don’t be like that,” she said, “Can’t you see this is hard on me?”

“And it’s easy on me? I’m back to being the biggest loser at Summer Lake,” he said.

“Well if you just saw me as a status symbol this wasn’t going to work anyway,” she said, “Look, we can still be friends.”

Nick just sighed.

“Well, you’re obviously upset,” she said, standing up, “I’m going to go.”

He didn’t say anything and she went to the door, turned to look at him, then left. That was probably some feminine tactic, he thought, pretending to leave to give him one last chance to say the right thing, but he didn’t care anymore. As she went out the door she started to run silently down the hall, exactly the sort of thing he knew her to do when she was stressed and upset.

Nick watched her go, then stumbled to his feet, trudged across the room to close the door, and then turned off the tape, which was labeled “Our First Date”.

Esmie stood on the final step of the bus, extending her hand into the air outside and coughing. Eric, upon hearing what he’d learned was her obvious cue for attention, quickly reached up and took her hand to help his girlfriend down to the ground.

“Wow, you really gonna let her boss you around you like that?” Lacey said, stepping off after them. Esmie had Eric take her to town on the resort’s shuttle, a commercial coach bus which the resort normally used to take guests to and from the regional airport, but also ferried staff and guests who wanted to visit the town on weekend evenings. Lacey was going that night too so they’d naturally all sat together toward the back.

“Of course he will! He’s a gentleman,” Esmie said proudly.

“Yeah,” Eric said, “Esmie deserves it.”

Lacey rolled her eyes. The bus parked at the courthouse square in the county seat a half-hour south of Summer Lake. The place seemed quaint and halfway wholesome to Esmie, more so than the little towns back in Alabama which always gave her the creeps because of how people there looked at her and her brother. Most of those main streets back home were abandoned due to the Wal-Mart at the edge of town anyway, but up here all the little shops seemed alive and well.

“So what’s there to do here?” Esmie said, walking across to a row of shops in old brick and stone buildings facing the courthouse square. An ice cream parlor, book store, used clothes, a few diners and restaurants. It was all very ‘small town’. She reached out for Eric’s hand and he eagerly took it. “Nick said this place is pretty boring.”

“Oh, it is,” Lacey said, lighting a cigarette, “It’s like a Norman Rockwell painting. But there’s teenagers here so there’s usually something going on Saturday nights. There’s a movie theater with one whole screen, an arcade, and a park where cute guys skateboard. But they’re dicks. Anyway have fun, guys.”

Esmie shrugged. Lacey seemed resigned to the way guys were “dicks” as she said. Esmie was so happy with her own boyfriend that she hated to see a girl like Lacey, who had been perfectly nice to her, go through the summer without a boyfriend, and just getting more carnal attention from boys. “Oh, must we split up?” she asked.

“Huh? Aren’t you guys gonna go on a romantic date?” Lacey asked.

Esmie smirked. “At a redneck diner? I doubt it,” she said. “I thought we’d hang out with you. You know, we’re all in the group. Aren’t we supposed to stick together? That’s what Abby’s always talking about. If you wanna go to the skate park then you can show us what you like about it and Eric won’t let anybody mess with us.”

“Wow uh, yeah,” Lacey said, sounding surprised. “I’d love to show y’all around. To be honest, it’s kind of lonely for me here, guys will hang out with me but it’s not really out of innocent friendship.”

Esmie smiled, pleased that her assumption was right and Lacey liked hanging out with the group too. “Well it’s definitely innocent with us, right Eric?”

“Right!” Eric said, and both girls giggled at his obedience to his girlfriend. At times Esmie thought Eric seemed too good to be true. Lacey said all guys were just after sex, and before she met Eric, Esmie had been tempted to think that herself. The world was full of horny boys who would say anything to get in a girl’s pants, but all they wanted to do was cum and then run back to their buddies to blab about what a slut the girl was. Eric had saved her from that, she thought as she squeezed his hand. “Do you ride skateboards, Lacey?” he asked.

Lacey took a long drag off her cigarette and exhaled.

“Ummm, yes,” she said, as if expecting them to laugh. “I know it’s a boy thing but I think it’s pretty cool. It feels nice to just ride and get into the flow. Do you guys?”

“No, but it looks interesting,” Eric said. “I’m probably way too big, but I do have pretty good balance.”

“I’d like to watch Eric skate maybe,” Esmie said.

“You don’t really have a skater’s build, Eric,” Lacey said, “They’re all skinny and have long hair. And don’t wear Dockers and Reeboks.”

“Don’t listen to her Eric,” Esmie said playfully, “I like your Dockers and Reeboks.”

The trio walked two blocks from the courthouse square to what felt like the edge of town already. There was an abandoned factory building with five floors of bland brick facade towering over a sprawling cement courtyard which had once been the parking lot and loading area for the trucks. Now weeds were growing up in the cracks. There were various stairs, loading docks, ramps, railings, metal benches and concrete walls which all made tempting surfaces on which to skateboard. Across the street from this was a small cinder block building painted an ugly green, which had been converted to an ice cream parlor and seemed to be a prime teenager hangout. Banks of fluorescent lights lit the storefront and extended their glow into the industrial courtyard where at least a dozen boys were coasting on their boards and trying to do tricks. Esmie felt like this was a cool, underground part of town she and Eric wouldn’t have found on their own, and she was glad they had decided to hang out with Lacey.

She pointed to a metal bench and sat down with Eric as Lacey started to walk around the courtyard. Punk rock music blared from a boom box in the distance. Although the place looked rough, Esmie felt very safe with Eric there.

“Will you buy me ice cream later, Eric?”

“Of course, Queen.”

She smiled, delighted that he called her that still when they were alone. “You know you don’t have to spend money on me. I’m not that kind of girlfriend who needs to be pacified and assuaged with gifts constantly.”

Eric giggled. “I love the way you talk,” he said, putting his arm around her.

“How do you think my brother is doing with your sister right now?” she asked more seriously.

“Uhhh,” Eric said, “Hopefully not too well. If you know what I mean.”

Esmie giggled. “But you do too well with me and Nick doesn’t mind.”

“True,” Eric said, “He doesn’t ask. I think he doesn’t want to know, as long as I’m not doing anything you don’t like.”

“You’d better not do anything I don’t like!” Esmie said playfully. “But yeah. I hope they work out. It would be the perfect summer romance, well, second only to our own.”

Eric sighed. Esmie knew he didn’t seem like references to it being a summer romance, but they would be living a thousand miles apart when summer ended. They couldn’t even afford long-distance calls to talk regularly, let alone plane tickets to see each other. They weren’t rich kids. She just wanted to be realistic about it.

“Anyway,” he said, “What do you think of skateboarding? It looks kinda more athletic than I thought, the guys trying to ride their skateboards on the rail at least. This could be a sport.”

“It’s interesting I suppose,” she said, “But I don’t think you’d look right on a skateboard. I wish I could see you play football. You are very good, yes?”

“Well, all I do is block, but yeah, I guess I’m good, I’ve been playing varsity since halfway through ninth grade,” he said. “Maybe there’s some way for you to come up in the fall and see ... I could buy you a bus ticket, I don’t know.”

“Let’s not worry about that,” she said awkwardly, taking his hand, which he eagerly allowed. “Let’s walk around for a bit.”

They stood up and walked around the courtyard, which was crowded with teenagers now that it was dark. They saw Lacey with two boys by an alley and Esmie watched curiously. Eric seemed much more interested with some other boys who were trying to jump down a large number of steps and land on their skateboard at the bottom, without much luck.

Esmie thought the boys with Lacey were trying to get her to go in the alley with them. She’d never do such a thing herself, but Lacey’s reputation was that of the girl who would do it. Still, Lacey seemed to be trying to get them to let her use one of their skateboards, rather than wanting to have some sleazy encounter.

“So are you going to be a professional football player when you grow up, Eric?” Esmie asked.

“Uh, I don’t know,” Eric said, “Most high school players never play in college, and most college players never get drafted to the pros, and half the guys who get drafted don’t even last a full season in the pros. I’ll probably end up working as a plumber or something.”

Esmie giggled and held his arm. “There’s no shame in that,” she said.

“What do you want to be?”

“A model, obviously!” she said playfully, “But realistically, maybe a writer.”

“Awww well you certainly have the vocabulary to be a writer,” Eric said.

“Why thank you!” She said, then watched as the boys tugging at Lacey and nudging her into the alley.

“Eric, do you see that?” she asked.

“Yeah that guy just did a 360!” he said, transfixed by a skater.

“Ugh, you are so easily distracted,” she said, “Lacey went into the alley with two boys.”

“Damn,” Eric said, “Well she’s into that kind of thing right?”

Esmie rolled her eyes. “I don’t think many girls are into two boys in an alley,” she said with a sigh. “Let’s go check on her.”

Eric shrugged and walked toward the alley with her. “Well if I see her naked you can’t get jealous,” he said.

“Hey, I can get jealous of whatever I want!”

“Yes, Queen,” Eric said obediently.

They walked over to the alley entrance. Behind them, music blared from the boom box as skaters did tricks and hot boys shouted at hot girls and vice versa, so Esmie figured no one was paying much attention to what was going on down an alley.

“Come on ... why are you being such a prude all of the sudden?” they heard a preppy male voice saying from down the alley.

“Yeah you did this all the time last summer,” came the other voice.

“That was last summer,” they heard Lacey’s voice saying, “And I’m not just gonna do you guys in an alley because you’re horny. That’s not how I am.”

“That’s not what we heard.”

“I just wanted to see your skateboards. Hey, stop it!” Lacey’s voice came now sounding distressed. They were close enough now to see the boys were grabbing their friend and tugging at her clothes as she tried to get away.

“We’ll show you our skateboards!”

Esmie was about to unleash Eric but she didn’t even have to, he was running down the alley on his own. She was so proud of him.

She caught up and saw Lacey with her top and bra ripped off, her hands covering her breasts. Eric had moved so fast, he had already been to the trio for a few seconds by the time Esmie made it.