Summer Love (6 page)

“IS
that an invitation?” you ask.

“Why, I believe it is,” Marco says, standing up.

He holds out his hands and helps you to your feet. Adorable, dimpled, smart, and a gentleman! Though now you're wondering if he might not exactly be the type to kiss a girl he's just met.

“Is that an answer?” he asks.

You nod. “It is. I would love to go for a walk along the shoreline with you. Let me just text my cousin so she knows where I am when she gets back to the towels.”

You walk over to your bag, grab your phone, and text Tasha:

Working on your flirting challenge.

Be back soon.

Then Marco crooks his elbow and says, “May I escort you to the ocean?”

You bite your lip to keep from laughing and hook your elbow around his. “Of course you may,” you answer. You can see that Marco is fighting laughter, too.

“So,” you say, as the two of you make your way to the water's edge, “do you know what you're going to major in at college?”

“At Columbia you can't really declare until second semester sophomore year,” he says. “But I'm pretty sure I want to be a philosophy major.”

“Why philosophy?” you ask.

You're not even exactly sure what you study when you're a philosophy major. You have a feeling it involves reading a lot of books by old Greek people, maybe old French people, too. Or maybe you're totally off.

“Well, philosophy, if you dissect the word,” Marco says, “means love of wisdom. I like the idea of debating the big questions, looking for the wisdom in sweeping ideas like truth and beauty and knowledge and reason.”

You reach far back into your brain for a line of poetry your English teacher had written on a banner above the whiteboard. “Like, ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty'?” you ask.

“‘That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need
know,'” Marco finishes for you. “Keats. ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn.' The enigmatic ending. That's probably more an English major thing to study, but the connection between truth and beauty is interesting to debate. There could definitely be a philosophical discussion about that.”

“The truth is sometimes ugly,” you say, thinking about doctors having to tell people that they're dying, teachers having to tell parents that there's something wrong with their kids.

“But can there be beauty in ugliness?” Marco asks. “People still find beauty during wartime.”

Your brain is working overtime to keep up with Marco, but you like it. It's the most interesting conversation you've had maybe ever.

“Aren't beauty and ugliness opposites, though?” you ask. “How can you find something in its opposite?”

You've turned and are walking parallel to the water, the waves lapping cold against your toes.

“This guy I know,” Marco says, “photographs rust-covered Dumpsters and corroded pipes, but he zooms in really tight, so you can't tell what you're looking at. And it's kind of gorgeous. It looks like modern art, all color and emotion.”

“So you're saying ugly can be beautiful.” You look over at him.

“And beautiful can be ugly,” he says. “But some-times, beautiful is just beautiful and ugly is just ugly.”

You laugh. “Nothing is everything, but sometimes everything is everything and nothing is nothing.”

“Pretty much.” His dimple is back, and you fight the urge to poke your finger into it.

“Did you have a final destination in mind?” you ask him.

He points to the rocks about a dozen feet in front of you. “The jetty,” he says.

“I used to climb on those rocks with my cousin,” you tell him.

“I did, too—well, not with my cousin. Or your cousin. By myself,” he answers. “Maybe we used to see each other.”

You try to remember seeing a smaller, younger version of Marco on the rocks, but you can't. “I wasn't here that often,” you say. “Usually just for a few days each summer.”

You've made it to the jetty, and Marco starts to climb. You follow, until you're both balancing on top of the closest rock.

“How daring are you?” he asks.

The truth is usually you're not very daring at all, but something's different now. You decide to be as daring as Marco wants you to be.

“Very,” you answer.

His dimple comes back for another visit, and he steps from your rock to the one in front. “Follow me then.”

You do, and carefully put your feet wherever he's put his, as you move farther and farther out into the ocean, balancing on the slippery black boulders. When you've reached the farthest point on the jetty, Marco stops. You stop next to him.

“This is my favorite spot on the whole beach,” he says. “The waves, the wind, the height up here. It's beautiful beautiful, not ugly beautiful.”

He closes his eyes and tips his face up toward the sun. You close your eyes, too, and feel your hair whipping behind you in the wind.

“You look beautiful beautiful, too,” Marco says. “Like you could command the ocean. Like you're its queen.”

You open your eyes and look at him. His face looks so open that you can tell it's not a line. He's being honest. What was that about truth and beauty again?

Something in you melts a little.

“If I'm a queen,” you say, “I think that means I need a king. You interested in the job?”

Marco slides his arm over your shoulder. “It would be an honor,” he says. You lean your head against his and look out at the ocean. A queen with her king, ready to command the waves.

Even without a kiss, this moment is perfect, and you wouldn't trade it for anything.

CONGRATULATIONS!

YOU'VE FOUND YOUR HAPPY ENDING!

YOU
wave good-bye to Frisbee Guy, and even though the lifeguard makes you wonder if perhaps Boy Scouts could make good boyfriends after all, you decide you'd probably turn him off pretty quickly with your un–Girl Scout ways, and you would rather spare yourself the rejection. Also, you realize that Tasha has been gone for a big chunk of the afternoon. You decide to go look for her. But just as you start to scan the ocean for her bright yellow bikini, you see her walking out of the ocean, making a beeline for you and the towels.

YOU
get to the house, jump out of the car, and grab your bag from the trunk.

“Yellow room or blue room?” Tasha asks you. Her parents' house has four bedrooms: the master, which is off limits, Tasha's room, and two guest rooms.

“Yellow,” you say. “I want the king bed.”

“Of course you do.” Tasha wiggles her eyebrows at you.

You ignore her and walk into the house. The downstairs, which is one of those huge rooms that is part kitchen, part dining room, and part living room, looks pretty much the same as it did last summer, with its distressed wood furniture, blue and gray accents, seascapes hanging on the walls, and huge windows looking out over the deck and the pool.

“Lemonade?” Tasha asks. “My mom said she
ordered the summer essentials for us, and Linda the House Sitter unpacked them.”

“Oh, that was nice,” you say, dropping your bag on the floor and heading into the kitchen area. “I'll get us some.” Once you fill two glasses, you stop under the skylight and look up at the blue, cloudless sky. Tasha comes to stand next to you and takes her lemonade.

“Gorgeous, huh?” she asks, after she swallows her first sip.

“Gorgeous,” you repeat.

“Just like us,” Tasha says, throwing her arm across your shoulder and laughing.

You smile and give her a little shove. “You are so ridiculous!” you tell her.

“Perhaps,” she answers, draining the rest of her glass. “So, are we going to be gorgeous here by the pool, or would you rather be gorgeous at the beach?”

INSTEAD
of waving back to the second fisherman, you turn to Tasha and say, “What would you think about heading home?”

“No cute fisherman?” she asks.

You shake your head. “I think I'd rather have some lemonade and a dip in the pool.”

“That does sound pretty good,” Tasha answers.

The two of you get up, toss the trash from your lobster rolls, and go back to where you left your towels so you can pick up all your stuff from the beach. Then you head back to Tasha's house.

Once you get there, Tasha says, “So we're gonna be gorgeous by the pool?”

“Gorgeous by the pool,” you say. “At least for now.”