The Beginning of Summer, Greg Welch [beautiful books to read .TXT] 📗

time outside.
A few moments after Nick got back into the pool I heard a car drive away from the front yard and figured that it must have been Les. This may have been the last straw for the poor guy. It angered me that my sister had blown it with such a good guy and that it was totally her fault. It wasn’t until later in life that I realized things are very seldom one hundred percent one person’s fault. It usually takes two, but at the time I didn’t see that. The world was still very much right and wrong and there were few in betweens.
We stayed in the pool for the rest of the afternoon. Before we knew it the purples and pinks of the sky had faded and night was on us. When we were leaving the pool I saw Nick looking over at the bathroom that connected to my sister’s room and mine. The window was a small little sliding thing that was longer than it was wide. Nick stood watching the silhouettes of my sister and Dana walk around in there. The glass was a dark stained glass. It was made for privacy. You could see out of it but it was distorted, and really all that could be seen from outside was the outline of the person in doors.
“Nick, come on. You’re such a perv,” I said.
“Man, don’t act all high and mighty with me. I was watching you when I was inside. You were checking out Dana the whole time that she was in this pool. And you looked like you blew in your pants when she touched your back.”
“Whatever dude, Im going inside,” I said.
I heard the window sliding up as I walked away and my sister’s voice shot out through the quiet darkness. I stopped and turned around to see Nick standing there smiling with his towel draped over his neck. It was very dark in the back yard and from the bathroom there was a dense ray of light that Nick seemed to be standing in the middle of. I turned and walked back toward them, and I heard him say, “Why don’t you ladies show me something.”
I couldn’t believe how brazen he had become over the course of just one afternoon. The day before I never would have believed that he had it in him to say such a thing to girls who were so much older than us, and not to mention far out of our league. He turned when he saw me coming back and winked. Standing in the middle of that light he looked at home.
“Why don’t you get lost, Nick,” Mia said. “You wouldn’t want me to call your Mommy on you and tell her you’ve been peeping.”
“What about you, Dana? You want to show me something?”
“Get lost you little pervert,” Dana said. I saw Mia walk out of the room and Nick took off toward the house. My guess was that he was afraid that she was going to get our parents. I turned to follow him and I heard Dana’s voice in a low whisper. I kept walking because I wasn’t sure if it was directed at me. Then I heard, “Hey Curt.”
I walked over and stood in the same ray of light that Nick had been in looking up at the girl standing in my bathroom window. She walked over and closed the bathroom door and then walked back to the slender window. I stood motionless, not sure of what to expect. Dana turned with her back to the window.
Wet strands of hair were plastered to her shoulders. I watched as she took the string of her top with her index finger and thumb and barley pulled. With no effort at all it fell away revealing her bare back. The sun had painted her skin pink and caused her freckles to run together in tiny brown sprinkles along her spine. My heart stuttered.
She turned and gave me a wave before she walked away. For a split second I could see the glitter from her red nail polish catch the light and twinkle. I was left standing in the light alone still looking up at the empty window. It was the first time that any promiscuity had been directed towards me, jokingly, accidental, or otherwise.
For a few minutes I stood there frozen in the yard. I looked up to see a sliver of moon overhead being outshone by the brilliant tapestry of stars that were strewn over the entire sky. Moments later I walked into our house still a little stunned and later that night when I saw Dana again she didn’t even look at me. It was as if it had never happened. I wondered myself if maybe I had imagined it but I knew that I hadn’t. The details were too distinct and clear for it to have been imagined.
I’ve held onto that memory my entire life. At times I would modify it and have Dana turn around, but it was never the same. No matter what my imagination dreamed up, it would never match the mystery of what had been on the other side of her that day as she stood in my bathroom with her naked back to me.
That night Nick and Dana both slept over. I didn’t see Dana in that way again. She began to treat me like she had always treated me and I slowly grew to have a crush on the memory of what she had done more so than her. I never shared with Nick what had happened when he went inside, but I silently held it over his head each time that he would begin to brag to me about his grades or athletic prowess. I wonder now if he ever noticed the quiet smile that would spread over my face when he began to catalog his accomplishments.
That night I lay awake and replayed it in my mind a million times. Those few seconds standing in that light would shape me more than I could have guessed. Before I feel asleep I became saddened by the thought that my memory would one day be diluted and wouldn’t live up to what had really happened that night. For a while it did, but now I think that it’s clear again. Older age has brought things back that the years had forgotten and in their own ways they are clearer than that chlorine scented water that I spent so many hours in that summer and the summers after. Swimming in circles.


THE END
Imprint

Publication Date: 03-17-2010

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Dedication:
To My Wife