Endless Summer

Chapter 3

We don’t go over to the main building until dinner. This time I’m prepared. I comb my hair until it stands up in gelled spikes and change into a pair of jeans without holes in the knees. My mom insists on a nice shirt for dinner, but I leave the tie she wants me to wear on the bed, and she doesn’t notice until we’re being seated by a waiter who definitely isn’t the guy I saw earlier.

Damn.

“Jason,” my mother says with a sigh, as if she has the patience of a saint to put up with me. “Can’t you at least pretend to cooperate? One last vacation together before you graduate. One final fling…”

I see tears in her eyes—she’s really turning on the guilt tonight, isn’t she? I glare around the room, pretending I’m not looking for a familiar ponytail and dark eyes.

Who am I kidding?

But I don’t see him, and I tell myself I’m not disappointed when dessert is served and he still hasn’t appeared. Maybe he isn’t one of the wait staff. Maybe he has off tonight. Maybe he doesn’t even work here, maybe he’s dating one of the waitresses and was just hanging around while the girls were on break. For all I know, I might have imagined him in a lame attempt to make this trip more bearable.

At this point, I’ll believe anything. I just want to see him again.

When the lights dim around us and the stage lights up, I groan. I’m not in the mood for an after-dinner show of crappy lounge music. When the singer steps out on stage amid a smattering of applause, I ask, “Can I be excused?”

Before my mom can answer, I push back my chair and stand.

“Sit down,” my dad says. “Stay.”

But the guy onstage starts into a soulful rendition of “Moon River” and I have to get out. “I’ll be at the cabin.” Tossing my napkin onto my plate, I hurry away, head down as I weave between the tables as if that’s going to keep anyone from seeing me go.

Outside the main building, I hear kids laugh in the growing darkness. Off to my left somewhere, the lake laps loudly at the piers jutting out into it. I grew up with these sounds—they mean summer fun, but childish and distant, something I’ve outgrown. How many weeks am I stuck here? Four…an eternity now, when I’d rather be anywhere else. As a kid, I used to love coming up here. I might even like it now, if I were with a bunch of my buddies from school. But not my parents. God, no.

How many more days do I have left? Hours, minutes…I’m trapped. The only thing that could possibly redeem this vacation is the guy I saw earlier, if he exists. If he isn’t dating one of those waitresses. Tempting fate, I stroll around the building to the deck, climb up the short flight of steps, and lean out over the railing in roughly the same spot he stood this afternoon. Though he’s long gone, I pretend I smell his scent in the wind. I imagine the worn wood beneath my hands is as smooth as his skin.

When I close my eyes, there he is. Beside me, behind me, leaning against me, pinning me in place. Kissing me, arms around me, hands touching mine, stroking my arms, my shoulders, then easing around my waist. Dipping lower, tentative, unsure. Wanting me. Needing me.

Me.

In my head he doesn’t need a name. He just breathes mine until it’s the only sound I hear, drowning out the lake and the kids and the breeze through the trees, everything.

My body thrills at the thought of his closeness, however imagined. Maybe I can steal a few minutes alone in the cabin before my parents return. Slip naked between my sheets, pretend it’s his hand between my legs, his fingers grasping me tight.

Just thinking about him makes me hard. Quickly I leave the deck and hurry down the short path leading to our cabin. Dusk has descended, thickening around the resort—I can barely make out the path ahead. A few lit windows cast squares of light into the darkness. Farther away, down by the lake, the ball courts are lit with large, tiki-style torchieres throwing off thick smoke to keep away mosquitos. A handful of kids toss a volleyball back and forth in a half-hearted game. Along the lake, couples stroll hand in hand or cuddle together on the piers, feet dangling into the water.

A sudden heaviness aches at my crotch. Here I am, sneaking away to get off, alone. The guy I saw this afternoon might as well be nothing but a figment of my imagination, for all the good it does me. He doesn’t exist, not in my world, and I’ll never see him again.

The thought cools my libido a bit. It makes me feel lonely and sad, and I want to pack up and go home, no matter what my mother says.