Chapter Seven
LUCY
‘What are you doing over there? Planning out your Sassy photoshoot?’ Kim said as she waddled into the living room on her heels. Her toes were freshly painted, but Kim being Kim, she couldn’t just sit down and wait for them to dry.
Lucy looked up from the display of outfits and accessories draped over the living room chairs and rolled her eyes at her best friend. ‘Don’t pretend like you don’t have an outfit ready. Because I know you do.’
‘As a matter of fact, I have two,’ Kim said. ‘I’m trying to decide between so tight it’s almost dangerous, and so short it’s almost pornographic.’
‘Oh good, a classic.’
‘Well, it is our first weekend at the beach. I feel an impression should be made,’ Kim retorted with a dignified lilt.
‘An impression of Mike Pellegrini’s hand on your ass, you mean?’
‘Exactly.’
Kim Rusike and Lucy Rollins were almost exactly the same age.
Separated by only two days in March. Thanks to the alphabet, they’d been seated next to each other in school for nearly their entire lives.
They were a perfect match in personality, but somehow, Kim had managed to become infinitely more self-possessed and sophisticated in the same eighteen years it had taken Lucy to become, uh, not hideous.
Lucy accepted that she gave off fairly sharp tough-cookie vibes while, even at eighteen, Kim managed elegant and refined without really trying.
Kim’s eyes were a shade of golden amber so arresting it could stop a man’s heart.
Her skin was buttery smooth and absolutely blemish-free at all times (even during her period, which Lucy thought was completely unfair of the universe).
Thanks to Kim’s dad, a black former Eagles defensive end, and her mother, a white, extremely blond professional spender of football money, Kim had a combination of features that was utterly unique, especially in Delaware.
She was complete supermodel material, from the top of her smooth black hair to the tip of her neon pink toenails.
If Kim had any inclination whatsoever, she would already be walking a runway somewhere.
Pity for fashion photographers the world over, she desperately wanted to be a lawyer instead.
Lucy looked over her choices one more time. The black-and-white-striped cropped tee and button-fly jeans was the winner. Especially if she wore her leather motorcycle jacket and the Mary Jane Docs she’d gotten for graduation. She gathered up her stuff.
‘I vote tight, Kim. It’ll probably be windy. And it’s never really hot after dark down here.’
‘Good point. Okay, skintight, long Calvin Klein tube dress and cropped Benneton jacket.’
‘The one with the patches?’
‘Yeah. Heels?’
‘We’re going to the football house, not a club.’
Kim tilted her head in thought. ‘Platform flip-flops?’
‘Perfect.’
‘You sure? I’m going more for Vogue than Delia’s.’
‘Kim, if you wore a grocery bag it would look like it came from Vogue .’
Kim clutched her chest with mock sincerity. ‘This is why I love you.’
Lucy rolled her eyes. ‘I love you, too. Now go get dressed. It’s almost nine.’
The fifteen miles of Atlantic coastline from Rehoboth Beach to South Bethany was a veritable hive of eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds.
From June through August, they worked menial jobs in food service to support the perfect summer balance of binge drinking, sleeping with all the wrong people, and not using enough sunscreen.
This was carved-in-stone Delaware tradition.
As such, Lucy and Kim had dutifully signed on for minimum-wage gigs at the new Grotto Pizza location on the boardwalk and moved into Kim’s dad’s house in Rehoboth.
Lucy and Kim sat on the wooden benches of the Jolly Trolley for the short ride from Rehoboth to Dewey, headed for a party.
The party was with all the same high school dipshits they’d been hanging out with forever, but it was at the beach.
Therefore, it was infinitely better. Close proximity to the ocean gave almost everything a glimmer of possibility and magic.
And, if there wasn’t any magic, at least there would be beer.
Rumbling along in the open-air carriage with the salty sea air ruffling her bangs, Lucy finally felt like summer had arrived.
Senior year had been a long slog, each day slower than the one before.
And God, every little thing had been so fucking important .
Graduation requirements, GPA, ACT, SAT, college applications, the final ever this , the first ever that .
With graduation over, and college months away, Lucy finally felt free.
The girls hopped off the trolley in the heart of Dewey Beach and made their way to a wide dead-end street on the bayside. All the houses on the block were the same shade of dingy white and all of them had wraparound porches cluttered with mismatched furniture, damp towels, and drunk people.
Lucy and Kim headed for the house with the most raucous party – the Football House. So named because of the twenty or so former high school football players that passed out there each night. (A couple were probably even on the lease.)
Snoop Dogg’s ‘Gin & Juice’ thumped from somewhere deep inside the building and people spilled out onto the lawn, sipping from red Solo cups between drags of their cigarettes and joints.
‘You think it comes pre-treated with the piss-and-vomit smell, or did they manage it all on their own in the week since graduation?’ Lucy quipped.
‘Oh, I bet it’s all them,’ Kim replied. Then added, ‘Football boys.’ As if that explained everything.
Lucy and Kim walked through the front door and were immediately greeted by a guy named Chris K (as opposed to Chris G and Chris S) from their graduating class.
His massive chest strained the bounds of his Jane’s Addiction T-shirt to the point that the three naked ladies on it were cracked and cleaved into about fifty pieces.
‘’Sup ladies,’ he said to Kim’s cleavage.
‘Hey, Chris,’ Lucy replied to his oversized neck.
Chris brandished a Sharpie and jotted their names on two red plastic cups, then handed them over. Kim’s said ‘Kimmy.’ Lucy’s was ‘Rollins.’
Lucy never could get a cute nickname. She’d just have to console herself with the knowledge that her genitalia had earned her free beer. Woohoo! The patriarchy pays its dividends!
‘Keg is in the kitchen,’ Chris called to their backs.
The friends walked through the house, past a group of guys who clearly appreciated Calvin Klein’s work on the tube dress, waved at a couple of classmates, and hung a left at the quarters game.
Standing around the keg in the kitchen were Mike Pellegrini and two other classmates, best friends that always wore ponytails and whom everyone simply called ‘the Melissas.’ Not ironically, mind you.
They were both named Melissa. Talking with them was like trying to converse with a YM article.
It was all, like, ‘How to Decode Your Boyfriend’s Feelings by the Color of His Boxers’ or ‘101 Unforgettable Curling Iron Tips & Tricks.’
Mike handed one of the girls a cup marked ‘Melissa 2,’ then took Lucy’s cup in his large quarterback’s hand.
Mike was tall with a deep suntan and freckles on the bridge of his nose.
Everything about him was chiseled – his jaw, his abs, his damn calves.
He wore a red sweatshirt that said ‘Rehoboth Beach Patrol’ and Lucy was positive he hadn’t bought it at a souvenir shop.
Kim reached around Mike to hand him her cup, pressing her chest against his back and placing her hand firmly on his shoulder. That got him.
Mike handed Lucy her full cup, then looked to Kim. First her chest, then her lips, finally landing on her eyes.
‘Hi, Mike,’ Kim smoldered.
‘Hi, Kim.’ Those were the words that came out of Mike’s mouth, but buried in the tone were subtitles reading: Fuck, yes. Let’s go.
Kim led Lucy out of the kitchen.
‘You gonna finish that with Mike?’ Lucy asked.
‘Oh, we’ll finish ,’ Kim replied. ‘He’ll come to me.’
‘I think you mean come on you.’ Lucy chuckled.
‘With any luck,’ Kim said with a wink. ‘Let’s go out and have a smoke with the Melissas.’
‘I’ll be there in a minute. I’m going to find the stereo and see if I can fix this … situation,’ Lucy said, waving her hand around in the air above her. ‘This is the third time I’ve heard “Gin & Juice” and we’ve been here for twenty minutes.’
‘Doing the Lord’s work,’ Kim joked.
‘You know it,’ Lucy replied.
Kim sauntered away, while Lucy followed the crackling sounds of an overtaxed subwoofer to a small nook off the living room. There she found a haphazard collection of CDs and a newish stereo with a tangle of speaker wires erupting from the back like a limp ponytail.
She flipped through the CD selection with dismay.
‘Anything good?’ said a deep voice behind her.
‘I hate to admit it,’ Lucy replied, ‘but whoever picked these two songs did us all a favor.’
Lucy turned, ready to add something about her concern for the cultural fate of her generation, but the words got caught in her throat.
It was Nicky Broome.
Gorgeous, amazing, singular Nicky Broome.
They had technically known each other for six years, since he’d materialized from who knew where – probably the ancient spawning ground of unfairly beautiful boys – and joined sixth grade.
They’d had classes together once or twice.
She’d seen him in the halls. He was the sole occupant of a small but exclusive corner of her brain right between John Hughes plot devices and all her hopes and dreams.
In Lucy’s hormone-addled imagination, Nicky Broome was the Weird Science lovechild of Brad Pitt, Jake Ryan, and the sexy guy who worked at the Sam Goody in the mall on Fridays.
To be fair, this was probably true for most of the girls in their high school.
Actually, it was probably true of everyone in their high school.