All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

Summer had so many tricks. The nights lasted longer than the days, even though the angle of the Earth’s axis meant that was impossible. The night couldn’t be longer, but summer made it seem that way. Summer sneaked time for me, taking a minute from February, three minutes from English class in March, ten whole minutes from a boring Thursday in April. Summer stole time to give me another hour under the stars with Kellen.

The only time summer slowed down was for the two weeks at Aunt Brenda’s house. Time stolen from me instead of for me.

The night before Aunt Brenda picked us up was the Fourth of July. Kellen bought fireworks: rockets for Donal and sparklers for Sandy and me. Then we took the bike around the lake and back to Kellen’s house. He let me lie on top of him on the sofa and he kissed me for so long. Nothing more than that, even though his heart pounded under my hand.

“I better take you home soon so you’ll be ready when your aunt comes in the morning,” he said.

“Not yet.”

“Yeah, sweetheart, we better.”

I pressed my leg between his, where Orion’s belt kept him closed up in his jeans. I loved how kissing made me soft between my legs, but it made him hard in the same place. It was wonderful magic.

Kellen groaned and said, “You need to sleep. I need to sleep. I gotta go pick up that wrecked Knucklehead tomorrow.”

I went but not before I left him a message. Once he had the bike started, I darted back into his bedroom. Going down on my knees on the linoleum tiles—so much like a classroom—I dug into his nightstand and found the magazine. I’d looked at it so many times, it opened to the page I wanted. The pleasure I wanted. I laid it on his pillow and ran back out to the bike.

Would he understand the message? Would he think it was dirty? No. He said, if you love me as much as I love you, it’s not dirty. I loved him all the way and that meant nothing was dirty. He wasn’t afraid of my germs. He wasn’t scared of me sneaking inside him.

PART FOUR

1

AMY

July 1983

Everything was different that summer. Before, whenever Mom wanted Wavy and Donal to come visit, she would call Aunt Val, and Kellen would deliver them. That summer, it was Aunt Val who called and said, “Why don’t Wavy and Donal come see you for a few weeks?” Mom insisted that she would pick them up, and I went with her.

After we got off the highway, we drove along narrow gravel roads, following directions Val had given Mom. When we got there, Wavy and Donal were alone in an old farmhouse surrounded by hayfields.

“Where’s your mother?” Mom asked.

Wavy shrugged.

“We’re supposed to tell you that she had to go to the doctor,” Donal said.

“Well, she knows I’m picking you up today, right?”

Wavy pointed at the grocery bags by the kitchen door. Their luggage. She seemed so annoyed that I wished I had stayed home. In the car, Wavy dug in her book bag and pulled out a package of Magic Markers. Choosing a bright turquoise one, she leaned across the seat toward me. Just below the hem of my shorts, she started drawing what would become an elaborate peacock over the course of the drive home. I knew my mother would screech about even a fake tattoo that covered my whole thigh, but I didn’t stop Wavy. Her hair tickled where it brushed against me, and it smelled like gunpowder.

That was what I loved about her. You never knew what she would do.

The first thing she did was ruin Leslie’s summer. Wavy didn’t even arrive until after the Fourth of July, but the ruining was retroactive.

Leslie had a crush on a lifeguard at the city pool. Miss Goody-Goody even broke the rules and drove by his house when we were supposed to go to the library. Then she ditched her one-piece swimsuit and bought a bikini so small she had to shave off most of her pubic hair. The lifeguard was a year older and more popular than Leslie, but by July, I started to think she had a chance with him. On his breaks, he let her climb up the chair ladder to bring him a can of pop.

Then Wavy came. Wavy, with her eyes that weren’t any particular color except dark. Even after Mom told her to take it off, she wore eye shadow that made them look smoky. She didn’t like to swim with all the people, so she sat on a lawn chair, wearing a cowboy hat, a wispy skirt, her motorcycle boots, and a tight white T-shirt with no bra. A year before it would have been a costume for a weird little girl, but that summer it seemed strangely sophisticated. Wavy relaxed in the chair and crossed her legs, swinging her foot back and forth.

When Leslie’s lifeguard went on break, he climbed down and bought two cans of pop. He walked over to where she was tanning in her skimpy bikini, looked past her at Wavy and said, “Who’s your friend?”

“She’s my cousin,” Leslie said.

“What’s her name?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

Leslie should have said, “She’s only thirteen.” That might have worked to shut him down. What didn’t work was him asking Wavy her name, because she just shook her head. A year before, it might have passed for shyness. That summer it was an alluring mystery.

“Oh, come on. You won’t even tell me your name?”

Wavy looked through him.

“You want a coke?” He held out the can to her. She took it and rolled its cool, sweating surface over her arms and across the back of her neck. Then she set the can down next to her chair. Done with his offering. Done with him.

He sat on the deck chair next to hers and for the rest of his break, he sweet-talked her. In response, he got a big, fat nothing.