Alice in the Know

  I ignored the little catch in her voice and gave her waist a playful squeeze. “You mean we can’t ever change?”

  “Only for the better,” said Pamela.

  “Of course for the better!” said Liz. “We’re babes tonight, remember! We’re gorgeous!”

  “Hey, Silver Springs!” we heard someone yell. It was Jerry, the cotton candy guy, chasing a ball over the sand. “You wanna play?”

  We looked over at the volleyball net strung up on the beach under the boardwalk lights, where a half dozen players waited for him.

  “C’mon!” he urged us. “I need more on my team.”

  We went back with him, weighted our hats down with our sandals so they wouldn’t blow away, and played. Liz went to the other side of the net to balance things out. and Pamela and I played with Jerry.

  Pamela was the best of us three, not that anyone really cared. The one other girl—Jerry’s girlfriend, I guess—always said, “Good shot!” when one of us managed to get the ball over the net. We served, we volleyed, we missed, we tumbled and got to our feet again, and when we said good night at last, we were wonderfully tired, covered with sweat and sand, and went into the ocean with all our clothes on just to cool off. It’s a wonder Meredith let us in the door when we got back. Even more miraculous that our straw hats made it home, only a little worse for wear.

  Mr. Jones drove us to the Jet Ski place on the inlet the next afternoon and said this was his treat. He’d be back at four to pick us up. Our swimsuits were still wet, so we’d put on shorts and long-sleeved shirts to protect us from the sun.

  I’d never done this before. The line of Jet Skis and Wave Runners there on the water looked like motorcycles on skis. I was amazed the owners would let us take them out without knowing if we could drive. If we could ride a bicycle, even!

  We left our sandals behind, put on the regulation life jackets, then waded out in the thigh-deep water where one of the employees was waiting to help us on.

  He was a good-looking, thirtyish man in cutoffs, with a dark ponytail and a purple shirt. I was first in line, and he gave me a boost up onto the seat.

  “Okay, this is your accelerator,” he said. “Be careful when you’re making turns not to cut it too sharply. And in case you tumble over”—he fastened a cord to my wrist, the other end attached to the Jet Ski—“you won’t be separated from your ski. Be sure to keep thirty feet from everyone else, and head back in forty-five minutes. Now,” he said, addressing all three of us, “here are the boundaries. Stay fifty feet from the shoreline at all times, and when you come back, come in through those white markers. Turn off your engine when you get to the first one, and we’ll bring you in the rest of the way.”

  We looked where he was pointing. “See that tall smokestack to the north? Don’t go farther than that. To the south”—he turned—“don’t go beyond the Lighthouse Restaurant. You can’t miss it. You’ll see their big sign from the water.”

  “Got it,” I said, excited and a little scared.

  Of course I killed the engine the first time I tried, and I could hear Liz and Pamela giggling behind me. But then it caught, and when I got the hang of it, I moved slowly through the white markers and into the bay. Rehoboth Bay is on the other side of the highway from the ocean, a sort of inlet away from the sea.

  My face caught the breeze and my hair flew out behind me as I skimmed over the water. A passing Jet Ski left a wake, and as I hit each wave, it thunked hard against my own machine. I instantly slowed to avoid tipping over. But soon I learned to take the waves head-on and went a little faster. Thunk … thunk … thunk, as the engine picked up speed.

  I saw Liz waving at me on my right and slowed to hear what she was calling.

  “What do we do if we run out of gas?” she yelled.

  “Who knows?” I answered, and daringly added, “Who cares?” and sped away, laughing.

  This was fantastic.

  For a while we sort of hung out together, thirty feet apart. But we couldn’t really talk above the roar of the engines, and pretty soon we were each going our own way, testing to see how fast we dared go, watching the other skiers cavorting about on the water.

  I hadn’t realized that the inlet was so immense. From out in the middle, the trees and houses back on land looked small and indistinct. The boundaries we’d been given gave us more room than I’d thought, and there was a long distance, it seemed, between the smokestack in one direction and the Lighthouse Restaurant in the other

  Two younger boys were horsing around too close to each other for comfort, and a man with a child on the seat behind him rode by and bawled them out. But other than that—that and the noise of the Jet Skis—it was a solitary time there on the water. Now and then Liz or Pamela would come into view and we’d grin and wave, but then we’d be off again on our own—thunk … thunk … thunk—our hair streaming out behind us. It was great!

  I realized with a pang that I had hardly thought of Lester once. Here I was having a marvelous time at the ocean, and Lester—who’d thought that a life with Tracy stretched out before him—didn’t have anything more to look forward to than another evening at home with his roommates. Another week of looking after old Mr. Watts in the rooms below. Another paper to write for graduate school.

  I felt I should be there. Should have called him. Should be baking brownies for him—anything to cheer him up. And as much as I wished my time at the ocean could go on forever, I was suddenly glad that we were leaving the next day.

  I glanced at my watch and saw that forty minutes had gone by more quickly than I’d realized. Five more minutes and it would be time to head back. I decided to go all the way to the chimneys again, then all the way to the restaurant, before I took my Jet Ski back in, going as fast as I dared. I didn’t want anyone calling me a wimp.

  Accelerating faster and faster, I could feel the buzz of vibration in the palms of my hands where I gripped the handlebars. The vibration in the seat.

  “Whee!” I yelled to the wind, my white shirt flapping wildly as I tilted the Jet Ski into a curve at the southern boundary and headed north again.

  Okay, so I’d stayed out a little longer than forty-five minutes, but there would undoubtedly be a line of machines near the shore waiting for the attendant to come and bring us all in.

  I looked toward the beach for Jet Skis, but I didn’t know exactly where to look. Somehow I thought I’d clearly see the drop-off location, but the shoreline was long, people were small, and I realized, with a jolt, that I had no idea what the Jet Ski place looked like from the water.

  I couldn’t remember if the office was a building or a shed. Whether there was a sign, a flag, a pole, a wharf … I had taken my ski right out into the inlet without looking back and had no idea in this world where I was. My heart began to pound.

  Sometimes when I’m scared, I talk out loud to myself like a grown-up. “Okay, Alice,” I said. “Calm down. Now think! Where did you take your shoes off? Where did you leave your bag? Was it inside or out? Was there a big sign in the parking lot? Was there a parking lot?”

  And aloud I answered, “I don’t know! I don’t know!” I had been so excited about going in the first place that I hadn’t noticed anything else around me, only the Jet Skis and the water.

  “Okay, look for those white markers,” I told myself. But that was useless. They weren’t a tenth the size of a Jet Ski, and I couldn’t even see any of those.

  “Go in closer and just start checking the shoreline,” I told myself. “It’s got to be about halfway between the chimneys and the restaurant.” Or was it? Maybe it was a lot closer to one boundary than the other. I hadn’t noticed that, either.

  What if I ran out of gas? What if everyone was back but me, and I was left bobbing about on the water?

  I looked at my watch again. I should have been back ten minutes ago. I wondered if the engine wasn’t beginning to sound funny. Maybe it was low on gas already! I slowed down to save the gas I had, but I slowed too much and killed the engine.
>
  The silence terrified me. “Help!” I bleated to the wind.

  I got it started again, but I didn’t feed it enough gas and again it died. When I started it a third time, it caught, and I moved slowly along, scanning the shoreline, looking desperately for any sign of Liz or Pamela.

  Fifteen minutes late now. Surely someone would miss me. Would they charge us extra—figure I’d just decided to go for two rides instead of one? Had everyone else found their way back but me? Was I the only idiot in the bunch?

  And then I did run out of gas. Or something. At least, the engine sputtered, sputtered once again, and died. The water was absolutely still. The only sound was the gentle slapping of water against the side of the Jet Ski as it rocked gently to and fro.

  “Help!” I whimpered again pitifully. Someone, somewhere, should be watching. Maybe if I took off my shirt, I thought, and waved it above my head, someone would see. Someone would call 9-1-1 and send a helicopter or something.

  Maybe the Jet Ski place closed down at four and everyone was leaving. Maybe there was an ordinance about noise after four o’clock.

  Frantically, I unbuttoned my shirt, slipped it off, and waved it back and forth in the air.

  “Help!” I wept. “Somebody be watching, please!”

  What if I was out here all night? I could see the headline: SILVER SPRING GIRL DISAPPEARS AT REHOBOTH AFTER JET SKI DISASTER.

  There was a faraway noise, and I recognized the sound of a Jet Ski. I squinted out over the water and, far down the bay, saw one coming toward me, bumping and bobbing over the water. I put my shirt back on.

  It was the man with the ponytail. I couldn’t see his face well enough to know if he was angry or not. Finally he pulled up beside me.

  “Trouble?” he asked.

  “I thought I’d be here all night,” I said in a small voice. “I think I’ve run out of gas.”

  “I doubt that, but we’ve had a little trouble with that one,” he said.

  I stared at him. They’d had trouble with this one, yet they’d sent me out on it? But you don’t bite the hand of a man who has come to rescue you, so I kept my comments to myself. He was trying not to laugh, though, I could tell.

  “I thought maybe if I waited long enough, you’d take off your shorts too,” he said.

  “You saw?” I cried.

  He laughed. “My partner had his binoculars out, trying to find you. He said there was some girl out here taking off her clothes.”

  “I didn’t know what else to do,” I said.

  “Here,” he told me, holding my Jet Ski steady. “Climb on behind me.”

  I grabbed hold of his muscled arm and swung one leg over the seat. He skillfully tied a cable from his Jet Ski to mine, and then we took off, me holding tightly to his waist, his ponytail flapping in my face, hydroplaning over the water, the spray splashing up on our legs.

  Everyone was waiting for us when we pulled in. Liz and Pamela were bent over laughing.

  “They said you were out there doing a striptease!” Liz said into my shoulder as they pulled me up the bank.

  “Everyone wanted a chance with the binoculars,” Pamela added, giggling.

  “I was terrified!” I said, laughing a little too. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  I found my sandals and saw Mr. Jones waiting for us in the parking lot. I took a look around me. Yes, there was a big sign. Yes, there was a small white building with a red roof. I should have noticed all this before.

  As we walked by the attendants, the one with the binoculars murmured, “Hey, nice bra!”

  14

  Living Dangerously

  That evening, our last night at the ocean, we went to a seafood restaurant with Meredith and Pamela’s dad. Liz and Pamela and I paid for their dinner, and afterward we strolled over to hear a Dixieland band at the little bandstand where Rehoboth Avenue meets the boardwalk. Then Mr. Jones and Meredith walked back to the cottage, and the three of us were on our own.

  We wanted to do everything there was to do. We walked the length of the boardwalk, peered in all the shops, and decided to ride the Ferris wheel so we could look out over the ocean at the top. I liked that. First you’re part of the noise and confusion down below, and then you’re up there above it. Then you’re down with the French fry smells, and then you’re up with the salt air in your nostrils.

  “Is it just my imagination, or are those guys watching us?” said Pamela.

  “What guys?” I asked, looking down.

  “The guys leaning against the fence,” said Pamela.

  “Don’t let them know we’re watching them,” said Liz quickly. “What are they wearing?”

  “How can I tell what they’re wearing if I don’t look at them?” Pamela said. “Wait’ll we go down again and I’ll check.”

  I got a glimpse of four guys, older than we were, by a fence at the back of the small amusement park there by the boardwalk. They were smiling our way and talking among themselves.

  “When we get off, don’t linger,” Elizabeth said, and somehow that set us off. Pamela and I started laughing. That made the four guys smile even broader. One had a shaved head, another wore a blue bandana around his forehead. A third wore a cowboy hat, and the fourth had bleached hair. Early twenties, I decided.

  The Ferris wheel was slowing down and we thought the guys would try to hit on us right away, but they stayed where they were by the fence. When Liz bent down to tie her sneaker, Pamela said, “You’re lingering!”

  We made it as far as the bumper cars, and Pamela said we absolutely could not leave until we’d ridden them. She got a car to herself, but I got in beside Liz, and then we saw the four guys getting into bumper cars too.

  “They’ll cream us!” said Liz, and when the cars started up with a jerk, she gripped the wheel firmly, her lips set, like we were on a military mission.

  “We’re not on a freeway, you know,” I said. “Lighten up.” She giggled nervously.

  Whap! We were broadsided by the grinning guy in the blue bandana. I smelled the booze.

  Wham! We got it from the rear by the guy with the shaved head. He grinned at us too, flashing the gold stud in his tongue.

  Pamela, up ahead, seemed to be having a ball. Natural ability, maybe, but she wove deftly in and out of the cars, and it wasn’t until the end that they got her cornered and she couldn’t go anywhere.

  All the cars stopped. This time I agreed with Liz not to linger. As Pamela stepped out of her car, the guy with the blue bandana reached out to grab her ankle, laughing, but she got away, and as soon as she reached us, we set out for the boardwalk double time and started home.

  “Talk about soused!” Pamela said. “They reeked!”

  “Hey!” came a voice from behind us. Then a whistle. “Hey! Wait up!”

  “Keep walking,” said Pamela.

  “Hey!” came the voice, more insistent. “You with the long legs and the tight ass.”

  “The jerks!” said Liz, but secretly each of us wished it were her he was talking about. Since I have the shortest legs, I knew it wasn’t me.

  We left the boardwalk and went down a concrete ramp to the street below.

  “How far from the house do you think we are?” Liz asked nervously.

  “Five or six blocks over, I’d say,” Pamela answered.

  “Maybe we should have stayed on the boardwalk longer, where there are more lights,” I said, eyeing the darkness ahead of us. But it was too late now.

  “Hey, you with the thirty-four C tits,” came a deeper voice. “Wait up! We got something for you.”

  “I’ll bet,” I murmured. “You think they’ll follow us all the way back? Then they’ll know where we’re staying.”

  “Just hope we make it back,” said Liz.

  We had to stop for a car at the corner, and I glanced over my shoulder.

  “There are five of them now,” I said. “And one’s the size of a refrigerator. I don’t know where he came from.”

  “Speed up!” whispered
Pamela. “Oh God, I show up with these guys, and Dad’ll never take me anywhere again.”

  I began to look for places we could duck into to get away. It was about ten thirty, and some of the houses were dark back here away from the ocean.

  Elizabeth’s voice was shaky now: “Pamela, it’s even darker on your block. I don’t want to be with these guys back there.”

  “Where else can we go?” Pamela said. “We can’t stop now.”

  The guys were only ten feet behind us. The house to our right was dark, but the one next to it was lit, and the front door was open. Balloons were tied to the handle of the screen, a celebration of some sort, and as the guys came up behind us, I whispered to Pam and Liz, “We’re going in.”

  “What?” Liz whispered, but I nudged her to make the turn, and Pamela followed.

  “Bye,” I called to the guys behind us, and kept walking.

  “Don’t be in such a hurry!” said the guy with the shaved head, but we didn’t stop.

  I walked right up the steps, opened the screen, and said, “We’re back!” And in we went.

  An elderly woman sat in the middle of the couch, surrounded by tissue paper and ribbon, and three middle-aged women were gathering up paper cups and plates. A couple of men sat at the small table in the dining room and turned to stare at us.

  I glanced out the screen. The five guys had stopped on the street and were looking up at the house.

  “We had a wonderful time,” I said, a little too loudly. The woman on the couch squinted at us.

  “Alice, you should be in the movies,” Liz whispered.

  “You lost, young ladies?” one of the men said, getting up from the table and wiping crumbs off his shirt.

  “We’re really sorry to intrude,” I apologized, lowering my voice, “but could you possibly pretend we live here for the next fifteen minutes or so?”