Surface Tension

  “Uh, I guess now. I guess it's getting bigger. I haven't measured or anything.”

  “You haven't? I thought all guys did that.”

  I have, but I didn't know other guys did too. I don't know if I can tell her that, though. Who cares? “Okay, I've measured it.”

  “You have? How big is it?”

  “Uh, just like six inches.”

  She nods. “That's about normal.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah. I've known guys who were a lot smaller than that.”

  Okay, that's pretty good. I wonder if I should take it out right now and let her see it. I look around. No, we're in public. And plus, my parents got back a couple of minutes ago and they are probably wondering where I am.

  I probably should go home, except I just want to do something crazy. I just want to show her what kind of a guy I am, in case she ever breaks up with Mike and wants to be with a guy like me.

  I don't know. Anyway, Mom's calling me for lunch, so I guess I can't do anything right now. I head back to the cottage.

  Anyway, with Eliza, I don't really know what I would do if things ever got really serious. I guess I'd just go with it. I don't know. It's not like being at a party and hooking up with some drunk eighth grader. I'd have to have some tricks up my sleeve or something. I should probably practice everything I'm going to do if I ever get a chance to do it.

  I heard it's good to practice French-kissing by filling up a glass with ice cubes and then jiggling them around with your tongue for a while. Only thing is that gets pretty cold. I've made out with girls before, especially at parties, and it's not really like that. It's definitely not cold and hard. It's the opposite.

  Like when we played spin the bottle in Eleanor's basement, and Janel Frenched all the guys. That was weird because her mouth was so much bigger than mine. I felt like I was getting swallowed whole. I hope it's not like that with Eliza.

  Probably not. She's probably really good at everything. That's why I have to practice. But it's not like at home, where I can just lock myself in my room. Here I have to do it in the shower, and that sucks because there's only one bathroom and it's right next to the kitchen and living room and dining room, so everyone can hear everything. Besides, everyone is always trying to use the bathroom when I'm in the shower.

  Eliza is down today again. I guess the washing machine at her house isn't working, so she needs to borrow the Richardsons'. I walk over and stand at the door of the garage, where the laundry is. I try and stand up straight so I can look really tall and good-looking.

  Eliza turns around and sees me. “Hey, good-lookin',” she says.

  “Hey.” I should have said something about her body, about how amazing her body is. “Hey, big tits.”

  Oh shit. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. She turns around with a really confused look on her face and then smiles and chuckles. I think I just got away with that. That was awesome.

  She's wearing an outfit that you only wear when everything you own is dirty. A pair of ratty old sweatpants and a guy's tank top. Her tits are so huge they're basically spilling out of the sides of the tank top, and I don't even think she's wearing a bra, because her nipples are on high alert. Oh my God, she's got nice tits.

  Eliza says, “So, what's going on?”

  “Nothing. What's going on with you?”

  Sometimes people ask you that question and the real reason they ask you is because they want you to ask them the same thing back. I think that's how Eliza is, because she just started talking before I even finished asking the question.

  “My best friend, Amanda, from Boca Raton, called me last night. You'd love her. She's got an unbelievable body, like guys literally come up to her on the beach and ask her to model, but she doesn't do it, because she's Christian. Because I think … Anyway, I think they want her to do a spread or something and show some skin, and if I had her body, I'd do it in a second. So anyway, she called and she's got a boyfriend who's half Puerto Rican and half Dominican. Anyway, he's an amazing dancer, and he's also a cop. DEA, you know, Drug Encroachment Association or whatever. He was undercover with a bunch of Cubans who basically run the whole drug scene down there …”

  I've totally lost what she's supposed to be talking about, so I just look at her nipples through the tank top every time she gestures or moves or looks away. And every time she stops her story, I just nod and say, “Yeah.” And then she keeps talking.

  Eliza and I are going up to her house to hang out. I asked Mom and she said it was fine. Eliza drives a little two-door automatic with some rust on the driver's side. When I get a car, I want it to be a two-door. It's so sporty and cool.

  Eliza drives with the windows open. I love doing that, but Mom never lets us. It's a lot more fun in a two-door car that's low to the ground anyway, instead of the Subaru.

  Eliza steps on the gas and drives fast down the back road. I look over and check how fast we're going. Only seventy. It seems faster than that.

  I reach my hand out of the window and feel the wind going through my fingers. I make my arm like a wave, and the air pushes it up and down.

  I wonder what we'll do when we get to her house. Are we just going to get naked and screw on the carpet, or what?

  Oh wait, I remember Eliza said that she and Mike have a water bed. That'll be fun.

  We slow down and turn left onto a dirt road, somewhere outside of Interlaken. I'm kind of lost. This is the sticks out here.

  Eliza and Mike's nearest neighbor is about a half mile away. I hope I don't have to go to the emergency room when I'm here. Eliza gets out of the car and walks into the house. She unlocks the door and goes into the house without holding the door open for me. I guess I wasn't really expecting her to have sex with me as soon as she opened the door. It doesn't matter. This is still fun.

  I push my hair out of my eyes and look around the room. The light is coming in through a sliding glass door on the other side of the room, and I'm standing in the living room. Eliza turned down the hall and went I don't know where. The bathroom? The bedroom? Should I follow her?

  There's a comfy-looking chair right in front of me. I don't think I've ever seen a chair like this. It's totally round with a big, fluffy cushion that looks like a pancake. I wonder if she and Mike have ever had sex on that thing.

  Eliza comes back, goes into the kitchen, and heads straight to the refrigerator. I think she changed clothes, but she didn't change into anything sexy. She's wearing one of Mike's T-shirts and a pair of yellow workout shorts.

  “Want a beer?”

  “Uh, no thanks. Actually, sure.”

  “Okay.” She opens a brown bottle and hands it to me, then grabs a wine cooler for herself. “Your parents wouldn't be mad, would they?”

  “No, they're pretty cool.” They're not at all cool, and I'm sure they would be pissed as shit if they knew what I was doing here, but who cares, it's not their life.

  “Let's go out here.” Eliza opens the sliding glass door and goes over and sits down in a lawn chair on the old brick patio. I sit down right across from her and try and look at her tits as I'm sitting. This new shirt covers up a lot more than the other one.

  “This is really nice,” I say. The yard is big, bigger than ours at home, and it's all mowed in perfect straight lines. I guess Mike gets that from his dad. This place is a lot crappier than his dad's house, though.

  Eliza says, “So, do you get along with your parents?”

  “Um, yeah, most of the time. I got in a big fight with my dad a few weeks ago.”

  “Really? What was it about?”

  “It was just about something stupid. I wanted to go to the mall with this girl, and Dad wouldn't let me unless some adult came too. It was retarded.”

  “Hmm.”

  I can't tell if she wasn't listening or if she's thinking about what I was saying. I'm not really comfortable if I'm going to have to talk. I wish she would start talking again. Then I could ignore her and stare at her tits.

  I look
at her face instead. She's looking out at the yard, but she seems like she's looking at something really far away. It almost looks like she's going to cry or something. I don't get it. What did I say?

  I say, “Did I say something?”

  She pulls it back together. “Did you say something?”

  “Yeah, I mean, are you okay?” I take a sip of my beer. It tastes like piss and water, but it's also good.

  “No. Sorry, I was just thinking about something.”

  I try and think of all the things she could be thinking about, but the only thing I can come up with is that she's probably thinking about whether or not to have sex with me, but I really don't think that's it, because she looks really sad.

  She takes a big sip of her wine cooler and then rests it on the plastic table between us. The table is wobbly, and it looks for a second like the bottle is going to tip over.

  “I need to take a nap,” she says, and stands up to go back into the house. She opens the sliding door and goes inside but turns around before she closes it again. “You can watch TV or whatever until Mike gets home, and then maybe we can get him to take us out in the boat.”

  “Okay,” I say, because I can't think of anything else to say.

  “Oh, and there are some old copies of Playboy in the garage.”

  Wow, great. Now I really have something to do for a while.

  Mike's garage is filled with stuff—not like his dad's garage— including his boat, but I think I can find the Playboys if I look hard enough. I'm actually pretty good at this sort of thing. I mean, my dad doesn't have a lot of this kind of stuff, but he has a few copies of Playboy hidden in the master bedroom. He used to keep them in his bedside table under a National Geographic, but then he moved them to his closet on the top shelf under the sweaters that he never wears.

  I look around the garage, but there's nothing obvious like National Geographic or sweaters. This garage doesn't even have a floor, like cement or whatever—it's just dirt. My bare feet feel cold and dirty in here. Even though I've basically been barefoot all summer, this is one of the first times I've really noticed it.

  There's a workbench with a bunch of old power tools, and at the end of the workbench there are two big cardboard boxes. The tops of the boxes are folded over, but they aren't taped or anything, so I just pull the first one open. Bingo.

  This box is full of Playboys. Wow, I don't think I've ever seen this many magazines in one place. There must be two hundred or more in here. I want to go through them and see how far they go back, but I don't know when Mike is getting back, and I don't want him to find me in here with my shorts around my ankles.

  I should probably get this over with. I grab the top magazine and flip it open to the centerfold. She's pretty hot. She's blond with big tits, like Eliza. She's from Arkansas. There's pictures of her washing a car in a barn with her top off. And pictures of her lying naked on a pile of hay.

  I can imagine Eliza lying like that on a big pile of hay with her jean shorts open.

  I walk back into the main part of the house and I can hear Eliza talking to someone. At first, I thought she was talking to someone in the house, but then I realized I was only hearing one half of a conversation and there were big spaces in what she was saying.

  Her bedroom door is part open, but I can't quite hear all of the words. Her voice sounds angry, or not angry exactly, but more like really stressed out. I wonder who she's talking to.

  I go down the hallway so I can hear the words a little better. “Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I don't know?”

  Then there's a pause, like a fifteen-second pause. “I never said that. I never said I even wanted to.”

  Another long pause. “Of course. Of course I didn't. Are you asking me that? Are you seriously asking me what I think you're asking me?”

  There's a man's voice on the other end of the line. Whoever he is, he's yelling through the phone. I can't understand a word he's saying, but he sounds pissed.

  Eliza is quiet. Her voice gets soft, like she's trying to coo a baby back to sleep. “Mike. Mikey.”

  Oh. I wonder what they're fighting about. She goes on, “Mike, you know me. I would never do that. I would never do that to you. I love you. Don't you love me?”

  A pause. Like a second. He must be saying that he loves her too.

  Her voice gets lower and she whispers something that I can't hear and then giggles.

  I want to get out of here. I want to go back home and hang out at the lake. This isn't what I thought I was getting into. This is annoying.

  I go back into the living room and sit in the pancake chair. I want to get out of here. I want to disappear. I guess I'm just going to have to wait until Eliza drives me home.

  I grab the remote and turn on the TV. I can't wait to get back to the lake.

  We're going to the minor-league baseball game in Geneva. It's kind of a long drive, but it's something we do every year.

  It's actually pretty cool. We park right next to the stadium and pay a couple of bucks and walk right in. We find seats on the third-base line with a whole bunch of regulars who give us a funny look because we're not wearing Geneva Cubs hats.

  It's got that whole summer-baseball thing going on. Old-time baseball goodness. There's this kid walking around, probably not older than eight, with a voice louder than a heavy-metal singer's. He's just screaming the same thing over and over: “Pepsi. Popcorn. Peanuts and Cracker Jacks.” Then he pauses like he forgot to say something and yells, “And lollies.”

  I always laugh when he does that, because it's the same way every year. Like he's always forgetting about the lollies.

  “Dad, can I have a lolly?” I say it a little louder than I should, just to make myself laugh, but Dad thinks I'm trying to embarrass the kid, so he gives me the evil eye.

  The kid turns around and walks the other way, back toward the first-base line. He'll be back. Maybe I'll get a lolly later. We already had dinner. We stopped at that old-style diner up on Route 13. The one where the waitresses actually come out to your car and ask you what you want. They must have thirty flavors of milk shakes there. I got butterscotch because I like those candies that old people eat, but it was gross.

  A bunch of baseball players are already out on the field playing a game called pepper under a sign that says No Pepper. Dad explained it to me a long time ago. Three guys take turns throwing a baseball to a guy with a bat just a few feet away. And the guy with the bat has to bunt it back to them. It's fun to watch because the guys with the ball have a whole bunch of tricks, like throwing it behind their back or over their shoulder, trying to trick the guy with the bat.

  They look like they're having a lot of fun out there. Makes me wish I were a baseball player. Dad buys a program and starts filling out all the different raffles and prizes and stuff. This is really the best part, because between every inning there's some crazy minor-league baseball stunt.

  I scoot over to Dad and help him decide what names to put in what spaces. I want to win the Carvel ice cream cake, so I put my name there. Dad can do the One-in-a-Million Shot—where you try and throw a baseball through a hole from a hundred feet away, and if you do, you win like a hundred bucks or something.

  Dad flips through the pages, and finally he gets to the Dizzy Bat competition.

  I give Dad a look and then I look at Mom, and Dad gets the idea. He writes her name down on the piece of paper for the Dizzy Bat competition.

  I can't wait until the seventh inning. That's when it's going to happen. This is going to be great.

  Finally, it's the seventh inning. I already won the Carvel ice cream cake and Dad didn't get picked for the One-in-a-Million Shot. Some guy almost won a lobster by trying to catch a plastic lobster they shot out of a cannon toward center field, but he didn't catch it, so he didn't win.

  The announcer comes on over the loudspeaker: “Ladies and gentlemen, may I please have your attention. Cathy Weeks, please come to the information booth under the grandstand.” I don'
t think Mom has any idea what she's in for—I think she just thinks that she won something.

  Mom is on the field, and her competitor in the Dizzy Bat competition is an eight-year-old boy. The ball boy is on the field explaining what she has to do—and she's laughing. They both have to put their head down on the end of a bat and spin around a bunch of times, until they get really dizzy, and then they have to run down the first-base line toward a pizza delivery guy. Whoever gets there first gets the pizza.

  The kid is a lot shorter and probably has better balance, but Mom is so competitive, who knows what's going to happen?

  The announcer tells them to start and Mom starts running in circles around her bat. She's getting dizzy already, I can tell, because she's starting to trip over her own feet. The little kid is running in circles and it doesn't seem to bother him. He's done with his circles and Mom is still working on hers. Dad is cheering and whistling, but I am just cracking up too much to even say anything.

  Now the kid is trying to run down the baseline, but he's so dizzy he just keeps falling on his face.

  Mom has finished her circles and is running down the baseline, but she's running sideways. I've never seen anyone run sideways before. She's looking where she wants to go, but she's having trouble figuring out how to make her body do it. Oh my God. That's the funniest-looking run I've ever seen.

  The kid is back on his feet, but he still can't run. He must have twisted himself so fast that he really got out of balance. Mom is zigzagging down the baseline. She's about halfway to the pizza guy. She's getting her balance back and she's trying to straighten herself out, but now the kid is getting his balance back too. And the kid is much faster than Mom.

  Mom is almost to the pizza guy, but the kid is picking up a lot of speed. The kid is sprinting and Mom is just kind of jogging to the finish line. I scream, “Go, Mom!”

  Dad yells, “Go, Cathy!”

  But the kid is too fast, and he reaches the finish line right before Mom does. They both collapse at the end, and the announcer comes on and says something about Sal's Pizza being the best pizza in town.