Getting Over Garrett Delaney(28)
Author: Abby McDonald

“I forgot how bossy you are,” I grumble.

She grins. “Hell, yes. Blake’s picking me up in fifteen minutes. If you’re not out front, I’ll come drag you out myself.”

“OK, OK!” I put my hands up in surrender. “And . . . thanks,” I add shyly. “I could use the break.”

“Anytime. And make that fourteen minutes!” Kayla calls, heading back across the street.

I take the world’s quickest shower, grab my things, and make it outside just as Blake’s truck rolls down our block, blasting some dirty rap song and overflowing with varsity jocks.

Suddenly I have second thoughts about this whole socializing thing.

“Ready to go?” Kayla catches my look of apprehension as I take in the various inflatable pool toys and amount of hair product on show. “They’re harmless, promise.” She grins, reaching for my beach bag. “And the plus side is they’ll carry all our stuff!”

She’s right. I suffer the journey squeezed in back next to three guys introduced to me in a blur. TJ, or KJ maybe, and Darren or Darnell (who I swear I’ve never laid eyes on before in school) argue over the finer points of the big weekend game, but when we pull up to a free parking spot over the ridge from the water, they hoist the coolers and deck chairs and assorted supplies like they weigh nothing at all.

“See?” Kayla links her arm through mine, leaving Blake to jostle and race with the other guys. “I tell them I can handle my own stuff, but it’s like a mark of pride or something. I’m surprised Blake doesn’t just hoist me over his shoulder and try to carry me, too!”

I laugh, starting to relax. “Is it bad I can actually picture that?”

We follow the well-worn path past the parking lot and down through a dense section of trees to the lake. On hot summer days like this, it’s our town’s main respite: sitting lazily at the base of Turner’s Hill, the lake clear and blue and edged with the thick green of grass and more trees. On one side, a pebble beach curves, with a couple of wooden piers set up, and on the far end, the water winds away into the Sherman River, stretching out past town. When I was a kid, we’d come here almost every day in summer, Kayla and me splashing in the shallows, chasing dragonflies while our moms sipped iced tea from the shade of a big umbrella. But since high school, I haven’t really been back. This is a place for the more popular kids to hang — girls stretched on the dock in tiny bikinis while the guys toss a football around or cannonball into the lake. Garrett and I prefer to go farther up the river, to quiet spots where the trees overhang the water and you can lie for hours under the leaves, trailing one hand in the cool water.

“Awesome, they got the best spot,” Kayla exclaims, waving happily to a group lounging on the far dock — prime popular-kid real estate. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to everyone.”

I brace myself and follow her. This is where Kayla and I most definitely diverge; I’ve spent the last two years hanging out with Garrett, while she’s been happily bouncing between rallies and sleepovers like, well, a normal teenage girl.

“Hey, everyone, this is Sadie! Sadie, you know Trish, right? And that’s Suzie, Yolanda, Lexie, Lauren M., and Lauren B.”

The girls roll over to look at me from behind an array of oversize shades.

“Hi.” I give a hopefully-not-too-awkward wave. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much.” Lauren M. (or is that B. ?) assesses me with a long stare. I must pass whatever test she gives me, because she finally cracks a smile. “We’re trying to decide if it’s too early to break out the snacks.”

“It’s never too early for snacks,” Kayla declares, retrieving our bags from the pile of stuff left by the guys. They’ve already splashed into the water and are whooping and hollering as they try to drown each other. “I vote chips.”

The girls chorus their agreement and delve into the junk-food bags, while Kayla begins laying her towel out in a space on the end of the dock. After a moment’s hesitation, I follow, claiming a strip next to her and cautiously shucking off my shorts and T-shirt to reveal my basic black bikini. “Cute suit,” Kayla tells me, her own a powder-blue halter affair. “Here, turn around and I’ll do your back.”

“Thanks.” I pass her my industrial-size bottle of superstrength sunscreen. “You know how easy I burn.”

“Oh, my God, yes!” She snorts, smearing a liberal helping over my shoulders. “I remember you were walking around like a lobster forever. What was that, like, fifth grade?”

“I think so.” I take the bottle back and carefully cover myself with a layer of white goop, still feeling like something of an interloper.

One of the other girls, Yolanda, pauses her attack on a jar of salsa to look at me thoughtfully. “You were in my lit class, right?”

I nod.

“And she’s friends with that senior guy, Garrett,” the other Lauren adds, talking to Yolanda like I’m not even there. She hasn’t moved from her prone, sunbathing state since I arrived, but I detect a vaguely hostile tone in her voice.

“The football guy?”

“No, the serious-looking one,” Lexie corrects her. “He’s kind of cute.”

“You think?” Suzie wrinkles her nose. “Not my type.”

“Yeah, well, we know how picky you are.”

“Better picky than, umm, indiscriminate!” Suzie says. Lexie makes a squeal of protest and tosses a chip at her.

“Eww, now I’ve got salsa all over me!”

Yolanda looks mischievous. “Maybe we should get TJ over here to lick it off.”

Suzie doesn’t dignify that with a reply. Instead she gets to her feet, steps over the tangle of tote bags and bronzing limbs, and cannonballs off the end of the dock. A great splash goes up; the girls shriek some more.

“Suzie!” Yolanda wails. “I got this weave put in, like, yesterday!”

“Sorry!” Suzie’s reply is faint as she swims away, out toward the boys.

I stretch out in the hot sun, listening to them bicker and laugh around me as the day slips past in that hazy summer way. It’s weird, but once the initial shock is over, I don’t feel so out of place anymore. In fact, the difference is good, like a comfort. It’s a world away from my dynamic with Garrett, so much more effervescent. The girls flick through magazines, gossiping over celebrities and fashion. It’s a foreign tableau of bright bikinis and purses spilling sunscreen and makeup and sweatshirts, while cotton-candy clouds drift slowly across the blue sky.