“Then let’s get out of here,” the girl said, her voice very serious. I kept walking, thinking ominous thoughts, then disregarding them, the way I’d taught myself to do.
Chapter 2
Joan
Before Joan even realized that Richard was at the Windward Resort, she’d met his cousin Duane. It was her first night at the beachside hotel in Maine, a Saturday in August, buggy and hot, the start of a two-week vacation with her parents and her sister. Joan was fifteen.
Duane had sidled up to her as she was taking a walk along Kennewick Beach, trying to get away from her family. He was a muscular teenager, probably a senior in high school.
“Hey, I saw you at the Windward,” he said. “Didja just get here?”
She’d seen him, too. In the lobby, sitting on one of the couches outside of the dining room, his legs spread apart. He had bad posture and a low hairline that made him look a little like a caveman.
“Yeah, we got here today,” Joan said, still walking.
“Sorry about that. This place kind of sucks. Full of old people.”
“It’s not so bad,” Joan said, even though she basically agreed. “This beach is pretty.”
“Yeah, the beach rocks. I was just talking about the hotel. I mean, once it’s nighttime there’s like nothing to do. Hey, slow down, you’re walking so fast.”
Joan stopped and turned.
“I’m Duane,” the kid said.
“I’m Joan.”
“Look, like I was saying there’s nothing to do at night, so I just wanted to tell you that a bunch of us are going to be down at the beach around ten having a little bonfire. It’ll be cool if you showed up. Or not.”
“Who’s going to be there?”
“There’s this pretty cool kid named Derek. He’s a busboy here but a waiter over at the Sea Grill. He’s hooked me up with beer a bunch of times, and some pretty sweet pot. Honestly, there’s like no one cool here. I have a cousin but he’s practically retarded. Just thought you looked cool and like you might like to party.”
“Well, maybe,” Joan said. “Is it just going to be you and this guy Derek?”
“Oh, no,” Duane said, shaking his head. “There’s some girls who are in a rental house down the beach. There’ll be there, too.”
“Well, maybe,” Joan said again.
“Sweet,” Duane said. “Like I said, around ten o’clock, and we’ll have a fire going.”
She hadn’t planned on going, but Duane had been right about there being nothing to do at night. After a disgusting dinner in the dining room—baked fish and scalloped potatoes—her parents were sitting in the lobby listening to some old geezer on the piano and her sister, Lizzie, had gone up to their room to read. At ten o’clock her parents had gone up to bed, as well, and Joan was still in the lobby, flipping through a magazine. She decided to walk down to the beach, at least say hi. Maybe Duane wasn’t as big a douchebag as he’d seemed.
She left the resort and crossed the sloping lawn that led to Micmac Road, crossing it to get to the beach. Even though the day had been hot, it was pretty cool now, and Joan was glad she was wearing her thickest sweatshirt. The beach was dark and quiet, but Joan saw the flickering light of a bonfire about two hundred yards away and made her way toward it, her feet sinking in the soft sand. When she got close to the fire she could tell it was just two guys there, and she could smell pot on the breeze. She almost turned around right then, but Duane spotted her and leapt up, jogging to where she was.
“Oh, fuck,” he said, his voice too loud. “You came.” He turned back toward the fire, laughing, and shouted to his friend. “Told you she’d come.”
Joan decided to hang out with them for five minutes, nothing more. The bonfire was really just a few pieces of smoldering driftwood, and she could barely make out what Derek even looked like. He was a dark figure crouched on a washed-up log, wearing a baseball hat. Duane offered Joan a seat on a small plastic cooler, then handed her an open can of warm beer. She thanked him and took a sip. Duane snapped a lighter and took a hit of pot from a glass pipe, then offered that to Joan. “No, thanks,” she said.
“Don’t smoke?”
“No, not really. I’m a gymnast.”
Both the boys burst into laughter after she said that, and Joan almost got up and walked away, but something stopped her. Instead she said, “What’s so funny?”
“It’s not funny. It’s hot.” This was from Derek, his face still hidden underneath the shadow from the brim of his hat. His words were raspy and slurred.
Duane kicked out, hitting Derek in the shin, then said, “No, you’re a good girl. I get it. Is your team any good?”
Joan talked a little bit about her freshman year as a junior varsity gymnast while she finished her beer. At one point she watched as Duane turned and stared intently at his friend Derek, who got up, mumbled something about taking a leak, then disappeared into the darkness. The fire was now almost completely out, one piece of driftwood pulsing with a little bit of orange light. Duane said, “You look cold,” and slid next to her on the cooler, draping an arm around her shoulder.
“I’m actually fine,” Joan said, and Duane laughed like she’d just told the world’s greatest joke. She knew what was coming next but was still a little jarred when he pulled her in closer to him and pushed his mouth up against hers. For a moment she just went along with it—mostly because it was easier—but then he grabbed her hand and put it in the crotch of his shorts, and Joan said, “Hey,” twisting away from him and standing up. The cooler upended, and Duane landed on the sand.
She thought he’d laugh, but instead he said, “What the fuck, Jesus,” jumping up and swiping sand off his shorts and legs.
“I gotta go,” Joan said, and started walking away. There were dim lights in the distance on the other side of the road, and they were blurring in her vision because she had started to shake.
Duane caught up with her and grabbed her arm. “No, stay awhile,” he said. “Don’t be a tease.”
Joan’s heart was now thudding in her chest, and she felt a little distant from herself, the way she sometimes felt right before doing a routine in a competition. A voice inside of her was telling her she should just make out with him some more, maybe jerk him off, and then he’d let her go home, but instead she said, “Let go of me.”
“Like this,” Duane said, and squeezed her arm, digging his fingers in. She cried out, and he let go of her, and Joan turned and ran, her legs feeling heavy in the soft sand, her eyes filling with tears. She only looked back when she’d reached the road, and Duane hadn’t come after her. Still, she ran the rest of the way back to the hotel, heading straight up to the bedroom she was sharing with her sister.
“Hi, Joan,” came the voice, almost obscured by the steady breeze coming off the ocean.
She was prostrate on a large, pink beach towel, and jerked around nervously, expecting to see Duane. But it was a pale, lanky boy looming above her. “It’s Richard, from school,” he said. “We were in Mrs. Harris’s social studies class together.”