“Oh, hey, Richard,” she said, recognizing him, and shifted onto her back. It was funny he’d identified himself as from that class, since they’d both grown up in Middleham, gone all through elementary and middle school together. Still, she didn’t think that they had ever spoken in all those years. It was strange to see him in Maine.
He shifted uncomfortably, wearing a black T-shirt and a pair of worn, green bathing trunks that were cut unfashionably short. The high sun moved behind a wispy cloud and she could see him better, his eyes seeming to rest about one foot above her head. “What are you doing here?” she said.
“My aunt and uncle and my cousin come here every summer for a month, and I’m staying up here this year with them.”
“For the whole month?”
“I’ve already been here two weeks, so two weeks more. Yeah. How about you?”
“I got here yesterday with my parents and my sister. We’re here for two weeks. At the Windward.”
“Oh, yeah. Me, too,” he said. He looked back over his shoulder as though judging the distance from the resort, but didn’t say anything. Joan was as far down the beach as she could get, hoping to avoid Duane, even though she knew she’d run into him eventually.
“It’s gross there, isn’t it?” Joan said.
“Is it?” He looked down at her for what felt like the first time, and Joan felt as though his eyes had landed somewhere around her chin. At least he wasn’t staring at her in her bikini, although she did suspect maybe he was working hard not to; she was pretty sure that Richard, known primarily as either Dick or Dickless since the fifth grade, had maybe never even talked to a girl.
“It smells,” she said, “and the food is disgusting. The only thing good about it is that it’s close to the beach.”
“There’s a pool,” Richard said.
“You go in there?”
“I did once, but there was a bunch of little kids and I thought that maybe they were peeing in it.”
Joan laughed, then turned her head because she could see a group of kids coming down the beach. No, not kids, maybe college students. And Duane wasn’t one of them. One of the girls was smoking a cigarette, and Joan could smell the smoke on the air.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” she said to Richard, who seemed to be watching two gulls squawking at each other near the grassy part of the beach that separated the wide expanse of sand from the road.
“Oh, yeah,” Richard said, and moved off down the beach. She watched him for a little while, then flipped over onto her stomach, and stared at the corner of her towel, at the few flecks of sand that had crept onto it. She closed her eyes but kept thinking about the sand, finally shifting over enough so that she could swipe them off the towel.
That evening, sunburned and starving, Joan was keeping her eye out for Duane in the large dining room of the resort. The buffet that night was lasagna, either meat or veggie, and salad, and garlic bread. She’d spotted Richard, her awkward classmate, across the room, sitting at a table with a tall, skinny woman with curly hair and a fat, older man who was wearing shorts and white socks pulled up to his knees. What had Richard told her? He was there with his aunt and uncle and a cousin. She wondered for a moment if that cousin might be Duane, and as though she’d conjured him with her thoughts, Duane suddenly appeared, lumbering between tables and arriving to sit with Richard and the two adults. Even seeing Duane from a distance made Joan feel ill. It was strange to think that skinny, nerdy Richard was related to a meathead like Duane.
“I can’t believe how much sun you got, sweet pea,” Joan’s mom said for the second or third time.
Joan pressed a finger into her forearm, watched her reddened skin turn briefly white then red again. “It’s a base,” she said. “If I have to be here for two weeks then at least I’m going to get a wicked tan.”
“It’s so bad for you,” Lizzie, her sister, said. Lizzie had just finished her freshman year of college, at Bard—she and Joan were exactly four years apart—and now Lizzie was suddenly a feminist, and a vegetarian, and concerned about things like getting a sunburn.
“You went to Florida last summer, and I didn’t even recognize you when you came back you were so black,” Joan said, knowing she was talking too loud, but still annoyed when her mother shushed her.
“And now I probably have cancer again,” Lizzie said. “You should try to learn from my mistakes, Joan. It’ll make you a better person.”
Lizzie was smiling now, trying to make up to her sister, but Joan frowned. “Daddy, what do you think? You’re a doctor.”
Her father, drinking a coffee, blinked rapidly and pulled himself back into the conversation. “I’m a dentist, Joan. Think about what?”
“Think about me getting a good tan this summer.”
“Sure,” he said.
“Just do me a favor,” her mom said. “Slather yourself with aloe tonight and promise to wear at least thirty-something SPF tomorrow, okay? It does look really red.”
“It feels fine,” Joan lied. Ever since her shower her skin was starting to hum all over, and even though she knew she couldn’t, Joan had felt like she could almost sense a burning smell coming off her.
“Did you know there’s a library here?” Lizzie said, clearly trying to change the subject, and for that, Joan was thankful.
“Is there?” her mother said.
Joan’s parents and her sister all began talking about the books they were planning on reading during their vacation while Joan pushed a hard crust of garlic bread around her plate.
Joan was keeping her eye on the table where both Duane and Richard sat. She wondered if Duane was scared of running into her, if he wondered whether she’d told anyone how he’d acted. But he didn’t look nervous from across the room. He was slouched in his chair and kept looking at his watch. After about five minutes he got up and walked out of the dining room. Joan kept watching the table. Richard got up and went back to the buffet to look at the desserts. She found herself standing, then walking over to the buffet, as well.
“What is that?” she said, when she’d gotten close enough to Richard so that he could hear her.
“It’s rice pudding,” he said. “But there’s also chocolate cake.”
“Was that your cousin at the table with you?” Joan said.
“He was there a moment ago. That’s my aunt and uncle there now.”
“What’s your cousin like?”
“Who, Duane?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s maybe the worst human being I’ve ever met.”
“Really?” Joan said, not really bothering to hide her excitement. It was what she’d been hoping to hear. “What makes him so terrible?”
“Pretty much everything. Why are you asking? You want to meet him or something?”
“I already met him. Yesterday.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, he invited me down to the beach for a bonfire at night and I stupidly went.”
“Did he attack you?” Richard said, as though he were asking her if she’d had dessert yet.
“Oh my God,” she said, her voice rising in pitch reflexively, but then, whispering, she said, “He kind of tried, but I got away.”