Page 26 of Stony Point Summer
Why?he wonders while hooking on his forearm crutches.
Because he made Maris smile. Truly smile. Andanythingis worth that alone.
ten
— Then —
19 Years Ago
The Storm
THE FIRST LIGHTNING FLASH GETS everyone to turn, the way it suddenly illuminates the overcast sky.
The girls on Stony Point Beach look up from their talking, their magazine-browsing.
One of the guys in the water is floating on an inflated tube, which he gives a spin for a better look skyward.
Standing nearby in the shallows, there’s a teen girl wearing a two-piece bathing suit. A gold star pendant hangs around her neck. Lazy waves lap at her knees. She scoops up a handful of water to drizzle on her shoulders, as though getting acclimated to it before diving in. But she stops mid-drizzle, and looks out toward the gray horizon at the sight of the flash.
“Hey, Neil,” a guy sitting on the distant swim raft says, giving this Neil beside him a slight shove. “See that?”
“Christ, Jason. Was that lightning?” Neil asks. He stands and turns to watch the threatening sky. His denim cutoffs drip after swimming out there to the raft.
“Think so. Sheet lightning,” Jason says, winded and still sitting. He’s about twenty years old, his dark hair slicked back, his face needing a shave. “Lucky we got in a swim before the storm, after swinging hammers all day.” He wraps his arms around his bent knees. Salt water from his swim trunks pools around him on the raft.
In the heavy humidity, no one moves much on this lazy afternoon. The day’s been hot; the clouds rolled in after lunch. The sea air’s dead still now. Not a breeze whispers off the water, nor ripples through the stagnant muggy air.
So that’s all it does, that first lightning. It gets everyone’s attention for fifteen seconds or so before they pick up where they were before—chatting on the sand, settling onto the swim raft near the big rock, taking a quick dip. Forgetting about the skies as they turn over on beach blankets; paddle their tubes out deeper.
The second flash gets them all to gasp, the way it rolls across the sky. The fluidlike lightning illuminates a wide bank of clouds from one end to the other.
This time, no one looks away. This time, they keep a wary eye on that sky. The teen girls on the beach set aside their magazines, turn off a pocket radio, then sit up straighter. The wading girl, though, she dives under before the storm hits. Coming up for air, she tosses back her wet hair and chats with the guy floating on that inflated tube.
The third lightning flash? This one, and a distant rumble of thunder, gets people moving.
One of the girls on the beach stands. She wears a bikini top over cuffed jean shorts. When she calls out, “Kyle!” the guy on the tube spins toward her. “I’m heading back to Nana’s cottage.” Without waiting, she folds up a towel and shoves it into a tote.
“I’ll catch up to you, Lauren,” Kyle yells from his tube, then idly paddles his hands in the water.
Another teen near Lauren looks a little younger, maybe sixteen or so. She trots from a sand chair to the water’s edge. “Maris!” she calls out to the girl who just dove under and stands near Kyle. “We should go.”
“Pretty soon, Eva,” Maris tells her, then briefly dives under again—smoothing back her long brown hair when she emerges beside Kyle still tube-floating there.
And the two on the raft? They take a running leap back into Long Island Sound and swim steady for shore. “Race you,” the older-looking one, Jason, calls. Neil takes the challenge. Their arms lift dripping with each stroke; they laugh as they swim like mad.
One thing seems to slow them, though. It’s Kyle, in his tube. His back is to them as he talks to Maris. So the two guys swimming, they slow up. Treading water for a second, one lifts his finger to his mouth, signaling Maris—who faces them—not to give away their presence.
Too late, though. As she looks from them to Kyle, Kyle spins around. Spins that overinflated tube he’s afloat in just as Jason and Neil flip him out of it and dunk him in the deep water. In all the splashing, Neil grabs the tube and quickly paddles it to shore, with Kyle chasing after him.
“I’m going to wring your fuckin’ neck, Neil!” Kyle calls while running through the water. As he does, he heaves a fistful of water in Neil’s direction.
“Kyle!” Lauren yells again from the sand. She’s lifting her packed tote to her shoulder, then scoops up her flip-flops. “You coming with me?”
“Yeah.” Dripping wet, he slogs out of the water and grabs his tube from Neil—giving him a good-natured shove at the same time.
Jason, though, stands waist-deep in Long Island Sound. The water is flat, with no waves rising and falling. When he turns, Maris is still behind him. She’s shoulder-deep, treading water in her two-piece bathing suit—a blue floral-print halter top over boyshorts.
“Hey, Maris,” Jason says, right as another flash of sheet lightning rolls across the cloudy horizon. “You should probably get going. It’s not really safe here.”
