Page 27 of Stony Point Summer
“Safe enough. Odds of being struck by lightning in a wholelifetime? About one in fifteen thousand.”
“Kyle tell you that?”
“Yeah. Said he got the numbers from some almanac, or weather service.” Maris stands then, and tips her head back into the water to keep her hair slicked. “But ifyou’reworried, Jason …” she adds with a light finger-splash.
Just then, more sheet lightning rolls across the sky. The flickering light shimmers behind the cloud cover. “You’re playing with fire, you know, being in the water,” Jason tells Maris. “Upping the ante for those odds.”
“Jason!” another girl suddenly yells from the beach.
“Your sister,” Maris says, hitching her head to the brunette in the shallows. She’s got on a cropped tank top over nylon surf shorts, and fidgets nervously at the sight of the lightning.
Jason turns toward shore. “What’s up, Paige?”
“Dad’s got steaks for the grill. You coming home?”
Jason glances at Maris still behind him. “I’ll be there later,” he shouts to his sister. “Half an hour, maybe.”
“Don’t be long!” Paige warns, veering toward the others packing up umbrellas and chairs and totes on the beach. Kyle’s loading a beach caddy-on-wheels. Lauren’s draping a dry towel over his wet shoulders. Neil’s helping Eva slip her faded umbrella into a carrying case.
“Maybe you should go have that steak,” Maris quietly tells Jason while motioning to another lightning flash. “Storm’s coming.”
“I’ll take my chances with you,” Jason says. He turns then, watching her. “One in fifteen thousand, you say?”
“Yep.” With that, Maris silently sinks down until she’s submerged. When she stands straight, she presses her wet hair off her face. “Still here?”
“You bet.”
When a streak of lightning flashes closer—followed by more rumbling thunder—the friends on the beach give a suddenWhoop!Their voices are urgent now; they grab up the last of their T-shirts and sandals and totes.
But Maris—looking about all of eighteen and invincible—seems to defy nature then. She floats on her back, her long hair drifting on the water’s surface, her arms slowly paddling. “What a light show up there,” she says from her water-prone position. Her hand points to the immense cloudy sky.
Jason glances up before joining her. Together they float on their backs. Light pulses behind the clouds in some natural pyrotechnics display. Wavering, muted flashes come and go. “Looks like fireworks behind a smoky sky,” Jason tells her. The gray clouds churn as the sheet lightning grows intense. Thunder rumbles, too.
“Yo, Jay!” Neil calls from shore right as a wind picks up. “Headed home with Paige—we’re making a run for it. Left the truck keys in your shoes, with your towel.”
Jason stands and waves him off. The water is waist-deep there on the ridged sandbar. “Maris. Come on,” he says, right as the wind ripples the water’s surface. “We should go.”
But Maris still floats on her back. She closes her eyes and gives a gentle kick with her feet. “It’s the coolest I’ve been all day,” she says, her voice low.
“This heat’s a bitch, that’s for sure.” Jason takes a good dunk then. When he comes up for air, Maris is still floating on her back in that blue-floral halter top over belted boyshorts, leaving her belly exposed. So he tosses a sprinkle of water her way.
“Hey!” Maris says when the water splashes across her stomach. She quickly presses her hand through the water to send a spray straight at him.
Jason sidesteps her spray, but moves closer. Salt water drips from every inch of him.
Maris stands now, too, with water trickling from her tanned shoulders, her neck. Her long, drenched hair is flipped back. Her gold necklace glistens on her wet chest, in the V of her halter top.
As they face off, more thunder does nothing to distract them. Instead, Jason’s dropping both his cupped hands into the sea.
Maris, not taking her eyes off him, slowly steps back. “Don’t you—Ooh, ooh!” she abruptly says then, while giving a splashy jump. “Stepped on a big rock.Sheesh!” she adds, and takes yet another small hop out of the way.
“Sure it’s not a crab?” Jason glances down at the murky water.
“A crab?” Maris holds back her wet hair and bends low to squint through the water. “Shit, itis!” she squeals at the same time that she scoots against Jason in such a way that he opens his arms and lifts her. Right away Maris gets her feet off the sandbar and wraps her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck.
And stops still.
They both do. Until Jason turns and walks out deeper. “Well, now,” he says, his arms looped around her back. “We got ourselves into a situation here.”
