**Teri**
Welcome to another misty noon in Moose Bridge Harbor - the Bridge, as locals say - where the air looks as if it's been jetted from a vaporizer and even a flying volleyball seems to gather dewdrops. Blame the sleep-sucking heatwave back home in the Hudson Valley that's frying car seats (and the screaming thighs that weld to them) for the sixth day in a row. Even from Portland to Presque Isle, it's reported that sidewalks are steaming like Sunday night tempers at the Hampton tolls.
I've escaped all that, of course. Out on the peninsula, the sea buffers June's dying dragon gasp into a wet-muzzled, barkless sheepdog, which any minute now will shake its fluffy coat and fan beachgoers with a friendly onshore wag. Unlike the Cape's famous Saharan sandscapes, Quonnicut Beach is a quaint crescent half-carpeted with stones at low tide. But a fragrant necklace of balsam pine and islet cufflinks beautify the little strand into a best-kept-secret destination.
Between the weathered cedar bathhouse and silvery pillows of dune grass sprawls a recreational area where tourists and townies alike join flailing forests on either side of the threadbare net. There's no line referee. Players, much like the ramshackle blueberry stands lining Route 3, are on the honor system.
It's the perfect hideaway to exercise paroled-from-senior-year-study-grind wings and dust off the residue from Forgot His Name, who had the colossal cojones to ditch me the day after senior prom for Hatchet Profiled Homewrecker. I have to admit that four hundred miles of separation plus four hours a day of slamming ball beat the heck out of the urge to embellish the latest 'couple selfies' on his Snapchat with Snidely Whiplash mustaches - not that I could even access Snapchat in this village where Bluetooth is spelled with lower-case, always in the plural and refers to the condition of your dentistry after a serving of the Hungry Buoy Diner's most famous pie.
New acquaintances have also helped, like Lauren, the ginger-kitten Colby undergrad whose mewls of 'y'all' softened even stony Mrs. Danforth when the latter rang up our sunblock and Tic-Tacs at the apothecary's behemoth bronze bell of a cash register. Unfortunately, Lauren's just passing through on her way to Savannah and she's probably charming a new pair of gloves onto a TSA capo at the Jetport about now. I miss her sweet-tea mojo already.
"Match point!"
The foghorn shout belongs to a zinc-anointed warrior who relays the ball toward a girl about my age poised coolly behind the end line. Soundlessly her fingers trap the pass before it can rebound off the lofty Blue Hills mounding the front of her tank top. Above them, a pair of latte lips aerates and cracks hot-pink balloons of gum.
I have no idea what her name is but have spotted her about the beach and village. Those striking eyes stand out in a crowd. No, not like the chick who was all over social media a few years back, the one whose look was, well, Surfer Groucho. The brows are far less extreme - think vanilla beans instead of Vanilla Ice. Pretty sure she's a natural blonde too. Texture-wise, not California-shiny but more rustic, like a coyote's winter coat.
Barbi Breckenridge, walking mannequin for Revlon and sorority queen of Van Cortlandt High, isn't even in the same league.
"Slut's turn to serve," hisses from behind me.
She tosses, leaps, then connects with a well-aimed fist.
This is no casual lob but a missile that whooshes five feet to my left and dodges two sets of upstretched arms. Heads in the second row duck in self-preservation and allow the ball to crater the sand, inches from a token dive.
Cheers override groans; players scatter like marbles. Some roll toward the beach while others, drawn by the greasy waft from sizzling clam fritters, cluster under the snack bar's faded Coke signs.
My side might have lost, but secretly I'm gloating over how the slandered scorer showed up the Bitch Whisperers. Now is as good an opportunity as any to introduce myself and congratulate Vanilla Eyes before the rest of her fan club shows up.
She's bent forward rummaging her canvas tote, profile veiled by fanned-out locks, caramel shoulders warmed by a milky splash of sunlight. Her roomy caboose strains the gym shorts into a relief map of their subsurface. Today's Rand McNally is cotton-plain with well-defined borders.
"Nice job," is the most I can manage, attention diverted by the primitive gull wings etched across her butt cheeks.
The ace goddess straightens and turns my way, lips hooked into a smirk that makes it clear I've been busted. She's even prettier up close.
"Thanks, New Yawk." The coastal drawl smokes of Demi Moore and accessorizes the sable brows to perfection.
From two words? What is she, some kind of linguistics prodigy too?
"Hey, Dawn," squeaks from my left.
Here come her homies. At least I said my piece. "Hey, Brooke," the blonde calls past my shoulder. "You missed a good game."
Turns out Squeaky aka Brooke isn't breaking stride, and her, "Maybe tomorrow. Catch you then!" fades into the thump and whoosh of an incoming swell.
We're alone again and my adrenaline-fueled bravado has crashed and burned. I can't think of a thing to say other than to sputter my name and, "Nice meeting you."
"You were here last year," Dawn challenges, flicking the coyote tail over her shoulder. The briny dampness blooms with sugared orange blossoms.
"Yeah..." Between her scent and the midnight sun of her stare, my pulse is doing pirouettes. "I stay with my aunt. How 'bout you?”
“Live here, just the other side of Harbor Ro-oww! Shit!"
"You okay?" Did she twist something? One leg bent flamingo-style, she's hobbling over to rest on a nearby boulder. I follow discreetly in her wake, ready to help without hovering.
"Yeah. Fucking stones." She hoists an ankle atop the opposite knee so she can inspect her sneaker.
"I know, right? Happens to me all the time."
While she attacks the lacing, the leg opening of her shorts yawns like a windblown curtain to reveal the innermost sweep of its occupying thigh. Moments ago, the same limb was a sturdy propellant for victory. Its musculature, now in repose, softens to a gilded curve of temptation luring the eye inward, where a shaded juncture...
Hold up. What exactly are you looking at?
... is hiding the gull of her gull wings...
Mind your own business.
... and if one focuses hard enough...
No. Don't even think about it.
There it is - a pale slender funnel, barely visible where the shade is deepest...
I said behave yourself!
It takes a strong dose of willpower to look dutifully downward. Virtue's reward is - eww - a cigarette butt crushed in a dirt nap.
Screw virtue.
What did you just say?
Fuck virtue. Check out that painted-on gusset that, well, isn't covering much on this side of her kitty-cat canyon.
Wash your brain out with soap, pervette.
First impressions, after the obvious shock value? Nicely xeriscaped. Quite photogenic. Upload this, and porn surfers would unzip and grab themselves in record numbers.
Heh. Someone's been browsing Desktop Dix waaay too much.
Offstage, her French-manicured grip twists the heel free. The ripple effect flaps the scene shut, then open, shut, open.
I realize my fingers are crossed inside my pocket. It stays open.
Though I'm no mathematician - cute Mr. Kirby notwithstanding - my imagination quantum-leaps into theories on how such cloistered smoothness might have acquired its lovely tan. Theories such as the velocity of a tossed thong, complementary angles of parted limbs and solar penetration, degrees of friction in lotion application techniques leading to spontaneous surface tension experiments -
Will you have some respect for a person's privacy? My A-student side stamps its foot, startling my truant twin into a guilty glance at our new acquaintance's newer frown.
See? Curiosity just killed your social cat.
She's looking daggers - at her empty shoe.
Whew. That was close. Better not push your luck.
But this visual cookie jar is too tantalizing not to take advantage of its lifted lid. And the risk-reward ratio sweetens upon observing how the taut meringue slingshot molds to the narrow frond of her inner lips and purses both boundaries into one delectable honey-glazed pout. The overall effect is Oreo Golden. Or, as a typical From Away observer who didn't know any better might think, snickerdoodle whoopie pie.
Knock it off!
The flutter in that spot normally tweaked by pop icon Anton Sivrett's leather-hugged stage bulge is making me wish Blondie's maneuvers would uncover a little more. Or better yet, rip the canvas altogether. Anything to answer the riddle of whether her Intracoastal matches the aesthetic appeal of its Outer Banks.
So tight... one deep breath could pop it right open...
My thighs clamp together to suppress the sudden zig-zagging effervescence, which only makes it worse, like dropping an unopened can of Moxie during the late-night fridge raid.
If she catches you gawking, the rest of your summer is toast.
Miraculously, she doesn't, and when her posture changes again, it's not in a Peeping Tomika's favor. The cookie jar is moved out of reach.
What was she saying? Oh yeah... Harbor Road.
“Lucky you. Wish I could stay after the summer." Disappointed, I heave a sigh at the pine-spiked horizon, dreaming of a certain creamy contrail.
Having ejected the offending pebble, she cinches the bow, leaps to her feet and snorts. “You haven't been here in winter. Snow up to your ass, and there's nothing to do but shovel it.”
Bang. It's a shot over the bow and enough to chase off the naughty nibbles. Despite occasional annoyance at the Bridge's lack of infrastructure, a lot of its memories have been collected and treasured: rainy-day sunporch hours immersed in a tattered paperback, wild-rose-scented bike rides to the village for postcards, and of course, the cute weatherman who brightens over-the-air TV from Bangor. Even if Miss I-Live-Here has a point, I refuse to indulge self-pity about being marooned in such a magical place.
“Not so different from home, then. But it’s getting hot now and I could go for a swim.”
“I’ll go with you. Wait for me while I change?"
Huh? Back home, I'm as visible to the 'in' girls as cashless constituents to a congressman. Now someone who makes even Barbi Breckenridge look like a spaz wants to tag along on my outing? Anton might as well be asking me to be his date for the Grammys. Okay, maybe not quite.
"Um... sure. I have to change too."
We take side-by-side dressing cubicles in the small, rustic bathhouse. The door hook is broken but it's damp enough for the panel to stick shut. I set the beach bag on a sand-caked bench and coax a pink scrap from its terrycloth cocoon as shrieks of acute discomfort pierce the hiss and splatter from the communal cold-water shower.
"What happened to that redhead you were hanging with?" echoes from Dawn's side.
Hmm. She's noticed more than I thought. "Lauren? She flew back home for the summer."
Beneath the painted-wood partition scribbled with 'J Luvs D' graffiti, Dawn's shorts and panties glide down over the tanned calves, form snowy hoops for her Skechers, then whisk out of sight, leaving legs bare and... and... and a lot of inappropriate curiosities to swarm and attack like Aroostook blackflies. Except these feel much different. Like feathers instead of bites.