The first time I went to Myrtle Beach was with Courtney Robbins. She told me to roll up my shorts to show off my legs. She wore a string bikini. She wanted us to get boyfriends. We rode the elevators at night and stopped on every floor to see who’d get on. Her mama drank in the hotel bar with her boyfriend.
We went to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not aquarium and took pictures in the shark tunnel. We got puka shell necklaces from the gift shop. We ate Sour Cream & Onion Pringles. We walked up and down the beach pulling gummy worms out our mouths until they dissolved on our tongues. We got tans. And then two boys were behind us in the snow cone line. And then Courtney went to singing that To The Window To The Wall Till The Sweat Drop Down My Balls All These Bitches Crawl song which made me blush but she elbowed me to join in. She knew I didn’t like that music. She knew I’d never had a boyfriend. She knew I’d never been kissed.
She didn’t have a daddy. She could probably count on one hand how many times she’d ever seen him. She slept with a pee pad on her bed. Her house was outside of town, across the railroad tracks. She stuffed her bra with toilet paper. Sometimes, when we slept together, I woke up with her holding my hand.
The boys in the snow cone line asked us where we were from and of course they’d never heard of it, but we’d never heard of where they were from either. But we were all staying in the same hotel so we decided we’d meet up with them in the jacuzzi later. They wore caps and silver chain necklaces. They said they were twelve, thirteen and they’d be leaving on Sunday. “Us too,” Courtney said.
Courtney was skinnier than me in every way but somehow her boobs were bigger and that made me feel dumb. But it was exciting when the boys showed up. I told them I’d never been in a jacuzzi before. And they said they hadn’t either. But Courtney did what she always did to try and look cool and lied. She said her daddy had a jacuzzi and she’d been in it plenty of times.
It was hot and my seat was gritty with sand. Courtney scooched over to the boy with freckles. I watched the bubbles keep coming and asked them all if they thought it’d be okay if I put my head underwater. No one got kisses that night, or touches, we just went back home more tanned. But Courtney told everybody at school that me and her got drunk at Myrtle Beach. She said we made out and did other stuff she couldn’t remember. Davis Askew turned around and licked his lips at me in the auditorium. I didn’t like it. And I didn’t talk to Courtney anymore after that.