7

Summer 1987

“Come on . . .”

“I can’t.”

“You mean you won’t.”

I shook my head. The blonde hair that fell straight on both sides of my face tickled my shoulders in the late afternoon sunlight. I stood a few feet from the Gulf’s shoreline, brushed the wet sand from the tops of my slender tanned legs and then from my hands. “Obviously, you don’t know my parents, Steven Granger. If my father caught me out at 6:00 in the morning watching the sunrise with you, he’d kill both of us.”

Steven grinned, white teeth appearing whiter against the bronze skin of his face. “Then tell him. I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.” He winked. “Do you?”

I crossed my arms, felt the warmth of them against the bare skin of my midriff, and my cheeks flamed. “No,” I said looking down. At my feet was the crumpled canary-yellow cover-up that matched the bikini I’d begged Mom for before we came to Cedar Key for summer vacation. Mom thought the bathing suit a little too risqué, but I insisted it was the style and that we’d not find anything different anywhere else. “Besides,” I’d said, “it’s just a suit, Mom. It’s not like I have guys pawing me or anything.”

But in my heart, I knew whom I bought it for and just whom I hoped would take notice. And so far, it had worked. Steven’s eyes never left me when we were together . . . and he made sure we were together as much as possible. Even on days when he’d have done better to have worked with his dad.

Steven bent down to retrieve the cover-up, shook it loose of sand, and then handed it to me. The same sun that warmed me shimmered on the dark blond hair—cut in feathery soft layers—of the boy standing before me. “Need any help putting this on?”

I kept my eyes locked on his. “No, I do not,” I said. Then, slipping the gauzy material over my head, I said, “I’m not a child that you have to dress, you know.”

“I’d say.”

I smiled at him before we turned to walk toward the grassy knoll rising above the beach where 2nd Street crossed in front of City Park. Behind us the voices of children and adults playing and laughing faded into the sound of gulls cawing. Steven and I were in a world of our own. We took slow steps, occasionally bumped shoulders, cast longing gazes, and then finally clasped our hands together. “So, what’ll it be?” he asked. “Just say the word and I’ll pick you up at your front door at 6:00. Otherwise, I’ll meet you at the end of the lane from your house.” He stopped walking, and I stopped with him. “Just promise me that tomorrow we’ll be watching the sunrise together.”

I looked at him long and hard. “Dad will say no.”

“Tell your mom you want to take some pictures, then. You’ve got your license, you can drive the car. I’ll meet you where Dad docks his boat.”

I felt myself smiling long before my lips broke apart in a wide grin. “Okay, then.”

Steven looked elated. “Really? Are you serious?” And then he laughed. “I’ll bring the coffee.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Hot cocoa, please.”

He pulled me to him, pressed his lips against mine for one salty sweet moment. “I’ll bring whatever you want.”

“What shall I bring?” I asked, picturing us, blanket spread out on his father’s dock, legs dangling over the edge, feet grazing the water. A thermos of hot cocoa stood between us and napkins filled with . . . I didn’t know what . . .

But Steven shook his head. “Nothing. I’ll bring it all.”

“Okay.”

We started walking again, over to the gazebo and then back to where he’d parked the red ’76 GMC 4-by-4 his father had allowed him to buy with the money he’d saved over the years of working on the boat. “How about tonight?” he asked. “Got plans for tonight?”

I couldn’t help but giggle. After all the years I’d stared after him, Steven Granger finally knew I was alive. Really alive. And not just in the “kid sister” kind of way. Not as it had always been before when he treated me no differently than any other summer resident on the island.

Not that I hadn’t worked hard to make sure it would happen too. After winter break on the island—the one where Steven hardly said hello to me—I joined one of the new women’s workout clubs near home, lost some excess girl-to-woman pounds, and firmed up my stomach muscles. A month before we were scheduled to come to Cedar Key for the summer, I’d talked Mom into a shopping spree at Dillard’s, which included the bathing suit and a stop at the Clinique counter where I was taught—at last—how to properly wear makeup. The salesgirl admitted it wouldn’t take much to accent my positives, telling me I was a natural beauty. Still, I’d come away with eyes shadowed in smoky shades and lips pouting with shimmery lip gloss.

As usual upon arrival at our summer house, my sisters and I bounded up the stairs to get everything unpacked so we could get to the water as quickly as possible. And, as usual, I was the first to meet up with Dad by the shoreline. “Good gracious alive. Who is this young woman standing in front of me?” he asked, sizing me up and down.

“Dad . . .”

He stood from his chair, rubbed his chin in mock admiration and study, and said, “Now, I do believe my daughter, my little girl,” he said winking, “who rode all the way from Orlando with us ran up those stairs a few minutes ago. But I do not remember this young woman riding with us in the car.”

“Dad!”

His face grew stern then. “Seriously. What’s with all this? Do you need all this makeup and . . . do those shoes actually match your swimsuit?”

I turned. If he were able to read my face—and I knew he could—he’d know that seeing Steven again was behind the transformation, and he’d have me in a gunnysack before I had a chance to protest. “I’ll meet you at the car, Dad.”

“Uh-huh,” he called after me.

“I’m driving!” I yelled back.

“Only if I say so!”

“Dad!”

Now it was Steven who eyed me, albeit in a different way than my father had. “What about tonight?” I asked him.

“Do you think your dad would mind if we went to see the sunset together?”

“We’ll be there anyway. Mom told me earlier that tonight will be a good one to catch some shots.”

Steven squinted in the sunlight. “Well, that’s all well and good . . . but can I pick you up and take you with me? Do you think they’d mind?”

We reached the truck. He opened the passenger door for me. A red towel was scrunched along the seat, placed there to protect the fabric. I straightened it, then hoisted myself up and in using the chrome running board. Steven closed the door behind me and ran around the front as I leaned my arm out of the opened window, hoping for a breeze. Even though he’d parked in the shade of the one bushy tree at City Park, inside the truck felt like two hundred degrees.

“I’ll have it cooled down in a minute,” he said as he bounded into the driver’s seat. He started the engine, adjusted the air-conditioning, then fiddled with the gearshift on the floorboard between us. Looking from it to me, he said, “Scootch closer.”

I happily complied.

Halfway to the house he asked, “So what time can I pick you up?”

“We usually eat about 7:00. How about 8:00?”

“Sounds good. That’ll give us plenty of time before sunset.”

“Why don’t I bring some Cokes? I mean, after all, you’re bringing the hot cocoa in the morning.”

He smiled at me. “If your parents say it’s okay.”

I thought for a moment before answering. “It’ll work out.”

He shifted gears as he rounded the road from A Street to 3rd. Thick shrubs and palms lined the right side so densely it was impossible to see through. I stared out at the landscape, thinking. Devising a plan, as I seemed to be doing a lot of lately. I knew what needed to be done for it to all work out. The best time to talk to Mom. The right time that she’d agree to anything. Just as she had with the shopping spree.

The perfect time . . . “It’ll all work out,” I said again, then glanced at Steven, who looked at me and then to the road.

“If you say so, Boo.”

A million butterflies took flight inside at the sound of the endearment spoken from his lips. So different than when Dad said the exact same name. “I say so,” I said, then leaned back and closed my eyes, already dreaming of the life Steven and I would someday have together.

A life in Cedar Key.