by Jayne Louise
‘Okay,’ Hannah said, relieved. Of course the shirt is long enough to work as a short dress. Of course she knew why we’d all been so casual about what to wear– there had only been the walk along the dock between the boat and the car and in the rain there’d been no one out. Of course we’d all be dashing for the shower the moment we got to the house. I’m not a sleaze. Hannah knows that.
Jem went up stairs for her shower. I started one in the outside shower but then let Hannah have it first. In the kitchen Jules mixed up iced tea. I didn’t want any. Slimy and sticky as I was I just took off the shirt and dropped as though dead on the rec room’s sofa. Shortly after that Jules had put on the air conditioning. A little while after that the rain came back, and then the power went off. The house got very hot in those few moments. I felt like I was going to throw up.
Jem came down from her shower, powdered and pretty and perfect in a white tanktop and cute little pink shorts. She came right over to me and laid her hand against my head and said, like a nurse, ‘She is totally dry. get her some lemonade, or some juice. Nothing with caffeine.’
‘Food,’ I said. ‘My tummy is empty.’
But Jules came out with instant oatmeal made with milk– the only way to have it, soft and warm and easy to digest, and easy to make on the gas stove with the electricity out. And there was Coke– good real-live Coke with ice in tall glasses that went down like syrup. We all sat round the table slurping away at our lukewarm oatmeal, everyone clean and dry and dressed except slimy, sticky me, but none of us cared. Finally I felt better.
‘So,’ Jem was saying to Hannah, ‘did you get enough sun?’
Hannah smiled. ‘I hope sp. But Jayne says I can go sailing with you guys again tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ I wondered.
‘If you still want to,’ Jem said to Hannah.
‘Why not?’ Hannah said to me.
I shrugged. ‘I guess. As long as you think you’re bottoms not brown enough.’
We all laughed at that. ‘How can it ever be brown enough?’ Hannah asked. ‘I’ll never be as brown as you are, Jayne.’
I suppose there was an awful lot of brown me showing at that moment. I really didn’t mind feeling like the nature princess this time.
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Brown bottoms of Barnegat Bay.
Text © 2005 by Girls Of the Dove LLC.
All rights reserved.
This e-text is covered by Digital Rights Management.
No part of the manuscript or artwork included in this e-text
may be reproduced, stored or transmitted by any means
without express written permission from the Publisher.
Text edited by Melissa Stockhart.
HTML edited by The Girls of The Dove.
First Kindle® edition, January 2012
From the original America Online journal of July 2005
Surf City Source media group
New Jersey
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More adventures are told
in the upcoming complete edition
of Jayne’s Nature,
from Surf City Source Media Group.
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