The Boys of Summer

by C. J. Duggan

  I relaxed slightly as his fingers brushed against my cheek to tuck a sleep-tousled strand of hair behind my ear.

  “So I’ve been told.”

  He bent down and kissed my forehead, and then my lips, but they didn’t linger.

  “I better get home,” I said, “I don’t want anyone to file a missing person’s report.”

  He walked me round the front, his hands plunged into his pockets, neither one of us looking at each other.

  I grabbed my bike and we stopped at the end of the drive, in silence.

  What do you say in times like this? “Thanks for last night”? “You were great”? “We should really do this again sometime”? “Thanks for taking my virginity”?

  Not that one.

  Instead, I settled for, “Okay, well … see ya.”

  I didn’t look back as I started wheeling my bike down the street, knowing I couldn’t hide my cringing face, knowing the dull ache between my thighs.

  “Tess?”

  I paused, my heart stopping at the sound of my name. He watched me thoughtfully, blinked, and it was once again broken by a smile.

  “See you on the weekend?”

  I wanted to cry with relief at such a minor semblance of normality. I smiled back.

  “Sure,” I nodded.

  Once I walked around the corner, I straddled my bike with a deep breath against the pain and rode home with the sun in my eyes, a thousand memories swimming through my mind and a dumb, dreamy smile on my face.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I did it … twice! No, I had done it twice with Toby Morrison.

  I stood in front of my bedroom mirror with a towel wrapped around me, wondering if anything had changed; if I were to walk down the street, would people look at me differently? Could they tell? I towel dried my hair in the same daze I had been walking around in all morning.

  I crept into the laundry to put my stained and rumpled clothes in the wash myself. Mum and Dad didn’t need to see this. I checked my pockets as my mum always did, in case of coinage and wayward chapsticks. I had lost far too many to the washing machine; it wasn’t funny. And when my Cherry Bliss chapstick had worked its way through Dad’s work whites, well the parentals were not happy.

  I praised small mercies as I reached into my skirt pocket and fumbled against not a lip smacker, but the crinkling of a foil packet. I quickly pulled it out and revealed the torn, empty condom wrapper. In my haste this morning, as I had kicked off my shoes, the foil packet had stuck to my foot. I’d scooped it up and shoved it in my pocket in a desperate attempt to hide all evidence.

  Now, I held it, in my home. Thank God I’d decided to wash my own clothes. I had a horrific flash of my mum emptying my pockets and finding it.

  I dumped my clothes in the washer, piled in ample detergent and high-tailed it to my room, only to be stopped by Mum in the hall.

  “Are you doing your washing?” She looked at me with surprise.

  “You don’t have to look so horrified.” I clenched my fist tighter, holding onto its contents. Panic prickled down my spine.

  Mum shook her head. “You never cease to amaze me, Tess.”

  I was certain of it. I was sure Mum would have been amazed that I’d snuck out last night and back in this morning undetected, and she’d sure be amazed at what I held in my sweaty palm right in front of her. Here she was thinking I was her little angel, when I had never felt more like the devil as her loving eyes looked over me.

  She pecked me on the cheek. “You’ve been such a help this summer, thanks sweetie.” I breathed a sigh of relief as I quickstepped to my room, the foil wrapper burning a hole in my hand.

  “Tess?”

  “Yes?” I flinched, all too guilty as I turned back around.

  “Why don’t you ask Ellie over tonight? You haven’t had anyone over these holidays. You can have a girls’ night. Your dad and I won’t be home ’til late.”

  “Okay, thanks Mum.”

  As I closed my door, I pressed my back against it and exhaled in relief. Losing my V plates last night with the boy of my dreams, and tonight a slumber party with my BFF. How unpredictable was my life? I dragged the shoe box from my wardrobe and placed the empty wrapper beside the expired foil packet from when I was thirteen. I couldn’t help but shut the lid with a goofy smile.

  That night, Ellie sat at the breakfast bar, watching me suspiciously as I covered a pizza base with cheese, humming joyously over such a mundane task.

  “What’s with the Mary Poppins thing?” Ellie asked. “Why are you so happy?”

  “What? God, just because I do my laundry and make dinner without a scowl, what’s weird about that?”

  “You did your own laundry?”

  “Uh, yeah, my arms aren’t painted on, you know.”

  Such a dad saying, I thought.

  “You’re working two jobs and doing your own laundry? Please tell me it is under sufferance from your parents. Like you’re being punished or something.”

  “Nope!”

  “Tess, you had to be begged to get one part-time job these holidays, what’s happened to you?”

  Toby, I thought. He made me want to be a better person, a more mature person, responsible as he was and had been even when he was my age. It would sound dumb if I said it, though.

  Toby and I parted on such good terms that I had been humming and smiling all day, but as the light dimmed and the sun set, so did my doubt. I thought back to the look on his face when he realised I had been a virgin, the way he had stammered ‘had I known’. Had I known, what? Would he have not touched me? Would he have backed off completely? I tried to block out the negatives, my embarrassment, his anger at himself, his regret. Instead, I wanted to think about the moments of pleasure, the feeling of his breath on my neck, his mouth on me, how he held me after and folded his fingers through my hair the way he seemed to like to do.

  I sighed, wiped my hands on the tea towel and glanced at Ellie. I had debated if I should tell her, and how to do it. I knew I would regret it, knowing she wouldn’t approve.

  But of course I was going to tell her. How could I not? Before she had arrived, I’d prepped the cassette player in the kitchen. As she watched me suspiciously, I walked over and pressed play. I looked Ellie dead in the eye, watching her expression as Madonna’s ‘Like a virgin’ blared out of the speakers.

  “I made it through the wilderness,” Madonna sang and Ellie frowned with confusion as it slowly registered. Her gaze flicked to the stereo, then to me and widened in shock.

  “No way!”

  “Way.” I waited and watched as an array of emotions played on her face.

  Confusion, doubt, disbelief, horror and then a grin.

  “Toby?”

  I lashed out with a flick of my tea towel. “Of COURSE, Toby. Who else? Jeez, Ellie.”

  “Oh my God, Tess.” She rounded the counter and gave me a huge hug, leaning back to slap me across the arm.

  “Hey!”

  “What did I tell you about playing it cool?”

  “That hurt.” I rubbed my arm in a scowl.

  “I bet that’s not all that hurts.” She curved her brow, giggled and slapped me on the behind, sauntering back to sit at the breakfast bar.

  “I must say, that was rather dramatic. I’ve never had news broken to me via song before, thanks, Tess.”

  I placed the pizza in the oven.

  “So? When did this happen?”

  “Last night,” I said, “at his place.”

  Ellie drew in a breath. “Tell me more, tell me more.” She leaned forward.

  “What else is there to tell?”

  “Ooooh, no you don’t! Tessa Ellen McGee, I have told you every dirty little detail over the years, you’re not getting out of this.”

  Yeah, every dirty detail, except for important things like blood and awkwardness afterwards. I knew I shouldn’t have told her, now she wants to know EVERYTHING.

  “It’s private,” I said. “I’m not you, okay?”

/>   “Come on, tell me.”

  “I don’t want to, Ellie.”

  “But I tell you everything.”

  “No.”

  “Please? Come on, so how big –”

  “I said NO, Ellie!”

  Ellie closed her mouth, shocked. A newfound silence set over us; she looked hurt but quickly swiped it away.

  “Whatever. I better get going.” She slapped her palms on the counter for leverage as she got up to leave.

  “What?” I said, confused. “I thought we were going to watch a movie, have a slumber party. Pizza won’t be long.”

  “Yeah, well, I forgot I have my own slumber party to attend to with Stan.” Ellie sidestepped to the door.

  “On a Monday night?” I crossed my arms sceptically.

  “Not so different from your escapades last night, now is it?” And she was gone.

  Ellie left without a smile or a backward glance. I had offended her. My worries had been founded. With or without Madonna’s aid, telling Ellie had been a mistake.

  I didn’t know exactly what to expect from Ellie when next I saw her; I knew she was mad and just like every other time she was mad, the silent treatment ensued until she got over it.

  But as for Toby, as each day passed at the Rose Café, I half expected him to wander through the door with a smile. Not that he had ever done so before, but now I hoped, I don’t know, that something had changed. He had made no promises, no declarations of love but as each day went by that I didn’t hear from him I felt more miserable than ever. Come Saturday night, when Toby was a no show at the hotel, I’d had enough of lying in my bed, night after night, every detail of that night on repeat in my mind.

  I didn’t know for sure, but it was in the air. It felt like everyone knew. Any time Toby’s name was mentioned, Ringer smiled at me and Chris frowned in disapproval … but maybe I was just paranoid.

  “You’re being paranoid!” Ellie said (yeah, she was talking to me again).

  “So you haven’t said anything to Stan?”

  Ellie rolled her eyes. “Not everything’s about you, Tess.’

  For the first time in … well, forever, Chris let Ellie and I stay for a lock-in. The outside lights were switched off and the hotel was cast into darkness. The blinds were drawn and the inner lights dimmed. All but the selected few patrons were booted out and with the doors locked, Chris jumped the bar to join in with his mates.

  From what I had gathered in bits of conversation and from Ellie, Toby had gone to the city to pick up a car with his dad and wouldn’t be back ’til late. Then he and the boys had an early fishing adventure on the lake.

  All was of little comfort to me. By midnight I’d had enough; without Toby, the lock-in was kind of boring as Ellie and Stan canoodled by the jukebox, Ringer nodded off to sleep in the corner and Sean and Chris argued over pool table rules.

  So they wouldn’t make a big deal of it, I snuck out the back and into the night. The gravel crunched under my feet, and they pounded a steady pace towards a destination I wasn’t so sure I should be going.

  If he had wanted to see me he would have been there, no matter what kind of day he’d had. I felt sick with the thought that everything that went on between us would change. In a bad way. That he thought it such a huge mistake he would avoid me for the rest of the summer. I wanted to know, I needed to know that we were okay. I needed to tell him that that night had been great and not to regret it because I certainly didn’t. Above all, I wanted to tell him I was glad he was my first and that I wouldn’t change a thing. And if I was brave enough, I would tell him I would really like to do it again.

  My mind flashed to the new foil package that was in my back pocket, from my own packet from the Caltex. I thought it rather presumptuous of myself but better to be prepared.

  Little did I know that protection would be the least of my problems.

  As I rounded onto the main road, closing onto Toby’s street, I had already rehearsed what I would say a thousand times. I was in danger of seeming like a stalker, winding up at his place uninvited again. But I needed to put my mind at ease, get all of these emotions off my chest. By the time I turned into Toby’s driveway, I had worked myself into such a determined state that I had no time for fear or doubt, I just had to march on in there and face Toby. As I marched up Toby’s driveway, I spotted something and stopped. I froze, stock still, all my bravado, all my hope plummeted with a heartbreaking thud. Toby’s back light was in ‘do not disturb’ mode and Angela Vickers’ car was in the drive.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I didn’t go in. I couldn’t. Instead, I walked around Onslow through the night with no purpose, no clear direction.

  Toby and Angela Vickers. I was numb. The numbness was so debilitating, all I could sense were my rapid, shallow breaths. Had I been walking for minutes, hours? I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was I had backed out of Toby’s drive and walked and walked, as far away as I could. I didn’t allow myself to think, to feel anything. I put up a wall to everything except my breathing, the rhythmic sound that drove me away, as far as I could go.

  Random strobes of lights pierced the darkness as Saturday-night joy riders passed me on the main strip. It was only when a flick of a high beam from behind and a frantic sounding of a car horn caused me to pause and shield my eyes.

  A window rolled down, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust, for my mind to clear as I peered into the car to see Ringer’s girlfriend, Amanda, behind the wheel, Sean beside her. He leaned across her, peering out at me.

  “There you are. You went AWOL. What are you doing roaming around on your own?”

  “N-nothing,” I croaked out.

  “We’re heading to the Point, wanna come?” Amanda asked.

  Before I could decline, I heard the click of a car door.

  Sean was out of the car, holding the front passenger door open for me. “Hop in the front, Tess, I won’t subject you to the torture of sitting with these goons.”

  His gaze dipped to the back seat. Amanda’s brother, Ben, and Ringer sat there, exchanging insulted glances. I hadn’t even noticed they were there.

  “I would hop in if I were you, it’s not every day Sean gives up a front seat for someone.”

  Before I could object, Ben passed a West Coast Cooler through the window.

  “Here, hope you like wine.”

  I eyed the bottle, grateful it wasn’t beer. “What’s with you and the girly drinks?”

  He shrugged. “They’re Amanda’s.”

  “Oh, whatever, Ben. Don’t hide your love for chick drinks behind me.” Amanda cast a dark look in the rearview mirror.

  I unscrewed the top and skulled half the bottle in one go. I wanted to feel a different kind of numb. When I finally dipped my bottle, four sets of eyes rested on me with a mixture of surprise and respect.

  Sean frowned at me. “You alright, Tess?”

  I took another swig and snapped my lips in a gasp of appreciation.

  “Yep! Let’s go!”

  By the time we reached the Point, I had downed two West Coast Coolers and was handed my third with a lecture to slow down from Sean. He half laughed about it, but I could tell he was serious.

  But I didn’t care. I just needed to forget. Forget Angela’s car in the driveway and most certainly forget Monday night ever happened.

  I felt sick.

  The Point had filled out to a respectably sized gathering. Someone pushed an old metal drum out the back of their ute and they filled it with twigs, newspaper and a dash of lighter fluid, and it wasn’t long before a circle of people stood and sat around it.

  “A bonfire in this heat?” I mused.

  Sean shrugged. “Feels pretty stupid standing around in a circle without one.”

  “What, like fire creates ambiance?” I scoffed.

  “Amongst other things. You don’t think it does?”

  By now I was a little buzzed, the alcohol chilling me out somewhat. This was what I was after, but it wasn’t enough, so I
followed Ben and Ringer as they towed the esky toward the fireside. A chilly breeze blew in over the tops of trees and penetrated the Point, dropping the temperature within minutes. I guess the drum wasn’t as ridiculous as I first thought. I went to crack the lid of the esky when it slammed back into place. Sean sat his arse down on the cooler.

  “Do you mind?” I said.

  “Oh sorry, did you want a drink?” He batted his eyes at me innocently. Like hell.

  “Yes, Grandpa,” I said, “move.”

  Sean nodded gracefully and lifted so he could delve his hand into the icy recess, only to pull out a can of Coke, which he slapped into my palm. I snatched it out of his hand and threw it over the cliff towards the flickering lights of Onslow. I stared at Sean in my best death stare.

  “Geez,” he said, “I hope that doesn’t break a window.” Sean curved his brow.

  I held out my hand again with a ‘don’t mess with me’ look on my face. Sean handed me a Cooler, his face unreadable.

  Sure, he probably thought I was crazy, but what did I care? Judge away. The opinion of the Onslow Boys meant bugger all to me at this point, and all I cared about was working on my alcoholically fuelled buzz.

  I squeezed onto the esky next to Sean. As I took a deep swig, I could feel his eyes burning into the side of me.

  “What?” I snapped, glaring at him, challenging him. The light of the fire accentuated the twinkle in his eye as he fought not to smile.

  “Your lips are swallon,” he said. “Looks like pash rash.”

  There was no danger of that, I thought. Lips hadn’t touched mine in six whole days, and those particular lips never would again. I thought about Toby’s lips on Angela’s and wanted to throw my drink. I wanted to start walking again, away from here, away from these people, away from everything. I was so angry I couldn’t bear it. The wine fueled my fire instead of numbing it.

  Not-too-distant laughter broke me out of my thoughts. I noticed two snickering idiots, Carla and Peter, two of Scott’s friends from school. How did they get up here? Was no place sacred? They had always taken great delight in making me miserable. They walked by, and Carla elbowed Peter and laughed behind her hand at me.