my life as a country album

by LJ Evans

  And you were right. It was hot, sticky, and basically a normal summer in Tennessee, so we’d rather be at some sort of water than nowhere. We set up with your friends, Paul and Craig, in between the diving boards and the snack bar. My friend Wynn, who was basically the only girl at school who would put up with my craziness, came with her sister, Kayla. What a mistake that turned out to be! But, when I first saw Wynn, I didn’t know that. I was just super glad to see her.

  Wynn wasn’t quite the tomboy I was, and she was starting to get boobs and thought that was the beginning and end, but she’d still play chicken and Marco Polo and splash the boys, so it was okay. She had pretty strawberry blonde hair and pale blue eyes with this pale white skin that made me think of cupcakes, but it also meant she got sunburnt really easily, so she always smelled of sunscreen, almost year-round.

  That first day at the pool, we let out all our craziness. We jumped and dove, hit balls, threw Frisbees, and basically acted like monkeys escaped from the zoo. The life guards yelled at us probably a million times, but never kicked us out. We splashed everyone. Not on purpose, but we were always intense and competitive when it came to any game we played, weren’t we? The few grown-ups who had braved the pool with their little ones frowned and pulled their toddlers away. But, we didn’t care. The pool was our new kingdom, and we were set to rule it with panache.

  The best thing about the pool for me ended up being the diving boards. They had two; one at five meters and another at seven and a half meters. They didn’t want “little kids” like me on the high board, but I slipped up there anyway. I did all kinds of wild stunts off the boards. Paul and Craig thought I was insane, and sometimes you did too, but I think you thought the diving board was safer than anything else I’d frequently jump from.

  After my first flight from the treehouse, I’d been addicted to that feeling of free falling. I would do anything to just get a moment of air time. It drove you nuts. You were always saving me from jumping off the roofs of cars, beds of trucks, the shed, a tire swing, whatever would give me a few seconds of that floating feeling. You must have thought I was a pain in the ass more than once, but you never showed it to me back then. Not when we were little.

  The lifeguards must have realized I could handle it too because after the first few times of screaming at me, they’d just shrug and let me go. That moment, me on the diving board, was life changing. It started something really good which probably kept me sane during our teenage years and the angst I went through over you… the angst that started, ironically enough, also at the pool.

  I had just gotten out of the water after one particularly kick-ass stunt, and Paul and Craig were clapping me on the back when I noticed you weren’t there to critique me. It seemed you hadn’t watched my dive at all. I thought maybe you’d gone to the bathroom or to the snack bar, but you hadn’t. You were still there, you just weren’t watching me. And of course that made my stomach turn as if I’d eaten bad sushi.

  Who were you watching? You were watching Kayla. Well, really you were watching her boobs. No way, you’d say, right? But you’d grin, like you always did when you knew I was razzing you about something true. Let’s face it, boobs were still pretty much all eighth-grade boys could think about, and Kayla’s very tan pair were barely covered by her teeny tiny pink bikini. P-I-N-K! Pink! Ugh! I already hated pink, so you can imagine how I felt about the color after that.

  Kayla did not have Wynn’s strawberry complexion because they weren’t really related at all, completely different parents who’d wound up marrying each other. Kayla was all gorgeous, bikini-model-like blonde, and she knew it, and you’d just discovered it. You were eyeing her bikini like it was the last MoonPie and you couldn’t wait to dig in.

  Kayla worked that bikini well. She had her perfectly manicured hand on your arm, with her hip stuck out just so, and she was giggling at something you said while tossing back her shiny hair. And you smiled. You smiled at her so beautifully. The smile that I thought was just for me and could smooth the ruffles on the angriest wild cat… meaning me. Your smile kept dropping down to her chest which was moving as she laughed and was barely staying inside that stupid colored bikini.

  Wynn, Paul, and Craig were taunting me to go back and try my back flip off the board again because they didn’t think I could repeat its greatness, but I was lost in that moment with you staring at Wynn’s stunning sister while I was left on the side of the pool, wet as a seal, in board shorts and a one piece. With no boobs. And no shiny blonde hair. Mine was dark brown. Kind of mousy, but after the summer, it would have enough reddish highlights to be classified as chestnut, but no way was it the blonde perfection of Kayla’s. And my grey eyes? Well they paled into insignificance against her bright, clear sky blue ones.

  Everything went perfectly still, like when you’re under the water. The sounds were muffled and things were in slow motion as I walked towards the two of you. You didn’t raise your eyes from her chest to me. You didn’t even register I was there. You hadn’t seen my back flip. You didn’t know how great it had been. My insides twisted faster and faster. So, without thinking, which is what always got me into trouble, I stuck out my hand and pushed Kayla into the pool as I walked by.

  You started laughing. You were, after all, a teenage boy. You weren’t even mad. But, after one little glance in my direction, you turned back to the pool to where Kayla had emerged from underneath the water. She was mad enough for both of you. Her hair was flattened to her head, and she had mascara running down her face, but you held out your hand to her and easily lifted her up with all your muscled boy-ness. I wanted to scream. I crossed my hands over my non-existent chest and just watched realizing my mistake as soon as her pink toe-nailed feet hit the sidewalk because now you couldn’t keep your eyes off her pale pink bikini top or bottom because they were both very, very see through.

  “Oh my God, you are such a freak!” Kayla yelled at me. She pushed my shoulder, and you didn’t come to my defense like you normally would. You were mesmerized by the sight of the dark hair through her bikini bottom.

  Wynn had hurried up to the two of us, and she realized just as I had why your eyes were basically popping out of your head. I looked Kayla up and down as best I could even though I was a good couple inches shorter than her and replied snottily, “At least I’m not showing everything I own to the entire town.”

  “Jesus, Cami!” Wynn breathed out in a frustrated voice. Kayla looked down at herself and turned about five different shades of red. Wynn shoved Kayla’s matching pink cover-up at her. She scrambled into it and couldn’t look at you again which made me happy. For the moment.

  “We’re leaving, Wynn,” Kayla said in a haughty tone that only big sisters and mamas seem to be able to perfect. “You can thank your mutant friend for spoiling our day.”

  Kayla stomped over to pick up the rest of her things and shoved them in her designer bag before storming out of the pool area. Wynn wasn’t happy. So, I was already feeling contrite. My only girl friend was really pissed off at me.

  “I’m sorry, Wynn.”

  “I just don’t understand you sometimes,” was all she said as she followed Kayla out. It wasn’t the last time Wynn would say that to me. Truth was, sometimes I didn’t understand me either. I couldn’t tell you why I did the spontaneous stuff I did. It was just my body working faster than my brain.

  When I turned to you, I thought you’d be just as angry at me as Wynn was, but you were still beaming like you’d made a touchdown. You put your arm around me and rubbed my hair in that way that always sent tingles from my scalp to my toes. “Thanks for that, Cam. I owe you big time.”

  And that’s when I found out quick enough that the pool was my enemy, at least, where you were concerned. That was the first day you found out that your god like status had moved from the football-boy world to the girl world.

  Ugh! See! Hormones. On the bike ride home, all you, Paul, and Craig could talk about was Kayla Nichols in her see-through bikini. I’d just given you
the gift of porn and didn’t know it. What I did know was that we had to get out of that stupid pool and into the lake, but I just didn’t know how to make it happen. It took care of itself, after just a few weeks, but I didn’t know that, that day.

  I refused to go with you to your house when we got there. It didn’t register to you why. You still had Paul and Craig with you and probably needed to go lock yourselves in the bathroom in your house. Who knew? I didn’t want to think about it. I heard you all talk about stuff you shouldn’t be talking about it front of me, but I didn’t really want to imagine any of it. Made me a little nauseous really at the age of ten.

  That was the first day that I really started to look at myself not just as a kid, but as a GIRL. I went home and stood staring into my mirrored closet door. And what I saw was a tomboy in a one-piece bathing suit with buds for breasts. They were there. Coming in, but they weren’t the mounds that Kayla had. And I’d started to get hair in places I didn’t want to think about and kind of grossed me out, but even if I’d worn Kayla’s bikini there wouldn’t have been anything to see when it got wet. At the moment, all I knew was that I hated Kayla for being able to keep your attention. Not that I wanted a pale pink bikini. It wouldn’t have withstood the dives that I wanted to do from the seven-meter platform, but I realized then that you liked girls and for the first time I realized that you wanted girls in a way you didn’t want me.

  I pounded my pillow so hard that night that it burst on one end showering my room with downy feathers that felt like my reality coming apart. I didn’t know how to fit into that new world you were suddenly fascinated with like a cat is to a laser. I thought of my Grandma and her pink backpack she’d given me. I could start right then being a girlie girl if I wanted, but I knew that would exclude me from another part of your life. The part you still lived in more. The boy part; the riding bikes, fishing, hiking, football playing part that I was much more comfortable being in.

  The next day, I was quiet on our way to the pool. You still didn’t notice. You, Paul, and Craig were wondering what kind of bathing suit Kayla would be in today. Still snickering and all boy talk. When we got off our bikes, I punched your shoulder like I always did when it was difficult to get your attention.

  “What the hell, Cam?”

  “If you’d get your head away from your jock strap for five minutes, you’d realize that I’m still beating you two to one at the 100 butterfly. Don’t you think that’s a hell of a lot more important than a bikini?”

  “Jesus, Cam. Don’t talk like that,” you just stared at me. I crossed my arms over my non-existent chest. Cussing was a big thing with you and your boys now that you were in middle school. It was like you’d crossed some invisible line into what you thought manhood was all about. But if I cussed or repeated any of your gross boy comments, you hated it.

  “So, you’re wussing out on me? I can declare myself swim champ this year? Sounds awesome! Guess you’ll be the one shoveling poop for a month, because that was our bet. Winner gets a month off poop duty. And remember, my dog’s twice the size of yours, so there’s a lot of it in our yard.”

  You narrowed your eyes at me. I’d caught your attention. “No way in hell am I on poop duty.” Your voice was deep and challenging. My spine tingled. I’d got you back even if it was for just a few seconds.

  It didn’t last long. I lost you again when we went inside. The three of you were surrounded by pretty faces. Kayla, her equally blonde friend, Brittney, and their horde of girlie friends flocked to you. They liked to ooh and ahh and toss their hair at the three gorgeous boys of summer. Especially you. You were a tanned summer god who could play football, flex strong muscles, and show off washboard abs that you didn’t even have to work at getting. Paul and Craig were pretty too. But, everyone knew you were the real god.

  You stood about two inches taller than Craig and had a smile that lit up a room. And your eyes! Those mosaics that flashed and laughed and made a girl feel like they were the only one that mattered. And you were nice. Paul and Craig were pretty crass. You were smooth like ice cream. You’d always been. You’d practiced on my mama.

  I got in the pool, and Wynn was quickly at my side. I’d called last night to apologize. She’d said, “I know you think Jake’s yours, but what eighth grader is going to pick a fifth grader to be his girlfriend?” I hadn’t argued. I didn’t tell Wynn that I didn’t want to be your girlfriend. The thought of kissing you at that point made me want to eat a lightning bug. But I also knew that I didn’t want you kissing Kayla Nichols.

  “Hey, pretty boy, you ever gonna get in the pool or shall I just race undefeated?” I shouted out at you.

  You dove in so fast it splashed all the girls. They screamed their high pitched girlie screams, but couldn’t stop smiling at you anyway. It was like a herd of boy band fans. When you reached me, you dunked me under the water. I couldn’t really put up much of a fight. You were bigger and stronger than me. I didn’t really want to fight. You were mine again; if only for the length of the pool.

  I came up spurting but grinning just in time to hear you tell Wynn to call start. I barely had time to catch a breath and get into position before she screamed go. I raced alongside you. You were bigger and stronger, but the water and I had a certain relationship that you didn’t. The water seemed to move me forward like a surfer on top of the waves. You had to fight it. In the end, you still won that match.

  When we got back to the start, we had parents screaming at us because we’d knocked little kids out of the way and the lifeguard came and told us to take it easy. But you were grinning at me. At me! So, everything was right in my world. They could have told me that we were banned for life, and it wouldn’t have mattered.

  Your gaze didn’t stay with me for long though. Every time you came up for air, the girls surrounded you. That’s when I gave them their name. The gaggle of geese. Flocking around you like birds to seed. Stupid, white, pretty birds. Mean. But pretty. Geese are mean. You ever noticed that? They’ll chase after you and bite you even if you’re feeding them. Plus, the sound was just like a gaggle. Loud, obnoxious, and never shut up.

  That day, Paul and Craig didn’t even bother joining our races. They usually did even though neither of them could kick either of our asses. Maybe that’s why. Paul nor Craig wanted to get shown up by a little girl in front of the gaggle. Plus, let’s face it, they loved the girl attention.

  That night on the bike ride home, I brought the whole pool issue up.

  “We’re never going to finish our races at the pool. The lifeguards are yelling at us constantly, the parents are whiney, and the girls won’t stop touching you.”

  You grinned at me. You were enjoying your new found super power. Football may still be number one, smooth talking number two, but now girl magnet was number three. “I know. I’m a king among men, what can I say.”

  I reached out and pushed your shoulder causing you to nearly swerve your bike into the fence. You just laughed at me.

  “We need to go to the lake to get some peace and quiet.”

  You turned serious. Probably because you knew that once I got a burr up my derriere, I never let it go until I got what I wanted. “Our parents will kill us if they find out we’ve gone to the lake,” you reminded me.

  “Who’s gonna tell? At least we won’t be bothered by your gaggle of geese in their itty-bitty bikinis.”

  You were all smiles again. It had really gone to your head. Admit it. That summer you were all ego. Well, not just that summer, for several summers!

  “They’ll get used to seeing me in all my suntanned glory and back off,” you said. I probably could have reached out and touched your ego that day.

  I shrugged, doubting that they’d ever leave you alone. Geese didn’t leave the bread sitting there. They tore it to shreds. They fought over it viciously and the winner got the remains. I wasn’t sure I liked the thought of you being the remains. And, I certainly didn’t want to be left with the crumbs of you.

  Over the next
couple weeks, it was more of the same. We hardly got to swim, we were behind on our racing goal for the summer, and I was in the lead in the poop bet. Finally, thankfully, you grew a little tired of the attention. I mean. It was good to be flirted and touched, but they were also a little light in the conversational category. They talked shoes and TV dramas and who had kissed who. You wanted to talk football and NASCAR and, well, the who had kissed who was okay. So, we hatched a plan with Paul and Craig to go to the lake instead of the pool.

  Our parents would have skinned us alive and hung us out to dry if they’d known what we were doing. Unsupervised lake? With the teenagers there partying and whooping it up? Well, it wasn’t exactly a parent’s dream come true, was it?

  For me, that first day at the lake was magical. The high school kids didn’t hit the lake till later in the day. Maybe they were sleeping off their hang overs or making plans for that night, who knows, but they weren’t there till the afternoon. And, the lake wasn’t really big enough to attract serious boaters or water skiers. So, all in all, it was pretty quiet.

  We were a lot further from town and our houses, but it was all good. We had your cell phone in case of emergencies, but we’d almost die before we used it and have our parents find out. We didn’t want to ruin a good thing.

  The lake had a warm breeze and the smell of the trees and flowers. One hundred and ten percent better than the chlorine, sun tan lotion, and hot dog stench at the pool. We measured the distance across at the short end and had our new racing grounds. We didn’t have Wynn. I missed that a little. Just a little. But there was no way I wanted Wynn to know where we were and bring the flock of gaggling girl geese with her. Plus, Wynn would probably say something to her mama, and it would all be over because then my mama would know. Wynn wasn’t the best secret keeper in the world back then.

  We raced all day. Hardly used sunscreen. Ate lunch on the shore. And, we didn’t have to fight with babies, parents, or lifeguards. It was a little piece of heaven. You beat me every single race that day, and yet I was still smiling. I told you that it was because you weren’t distracted by boobs. You laughed and ruffled my hair, but didn’t disagree.