Lovestruck Summer

by Melissa Walker

  101 and wishing they’d change the ‘I Love 1983’CD,”says Raina. “Hey, that CD has Toto on it,”I say, half jokingly. “Don’t knock it!”“You’re right,”she says. “‘Africa’is a classic song. Oh, and there’s this new guy who started, but he’s nerd city. Nasal and slouchy and way into science fiction.”“Sounds like a dream,”I say. “You’re the one living the dream,”says Raina. “But I’ll be here when you get back to reality.”“Thanks,”I say. When we hang up, I crawl into bed and open my laptop. I feel like downloading some songs that Sebastian mentioned tonight. I search for Art Girls Gone Bad, Rainbow Forks, and Blue Solar System and listen to a few tracks, adding the ones that I really like to my iPod. And then, just before I go to bed, I down- load Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love,”just to compliment the Cornfl ower Blue version that I heard last night. I fall asleep with that song in my ears.

  102 Chapter 11 I ’m half awake, dreaming of coffee. More spe- cifically, the smell of coffee. And Russ’s voice. Humming. I must have listened to that Elvis song one too many times last night. I slowly open my eyes and pull the one still-in-place earbud out of my ear. “Daa-daa-daaa . . . da-da-da-daaa-daaa . . .”I still hear that nonsensical tune. I sit up, grouchy. It feels early, but when I look at the clock I see it’s eleven A.M. There’s more noise from the kitchen. “Penny?”I call out. She must have left a couple of hours ago for that sorority-bonding thing. Unless it’s raining. I lean over the couch to peek out the deck doors. Nope. Sunny and hot. Surprise. “Priscilla, are you fi nally up?”Russ walks into the living room—my bedroom—with a

  103 steaming cup of coffee. I scramble to make sure my legs are covered. I’m a T-shirt-and-underwear girl at bedtime. “What are you doing here?!”I say, mustering as much indignation as I can for a just-waking moment. “I fi nished my paper,”he says. “I turned it in this morning, and I am offi cially a rising senior. I’m in the mood to celebrate.”“Do frat boys always celebrate by scaring sleeping girls?”I ask. “Wait. Don’t answer that.”“Be nice if you want your coffee,”he says, pulling the mug away from me. “Okay,”I say, reaching out for it. “Thank you.”I’ve never been a huge coffee person, but I have to admit it smells really good this morning. Russ hands me the mug and sits down in the corner chair. “So, Priscilla,”he says. “What are we doing today?”I take a sip of the coffee—it is good—and look up at him. I’m contemplating shutting him down and saying that we are not doing anything, but the truth is that I don’t have plans. And I’m bored. “It’s your town,”I challenge. “You tell me.”

  104 “Barton Springs,”he says. And before I can ask him what that means, he jumps up and heads out the door. “Get on your bathing suit!”he shouts just before the door closes. I carefully put down my coffee mug and wait for his overenthusiastic butt to return. In the meantime, I grab my jean shorts and put them on with the oversized Sixty3 concert tee that I like to wear to bed. Two minutes later, Russ is back. “Didn’t you hear me?”he asks. “Barton Springs—let’s go!”“First of all,”I say, picking up my coffee mug for another sip, “I have no idea what ‘Barton Springs’means. And second, I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”I’m not the poolside type—and I burn really easily. “Borrow one from Penny,”he says, unde- terred. “You will love this spot. It’s an old natu- ral spring and it’s constantly sixty-eight degrees, so it feels warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Plus, you get to lie out on a hill of mowed grass instead of sand. Somehow I don’t think you’re a sandy-beach girl.”“You got that right,”I say, not moving.

  105 “Come on, Priscilla!”he says, leaning down and resting his head on the back of the couch sideways to give me puppy-dog eyes. “It’ll be fun. You can bring your iPod and tune me out if you want.”I smile. Swimming in cool water does sound nice. I haven’t dealt with this much heat since summer camp fi ve years ago, when I was a coun- selor in training at a sailing camp on the Neuse River in North Carolina. We had an insane heat wave and everyone had to sleep with, like, four fans pointed at them just to endure it. The only relief was swimming in the pondlike pool—it was packed every day. But that water did feel good. There’s something about splashing around on hundred-degree days. “Give me three minutes,”I say, standing and heading upstairs to Penny’s room. Miss Tiara eyes me suspiciously as I poke through my cousin’s drawers. I fi nd six—yes, six—teensy bikinis, but nothing with a remotely reasonable amount of coverage. I choose an orange-and-white polka-dot suit with a ruffl e around the bottom. It’s the one with the most fabric. When I put it on, Miss Tiara growls.

  106 “I don’t have another option, picky priss!”I whisper at her. I pull on my jean shorts and Sixty3 tee over the suit. This will have to do. I grab a towel from the bathroom and meet Russ downstairs, making sure to pick up my iPod. I offer to drive but he just looks at my yellow Festiva in the parking lot and laughs. “Let’s take the truck,”he says. “If you want to waste gas . . .”I say, annoyed. “I’m all for saving face by losing gas,”he says, opening the passenger-side door for me. “If anyone I know is at the Springs, I cannot be seen climbing out of that clown car.”I step into the truck and feel the hot and squishy vinyl seat, so I put down my towel to sit on. I don’t need my thighs to get stuck in their own sweat. Russ shuts the door behind me. I give him a hmph and roll down the truck window. I wish one of our cars, at least, had AC. By the time we get to Barton Springs, I’m drip- ping with sweat and I realize that in the rush to fi nd a slightly modest bathing suit, I forgot to protect my pasty white skin.

  Lovestruck Summer

  107 “Do you have any sunblock?”I ask Russ as we pull into a parking spot. He hops out and grabs a giant canvas bag from the back bed. On top of his towel is a bottle of Coppertone that looks like it’s twenty years old. I eye it warily. “It’s all I got, Priscilla,”he says. “Take it or leave it.”He’s waving the bottle in front of me teas- ingly. I snatch it. “Nice snag,”he says, closing his eyes and turning his face toward the sun. “Me, I’m gonna get a little tan today.”I look at Russ’s face. His strong jawline moves up and down as he chews a piece of gum, and his rust-colored hair is getting longer, I notice. It’s curling over his ear a little and almost touching the back of his plaid collar. He cut off the arms of the shirt, and the tan on his biceps looks golden enough to me. “Ready?”he asks, clapping his hands together. I’m a little startled to see him snap his eyes open and look at me looking at him. Did he know

  108 I was looking at him? I mean, obviously he knew I was looking, but did he know I was looking look- ing? I have really dark aviator sunglasses on, so he probably can’t tell where my eyes are, right? “You should really wear sunblock,”I say snarkily to hide my embarrassment. “You could die of skin cancer.”We pay a small admission fee and enter alongside what looks like a really long, narrow swimming pool. The springs are blocked off partially by a dam at one end, and Russ and I walk that way to cross over to the far side, which is grassy. He leads me to a huge pecan tree. “Shade for you, sun for me,”he says, pull- ing a blue cotton blanket out of the huge bag he brought. I spread out my piddly off-white bath towel. “There’s room on mine,”he says, laying half of his blanket in the shade. “That’s okay,”I say. “I’m fi ne over here.”I put my towel on the far side of his blanket, well in the shade, so that there’s a good four feet between us. I sit down and slather sunblock on

  109 my arms, hands, calves, feet, and face, which are the only parts that are exposed right now—I’m not ready for the bikini reveal. I start to click through my iPod, trying to fi nd the right album for the day. Then Russ takes off his shirt, and I lose my mind. I’ve never been one of those girls who goes gaga for muscles. I never tore out a teen magazine centerfold for my locker—I was more likely to put up Venus Zine interviews. I never got the appeal of Nick Lachey when there were guys like Jack White who deserved my atten- tion. But up close and in person, let me just say that muscles look good. “Do you really think I need sunblock?”asks Russ, squinting at me. I will my eyes to move up from his abs, thank- in
g God again for sunglasses. “Yeah, I do,”I say, handing over the bottle. I lie back on my little towel and concentrate on a good iPod selection, willing my head not to turn to the left, willing my eyes not to be drawn to the way his hands are moving over his unde- niably beautiful body.

  110 “A little help?”He laughs, breaking my do- not-stare concentration. “Huh?”I ask, looking over and focusing my eyes on his face, just his face. “I can’t reach my back,”he says. I feel like I’m in the middle of a horribly awk- ward movie scene. I take the sunblock from him and scoot over onto the shady side of his blan- ket. After I pour the lotion into my hand, I close my eyes and start to spread it over his back. My heartbeat speeds up as my hands touch his skin, and I hope he can’t feel my freakishly fast pulse. I do a really shoddy job, honestly, because I’m eager to stop and slow down my racing heart. “Done!”I say overly cheerful, wiping the extra lotion on my legs. Then I slide back to my towel, press PLAY, and lie down with my eyes closed. Within three minutes, I’m so hot I might scream. I sit up on my elbows and look at everyone splashing in the water, running around in next to nothing. I guess my bikini will fi t in here. Slowly, I unbutton my jeans and pull them off my pale legs. Then I slip off my T-shirt.

  111 “Hook ’em, Horns!”shouts Russ. “Wooooo- hoooo!”“Excuse me?”I ask, hoping he’s not making some crude reference to my body, which I’m comfortable with, but not, like, confi dent about. Is anyone really one hundred percent sure of herself in a bathing suit? I mean, besides Olympic swimmers. Did he say “Horns”? “That’s a UT bikini—burnt-orange and white!”Russ says. Then he whistles in appreciation. “I had no idea,”I say. “Well, it was a good choice,”Russ says, smiling at me. I wish he would quit looking over here. I lie back down. “Let’s go in the water!”he says. And it’s one of those requests that’s not really a question—it’s a demand. Like the neighbor boys who used to spray me with Super Soakers in my front yard, Russ will take no prisoners. Because I don’t feel like being dragged into the spring, I willingly stand up and saunter to the concrete edge behind him. He jumps in, shaking his head with a “brrr”when he surfaces. I can’t imagine being cold

  112 right now in this hundred-degree heat, but the idea is appealing. I spring off the side and into the water. Ice cubes. Penguins. Klondike bars. It is freezing. And awesome. I give Russ a toothy grin—I can’t help myself. He swims over to me and we tread water next to each other; neither of us can stand in this deep end. “I’m impressed,”he says. “I thought you’d take major coaxing to get in.”“You don’t really know me very well,”I say, swimming to the wall so I can hold on and rest for a minute. I’m often the fi rst person to jump in a pool, ever since I fi gured out that the last person in is always the one who gets teased and splashed the most. Russ follows me to the wall. “I know you a little, Priscilla,”he says, grabbing the side ladder. “A very little,”I say. “Just because you insist on using my real fi rst name doesn’t mean you know me.”Russ climbs up the ladder and sits on the edge of the pool next to where I’m holding the side. “I know you like The Walters, you’re obsessed with your iPod, you’re a creature of shade, and

  113 you’re into skinny-ass DJs,”says Russ with a self-satisfi ed smile. “What do you know about me?”I push off from the side and swim out in front of him, turning to face him. “I know that you’re cocky about your car and your muscles, you’re a complete frat boy, you think you’re really smart and mature, you procrastinate like crazy with your work, you’re irresponsible about sunscreen, and you like burgers.”“I don’t think I’m so smart,”says Russ, his half smile giving away that he does too! “Wanna race?”I ask. “What’d you say?”says Russ, standing up. “You heard me,”I say. “Go!”I start swimming my ass off to the other side of the spring, which is a good hundred feet at least, and I can hear Russ splash in behind me and start booking it. He beats me by a solid three seconds, despite my head start, but I’m laughing and out of breath when I reach the wall. I’m glad he didn’t let me win. “Okay,”says Russ, who seems irritatingly unfazed by our burst of physical activity. “Tell me more about yourself.”

  114 “I can’t just start telling you things,”I say, breathing hard. “I don’t know what to say.”“Tell me one thing, right now, that I don’t know about you,”he says. “I like strawberry milk shakes better than chocolate or vanilla,”I say. Then I duck under the water and smooth down my hair. “I prefer coffee milk shakes,”Russ says when I surface. “Fall is my favorite season,”I say. “Especially where my grandpa lives in Connecticut, when the leaves turn into fl ames of color.”“I like bluebonnets in the spring down here,”Russ counters. “The best barbecue in Carolina is at Allen and Son,”I say. “Here, it’s a place called Iron Works,”says Russ. “I love the way American cheese melts,”I say. “It’s superior to all other cheeses in any dish that calls for melting.”“I sometimes prefer Swiss,”says Russ. “I like the sharp bite.”He winks at me. I roll my eyes and continue. “I once knew this girl who worked at my

  115 movie theater who went to New York and became a famous model,”I say. “I once got to play guitar while Daniel Johnston sang,”he says. “No way!”I gasp. “Yes way,”he says. “He was at this caféwhere I was hanging out and strumming, and he just came up and sang a little while I leaned back and played. It was very cool.”“That’s amazing,”I say. “Better than my model story.”“It’s not a competition,”says Russ, splash- ing me. “Keep going.”“My favorite book-to-movie adaptation is The Last Picture Show,”I say, trying to sound smart and fi lm-knowledgeable by referencing this old seventies movie, set in small-town Texas. “Cybill Shepherd rules,”he says, showing that he knows the movie too. I laugh, and Russ cocks his head sideways at me. “You know, when you smile I just want to kiss you,”he says. My eyes widen in surprise and I hurriedly turn around, swimming for the other side.

  116 Russ laughs. “Are we racing again?!”he shouts after me. But I don’t answer, I just free- style like my life depends on it. I hightail it out of the spring and back up to land, afraid to look at Russ. How weird of him to say that to me! I’m half mad and half scared and half—I don’t know—confused. That’s three halves, but you get what I’m saying. Just as I lay down and put on my iPod to calm my emotions, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I pull out an earbud and look up to see Russ lean- ing over me. “I’m sorry I said that,”he says, “about the kiss.”“Okay,”I say, not sure how to respond. “I meant it,”he says softly, his face hovering just inches above mine. He pauses for a moment there and I stare up at his big blue eyes. Two beats later, he pulls back, sits up, and says, “But I’m sorry I said it.”I force my lips into a tight grin as I sit up on my elbows. “It’s okay,”I say. “No big deal.”He looks over his right shoulder at me, studying my face. “It’s just that I’m kind of with someone

  117 already this summer,”I say. I did not think I’d have to be having this conversation with a Texas frat cowboy. Can’t he see how different we are? “The skinny-ass DJ,”says Russ. “Sebastian,”I say. “Whatever,”he says, shrugging, and then he stands up and heads back to the water. I feel bad, but what am I supposed to tell him? An hour later, I’m sitting in the shade under the tree, safely on my towel, when Russ comes back out of the water after more major lap swim- mage. He smiles brightly, looking totally over everything. “You ready?”he asks. “For what?”I ask. “The bats!”he says, shaking his head out so droplets of water rain down on me. “Huh?”I ask. I’m really not in the mood for baseball in this heat. Russ shakes his head, laughing. “Priscilla, you have a lot left to see in Austin that your one-track DJ isn’t going to show you,”he says. “Let’s go.”When Russ parks the truck in the parking lot of the Four Seasons Hotel, I give him a skeptical

  118 eye. He grabs an old umbrella out of the back cab, confusing me further. The sky is crystal clear. “Trust me,”he says. We walk into the hotel, and I feel sheepish in my wet-spotted T-shirt and shorts, but Russ just strolls through as if he owns the place. He points out a fl ag in the lobby that was fl ow
n in 1835 in the town of Gonzales, Texas, as a warning to the Mexican forces who had instructions to confi scate the cannon, according to the plaque. It has a cannon on it, and it reads, COME AND TAKE IT. “Yikes,”I say. “Baddest-ass fl ag ever,”says Russ. Then he keeps walking through the hotel doors and we head down a sloping lawn to an area with a few chairs that face the water. “This is Town Lake,”says Russ. “And that’s the Congress Avenue Bridge.”He points to our right. Then he starts to say the weirdest things. “So, there are probably a million bats under that bridge right now,”says Russ. “You mean like fl ying minions of Dracula?”I ask. “That kind of bat?”“I wouldn’t bring vampires into this,”says

  119 Russ. “But yes, that kind of bat.”“I’m intrigued,”I admit. “Go on.”“Well, at sunset, they all come out to look for food,”he says. “They stream over the water and fi ll the sky with black wings. It’s incredible! It’s like this giant cloud of creatures hovering over you.”Russ’s eyes are lit up like he’s telling me we’re about to win the lottery. His smile is wide open and his enthusiasm is infectious. “That sounds amazing,”I say, sitting down in a chair next to him. “This is happening tonight?”“Summer sunsets,”he says. “That’s when they’re here. The bats are up from Mexico.”“Ooh, murciélagos,”I say. For some reason the Spanish word for bat is one of the only things that has stuck in my head since eighth grade Spanish II. “Sí, dork,”says Russ. “And the umbrella?”I ask, ignoring his jab. “Well, it’s not for rain,”he says. “The sky is about to fi ll with mammals, Priscilla! You do the math.”“Ewww!”I wail, tucking my feet underneath