When We Believed in Mermaids(85)

And maybe he hadn’t noticed that I’d grown up a lot, but his friends sure did. One kissed me in the hallway when we’d all been drinking rum and smoking so much that I couldn’t form a coherent sentence. I pushed him away, shaking my head. He was in his twenties, already sporting a pretty hefty spread of hair on his chest. I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to let me off the hook with a blow job.

Dylan came around the corner while the dude had his hand on my ass, and he lost his shit. “What the fuck are you doing, man?” He slapped his friend’s hand away. “She’s a kid.”

Dude laughed drunkenly, backing off with his hands in the air. “All right, all right. But, buddy, she’s no kid. Have you looked at her lately?”

In my very inebriated condition, my ears buzzed, and I wanted, suddenly, for Dylan to see me that way. See me as a girl.

And when I looked up, I saw that he was looking at me. It was the two of us, drunk and high off our asses. He didn’t have a shirt on, only a pair of low-riding jean shorts. He leaned on a crutch, just looking at me. I felt it. On my shoulders. My hair. My bare belly beneath the crop top I wore. I was as tan as I ever got, dark as pecans, and my hair was loose, trailing over my shoulders and arms and my braless boobs. For one second, I thought about how easy it would be to take off my top and show myself to him, to that expression that really did, to me, look like the same one I saw on other guys’ faces.

“You’re so pretty, Grasshopper, but you’re still just a kid. You’ve gotta be careful around guys like that.”

He turned around and left the hallway, leaving me with a crystal-clear understanding that the only guy I wanted then or ever was Dylan. It had always been that way. It would always be that way.

I also knew, in some gut-deep place, that it was the same for him.



My parents would be home in five days, so I didn’t have a lot of time. I thought of a thousand ways to seduce him, and some of them I actually employed—I didn’t tie my halter top quite tight enough, so that when I helped him get into bed, a lot of side boob showed. He didn’t seem to notice. I wore a thin blouse without a bra under it, and when I looked in the mirror, I was pretty sure I could see actual nipples, accented by the triangle of white skin that didn’t get tanned. I wore it the whole day, and he never saw me at all.

I read a Johanna Lindsey to him, but he stopped me when we got to the really juicy part, covering his ears with a laugh.

One evening, crickets were whirring and the ocean was singing on the beach. Overhead, stars gleamed like diamonds. “Let’s go to the cove,” I said. “You can make it with a crutch now, can’t you?”

He inclined his head, passing me the bong. “Maybe. You want to grab some tequila out of the storeroom, maybe?”

“Yes!” I took a hit, gave him the bong, and said, “I’ll be right back.”

I gathered up a bottle of tequila, limes, and my secret weapon—a tiny cellophane packet of cocaine I’d found in my mom’s nightstand—and stashed them all in my pack, along with a blanket we could sit on and four sodas to keep us from drying out completely.

“Let’s go.”

He gave me his half smile, and I was so happy to see him being something close to himself. “Wow, dude. It’s good to see you again.”

He laughed, and we made our way down the wooden steps to the cove precariously, me in front in case he stumbled. When we reached the sand, I whooped.

He threw an arm around my shoulders. “Whoo! Whoo!”

We spread out the goods—the tequila and limes and salt, the bong and a bag of weed, and then I produced the tiny envelope of cocaine and lifted an eyebrow.

“You’re kidding, right?” he said.

“Nope. The real thing. Mom’s cocaine.”

“She’ll kill you when she finds out it’s gone.”

I rolled my eyes. “She’ll never know it was me.” Ceremoniously, I gave him the packet. “You do the honors.”

“Have you ever done it before?”

I lied and said, “Couple of times, but only a little.”

He set up the lines, and we snorted them, and it was in ten seconds the best high I ever had. I leaped to my feet and started dancing in the sea breeze, arms over my head. “Wow!” I cried breathily. “Wow.”

He grinned, watching me spin. All my inhibitions were gone. I became my little-girl self, dancing for all the customers in the bar, my hair swinging around me, my head full of songs. Music from the patio reached us, and I embroidered on it. I was wearing a blouse with swinging sleeves and hem, and I could feel the breeze swirling over my middle. It made me horny. On a wave of heat and delight, I fell on my knees, pulled my shirt over my head, and kissed Dylan, all in one movement.

He tumbled backward, driven by the force of my body, and his hands fell on my bare back, on my arms. For a time, a long time it seemed to me, he kissed me back, our bodies rubbing against each other’s. I could feel that he was hard under me, which made me bolder. I sat up, my crotch against his, and pulled his hands to my breasts.

He started to resist, to protest, but I moved against him. “Show me what it’s supposed to be like, Dylan. Just this one time. We never have to tell anybody, ever.”

“Josie—”

I pressed my hands to his face. “Please,” I whispered over his mouth. “What we have is special. Real. Please.” I kissed him again.