Invincible Summer(19)

It’s four slices of pizza later when my cell phone rings.

It’s Noah’s number, and I barely recognize it. I don’t have his number saved because he hates his cell phone and never uses it.

“Hello?”

“Uh, Chase? Can you get down to the boardwalk? We . .

. have a situation.” Usually “we have a situation” means the baby will not stop crying or Gideon threw up on the floor or Claudia’s in trouble with the police.

Shit. “What’d she do?”


“Umm . . .”

I hang up. “Shannon, man, we got to get to the boardwalk.”

He tosses his cup into the trash can. “Whatever you say, kid.”

We sprint across the street to the boardwalk and follow it until we see Claudia getting blasted by some rent-a-cop.

Noah and Melinda are standing by—her face is buried in his shirt, and I think she’s crying before I hear her giggling.

Then I see two wet circles on the front of Claudia’s T-shirt.

Rent-a-Cop says, “It’s just a point of public decency, young lady. You gotta understand that this is a family beach, that there are families that can see you.”

Melinda snorts into Noah’s shirt.

I say, “Christ, Claude, what did you do?”

Rent-a-Cop turns to me. “It’s a matter of public decency, kid—”

“I just went swimming.” Claudia points down the beach.

“There were these girls and they asked me to swim with them, so I just took off my shirt and went swimming with them.” “Claudia!”

She look at me with her arms raised. “Chase, come on, it was perfectly okay! I kept my shorts on! I had a bra.”

“A white bra,” Rent-a-Cop specifies.

Noah totally loses it at this point and has to let go of Melinda, he’s laughing so hard. Shannon has this look on his face like he doesn’t know us and doesn’t know this is the kind of situation we get in. That sort of pisses me off. Half the time, he’s in trouble with us, after all. I’m not saying this is ideal, but shouldn’t he be used to it by now?

This seagull totally starts yelling at us.

“Look,” I say. “She’s twelve years old, she wasn’t naked, and she . . . has no other public exposure citations.” Please don’t check that. “She gets off with a warning, yeah?”

Rent-a-Cop puffs up. “I’d really like to speak with your parents.”

I pull Claudia toward me. “They’re at home with the new baby and our deaf brother. Honestly, please don’t bother them with this. Please.” I grip Claudia hard enough to bruise her shoulder. “We’ll punish her sufficiently. Promise.”

We start hitting her the second we’re free. “What were you thinking?” Shannon says. “Taking off your clothes with random girls?”

Melinda snorts. “Yeah, you should talk.” Claudia says, “They were cute! They wanted to swim! I

wanted to have fun!”

I shove Noah. “Why weren’t you watching her?”

Noah looks at Melinda. “Uhh . . . ”

“Noah!”

“She’s twelve, Chase. The reason we left the kids at home was so we wouldn’t have to do any babysitting. So we could just, like, be.”

So Noah wouldn’t have to run away.

Claudia says, “I was fine. I don’t need someone to watch me. It was just stupid bad luck with a stupid f*cking cop.”

I lean on Shannon’s shoulder. “This is just like last year.

Except escalated. Next year we’ll be pulling Claudia out of a swampy bog or something. A swampy bog full of sex.”

Noah rolls his eyes. “And the year before, and the year before, and the year before, and the year after and after . . .”

“And ever the same sky through the years,” Melinda and I say, together.

“You guys are spooky,” Shannon says.

Claudia climbs onto my back, and her stupid wet twelve-year-old boobs press into my shirt. Noah rolls his eyes and holds Melinda close, but she’s looking at me, so I look at the sky. e i g h t

A re they making you nervous?” my father asks. He stands next to me at the railing on the balcony where we watch everyone rushing around on the beach like lightning bugs.

“They always make me nervous.”

He smiles. “Me too.”

Down on the sand, Noah’s flashlight hits Gideon. “I found you!” he shouts. He turns the flashlight on himself so Gideon can see him sign find find find.

“Next year Lucy’ll be running around with them,” I say.

“Just one more to watch.”

Lucy’s currently showing off how well she can stand, clinging on to the bars on my other side. I swing my guitar back around to my chest and strum for a little while, making up chord progressions as I go along.

Dad says, “Stuff might be different next year, Chase.”

I laugh. “Stuff is never different. Where’s Mom?”

“Buying more ice-cream sandwiches. Shannon ate them all.”

“Yeah, Shannon would.”

He tucks me under his arm. “You okay? You seem quiet.”

I concentrate on my fingers. “Yeah, traveling just tires me out.” I shrug. “I’m fine.”