Boys of Summer
Posted on 17 June 2010
The air is beach scented tonight. I’ve never clearly identified the source – something sweet, thick, something that pricks your feet when you step into the still-warm sand at the side of the road. But it’s the scent of the Outer Banks in North Carolina, the place my family visited year after year when I was a teenager, until our pretensions of unity unraveled.
My friend called the wildly growing, yellow, red and brown flowers, which were everywhere in the wasted lots where no one had bothered to grow grass, “Indian paintheads,” and I didn’t know any better. I was thirteen and thought she, at fifteen, was wiser than I.
Every year I kissed a new boy, after finding just the right one at the Foosball Palace. Of course, there had to be someone for my friend, as well, whichever one I’d brought that year. We’d all exit the back door, kicking our shoes off as we left the old wooden floors and wandered onto the sand. The nights were cooler, but there was still a stickiness to our skin as we gripped hands in the dark, everything gritty and rough except the scent of the hibiscus perfume I replenished every year from a little shop in Kitty Hawk, the sheen of lotion I kept cold in the refrigerator back at our rental house.
The first year we went was 1984, when The Boys of Summer came longingly out of my radio as my friends and I split our time between childhood and something less, lying face down, our suits untied behind us to darken every possible inch, or body surfing happily for hours. I remember my skin felt soft then, liquid, and I imagined it always would, that I would always pay so much attention to making myself desirable.
So each year brought a new boy, a new set of lips to kiss as I memorized their names. I arranged, every year, to meet them on my last morning there for sunrise on the beach. Invariably they came, and never asked for more than kisses, though now it’s hard to believe I’d been so lucky.
I have their memories in the cells of my lips, in the scent of a summer night, in the music that plays sometimes and sounds like 1984. I want to believe it’s not true that you can never go back, that you can never have that feeling again of a first and last kiss and sandy, imaginary love as the sun comes up to light the Indian paintbrushes, the silvery water, and the soft skin of a girl.
7 responses to Boys of Summer
I am still reading these nuggets Jennifer. And they never cease to amaze me. If you never make a dollar from writing, you are still a writer of sublime talent.
You know, that’s exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you, FJ. It means a lot to me that you think so.
I, too, love your subtle, detailed style. I’ve been reading since you were reviewed at AAYSR, but haven’t commented before. They’re such perfect fragments, I have no comment. Just pleasure in reading.
I’m grateful for your comment, PG. It means a lot that you’ve stayed. I hope I continue to please.
Wow,
You’ve brought back some memories with this one. Beautifully written, I can see and smell the water mixed with suntan lotion. Thank you.. gave me inspiration for a post of my own.
So glad you liked it. I love hearing from you.
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