always and Dylan right before he grew out his hair. Sarah, nervously laughing, wore an ugly black
one-piece. Dylan stood up first and the way Carl smiled at him, Jesus, like he�d jumped off the roof
and landed in a handstand.
We got to love it, love being skinny and brown and sitting, waiting for the waves with the beautiful
boys. Sarah tried dreads, but it wasn�t a look for her. I remember being fascinated that there was a
look that didn�t work for Sarah. We ate cheese-and-tomato sandwiches and brought bottles at night,
when we had bonfires. Dylan always brought a bottle of Jack, with his dad an alcoholic. It was kind
of a perfect way of living, when you thought about it.
He called me, close to six in the morning with the sun coming fast on my pillowcase. I can get on
my surf gear so fast that sometimes it feels like I�d slept in my bikini. They all came rolling up at six-
thirty and god but that water was freezing.
Nudging my board, midmorning, Kenny said:
�So when am I having dinner with your family?�
He said it in a low voice and I couldn�t tell if he was making fun of me or not. I looked for words,
trying to look for cool. I said,
�What do you mean?�
I think I have a brain problem. I felt like I had sunburned eyeballs. I felt like a prehistoric shark had shimmied up from the depths and eaten me in an afterthought, my board skating off empty over the waves. I felt like I wasn�t even worth looking at.
We went over to Santicci�s for lunch that day. The food was terrible; the only reason we kept
coming back was the way Lou Santicci would yell �Heeey!� when we all came stumbling in, sand-
tousled. We had gotten used to it, like Sarah had gotten used to choking down tofu dogs because there
wasn�t anything else she could eat.
Dylan said,
�I dare you to buy one of those eggs,� pointing at the nasty jar.