“Do you wanna go in?” I stood up fast, and bread crumbs fell from my board shorts to the towel below.
Jamie squinted up at me. “You just ate.”
“That rule isn’t real.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Maybe for, like, babies.”
Jamie rolled her eyes. “I’ll stay with our stuff.”
Then it was my turn for an eye roll. Jamie was always worried some stealthy preteen thief was going to make off with our beach bags in broad daylight. And then we’d be destitute, out a whole twenty bucks and a half-punched taco-shop loyalty card between us.
“Suit yourself,” I said, and took off jogging toward the water. I never got sick of that feeling: the way my adrenaline kicked up and my sun-roasted sleepiness fell away in anticipation of plunging myself into cool, salty water. I loved the moment the sand switched over from hot and dry to cool and damp. Sometimes, when there weren’t too many people in the water to see me do it, I ran that last stretch with my eyes closed, leaving it to my feet to sense when I was almost there. When I felt water slap against my calves I was awake.
I dove under the water and resurfaced where the water came up to my chest. I smoothed my hair back and turned to look at the beach. Jamie waved and I waved back. Then I did something I knew she’d kind of hate me for, but which I also knew would work: I started yelling.
“COME ON IN, JAMIE!” I hollered. “THE WATER’S FINE!”
I watched her glance casually around, pretending to search for whoever this Jamie person was.
“YEAH, YOU! GIRL UNDER THE BLUE UMBRELLA!”
I could see her scowl from forty yards out. Oh, she is going to straight-up murder me, I thought. But she’d have to come into the water to get to me first.
Slowly she stood up, and slowly she strode into the water, trying to make it clear to me and anyone watching that she’d just happened to decide, independently, that she was ready to swim after all. She dipped gracefully underwater, and moments later, when I saw her gliding directly at me, still underwater, I screamed. There was nowhere to hide; Jamie looped her arms around my legs and took me under.
Water rushed into my ears, and I was on my back, looking up through water into blue sky. Jamie let go of me right away, and I wasn’t hurt, and I didn’t expect to be so mad, but I was, and I wasn’t sure why. I shot to the surface and flicked the wet hair from my face.
“What the fuck, dude?”
“ ‘Dude’?”
We squinted at each other, blinking back saltwater tears.
“You’re stronger than you think. That hurt.” I was lying, sort of.
“Oh, I know I’m strong,” she smirked.
“Oh, well, then, great.”
“Relax. You survived. And anyway, you kind of asked for it.”
I didn’t know how to argue with that, so I turned my head and spit, trying to get the salt out of my mouth. I hated being told to relax. Everybody hated being told to relax. It was, like, the one thing you could say to guarantee a reaction opposite to its supposed intention. So I changed the subject.
“Sweets is gonna play Triple Moon.”
Jamie didn’t react. She didn’t even look at me. She slowed her treading until she was hardly moving at all. She dipped the back of her head into the water and asked the sky, “When?”
“Two weeks,” I said. “Less than.”
“So they already talked to Gaby?”
“And Dee.” I could have left it there but I didn’t. “I went with her, actually.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ruby and I went over there yesterday. Together.”
I watched her face, desperate for any indication that she was unsettled, or jealous, but there was nothing. She stayed on her back, apparently singularly focused on staying afloat.
“How was that?” she asked.
“Fun. She’s cool.”
“That seems to be the general consensus.”
Ugh. Like she hadn’t ranted and raved over how amazing and stylish and pretty she was when we put her first on our wishful-thinking list in the first place.
“Aren’t you excited?”
“Sure. I mean, I’ll be happy to see them live again.”
“And at our favorite place!”
“Yeah,” she said. She swept her arms up and down across the water in short strokes, like she was making a very skinny snow angel. “I don’t know. I’m kind of surprised Gaby went for it.”
“I’m not. It’ll be good for business.”
“Maybe, but she doesn’t care about making money.”
“Well, maybe she should.”
I thought back on the last few times we’d been to Triple Moon, and how quiet it had been. It had never been especially hopping (it was a lesbian feminist coffee shop that served mediocre coffee), but I was sure that even a year ago it had been busier on the whole.
“Well, I’m glad your grand idea for saving a band you don’t even like worked out.”
“You know I didn’t do it for the band,” I spit.
Jamie stopped floating, and for just a second, I thought I had the upper hand. But then she looked right at me and said, “Oh, right, the straight girl.”
Once again I was infuriated, powerless to prove her wrong. All I had were my tiny, stupid, inconsequential clues, which could have gone either way, and which would probably go nowhere. Suddenly my previous confidence was embarrassing: Even if Ruby did have the capacity to like girls, why would I think I’d be one of them?
“You thought you were straight once too,” I muttered.
“Oh, I know,” said Jamie. “I was eight.”
I slapped the water in frustration. I was not going to argue about sexual fluidity in the middle of the ocean. I needed enough energy to swim back to shore. “You’re not allowed to be like this!” I exclaimed.
“Like what?”
“Mean because I like someone else.”
Jamie stopped floating then. She let her feet sink and looked at the water for what felt like a full minute before speaking, and it still wasn’t enough time to prepare me for what she said.
“You’re right.”
Wait. “What?”
“I’m being weird,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She smiled sheepishly.