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twilight was a risk. Talking to a stranger in the park.
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Accepting a Pepsi from a guy if you hadn t seen him
pour it from the bottle.
On the other hand, there were boys from Glendale
High who d done things like hitchhike to Toronto.
Who d spent the night in a cave in Colorado. Who d
gone camping in Wyoming, or gotten into fights in
bars up north.
But what adventures were there for girls to have?
None of the girls Michelle knew had been on any
adventures beyond spring break in Bermuda,
Cancún. Or heartbreaks and flings with their friends
boyfriends. Or passing out at parties. Or skinny-
dipping in the local lakes. It wasn t possible for a girl
to tramp off into the forest alone, or sail across an
ocean, or even pitch a tent in her own backyard after
dark. Girls adventures took place at the mall. You
gave some older boy from another school district
your phone number. Or shoplifted a lipstick at The
Body Shop. This adventure Cancún, spring break
was the closest Michelle had ever come to some
thing real, and now she was in a lounge not that
different from her basement at home.
No, she says to Anne suddenly, who doesn t
question it. Let s just go.
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They stand up at the same time.
Michelle nods at the door, and they get up and
hurry out of the lounge.
Jesus, Anne says when they re finally out and
the lounge doors swing closed behind them. The
sudden cessation of noise is deafening. Let s stay
out of there.
Now, the area around the pool is nearly
deserted only one couple, in the hot tub, so con
sumed with their kissing that they look like a single
body in the bubbling water.
On the other side of a stand of palm trees,
beyond the tiki bar, some game is apparently taking
place, and it seems that everyone who d been swim
ming in the pool or lounging beside it has gathered
in a huge circle on the beach.
With the sun lower in the sky, the air seems a bit
lighter and less damp although the smell of ocean
and jungle still hovers over it all, perfumed and
exotic, but also a little stifling, as if the ocean has
diffused and filled the air.
There s a wide banner strung up between the pool
and a palm tree on the beach. BE SAFE! TROJANS! with
a purple profile of a warrior in a helmet, looking
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blankly in the direction of the ocean.
Should we go see what that s all about? Anne
asks, nodding toward the beach.
No, Michelle says. Let s skip that.
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fourteen
Anne
AT THE TIKI bar, there was no one left but a man in a
white shirt and khaki pants (blond, older, also sun
burned), and he and the bartender (a Mexican boy
in a sleeveless yellow shirt with a sunburst on it and,
in red letters beneath the sunburst, HOTEL DEL SOL in
red script) were sharing a joke. The bartender was
laughing so hard he had to hold a hand to his eyes
to keep himself from crying? The blond man leaned
backward, guffawing loudly but pleasantly. On the
bar in front of him was a Sky Juice.
There s our Sky Juice, Michelle said, walking
toward the tiki bar.
I followed.
* * *
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The drink was sweet. Without ice, it tasted, at room
temperature, the way the ocean might have tasted
without salt, I thought. Extremely blue. The blond
man in the white shirt looked over at us and said,
Don t drink too many, girls.
He held up a finger and wagged it in our direction.
He was handsome, but much older. In his forties.
Maybe even in his fifties. He had a foreign accent,
but it wasn t Spanish. (Polish? Russian?) He spoke to
us in English, then turned back to the bartender and
spoke to him quickly and easily in Spanish.
I drank half of the Sky Juice too quickly I was so
thirsty and then I pushed it away, to pace myself. I
felt lightheaded already, but that could as easily have
been from the sun, the swimming, and not having
slept for twenty-four hours, as from Sky Juice, which
didn t taste like wine, or beer, or whiskey all of
which I d had and none of which I particularly liked.
This was perfect. Just sweet enough, and no burning
on the back of my throat after I swallowed.
There were screams and squeals coming from the
crowd of kids on the beach. By now there were maybe
a hundred, two hundred, kids out there, pushing
closer to one another, narrowing their circle
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around something at the center. It was impossible to
tell what was happening. Just the backs of the audi
ence. Skin. Bare male torsos, bikini straps, limbs
and, beyond that, the sea growing grayer as the sun
set farther behind us.
You are on spring break? the blond man asked
without looking at us. He was sitting across from us,
but he was also looking in the direction of the crowd
on the beach. He was thin, and his teeth were very
white. He was deeply tanned, and his hair was so
blond he looked as if he d been outside in the sun for
many years. Around his eyes there were threadlike
white lines. It seemed he d been squinting, too, for
years, in the sun. Even his lips were tan. The sleeves
of his white shirt were rolled up, and the hair on his
arms was also bleached to a very pale blond.
Yep, I said. We re seniors.
At university? he asked, and we both laughed
and looked at each other, then said no, no, we were
in high school.
Oh, he said. Little girls. He looked at the
bartender, who shrugged. Niñas, the man said to
the bartender, and then something else in
Spanish. And then he turned back to us. How
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did you find yourself on such a trip?
We shrugged, both of us smiling shyly, still flat
tered that he d thought we were so much older than
we were. Michelle took another sip of her Sky Juice,
and I wondered, now, if the bartender might take our
drinks away, ask for identification. But he wasn t
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