Down on the beach

The beach was packed. The local boys were diving noisily from the rocks beneath the high board. There was a natural, deep pool there when the tide was in and occasionally one of them would answer the jeers of his friends by climbing the ladder and taking the high plunge.

She was standing with her friends, the same two girls, Mary and Collette, the twins, by the ice cream stand. She was wearing a pink bikini; they wore matching turquoise blue swimsuits. She was holding a 99 in one hand. Her other hand was behind her back, half covering one cheek of her pink suited bottom.

Down on the beach on that last day, being a non-swimmer and, embarrassed about that, he paddled and dipped in the shallows, far from the rocks and the diving board where the other boys dived and jeered each other. In the distance, he saw her step out of the water where she swam and for just a moment, a split second, she forgot the hand that protected her pink cheek and he could see why. There was a tiny hole, near the waistband and he caught a brief glimpse of white skin, untouched by the sun.