something terrible to happen to Shannon. Perhaps this was it.
“Yes, she will,” I repeated. “But you still have to tell her.”
CHAPTER 7
Julie 1962
I thought that getting my period on our third full day at the shore was the worst thing that could happen to me. We were getting ready to go to our local beach, sometimes known as the “Baby Beach” because it was on the bay rather than the ocean and the water was gentle enough for toddlers. I loved swimming in the bay. I was hoping I could find some kids my age there to play with. I was already feeling lonely and had to admit that I missed the friendship Ethan used to provide. There were no other kids my age on our street. Lucy was useless because she was so afraid of everything and Isabel wanted nothing to do with me. In front of her friends, she treated me as though I was an embarrassment to her. Lucy was in the living room, watching The Edge of Night with Grandma while she blew up her Flintstones tube. Isabel was getting the beach umbrella from the garage and I was gathering towels from different corners of the house, when I suddenly got that ache low in my belly that had become all too familiar to me in just a few months’ time. I went upstairs to the attic and into the tiny curtained bathroom, pulled down my bathing suit and saw the spot. I wanted to cry, but I tried to be stoic. These were the days before slender plastic-encased tampons or stick-on pads. I pulled out the sanitary belt I had quickly come to loathe and affixed the bulky napkin to it, all the while cursing the fact that I’d been born female. Then I put on my shorts and a top, did my duty gathering the towels, marched downstairs and stood in the middle of the kitchen, the towels, some folded, some not, a bundle in my arms.
My mother was wrapping the last of the bologna sandwiches in waxed paper when she looked at me.
“Why did you change out of your bathing suit?” she asked.
“I’m not going,” I said. “I got my stupid friend.”
For a moment, she looked confused. Then she understood. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” She walked over to hug me, but she was smiling, which made me doubt her sympathy. “Come to the beach anyway.”
“Everyone will ask why I’m not in my bathing suit,” I whined.
She shrugged as if that was no big deal. “If they do, just say you don’t feel like swimming today,” she said.
Isabel came into the room at that moment, bopping her head to the Four Seasons singing “Sherry” on the transistor radio she was carrying.
“Umbrella’s in the car,” she said to our mother.
“Turn that down, please,” Mom said.
I nearly cringed, expecting Isabel to balk at the request. She and Mom were arguing night and day, usually about curfew and the clothes Isabel wanted to wear, and I was getting tired of it. But Isabel just flicked the little round dial on her radio, lowering the volume, and she never stopped moving to the music. I liked watching her. I knew she was sexy. I knew that was the word boys used to describe her. She was wearing a hot-pink twopiece bathing suit, the bottom barely covering her navel. Her skin was a soft olive tone that would darken to a rich tan in just a few days on the beach. I couldn’t wait to be her age.
Isabel suddenly stopped bouncing around the kitchen and stared at me. “Why aren’t you ready to go, Jules?” she asked.
“I am ready to go,” I said.
“Oh.” Isabel nodded. She looked genuinely sympathetic. “You got the curse.”
“It’s so embarrassing.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry for you. I’ll teach you how to use a tampon.”
“No, you won’t.” Mom opened the cupboard and took out the little plastic badges we needed to wear on our bathing suits in order to use the private beach. “She’s too young.”
It didn’t matter whether Isabel taught me to use a tampon or not. The fact that she’d given me her attention and had made the offer were all that mattered.
“That’s my towel,” Isabel said, abruptly pulling one of the towels from the bundle in my arm, making several others fall out of the pile.
“What’s the big deal?” I said, frustrated as I picked up the towels from the floor.
“No big deal,” she said, sending me a signal with her eyes that said Shut up!
I thought I understood. The towel she’d taken was one I’d never seen before. It was very soft and huge and it had a giraffe on it. I was sure it was a gift from Ned.
We piled into the hot car for the two-minute drive to our beach. Lucy had to put a towel beneath her legs because she thought the car seat might burn her. She already had her tube around her waist, as if she was afraid she might drown in the heat, and I helped her pin her badge to the strap of her bathing suit.
Given that it was the middle of the week, our beach was not at all crowded, and that disappointed me. We walked from the crushed-shell parking lot across the hot sand toward the water, and I didn’t see another kid who looked like she—or he—was my age. Then I finally spotted one. He was lying on his stomach at the water’s edge near the sea grass, poking at a pile of seaweed with a stick. Ethan. What a spaz, I thought. How had I ever been friends with him?
We reached a spot on the sand that my mother declared to be perfect. Isabel set down her radio and giraffe towel and pushed the umbrella stand into the sand, then opened it. Mom and I spread one of our two blankets out on the sand beneath it, not far from where the bay water lapped softly at the beach, and Lucy instantly sat down on it, the tube still glued to her body. She sat cross-legged, opened her book and began to read.
“You can lay that blanket down right next to this one,” Mom said to Isabel.
Isabel looked toward the lifeguard stand and I followed her gaze. It took me only a moment to realize that Ned Chapman was the lifeguard. No wonder he was already so tan. He wore sunglasses and had white zinc oxide on his nose. His blond hair looked even lighter than it had a couple of days ago. The hairs on his bare legs glittered in the sunlight, and I felt that new bellytightening sensation I would get each time I saw him. I’d feel that way for twenty minutes or so, then lose myself in the comfort of Nancy Drew and her safe and improbable mysteries. The unfamiliar desire that was mounting in me, in combination with my impetuous nature and need for excitement, scared the daylights out of me, and Nancy offered great relief.
As if he knew I was thinking about him, Ned looked over at us and waved. I waved back, even though I knew it was not me he was greeting.
“Can I go over to where Mitzi and Pam are?” Isabel asked.
“May I please,” Mom said.
“May I please?”
“Of course. Do you want a glass of lemonade before you go?”
“No, thanks.” Isabel was already on her way, her radio and towel in her arms, and I wondered if our mother realized Ned was over there. I watched my sister’s long legs as she strode through the sand to where the throng of teenagers were tanning themselves, radios blaring, around the lifeguard stand. God, I wanted to be Isabel! I wanted to know how to use a tampon and have those long legs and fully formed breasts. I wanted boys’ heads to turn when I walked past them, the way their heads were turning toward Isabel now. I watched the group of kids greet her. Pamela Durant sat up, tugging at a strap of her bathing suit top that had slipped down her shoulder. She grinned at Isabel, patting the blanket next to her, and Isabel sat down. It was an attractive group of teenagers. There were about ten of them, all long limbs and breasts and bare chests, wavy hair shining in the sunlight and bodies glistening with iodine-tinted baby oil. Most of them were smoking, but I didn’t think Izzy had ever had a cigarette.
I knew a few of Isabel’s friends because she’d belonged to this group for the past couple of years. Mitzi Caruso was the nicest of the girls, but also the shyest and the least