Anthologies
"Sweatshirts and Speedos" a short story by David Ortmann
originally published My First Time III (Alyson Publications)
edited by Jack Hart, 2002
I never saw my favorite Mickey Mouse sweatshirt again, or the man I gave it to that summer day back in 1987, but the memories of our time together have kept me warmer than the sweatshirt ever did. I wonder now if he ever wore it, or thought of me as much as I though of him as the years went on.
From the time I was an infant, my parents indulged me in what I came to call "the sweatshirt tradition." Each summer vacation they would buy me a new souvenir sweatshirt. I have twelve, one for each year of my life until age thirteen. The oldest sweatshirt, purchased when I was one-year old, is green. No more than seven inches from neckline to waistband, it reads,
Look out world. I've arrived!
Atlantic City 1975.
Atlantic City was my first vacation with Mom and Dad. I don't remember anything about it, but I still have the sweatshirt.
By 1987, I didn't care whether or not I had a shirt from every East Coast beach town; what I wanted were baggy clothes. I was thirteen and hit puberty; or rather puberty hit me. With the precision of a prizefighter, adolescence threw my body to the ropes with pimples, protruding bones, and bad hair. The sweatshirts became the tents to hide the circus freak I saw myself as.
It was in Maryland where my Mom finally put an end to the sweatshirt tradition. My Dad wasn't with us that night, nor was he with us for most of that summer. A contractor during the booming 1980s, he seemed busier than ever working on the new hotels, casinos, and nightclubs. I didn't mind. Consistent working vacations for my father meant longer vacations for me. In 1987, we spent almost eight weeks in Ocean City. My father worked all day, my mother shopped, and I sat in the hotel room and ate, watched television, and ate more. Sometimes I'd take walks on the beach, but those were rare.
My self-imposed seclusion ended the same night Mom stopped the sweatshirt tradition. We were shopping at "Bix's BIGGGGG Shirts-n-Stuff" on the Boardwalk. I was fingering a dark blue sweatshirt that, in more fashionable circles, would have been called a caftan when my mother placed her hand on my shoulder. "No sweatshirts this year, hon."
I recoiled instantly from the Ocean Pacific muscle tee shirt and the thigh-length flowered shorts she held in her outstretched hand. "These are for you."
"Yikes, Momma." I cried, clinging tighter to my refrigerator sized sweatshirt. "That's just plain ugly!"
"The latest fashion often is." She said with her usual sense. "But try them anyway. It's time you stopped dressing like Mama Cass."
It took a great deal of convincing to get me into the dressing room. "I am tired of you running around like there's something wrong with you!" She finally yelled. "You're thirteen years old and a very handsome boy. It's time to stop sulking about like some hunchback in a tower."
I closed one eye, slumped over, and did my best Quasimoto imitation until we both laughed. "Now get your butt in there!" She pushed me toward the dressing room's pink and purple paisley curtain, which looked a lot like the offensive shorts.
I stood before the dressing room mirror in my white Fruit of the Loom briefs. The overhead fluorescent light cast a painfully harsh glare on my deflated and pimpled upper body. No treasures, I thought, could ever be found in this chest.
I dressed reluctantly. The green, pink, and purple flowers plastered across the yellow shorts only accentuated the fact that I had the legs of a baby flamingo. The robin's egg blue tee shirt wasn't really a tee shirt after all. It was one of those surfer muscle shirts cut off at the waistline and shoulders. I swore my 1975 Atlantic City sweatshirt was larger. Scrawny and pale, I felt more naked in that getup than I ever did undressing in the gym locker room.
"Okay, let's see it." Mom called.
Somehow I managed to get out of the dressing room.
"Oh, you look so." she began.
"Momma. Stop it! You're embarrassing me."
"Hush. There's hardly anyone even here." She directed me to a three-way mirror. Suddenly there was six of me. Before it, I didn't look so bad. The shorts actually pulled focus from my chicken arms and the blue of the shirt set off my coloring in a way that masked some of the acne on my face. Somehow, the shirt actually made me look like I had shoulders, if not a chest.
My mother caught the smile that flickered across my face and said simply, "See?"
I said okay to the shorts but tried to talk her into buying me a regular tee shirt. "I don't have enough muscles for this shirt, Momma. I am going to look like a freak."
"Sweetheart." My mother said in her quiet I-am-losing-my-patience voice, "You have exactly the right amount of muscles for a thirteen year old boy." She piled the clothes on the checkout counter, set her brand new Gold Master Card on top of them, rang for the clerk, and effectively ended the argument.
"By the way," she turned to me, "Wear these to the beach. You're hiding in that hotel room too much."
The first day I wore my new outfit, I kept my eyes directly in front of me. If anyone was staring, I didn't want to know. Had someone made a remark about my clothes, I wasn't sure whether I would pop them one or cry. Probably cry. I had never hit anyone before.
Thankfully, the beach was almost empty. I was positioning my Van Halen beach towel at the perfect suntan angle when I heard, "Hey, nice shorts!"
I froze, feeling that familiar burning sensation creep up from my belly-the defense mechanism that sleeps deep inside all unpopular and persecuted boys. I flushed as the burn rose to my cheeks. Look busy, I repeated like a mantra. Just look busy. Pretend you didn't hear it. I pretended to hunt for something in my beach bag.
"Hey kid! I said nice shorts."
I looked up. That was when I saw him.
Kipling Sanders was a lifeguard. He was responsible for patrolling the length of beach between the High Flying Buccaneer Motel and the entrance to the Boardwalk over four blocks away. Unknowingly, I positioned myself right in the middle of his turf.
I'd seen Kip before, of course. He was sort of hard to miss. Perched on his lifeguard station, he wore a fishing hat like Henry Fonda did in the movie On Golden Pond. With his shocking blonde curls and muscular shoulders, that old hat was where any resemblance to Fonda ended. He was all hair, Ray-ban sunglasses, and gleaming muscle. Kip always seemed to be reading, except on those rare occasions when he would blow his whistle, and sprint into the surf, his arms churning water like an outboard motor to rescue someone who had swum out too far.
I'd always tried to stay away from him. At seventeen years old Kipling Sanders looked like the kind of guy who might beat me up.
"Hey, I'm taking to you, dipshit." He laughed. Now he was all hair, Ray-bans, gleaming muscle, and teeth. He slid his Risky Business shades down his nose and glared at me like I was the last Rice Krispy treat on the Sizzler dessert bar. "I like your shorts. They're pretty rad."
"Uh. thanks." I mumbled, continuing to busy myself with my beach bag.
"How come you're always alone?"
I pretended not to hear him.
"Don't you have any friends?"
I continued my beach bag inventory in silence: sunglasses, sun tan lotion, Sony Walkman, Quiet Riot tape. Yup, everything was there.
"I said, don't you have any friends?"
"No." I surprised myself by shouting. "And I don't want any either, thanks."
"Hey, just trying to be friendly." Kip picked up his book, slid his Wayfarers back up his nose and resumed reading.
I lay face down on my towel. It was already mid-July and I was determined to burn away the acne littering my back before school started in September. I thought about lifting weights in the coming year. With the seagull squawks an unlikely lullaby, I drifted off to sleep.
* * * *
"You're gonna burn your back, you know."
I awoke, squinting my eyes against the late afternoon sun and saw Kip standing over me. He had light blonde hair growing on his calves. It thinned out over his legs, gradually tapering off to the perfectly smooth skin on his hips where the tight red line of his Speedo began. It read OC MD Rescue Team in white letters blazing across the front. The word Rescue bulged in a way that both frightened and excited me. I felt a lump form in my throat.
"Huh?" I said, rubbing my eyes.
"I said, you're gonna burn the hell out of your back."
"So what? It's my back." I tried to sound as tough as possible, but it fell rather flat.
"So, smart ass," Kip kneeled down and pulled the cap from a bottle of Coppertone sunscreen. "It's my job to protect people on this beach and that includes drowning grandmothers as well as wise ass kids. Now sit up."
I did.
Kip applied liberal amounts of Coppertone to my roasted shoulders. He kneaded my narrow back with his rough hands. I hoped he wouldn't notice how bony I was. His callused palms scraped my skin, soothing the burning itch. I swallowed hard and mumbled, "Thanks."
"Christ dude, relax." Kip said, "You're wound tighter than a spring. That's probably what's causing all those zits all on your back."
I felt my heart dive straight into my stomach. I was hoping he wouldn't notice that either.
* * * *
Over the course of the next few days, Kip and I became friends. It was hard for me to imagine that someone like him could be as lonely as I was. I figured he'd stop visiting my towel as soon as the beach got busier. Surely Ocean City's answer to Christopher Atkins had better things to do that hang out with the likes of me. I'd seen girls in neon bikinis flock to his lifeguard station like seagulls to bread; but Kip, continued to visit my towel on his lunch breaks and afternoons off.
One afternoon I asked him for a bite of his Snickers bar.
"No way, buddy." He slapped my back. "You'll never get rid of your zits by eating this shit."
Everyday thereafter, Kip brought me an apple or an orange to eat while he had his daily Snickers.
"Kip," I asked, mustering my courage about two weeks after we met. "Did you. did you have pimples when you were my age?"
He smiled. "When I was your age I looked like a pizza with all the toppings. You look like a movie star compared to me at thirteen."
I could talk to Kip about anything. He listened. He didn't laugh at me, or make me think I was stupid, or awkward.
"Kip, I really like hanging out with you and all." I stammered the next afternoon, peeling the rind from my Sunkist orange. The flesh underneath was tender and ripe.
"But?" He said.
"But. oh, I don't know."
"Let me guess." He took a huge bite from a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Rosenberg's Market didn't have any Snickers that afternoon. "You're thinking, 'Why does Kip hang out with me instead of those girls that always follow him around or maybe some of the other college guys?'"
"Uh, yeah." I nodded, exposed, despite my swim trunks.
"Because, buddy, you're a hell of a lot more interesting than a flock of girls whose life goal is to get into my shorts so they can brag to their friends that they nailed a lifeguard. As far as I'm concerned they can chase those boring guys who think the word dude is a verb, conjunction, and prepositional phrase. Christ, those guys don't even know who Jack Keroac is."
We were both quiet for a moment.
"Uh, Kip." I stammered, "Who is Jack Keroac?"
Kip rolled onto his back and shot his legs into the air. The backs of his thighs were coated with baby blonde hair and bits of sand. I watched the ridges and cuts in his stomach ripple as he convulsed with laughter. "Kid," he said, finally recovering, "You are one of a kind. One of a fucking kind!"
* * * *
"Hey little brother." Kip said, nudging my calf with his sand encrusted toe. I had been just about to drift off to sleep.
"Stop it." I pulled my leg away. "You know that tickles."
"Where did you get that bathing suit?"
"K-Mart. Why?"
"Well, no offense pal, but that is the ugliest bathing suit I have ever seen."
Criticism from Kip was worse than any pointed finger or muffled laughter in the boy's locker room. "Well sorry Kip," I rolled onto my stomach, burning. "Not all of us get to strut around in red Speedos getting everyone all messed up and horny!"
I don't know why I said it. I was so angry with him. The second the words spat from my mouth, I cursed myself. Literally burying my nose in the sand, I wanted to dig into the earth and disappear forever. Kip's afternoons off were the same tortured hours I would lie awake on my stomach watching the rise and fall of his golden chest as he napped on the towel next to mine. Kip slept like an angel, with a smile on his mouth I had only seen on very young children. Unable to read or sleep or move, I was equally unable to tear my eyes from the smooth curve of his down covered thigh or from throat-drying swell that rose beneath the white drawstring of his regulation swim gear. I always had to lay on my stomach when I watched him because my first erections came on like express trains that obeyed no particular schedule and, baggy gray swim trunks or not, were always as obvious as a springtime Maypole.
Now I knew my secret was out.
Thankfully, Kip just laughed it off. "You're just jealous that you don't have a flock of girls with their eyes on your ass!"
"I am not." I feigned offense to cover my relief that Kip must have missed my accidental disclosure of boyhood adoration.
"Yes you are." Kip reached over and slid his index finger from my navel to the waistband of the offensive swim trunks and playfully snapped the elastic against my stomach. His finger remained just below my navel. It was ninety degrees in the shade that day, but I shivered anyway.
"But I'm going to fix that." He smiled. "You might be a little skinny but you've got nothing to be ashamed of. We're gonna give you a tan line that is going to make all those guys back in the locker room burn with jealousy! C'mon!" Kip grabbed my hand and we ran the two blocks to his room at the lifeguard summer dormitory.
* * * *
Once I squeezed into the dark green Speedo bathing suit that Kip insisted was too small for him, I immediately felt older. Cooler. That short-lived feeling evaporated before Kip's full-length mirror. In it, I saw a boy who looked more like a Q-tip than a teenager. The high cut of the green spandex only drew attention to the fact that, despite my deep tan, the skin beneath my belly and above my upper thighs was paper white. Teetering on the middle edge of puberty, there was an obvious ripple of excess green material where I wished my penis would rise and swell like I'd watched Kip's do as he slept on the beach.
Kip moved behind me, his reflection a full head taller than my own. I felt the downy hairs beneath his navel, courting the curve of my lower back as he pressed gently against me. He grinned over my shoulder and I felt his lips graze my ear. He whispered heavily, "When the girls get a look of you in that, they're not even going to notice me."
I wore that Speedo every day for the rest of the summer.
* * * *
Kip became my teacher as well as my friend and I learned a lot from him. He gave me books to read and I devoured them. I learned that Jack Keroac was a "road prophet" and "beat poet" whose philosophy of life gave Kip the courage face his upcoming first semester at college that September. Kip read Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing to me over the course of four afternoons, then I read Othello all by myself. We reviewed new vocabulary words every day. Kip taught me that Karl Marx was not one of the Marx brothers, as I'd first thought. He was an "economic philosopher" and the "Father of Communism," which Kip said wasn't a bad system at all "in theory." Kip even taught me that someone named Socrates was sentenced to death for teaching philosophy to his students. That seemed a little far-fetched. I nodded my head obediently, but made a mental note to check up on it.
Kip took me under his wing that summer of my thirteenth year and often called me the little bother he wished he had. I simply called him my friend. The only one I had.
My education under Kip continued into August. Not only did I learn all about books and the people who wrote them, but Kip also taught me how to use different sunscreens to blend the white of my thighs and belly to match the golden tan I had everywhere else. By mid-August the acne on my face and back were almost completely burned away. Kip said my new green bathing suit brought out my eyes.
Momma was happy that I'd finally found a friend and even happier that I wasn't spending every day in our hotel room. She and I still shared our Boardwalk strolls a couple of nights each week, complete with too much cotton candy and a ride on the looping roller coaster, before walking back to our hotel barefoot in the sand.
* * * *
Kip was reading aloud from Stephen Spender's The Temple one afternoon while I struggled to peel an orange. The juice ran in rivulets down my arms, sticking to the sand and drawing a swarm of fat green flies. As I swatted away, careful not to drop my orange, I failed to realize that Kip had stopped reading until he said, "Hey, they're talking about you."
"Who?"
"Them. Those girls over there." My eyes followed the tilt of his head to three teenage girls, spread on a blanket not thirty feet away. They wore red bathing suits and their bubble gum pink radio blared a dance remix of Madonna's "Material Girl." They were giggling.
Given my past experiences with kids my own age in classrooms, gyms, and playgrounds, laughing and pointed fingers were not something I looked upon with appreciation. "Fuck them." I surprised myself by swearing. "What are they laughing at?"
"They're not laughing at you, dipshit." Kip dug his sandy big toe into my calf. I wondered if I would ever have hair on my legs like Kip did. "They're flirting with you."
"Huh?" I tore my gaze from Kip's legs.
"They're flirting with you, buddy. They think you're hot." He winked at me. "Why don't you go talk to them?"
"Fuck off." I spat, exploiting my newfound comfort with the word. I rolled onto my stomach to hide the anger that burned into my face. Anger that burned because I had no experience talking to girls, no interest in talking to girls, and that Kip would suggest something that would take me away from him, if only for a couple minutes.
"Well excuse me!" Kip laughed and resumed reading silently. "I was only trying to help."
I waited in silence. I waited for my tears to dry up and for my cheeks to stop burning. When I spoke, my voice shook. "Kip?"
"Hmmm?" He said, engrossed in Spender's tale.
"I. I'm sorry, Kip. I didn't mean to yell at you. It's just." I faltered and swallowed.
"What is it, buddy?" Kip put his book aside, rolled closer to me and gave me his full attention.
"I just don't know. how to." I faltered again, my voice betraying me.
Kip just stared into me with those blue eyes. His gaze was completely open and frighteningly steady. How could anything be so blue?
"I don't know anything about girls." I finally blurted. "I. I've never even kissed a girl before."
Kip moved even closer to me. I could smell the tuna fish he'd eaten for lunch on his breath. "You're only thirteen, buddy. That's normal."
"No Kip!" I shook my head. "It's not." I recounted for him the steamiest locker room stories I'd heard in Junior High. I detailed accounts of boys scoring in the back seats of Cameros and of panties sliding down the legs of willing blonde cheerleaders. "All the guys at school have all had sex and I haven't even kissed a girl yet!' I finally broke down and cried.
Kip laid his big hand on my shoulder. "Don't you know all of that is bullshit?"
"What?"
"Guys lie, man. They lie all the time, especially when sex is involved. Guys want to make themselves look popular in front of other guys so they make up stories about girls. Shit, most of them haven't even learned how to beat off yet, let alone kiss."
"How do you know?"
"Because when I was your age, I lied."
"You?" I stared in disbelief.
"Yes, me." Kip used his thumb to wipe the tears from my face. "Sometimes it's easier to lie than to admit you don't know how to do something, but it takes a lot more guts to tell the truth. to do what you just did."
"I feel so stupid sometimes."
"Why don't you talk to your Dad?"
Kip and I had never really talked a lot about our families. His last sentence just sort of hung there in the air between us.
"Kip, could you. I mean. would you." my throat was in knots as I struggled to swallow.
"Hey." Kip smiled at me, white teeth gleaming. "Brothers don't keep secrets."
I felt the knots loosen beneath his smile. "Kip, could you. tell me about girls? You know, about. like, kissing and stuff?"
He didn't say anything for a long time. I thought, for a moment, that I might have lost my best friend.
"Sure, man." He said evenly. "But not here." He turned his gaze to the blanket of girls that appeared to be edging closer to us. "Let's get out of here. Meet me tonight on the stairs by the Fun Pier, say about eight?"
"Sure, man." I copied him, trying to sound as cool as he did. My heart did cartwheels within my chest as I made a mental note to ask Kip what "beat off" meant.
* * * *
It was 7:45pm. I didn't want to be late.
I shivered in my white nylon running shorts. The sweatshirt I wore was a souvenir from last year's Disneyland vacation. It was light blue with the laughing face of Mickey Mouse splayed across the front. I might have been thirteen, but I still loved Mickey. It was my favorite. I should've worn jeans, I thought, or at least socks with my topsiders, but I felt much cooler without them. I watched the waves crash violently at the oceanfront, each one louder and rougher than the one before. It was like they were competing for my attention.
I heard him before I saw him.
"Hey buddy." Kip called from the stairs behind me. "You look cold."
I tuned to face him, suddenly warm. He was wearing a glaringly white Ocean Pacific sweatshirt and Levis that must have been worn and washed a thousand times. They were frayed around the ankles. Even in his sandals he stood a full head over me.
"Yeah, man, I am cold. I didn't realize I have sunburn over my tan. I should have worn warmer clothes I guess, or at least some socks."
"I brought something to help keep us warm."
He pulled a flask from the back pocket of his jeans. The liquid was the color of a dark sunset.
"Have a sip." He unscrewed the plastic cap and held the bottle out toward me. Sensing my hesitation he laughed, "Don't worry kid. I am not going to let you get drunk. This is strictly for survival. It's cold out here."
I smiled in response to Kip's own perfectly lopsided grin. I wondered how he got his mouth to go up only in one corner like that. I brought the flask to my mouth. It smelled like burning jack-o-lanterns. Inhaling the scent, I closed my lips around the opening and tilted the bottle until a stream of fluid streaked across my tongue and down my throat. It didn't feel like anything at first, and then it burned like hell. I tasted what seemed like roasted oranges, and began to feel warm all over. Kip, again, was right.
"That was quite a shot there, little brother." He laughed bringing the bottle to his parted lips. He winked at me over the rim, "That will be it for you for awhile." He took a healthy gulp and recapped it.
Brushing sand from the bottom most step, Kip indicated the spot beside him. I sat. "So what do you want to know?"
I hadn't counted on so unceremonious an introduction to the mysterious realm of sex and manhood. Crestfallen, I said, "I don't know." The effects of the alcohol burned within me. "I thought you cool guys were supposed to have all the answers!"
"I am sorry." Kip said and was quiet for a moment, looking out toward the water. "Are you a little nervous?"
"No." I snapped.
"Well I am."
Astonished, I faced him. "You are?"
"Yeah. Of course I am. No one's ever asked me advice about stuff like this before." Kip uncapped the flask and took another sip. "I just hope I don't disappoint you with my lack of experience."
"What do you mean?" I asked him, wishing he would pass the flask back to me. Instead, he capped it and stuck it back in his pocket.
"I mean, I don't know all that much about. girls and all that, probably not much more than you do."
"Oh, c'mon!" I laughed. "You're just trying to make me feel good."
"I am not." He protested with a smile and looked out toward the ocean. "Yet." He whispered.
I told him I didn't understand.
"You see." he began. "Look, let's move under the boardwalk. It's warmer there and I brought a blanket for us to sit on."
Kip was uncharacteristically awkward, fumbling beneath the boardwalk to set the Indian blanket down and then pausing, as if deciding whether he really wanted to sit on it after all. Finally settled, we stretched our legs out in front of us. His were so much longer than mine. It was quiet for a long time. Kip took another drink. Finally he said, "I've kissed girls, but I've never actually done much more with them."
"You mean you're a virgin!" I yelped in disbelief.
"No, I wouldn't say I am a virgin exactly." Kip laughed and uncapped the little flask again. He must have been very thirsty.
"I don't get it."
"Here. Have another shot." The liquor coated my throat and made me shiver. It wasn't cold exactly. It was hot, like shivering in a fire.
"Okay." I said.
"Well." Kip stuttered. "Well, kissing girls is. well. it's a lot like kissing guys, but a lot less fun."
The silence stretched like a tightrope between us. Then it snapped.
"You've. Kissed. Guys."
It took a full minute before Kip turned to face me. Beneath the hair that fell over his eyes, I saw them gleaming. Tears were about to fall. They made his eyes look even more like pools. I reached out and tentatively brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. I was ready to swim.
I felt his breath, hot on my face. His hand came to rest, tenderly, at the back of my neck. Little hairs all over my body sprang to attention. He kissed me.
Dizzy, my hands sought the security of his waist. I closed my eyes and held on tight to the belt loops of his jeans, as though Kip were a roller coaster and I was four years old again. His lips were tender but insistent. Slowly at first and then with a thirst I'd never experienced, I explored every part of his mouth with my tongue, every part of his face with my lips. Kissing felt wetter than I imagined it would, but right nonetheless. Very right. Kip's hands wandered beneath my sweatshirt, his fingers lightly grazed my nipples, which hardened like little eraser stubs. I felt the front of my nylon shorts dampen and stick. He traced circles around my navel, where any hair had yet to sprout. I prayed he would lower those magical fingers just a little.
Kip stripped me of Mickey and then pulled off his own sweatshirt. I couldn't imagine I could be warmer with it off than with it on, but I was. Naked to the waist, Kip and I were entwined, snakelike, our chests rising and falling together. His neck smelled like saltwater and sunshine. Kip did things with his mouth and tongue I had never imagined possible: chewing my ears, licking my fingers, rubbing his legs against mine and sparking a kindling fire there. Sweating now, I traced the tiny hairs around his nipples with my fingertips and fearlessly explored parts of his body that I had only ever dreamed of touching on myself.
With my body warm beneath his, my eyes wandered beyond his angelic face, over the curve of his shoulder, to the boardwalk above. Bits of light crept through the cracks. I caught glimpses of people walking above and was overcome with sadness. I wanted them to feel the way I felt now. I wanted everyone to feel this.
Kip stopped kissing me suddenly.
"Are you sure this is okay with you?" He whispered, his voice thick and heavy.
That simple question, spoken by the man I loved and wanted so much, would be the sexiest line I would ever hear in my life.
There was no question. I pulled him closer to me and whispered, "Yes."
I looked into his eyes, so clear and so blue, as he deftly popped the buttons on his Levis with one hand and slid my nylon shorts down my legs with his other. His eyes never left mine.
* * * *
A lot happened between Kip and me that night and in those that followed before he went off to college and I went back home to begin ninth grade. Every time we were together, it felt like the first time all over again.
My folks never bought me another souvenir sweatshirt. They said I was getting too old for them anyway. That last afternoon, I brought Kip the Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. I wanted him to have it. There were already girls spreading their towels down around his lifeguard station. When I handed him the sweatshirt, I whispered in his ear that I loved him.
"I love you too." He said aloud, smiled, and kissed me long and tenderly on the lips, right there, on the beach, even in front of all those girls!
Walking back to meet my parents at the hotel, I turned around to look at him one last time. He was still watching me, holding the sweatshirt tightly against his chest, and smiling.