Shirt And Shoes Not Required by Todd Strasser

Author:Todd Strasser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 2007-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

06

Avery stood at the water’s edge, staring out at the ocean as the waves lapped at her toes. She wore a red-and-white batik sarong around her hips covering the bottom half of her sky blue French-cut bikini. It was the fourteenth of July, almost a week since Polly had been pawed by that jerky guy.

The wind whipped her hair into her eyes, but Avery didn’t care. She was too wrapped up in thoughts to notice wind and sand and surf. She had made her way to the beach just as the sun was rising, shooting brilliant hues of orange and scarlet across the dark sky.

Now as she stared across the crashing waves she was watching an internal slide show, trying to remember moments with her mother. How she had looked when she was still alive, trying to forget how she had looked lying in her coffin. Tears began to slide down her cheeks.

“You okay?” a quiet voice asked, interrupting her thoughts.

She turned her head toward the speaker without bothering to wipe away her tears. It was Lucas in his wet suit, the morning sun glinting off the red surfboard under his arm.

She shook her head.

He put the surfboard down. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” she croaked. It wasn’t like her to be so honest about feeling bad. Normally she would have forced a smile and told him nothing was wrong, and that she was perfectly fine. She wasn’t sure if it was the concern in his eyes, or the roar of the ocean or the depth of her emotion that made her blurt out the truth, but she was relieved that she had.

He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve got time,” he said quietly.

She nearly began to sob at that, but held herself back. Curt never seemed to have the time. She wanted to talk, not just cry incoherently. “I’m still upset about what happened to Polly,” she said for starters. It wasn’t what was bothering her the most, but it seemed like a safe place to start.

“So am I,” Lucas said. “I wish I’d been there earlier. Maybe I could have done something to stop it.”

Avery nodded. She tried to stop what she said next, but it came pouring out of her in a rush. “I can’t believe that Curt just sat there and did nothing. Why? I mean, how could he just sit there?”

Lucas looked grim. “I don’t know. Maybe he wasn’t sure what to do. Maybe he just couldn’t deal.”

Could that really be what happened? she wondered. It seemed hard to believe, but Lucas looked so earnest, and being a guy, he would have better insight into the male psyche than she did. Maybe she should give him the benefit of the doubt. Still, a thought troubled her. “You wouldn’t have let fear or some kind of crazy denial stop you from doing something, would you?” she asked.

His jaw set, and she saw a fierce look in his eyes. “No,” he said quietly. “But that’s me.”

“That’s you,” she said.

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