Chapter Three

It’s a miserable summer, the kind where the asphalt melts beneath your feet and you’re skating on a thin coat of slime. The inland air is dry, and I daydream about ocean breezes so often that I convince Peach to go down to Newport for a weekday afternoon, even though I know the traffic will be worse than I want it to be. For late May, I’m thinking of other things besides the thick smog of LA. I want blue skies, and the top down on the Jeep, and a wide open road.

I’m telling Peach of my exasperation and she’s telling me to stop complaining.

“We’ll just leave for awhile,” she says, “let you get your spirit back. You’re much too crabby now for me to want to be around you.” I know she’s kidding, but still, she’s disgusted with me.

“I’m not used to cities,” I explain in my defense. “Especially this one. There are too many directions to move and too many people.”

“That’s okay, we’ll leave,” she repeats.

“Leave? Where?”

“Anywhere, we have the time.” She’s right, no classes until September. I don’t have to teach summer school. I can already feel the freedom surge inside my bones. Peach is already free as a bird. She won’t want to do anything all summer but stay in bed with me. It’s time well spent, though it still doesn’t make LA any more bearable. The heat won’t stop, the smog won’t stop, and my feeling of oppression will go on until the first September breeze, which sometimes doesn’t happen until October.

My decision is nearly made.

We leave for the beach thinking about where we’ll go for our vacation.

After two hours in the beating sun and all the salt water we can stand, we drive up the Pacific Coast Highway for awhile, threading our way through a sprawl of beach towns. Peach driving, she takes a quick left down to the center of one small burg. I’m not sure at first exactly where we are. She spots a parking place, an ice cream store; and though I don’t realize it, something else she wants to see.

After ice cream, we walk down the street, the sun is beating on our backs. We’re not holding hands because our palms get too sweaty, but we’re so close we can feel each other’s atoms passing back and forth. At last she puts her arm around me because Peach cannot help herself. She arouses me with her warm touch, and my hand drops to feel her rear end lightly. Now, I want to be in bed with her, to turn her back against me so I can feel the smooth softnes