Down the Shore Read Free

move away. My nerves tingled when I considered the next few months. I'd never given much thought to how one summer might change my life forever.
    I considered Makenna a natural beauty with her long blonde hair and big brown eyes. She always tanned easily, the boys adored her and she adored them. I, on the other hand, thought myself the complete opposite. I had very little experience with boys, even though they started showing an interest in me. I just never felt as comfortable with them as Makenna and my other friends did. This summer, I planned to change that. I vowed to get a tan like never before, leave my long brown hair down so it flowed over my shoulders and discover love for the first time. I'd never had a serious boyfriend and never really did anything too exciting. Not that I had zero experience; I just wasn't quite ready for anything too crazy before.
    I had one boy I hung out with. Jason turned out to be sort of my best friend/boyfriend my junior year. We had fun together. We went to the movies, he taught me how to drive a stick shift, we went to prom together—but he grew frustrated with me. Guys get to the place where they are looking for more than I was ready to give, and he didn't feel like waiting. Jason was my only experience. I had several boys interested in me senior year, but I never could get past their immaturity. I knew eventually I would be ready to give up the big V, but not to Jason or any other boy from my school. I had known so many girls who had given in to the pressure of fitting in and pleasing their boyfriends and regretted it later when they were dumped. I didn't want to be one of those girls. Those relationships hadn't even last that long, under a year.
    We drove along the Garden State Parkway heading south and my entire body felt euphoric with the sense that something was laying in wait for me. I had traveled this road every summer since childhood. Every time we started to cross over the bridge to enter the shore, I closed my eyes, and let the smell of the bay consume me.
    There truly is no smell like the seashore. I can't explain it, but it always made me feel serene, like I was home. Of course my father always joked that it was the smell of the sewer, not the bay that we loved so much, but we never paid him any attention. As I reopened my eyes, I saw the ocean ahead and knew we would arrive at our little piece of paradise in a matter of minutes.
    As we pulled onto Asbury Avenue, I counted the blocks until our summer rental came into full view. Yep, just as I remembered. It was our perfect little yellow split level house. We had rented the entire downstairs, not knowing if the upstairs was rented, but we assumed it would be. We just prayed it wouldn't be a family with loud kids, banging around all day and night.
    We made plans with the owner to meet him there to pick up the keys since we weren't going through one of the local realty companies. We saw him already there waiting for us. He was tall and hefty with a bald head and his clothes shouted ‘money.'
    "Mr. Barton, it's good to see you again. I'm Abby and this is Makenna. We met over the spring with our folks.” I wondered if he remembered what we looked like.
    "Sure, girls, c'mon in, I want to show you around.” He nodded, pointing into the house.
    As we walked through, he showed us the bedrooms, the bathroom, how to use the appliances and wrote out the trash removal schedule. There were so many rules, parking spaces, facing your car the right way on the street so we didn't get ticketed, and on and on. He walked us back outside to show us the outdoor shower. There were two. One belonged to us and the other to the renters above. He turned to walk away and threw the keys in the air for us to catch. As they fell into my hand, Makenna and I both looked at each other and smiled.
    "All right then, any questions, give me a call. My number's posted on the fridge,” he assured us.
    "Great, Mr. Barton, thanks so much,” Makenna responded