There were so many pilings. She didn’t have to show all of them, did she? Kris put down her sketchbook and gazed out over the Gulf of Mexico, not at all satisfied with her pencil drawing of the pier. She should have some sort of portfolio ready when she started college. That’s what she’d heard but she doubted it mattered much for a freshman.

  Shouldn’t she be a freshwoman? Yes. She would insist on it. She would tell her friends to, also. The triumvirate would all be freshwomen together.

  Together—not really. She didn’t like to dwell on the truth, that this summer would be an end of ‘together.’ It could never be the same again.

  Enough with paper and pencil. It was mid-morning and already hot. She would take a quick dip and head home to air conditioning. Kris slipped her pad into her beach bag and was starting to peel of her tee when a loud, close honk made her jump.

  “It works,” came Joey’s voice.

  “She’d certainly get out of my way.” She turned to see Joey and Jam perched on bicycles. “Hey, Kris. My new bike has a horn! Isn’t it grand?”

  It didn’t look grand. It looked very ordinary, aside from being shiny and new and bck. “Just marvelous. When did you get it?”

  “Picked it up this morning at the hardware store.”

  “The Sunshine,” interjected Joey.

  “Yeah, Sunshine.” He looked at his companion. “Isn’t that near where Ronnie works? We could have stopped in and annoyed her on her st day.”

  “There’s still time.”

  “That’s true. Anyway, Joey met me over there and I picked it out and here we are! I looked at the racing bikes with all their gears but riding one of them seemed too ostentatious. So this is what I chose. A civilized three-speed in the British style.”

  “So your pns for the rest of the summer are to ride your bikes around?”

  “You can join us if you can keep up,” said Joey, with just a trace of a snicker. “Ronnie, too. We’ll all be unemployed as of four this afternoon.”

  “Maybe I’ll look for a job myself. I could probably lifeguard some if I wanted. I’m certified and all.”

  “Me too,” said Jam. “There are worse jobs.”

  Joey had to be contrary. “Unless someone drowns on your watch.”

  “Oh, I’ve never let more than two go under in one day.”

  “High standards! Three is good enough for me,” stated Kris. “I’m going to get in the water myself right now. I guess it wouldn’t do any good to ask you to keep an eye on me.”

  “Better yet, we’ll go in too. Darn, I didn’t think to buy a chain.”

  “We’ll run mine through both,” said Joey, “not that anyone will take it with us right here. You’d better slip your wallet into Kris’s bag.”

  Kris only nodded an agreement to this. It would be a lot more convenient for Jam to swim in front of his own house, a few blocks north. No matter, though. She certainly didn’t mind the two of them showing up.

  Less than a week ago, she and Will had watched the sunset here. Well, yeah, a block south. There hadn’t been much chance to see each other since; he’d taken this week to visit the college that had recruited him. Some pce in Abama, one of those schools they called ‘traditional bck colleges.’ Not Tuskegee, she was pretty sure. Stillman, maybe? She knew he’d mentioned it but wasn’t sure if that was the pce.

  For a guy who pnned to be a priest, Jam sure wasn’t shy about looking her over in her bathing suit, was he? That wasn’t what she meant by keeping an eye on her! He didn’t look so bad shirtless himself. Hey, turnabout was fair py and all that, right? They spshed into the water. It was warm, almost bath-like, but still better than the air. That might have crept into the nineties by now. Around eleven in the morning tended to be the hottest time of day, before the rains showed up, almost like clockwork at this time of year.

  “You have any pns tonight?” asked Joey, surfacing from a long dive. “Doughnut will be back, won’t he?”

  “I promised my mom I’d attend a service with her this evening. You know, we start the sabbath at sunset.” She hadn’t needed to add that, had she? Of course, Jam would know all about things like that. And Joey had been around her long enough she ought to. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

  “I would hope so. Does Mackie know about you two?”

  “Will told him and let me off the hook! He says he actually seemed happy about it.”

  “He’s a good guy,” observed Joey.

  “They both are.”

  “Yet you’re hanging around with me,” said Jam.

  “We just like your house,” Kris told him.

  “And your cooking,” added Joey. “Your dad’s cooking too, for that matter. Will he barbecue on the Fourth?”

  “Nope. You attended his one obligatory summer cookout. Next one is in the fall. Almost fall. Labor Day. Maybe I can light up the grill.”

  “That’s only a week and a half away,” sighed Kris. She y back and floated, staring at the sky. She floated effortlessly, more buoyant than either of her companions. “Summer is moving way too quickly!”

  “Then we’ll have to hurry to catch up with it. On our bikes!”

  “Too hot now. I’d rather lie on the beach,” said Jam. “Or under the palms in my yard.”

  “Until it rains,” Joey reminded him. “It always rains.”

  “Yeah. Good old Florida. Hey, you know you’re always welcome to come over to our house. You can even lie in the yard. Your friends, too.” He stood up, waist deep, and gave the girls a lopsided smile. “My folks would like to think I have friends.”

  “Oh, we can come and pretend to be your friends,” said Kris.

  “Any time. Ronnie too. We could celebrate her unemployment this evening.”

  Joey shook her head. “Ronnie is going out with An. Their first real date, not that they haven’t been seeing each other all week.”

  “I guess we have to consider them a couple,” Kris said. “He’s certainly a big change from Daryl.”

  “She had nothing in common with him except being in the same social circles at school. And that’s over.”

  That it was. Kris gnced at Jam. “We gossip about you, too, when you aren’t around.”

  “I’d never doubt it.”

  Joey smirked at the boy. “He’ll hear lots of juicy stuff when he’s a parish priest.”

  “That’s not where I’m headed. Probably not. I’m going to be a Jesuit.”

  “Wow. That’s a lot of work.”

  “The more reason to goof off the rest of the summer.”

  “Absolutely,” said Joey.

  Kris could not disagree.