Read Online Remember The Moon by Abigail; Carter - Free Book Online Page B

tougher memory. Perhaps one that made you very sad. What happened later that day, for instance?”
    The floor grew dark then lighter, opening onto a familiar scene from the deck of the Willis’s cottage on Georgian Bay, its breathtaking views of the water and crazy conifers forming a real-life Tom Thomson painting with their giant comb-like branches, acquiescing to the prevailing westerly winds. I stood on the dock where everyone hung out in bathing suits and flip flops, the girls’ tanned skin shiny orange and flowery-smelling from the crumpled tubes of Bain de Soleil lying beside the beach chaises. The younger kids floated in the water wearing oversized lifejackets, learning to keep the tips of their water-skis up. My dad coached from the back of the boat, “That’s it... almost... you’re nearly there,” flashing a triumphant grin when they finally took off, wobbly on bent knees and heeled over at the waist as my dad punched his fist in the air. “You did it!”
    Later, he stood grilling hamburgers and hot dogs on the deck overlooking the water, taking swigs from brown stubbies of Labatt’s Blue while the moms piled the table with condiments and potato salad, giggling from too much Chardonnay. After dinner, us kids scampered down to the boathouse where we slept, girls in one room, boys in another, blasting Pat Benatar’s Heartbreaker on the cassette player, the girls jumping on the beds, holding their microphone hair brushes, wailing the words as loudly as possible.
    The earlier memory replayed. I took an ancient snowshoe off the wall, strumming its animal-gut strings with a wind-milling arm, crouching down on bent knee, the next Jimmy Page.
    After some of the younger kids were asleep, Maya Willis and I snuck off to smoke one of the DuMauriers she had stolen from her dad. I’d had the hots for Maya for as long as I could remember, despite our two-year age difference. As luck had it, our fathers were good friends who got together often. But I knew she had a thing for Marcus Pellegrino, whose cottage was just down the road. I’d seen her swim all the way to the raft between cottages just so she could get a glimpse of him doing flips with his friends off the dock. We’d bumped into him and his brother a couple of times at the tennis court down the road. He was a few years older than Maya, and I could see the appeal of his broad shoulders and muscular thighs and the confidence he possessed as he walked down the gravel road with a cigarette tucked behind his ear. At fourteen, I was skinny enough to have to hold my trunks around my waist every time I dove into the water for fear of losing them. At the tennis court, Maya laughed every time she lobbed a ball and picked up balls without bending her knees so that we all got a good flash of her tennis-skirted behind. During one game, when the ball landed outside the chain link, she went dashing into the undergrowth to find it.
    “Be careful of the poison ivy in there,” Marcus warned.
    “I will!” She rustled around for a bit and then we heard, “Found it!” followed by “Oh-oh.” Marcus found some jewelweed that he insisted was the antidote and rubbed it on the inside of her thigh as she put her hand on his back to steady herself. I saw her close her eyes and inhale as if she could possess the very smell of him.
    That night we were alone on the dock. She wore her yellow, over-sized Scooby Doo t-shirt, with just undies underneath and a shoulder poking out the neck hole. I tried not to look at her as she sat beside me, our feet dipping into the water, and so I leaned back on my hands, trying to look cool, watching the stars and the perfect, full moon.
    We talked about people in our schools and passed the smoke between us. Our schools were close enough to play football against one another, and I had once seen her at a game, leaning over the railing of the bleachers shouting deliriously at one of the players, probably the quarterback. Her faded jeans were tight, but