The Book of Joe

status quo. And the summer rolled along, unobtrusively gathering its own silent momentum as it went.
    One night, while we were all hanging out in Sammy’s pool, I stepped inside to get a drink and flirt a little with Lucy, who was curled up on the living room couch in a pair of hospital scrubs, reading a People magazine. “Hi, Joe,” she said, lowering the magazine to look at me. “How are you doing?”
    “Fine.” I was still damp from the pool, and I shivered as the central air-conditioning freeze-dried the moisture on my skin. “I just thought I’d say hello.”
    Lucy smiled, a warm, kind smile that I thought might have betrayed the faintest amused hint that my infatuation wasn’t at all lost on her. “You’re such a sweetheart,” she said. “How come you don’t have a girlfriend?”
    “I have a problem with commitment.”
    “How’s that?”
    “Nobody wants me to commit.”
    She laughed. “Oh, come on. A handsome guy like you?”
    “Go figure,” I said with a grin.
    She sat up and I took note of how the line of her cleavage appeared at the bottom of her V neck. It was absurd, really, how a simple vertical line could set off such volatile chemical reactions in my nether regions. She considered me somberly for a moment, seemed about to say something, and then changed her mind, biting her lip thoughtfully. All of a sudden, she looked bone-weary. “I’m glad you and Sammy became friends,” she said.
    “Me too.”
    “No. I mean I’m glad he’ll have a friend like you going into school.” She looked over her shoulder and leaned forward, and I could now see where the line split, heading off in two symmetrical curves. An erection, at that point, would have been instantly visible, raising my wet swimsuit and announcing itself like a rowdy, unwanted houseguest. Lucy spoke in a light whisper while I prayed desperately for continued flaccidity. “He’s always had problems in school,” she said. “Kids can be remarkably cruel when they want to.”
    “It’ll be okay,” I said awkwardly.
    “You’ll watch out for him, won’t you?”
    “We both will.”
    I didn’t like where this conversation was headed, and Lucy seemed to sense that. She nodded lightly and leaned back on the couch. “Don’t tell him I said anything.”
    “No worries there,” I said more emphatically than I’d intended, and she chuckled.
    “Well, I don’t want to keep you,” she said.
    “You and every other woman I meet.”
    “If I were fifteen years younger ... ” she teased.
    “You’d be out of my league,” I said, and she laughed again.
    When I stepped outside, Wayne and Sammy were in the water, kissing deeply under the diving board, Wayne’s muscled arm resting lightly on Sammy’s scrawny shoulder. Their
    heads were rocking in a slight circular motion as their jaws worked rhythmically against each other. Sammy’s hand came up and lightly brushed Wayne’s face. My knees buckled, and I felt an overpowering urge to flee. I wanted to be the kind of guy who could come running out, yell “Get a room!” and launch myself in a wicked cannonball into the water right beside them. I knew that they’d appreciate the gesture, but I just couldn’t do it. Knowing was one thing; witnessing the concentrated passion of their kiss was something else entirely.
    I backtracked quietly and walked back into the living room, where Lucy was lying on the couch, smoking and staring at the ceiling with a troubled frown. “I think I’ll hang out in here for a while,” I said.
    She stared intently at me for a small eternity, her expression a pained mixture of consternation and resignation, and then sat up, patting the spot on the couch beside her. “Have a seat,” she said with a smile, stubbing out her cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table. “I’ll go get you a Coke.” She moved around the couch and then stopped, lightly patting my bare shoulder, her hand lingering there for a moment.
    “Joe,” she said from behind me.
    “Yeah.”
    “You really are a sweetheart.”
    “Yeah.” I didn’t turn around, because I didn’t want her to see me cry.
    Labor Day crept in with the stealth of a cat burglar in the dead of night, and when we woke up, summer had been stolen right out from under us. The Habers’ pool was drained, winterized, and covered, and so was Lucy, whose bikinis, to my eternal dismay, had been put away for the season. The first day of our senior year loomed totemic on the horizon, like an