It is fun and hot and when “Shake Ya Ass” comes on next she doesn’t even attempt to get away. Instead, she commences booty dancing with me.
Is this happening? Is she rubbing her ass against my crotch and tossing her extremely long erotic hair in my fuckingface?
She is, Your Honor. She is!
When the song ends we’re winded, so I put my arm around her shoulders and lead her off the dance floor. “Let’s get a drink,” I say. “It’s been at least twenty minutes since my last Flamingo.”
We flag down a waiter and grab another round of deadly, caffeinated alcohol.
“Let’s take a walk on the beach,” I suggest.
I am no doubt pressing my luck. I brace myself for her to make her excuses and go moan to Alyssa that she accidentally enjoyed my company.
But she nods. “Great idea,” she says. “It’s so nice and balmy.”
Kevin catches my eye from across the room and squints disapprovingly in the manner of an English nursemaid who has caught a child mainlining cake. He’s friendly with Molly—they went to college together in New York—but he’s protective of me.
Which is kind of him, but I don’t need a hero right now; I need to kiss this woman who is clutching my hand and marching me off toward the ocean, whispering, “Come on. I want air.”
I hope she means “I wantyou.”
I grab her hand and we stroll down the beach, stopping at the pier.
“Remember when we used to make out here?” Molly asks.
I play it cool.
“Yeah, totally. It’s annoying that this beach has been discovered by tourists. Nowadays it takes an hour and a half to get here from town with the traffic.”
“I know. My mom always wants to come here when I visit, but I refuse to compete with the tourists.”
“Do you come back often?” I ask.
I do, but I’ve never run into Molly.
“Just once a year, if I can help it,” she says. “I do Christmas here, and my mom comes to LA for Fourth of July.”
I recall that she got very excited about the Fourth of July in high school. No matter how desperate things were at home, her mom would always host beach cookouts for their entire extended family. Molly moved through those parties with so much joy and confidence that she was hardly recognizable. I loved watching her like that—happy, uncomplicated.
“So no more beach parties?” I ask. It kind of makes me sad that the tradition no longer exists.
“They don’t let you make bonfires on the key anymore,” she says, shrugging. “And my mom got busy with her job and moved to the fancier part of the island, and my aunts and uncles are less enthusiastic about driving down here—they’re getting older, you know? Plus the traffic.”
Floridians hate traffic with a fiery passion—in part because our towns become overrun during high season with tourists and snowbirds whose driving skills are not at their peak. It is, consequently, a state prone to road rage.
I’m glad I now live in Chicago.
But I still like coming back.
“What’s LA like on the Fourth?” I ask.
“Oh myGod,Seth,” she says, her voice full of something uncharacteristic, like excitement.
I too am full of excitement, because she has not called me by my first name in fifteen years. It literally sends tingles down my spine.Seth.It sounds like “sex,” with a lisp.
“It’s so beautiful,” she continues. “It’s the city’s best holiday—everyone goes nuts with fireworks, and you see the whole valley exploding in these gorgeous lights from the canyons. I can’t describe it. It’s a little scary because, of course, fire risk and all the sonic booms echoing off the mountains, which make you feel like you’re in the Blitz, but it’s so full-body that it’s almost sublime.”
Apparently, it still turns me on when Molly is that rare thing: earnest.
