“I wish this summer would never end.”

  “Not me. There are so many things I want to do with my life!”

  “Sheesh, Ronnie, can’t they wait a while?”

  “Time and tide wait for no man. Nor woman.” Ronnie sat up and looked out over the nearly motionless Gulf waters. “The tide is coming up, isn’t it?”

  “I think so,” mumbled Kris, turning over on her beach towel. “What difference does it make?”

  “None. I just wondered.” Her eyes swept the white sand before she, too, settled back onto her towel. “We’ll need a few good high tides to wash away all the seaweed Abby brought in.”

  “Our very own graduation hurricane. Weren’t we fortunate?” There was at least a trace of sarcasm in Kristine Greene’s voice. Her friend might have missed it, as she had been doing since the pair were in first grade together.

  “It certainly made things more interesting!” The ceremony had been held amid rain squalls and wind gusts. But Hurricane Abby had only brushed by Naples and caused no great damage there. Nothing needed to be postponed.

  Honey began pying on Ronnie’s tiny, tinny transistor radio, tuned to WQAM out of Miami. Kris was tempted to make a rude remark about the song but held her tongue. She knew Ronnie liked it. Maybe she would not admit to the fact but her friend knew.

  The Q was about it for listening to pop during the days. At night, the local station pyed contemporary music but would broadcast ‘easy listening’ through the daytime. By afternoon, the summer storms out over the Evergdes would fill the signal from Miami with bursts of static, making it impossible to listen. Those would grow worse, more common, as the season progressed.

  As Bobby Goldsboro faded, she asked, “Working today?”

  “Noon to five. Mister Brooks thinks I should be able to fit my schedule into any hours he has open, now that school is out.”

  He was probably right. Ronnie would try her best to accommodate her boss, even if she came compining to her friends after. “He’ll miss you, come fall.”

  “I s’pose.”

  If the old man and his wife remained in business. Their little book store cum gift shop was located on too valuable a piece of nd. Kris’s dad had assured her of this, that another piece of ‘old Naples’ would soon come down and two or three stories of the new one would rise in its pce. She might not be here when it happened. None of her friends might, off to college or to jobs in other towns, some off to the military.

  Jumpin’ Jack Fsh on the radio. That was better. “I guess, guess, guessss!” someone sang along, almost in key.

  “Hi, Joey. You’re blocking the sun.”

  “You’re brown enough. Well, in spots.” The girl plopped down beside them on the sand, not bothering with a towel.

  Spots was a reference to her freckles. Kris turned her head to look at her, shielding her eyes from the sun. In shorts and tee, not a swimsuit. There didn’t seem to be a suit under the tee, either, nor anything else. Joey could get away with that.

  “Someone drop you?”

  “Nope. Rode my bike.”

  That was a long way. Joey’s family didn’t live as close to the beach as hers or Rhonda’s. At least they were inside the city limits. “You’ll need a car someday.”

  “So people tell me.”

  “Another lie from the establishment?” asked Ronnie.

  “Isn’t everything?”

  Neither was the least serious, Kris knew. She also knew not to join in. They would gang up on her, the little rich girl. Rich she didn’t mind; little was not quite as much fun.

  “I understand the Kennedy funeral will be televised tomorrow,” Joey said of a sudden. “I’ll be working.”

  Kris almost quipped, I’ll be sleeping, but thought better of it. “They’ll show some of it on the evening news, I’d think.”

  “That’s so,” agreed Ronnie.

  “I’d probably have to come watch at your house. No chance of tuning it in at mine.”

  “Sure. Drop by just before Prince Charming gallops up to whisk me away.”

  “So another Saturday night without a date?” asked Kris.

  “Seems that way. How ’bout you two?”

  “Not sure,” replied Joey. Her gaze was toward the water, the sparkling Gulf spreading beneath an intensely blue sky. “Tonight, yeah.”

  “Me too,” said Ronnie.

  “Me three,” said Kris.

  “If tomorrow night doesn’t pan out, we should get together. Watcha say?”

  “Sounds good, Joey. So does getting in the water again.” Ronnie rose from her beach towel. A reasonably modest two-piece swimsuit, with a floral pattern of pink and yellow and white, neither fttered nor detracted from a lean but unremarkable body. “Then I have to go home and clean up for work.”

  “I’ll go in too.” Both started toward the water, then began moving faster, finally sprinting, racing to dive in. Kris made sure all the strings on her bikini were securely tied and followed at a more leisurely pace.

  Bill Biddle intercepted her before she reached them, already spshing beyond the sand. “Why don’t you come up and join us on the pier?” he asked, nodding his head in that direction. She looked up to see a handful of cssmates lined up along the railing. Make that former cssmates.

  “Get her up here, Bill,” someone called. “I want a closer look at that bikini.” The girl next to him punched the boy on the arm.

  “Then buy binocurs,” Kris shouted back. All athletes, some of them guys she had dated at some time. The girls were faces and names but little more to her, most of them. Barely that without her gsses.

  “We’re going to have a party,” Bill informed her. “A going away party.”

  “I think this whole summer is a going away party,” she told him. He didn’t seem to get it so she went on. “Who’s going this time?”

  “Arnie. Off to the navy this weekend.”

  “Poole?”

  “Yep. We’ll have a keg tonight. Up at the pass.”

  If she didn’t have a date she might have accepted. “Hey, Arnie!” She waved toward the nky boy. He always looked goofy. Maybe that would change. “Take care of yourself, okay?” she called. “Bye, Bill,” said Kris and made her way to the water.