By Scott H. Andrews

      Even though it was the first day of school, we'd been sent home at lunch on account of the tropical storm thrashing up the coast.  But that was a three-hour drive away, so the sky was still bright and sunny here.

     The trees flashed by outside my school bus window.  It was hot, and my armpits were sticky with sweat.  The green vinyl seats in front of me were all empty, but when I shifted my headphones, I still kept my elbows tight against my sides.

     "What're you listening to, Todd?"

     My chest tightened at the sound of Lorraine Burns's voice behind me, high and raspy.  I clicked "Stop" on my Walkman and shifted sideways on the seat.

     Lorraine was leaning forward, her bony forearms draped across the rubber rim at the back of my seat.  The neck of her t-shirt hung open, and a patch of sunburn ended in a crisp line above her collarbone.  Her cheeks were dotted with hundreds of freckles, barely visible against her skin.

     More freckles than I remembered from the last time I'd been this close to her face.  Lorraine had broken up with me in April, on a Tuesday.  She'd hardly said a word to me the rest of the year‑-which was fine with me.  I'd been working at camp all summer, so I hadn't seen her in three months.

     I slid away, against the seat in front of me, and lifted my Walkman.  "The Police."

     "They're cool," she said.  "From the videos I've seen.  Like that one with all those candles on metal stands, and he knocks them over?"

     "Yeah, that one."  We didn't have cable, so I'd never seen any of their videos.  But Lorraine knew that.  So why was she asking me about it?  Why was she talking to me at all?

     Darts of sunlight flickered over her pale elbow.  A couple seats behind her, Clayton Weger ripped bits of foam rubber padding from the seat in front of him.

     "So," she said.  "What're you going to do this afternoon?  Three extra hours."

     "I don't know.  Read, maybe."  I figured I'd start the Geometry homework that old cow Mrs. Palmer had given us, just to get it out of the way.  But Lorraine probably knew that too.

     She shifted her arms on the back of the seat.  "You could come over to my house.  You know, if you want."

     She'd broken up with me over the phone‑-something about how she felt stifled.  I'd tried to ask her why, what the hell that meant, but she hung up on me.  I called her back, but she wouldn't pick up the phone, even when I let it ring a hundred times.  After school let out for the summer, I finally told myself I'd never know why, and I didn't give a shit anymore.

     "I just need help with something," she said.  "You know, to get it ready for the storm."

     She flashed that wry smile, the one she'd had the night we shot bottle rockets at Mr. Halloway's house.  The slight tilt of her head had the same cute hesitation as that afternoon last January when she'd asked me out.  I did still give a shit, or my chest wouldn't have been squeezing my lungs so tight.

     At least it would get her talking to me again.  "Okay," I said.

     Her face brightened, for a second.  "Cool.  Okay, then.  Great."  She hopped to her feet and walked back up the aisle.

     A chunk of black foam rubber arced over my seat.  "Todd, you stud," Clayton called.  "Gonna get some stinky pinkie."

     My cheeks stung.  I guess it was better he thought I was doing that, instead of everyone knowing I never had.  I got scared that Lorraine had heard him, but she was staring out her window.  Another chunk of rubber grazed my chin.  I ignored Clayton and sat absolutely still, like my Walkman was still on.

     He got off the bus next, and ten minutes after that, Mr. Baber pulled up to the last stop‑-ours.  I let Lorraine walk past, then I followed her down the stairs.  The doors flapped closed behind us and the bus groaned forward.

     She slung her book bag over one shoulder, and the strap pulled her t-shirt tight against her slender chest.  She backpedaled a few steps down the road.  "You're still coming over, right?"

     I shifted the sweaty handle of my clarinet case into my other hand.  "Yeah."  I really hoped I wasn't going to end up glued to the phone in a couple days, counting the rings.

     Lorraine set off along the gravel at the side of the road.  I hurried after her.  She glanced up at the sky a few times, her short white-blonde hair dangling onto her shoulders.

     Her front yard hadn't been mowed in at least a month.  Her mom worked evenings at Channel 6 and her dad took a lot of business trips.  Through the ragged hedge along the side of the house, I caught a glimpse of the wooden lattice below the back deck.

     Which instantly reminded me of the rounded furrows in the red clay under the deck stairs.  And Lorraine's shoulder, hot against my chest.  The toothpaste scent of her breath.  Her hands stirring with the barest quiver, beneath mine.

     Thank God she was looking straight ahead just then.  I stared at my sneakers until we'd passed the corner of the house.

     Lorraine leaned down to the handle in the front door and unlocked it with the key on the old shoelace around her neck.  Her house still had that musty smell, like the extra bedroom in my house that people hardly ever went in.  She shuffled down the half-flight of stairs and dumped her book bag on the sofa.

     I stacked my book bag and my clarinet in a corner of the entry, then followed her into the kitchen.  I thought she'd be scooping cans of pop out of the fridge, since my mom had always made us drink juice.  Instead she was kneeling at the closet in the breakfast nook, beside the sliding glass door.

     She yanked out her shiny green rain jacket.  "I can't find my dad's.  Can you check the coat closet?"

     "What is it you need help with?"

     She stood and crossed to the fridge.  "I've got to move something where the storm won't get it.  You might need a jacket."

     "What for?  The rain's not supposed to start for a while."

     "It might, though, before we get back."

     "Back from where?  How far is this thing?"

     She opened the fridge and ducked behind the door.  "Not that far."

     I walked back out to the entry.  The coat closet was crammed with puffy fiber-filled vests and slick parkas rattling with ski tags.  On the last hanger against the wall, I found a faded blue windbreaker‑-the pullover kind, with the big pouch pocket on the front that you can stuff the whole thing into.  The white lining was stained with rust at the neck, from the hanger, and it smelled faintly of mothballs.

     I stepped back into the kitchen.  "Is this it?"

     Lorraine's face went so pale I could see her freckles from across the room.  She twitched a nod.  Then she darted across the nook to the sliding door.  Before I could catch up, she'd thrown the door open and rushed outside.

     I followed her onto the brick walkway.  She was already halfway across the back yard, tying the sleeves of her jacket around her waist.

     "Lorraine?"

     She halted at the edge of the woods, her knees trembling.  I wondered if I should ask her what was wrong, but I didn't think she'd want to tell me.

     I tied the windbreaker around my waist and hurried through the yard.  She smiled nervously over her shoulder and marched into the woods.

     She led us past the Leniskis' chain-link fence, then turned up the hill that ran behind all the back yards.  We stepped over fallen logs and piles of shredded leaves from people's lawnmowers.  The back of her t-shirt stuck to her sweaty shoulders, and I stared at her bra when she wasn't looking.

     Lorraine finally stopped at the top of the hill.  The sun had clouded over and the woods were dim with shade.  She pulled a Coke from her pocket, cracked it open, and handed it to me.

     "Thanks."  The top of the can was beaded with moisture.  I drank and handed it back. "So, how much farther?”

     She glanced ahead.  "Not much."

     What the hell was she up to?  I wanted to help her out, but I couldn't let myself end up like last April, wondering if she'd ever talk to me again.

     "I should probably head back soon," I said.  "I don't want my dad to get home before I do."

     "I really need your help, Todd.  Please don't go back."

     "Where are we going?  How much farther is it really?"

     "A few miles."

     "Miles?  That'll take hours, Lorraine!  Both my parents will be home by then.  Hell, even your parents will be home.  And the storm's supposed to hit tonight."

     "It's really important, Todd.  Please."

     A weird leer spread across her face.  She tilted her head down, but her eyes gazed back up at me.  Her mouth was barely open, like she'd just let out a breath.  "Who knows," she said.  "You might get some of what Clayton was talking about."

     My crotch stirred with heat.  I twisted to the side, scared she'd notice.

     Sunlight swelled through the trees and shone across her freckles.  Suddenly the leer looked totally wrong on her face.  My crotch instantly went cold.  I felt a rush of shame, for being turned on by her forced pose.  And for thinking I could turn back, when she needed my help so bad.  It didn't really matter what this thing was, that she needed to move out of the storm, or how far away.  I had to help her regardless.

     "Okay," I said.  "I mean, I'll go with you‑-not the other thing."

     The leer drained from her face and her old smile came back, for a second.

     "Will you at least tell me where we're going?" I asked.

     She twisted the tab on the Coke can back and forth until it broke.  "The reservoir."

     "That far?  It really will take hours, then."

     "Just a few.  It's only four miles from home, through the woods."  She started down the hill, then handed the Coke back to me.  "You can finish it."

     After that, Lorraine walked beside me.  She asked where I'd been all summer, but she didn't say anything about what she'd done.  I thought about asking her, but I figured she'd tell me if she wanted to.

     It took me another hill to work up my courage.  "I would like to know one other thing.  If it's all right."

     "Okay."

     I stared at the leaves as I said it.  "Why you broke up with me."

     She was quiet for so long I worried she hadn't heard me.

     "You were nice to me, Todd," she finally said, "you really were.  It was neat for the first few months.  But then it got awkward.  It wasn't fun anymore.  You know?"

     Awkward‑-just like her weird look.  She was talking about under the deck!  That'd been a few weeks before we broke up, but I'd never put it together.  I'd been so upset she wouldn't speak to me that it never crossed my mind that the whole thing could've been my fault.

     But it was my fault.  So I'd been yelling for her to tell me why, when I should've known all along.  I dropped back a step so she couldn't see my face.

     "I thought it was best," she said.  "But I still should've told you."  She glanced back, right at me.  "So I'm sorry.  Is that okay?"

     "Yeah.  I mean, sure."  Of course it was okay.  I was sorry too.

     "Good."  She fell back beside me.  "You know, I did miss you last summer."

     "I missed you too."

     We walked a long time without saying anything.  At first it was strange, but then it felt kind of cool.  I liked not having to think of anything to say.  I hoped she did too.

     The clouds swept in low over the trees, lumpy pale gray.  I heard passing cars in the distance, so we weren't far from the highway.  We reached the top of another hill and the breeze smelled damp.  A wide bank descended to the left.  In the distance through the trees, the dark waters of the reservoir rippled in the wind.

     All I could see under the trees was an old car, covered in fallen leaves.  "So, what do you need me to help you with?"

     "It's by the water."  Lorraine started down the bank.  I caught up with her, and we passed the old car as we picked our way through the trees.

     A loud rattle echoed across the treetops above us, like a hail of gravel on the leaves.  Streams of rain poured through gaps in the trees.  "Shit!" Lorraine yelled, and she took off through the woods.  She glanced back at me, a strand of darkened hair stuck to her forehead.  "Come on!"

     I wriggled into the windbreaker and rushed after her.  Thunder crackled behind us.  Rain pelted the trees.  A low branch caught her jacket and peeled it from her waist.  I scooped it up and stuffed it in my belt.

     Ahead, the bank ended in a steep bluff that plunged five feet down to a ledge, then ten feet more to the wooded shore.  A gully cut through the bluff.  Lorraine jumped down into it and scrambled over knobby tree roots.  I stumbled after her.

     She crouched at the mouth of the gully and hopped down.  The shore ran about thirty feet to the edge of the reservoir.  The choppy waters were pockmarked with driving rain.  Lorraine dashed through the trees and stopped next to a narrow lump sticking out from under a mildewed tarp.

     It was an old wooden sailboat about eight feet long, or what was left of it.  The varnish was peeling from the enclosed deck, the folded mast had snapped off two feet up, and the open cockpit had several inches of water in the bottom.

     Lorraine ripped the tarp away and grabbed the stern.  "Help me get it up the shore!"

     I ran to the bow, gripped the slick wood as best I could, and shoved.  The hull scraped forward a few inches.  Then the water inside sloshed back, and the surge of weight ripped the wood from my hands.

     "Why aren't you pushing?" Lorraine yelled.

     "It's too heavy!  We need to pour the water out."

     She hurried from the stern and we lifted the side of the boat together.  I braced my knee against the hull to keep it from rolling back, then we heaved again.  The weight tipped forward and the water spilled over the side.  Lorraine's elbow brushed against my arm as we lowered the boat, and she glanced at my chest.

     We ran back to the ends of the boat.  I grabbed the bow.  Lorraine's arms quivered as she lifted the stern.  We teetered forward, several feet at first, then a few more.  We lugged the boat past the crumpled tarp and up the shore, all the way to the foot of the bluff.

     Lorraine dropped the stern and stumbled backwards into the muddy wall of the bluff.  Her arms were covered with goose bumps.  Her t-shirt was pasted across the slight rise of her breasts, and I caught myself staring at her nipples.  I yanked her jacket from my belt and pressed it into her hands as I turned away.

     After she zipped it up, she stepped toward me, rain dribbling down her pale cheeks.  It took me a second to spot the tears.  "Thank you," she said.

     "Sure."  It felt great to be doing stuff with her again.  I was really glad I'd helped her, even though I had no clue why she was so worked up about an old boat.

     The water dripping off the hem of the windbreaker had soaked clean through my jeans shorts.  "Are we near one of those picnic shelters?"

     "No‑-there's nothing between here and the highway."

     Up through the gully, wet glass glinted under the trees.  "A car's safe in a storm."

     Lorraine pulled the strings of her hood tight around her face and grinned like a drenched puppy.

     The gully was twice as slippery on the way back up, with streams of reddish-brown runoff gushing over the mud.  Lorraine stumbled on a patch of wet clay and grabbed my hand.  I pulled her up, her fingers chilly against my palm.

     My shorts were plastered to my legs by the time we reached the old car.  The rain had washed most of the leaves off the wide, flat hood.  I wrenched the driver's door open and crawled over to the passenger seat.  The inside of the car smelled like wet dirt.  The vinyl on the seats had split open between strips of duct tape, and the exposed foam had turned brown with age.  Lorraine climbed in and pulled the door shut with both hands.

     The rain hammered on the bare sheet metal right above our heads.  Lorraine slid her hood back and scraped the water off her face.  She glanced at my chest again, then looked at her hands.

     "What is it?" I asked.

     "Could you take that jacket off?"

     My cheeks tingled.  I thought that was the last thing she'd be interested in doing right now.

     She laughed, gently.  "No, silly, not for that.  It's just, I don't like to look at it."

     I tugged the windbreaker over my head.  My armpits were sopping, but we were trapped in a storm, so maybe it was okay.  I hung the hood off the back of my seat.  "Is that better?"

     She patted my knee, one time.  "Yes.  Thanks."

     We sat there for at least an hour, Lorraine staring through the water trickling down the cracked windshield, and me staring at the side of her face.  The rain didn't ease up, but at least the thunder faded off beyond the other side of the reservoir.

     I shifted against the old springs stabbing into my butt, and the windbreaker slipped off the back of my seat.  It flopped over the little fold-down armrest between the seats and the hood brushed Lorraine's elbow.  She flinched like she'd touched a snake.

     "Are you all right?"  I hesitated.  "You can tell me what's wrong.  I mean, if you want to."

     She reached out for the knotted string dangling from the hood and rolled it between her fingers.  "My brother," she said.  "He used to take me sailing all the time, when I was a kid.  Then he went out once, alone, after a storm."

     She'd had a brother?  And this was his windbreaker?  I shivered at the slick nylon against my leg.  I had seen an older guy in the few pictures Lorraine kept around, but she'd never said anything about him.  I'd worried he was some other guy she'd gone out with before her family moved up here.  He was tall and lean, with an easy grin.  I knew I couldn't hold a candle to that, so I'd never asked who he was.

     A tear rolled down her freckles.  "After the funeral, we moved inland, to get away from all the boats.  And from that smell the water has.  But late last spring, after you and I broke up, I really missed having Steve around.  So I started taking long walks through the woods after school.”

     "That's when I found the boat, just sitting there.  I picked all the branches off.  I brought a coffee can and bailed out a ton of nasty water.  I tried to brush on some new varnish, but the wood was too rotten.  I didn't know what else to do, so I just sat in it.  For an hour after school, until the sun started to go down.  And in the summer, sometimes all day."

     "All day?"

     "It wasn't like that.  I'd listen to the radio or read a book, just sitting in the boat instead of on the couch at home.  I read some things out loud, stuff Steve would've liked, but I didn't do that every day."  She stared at her hands again.  "You think I'm weird."

     I sort of did, but I'd never had anybody in my family die.  "I think everybody's allowed to be weird, sometimes."

     She slid over and snuggled against my shoulder.  "You're a great guy, Todd.  You know that?"

     She'd told me that once last winter, but I hadn't realized this was what she meant.  I thought about it for a while, then looked down.  She was already asleep.  I eased my head back against the old seat and closed my eyes.

     I woke up in murky shadows.  The silence startled me‑-the rain had stopped on the roof of the car.

     Lorraine was outside, leaning through the open driver's door and tugging at my wrist.  Her face was pale in the eerie twilight of the storm.  "Come on!"

     I stumbled out of the car and pulled the windbreaker over my head.  The treetops swirled in the wind and silent black clouds streamed past overhead.

     "No!" she yelled.  "Down there!"

     Then I saw the reservoir.  The reddish-brown water had swallowed the entire shore.  The gully we'd climbed through had filled up so high it looked like an inlet.  The bluff that had towered over Lorraine's head when we stood at the bottom was now only four or five feet above the water.  The tops of the trees we'd dragged the boat past were sticking up like tiny pond plants.

     And the boat was bobbing on the water.  The stern was hung on a dead limb, but the breeze was tugging the bow away from the shore.

     Lorraine ran down the bank.  "We've got to pull it higher!"

     I jogged after her.  "We'll never get it up that bluff.  Slow down‑-it's slippery!"

     Just then, she tripped over a root and landed flat on her face.  I rushed toward her, but she sprang to her feet and stumbled ahead.

     "Lorraine!"  I ran after her, full-bore.  My feet slapped against the mud and I tried not to worry if they'd shoot out from under me.

     She dropped onto her butt at the edge of the bluff and slid down to the water.  I heard a shallow splash as I skidded to a stop.  She was standing on the ledge, in water up to her ankles, clutching the stern of the boat.  "Help me pull it back!"

     "Leave it, Lorraine!"  I plopped down and stuck my leg out as far as I could.  "Grab onto me and climb back up!"

     She acted like she hadn't even heard me.  She raised one knee onto the deck, and the boat swayed under her weight.  She craned her arm out toward the bow and flexed her other leg.

     "Lorraine, don't!"

     She hopped onto the deck, but the boat rolled out from under her.  She screamed and slid into the water.  The boat splashed back upright and waggled away from the shore.

     I scurried down the edge of the bank.  My sneakers sank into the muddy ledge.  I held onto the bluff with one hand and frantically scanned the water.

     She burst through, ten feet from the shore, sputtering for breath.  "Holy shit, Todd!  I can't touch the bottom!"

     Her shriek froze me.  I didn't know what to do.

     "Todd!"  She was drifting away, in the same direction as the boat.  It had caught in some tree limbs farther out, but it was slumping low in the water.

     She saw it, and she twisted away from the shore.

     "Lorraine!"  My voice cracked.  "Swim to me!"

     "I can reach it," she called out toward the boat.  She coughed as water lapped over her mouth.

     I looked around for something to hold out to her.  I saw a limb up the bank, but it looked black and rotten.  A tree root was sticking out of the clay beside me, but it was only a foot long.  I wiped my hands on the windbreaker.  Lorraine's head tilted back, as she strained for air.

     The windbreaker!  I ripped it off, snatched one cuff, and threw the other sleeve across the water.  "Lorraine!  Grab Steve's jacket."

     She swung toward me, achingly slow.  She had a dazed look, like she had no clue who I was.  She peered at me for a second, then spun back toward the boat.

     My stomach surged in my throat.  I had no idea what to say.  "Don't swim to the boat, Lorraine.  It's not Steve's boat.  It's just some old rotten thing somebody left in the woods.  You don't need it anymore.  Swim to the jacket, Lorraine.  Swim to Steve's jacket, and I'll pull you out."

     She turned back to the shore.  She flinched, as though she'd only just seen the windbreaker in the water.  She reached for the sleeve like she was sleepwalking.

     "That's it," I called, as steady as I could manage.  "Just a bit more."

     Her hand inched through the water and closed around the sleeve.  I grabbed the root in my other hand in case she yanked too hard.  But she just floated there, clutching the blue cuff.

     I held my breath as I pulled.  The old windbreaker rose up out of the water and stretched tight.  The short zipper popped open, but the seams held.

     Lorraine coasted through the water to my feet.  I grabbed her arm and pulled her up.  Her sneakers scrabbled onto the ledge and she swayed toward me.

     She stood there for a while, as the chilly water stirred around our ankles.  I hooked one arm around her and kept a hold of the root behind me.  The boat slipped free of the tree limbs and drifted out into the reservoir.  Lorraine shook her head sheepishly as it faded to a tiny dot on the water.

     She crawled up the bluff first.  Her knees slipped and I pushed her up, both my hands right on her butt.  I didn't realize what I'd done until a second later, but she must've been too tired to care.  My armpits were so ripe I could smell them myself, but I didn't care either.

     I climbed up behind her and we sat side by side.  She stared at me for a long time, but it didn't feel strange at all.  She had this peaceful look on her face, with no eagerness like she wanted to say something, and no impatience like she was waiting for me to say something.  It felt just as comfortable as being alone, where you never have to worry about what other people are thinking.  But it was even better.

     "Lorraine," I said.  My voice was all gargley from not talking for so long.  But I had to tell her I was sorry.  Maybe we never could've sat like this last spring, but it was my fault we didn't get the chance.

     She shushed me with one mud-stained finger across her lips.  I saw in her face that she knew what I'd wanted to say.  And it was okay.  Relief gushed through my chest.  I had to look away and blink a speck of dirt out of my eye.

     The clouds thinned for a brief swell of twilight.  Then the shadows crept over the water.  Lorraine reached for my hand and slipped the windbreaker from my fingers.  She pulled the big pouch pocket inside-out and carefully folded the windbreaker into it‑-first the sleeves, then the hood, then the rest.  She zipped the pouch closed and pressed it to her chest.

     Then she leaned to me, slowly in the fading light.  Her hair was red-brown, just like the wet clay.  She smelled like a damp beach towel.  Her pale skin gleamed behind her freckles as she placed a trembling kiss on my forehead.

     I teetered to my feet, clutching her hand.  Then I helped her up.  We made it to the highway just before the moon came up.