Chapter 4

I bent over in the water to loosen the bindings, slipped my feet out, and kicked my way back to the boat with my board floating in front of me. As I pulled myself up on the platform, Katie put one hand out to help me - totally unnecessary, since I'd climbed up on the platform a thousand times before with no help.

"I taught her everything she knows," she said loudly enough for the others to hear, but only looking at me. She gave me her beautiful smile, a secret smile for the two of us to share, and sat down again.

"That's bullshit," Effy said.

"I was the one who helped her most with the air raley last summer," Cook said.

"Tough act to follow," Emily told me, shrugging on her life vest. I would have treasured this comment forever if I hadn't been high on Katie.

But I was. So I peeled off my life vest and dropped it on the floor of the boat, sat daintily in the seat where Emily had been, and crossed my legs. Like my fingers had a mind of their own, they bent inward and rubbed my palm where Katie had touched me. I tingled all over again at the thought. Or maybe I tingled because my body was still jacked from how hard I'd worked my muscles out on the water. Either way, I felt so lovely and sated just then, with the sun in my eyes. I wished Emily wasn't jumping in for her turn.

Because watching Emily wakeboard was not relaxing. She wasn't careful when wake boarding. Or in general. She was the opposite of careful. She would do anything on a dare, so Katie and Effy dared her a lot. My role in the game was to run and tell their mom. If I'd been able to run faster when we were kids, I might have saved Emily from a broken arm, several cracked ribs, and a couple of snake bites.

Knowing this, it might not make a lot of sense that Mr. Fitch let us wake board for the marina. But we'd come to wake boarding only gradually. When we first started out, it was more like, Lookattheveryyoungchildrenonwaterskis!Howadorable.One time the local newspaper ran a photo of me and Emily waterskiing double, each of us holding up a British flag. It's okay for you to gag now, I can take it.

But Mr. Fitch was no fool. He understood things changed. After the second time Emily broke her collarbone, Mr. Fitch put us under strict orders not to get hurt, because it was bad for business. Customers might not be so eager to buy a wake board and all the equipment if they witnessed our watery death. To enforce this rule, the punishment for bleeding in the boat was that we had to clean the boat. Emily cleaned the boat a lot last summer.

At the end of the rope, Emily signaled that she was ready to go. I told Effy, who as driving now. She started too slow, and Emily tried to get up too fast. "Down," I called.

"Come on, LD," Katie muttered as if Emily were right in front of her. Even though I'd heard this joke one billion times and didn't think it was funny, I made sure to look over at Katie and laugh until she saw me laughing She laughed too.

Emily had attention deficit disorder. The girls actually called Emily ADD to her face. They called her LD (for Learning Disability). They called her SAS (for Short Attention Span) and Sassy and Sassafras. They told her the short bus was coming for her. She had a prescription to help her concentrate in school, but she refused to take it because it made her feel dead. In other words, she was perfectly happy with ADD. Or she would have been, if the girls had left her alone about it.

Sometimes I thought she took stupid risks to make up for being slow in school. Or maybe she was just like that. The skull and crossbones pendant was perfect for her. The girls told her if she improved her grades, when she graduated she could apply to pirate school.

Effy brought the boat around and straightened the rope. I told her Emily was ready to go. This time they got it right. Emily got up. Emily did a turn to blind, touched down on the edge of her board, and miraculously managed not to fall.

"Good save!" Cook shouted from the front of the bow.

"Dumb luck," Katie said.

I smiled a Katie. I would feel guilty later about laughing, as I always did when I laughed at Katie's mean jokes. But while I was there with her, she was so charming, and I couldn't help but laugh.

When I looked back at Emily again, she was in the middle of a 540 to blind, which was fine, but for the love of God, she hardly had time to land before she hit the rails on the pontoon boat. I waved to get her attention, then swiped my finger across my throat: cutitout.She signaled for me to speed up.

I told Effy, "Emily would like to spend this summer in traction. Speed up."

I turned back around in my seat to watch Emily again. Katie was leaning toward me in her seat, watching me."Cold?" she asked me.

Pardon? Yeah, the thirty two degree afternoon always gave me a chill I couldn't shake. But one delicate, haughty brain cell in the back of my mind told me she was flirting with me and I should feign helplessness.

"I'm freezing!" I squealed. And just like that, Katie Fitch moved across to my side of the aisle and scooted against me in my seat until I made room for her. She put her hot bare arm around my bare shoulder. And I fainted.

No, I didn't really. But I did feel dazed, perhaps from the hyperventilation. Suddenly I realized Emily had been gesturing wildly at me for several seconds without it even registering with me. She signaled me to slow down and I told Effy.

Emily did a front flip. Katie said in my ear, "Gosh, I've never seen anyone do that before. Makes me want to buy a wake board from Fitch's Marina!" I giggled. Emily signaled me to slow down more, and I told Effy.

Emily did a back roll with a grab. Katie put her bare hand on my knee and whispered, "You don't believe Emily's bigger than me, do you?"

This time I missed a beat. I was used to this humor. But Katie was directing this humor at me, flirting with me? It seemed unlikely that Stage Two: Bikini had worked so quickly. Was I reading her wrong? Emily gave me the thumbs down, and I told Effy to slow the boat one more time.

Just as I turned back around, Emily launched into what only could be an S-bend, which was absolutely impossible to land with the boat going this slowly.

Katie, Cook and I all swore at once, and watched Emily's long, slow death splash with interest and resignation.

"Down," I called to Effy.

Katie gave me the funniest look that said noshit.I laughed out loud. She smiled again as she found her board and slipped over the back of the boat to the platform.

Emily emerged from the depths, vaulted over the side of the boat, and stood close to my seat so she dripped on my formerly comfy, sun-dried self. She commented, "S-bend or what?"

"Or what?" Effy said. "What the fuck were you doing, trying it that slow?"

"Sometimes I want to try new things," Emily said. "Sometimes I want to do things I know are bad for me, just for fun and profit. Don't you, Naomi?"

I gazed up at her and gave her a look that said, Stay out of my net, little dolphin.She grinned right back at me, defiant.

"Yeah, Ems," I said. "Sometimes I like to stick my finger in a light socket to see what will happen."

She pointed at me. "Exactly." Without another word to me, she took off her life vest and handed it to Katie.

Katie got up on her first try without any trouble. She never attempted any tricks she couldn't do perfectly. We always ended the exhibition with her. We could count on her to do the impressive moves, but nothing she couldn't land.

That's why I watched in disbelief when, after a few textbook flips, she launched an air raley. Surely she wasn't doing it just because I'd landed one. Or maybe she was, and this was her way of testing me. Anything I could do she could do better.

Except she couldn't. She panicked at the peak of the trick. Overcorrecting, she did lose her balance. She face-planted in the lake, rocking the pontoon boat with the splash.

"Down," called Effy, who was spotting.

"I'll say," agreed Cook.

Emily, who was driving now, brought the boat around. When she cut the motor and the Nickelback, she, Effy and Cook hooted and clapped for Katie almost as hard as they'd clapped for me. I wished they would quit. I didn't want Katie mad. Flirting with her was turning out to be a lot harder than I'd thought.

Katie grinned at them from the water. Even though her turn hadn't been very long, clearly she'd had enough. She took off her life vest and tossed it up into the boat. Then she disappeared under the surface.

"What's she doing?" I asked, leaning over the side of the boat, searching for her beneath the water. If the tow rope had gotten tangled, she might need help. And someone would need to go in the water with her, perhaps sliding against her down where no one else could see.

"Boo!" A handful of bryozoa rushed up at me from the lake.

I screamed (for once I didn't have to think about this girl reaction) and fell backward into the boat. Katie hefted herself over the side with one arm, holding the bryozoa high in the other hand. It dripped green slime through her fingers. She came after me.

I squealed again. It was unbelievingly fantastic that she was flirting with me, but bryozoa was involved. Was it worth it? No. I paused on the side of the boat, ready to jump back into the water myself. She might chase me around the lake with bryozoa, but at least it could be diluted. On second thought, I didn't particularly want to jump into the very waters the bryozoa had come from.

Katie solved the problem for me. She slipped behind me and showed me she was holding the ties of my bikini in her free hand. If I jumped, Katie would take possession of my bikini top.

I had thought about double knotting my bikini. I'd hoped against hope that Stage Two: Bikini would work, and that Katie might try something like this. Of course, I didn't really want my top to come off in front of everyone. Nay, in front of anyone. But I'd checked the double knots in the mirror. They'd looked... well, double knotted, for protection, sort of like wearing a turtleneck to the prom. I'd retied the strings normally.

Now I wished I'd double knotted after all. Katie brought the dripping slime closer to my shoulder. "Go ahead and jump," she said, twisting my bikini ties in her fingers.

"Katie," came Cook's voice in warning. This surprised me. Cook had never taken up for me before. Of course, none of the girls had ever crossed this particular line.

But that was nothing compared to the surprise when the bryozoa suddenly lobbed out of Katie's hand, sailed through the air, and plopped into the lake. Emily, standing behind her, must have shoved her arm.

Which meant I owed Emily my gratitude for saving me. Except I didn't want her to save me from Katie, and I thought I'd made that clear. Saving me from Katie with bryozoa... that was a more iffy proposition. I wasn't sure whether I should give Emily the little dolphin look again when our eyes met. But it didn't matter. When I turned around, she was already stepping over Effy's legs to return to the driver's seat.

Katie was watching me, though. And she wiped the bryozoa residue from her hand across my stomach. This was the third time a girl had ever touched my stomach and I'd had enough.

Through gritted teeth, like any extra movement would spread the bryozoa further across my skin, I told her, "I like you less than I did." I bailed over the side of the boat - the side opposite where the bryozoa had returned to its native habitat. Deep in the water, I scrubbed at my stomach with both hands. A combination of bryozoa waste and Katie germs: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Leaning toward worst, because now I had slime on my hands. Or maybe this was psychosomatic. Holding my hands open in front of me in the water, I didn't see any slime. I rubbed my hands together anyway.

Something dove into the water beside me in a rush of bubbles. I came up for air. Katie surfaced, too, tossing sparkling drops of water from her hair. "You still like me a lot, though, right?"

"No biggie. Green is the new black." Giving up on getting clean, I swam a few strokes back toward the platform to get out again. What I needed was a shower with chlorinated water and disinfectant soap. I might need to bubble out my bellybutton with hydrogen peroxide.

"What if I made it up to you?" She splashed close behind me. "What if I helped you get clean? We don't want you dirty." She moved both hands around me under the water, and up and down across my stomach.

It was the fourth time a girl had touched my stomach! And it was very awkward. She bobbed so close behind me that I had a hard time treading water without kicking her. I needed to choose between flirting and breathing.

Effy and Cook leaned over the side of the boat and gaped at us, which didn't help matters. I'd been afraid of this. Flirting with Katie was no fun if the others acted like we were lepers. Well, okay, it was fun, but not as fun as it was supposed to be.

Obviously, I would need to give Cook a little dolphin talk. I wasn't sure I could do this with Effy - Effy and I didn't have heart to heart conversations - but I might need to make an exception, if she continued to watch us like we were a dirty movie on Pay-Per-View (which I'd also seen a lot of. Life with Cook).

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-

Katie and I started and turned toward the boat. Still behind the steering wheel, Emily had her chin in her hand and her elbow on the horn.

-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Bollocks! I turned around to face Katie and gave her a wry smile, but she'd already taken her hands away from my stomach. The horn had really ruined the mood.

-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Katie hauled herself up onto the platform. I followed close behind her, and she put out a hand to help me. Effy and Cook yelled at Emily.

-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

"Oh!" Emily said as if she's had no idea she'd been laying on the horn. She looked at her elbow like it belonged to someone else.

I was in the boat with Katie now, and she was still holding my hand. Or, maybe I was still clinging to her hand, but this was a question of semantics. In any case, I pulled her by the hand past the others to the bow. We didn't have privacy. There was no privacy on a wake boarding boat. At least we had the boat's windshield between us and the others.

As I turned to sit down on the bench, I stuck my tongue at Emily behind the windshield. She crossed her eyes at me.

Katie sat very close to me again. She pretended to yawn and stretch, then settle her arm around my waist. I smiled at her and tried to think of something to say. After years of her being vaguely pleasant to me but basically ignoring me, it had never occurred to me that we had nothing in common but wake boarding - and I suspected wake boarding might be a touchy subject right now. We didn't need to talk. She kept her arm around me for the short ride back to the marina.

Instead of driving straight to the wharf where we usually parked the boat, Emily slowed at the marina dock so the girls could mock Mr. Fitch, who hadn't moved from the position he'd been in when I splashed him, except he'd started in on another beer. The girls told him her was all washed up and he should enter a wet T-shirt contest with that figure, and so forth. Cook called to Dad, "Nice save, Pops."

"Hey." Dad tipped his beer to us "You've got to be fast with Naomi around."

"I have to say, young lady," grumbled Mr. Fitch. "I was very impressed with all your shenanigans. Right up to the point I got doused. I want you to plan to close the Crappie Festival show until further notice."

Which meant, Until you screw up.That was okay. He'd told me I was better than his daughters for once in my life! I turned to Katie and beamed so big that my cheeks hurt.

Katie squinted into the sun, wearing that strange, fixed smile. Even Cook and Effy gave each other puzzled looks rather than congratulating me again. Only Emily met my eyes. She shook her head at me.

Oh, fuck. Bugger. Holy Crappie Festival! I had upset the natural order. After Emily had already upset the natural order in team calisthenics. I should have thought all of this through better.

Katie began, "But I didn't even get a chance to-"

"I saw what happened," Mr. Fitch told her. "You had your chance. The Big Kahuna has spoken."

"Race you to the wharf," Emily called. Mr. Fitch said something to my dad, put down his beer, and tried to hurl himself up the steps to the marina faster than Emily idled the boat. The girls were dumbasses, and it was genetic. Emily let Mr. Fitch win by half a length, touching the bow of the boat to the padded edge of the wharf just after Mr. Fitch dashed past. The girls howled, and someone threw a couple of bills at Mr. Fitch. He picked up each bill like it mattered and limped back down the stairs toward my dad.

Then Katie jumped out of the bow to tie the boat. Her, Effy, and Cook tried to trip each other as they took armfuls of equipment into the warehouse with them. No one gave me a singe backward glance.

Emily cut the engine. "Now you've screwed up."

"How?" I asked casually, stepping out of the boat. "You think Katie won't want to go out with me now that I've taken her spot in the show?"

Emily just looked at me. That's exactly what she thought. I was getting tired of her warnings about Katie. I gathered my clothes and my backpack, turned on my heel, and flounced away. Which was fairly ineffective with bare feet, on a rough concrete wharf.

"You'll see at the party tonight," Emily called after me.

"No, you'll see," I threw over my shoulder. Katie and her pride would prove no match for Stage Three: Slinky Cleavage Revealing Top.