Sunshiner

I heard her before I saw her.

“No, Chad, I will not go out with you. Now please get your hand away from my butt.”

“Why did you kiss me, then?” His voice was whiny and too high-pitched. I pondered whether he had fully grown out of puberty yet.

“I was…drunk.”

That was a lie. Still, though, lying was better than admitting that she had done it to anger me.

They rounded the corner, and upon seeing me Candace froze. Chad just glowered at me. I smiled. “Hi!” I said cheerfully.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“What, I’m not allowed to sit on a park bench?”

“Not if it’s in the puppy park. When you don’t have a dog,” she retorted. Chad backed that up with a lame, “Yeah,” and nodded his head. I ignored him.

“What are you doing here, then?” I inquired innocently.

As if hearing my question, a golden retriever suddenly bounded across the corner and ran full-speed into the back of Candace’s legs, almost knocking her over. It then proceeded to jump around her, barking madly, acting like a child that consumed way too much caffeine.

“You remember Louie,” Candace said. I nodded.

Louie was Candace’s dog; I remember I had been insanely jealous of her when she first got him, during the summer of second grade. I had always wanted a puppy (I still did to this day, and I still had never had one, much to my dismay) and she was sure to rub it in my face by deliberately walking Louie in front of my house every morning. Louie was more beautiful than most golden retrievers, with a shining amber coat that never seemed to get dirty, no matter how many times he rolled in the mud. And he was a very playful and fun-loving dog, but could rather obnoxious at times and barked at everything that moved within a fifty-foot radius. Everyone had just assumed that he would grow out of it as he grew older, but when the next summer rolled around and he was clearly no longer a puppy, he still acted the same. After I had seen this I wasn’t envious of Candace anymore. And as I watched as Louie ran around Candace in circles, over and over and over again, I still felt the same.

“Shut up, you idiot,” she snapped at the dog, who had been barking rambunctiously up to this point but suddenly quieted with a pathetic whimper. Candace loved Louie more than her own parents – everyone and their mothers knew that – but sometimes the damn dog got annoying. I couldn’t blame her.

But then Louie saw a smaller rat-looking dog dart by and immediately sprinted after it, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he ran. Candace looked after him and sighed. “That stupid dog had the attention span of a goldfish,” she sighed. “Chad, go get him.”

“What?” he asked stupidly, turning to her. “Why me?”

She just turned to him with one of those looks on her face. I knew that look, and I had fallen a victim to it several times before by other girls; it was one of those doe-eyed, eyelash-fluttering looks that guys could never, ever say no to. “Please?” Candace asked in a sugary voice.

“All right.” And just like that, he was off. I was genuinely surprised at his stupidity. Candace had rejected him only a few minutes before, and yet he did what she asked without a second’s hesitation. If he was doing it in the hopes of getting in her pants, he was in for a dreadful disappointment.

“So tell me,” she said lightly and sat down beside me, “why are you really here?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh please. You know I always walk Louie at this time. And you know I take him to the dog park on Mondays. You’re sort of a stalker, you know that?”

I could tell that she felt uneasy around me and she was fidgeting a lot. I couldn’t blame her; I felt the same way around her. And the uneasiness wasn’t because of mushy-gushy nervousness or butterflies in our stomachs, so you can get those silly notions out of your head right now. We were unsettled because for the past few days, we had been pranking each other relentlessly.

It had been four days since the “kissing incident” and we already had more than a dozen battle wounds. Candace still had tiny bits of glue in her hair after I had bombarded her with water balloons filled with Elmer’s glue, and I still had the painful scrape on my knee when she had tripped me while I was skateboarding. The bathing suit she was currently wearing was blue, since I had destroyed her red-and-white one by taking a red Sharpie and coloring in all the white lines. She had gotten me back, however, while I was camping out on Blueberry Island with Johnny Boy; she had snuck over while we were sleeping and then used a thick permanent marker and drew a tattoo on my arm that read, in huge black letters, Candace Owns Me. She also drew a tramp-stamp tattoo on my lower back that said Enter Dick Here with an arrow pointing down at my butt.

And back and forth we went, each prank getting exponentially worse. But all of these were minor compared to the one I had planned with the rest of the boys at the team meeting. We had decided to wait a few days since Candace would certainly be suspicious if I suddenly acted too friendly towards her (which was necessary for the plan to work). But four days was a long enough wait, and today was finally the day.

I hadn’t realized how lost in my own thoughts I was until she rudely pointed it out to me. “Why don’t you take a picture, it’ll last longer,” she snapped and folded her arms. I suddenly became aware that I had been staring at her. More specifically, I had been staring at her boobs. I hadn’t meant to; as a normal guy, I naturally looked at a girls’ chests a lot and even though I didn’t (or tried not to) looked at Candace’s, I hadn’t been paying attention and my eyes had drifted there without my noticing.

“Maybe I will,” I shot back. “Then I can frame it and hang it up on my fridge.”

“You’re a freak of nature,” she said. “Now are you coming to tell me why you’re here, or will I have to tickle it out of you?”

“Shut up,” I said. I quickly glanced around to make sure no one had been around to hear that and then I glared at her, which only made her smile innocently. Candace was the only person in the world to know that I was deathly ticklish. She had accidentally found out when we were seven, after we had gotten in a fight and begun wrestling (she didn’t have boobs or anything yet, so it wasn’t awkward). I had made her swear not to tell anyone and so far she had been true to her word. I was very appreciative of her honor and her ability to keep secrets, but there were times when she enjoyed threatening me with my ticklishness. It pissed me off and she loved it.

“I’m here because I want you to go somewhere with me.”

She scoffed. “Like I would want to go anywhere with you.”

But I wasn’t listening to her. I had already gotten up from my seat and was tugging at her arm. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“I have a surprise for you. Quick, before Chad comes back.”

“And what the hell am I supposed to do with my dog? Leave him stranded here?”

“I’m sure he knows how to get home by now,” I shrugged.

She thought about this and then nodded her head, agreeing with my statement. The dog may have been hyperactive and possibly mentally challenged, but he had a terrific sense of direction. Back when we were younger, when Candace and I were actually friends, we had used Louie to scent out imaginary treasures for us. He had been our secret adventure guide. He always led us to buried bones (which probably belonged to a rodent or a rotisserie chicken that had been thrown in someone’s compost pile), but Candace and I always pretended that we had discovered a dinosaur skeleton or the dead body of the long-lost prince.

Candace stood up. “What kind of surprise?” she asked.

I smiled and took her hand.



“I haven’t been here in years,” she gasped.

We were standing on top of the cliff that faced the Lake. It was only thirty feet high – an easy jump into the water – but if we climbed up a bit further, we could reach fifty, sixty feet. And that was a fun way down.

As a kid I had been terrified of heights, but after the day that Candace had literally pushed me off of the cliff, I had gotten over it. Now I loved jumping off and there wasn’t a full week that went by where I didn’t come to this place.

This wasn’t a part of the prank. It hadn’t been planned out at all. I was doing it because…well, I didn’t know, I just felt like it. Call it impulsive.

“Come on,” I said and grabbed her hand, leading her up to the highest ledge. She followed without question and gripped onto my hand with a tighter force than I considered necessary. At first I thought that she was trying to be cute and flirty – but then I remembered that this was Candace. And then I also noticed that she was holding on so tightly it was painful.

“Are you scared?” I asked incredulously, turning around to look at her.

“No,” she immediately replied. Then she added, in a much smaller voice, “I haven’t been off this in a long time…”

I began to laugh but after she gave me a dangerous look, I quickly disguised it into a cough. “It’ll be fine,” I assured her. “I’ll even hold your hand.” At that comment, I couldn’t help but to at least smirk a little. She caught on quickly but didn’t get mad, and instead playfully hit me in the chest.

“Whatever,” she said, giving me a surprisingly charming smile. “Just lead the way.”

When we got to the top we just stood there and stared down at the water far below us. I always dreaded this part; sure, the way down was fun, but summoning the balls to actually jump was always a nervous process. And hitting the water sucked, too, because if you landed at the wrong angle then you would be in pain for days.

“Ready?” I asked and took a bold step towards the edge.

“No.”

I looked over at her to see her nervously staring at the water. Her face was pale and she was biting her lower lip, which made her look ridiculously cute but I wouldn’t dare admit that aloud.

“On the count of three, then.”

“I said I wasn’t ready!”

“One.”

“Kasey, c’mon. Cut it out.” She tried to tug her hand away from mine, but I refused to loosen my grip.

“Two.”

“Wait – ”

“Three!”

Still holding onto her, I jumped off the edge, pulling her right along with me. I laughed as we hurtled through the open air; she screamed. I could hear her hollering “I hate you I hate you I hate you!” all the way down.

This was by far the best feeling ever. Even better than sex – well, wait, no. But it was a pretty good feeling. The sensation of falling freely in the air was like life. You soar through it, the scenery zooms by, and it flies past so quickly and then –

And then we smashed into the water, bubbles clouding my vision as I plummeted into the refreshingly crisp water.

When I surfaced, she was laughing loudly. “That was amazing!” she shrieked and I laughed along with her. We were both gasping for air, so we both swam over to the dock floating in the water. The ladder was broken and we were too tired to haul ourselves up and out, so Candace just held onto the ledge.

I surprised her by swimming up behind her and placing both hands on either side of her, entrapping her. She bit her lip again and then slowly, almost shyly, placed her arms around my neck to keep her afloat.

“That was fun,” she said.

“I’m glad I pushed you off, then.”

She spit water in my face. “You’re a menace, Kasey Ray.”

I laughed again and was ever so aware of how close our bodies were. Her breathing matched the pace of mine and our chests rose and fell against each other’s in rhythm. I couldn’t resist any longer. I began to lean in –

“Kasey, I need to tell you something.”

I stopped and stared at her. She wasn’t smirking arrogantly, she wasn’t rejecting me to rub it in my face; she was actually being serious. “What?” I asked her, feeling a bit of resentment but nevertheless I was willing to listen to whatever she had to say.

“Do you…Can you remember what my mom used to say to us as kids?”

“All I can remember is that she always yelled at me to get off her lawn,” I said. “She hated me.”

“No, no,” she shook her head. “Remember that old saying she used to say to us when she wanted to be all philosophical and stuff? It was the only time we ever heard her swear.”

I had to rack my brains, but it only took a few seconds to figure out exactly what she was talking about. ‘“Life is a beautiful melody,’” I said, echoing Mrs. Harlow’s words, ‘“it’s just that the lyrics are all fucked up.’”

Candace smiled broadly, clearly happy that I had remembered it. “Yes,” she said, “yes, that’s exactly what she said. Well, you see, she began saying that when I turned fourteen. That’s when…that’s when I started coughing.”

I had no idea what she was getting at, but before I could ask her, I heard my phone go off in the distance. It was with the rest of my clothes, which were located at the beach near the base of the cliff. It’s probably Johnny Boy calling me, I thought. I was about to ignore it, but then I remembered.

I remembered the prank. I remembered the plan I had to follow. I looked at the sun; it was beginning to set, so it must have been a little past six. I recalled my own words from four days before: It’ll all begin at seven o’clock sharp. And then we’ll pull the best prank in history. It will be a legend.

“Come on,” I said and began to swim away from her. I couldn’t forget the prank; it was my own plan, after all. And I couldn’t ditch my friends like that. They were all waiting for me and I said I would meet up with them, and I was always true to my word. “It’s time to go.”

She gave me a confused look, appearing to be a bit agitated since I had interrupted her in her little speech. But I didn’t care. “Where are you going?” she asked me.

“No, where are we going.” I smiled. “There’s a thing tonight on Devil’s Island.”

She groaned, “I don’t feel like going.”

“Aw, Candace,” I said, feigning sorrow. “Don’t be a party pooper. Be there or be square, remember?”

She frowned, but nodded nonetheless. “All right,” she agreed and swam after me towards the shore.

With my back turned to her, I grinned. It was all going according to plan.