Sunshiner

The first day of summer, 2009.

Fierce waves of heat rose from the ground and the world rippled before me. Hot was not a powerful enough word to describe the temperature of Dayton on this sweltering sunny day, and all I wanted to do right now was go to the Lake and swim. Other kids from other places would not be outside right now; instead, they would most likely be inside, sitting directly in front of the air conditioning box as they wasted the day watching TV. But those were other kids, not Dayton kids. Dayton kids were only at home at night to go to sleep, that is, if they weren't already sleeping over at someone else's house or camping out on one of the islands. We didn't need air conditioning because we never used it, and TVs and computers were only used when it was absolutely necessary. People didn't vacation here to sit inside all day; people vacationed here to pretend they weren't living in such a modern, technology-run world.

Diamonds of sweat dampened my forehead, and with one lazy movement I wiped it off with the back of my hand. I shook my brown hair out of my face, already annoyed with how long and shaggy it was getting.

Sitting on the swinging bench on my front porch, I propped my feet up on the banister and took a long sip of my icy lemonade. I stared out across the street, gazing past the barely paved road to rest my eyes on the small white house facing me. I remember the days when I would wake up early just to see Candace bounce out of her house, always at exactly 7:00 a.m., her sandy locks being whisked away by the morning breeze as she would dart to my house so that we could play while everyone else was still sleeping. That was our way of making sure no one would ever see us. Her smile was like the sunrise, and depending on how wide it was, I could predict how our day was going to be. If she was grinning broadly, pearly whites flashing in the young morning light, then she had a good prank or two in mind; if it was a serene closed-lip smile, the day was reserved for relaxation. But she was never not smiling. And as I waited to see what she looked like that day, I realized that that precise moment, everyday at 7:00 in the morning when I saw the first glimpse of her smile, was what summer looked like. What summer felt like.

Now, summer meant something different for me. Candace was gone, but I still had my other friends, and we busied ourselves by partying every night around a bonfire and then sleeping through the murderous heat of the next day. The Prank War had been long forgotten, though our respective teams were not. None of us had ever mended the bitterness between my team and Candace's team, and although we never went out of our way to pull tricks on each other, there were nights when some of us decided to have fun and do something random to get them pissed off. During the day everything seemed to be normal, but at parties, the tension was overwhelming and even a little awkward at times. We didn't talk to each other at all. We acted almost like high school girls, and though we didn't gossip or spread rumors about each other (come on, we're not that pathetic), we did spend a lot of time silently glaring at each other. Every once in a while a fight would break out. But we were boys, and we would always be boys, so I guess some fights were inevitable.

"Kasey Ray." The sound of my name made me jump, and I looked around to see who had spoken to me. I had been staring so intently at Candace's old abandoned house that I hadn't even noticed the tall, lanky boy that had walked up onto my porch and was now standing right in front of me.

"Johnny Boy," I greeted, smiling at one of my oldest friends. Jonathon Greystone was never called Jonathon or John or just Johnny – not out loud, at least. It was always Johnny Boy. Always. He liked it, I think, because he never made a single protest to his nickname.

Returning my smile, he sat on the bench next to me after I had moved to make room for him. "How's life, man?" he asked, slapping me hard on the back and then laughed as I almost choked on my lemonade.

"It's good," I replied. "It's fucking hot out."

"Welcome to Dayton," he laughed.

I hadn't seen Johnny Boy since the end of last summer, and yet we felt perfectly at ease around one another. It was as if we had never even left for school. That was the thing about summer: you could always come back and pick up where you left off last year, as if the rest of your life just didn't exist. When you lived in Dayton, you lived in the moment, and that was that.

"Any good plans for summer?" I asked him as he took my drink out of my hand and took a sip.

"I got a job."

"What? Dude, what?" I asked, making a face of disgust.

"I know, I know," he groaned.

"It's summer, Johnny Boy. Screw work," I said.

"Can't. Unlike some of us," he nodded deliberately in my direction, "I'm not loaded with cash. Besides, I gotta save up some college money for next year."

I laughed. "By college money, you mean weed money, right?"

He joined in with my laughter. Johnny Boy was probably the biggest pothead in all of Dayton, which was really saying something. No one judged him for it – Dayton was a place where you did whatever the hell you wanted and always got away with it. Besides, Johnny Boy was always hilarious when he was high. He was usually the one to come up with the good pranks these days. That had used to be my job, when I was team leader, but I had long since lost my touch at scheming.

"Where are you working, anyway?" I asked.

"Daisy’s." That was the ice cream parlor down by Main Street.

This time I really did choke on my lemonade. "All the hot chicks work there," I sputtered.

He smirked. "I know, dude. I know."

"Lucky bastard," I said and shoved him in the shoulder, and he laughed again. I wondered if he was high; it wouldn't be improbable.

"It sucks, though, 'cause I have to go home-home in the middle of July for like two weeks," he said after a minute. The term home was reserved for your Dayton house. Home-home was your wherever-the-hell-you-lived-in-the-winter house.

"For what?" I asked.

"Some stupid thing for college." He took another swig of my lemonade. "Some intern-y thing or something like that. I dunno."

"Well who the hell am I supposed to hang out with for those two weeks?" I asked.

"Frankie Fat-Ass?" Johnny Boy offered with a shrug. Again, Frankie was one of those kids who got glued with a nickname in his childhood years. His was pretty self-explanatory.

"I've hated that kid since he snapped the rope swing at the Lake," I said.

"We've got like, twenty other guys here to hang out with. And like…" He counted in his head. "Sixteen other girls."

"Half the guys have wanted to kill me since we were ten because of the Prank War," I said. "And half of the girls are ugly. Besides, I definitely only thought we had fifteen girls our age." Dayton was small enough to know these sorts of things.

Johnny Boy just smirked. "We've got a newbie this year."

My eyes widened and I smiled in excitement. New kids in Dayton was rare – and a new girl was even rarer. "Maybe she'll be hot," I said.

"Yeah, but then you know every guy in Dayton is going to be all over her," Johnny Boy replied. He was right: just like any other small group of kids, when a newcomer arrived, they were always the center of attention. Every girl hated her and every guy wanted to go down her pants.

"True," I said, and suddenly the heat was so overwhelming I couldn't force out more than one word at a time. "Dude. Lake. Now."

Without another word, we were walking down the street, heading towards the dirt path that cut through the forest and led to the Lake. The Lake itself was large and very deep, and therefore it was perfect to swim in since we never had to worry about the nasty black shit that's always at the bottom of ponds. And, if we decided to take our boats out, we could go to one of the islands and hang out there.

We passed by the houses on my street in silence, suffering through the heat with every step. A handful of houses were well-kept with roses or daffodils lining their front walks, their tiny front lawns green and recently mowed. But most houses had flaking paint and wilting gardens. Many porches were scattered with old trinkets that would probably look better in the garbage, like faded stone statues of swans or torn American flags flopping in the heat. As we walked, a trio of boys riding bikes zoomed past us, their wheels spitting up tornadoes of dust that clouded my vision and made the world seem dirty.

I noticed that Dayton really wasn't one of those typical vacation spots. It was one of the few times that I actually realized this; I had been living in this town for so long, I never really looked at it anymore. This wasn't the place that was featured on paradise brochures nor was it the place to book a cruise to. It was an old, beaten down piece of crap and it was probably very unappealing to a newcomer's eye. But Dayton was like an old teddy bear in the way that it was worn and ugly but at the same time very loved. All of the houses were small and cramped together, but that was fine with us. We didn't need big houses since we were rarely inside of them. And we liked being so close.

The people who vacationed here had been coming here since they were babies, just like their parents had done, and just like their parents' parents had done. Everyone had known everyone since childhood and, although we only lived here for three months out of the entire year, it was our home. People may have moved from place to place throughout their lifetime, but they would always come back to Dayton for the summer. It was just how it worked.

When we arrived at the beach it was, unsurprisingly, packed, mostly with kids. A massive group of little girls were in the process of burying one of their friends to make her a mermaid, and in the distance, I could see a bunch of young teens playing a rowdy game of King of the Dock on one of the floating docks in the middle of the Lake. The lifeguard on duty, who I recognized as a girl my age named Leanne, blew her whistle at a couple of boys throwing sand at each other, but everyone ignored it. Parents were scattered around in their beach chairs, gossiping amongst themselves and lazily soaking up the sun. Birds chirped and water splashed; summer was singing in my ears.

Although the huge crowd meant we had to deal with the annoying little kids running around and screaming, it also meant that my other friends would probably be here. And they were: I quickly spotted John Lesneski and Frankie. Johnny Boy and I greeted them the usual way, with a nod or a slap on the back and a quick debate over which girls were cute this year.

"You heard about the new chick?" asked Frankie Fat-Ass, who wasn't really that fat anymore. We still called him that anyway though. We never said it to his face, obviously, because as a kid it would make him cry and we were sort of afraid that he would still do the same.

"For the last time, Frankie, she's not new," Lesneski said, rolling his eyes. John Lesneski was called by his last name because we already had a John, and two would be annoying. Lesneski was one of the more cynical kids of the group, and every time we would pull a prank, he'd be that one kid who always bitched and moaned about how we were all going to get caught. The ironic thing was, when we did get caught (which was rare, but it did happen), it was always his fault because he would tattle on us to his mom. I was unfortunate enough to have him be on my team – secretly I had always hoped he would join Candace’s side so she would have to deal with his whining. None of us ever wanted to hang out with him but we felt bad for leaving him out. (And if we ever did leave him out, he would always somehow find us.) He wasn't as bad anymore, but his constant whining was definitely something that we all hated.

Still, his comment sparked my interest. "What do you mean she's not new?"

"Haven't you heard?" he smirked. "Candace Harlow came back."

All I could do was stare at him. Came back? Coming back to Dayton was something everyone did, but not Candace. Once you stop returning, you couldn’t just start up again. Dayton wasn't the sort of place that you ditched for a little bit because you were bored, and you certainly couldn't return on a whim. You couldn’t abandon your home and expect people to welcome you back with open arms. Especially not if you left without saying goodbye.

Candace had been like all of the other good things in life: enjoyable but fleeting. She was like the ice cream on a hot sunny day that was gone before you could really taste it. She was the rush of adrenaline when you went on a roller coaster that disappeared after thirty seconds when the ride ended. She was the essence of happiness, in the way that it never lasted.

But…but I just couldn't imagine her coming back. I had let her go, tried forgetting about her; coming back wasn't fair to me. Especially after I hadn't seen her for the past three summers.

"Bull shit," I finally said, but Lesneski was already shaking his head.

"It's true, Kase. Candace is back from the grave. I thought I saw her over at the ice cream parlor, but I wasn't sure. She looks…different."

"Why the hell has she come back?" I asked bitterly. I didn't understand why I was feeling so angry, nor did I want to take the time to try and figure it out. Maybe it was because she had returned and hadn't said anything to me. Or maybe it was because when she had left she hadn't said anything, either.

"Why the hell did she even leave in the first place?" shrugged Lesneski.

"I thought she moved away to Africa or something," Frankie butted in. "I mean, that's the only good reason why someone wouldn't come back here."

"I want to find her," I said decisively, determination flickering in my sea-green eyes. "I'm going to ask her myself."

"Looks like you don't need to do much searching," Johnny Boy said, nodding towards something in the distance behind me. "She's right over there."

I turned around, the sun almost blinding me as I searched the crowd. And there she was, basking in the sunshine in a red-and-white striped bikini, a pair of Aviator sunglasses adorning her face. I couldn't fucking believe it. It was her.