What Happens Over the Summer

"There's something wrong with you."
I glanced up from my omlet. "What do you mean?"
Zeke gave me a bland look. "Well for the past three days you've been eating regular breakfast food and a salad at lunch."
"Isn't that normal?"
"Not for you. Ms. Eatjunkfoodandgainnoweight."
"It's just food."
"Yeah right. You haven't said one sarcastic word since your meeting with R.J."
"Your point?"
"Every other word that used to come out of your mouth was dripping with sarcasm. Now you're being serious. It's starting to freak me out."
"I'm fine," I said lightly.
He was mumbling as he walked away to wait on another customer. I picked at my breakfast. I was fine. R.J. and I were on good terms-we saw each other every day now. Not that we talked a lot, but we didn't hate each other and Max didn't hate me. It was more than I'd been hoping for a few days ago.
I checked my watch. I had two minuets.
"I'll see you at lunch Zeke," I called and moseyed down the boardwalk. I didn't wave to people as I passed them; but then again there weren't many people out. I walked into the guard station three minuets late. The guard at the front desk watched me as I walked across the floor with a look of-almost pity?-on his face.
What was his problem anyw-? My thoughts were interepted when I walked into the locker room and came face-to-face with Chief, my grandfather, and at least a dozen other guards. I froze.
"We're having an intervention," Cheif announced.
"For whom?" I asked.
The guards murmered.
"What?" I demanded.
"It's worse than I thought," my grandfather said not-so-quietly to Chief.
"What?" I asked again.
"You just said 'whom'. Since when do you speak in proper grammer?"
"Wait I'm the one having an intervention?"
"Yes," one of the guards, my friend Randy said. "Sit." He pointed to a bench.
"I don't need an intervention. I don't understand why everyone's freaking out on me."
"Sit," Chief said.
Hesitantly, I sat.
"We're having in intervention because one," my grandfather began ticking the reasons off on his fingers. "You don't talk like you regularly do. You don't joke around, you don't sit around a shoot the breeze-"
"You haven't spoken to me since that day I found that little boy," Shelia pipped up and I realized that the reason I hadn't seen many of the shop owners was that a lot of them that I knew personally were in here. Several of them seconded that I hadn't spoken to them in days either.
"You're eating differently," Grams said from next to her oldest friend, Nancy who owned one of the Sunsations on the pier.
"You're late to work," Chief said.
"You're dressing differently," Nancy said, pointing out my khaikis and polo with the sleeves.
There were other shouts of what had changed about me. Everything ran together in one giant jumble. My temples were throbbing. The people were barely talking to me anymore-just about me to one another. God they were getting so loud that I couldn't hear myself think. And still they grew louder to be heard over one another.
"Alright enough!" I yelled, shooting to my feet. "Quit it!"
My raised voice finally got their attention.
"There is nothing wrong with me! People change. I'm not that stupid teenager that has been trying to relive her youth for the past five years. I've moved on, grown up. If I'm going to run security on this boardwalk next summer then I need to start acting like an adult!" I knew as soon as the words were out of my mouth that I'd said too much. Everyone stared at me, several mouths agape.
"And if you don't like me how I am, I quit." With that, I spun on my heel and marched out of the locker room.
I got as far as outside when a voice stopped me in my tracks. "Josephine."
I stopped and inhaled slowly. "What?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing." R.J. sat on a bench and patted the spot next to him.
We stayed in place for what seemed like an eturnity; him sitting, me standing ten feet from him. Time seemed to stand still. I debated running. He wouldn't come after me-just like he hadn't come after me three days ago when I'd left the Comfort Inn. Finally after what seemed like hours, I sat.
"What?" I asked again.
"Exactly. What just happened in there? Hell what's happened to you?"
"If you were in there I explained exactly what happened. I'm done being a kid."
He regarded me for a moment. "No one ever said you were a kid Jo."
"I did. I'm acting like a child."
"You're damn right you are. Right now. Sulking like some five-year-old. Hell Max doesn't even sulk."
"This isn't sulking. This is changing my life for the better. I've been given a positon that is going to require authority. I'm never going to gain anyone's respect running around in cutoffs and sleeveless shirts."
"Did you ever stop to think that that's why you were picked for the job?"
"What?"
"Chief picked you before you had your big turnaround. Maybe he liked you just the way you were. Like I do."
"Make up your damned mind!" I cried, standing. "Obviously you didn't like me the way I was and now you're pissed about me changing?"
"Now wait a damn minuet," R.J. said, standing. "I never said I didn't like you the way you were."
"You friend zoned me!"
"Well what else did you want me to do? One day you're yelling at me to get out of your house, that you don't want me anymore, the next you're crying on my doorstep like some lost puppy! I can't handle tears Jo, you know that!"
"I don't know you at all!"
"Well maybe that's our problem then. You don't know me. I thought I knew you but apparently I'm wrong there too."
"You're right! You don't know me! If you knew me you would have stuck around when I went bat-shit crazy on you. I tend to yell at the people I love when I'm frustrated with them!" And for the second time in under an hour, I wished I would have kept my mouth shut.