Under the Rainbow

Michael's father didn't worry about him. His mother worried about him when he went swimming. He didn't see Honey's trunks anywhere.

"Did you bring a suit?" he whispered.

"I got it on," Honey said.

"Me too," Andrea Glick said, fingering her turtleneck on a warm day. Probably had money, sorority type, had to wear expensive sweater, was it cashmere, to impress. Did look like fair tits, however, down inside the turtleneck, from what he could tell sitting in the back seat. He knew Billy Green liked girls with huge tits on them. Stringy hair, whatever. Michael lit a cigarette.

"Bad for the lungs," Andrea said. It was a fact she possessed. Something to do with her big tits.

"Yeah, I know," Michael said.

"You like them, don't you?" Honey said. "It doesn't bother me, Michael."

Honey didn't smoke. She didn't drink.

Billy Green pointed towards the farm tenements along the roadside. "I'm going to change all that," he said.

"You're going to be an architect," Andrea Glick said.

The talk about what everyone was going to be. Who could tell what was going to happen.

"Can you swim, Michael?" Honey asked.

"A little bit, sure. Can you swim?"

Did she lay on the beach in the moonlight?

"What about you, Michael, what are you going to be?"

She didn't say when you grow up. He liked her for that. There was comfort there, a woman beside him. He wondered what it was like to be married. A woman there all the time. The idea of not knowing that glimpse and magic of the future.

The river smelled dirty but no one said anything. It was a warm, beautiful night, a relief from the heat of the afternoon. There was a breeze coming up across the river and the old wooden bridge looked majestic above the narrow river.

"Who'd give me a thousand dollars to dive off of that?" Billy Green asked.

Big man.

"I'll do it for five hundred," Michael said. It wasn't all that high.

The couples laid down on separate blankets. Billy had kissed Andrea. Michael had kissed Honey. One had been a French kiss and she pulled away.

Honey said, "It's beautiful here. Are we going in right away?"

"Aren't you going to take your dress off, I mean you got your swimsuit on," Michael asked.

"Yeah, I guess," Honey said.

There was plenty of light. Andrea and Billy had pulled the blanket up over them. He wasn't going to watch them. There was a privacy going on. Jesus, she had a body on her, Honey. How could something so sweet have a body like that. He didn't care what Andrea looked like. He could see the turtleneck sweater sticking out under their blanket.

"We won't watch them," Honey said, standing before him.

"Are you going to take your suit off, I mean your pants, I mean..." she laughed.