Lauren asked me to be her boyfriend. She has blond highlights, and tan Virginian skin.

“What about TJ?” I asked.

“He’s got a dick like a French fry,” she said. She looked at her friend Jenny, who held up her pinky in concurrence.

“Oh,” I said. Lauren had pink nail polish on her toes, and her feet were pampered with dirt.

“So? Do you want to be my boyfriend for the week?” My family would be staying until Tuesday, and then returned to Newbridge. Rhode Island.

“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”

“Good. Meet us at four at the beach,” she said. As she walked away I stared at the shape of her body, listened to her sandals flopping against her feet.


“Can I go swimming, Mom?”

“Is it safe?” She says. I know that she’s thinking about the time at Robert Moses, when she warned me of the undertow, and I shrieked until the lifeguard made a scene.

“Come on,” I whine.

“Be careful,” she says. “You’re not a very good swimmer.”

On the way to the beach, as the main camp road cuts past the supply store and the basketball courts, I think about my penis. The problem (whether I have a French fry-dick or not) is that I probably do. I think about a French fry and my penis. I think about how when you climb onto a dock, or get out of a pool, the bathing suit clings to your body like saran wrap. Everything is visible, if they look.

From the basketball court, TJ sees me. “Hey,” he says. “Do you want to play?”

I look down at my flip flops, and my little pink toes. Poor TJ.

“Go get your sneakers,” he says.

“Can you give me five minutes to get my sneakers?”

“Sure.”