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By Root 575 0

the water. Above it, a lone streetlamp shines. She is slightly nauseous from the cotton candy and hot chocolate back-to-back, not to mention the penuche and the Lindy Loop, and so she is drawn to the pier for fresh air. She treads over the damp planks and listens to the shouts and squeals of the people on the rides, muffled now by the white noise of the mild surf. She is nearly to the end of the pier before she notices the group of boys, in sweaters and parkas, smoking. They hold their cigarettes down by their thighs, pinched between thumbs and forefingers, and take deep drags like Jimmy Dean. They shove each other’s shoulders with the heels of their hands for emphasis, and occasionally a high giggle rises like a thin tendril of smoke into the air. She has walked too close to them for anonymity, and now she finds herself in the awkward position of having to continue forward or having to turn and retreat, which she isn’t willing to do, not wishing to give the message that she is afraid of the boys, and not liking the image that she has of a dog retreating with a tail between its legs.

She moves sideways to the northern edge of the pier and glances down. The tide is in, lapping high on the posts. The boys have noticed her and are quieter now, though they still continue to whack each other on the shoulders. She watches as one boy throws his cigarette into the surf and sticks his hands into his pockets. His posture is unmistakable. She decides she will remain where she is for a good minute anyway, and then, having held her ground, will stroll casually away, just as she would have done had they not been there.

But the boy with his hands in his jacket pockets detaches himself from the others and walks to where she stands.

“Hello,” he says.

“Hi,” she answers.

“You’re Linda.”

“Yes.”

He nods, as if needing to ponder this important fact. Beyond him is their audience.

“Did you go on the rides?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“The Coaster?”

“I did.”

“How many times?”

“Seven.”

“Really?” He seems genuinely surprised. She imagines a raised eyebrow, though they are standing side by side and she can’t see his face.

“Do you want a cigarette?”

“Sure.”

He has to bend away from the wind to light it. He takes it from his mouth and hands it to her. She sucks a long drag and suppresses a cough. At the home for wayward girls, she smoked often. The breezes from the ocean blew the smoke away almost immediately. It was the one sin the girls could easily commit.

“Did you pick a poet yet?”

“Wordsworth,” she says.

“Do you like him?”

“Some of his stuff.”

“Did you like ‘The Prelude’?”

“I like ‘Tintern Abbey.’”

The boy sniffs. His nose is running in the cold. Beneath his navy parka, he has on a dark sweater with a crew neck. The sweater looks black in the streetlamp, but it might well be green. A sliver of white collar shows itself.

“Who are you doing?” she asks.

“Keats.”

She nods, taking another drag.

“The park is going to close in half an hour,” he says. “Do you want to go on the Coaster one more time?”

It is unclear whether this is an invitation or a reminder.

“No, that’s OK,” she says.

“Do you want to meet them?” Thomas asks, gesturing toward the boys.

She doesn’t know. Or, rather, she supposes that she doesn’t. She shrugs.

But the boys, wanting to meet her, are moving slowly closer, drifting on a tide of curiosity.

“They’re jerks, anyway,” Thomas says, but not without a certain kind of grudging affection.

A raised voice punctuates the air. “It is so, warmer than the air,” one of them is saying.

“Fuck that,” another says.

“No, seriously, the water’s warmer in October than it is in August.”

“Where’d you get that shit?”

“All you have to do is feel it.”

“You go feel it, dickhead.”

The boys start pushing the boy who said the water was warmer. But he, small and wiry, bobs and weaves and deftly outmaneuvers them so that he is standing in the middle of the pier and they are now on the edge.

“So what do you say, dickhead, you want to go test it out now?” The boys laugh. “I’ll bet you twenty-five you won’t go in.”

Thomas turns to Linda