Note: Many thanks to shygirlwhore for her editing prowess.
***
When I found her, she was sitting at the end of the dock, alone, slowly rocking back and forth on a bench swing, gazing at the lake under the stars.
I didn't take the place beside her; I sat on the dock a few feet away, looking at the starlight on the water and listening to the tiny waves lap against the floats. I turned and watched her. I decided to say something nice, something honest.
"Amy?"
She didn't even turn.
"Amy, any man who saw you right now—the way I see you—would have to say that you're beautiful. I'm looking at you, and you're beautiful."
She stopped swinging. I couldn't read her expression for a few seconds, and then she leaned towards me, her face filling with fury. "Fuck you! You're just like the rest of them! You play like you're the nice one, but you're a fucking asshole, too. Leave me alone!"
Her eyes were red with tears. I started to respond, but she overrode me.
"And even if you were trying to be nice, I don't need your fucking pity, and I don't want it, loser!"
She rose and stomped away.
The next morning, all the families packed up and traveled back to their homes. Another annual Jones family reunion was over.
***
Every summer, our extended family got together at Big Rock Lake. We rented out four cabins from a resort there and stayed a week near the end of July. There was Nana and Big Pop in one cabin, my family in another, my Uncle Deke and his family in one, and Aunt Cyn and her family. In all, there were seven cousins, including Amy and I.
Amy had it rough.
She was Aunt Cyn and Uncle Scott's kid, and they had two daughters. Amy's older sister, Katy, was an absolute knockout. Both girls got their height from their dad; Uncle Scott was 6 feet 9. Katy was right at 6 feet, a leggy, well-proportioned blonde. Amy, a brunette, was closer to 6 feet 2, and she had a few tricky features.
She got a feminine version of Uncle Scott's nose, sloping and long, ending in a big cherry of a tip. Amy didn't get her sister's softball tits; she had baseballs. Finally, Amy had a strange, disproportionate ass. No one knows where that thing came from. It was like a round shelf hanging off her lower back and squashed up by her super long legs.
With an older sister like Katy, it came as no surprise to me that Amy was a resentful bitch. Katy was fun; Amy sucked. And the two of them came every summer to see their five other cousins, all boys.
Uncle Deke's sons were the oldest, and they tormented Amy. As a little kid, Amy was always "Amy Nose." Any time someone asked a question, one of Deke's sons would answer, "I think Amy nose." She'd stomp off crying.
After Amy developed into a teenager, though, Deke's kids were relentless on Amy's ass, too: "I don't know, butt Amy nose." My older brothers, closer in age to Deke's sons, joined in. I didn't.
Amy and I were the closest in age. She was a year older than me, and I was the youngest of all the cousins. As such, I was always partnered with her. Who am I tubing with? Amy. Who do I sit next to on the roller coaster? Amy. It got so the boys would just call her my "wife."
"Mikey, where's your wife? We need to go."
"Mikey, your wife's nose hit the water before her ass even went down the slide."
I felt bad for Amy, but a part of me always thought she asked for it. She was always negative, always cautioning, always ready to be angry. Nothing satisfied her. My pop would be pulling us on a tube. I'm laughing hysterically; Amy's screaming to get off. Pop would stop for her, and my ride would be over, too.
We'd all be playing some game the older boys invented on the sand volleyball court and Amy would say, "This is stupid." She'd storm off, and one of my brothers would tell me to go with her. It really wasn't until high school when I started wondering what came first, the bitchy attitude or the persecution. I knew the answer, really. I felt bad for her.
I had meant what I said to Amy that night on the dock. When she was serene, neither happy nor sad or angry, she could be very pretty. It was too bad that, on those rare occasions when she smiled, it just made her nose seem longer.
I thought her big bubble ass was very sexy. I'd bet the others thought so, too, but they just wouldn't admit to it. That butt hung out so far from her back and legs. I remember as young teenagers when her ass first showed up, she would regularly bump into chairs with it and knock things off tables and shelves. I also remember times when I could very easily have gone around her, but I decided to squeeze past her and drag my front along her back. I wanted her, cousin or not.
My compliment to Amy that night on the dock was not just about me trying to be a nice guy. I was kind because it tended to work for me with girls. My approach was to be nice, be quiet, and to surprise girls. It was a trial and error thing, and I had made some huge blunders. But, it didn't suit me to be a prick like it did some of my friends.
One of my best friends was a total asshole to girls. So, he lost as many as he got, but the ones he got were often better looking than mine. Problem was he burned bridges. I tended to have longer relationships that ended better by being sweet and surprising.
But, what I was doing with Amy was not so much about getting laid—even though I thought a lot about her every time we came to Big Rock. It was more about guilt.
The other cousins may have treated her much worse, but I always hated and cursed her in my heart. In that sense, I thought, maybe I was worse than the rest of them. I was like a double-agent. I acted the part of her ally because I was always stuck with her, but every time the boys got after her, made fun of her, dismissed or ignored her, my heart filled with a terrifying, awful joy at her misery.
I think my passage though puberty, fraught with social blunders as it was, taught me to see Amy in a new light. I began to feel like I needed to make up for my heart's betrayal of her.
* * *
There was an age window where cousins quit coming or only came for a short stay—maybe a couple of days. When people hit about 19, they didn't come as much or at all. At 24, they started coming back. I was 17 the summer Amy ripped into me for complimenting her. She was 18.
I was surprised when she came back with her family the following summer; Katy hadn't come after she turned 19. That next summer, neither of my brothers came, nor the youngest of Deke's sons. His older son came with his new wife, and they got their own cabin. So, really it was just Amy and I representing the grandchildren.
I did my best to avoid her that first evening after we arrived. Almost everyone was upstairs, drinking and playing cards. I went downstairs to catch up with friends and screw around on my phone. A few minutes later, Amy came down and sat on the lazy boy adjacent to mine. She didn't say a word.
After a minute or so, I turned to her. "Amy, I'm doing my best to stay out of your way. We've got an entire week to get through, and you know our parents are going to make us do shit. Your coming down here isn't helping."
"I wanted to ask you something."
I looked back at my phone and sighed, "What?"
"What you said last year—on the dock—did you mean it?"
I put my phone down and searched her eyes. Was she getting ready to hammer me again? It didn't seem that way. "Yes. I did," I admitted, finally.
"Honest? Because if you're making fun of me again, I...," but she couldn't quite finish.
"Yes. Honest," I told her, "Look, if we're going to get along for this week, I think for starters we probably ought to be honest all the way."
Something in her face told me this appealed to her. "Absolutely no lies?" she asked.
"Well, I don't know about none, I mean..."
"Not even little ones," she said, firmly. "Not even white lies to be nice."
"Really?"
"Really. Can you?"
"Is that what you want?" I asked.
She nodded.
"Okay, fuck it. Yes. No lies, whatsoever."
"Okay. Prove it," she declared.
"What?"
"Let me ask you something. To see."
"Go. Ask."
She started, then stopped. She had a question ready, it seemed. She debated it, and then she asked, "Have you ever tried to suck your own penis?"
"What!?"
She burst out laughing. I did, too.
"Amy, where in the hell did that come from?"
"Answer it, and I'll tell you."
"Are you fucking serious?"
"Yes. Answer it."
I shook my head. "Well...yes."
"Really?"
I started laughing again. "Yes. Fuck! Now tell me why you asked that of all questions. Shit."
She kept laughing, wiping a tear from her eye. "A friend of mine back home said once that to find out if a guy is a liar to ask him that question. She said if he says yes, he's telling the truth and if he says no, then he's a liar and you watch his face to see what he does when he lies."
"She might be right. Shit, I didn't see that coming."
We both started laughing again, me from shock, her probably from having been so shocking for once.
"I'm sorry," she said, still giggling a little.
"You know this is a two way street. If I have to be totally honest, then you do, too."
"No lies?"
"None. The truth, even if it hurts."
"Okay. What do you want to know?"
I thought for a second. "Do you have a boyfriend?"
"No."
"When was your last boyfriend?"
She shook her head. "You're not talking about a friend-who-is-a-boy. You're asking about a guy I did stuff with?"
"Yes."
"None."
