Playing Chicken

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

Bea hated the beach. The sun didn't rev up her brain's endorphins the way it did for most people. In fact, it had the opposite effect on her. She never enjoyed peeling down to her bathing suit. Always feeling hideous in whatever she wore. Most of her time at the shore was spent feeling envious of the pretty girls in the teeny, triangle-topped bikinis, with lotus tattoos on the hollows of their backs. Bea would watch them slip and slide in the sand spiking a volleyball, feeling round where they were flat, ugly where they were cute. It was even worse when she was pregnant.

The other half of her time was spent playing "find the shade." Bea wasn't a woman who wanted a suntan, preferring her vitamin D in tablet form only. All day she had constantly moved her chair in search of relief.

"What're you doing?" Awilda, her best friend, looked over the edge of her cat-eye glasses.

"Trying to stay cool."

"Why in the hell you come to the beach to do all that is beyond me."

Awilda was right. The effort it took to keep the sun's rays from darkening her skin was draining: slathered sunscreen, dark umbrella, floppy hat, wide sunglasses, zinc oxide strip on her nose, and her feet tucked under a dry towel. Even with the prep, Bea still worried the ultraviolet rays were coming through the umbrella, roasting her skin by the millisecond.

"The beach was Lonnie's idea. Not mine."

"Well next year you need to speak up."

She had; he just didn't listen. Bea preferred renting a house on a lake with a wraparound porch, where she could hide under an awning and maxi dress. It was her husband, Lonnie, who insisted on the beach. Spring Lake to be exact. With two miles of white, pristine sand, bordered by the longest noncommercial boardwalk in the state of New Jersey, Spring Lake was a magnet for families of all ages. But the price of the homes made it inaccessible to everyone, and therefore the perfect getaway as far as Lonnie was concerned. It was sanitized and quiet except for the corner Awilda occupied.

Awilda was the contrary to Bea, lounging without the protection of an umbrella in a bright orange, high-waisted bikini. Her hair was big and bushy, and every tune that crooned from her iPhone was her finger-snapping, sing-along-to-the-beat song.

Bea turned her seven-month baby-belly in Awilda's direction in time to catch her shoving a handful of cool ranch potato chips into her candy-pink-painted mouth.

"You know there's no eating on the beach, Wilde," Bea chided.

Awilda knew this. There were signs posted along the boardwalk reminding folks to eat in the pavilion areas only. In fact, coolers were forbidden and instead left on the boardwalk.

"What're they going to do? Arrest me?" She smacked her lips.

"Might kick you off the beach."

"I'd like to see that." She shoved down two more chips. "We should be in DR instead of this snobby beach anyway. Your mama still have family down there?"

"Mami left Santo Domingo fifty years ago and has never looked back. I keep in touch with my cousins."

"We need to take a girls' trip down there and reconnect with your roots. After you drop that load. No kids, no husbands." Awilda tilted the bag of chips to her mouth and swallowed the crumbs.

Bea sucked her teeth. "You could at least eat under the umbrella."

"What's got you so uptight?"

Bea didn't want to give voice to what had been nagging at her, so she camouflaged with a lighthearted smile. "Probably just hormones."

"Well, unwrap that towel from your feet, girlfriend, and have a little fun."

"I am," Bea said. Though fun had become foreign. Since they moved back to New Jersey a year ago, her life had become so tied to keeping up with her husband and two children; there was no space for anything remotely connected to fun. Though she did daydream, and carrying a healthy baby brought her some peace.

"Hold up, wait a minute. This is my song." Awilda turned up her iPhone even louder than before.

Bea glanced at the older couple reading hardcover books, parked to their right. They were covered in as much stuff as Bea was. The wife looked up at Bea at the same time but didn't smile.

"Pass it to me."

"No."

"It's too loud."

"I can barely hear it."

Beyoncé seemed to take front and center on their little sliver of beach. Yoncé on her knees.

"There are children around, Wilde."

"It's the clean version."

"Do you always have to go against the grain?"

"You've known me twentysomething years. Don't act new."

"This place is conservative, I know, but ..."

"Beasley, please with that mess." Awilda laughed out loud. "You remember how we use to go to the skating rink on Route 22 and dance until we couldn't breathe?"

Bea's shoulders relaxed. "Girl, we had to catch two buses. Your mother would have had a cow if she knew we weren't listening to music in my room."

"But we went and it was the highlight of our week."

"Except for you having every girl in Union wanting to fight us."

"Not true."

"Sis, please! When you started dropping it like it was hot, every boy in there wanted your number."

"Well, that's because I do what I feel. Nothing matters if things don't feel good. Take lessons, Bea." Awilda pulled up her shades and caught Bea's eye. "I'm worried about you."

Bea reached up and repinned her bun. "I'm cool. It's just growing pains. Staying home in the suburbs ... it's not who I am."

"Sounds pretty cushy to me. I'd give up teaching those bad-ass kids in a minute to be a kept woman."

"Stop." She blushed in shame.

"Don't deny it." Awilda squirted on another layer of suntan lotion.

"You might as well be slathering yourself with cooking oil." Bea was grateful to be able to change the subject. "Why do you keep putting that crap on anyway? Haven't you heard of skin cancer?"

"When I get to work on Tuesday, people need to know that I've been somewhere."

"And you're worried about me?"

A mother with a toddler bent over to pick up a seashell in front of them. Bea reached inside her beach bag and tossed her earbuds to Awilda. She caught them in the air and flung them right back.

"Stop tripping, Bease, or you'll have a nervous...