I was lying on a floral beach towel, reading Ursula Le Guin with my shades on. Every now and then I’d peer up from the book to watch Kaden splash in the water, flailing his arms. Mom said it was supposed to rain, and she sat prepared on the picnic table under a red umbrella. Dad drank a beer next to her, talking non-stop about the Kennedy Space Center.
“You liked that shuttle launch, right, Car?” He didn’t bother facing me, but I could imagine his head moving about and his triangle nose poking through his hat while he spoke.
“Yeah.”
“That pilot was really something, huh?” Mom reminded me to say thank you to Captain McBride before we left the tour. He let me and Kaden sit next to him during the shuttle simulation and gave us candy. Kaden wouldn’t stop asking the guy dumb questions, so I pinched his arm, and Mom scolded me the whole drive back.
“Car?”
“Yep.” Then I started to laugh because I remembered what Kaden’s yelp sounded like, and my parents sighed together. A few dribbles of rain fell down my face, and I looked up; the sky was a gray swirl, streaky and spotted like Ziggy’s belly fur. Mom got up and beckoned to my brother, who was now flopping around on a boogie board some hundred feet away. I guess he didn’t get the memo, because he just kept straddling the board and falling back into the water.
Mom clapped and waved for his attention as the rain hit the sand harder. Dad and I grabbed the cooler, the beach towels, and the foldable chairs, then ran to our Rent-A-Car Jeep. By the time we’d finished packing the trunk, Kaden was out of the water and soaking wet; I’d forgotten to leave him his Star Wars towel in all the chaos. It was funny watching him waddle to the parking lot.
What wasn’t funny, though, was being squished next to him in the back seat. His arms rubbed sand on mine, and his stringy hair flicked saltwater in my eyes, and every time he talked he’d open his popsicle-stained mouth and spit everywhere. No one lectured him for giving me a headache with his squawking. I just crossed my arms and stared Dad straight down in the car mirror while his eyes darted from the wet road to the truck behind us, and then to me.
Camilla El-Hachem is a student at CCSU.