"'The time has come,' the walrus said, 'to talk of many things.' Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll." Tyler read the words out of my fifth grade yearbook. When we graduated from elementary school, we had all been allowed to choose a quote that would be put under our picture in the yearbook. Most people chose song lyrics or quotes from people they thought were intelligent, hoping that their quotes would make them, in turn, look also intelligent. Looking back, though, most of them probably blushed at their selection. That quote, from Alice in Wonderland, which Tyler had just read, had been underneath Dustin's picture. When we got into high school, she immediately started thinking about what quote she would have under her senior year photo in the yearbook- and she decided she wanted that same one. "My sister had wanted that to be her senior quote, too," I told him. He smiled and turned the page, looking through other quotes. "She had wanted to paint it on our wall, eventually," I told him. I looked up, "Right there," I informed him, pointing to the space above the secret hallway door where Dustin had planned to eventually have the quote put up. Tyler looked there, too, and said, "So why don't you?" I blinked at him, "What?" He shrugged, "Yea," he said, "I think you should." He looked back at the yearbook and I looked back at the wall, wondering why I had never thought of that. "Oh," he said, "Here's yours." He cleared his throat and read aloud, "To die will be an awfully big adventure. Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie." He looked up at me and blinked. I blinked right back at him. "Oh," I said, "I'd forgotten that was my quote." I bit my lip and looked down at the yearbook, as if I had to see the words for myself to really believe it. Tyler looked at the floor in front of us and I looked directly at the spot where he was looking as I said, or perhaps whispered, "Dustin had always said that she agreed with that." Tyler's eyebrows furrowed, "Well," he said. He turned to look at me and smiled slightly, sadly, "I bet it was."
Selena, Ed, Angela, and I were all sitting by one of the upper lakes. Selena was pretending to get a tan as she lay out on her towel, though I suspected she really just wanted to stretch out her figure, for Ed's viewing sake. I probably would have noticed on my own time eventually, but when Selena called Angela's house and told her, (notice- told, not asked,) that we (we being Angela and I, who had become even more of a packaged deal than we used to be,) along with Ed, were going up to the second upper lake, Angela had said promptly, after Selena had hung up, "Ed is her current catch." I laughed, "Oh really?"
"Yes. Really. Prepare yourself, for we are about to be pulled into a summer of wooing. She will use us at every chance she can get as an excuse to hang out with that boy."
Now, this theory was being proven as Selena lay on the shore of the lake in her bathing suit, though the trees were thick enough that the few rays of sun that might reach us would definitely not tan us. Angela was sitting very close to the water, trying to decide whether or not to swim. Ed and I were sitting on a huge boulder, staring out over the water, and Ed was, much to Selena's gratification, periodically looking away from the water and over to her spread out frame. I was doing the same, looking from the trees and the sparkling lake to Angela's hands as they played with the water, and her hair as it spilled over her shoulders, or her shoulders themselves when she used her hand to move all her hair away from one side of her as she reached into the lake to pull out a handful of the soft mud. She had a loose t-shirt on over her bathing suit, but as she stood up, finally deciding to get in the water, it brushed along her hip so that I could see the shape of it. When she dived in and then jumped back up, the shirt clung to her, proving just how thin she really was. Her legs looked long, and her hips were pleasantly curved, she was not an hourglass, but clearly not a ruler.
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