BEACH BUNNIES

BEACHBUNNIES

By

Marcie Kremer

CHAPTER ONE:  Susan

            “I wish they all could be California girls” California Girls, The Beach Boys 

            “But cruel are the times when we are traitors and do not know ourselves; When we hold rumor from what we fear, yet know not what we fear.” Macbeth, IV, ii

            Coppertone Suntan Lotion.  The beachy, warm scent drifted through her open car window, and Susan closed her eyes. She didn’t want – no, couldn’t -- think about what happened two years ago.  Unwanted, the vista of 40th Street in Newport Beach rose before her, suntanned and oiled bodies lying on brightly-colored towels, stretched across the hot sand, from the crashing waves to the pricey houses and funky cottages lining the beach.  Throbbing music of the Beachboys filled the air from a dozen portable radios, punctuated by the high-pitched laughter of girls, mingled with the deeper tones of guys’shouting to each other.

            There was something else, something intertwined with that time, something she’d worked so hard to leave behind her, something she’d forced herself to forget.  It was one of the reasons – no, actually, completely the main reason -- she had been so glad to come back home to Minneapolis after that terrible half a semester in high school in Pasadena. 

            When she and her parents had finally driven back across the Minnesota RiverBridge and wound their way into their familiar, leafy, green suburb, she had felt a huge sense of relief.  She remembered promising herself then that she could turn her back on everything that had happened – even though she knew it couldn’t help but change her forever. 

            Susan drew a deep breath.  Unbidden, the memory pushed its way into her mind, a shadow over that sunny, Beach Boys, SurfCity, matching skirt-and-sweater, trophy runs to Bob's-Big-Boy-on-Colorado-Boulevard time.  Sensations rolled over her as if it were yesterday, the white, hot sand on the beaches, the Coppertone, the multi-layered harmonies of the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean wafting through the air everywhere, trying to be cool and check out the blond surfers without their noticing, the pounding of the surfer’s stomp at the Pasadena Civic almost bringing down the rafters, gulping down the sweetish-sickness of Red Mountain wine at the drive-in, smelling wet Pendleton wool shirts in class after a spring rain, trying to smother giggles over the dirty parts in Macbeth in English class so the guys wouldn’t see, and, arching over everything, the ever-present, pounding surfing sounds of “Let’s go surfin’ now, everybody’s learnin’ how…” the anthem of the Southern California sixties she had inhabited for those four months. 

            But, over these memories lay a pall, a dreamless, nightmarish feeling that was completely at odds with the sunlit, beach bunny culture that she had been a part of.   That was because there was something else she had been a part of, wasn’t there? she reminded herself, guiltily.   She swallowed hard. 

            No, Susan told herself for the thousandth time.  It couldn’t have been her fault.  She had tried to do her best – do the right thing – hadn’t she?   Hadn’t she?  Susan ran her fingers through her hair and shut her eyes against the sun’s bright reflections gleaming on the parked cars in front of her.  She’d vowed to herself never to talk about it– who would really be able to understand?  A sense of shame swept over her, flushing her cheeks.  Of course, once she was back home in Minneapolis, some of her friends had noticed almost right away how different she was.