Best Friends

Best Friends

Sherry Sultenfuss

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Sherry Sultenfuss

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Sherry Sultenfuss

102 Harborview Lane

Largo FL 33770

(727) 385 4544

[email protected]

Anne

Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey

1972

Hearing my scream in a brief lull in the noise, Doug turned to me at the very moment a massive wave hit the boat and threw him over the side. The half ton boat hull pounded up and down in the water like a piston. I kept screaming, Doug! Doug! all the while thinking that if the hull hit his head or the spinning propeller got him he was dead. Sarah cut the engine, and we both ran to the gunwale to find him. It was over so fast, I’m not sure to this day what happened, but the drug boat took off leaving us there alone in the storm. I could not see Doug anywhere, and if he was calling, we would never be able to hear him in the din.

Police

Long Beach Island, New Jersey

1972

The station house was quiet. The hectic summer had passed, and the cool sunny days of the fall had settled on the now sleepy shore town. The officers usually had time during the fall and winter to kick back a notch and regroup for the future spring and summer crowds. Most of the time they were bored with the typical problems of petty burglary and underage drinking. It was like getting stoned to death with popcorn. But Lieutenant Wilson wasn’t so sure that was going to be the case this year.

It’s been twenty-four hours; I think it’s time to take this as more than a high school girl stepping out. It’s definitely looks suspicious to me. Sarah’s missing. Anne wasn’t where she was supposed to be for the weekend, and we can’t locate her. Sarah’s parents last saw her at dinner. She said was going out but they didn’t know where, and her curfew was midnight. They said she’s never late, but this time she didn’t come home or call.

Sergeant Jones asked, What are Anne’s parents saying about her disappearance?

"Nothing; they haven’t even been on the island in a month. Turns out, it looks like the girl, who is only sixteen, has been living on her own here on the island since her brother disappeared. I interviewed her back then about Doug. She was hiding something, but since they never found a body, the investigation was closed. He was apparently drowned, and the presumed death was determined accidental. But her story made no sense. As a matter of fact, it sounded pretty delusional. Pirates pulling her brother from the water? What was I supposed to do with that? I didn’t know whether she was crazy, in shock, or guilt-ridden.

Anne and Sarah were apparently best friends before Doug died, but I think they had a falling out. My bet is Anne knows something about Sarah’s whereabouts. The other thing is that Anne is smart as a whip. Under the circumstances she might be dangerous. We need to get her to talk, so let’s bring her in. I never was convinced of Doug’s accidental death. Let’s just hope there hasn’t been another one.

Chapter 1

Anne

Each breath I took was filled with the delicious anticipation of summer. School was out; the tedious boredom of winter was gone. Going into 11th grade, I was essentially on my own. No one really noticed or cared what I did. Apart from my summer job, I would soon be free to do as I pleased. I could finally escape. Oh, how I had waited for this my whole life.

The drive from the farm to the shore was so long, but thank goodness my Dad wasn’t in the car. At least when he wasn’t around there was a safe cushion of silence which everyone sank into. Even my two older brothers were quietly lost somewhere in their own dreams of the summer ahead. Mom was quiet too. But then she never talked to any of us, anytime. I don’t really think she cared what we did as long as we didn’t get caught at something bad and get Dad riled up. We all listened to Cousin Brucie on the radio playing great music like the Rolling Stones, "You Can’t Always Get What You Want".

We drove endless miles through the rolling Jersey Pines with nothing but sand and pine trees surrounding us. There were areas with pretty green undergrowth and wind-beaten pines trying to reach high into the sky. But the pines never made it very far. The forest fires seemed to catch them before they got too tall; whole areas were just burnt skeletons. Blackened trunks standing erect on charred land as far as you could see. Dirt fire roads carved through the forest to stop the fires and destruction. They didn’t appear to have worked. Maybe the trees weren’t supposed to get that tall. Maybe nature here just resented a healthy pine tree’s ambition. The roads were not totally useless, though; they were used by the scary Pineys. Everybody knew they were bad people that lived back in the Barrens amongst the trees.

I was always the afraid on the trip that the car would break down, especially at night, and the Pineys would come and get me. There were so many terrible stories about those people and what they did. However, I never saw them or their houses. But I knew they were there, that they were ugly and mean. How could they not be, living out there doing whatever they did with the wildfires and the Jersey Devil? I never saw him either.

Finally we got to the T in the road and made the left turn onto the final leg to the swamps, the bay, and finally the Atlantic Ocean. The exciting part of the journey had begun. Within minutes I would see the big causeway and smell the heavy, cool, salt air. My heart would pound; soon I would see my summertime friends. The sand gave way to green marshes and the calls and screeches of the seagulls’ choir. If you looked up and down the bay from high up on the causeway, you could see the peeling paint on the crowded little bayside shacks with crab traps piled high and all the boats coming and going.

The car descended and rolled onto Long Beach Island, and summer was official. People were everywhere, going in a million directions. Everyone was getting ready for the summer season. The island was waking up from its hibernation. Shops were opening after the long gray, wet winter with all the new gifts and treats to buy. The summerhouses were all being cleaned and aired. There was activity and life everywhere. People were walking, driving, shopping. Bicycles were everywhere, threatening pedestrians and cars alike. As we drove down the island, I strained to look in every direction for any of my friends and to see what changes that had occurred over the winter. Someone may have painted a building or started a new hoagie shop. But no one could beat the Log House for its Philly cheese steak hoagies. Sara’s Mom would give us money sometimes and we’d go into the log shaped building and eat by ourselves. We would hop up on the round padded swivel stools and order our cheese steak hoagies. I felt so big; I felt I belonged. I had a friend who wanted to do cool things with me. I always wondered if that was just normal for her and if she had friends like me at her winter home. Her life was so different from mine. She was so cool.

I wondered if Sarah had come down to the shore yet. Her house would be my first stop after my chores. I would jump on my bike and fly like the wind down the sand littered streets to visit. But it really wasn’t visiting. To me it was going home to the home I didn’t have. I could picture it in my mind. It was a magical three story, 1800 something, weather-beaten shingle house with a wrap around porch and casement windows that went from the ceiling to the floor. Rocking chairs cluttered the porch, and bicycles were thrown haphazardly around the front yard. This house drew company like bees to honey. It was a special kind of place. You just knew the people who built it had cherished it, and had loved their life within its walls. That same joy and pride continued through the centuries and now lived in the Shepherd family.

Sarah had an older brother Paul, a younger brother Todd, and three younger sisters Justine, Mary, and Carol. Each had a bedroom, boys on the third floor, and girls on the second floor with the parents. Although they all had their own friends and activities and didn’t hang around each other much, they were pretty close. We saw each other all the time and ate dinner together in the evenings. Whenever I was there, which was a lot, Sarah and I would help make the dinner, set the table and clean up. A place was always set for me whether I came or not. Nothing was ever said about it.

Finally, we pulled into our driveway. The important thing was to unpack as quickly as possible and leave before Dad came. He never thought our chores were done, and they were never done on his timetable. He was a dictator who thought we should all go to military school.

Anne

Now my house was not like Sarah’s. First, we were in the newer section of town. The single story house lacked character, and secondly decent characters. The house had been built in the cinderblock era with hurricane windows that you could never get clean and never let sunshine completely in. There were three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a small dining room-living room, and a kitchen. My brothers shared a room, as did my mom and dad. It just wasn’t a very nice place. But we were at the beach so that made it almost perfect. Running through my head was a song, Pete Seeger’s song, "Little Houses on the Hillside. Little Boxes Made of Ticky Tacky". But again I reminded myself I was at the beach!

When my mom was home alone, we all just did our own thing, and said very little. When my father was at home, everyone walked as if they were on eggshells. He had such an awful temper. He would yell and scream about everything. If he was happy, it must have been when we weren’t around. So that is exactly what the three of us kids did. We tried to make him happy by not being around. It was so weird because although my mom also never seemed happy she would always take his side when things got ugly. She would even take his side when he was getting violent and roughing us up.

It was not a home my friends wanted to visit or for that matter where I wanted them to visit. My dad would have his temper tantrums in front of anyone, anywhere or anytime. I have died a thousand deaths over the embarrassing scenes he has made. One time I left my bike in the yard and my father, in one of his rages, ran the car over it on purpose, over and over. He bellowed so loud all the neighbors came out to watch. I sat crying and totally humiliated. The only funny thing about it was that he had done a lot of damage to the yard and had to fix it. There was nothing left to fix on my bike. The other weird thing about him was that after he blew up, he acted like nothing was wrong. But for me nothing was ever right. He usually wasn’t happy until he made me cry. He would say, I wish you were never born, and then ten seconds later act like everything was OK. It never was.

My first memories of being a kid are him hitting me, yelling at me, my mother or my brothers. When the boys were little he used to beat the crap out of them. They would have bruises all over and all my mom would say was aren’t boys rough? It was scary to think my brothers could turn out just like him with that nasty temper. I learned just to stay away from all of them as much as possible.

Fortunately, this summer my brothers said they were both working a million hours at M & M’s Fish Market to raise money for college. John, the older one, says he might just enlist instead of going to college. Everyone in our family but me thought that the Vietnam War was our salvation against communism. My parents belonged to the Silent Majority who thought that if we don’t win this war the communists are going to take over. I just didn’t understand that. I didn’t see why our boys were being shipped over there to be killed. I never would go. I would have gone to Canada. The only drag about Canada is that it was always so cold. I thought those soldiers were wrong to go to war. Watching the news on television made me sick. The only good thing about President Nixon was he said he was going to bring 25,000 boys home that summer. I really didn’t know why he wasn’t bringing them all home. I couldn’t talk about politics in my house. But then again I couldn’t talk about anything at home.

Thank goodness, whatever my brothers do, they won’t be around much. They said they were working but I knew better. I caught them last year sneaking into the Sea Shell Bar and hanging out with some pretty loose looking girls. So I can only bet that would continue this summer. I would never tell on them because they would kill me, Dad would kill them and it would just go round and round. Anyway it was like money in the bank, being one up on them. They both were, from what I heard, strapping young men. John and Doug, the younger one, both played football so they were big and looked older than they were. I hate football too. They got away with so much. Even though they were 17 and 18 they could get into all the bars even though they weren’t legal. That was bad, but what really got to me was how stupid all the girls were who draped themselves all over them. It was repulsive. The boys didn’t give a hoot about them either.

My goal in life was to grow up as quickly as possible and get out of our house. I felt like such a stranger in that place. Those people were so different from me. If I didn’t look like them I would have sworn there was a mix up at birth. Thank God for the Shepherds; they were strict but they were so nice and no one ever yelled. They laughed a lot too; that was something I never saw at home. When I grew up I would have a family like the Shepherds. I would never let anyone be mean or hit me again.

The four of us unpacked the car and then my brothers had to go find out about their jobs. As they left the house they gave me that spiteful sneer and laughed. They left me stuck again to finish their work. The two of them always stuck together. They had important things to do, and they wouldn’t do girl’s work. I finished unpacking the car and putting the food away. My stuff I just dumped into my closet and then told my Mom I had to go as the door slammed behind me. I was on my bike gone before she could even say goodbye.

It was a funny thing. I hated doing work at my house, but I was the sweetest, most helpful girl at the Shepherd’s.

Anne

The bike landed in the front yard as I ran up the front stairs and peeked through the big screen door. It was so old that the little holes in the screen had filled up with green crusty stuff so that it was hard to look through. You had to put your face right up to it to peek in to see if anyone was there. I knocked on the door while I tried to gain some composure. I didn’t want to look desperate, but I was. I wanted to see Sarah; I wanted to make sure she still wanted to be my friend, and to begin our summertime adventures.

Sarah came thumping down the old wooden stairs squealing with delight when she saw me. I was so happy. We ran into each other’s arms and gave each other a big hug. I saw her mom, ran to her, gave her a big hug, and then Sarah and I darted upstairs into her room and shut the door. Oh, how she had changed. She looked so old, so different. Her blond hair was longer; her pretty face thinner but with pimples, and she had grown big breasts. She also had cool clothes; she had big wide bell-bottoms and a peasant top. I felt so young, so underdeveloped, and so UNcool. I pretended that nothing mattered even though I wanted to rip the cutoffs and tea shirt right off my body. Sarah put on the new album by The Who, and Tommy roared through her stereo speakers. "Ever Since I was a Young Boy, I've Played the Silver Ball".

Sarah had so many albums: King Crimson, Jimmy Hendrix, the Doors and all these people I really didn’t know. I wanted to hear them all; I wanted her music to be my music. I wanted Sarah’s life.

She and I never talked about the past. All the years I knew her we never spoke of her friends at school or anything that had to do with the past. It was strange, now when I thought about it, we were always in the present. We never planned for the future. It was a day-by-day thing. I would just show up or call, or she would, but we never planned anything. Although I was never really comfortable with not knowing, I somehow knew not to expect anything from her. Her friendship was an illusive gift and I needed it. I would take what I could get. After all, what did I have to offer?

She had really grown up over the winter. She talked nonchalantly about guys and whom she had seen at the beach so far. I hadn’t even thought about guys. Up to now our summers had only included us and some other girls. Oh, there were the friends who were boys, but we sure didn’t want to spend much time with them or hang out with them. The guys she had just mentioned were older; some of them were at least three years older than we were. They were surfers, they had long hair, and they were hip. Some of them were in college, and some of them just worked.

I don’t know what we talked about or how we passed the time, but it was late afternoon already and time to do the dinner chores. We set the table, husked the corn, and made a salad. Steaks were grilled outdoors and dinner was ready. It was the classic summertime fare. The white corn with the little kernels was the best. It was so fresh and so sweet. Everyone always said it had to be picked and eaten within hours or it went to starch; I guess that was true, but we never waited to find out. The tomatoes were also great; they were so big, red, and juicy. It wouldn’t be summer without fresh corn and tomatoes. New Jersey had the best corn and tomatoes in the whole world. Everyone chattered as they ate. It was so strange, as if the summer last year had never ended; I slipped back in their family as if I had never left. The Shepherds never made a big deal about saying goodbye or hello.

We cleaned up the dishes in the big sink, stacked, dried them, and put them away. Sarah and I glanced at each other with the knowing look of departure. She said she would be back by midnight, and her Mom nixed it back to eleven. Sarah was OK to her Mom but if she was my Mom I think I would have been much nicer. Mrs. Shepherd never yelled.

Sarah

Anne was just so needy. Sure she was my friend, but it was almost embarrassing to be seen with her. I guess the difference was that she was still a middle schooler in her head and I was going into 11th grade and could be going to college. So much more happens in a large public city school. Anne was growing up in the cornfields of New Jersey and acted like it.

I had to get her up to speed. The girl really needed to discover hash or something, or she was going to have to find someone else to hang with. The girlscout stuff was kind of OK last summer, but so much had changed since then.

Aside from Anne, my parents, my brothers and my sisters, the summer was off to a great start. If my parents thought I was going to waste my whole summer working some lame job, they were nuts. They all were just so square. What good was it to work the summer away making nothing when all I had to do was continue what I had going at school? There was always a high demand for pot and a little mescaline. Five or six decent runs and I’d be set. Two more years and I would be out of the house. No one would be able to tell me what to do or when. I had a plan.

The guys from Morrisville could get me started in business down here, but what I really was their connections. They were pretty slow on the uptake, and I could make more if I went around them and found their suppliers. I just needed some good contacts here, maybe a guy with a car who knew a lot of people. That would be a win-win. I was thinking Doug would be perfect if he didn’t get all moral on me.

John came with Doug as a package deal, since you couldn’t pry them apart. But that was OK since John would do whatever Doug said. But I really didn't want Sarah to know. The way she was, she’d just be in the way. The word liability kept coming to mind. I guess I’d just keep brushing her off as much as possible. Doug and John are perfect though because their family is such a mess. The parents are clueless. They think the boys walk on water, and won't cause any problems. They are wackos so caught up in being ugly that they don’t see anything around them. I felt so sorry for those kids; they have to put up with such awful parents. Mine were nuisances but at least they were nice.

I knew I couldn’t just go to their house, so I went to Doug's job. I was nice and did my Mom's errands and then went to Marvel’s Market and did all her food shopping. Next door was M&M’s Fish Market. I could just stroll over and happen to run into Doug. I bet he remembered that kiss the last day of summer last year. I hoped it lingered with him the way it did me. I must say it was nice. Only problem is that he is so straight. But most guys are so easy to lure in, a little pot and the promise of sex and they’ll do anything. I knew Doug was no different.

Anne

Life was so complicated; it had been so simple last summer. Our days filled with girl friends and no real distractions. We must have ridden our bikes thousands of miles and swum in the freezing Atlantic hundreds of hours. The big crashing waves were so much fun to ride. The cold water turned our lips blue and our bodies would shake uncontrollably when we got out of the salty water. After swimming and almost freezing, the sun-scorched fine white powder sand would provide us warmth. We would bury ourselves deep in the hot sand or roll down the dunes with sand sticking to our wet skin and covering us completely. I always got dizzy rolling but I forgot I was cold. Hours passed as we entertained ourselves building castles and making channels for the water to flow through. If the tide was coming in it would always conquer us; the dripped sand walls of our castle would crumple in an instant and melt back into the big beach, as if we had never been there. I would get so impregnated with sand that I don’t think I got it out of my hair and body crevices till