were no raised voices in her mother’s new kitchen, surrounded by the marble worktops and brass handles. Dawn was not questioned to the point of being asked to prove her illness in the living room, which did not climax in Dawn barely being able to breathe through tears, as her mother pushed her out of her chair and her forehead connected with the newly stripped-back floorboards next to the kitchen island. No, this is not that kind of story.
Dawn returned to her essays and friends and abundant attentions of female friends, and men who were occasionally invited to take her on dates and even fumble around with her. Each of those men considered themselves better people for wheeling her along the cinema multiplex carpet, despite an attractiveness differential not in their favour that didn’t even occur to them when they were never invited on a third date. ‘She has her issues,’ they recounted to friends, while smiling with saintly looks on their faces. ‘Dawn is brilliant, we had a short but awesome time together.’
And slowly, in the first weeks of the third term, as exams approached, Dawn began to stand freely again. And when the word miracle was mentioned, she reminded the speaker that ‘This was never going to be forever, I knew it wouldn’t be.’ And when her female friends of that whole era receded into hallway well-wishers, and her male friends swelled as the student body saw that she looked just as good upright, she entered into a new life she barely looked back from. Her chair was donated to the theatre department, and that was that.
The first one inside the Sex on the Beach villa, Dawn skips past the pool, giggling as she dips her fingers in the chlorinated water, aware that cameras are watching her close, and imbuing her performance with all the day-glo colours of excitement they would expect.
‘Oh – my – god – this – is – flames,’ she says, in a kind of chant. ‘I hope that I look okay.’ And as she leans back over the pool like a latter-day narcissus, to catch her reflection, she hears another pair of heels enter the villa. She turns, glances over her left shoulder, feeling particularly grounded and statuesque, and looks up to see another pair of eyes meet hers so perfectly on cue it was as if the whole thing had been staged.
‘Oh – my – god!’ says Summer. Her blonde waves of hair look like she’s sitting on the back of a speedboat in front of a sun-soaked ocean.
‘You look amaze,’ Dawn says, running over to give her a hug.
‘Aw, you too, my love. That neon bikini is TD.’
‘Ha – is that good?’
‘TD? To die.’
Dawn squeals and internally berates herself for not getting that sooner.
‘What’s your name, darl?’ says Summer.
A pause. A hint of concealed disappointment. Of course, Dawn realises…Summer doesn’t know who Dawn is. Dawn is just one of five hundred thousand to Summer.
But Dawn rallies quickly. ‘Dawn. Like the early morning,’ she says. A hand clasp. Summer pulls her in. Bare right shoulder meeting bare left. Dawn squeezes back.
‘Summer. Like… what it is now,’ Summer says.
And she kisses Dawn on both cheeks. Summer smells just like Dawn thought she might. It’s such a coincidence, her being here, but Summer doesn’t think so. Summer doesn’t realise at all, as she runs her hand along the outdoor furniture, the sheen of the hot tub, the kitchen island counter.
Dawn watches her, recalling those girls she used to admire from sports outings. So competitive on the day. Then with a brush of hair across their reddened faces, they became fast friends. The Maynard School: Summer Charles. How can she forget? She used to stare at those pictures before bed. Just an idol, just a role model, no harm in it.
‘Hey,’ Summer says, running back to her to take Dawn’s hands. Is that an embarrassed look on her face? A remembrance, at last?
‘When do you think the boys get here?’ Summer says.
Dawn shakes her head in silence, blowing a curl of flame hair out of her eyes.
‘We’ve got the rest of the girls to come first,’ Dawn says.
‘Yes!’ Summer says, extracting enthusiasm from every surrounding atom. ‘Oh. Dawn?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m really looking forward to us becoming best friends.’
And Dawn feels the glow within her again.
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