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The evening beach air was perfect and calm. Mack was not. Sitting on the steps of the girls’ house with her head in her hands, waiting for Brady to get back from socializing with (and hopefully spying on) the 50s guys, trying to mentally organize her thoughts on the movie they were supposed to fix, she was slowly losing her mind. At least no one was burning her ears off through song.
She hated dealing with these vapid 50’s girls and their shy, feminine ways. Especially in dating; didn’t you have to be assertive for anything to happen? Or at least, that’s what she had to do with Brady. Mack cringed inside every time Lela had giggled and then slyly turned away to flirt with Brady.. She’d nearly lost her temper at Lela for refusing to just … approach the person she liked and ask him on a date! “I just wanna keep my options open and not be too headstrong,” Lela had said with a carefree shrug, before winking and TURNING AWAY AGAIN.
”Come in!” a chipper voice sounded from the deck. Mack jumped and turned around to look at Lela, the worst of them all. Maybe Lela was only the worst because she actually tried to talk to Mack, but Mack didn’t mind being biased against her because she was just so annoying.
”Why should I?” Mack looked over her shoulder.
”Because we’re going to have fun! Just come in!”
*I probably should, if I’m going to convince her she likes Brady instead.* “Fine, fine, I’m coming.” Mack got up and ignored Lela holding the door open for her. Lela joined her friend group in the center of the wood-paneled living room.
Mack looked over her shoulder to see Lela still in the doorway.
”If you want to join us, that would be lovely!”
“No!” *Wait, join them doing what?*
The group of 50s girls were standing around all of a sudden. “Jeez, who died?” Mack gestured towards them.
”What? No one! We’re waiting!”
An echo came from a house farther down the same beach. “I know what girls like, girls like boys like me!”
The girls came alive and started dancing. Lela spun towards Mack and pulled her in by the arm. “I know what boys like, boys like girls like me!” she sang, and the chorus of other girls followed. Mack clamped her mouth shut. What was this nonsense? She couldn’t even have lunch break without some kids singing about how she should be eating jello salad instead of sandwiches.
“Come on, sing along!” Lela adlibbed, looking straight at Mack. She sighed internally, but something in her felt she should. The song might be over sooner or something. Mack managed to sing along, at least on the chorus. After messing up the most simple lines (Question: who confuses “let them breathe” with “let them bleed”?! Answer: Mack at this very moment) , she wanted to fall face-first on the ground, but then the music stopped.
The song ended and Mack broke away from the giggling group as quickly as possible, heading outside and stopping on the porch. Oh no, Lela was following her. Mack faced away towards the surfboards and ocean, but the tap of Lela’s fancy shoes on the hardwood floor grew closer and closer.
Lela stopped at the door and leaned against the doorframe, quieting the yellow light that spilled out onto the porch. ”I know singing and dancing all the time is tiring,” Lela said, “but we have to do it every day, so it shouldn’t be that hard!”
”I’m just not used to this place like you all are,” Mack said. Although I guess I am a surfer, so I am good with sports in general. “And it’s not only the dancing. I just…”
Lela widened her eyes and leaned in.
Mack spun around. ”You all are so… giggly and boy-crazy! But you never say it outright, you’re just annoyingly flirting with them the whole time! Why not do something for yourselves once in a while, or be a girls’ girl instead of relying on those guys?!” Mack threw out her hands in frustration. She cringed at Lela’s widened eyes, but she wasn’t going to be apologetic and take it back.
Lela bit her lip, her eyeliner-encircled eyes looking away, but she didn’t look insulted. Why not?! Mack had just criticized the 50’s girls’ entire outlook on life and the way they did things.
Lela looked back at the other girls, then out the window at the boys’ house, then not at Mack but down at the porch table. “…It’s not that common for women to have jobs now, and my mother wants me to find a guy and settle down. The summer is really the only time we have to be free, and we still spend it under our parents’ quiet influence. When you came here, I wondered how long it would take for society to move up to where you are, with your independence and your money and boy clothes and sports. And that Brady doesn’t even think you’re weird if you want to make decisions on your own and be a surfer. I admire you, Mack.”
”Y-you do?” It was the quietest Mack had spoken all day.
“Maybe it’s wrong, but I do. I’d love to be more like you,” Lela finally looked up. “But I don’t think I ever want to be as rude as you are to me,” she said with a tiny giggle.
Before, Mack would have rolled her eyes, but now she couldn’t look away. She finally understood why Lela was the way she was, and the puzzle pieces clicking together felt so clarifying yet piercing.
”I guess some of it is just how we act,” Mack said. It occurred to her that this was her way of apologizing. She’d complained the entire day about Lela and the girls not saying what they wanted outright, and now she realized she could never compliment or forgive without sidestepping her point. “I hate philosophy.”
”You hate a lot of things.” But not you, Lela. Not anymore.
”It’s so quiet all of a sudden,” Lela, stepping back into the house, looked around the room, and Mack followed her glances.
“Yeah, and?”
“I’m sure you’re glad no one overheard you being so nice,” Lela said sweetly.
”Yeah, yeah.”
”Stop saying yeah.”
”Woah, was that just a command?” Mack pretended to be offended. “Maybe I’ll stop if you make me.”
”And how should I make you?”
Tension caught in Mack’s body and she drew up her shoulders. Squinting through the light from the house, she stepped forward and opened her mouth to speak.
Delicate hands caught Mack’s waist and she stumbled forward into the house as the porch door clicked shut. What? How? Mack opened her mouth again, but Lela spoke first.
“I said, how should I make you?”
Mack couldn’t speak. She wanted to check if someone was watching, if this was all a weird joke, a trap, but Lela’s other hand was on her jaw pulling her in. Lela’s full lips touched Mack’s lips and Mack had to tense her legs to keep them from wobbling. All Mack’s bragging about being forward and direct couldn’t fail her now. It couldn’t! She’d always been take-charge up until moments like these. But she couldn’t stop Lela slowly leading her down the hallway into their room if she’d tried.
Finally Lela pulled away and Mack couldn’t do anything but whine. “You keep quiet about this,” Lela whispered, touching a finger to Mack’s lips, and Mack nodded. Lela shoved Mack onto the bed and it wasn’t like Mack wanted to resist, but even if she did, Lela’s arms were surprisingly strong. The door clicked shut again, and Lela pressed Mack down again, and when Mack next felt totally in control of what she was doing it was the morning and she wasn’t alone.
-
Lela sat on the foot of the bed, pulling her hair tight towards the back of her head. Mack closed her eyes halfway and watched Lela get ready, hiding her smile under the covers. *It’s technically Lela who did all of that, so no one can blame me.* It was a secret she trusted Lela with, the first time since getting there that she didn’t think Lela would mess something up. *Lela is Queen of the Beach, I guess.*