Something Right Behind Her Read Online Free PDF Page A

on, Doug, this
is what we invited you for in the first place – to carry Her Majesty.”
    “Thanks, Andy,
I’ll remember that,” Doug said, but he sort of winked when he said it, as if he
had some specific plan for retribution.
    We packed up all
the crap we’d need in a couple canvas bags. The beach is about two yards from
the house, but we always pack like we’re going a mile. We got everything out
there, and got Eve’s chair from the car, and got her in it. Then we all just
stood there looking at each other, because none of us had thought about how we
were going to get her out onto the sand in her chair. We’d forgotten about that
and the fact that even if Doug carried her, she needed something other than a
flimsy beach chair to sit on. The plan, at least in my mind, had been to wheel
her right up to the water.
    Doug and I were
standing there staring at the back of Eve’s head, wondering what to do, when
the badge girl suddenly looked up. “Oh, sorry,” she said, her eyes widening
with alarm. “You guys need the all-terrain chair?” Without even waiting for us
to answer, she started talking into her walkie talkie to some guy named Joe.
The next thing we knew the electric beach cart was motoring along the boardwalk
with one of those allterrain wheelchairs with the giant rubber wheels on the
back of it. There were these two fifty-something year old pot-bellied beach
patrol guys looking real heroic driving the cart along. The driver had on
shades and the helper guy had a beard and a baseball cap that said “life is
good” on it. He hopped down from the cart, and smacked Doug on the shoulder.
    “Need a hand
there, son?” he said, and he went to the rear of the cart and started to roll
the big wheel chair off the back of the cart. Doug and I stood there watching
him. “Ok, son, let’s get this pretty girl set up for a day at the beach, huh?”
He had the beach chair pulled up next to Eve and he was getting ready to lift
her up. Eve shut her eyes, and her face went kind of blank, like she was
accustomed to this routine - the stranger’s touch against her body. I thought
it must be sort of like being at the dentist, the way you lie back in the chair
and pretend some madman isn’t drilling away at your mouth.
    Together, Doug
and I pushed Eve through the warm sand, the big rubber wheels making it
relatively easy once we gained some momentum. We got Eve in up to her ankles
before the sand dropped off, and the water deepened, making the chair an impossibility.
By that point, we had become a bit of a spectacle. One little boy, about four
or five years old, kept trying to take the handles of the wheelchair from Doug,
as if driving the funky wheelchair were some male rite of passage. His mom was
real apologetic. She was one of those Jersey fitness moms, with giant fake
boobs, and I kept doing the cougar claw behind her back, making Eve and Doug
crack up. Finally, the mom got the kid to take her hand, and we watched as she
retreated in her tiny spotted bikini.
    The lifeguard on
duty was one of the older guys. I recognized him from the summer. He wore a big
broad-rimmed hat – the sort of thing your mom might buy on a trip to
Puerto Rico, then embarrass the hell out of you by wearing it around town when
you got back. He was good-looking in that slightly weary way guys have when
they’re fighting getting a gut. I noticed he was standing up in his chair,
looking at us. He seemed to have figured out our situation and he hopped down
and walked over to us, carrying the little floaty thing the guards carry with
them on rescues. He shook hands with Doug and said hi to Eve, and introduced
himself as Bob. Eve and I had a joke when we were younger, and we scoped guys
out on the beach - we’d always call them Bob, for boy-on-the-beach. Clever, but
we were like twelve when we came up with it. I started to giggle and he nodded
in my direction, like he was this major authority figure, and I was being kind
of a bratty kid.
    Bob