We Can't Be Naked at the Beach

As Federer battles Djokovic at Wimbledon, I'm watching the boys at the beach while their mother smacks a basket of tennis balls with a dreamy dark haired pro named Leo.

The boys fill buckets with sand, a respectful distance from two bigger boys.

"I have that same bathing suit at home," says the older boy, Hugh, pointing to Tripp's blue and green surfer shorts. Tripp's got on his navy blue Crocs and a white tee shirt. Ollie is wearing red and white trunks, a blue polo shirt and tiny Crocs like Tripp's.

We drift toward the edge of the Sound, poking at seaweed and shells with sticks, picking up and discarding stones, then wade in up to our knees.

I show them how to rub special sienna colored stones together to make Indian paint.

"Cock," Ollie says, offering me two large shiny black rocks. "Big cock!"

"He wants you to throw them," Tripp explains.

"Do horseshoe crabs bite?" he asks after a moment.

"I don't think so," I say, "and they are older than dinosaurs."

"Whoa."

A wavelet topples Ollie, who is hunkered down splashing with his hands.

We whisk off his shirt and I hurry to put on a dry one before his mother sees.

When Ollie starts to pull down his bathing suit, Tripp admonishes, "No, Ollie, Mommy says we can't be naked at the beach."

"How about going on the slide?" I say hastily. "Ollie, slide?"

"Yeh, side," Ollie agrees in the voice of a pint-sized mafioso. "Over dere." 

Two lithe young women with long brown hair and matching red one-piece suits stroll by.

"Hey, Tripp!" they say. "Going swimming?"

Tripp drops to the sand.

"Are they your counselors?" I whisper. Tripp is a Minnow.

Tripp stiffens, and I remember when his mother was four, and a certain blonde lifeguard named John Ames captured her heart. Side by side on the throne of the lifeguard chair they perched, twirling their silver whistles. Katherine's feisty, salty, sandy body wrapped in a beach towel, her hot tears at summer's end.

Ollie walks the perimeter of the play area in the shade cooled sand. "A, B, C," he chants. "1, 2, 3. Q."

"I don't go on the monkey bars," Tripp tells me. He climbs to the top of the play structure where I am to catch him as he jumps, flip him upside down and swing him to the top of the slide.

Ollie places one bare foot on the trunk of the shade tree and looks up. 

"Tree," he says, pointing.

"I think he's looking for his family," I say to Tripp.

We have croissants and blueberry muffins and lemonade for breakfast, seated at white picnic tables in the children's area.

"Let's go watch Mommy, " I say.

Ollie makes for the dock and open water but Tripp herds him back toward the tennis courts. "Buh!" cries Ollie, when he spies the neon yellow tennis balls blanketing the court. "BUH!" 

His mother throws a few over the fence to us.

"I'm thirsty," Tripp says. "I need some water."

"Beauma can get you some water," Katherine says pointedly. 

Ollie heaves both tennis balls into the Sound.

"Uh, oh," he says.

"Let's go back to the play area," Tripp says.

"Okey doke."

"Beauma! Is this a big boogie?" Tripp asks, halting to investigate the inside of his nose with a forefinger. He shows me a small crusty speck.

"No, it's not a big boogie."

"Good, because a big boogie means I might get a bloody nose."

"Well, that is definitely not a big boogie. No worries."

"EEEEEeeee," screeches Ollie. I grab him under the belly and we streak across the lawn away from the men's doubles tournament, past the "Adults Only" porch, leaving their mom a few minutes of peace.

"How about a pop, Ollie?" I pant.

Mid-screech, Ollie stops kicking. "Pop?" "POP?" 

"Yes," Tripp and I say. "POP!"

"Yeh, pop," Ollie agrees. "Over dere."