1972: Gerstein’s annual Fourth of July party.  Hot dogs and hamburgers were boiling in between the steaming grill and the summer sun.  Containers of potato salad were set in bowls of ice to keep them from spoiling, and coolers full of drinks were spread about the yard at even intervals.  Practically the whole neighborhood was there, swimming in the gorgeous pool, lounging on the patio, listening to Neil Young, while the youth sat, drinking Root Beers, on the playground. 
We’d been coming for as long as I could remember, Father lathering on enough thick sunscreen to keep sun bursts from penetrating into our skin, and Mother making enough chocolate chips cookies to feed a militia.  It was the only time of the year that my messy family felt like a united front.  We were like the Gerstiens, like Camelot, a perfect family.
 

   I’d always liked these parties, playing tag or riding bikes with the other neighborhood kids, enjoying the prime days of summer before any thoughts of desks, notebooks, and teachers entered our minds.  At least I did until the summer I turned thirteen.  That was when I became too cool to play tag or ride bikes.  Instead, I sat on the swings with a few of the other girls, all older than me.  We would drink Barq’s from glass bottles and pretend that we were social elites, scorning everyone else around us. 
The coolest of these girls was Amy Gerstein, a sixteen year old with an attitude that made her the envy of all the other girls.  Amy had her own light blue Cadillac, her own landline, and worked as a lifeguard.  Anyone who saw Amy driving around in that car or lounging on her life guard throne, popping gum and twirling her whistle around her finger, was jealous.  Every boy wanted to date her, every girl wanted to be her, and I was no exception.  I looked up to Amy Gerstein; at least I did until the party the summer I turned thirteen.
 

  We girls were talking about the cute boys at the party, daring each other to go and talk to them, all too afraid to actually do it.  But Amy wasn’t. 

   “Amy, why don’t you go talk to the boy you like?”  I asked, wanting to test how daring she really was.  Amy always bragged about going off the high dive at the pool or breaking in to the skate park to meet a boy.  I don’t know why, but I never really believed her.  Amy was an amazing storyteller, weaving words together so you couldn’t distinguish myth from reality, but we enjoyed listening to them all the same.  
She’d been telling us about this guy she liked, refusing to give his name, what school he went to, even the color of his hair.  She just said he was tall.  And that he was here.  We were all curious about who this boy was, maybe even a little jealous that he had earned her attention, which we all coveted. 

   “Oh come on, Alice.”  She rolled her eyes. 

   “What, are you scared?”  I asked, egging her on. 

   “Me?”  She asked, incredulous.  I nodded.  “Never.” 
   

   “Then do it.”  Another girl, Ellen, said.  Amy sighed, but got up, flipping her long blonde hair over her shoulder and throwing her empty bottle on the lawn as she walked away from us.  We watched her enter the throng of party goers, so dense that we quickly lost sight of her pink tank top and jean cut offs.  After exchanging glances, the rest of us decided to follow after and see where she’d gone.   We made our way through the crowd with a chorus of “excuse-me”s and “pardons”, but we couldn’t find Amy.  Defeated, we stopped at the dessert table to grab some of Mother’s famous cookies. 

   “Where do you think she could have gone?”  I asked, biting down.  All the girls but one, Ellen, shrugged. 

   “I think I found her.”  She said quietly.  We looked over to where her finger pointed and saw the spectacle.  There, over by the pool, Amy Gerstein was kissing my father.