Free Walking Dunes by Sandra Scofield

outfits with short skirts that swirled around their slim hips as they dipped and ran. They were quite tan. Mrs. Kimbrough wore her hair in a short cap-like style, uncurled, with a stretchy band on her forehead. Her hair rose when she leaped, and fell back perfectly in place. It shone like taffeta in the sun. She had the same clean features as her daughter, and she did not look twenty years older, either. Beth Ann wore her hair pulled straight back in a curvy pony tail. David noticed how long her throat was, and how strong her legs. She probably had her own pool, and swam every day.
    After they played, there was a nice buffet laid out on a long table in the shade of the portico. The table was banked at each end with bowls of cut flowers. Someone handed the boys bottles of Nehi Orange Crush, not what David would have chosen to quench his thirst, but he drank his greedily anyway and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He suppressed a belch, and caught his partner’s look; Ellis, familiar with David’s mighty burps, winked. They set their bottles down on a round glass-topped table and moved toward the end of the buffet to pick up plates. David was starved, and exhilarated to be in this company. Just then Kimbrough came over and somehow seemed to gather them in like children, close to him. He pumped their hands, and gave them hearty pats on the back. He thanked them for coming and promised they would do it again. “It does us good to see our youngsters so healthy and able,” he said. Other men, most of them now showered and dressed in golf clothes or swimming suits with matching shirts, gathered around to say thanks and goodbye and nice job. Good luck at state, they all said, and turned back to their friends. David saw girls and boys he knew from high school, sitting in clusters at tables or on lounge chairs near the pool. None of them seemed to have noticed him, except Beth Ann, who waved a light, fingery goodbye and turned away. David looked around. New people had arrived. The buffet was something else, not to do with the tennis at all. It was not for them. Ellis looked confused. He was dangling a paper napkin from his left hand. David gave him a sign with his eyes, and they left hurriedly.
    In the car they expelled the held-back air, cried “Shee-it!” and then shook hands jovially and mocked their hosts. “Such fine YOUTH!” they laughed. “So HEALTHY!”
    â€œDid you see that fat guy in a turquoise bathing suit?” Ellis was bent over with laughter.
    David went along with his brave humor. He said, “And how about Sue Hunnicutt’s black bathing suit? I mean, puhl—unge. She sits near me in chemistry. Always dressed to the gills, little silk scarves tucked around her throat. Now I’ll see those big smashed boobies, no matter how she hides them!” He felt hot and anxious, stirred up. He beat his hand against the steering wheel, then backed carefully out of the tidy parking lot. Sounds of chatter and laughter sprayed the air.
    Now here was Kimbrough, calling again, and David’s chest seemed to fill with happiness. He wanted to go to the club again. He had always known that tennis was a gentleman’s game. Although he had started with a three-dollar used racket on a public court, he had often imagined himself in expensive clothes, dangling a cat-gut racket while he waited for his opponent to crawl out of a little black Jaguar. Even as a little kid he had seen himself in better circumstances, playing tennis for fun. For leisure , as people do who have the money to call their fun a word like that.
    But he wanted to set himself up for a less humble exit. “Sure, I can spare a couple of hours,” he told Kimbrough. “I’m going water skiing later.” Actually, the gang would be long gone for Red Bluff by eight in the morning. Sure enough, the kids did come by for him early, and he waved them away sleepily. He said he wasn’t up to it. He