"Some 92 year old guy plowed into my car last night," she said. "Unfortunately, I was driving it at the time. It's not as bad as it looks," she promised. "I just broke my thumb. I get the cast off in three weeks."
"In the meantime, we all get to decorate it!" said Dave, coming up behind Erin with a big-ass bag of . . . stuff. I don't even know what he had in there. It was just jam-packed.
"Where's Court?" asked Ali, helping Dave with the Big-Ass Bag.
"Right here!" came a voice. Courtney jogged up the steps with a backpack strapped on.
"Hey, you got your hair cut!" Ali said. She lifted Courtney's now-shoulder-length hair.
Courtney nodded. "Yeah, it was getting annoying just having it lay there. Besides, long hair just isn't comfortable in the summer. Does it look okay?"
"It looks cute," I said. "You look older."
"What does that mean?" Courtney asked. "I looked like a ten year old before?"
"No!" I said. "You looked fine! You just look older now, that's all! Sheesh, ya make one comment and they jump awl over ya . . ."
"Alley, you gotta stop with this Jewish-Italian-Brooklyn accent thing," Trey warned.
"Why? It's fun!" I said, defending myself. I don't really have the accent that everyone else I live around does. I do this weird thing of going in and out of different accents. So one second I can talk normally like everyone else and the next second, I've got a Southern accent. It's weird. More often than the others, I talk like a New Yawker or a Philadelphian. I also do it cause it drives Trey crazy. Heh heh.
"So where's Chris?" Erin just kinda threw out as a comment. I could've sworn I saw Courtney cringe for a moment, but then she just went back to digging around for a Diet Coke in the cooler.
"On the boat," answered Aaron. He was playing with Ali's toes. "With Rachel."
Courtney looked up. "Who's Rachel?"
Oh yeah. She didn't know about the little jerk. I'd forgotten.
"Chris's new friend," Lindsey said. The good thing about my friends is that none of us try to hide anything from one another. If it hurts you, tough. That's the way life goes. "She's a wimp."
"Yeah, she didn't even wanna go mud wrestling with us," said Aaron, grinning.
"Honey, I don't think I would wanna go mud wrestling with you," said Erin. "Why were you mud wrestling?"
"It was pouring here last night," said Trey from under Grunge Hat. He hadn't even gotten up to say hi to Dave, Eri, or Court. What a lazy bum. "So we got bored."
"And you decided to go outside and wrestle in the mud and rain?" asked Dave.
"Sorta," said Aaron. "See, me an' Trey went out to put the lawn chair cushions in the shed before they got drenched. But then the Ali's thought they were gonna be real funny and hit us with mud." Ali and I tend to work together when attacking people and getting in trouble, so we're known as The Ali's.
"It was funny," whispered Ali to Erin. I nodded in agreement.
"Then I came outside to see what they were all screaming about and they threw a big mud ball at my head," said Lindsey. "So I had to get them back."
"You guys are too weird," laughed Courtney, sitting on Trey's stomach. He groaned.
"Get up!" he yelled. "I can't breathe!"
"Stay there, Court," I said. I got the meanest look from Trey for that one. Courtney stood up and plopped herself in a chair instead.
"So what're we gonna do today?" she asked. "It's only 11 o' clock."
"We can go to the boardwalk," I said.
"Woo hoo, there's excitement," scoffed Aaron. I threw a Frito at him.
"I wanna go boardwalk!" said Erin in a baby voice. "I want Dippin' Dots!"
"Dots!!!!" screamed Lindsey and Ali at the tops of their lungs.
"What the hell's a dot?" asked Trey, lifting his cap. Oh yeah. Trey and I had been "off" the last time we'd all gone down my beach house, so he didn't come.
"You don't know what dots are?" asked Erin in disbelief. Trey shook his head no.
"That's it!" shouted Ali. "We're goin' to the boards and we're gettin' dots!" She jumped up and pulled a pair of cut-offs on over her bathing suit. Aaron slid off the recliner and dug around in the corner of the deck for his shirt while Lindsey and I ran inside to find shorts and money. I also grabbed a piece of paper off a notepad and left Chris a message saying "Went to the boards. We'll be back." I'm sorta vague when telling my brother (or the rest of my family for that matter) where I'm going and what I'm doing. That's probably cause, most of the time, I don't want them to know what I'm doing or where I am. =)