“Yeah,” she said. “And sunscreen.”
On the drive over, Clark couldn’t stop talking about how proud he was of their friend. He used words like pumped and psyched and every time he said Solomon’s name, Lisa felt a little pang of jealousy. He’d just had the chance to sleep with his girlfriend and instead he was going on and on about someone else. Lisa had created this monster, but she no longer had any control over it.
“I told you it would work,” she said.
“You’re joking, right?” Clark asked, rolling his eyes.
“But, look what it’s done,” she defended. “He’s outside. It’s only a matter of time before he goes even farther.”
“Okay, Dr. Praytor,” he said with sarcasm.
Lisa thought he was joking, but the second she went to speak again, she noticed the serious look on his face and stopped herself. The rest of the ride was silent, with Lisa staring straight ahead at the road and Clark looking down at his phone. When they pulled up in the driveway, she turned to him and didn’t have to say anything for him to respond.
“Lisa, hear me out. If you write that essay, I’m telling him,” he said, never looking her way as he got out of the car.
When they stepped into the backyard, there he was, wearing a pair of sunglasses and lying back on a lounge chair, his arms up over his head. Lisa hadn’t seen Solomon without a shirt on before and she could definitely tell he hadn’t lied about all those crunches. Clark ran across the yard and started lifting Solomon up off the chair to give him a hug.
“Look what this guy’s been hiding!” he yelled to Lisa, pointing at Solomon’s pale, bare torso.
“You’re going to be a lobster,” she said. “Do you have sunscreen on?”
“I do. I swear,” Solomon answered.
Clark lifted up one of Solomon’s arms and smelled it.
“He’s lying,” he said. “Here, we brought some.”
“Thanks.” Solomon rubbed the sunscreen on his arms and then Lisa walked over to help him get his back.
“If you die of skin cancer, we won’t have anywhere to swim,” she said.
They sat outside watching the pool slowly fill with water. Solomon didn’t seem to be tired of the sun yet, so they figured they’d stay out there for as long as he wanted. And every time he got up and walked to a new part of the yard, Lisa watched him like he was an astronaut walking around on some distant planet, his every step further proof that anything is possible.
“How much longer?” Solomon asked them, nearly shouting from the other side of the yard. It looked like he’d been inspecting the flowers under his parents’ window, but Lisa wasn’t sure.
“Well,” Clark said loudly, “with a hose that size, about five-eighths of an inch in diameter, you’re delivering seventeen gallons of water per minute, which is one thousand twenty gallons an hour, so . . . with a five-thousand-gallon pool, it should take about five more hours.”
“What the hell?” Solomon asked, walking up to them.
“He read it off his phone,” Lisa said.
Clark held up his phone and gave Solomon a big smile. Then he hopped up onto his feet and told them to pose for a picture.
“We have to document this important day in history,” he said.
Solomon bent down and put one arm around Lisa’s shoulders. This was the most he’d ever touched her and she couldn’t help but flinch a little out of shock.
“Sorry,” he said, pulling away.
“No.” She grabbed his arm to keep it in place.
Clark had been taking pictures of the three of them for weeks, but he usually tried to keep it as subtle as possible, quickly snapping a shot of Lisa and Solomon as they looked down at their cards or watched TV. Lisa noticed every time, though, and now she wondered what she’d find on his phone from all the days she’d spent away. Surely he wouldn’t have taken photos of Solomon all by himself. That would be strange, wouldn’t it? But, even if he did, then so what? Friends take pictures of their friends all the time. It was perfectly normal. She didn’t need to check his phone. That wouldn’t help anything. It was all so stupid. Janis had really gotten to her, and she was starting to find it a bit more aggravating than it was amusing.
“Hey,” she said. “Let’s go in and eat something, huh? Sol, can you sacrifice a few minutes of daylight. Don’t want to get too tired of it on day one.”
“I guess,” he said, faking disappointment. “I’m starving anyway.”
“I want peanut butter and jelly,” Clark said. “All of it. All of it that’s in the world.”
“My mom buys extra for him,” Solomon told Lisa.
Then Clark froze just outside of the door and turned to face them.
“You’re not going to be stuck again if we go inside are you?”