I riffed the sheets of the outline together, stuck a paper clip on
them, and carefully slipped them into the folder. I laid that folder
away in my dresser drawer as reverently as a new mother tucking her
baby into his crib. Then I went outside.
It was three in the afternoon. The sun was strong, now, and I
remembered to wear my sunglasses. I remembered how it had been at
breakfast, all cloudy and cold, but that seemed long ago, on some other
day.
The place was hopping. I guess there were close to forty-five people on
the premises, now--getting near to capacity--and wherever you looked
there were naked people having a good time. Some were just sprawled out
on blankets, writing letters or reading books or dozing. The volleyball
game had been resumed and was going along full blast. I watched it for
a while, marveling at the way Joanie and Dr. Richards and Ernie Bryan
and the others batted that ball around as though their lives depended
on it.
Before they had a chance to invite me to join the game, I moved away,
heading down the hill toward the lake area. Four teenage boys and
two wiry-looking teenage girls were batting fungoes on the baseball
diamond. All they wore were sneakers and baseball gloves. I thought
back to my own teens and tried to picture myself chasing fly balls
in my birthday suit while a bare-fannied girl of fifteen took the
throw-ins. Somehow I couldn't see it at all. Casual nudity between the
sexes wasn't the way we had been brought up. I remembered the photos
Eddie Root had passed around when we were fourteen, the photos of
potbellied naked models who stared tiredly at the camera and made no
attempt to look glamorous. Those photos had really heated us up.