The End of Summer

long beach, new york.

Surfers are still sitting on their boards in the water when the lights lining the two-mile boardwalk switch on as the orange creamsicle sky, the one the locals only glance at briefly since they’ve seen too many sunsets to count, melts into the sandy beach. Justin Timberlake’s “My Love” floats on a breeze from the saxophonist’s lips down to listeners’ ears.

Does the high schooler who steers his bike with one hand while the other clutches his surfboard know just how lucky he is? Do the kitesurfers racing back and forth between jetties worry about being lifted off the water by their sail never to be seen from again? Do the tourists wonder how the sunset would taste if you could bottle it up and drink it? —Perhaps both sweet and sour, like a creamy lemon bar with a hint of lavender.

…

Two rotund, bald brothers whom I imagine co-own an Italian restaurant and cry when they taste pure olive oil from their homeland walk by, close in conversation. A teenage girl rocking loose flannel and ripped jeans skateboards past with such an aura of carefree confidence that I wish we were friends. An old man so comically dressed, like straight out of an episode of Seinfield— backwards cap pulled to the side, gray sun-bleached Fender tank tucked into long royal blue basketball shorts, paired with an unzipped hoodie— at closer look is not just trying to stay hip but really is just that cool.

Friends are pitted against friends during a beach volleyball match. Cyclists ring their bell to warn distracted walkers to get out of the path. Kids lose to the ground in a battle against time while furiously licking their ice cream cone coated with rainbow sprinkles. And gawkers question, “is that real?” while staring at the white bearded dragon sitting on a colorful picnic table out front of a popular lunch establishment. “Yes, and his name is Joey,” I reply.